“Ano ito?” She flipped the page toward me with a confused look on her face.
“We have to draw a picture of what I want to be when I grow up.”
Her face twisted at the picture I had drawn: me looking up into the heavens, a choir of angels singing my praises.
“Anak, you want to be Jesus?”
“No, Ma. I want to be a saint.”
“That is not a job.” She removed her latex gloves by turning them inside out, then tossed them into the garbage bin. The fingers of the gloves were already eaten away by one service. Talcum powder outlined her nails and rashes.
“Why?”
“Well ... it’s not a job until you’re dead.”
I tried to convince her as we closed the shop and began walking our usual path behind the nail salon to our high-rise apartment. “Isn’t it a job to do saintly things while you’re alive?”
“No one pays for saintliness, anak.”
That night, as I pretended to sleep, I heard the sound of my mother’s ivory bracelets clanking against each other as she slowly made her way to my bedroom. I felt the light from the hallway paint my eyelids warm, and I tried not to quicken my breath.
This is her nightly ritual. She kneels at the side of my bed, her body grunting from a day’s work, her knees clicking, her wrists twisting to support her weight upon descent. Her calloused hands brush through my hair. It feels so good. Better than the night before. Not as good as tomorrow.
She made the sign of the cross on my forehead, the ivory cool against my skin. “Dear God,” she began. “Please let Bing live a long, happy, healthy life.” That covered all the bases: her son safe, pleased with himself, and with no tragic end, for there was already enough tragedy for a lifetime.
She quietly left, as she always does, and when the door slid shut, the room was so cold. My skin was hungry, my heart felt full, wishing she would stroke my hair all night long.
Once I awoke to my mother screaming. She was screaming and doing. Always a multitasker, my mother. Dishes and phone calls. Laundry and opening mail. But this time, she was screaming while packing. She was stuffing a fabric-covered granny cart with underwear and clothes for me and for her. It was like one task could not be complete without the other. She was a soldier screaming a battle cry before doing the deed of murder. She was escaping despite every muscle in her body begging her to stay and continue being hurt.
“Ma?” I wiped away the crusts from the corners of my eyes. Was I dreaming? I opened up my mouth to speak again. My voice was hoarse. “Ma? What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
“Weeee ... weeeee ... neeed ... to ... to ...” I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Waves of sorrow ripped through her. Every sound was a struggle. She was getting so lost in her vowels that she’d misplace the end of the word. I was worried she was going to vomit. But she kept hustling back and forth from the granny cart to my chest of drawers. Between her sobs was the slap slap of her tsinelas against the bottom of her feet. My face must have caught her attention because she paused long enough to kneel before my bed, hold my hand in hers, and look me right in the eye.
“Listen, anak. Liss … listen.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “We have to leave here. It’s no longer safe.” She buried her head in my lap and wept. I stroked her hair gently. It was wet, either with tears or sweat, I wasn’t sure.
I began nodding my head while I scrunched my face up, crying. I knew what we were doing. We were leaving Daddy. I got up, an obedient son, and began dressing in my day clothes, but Ma stopped me.
“We dooon’t have tiiime. Just put your jaacket ... jack ... jacket on.”
There was a firm knock on the door. We both jumped at the sound. Those kinds of sounds had happened all the time with Daddy. Ma looked cautiously through the peephole, then opened it.
“Hey, Bernard.” Tita Mae entered with a sad face, seeing I had already been told the news. Tita Mae, who was Ma’s first friend when we arrived in Canada, had a car and was going to drive us all the way from Moss Park to Scarborough to keep us safe. Tita Mae looked at Ma, and they held each other, both of them sniffling into each other’s shoulders. Unlike Ma’s dishevelled state, Tita Mae’s hair was blow-dried straight, and her blue patterned leggings ended with the dazzle of silver on her mule shoes. In contrast to Tita Mae, I could sense how undone Ma was, how she had been for a while since Daddy started changing.
“Is this all you’re bringing?” Tita Mae pointed to the granny cart. Ma nodded. “Are you sure?”
“We have to hurry. I don’t have time to pack more. He might be home soon.” Ma looked at the door expectantly.
“Edna. What will he do if he comes home?! He’ll have to get past me first.” Tita Mae’s Vietnamese clip of her consonants contrasted heavily with Ma’s wailing vowels. Ma wearily went to the washroom and packed our toothbrushes.
Tita Mae looked around and found my jacket. She gently placed it on my shoulders. “Get your arms in, Bernard.” She knew she was waking me from a nightmare. She had done this before: helping people escape, or escaping herself. I felt numb and did as I was told. She kissed me on the forehead and hugged me tight. “Let’s go.”
I sat in my pyjamas in the back of Tita Mae’s car with Ma. I held her hand. As we merged onto the Don Valley Parkway, Ma wailed helplessly. I continued to look out the window. I remember watching each exit on the 401 pass us, one more vein of connection severed from a man we no longer recognized.
“Edna? Bernard? Do you want breakfast?” Tita Mae held up a bag with two wrapped bánh mì. She passed it back to me. I reached for it and held it like a baby. Ma and I could not eat. I was too busy holding Ma’s hand.
Tita Mae looked at Ma through the rear-view mirror. “Edna, you can start working at the nail salon with me. I’ll teach you. No problem. You can stay with me until you find a place.” She shifted her gaze to me. I could only see her eyes, but I knew she was trying to smile at me. She was trying to tell me that we were going to be okay. She just didn’t know how, so she smiled instead.
I knew then this was not the time to tell Ma that my daddy had put my hand under the hot water tap until it burned, or that he had ordered me to hide in my room because I was so fat and ugly. I would tell her later, when she doubted her choice to leave someone so ill in his mind and heart.
CORY
Cory received the call at the RV plant on an unusually cold night in September.
Penetrating through the noise of spinning screws and the wafts of formaldehyde, his boss’s voice called him away from the assembly line to answer the phone. It was Jessica.
He took the orange industrial-strength earplug out of his right ear and put the receiver to it. “I left her in the bowling alley,” she explained. Past tense. Cory dropped the phone and ran toward the parking lot. He ran as fast as he could to the car and brushed just enough frost off the windshield to peek through it at the road ahead. It would take him a solid eight minutes to get to Island Road from Coronation Drive.
When he arrived, he made a beeline toward the Pins and Needles bowling alley, his tire marks diagonal across the slush-covered parking lot. The wooden doors were so heavy, Cory couldn’t get them open fast enough. He was greeted by an elderly Asian woman spraying bowling shoes with one hand and adjusting her dollar store glasses with the other.
“She’s over there,” said the lady disapprovingly. “Your wife just left her here all alone. You can’t do that here!”
Laura sat there, waiting as still as a statue, with two plastic bags, one on her lap, the other holding up her elbow like the armrest on a chair. She sat there, her tiny red fists disciplined around the handles, and stared into space. Thinking what? Cory wondered. He scooped Laura up and felt the sinew of her, the sheer lightness of her body, and then he held her close and tight.
“Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, nooooo. It’s Daddy. It’s Daddy. I’m here now.”
“Did you hear me?” The bowling alley lady interrupted their reunion. “You tell your wife—”
The lady quickly and efficiently repositioned a line of bowling shoes so she could lift the flap of the counter. She emerged on the other side to confront Cory, her chest puffed like a peacock, proud and ready for battle.
“You don’t leave children alone like that. She’s just a baby.”
“Get out of my face.” This greasy bitch is really asking for it.
“I asked her if she wanted chips, and she said no. She is so skinny. Take her home and feed her. Now get out.”
The lady opened the door of the bowling alley. The cold snap was in full swing. Winter blew through the lady’s bangs like a warning.
Cory swung his prize daughter into the passenger seat of his car. Now was his chance to warm it up. Get it nice and toasty; point all the vents toward his princess, and blast hot air at her. As the windows defrosted, Cory ran his rough hands, his dirt-stained hands, through her frozen strawberry blond hair and sobbed openly. Through his wailing, he blubbered, “We’re gonna pass by Timmy Ho’s and get you a hot chocolate. Warm you right up. Daddy loves you. Were you in there for long, Laura? I’m really sorry. I would have come sooner, but Mommy just called me.” He wasn’t sure how much she understood, but her gaze was steady on his weepy eyes.
It must have been either the monotonous swish of the wipers or the hiss of the heater vents, but Laura was fast asleep within minutes of finding shelter in her father’s beat-up Toyota Corolla. Her head shifted to the side, and the fabric of the seat belt pressed into the chub of her right cheek as she dreamt of blowing dandelions and making wishes spread across grassy fields. Cory watched her pink lips surrender to slumber. He needed to get a kid’s seat, he realized; better leave it for the next day. For now, sleep ... and dodging the cops, in case they see his six-year-old sitting shotgun without a proper booster seat.
He pulled into the parking lot of his apartment at Morningside and Lawrence Avenues. He undid her seat belt and unleashed her limp skinny frame on to his body. Finally. My girl. The delicious point of her chin biting into his trapezius, her hands swaying with each step he took. Cory’s boots rubbed against the stained sisal carpeting. Through the lobby, where he saw Mrs Khan carting in her groceries. Down the hallway, to the tune of the humming fluorescent tube lighting. He wondered suddenly—the elevator, where there may be arguments about the laundry room, or the stairs, where the slamming of doors echoed in the stairwell. Elevator, Cory decided. He got on the elevator with that Filipina lady who works at the nail salon and her fat son. She always held him close and averted eye contact when Cory rode up with them. Tonight was no different, despite his having a sleeping girl over his shoulder. Suited Cory just fine. He winced at the smell of fried garlic on their jackets. The doors opened at his floor to a combination of canned laughter and heavy-handed soundtracks blasting through the thin walls, the sound of televisions being watched in each household like an escape, like a babysitter in a box. Suite 367, talk show baby-daddy drama. Suite 368, renovation reality show. Suite 369, children’s cartoon. Finally, suite 370. As quietly as possible, Cory pulled out his keys, pushed them into the lock, and opened the door.
He lay his daughter on the bed face up, which made her snore so perfectly. She was the most beautiful sack of potatoes he ever did see. He removed her wet sneakers and silently placed them on the baseboard heater, despite it working only intermittently. It would have to do for now, he thought. Her pants were soaked, pee or snow, he couldn’t tell. He removed those as well, Laura’s legs like dead weights falling on to the bed with each pant leg being pulled off. Cory drew the covers all the way up to her chin and, even in her sleep, could see Laura’s relief at the sensation of dry warmth.
When morning broke, it was Wednesday. Cory was able to ask his manager for another nighttime shift, so he could get Laura registered for school.
I can do this. I can do this. Cory placed his last waffle from the freezer into the toaster, then rifled through his daughter’s plastic bags for a change of clothes. I can do this. I can do this. The toaster popped a steaming waffle from its grate. He promptly picked it up and dropped it on the counter. Motherfucker! Ow! That’s hot! I can do this. I can do this. He found another set of purple undies and had Laura step into them. He realized he had slipped the undies over her pants instead of underneath them. Fucking hell. I can do this. I can do this. He took off Laura’s pants, put her undies on, grabbed the now cool waffle, and placed it in her mouth like a dog’s chew toy. No time to brush her teeth. Don’t have a toothbrush anyway. Gotta buy that. Toothbrush. I can do this. I can do this. He zipped up her jacket, got her shoes on. Shit. She needs a bag. One of those backpacks. Toothbrush. Backpack. Got it. He took one of her grocery bags and filled it with a spare set of clothes, in case she had an accident, and a ballpoint pen. He handed the bag to Laura for her to carry.
“You ready, kiddo?” Laura nodded.
The frosty weather from the night before had dissipated into a crisp autumn morning. They speed-walked south from their apartment building on Morningside toward the school. Cory noticed Laura looking over her shoulder. When he looked behind them, he saw that Filipina nail lady and her fat son also making their way from the apartment to the school. The fat kid waved at Laura.
“Hurry up, Laura Loo. We gotta hustle and sign you up.” Cory used his arm to encourage Laura’s gaze forward.
As soon as the doors to Rouge Hill Public School opened, Cory rushed Laura down the hall to the school office.
A tall Black woman sat behind the desk with a nameplate saying, “Mrs Crosby, Secretary.”
Cory took off his snap-back Argos cap and brushed his fingers through his overgrown, greasy blond hair. He hoisted Laura up and sat her beside the desk on a wooden bench reserved for detentions.
“I’ll need you fill out some things,” said Mrs Crosby, awkwardly making her way to a steel filing cabinet with her pleather mule shoes slapping the soles of her feet. Cory rolled his eyes at Mrs Crosby’s choice of loud-patterned dress and uncomfortable footwear. Typical of them, he thought. Always wanting to be seen.
Once back behind her desk, she placed an inch-thick pile of paperwork on the counter. “Do you have her ID?”
Cory’s jaw tightened. She thinks she’s so high and mighty just because she’s sitting behind a desk.
“Jesus. I think I left it at the house,” Cory replied, not wanting to get into the details about his crazy bitch of an ex, how that welfare queen almost cost him his job, how he is pretty sure Jessica never fed Laura let alone got her a birth certificate, how he’s not sure how often a kid should be taken to the washroom, how he forgot to prepare Laura’s lunch, how Jessica made him the happiest man in the world twice in his lifetime: once, giving birth to Laura, and once, leaving Laura behind.
“Can I get back to you?” Toothbrush. Backpack. ID.
Mrs Crosby’s eyes knowingly darted between Cory and Laura. At a school in an at-risk neighbourhood, their “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was used often, usually with undocumented folks.
“Do you have any proof of residence?”
What does she think? That I’m some kind of criminal? I just want to bring my kid to school. “I have my driver’s licence.”
She looked at his name.
“Okay, Mr Mitkowski. You are in our catchment area, so she can attend Rouge Hill, and she will most likely start next week. We have to figure out which grade one classroom she will be in. When you can, can you please bring me her health card?”
He nodded, completely unsure.
“Does she have any allergies or any other health risks we should know about? Has she had her immunizations?”
He shook his head, completely unsure.
“When we have figured out which classroom she will attend, I will give you a call. Most likely, due to numbers, she will be in Mrs Landau’s class, but we want to confirm this first. Can you give me a phone number where you can be reached during the day?
”
Cory nodded and recited the number.
Mrs Crosby tilted her body to the side to smile tightly at Cory. “For now, until you hear back from us, we have the Ontario Reads Literacy Centre just down the hallway here.” She looked at the weathered Food Basics plastic bag atop Laura’s lap, her fists tight around the bag’s handle.
“And they serve food there, if you want to join them.” Another tight smile.
Those were the magic words. All the poor kids knew how to follow the smell of Cheerios to their next free meal. Cory, awakened by his purebred white trash instincts cultivated by years of food bank smarts, followed the stream of stained, ill-fitting jogging pant-wearing children to a schoolroom that seemed to host a breakfast program. You could tell these kids needed it most. There were no back-to-school fashion ensembles here. Goodwill Keds, used year round, were as close as they would get to winter boots, as close as they would get to sandals. The ends of sleeves tucked into frostbitten fists were as close as they would get to mittens, and were rolled up in summer months to fend off the heat.
Standing near the frame of a doorless cupboard filled with the coveted Cheerios was a dark brown woman. She adjusted her hijab as she took inventory of the shelved food. She caught eyes with Laura and smiled.
Fuck. A towelhead, Cory thought.
“Good morning,” she said. “Come on in. My name is Ms Hina. Did you want to come in to play?”
Cory could see that despite her smile, Ms Hina was eyeing Laura`s randomly and unevenly shorn hair. Cory had the same haircut in school after a bout of lice. It always looks like badly mowed grass. Like an emergency.
Laura stood silently by the door, her face red with embarrassment.
“We were just having some breakfast. Did you want to eat?”
Laura`s hunger pulled her away from the doorframe. Cory allowed her to enter this classroom-cum-breakfast-room-cum-daycare with a protective arm around her, trying to keep his daughter away from the smell of curry, likely from that Paki teacher. Laura squeaked as she walked toward the cupboard, her sneakers still wet from the night before.
Scarborough Page 3