This One Because of the Dead

by Laure Baudot

  One evening, while I was sitting at home reading a script, I had a sudden premonition. First I called my father’s phone, but it went to voicemail. Then I tried my mother.

  “Oh, Jeanne,” said my mother. “What we’ve been going through.”

  Maddie had been in a coma since the morning. The emergency room doctor had told my mother that she had overdosed, probably as a result of combining alcohol and cocaine.

  “You didn’t think to call me?” I stared at the posters of my plays hanging from the wall of my living-room-turned-office.

  “It’s been a crazy day.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t call me right away.”

  “Well, Jeanne, you have your own life.” There was hurt in her voice, and anger. Not calling me was her revenge.

  It crosses my mind that, if I had simply been there for them, without judgment, maybe things would have been better for us.

  Then I think of Ames, and the longing and the loneliness I felt again and again during those weeks of travel returns.

  In the baggage car, Ames had told me that his mother had eventually decided to let his drug habit go. She even permit-ted him to smoke in front of her. “These days,” he said, “when she has her digestif, I have mine. We do it together.”

  I picture mother and son on the stone patio of a Spanish-style house. Above them is a sky with a cutout of still white stars. Ames and his mother sit in teak armchairs, on cushions of blue and yellow cornflowers. Her legs are crossed at the ankle. They enjoy their chosen substances. They don’t have to speak: it’s enough that they are there, together. They are the people left behind, dealing with things as best they can.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my first family, without whom this book would not have been born: Alain Baudot, Carla Baudot, Erica Baudot, Lucienne Baudot, René Albert Baudot, and Morris Gringorten.

  Thank you to Edie Joy Sasson Gelman, chosen sister.

  I am grateful to Libby Scheier, Susan Swan, and Richard Teleky, who fostered my writing years ago.

  Thank you to those who, throughout the years, offered considerable editorial advice and encouragement: Sarah Selecky, Ania Szado, Sheila Toller, Jessica Westhead, and Priscila Uppal. Thank you also to Isabel Huggan and Margaret Webb for their support.

  Thanks to Pietro Cammalleri for copy-editing an early version of the manuscript.

  I am privileged to be a member of Meta4, my supportive and exacting band of writers: Phil Dwyer, Natalie Onuška, Phoebe Tsang.

  I am grateful to have worked on this project with Bryan Ibeas, brilliant editor and generous collaborator.

  Thank you to Marc Côté who took a chance with my manuscript and then fine-tuned it with a practiced eye.

  Thanks to Ezra’s Pound and The Green Beanery, where I wrote these stories.

  I continue to find The Toronto Women’s Salon invaluable for their inspiring gatherings and ongoing career advice.

  Thank you to the Toronto Arts Council whose support made this book possible.

  Thanks to Monica Pacheco and Rachel Letofsky at CookeMcDermid Literary Management.

  Versions of these stories appeared in the literary journals The Danforth Review, The Fertile Source Literary E-Zine, and Found Press Literary Quarterly. Thanks to the editors of these publications.

  6

  In memory of Luke Martin and Priscila Uppal.

  Laure Baudot and Cormorant Books acknowledge the sacred land on which they live and work. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Anishinaabe and allied nations to peaceably share and steward the resources around the Great Lakes. Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

  We are also mindful of broken covenants and the need to strive to make right with all our relations.