by Eve Morton
“I see that.”
“Good. Good. So I’m going to leave you to, you know, mourn or something. I’m sorry again. Your walk has been salted and I—”
Cosmin shushed Eric with a raised hand. Eric muted himself with the precision of a schoolchild being chastised. His stomach furled with sudden desire. Oh, he hated the age difference between them so much in that moment, because it made him feel like the sloppy kid once again who idolized the older brother figure, and who was too inept at anything romantic to actually fulfill his own desires. The ping-ping-ping of more freezing rain distracted him.
It was the only sound Eric focused on for some time until Cosmin finally asked him what he was drinking. “Back at your father’s place,” he clarified. “He always had such good taste in liquor.”
“Oh, yeah. I was drinking some Lagavulin before I came here.”
“Precisely. That’s great stuff. Tell me, is there enough for two?”
“Definitely. Yeah.” Eric nodded, though his head was a touch foggy. “Yeah, yeah. Come over, man. I think if anyone deserves a damn drink, it’s you. And my place is empty.”
“Not as empty as mine. But yes, I think that might be nice.”
Chapter Six
Cosmin didn’t understand why he did it, but after one drink with Eric, he poured out the entire story. Cancer diagnosis after cancer diagnosis; George’s drinking yet persistence at living in spite of the cancer until, suddenly on a sunny November day, it had been enough; how much paperwork death involved; he told him everything, right down to his show being cancelled, and how he had petitioned Sherry for one last slot, one last chance.
“And now I’m here,” he said. The words were too simple, yet too profound. He had told Eric everything in facts, details, a flow chart of words punctuated with whisky and cigars. But he’d held back on some things as well: the sense of relief, the feelings of being cursed now with cleaning up the mess, and of course, his chatter with Suzanne. In a way, he figured he’d wanted a Suzanne substitute in that moment.
Yes, that must have been the reason why he’d offered the drink, and why, once they sat in the enclosed porch at the Campbell household, it had all come out so easily. There was also something about Eric’s face, now devoid of a beard, that was so utterly young and attentive, still left un-jaded by time and experience. He was only in his thirties. Eric’s youth was still present, but it was also receding faster and faster on the horizon, enough that Eric clearly felt death’s certainty in more than an abstract manner but did not let its presence dictate his life. He still wanted to have fun, and so, even if the conversation was heavy, there was a lightness in Eric’s smile. His green eyes were reflective, wide, and expressive as he smiled or frowned. Without a beard, Eric hid absolutely nothing. Even without his face giving his emotions away, the alcohol also made his feelings transparent through words and actions.
Because of all this, Cosmin appreciated Eric’s presence in a way he never had before. Growing up in Whitby, his attention had been on Suzanne. Then it had been on the space that Suzanne had once filled.
It was Margo with her thick glasses and turquoise ring, and Dana with her wide mouth and baroque laughter who stuck out in Cosmin’s memory because she was in almost all his classes at university. It was the Campbell sisters whom he shared a high school existence with, then a career with Dana, and however peripheral their social groups had been. Eric was always around, just there, taking up space but never being fully acknowledged.
“Can I ask a question?” Eric spoke lucidly, as if he had sobered up in the past hour. He’d been drinking water intermixed with their whiskey, so Cosmin figured it was possible.
“Of course. But I’d like to apologize first.”
Eric tilted his head in a silent question: For what?
“When you met me last night, I was rude. I had just received some very bad news and I didn’t know how to process it.”
“Aw shit. That’s when they told you your show was tanked?”
Cosmin nodded. “I should have been prepared for that kind of announcement, rather than relying on the past successes. I should have seen it coming, especially given the audience figures and the changing technological landscape. But I didn’t, and I acted inappropriately. I’m especially appalled at my behaviour because I pride myself on treating everyone as equals. I didn’t in that moment, and I’m sorry.”
“Hey, man. Don’t worry. It didn’t matter that much.” Eric smiled. For the first time it seemed forced. “So can I ask that question, then?”
Cosmin nodded.
“What are you looking for in your dad’s house? If most of the estate stuff has been taken care of, why bother coming? Sounds like you guys didn’t exactly get along, so I doubt this is a fun trip down memory lane for the holiday season.”
“You perceived that from what little I said?”
Eric shrugged. So many emotions seemed to dart across his face; sentences stopped and started before he shrugged again. “It’s the adjectives.”
“What?”
“I. Uh. Shit. I read books for a living, right? Even when I’m not doing that, I still read all the time since I don’t have solid work yet. Anyway, when you talk about things, you say a lot with the type of adjectives you use. But, with you, it’s not always matching up.”
“Can I have an example?”
“Well, to speak more generally, it’s like when people talk about being tired versus being sleepy. When someone is tired, the world’s on their shoulders and it’s exhausting them. When someone is sleepy, it’s cute. It’s pyjamas and cocoa type of mood.”
Cosmin nodded. Eric’s words reminded him of a text he’d read in graduate school that said basically the same thing, except with fancier words, especially fancier adjectives. “So are you telling me that I looked tired?”
Eric winced before he nodded. “When you talk about your dad, at least, you seem tired. Yet you keep telling me you’re sleepy, you know? You keep saying that you’re sad, but I swear I saw you smile. Not like a big smile, and not even one that’s mean, just like...relief, man. You seem more relieved. And I don’t think it’s just Christmastime, either. Most people are happy to come home for the holidays, that’s their sense of relief, but it seems more like your burden. I don’t know. I’m overstepping, aren’t I?”
Cosmin laughed. He’d been so captivated by how open Eric’s face was he hadn’t stopped to realize that he was giving himself away just as much. He sipped his drink before he added, “I am relieved.”
“Oh, okay. Well, that’s, like, totally normal. Especially for someone who had as much cancer as him, feeling relief comes with the territory.”
“It’s also not my first Christmas without him.”
“Well, first since he’s died.”
“He died a long time ago, Eric. That’s probably hard to hear.”
“No. Not for me. I didn’t know him that well. But I do know what you’re saying. It’s...sort of what happened to my marriage. Things end long before they officially end. But that’s another story. One you probably don’t want to hear.”
Cosmin felt a tug in his chest. Eric had married? There were no rings on his fingers now, which was to be expected since he spoke of it in past tense. The fact that Eric brushed by it so casually made Cosmin want to know more on principle alone. “I think having a drink like this and talking about old wounds is probably the best time to talk about those experiences.”
“Yeah, okay,” Eric said. “But you still didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
“Suzanne,” Cosmin said. “It’s always Suzanne.”
When Eric topped off his drink with a knowing nod, Cosmin went on. “For my last show of Sleep Alone, I want to talk about Suzanne. I want to talk about her adoption, and I also want to talk about my own adoption. So I’m trying to find our adoption records. I want to see if I can find any more infor
mation that my father kept that even my mother didn’t know.”
“And broadcast it? Like a Maury Povich episode?”
“Not quite so crass. I’m still trying to work out the theme. My episodes have an emotional and thematic core.”
Eric considered this with a drink. “What about luck?”
“What about it?”
“As the emotional core of the show. What if all the stories surround luck in some way?”
Cosmin considered it. He certainly felt lucky to know Suzanne, but with her death as it was, and how his father life had turned out, luck seemed more like a curse. “I’m not so sure.”
Eric shrugged. “It was a one-off idea. Just thinking out loud, and remembering, really, since something strange happened to me earlier today. I ran into an old high school ex in Toronto. Now, not only does that seem like super improbable given the size of the city, but he is trans. The person I knew before has changed, so he’s like a stranger, but he can’t even be a stranger. So it’s lucky that I met both versions of this person today, the one from then and the one now. I don’t know. It seems kind of cool and lucky, like I said. But it may not work for your show, since it’s not necessarily about that kind of thing. And you probably don’t even have enough information yet.”
“No. I’ve, truth be told, barely even started.”
“So let’s go.”
“Hmm?” Cosmin wasn’t sure if he was getting tipsy now, and thereby mishearing his own intentions through Eric’s mouth, so he set down the drink.
Eric bounced on the edge of the wicker chair in the front porch area, creaking loudly as he did. “Why not go looking now? I mean, maybe we should order a pizza or something first, but after that, my evening’s free. You said your dad was a bit of a pack rat. I could help you find the boxes that are actually worth going through and help throw away the other stuff that isn’t needed. Or rent a storage locker and help take them there. Whatever is easier.”
“You’d do that?”
“Yeah. Why not? My parents won’t be in until tomorrow and I wanted to help an old man tonight because the radio told me so.” Eric smiled, his green eyes flashing. “I never got to do that, so my Good Samaritan card has yet to be punched this year. This way I get my gold star, and I help a radio man instead.”
“I’m sort of old, too.”
“Nonsense. You’re not old at all.” Eric assessed Cosmin’s body with a quick flick of his gaze before he smiled yet again.
Cosmin was nailed in place, coveted as a desired specimen. He shuddered. It seemed to be the cold—yet it also clearly wasn’t. This quixotic surge hadn’t happened since Julian. Maybe even graduate school. Since...when? Had it really been so long? Cosmin glanced at the finger of liquid remaining in his glass. He considered it to be the alcohol; an intimate conversation; and all the blue-tinted nostalgia the holidays brought on. Cosmin’s interior world seemed to suddenly burst into life, as if it too was another Christmas decoration ready to ignite.
Eric’s heated gaze didn’t last longer than two seconds. Then he was grabbing his coat from the closet and holding up Cosmin’s as well. The darkness outside seemed to glow under the thin sheet of ice.
“We better hurry,” Eric said. “Before the doors freeze shut.”
For a moment, Cosmin didn’t think that was such a bad fate after all.
Chapter Seven
The basement was frigid, and Eric was relieved that he’d worn a sweater over his T-shirt. A pizza couldn’t be ordered due to the terrible driving conditions, so Cosmin found some packaged meals in his father’s chest freezer. He seemed pained to serve this, but Eric was happy for something to blunt out the alcohol making him too bold.
Cosmin brought them down a large pot of green tea and apologized that it was all his father seemed to have; just endless boxes of all different varieties of green tea, as if the health claims could have saved him, or at least counteracted all the preservatives in the Hungry-Man dinners.
“Who knows, though,” Cosmin said, a hint of derision in his tone. “Perhaps it really did for so long.”
As Eric sipped from a mug with a childish amount of sugar, he started to feel warmth again. After going through at least two boxes of nothing but receipts, Eric realized that it was more than green tea and TV dinners that George Tessler collected. The man was more than a pack rat; he was a downright hoarder. His death precluded the idea of his habit ever getting so bad he’d need to make an appearance on TLC’s Hoarders, but Eric was still overwhelmed. How could anyone keep so much stuff? And for what purpose? The receipts sort of made sense, even if keeping a faded piece of paper that verified the purchase of three pencils and a notepad for $2.55 in 1999 seemed ludicrous. Taxes were an important event to prepare for; businesses needed to keep track of expenses, and like anyone else, George was probably afraid of an audit.
But the other boxes, like the one stuffed with manuals for electronics and cars that were long since out of date, and the saving of TV Guides with highlighted passages seemed far too fastidious. These items, along with endless dust, gave Eric little hope of them ever finding what they really wanted to in this entire labyrinth of papers and cardboard boxes.
“What exactly should I keep my eye out for?” Eric asked after the first hour and third cup of tea. “Is there a business name or location I should search for?”
Cosmin gave him the name of Suzanne’s social worker and her date of arrival like a song verse he knew by heart. He explained that he’d been born in Romania, but offered nothing else to help Eric hone his search. It took him another hour to realize that Cosmin didn’t have much more information than that. He wanted this show to focus on Suzanne, and hey, if they found information for him, all the better.
But once it was clear that they may not even find her information in these boxes, their pace slowed. They worked in relative silence. Cosmin remained on one side of the basement, Eric on the other, and they put the boxes they’d searched through in the centre. The pile grew and grew as time wore on; and Eric, once so invigorated with purpose, now felt strange and aimless. Everything was so thoroughly documented and organized, and yet everything was also a mess. And Eric was this close to giving up and going home.
Then he found the photographs, a box filled with images that were either duplicates from a more official family album or rejects from a roll of film, marred by red eye, downcast stares, bad lighting, or other imperfections. He was captivated from the first picture of Cosmin as an eight-year-old, smiling wide, his eyes reddened by the camera. Eric’s first real memory of him had been when Cosmin was almost an adult, never a snot-nosed kid or an awkward scrawny boy or someone with a missing tooth. He was always so much more refined than Eric wanted to acknowledge, because to do so would mean that his own jeans and printed T-shirt made him look sloppy and immature.
But here was Cosmin as Cosmin, not Cosmin as Dr. or Canadian celebrity. Cosmin as a child, clinging to his mother’s side. Cosmin in mismatched clothing, Cosmin with too-big hands and feet before he hit his first growth spurt. Cosmin as a tall and lanky teenager, his dark features like his hair and eyes making him seem even more brooding than he really was. An image of Cosmin wrapped in a blue snowsuit standing with Lily was marked as First Christmas in Canada. That soon turned into a stack of Polaroids tinged with age which showed Cosmin surrounded by unwrapped presents. In one of them he was crying, but the photo was too dark to see what had upset him.
Of course, there were a dozen photos of Suzanne with him, but not nearly as many as Eric had expected. This box was mostly Cosmin; whether that was because they kept more photos of Suzanne in albums or the photo technology made capturing Cosmin a harder task, or something else altogether, Eric wasn’t sure. It had always seemed like Suzanne was the favourite, not just from the Tessler elders, but with Cosmin, too. She was the golden child, the youngest, and the almost-didn’t-happen, like Eric supposed he was and had once been.
He was the youngest in his family too, born five years after his youngest sister, when his mother had decided she wasn’t done having children yet. So he’d been a perpetual baby in perpetual need of protection to both his sisters and his parents, like Suzanne.
It made Eric wonder for a moment, as he found an image of Suzanne standing back to back with Cosmin as they wore graduation caps, what she would have become had she lived. What did she really want? And how exactly was Cosmin going to remember her, especially if they couldn’t find what they were looking for after all?
“Find anything interesting?” Cosmin stood across the room, hands on his hips. He seemed out of breath from having transferred a box to the growing stack of already examined ones.
Eric quickly placed the photo back into the box. “No, nothing from an orphanage yet. But I did find your first Christmas. Is that helpful, since you said you were adopted in the winter?”
“After January, so not as helpful. It’s the crying set, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. What was going on?”
“My dad dressed as Santa. Beards tend to scare young kids. And so I cried a lot.”
“Huh.” Eric grasped at his now-bare skin. “Even gladder I shaved before seeing my sisters’ kids.”
“Yes. Probably a good idea.” Cosmin turned, assessing some of the boxes.
He seemed disenchanted with the process, which made Eric falter to his feet. In spite of the quiet between them and the freezing cold, he wanted to stay. So he fumbled for some purpose and wondered if he could ask one of the many questions weighing on him in this whole process. “Do you remember?”
“Hmm?”