Dewey's Nine Lives

But like a dutiful wife, she lugged her child on the two-week journey to their new home in the Bering Sea. She found the land more harsh and foreboding than she had imagined: rocky, barren, and crosshatched with old trails. A huge military depot, abandoned after World War II, had left the island littered with battered run-ways, crumbling docks, and rusted artillery pieces. As she drove into her new life, Vicki saw rows of old concertina wire stretched across the horizon. There was beauty there, it was hard to deny. Standing in the howling wind above crashing waves, it felt like the end of the earth, and how many people ever get a chance to stand there? But if the island offered a beautiful loneliness, it was loneliness nonetheless. And isolation. With that concertina wire, Unalaska felt like a prison in the middle of the sea.

That winter, Vicki suffered a miscarriage. It was a dark time, literally, with only a few hours of sunlight a day. Her marriage had been crumbling for years; in that long twilight, it seemed to break and sheer off like tree limbs under ice. When I was married to an alcoholic, I thought of my house as a coffin. Day after day, I was being buried by my husband’s neglect. But at least I had friends and family nearby. I had a place I could go for comfort. Vicki Kluever’s whole world was a coffin. She had no place to turn. She asked God for help, for a sign, and when she heard nothing but the howling of the wind, she lost her faith, too. By the time winter finally broke, she had made a difficult decision, one that I and many other women have agonized over: She told her husband she was leaving. When the Alaska Ferry Service arrived a month later, she returned to Anchorage with only her daughter and a handful of possessions.

There is a strength that comes from growing up in a small town. That strength is the realization, at a young age, that nothing is ever a given. More often, it is taken by things beyond your control: a flood, a drought, a storm, a pollution bloom, or an unlucky toss of the nets. You can’t worry about the bad things. Yes, they hurt. But you move on. You understand, as a life code, that you have no right to money or happiness or even stability. If you want those things, you have to earn them.

Back in Anchorage, Vicki threw herself into earning her happiness. She took an entry-level position in the mortgage industry, where she had worked before her marriage, and began to forge a career. It was the early 1980s, interest rates were plummeting, and Alaska was gripped by a wave of loan refinancing. She often worked seventy hours a week and took files home. Her boss was prone to outbursts of anger, but she was also one of the most accomplished and knowledgeable women in the field. Vicki overlooked the hostility and focused on learning. She progressed quickly from clerk to loan officer, and within a year was familiar with every wrinkle in the Alaska housing authority program, one of the nation’s best. She wasn’t just living the dream of being self-sufficient; she was helping other people reach their dreams, too.

But it wasn’t easy. Her commissions, especially in the first years, were barely enough for basic necessities. She couldn’t afford a reliable car, and she often skipped meals in order to feed her daughter. She gave Sweetie as much time as she could, but more often than she preferred, Vicki saw her daughter only long enough to tuck her into bed, kiss her on the cheek, and tell her, Mommy loves you, Sweetie. Good night. She took care of herself. She was physically strong. But she was increasingly prone to mood swings, dark thoughts, and fatigue.

I am a firm believer, from personal experience, that stress is a major factor in poor health, and there is nothing quite like the stress of being a single working mother. I know that from experience, too. But stress doesn’t cause poor health; it aggravates underlying problems. Perhaps the last hurdle for our generation of women was convincing doctors—most of whom were men—that our indigestion, bloating, headaches, memory loss, and muscle fatigue weren’t all in our heads. Just calm down, doctors told us. Relax. It’s only water retention. Take a tranquilizer.