by Dan Robson
I groan.
“Shit.”
What a mess.
I finish off the job with an even worse effort on the sheet that runs along the bottom of the bulkhead. The drywall looks as if it’s been ripped out instead of cut. Straggly pieces dangle from the uneven corner, which jags in and out along a line of overcompensation.
Within a couple of hours, the bedroom walls are done. The wall between it and the bathroom is complete and we’ve put in new door frames side by side, leading into each.
Eight days after we cleared it out, the old basement is starting to look like something new.
Now we have to measure out markings for the bedroom pot lights before we can put the pieces up for the ceiling. We’ve sketched out a plan indicating the centre of each spotlight based on the distance from the edge by width and length. Each square is forty-eight inches wide by ninety-six inches long. And we have to mark out the corner where the ceiling drops into my Frankenstein bulkhead.
We also need to put up the bathroom drywall, which is different from the stuff we’ve used in the bedroom. As we place the heavy green sheets around the shower, Matt gives me a lesson on the different kinds we need to use. We have normal drywall, bathroom drywall, and then shower drywall, he says. The bathroom drywall is moisture resistant. The shower drywall is for heavy water use—it’s basically waterproof.
While Matt and I put up the drywall in the shower, Tim and Jonathan are charged with measuring the drywall for the bathroom ceiling, accounting for the bulkhead and the location of the pot lights. Jonathan scribbles the measurements on a scrap piece of drywall that looks like a stone tablet.
We cut and then raise the bathroom ceiling panels into place. Next, using the drywall knife, we cut around the circles they’ve drawn for the pot lights.
But the edge of the ceiling doesn’t align with the wall. Something is out of square. It’s a mistake we’ve just noticed. It went undetected several steps back.
We’ll have to pull it down and fix the problem.
“Then we’ll throw it back up,” Matt says as if it’s no big deal.
Jonathan smirks and raises an eyebrow.
But fortunately, the ceiling tightens down when we keep screwing, closing the gap enough that we can cover the imperfection with some compound.
“We’ll get some nice twenty-minute setting stuff and fill it all in,” Matt says. “And that’s it.”
It’s the kind of quick-fix solution I know my father would have avoided by making sure it was done right the first time. I picture him shaking his head, pulling down the crooked frame, and starting again—plumb and level.
Even with the gaps filled in, I’ll always see the imperfection in these walls.
20
I stand in the faded goal crease and look around. I can see right across the basement from this spot. The guys are busy. Tim and Jonathan use a Wonder Bar to pop off the remaining old baseboards, one by one, before we lay down the flooring in the living area of the basement.
The old door is still a workbench. Stacks of drywall lie in one corner. Two grey garbage bins are full of wood and drywall scraps. Wide stripes in three shades of grey have been painted across the wall, ready for Mom’s final decision.
It reminds me of clouds before a storm.
The silver tinfoil-like underpadding is rolled up next to the stacks of laminate panel that will soon cover the crease once more. The moisture barrier looks like something from a 1960s spaceship. It doesn’t soak anything up—it’s just a layer that keeps it from moving through to the flooring we’re going to put down. It also acts as a barrier so that the pieces won’t lie unevenly if there’s an imperfection in the floor.
We put a small piece of laminate against the wall to leave a gap for the floor to shift—and then lay out the pieces of flooring from there, row by row, like a giant puzzle. Each thin, rectangular piece has a ridge that clips into the side of the one next to it. It creates an audible click. The first couple of rows try to push upward and don’t settle flat.
Each row of laminate will have one piece that’s cut shorter when it meets the wall. We’ve cut a smaller section of flooring to fill the gap. A mitre saw would make an enormous mess, so we use a special punch that creates a clean cut and no dust. All we have to do is set the piece at the right length to cut and then pull the lever forward.
Tim and Jonathan measure the angle of an alcove that I used to call my trophy shrine—cutting the ends of the laminate on an angle so that they’ll fit into the curved corners.
I’m not sure how they’ve figured out what the proper angle is for each piece.
“We just measured the left side to the wall and then the right side to the wall, and drew a diagonal,” Jonathan says. “And then cut it.”
I have no idea what he means. “Ah, cool,” I say. “It’s perfect.”
And it is.
* * *
—
Later that afternoon, Matt holds a trowel in one hand and a grout knife in the other. He uses his knife to pick up a glob of mortar that’s been mixed in an orange Home Depot bucket. Next to the bucket sits a stack of large tiles with a faint grey marble pattern. There’s already a thick layer of mortar spread across the bathroom floor, above the heating panels.
“What you do is called ‘back buttering’ them,” he says.
“Back butter?” I repeat.
“So yeah, so butter the tiles. You just put a thin layer—and then it adheres a lot better. You just stick them down.”
He spreads a thin layer of mortar across the back of one of the tiles. Then he kneels down and slowly lines up the tile’s edges, laying it down in the corner, snug against the tub.
“They are going to look all right,” he says.
A few tiles are laid out already, to show the spacing. The marble design on two of them lines up and I get excited about it. “I like that. Let’s keep those two together.”
This is my contribution.
“Yeah,” Matt says.
I’m certain he’s done with me.
“Let’s do it.”
I have significantly hampered this process. Matt started with a schedule, which we’re now days behind. I’ve slowed down every step, asking him to explain it again and again. Much of the work I’ve done has had to be closely monitored or fully redone. I’m a menace to efficiency.
The accent wall above the vanity is half finished with the black subway tiles we’ve chosen. Plastic spacers are clipped between each one, holding them in place while they dry. The tiles surrounding the vanity might get splashed a little, but they carry no weight. They’re decorative.
But we have to be much more careful with floor tiles than the tiles on the wall, I’m told. We need to make sure we get the floor tiles right the first time.
Matt butters another one.
“Even if you didn’t do this you’d probably be fine,” he says. “But why take the chance? If one tile cracks because maybe the floor is uneven and you step in that one place, you’re done. I’ve seen homes where the tiles are cracked. That’s terrible, right?”
It does seem terrible.
He puts down his scraper and flips the tile over, placing it gently next to the other two, easing it into place and running his hands over it to make sure it’s flush.
“You want to try to get your corners to line up,” he says. “See, like this is off a little bit”—he points to the corner where it meets the last tile.
Now he reaches for a flat-sided tool and slips it under the tile, wedging it upward. Holding it up, he dabs on some extra mortar from a glob beside him and then smoothes it. Then he puts the tile back in place, again eyeballing it to see that it’s as even as he can make it.
“Have to make sure it’s nice and flush,” Matt says, running his hands gently across the tile again. Then he takes his pencil and runs it through the gap between the
two squares, cleaning out the excess grout.
Jonathan walks in as we prepare another slab.
“I can’t believe this room,” I say, looking around at the white tile rising up around the tub and the fully enclosed walls. “It’s like a room now.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan says. He sounds a touch sarcastic.
“Weird, eh,” Matt says. He’s on his knees, clearing more mortar out of the grooves with his pencil.
It is weird. My entire life, this space has been unfinished. Now it has shape and purpose. We’ve created something, step by step, covering up the cold concrete that lies beneath it all. The tiles shine in the light. The room smells brand new, just like the ones in the construction sites Dad used to take me to.
This is a beginning, not an end.
Jonathan and I are quiet, watching Matt place another tile. He looks over at us.
“You guys want to start cleaning up?”
Part V
Measure Twice
21
There are many people I want to speak to about my father, people who might help me build on his memory and keep him alive in my mind. But there was one person I needed to speak to more than any other. I didn’t have a brother, but my father had another son.
Josh Spilchen and his mother, Christina, entered our lives shortly after Jai and I moved away to university and Jenna was finishing high school. Christina had worked reception at the office for visiting nurses that my mother managed. She’d been going through a tough time. My parents became very close to her and Josh, her eight-year-old son, and eventually the two of them moved in. They lived at our house while Josh was in elementary and middle school.
He was a skinny twerp of a kid, with short blond hair and big blue eyes. He was shy at first, but deep down he was mischievous. The day I first met him we played basketball on the old Fisher-Price net in the basement. I was twenty then. He practised his dunks off the steps while I tried to teach him how to shoot, keeping his elbow in and putting some spin on the ball.
I didn’t grow close to Josh in the way I could have. I was consumed by university life, on my own for the first time. He was always there when I came home, and I loved that. But I never allowed him to become like a brother to me. And I didn’t really see him as part of the family.
A few months before his death, Dad called and asked if I’d go with him to take Josh out to dinner for his birthday. He was in his early twenties now and working in construction, trying to find his path.
Dad picked me up on the way. On the ride to the east end pizza place, he told me he hoped to start seeing Josh more often. It had been hard to connect with him since he and Christina had moved back to Toronto when Josh was in high school. They’d visited often for a while, but with time they became less frequent.
I suggested that we go to a Toronto Raptors game sometime. We never did.
Josh came to the hospital when he learned what had happened. We were sitting next to Dad, watching him die, when I saw Josh standing outside in the hallway. He seemed unsure whether he should be there. I went into the hallway and told him he could come in. Dad would have wanted him there.
Josh wept as deeply as I had.
A while after Dad’s death, I took Josh out for lunch. It had been too long and it felt like a failing, because he’d been so important to my parents.
My father was different with Josh than he was with me. I’d talk with Dad on the phone nearly every day while I was away—walking home from class, on the way to hockey practice—one of us calling the other whenever we had some time. I remember him telling me about how good Josh was with tools. He thought he might have a future in construction. I didn’t think much of it at the time, to be honest. I thought it was nice that Dad had a little kid around to teach things I’d never shown an interest in.
* * *
—
When I pull up to meet Josh, he looks a decade older than the skinny blond kid I pictured in my mind, with wisps of facial hair and thick shoulders. I hadn’t noticed that the night Dad died. In memory, he was still a kid. We settle on lunch at an East Side Mario’s in Scarborough—a nostalgic nod to a suburban favourite.
I order a beer, which I feel guilty about—and he orders a Jack and Coke, which seems wrong. But he’s a full adult now and has already endured more than I ever will. After my father died, Josh’s older cousin and closest friend, Paul, was murdered by a stranger who started a fight outside an east end bar and stabbed him. Josh was supposed to be at the bar with Paul that night, but had decided to stay home.
He’s still spinning from both deaths, he tells me.
“Your dad was like a father figure to me. That’s what I always explain to people who don’t really understand the situation,” Josh says. “He did everything for me. He always picked me up from school. Whenever anything was wrong, he always knew. When I got hurt at school he was the first one to come and get me.”
In grade five, Josh was climbing on a friend’s back at recess when he fell backwards and cracked his head. He bled everywhere, but the cut was actually pretty small. Dad left work to come get him at school. While Josh cried, Dad took a photo of the back of his head to show him that the cut was really nothing.
“He was tough like that sometimes,” Josh notes. “Tough love.”
When you knew you were doing something wrong, Josh adds, he had this look like he knew it too. I know it well.
“Rick knew exactly what he had to say,” Josh says. “Not too much. He’d say what he had to say to get the point across.”
In the evenings, Dad and Josh would always sit at the kitchen table and do his schoolwork together. Dad was the person who made him erase his work and start again if it was wrong, or even if it was just too messy. He’d buy Josh giant erasers and make sure he used them.
I didn’t realize what it had meant to Josh to have someone to do his homework with, to teach him to use tools, to pick him up from school when he’d smacked his head.
“We were like a family, eating dinner and breakfast,” Josh says. “Then we’d go out, go to church.”
The unlimited garlic bread arrives.
I don’t have a single memory of my father checking my homework, let alone sitting down to work on it with me.
Josh smiles, thinking of those frustrating hours spent beside my father over math problems. “He always used to say, ‘You’ve got to get this perfect.’ I wish I had that now.”
Christina and Josh moved back to Toronto when he reached grade nine. After that he’d return to Brampton every other weekend. His father, Trevor, and his stepmom lived there. And he’d often stay over at my parents’ house. But as he got older, he says, he made his own decisions and didn’t need to visit them as much. He stayed in Toronto, went to parties, hung out with his friends.
He pauses as his eyes well up.
“I miss your dad,” he says.
I bite the edge of my lip. “He was really proud of you,” I say. “He always told me how good you were with tools. And I wasn’t, right?”
He smiles.
“Did he teach you?” I ask. “Did he show you how to do stuff with tools? Would you ever do projects with him?”
“Tons, yeah,” Josh says. “He would also give me Lego and small stuff like that, and would kind of see how well I would do with it—not using instructions, just using my own imagination—and how it would go. I think he just kind of picked up on that.”
“He’d do it with you?”
“Yeah, he’d do it with me. Yeah, lots. But he was also just proud when I’d finish, and I’d show him…It was just small little things, but—I don’t know. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do back then. And now I do a lot more. It’s a lot more clear.”
He pauses again.
“And I don’t know,” he says. “I wish I had him here.”
My eyes are blurry.
“I wish
I had him too.”
The waiter drops off a second loaf.
“I talked to him almost every day,” I say. “You could call and just say, ‘Hey, I’m not doing great right now.’ He’d talk you through something calmly and smartly. Like, wise.”
“Yeah,” Josh says. “He wanted to listen.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” I ask.
“I don’t know, to be honest with you. One of the last times was with you. We went to that pizza place. That was a nice memory…”
We sat downstairs at Margherita Pizza, because it was quieter than sitting upstairs. Neither of us remember exactly what we talked about.
“I don’t know,” Josh says. “I wish I did.”
But I do remember the way Dad smiled at him. It was the way he smiled at me and my sisters. It was the way he smiled at Jerry, our long-time family friend, on his wedding day.
We eat some bottomless salad. Josh’s memories start spinning.
“I remember when my bike got stolen. I told your dad. In like two minutes he was dressed, ready to go. We hopped in his truck and drove out towards the Hasty Market, up the street. We found my bike right away. With a group of like fifteen teenagers.”
“Seriously?” I say. “What happened?”
“We drove straight into them. I literally thought he was going to run them over.”
“No.”
“I swear on my life. He slammed on the brakes, skidded the truck towards them, and hopped out of the vehicle. I stayed inside. Then he walked up to them—in the middle of fifteen kids, like teenagers, like young adults—and asked them where they got the bike. The kid was so scared, I could tell by how he was presenting himself. He was shaking, looking all nervous. He was like, ‘Oh we just found it in the parking lot.’ Your dad was like, ‘Yeah, okay, sure, whatever.’ He said, ‘Give me the bike.’ The kid gave him the bike. Your dad rolled it over to the back of his truck, and with one arm picks the entire bike up, puts it into the back, stares at them like this”—Josh furrows his brows, mimicking Dad; it’s a touchingly accurate impression—“and then jumps into the vehicle. And then we drove back. He didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to him on the ride home, which was just down the road. But I was like, ‘Yes!’ That was the most amazing memory ever. We never talked about it again. I don’t even think I said thanks, I was so nervous.”