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After You've Gone

Page 19

by Lori Hahnel


  We didn’t ever get along the way I dreamed we would when Sarah was a little smidgen cuddled in my arms. When she got older, it was apparent that she was at least puzzled by me playing guitar while other mothers ironed sheets. By the time she was a teenager it was obvious that I embarrassed her. She hated it whenever I mentioned my band, called it “that Gypsy stuff.” It turned out that she wasn’t an eternal reminder of Bill for me. If anything, she was a reminder of Bill’s mother. Oh, joy.

  Elsa and Jacob, on the other hand, I could relate to. My grandchildren were both musically inclined, and neither, I was relieved to discover, wanted to play the bagpipes. Jacob was also academically inclined and went to Queen’s on an engineering scholarship. Elsa was smart, too, smart as a whip, but school just wasn’t the place for her. She barely made it out of high school before her band hit the road. And now, here she was, less than a year later, on my doorstep.

  Things had changed since I was Elsa’s age, mostly for the better. Well, I knew I’d changed. Who knew I would become so crotchety, so opinionated? When did that happen to me? But really, things were better in many ways, especially for women and people outside the WASP mainstream. Which my dear first mother-in-law would be mortified to hear. Back in the 30s, even though I was the most talented member of the Syncopation Five, I had little say in what they did. I was a woman. A girl. It wasn’t my place to make decisions about the material we played, the bookings we’d take. Now, Elsa’s band, Speed Queen, really was Elsa’s band. She wrote the songs, sang them, and played lead guitar. She decided what they played, where they played, and if someone in the band displeased her, she gave them their walking papers. In the 30s that kind of thing was unheard of. Good for her, I thought. I just wished it could have been like that when I was a young thing.

  But in those days, racism and sexism were simply part of the fabric of everyday life. You never heard of homophobia because you never heard of homosexuals, or most people hadn’t, anyway. Certainly not in Regina. I get tired of listening to my contemporaries (fortunately they are fewer each year) complain about the way the world is going, what the world is coming to. We didn’t have all this divorce, child molestation, abortions in our day, blah blah blah. Well, there should have been more divorces in the old days. What’s the sense of people who despise each other showing their children how to make the entire family miserable by putting each other down for thirty years, and then saying, “We stayed together for the children”? If you think child molestation and abortions haven’t been going on since the dawn of our species, you truly are naïve. Every horrible thing that you can think of we’ve been doing to ourselves and one another all along. And does anyone need reminding that the 1930s gave the world the Holocaust? Please. Sometimes it makes my head swim.

  It took a few days before I got around to the topic of the baby’s father. I wanted to tread carefully, didn’t want to harp, didn’t want to meddle. I did want to know how she felt, what kind of ground the relationship stood on. Luckily, it wasn’t much of a problem. We got on so well.

  “What about the baby’s father?”

  “Do you mean does he know? Oh, yeah, he knows. When I first told him, he suggested getting married right away. I don’t know about that. His name is Mark. Mark Jelinski. He’s a musician, too, a bassist. They’re just playing around town right now. He doesn’t know I’m here, yet. I guess I should probably call him.”

  It sounded like the relationship with Mark was like many human relationships: a work in progress, and not easy to define with much precision. That, I could understand.

  Only I wanted to say something like, “gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Get what happiness you can out of the relationship while you can. But I didn’t know what that might mean. I didn’t know then if she loved Mark, whether it was one-sided, or a one-night thing or what. The way she spoke about him, it was hard to tell. She sounded cool.

  Then I recalled that when I’d fallen in love with Bill, I couldn’t say much about it either. Maybe because I figured if I talked about him much, people would know without a doubt that I was in love. That would leave me vulnerable, and from the day I left home I was determined not to let myself be in a position like that again. It was too dangerous. Eventually, though, Darlene figured it out. Darlene represented the epitome of all I did not want to be. She came across as a frothy, bubbly, giggly thing, and when she fell in love (which seemed to be every couple of weeks or so) she absolutely could not contain herself. She would sing horrible, sappy love songs to herself. She’d doodle elaborate hearts in the ledger at the front desk with the initials D.K. + whoever. If it got serious (in the second week), the hearts would contain variants of her own name, now married: Mrs. Jurgen Klatzel, Mr. and Mrs. Jurgen Klatzel, Mrs. Darlene Klatzel.

  I, on the other hand, saw no reason to reveal myself just because I happened to be in love. In fact, I felt I must contain myself at all costs. And yet Darlene sussed me out within a couple of weeks. I wonder if she thought I wasn’t in love with Bill as much as I should have been. Eventually Bill thought the same thing, I guess, that I didn’t love him as much as Darlene did, because I didn’t sing, giggle, whisper about him all the time. Sometimes I wonder, if I had it all to do again, would I be more demonstrative? And would it make a difference, would he have stayed? I don’t know. I know that I have woken up thinking of the men I loved and gone to sleep thinking of them for many years after the fact. And still not a day goes by that I don’t think of them. Bill. Jake. And John. The three of them.

  If Elsa felt that way about Mark, I would tell her to make her feelings known, if they weren’t known already.

  Elsa developed a real interest in her roots in those few weeks before the baby was born. At first I thought it was politeness, asking about family because she was staying with me. But she asked about all kinds of things, particularly about Bill and the band. We listened to the Syncopation Five 78 over and over.

  “I can’t get over how great you and Granddad sounded together.”

  I was confused. For a minute, I thought she’d mistaken Darlene’s reedy whining for me singing. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, he had a great voice, didn’t he? And, you, we’ve always known you were the virtuoso. But the way you play around the melody he’s singing, fill in during the bridges, echo him. It’s so well done. It’s just too bad about the whiny chick on backup vocals, eh?”

  That’s my girl, I thought.

  “Listening to this music makes me think about your grandfather,” I said. “All the regrets.”

  “I’m sorry, Grandma. I should have known it would make you feel bad.”

  “Oh, it’s a long time ago, now. All I mean is I haven’t thought about any of this in a long time. Some of the things I should have said to Bill. Don’t have regrets in your relationship with Mark, Elsa. I mean things you can do something about. Because you just never know . . . you might not have a chance to make it right again.”

  “I do love him. But he’s talking about quitting his band. I don’t want him to feel like because I’m having a baby his whole life has to come to an end.”

  “Does he feel that way?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I should find out, eh?”

  I shrugged. “I would.”

  “I haven’t exactly been on great terms with Mom the last few years.”

  “Sarah’s worried about you,” I said.

  “Yeah. She wants me to go to university, get a career, stop wasting time.”

  I recalled Sarah calling me one night, worried, using almost those exact words about Elsa.

  “You have to let her live her life,” I said.

  Sarah sounded exasperated. “That’s what I want her to do. I don’t want her to waste it. She’s got so much potential.”

  “Of course she does. But she’s living her life right now, whether you like it or not.”

  “I just don’t want her to make a mistake.”

  “We all make mistakes. Anyway, what’s so bad about being a musician? S
he has talent, you know.”

  “Maybe. But she’s got to eat.”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “I guess I’d just hate to see her fail.”

  “She can’t fail unless she stops trying, Sarah.”

  It was easy enough for me to say. I didn’t worry about Elsa at all. I knew my granddaughter had the brains and the ability to go far. But I knew Sarah would worry, no matter what anyone said.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for it,” Elsa said one day. “I mean, a baby’s enough of a change. I think Mark’s freaking out. I don’t know if we can pull off the house in the suburbs and the day job and all that all at once.”

  “Ease into it gradually. You don’t know anything yet. Take it one day at a time,” I advised.

  “That’s a good idea. I mean, Mark’s talented. Maybe he’d be okay working some 9 — 5 job for a while. But I’m sure he’ll get to resent it, maybe even resent us, eventually. I don’t want that to happen.”

  “You’re right to be concerned. I guess he just wants to make sure that Bill is provided for. But what about you? You’re talented, too.”

  “Well. I’ve thought about that.”

  “After all, look what happened to me.”

  “You did go a long time without playing, didn’t you?”

  “I did. And I don’t want you to have to go through that. Maybe you two can work something out where he works part-time, and you both play a little. Or something.”

  “That’s a good idea, Gram. Thanks. I think we should try to do something like that.”

  Why is it that I find it so easy to give Elsa advice, while Sarah usually leaves me at a loss? Why is that?

  Twenty-Eight

  Elsa

  Seattle, Washington

  March 2006

  IF SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME YEARS ago what a cliché my life would become when I hit middle age, I never would have believed them. Not on your life. Me, discontent, wondering what it’s all about, wondering just what it is that I’ve managed to accomplish in my forty-plus years on this planet? Never. But I’m afraid it was all true. Sad but true.

  Bill was well into work on his master’s degree by this time. He lived at home while he was doing his bachelor’s but moved out when he started his master’s. His thesis supervisor got him work as a teaching assistant, and his apartment in the U District on 10th Avenue was a short walk from campus. He was almost twenty-three, a good six years older than I was when I left home. Fair enough. Still, I wasn’t prepared to miss him as much as I did, though he was home to do laundry and eat dinner with us every Sunday. I have to say the little house in Fremont did seem empty when he left.

  And there Mark and I were, still running Curse Records. “Record label” was almost a misnomer by this time, since most of the recordings we were making were released on CD, although more and more bands were asking to have their music available in both CD and vinyl formats. I hated to think the vinyl thing was retro — it made me feel old — but that was part of it, audiophile preferences aside. Anyway. The house seemed so empty. Mark and I seldom seemed to be there at the same time. I took care of the web stuff for Curse at home, most of it, while he was at work, but of course orders had to be filled at the office since we had all the stock there, so one of us (mostly me) was there evenings when the other was home. We’d talked about giving up the office, trying to run everything out of the house. But our house wasn’t even a thousand square feet, we never would have had room for all the stock and files and office equipment. Not only that, but it was important, I thought, for us to have one physical place that was work and one that was home. I had wanted to keep the lines between the two from blurring quite so much. The problem was that by this time Mark happily worked all day every day, either at his company or occasionally doing Curse stuff at the office.

  I had started to wonder by this time what we had in common anymore. Well, besides our son, and Curse Records. Mark had bought out the courier firm from his brother-in-law, Dave, in the mid-90s. It was great because it meant an increase in our income, which meant we could afford to float our not-for-profit record label for longer. It also meant that Mark’s involvement in Curse, by necessity, became pretty minimal. At first that was all right by me, because as Bill got more independent, I had more time to devote to Curse. Still, what had started as Mark’s idea, and had become something we worked on together, had now grown into something I was essentially doing on my own. We seemed to be living in two different worlds much of the time.

  One night I was working late at the office. The vintage store downstairs was closed and there wasn’t anyone else in any of the other offices. The main building door downstairs was locked. I heard footsteps in the hall and panicked for a second. Then the door opened. I didn’t recognize him for a second. And it hit me all of a sudden that Mark looked older. His features were softer now, his hair had receded, he’d let his ear piercings grow closed long ago. And I was still getting used to the beard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just got a few orders I want to ship out tonight,” I said.

  He sat on the desk. “You need a hand?”

  “Nah. Thanks. I’m almost done.”

  “Do you want to get something to eat, maybe a drink, when you’re done?”

  I blinked, resisted the urge to ask him who he was and what he’d done with my husband. “Yeah, sure. Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know. I kinda feel like seafood. Do you want to walk over to the Dock?”

  “Sounds like fun. As long as you help me carry these packages to the post office at the 7-Eleven before we go.”

  We sat at our usual table in the Fremont Dock, beside a window, looking out at the water. How many times had we been to the Dock? Thousands, maybe. It was an unassuming pub / sports bar / family restaurant. Good prices, good pub grub, near home, and they were always willing to play our records. We came when Bill was just a baby, brought him here all through his life. This was where he wanted to eat on his thirteenth birthday, I remembered, and the amount he ate that night frightened me. “Shapes of Things to Come,” as The Yardbirds said.

  Mark ordered halibut and chips and I ordered mussels and we sipped pints of Diamond Knot IPA while we waited for our food. This was so unusual nowadays, this going out together thing, that I wondered if something was up, if he had an agenda. To the extent that I felt a little nervous. But as the evening wore on it became obvious that he just wanted to have dinner and a beer with me. More likely he just wanted to have dinner and a beer, and figured he might as well take me along for company. Maybe there wasn’t anything much to eat at home. That was entirely possible.

  The waitress came by when we’d finished eating and took our plates and we ordered another beer. What the hell? It was Friday night, and we were out — past 9:30, even. Living dangerously.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this idea I’ve had for a while, Mark.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. What would you think if I hired someone to come in and help out in the office part-time?”

  He stroked his beard a minute. He was thinking over what it would cost. He didn’t say anything, so I continued.

  “That way, you won’t have to do much anymore. Unless you want to, of course. And it would free up some of my time so that I can get back to what I really want to be doing.”

  He gave me a blank look. “What do you want to be doing?”

  He couldn’t really have to ask, I told myself. Could he? No, impossible. I wouldn’t have married a man who could be so uninterested in who I was. And yet, lately, this was the kind of man he increasingly seemed to be. It frustrated me. And no matter how I tried not to, it was impossible not to take his lack of interest in me personally. I tried to convince myself I was blowing it out of proportion in my mind, that he was just too busy. But at times I could only conclude that he’d lost interest in me. How could you live with someone for twenty-five years and not know what they wanted to be doing?

 
; “You’re not serious, are you?” I asked.

  His jaw set a little before he spoke. I heard an edge of exasperation in his voice. “I am serious. What do you want to be doing?”

  “Music. Mark, how could you not know I want to have time to play music?”

  “Well, you do play music.”

  “Sure, for a few minutes here and there if I have the time. I mean I want to get back to being in a band, maybe even record again.”

  “Still? Really?”

  “Yeah. I mean, that’s what I’ve always wanted, from when I was a kid. And Curse has been good, you know. But it kind of mushroomed into taking up all my time, especially once Bill got into school. And now I want to do my own music again. Don’t you ever want to?”

  He shook his head. “No. I can’t imagine going back into that world. The late nights, the long hours. Never making any money. It was great when we were young, but I just have no interest in it anymore.”

  I sighed. “Look, I don’t mean going on a world tour or putting out a series of concept albums. I just mean finding some people to jam with, maybe record a few songs. I need to do this, Mark.”

  “Well, sure. I guess you’re about due for a mid-life crisis.”

  Lucky for Mark I was enjoying my IPA far too much to consider pitching it right into his face. Had it been a lesser beer, I would have done so without hesitation.

  “Mid-life crisis? What are you talking about? Because I want to get back to playing music I’m having a mid-life crisis?”

  “I haven’t heard you say anything about wanting to play music. Until now.”

 

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