Winning Chance

by Katherine Koller

  She thought of these unknown, uncertain little children all the time now. None of the boys were actually married. None were ready for kids of their own. Their partners were all ambitious, bright young women. And Mina never brought it up; she knew better than that. She had been surprised by her yearning after all the boys had left Wally and her to themselves. She had visions of these children. So far she’d dreamed up eight. That was maybe excessive, but she’d fashioned eight distinct clay dream kids, full figures standing like the terra cotta warriors of China, about a foot high, and placed them on her basement windowsill to gaze at the stars. The door to her workshop was usually closed, but she’d left it open lately, an invitation.

  Mina placed the last pieces at the rim of the giant bowl. The work had taken all day. Mina stopped for lunch but not after that, even for the phone, and her stomach was growling, her haunches sore from alternately kneeling, squatting, reaching. Once again she had completely forgotten about what was for dinner. Tuna out of the tin would be fine for her. Wally, though, expected more. Well, she thought, not tonight. It would be a brilliantly warm evening, despite the wind picking up, and she wanted to get the podge on before she quit so the birdbath would be dry tomorrow. She could hardly wait to fill it up, see the water swirl the colours, float a few gerbera daisy heads.

  After she’d finished, there were four curvy cup pieces left, including one red one from the morning. Mina stored them back in a bin under her potting table in case the birdbath ever needed repair. With a big brush she lathered on the podge, “putting lots on” as her father had always advised whenever she painted his fences, his furniture, the practical objects of his life. He’d wonder why on earth she’d spend a whole day on a project like this. She cleaned up her brushes, put away the pots of glue and podge, and stood, wobbly with hunger, examining her work, pulling off her thin latex gloves, considering another coat of podge in the morning and the sealant she’d need to buy.

  She heard Wally’s car pull in the garage, his door closing, and another door closing.

  “Hey, hon,” he called as he closed the garage door. Hon, his word for “Forgive me?”. He continued only when she looked back at him, silently acknowledging his apology. “You didn’t answer the phone so I brought pizza and wine. Thought you must have been working and not heard.”

  “Come here,” Mina said. The pizza, Hawaiian, was his preference, and the wine, Pinot Grigio, hers. She stood away from the bird bath so he could see.

  “Wow,” he said. “You saved all this?” He bent down, laid the pizza on the ground, and ran his knuckle over a piece of his red airplane cup. “It’s made out of … us.”

  The colours were bright, like the plates she scrounged, bold and beautiful. They swished, they clashed, they flowed.

  Mina shook out the tarp for pizza without plates, wine without glasses, to sit and contemplate the birdbath: their past, their now. Wally put a personal slice of pizza on a leaf for the wasps, well away on the fence. Mina picked a handful of arugula from the garden to decorate the pizza.

  The mosaic pieces brought back the time the boys made dinner for their tenth anniversary and dropped six plates trying to set the table; the antique cake plate that slipped out of her hands and cracked in three but Wally’s birthday cake was salvaged in one lopsided chocolate lump from off the floor; the tea cup she dropped when her water broke and they rushed to the hospital for the birth of Sam. They munched and sipped through memories, laughing and tearing up, and by the time they went in from the night breeze, for the first time that summer, they looked at each other with longing.

  The Return

  Ten years ago, Molly left her baby on Shauna’s doorstep. Molly’s baby, the same age as Jess, refused to suckle when Shauna tried to breastfeed her, turned her weak little head away from warmth, from singing, from eye contact. Shauna had never felt rejection like this; a three-month-old baby, her namesake, undid her. She bathed her, tried bottled breast milk and then formula to no avail while Peter rocked Jess and put the boys to bed. On his professional advice, Shauna took the babe to emergency. The resident obstetrician spat out exactly what Molly had said.

  “Failure to thrive.”

  “So, what, we wait for her to die?”

  “I’ll order IV fluids for now and see what transpires.”

  Shauna wished that Peter, in his practiced hopeful manner, could talk sense into this resident. But by now, her husband was asleep. She calculated when to go home so he could get to the hospital on time for morning rounds. She hoped Jess would sleep through the night, as she had for the past week, and not disturb him.

  The nurses called the baby Shauna X. The X looked like a death warrant to Shauna. She pleaded with the ICU nurse.

  “But babies can recover so quickly.”

  “Some do, some don’t. No matter what we do.”

  Shauna kept her hand on the babe, through a portal on the incubator, through the small hours, willing the baby to live. The tiny child slept on, barely breathing. Never cried. A little ghost. From time to time, Shauna picked her up and sang to her, even though the nurse warned against overstimulation, as if the beepers and buzzers in the unit weren’t already a barrage.

  The baby’s interstitial IV fattened up her twig wrist with fluid. The nurse prepared to do it on the other arm. Shauna pulled out her phone from her back pocket and snapped a photo of the child lying on her back at the same moment the nurse poked the baby’s arm. Shauna could hardly wait to pick the baby up, more to soothe herself than the infant, who didn’t even whimper. The diaper remained dry all night. The IV alarm kept beeping.

  In the photo, the baby’s eyes flayed open from surprise, not fear or pain or desire. Her hair, dark, straight, and thick like Molly’s. Her skin, lighter. Her eyes didn’t ask a thing.

  And again, the IV failed. Shauna’s phone alarm sounded at six while a trio of nurses crowded the incubator to try and reinsert the IV into veins like spider webbing.

  In the parking lot, Shauna felt terrible that she didn’t get to say goodbye to the baby or whisper in her ear that she’d be back later.

  Peter hurried out the door as she drove up, kissed her quick, and promised to look in on the babe. Shauna tiptoed in the house, downed water, and fed a hungry Jess without waking the others. It was an uneasy peace, broken when she turned Jess to the other breast. Shauna felt a loosening. A leaf falling from a tree. A feather. As soon as Jess went down for her morning nap, Shauna called the hospital.

  “We were about to call you. Shauna X passed away about 0700 hours.”

  The nurse took her name and number in case the police needed to call. Shauna looked at her phone photo many times that day, unable to immerse herself in her own children’s little needs and desires. She cried on Peter’s shoulder that night.

  “There was nothing anyone could do,” he said. “And you did everything you could.” Then quieter, he said, “When I lose a patient, I turn to sponge.”

  The effects of that night trickled through the years. Shauna’s wish to get pregnant again required a painful reversal of Peter’s vasectomy. Several miscarriages, each one sadder than the last, loaded Shauna with guilt and fear in the form of more weight. She never did go back to work, citing her own children’s needs over the patients she counselled, and busied herself with the kids’ activities. The array of her responsibilities at the children’s schools, at church, and in the community multiplied. She took on more and more, needing to prove to herself that she could help. She ate junk food on the run and left frozen heat-up items for her family. Peter began to bake to satisfy his sweet tooth, and now whenever Shauna opened the fridge, a cheesecake beckoned. Shauna never fried hamburger again, not after it left the house reeking of burnt meat the day she took Molly’s baby out of the gym bag under her mailbox.

  For ten years Shauna had scanned the gatherings at church, looking for Molly at the food bank, the rummage sales, or coffee parties after services.
For ten years, the plaster owls on the old brick building glared down at her in reproach.

  Footsore from the third funeral luncheon this month, the guests and her team of kitchen helpers long gone, counters and sinks bleached, Shauna inhaled the chilled fall air. As she looked up at the owls, her eye caught an eagle circling high up, his spirals in the azure, his focus and grace. On her third loud wide inhale she pulled back her neck, also sore, then choked, because there was Molly, waiting under the blazing amur maple on the path to the lone car in the parking lot.

  Molly wore a loose braided up-do, a knee-length tiny print dress, and faded indigo jean jacket. A tattoo on one calf, floral, continued out of sight up her leg. She stood taller, less waif-like than Shauna remembered. And she was pregnant.

  If Molly seemed more solid, Shauna felt matronly: thickened waist, bulged hips. Extra pounds had slowed her down, put her in flat shoes, wide black pants, long neutral tunic tops and bold gold jewelry. Plus, her hair was falling out. She wondered if Molly would recognize her. Shauna approached Molly, surrounded by scarlet leaves.

  “You look so healthy, Molly. You look great.”

  Molly searched Shauna’s face, the big glasses, big earrings, big bust. “Is that you?”

  Shauna knew that Molly couldn’t say her name, and neither could she in this moment.

  “Can we sit on the steps?”

  Here they were, on the steps again, Shauna thought. She eased herself down on the top one where her broad bottom would at least fit. Then moved over to make room.

  Molly held the railing and her belly, and settled down in the spot Shauna left for her, letting her bare legs absorb the autumn sun’s warmth.

  “Ah, that feels good. The doctor said don’t stand if you can sit. Did you have any more kids?”

  Shauna could only shake her head.

  “Me neither, until this. Getting married in two weeks. Baby’s coming in six.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Todd’s a long-haul driver. We have a trailer and his job is steady, five years now, and he made me quit mine because his own mom worked herself to death.”

  Todd, angle-parked, windows open, waited in front of the church.

  “Where did you work?”

  “A restaurant. Washing dishes. But one day they were short, so they put me in the kitchen, chopping and cleaning up. I learned. It fed me. Todd likes my cooking.” Molly waved at him. “Been three years.” He waved back. “Todd and me, both of us never grew up with a father but he’s going to be the best. He calls me every day when he’s away.”

  Todd’s truck wasn’t new, but it was clean, not lifted and chromed up like the one Shauna’s son wanted. “Fix You” by Coldplay was audible but not ear-bashing like her middle child, the closet smoker, liked it. Molly listened to the song, too, before she spoke again.

  “Your girl, did she grow up good?”

  Shauna nodded. “Jess.” Shauna could not bear to fill in the silence after her daughter’s name. Not with her likes (all water sports) and dislikes (cats because they ate birds) or her hopes (to be a heart surgeon like her father). Molly waited until Shauna looked at her, then asked.

  “Mine died, right?”

  “The next morning. I tried. Everyone did.” Shauna had rehearsed this moment so many times. She knew her eyes would submerge. But she didn’t count on Molly putting her arm around her.

  “I’ve been talking to her all these years. Trying to mourn her right. They said I was unfit, she was a failure. I tell her I did the best I could. She’s not a failure, because she’s with me always, in my heart, with my mother and grandmother.” Molly’s other hand alighted on her heart like a bird, then massaged her round belly. “But I’m scared.”

  Shauna hugged Molly to her. The baby kicked.

  “Oh! I felt that!”

  Shauna pulled her phone out of her purse. “I need to give her back to you.” She tapped in Molly’s number and sent the photo she had transferred from each of her phones to the next over the last decade.

  Already, Shauna felt lighter. She so wanted to get rid of the extra pounds she carried. She visualized herself three months after Jess was born, already back to pre-pregnancy clothes, walking toward the front porch where Molly waited with her baby in a gym bag. Nothing had been the same since Shauna opened that door.

  Molly took out her own phone, opened the text and stared at the photo, caressing it with thumb and finger to enlarge it.

  “Her eyes. How did you get her eyes to open? I forgot how dark.” Molly cradled her phone against her neck. “I couldn’t—I didn’t know what to do. Oh, my girl. I couldn’t watch her go.”

  “I know.” Shauna was grateful that she had not been there, either. They were both silent again. A checkmark of geese overhead honked away in a hurry. Shauna saw that Todd looked up, too.

  Molly’s face was wet, rumpled, deflated. Regret and fear carved her young strong face, distorted it with grief. Shauna breathed deep.

  “Can I take your hand?”

  Molly reached for both Shauna’s hands and held tight. Shauna lowered her eyelids.

  “You’re at home, with Todd and the baby.”

  “It’s a boy. We’re outside.”

  “It’s spring. There’s enough sun to warm your face.” Shauna paused, using her old technique to let Molly make her own picture.

  “Todd holds the baby. I pour some water out by the trailer. I dig in my old parka pocket. Still there.”

  Shauna wondered what, and waited.

  “I pat them in the dirt.”

  “Seeds?”

  “Your tall flowers. Yellow. For her.”

  Shauna and Molly opened their eyes to each other.

  Molly took out a card with hand-drawn sunflowers on it. “I hope you will come. The party is at the restaurant. Bring your girl, Jess?”

  Shauna followed Molly down the steps to the truck. Todd jumped out and shook Shauna’s hand.

  “I hope to see you at the wedding,” he said.

  “Come visit in the spring,” said Molly.

  The whole way there, small black birds appeared either side of the highway in singles, then in pairs, then mating pairs and pairs in flight, black as the seeds she carried in her purse. Shauna wondered if they welcomed her or warned her.

  Shauna steadied herself with self-talk. Don’t drive and visualize! she used to say to her clients. She’d been seeing an old colleague for therapy. The volunteer work and the pounds had started to drop one by one over the winter. Walking the ravine with the dog became routine. She enjoyed cooking again, her old favourites, including dishes with

  hamburger.

  She would ask her colleague for a part-time tryout position when she was ready. As she followed the little black birds, Shauna breathed in and out, prepared herself for what Molly needed today. And what she needed.

  Todd was waiting at the trailer park entrance and guided her to their lot. He showed Shauna flat white stones the colour of bone that he’d collected by the river and circled around a freshly-dug area on the sunny side of the trailer.

  Molly came down the steps with her boy. “I’m glad you came,” she said. “Here’s our Curtis.”

  “He’s beautiful, Molly,” said Shauna, who thumbed his round face, hugged the packed muscly weight of him. She kissed his stand-up hair.

  Molly went in again and returned with still-warm rinse water and carefully set the basin down. Todd held Curtis while the women sunk to their knees and fingered a cluster of dimples in the soil. Molly put an old seed and a fresh seed in each and Shauna lightly sprinkled dirt overtop. They fisted the earth down with their knuckles, scooped water from the basin with both hands and gently pooled it in each depression. When they were done, Shauna looked up at Todd and the baby.

  Overhead, geese honked their way home in the big sky.

  Sunset Travel for Singl
e Seniors

  After her Oscar died mangled in the wheels of his tractor last spring, Oscar’s brother Frank came over like always. Although Frank had taken meals with Violet for twenty years, usually the only sound he made at the table followed a swallow of her crabapple cider, “aahh.” Tonight, Violet added candles to the table to comfort herself.

  Frank hardly looked up. While he carved his marinated flank steak, Violet let loose about her daughter and son going through marital separations at opposite ends of the province. Frank was the ideal audience because he never interrupted. He took a second helping of scalloped potatoes as Violet, making the candles fan and flicker, got going.

  “If they’d stayed put after they married and had me to help out, they would not be considering divorce at all. And will they bring the grandkids to Red Deer anymore? When they were all here for Oscar’s funeral, I never noticed any difficulties. They ate and slept well and really, Frank, what more can we ask for? Now they’re both living apart. The cost must be crazy. They’re spending their inheritance on divorces. Nothing like this happened until they got their cheques last summer. Personally, I think teachers have too much time off. If they worked year-round, they wouldn’t be plotting to get out of their marriages.”

  Frank took more garden beans.

  “It’s so good to have you to talk to, Frank.”

  She wanted to pat his hand. To her surprise, Frank patted hers. Frank could read her silence. She wondered if he could read her mind.

  A shy eighteen, she had stood maid of honour for Frank and Edna. Frank asked her to dance, her soft moist hand in his great rough steady one. When he moved her to the swelling music, she in her pink dress and ivory jacket, Violet grew up all in a moment. Her heart sprung open, ready for love. She bloomed. A candle lit for the first time.

  “You’re going to break a heart one day, Violet,” Frank whispered.

  Violet, grateful that he didn’t use his full voice so his comment reached her and only her, cherished it.