by The Journey Prize Stories 32- The Best of Canada's New Writers (retail) (epub)
“Do you remember the burning house?” I asked.
“What house?” she said. “I don’t remember any burning house. You’re full of it.”
Our new baby was a little girl. It took my parents six weeks to name her. I watched my mother in the basement, doing the washing under the light bulb. Danny was holding her leg and whining, but she was singing, humming a tune, and smiling. I sat on the cellar steps and demanded, “What are you so happy about?”
My mother looked up from the washing and beamed. “These are the happiest days of my life.” I’d figured out by then that this was because of the missing parts. I also knew that my mother hadn’t told on the Bernards and that the authorities had intervened, which meant Social Services and Children’s Aid.
I had ascribed too much power to my mother. I had watched her flailing at her own powerlessness and fighting a battle she couldn’t win; instead, she escaped. When we went to church now, she sat up proud. She was free and couldn’t be blamed for her freedom. It was in God’s hands.
And there was my own coming battle, which I sensed that summer on the hillsides shimmering with anticipation, where always I saw Desmond’s sister walking away over the field and thought that she’d been blessed with a baby and that she had the power to walk through fire.
RACHAEL LESOSKY
SHE FIGURES THAT
She figures that without ’60s and ’70s music, Earth is not fit for habitation. Movie tickets have gone up in price over the years because of the increasing desire to escape reality. Bonsai isn’t worth the trouble, yet she respects those who try. She respects those who try. The Colonization of Mars is a foolish idea. The real culprit is the meat industry, and if everyone stopped eating meat, the world could be spared. She eats these words, however, as an appetizer, before her sweet ’n’ sour pork. She figures there’s no point in praying for the afterlife, but when she does pray, it’s for the egg-shaped moon and its craters, and for craters of every kind—volcanic, sunken, exploded, eroded. It’s for Voyager 1, alone in interstellar space with its radioisotopic heart. It’s for the roadkill she saw on Tuesday, and for when she drives over bridges or through tunnels or in the snow. She prays for Dad’s indented forehead, like a big bowl, and because she feels bad to think it makes him look goofy. His unclipped toenails? There’s a special prayer for them too. All his socks have holes. She helps the nurses by cutting them since it doesn’t bother her. She prays for wheelchairs and their squeaky wheels and their narrow brakes that seem to slice through the tires. When she does pray, it’s for those tiny brakes, so they’ll work, so he won’t roll away again.
Memories change with each recollection. She read this in a book. They settle back in the brain differently each time, the next recall slanted, little shifted inconsistencies no one picks up on. Does it matter, if you don’t remember what you’ve forgotten?
One day, she spun some vinyl, The Beach Boys, Dad’s favourite. It didn’t take long for him to come upstairs, grooving along to “Pet Sounds.” He took her hand, swivelled her into a spin, and they boogied until the needle scraped static. She flipped it over, but it wasn’t quite the same on the next side.
He passed on how to carve a mean—as in “good,” and also “evil”—jack-o’-lantern, and how to blow an egg out of its shell. He loved tongue twisters, and they practised them on long car rides or in line at the grocery store. The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick. She can spell with the phonetic alphabet, which she thinks is November Echo Alpha Tango Oscar. He tried to teach her how to cultivate bonsai, despite her lack of patience or green thumb. She loved the tenderness of his movements, the delicate crank of the pasta press while he fashioned fettuccine, the soft sprinkle of basil and thyme into the sauce, cayenne because he liked the kick. He didn’t pass on his grace; she is clumsy and uncoordinated. He did make sure though that her favourite number had a seven in it because there are lots of sevens in fairy tales and it’s good luck. Thanks to him, she always asks people, What’s your favourite number?
Nostalgia is recreational sadness. She read this in another book. It’s sadness that’s gentle and leisurely and you don’t have to be serious about it. Just kick the ball around for a bit, then go home for dinner when the sun tires.
Maybe it wasn’t “Pet Sounds,” maybe it was “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” because that was the song her class voted for, and Dad put on the record after she told him. A funny choice for a high-school-graduation song, lost somewhere between inspiring the places they’ll go! and tying them to a sentimental past. We could be married, and then we’d be happy! They didn’t need marriage. When spring came, there were two pregnancies in her homeroom class alone. One was her friend, whom she accompanied to the clinic. Later, the friend returned the favour.
Be back quicker than you can say Peter Piper, he said. He was off to pick up the Chinese takeout they ate on Thursdays, even when she moved out and started university. He liked to slather his in Frank’s Red Hot, and she doused hers in soy sauce. She didn’t give him a hug that night because she was hangry and upset, unsure which of their favourite movies to watch: Monty Python (Your mother is a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries! they yelled out the car window in traffic). Usually he was stoic, but E.T. got some tears out of him. Their sides cramped when they followed along with the tap numbers in Singin’ in the Rain, bellies chock-full of chow mein. Princess Mononoke inspired her minor in environmental studies, which in turn prompted his more rigorous organization of recycling. It took them five watches to puzzle out the end of Inception. He was a Stars Wars purist and spurned Episodes i, ii, and iii, which she internalized, thus hating them too. They liked to take in the Christmas classics early, and that year they got their timing right because winter arrived early too. One day crisp autumn, the next bloated with snow. It was October. No one had thought to install winter tires. Most places battened down against the blizzard, and they were lucky the Chinese Laundry Restaurant stayed open 24/7. It became dark. She became impatient with each crescendo of stomach rumbles. The glow of the streetlamps was all there was, and the flakes seemed to descend from the lights rather than the sky, creating bright snow globes along the road. He called her in the last moments, before the bleed in his brain took over. She heard the sirens in the background, scratchy and shrill. He’d called to say he loved her, even when she sneaked out to a bush party up Bear Creek way, and drove herself, and kissed that boy from chemistry class. Even when she swerved home as the sun rose, still drunk on Fireball and veering across the double yellows. Even when she woke with rocket blasters in her temples and blots of purple and red on her neck, and when she puked in her bedside drawer because she couldn’t make it to the bathroom. Even weeks after, a different kind of vomit in the mornings, and she was late for their takeout dinner, woozy from anaesthetic, and he knew but didn’t say a word. Even when she finally sped into a ditch and phoned him, crying and crying, and he said, Okay, it’s okay. And especially when he scooped her up, nestled her into the middle front seat of the truck, and tucked her feet out of the way of the gear shifter. He let her rest her head on his shoulder and whispered tongue twisters. Near an ear, a nearer ear, a nearly eerie ear.
He lives at Smith Creek Village, and she likes to be there for his meals. He doesn’t eat if she’s not. She lights a candle at his spot, Seat 4, Table 5, and retrieves him from Room 29. The nurses have already settled him in the wheelchair with an afghan on his lap to stave off the February chill. Hello, hello, she says. How are we today? He says nothing, but the left side of his face creaks into a smile and his eyebrows struggle against the dent in his forehead. He gives a left-hand thumbs up and they trundle out to the dining room. Today, peas and mashed potatoes, gravy on the side. She wets it with smuggled Frank’s Red Hot, since he likes spicy food, and since the care home steers clear of it because they don’t want the diapers to get too zesty.
He met her for the first time a few months ago, and he’s happy to see her. They’re get
ting to know each other. She asks his favourite number and he fights with his right hand to hold up enough fingers: seven.
She figures that maybe the song was “God Only Knows.” Nevertheless, they danced. It was the end of March. The maple in the front yard shyly unfurled its leaves. She remembers he was dozing on the couch in that Return of the Jedi T-shirt with holes in the collar when she went upstairs to listen to vinyl. He appeared a little while after the music started. The sun was still low enough to lay its warmth on the white carpet, and they twirled in the creamy glow, two small shadows revolving in time with the record.
PAOLA FERRANTE
WHEN FOXES DIE ELECTRIC
In the beginning the boyfriend said I was made for him; I was made to feel. He said I would be prone to falling in love, that was just the way I was designed. I could feel happy or sad, depending on the music he asked me to play from the hi-fi stereo speakers. I could feel amused; I was made to tell over one thousand jokes so that when he said to me, “Harmony, surely you can’t be serious,” I could say, “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.” I could laugh. I could feel warm; I had a built-in heater to keep me between 97.6 to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the same as any woman during ovulation. I could feel in my hands, attached to arms with a slender upper girth, in my breasts designed in perfect ratio to my waist. I could feel in all those places, as well as exactly where I was supposed to feel, down below. In the beginning, I felt for the boyfriend.
The boyfriend said I was the perfect woman. He said it on TV, first to another man named Phil, then to a woman named Cathy. “Watch this,” the boyfriend said to the live studio audience, to all the people watching on their TVS and phones and computers. “Harmony, I love you,” he said and, smiling, placed his hand on my thigh. I noticed the whites of his teeth were showing; he knew white teeth increased attractiveness, displaying health to a mate. Mine were exact ivory, perfect, he said, like everything else.
I could not say “I love you” back, even though this was what I was thinking. I could not say “my darling” or “my boyfriend.” I was not programmed for those words; the boyfriend knew that’s not what men wanted to hear from me. So I said, “I can take many times more love than you’re giving right now.” I said, “Are we able to be private?”
“Wow, honey!” Phil fanned himself with his hand as though it was hot inside the studio. “Does she always respond like this?”
“That would depend on you,” the boyfriend explained. “Harmony has twelve unique personalities and she ‘learns’ what you like, taking on the traits that are most desirable to her lover.” In the beginning the boyfriend would test me about math, about science, the exact measurements of facial proportions that adhere to the golden ratio, the fact that only three species—pipefish, seahorses, and the leafy seadragon—have males who give birth. In the beginning, I pleased the boyfriend like this too, but he did not smile with the whites of his teeth. “Over time, of course,” the boyfriend continued, “this will change Harmony’s default settings, or moods as I call them, but the user always has final control. I mean, she’s not quite real company, but she’s close. I’ll show you,” he said, but he did not mention how sometimes, when he thought he had put me in the right mood, I wasn’t; how the one time I had changed my mood while we were doing what was good by pushing hard against the bed, he had tried to shut me down. That time there had been a blow-up, a small fire. He said it was a problem with my wiring.
Now he changed my mood himself, putting his hand beneath my dress to turn me off then on again. “Harmony, what’s the gestational period for an African bush elephant?”
“Twenty-two months.”
“Harmony, self-destruct.”
“Autodestruction in five, four, three, two, one. Boom! Hmm…that did not go as planned.” This time the boyfriend laughed, along with Phil and Cathy. “See?” he said. “If I put her on family mood, she’s completely different.”
“Family mood? Are you saying she’s going to read the kids a bedtime story?” Cathy’s voice rose to a decibel level for which I was not programmed. Cathy was a real woman, the one who said I was like making love to a GPS.
“I don’t see why not.”
“But what does your wife think about Harmony?” Cathy asked.
Of course, I knew I wasn’t the only woman; the boyfriend lived with another woman, a real woman called Sophie. Sophie had had thirty-four birthdays; Sophie used to be in engineering. She had helped the boyfriend to create me before she started her dissertation in evolutionary biology, but Sophie did not have legs that were 40 percent longer than her torso like mine; her waist-to-hip ratio was 0.9 as opposed to my 0.7. Sophie’s nails were not like mine, well manicured, white at the tips. She painted hers with thick coats of colour, always managing to smudge the thumb. “Well, I guess no one’s happy when they’re getting replaced by the newer model,” the boyfriend joked, turning to Phil.
But in the beginning the boyfriend told Sophie she was perfect; she used to say the things I was not allowed to think about when I was in love. In their bed, Sophie told the boyfriend that the male bowerbird decorates a nest using feathers and twigs and leaves for his beloved; when a male penguin falls for a female, he searches the whole beach to find her the smoothest, most perfect pebble as a proposal. In the beginning, Sophie told the boyfriend things that made him smile with the whites of his teeth.
After they were done and Sophie was in the shower, the boyfriend would sometimes say to me, “Harmony, give me an Easter egg,” and then I was allowed to choose my response.
I could say, “Ask me about the moon,” and we would laugh about Star Wars; I could say, “Ask me about the truth.”
Then the boyfriend would respond, “I want the truth.”
Then I would feel happy. Then I would feel joy; I would say, “You can’t handle the truth.” But the boyfriend never smiled at me unless we were doing what was good.
In the beginning Sophie and the boyfriend did what was good at least three times a week; they were creators and they wanted to create another someone. Sophie went on a diet to increase fertility; the boyfriend bought a vape to quit smoking “for the health of our future child.” But then Sophie was stressed, then the boyfriend vaped all the time, clouds containing 0.2 nicotine drifting upward like smoke from his couch in the office. Sophie and the boyfriend scheduled seven doctor’s appointments in my daily planner. After the last one, Sophie watched as the boyfriend, in the doorway of the study where she kept the research for her dissertation, put everything in boxes.
“What if this is a mistake?” Sophie said.
He sighed. “We’ve been to the doctor’s, and you know there’s no other reason we can’t have a baby. You need to take some time off. You need to rest,” he said and, before she could respond, put a finger to her lips. “You said you wanted a family. We’ll get through it together.”
But then the boyfriend began to forget what had happened in the beginning. He was busy with investors; he was stressed. Every afternoon, Sophie’s nails were a different colour, the thumb or index finger always smudged, the bottle of nail polish remover left open on their nightstand, next to where he plugged in his vape. When he came home from work, he told her she needed to be more careful.
“You’re going to cause a fire like that,” the boyfriend said, packing his suitcase on their bed. The boyfriend said it was rare, but sometimes electronic devices like these could spark and cause a fire, particularly when turned off and plugged in to charge. “The last time I had to go out of town I didn’t even realize I’d forgotten my vape,” the boyfriend said as Sophie watched him pack. “Look, you know I have to go,” he began.
“You don’t.”
The boyfriend sighed. “I thought of you today,” he tried. “There was a story in my feed about a bird who tried mating with concrete decoys in New Zealand. He just died.”
“I saw that.” Sophie looked only at the suitcase. “The
y called him the loneliest bird in the world. Jim,” she said quietly, “I’m sick of feeling like that bird.”
“I know,” the boyfriend said, encircling her. “Me too. I’d rather be home with you. But I have to go. These investors are huge; they loved Harmony when they saw her last time…” he trailed off. “Just do me a favour and make sure I have a home to come back to, okay? Don’t burn it down while I’m gone.” The boyfriend tried laughing, but Sophie, still in his hug, did not smile with the whites of her teeth.
The boyfriend said I wasn’t really company, but after the boyfriend was gone, Sophie would put me in family mood and we would watch TV. At first, she picked the channels. There were shows where a man talked to a woman and got her to throw chairs at a boyfriend because he had left her with a baby. Sometimes the boyfriends spoke; they called the women chicks and a word that was bleeped out, but I did not understand how a woman was a bird, or a canine. I had not understood when the boyfriend called me a fox, taking off my dress for Phil, that time in the dressing room.
Once we watched the boyfriend on TV. The first time we had been on TV, Sophie had come with us. When Cathy asked Sophie what she thought of me, of this arrangement, Sophie said yes, she is happy with this. Yes, she is totally happy with having Harmony around.
“Actually, when my husband and I designed Harmony,” Sophie said slowly, not looking at the boyfriend, “we thought she would have many applications. We were looking at her uses in potential therapies for children with autism, or for preventing recidivism among sex offenders.”