As She Grows

by Lesley Anne Cowan

  Eric’s office door is closed but I push it open forcefully. “Don’t talk to her,” I command. Eric looks up from the client across from him, a small freckle-faced boy, only about ten.

  “Excuse me, Snow. Not only are you being rude, you’re interrupting my session.” He quickly rises from his chair as he speaks. His face is red, and though he’s trying to hide it, I’ve never seen him so angry. “I’ll be done in ten minutes if you want, but you’re going to have to cool down first.” He shuts the door in my face and I am so mad my body burns. I kick the door and storm down the hall, past the washroom, and out to the back of the office building. I pace back and forth in the gravel parking lot, kicking at stones and car tires. I drag my hand along the top of the mesh-wire fence and stop in my tracks when skin rips on a sharp broken wire.

  “Ouch!” I raise my finger to my mouth and the sweet blood and bitter dirt dissolve on my tongue. After a few seconds, I inspect the injury. The cut is deep and thin and clean. I pull the skin apart, hoping for a glimpse of bone. Disappointed, I tightly grip the base of my finger and press upward toward the tip, as if squeezing the last bit of toothpaste from the tube. A line of blood pools on my purple finger. And when there’s enough, I walk over to the back door, take my red ink, and smudge the letters f-u-c-k on the cold metal.

  About a half-hour later, I’m back standing in Eric’s doorway. He is writing something at his desk and doesn’t appear to notice me.

  “Don’t call her,” I say.

  “Come in.” Eric motions me to sit down without even raising his head. Then, after a few seconds, he gets up and comes to sit at our table. “Now, what’s all this about?”

  “Just don’t fuckin’ call her.”

  “I didn’t call Elsie. She called me, then I called her back, but then she didn’t have anything to say so I asked her some questions.”

  “You didn’t call her?”

  “No. I only returned her call.”

  “Swear you didn’t call her?”

  “Yes. She said she wanted to see you.”

  “She told me you called her.”

  “What can I say?” He raises his open hands, like he’s at a loss, like he’s all innocent. “I’d tell you if I did, Snow. She called me first, left a message saying she wanted to see you, so I called her back.”

  Then it occurred to me. “Did she sound wasted on the message? All funny, like slurring?”

  “I’m not sure, maybe. Sounded like she just woke up.”

  “Shit,” I mutter, kicking the table leg. Eric starts shuffling papers, seemingly organizing, but I see the corners of his mouth upturned. He thinks this is a breaking point. He will bend me back and forth, till I heat and crack. “You don’t know her,” I say. “You don’t know me. We’re not some little stupid therapy people who don’t get it. She gets it. She gets all of it. Just like me. I get it. How come we’re the only people that can accept that?”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “No, of course not. That’s the point. You can’t understand. Just leave her out of it.”

  “She’s part of it. She’s part of you.”

  “She has nothing to do with me.” I lean forward, half out of my chair. “She’s fucked up. And I made a choice. A choice to leave and not let her fuck me up. Don’t you get that? What am I supposed to do? Stay? Dissect it? Make it better? I owe her nothing. She screwed up my mother’s life, she screwed up mine.” I sit back down, lean on the table, and rest my face into the crook of my arm. I can feel myself getting upset and I don’t want Eric to see.

  “Of course, I don’t want you to be in an unsafe place. And you’re right, I did want to patch things up because I feel it’s important for people to get along. I think that if they do, there’s less pain. Pain for you. And I don’t mean pain the way you’re thinking. I mean pain like anger, resentment—that stuff eats away at you.”

  “That’s bullshit. I made a choice to leave,” I yell into my arm.

  “Yes, but you didn’t get to choose for a long time. You didn’t get to choose the mother you got.” His words burst through to my centre like an atomic bomb, clearing out all that’s inside, leaving my unsupported bone to crumble. And then I notice my hand is clutching my belly, like it’s trying to hold it up, keep it from falling with the rest of me. And I pull it away, all pissed off, like it’s betrayed me because I didn’t even command my hand to do that.

  10

  Since I stopped going to my regular school a few weeks ago, the group home is making me go to the Delcare Day Program. Like seeing Eric, it’s a condition. A barter for my stay. They give me a house, I give them a chance to change my life.

  I never thought I’d ever go to church, but that’s where school is, in the basement, so I walk through the doors of God every day and come out feeling none the better. It’s creepy down there, pictures of Jesus hanging in the bathroom, organ songs filtering down through the vents in the ceiling. It’s as if I’ve been placed in God’s dungeon, my secret sin burning in my belly.

  It’s called a section nineteen classroom, which makes you feel like you’re part of a mental institution or something. Apparently, some of the school’s classrooms really are for the retarded and psycho, but they’re located across the city. The Delcare classroom is for “youth in care,” which means that we are all fucked up in some kind of way. Most of us are forced to be here by either a social worker, probation officer, group home, or desperate parent offering her kid a last chance. There are ten of us delinquents, one teacher, and a youth worker, Sheila, who talks to us about our problems and gives the girls maxi-pads when they have their periods. We’re here because by law we must be serviced. Which makes me think I must be fixable, like a car or VCR.

  I pull out my binder right away and pretend to start working. There are seven of us in class today. We sit in neat rows and stare dozily at the mural of blue fish, burning bushes, and other godly things on the adjacent wall painted by the Sunday school kids. Last week, Kevin drew a hard-on on one of the fish and turned a burning bush into a giant spliff, but the teacher hasn’t noticed yet. We cherish this silent rebellion in our room. It’s our only sense of belonging here.

  Ms. Dally marches into the classroom, carrying her trendy metal coffee mug, eyeing our seven awkward bodies folded in metal chairs, elementary school desks crushing our legs. She is a middle-aged woman who you can tell was once pretty, but her features are now dull and somewhat flattened, like a worn carpet. She wears Gap clothes and wood-bead necklaces and claims she has a tattoo of a mermaid on her back, but none of us believes her. When Ms. Dally is in a good mood, she’ll bring in photos of her trips to Africa. If she’s in a bad mood, she’ll lecture us about self-respect and accountability.

  She scans the room, disappointed daily with her apathetic pupils. “Tracy, is your homework in? Barry, where’s your binder? Kevin, feet off the desk, cell phone away. Does anyone have a pen to lend Michelle? Did it occur to you that you’ll need something to write with? What do you people do in the morning? Don’t you think,‘Hmm, I’m going to school, so I might need a pencil?’ Truly, it’s unbelievable.”

  Kevin’s hand darts up, straight and purposeful, fingers wiggling.

  “Yes, Kevin?”

  “Can maggots crawl up your ass?” He reaches his hand back between his butt and his chair and starts rubbing his jeans.

  Ms. Dally’s face hardens. “Get to work.”

  “No, I’m serious,” Kevin continues. “Last night I was taking out the garbage—”

  “Stop it.” Ms. Dally moves in close to his desk. Kevin ignores her command and turns to face the rest of us.

  “And there were all these white maggots crawling around . . .” Everyone but Ms. Dally starts laughing because Kevin is making these stupid faces as he strokes his butt.

  “You need to stop it. Now!”

  “And I think some got on my shoes and they crawled up my leg and somehow made it to my ass ‘cause it’s really itchy today.”

  “Get out,”
Ms. Dally says, disgusted. She takes back his math book.

  “What?” Kevin looks up at her, laughing as he speaks. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Get out,” Ms. Dally repeats, gesturing toward the door. Sheila, the youth worker, moves in as backup.

  Kevin packs up his books, mumbling under his breath. “Can’t even ask a question . . . can’t even breathe in here . . .” He gets all mad and kicks a chair on his way out.

  Once he’s gone, Ms. Dally continues on with her routine, unaffected, and I open my math book. It’s not an uncommon beginning to a day, considering the load of shit we drag behind us into this place, a room where we know it can be dumped and not thrown back in our faces. Still, it always looks ridiculous when you see someone else flip out.

  The school’s a joke, and everyone knows it. We are given textbooks with corresponding fill-in-the-blank sheets. Our tests aren’t even typed. They’re handwritten bits of paper pieced together from other “real” schools. In the afternoons we talk about anger management, sex, drugs, homosexuality, racism, body image, and conflict resolution. We are given time-outs, time back, and privileges for doing our homework. Some students, like me, attempt to take things seriously, put in the effort to actually earn a worthwhile credit. And Ms. Dally likes us best, actually making up good assignments and writing comments on our work.

  Ms. Dally writes today’s date on the board and then stands at the front of the small room and passes out photocopied math sheets that are far too easy and don’t require explanation. The students take them without complaining because it’s better than any real work. But I insist on having real math, and so I get my own individual assignments. Ms. Dally comes over to check my homework and then writes the textbook pages on the blackboard. “Just let me know if you’re really stuck,” she says nicely, and walks back up to her desk to finish her coffee. I watch her flutter papers and stare down Kamar, who is refusing to open his math book. On good days, she tells us she loves her job, though I can’t imagine why.

  “It’s a class for retards,” Tyler, a grade nine student who wears a bike chain around his neck, said on my first day in class.

  Ms. Dally corrected him: “We are all here for our specific reasons. You’re all working on getting back into the regular system, and what’s keeping you out has nothing to do with how smart you are.”

  “Well, I’m a retard—that’s what’s keeping me out,” Tyler turned and said to me.

  “Rubbish.” Ms. Dally’s consolation was well intentioned, but unconvincing.

  Later I peeked into Tyler’s open file on the table and read that his mother has a brain tumour, that he’s been to fourteen different schools and was expelled for threatening to cut off his last teacher’s breasts. And then I got a feeling I knew why he wore that chain around his neck.

  Carla and I barely talk anymore. In the past month she’s called twice and it’s only because she has something to brag about. Sometimes I feel like calling her, but when I do, I usually can’t wait to hang up. And afterward, it just leaves me feeling empty, like I’m witness to a long slow death of something that was once so alive. It’s painful to see, right before my eyes. I just want to take a knife and put it out of its misery. And so I do.

  I start to tell Carla about my swirling stomach and my sore boobs, but she cuts me off and launches into her weekend with her new boyfriend Brian and how he’s going to buy her a guitar. The thing about Brian is that he’s thirty-six years old and I think it’s totally disgusting.

  “He doesn’t seem that old,” she explains. “You gotta meet him. You’d think he’s just in his twenties.” She tells me he’s really, really nice and that he doesn’t pressure her to have sex at all and that his stomach is a little flabby but it’s kind of sexy that way. She says her father doesn’t mind, because he’d rather Carla date an older guy than some seventeen-year-old punk. Carla is working for Brian’s trucking company and says it’s way better money than a part-time job at the mall. She’s not going back to school. I think it all sounds gross.

  “I think you should be careful,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “Well, he’s so old, you know? He could be some pervert.”

  “What the hell? Did you just hear anything I just said?” she asks, instantly turning on me.

  “I—”

  “How could you possibly judge me?”

  “I—”

  “Fuck you,” she blurts into the phone and the line goes dead. Normally, I would call her back and we’d fight for a while but then we’d be okay. This time, though, I call Mark instead, and he tells me she’s not worth the effort.

  At my last official swimming class I do my best to swim the width of the shallow end, only it seems as if my body’s direction is up instead of along the water. My arms are like concrete, I heave them out of the water and then slap them down hard. My legs trail, half sinking behind me, until I remember every once in a while to kick. I see Greg out of the corner of my eye, a haze of red, as he walks along the deck. I can sense his eyes on my open, sucking mouth. I try to hide my face in the water, only I end up inhaling a mouthful of liquid. My feet drop to the bottom, and I gag and cough until the air comes back into my lungs. Then I feel a gentle tap on my head and look up to find Greg kneeling before me. “You’re not breathing out,” he asserts.

  “Yes, I am,” I say, like a denying child.

  “I don’t see the bubbles.”

  “I am breathing out,” I say stubbornly, then push my feet off the bottom to continue plowing through the water, a forceful, splashing kick behind me. I try to breathe on my right side, away from Greg’s watchful eye. I hold my mouth firm in the water, breathing in and out quick gasps of air only when my face surfaces. The notion of expelling needed air into water seems crazy to me. At school I learned that the Inuit word for breath and soul are the same. This makes perfect sense to me.

  I stop after a few strokes to see if Greg is still looking and I’m relieved to see he’s over by the office, talking to the blonde lifeguard, who hugs her flutterboard to her chest. I try one more length, but before I reach the end, I inhale another mouthful of water. Panicking, I dart above the surface, gasping for air. When my eyes clear, I see Greg, cross-armed on the deck above me, shaking his head with disapproval. “Fuck it,” I yell, slapping my hand against the water, its sting satisfying. I haul my heavy body up over the side and onto the deck. Then I grab my towel, wrap it around me, and storm over to the bench. I sit there a while, staring out to the water, sulking like some five-year-old temper-tantrum freak. For some reason, I don’t care if I flip out at school or at the house, but here, in front of Greg, I’m embarrassed. Despite my wishing him away, he comes to sit beside me on the bench.

  “You feeling okay?” Greg asks.

  The way he says it makes me suspicious. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t really know how to say this, other than just saying it.” He pauses a moment. “Are you pregnant?”

  “What?” I turn and glare at him. “What did you just say?” The shock is real. I can’t believe he’s just come out and asked. I get up to leave. “No,” I affirm, standing above him. “God, no.”

  “Okay,” he says apologetically, patting the bench. “Sit down. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I don’t want to sit, but if I leave, it will look like he was right, so I plunk back down. We both silently stare out to the water. I clench my jaw and get all shaky. It’s as if my body wants to take off and run.

  “My sister did that,” he says, nodding in the direction of my bandaged arm.

  “Now what?” I ask, whipping my arm behind my back, pretending I have no idea what he is talking about.

  “She covered it with Band-Aids too,” he continues. “I just couldn’t figure it out. She got lots of counselling and one day she just stopped. Just like that. And now, she’s totally fine.”

  I am mortified. My private, bodily act exposed. As if a door were flung open and I were caught, pants to my an
kles, wide-legged on a toilet. I cower away from him, trying to cover as much skin as possible with my towel. I feel like an idiot. He thinks I’m a little kid. He thinks I’m crazy. He has thought this all along about me. That’s why he’s been so nice. I feel compelled to explain myself. Give him a reason he can understand.

  “My mother drowned,” I announce, figuring this will explain my actions. Maybe silence him.

  “Whoa,” he exhales. “I’m sorry . . . I mean . . . that’s awful . . . I didn’t know . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  “It was a long time ago.” I shrug my shoulders. We both sit there, silent. I extend my foot out into the small puddles on the deck and draw swirly shapes with my big toe. Greg just leans down, his hands clasped around either side his head, hair dangling around his face.

  Finally he rises and turns to me, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. “You know, I can still teach you swimming. You don’t have to pay. We could meet when you want to, at the pool. It could just be casual. On a Saturday afternoon or something.”

  “You don’t have to . . .”

  “No.” He pats my towel-wrapped leg, though his hand isn’t flat, it’s in a fist, as if he doesn’t want me to get the wrong idea. “No, really, I’d like to.”

  “Okay,” I agree, more to get rid of this moment than anything else. And he goes to the office to write down his phone number. When he turns his back, I jump to my feet, run to the change room, and throw my clothes on over my wet swimsuit. As I rush away from the building, I keep looking over my shoulder, worried that truth will catch up to me, and slip his number in my pocket.

  11

  Thoughts of you come to me, in quiet moments, in class or lying in bed. Moments when I feel you move inside me, like popping bubbles under my skin. Moments when I think, I can actually do this.

  I imagine myself pushing a stroller through a park. Bright-coloured leaves are crumpling under baby-carriage wheels. It’s a sunny Saturday morning and there are kids and dogs and squirrels raising curious heads. I point over to the big crows the size of cats and say, “That’s a crow, caw, caw,” and you smile up at me and gurgle-laugh. Other new mothers are chatting on the bench and older moms are in the playground extending safety-net arms for toddlers climbing plastic trees. When they see me, they come to peek into my carriage, oohing and ahhing at my little baby. People who used to scowl at my inflated belly now smile and compliment me, actually envious of something I have.