by Jan Conn
A solid hour in which to submerge herself in warm, soapy water and finish If There Be Thorns felt like such luxury that making dinner and doing the dishes after would be easy.
Stacey had slept in so she had forgotten that her dad had taken one week of his holidays and had gone off fishing early in the morning. She knew he had entered the house because no one else made that much noise. Della? he yelled, but Della wasn’t home to answer. He assumed she was off with the kids somewhere and opened a beer from the fridge, plunked it down on the kitchen table and stormed his way into the bathroom.
Hey, Stacey yelled, trying her best to use her paperback as a shield.
I didn’t know you were in here, he said.
Well, I am, so please leave.
Sage stared at his daughter squirming in a foot of water, book in hand. It looked as though he were about to explain something, or apologize for the circumstance, but he stood there and said nothing, and the six or eight seconds that followed felt like hours to Stacey.
I’ll take a piss in the backyard then, he said, and turned to leave. If you don’t want this to happen, you should lock the door next time.
She pulled herself from the bathtub and locked the door. Unsure whether she could dry herself off in time to make it to the bedroom, she climbed back into the tub. She didn’t feel like reading anymore. She would wait. If she dried herself off and wrapped herself in her bath towel, then made her way to the bedroom, she would pass the kitchen where Sage would be sitting at the table drinking a beer and reading the newspaper. He may be waiting for her to do just that, but she would hold on. Her mother would make her way home, and she would bring her clothes to the bathroom. It felt like he’d taken everything in while he stood there pretending to be stunned, but maybe he only saw her book and her face, her knees above water. She would cook sausages for supper as usual, and he would have nothing but good things to say about that.
Molly the Nose had stopped babysitting after three years. Della always had more kids to look after than she did, and after a while, it felt like the effort wasn’t worth it anymore. She had enjoyed the extra money, but it left so little time in the day for doing things she wanted to do. After she stopped, they had about the same amount of money because once Sage’s Mary Jane stash ran out, he told Hart about the business proposition, and since then the two of them took a one-day business trip to Argenta every September. Sage said he didn’t want to run around dealing like he had in the past (he knew it would be an ongoing battle with Della if he did), so in exchange for a personal year’s supply, he passed the bundle on to Hart who now had plenty of storage in Fort Whoop. Anyone in town interested in buying dropped by in the afternoon and asked for a tour of the fort, and in the small version of the fort’s original Indian room, the dealings took place. Not much had changed from the early days of Fort Whoop-Up, except that they traded in weed instead of whiskey.
Not once did Molly the Nose question how they had enough money to get by. She had an idea that Hart was up to something, with so many people eager to visit the fort in the backyard, but if a more detailed explanation existed, she didn’t want to know. Besides, she made her own financial contribution with petit point, a tedious and exacting fine needle art form that sometimes took months to complete. She finished a rural scene titled Glade Creek Grist Mill first. She liked it because the scene could be viewed around Fernie. She kept this picture framed and mounted on the feature wall of their living room. Hart didn’t say much, only that it looked good. In her first year, she finished three similar pictures and took them to a gallery and sold them for four hundred dollars each. She still preferred to work on scene projects, but petit point designs that adorned purses sold better, and they took less than half the time.
For the first few years after the Howards moved to Fernie, it was Molly who poked her nose around the neighbourhood, while Hart sold insurance or hunkered down inside the house watching movies. Now, Molly didn’t get much sun, and as if they’d traded places, Hart was always outside working on something to do with his fort. Some logs had settled over the years, and the caulking kept him busy, plus one window had cracked due to the shifting logs and needed replacing. Every Wednesday Della hosted a bible study group, and Sage and Hart held a meeting of their own at Fort Whoop.
Hart loved country music, but he couldn’t play a single tune on the guitar he’d owned for a decade. Sage had been in a rock band that did a lot of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, so with Hart’s persuasion he would play, and the two of them would sing a few songs badly. Hart loved “I Walk the Line,” and Sage learned it, though the song felt like a lie. He much preferred “Oh Lonesome Me” and “King of the Road.”
If I don’t get a management job soon, I’m going to quit, Sage said. The two of them had finished smoking, and now Sage cracked open one of the two beers he had brought with him. When he wasn’t drinking, he set the bottle down on top of the Bible that Molly insisted Hart keep in the fort because, historically, forts housed an ongoing battle between the word of God and a thirst for whiskey. Sage thought it worked fine as a coaster.
What would you do then?
Don’t have a clue. This is the longest I’ve worked anywhere. I hate staying in one place.
Not many good paying jobs in this town, Hart said.
I know. There are other towns, though.
If I could do one thing over, Hart said, I would have bought property outside of town. Something near the river maybe, so I could expand my fort. I can’t make it any bigger the way it is now. I feel trapped with what I got.
When the two of them sat together, long periods of silence punctuated their conversation, and this was one of them. They often thought about what had been said or what to say next, but sometimes they simply enjoyed the opportunity to think without someone in the house wondering why they weren’t talking. Hart sported a long mustache, wild at the sides, that he’d grown after completing the fort, and it occupied the ends of his fingers.
At least you’ve got your daughter to raise, Hart said. That’s something at least.
Sage said nothing back. He knew his thinking about that, and he knew what Hart was thinking, and they shared the same thought. Sage knew he and Della wouldn’t be raising her much longer. Stacey was growing up fast. Too fast.
16
Most sundays, stacey still attended church with Della, though more for the music than anything, and she liked some of the stories, in particular the parables the minister favoured. On Bible study nights, she and Amber and a few others made sure they had something to do and somewhere to go. Amber had a boyfriend now, named Morgan, and because he played the piano, they called him Morgan the Organ. Stacey didn’t mind Morgan, but she thought Amber was wasting her time because they mostly play-wrestled while the three of them watched a movie, which meant that Stacey couldn’t concentrate, or they’d argue about things that didn’t matter to anyone but them. Morgan’s dad was a scientist and often travelled around consulting for companies. Stacey didn’t think Morgan had the brains to do that, but when she and Amber began grade nine, he started up an Environmental Club, and Amber and Stacey and a handful of others followed his lead. They started a paper-recycling program at school. Morgan took Stacey and Amber along for support when he outlined for the teachers his plans for a new way of doing things around the school. Morgan said if it takes eighty to a hundred years for a tree to grow, then we ought to use the tree more than once. His speech reminded Stacey of the previous week’s church service about the faggot of sticks. Alone the sticks could be easily broken, but together as a bundle, no one could break them. Working together, the task could be accomplished. Morgan got most of his ideas from his dad, but where he got them from didn’t matter. He found places that would take cans and another that would take glass. With recycling new to everyone, Morgan was astute enough to convince the school they could brag about their program to other schools. The members of the Environmental Club also became a menace to many because they monitored what went into the regular ga
rbage at lunchtime. Every Friday they stayed behind to bundle the paper and sort through the cans and bottles. Once Della understood her daughter’s vision, she wanted to help any way she could. Her father wasn’t as keen.
You know what happens to a can, don’t you? You leave it out in the dump, and a year later, it rusts away to nothing. Two years maybe.
Stacey waited until he stopped talking. She knew from experience to wait until he’d expelled any negativity before saying anything. This time it didn’t take him long. Her practice worked well until Sage was drinking. Then she knew to wait until morning.
That’s exactly what happens, she said. Iron oxides filling the dump where there were no oxides before, rain pushing it into the drinking water nearby and polluting rivers where the fish you like to catch need to live. New cans can come from old cans. There’s only so much of everything in the world. It’s finite. Morgan says the only things that should make it to the garbage dump are things that will rot back to earth in a friendly manner.
Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. Who is this Morgan? The second coming of Christ?
Della listened to the debate, supportive, but as usual she wouldn’t say much. Stacey wanted to suggest Morgan might be the second coming of Christ but didn’t want to lose her mother as an ally.
It took almost a month before Sage tired of resisting his daughter’s recycling ideas. The newspapers went in a large cardboard box and the cans and bottles in separate plastic pails. Once a month, Morgan and his dad drove by and picked up everything. The first time Morgan and his dad came, Sage said, they’re putting garbage men out of work is what they’re doing. Morgan stared at Stacey when he heard that. He looked at her like he’d just realized what she might be up against.
He wasn’t her boyfriend, just a boy in the Environmental Club named Hugh, a year older than Stacey and in grade eleven. One Saturday, after sorting the recycling in Morgan’s garage, Morgan invited Amber and Stacey to watch The Kung Fu Emperor at his house. His dad was away for a few days, his mother was out shopping, and it was pouring rain. Stacey couldn’t think of a good reason not to. She found the movie boring, but the boys liked it, and the storm howling outside made it almost night-time dark in the living room. Amber and Morgan snuggled together, sometimes tickling one another, sometimes kissing. Hugh took this as a signal and wrapped his arm over Stacey’s shoulder, and she didn’t mind that part. For the longest time, nothing else happened, and then Hugh whispered something in her ear she didn’t catch, and next thing she knew, he moved in and kissed her on the lips. Stacey had never kissed a boy before and surprised herself, not only because she didn’t resist but kissed him back for almost a minute. Hugh sat upright after that and seemed satisfied with what he’d accomplished. By Monday morning, Stacey felt so sick she couldn’t get out of bed let alone go to school.
Della got her to the doctor’s office to see Dr. Mesmer, a man much younger than the doctor who had examined Stacey’s rash years before. Della took this as a good sign. She thought a younger doctor had to be on top of the newest medical discoveries.
Stacey had a fever and a sore, swollen throat. Dr. Mesmer took a swab from inside her mouth and said he would send it to the lab for testing to be sure, but it appeared she had a severe case of strep throat. Since Della and Sage were not at all sick, the doctor said to keep it that way Stacey should drink from her own cup, and they should wash all the dishes immediately after she used them, at least for the first couple of days. He said strep throat could be acquired from airborne particles and discouraged any close contact. She should stay home and rest and drink plenty of liquids and make a return visit on Friday. She would miss a whole week of school, maybe more, while the penicillin went to work.
Amber dropped homework off every day after school, and she wrote Stacey notes telling her anything of interest she missed. Hugh was sick too, one note said. So sick he wanted to die.
Stacey didn’t want to die, but she didn’t feel like doing much of anything. She spent an hour each evening doing her homework and watched TV during the day. Despite being a first aid man, or perhaps because of it, Sage excused himself from the dinner table and ate in front of the TV news, which suited Stacey because it gave her a chance to have a discussion with her mother without Sage around to edit everyone’s thoughts. Della said she remembered having the chicken pox when she was younger than Stacey, how she had a fever most of the time and felt itchy in places people told her not to scratch. She had a bath twice a day and wore calamine lotion for a week. When the ordeal ended she gladly returned to school.
Stacey wanted to be at school too. She didn’t mind most of her teachers for some reason, and she liked being part of the Environmental Club. One of the assignments she’d passed on to Amber to take to school concerned the annual poetry contest that their teacher, Miss Carlson, was gung ho about. Before the week ended, Amber brought the news that Stacey’s poem had won first prize and would be published in the annual. She’d gotten lost for most of an afternoon completing her poem because she would only write it her way. She called it “Even Then.”
Even Then
gang dogs wild on snow hill
lonely as wanted dreams
segregated soulmate with
need of town folk who’d
feed this desire
in ones or twos
bitter or harsh
with nuzzle hazard maws
feet high in mica or quartz
left yips then yaps at
brazen doorstep unkind
to lonely canine hackled
friendship coated gold
Della read the poem twice and said she didn’t understand it. She passed it to Sage, and he said the poem seemed straightforward but didn’t elaborate. Stacey didn’t care one way or another. If Miss Carlson chose it as the winner, it was good enough for her.
She was glad she had kissed Hugh, even though doing it had made her sick. She didn’t want to kiss him again, though, and she had her mind made up to pull him aside and tell him that. He liked doing jars, and she liked doing cans, and that wasn’t the only difference between them.
How old were you when you and Dad got married?
We were older than most, twenty-nine and thirty-one. I was married briefly before your father and I got together, but I told you that already.
Tell me again.
I could help you with your homework. You have homework, don’t you?
You’re just stalling, Mom. I want to know about Willy.
Well, it’s what happens to young girls when they get too serious about boys at a young age. I thought I was ready to marry, and I thought Willy Hofner was ready too, but he wasn’t. Five days after he married me, he went to work on a freighter. Your dad went with him. Willy never came back, and no one has seen him since.
This Willy sounds like an idiot, Stacey said. Who would marry someone and then run away?
Willy Hofner would. Some people aren’t meant to get married. I can see that now.
Was Willy Hofner handsome or kind to people? Stacey meant was he better-looking than Sage or more understanding and even-keeled, and she hoped her mother wouldn’t catch the angle of her question.
Willy looked too striking for his own good, I think. A good-looking person carries a burden most people don’t understand. He thought about himself a lot.
So you thought Dad suited you better. Is that it? Is that why you married him?
What happens is you get used to things. Once and a while, you see two people and think how well-suited they are. People mention it when it happens. Most of the time, you see people together and you think: How did that happen? They probably think the same thing too, but that’s just life. The world has more Willy Hoffners than it knows what to do with.
Sage came into the kitchen and left his dinner dishes beside the sink. What’s all this serious talk going on here? Solving the world’s problems, are we? Who thought a lot about himself?
Willy Hofner, Della said. Stacey wanted to know what he was like.
What is it with Dad? Stacey said.
I don’t know. He means well, and he’s not happy at work, I know that. He feels trapped sometimes. You might feel that way some day. It doesn’t seem to matter where your father is in life, he thinks there’s somewhere better. He’s always been that way, and suggesting he change is like asking water to give up on running downhill.
He makes little things look big, Stacey said. Only big things are big.
You’re right about that, Della said. I think when he was young, he learned to think of big things as little, so now when he makes little things bigger than they should be, it makes big things from the past not so important.
What kind of big things?
Your dad has an older brother, Danny. He told me one night that his brother used to get away with murder. He never explained any of this until a year after we got married. Your dad had been drinking more than usual one night, and that’s when he told me everything. Their family lived in Vancouver at the bottom of a steep hill. Danny was about seven or eight, so your dad might have been five. They had this wagon they used to pull each other around on, and sometimes they would pull it to the top of the hill and tie the handle in the middle and send the wagon down the hill. There weren’t many cars on their street, but when they came down the hill, they came fast. If anything made it out on the road, which sometimes happened, the cars would slam on their brakes and leave strips of rubber on the road, and Danny thought that was fun. One night, just as it was getting dark, they tied a large teddy bear into the wagon and hid behind some bushes at the side of the driveway. Their driveway sloped toward the main road, and Danny told your dad to wait until a car was halfway down the hill and push the wagon onto the road. The person driving would think a kid sat in the wagon and slam on their brakes, hard. Your dad didn’t want to do it because he didn’t want a car to run over his teddy bear. Every time a car came down the hill, your dad refused to push the wagon, then after a time, a small car came down the hill, and Danny lined the wagon up and pushed it onto the street. The old man driving the car didn’t see the wagon or the bear at first, and at the last minute, as he hit the brakes, he tried to swerve out of the way and ran into a telephone pole and died instantly.