In Between Dreams

by Iman Verjee

  ‘I’ve been trying to get him to clean up since I got here.’ They shared a look of loving amusement. ‘Maybe he’ll listen to you.’

  Marienne was feeding Frances, wiping her chin gently with the bib. ‘I’ll make sure he does.’

  ‘Good thing I convinced you to come back then,’ his mother winked at his wife.

  He stopped eating, put his fork down. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your mother came to see me,’ Marienne said, putting the plastic spoon on her plate. ‘Just after we spoke, a few days before you left Edmonton.’

  ‘How did you know where she was?’ he asked his mother.

  ‘I was staying with an old friend of hers,’ Marienne answered. ‘I went to Toronto for a while after I left here, lived with my parents. But you know how they are,’ she gave a short laugh. ‘So when I found a job back in Edmonton, I didn’t think twice. And Mrs. Buchanan offered me such low rent, it seemed perfect.’

  ‘I’ve known Susan for years,’ his mother said, referring to Mrs. Buchanan. ‘I knew Annie was living there the moment she stepped in the house.’

  ‘You should have said something to me,’ he said.

  ‘I thought I would leave that up to Marienne,’ she told him. ‘I know how much she loves you and besides, what does it matter now? Look at how well it’s all turned out.’

  ‘She reminded me that we’re family,’ the thin, elegant hand reaching under his, intertwining their fingers. ‘How much we could have together.’ Marienne spooned up some more food for Frances. ‘I was hesitant at first but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t want to hate you for the one thing you’ve done wrong.’ She kissed his wrist. ‘I wanted to stay with you for everything else you’ve done right,’ and he was sure he had never loved her more.

  So the next day, a Saturday, they threw back the curtains and kept the windows open all day. He read the newspaper while they cleaned and dusted and steamed; made them sandwiches after they had covered the beds with new sheets and thrown away whatever items they found that weren’t needed. He didn’t know how Marienne felt, finding little parts of Gina around their house, but at one point, he saw her holding Gina’s hairbrush over the trash-can, foot on the pedal and a mean, little smile on her face. He laughed when she dropped it in and said ‘bitch.’

  And then she clapped her hand over her mouth as Frances wobbled around her, looking up at him. ‘I have to learn to watch my mouth.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ he said, because they both knew she was one of the softest spoken people.

  In the afternoon, Marienne decided to re-establish herself in the neighborhood. James went with her from house to house, daughter in tow, apple pie in hand.

  ‘Marienne.’ Lynn at the door, a three-year-old baby boy’s fist clutched in her hand and another baby wailing on her hip. She looked haggard and drawn; long gone was that shiny-faced young woman who had dropped into his couch, expecting something much more but also a little less than what she had now.

  ‘Hello, Lynn.’

  ‘How are you?’ She looked in surprise from James to Marienne and then her eyes landed on Frances, who was holding onto Marienne’s hand and smiling up at her. Lynn hesitated and Marienne pulled Frances closer.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Marienne asked innocently, but there was a subtle pointedness to the question and Lynn quickly shook her head.

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Here’s an apple pie. We really should get the children together some time.’

  ‘Right.’ Lynn took the pie and James tried not to laugh at her expression.

  It was the same at every house; she greeted them like she had only gone on a long holiday and had now returned home. When they inquired how she was doing, their glances inevitably drawn to Frances, darting uncomfortably between the three of them, she shrugged and said she was doing fine, as if she didn’t understand the reason they were asking. ‘Just love spending time with this sweet angel,’ swinging Frances’s small arm. ‘You have met Frances, right?’ and if they hadn’t, she held the girl up and let them shake her hand, knowing just as he did, it didn’t take long to fall in love with their daughter. Her nonchalance, her stubborn refusal to say what they were all waiting to hear from her, made them shrug their shoulders and close their doors. And as soon as the first, hot, sweet taste of apple pie bit their neighbors’ mouths, they were James and Marienne again, just as they had always been, and the silent agreement was accepted and understood. After all, no one wanted to dwell on the past.

  Later, the four of them sat around the dinner table. They turned on the radio and drowned the house in music. They filled their glasses with wine and Frances’s with apple juice, and heaped the delicate china plates they had received as a wedding present, with his mother’s roast. Carrots, parsnips and new potatoes garnished the bird, all dressed in brown gravy and they shoved their forks in their mouths and waved them around in the air and kept talking even though they couldn’t hear each other, and he saw that he had been wrong. Having a family was not about security; it was not about keeping him in check or protecting his daughter. It was not a superficial cover to put the rest of the world at ease. When he looked at the two women across from him, he knew it was about something else but he couldn’t form the thought into words. Something that big, that precious, it would take lifetimes to understand.

  The elasticity of a two-year-old mind astounded him. Malleable and willing, they snuck Marienne into Frances’s past and established her there.

  ‘Mother,’ he said, pointing at Marienne every evening after work. ‘What did you and Mom do today?’ and Marienne stared at her hopefully and tried not to be disappointed when Frances went back to banging the flat of her spoon against the corner of the bowl.

  ‘It’ll take some time,’ his mother tried to be encouraging. ‘It took her two weeks to finally recognize me and even then,’ she laughed, waved her hand, ‘she calls me Bubbie, can you imagine that? I don’t know where she got the idea!’

  It was two months later when they heard it. It was snowing and they were going shopping. Marienne was buttoning up Frances’s coat. ‘Put your boots on, honey, we’re going outside.’

  ‘No.’ Frances stamped her feet, her cheeks red and her small mouth pouted in determination. ‘No, Mom.’ The word was slurred and new but there was no mistaking it. Marienne’s head jerked up toward him and his mother. What did she say? Surely not, surely not, all three of them open-mouthed and disbelieving. ‘No Mom, no Mom,’ and Frances stamped her feet and looked right at Marienne when she said it.

  By the age of three, he had lost his daughter to his wife. At dinner, in the car, she cried if they were even a person apart. He would come home to them lost in their own world; Marienne was always trying to teach her a new word, a new game, but even as Frances took her twentieth step, her hundredth step, Marienne squealed and celebrated along with the girl as if it was the first time she was doing it. ‘Well done, my darling. What a clever girl you are!’ grabbing her around the waist, lifting up the shirt, pressing her lips to the stomach, brrrr, vibrating her lips against the soft, white skin until Frances cried with laughter and tried to twist away. When they all settled in the living room after dinner, he would watch the news and Frances would crawl into Marienne’s lap and fall asleep there, against her beating heart, and he would lean back into the couch, the world’s problems forgotten and watch them together. The happiness he felt almost broke him.

  Two years later, they took Frances to her first day at school. The three of them stood leaning against the car, crying and smiling as she waved back at them, her hair in a side ponytail and a brand new, neon purple, Ninja Turtles backpack hanging loose over her shoulders, and ran up the stairs into the building.

  ‘Never afraid of anything, is she?’ his mother had said when they slipped back into the car. James turned the ignition on and couldn’t help smiling like a boy at Marienne.

  ‘God, I love her,’ Marienne said in a rush and they all laughe
d and agreed and turned to look back even though she had already gone.

  Life continued to pass in this blissful, easy manner. He grew closer every day to Marienne and to his daughter whom he adored and did everything for. He taught her how to play baseball in the garden, as his mother and Marienne lounged, clapping and cheering and sipping their tangy lemonade. Sometimes, they asked their neighbors over, invited them to share in their happiness and it was on these endless summer days, when the sun refused to set and people lingered until early morning in his garden, that he truly felt complete. He watched his beautiful wife move in between people, her face tanned, a shine at her cheeks, and felt proud for what he had. He saw the way the men turned to look at her as she glided past, noticed how the women flocked to her, asking for advice and whispering silly gossip into her ear until she was reduced to loud giggles and exclamations of surprise. He saw that he wasn’t alone in noticing the special bond Marienne and Frances had. The way, amid all those bodies, the girl always seemed to find that searching hand, pushing her tiny fingers into responding ones. The way she fit perfectly against Marienne’s hip, her head cradled against the soft, black hair, thumb in mouth. He knew there was no way anyone could mistake the look on Marienne’s face; the red blush of pleasure and gratitude every time Frances sought her out. And he saw the way people were touched by this, and how quickly the gossip stopped. Gina had no place in that garden; she had lost claim over this wild-haired child with the sea-blue eyes. Frances belonged to Marienne and eventually, people forgot that it had not always been that way.

  Some evenings, mostly on weekends, his mother would babysit Frances and James would take Marienne out, sometimes with their friends and other times, alone. They would sit across from each other in candlelight, reminisce and tell each other stories they had told each other hundreds of times before. And he felt what he had always felt before; a connection so deep toward her, a lurch of gratitude swelling in his gut, for in her own way, she had saved him and given him what he had always wanted. And at the end of every date, he would stop her outside and give her a long kiss, hold her close and think that what he was feeling for her came closer to desire every day.

  They threw Marienne a lunch when she turned thirty-five and invited the whole neighborhood. It was too cold in November to have a barbeque, so early that morning they pushed all the sofas and coffee tables in the living room to the side and used the dining table as a buffet table.

  By twelve thirty, the whole house was full of noise; chairs scraping back and forth as people got comfortable, the occasional loud voice rising above the hum of all the rest, glasses being set down on tables as people stopped talking to greet each other. Marienne came down with Frances in front of her and he stood before them and couldn’t believe his eyes.

  ‘Here come the two most beautiful women in St Albert,’ he had said.

  ‘Mom let me put ribbons in my hair.’

  ‘So I see.’

  Her hair was done up in its natural waves and a blue bow pulled it back in a half pony-tail. It was how Gina had used to wear it; drawn back from her face and she looked more like her today than ever and he hoped Marienne, or anyone else, would not see it.

  ‘It’s old-fashioned, I know,’ Marienne whispered in his ear, mistaking the look on his face. ‘But it’s what she wanted, and you know how she is about things she wants,’ and they grinned lovingly at each other.

  He tried not to notice that the dress, which they had bought three months ago, now fit her perfectly; the double straps on the shoulders sat taut against her soft skin and the hemline, decorated with white flowers, danced around her knees. A sneaky memory was fluttering its eyelids open and as she swayed from side to side, to show him the bell-effect of it, it stretched and smiled.

  Marienne left them together and disappeared into the living room, where she was greeted by several shouts and someone’s high-pitched, already drunken rendition of ‘Happy Birthday.’

  ‘Bubbie’s calling you into the kitchen,’ he said to Frances. ‘I think she needs your help icing the cake.’

  Frances was on her tiptoes, peering around him and into the crowd of people.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he turned her shoulders in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Go and see what your grandmother wants and then you can come over there,’ pointing to the drinks table, ‘and help me out.’

  ‘Okay.’ She smiled; that brilliant, too-big smile that took up half her face and swallowed her eyes and she disappeared into the kitchen and he let out his breath. He hadn’t realized he had been holding it.

  By the time she came back to him, he was still unsettled and his fingers stung from making countless Bloody Marys.

  ‘Smell my hands,’ she said, and he did because she held them up to his nose; they smelled like oranges and something else beautiful. He had never noticed her scent before. He held her palm there for longer than necessary. ‘Daddy! That tickles!’ and he stood straight and dropped her hand. Feeling uneasy and a little sorry, he allowed her to drop the celery sticks into the glasses and take them, one by one and using both hands, to every waiting woman. She moved within the crowd, staring up in awe at the long-haired, lazy-spoken adults who wore sunglasses in the house and stained the furniture with smoke. They petted her like an animal, talked about her like she wasn’t there and then handed her their empty glasses and asked for a refill. He laughed as she dragged her feet back, annoyed, her hair falling around her face in bronze wisps.

  ‘I want to go and play with Oscar and everyone else,’ she said. ‘Can I?’

  ‘Of course.’ He shook the Tabasco sauce into a glass and when he looked up again to ask where they were playing, he scanned the room but she was gone.

  They were under the stairs when he finally found them. He stood hidden, listening and smiling to himself.

  ‘I told you, I put the keys over there.’ Oscar was a big boy for seven years old and he had to sit hunched, hugging his knees to his chest.

  ‘Well they’re not here.’ She was talking in an exaggerated, loud voice; it was her tone when she wanted something. He knew it made her feel grown up. ‘But we’ll help you look for them, won’t we girls?’ She turned to the other two girls sitting beside her. He didn’t know whose children they were—they had just moved into the neighborhood. But that was Frances; she spoke to everyone she saw, always ready to share her toys, partake in other children’s games and imaginations. The girls nodded and listened to his daughter and copied her as she got on her knees and slapped her palms on the floor, turning her head this way and that. ‘Maybe the cat took them,’ she suggested after a while. He had to hold his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. She gestured to one of the girls. ‘Caitlin, remember I said you were the cat?’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ The girl got on her hands and knees. ‘Meow,’ she said.

  ‘Bad cat.’ Frances hit her lightly on the nose and everyone stopped to giggle. ‘Bad cat,’ she repeated. ‘Did you eat Oscar’s keys?’

  ‘Meow.’ The girl curled her fingers and slashed the air with her new paw.

  ‘One meow for no and two for yes,’ Frances said. ‘Did you eat Oscar’s keys, Caitlin? He has to go to work and he’s very late.’

  She was so serious, so innocent, and he had to sit down quietly, so overwhelming was his love for her. He wanted to gather her up in his arms and make sure she knew how adorable she was.

  ‘Meow, Meow.’

  ‘Good.’ Frances held her hand out. ‘Give them back to me.’

  And the cat burped and opened her mouth and out came a fur ball and wrapped in it, shining and wet with animal spit, were Oscar’s keys.

  ‘Here you go, darling.’ She said it dah-ling and dropped his keys into his waiting palm.

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ Oscar balanced himself on his palms and stretched his mouth out to reach her cheek. James saw this and quickly interrupted, pulling his daughter out from under the stairs, more roughly than he intended to.

  ‘Daddy!’ Her cheeks were red and he knew she had b
een waiting the entire game for that one moment; for that cherub-cheeked, blond-haired boy to get on his knees and push his face toward her.

  ‘Cake time, come on,’ and he practically lifted her up and dragged her into the living room.

  They were all gathered around the dining table and in front of Marienne sat the two-tiered orange cake his mother had made. Frances pulled her hand from his grip.

  ‘Frances,’ he sighed but she ignored him and went straight to Marienne, who opened her arms and let Frances stand in front of her and lean against her stomach. The smile was back on his daughter’s face. When the singing was done and it was time to blow out the candles, Marienne let Frances do it and she leaned forward and he averted his eyes, telling himself that the neckline was too low, that it wasn’t his fault he caught sight of the white skin there and that he would never allow her to wear that dress again.

  When everyone had left, he surveyed the damage they had done. A chipped glass, cigarette ash trod deep into his beige carpet, having taken on the shape of a hare, and someone’s cardigan had been pushed into the cushions of the sofa. He was holding it, moving from the living room into the kitchen when he saw her.

  She had kicked off her shoes after they had cut the cake and now without them, her legs looked longer, an unbroken, milky pink. Her head was tilted up to the ceiling and she swung her feet back and forth, kicking the leg of the chair every time she brought her heel down. In her hand, the silky blue ribbon was being twisted; she took the end of it and threw it into the air, watching as it came back down in delicate waves. He noticed the underside of her arm; how smooth it was and felt a strange, but familiar, pulse in his mouth. Ah, yes, so you do remember. The memory was fully awake now and it greeted him affably, stronger from years of sleep.

  ‘Hey.’ Marienne came to stand beside him and he jumped, blushed and turned to her.

  ‘Someone left this here,’ he said, trying to hide the sudden energy in his nerves but it made his hands twitch and she noticed.