Stay Where I Can See You

by Katrina Onstad

  “Nobu donated the Lawren Harris,” said Elizabeth to the group.

  Nobu turned to Gwen, unblinking. “Do you like the piece?”

  “I haven’t seen it yet,” said Gwen.

  “It’s a study for a minor work,” said Nobu. “But Harris is having a moment, for what that’s worth.”

  Gwen didn’t know about Lawren Harris’s moment, and when everyone had finished murmuring their agreement about it, she asked the architect, “What grade is your son in?”

  “Eight,” he said. “I fear this place will make a banker out of him. It was his idea to send our son here.”

  Gwen was then introduced to Nobu’s husband, a younger man with blond hair and a blinking, dumbstruck expression.

  “Oh, Nobu,” said Elizabeth. “Look around. These kids are so creative. You know the Everwood slogan: ‘Building the whole boy.’”

  Nobu touched the upper rim of one lens. “Such a strange campaign. It works on the page, but when spoken, it sounds like ‘hole boy’—h-o-l-e. Which is at once vaguely obscene and slightly tragic.”

  Gwen pictured a boy with a hole in his chest, a perfect pie-pan circle straight through his tie and dress shirt.

  “What year is your whole—w-h-o-l-e—boy, Gwen, or are there more than one?”

  “Eli. He’s in Grade Five. My daughter goes to the U.” There were approving murmurs about Maddie’s school.

  “Ah,” said Nobu. “They still love you when they’re ten.”

  “And then?” asked Elizabeth.

  “And then—” Nobu put a fist in the air and opened his palm quickly. “P-chuu!” He made an explosion sound. His husband nodded sadly.

  Gwen decided she disliked Nobu. His ugly, theoretical buildings would live forever in the city for generations to walk past and rarely step inside.

  “Will you excuse me?” said Gwen, breaking away.

  She walked down the hall, through the noise of parents, feeling bereft. In a few years, she would be forty, and she knew almost nothing about Lawren Harris, or how eighth graders become bankers. She was thirsty and hot inside the cone of her big shirt.

  Looking for more wine, Gwen wandered into the library. Tables had been set up for the silent auction, and Gwen joined the parents winding between the stations, bidding on an iPhone, Raptors tickets, an evening with a prominent author. Stacks and stacks of books surrounded them, up to the mahogany ceiling beams. Gwen took great comfort in these books, running her hand along the spines and looking up to see if she could locate the top of the stacks. Doing so, she walked smack into a giant metal box, crunching her hip. She reeled, stinging, and looked more closely at the thing that had attacked her: a 3-D printer.

  She rubbed her hip where she’d hit it, and through watery eyes she saw someone waving at her, a man standing by the back wall beneath a banner: WE ARE NOT PREPARING KIDS FOR THE REAL WORLD—WE ARE PREPARING THEM TO CHANGE THE WORLD. He was in a blue suit, which set him apart: Daniel, she thought. Daniel in a suit, in a grown-up world, his hair cut short.

  But it wasn’t Daniel. The hair was curly, and the wave was her husband’s. It had finally happened: she was seeing things. She was officially a crazy lady. Gwen caught her breath and headed over.

  “Hey,” she said. “Should I bid on tennis lessons at the Boulevard Club?” It was comforting to see Seth here. She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Did you look at the painting?” he asked.

  Seth led her to an easel, and there it was, a painting the size of a magazine cover. It was a strange picture, just a few strokes away from something that might be airbrushed on the side of a van: a tiny house, trapped on an iceberg, caving at the sides. The sky in thick marshmallow slabs all around it. The ground electric blue. The iceberg striped like the pleats on a whale’s jaw. Gwen thought it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.

  “It’s just a study,” said Seth. “But still . . .”

  Gwen thought of Shadow Pines and how their life there had been, without them knowing it, a study for this one. But actually, it had been beautiful in and of itself. She couldn’t imagine how the artist’s next painting would be any more valuable than the one it grew from.

  She looked around the room, and then at Seth. “Where’s Eli?”

  * * *

  Outside, a heavy cold had descended, and Gwen zipped her parka quickly. She followed voices and an electronic hum by the clock tower. A drone flew overhead, spider-armed and mechanically falling and rising against the night scrim. Blazers were strewn here and there on the football field. In their dress shirts in the cold, a group of boys moved frantically. Some of them appeared to be wrestling, some of them kicking a soccer ball. Others were just running in all directions, screeching.

  Gwen spotted Eli because of his stillness. He stood next to a boy with a remote in his hand, their necks craned to the night sky, looking up at the drone.

  “Eli . . .” called Gwen. She could hear him talking as she moved closer.

  “I’m getting one of these for Christmas,” Gwen heard her son say. “But mine’s got 1080p video. Japanese.”

  Gwen moved more quickly.

  “Eli—”

  Some of the boys got out of her way, pulled themselves up from the field to stand, watching.

  “No offence, but this one kind of sucks,” she heard Eli say in an unfamiliar deep voice, an agonizing brag—the tone of a tremendous asshole.

  “Eli!” Gwen strode forward, propelled by two competing instincts: to snatch him up and hold him close to her; but also, to grab him by the ear, drag him like a cartoon mother with a bar of soap in her other hand. Eli looked up, bewildered. But then he saw her and grinned happily, and Gwen softened. Her transgression at the arena had apparently been forgiven.

  “Hey, Mom,” he said, excited to share something with her. “Did you see the drone?”

  Gwen remembered all the things he’d wanted to show her over the years. Small Eli: “Mom, come look . . .!” Butterflies. Sketches. A jump shot.

  She nodded.

  “We’re leaving,” she said. “Get your blazer.”

  “It has a GoPro!” He followed her quickly across the field, blazer wadded under his arm.

  When they reached the parking lot, out of earshot of the boys, Gwen turned to him. “Why did you tell those kids you were getting one of those things for Christmas? What possible reason would we have to get you one? It’s ridiculous. What do any of them even need it for? To take pictures of what?”

  Eli lifted his finger to his mouth.

  “I dunno,” he said.

  “Don’t bite your nails,” said Gwen. Eli dropped his hand. “You don’t know what it’s for, or you don’t know why you were lying to those boys?” She closed her eyes, awash in fatigue. “Why, Eli? Why would we ever buy something so stupid for you?”

  He looked up at her, and asked it as a question, entirely sincere. “Because we can?”

  11

  MADDIE

  They were high up in the bleachers, away from everybody, shoulders and knees touching. Joshua was reading and Maddie was watching him read. She couldn’t concentrate on her textbook; she’d been staring at a section about suffragettes, starting and restarting. Below them, the girls’ volleyball team ran laps in a circle, one after the other in their coloured T-shirts.

  Suddenly Joshua looked straight ahead and said to the air in front of him, “What do you think your parents will do with that money?”

  Maddie separated her leg from his.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not that much, like you said. If you’re starting a business, like my dad is, it’s not that much.” She was quiet. “And they bought that house.”

  Joshua nodded and looked back down at his book.

  She added, “I mean, I know it’s an obscene amount, by almost all standards.” She was supposed to say this often, she felt, even if only to herself. She needed to genuflect, even though a little part of her thought: We didn’t do anything wrong. Clara was born into a ho
use nicer than hers, and Clara didn’t walk around all day feeling like a half-human inside a giant mascot suit, head lolling on her shoulders.

  Joshua shut his book. “I have to go drop off some papers.”

  Maddie tingled nervously. Had they just had a fight?

  She didn’t want him to go away from her. “Can I come?” Joshua looked at Maddie, which made her think of his eyes during sex, and made her feel like she was being skinned alive, in a good way.

  “Really? It’s far.”

  “Really.”

  They took the subway and two buses to East York. The buses were filled with people, pressing against one another in their thawing winter coats, the air heavy with melted cold. A man sneezed loudly and violently on her shoulder. Joshua pulled her out of the way and mouthed, “Gross.” Maddie leaned against him, under the arm of his jacket. She looked around to see who had noticed Joshua’s declaration, his connection to her.

  They got off the bus by the side of a six-lane street. Then they walked, turning away from the traffic onto a road of high-rises.

  Susan opened her apartment door. “Come in, come in,” she said.

  Joshua spoke to her as they walked deeper into the apartment, and Maddie followed, stopping in a small living room with a large TV and a couch made up like a bed. Maddie could see inside a room off the living room: two sets of bunk beds where bodies slept, lumps beneath sheets and blankets.

  Susan shut the door to the room of sleeping people. Maddie and Joshua didn’t sit or take off their jackets. Joshua talked quickly but quietly, trying not to wake the women. As he showed Susan the papers that would help her get her children back, Maddie circled, peering in the slightly ajar door of another room. Two more bunk beds, empty and tidily made, with flowered sheets and bedspreads, the brightly coloured patterns of little girls’ rooms.

  Susan pointed to the room where the women slept. “They are only here part-time. They pay one-fifth rent.” She shrugged. “Too many people. I’m never alone!”

  The walls held photos of children and old people, formal and posed. One frame was shaped like hands praying, cupping a picture of a baby squinting on a blanket. Another was of two white girls, twins in matching pink overall shorts.

  “My first alaga in Canada, Olivia and Kate. Sweet girls,” said Susan, touching one head, then the other. She sighed. “I miss them.”

  At the door sat an open cardboard box about the size of a small refrigerator. Maddie peered inside: bundles of new socks with the tags on; a giant box of Smarties; a three-pack of men’s shaving gel; a stuffed moose with a tiny plastic hockey stick glued between its paws.

  Susan saw Maddie looking and explained, “For the family. It’s expensive to send. My new boss is bad, he stopped paying me. I owe four hundred dollar.”

  “‘He owes me,’ not ‘I owe,’” said Joshua. Maddie had never heard this edge in his voice before. “‘Dollars,’ not ‘dollar.’”

  Susan sighed. “He owes me four hundred dollars,” she said. They were all looking at the moose with the hockey stick on the top of the box.

  “Cute,” Maddie offered. “I’m sorry about your boss.”

  “It costs a hundred and ten dollars to send,” said Susan. “I have to wait.”

  The vanilla smell of potpourri wriggled in Maddie’s nose. She excused herself to use the bathroom. By the sink, beneath a mirror edged with rust, stood a row of water glasses, each with a toothbrush inside, like flowers in pots. More than the bunk beds, more than the moose or the smell of potpourri, these separate toothbrush glasses made Maddie feel anxious and sad, like she was somewhere she shouldn’t be.

  Maddie reached into her backpack for her wallet, pulling out five twenty-dollar bills, all the money she had with her. She placed them carefully by the toothbrushes.

  When Maddie came out of the bathroom, Susan offered pop and invited them to sit on the couch.

  “Stay,” she said, smiling kindly.

  Joshua looked at Maddie expectantly.

  But Maddie was prickly with discomfort, the vanilla smell burning in her nostrils. She had been in so many new places lately, around so many new people. Where were her Shadow Pines friends right now? What would Emma make of this apartment, of Joshua? Probably, Emma would think it was cool. Maddie wanted to think that, too. But the performance required to get her through the days was wearing her out. She stood up.

  “Thank you, but I have to get home.”

  At the bus stop, Joshua asked her, “Are you okay?”

  There was no way to talk about any of it, so Maddie leaned into him and said nothing. He took her hand while they waited.

  GWEN

  I didn’t hear from you. Don’t you want to see me?

  My plan is to move west. I know a guy who’s a rig hand in Alberta who says they still need people. Fourteen days on then seven days off. Good money. But getting out there costs a lot. What do you think about helping me out, Gwen? 30K could get me set up.

  I know what you got going on now and I’m guessing you don’t want me showing up. But the truth is I can’t leave unless I find some way to get out there.

  I saw Maddie, Gwen. She looks just like you. I don’t want to wreck anything for you. Can we meet?

  Gwen stared at her phone. I saw Maddie. He knows her name.

  Gwen flew to the front door. Locked. Upstairs to the kids. To Maddie’s room—empty. Eli’s door stood ajar and there was Eli at his desk, headset on, gripping a video game controller.

  Gwen asked, “Where’s Maddie?”

  Eli murmured something, clicking away. Gwen snatched the headset off, and the controller fell from Eli’s hands to the ground.

  “Mom!”

  “Eli, I need you to tell me: Did anyone come to the house while Daddy and I were away at that cottage? Did anyone knock on the door? Or come in?”

  Eli gripped the arms of his desk chair, a nervous flicker in his eyes. Gwen had become thirty feet tall, her giantess voice shaking.

  “Tell me, Eli. Did something happen?”

  “Yes.”

  Gwen froze. She waited. Why was he so slow to speak? “Eli—who was here?”

  “Nobody, I don’t think—I don’t know.” He talked fast. “Maddie was away. She was out and she said she was coming back but then I woke up and I was in the kitchen. The clock said 2:34. I had the fuzzies. Remember how I used to get the fuzzies?”

  Blood thumped in Gwen’s ears. “Yes, of course.”

  “And then I saw something in the pool. Or I thought I did.”

  “But the pool is empty,” said Gwen, dry throated.

  “I know. It was a person, maybe. Just standing there. I tried to call Maddie but she didn’t come. And I went upstairs but she wasn’t in her room. I didn’t want to tell you . . .,” said Eli, and his face twisted, on the edge of tears. “But I did want to tell you.”

  “It’s okay, Eli—”

  “Maddie told me not to.”

  Gwen couldn’t fit the pieces together. “Not to what?”

  “In the morning. She was back and she said, ‘Don’t tell Mom.’ She made me promise to keep the secret.”

  Gwen tried to make sense of this, and her son’s contorted face, his wobbling lip. He was expending so much effort just to stop himself from crying. Gwen had the thought that she needed to free him from his own containment. She crouched down on the edge of the bed, facing him.

  “You can cry, Eli,” Gwen said quietly. Immediately, a tear rolled down his cheek. She wiped it away with a finger.

  “I went upstairs and put my head under the covers. When I woke up, it was morning.”

  “That must have been scary,” said Gwen.

  “What must have been scary?”

  Gwen looked up. Maddie stood in the doorway, her jacket and backpack still on, carrying with her a plume of the outside cold. Her hair had grown longer. It hung below her shoulders, flat. Like her father’s, thought Gwen. Like Daniel’s.

  Gwen kissed Eli on the head and left his room, gesturing at Maddie to
follow. When they were in Gwen’s bedroom, she shut the door and turned to face her daughter.

  “What the hell, Mom . . .” said Maddie, thumbs hooked on the straps of her pack.

  “You left your brother alone when we were away?” Gwen asked in a voice coiled with anger.

  Maddie dropped her thumbs. Her gaze shifted to the floor.

  “Why would you do such a selfish thing? He’s ten years old.”

  “He’s eleven,” Maddie said to her running shoes.

  “He can’t be alone all night.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I fell asleep at Clara’s—I was home by three.”

  “Oh, Maddie. Stop it. You were with that boy from the park.”

  Maddie’s head snapped up.

  “What?”

  “I saw you. In the park, with a hundred nannies and a boy.”

  Gwen immediately regretted saying it: she had undermined her power by admitting to the stalking. There had been a family meeting about Gwen’s habit last year—a kitchen table intervention back in Shadow Pines. Seth had facilitated, gently saying, “You know your mother loves you, and she worries,” and “You know Maddie is trustworthy, and you need to stop.”

  “Wait—you’re still tracking me?”

  Gwen pushed ahead. “I wanted to know where you were, and that park popped up on my phone—I don’t owe you an explanation. You’ve just demonstrated that you’re unable to look after yourself yet, let alone another person.”

  Maddie glared.

  “Has anyone approached you? Or—have you been followed?”

  “Only by you, Mom,” said Maddie. She raised her voice. “I think you are seriously losing your shit alone in this big house all day. You should probably get a job or something. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen.”