by Amanda Leduc
“These scars have healed well,” she said. “Who was your doctor?”
What? Scars? “Ah . . . out of town,” he said, making it up as he went along. “Doctor Marriner?” What the hell?
“Ah.” Her hands prodded his flesh. “Sometimes,” she said, “traumatic wounds like these take a long time to heal. It’s not unusual for patients to develop odd sensations around extensive stitching.” More prodding. Then a pause. Sam could hear the doctor shake her head. “I can’t see or feel anything here, Mr. Connor. But let’s book you for an x-ray, just in case.”
On the x-ray table, he watched as the attendants fitted him with a protective bib, unconsciously avoiding the wings. The cartilage folded neatly against the cold leather of the table. He fought the urge to itch as a feather tickled the inside of his arm.
He was sure that the x-rays wouldn’t show anything. He was right. The technician who came to take his iron bib away was young and bored. “You can change over there,” he said, and he pointed to the stalls. Then he left.
He couldn’t fit the wings into the changing stall, so he dressed quickly in the middle of the room. The right wing stuck in its hole and for a moment he was paralyzed. Then it pushed through and the wing flexed of its own accord, several feathers dropping to the floor. He picked them up and stuffed them into his pocket.
In the car, Chickenhead hissed as soon as he opened the door. She didn’t like waiting. He ran a tired hand along her fur and then snatched it back, surprised, when she turned her head and bit him.
Julie had never liked Chickenhead. Even then, pre-Max, pre-Einstein, she’d been a dog person. Maybe it appealed to her sense of charity. He’d stopped trying to figure it out. But given the choice, he’d choose Chickenhead any day, in spite of the biting. She didn’t slobber. And as long as he stayed on top of the kitty litter, no nasty smell. She had manners, his cat.
Or perhaps not so much manners as personality.
At the vet, the cat was quiet, calm, and detached. The vet and his assistant (who didn’t notice the wings, but that was hardly surprising) cooed over the cat’s fur and laughed when she shook herself after the exam. The air he knew so well didn’t leave her face at all — if anything, she looked more disgusted with him when they left the office. She’d rung in at seventeen pounds.
Chickenhead. The fact that she wasn’t eating (try tuna juice, said the vet) was probably a good thing.
Monday
In the morning there was a fine layer of down on his sheets. He showered with the door open, the wings quivering in the cooler air but dry. None of his shirts would fit — they bunched and made him look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He settled, finally, on an old sweatshirt, the grey one from McGill that he didn’t mind destroying. He took the kitchen scissors to it, twisted and turned and bent the wings through the holes. The entire process took him almost half an hour.
Dressed, he looked in the mirror and found himself wishing, not for the first time, that Julie still lived in the house. His face was almost as grey as the sweatshirt and there were bags under his eyes. A glamour touch-up would do him so well right now. Just a smidge of cover-up, a touch of blush to bring him back from the edge of dead.
He wore a jacket — the gangster trench coat, Bryan called it — even though it wasn’t that cold. The wings could fold against his back and the bulk of the coat was just enough to disguise it. He was not prepared for questions.
At the school, he slipped in through one of the back doors and looked over his shoulder every few metres, like a thief. No one said anything. In the staff room, he waved away the jokes — Pulling the Mafia act on the kids, are we? — and kept the coat on. Sweat that was part heat and part fear began to collect in the small of his back. Dave, who taught in the Mathematics department, poured him a coffee and then, seeing his face, added a shot of espresso.
“Rough night?” Dave asked. The pat on Sam’s shoulder was briefly sympathetic.
“Rough weekend,” Sam said, and left it at that.
In class he was quiet, distracted, just this side of short. He angled his chair so that his back faced the wall, and avoided the chalkboard. Some of his students shot odd looks his way — What’s with the coat, dude? — but he ignored them and made the kids choose their own roles for Macbeth, instead of standing in front and reading as he normally would.
Halfway through the day, an early group of students surprised him. He’d removed the trench coat during lunch because his back was slick with sweat, and he was just about to put it back on when they tumbled through the door. For an instant he froze, terrified — the wings were longer than they’d been in the morning, and the feathers that peeked through the down were an unyielding, brilliant white.
But no one noticed. No one said anything. Just to be sure, he stood and flexed his shoulders so that the wings gave a half-hearted flap. And nothing. The students were engrossed in their conversation, and no one even looked his way. He folded the coat deliberately over the back of the chair, and then he straightened, and he taught.
His last class of the day was Modern English — Philip Roth and Martin Amis and Vladimir Nabokov, because once upon a time (when literature mattered, when he couldn’t feel the weight of feathers on his back) he’d loved Lolita. The syllabus had enough Alice Munro and Doris Lessing to keep his female students from revolting. To date, he hadn’t had any truants. Maybe that said something about him. Maybe it didn’t.
His favourite student in this class was Emma, the petite redhead with journalistic aspirations. He was careful — even she didn’t know. But he sought her opinion in discussions and he looked forward to her essays and he liked the sway of her hips. She had a lovely laugh.
Today, though, she walked in and looked straight at Sam, desperately nonchalant at his desk. No laughing — she looked puzzled at first, and then her face went pale. She sat at a desk in the back, as far from the front as space would allow.
He taught the class from his desk and dismissed them early. He stacked papers and watched Emma lag behind her friends. She waited until there were no students left and then came slowly to his desk.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he said, and swallowed. His throat was very dry.
“Is this an early Halloween?” and she forced a laugh, pointed to the wings. He felt them arch over his head and stretch as if in response to her question; two inches since lunchtime, it wouldn’t surprise him at all.
“Not exactly,” he said. He blinked and her face swam in and out of focus.
“I see,” she said and nodded, as though that explained everything.
“I don’t.” His voice was sharper than he’d intended. “I don’t see at all.”
“Oh.” The word seemed very small. “They’re real?”
“Yes.” Strange, the relief that rushed into his bones.
Unexpectedly, a quirk of her mouth. “You don’t strike me as a particularly religious man.”
“I’m not.” He’d been Catholic, just as he’d believed in the Tooth Fairy. His mother still said prayers for him. They weren’t helping, obviously.
“Maybe you should be,” she said. “Maybe it’s, you know, a sign.”
This was surprising — he wouldn’t have pegged her for a religious person, either. “I’ll think about it,” he said, another attempt at nonchalance. He tossed a hand back to the wings and tried a crooked smile, his first of the day. “Might try to get through the week, first.”
“Okay.” She gave him a tentative smile in return, then left. Much later, he realized that he hadn’t asked her to keep it a secret.
Maybe you should be. Tomorrow, the Tooth Fairy would show up at his door with a bag of old teeth, dressed in rags and asking for change.
Sunday
He woke up with a stiff back, that was all. Stumbled into his bathroom and flicked on the light and there they were — greyish knobs of skin that unfu
rled from his shoulder blades and hung to just above his waist. He blinked and leaned in to the mirror. Close up, he could see tiny feathers, densely packed together and obscured in some areas by grey, fuzzy down. He splashed water on his face and looked again.
Wings.
He was hallucinating. He had to be hallucinating. He reached around and grasped as though expecting air, then shouted when his fingers touched a feather, all too real. A hint of cartilage lay beneath the fuzz. He followed that slight ridge up to where the growth met skin — the move from wing to flesh was seamless. His skin was both clammy and hot, fevered.
Chickenhead heard his cry and pattered into the bathroom. She hopped onto the toilet and watched him, her head tilted to the side. Her eyes grew wide and then narrowed; she batted at one wing and then licked her paw, as though it was no big deal.
“This isn’t funny,” he told her, almost shouting. She raised a paw again and ran her claws through the feathers. It hurt, more than he could have imagined.
Bryan. It was the only thing he could think of. He’d stumbled into his apartment alone last night, but Bryan was the craftiest jokester he knew, and he lived half a block away. His hands shook so badly he could barely dial the number.
His best friend answered on the seventh ring, sounding half asleep. “Muh?”
“Very funny. Ha ha.”
“What?”
“I have down on my bedsheets. Extra points for getting in and getting it all done without waking me up. Now how do I get the damn things off?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The wings, Bryan. Is it Super Glue?”
Pause. “I’m coming over.”
“Don’t bother. Just — ”
“Five minutes, Sam.” And click.
Bryan was at his house in three, pounding on Sam’s door as though he’d just called 911. He’d run over in slippers and his flannels and when Sam opened the door expecting a yell, or at the very least a startled What the fuck, all Bryan did was grab him by the shoulders and pull him in for a brisk, hard hug.
“Sam,” he said, when he pulled away, “I thought that was it.”
“What?”
“I thought you’d lost it. All this stuff with Julie — I thought it had pushed you over the edge.” His hair was in matted brown disarray and there were bags under his eyes.
Sam took one breath and then another. “I called because of — these.” He gestured wildly behind his back. The wings fluttered, up and down. “See?”
Bryan’s broad face was puzzled. “What?”
“Can’t you — ” waving madly “ — see them?”
Now he looked nervous. “See what, buddy?”
Sam blinked, unsure — was he still dreaming? — and then looked back over his shoulder. There they were, the feathers limp against his spine. “You don’t see anything? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Bryan snorted. “Aside from you and one hell of a hangover? No.”
He felt dizzy, and slumped against the wall. “Oh. Okay.” The wings bent against the wall with a sound like crumpling tissue, but Bryan didn’t appear to hear it. Sam closed his eyes.
“Dude. You need to forget about this chick. Look at what it’s doing to you.”
That almost made him laugh. “She’s not just ‘some chick,’ Bryan.”
Bryan ignored him and padded down the hall into the kitchen. Sam listened as he opened the cupboards — out of coffee again, most likely. Then he shuffled back to the door. When Sam opened his eyes, Bryan was readjusting his slippers, coffee in hand.
“I’m telling you, Sam. It’s over. She’s granite. You’re humping a fucking rock.”
“I think,” he said, “that the expression is ‘beating a dead horse.’”
“Whatever. A rock is a rock is a rock, Sam — time to move on. We should go out more, introduce you to some people.”
“Since when do you know people?” Sam asked. Each word felt forced, too big for his mouth.
“This might surprise you, but the whole world hasn’t gone into mourning.”
“I haven’t gone into mourning.”
Bryan snorted. “Sure,” he said. “You’ve practically disappeared and now you’re hallucinating after one night out on the town.”
“I’m not — ”
“Sam.”
He blinked and then remembered. Pressed his hand against the wall and felt feathers, just waiting. “I’m just — old. Too old for nights like that.”
“Speak for yourself, friend. What you need are more nights out. We should do this again soon. To hell with Julie and the accountant.”
“Professor,” he said. And, “Maybe.” He couldn’t think about Julie right now. He needed to get Bryan out of the house.
“Want me to make coffee?”
Sam shook his head. “No. Must be tired — should just go back to bed.”
“Suit yourself,” and Bryan clapped him on the shoulder, narrowly missing one wing. Sam bit his lip and fought to keep from crying out. “See you later in the week?”
“Sure.” He closed the door as soon as it was polite, then stumbled to the bathroom and stretched out on the floor, the wings a feathery mass between his back and the tile. It hurt to breathe, and still the air pushed onward, through his lungs.
After a long moment, he dragged himself to sitting and blinked at Chickenhead, who hadn’t moved from her perch on the toilet.
“I think I’m going crazy,” he said. Something in his voice moved her, because she jumped down and crawled into his lap. Her purr was robust and warm against his stomach. He ran his hands through her fur and stopped just short of praying. Here he was, with his wings and his cat. Her eyes were amber slits in the soft light of the bathroom. If she could talk, give him some of her nine lives’ wisdom, she might have said: this is just the beginning.
X
It’s a cold night in February 2001, and Lilah is very drunk. A party, a boy who kissed her in the bathroom, and Lilah, waking up outside. She stumbled home and now she’s trying to sneak in through the back door. But it’s locked. When she checks for the spare key, it isn’t there.
Timothy opens the door instead. “I heard you outside,” he says.
“Thanks.” She whispers from the porch — even here, the word feels too loud.
“Mom’s asleep,” and now he’s whispering as she steps past him, into the house.
“I know.” She stumbles again and the world tilts for one crazy moment. Then she’s at the kitchen counter, heaving into the sink.
“Do you want some hot chocolate?” he asks from behind her.
Hot chocolate is the last thing on her mind. “Sure,” she gasps.
Timothy pads to the cupboard and takes out two mugs, then pulls the spoons from the drawer. He is trying to be quiet — the cutlery is muffled, the mugs placed so delicately on the counter it’s a wonder that she can know he’s done anything at all. But he has, and she knows. She always knows with Timothy. She rests her forehead against the edge of the sink and breathes in deeply. The counter is smooth beneath her hands.
“Mom waited for you,” he says. “And then she got mad and locked the door.”
“I noticed.” She speaks the words down into the floor.
“I waited for you,” he says. “I didn’t want you to sleep outside. It’s cold.”
“Thanks, Timmy.”
“That’s okay.” The kettle hisses. When she turns around, finally, Timothy is holding the two mugs carefully in his outstretched hands.
“I made this one with milk,” he says. “Just for you.”
Their mother will not do this, because milk in hot chocolate is wasteful and unnecessary. But since Lilah was small, she’s been sneaking milk into her cup when Roberta isn’t looking. Timothy has learned all of these habits from her. He hands over her mug. He i
s so young, so solemn. She places her palms around the mug and lets the heat burn her hands until they hurt.
“You look sick,” he says. “Are you okay?”
She can’t remember the name of the boy she kissed. She woke up with dirt in her mouth, and black spots in her memory. Whole hours she doesn’t remember. “I’m fine.”
“Mom says you’re going to get in trouble.” He sits on the bar stool and stares at her. He is pale, as always, and too small for a ten-year-old child. His toes dangle far from the ground.
“Mom says lots of things.”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble, Lilah.”
“I’ll be fine, Timmy.”
He sips his own hot chocolate. Foam clings to his lip. “Mom also says you’re going to leave.”
He says this every day. “I’m going to leave sometime. Yeah.”
“But not right now.”
“No, not right now.”
“If you go,” he says, “no one will talk to me anymore.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“It’s not silly. Mrs. Graham said it to Mom when she came over. When they thought I was in my room. She said, He’s such a strange little boy.”
“Mrs. Graham is a fat, smelly pig.”
He giggles. But he is serious again so quickly, so young, so small. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I’ll die if I stay here, Timmy.” Because this is honestly what she thinks — she’ll die, or she’ll marry that nameless boy she met at the party, and one day she’ll become Roberta, which is to say worse than dead. She is twenty years old, invincible and furious, selfish in the way that only the young can be. She doesn’t realize what she’ll be breaking, what she’ll be leaving behind. All she wants to do is disappear.
—
Now, these years later, she walks through the city and sees Timothy’s face everywhere — on the posters, in the grocery line, in every other ragged heap rocking on the street. He drifts through Vancouver like fog that lies close to the ground.