This Is Not My Life

by Diane Schoemperlen

  I did a brief modelling session in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Maggie and Nelly jumped around joyfully, expressing their exuberant doggy approval. The cats ignored me, as cats will do. In recent years, Alex had grown accustomed to being asked for his opinion on my wardrobe choices, and he was hardly surprised when I came out of the bathroom and pirouetted around the kitchen in my new finery. He nodded his approval and said with a grin, “Don’t worry, Ma. You’ll be the prettiest girl in the prison!”

  I hung the dress in my closet and tucked the sandals back into their box, pleased to discover that the tiny gold lettering stamped into the blue inner sole just below the brand name said DYNAMIC SUSPENSION. This was, after all, Shane’s post-suspension hearing, and I was indeed feeling quite dynamic.

  I have frequently been guilty of this in my life—guilty of searching for and finding signs, portents, connections, and significance where, in fact, there are none.

  THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY was my regular weekly appointment with Louise. The hearing would take place on Friday. I’d been counting the days for weeks, and now it was down to a rather alarming three. Just before leaving the house, on impulse I packed up the dress and the shoes and took them with me. When I came barging into her office with my shopping bags in hand, Louise raised her eyebrows in surprise. I spread everything on the conference table in the middle of the room. Short of staging a full-scale modelling session, I put on the fancy sandals, held up the dress, and struck what I hoped was a fetching but serious pose. Louise agreed that the outfit was perfect.

  We spent the rest of the hour going over the details of preparation for the hearing. Again. If Louise was ever bored or impatient with my incessant and obsessive need to keep going over things, she humoured me kindly and never once let it show. For that I was grateful.

  She warned me that because Bath was a medium-security prison, there would be many fences topped with razor wire, as well as a series of large metal gates slamming shut behind me as I went in. She said I might find this unnerving. I said yes, I probably would. She cautioned me to be careful with the Ativan, suggesting I take only half a pill beforehand, for fear I might fall asleep at the hearing. I laughed out loud. I’d taken Ativan before. In this case, I figured there wasn’t even a remote chance that taking a whole one might cause me to nod off.

  She worried about me driving home alone afterwards. Angela had offered to pick me up and drive me back, but I had politely declined. I preferred to be alone. Louise said two or three times, as she’d said during other appointments about other issues, “Let yourself feel what you’re feeling.” In this case, however, she added a cautionary codicil: “But not until you’re safely home.”

  All too soon, our hour together was over, and I was packing up my shopping bags and heading for the door.

  Louise asked, “Are you ready?”

  I said, “Yes, I’m ready.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  And I truly thought I was. I thought I was ready for anything.

  I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AFRAID OF THUNDERSTORMS. I’ve never understood those people (like Dorothy) who actually enjoy them, greet them with delight and revel in the spectacle, standing at the window or going out on the front porch to get a better look. I’ve never quite believed those people (like Shane) who, after a dramatic crashing storm in the middle of the night, insist they slept right through it, never heard a thing. I’m quite sure I have never slept through a thunderstorm in my entire life, not even when I was wearing earplugs to try to block out Shane’s relentless high-decibel snoring.

  I know I’m not the only person who has carried this fear forward from childhood. I heard recently on the radio that 10 per cent of the adult population has a fear of storms, yet I’ve never met anyone else willing to admit it. I tell myself my fear is childish, silly, probably neurotic, but calling it names doesn’t make it go away. Even calling it by its scientific name doesn’t help, the fear of thunder and lightning being astraphobia, not to be confused with astrophobia, the fear of stars. I am not afraid of stars.

  I blame this fear on the fact that I grew up in Thunder Bay, a city that lives up to its name. It seems to me now that throughout my childhood, violent thunderstorms were always rolling in over Lake Superior; the power was always going out; lawn furniture, garbage cans, and shingles were always being scooped up by the wind and deposited three blocks over; and houses all around ours were always being hit by lightning.

  We took thunderstorms seriously in my family, and from an early age, I was taught to take precautions. Unplug the TV. Get out the flashlight and the candles. Turn off the lights in case there is a surge when the power comes back on. Don’t talk on the phone during a storm. Stay away from the windows. Also stay away from water, including the kitchen sink, the bathtub, and the toilet. All these years later, taking these precautions (with the additional step now of unplugging the computer) is a reflexive ritual I’ve often been teased about. Sometimes I make fun of myself too, so nobody will think I take it all seriously. But in fact, I do.

  Thunderstorms were in the forecast the day before the hearing. As if my anxiety level wasn’t already high enough, by noon we were under a severe thunderstorm watch. By mid-afternoon the watch in our area had been upgraded to a warning. Having been plagued by persistent weather anxiety for so long, I was well aware of the difference between a watch and a warning. A watch means conditions in your area are favourable for the development of a severe storm, and you should be paying attention. A warning means severe thunderstorms are imminent or occurring in your immediate area, and you should take cover if you see the storm approaching.

  As the day wore on, I wasn’t accomplishing much of anything. Mostly I was indulging in a time-honoured anxiety-discharging activity, the propensity for which I inherited from my father: I was pacing. My father’s pacing annoyed my mother mightily, but Alex wasn’t home to be bothered by it, and while the dogs paced with me, the cats slept on. Sometimes I paced in my new sandals, practising my walk in those three-inch-high wedge heels. My circuit included stops at every window to check on the darkening sky.

  When I did sit down, it was in the living room in front of the TV, torn between unplugging it and torturing myself by watching the progress of the storm front on the Weather Channel. They were doing their usual “Storm Watch” coverage featuring an ominous throbbing soundtrack and full-screen red warnings. An attractive woman in a pretty sleeveless summer dress gesticulated vigorously in front of several different radar maps as she tracked the storms raging across the province. Large blobs that were yellow on the edges, then orange, then deep red in the middle changed shape like malignant amoebas as they moved across the screen, each one of them heading directly towards Kingston.

  The weather woman became increasingly animated. I couldn’t tell if she was alarmed or excited, and I could no longer distinguish between my parole hearing anxiety and my storm anxiety. They had leaked all over each other and mutated into a solid front, much like those blobs on the radar maps.

  Just after four o’clock, the first tornado touched down in Durham, about four hundred kilometres due west of Kingston. An eleven-year-old boy was killed. For the next two hours, tornadoes ravaged through towns and cities to the west of us. I was well beyond pacing now and could do nothing but sit in front of the TV. By six o’clock, there was thunder and lightning in the near west, and it had started to rain. The severe thunderstorm warning was changed to a tornado watch, then abruptly upgraded to a tornado warning. The screen was now showing the list of what to do in the event of a tornado. Take shelter in the basement or an interior room. Stay away from windows. Get as close to the ground as possible. If driving, don’t try to outrun it. If outside, take shelter in a ditch.

  An instruction I’d never seen before appeared at the bottom of the list: Avoid the instinct to help. Even at the time, it occurred to me that I could have used this sage piece of advice three y
ears ago when I first met Shane.

  A new weather woman took over, her demeanour grim as she narrated the footage of the destruction that had already occurred. She sounded genuinely shocked as she announced that ten million people were now under a tornado watch or warning as the storms continued to roll through. Over and over again, she said, “Go to the basement.”

  I don’t know why I didn’t go to the basement. Even without her repeated admonitions, I already knew that would have been the best thing to do. But the idea of being down there by myself and not being able to see what was happening was more frightening than the prospect of sitting on the couch while the roof blew off and the walls collapsed around me. Whatever was coming to get me, I wanted to see it first. Fear, like love, is not famous for its rationality. Nor am I.

  Instead of going to the basement, I went to the kitchen, fed the animals, took an Ativan. Then I returned to my post on the couch, where I remained planted for the rest of the evening, watching the coverage, waiting, praying, smoking, and clutching my flashlight.

  I kept thinking that if a tornado did hit us, then maybe the hearing would be cancelled. That at least was something to hope for. Then I realized that probably one of the safest places to be during a tornado would be a prison. The rest of the city might well be flattened, but the prisons, I imagined, would be left standing stalwart and unscathed.

  Alex was at work, serving up pasta, pizza, and prime rib for those intrepid diners who weren’t about to let a little thing like a provincewide tornado warning ruin their evening. He called several times to check on me and to assure me that he was okay. For him, I gladly disobeyed the injunction against telephone-talking during a storm.

  By late evening, all watches and warnings for Kingston were finally dropped. We had been spared.

  I was so exhausted from my own anxiety that after one more phone call from Alex, I went to bed and fell asleep quickly, without any of my usual prolonged insomniac flopping around.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I WOKE UP MUCH TOO EARLY, drank coffee, and looked at the pictures of the tornado damage in the newspaper. Nineteen twisters had touched down across the province, making it the largest single-day tornado outbreak in Ontario history. How was it that I did not take this as a sign of what lay ahead?

  I had a bath, fussed with my hair, and put on my new outfit. I took an Ativan, got in the car, and drove to the prison. I hadn’t seen Shane in eight months, hadn’t spoken to him in just over seven. I had counted this out on my fingers many times.

  Angela was waiting for me in the parking lot, and as we walked across the road to the gate, she admired my outfit, especially my shoes (which were giving me some trouble on the uneven gravel), and commented on the morning’s clear sunny skies, such a contrast to yesterday’s drama. She didn’t ask me if I was okay or if I was sure about going in. I was glad of that, because I was not okay and I was not sure. But I was determined to do it anyway.

  We stood in silence at the gate. As Louise had predicted, I found the sight of all the fences topped with razor wire unnerving. Apparently of its own volition, the twelve-foot-high chain-link gate began to grind open before us, slowly and noisily, with much clanking of its metal parts. We stepped through the opening into the sally port and stood facing a second identical gate as the first one slid closed and clanged locked behind us. Then the second gate opened, and we walked out on the other side. Or rather, we walked out on the inside. Now there was no way out.

  Angela led the way to the building through which we would enter the prison. If I’d thought it was appropriate, I would have held her hand. Once we were at the door, I could see inside to the control centre, where a guard pushed a button to unlock the door. After the first door, we were faced with a second. We waited in the small compartment between while the first door locked behind us, then the second clicked open, and we could proceed. This entry area was small and quiet, not at all like the open horseshoe and bustling entry area at Frontenac. There was a bank of small metal lockers against one wall. Angela and I put our car keys in one of them. We showed our ID and paperwork at the desk. We walked through the metal detector. A guard led us down a hallway to an empty room, where we waited for a few minutes, me pacing anxiously, Angela sitting quietly.

  The guard returned and took us to the hearing room. We sat in two chairs against the left wall as he indicated, then he took the seat beside me. The two Board members, one male and one female, were already seated at their table and the hearing officer at hers beside them.

  Everyone else came into the room through a different door. A pinched pounding started up in my heart. I hardly recognized Shane. I was shocked by how much older he looked, how broken and sad and defeated he seemed. He was pale and walking with a cane, had grown a moustache and shaved his head. He was wearing the bright pink striped polo shirt I’d given him for Christmas, not last year, but the year before. He sat at the far end of the long table facing the Board. From where I was sitting, I could only see the side of his face. He did not look at me. He was joined by Jerry Anderson; his Bath parole officer, Deirdre Lang; and his lawyer, serving today as his assistant. Stuart from LifeLine was there too, sitting in a chair behind them. There were two more Parole Board staff members in chairs beside him. This made thirteen people in a small windowless room.

  No one looked in my direction. For a moment, I thought I must be invisible. Angela was the only person in the room who seemed able to see me. Maybe I wasn’t there after all. Maybe I’d chickened out at the gate and gone home. Or maybe there was a tornado last night, and it had picked me up and carried me away. Maybe I wished it had. Mostly I wished I had another Ativan.

  After the hearing officer went through the preliminaries, Jerry Anderson described the situation briefly, referring the Board to his lengthy report for the details. He said he was recommending revocation. Deirdre Lang gave a positive report on Shane’s behaviour since he’d arrived at Bath in February. She said his tendency to become tearful during interviews led her to refer him to Psychology to determine the level of his emotional stability. They reported no concerns. In summation, she said he had been “a model inmate.” That term again.

  Noting that Shane had appeared before him several times over the years, the lead Board member began his questions. He referred back to the October hearing, at which the Board had put great weight on our relationship and on me as Shane’s primary prosocial support. But, he said, our relationship was not as solid and stable as we had portrayed it. If the Board had been aware of the true situation, he said, they would not have granted full parole. This was contrary to what Dr. Quinn had said when he tried to dispel our belief that Shane’s chances of getting full parole were contingent upon our relationship. As I heard it, the lead Board member was now confirming that this was indeed the case.

  He went on to discuss Shane’s lack of honesty with Jerry Anderson about Brandy coming to stay after Christmas. Shane admitted that yes, he had invited her to come, and no, he didn’t tell Jerry until later. He still maintained he didn’t have sex with her. He said he was going crazy in that awful apartment all by himself, that he just needed someone to talk to, that he was a basket case at the time. That term again. I wondered if the Board members knew about those limbless First World War soldiers.

  The lead Board member reviewed the details of Shane’s arrest by the ROPE Squad and asked him why he would have told them he had a gun unless he wanted them to shoot him. Shane said it was just a stupid sarcastic remark.

  As the interview continued, the lead Board member pointed out several times that Shane was an emotional wreck, and the hearing officer passed him the Kleenex. Shane said he was the Rock of Gibraltar now compared to how he was when everything fell apart.

  They discussed Linda Porter, the woman he said he had given his apartment to, the one he had also insisted he never had sex with. He now admitted that he’d had sex with her on New Year’s Eve, but that was the only time. He did not tell Jerry this either.

  The discussion meandered around for
a while, then got back to our relationship. Shane said he’d been accused of controlling me through housework. After saying that I was the first woman he’d ever truly loved, he then said I wouldn’t let him do the laundry because I said he might shrink my pants. It was all I could do not to jump up and shout, “You did shrink my pants!” I wondered how many times laundry had been raised as an issue at a parole hearing.

  He said he was flabbergasted when the relationship ended, that he had thought we could work things out. He made it sound as if breaking up was all my idea and didn’t mention that he was the one who’d said he wanted to move out. He said he’d never seen a good relationship in his life except at a distance, that he couldn’t build one in prison and didn’t get enough time to build one out there.

  The female Board member pointed out that Shane had to take responsibility for his own behaviour and must develop tools to ensure he didn’t make the same mistakes again in the future. He agreed. She said he needed to regroup and get a better picture of his own needs and expectations. He struggled to reply that he’d thought he could overcome everything by himself, that he knew now that he should have asked for help.

  Shane’s lawyer spoke next, agreeing that he needed to regroup and achieve a level of emotional independence. He pointed out that love is always stressful and emotionally risky, and that for Shane, the failure of our relationship had been devastating. He said Shane had always been sincere and thoughtful, never hostile, when he talked about me, had only been appropriately sad and regretful in response to having his heart broken.