“So sharp! So angry, I never understood why she was so angry, frustrated! The goddamn monkey suits she used to put me in. Little Fabian, my hair greased down, precious, perfect boy. But when we got home . . . No, not the boot of the car again!” His eyes fly open and he pulls his hand away. “God, I hated grocery shopping with her. If I messed up, into the boot of the car for the ride home.” Bune clucks in horror. “That’s nothing, she used to pull her orphanage manoeuvre when I was really bad,” Fabian chuckles. “Like the time I set fire to a paper bag of dog shit on Mr. Ridley’s front porch. You can imagine what Mr. Ridley did when I rang the bell and ran away . . . ” He grins up at the angel. “Of course, she never saw the humour. She’d hand me this little suitcase and tell me to go pick out two of my favourite toys, pack a toothbrush, and some underwear. Then I had to sit on the front step while she phoned the orphanage lady to come pick me up.”
“Good Lord, seriously?”
“Yes! By the fourth time when no one came, I figured out she was phoning her friend Eunice. She thought it was a funny game. What I don’t understand Bune, is why I ever chose her?”
“Sometimes a sponsor has contradictory aspects to their personality. Evelyn was vivacious and intelligent, even humorous once. Perhaps that’s what attracted you. Put your hand back on a moment. Let’s just see.” Reluctantly Fabian complies. His face softens begrudgingly.
“She really was bloody smart, and you’re right, definitely naughty in college, sexy and adventurous. But oh, yes, the little detail of the car accident after her final year, I must have chosen to ignore that, she was just so magnetic.”
“The Model T, that flew over a washed-out bridge.”
“Yes, that changed everything, for her, and as a result for me too, I guess. A sad story all around.”
“But now you understand suffering, do you not? Let’s try another one.”
“Could Margaret possibly be here?” Fabian asks.
Bune touches the wall and pulls down with a flicking motion of his fingers.
“I love this scroll feature.” The column of orifices flashes downward past Fabian’s dazzled eyes. Bune reaches out again and stops the motion. “Here, Margaret Neff MacComber. No, sadly also unavailable, but if you want to go down memory lane?”
“No,” Fabian turns away.
“Just a moment, ah. Margaret’s and your daughter, Bernadette MacComber.” Fabian rotates back, stares sadly.
“Little Bernie.” The diagonal thread of script reads: ‘Sorry, just too fucking tired to accept sponsorships at this time, also sperm donor deactivated. Please try back, but at a much later date.’ Fabian lays his hand over the imprint and closes his eyes for a long while. Finally, he looks up at Bune.
“She’s a combination of Margaret and my grandma; the creative bohemian jive of her mother, with the steady flavour of my Gran, but fiercer. She’s like a bear; she’d eat anyone if they hurt her kids.” He sighs and lets his hand drop. “So much like home though, or as close to home as I’ll ever get.”
“Well anyhow, you understand the idea. Obviously, there are endless options. When we come back, we can do an exhaustive search until you’re satisfied with your choice. Time won’t be an issue. But I think we’d better return to Corridor Nine now, we still need to work on lesson three. I’m afraid you might find it challenging. But now you know what we’re working towards, yes?” Fabian nods. “Excellent, good for motivation.”
Fabian looks up at the columns and columns of conceivable lifetimes, around the curve of the Sponsor Ring. He listens to the soft throb of possibilities. Finally, he lets Bune take his hand. They turn to the bald face of the interior wall.
“Ready?”
“I guess so.”
“Then rotate.” Fabian hears the big wings rustle and snap open again.
“Back up slowly, and you first.
It’s seven o’clock on Sunday morning and Bernie smiles up at the bedroom ceiling listening to the silence of the house and Peter breathing beside her. She slips out of bed and gets into her flannel pajamas, then pads past Angus. He cocks an unbelieving eyebrow at her, gets up, rotates, and lies down with nose under his tail.
In the kitchen she turns on the under-cabinet lights and fills the kettle. Today the guys from A.D.D. will meet her at the old house to gut and empty the basement. She imagines her father’s manifesto will fill another dumpster, but then she will be finished with that whole business and a realtor can list the house
Bernie gets the slow cooker out of the pantry and sets it to high. From the fridge she retrieves the ten-pound beef brisket she bought yesterday at the butchers. No more pizza for her children. No more bagged instant dinners, macaroni and cheese out a box, KFC. No. No bloody more. She has completed the whole arduous business of Fabian, and today she will come back home, come back to her life. Bernie dowses the massive slab of meat in paprika, cumin, chipotle chili, brown sugar and salt. She wedges it into the slow cooker and puts on the lid. By six o’clock it will be fork tender and falling apart. Leaning against the counter, she eats a bowl of granola and then has a shower.
“See you later.” Bernie kisses Peter on the shoulder, leaning over him, sleeping on his side.
“You going?”
“Yes, this won’t take long. I should be back by ten. Are you sure you have to go to work on a Sunday?”
“Mmm, have to finish the specs. I don’t have to be there until nine thirty though. Eben can keep an eye on the kids for a bit.”
Angus sits up as she leaves the bedroom. “You stay,” she says, “we’ll go for a walk with the kids in the afternoon.”
“Why isn’t she moving much, Lola? I want to take her out. You said I could hold her tomorrow, and now its tomorrow and I want to hold her! Come on, you promised.”
“I don’t know Moira, I think we should let her sleep. She’s tired lately. Maybe her diet is too low in protein now. She hasn’t gotten any mealworms in a month, but I don’t want to ask Mom because, well, you know.”
“Mom is going through a tough time,” recites Mo. “We need to give her a break. I’m hungry; Daddy’s oatmeal was disgusting. I never eat oatmeal. Mom knows that.” The frizzy-haired seven-year-old pulls her knees under her chin and hugs them to her chest, looking around Lola’s tidy bedroom. On this overcast morning the only warmth comes from the anemic-yellow glow of the heat lamp.
“Well come on, let’s go make hot chocolate or something,” Lola leads the way into the kitchen, where Louis digs through cupboards in search of anything edible.
“I’m starving, Daddy’s oatmeal was really bad today. So slimy! Where does Eben hide the Ichiban?”
“Upstairs under his bed, but he said we’ve almost finished it. Go ask him.” In a few moments he returns triumphant with one last cup of instant noodles.
“Shotgun on the last Ichiban!”
Mo’s eyebrows hunker down, her lips pout.
“That’s not fair, just because you thought of it first. I want one too . . . ”
“I called shotgun,” says Louis.
Later they sit perched on stools and the rolling chair, pulled up to the computer watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Moira covers up her head with the couch throw.
“Why do we have to watch this, I hate it. I want to watch air bending; let’s switch to Avatar.”
“You’re just being a chicken,” says Louis. “Plug your ears until we get through the wedding part.”
“I hate the wedding. There’s that snake and the death eaters. Last time I couldn’t sleep. It’s not fair. Why do you guys always get to pick?” Keeping her eyes squeezed shut and her fingers in her ears, Mo wiggles out of the chair and pull away from the tangling blanket. “La la la la la la la la,” she drowns out the soundtrack as she walks down the hall. Her bedroom looks so dark and messy that although she contemplates working on her Lego animal rescue centre, she keeps walking. She stops outside Lola’s door and opens it and looks inside this feminine enclave. First, she tiptoes to the desk and one b
y one opens the bottles of essential oils. Don’t spill she tells herself, sniffing. Lavender, mandarin, summer blossom, pumpkin pie. She likes pumpkin pie best but restrains from rubbing it on her pulse points, Lola would smell it and then the shit would hit the fan, as daddy liked to say. She manages to screw all the lids back on successfully. Encouraged Moira looks around the room. Cynthia lies sleeping in her cage. Cynthia wouldn’t mind being held just because she’s sleeping. Why would she?
Her eyes settle on the thick books on Lola’s bottom shelf. Those will do. Mo takes five of them and stacks them up beside the cage. Stepping up she can reach in now and touch the bedding. Just because you’re seven doesn’t mean you don’t know how to handle a hedgehog. Expertly she slides her small hands under Cynthia’s soft belly and lifts, expecting the hedgehog to twitch or raise her head, but she must be really tired. I’ll just hold her a little while, she thinks turning around on the pile of books. I’ll go make a nest of Lola’s throw pillows and turn on her mermaid lamp, and then . . . Mo stops, or tries to stop midstep off the books, because Angus stands in the doorway staring. Why hadn’t she remembered to shut the door? Lola always said to shut the door.
“I have to eat oatmeal again? That’s the fourth time!” “Well, the turf in its wisdom is trying to assist you with your last lesson.”
“Stoicism, persistence, sticking it out, “recites Fabian.
“The boredom wears on you I know, but staying with that, bearing it, realizing it will end, that’s the whole point.”
“Oh, I hate this. What do we have to do today, sort more clouds by category? Actually anything, please, but not another walking and breathing meditation; really I can’t handle that.”
“You realize, don’t you, what’s at stake?”
“Uh, something about not giving up this time?”
“That’s right. If you fail an assignment, take your life by your own hand instead of sticking it out, then off to the mulch pit with you. No more chances. Stoicism and patience are required to complete an assignment successfully; that is why you need to work through these exercises. Do you want to pick another form for me to take?” Bune wheedles and the two extra heads pop out of his shoulders. “Eeny meeny miney mo?”
“Oh whatever, maybe the griffon will stimulate a little adrenalin. Do that one.”
When Bernie pulls into the driveway of her parent’s home, she sees Derek and Troy reclining in the Adirondack chairs on the back deck. Their down vests look good and dirty. They smoke cigarettes, and when she comes up the stairs Derek smiles with all his pointy, greying teeth. They butt out their cigarettes in the barrel planter.
“Morning,” they say. Troy yawns in the depths of his hoody and rubs his eyes with a fist.
“We always seem to meet on grey days,” says Bernie.
“Yeah. How’ve you been?” Derek’s bushy eyebrows hunker down over the bridge of his nose as he stares into her face.
“Better, I’m feeling a lot better, thanks to you guys getting that mess cleared out for one thing. How have you been?”
“Good, good. Business has been steady. Hey, Troy?”
“Yeah, we’ve been working pretty steady, but getting breaks too.”
“Today won’t be as bad as last time. It’s kind of bizarre what you’ll find in the basement, though. Let me show you.” Bernie unlocks the back door with the blue key on her key chain. They walk through the empty kitchen, and in the basement stairwell she pulls the beaded chord. The old light bulb ignites one more time. They descend the stairs, and she switches on the other light.
“Holy shit,” says Troy.
“Yeah. My dad wrote a book and printed a lot of copies. Unfortunately, his writing was crazy rambling by the end of his life. Could we fill your truck and take it somewhere for recycling? I feel bad throwing out so much paper.”
“Sure, there’s a recycling station at the dump.”
Bernie leads the way over the books and through the jagged hole in the drywall.
“Wow,” they say in unison.
“My dad’s old acid prints. So, you see, these two partitions need to come down. I’ll take down all the posters. Could the rocking boat and that little stove go to the Sally Ann?”
“Your dad was a bizarrely cool dude.” Troy stares at the turquoise iris print. “You gonna throw these out?”
“You can take some of them home if you want.” She starts to pull out the pushpins and take the remaining posters down. Bernie stops when she gets to her father’s sketch of Francis the House Mouse. They guys are starting to fill their arms with books. “Derek?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a knife?”
“Sure.” He sticks his head through the hole.
“Could you cut around this drawing? I think I’d like to keep it.”
“No worries.”
When Bernie heads up the stairs, she looks back at them.
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Uh, no. I mean, we’re fine,” says Derek.
“I’ll just run by McDonald’s.”
When Bernie returns Derek comes into the kitchen from the living room.
“What do you want to do with those blue bins full of pictures?”
“Could you put them on the porch?” She follows him into the living room. Derek picks up the first one, but the half-open flap on the top catches on his vest and flops open. Prints slither onto the floor.
“Oh sorry!” He kneels and starts gathering them up. She sees him glance at the images. He studies Bernie and David laughing and balancing on the log in Kootenay Lake. “Wow. That looks like fun.” His eyes track from the photo up to Bernie, matching the faces. “I went to camp once.”
No, she thinks. That was my summer every year.
“I got egg McMuffins and coffee. There’s cream and sugar in the bottom of the bag.” Bernie turns and goes to the kitchen. She stares out the window and sees Eva Gotslieg’s light on.
Eva comes to the door in a magenta tracksuit.
“Oh, what good timing! Come in, I just took some muffins out. How is the house going, dear? How are you?”
Bernie sits down at the kitchen table and studies Eva’s rooster and chicken salt and pepper shakers. Her stomach is in a knot again. She shakes her head at the muffin, but accepts coffee.
“I keep thinking I’m done with this, that I have some resolution, but then another memory comes up, and guilt floods me. I don’t know how to get free of the guilt!”
“Whatever do you mean dear?”
“I was just looking at all the photos my father took of us. Our childhood looks so idyllic, so lucky, all the nature, the art, our cabin . . . ”
“He did some things right of course, or your mother did. But later you couldn’t have had him around your children. He’d become too unstable. Your first duty is always to your children. You can’t feel guilty about that.”
Bernie hovers her nose over the coffee and breathes in the steam.
“I think I would feel a lot better if I could find his gun collection. I’ve searched everywhere and I can’t find it. He had close to twenty guns, a hand gun, a machine gun, a crossbow, and a lot of rifles.” Even so, leaving Eva’s house and wandering back through the old yard, she feels better. The guys have brought plastic crates from their truck and now carry them filled with books. I am done, she thinks, pretty close to done. She asks the guys to lock up and leave the key with Eva when they finish. Bernie gets in her van and drives home to spend Sunday with her kids.
Eben takes the duvet off his head and pulls the earbuds out. He should be downstairs, but he can hear Harry Potter still playing. They’re fine. Just as long as he gets downstairs before his mother comes back. His phone vibrates on the bed and the screen lights up. He doesn’t want to look. Madison.
“Please text me? Sorry I told Leanne and now she knows you know, but I just really need your help talking to Jake, and if you tell him he’ll understand. Please? Sorry, sorry, sorry”
“Fuck,” says Eben. He rol
ls over and sticks his head under his pillow. In a little while he pulls the phone under with him and opens the calculator function. He blew the chemistry test. One more time he punches in his marks and the total comes back again, sixty-one percent. “Fuck,” says Eben. His eighty-percent average is history now, how will he ever make that up? He feels sick and shaky, he should eat something, he should eat something with protein. He should get out of bed. His phone flashes.
“please?????”
“’K”
“what does that mean?”
“’K, I’ll talk to him.”
“when?”
“Monday
LOVE YOU!”
“’K”
He sits up and swings his legs off the bed, holds his haggard face in his hands. He reaches for his phone.
“But then he’ll think I agree with you, and really, I don’t think I do.”
Five minutes later.
“Leanne will think you’re a prick. All the girls will think you’re a prick.”
Eben looks out the window at the heavy clouds, the unmoving branches. He watches a squirrel run across the high wire, do a little trapeze act. He picks up his phone again.
“’K”
“love you”
“Fuck off,” says Eben to the glowing screen, and goes to take a shower.
Moira half falls off the books and Angus wags his tail. His hackles rise and he stares at the hedgehog like there is no one else in the room.
“No, no! No Angus!” Her voice comes out a prayerful squeak. They circle, she holds Cynthia up above her head. Angus wags his tail and growls happily, deep in his throat. He pounces at Moira’s bare feet and scratches them with his blunt black nails.
“Ow! No Angus,” she pleads, her eyes smarting. He wags and growls and doesn’t take his eyes off Cynthia. At least now she is between the dog and the door. Very slowly she takes one hand down, and while still holding Cynthia aloft reaches with her other to the top of the bookcase. Her fingers close on something stuffed and furry. She throws it.
Corridor Nine Page 13