Motherish

by Laura Rock

  Jesus, not now. Grandpa’s face was red. He wasn’t used to hustling.

  As we got closer to the car, I started running, like in the movies when the good guys are making a break for it. I threw myself against the shiny black Cadillac, hugging cool metal. Grandpa and Grandma were right behind me, both breathing hard. Grandpa turned out of the parking lot, and the tires squealed.

  The back seat of the Caddy was big and deep, perfect for a girl who liked to bounce. There were no rules in the back seat. When I got tired of up and down, I slammed from one door to the other as Grandpa took the curves fast. He lit a cigarette and rolled down the window, checking his rear-view mirror. The wind whipped my hair, the best feeling of all. It meant summer, the expansiveness of nights with my grandparents before they had to surrender me back to my mother. The knots in my hair would go untended until I returned home in the morning, when I would have to submit to my mother’s combing them out. Riding fast and free was stolen time.

  Grandma dabbed at her temples with an embroidered handkerchief, and I caught her scent of spicy cologne.

  You’re sweating, I said.

  She looked at Grandpa, who smiled at me in the mirror, and then she twisted around to face me. Horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies glow. Remember that. She reached out and pinched my cheek, much gentler than Bean. Turning back to Grandpa, she rested her hand on the back of his neck, just above the starched white collar.

  Can you believe that goddamn bum.

  Please, Vincent. Leave God out of it. They were silent for a long time. I stopped bouncing and laid my cheek on the cool, embracing leather, watching the road signs whip past. We sped along the highway through dark tunnels of trees.

  There they are, Grandpa said. Two cars came from behind, lighting the road ahead of us, honking their horns. Grandpa honked back as they passed. That’s our convoy. You get a fur coat, guess what I’m getting? One of them CB radios like the truckers.

  Truckers! Look at the fine fabric on this suit. Grandma stroked his lapel. Hey, what do you say we stop for pizza? I bet our girl back there is hungry.

  If we had a CB, you could call the boys and ask do they want pizza.

  We stopping or not?

  Ten-four, big mama.

  Big! She punched his shoulder lightly.

  Grandpa roared ahead and swung around the other cars, drag racing. I let out a whoop, and he grinned. “It’s JOOOYRIIIDE by a NOOOOSE,” I shouted, and Grandma cheered me on, clapping. I don’t remember them ever shushing me. He pulled the Caddy off the road, heading for a joint with pulsing neon lights, and the guys followed.

  Midnight pizza, pizza for winners, ha! Grandma faced me again, serious now. Don’t go telling will you, Anna? Tonight’s our little secret. She pulled me half into the front seat for a squeeze. My bella! You’re going to be a model when you grow up, bet on it.

  Well, that was never in the cards. I wanted to inherit her glamour and beauty, but what I got was her luck.

  Five or six years later, she and Grandpa moved in with us, and not by choice. They lost the Cadillac, so no more Monticello, and off-track betting hadn’t been invented yet—they would have loved OTB as much as I do. My mother gave them an allowance of twenty-five dollars a week for lottery tickets: a laughable amount, pitiful to them, yet it killed her to part with the cash, knowing they’d blow it. I guess it was her way of showing love; I’m able to see that now. I remember sitting with them at night, doing my homework, chewing a pencil over math problems as they scraped the tickets with quarters, looking for a jackpot or a few bucks, anything worth celebrating. We’d make a pile of crumbs from the silver seals on their tickets and the red remains of my eraser, pushing them across the tabletop, and at the end we’d whisk them onto the carpet, ta-dah! My mother would be upstairs alone, vacuuming, or banging pots against our cozy conspiracy.

  I knew their high spirits were an act for me. Cut off from their friends, stuck in our basement, they had nowhere to go. Grandpa’s emphysema tethered him to an oxygen tank. He gave up careful dressing, wearing the garish golf shirts my mother bought on sale in packs of three. One man, seven days in every week, how many shirts did he need? He didn’t even perspire anymore. But she kept buying them. She wanted to be a good daughter, and I guess she was. Seeing him in clown orange and happy-face yellow was beyond depressing. He’s not a goddamn peacock, I yelled once, but Mom ignored my outburst.

  Hey, I don’t like to dwell on their long decline. They were a show worth watching, a hell of a joyride—give them that. I’m glad they’re riding wild across the sky, all losses forgotten. And now that I’m my own mother, my own grandmother, what I remember is winners racing darkness home; Caddy backseat bouncing perfectas; horses straining for the finish line, jockeys whipping them on; and the payouts, the smell of bills large and small. The thrill of the first bet never fades. Scribbling the odds, stroking the jade-eyed golden horse that is now pinned to my blouse, I’m at the track more often than not, watching my picks, hoping for a payday. Here’s to the race, I say, and to the people who brought me here. Here’s to joyriding, free of sleep.

  The Winnings

  Where’s the big man got to?” my mother said, running a finger under her watchband to scratch her puffy wrist as she checked her watch. “Six-thirty. He should’ve been here an hour ago.”

  “Do you want to go to dinner?” I said. She hated to eat late. There’d be another wait at the restaurant. But she settled her bulk into my living room easy chair, deciding for us. She had come straight from the salon, and I was still getting used to her new hairdo, a series of twirls and fillips piled into a high fortress glued with smelly product, and the dramatic jet black she had chosen. My hair was naturally auburn, and hers had always been dark brown, lately greying. Until now. Black hair made her skin seem paler than ever, and for the first time, I noticed white patches of scalp showing through at the temples.

  “We can’t celebrate without Kyle. He’s a good man, Allison. Treat him like a king and you’ll have no regrets.”

  “But you’re hungry,” I said. “You must be, hallucinating about marriage like that. When did you ever treat Dad like a king?”

  “Don’t be a brat. I can wait to eat. We should wait for Kyle.” She smoothed her aqua stretch pants along the thighs and then folded her arms across her floral print sweater set. A crumpled Kleenex was jammed into one sleeve.

  I began smoothing the ripped thighs of my jeans, until I realized I was imitating her, so I got up to stretch. I needed to move, to be doing something besides waiting. “Suit yourself. Who knows—maybe there was a mix-up with the ticket.”

  I stood at the window and watched cars idling at the stoplight, the last trace of rush hour, as she wheezed behind me. Staring at traffic gave me a vision of Kyle, car windows down all the way, music thumping, driving in the wrong direction. Speeding away from home, and me, the jackpot money chasing him down the highway. It came to me so clearly. I knew he’d chosen the off-ramp.

  “It’s probably construction. He’ll be here,” she said, as if her saying so would make it happen. Once she’d decided something, she wouldn’t admit to being wrong, even if she later changed her mind and shifted direction. She’d just barrel on at the same speed as before, not pausing to reflect.

  “Have it your way,” I said, snapping the curtains closed, and then, remembering that I needed to keep watch, opened them again.

  Her sudden faith in Kyle was hard to take. Until he hit his numbers two weeks ago, she kept hinting that he was a poor bet.

  “The father took off, do I have that right?” she said in July, placing her icy drink against the back of her neck for a moment before slurping it. “That kind of thing repeats in families. It’s a cycle, you better believe it.” I didn’t answer. And neither did I believe that Kyle would abandon me, as his father had done when Kyle was a baby. His mother destroyed all the photos; he had no memory of a father but didn’t seem
troubled by that history.

  And in August when I should have been going away to school but didn’t, she said, about Kyle but, really, about both of us, “Factory work’s no future. Where’s his get up and go?”

  I guess he found it on the 401 Highway. The oversized whiteboard cheque must have been propped against the passenger seat, five zeros daring him to make the big U-turn.

  Kyle worked shifts at the cardboard plant. He had considered higher education on and off, but the steady money was too good to give up. Five years out of high school, he was still there. As for myself, I couldn’t seem to decide on a next step, moving from one low-paying job to the next. I was cleaning cottages, but that gig would end once winter came.

  “Can’t see taking the chance on university now, with the recession,” he’d said to me as we walked the streets one evening, holding hands, following the riverside trail.

  “Let’s not,” I answered, syncing our steps. We grew up in this small city on the edge of the big city. “Look at all this,” I said, with a sweep of my hand, taking in the houses and trees, the river rolling past. “It’s everything. How could we leave it?”

  “The world will always need boxes,” he said. “That’s all I know.”

  While Mother dreamed up problems stemming from our failure to go on with our schooling—“A privilege I never had,” she reminded us repeatedly—I planned the wedding: not too big, not too small, the white dress, traditional.

  If Kyle had come back, it would have been next weekend. The weather channel promised a cool but sunny day, the fall foliage at peak viewing pleasure for tourists and locals alike. Scattered fall leaves, orange and yellow and red, were printed on our invitations and napkins and matchbook covers along with our intertwined initials, the reception swag thematically aligned. There would be pots of cheap and cheerful mums on every table, in case anyone missed the fact that it was fall, the season of crisp new chances.

  And now she had turned into the wedding cheerleader. She couldn’t stop bragging about her future son-in-law. Hadn’t she herself cleaned up in the bingo halls? They had good luck in common. Kyle and Allison were meant for each other. They had a bright future ahead, the best.

  She heaved herself up and headed for the kitchen, saying, “Isn’t there anything to drink in this place?”

  I nodded wearily, but she was already gone. She knew where to find the booze. I heard clinking bottles, and she came back with a tray: scotch for herself and red wine for me.

  “You should get a treatment before the wedding,” she said. “No charge.”

  I took the wineglass and peered through it, rolling the glass across the bridge of my nose, drowning my eyes in the wavy maroon vista.

  “I don’t think so.” I was calm. Resolved, not sad. The idea of that needle jabbing my skin reminded me of porcupine quills in my late dog’s muzzle, the suffering he had to endure before the vet put him under. And besides, the wedding was off.

  “This is no time to give up on grooming. You want to look good walking down that aisle.” She patted her updo, needlessly. It was still solid, not a hair mussed.

  “I’m not worried.” She wanted me to worry, that was the point. To waste time fretting about things that didn’t matter. I sipped my drink and thought of her working on clients, day after day. She didn’t see the person on her table, only a map of pores and hairs magnified beyond all decency as she burned each follicle with electric pulses. I’d spent summers as her receptionist; I knew how she was, torturing clients in the name of beauty.

  “Stubborn like your father.” She’d be onto him next, expecting me to agree. He had a body shop in an adjoining garage that smelled of Varsol. People brought their fender benders out back to him, and some of them went to her for electrolysis, even men.

  Poor Dad, he still blushed at any mention of the aesthetic operation on the street side of his business, as if he could pretend it wasn’t there. He probably would have liked being father of the bride, even while he braved the attention that came with walking me down the aisle. The father–daughter dance a nightmare for him, but he’d have done it. I would have to break the wedding news to him myself. Not Mother. She’d twist the explanation into an episode in which he was somehow at fault for chasing Kyle away. But he liked Kyle well enough, didn’t he? I realized that Dad had not expressed an opinion on the subject. At least, not to me.

  “And what’s wrong with a clean jaw line on the most important day of your life?” Her pencilled eyebrows rose above her sparkly glasses in two accusing brown arcs. I wanted to point out that she should change her pencil to black to match her new hair, but I swallowed that thought with a gulp of wine.

  I drank more, feeling wine-glow heating my veins. And something else: joy, love, surprise, what was it?

  “Actually, I’m saving my facial hair in case I need an eyebrow transplant someday.” He loves me, loves me not: I had giggles, not heartbreak.

  She sucked in her breath and looked old. Her skin was pasty and unhealthy, mottled crepe at the neck. When was the last time she visited a doctor? I couldn’t recall her ever going, but she must have, over the years. I only remember her working in the shop. Always working, making money to spend on me, her only child, ungrateful as ever.

  “Okay, okay, you can fix me up sometime this week, I guess.” I sighed and stood to refill her drink. She caught my hand as I reached for her glass.

  “Is my little girl ready?” she said.

  “Oh Lord, who knows?” I shook myself loose and went to get the bottles and heat up whatever food I could find in the fridge. We settled in for a night of drinking and leftover lasagna instead of a nice dinner out. I lit candles to make things festive. We had a wedding cancellation to celebrate, even if only one of us knew about it.

  She grew teary talking of bingo strategy and Kyle’s winning, and how her grandchildren would all be winners too. I became more clear-minded with each glass of wine. I’d travel, kiss the world one town at a time, not staying long enough to attach myself to land or people. My future would not be tethered to a husband, or long hours of menial work; something creative and new would spark deep inside me, and I would nurture that spark until it became a bright, sustaining flame. I refused to think about tomorrow, when it would be necessary to phone and notify and cancel.

  “I wonder where he is,” Mother said several times. I had stopped offering possible reasons, because I knew. But I didn’t want to argue with her. Let the truth unfurl without me, I thought. She’ll see.

  Eventually, she moved to the couch and began to snore. I draped a blanket over her. As I removed her glasses, she murmured, “I just want things settled.”

  She meant me. She just wanted me sorted, slotted into a predetermined pathway. Could there be a worse outcome than a life without surprises? But I was moved by her single-mindedness. She thought she had my best interests at heart. She just didn’t know them. Neither had I known, before.

  “Try not to worry so much.” I patted the top of her head and lay down on the small couch opposite. Strange, how we’d flipped positions on the marriage question. Would we ever see things the same way, be on the same side?

  Staring at the ceiling, I sent love-waves to Kyle—detached fondness for a relationship that already seemed long past. I was grateful for what he’d given back to me without my even asking. The shiny days before me were a gift I’d been too stupid to know I should want. It was a lucky break. I smiled myself to sleep.

  In the morning rough fingertips stroked my neck.

  “Allison,” he said in a hoarse whisper that woke me instantly. My mother, across from me, blew bubbles in her sleep.

  “Babe? What?” I reached for him. His body was familiar and warm. I felt the muscles of his shoulder and bicep working. He was jumpy, miserable, in fact. I could read that through his shirt.

  “I don’t deserve you.” He bowed his head.

  I squinted into
the light streaming in and saw my free self, climbing a far-off mountain alone, heading away from me—roped to no one for safety, and without the slightest hint of hesitation. I wanted to throw that girl a lifeline before she disappeared.

  “I panicked. I couldn’t think, is all,” he said.

  I tried to look shocked, a little hurt, playing along. But it was like a balloon had popped in my chest and was whizzing around, blowing damp, stale air, yesterday’s news.

  “I made it as far as Sarnia and turned north. Don’t even know which road I took there.”

  He picked up my hand and traced the lines of my palm.

  “And then I hit the deer.”

  I nodded. Hangover nausea lapped at the edges of my esophagus, waiting for a chance to rise.

  “That was my sign. The deer flew off the hood in pieces, like a strobe light flashing in the dark. It was in pieces, I swear. But when I pulled over to look, the deer wasn’t broken up at all.”

  Surely it was dead, though. A terrible, ominous sign that we’d be foolish to ignore. My head pounded.

  “Coffee?” I said.

  “The money will give us our start. We’ll buy a house, have kids right away. You can even go to college if you want.”

  I sank into the pillow. He wanted to go back to Plan A. He was being magnanimous, offering me something he thought only he could provide. A future boobytrapped with obligations. I must have been delusional with my night of fantasy freedom.

  “When I saw that deer—” He shook his head. “I love you. Never doubt it.”

  “I know, babe,” I said, closing my eyes. A rag doll would have more willpower than I did. “I know you do.”

  Me and Robin

  Who are you now, Robin?”

  He pulls the long blonde wig over his crewcut and fixes the strands around his face. Then he tugs his jeans down below his hipbones, exposing a strip of white skin. The jump rope is the microphone, one wooden handle pressed into his lips as he puts on a show in our back laneway.