Motherish

by Laura Rock

  Farm labour was hard, dirty work, Maru knew. It was dangerous over there. But she wouldn’t be alone. Their family would grow and prosper—this baby first, and others would surely follow. They’d come home every season.

  She and Hector had not yet had a serious discussion about leaving. She needed to settle on the best approach. He was a foreman on his shop floor. Other workers kissed up to him for favours. His rate of pay was higher than hers. But she knew her husband. Soon he’d tire of the assembly line, tapping metal panels into place. His destiny was not to make mini-bar fridges, each the same except for different brand names that he affixed with glue. It was true that Hector’s maquiladora was better—clean and new, without textile fibres to cloud the air and darken one’s snot on the handkerchief. But he could never be content in a windowless room, timing his movements to match the speed of appliances gliding past him. They should feel the sun on their backs, breathe the outdoor air of freedom.

  She had reason to hope he would say yes, just as she was saying a silent yes to their child. She envisioned the three of them next year, in the north, together. A dream made real.

  Sewing and singing, singing and sewing: Maru didn’t mind repetition. There was a natural rhythm to preparing the garment, stitching seams, snipping threads, inspecting the finished piece, tossing it on the pile, and starting over. Even though Licenciada Vargas loomed closer, she decided the next jacket should receive extra artistry. She reached into her pocket for her embroidered tag, a scarlet parrot, and made the insertion undetected. Immediately, Maru felt compelled to do it again—she fingered the raised stitching on a tag, trying to guess which it was—but disciplined her mind. The time was not right. She knew the reason for this itch. The wonder of it still bubbled inside her.

  After the final song at church the other night, she and Juanita had filed into the back for fellowship and food, with a potluck feast spread on tables. The room was packed, Juanita drifted away, and she found herself talking with a Sister Ruth, who helped run Congregación del Buen Pastor. She explained that branches of the neo-Pentecostal church dotted the Eastern Seaboard and, indeed, the globe—their communities were growing. This news made Maru feel safe enough to confide her future migration. “On your journey,” Sister Ruth responded, “you’ll have friends before you even arrive. They’ll be waiting for you everywhere you go.”

  After they’d eaten and helped wash up, Sister Ruth waved at a bin of clothing and said, “That just came from our community in Atlanta. Donations, all good stuff. Help yourself.”

  Maru took her turn rummaging in the box, wrinkling her nose with distaste at the thought of hand-me-downs. No matter, everything could be washed. She turned the pile, a jumble of colours and textures, seemingly bottomless. Others were waiting behind her. She could feel their impatience building, and yet she couldn’t decide. Finally, she reached in without looking and stirred until her hand brushed a piece of clothing that she knew by touch. Ought to know, but could it be? Unbelieving, she drew out a denim jacket with shaking hands and held it to her lips. She sniffed it and turned it inside out to inspect the seams. Walking away from the others, she flipped the quality control tag over and found underneath her signature moon and stars.

  “Something good?” Juanita called from the queue.

  Maru held up the jacket.

  “No way!” Juanita gave up her place to come see.

  “It’s a sign,” Maru said.

  “Of what?”

  “I’m not sure. I sent this out to the world, and the world sent it back to me.”

  “You better not wear it to work. They’ll say you stole it.”

  Sitting at her station, she thought of all the places the jacket might have travelled without her. There was no return address, no message in the bottle. Yet, she felt that this tangible, wearable sign could be relied upon, that it would sustain her on the trip with Hector and Adalberto. And the jacket fit perfectly, snug against her curves. She had never before tried on a garment she’d made at the factory.

  She began to sing the hymn she’d learned at the church with Juanita. Just la-la-la; she couldn’t remember all the words, but the tune was slow and lilting, old and pure. It seemed like the right song for a miracle, the incandescent miracle of the jacket reuniting with its maker.

  A sharp fingernail dug into her shoulder. Her hands flew up and away from the needle for safety, the move she’d trained herself to make in all circumstances. She’d been ready for the test, had looked forward to it, even, but she blushed and stumbled getting up.

  Fifteen minutes later, it was over. The specimen bottle was still around her waist, empty. She wordlessly thanked Juanita for her gift. Another month of employment, at least a month, longer if her belly didn’t grow too quickly. Enough time for her to put aside some of her income for travel. Hector would be impressed with her foresight; he’d have to agree to go. She stared at Juanita, hoping to share a smile of confirmation that the test had gone well, but Juanita was standing and following Licenciada Vargas out the door.

  Shortly before quitting time, Maru was startled by shadows falling over her sewing table. Once again, her hands flew away. She’d been singing in full voice and snapped her mouth shut when she realized that Señor Ramos and Licenciada Vargas were standing behind her.

  “Come with us,” he said. They walked her to the lockers. Licenciada Vargas carried a box of tissues. A scarlet corner of the silk shawl was wound around the hand that held the box; for a moment, she thought it was a bloody bandage.

  “Collect your things,” he said. “Unfortunately, this must be your last day.”

  She laced her fingers and said, “I had hoped that if ever my small interventions were noticed, they’d be seen as unique additions to our clothing. What looks bad can sometimes be revealed as good when the time is right.”

  The managers looked puzzled. Señor Ramos cleared his throat. His oversized authority seemed to have abandoned him as he faced the two women. Maru found herself more frightened by his sheepish manner than she’d been by his clammy touch or ominous warnings. She wished she hadn’t suggested that he go to church, so bold. If it wasn’t her embroidered tags, what was the problem? Maybe someone from the maquila had reported Maru for wearing the jean jacket on the street. How she loved the feeling of invincibility the jacket gave her when she slipped it on—she’d been out in public twice wearing it. A jealous co-worker snitching? But that was unlikely. Heat flooded her torso; her scalp began to sweat as she tried to guess what was going on. What she must have done wrong, in her ignorance. A flush crept up her neck, and she put a hand there as if to stop it from spreading. The shame of losing a job, when they needed every peso; Hector’s anger when he found out; her thwarted plans. The money she earned was necessary for them to travel; the travel necessary to make more money. They’d certainly need cash for the baby. How stuck they were in needs.

  Señor Ramos coughed.

  “Maria Eugenia,” Licenciada Vargas said, not unkindly. “According to your test results, you—well, you are expecting.”

  Maru stared at her feet, flooded with confusion. The sample—what had gone wrong? And then, recognizing the truth, she gasped. The lost money vanished from her mind. There was only one fact that mattered. It took all her self-control to keep from whooping, but first she had to deal with these high-class marionettes, who expected her to mourn according to their equations of profit and loss.

  Maru nodded decisively: yes, she understood. Yes, yes, she’d sign papers. She grabbed them from Señor Ramos, held her hand out for the pen, and signed with a flourish.

  “There,” she said, slipping the pink smock off, letting it fall to the floor. “That’s that.”

  Señor Ramos looked like a boy whose mother had given him a tongue-lashing. He stuttered as he said, “If you need to call someone—”

  “Goodness, we usually see a few tears,” said Licenciada Vargas, shifting the tissue box f
rom one cloth-protected hand to the other.

  “I can certainly facilitate a phone call.”

  “I’m fine, fine,” Maru said, waving them off. She crumpled the cap into a ball, releasing her hair to swing freely, and left them standing at the workers’ entrance.

  Maru nearly danced to the bus stop. That her dismissal was an injustice—of course. That she and Hector would scrape the pot harder, possibly even miss a few meals—no argument. Yet, she couldn’t dwell on the bad things that had been revealed. If only she could shout this news of a nephew or niece, companion for her son or daughter—a sibling, almost—but she had to wait for Juanita. Surely, after the test, she was being discarded too. It wouldn’t be long before she could kiss Juanita’s forehead, but patience was impossible when life was so full of promise. For just a few moments, Maru was the only person who knew the whole story, bitter and sweet. She alone could see the journey unfolding for all of them, far away in the north, together.

  Transit

  The corner of King and Bay is perfect for certain things: planning an office coup alone or with others; talking into a cellphone while walking briskly to the gym; emerging into sudden sunshine after shopping underground; picketing. It’s not a good place for doubt or disability. Especially during evening rush hour, when tower workers are anxious and don’t need some loser to step over on their way home. Especially if the evening is in December, and snow is falling in fat flakes that disappear on the overheated sidewalk, leaving it clean and shimmering.

  It’s as good a place as any to run for the streetcar that will carry you away from the financial district and home to the East End. East of money, your workday, the heartbeat of the country.

  Nothing unusual about running for the streetcar. It’s rumbling blocks away. You’ll make it if you sprint past the glassy acreage of Commerce Court and across Bay Street, assuming the lights go your way. You believe in two types of commuters: those who accept waiting for the next car, staring numbly at the overhead screens flashing across the downtown airspace; and those who run for it. You’re a runner. Or, rather, you’ve always been a runner; the impatience and restlessness that spur commuters to run are not only still within you, they’ve been amplified by the physical changes taking over your body.

  You jog along, clutching your purse, overstuffed briefcase, and shopping bags to your side, holding onto your swollen middle, trying in vain to stop the painful ups and downs. Just past the heating grate, your feet slide out from under, and you glide the rest of the distance like a curling stone.

  Falling wasn’t part of the plan. In your hometown you could blame black ice; does such a thing exist in the city? You’re a hick in the world-class metropolis. A glance at the queue of bankers and lawyers holding their shit together way better than you do confirms it. They turn as one toward the streetcar bearing down. Your left hip hurts where you landed. You envision a continuous slide past the line of black rubber overshoes, your body bumping off the curb and onto the tracks, but you’ve stopped moving.

  You roll awkwardly onto hands and knees and push up. The suede pumps with the cunning faux buckle detail are ruined—no friends to pregnant feet, but you loved them anyway—as are the stockings, new out of the package today. However, you still have your token, and you’ve made the Queen East streetcar, the direct one. You won’t have to wait to transfer, contemplating your inadequacies across the street from Babeland, where neon silhouettes of skinny-busty Girls!! pulse the night away. Never mind whether the babes inside were born that way or surgically augmented. Never mind that becoming a dancer, exotic or otherwise, is not among your many aspirations. You’re sick of being confronted with the male gaze, telescoped and turned on you, everywhere and every minute. Supermodels and supermoms: sacrifice, modulate your voice, be smart and likable but also fuckable, be the consumable star of an endless soft-porn flick. Thirty-two years you’ve been on the planet and nothing’s new about this, but you may have reached the saturation point with the images flooding your senses. They’re depressing enough at the best of times, let alone in your third trimester. And it’s a bad time to lose your touchpoints. Your own ideas and standards—of adulthood, of achievement, of beauty—how real are they? How trustworthy? Impending motherhood has crystallized your unease.

  The driver doesn’t look up when you fail to snatch the transfer she waves in your direction. You make a second grab and get it, forgetting that you don’t need it today. It’s been your habit to take what is offered. She wears black knit gloves with the fingers cut off. A gold racing stripe divides each fingernail.

  “All the way back,” she booms, imitating a bullhorn voice.

  You decide to resist being treated like livestock. Stand there—no one’s getting around your bulk—and look her full in the face.

  “Thank you,” you say with intense goodwill, spacing each word. “Have a great night.”

  “Ummm, my night, yep. Move on, little mama.”

  You flush and consider protesting but reject the idea because you’d look ridiculous, an upholstered woman with a minor grievance. So much for reaching out—was that what you thought you were doing? Better to prepare for the battle ahead.

  There are empty seats at the back. You won’t have to hang from the ceiling strap, swaying and fuming until someone notices your protruding belly. You could die waiting for that.

  Since the pregnancy you’ve become something of a transit sociologist, mentally filing away the habits of the commuting public. Most people just sit. But sometimes a woman will heave herself out of her seat with a self-satisfied smile. She’s been there. She’ll feel compelled to disclose how many children she’s borne, making your experience, your aches and pains, even your miracle baby, all seem trivial. Countless multitudes of women have survived this; you’re no special case. Did you think you were?

  Or an old man might stand up, usually so old that you feel it’s a legitimate toss-up. He needs to sit more than you do, but will refusing the kind gesture hurt his pride? This sort of social transaction can leave you distracted for hours.

  The most likely type to give a pregnant woman his seat is the young man you can think of only as a hood—multiply jewelled, hair-slicked, chewing a toothpick, and probably hopped up on something, but there it is: unfailingly chivalrous. What this says about Toronto early in the twenty-first century you can’t begin to guess.

  And that’s just the seat issue. Don’t get started on the folks who can’t keep their hands off your middle or say it must be twins—you’re so big!—or glare at your coffee. You don’t dare snarl back. Your personal belly has become public property. You should get used to it. It’s one of the many changes gunning for your so-called normal life.

  You make for the back, scoping the car. This crowd looks typical, reading or listening to music in a purposeful way, warding off anyone who might be inclined to chat. They don’t have to worry about you.

  You notice a man in a grey suit and overcoat with cropped dark hair, third to last row, aisle seat. He wears minimalist glasses in a softer dove grey and reads from an open file folder. The paper on top is stamped “Confidential.” A government guy with confidential information. He’s the one you’re going to sit behind. You might as well learn something while you’re stuck between work and home.

  You’ve just hit the seat, have only begun to unclench the muscles supporting your altered centre of gravity, when the singing starts.

  Swing low, sweet char-i-ot

  Comin’ for to carry me home—

  You look for the singer out of the corner of your eye. He’s standing in the centre of the car, a tall man in a sober dark suit and impeccable white shirt, tieless, slowly turning to stare at each rider in turn, willing a connection. He picked a tough northern place for this kind of thing.

  Only two passengers gape openly: a pale girl and boy sitting in side-facing seats toward the front. He has freckles and an innocent, unformed look. His lips are part
ed, revealing a hunk of pink gum that he’s working on and off. She has long, dirty-blonde hair. Her hand is on top of his, pulling his pointer finger down.

  They look too young to be riding the streetcar alone, especially in the early dark of winter, but what do you really know about children anyway? How old would be old enough?

  Unparented children: they roam the street where your husband has talked you into purchasing a brick semi-detached fixer-upper, its single hallway no wider than the streetcar aisle. A lanky kid showed up the day after you moved in and has been making excuses to chat ever since, stopping by whenever you’re in the yard. You like this stray girl well enough and find yourself wanting to take her inside and feed her, an unaccountable desire that’s grown over time. But what’s the protocol? She swats away queries about parents. Says she’s fourteen, but you think maybe eleven. So far, you’ve resisted inviting her in.

  I looked over Jordan, and what did I see-ee?

  Comin’ for to carry me home?

  Your new neighbourhood is a little dodgy, in transition, as the real estate agents say, but close enough to the Beaches for them to cash in. The Beaches are getting bigger every day. It’s obvious from the westward creep of upscale coffee shops and vintage furniture stores.

  Ama-zing grace, how sweet the sound

  That saved a wretch like me—

  The voice is a deep baritone penetrating your shell. You wonder about wretch; wasn’t it replaced with something less judgmental? At the moment you feel wretched, a bit nauseous and confined, squeezed into this metal can of malodorous wage-slaves at the end of their day.

  You blink back tears. Music often makes you cry. Church music, cancer stories, your boss already discounting every word you say in the run-up to your maternity leave—all of these can open the ducts.