dress was yellow (Grandma says orange)
with a white sash. Everyone agrees I was
adorable and the story presses forward.
The scene is set with lights and tulle
at nuptials from some yesteryear.
A handsome chap bows deep and asks
if he can have this dance with
His Best Girl.
I’m told I giggled,
suddenly shy, as I was
led to the dance floor and
twirled about in
my father’s arms.
Slowly, slowly,
an image forms and becomes
the ghost of a memory.
I will invite it to
grow and bloom until it is
fully formed,
so that someday,
the day it is needed,
I can take it out.
The Truth about Veggies
Jackson’s friend is coming for dinner and
Jackson doesn’t want Brad to know that
Jackson is back to wolfing down meat, so —
Jackson asks Mom to serve veggies and say nothing.
It sounds harmless to me, but Mom
gives him this big lecture about
being open and honest and not
trying to hide things.
As if we haven’t spent the last eight months
in the shadow of my father’s lies,
like ghosts, pretending to be real people.
Losing Face(book)
Facebook or not, I doubt I would ever have seen
that picture if it wasn’t for Nina. I know she was
behind the tagging, making sure it got to me.
Making sure I
had that image burned into my brain.
A picture of my boyfriend
Scott
with his arm slung around a girl-who-isn’t-me.
Someone named Samantha.
I should have called him the second
my insides unfroze but
I did not. Instead, I
sent him a copy of the picture
with no message, which I
expect he got loud and clear.
When he calls to tell me they were
joking around, it was nothing, I
reach out to wrap myself in
his denials because
it is only fair to give him the benefit of the
doubt. But I am on high alert now. No one
is going to make a fool of me.
That’s for sure.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
My thoughts have turned to my
mother and I cannot help but
wonder. Were there signs?
Did she suspect? Maybe there were
clues and hints and she
refused to see them.
I wish she did not feel that
she has to close me out. I
am almost a woman. And
I am part of this whether she
sees that or not.
A Visit to Aunt Rita
Time alone with Aunt Rita makes me uneasy.
She plays the confidante like a pro, drawing
words out of me like a hypnotist.
I learned this lesson for the first time when I was ten and
had my first crush. Making cookies in her kitchen,
I told her every silly thing while she
smiled and nodded,
understood and allowed.
In those moments I felt that I loved her
more than anyone else in the world.
And then she betrayed me, exposing my secret with
words and winks, playing the innocent while
I burned with shame and fury.
I have no more secrets for her and it
satisfies me to know this will always
be true. Today, I go seeking, and she
does not know that she has taught me
well or that this time her secret
will be spilled into my hands.
It is easy, so easy, when someone wants,
longs to tell. And now I have the name.
Doris Menrick.
The passenger in my father’s car.
The Other Woman.
A Random Thought on Solitude
When I was little I thought hermits
(much like goblins and faeries) only lived
in story books. Then I heard about
Gold MacEvoy, a real live hermit who went
deep into the woods on the north side of town
after a broken romance, and has been there
ever since. Rumour says he started out
panning for gold (which explains the nickname)
but liked the solitude enough to stay.
It is easy to think that anyone who went off
to live away from the rest of the world must be
more than a little odd. But there are days lately
when I am not so sure.
Socorro
I joke that if only I had known
I could have had my sentence reduced
to half time, I would have made myself
talk about The Issues
from day one.
There is a quick smile and then, the usual
serious face. “That would have slowed
your progress more than taking
your time did,” he says.
But he is pleased with me. Because I am
facing what needs to be faced.
I am pleased as well,
and not just
because I now only
have to see him
every second week.
My Father’s Birthday
Memere and Pepere are here for the first time since the
funeral. Summer came and went with phone
calls and excuses, instead of their usual visit.
But now they are here, to honour
my father’s birthday, even though Mom
pointed out the drawbacks of a late fall visit.
Memere tells us she has been asking God to help
her understand why, but so far God has not
revealed the answer. Pepere gets choked up telling
a story about my dad when he was a little boy.
Which makes the rest of us cry, too.
Mom has turned stiff and ill-at-ease
as if she is spending the day
in the company of strangers.
I see her relief when Memere and Pepere
go out after lunch, but when
they return with a birthday cake
Mom grasps a chair and sinks into it.
Memere, blissfully oblivious,
opens a package
of candles.
My eyes are drawn back to it
again and
again
throughout the meal. Perhaps my brain
is convinced that one of these glances will
find it is no longer there, was never there,
that fluffy white frosting and cheery blue trim.
I chew and swallow, chew and
swallow, chew and swallow.
Mom flees to the kitchen with the dinner plates,
when Memere brings the cake
to the table. The cellophane lid crackles as
Jackson stares and Mom becomes a
mannequin beside the sink.
Memere lights the candles, telling us, “Now
we will sing, so that Marcel will know
he is not forgotten.”
Her lip trembles as she speaks.
When all of the candles have been
crowned with flames, Memere clasps
her hands before her chest as though she is
praying. She lifts her chin and begins to
sing in a high, quivering voice.
Happy Birthday first, then Bonne Fête:
a celebration of a birthday that
will never be. When the bizarre performan
ce
is finally over, Memere
cuts the cake.
We eat in silence.
Farewell
We have gathered in the doorway.
Goodbye! Goodbye! Smiles and waves
follow Memere and Pepere as they
back out of the driveway and begin
their homeward journey. No one speaks
as the little blue car disappears
around a corner. This is not
an event for words.
The cake, or what remains
of it, disappears shortly
after they have departed.
The cake, or what
remains
of it, disappears shortly
after they have
departed.
Christine, Queen of Calm
I like how Christine spreads
her quiet words and ways
over anger and upset.
She has that rare ability to
smooth and soften
just by being.
She is the last person I expect to
tell me to stop putting
things off.
She is also the first one
who does.
A Call to Doris Menrick
She is right, Christine. My new friend.
There is not always
a right moment. Sometimes,
waiting for it to
arrive is just a way of hiding. So, this moment,
right or wrong, will be the one.
I make the call while carefully planned words desert me.
“I want to know the truth,” I tell her.
“It wasn’t the way you think,” she says.
She begins to cry. Sobs wrench themselves from her.
I hope she drowns in her own tears.
She says, “Your father was a good man.”
“I know what my father was,” I say.
“I do not need
you, of all people,
to tell me that.”
I have found the one truth I need.
Halls
Most of the time, I never notice the
sounds in the school hallways.
But there are days when
noise bounces and crashes
off the walls like thunder. It clings to
my brain. It echoes on and on.
I imagine being able to silence it:
the gossip and secrets and lies
all muted.
Confronting Scott
The Facebook picture is a festering sore that will
never heal. I cannot stop myself from
clawing at it.
It does not help that I feel an
absence in him today, even though
we are on his couch, making out. A little.
When I ask, “Who are you thinking about?”
it hangs in the space between us while he
puts on a parade of emotions.
He offers me insulted, amused, indignant —
and I know that they are nothing more than
faces he is trying out.
Anger is his last resort, as though he can
bully me into
believing him.
“You sound like Nina,” he says, and I
can no longer turn away
from the truth.
I should sound like Nina.
I have taken her place.
It is time to stop
pretending, to stop
deceiving myself.
I remind myself that it was
innocent, that nothing really
happened, but I was there. I know
the way he stared into my eyes while she was
at his side. There were signals and messages as clear
as words, and they were sent
from two sides of the table.
Confronting Me
I tell myself that I must find the truth, but I do
not think I will get it and I am unsure whether
an admission or a denial will hurt me more.
The thought comes
that I should break up with Scott.
I push it away.
I have sacrificed for this guy,
given up friends, faced social scorn.
He has to be worth the choices I made.
I cannot let myself think anything else is true.
At home later, I crawl into bed, completely exhausted.
The night is dark outside my window—dark and
lovely with white, glittering stars.
Lucky stars, far, far away.
Socorro
It is near the end of today’s session when Socorro
tells me he doesn’t think I need to see him anymore.
When I realize he means it (as if he might have
become a big jokester overnight) I cannot find
anything to say. He waits, as he always does, and I
summon a lame joke about how I will miss
the comfortable chair. There is a
faint smile before he tells me I have
done really well and that I can
make an appointment any time
I think I need one.
All these months I’ve been complaining about
these appointments, and now it
hits me that I really haven’t minded. It’s been
good to have a safe place to talk.
I leave with an odd feeling of sadness and
something unidentified
but good.
Chick Flick
Drowsiness is slipping its arms around me, which I hope
will go unnoticed. Christine and I are at Dee’s place watching
“The Notebook” but my eyes have grown so very, very heavy.
If I could close them, even for a moment or two
without anyone noticing
and lobbing popcorn at me—
Dee’s arm thumps into my side but she is not trying
to wake me. “I love Ferris Wheels,” she proclaims,
breathless as the big ride turns on the screen.
And a memory nudges me as surely as her
elbow has just done.
2
I am at my father side, waiting proudly in
line for my very first ride on the Ferris Wheel.
I glance at Jackson’s stroller where he sits
blue and sticky with cotton candy and
my happiness lets me pity him.
Poor little guy, missing out.
A worker clicks a metal bar in place, tugs it for
good measure, and we begin to rise. But something is
wrong. It is not magical, wonderful, thrilling,
the way I have imagined.
It is horrifying and frightening and
I am sure I will vomit all over myself because I am
too afraid to lean forward.
The horror holds me firmly until an arm
folds me against my father’s chest and his
voice reaches through my terror.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you. Just close
your eyes and breathe slow and deep. In and out and
in and out and in and out. You’re doing great.”
I remember the circus smells that day, drifting
blending, beckoning. Hot dogs and fried onions.
Popcorn and ice cream and candy. Even the grease and
metal of the rides. But best of all was the
scent of a freshly ironed shirt.
Wounding Mom, Wounding Me
They come out of nowhere. No, that is
not true. They come out of anger,
out of pain, out of some black and
evil place where Self is all. Words
I can never take back, sent out to attack
in a fight I cannot even remember.
“No wonder Dad had a girlfriend.”
Strange
how they turn back to stab
at me.
Before she begins to speak, I am already
condemned.
“Is that what you really think, Laren? Is it?
Because the truth is, you don’t know
anything about it. Nothing.
Whatever your father did
or didn’t do, was his choice.
I will not be accused or
blamed or held responsible
for his actions.”
I think she is finished but before I can
slink away, she adds, “And just so you
know, I do not intend to discuss this with
you or anyone else.
Not now and not ever.”
Sooner than Never
Even though she said, “Not ever,” she comes
to me only hours later.
She comes with an announcement.
There is one thing she wants to say.
One thing she wants me to know.
I wait in silence while she struggles for
composure. When she speaks, her
words sit still in the air.
“This does not have to affect you, Laren.
If he was running around, it was on me.”
It amazes me how little she
understands. Does she really think I can
go along when everything I’ve known and
believed and trusted
about my father
has crumbled into dust?
Letter to Dad.docx (continued)
Sometimes I feel so bad for Mom. She’s doing her best, even with all the things she never had to handle before, but it’s not easy for her. Like, last week—she got ripped off by some guy who was supposed to clean out the gutters. He asked for half the money up front, supposedly for materials, and then he never showed up. Jackson tried to persuade her to let him do it, if you can imagine.
Counting Back from Nine Page 7