Or that truth should sing like a flute fashioned from a bone whose holes determine not only its tune but its nature as an instrument of song? It does not mean you are crazy if you can hear the song, or read the entrails. And suddenly the spell is broken. No fairy-tale vine, no magic flute. An injury, sad and small. It hurts.
At the corner of Bathurst and Bloor, so many people. Flowing past and amid one another, human currents adhering to the laws of physics, not tripping into turbulence—how do we do that? How do birds know when to turn as one in flight? She watches all the people, all the people, and sees them collapsing one by one like expertly demolished buildings, disintegrating from the inside; all the perfectly normal people falling down inside their nice coats. And the coats stay standing. Knowing a thing is not the same as believing a thing—they are twins but not identical, parallel thoughts that can veer apart like a cartoon train track … She stands still, letting the crowd break past her, risking turbulence. The feel of people’s coats brushing her shoulder, her cheek, the smell of hair, chattering of words and motion, if she unfocuses her ears she can imagine she has just arrived here and does not understand the language. Where is everyone going? Wohin gehen sie? They are all on the way somewhere, on the way to work, on the way to the store, on the way to a friend, on the way, on the way, on the way home …
A bridge is the way to do it if you are going to be sure. Also, it is simple and inconveniences the fewest people. Netting has been erected along the bridge over the Don Valley, but there are others. There is the Skyway bridge in Hamilton, forty-five minutes away. She does it in her mind’s eye, and perhaps this means it really happens somewhere—just as, somewhere, Maggie’s arm was broken yesterday morning, and somewhere else, Mary Rose’s never was. She mounts the railing at the crest of the bridge. Far below is Lake Ontario, great slab of water. She leans forward and commits her body to the air. The wind bears her up at first, then gives way and she falls headfirst—the water will be like concrete—on the way on the way down her heart breaks open like the palms of two praying hands to reveal her children cupped within; they were there all along. Too late, she knows she loves them.
On the other side of the intersection, Honest Ed’s winks and flashes. Only the flowers are crooked! Secrets from Your Sister is having a sale. I’m not crying, don’t you cry. The light turns green, she stays still. People bump past, one or two look back irritably over their shoulder—hint of turbulence. This is how it starts. If you survive, you return with swollen ankles and a shopping cart full of plastic bags, another spare loony. What is the difference between me and them, the marginal ones? Streetcar wheels rattle past, car tires hiss, the difference between slicing and crushing, slicing is better. It is important not to have hit her children or cast them out. But, standing at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor across from Honest Ed’s, here on this tide-deserted beach, pocked with shells, scribbled with seaweed, is this what is left? It has caught up to her, her mother’s curse. She cannot see a future. She sees what is right in front of her, the traffic, and she craves it. Not so much death, though that is a by-product, but injury, and with it something certain. Pain. She tastes the impact, yearns for the relief of it, metal slamming into her, smashing her. It has been on its way to her for her whole life. The light is yellow.
Everyone knows it is better not to abuse their children; that it is worth everything to change the habits that perpetuate abuse. The world depends on it. But Mary Rose has discovered the hidden cost. It is so steep as to bankrupt the best intentions, and the worst part is that payment is due the moment the change is named. This is because to enact the change is to experience by contrast the shocking nature of what preceded it. It is to de-normalize violence; unwrap it like a dangerous gift and see it glowing, hear it blaring like a siren, feel it beating like a heart. For Mary Rose, it means betraying her own mother by mothering differently. Better.
It is possible to know all this, and yet have no place to put it. It is possible to be outside on a sunny day, but trapped inside a cave.
She looks down. Her hands look older now than her mother’s do in memory. Something needs to change. The light is red.
Good night, sweetie pie. See you in the morning.
She is looking in the window of Secrets from Your Sister. The chopstick girl sees her and waves. Mary Rose waves back and that is when she realizes she no longer has the flowers. Where have they gone?
She had them before she crossed the street. She retraces her steps east along Bloor until she reaches the corner of Bathurst. A streetcar rumbles past. She scans the busy intersection for a glimpse of yellow. But the flowers are not in the street, they are not right in front of her, they are gone. At least they weren’t run over. She stands amid the crowd waiting to cross at the lights, and experiences an odd sense that, along with the tulips, she has lost a piece of time; as though it has slipped between the tracks and been swallowed up—because, come to think of it, she cannot recall having crossed the street. She remembers standing on the other side, waiting for the light to change. And she remembers being on this side and looking in the window of Secrets. So, clearly she did cross over. Because here she is.
She walks back up Bathurst. She will pick up a second bunch from Winnie on the way home, then pop back and pay her for both—they’ll have to be red or white this time.
“Hi, Winnie.”
Winnie does not look up at first and Mary Rose is seized with an uncanny dread, one that, before it can be clothed in words, is dispelled when Winnie responds, “Hello, how are you?”—singing it as enthusiastically as if she had not just seen Mary Rose a scant fifteen minutes ago.
It is a cultural thing, Mary Rose reflects, the super-politeness. She surveys the tubs of tulips just inside the door. “Oh, there was another yellow bunch after all.”
“You pick yellow, pretty.”
She places it on the counter, “Can you hold on to these for me, Winnie, I’ll be right back with money for two bunches.”
“No, you buy one.”
“I haven’t paid you for the first one yet.”
“You buy only one.”
“Okay, thank you so much. I’ll be right back with money for one!”
Winnie laughs. “No, no, you take, you take.”
“Really?”
Carmen is blasting through the speakers, Toreadorah! Mary Rose smiles and says, “Thank you, Winnie.”
The house is quiet but for the sound of Looney Tunes from the basement. At the kitchen table, Sue, Saleema and Gigi sit intently, each bent over a hand of cards. Gigi is teaching them to play poker. They grunt in greeting like a trio of 1960s husbands as Mary Rose enters the kitchen with a cheery, “I’m back,” proving once again that gender is a construct.
She fills a vase with water for the tulips and places them on the kitchen counter in front of the windows that are suddenly fuzzy with rain. In the centre of her visual field there appears a splotch. It grows. Sickly yellow orb, blocking her view. It is not anxiety, she is feeling none, it has to do with the high pressure system. Low pressure? She goes to the powder room and pulls up her sleeve, positioning her arm so as to see it around the big indoor sun. The scars are still there. Does the fact that she checked mean she is crazy? She feels dizzy again, but that is likely the result of having to peer around an orb. Laughter from the kitchen.
Her guests are leaving—all except Gigi, who is not really a guest but a member of the Chosen Family. Maggie hugs Colin who responds by lifting her a full four inches from the floor before toppling backwards against the wall. Sue harnesses her baby to her chest where it blinks and beams like a second head sprouting straight from her heart, and Mary Rose suddenly misses Hil with the acuteness of a thorn to her own heart. Saleema hurries downstairs from what Mary Rose is coming to think of as “the prayer room” and rushes Youssef out the door but not before he flings his arms around Matthew and gives him a kiss. Gigi helps Mary Rose pry Ryan, sobbing with middle-child rage, from the train tracks in the living room. He punches Matthew
, Matthew punches him, Ryan apologizes, Matthew gives him Percy, Maggie punches Matthew, Matthew cries. Sue hustles her children out the door then turns and, taking Mary Rose’s hand in hers, says quietly, “You saved my life today.”
Mary Rose seats herself at the kitchen table behind the newspaper and runs her eyes back and forth across a column width so Gigi won’t wonder if there is a big yellow sun in her way.
“Are you okay?” asks Gigi.
“Yeah, I’m reading the paper.”
“The business section, who knew?”
“Stop hitting on Sue, she’s married.”
“I didn’t hit on Sue.”
“You flirted with her.”
“I flirted with Saleema too.”
“At least she’s divorced.”
“They’d be insulted if I didn’t flirt with them.”
Mary Rose lowers the paper. “You know how that would sound if you were a man?”
Gigi shrugs and smiles. “It would sound like it sounds.”
“Hil is sick of me.”
“She loves you.”
“I used to be the successful older man, now I’m a frustrated housewife.”
“You’re a woman, Mister. Face it.”
“That’s what Hil says.”
“We never thought we’d be able to get married. We thought we were out in the cold, so we made the cold into a party, but cold is cold and family is family and you guys are mine. I’m not a writer, I can’t say it pretty.”
“Thanks for coming when I called.”
Gigi leans down and puts an arm around her—Gigi favours butch attire but is in fact quite bosomy behind Vince’s Bowlerama. “I was coming anyway,” she says.
Mary Rose nestles into the hug. “… Hil called you.”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Mister.”
Mary Rose goes upstairs and, as quietly as possible, throws up. She remains on her knees, embracing the toilet bowl—white dignity of the Virgin Mary. Our Lady loves you no matter what. She loves lesbians and lepers and leprechauns. “Dear Our Lady, please make the yellow sun go away.” Our Lady does. She brushes her teeth, no longer obliged to peer around an orb in order to see that she has burst blood vessels in her eyes with the force of retching.
She returns to the kitchen and checks the google history on her laptop. The bone cyst sites are there, she didn’t dream it, she didn’t google it in a parallel world. There is an e-mail from Maureen, in the subject line: “Found it!” She opens it to find a link to a government website. She double-clicks and a page comes up with a Maple Leaf flag on the banner and the heading CANADIAN POSTWAR MILITARY AND DEPENDANT GRAVES ABROAD. On the sidebar, a menu: What’s new? Browse by name. Browse by location. At the centre, filling the screen, is a photograph of a gravestone. Flush against the grass. It is more grey than white—no doubt with the passage of years. There is a name. Alexander Duncan MacKinnon.
“Who’s that?” asks Gigi.
“My brother.”
And there are dates. December 18–December 23, 1961 … no wonder Christmas is sad. She was two. Maggie’s age.
“Is Gigi still there?” asks Hil.
“She’s staying over, the kids are in bed, we’re in the basement watching Mamma Mia! again. Do you want to say hi?”
“I believe you. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, it’s all pretty banal.” Hil is silent. Mary Rose adds, “Not in the Hannah Arendt sense of the word.”
“Call me from the train station tomorrow.”
“I will, what’re you eating?”
“Perogies, I’m on a break.”
“Winnipeg’s got the best perogies. I’m surprised you could find them in Calgary.”
“I love you, have a nice evening.”
“Have a good preview.” She holds the phone out. “Say hi, Gigi.”
“Hi, Gigi,” calls Gigi at the phone.
Daisy levers herself up onto the couch and wedges between them, next to the popcorn.
Winnie is smiling down at her, as if Mary Rose were much smaller and unable to see over the counter, saying, “You pick yellow.” Winnie’s voice deepens demonically, her smile undertows to a frown as she adds, “You put him in de gwound.” Mary Rose wakes in a sweat, her heart pounding. But there is another sound behind it—and she realizes it was this other sound that woke her. A thud-thudding accompanied by a kind of guttural clicking. It is a completely new sound. She gets up. It is coming from the landing. She goes to the top of the stairs and looks down.
“Daisy?”
Daisy appears very old and grey under the fluorescents of the Veterinary Emergency Clinic, but she is panting affably, cold-nosed and alert, huddled between Mary Rose’s knees. If Gigi hadn’t been sleeping over, Mary Rose would not have been able to rush the dog to the clinic—it is almost as though Daisy waited till it was safe.
“Good girl, Daze.”
Sometime after 2:00, the vet examines her and listens, unfazed, to Mary Rose’s account: she got up to find Daisy lying on her side on the landing, limbs spasming, mouth foaming, eyes rolled back.
He says, “Best not to let her sleep near the stairs from now on.” And writes a prescription for anti-seizure medication.
“Does she have epilepsy?”
“In a dog of her age, it’s more likely to be a tumour.”
“You mean … a brain tumour?”
“We can’t say without an X-ray.”
He tells her an X-ray would require that Daisy undergo general anaesthetic, which poses its own risks.
“And what if it does turn out to be a tumour? Can you operate?”
“I’m sure if you look hard enough, you’ll find a vet who’s willing to operate. Personally, I wouldn’t.”
Fucking prick. Mary Rose is blanched with rage, can barely get out the words. “Because she’s a pit bull?”
He looks bemused. “Because she’s old.”
He has freckles. He is pale. Younger than she first thought. “What would you do?” she asks.
“Take her home and love her.”
She puts Daisy’s bed in the living room and closes the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. She gets down on the floor, spoons around the dog and cups the old helmety head in her palm, feels the warm weight of it. “I’m here, Daisy,” she whispers. “I’m here.”
SUNDAY
A Long Follow-Up
At ten-thirty on Sunday, April 7, Mary Rose MacKinnon gets off the subway and walks the underground maze to Union Station. She passes a Laura Secord candy store and pauses. Laura Secord was a Canadian farm girl who tipped off the British that the Americans were about to attack across the Niagara River in the War of 1812. Somehow she came to be synonymous with candy. Maybe that was her reward for saving the British Empire. In the window is a chocolate Scrabble game. Mary Rose hesitates, then resists buying it for her mother. She has been a crusader against Dolly’s sugar addiction, why become an enabler now? “Who gave you the candy?!”
“General Brock. His pockets were always full of it.” She buys a coffee at the Croissant Tree from a woman burdened with life-altering beauty, and waits in the stray subordinate clause of Arrivals.
She is early. She steps into a bookstore. Soon she will be able to walk into bookstores without a pang. Eventually her books will go out of print and no one will ask, “In the third one, will Kitty do this/see that …?” She buys her father a book. Payback, by Margaret Atwood. Now she has nothing for her mother.
She has left Maggie and Matt with Gigi, the three of them doting on Daisy, plying her with treats, encircling her with train tracks and towers and totems—both Elmos were going. Hilary will be home Thursday. Mary Rose needs to remember to send flowers for her opening. She needs to remember to buy eggs on the way home; they are going to decorate them for Easter. An echoey announcement darkens the fluorescent air, “Train incomprehensible from incomprehensible is now incomprehensible.”
She is here to meet her parent
s. She has known them all her life, what if she does not recognize them? What if they do not recognize her? Maybe she is the imposter. Maybe she really was killed in the street yesterday and she will see them but they will not see her. She will follow them frantically into the PATH all the way to the Tim Hortons, screaming unheard at their retreating backs. She looks up at the light in the ceiling high overhead and wills her vision not to constrict—tunnelling is a sign of an anxiety attack. She is not aware of feeling anxiety. Which is perhpas a sign.
Where are her parents? Their train has arrived. To lose one parent may be counted a misfortune, to lose two … The crowd balloons past her.
“Golly Moses, Mary Roses!”
“Hi, Mum.”
Hug. She dreamt it all, none of it ever happened. It was all a mid-life childhood abuse fantasy born of the desire to make sense of her own bad behaviour by pinning it on her parents. Baby Boomers, unite!
Bonk on the head. “Hi, Dad.”
“Where are the kids?!” Dolly looks around, alarmed, as if Mary Rose had only moments ago abandoned them.
“They’re home with a friend.”
“Why didn’t you bring them?”
“I’m sorry, I just … wanted to … not.”
Dolly is resplendent in leopard print beret, velour hoodie, gold bangles, an eighteen-karat Holy Mother round her neck and stretchy pants. “Oh, doll, you’re exhausted.”