Counting Back from Nine
Page 3
In the cafeteria I move slowly
as I pass the table where Morgan
and the others
are sitting. They stop talking and
look down.
I have entered a dead zone,
a pocket of silence surrounded by
a thrum of voices.
I keep moving. I try to trick myself into
believing I was not hoping for
an invitation.
I am sliding through the afternoon when
it strikes. A jolt, a flood.
I run out of class with words
pounding in my brain.
my father is dead
my father is dead
my father is dead
I am bent in half over the sink when
Christine Oakey comes in. She speaks quietly.
“I thought you might not want to be alone.”
She’s wrong. That is exactly what I want.
But the cool, wet paper towel she passes me
feels good pressed to my eyes.
“I need to go home,” I say.
She nods and says she’ll let our teacher know.
Problem
Mom is not at home.
The secretary is sympathetic but she cannot
let me leave the school without a parent’s consent.
She tells me I can go to the sick room or the library.
I choose the library and wander aimlessly until
my attention is caught by a display of student work.
There, in the centre, is a book of stories and poems
published as a fundraising project.
Mom and Dad bought one for every
relative they could think of because
one of my poems is in there.
I take it down, and flip it open to ‘my’ page.
To Tristan from Isolde
by Laren Olivier
Where your thoughts wander, my love, my own
Away and away and away
Take me there with you, leave me not
For I am a child of the moon begot
Here in the dark, with the lamp forgot
Here with a song that the faeries brought
Here, but not bound to stay.
Where your steps wander, with dreams their guide
Hillside and rock and stream
Think mine beside you, quick and free
Farther and farther, yet held in me
And deep in your heart—where the shadows flee
For what shines within you will always be
As bright as the moon’s own beam.
Where your heart wanders and finds its rest
Is the home that belongs to me,
For I dwell in safety within your hold
Trembling bravely, shy and bold
With a love that can try but can never be told
Captured on pages with ink gone cold
Steady and yours and free.
7
A memory that is still warm rises from the page:
Dad insisting that I read my poem aloud for the family.
When I finished they clapped and Mom
said it was very good. But Dad
didn’t say anything. Not a word.
His eyes were misty as he put his hands
on my shoulders. He shook his head back and forth and
his face said can you believe it? as he
hugged me to him.
Glancing down now, I see several
wet and puckered circles
on the open pages.
I look at them curiously
as though someone else’s sorrow has left these
wrinkled splotches on the
ill-fated lovers.
Home
Mom is working late,
catching up after her week off.
She says to order a pizza and use
Dad’s bank card to pay.
She tells me the PIN number is 1027.
My birthday and Jackson’s.
There is a glove around
my heart.
Squeezing.
A Different Delivery
One of Dad’s co-workers is at the door,
dropping by, dropping off Dad’s briefcase
so Mom won’t need to pick it up.
Tucked inside the soft, worn leather of the case
is a small package. Something Ordered but as yet
Unopened. Mom’s face is pale as she pulls out a
velvet box. Lifting the lid, her fingers tremble.
Mom says that my birthday is coming up. She says
This must have been a surprise planned for me.
The bracelet is beautiful and elegant and
unlike anything I have ever owned.
Here After
It bothers me when Jackson
has a question and I
don’t have an answer.
Not just because I’m older
(and should obviously know more)
but because it is hard to face the disappointment
he can’t quite hide.
That is why, when he asks, “Is there really a heaven, and
is our dad there?” I hate it that I have to say,
“I don’t know.” Which makes me
wonder why I don’t, at the very least,
know what I believe.
Mom and Dad always said we could
make up our own minds when we were older.
That is not much help right now.
Every Cloud
Morgan is coming over!
And I know—I know that
this sounds
horrible, but
this is the one
good thing
that came out of
my father dying.
It is the strangest feeling
when joy and sorrow both
have claws on your heart.
Mixed Messages
Morgan is hardly through the door
when she tells me she
can only stay for an hour.
“I promised Mom I’d do something.”
It is the “something” that hurts because it means
she couldn’t even be bothered to
come up with a convincing lie.
Not that I want a lie from her. But,
when I raise an eyebrow,
a red cloud of anger floats
across her face. She knows me
well enough to see the accusation
in this small gesture.
We stare at each other, assessing
the rules that govern what we
can and cannot say
in the frame of this new beginning.
The clock slows as
we step around our words
and I have to admit that there is
a sense of relief
when she leaves.
I push away the disappointment.
We just need to give it more
time.
Comfort Zone
When I am with Scott there is a kind of
danger lurking in me, a reckless need to
wash away the pain.
It is with him that I find
places and moments where
tears and sadness are trespassers.
Places where
reality has floated
into the air and away
and every thought, every feeling
gives way to the travelling warmth of his touch.
That is when the blurring
begins, and I am glad that
my back is pressed against anything
that is not a wall.
Drama
It is Wednesday and I am making
my way through the cafeteria when
Tessa Landau hurls herself across
the length of several tables to
put herself in my path.
“I hope this won’t freak you out,” she says,
“but I think I
was one of the last few people to
see your father alive.”
I stare, which is all the encouragement
she needs. Her face puts on a display
of sadness and she says,
“I saw the accident. Your dad was
alive then. I heard he died on his
way to the hospital.”
“You heard wrong,” I tell her.
“My father died later.
From complications.
I was there.”
I want to be sure that she knows
I saw him after she did.
“I’m glad you got to see him,” Tessa says.
Then she adds, “And I’m glad your mom
wasn’t hurt too badly.”
“If you were really there,” I say,
“you would know that my
mother wasn’t even in the accident.”
“Of course she was,” Tessa insists.
“I saw her with my own eyes. I saw them
get her out of the car and put her
on a stretcher.”
This careless lie disgusts me.
She is turning my father’s
death into a bid for attention
I walk away because I am too
furious to trust my mouth.
Counselling
Someone-who-is-not-me
has decided I should be sent to the
private psychologist who books
appointments at the school one day a week.
So here I am, sitting through
Dr. Socorro’s Psychological Sales Pitch.
“A traumatic event, blah, blah
you may be feeling blah, blah
well-meaning friends,
cannot fully understand blah, blah
isolation, blah, death, blah, range of
thoughts and feelings.”
My eyes trail around the room, lighting
without any real interest on
muted prints and paintings.
The brakes come on when I realize he is
repeating a question he has just asked.
“So, Laren, do you think that it would be
beneficial for us to meet once a week?”
My brain says, “Not even a little bit,” but my
mouth goes, “I guess,” before I can stop it.
It’s kind of pathetic, how pleased he looks.
Lucky he doesn’t read minds
or he’d know that while he
writes up my appointment card, I am
already planning my escape.
Looking In
I am horrid because
some days
I hate eating lunch
with Christine and Dee.
They are always
Perfectly Friendly. But I
am the Intruder.
An Outsider
who has been granted entrance to
a slightly foreign land.
Sometimes I watch their mouths move as
they talk or chew or smile. It is oddly like
watching a silent movie. That makes me wonder if
I’m going crazy. Maybe it won’t be long before the
student eNews has its first interesting heading.
“Girl Suffers Psychotic Break while Eating Curly Fries!”
When the House Smells Good
I know before I see her.
Aunt Rita is here.
I know from the cooking smells
and lemony cleaning smells.
My sheets are changed,
the bathroom sink is shiny,
and at dinner we will not have to
try to think of things to say to
silence the terrible echo
of silence.
Lies in my Locker
I think it must have been Nina.
Yes, Nina. Who else would make up
something this mean and write it on a
piece of paper and stick it in my locker
like a coward?
“Your father got in that accident because he was busy
with his hand up his girlfriend’s skirt.”
Test
I walk slowly past the table where my
once-upon-a-time friends are eating
their lunch. I give them plenty of
time to betray themselves with
giggles and knowing looks. I
watch to see if they huddle
together in that certain way
that friends do when they are
gathered around a secret.
If the author of that terrible note is
among them, they somehow manage
to keep from giving it away.
I am not convinced.
Socorro
I forget my first appointment, so the office secretary
buzzes Mrs. Duthie’s class to remind me.
I feel eyes following me as I
gather up my books and slink out.
Socorro’s face lights up when he sees me. I bet
he’s thinking how rewarding it will be to
haul me back from whatever ledge he thinks I’m on.
At least the chair is comfortable. I settle into it as
Socorro tells me I can discuss anything I want.
“It will be held in the strictest of confidence,
unless there’s a crime involved, in which case
I have to report it,” he tells me. “Although, I can
let you off with jaywalking or littering.”
It isn’t much of a joke but I award a smile for the effort.
When I ask what I should talk about
I am sure he will answer, “About your father’s
death, of course. That is why we are here.”
Except, he tells me, “You can talk about
anything you like.”
It feels like I am picking my way along on
spongy ground. When I think about it later,
the only thing I can remember saying was that
a neighbour’s dog has been barking at night,
making it hard to get to sleep.
Discarding Dad
Mom has thrown out or given away most of my father’s things.
She boxed it all up and sent it to Goodwill or
wherever it is that you send dead people’s clothes.
Jackson got Dad’s watch and it was like it didn’t even matter
if he took care of it. The next day he had it on
in the backyard when he was goofing around
with one of his friends.
I yelled at him to
take it off but Mom said to
leave him alone. She said it was his
and he could do whatever he liked with it.
It serves him right that it went
missing later that day.
A Visit from Morgan
Did you know that there is a
way of smiling
that says, as loud
as a shout,
“I do not
really
want to be
here.”
Locked Out
Jackson is sitting on the front step when I
get home from school today.
He is sitting there because the door is
locked.
When I join him, he gets up and
begins pacing
back and forth
back and forth
back and forth
across the driveway,
which is irritating until
I realize that he is
watching for Mom
and he is
afraid.
I want to promise him that
she will come, that
nothing will happen to her, but
the words won’t come.
When Mom finally shows up I
give her a helping of the
open, honest feelings she is
always askin
g for. And she says,
“I am too tired to fight with you today, Laren.”
Like objecting to being
locked out of my own house
is unreasonable.
Under Glass
Later, there is a gift.
Not a peace offering or an apology token.
A real gift, planned and prepared for reasons
unrelated to a locked door.
Mom taps at my door. She enters looking
nervous. Her hand clutches a frame, picture side
away from me. She clears her throat and sits
on the bed next to me before
placing it gently into my hands.
I am expecting to see my Dad’s face
but my eyes find
both of us,
a summer vacation moment
captured
when I was thirteen.
Mom and her telephoto lens had
found us in a canoe on the river.
We are paddling toward shore and although we
are not smiling, our faces are full of joy.
I cannot tear my eyes away from it.
I want to tell Mom how perfect it is
but all I can squeeze out of my throat is,
“Thanks.”
Her hand lights like a butterfly on
my arm. She smiles as she
slips out of my room.
Like all of her smiles lately, it
contradicts itself.
6
I could tell you that my father
saved my life that summer
but I won’t because I don’t know for sure
whether I would have drowned if