Dark August

by Katie Tallo

  Toronto turned out to be a whole lot bigger than St. Catharines and Ottawa put together. It smelled like seaweed and tar. The sky was packed so tight with high-rises Gus couldn’t see the clouds. Intersections were a din of honking horns and crowds hurrying across. It was a river. A rushing river of people bent over their phones floating past toothless hags curled in sleeping bags on the sidewalk.

  Gus was young and naïve. She made eye contact with one bearded lady who chased her two city blocks before getting distracted by something in a sewer grate. She bought convenience store sandwiches and placed them in open palms. She tossed coins into cardboard houses and smiled at hobos squatting in doorways. One hobo threw the tuna sandwich back at her and spit in her direction.

  She didn’t know the rules yet, but she was about to learn them.

  2

  Lars

  SHE MET LARS IN A LAUNDROMAT OFF DANFORTH. GUS HAD found a job as a dishwasher at Lola Eata, a greasy spoon one block north of the room she rented for $60 a week. Dirt cheap because it was right above a fishmonger. The day she met him, she reeked of french fry grease and cod. The smell clung to her long red hair, her jean jacket, her bedsheets, no matter how much she washed them.

  Lars said he liked how she smelled. Told her she was beautiful. Touched her hair. Said it was the color of apricots. He had a flat nose, like it had been broken a few times. Dark blue eyes and a brown mop of hair that he slicked back. Reminded her of James Dean from those old movies she used to watch with her mom.

  Lars was the first person to give her the time of day since she stepped onto the platform at Union Station. He offered her a job and she quit the dish pit.

  He was in imports and exports. The sales and distribution end of things, he told her. He seemed worldly, but not worldly like her history teacher at boarding school. Not book worldly. Not nose-in-the-air worldly. Lars was street worldly. He taught Gus which guy in a street-corner huddle was the runner and how to spot a pickpocket about to skin the poke. There was shady stuff going on under the upper crust of life and Lars peeled back the layers and showed her what was underneath.

  Gus didn’t ask what he was distributing. She caught on pretty quick. Black-market painkillers, tobacco, cell phones, drugs. She told herself she didn’t care. Lars taught her how to drive and how to hold a gun. He put his hand on the small of her back like he was showing her off when his buddies were around. He introduced her as his girlfriend and he looked her in the eye when she spoke.

  At least he did in the beginning.

  Augusta moved into his apartment two weeks after they met. Four days later he got into a fight with the super, busted the guy’s nose, and they got evicted. She shoved everything she owned back into her duffel bag, and a long stretch of crashing in motel after motel began. Together, they worked the east to west corridor of the 401 from Cornwall to Brockville to Trenton. Cornwall was close to the border and the bridge to the Mohawk casino. The perfect spot for his drive-through business. Lars moved trunkloads of contraband tobacco and black-market phones in and out of the States by way of the casino.

  Easy money. Just how Lars liked it.

  He was Gus’s first boyfriend. Sometimes he surprised her with chocolate rose bouquets. Other times he slapped her face. He was mean and handsome, sweet and selfish. But mostly Lars was methodical. He obsessed over being organized. He timetabled her days down to the minute. Picked out her clothes and ordered her meals when waitresses asked what she wanted.

  Gus never told Lars about her parents or that they were both dead. Said they lived in Vancouver and she hadn’t spoken to them in years. It was the one piece of herself she kept all to herself. The rest he could have. Her days. Her hair. Her diet. Her body.

  Most mornings before they got out of bed he’d slide on top of her. Same clammy skin, same stale breath, same feeling of homesickness washing over her. Only she had no home to feel sick for, so it felt worse. Like he was opening a wound that nothing could fill. Gus clung to him. He was all she had. He made her feel like she was a part of something. And the adrenaline rush of breaking the law made her feel alive.

  This world was the furthest thing from prep school she could imagine and Lars was a sharp edge. The more she leaned on him, the more deeply he cut her. And the pain kept Gus fully on alert. Fully with him. Fully in the present.

  Fuck the past.

  Gus turned eighteen that first summer with Lars. And as much as she tried to shut out the past, she couldn’t help glimpsing the future in the rainy car windshield. A not-so-distant future where she was still running and stealing and dealing at twenty-five. Losing herself in booze and pills at thirty. Jail at forty. Mere inches from sitting in a gutter tossing tuna sandwiches back at do-gooders at fifty.

  Shannon would have hated Lars. Been ashamed of her little girl for jumping into a fucked-up life with a fucked-up guy in the driver’s seat. One year spilled into two. And over the course of those two years, Gus grew less careful. Did less shoulder checking and more pedal-to-the-metal risk-taking. Almost daring the cops to come after her. She got stupid and lazy about her freedom and her future. One time she was pulled over for speeding and almost popped the trunk so the cop would find the cases of contraband cigarettes and arrest her. Almost. But she couldn’t do it. Not to her parents. Couldn’t bring herself to tarnish their good names. Their deep disappointment lurked in her DNA. An ache so profound, she felt it pulsing through her marrow. Always there. Throbbing. Never letting her forget who they were. That they were good. That they were law-abiding. That they were police officers. So she simply smiled and got a slap on the wrist. The highway patrolman liked her red hair.

  After two dead-end years, Gus couldn’t see her way to an exit. Couldn’t bear to think about the future or the past, yet both hovered in her periphery. Never far.

  And so it’s not at all strange that she finds herself here. June of 2018, sitting in the back of a cab heading down Holland Avenue toward Wellington West.

  Heading back.

  Augusta asks the cabbie to drop her a few blocks from Rose’s house. Needs the walk and her stomach’s growling. She grabs a breakfast bagel from the Bagel Shoppe where her mom used to take her Saturday mornings after swimming lessons. Same guy from over a decade ago is still at the cash register. He says he remembers her. Gus can tell he doesn’t. Memories have a way of dancing in your eyes. Like embers in a campfire pit. His eyes don’t dance.

  Hers do as she walks the familiar streets. Twelve years ago, this was her hood. Her hometown. She used to go to the movies at the Coliseum Theatre on Carling, toboggan at the Arboretum, and swim at Dovercourt Community Centre. She knew these neighborhoods. Hintonburg, Wellington West, and Westboro, one connecting to the next. She knew the bus routes to downtown, the bike paths along the Ottawa River, and the shortcut behind the Beer Store on Scott. And she knows exactly where Rose’s house is. That rambling two-story 1920s house, two doors down from the intersection at Richmond on Island Park Drive. A wide avenue where maples border a green space running alongside the road. A prestigious street back in the day. A street lined with embassies and elite private residences.

  Gus rounds the corner, barely recognizing the once elegant home. There’s a mess of wild crabgrass out front. Craggy overgrown sumacs obscure the bay window. Yellow paint peels off the wood siding. The driveway is a cracked web of moss and dandelions. The garage door hangs from its hinges. The house looks abandoned. Only it’s not. A newspaper lies on the stoop and a curtain shifts in the front window.

  Someone is watching her.

  3

  Miss Santos

  AUGUSTA HEADS UP THE FRONT PATH. UP THE STEPS. SHE IS about to knock when the front door swings open. Miss Santos flies out, stooped to one side, rolling a suitcase behind her. Thick black hair sticks to her forehead. She’s wearing what looks to be the same raincoat she wore the night Gus was brought to the house by the female constable.

  “You here now. Good. I go.”

  She bounces her suitcase down the steps. Gus
stares.

  “Go?”

  “I have sister in Kemptville. I go live on her sofa. Like homeless person.”

  And with that, Miss Santos is soaring down the sidewalk. True to form.

  “Miss Santos, wait.”

  Gus recalls the nurse never having any bedside manner. Before leaving for boarding school, ten-year-old Gus was steered upstairs by Miss Santos. One hand firmly on each of Gus’s small shoulders. Without knocking, they entered Rose’s bedroom. The old woman’s skin was yellow. Goodbyes were brief. Rose blinked through blood-rimmed eyes. Her lips parted to a slight smile. Augusta’s two-year-old dog was curled on a turquoise afghan on the bed. Rose’s hand reached down to pet his head. He snuggled close to her body. Gus wanted to strangle that stupid mutt. It was so unfair. He got to stay. He was cozy. He was wanted. As she left the bedroom, Gus glanced back at Rose and the dog. Neither looked up as Miss Santos shut the door and took her away.

  It was Miss Santos who instructed the headmistress that Gus was to be kept at school for holidays. To stay behind when everyone else went home. When the other girls returned from their Easters and Christmases, they jumped on their beds and laughed about home while she pretended to be asleep, a blanket pulled over her head. None of them cared that Gus had no home and no parents. She felt completely untethered. Set adrift in a sea of dancing, happy girls. Her only relative too fragile and old to toss her a lifeline.

  It was there, lying in her bed at school, facing the wall, head covered, that Gus learned to drop into the dark cave of her memories and lower herself deeply and fully into the past. Once there, she’d meander over to one of those Sunday visits at Rose’s house with her mother. They’d sit in the garden on yellow plastic chairs and eat cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. They’d sip sweet iced tea and her mother would talk about the unseasonably warm weather. Knowing her daughter was bored, Shannon would tickle her toes with her own under the garden table and make her laugh. Rose, swathed in blankets like a withered baby, would nod and chew as bits of food stuck to the corners of her mouth. In these memories, Miss Santos was somewhere in the background. Off to one side. Sitting near the back door, her bony fingers wrapped around the spine of a book she was reading. Her black hair bobbing in the light breeze.

  That same head of hair now dances wildly in front of Gus as Miss Santos veers out into the road, oblivious to oncoming traffic. A car honks and skids to avoid hitting her. Miss Santos doesn’t slow down, but Augusta manages to catch up. The nurse’s suitcase bumps along behind her as she rants.

  “She promise. She wreck her promise. It all in fucking letter. I leave on kitchen table. All your problem now.”

  They come to a bus stop at the corner of Island Park just as the number seven pulls up. Miss Santos heaves her suitcase up the steps of the bus. At the top, she turns and looks back. Her crow eyes glisten, jaw trembles, lips quiver. Gus knows that look. She’s seen it on her own face in the mirror. The stinging expression of someone who’s been deeply hurt. As the pain ripples through her facial muscles and racks her bones, Miss Santos tries desperately to hold the hurt inside.

  “I put up with bed-wetting, bell ringing in middle of night, this pill, that pill, doctor appointment, cooking meal, picking up dog shit. I say nothing. I do all. For what? For betrayal. Fine. Good. Now I go. Terminei.”

  And with that Miss Santos disappears into the depths of the bus. The driver shrugs and closes the door. Brakes sigh and the bus pulls away. Sun flares dance across the windows obscuring the view inside. The bus rolls down Richmond, past Hilson, past Kirkwood. Gus watches until it is just a speck of flashing metal in the distance.

  That’s when she hears the barking.

  4

  The Puppy

  SHE WAS EIGHT THE SUMMER SHANNON BROUGHT HIM HOME. After the incident with the photo of the ballerina, Gus decided not to speak to her mother for the rest of summer break. It had been over a week of silent treatment. Shannon baked marzipan bars and played their favorite song by the Four Tops on their portable record player. “I Can’t Help Myself.” Shannon swayed her hips to the music, but Gus refused to even tap her toes. Nothing but the cold shoulder. Shannon called her “Sugar Bunch” and “Honey Pie” and ordered pizza even though it was Wednesday and not Friday. Finally, when nothing seemed to thaw the deep freeze, Shannon surprised Gus with a new puppy. But it wasn’t a real dog. It was a mutt. A mixed breed from the local Humane Society. Part spinone, part golden retriever. Gus refused to play with the shaggy creature. Refused to choose a name for it. She knew the puppy was a bribe. Meant to keep her busy. Out of the way. Gus ignored the scruffy little furball, even when it nudged her arm with its wet nose or licked her ankles with its soft pink tongue. Shannon named the puppy Levi. After Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops.

  Most nights that summer ended with Gus storming to her room and slamming her door. Screaming that she hated the stupid dog and she wished her mother was dead.

  And just like that, before she could take it back, her mother was dead. Gus had no way of saying she was sorry for not tapping her toes. For not being nice to the puppy. For not being a good girl.

  She was eight years old, and she was completely undone.

  * * *

  A sharp, distant bark gets Augusta’s feet unstuck. She hikes her purse over her shoulder and quickly heads back toward Rose’s house from the bus stop. Her feet thump against the pavement, the present hammering into her bones. She is far from her mother. Far from her childhood. Far from the life she was living just yesterday with Lars.

  Far away and right here.

  As Gus crosses the street, she spots him. There’s no mistaking those floppy ears and raggedy hindquarters. She slows and walks up the path toward the house. He’s torn the strap from her duffel bag. Augusta dropped it on the front step when she chased after Miss Santos. The strap has come loose and he’s whipping his head side to side, smacking his ears with it.

  That’s Levi all right. But he’s no puppy anymore. A hint of gray sprinkles his brow and he’s about forty pounds heavier.

  He looks up and spots her. His eyes widen, ears perk, and forehead furrows as recognition jolts some remote nook inside his tiny brain. He drops the drool-soaked strap and bounds over to her. Body wiggling, tail wagging, whimpering like a baby. He leaps at her chest. Claws scratch her collarbone.

  “Get off me, dog.”

  Augusta shoves him off. He’s unfazed. He circles excitedly, smells her shoes, then rubs his body against her legs. She feels the familiar pang of guilt. The same guilt she felt as a kid for never letting herself love the dog. But right now, guilt isn’t enough to bring her around. She doesn’t want him. She doesn’t know him. She never did. He was Shannon’s, then he was Rose’s. He was never hers. She tries to ignore him. Grabs her duffel bag and heads through the open door of Rose’s house. Levi races ahead down the wide hallway that stretches from the front foyer to the large kitchen at the back. Gus drops the duffel and follows the clinking of his dog tags. Golden hair flutters off his body.

  It all in fucking letter. I leave on kitchen table.

  The kitchen smells like brussels sprouts. Augusta crosses to the table. She drops her purse on the floor next to her and plunks down into the chair where she used to sit eating digestive cookies with cheddar cheese while her mother weeded Rose’s garden.

  Levi flops on the floor like a bag of bones. The excitement has tuckered him out. His droopy neck spreads across the cool pine floors as he lets out a big sigh.

  There are two piles of paper on the table. Junk mail and bills. Set apart from these is a plain envelope. Torn open. A letter shoved back inside. It’s addressed to Augusta Monet. The handwriting is shaky. Definitely from Rose. In red ink, a Return to Sender stamp obscures the address in St. Catharines. Rose thought Augusta was still at boarding school. She’d stopped sending her birthday cards when she was thirteen so it’s no wonder she had no idea how old she was. Gus pulls the letter from the envelope. A business card for a Mr. Beath Honey, LLB falls o
nto the table. She reads the letter.

  My dearest Augusta,

  I am sorry I was not a better great-gran to you. I loved your mother very much. She was like a daughter to me. I should have done more for her only child. My deepest regret in my twilight is that I failed you both. I cannot change the past, but I can do something about the future. That is why I have decided to leave you all of my worldly possessions. My house. All of its contents. My money, my car, and my sweet Levi. My lawyer, Mr. Honey, is aware of my wishes and will take care of the arrangements when the time comes. I hope you can forgive my shortcomings.

  Yours truly,

  Rose

  The letter is dated just a few weeks earlier. Rose died before it was returned. Miss Santos must have found it while sorting through the mail. And opened it.

  She promise. She wreck her promise.

  What had Rose promised Miss Santos? Maybe the house.

  Gus picks up the lawyer’s business card, and with her other hand, she reaches for her purse on the floor. She riffles through it, finds her cell phone, and checks the screen. Ignoring the voice mails and texts from Lars, she dials Mr. Honey’s number. He’ll take care of things. So says Rose’s letter. The lawyer picks up and in a few short minutes it’s all arranged.

  As she hangs up, a wave of nausea floats up her throat. Augusta looks around for something to eat. She’s famished. The kitchen is filthy. Mossy dishes fill the sink. Hairy tumbleweeds inhabit every corner. Tomato sauce stipples the backsplash like blood splatter. Miss Santos might have been capable of administering medication and picking up dog shit, but she was clearly no maid.