by Hua Laura Wu
Sean called me on Victoria Day and told me that he was back in St. Catharines. He also invited me to go to the Lakeside Park with him. I had not seen him for two or three months, and he seemed to have changed, but I couldn’t pinpoint what the changes were. He seemed to be a familiar stranger to me, always and forever.
We stopped at the Lakeside Park Carousel. Sean told me that there were sixty-eight animals in total on the carousel. They were antiques made in New York over a hundred years ago. The carousel was bought by some Canadians who brought it here. People had taken good care of it, maintaining and painting it regularly and so it was always bright and colourful.
“Let’s take a ride,” he suggested.
I was somewhat hesitant. “But the carousel is for small kids.”
“Look around. Lots of grown-ups are riding it. Besides, it’s only five cents. It’s the cheapest entertainment you can find in Canada!”
I was persuaded. He purchased the tickets and held my hand. We jumped onto the carousel.
“What colour do you like?” he asked mischievously.
“Bright ones,” I replied
He helped me onto a light blue horse. “This colour is a perfect match for you!”
A little boy, seven or eight years old, walked up to Sean and asked, “Could you put me on a horse?” The boy had curly hair and a lovely face with fat cheeks, like Cupid in a painting.
Sean smiled, and his eyes narrowed into slits. “Of course! But you cannot ride beside this lady,” he pointed at me and continued, “because she’s mine.”
The boy nodded his agreement. Sean put him on a red horse. “This one runs so fast!”
“You’re a liar. All the horses run the same—all fast!”
They both burst into loud laughter. I saw an expression of fatherly affection in Sean’s eyes that I had never seen before. Afterwards he climbed onto a brown horse beside mine. The carousel began to turn, and children started to laugh. The carousel turned round and round slowly, as if it meant to coax us into a daydream. Blue sky, the clear lake, and Sean’s smiling face revolved before my eyes. When he laughed, he was almost handsome.
“Even when I was a kid, I believed that riding the carousel was romantic,” Sean said.
“Thank you!”
“For what?”
“For sharing a romantic experience with me.”
Sean gave my hand a gentle pat. “Even the best things in the world become meaningless if you don’t share them with someone.”
The next Saturday at Sean’s place, I found a pile of wrinkled shirts thrown on the counter in the laundry room. So after the cleaning, I took out the iron and ironing board and began to iron Sean’s shirts. The shirts had been washed, but the smell of Sean still wafted out amidst the steam.
You get a very special sensation when you iron a man’s shirts, I thought.
Sean came back. He stood at the laundry room door and looked at me with such a startled expression. His eyes spoke not only of surprise but also fear, the fear of an intruder. He stuttered, “You … you aren’t supposed to do this.”
“I just wanted to help out.”
He looked awkward and displeased. “I’m not used to this kind of help.”
He and I stared at each other, silently, for almost a minute. What is he not used to? A real woman or a real relationship? I hurriedly put the iron and board away and left. No kisses.
A woman ironing his shirts in wafting hot steam and with apparent enthusiasm: the image frightened Sean. Intimacy could be very threatening, I thought.
For a couple of days a strong wind and high waves ravaged Lake Ontario. Sean and the sailors piloted The Miller, entering the lake from the canal. They spotted a body floating in the water. Police were called in. A DNA test confirmed that it was Angela’s body.
Immediately the discovery became the top news story in all forms of media in St. Catharines. I saw a picture of Angela’s remains on TV. I was so terrified that my hair stood on end. I could not imagine that the body I had seen on the television was Angela’s. Angela, as pretty and perfect as a Barbie doll. A news reporter interviewed Sean. He looked dead tired. His voice was hoarse, and he broke into tears. He uttered one sentence: “My heart is completely broken.”
The next day the police confirmed that Angela had been murdered. St. Catharines was shrouded in fear and sadness. Many residents did not dare to walk their dogs in the parks, fearing that the killer might be hiding in the bushes or woods.
I called Sean several times, but he never answered. I guessed he turned off his cell. Three days later, he finally returned my call. He told me that he had planned to ask for a leave, but since the second mate on the ship had fallen ill, he had to go back to work. He was on his way to Montreal.
A week later, I read in a local newspaper that The Miller had had an accident and was stranded in a narrow section of the St. Lawrence. That accident cost the shipping company tremendously. Even though Sean was not at the helm, as the first mate, he should have kept a closer watch over the steersman. So he was demoted to the rank of an ordinary sailor.
When I went to Sean’s place the following week on my regular cleaning day, he wasn’t there. Another week went by, and again he wasn’t there. But this time I found a note and one hundred dollars on the dining table in the kitchen. His note had two short sentences:
Dear Lei,
For personal reasons, I’ve decided to no longer make use of your services. Thank you for your help and I wish you good luck!
Sean
For a moment, I went completely blank. With a mere note, no regret and no apology, he had shut me out of his life. I gave the entire house, except that locked bedroom, a thorough cleaning. I polished every piece of the silverware sparkling clean even though that was not in my job description. The last thing I did that day was water the flowers and the lawn. When I saw they were thriving under the sun, I left, feeling good about my work.
Later on, I made a detour and drove by Sean’s house a couple of times, hoping to see him or to catch a glimpse of him sitting under the tree. But what I saw instead was the garden taken over by weeds.
Eventually I ran into Sean in front of The Kilt and Clover. He was in the middle of a fistfight with a blond man. The man had hit Sean over the head with a baseball bat on the head, and Sean was bleeding. But then Sean somehow twisted his opponent’s arm, almost to the point of breaking it.
“Stop it!” I pleaded. They just ignored me.
Jim was there and he called 911. Police officers rushed over and took both men away. Jim watched the police cruiser driving away and sighed, “Oh, those two!”
“Why did they fight?” I asked.
“That man with blond hair, Fred, used to be Sean’s best friend. Until Sean dropped by Fred’s apartment one day and caught him and Sharon, Sean’s ex wife, in bed.”
“Oh my god!” I cried out, my voice hoarse.
“Then Sharon divorced Sean and married Fred. So, Sharon and Fred have always been an open wound in Sean’s heart.”
“When did this happen?’
“Some eighteen or nineteen years ago.”
“But why can’t Sean let it go?”
“Well,” Jim sighed again, “many men push themselves into a corner and refuse to leave.”
At midnight, Sean called me from the police station, asking me to bail him out. I agreed. I paid the five-hundred-dollar bail and Sean became a free man. No hugs, no kisses, and no grateful tears. We left the station, as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” he murmured.
“No big deal. I just hope this won’t happen again.”
Sean fell silent. He had never and would never make me any promises, I thought.
“I’ll write you a cheque for the five hundred dollars tomorrow,” he said, changing the topic.
I drove him to his place and stopped the car at the gate. I stared squarely ahead, not wanting him to see the expectations in my eyes. He did not get out of the car right away; instead he gave my right hand, which was gripping the wheel tightly, a light pat and said, “Sorry.”
“No need to say you’re sorry,” I replied, on the point of bursting into tears.
“You know I’m a loser….”
“But you don’t need to be a loser. We can change our own fate, you told me so.”
“Yes, and I wish so hard that I could have….” He paused and then climbed out of the car.
I turned my head and watched his back as he walked away. I noticed he now had a slight stoop. When had that happened?
Sean’s heart and mine had tried to reach out for one another but we had failed.
Another week went by. Another TV news report shocked the entire city: the police had broken open the case of Angela’s murder, and the murderer was Fred! Actually it was Sean’s fight with Fred that provided the detectives with the crucial clue. When they detained the two men, the arresting officer happened to notice a scar in the shape of a crescent on Fred’s arm when they took his prints. Out of curiosity, the officer asked Fred how he got it, and Fred tried to dodge the question, which piqued the officer’s interest. Tests proved that the scar was a perfect match of Angela’s teeth; she must have bitten him when he assaulted her.
St. Catharines’ angry residents followed Angela’s murder case closely. One month later, the final piece of the puzzle came out. Fred had an accomplice: Sharon, Sean’s ex-wife!
It seemed that after their marriage, Fred kept complaining that Sharon was not a virgin. Sharon was so afraid Fred would dump her that she promised to find virgins to satisfy his perverse need. Sharon was a sales person, and she had plenty of opportunities to meet teenage girls. So she befriended them intentionally and threw parties for them at her place. At those parties, she would offer the teenage girls alcoholic drinks, show them adult films, and then give them to Fred, who would then rape them. Fred did this three times. The poor girls thought that they had gotten drunk and that that they had somehow consented to sex with Fred. They also believed that they didn’t have sufficient evidence to have Fred and Sharon charged. Consequently, they could do nothing but silently bear the shame and humiliation.
Fred had at some point set his eyes on Angela. At first Sharon hesitated. After all, Angela was Sean’s cousin. But she gave in when Fred threatened her with divorce. So she offered to help Angela fix her dress for her graduation ceremony. She picked Angela up at the retirement home when Angela finished her shift. From there, Sharon drove Angela directly to her place under the pretext that Angela could try on the dress.
Sharon put sleeping pills in Angela’s soft drink, and the girl quickly passed out. However, as Fred was raping Angela, she awoke and put up a tenacious fight. She screamed loudly and managed to bite him on the arm. She shouted that she would call the police. Fred was enraged and, with Sharon’s assistance, suffocated Angela with a pillow. Then they put her body in a sleeping bag and threw it into Lake Ontario in the darkness of night.
I covered my face with my hands and started to cry. The beautiful blonde girl who had aspired to be a model, “Miss Sunshine,” who had always sincere and innocent smiles for everyone, had been brutally killed.
On numerous subsequent nights, I tried repeatedly to imagine how Sean felt, speculating about how he felt about the cruel fact that Sharon had killed his own cousin.
The door and windows of Sean’s house stood tightly closed. Fall had arrived and the autumn leaves piled up, layer upon layer, on the ground of the front garden. They covered up the delicate clovers. There was no trace of Sean’s presence on the path in the garden. The complete silence frightened me.
Eventually I gathered up enough courage and decided I needed to talk to Sean. Sean’s neighbour, a man wearing gold-framed glasses, told me that Sean had pancreatic cancer and was in the hospital.
I went to the hospital and asked a nurse to tell Sean that I wanted to see him. He refused. His message was, “Please do not give me any reason to care for this world.” Could he really leave the world, carefree? I left without seeing him.
Two months later, out of the blue, I received a call from Sean’s mother Marcia. She told me that she had gotten my number from Sean.
“Sean passed away last Saturday,” she said.
I fell silent on my end of the telephone line. I still cherished a warm feeling for Sean deep in my heart, but that warmth was now swept away by the cold autumn wind of death. Marcia asked me if I was willing to help her clean up Sean’s house for the last time. She was in poor health, and her other children lived outside St. Catharines. I agreed without hesitation.
The next day, when I arrived at the house, Marcia was having coffee in the kitchen, sitting in the very chair Sean would always use. Marcia was rather stout, and she looked very sad. Actually the entire house was depressing.
“I’m Grace,” I introduced myself.
Marcia replied, “Thank you so much for helping me out.”
“Actually I am also helping myself.”
I looked all around. The house remained the same, even though the man was dead. The man who had held me in his arms, the only man who had ever told me that I had sexy lips. Now he was on the long journey of no return….
Marcia told me that she was the executor of Sean’s will. She wanted to sell the house, but, before she could, she had to have the house cleaned and get rid of all the garbage.
“But there’s not really much garbage.” I was rather puzzled.
“Go to his bedroom and you’ll see,” Marcia sighed. She then stood up, and said, “I have a huge headache. Please excuse me. I have to lie down on the couch.”
The door to Sean’s bedroom was wide open. I walked into it and was stunned by what I saw: there were pornographic magazines everywhere—Playboy, Gallery, Club—on the shelves and on the night tables, on the carpet and on the windowsills. Sean must have collected every porn magazine published in the last twenty years or so. And there were piles of adult videos too, all of them featuring beautiful women with blonde hair and blue eyes, with huge breasts and wide hips.
So Sean had been living in a sexual fantasy world. He had tried to reproduce in his imagination the sick love that he and Sharon had shared. Did love only exist as a hallucination? Did obsession really offer him any comfort?
Love can save, but it can destroy, too. But when in love, who can see the thin line separating salvation and destruction? Real relationships are always complicated and demanding. Sean could not deal with that. I wondered if, except for Sharon, he had ever loved another person, a human being of flesh and blood. That thought infuriated me, and I felt blood rushing into my head. I madly turned the bedroom upside down. I was desperate to find any sign of my existence in Sean’s life among those hundreds and hundreds of semi-nude and even completely naked blonde beauties. Just one tiny sign!
About an hour later, I found a collection of poems in the drawer of a night table. Between the pages were two admission receipts. I looked at the date and realized that they were the stubs for the carousel—Sean’s and mine! I sat down on the carpeted floor, grabbed the two pieces of thin paper, and breathed laboriously. I was drenched in sweat. I did not know how much time had elapsed before I put the two pieces in my purse, very carefully. Then I went downstairs and fetched a box of large black garbage bags from the kitchen. I started to stuff the magazines and videotapes in different bags.
The magazines smelled rotten, and I became so sick that I had to rush to the bathroom to throw up. I vomited so hard that I felt as if my heart were being heaved out….
One after another, I moved all the bags downstairs and put them outside on the curb. I counted meticulously: twenty-seven in total. Under the cold and desolate autumn sun, those bags stood in a row, black and pathetic. They contained Sea
n’s world of fantasy and emotion, his entire world. Now his world was squeezed into them, waiting for the garbage collectors and disposal in a far away landfill.
I tended to Sean’s garden one more time, the final time. To my great surprise, I saw a four-leaf clover, and, with great care, I put it in my purse too. “One leaf is for HOPE, and one is for FAITH, and one is for LOVE.” But the last one is for LUCK.
Marcia and I went to the bank of the Welland Canal after we left Sean’s house. A little while later, The Miller sailed by. Marcia and I waved to the ship. The crew blew the whistle three times and lowered Sean’s bicycle into the lake.
“Sean used to take his bike on board the ship. Wherever it docked, he would go on shore and tour the place. He would buy a book or two and enjoy the city scenery,” Marcia explained.
The bike drifted slowly towards the distant horizon, where the water and the sky met. Marcia sighed and said, “Perhaps I was too harsh on Sean all along. Only when I was in his house today did I realize I knew so little about him.”
I did not say anything. Is it true that understanding, forgiving, and even love always come too late?
The day before I was to leave St. Catharines, I got a call from a man who claimed he was Sean’s lawyer. He asked me to meet him in a little café owned by a Puerto Rican. When I arrived at the café, the lawyer was already there, sitting in a corner booth and waiting for me.
“In Sean’s will, there is one provision that concerns you,” the lawyer informed me.
“Concerns me?” I did not expect that.
“He required that from the proceedings of the sale of his house, fifty thousand dollars, be given to you. It is designated for your tuition at a Canadian university and your living expenses when you are a student.”
I looked at him, completely astounded. “How … how could this be possible?”
“I am certainly not misrepresenting him.”
“But I didn’t do very much for him, really….”