Trish bites her lip in thought. “Um, oxpeckers or something?”
“Cleaning symbiosis,” Leo says.
“Yeah, oxpeckers. Fuck those helpful lil’ birds. Who asked for their help anyway?” Wanda reaches for the bottle. Her fingers slide off the glass, sending it spinning. Shiraz sprays across Trish’s shirt.
“Aw shit, I’m sorry.” Wanda’s face flames with shame. Leo hops up to get a cloth.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” says Trish.
“Come on, I’ll clean your shirt.” Wanda jolts up. Her chair topples on the floor. “Fuck.”
“Okay.” Ivan stands. “Let’s give you a hand.” He puts an arm around Wanda.
“No, I’m going to clean Trish’s shirt,” she says.
“Don’t worry, my love, I’ll do it.” Trish pats Wanda’s arm and darts to the bathroom.
Wanda looks down at the table. It fluctuates and gears, then starts a slow grinding spin. Damn. “Bed,” she says. “Need to go to bed.”
Ivan guides her upstairs. She lets him bring her in the bedroom and lower her onto the mattress. “I’m going to put a bucket beside you, just in case.” He leaves the room.
She takes deep breaths. Pack off, spins. Voices reverberate outside, low and concerned. Whatever. She has witnessed every one of those people get messed up. She’s cleaned up their puke, made them hangover breakfasts. What do they expect from her anyway? Especially now.
Ivan brings her the bucket.
“I’m sorry,” says Wanda.
“It’s all good,” says Ivan. He kisses her forehead. “Sleep it off.”
Wanda peers up as he closes the bedroom door. Trish gazes in from the hallway. She wears one of Ivan’s shirts.
8
WANDA is in a pile all morning, but manages to arise before eleven. She tries not to move her head on the way to the kitchen. The dining-room table has been wiped down and the empties put away. Glad they had the sober consideration to clean up. Then she sees Ivan’s note and the pressure in her head kicks in:
W,
Gone to the airport to get Ma. There are popsicles and Gatorade in the fridge. Tsk-tsk.
I.
Oh dear Jesus, Mrs. Medeiros returns from Florida today. She grabs a Gatorade from the fridge and chugs. Her stomach gripes at first, but her parched bloodstream rings out in gratitude. Okay. Hydrate, Advil, shower, and warm up face for a day of polite smiling.
She rushes out of the shower to her phone going off. Maybe Ivan from the airport.
Text message from Nikki:
Sound of a car outside. She peeks out the window. Here they come.
Wanda rakes her fingers through her hair and watches Mrs. Medeiros approach the house. That woman has presence. Tiny, but her impeccable posture makes up for her lack of height. Her nub of a chin juts forward, a proud shelf for the soft, buttery folds of flesh underneath. From a distance, her eyes look solidly black, but when she faces you, their velvet brown emerges, like expensive chocolate with high cacao content. Eyes that can gash through your guilty conscience or make your childish heart swell. The media cleared off when Wanda committed to the CBC interview, but at this moment it would be entertaining to watch Mrs. Medeiros speak into a microphone, her responses polite, but scathing, the flash of shame on a reporter’s face.
Mrs. Medeiros meets her with a hug and presses her cool cheek to Wanda’s. “Oh my dear. I am so pleased to see you.”
“You too,” Wanda says, perhaps a little too loudly, in Mrs. Medeiros’s ear.
The woman leans back and clasps Wanda’s face in her hands. Her wrists emit Johnson’s Intensive Care lotion. “Look at you. You’re so white. How have you been eating? This stress can lower your immune system.” Mrs. Medeiros’s eyes scan Wanda’s face. Does she smell like wine? Does her hangover hang over her?
Mrs. Medeiros looks back at Ivan. “Bring my suitcase in.” Wanda meets his eyes in panic. Suitcase? Is she staying?
“But you’re going home after supper.”
“You park your car in the street, anyone can break into it.”
“Okay, I’ll get it.” Ivan shuffles back to the car, hands stuffed in pockets.
“So many break-ins with people’s cars,” Mrs. Medeiros says. “My neighbour had his back window smashed in. He had left his backpack in the car. Nothing in it! They’ll smash glass for nothing.” She shakes her head. Wanda holds the door open for her and waits for Ivan and the suitcase. “I have some fresh Florida oranges in my bag,” she says. “They’ll be good for you.”
“Again, Ma, really?” Ivan says. “You can’t take fruit across international borders.”
Mrs. Medeiros dismisses him with a wave and unzips the side of her suitcase. “Where are we going to get fresh oranges like these around here?” She pulls one out and holds it up to be admired. “They’re falling off the trees in one country and you can’t take them home to enjoy. It’s not fair.”
Wanda puts on the kettle while Mrs. Medeiros freshens up. They’ll have tea and she’ll feel jetlagged and want a nap before supper. They’ll play down the shootings. They’ll focus on putting her worries aside.
“Sylvie tells me you were on TV,” Mrs. Medeiros says. She lifts the teapot lid and peers inside, adds another teabag.
“Yes, the CBC interviewed me yesterday morning. I think it may have already aired.”
“It did. Sylvie says it’s online. I would like to see this.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Shit. For over four years, she and Ivan have avoided philosophical discussions with his mother. Bowing their heads and remaining silent during grace. Simply saying “thank you” when she says she prays for them. Afterwards, when they’re alone, Wanda usually says something like “Doing our part for peace,” to which Ivan replies, “what-fuckin’-ever.” For him, an evening where his mother praises the pope causes him to chew his tongue into a wad. If she donates to the Church, he flies into a tirade when she’s out of earshot: “I guess those sexual-abuse lawyers need cash,” he spat after Easter dinner last spring. “How can an intelligent woman not question an institution like that?”
Wanda brings out the tea tray and sets it on the coffee table. Mrs. Medeiros has sliced and proudly arranged one of her illegal oranges on a plate. Ivan sets up his laptop.
Genevieve Davey and Wanda appear on the screen. Wanda cringes as she watches herself. Her own voice is deeper than she imagined, with a tinny edge. She never realized how strong her dialect is. There is something loose at the corner of the opening to her shirt. The strap that goes over the hanger—the edge of it peeps out. “Why didn’t you tell me that string thing was showing?” she asks Ivan.
“What string? You’re the only one who sees that.”
“String thing, no difference, you look good,” Mrs. Medeiros says.
Questions about the day, the witnesses. Mrs. Medeiros nods approvingly through it all. And then the miracle issue.
“No, I don’t believe that. I mean, I don’t believe in God, so I can’t say it was a miracle. I can see how people want to think it was a miracle or magic or something, but you can explain it through science. The range of what you’re capable of increases when you’re pumped up with fear and adrenaline.”
Wanda is struck by how clear and convinced her words are. She imagined herself hemming and hawing, but she speaks with crisp assurance. Right into the ears of Mrs. Medeiros, who holds her teacup halfway to her lips. She lowers her eyelids and lays the cup and saucer down. She picks up a slice of orange and bites into it, soundlessly sucking out the juices.
According to Ivan, Mrs. Medeiros doesn’t get angry. She dwells before she delivers. One story in particular stands out for Wanda: Ivan at eleven, the year after his father died. He and some other boys broke into a neighbour’s shed. They stole a flat of Pepsi and cans of spray paint, wrote their names on the rocks by the highway in the haze of a
sugar high. When his mother found out, she didn’t speak or look at him. And she didn’t go about her normal routine. She sat in the living room with the TV off, ticking through her rosary beads in silence. It went on for days. Ivan said he did everything around the house to show he was sorry: laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning the gutters, painting the deck. He nagged her every day to speak to him. The silent treatment continued until he took up the seat beside her and prayed out loud for his sins to be forgiven.
Mrs. Medeiros mouths her orange slice. The CBC news continues; a story about the Muskrat Falls project will be up next. Ivan slaps his hands onto his knees. “Well, I was going to make a cake for dessert. What do you say, Ma, pineapple upside-down cake?”
Mrs. Medeiros nods slowly. “That would be fine. I’d like to take a nap before our supper.”
“Of course,” Wanda says. “The guest bedroom is all set up.” Mrs. Medeiros nods without looking at her and glides off to the room.
“Fuck fuck fuck, fucking hell,” Wanda hisses at Ivan.
“Please. She’ll get over it.” Ivan goes to the kitchen. She follows him and watches as he takes items from cupboards, a can of pine-apple slices, flour. “This is what she does,” he says. “She acts like she needs time to deal. What you’re doing right now, worrying about how she feels, even though she hasn’t told you how she feels? That’s exactly what she wants.”
“How can I be any other way? She’s your mother. She terrifies me.”
“What can she do about our personal beliefs? Are we supposed to apologize for not buying into the same doctrine as her? Or lie and say we agree?” Ivan twists the can opener around the pineapple can. “I spent my childhood being dragged to church twice a week. We had to say the rosary every other day. That’s enough religion for one lifetime, thanks very much.”
“Fine. Maybe she’ll be better after her nap.”
“Oh yes, that will happen.”
Wanda busies herself with supper. Roast beef and mashed potatoes, steamed greens. Mrs. Medeiros doesn’t come down until they call her. She appears with her hair neatly pinned up, like she was ready and waiting to be rung.
Mrs. Medeiros doesn’t speak until she is about two thirds of the way through her meal: “This has been a horrible week for you, Wanda.”
“It hasn’t been easy, no,” Wanda says.
“It was a great deal of fear you experienced. To see that man with the gun, to see people die.” Mrs. Medeiros shakes her head. “It would be hard to keep your faith. But you may want to reconsider abandoning God.” She gestures to the sky with her butter knife. “Sometimes it seems like He is not with us, but He is.”
Wanda swallows. She glances at Ivan. He sips his wine. “I didn’t do that,” she says. “I mean, this wasn’t a decision I made this week.”
“How long have you felt this way?”
“Oh, I would say since I was twenty or so.” Wanda busies herself sawing through her beef.
Mrs. Medeiros stares at her. “I see.” Pause. She passes a fork through her mashed potatoes. Pause. Apologetic smile. “You must think I’m a foolish old woman.”
“Not at all.” Wanda says. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s obvious. For years when we’re together, I pray, I say grace, but it has meant nothing to you. Like a dance step.” Mrs. Medeiros makes a small twirling motion with her butter knife.
“It’s not that it means nothing. I was just being respectful.”
“Dishonesty is not respect.”
“I don’t think it’s dishonest.” A lump starts its way up her throat. “I just…belief is private for me. I never told you because you never asked.”
Ivan grasps the bottle of wine and pours himself another half glass.
“I say what I believe,” Mrs. Medeiros says. “I expect others to do the same.”
Wanda speaks slowly: “So, if I had said I was an atheist…,” Mrs. Medeiros tenses up, “it would have been okay with you?”
“I’ve come to this house so many times, spoken about the Church. You’ve said nothing.”
“Because it’s my home and I want you to be comfortable. Talk about your church. Pray if it makes you happy.”
“I don’t understand why I have to find out this way. You tell the CBC and not me. The last to know.” Mrs. Medeiros touches her napkin to the corner of her eye. Ivan moves the stack of serviettes next to her.
“It’s just private for me,” Wanda says. “I think belief is whatever gives you solace, gives you peace. And this is the only thing that has ever done that for me.”
“It gives you peace? To think there is no God?”
“Yes. Very much so.” Wanda pushes her greens with her fork. “Some people say everything happens for a reason, that God has a divine plan. Something awful happens and they say, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ When I started thinking how maybe there is no plan and things happen for no real reason at all, I felt relieved. And that’s what I believe now.”
Mrs. Medeiros doesn’t respond. She cuts her meat and puts a piece in her mouth, delicately, like it might crumble. She chews and swallows. “I can see how that would work well for you, especially now, after this horrible thing has happened. After Ivan’s father died, everyone told me to talk to someone, get a shrink. So I sat in a room with a man for months, giving him money, watching him watch me cry. Always with a bad feeling about him. Something about the way he looked at me. And sure enough, he gets fired. Affairs with two patients at the same time. I said to myself, I’ll trust my gut from now on. And I went to church. That felt better for me.”
“That’s terrible. About the therapist.”
She starts to cut another piece. “I hope your belief has brought you solace this week.”
Wanda sighs. “It has.”
Ivan helps himself to more beef and douses it with gravy.
“You said nothing through all of that.”
“Huh?” Ivan presses start on the dishwasher. Mrs. Medeiros has returned to her home out in Topsail. Wanda isn’t touching a dish. Shag that.
“She talked about this with me. Like you and I don’t share the same beliefs.”
“I can’t talk about God with her,” Ivan says. “I learned that a long time ago. Believe me, that conversation went much better with you than it ever could with me.”
“But we’re together. It’s like now you’re the nice Catholic son and I’m the heathen atheist you fell in with.”
“Please. She knows I’m far from that. And if I had jumped in, there would have been more tears than that little swipe-swipe.” He mimics dabbing his eyes.
“Well then. Nice to know you’ve got my back.”
“Wanda, it would have been wretched. Did I ever tell you what she did to Sylvie? She and her friend Tina got caught shoplifting when they were like, fifteen. Ma got it in her head that it was all Tina’s fault, that she was a bad influence. Talked to a bunch of people about Tina, collected gossip, made a list of other ‘bad things’ she’d done. Presents it all to Sylvie and forbids her to see Tina ever again. Sylvie argued it up and down, said Ma was a hypocrite because she’s Catholic and doesn’t practice forgiveness. Ma wouldn’t budge. She can’t let stuff go.”
“That’s within your family though. I’m your partner.”
“Seriously, honey, it would have amplified everything,” he says. “I know my mother’s neuroses. I know her triggers. It would still be going on. You handled it beautifully.”
She glares at him. The anger prickles like a rash that burns to the bone. She cuts a big square of pineapple upside-down cake and leaves him to the pots and pans.
Before bed, she gets more cake and checks her email. Still trying to trim her inbox down to a reasonable number. Ivan has left three tabs open on the computer: one is a short article about her in The Telegram. It includes a quote from Dad: “Wanda was always brave, but she could never hi
t a target. She’d miss the dirt if she threw herself on the ground.” Gee, thanks, Dad.
The Twitter account for a Geraldine Harvey is open. Genevieve Davey mentioned her, the woman who Rumstead shot at and missed. The thumbnail shows a woman with long red pigtails, a royal-blue ball cap. @GeraldineHarv1968 has only tweeted thirty-one times, but most are from the past few days. Three have been retweeted over twenty times each. And today, she’s having a fight:
Geraldine Harvey @GeraldineHarv1968 Feeling blessed 2 b in the world. Thanks to Gods intervention for sparing my life!!! Tell yr family you love them. #praisebe
DCleal @reasonseason111 @GeraldineHarv1968 Have some sensitivity for families who lost loved ones. Not everyone is feeling so blessed.
Geraldine Harvey @GeraldineHarv1968 @reasonseason111 Im not saying im more blessed. But i know a miracle when it happens!!!
DCleal @reasonseason111 @GeraldineHarv1968 So you believe God saw YOU were in trouble & came to save YOU, but not Darcy, Ella or Michael? #saytheirnames
Geraldine Harvey @GeraldineHarv1968 @reasonseason111 I dont claim to know the mystery of Gods ways & u r rude 2 think u know! Theres no way its not a miracle!!!!
DCleal @reasonseason111 @GeraldineHarv1968 I call out smugness and lack of compassion when I see it.
Geraldine Harvey @GeraldineHarv1968 @reasonseason111 Well @JNWorkman agrees w me! We r strong & united! #workersformodernchristianity
Workman. That name was in the link Nikki sent. She fishes out her phone for the address and brings it up on the computer. The link is to a show. Wanda reads the description: “Selected clips from Joseph Nigel Workman’s channel, Keeping in Touch. Live stream worship every Sunday!” The episode Nikki sent is from last week. Wanda clicks play.
A man stands on a stage with sleek, varnished floors. His black hair is cut in a high swoop, Jerry Lee Lewis style, a headset keeps his hands free. A large TV screen behind him displays the frozen image of Wanda standing in the aisle. It seems he has just shown the video of Edward Rumstead’s takedown. The audience cheers. Joseph Nigel Workman struts back and forth in a smart, blue suit. He runs his hands through his floppy hair: “People of America, if you find yourself in doubt, if you find yourself wondering, feeling hopeless and questioning where God is in these dark times, I implore you to watch this. Just this week in a town in Canada, a miracle! You can see it!” He shakes his open arms at the screen behind him, at Wanda’s face. “God answered the prayers of the people in that store and acted through this woman.”
The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes Page 8