“Fetch Angus!” The dog turns for a second and Moira whips out the door and pulls it shut behind her, her heart pounding and Angus snuffling and scratching through the wood. She looks towards the living room. They’ve paused the movie.
“I have to go to the bathroom. Just wait,” says Louis.
The bathroom is between the living room and Moira, but the back door is only a step away. Like lightening she grabs Louis’ rubber boots and a coat from the floor and darts outside. She shuffles to the right until she’s out of sight and stares panting at the yard. The concrete burns her feet with cold, so she slips into Louis’ boots. What coat did she pick up? Her dad’s down vest. She puts it on and it hangs below her knees, the armholes gaping to her waist, but Mo hunkers low and skitters past the livingroom windows until she comes to the cotoneaster hedge. Home sailing now, she takes the trail behind all the bushes along the neighbour’s fence until she gets to the tree house. With one hand she climbs the wooden ladder, pops open the hatch, and rolls onto the floor of the cedar-scented room. She kicks the trapdoor shut and carefully lays Cynthia on her chest. Cynthia seems different. So rubbery. Moira has never seen her like this, flat on her belly with all four vestigial limbs splayed like a hide tacked to a wall. As soon as they’re watching the movie again, she’ll sneak back and put her in her cage. But what will she do about Angus?
“Okay, let’s try a more physical tack. All right? Just physical endurance, and the baby will provide some distraction, then we’ll get back to the mental endurance, but you can’t bail again, okay? You have to do this.”
“What do you want me to do then?” Fabian flops onto his back. “I can see practising to improve one’s knowledge, or courage, or strength, but why the fuck do I have to practise boredom?”
“Because life is boring, long stretches of it. People learn at different rates so there’s always a supplementary margin added in. At times nothing but endurance will get you through. So, what I want you to do this time is take Bernie and walk her all the way around Corridor Nine. Do a lap with her.”
Fabian looks doubtfully over at the screen behind which baby Bernie stands frozen at the tender age of two.
“You’ve got to be kidding?”
Bernie opens the door and hears the screaming. For a moment she can’t sort out the tangle of voices coming from Lola’s room. She runs down the hall. Eben and Lola and Louis stand in front of Cynthia’s cage, Angus sits watching the show and looks quizzically over his shoulder at Bernie when she rushes in. Lola is gripping her head and rocking on her feet while Eben rubs her back.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no! He’s eaten her, he’s eaten Cynthia!”
“Mommy!” Lola rushes Bernie, lands sobbing on her chest.
“Eben what’s going on? I thought you were watching the kids?”
Eben looks at the ground and scuffs his feet.
“It seems that, uhm, somehow, while I was taking a shower, the dog got in and now we can’t find the hedgehog.”
“Okay, everyone calm down.” She pushes Lola away from her chest, holds her firmly by the shoulders. “Lola, I don’t think we should jump to conclusions. Are you sure? I mean Cynthia would be a hard pill to swallow and . . . ” she looks at Angus. “Angus looks fine, there’s no blood anywhere. You think he got in the cage? The stand is pretty tall. Who stacked up those books?” The kids all look at her. Angus wags.
“Moira. Where’s Moira?” They stare. “You guys stay here, I’ll go find her. I think something’s up.” Bernie walks fast from room to room, calling and looking in closets and under beds. She checks the furnace room, the rumpus room, even looks inside the washing machine. Her heart starts to pound, and she runs outside. “Moira?” she shouts at the top of her lungs. The greenhouse? Her studio? But first she tries the tree house, scrambles up the ladder, pops the hatch. White-faced Mo sits in a corner, her hands folded over the hedgehog on her chest.
“Mo! God you scared me. What’s going on, honey? What are you doing, why have you . . . ?” From the back door Lola calls. Bernie turns to the window and answers.
“She’s here, Cynthia’s safe.” In a moment Lola flies up the ladder, scrambles across the floor and wrestles the hedgehog from Mo.
“Oh, Mommy something’s wrong. She’s not moving at all, she’s all rubbery. Is she dead? Oh no! I know what’s happened. Moira’s cooled her off out here and forced her into an unnatural state of hibernation. I can’t believe this has happened!” She stares at her little sister. Mo twitches in horror.
“I didn’t mean to,” whispers Mo, and the tears start rolling down her face.
“Let’s just stay calm Lola. Are you sure? I thought hedgehogs hibernated.”
“Not African hedgehogs!”
“Okay we’ll get Cynthia back under her heat lamp and go Google what to do when you’ve cooled down an African hedgehog. Come on Mo, it’s going to be okay, come inside.”
In the nook she realizes she can’t get onto the computer.
“Did Daddy change the password? What’s the password?”
“Mortise,” they say in unison.
“Mortise?”
“Yeah, like a ‘mortise and tenon’. It’s a kind of joint,” says Eben.
Bernie Googles “hibernation African hedgehog.”
“Oh dear. They shouldn’t be cooled off. It’s called aestivation. They slow down but not enough to conserve their energy sufficiently . . . uuhh, shit, can be fatal. I mean serious. How long has she been acting like this, just today?”
“Well, she’s been funny all week, sleepy and not eating much, but not unconscious!”
“Is her heat lamp broken?” They all hurry to Lola’s room, Bernie looks at the yellow bulb in the aluminum shade. “Who put this in, heat lamps are red. This is one of those yellow bulbs that Daddy uses on the porch. You know, the no bug kind.”
Eben stands behind them.
“I did. The old one broke, and I, I thought the colour didn’t matter . . . ”
“So, you mean, maybe it wasn’t me? It wasn’t my fault?” asks Mo.
“It’s no one’s fault,” says Bernie. “If anything, it’s because I’ve not been paying attention to you guys. I blame myself. Let’s not worry about whose fault it is, let’s just get Cynthia to the vet.” Quickly Bernie unbuttons the top of her denim shirt. She takes Cynthia from Lola and pulls forward the elastic fabric of her yoga top. Carefully she inserts the hedgehog belly facing her chest. The prickles protrude between her breasts and through the lycra. “Body heat is best,” she says, the children agog. “Now everyone into the van.” Where did Eben go? Bernie grabs her car keys off the shelf and herds the other three out the door.
“It would help if I had candy or something to entice her. A puppy, or better yet a stroller!” Fabian stares after the toddling form of blonde fuzz-head Bernie, piping a nonsensical tune as she staggers off into the dark again.
“You must be the distraction; go charm her.” Fabian groans and looks at the griffon sitting on the turf beside him. The eagle head yawns, stretching open its black beak. “I might just take a short nap. You two carry on and I’ll catch up . . . ”
Again, Fabian follows her.
“Bernie, Bernie. Come here baby.” She looks over her shoulder and smiles her drooling grin. With a gleeful squawk she breaks into a gallop. Fabian wishes he’d been given something older than a four-year-old body. He suspects Bernie’s “capacity to exhaustion” has not been restored to her, while his most certainly has. He sprints to catch up, then takes a flying leap and pins her to the turf. Baby squeals in surprise, then roars in affronted rage. She flails her heels and won’t get up no matter how Fabian pulls on her hands or plays peekaboo making asinine smiley faces. Bloody hell. Finally, he just picks her up and starts staggering back towards the Membrane. She writhes like a salmon and flips out of his arms, falls to the turf with a thump. Then she really starts to bellow.
“Bune!” shouts Fabian. “Bune? Where the hell are you?”
“I feel itchy again,
” Louis says to Lola in the back seat.
“Mom! I think Louis is having an allergic reaction.” Bernie looks in the rear-view mirror.
“What’s that, Lola?” She concentrates on changing lanes. The hedgehog intruding on her cleavage requires a more ginger handling of the steering wheel. She finally moves into the right lane and looks into the rear-view mirror again. Studies their faces. “Did you say, ‘allergic reaction’?”
“Yes. Louis is getting itchy again. He’s been itching all week. He gets this rash.”
“Good Lord, how bad? Why hasn’t anyone told me?” She studies his freckled face in the mirror. Eerie familiarity floods her. “Louis, how do you feel, are you all right?” She can see the hives on his neck, how they creep onto his cheeks. His face breaks into a sweat and his eyes grow big with panic.
“I feel really sick Mom!”
“Oh, boy!” The van fires down Sixteenth Avenue. They cross the bridge over the Bow River and there is nowhere to pull over for half a mile. She looks at Louis’ face again and makes her decision. Trying for a somewhat gradual angle, she cranks the wheel right and takes the curb. The van lurches up and onto the shoulder. Bernie hauls on the parking brake and gets her seat belt off. “Take his seat belt off quick Lola!” She opens her door and runs around to the other side of the van, throws the sliding door open and drags Louis out. She’s got him in front of her facing away. “Remember? Like old times buddy.”
“I can’t poop right on the road!”
“Can you wait?”
“No Momma!” Bernie pulls his pants down to his ankles and grabs him firmly behind the knees. She squats until her elbows lock on her thighs and she’s got him in the floating toilet pose. And just in the nick of time.
“Do what you’ve got to do buddy. No one can see, the van’s blocking the view.” Very soon he finishes expelling. “Lola, can you find the wipes? That was a close one.” Lola pulls wipes from the plastic container and waves them out the door like the queen. “Put them right in my hand, I can’t move here. Okay, all cleaned up. Back in the van buddy.” Bernie washes her hands with another wipe, looks around and finds a big rock to cover up the evidence. Then she opens the hatch and digs the first-aid kit out of the compartment under the floor. Calamine with antihistamine. In the back seat she anoints his welts and checks his chest and back.
“This is the same reaction you had after Chinese food when you were four. Do you remember, Louis? When we figured out MSG didn’t agree with you. But what could have set you off this time, I don’t let that stuff in the house anymore.” Bernie looks down, pulls back the edge of her yoga top, and studies Cynthia. “Okay, let’s get moving.” In the front seat she buckles up, slides the shoulder strap behind her back, to not further traumatize the hedgehog, and when a big enough break in the traffic opens, she humps the van back onto the highway.
“Oh, I didn’t even phone them! I guess we should let them know we’re coming. Lola, please get my phone out of my purse and dial Dr. Randall.”
“I look in contacts, right?”
“Yes, but it’s under ‘veterinarian’ not ‘Randall’.” She looks back at them lined up on the bench seat. “You kids didn’t break into that box of Ichiban for the Food Bank . . . ?”
“How could you possibly expect me to do a full rotation with a tyrannical, noncompliant midget. Where do you get these ideas? Is it in your training manual for demons? ‘Torture unfortunate captive of Corridor Nine with impossible feats of babysitting.’” Fabian snorts and stomps along beside the griffon. Bernie sleeps curled on the fur between the creature’s wings.
Bune clacks his beak open and shut, looks sideways out of his beady eye.
“At least you got a break from the boredom. You are a hard one to please.”
In the veterinarian’s examination room Bernie watches her three children and feels the unmoving cool of Cynthia against her chest. Lola hugs herself and paces, Mo sits pale and concave in her chair, and Louis, waits calm, welty, and spackled with the bubble-gum coloured calamine.
“Guys?” They look up. “I just want you to know, you don’t have to feel guilty about this. I’ve been so preoccupied with the old house and the issues with my dad that I, I forgot about you for awhile. I’ve not been on the job and I’m really, really sorry.” They watch her. “So, whatever happens, you need to know that I’m back now and you don’t have to worry. I won’t go away again. Whatever happens I will handle it, and you’ll all be okay.”
From three directions they run at Bernie and contact like magnets to steel, their arms tangle around her, they fight for skin space. She encircles the three heads, kiss their hair. Louis and Mo smell like horses. When did they last have a bath? Tap tap, a knock at the door. Dr. Randall peeks her head in, smiling.
After another bowl of oatmeal and returning baby Bernie to her original egg-wrapped form, Bune switches back to full angel format.
“We are running short on time. Before we sleep, we’ll try one more walking and breathing meditation.”
“Oh no.” Fabian groans and rolls his eyes.
“Think of the long-term goal, Tadpole, think how much you’ve already accomplished. Stand up. If you pull this off, we just have one more day of exercises.”
“What kind of exercises?”
“Being in the moment, dropping into the sensations of your body, feeling your breath as it enters and leaves your nostrils . . . ”
“Jesus Christ! Another day of that?”
“Yes! I can think of a lot of worse things to do with your time. Mindfulness greatly increases quality of life. Now follow after me. With each breath feel the turf on the soles of your feet. Inhale and notice where the sensation of the breath most easily registers in your consciousness. Your nostrils, your throat, your rib cage?”
“La, la, la” intones Fabian under his breath as he follows. “La, la, lalala . . . ” A quarter of the way around one rotation of the lifetimes of man, Bune pauses in the rapture of his breathing and, stepping back, looks at Fabian. He walks far behind him dragging his feet, stopping now and then to do some ballistic bouncing, or to scratch. Bune rubs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and stretches out his cramped wings. He materializes a cigarette and carries on. This time with a walking and smoking meditation.
Bernie looks out the windows as she minces white onion for the salsa. The grey clouds hang even heavier in the last hour before dark. No birds sing, no wind stirs, everything waits. She takes a deep breath and looks around the snug kitchen and the living room, glowing in the light of the lamp. A fire crackles in the grate. All the kids are supervising the hedgehog. Dr. Randall rehydrated Cynthia with a saline and glucose drip and sent them home with the hedgehog strapped to a gel-filled heating disk, good for twelve hours of gradual warming.
“Her heart rate has slowed, but its good and strong. I think she’ll pull out of aestivation. Just give her time to warm up.” An hour ago, a shout rang out of the bedroom, and they all ran into the kitchen gibbering.
“She’s opened her eyes Mommy!”
“She yawned!”
What a miracle. Euphoric with relief Bernie puts together her taco dinner. She heaps the shredded steaming brisket into a casserole, then takes the corn tortillas out of the oven and stacks them on a plate. The table is set, and covered with bowls of condiments; chopped avocado, grated cheese, shredded lettuce, black olives. Bernie squeezes lime juice over the tomatoes, adds the red pepper, salt, and chopped cilantro, gives it a stir and carries the bowl to the table. She shouts for them to come and in a minute they all stand staring.
“Wow, tacos!” says Peter. “Let’s dig in!”
I wish I could sing, thinks Fabian. That was really fun, the whole scene used to be a lot more fun. And what’s up with the food? Would he get nothing but oatmeal now for the duration of his stay? He squints ahead and sees Bune disappearing in the distance. He hurries up a bit but still wants to stay out of earshot, so he can hum. He thinks of train songs and remembers how Margaret used to sing
Elizabeth Cotton’s “Freight Train” to the children at night. How did that go again? Freight train, freight train, run so fast . . .
Fabian stops dead. Unbelievably something new, an actual object in this objectless world lies in front of his feet. A white feather. Not one of Bune’s big wing feathers. One of the smaller more interior ones. It lies curled and so delicate it barely maintains contact with the turf. Entertaining that baby would have been a lot easier with a feather. Fabian bends down and picks it up. He brushes it against his cheek, his eyelids, and tries to distinguish what makes it different from the feathers of home. More like a leaf he decides, but so silky and light. It fits exactly into his palm. If he closes his fingers no one would even know it was there. He wonders if Bune would want it back and possessiveness overwhelms him. Maybe owning a feather is illegal on Corridor Nine. Too distracting. Suddenly feeling very happy he walks faster, humming. Looking far ahead he sees Bune has reached the two eggs, and that’s when the idea hits him. His heart pounds. He almost breaks into a run but controls himself. Very sedately he walks heel to toe, breathing in, feeling the breath expanding his rib cage, another step as he exhales serenely through his nostrils. All the while he’s frantically thinking. When he finally returns to camp, he exhales peacefully one more time just to show the angel. Bune watches him, jaw dropped.
“I think I got the hang of it,” says Fabian. “Can I go to sleep now?”
“You’re not hungry? You don’t want another bowl of oatmeal?”
“No!”
“Well good night then.” The angel lies down several paces away with his back to him. Fabian studies his wings. He wonders where the feather fell out. He feels the soft treasure in his hand as he watches the Membrane go through its sunset progression one last time. Soon the first white twinkle of a star pops up in the teal and olive-green sky, and finally Bune’s back rises and falls, predictable as waves.
Silently he rolls to his hands and knees and then very carefully stands up. Bune’s breathing continues unceasing. Fabian takes courage and slowly takes a big step backwards then another, and another. Finally, he turns. Orient yourself due black, he thinks, squaring himself as best he can in the last vestiges of light from the Membrane. Miraculously the turf transforms into corduroy beneath his feet. Follow the grain and you can’t get lost. Fabian turns and runs.
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