by Iman Verjee
‘You bitch. I can’t believe I trusted you,’ and I see the pain I have caused her, the broken heart she will now have to live with because of me and I put my head in my hands and cry. When I look up again, Sister Ann is waiting to take me to my room but everyone else is gone. I am already a part of this place’s past.
I leave early the next morning, before classes start and I am ushered quickly down the stairs, not even given the chance to turn around and say goodbye.
‘You can’t do this,’ I keep saying. ‘You can’t just kick me out in one day!’
‘You broke the rules. There’s nothing else I can do.’
‘And my parents? They’ve paid for the full year—this isn’t fair.’
‘I spoke to your father last night and he said he would be more than happy to have you back home.’
I resist the urge to grab onto her habit. To fall on my knees and beg. ‘Two more days,’ I say. ‘Give me a couple of days at least to say goodbye.’
Last night, I wanted to sneak out to see Joseph and his family but Sister Margret stayed with me. She sent Judy to someone else’s room and sat up all night, watching me. She wasn’t taking any chances, she told me. Not this time.
‘I tried,’ she said. ‘No one can say I didn’t.’
It would be easy to tell her the truth, to convince her that it was Victoria’s plan all along, but I have hurt her and I owe her this. I lie on my back, my eyes are hot and dried up, my throat parched but I have no energy to get up for a glass of water.
‘I didn’t know it was a crime to be in love,’ I say bluntly.
‘What you were doing with that boy was not love.’
‘How do you know?’ I ask, sitting up, swinging my legs over the bed. I sneer at her. ‘Were you there?’
‘Taylor told me what she saw.’
‘Taylor is a dried up, pathetic virgin.’ The words burst from my mouth before I can stop them.
Sister Margret’s mouth twitches but she says nothing. There is no point reprimanding me anymore. I have failed her and she will not waste her time. ‘You’re young still,’ she says, uncharacteristically patient. ‘You’ll see in time.’
‘See what?’
‘That lust is not love. It’s just an old impulse, reserved for animals and Godless people.’ She has moved into preaching mode, her face shines. ‘To feel something here,’ gesturing quickly to the place between her thighs, ‘is not to say it means anything in here,’ lightly placing her hand at her heart. ‘This place is pure and you have to be clean and good to experience what it has to offer. You’ll understand in time,’ she repeats. ‘But I’m not going to be the one to teach you.’
And now she is pushing me toward the car, and I peer in, hoping it’s him but it’s not. She throws my suitcases in the trunk. ‘Gerald will take you to the station,’ she says and all of a sudden, her face has become gentle. It looks old and weary and I see that she is a little sad to be doing this. ‘Here’s the train ticket.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘Take the ticket, Frances.’
‘I said I don’t want it. I’m not going home.’
She slams the door shut and hands it to the driver instead. ‘Make sure she gets on the train,’ she tells him, loud enough for me to hear her. ‘Walk her onto it if you have to.’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘Goodbye, Frances,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry it had to end like this.’
‘Fuck you,’ I say and she steps back as the car turns into the driveway, leaving the Academy in a squeal and skid of tire.
The car edges slowly along the driveway, reaching into the forest from where I will disappear forever, when I see him. Striding through the thicket of trees, logs in hand from his morning search. Our eyes meet, his eyebrows cross in confusion and I think he says my name. Through the fog, he walks to Sister Margret and I turn, following him with my eyes. She points at the car and says something. My body leaps into action. I grab the driver by the shoulder, ‘Stop the car!’ I’m shouting. ‘Stop the car, I want to talk to him!’
‘I can’t do that,’ he pushes me off. ‘I’m sorry. Please sit down.’
‘I have to say goodbye to him! I have to explain what happened.’ I move to open the door but we’re traveling at too fast a speed and he is quickly disappearing from my view and I don’t want to miss him. I pound on the back windshield, I scream his name until my voice turns hoarse and the tears blur my vision, and when it clears, the Academy is long gone and I can no longer see the tall, gently imposing profile of him but I will always remember how it stood, unwavering and steady against the pearl-white backdrop of a harsh and implacable winter.
Gerald walks me to the train station. He looks uncomfortable asking the guard if he can watch me get on the train and I tell him he doesn’t have to do that. That I have to go home because no one else will take me.
‘Unless you’ll let me stay with you,’ I laugh almost manically.
‘I’m just following instructions,’ he says and stands apart from me.
And the conductor helps me onto the train, shows me to my seat. He smiles and tells me that it will be a long journey. That if I need anything, I should ask him and I ask if he can mend a broken heart, and if not, can he take away my memories? But he is no longer listening, already walking down the carriages.
And ten minutes later, we are moving. I watch out into a sea of white and patchy brown, as the train rocks and shakes, further away from them. Something catches in my throat. Don’t worry, you’ll forget about them soon enough. I almost laugh at my own naivety. I could try for years; I could sit on this train and travel the world and it would never be far enough. Because when you fall in love with someone, as I did with all three of them, that love follows you around like a stubborn shadow wherever you go, tripping and blinding you—it doesn’t matter where you step, it’s always in your way.
37
St Albert. January 1993
It’s late the next day when I get home. It’s so dark that I can hardly see where I am going as I step off the bus that drops me only a few blocks from my house. I walk slowly, dragging my feet against the pavement. It’s jarring to be back here so unexpectedly—to not want to be here. There is a throbbing in my head and my mouth is dry. I haven’t eaten in what seems like days. I reach the white fence closing off my house, rub my knuckles over the cherry-blossom tree on my way in and its trunk seems worn and tired.
I stop at the front door, watch the pale lights behind it, and my heart lurches. It squeezes until I think it will stop; it might break and empty out of me and I wish that it would. I knock and he pulls it open almost instantly so that I almost fall into him. He catches me, Frances, are you alright? and his voice is sharp with worry. I feel the momentary thrill of his hands on me—it’s a reflex his touch always stirs, it can’t be helped. ‘I’m so glad you’re back. I was worried.’ He crushes me to him.
‘Where’s Mom?’
‘She’s at work. She doesn’t know you’ve come back.’
‘You didn’t tell her?’
He helps me in, puts me down on the couch and grazes the back of his knuckles against my cheekbone. The action is menacing in its tenderness, perhaps because of it, and I shrink away. He stops; drops his hand. ‘I wanted to see you alone first. I thought we could talk.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about. I was expelled.’
‘I know. Sister Margret called last night.’ He pauses. ‘She told me what happened with that boy,’ and when I don’t offer an explanation, he says, ‘we can talk about it tomorrow.’
‘I told you, there’s nothing to say.’ Tears form at the corners of my eyes; salty and stinging along my skin. I pull my sleeve over my hand, wipe it over my eyes and feel the cotton grow heavy with the tears. ‘It’s not even true.’
He sits down next to me, holds his hand out and lets it sit there, palm up, asking. I put my fingers in his and he wraps them up tightly. Binds me to him.
‘I don’t care if it’s true or
not. I’m just glad you’re home.’
There are lines in his face that I don’t remember; marks and features that never belonged to the man I’ve known all my life. The roughness of his skin no longer feels like a silken comfort; it’s coarse and scrapes my hand painfully.
‘I need to know why this happened,’ I say to him. Despite my exhaustion, I am adamant. It’s the first time we have spoken since that phone conversation and now, being forced back here, I have to find my answers.
‘We can talk about this another day, when you aren’t so tired.’ His eyes dart from one corner of the house to the next. He looks uncomfortable.
‘That’s why you didn’t tell Mom, isn’t it? That’s why she’s at work—because you knew I might ask.’
‘You aren’t thinking straight, Frances. We’ll have this discussion when your head is a little clearer. A lot has happened in the past two days.’
‘I want to talk about it now.’ A part of me is emboldened, self-righteous, but I am also frightened. So many things have changed and I’m not sure I can handle anything else.
‘Do you remember when it started?’ he asks me. He is wrestling with the confession; it doesn’t want to leave him.
‘No.’ My first memories of him are vague. I don’t remember when it began, only that it has always happened.
‘I didn’t think you would. You were very young.’ He trails off, lost in thought. ‘It wasn’t meant to carry on for this long. I thought no one would find out—I really believed I could stop it.’
He puts my hand in his lap, strokes my limp fingers. I draw them back, wishing I could fold up my entire body that way and disappear from this terrible place that is slowly caving in on me.
‘So why didn’t you?’
‘I wasn’t strong enough.’
‘That’s not an excuse.’
He touches my shoulder, drags his touch, feather-like down my hand. ‘Frances,’ his voice throaty and thick, weighing me down.
I pull away, shaking my head through the tightening revulsion in my gut. ‘Don’t do that. You can’t bully me that way anymore.’
He draws back, indignant. ‘Is that what you think I do?’
‘I know you’re used to getting what you want.’
‘That’s not fair,’ he starts to protest.
‘I trusted you.’
The words hang between us. He stands up and faces the still, black street outside. I see something, a coyote perhaps, darting down the street and over someone’s fence but other than that, there is no movement. ‘Not anymore then,’ clenching and unclenching his jaw, biting down hard on his teeth.
‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’ I ask. ‘For me to understand all of this? That’s why you sent me away, so it would stop.’
‘Yes.’ He half-laughs, tears springing to his eyes. ‘You don’t know how hard it was—not calling you or seeing you. There were so many times when I wanted to.’ When I don’t respond, he continues, ‘but I should have listened to your grandmother and done it a long time ago.’
‘Bubbie knew?’ I had always suspected it, known it, but I want to hear him confirm it.
He nods. His throat moves tightly up and down and the action catches a fleeting memory in my brain, sends it down in a pool of blood to my heart. Even the smallest thing can make you ache if it has been lost to you for so long.
‘I promised her I would stop when she caught us. It was just before you turned eleven.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You were asleep when she came in.’ He shudders at the thought, the recollection becomes too real. ‘She never spoke again after that night.’ His head hangs. ‘And then she found out that we—that I was still…’ he gestures helplessly, unable to find the words. ‘It was the night before she died. Do you remember that?’
I say I do. I remember the way he flew off me and landed silently at the door, crouching down, listening. Someone’s there, he had said and I had laughed it off.
‘That’s why she killed herself.’ He doesn’t have to say anything else. The way his face contorts gives me confirmation.
‘I told her. I tried to explain that I lived a long time being scared, fighting something inside me that I believed was very wrong. Until you—you changed it all.’
‘What was it?’ I ask. ‘What were you fighting?’ He doesn’t want to tell me and I am left to formulate my own answer, watching his mouth curl at the side, his head dropping further. ‘With me—it wasn’t the first time?’ I wasn’t expecting to hear myself say this and it astounds me. Leaves me breathless; strangled by the rapidly unraveling threads of truth.
‘No.’
He looks so old and exhausted, leaking his poisonous past onto my lap. Hearing him talk reminds me of what Sister Margret said the night before I left the Academy. About lust and love; cleanness and Godless people. She said I would come to understand someday but I hadn’t expected it to come this soon. I had been so sure of his love for me; it had been the only thing that allowed me to forgive him. But now that I know there was someone else, the fact is blaring and loud and sullies everything.
I stand up and he moves to stop me. ‘You know no one can find out about this.’ He looks afraid, as if it has just occurred to him that the secret is mine as well as his. That the choice to keep it or not belongs to us both. ‘You aren’t going to tell anyone, are you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can’t,’ his voice rises, becomes child-like and desperate. ‘Do you know what would happen if you did? What they would do to me?’
What about what has happened to me?
‘You knew how wrong it was, all this time,’ I say. ‘You knew and you never stopped me.’ I am shouting now, betrayed, drowning in my helplessness. ‘You should have stopped it.’
‘I know.’ He looks ready to reach out for me again and I hope he won’t. I don’t want to have him on me; the thought makes me feel dirty and sad. ‘I’m so sorry but please, she can’t find out. It would ruin everything.’
He is referring to my mother and for a brief moment, I contemplate what would happen if I were to tell her, if I could find the words to explain to her exactly what he had been to me; and even if I said them, would it make anything better? I can’t shake the feeling that once our secret has been exposed, given new life, I will never be able to escape it.
‘What do we do now?’ I ask him, a burst of desperation from my throat. ‘I can’t lie to her anymore. I don’t want to.’
‘Listen to me,’ he says, ‘if anyone finds out, it could destroy all of us. They’d take me away—how would you survive? Where would you live?’ He is wild-eyed. ‘What I’ve done is wrong and God knows how I regret it. But I’ve looked after you—I’ll always look after you.’ His words peter out. ‘Please, Frances. You can’t do this to me, please.’ His fingers squeeze my cheeks and I can’t get away. ‘I love you, you know I do. I’m sorry, promise me. Promise me you won’t tell.’
I take his wrists and drag his hands away from my face. ‘I don’t want you to touch me anymore.’
‘Frances.’
I close my eyes. I can’t look at him when he is looking at me that way. ‘Please. Don’t say anything else.’
My words and tone offend him but he doesn’t protest. He only puts his hands under his thighs and nods slowly. ‘If that’s what you want. Whatever you want—I just want you to be okay. The only thing I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy.’
‘I have to go to bed.’ I can’t listen to him anymore. I think I might burst from emptiness.
‘I can help you with your things.’
‘No.’ I shake my head firmly. It is the first time I have refused him and the declaration comes out wavering and loud. The thought of him following me to my room roots me to the spot and it dawns upon me that I will never feel safe here again. ‘I’ll do it all tomorrow.’
‘And you won’t say anything,’ he is at the bottom of the stairs, his foot on the first step, clutching the banister. His face i
s swallowed up by the darkness, ‘to anyone?’
‘I won’t.’
And he breaks out into a smile, cannot hide his relief, and I have never felt lonelier.
‘Thank you. I’m glad you’re back. Things will get better, you’ll see. I’ll make it better for you.’
I don’t reply. I won’t tell him about Joseph, about all that he has shown me. My father is still hopeful for the future; it looks brighter and better now that he is confident our secret will remain hidden and I don’t have the energy or the strength to spoil that for him just yet.
38
St Albert. January 1993
Three weeks later, I stand at the kitchen sink on my tiptoes, the curtain pulled back slightly. He is shoveling snow in our driveway, muscles like tightrope between his shoulder blades. Every movement he makes sets off a series of sparks in my nerves, as if I am made for him and out of him, as if I cannot survive if he is gone—that I will no longer exist once he stops being this to me. He is so familiar that I know he is going to wipe back the hair that falls into his eyes before he does it. Its color catches the midday heat, made more golden by sweat and sunshine. It hurts me to watch him this way, concealed by blue-flowered lace, especially now that I know what I’m guarding. I drop the curtain and sit down next to my mother. She is bent over something, her hands moving two big needles clumsily.
She had come home that night I returned and I heard them talking downstairs as I pretended to sleep.
‘She was so miserable there,’ I heard him tell her. ‘Maybe her getting expelled was a good thing.’
‘How can it be a good thing?’ She doesn’t sound angry, only worried. I wanted her to come upstairs, to put her cool hand on my forehead. I dreamed that she asked me what was wrong and that I told her and she took everything away and made me light. But instead, I lay in bed and tried to suppress the wave of feeling hitting against my chest. It shocked me to realize how much I missed her, how long I had missed her for. ‘We sent her there for a reason, James,’ she says. ‘We wanted her to change the way she was acting. To learn that how she was behaving was wrong.’