Rose tilted her head and smiled with the uncomfortable exposure of such a confession. So I was praying like stink, she said, just praying and begging God to send me a sign. And he did. I remember it so clearly. I felt so certain of his love for me. I don’t know how else to describe it. And then that certainty kind of faded. And I never really felt it again until five years ago when I went, with a delegation from our church, to the Kingdom of Salvation Center in Wichita.
I know that, Mom, Connie said. And you’ve been talking about it ever since. I know how good it was for you. Why are you telling me all of this right now?
It’s just that I felt the most powerful manifestations of the Spirit there, Con. The Lord was really present to me, and I think he’d be present to you too. They have a prophetic ministry service there, and God has been speaking for a long time, directly through their prayer counsellors, sending out some really transformative stuff. It might just help you deal with what’s going on right now. You could take Hannah with you. She’s living off a grant this year. She’s got no kids. Her schedule is completely flexible. When was the last time you two girls spent any quality time together?
Is this all you’re ever going to say when something goes wrong? Go to the Salvation Center?
I just think you might really benefit from going, Rose said earnestly. I’ve been thinking about this for so long, and now –
Benefit? Connie said. Because I could stand to do with a few improvements? You think this is my fault? Why is your advice always so loaded with criticism? Why do you have to be so controlling?
I’m not trying to control you, Rose said.
No, you just want me to go to this crazy mega-church and have the exact same experience you did, so – what? So you can take the credit for my spiritual recuperation?
It’s not about taking credit, Rose said. I’m just trying to help.
You don’t even know how to help.
Well then, show me. I feel so helpless sometimes. It’s so hard to know what you need.
What about listening for a change?
I’m listening all the time! I got a call from Zeus today. The defensiveness had suddenly dropped out of her voice.
Zeus?
I haven’t heard from him in ages. Rose looked so hopeful and excited.
Well, what do you expect? Connie said. When you guys found out he was gay, all you did was make him feel sinful.
That’s not true!
Well, you didn’t exactly embrace it. It obviously became impossible for him to stay, because who leaves home at the age of fifteen?
I’m not the same woman I used to be! Rose shouted and started to cry. All I’ve ever wanted is for my children to be happy.
But Zeus was your child too. You adopted him.
I know I failed him, Rose said. You don’t think I know that?
Rose cried often, and her face immediately showed all the signs. It was almost flagrant how puffy her eyes got, how pink her nostrils looked. She put a hand on her chest and started to wheeze. Stress of any kind always triggered her asthma. She stood up stiffly and went into the bathroom. Connie heard the mirror open and the puff of her Ventolin, followed by the deep inhalation.
After a while, her mother came back into the living room. She looked unreachable, like someone travelling across an empty landscape. Connie didn’t enjoy hurting her mother. It made her feel awful, but she couldn’t banish her own cruelty and impatience. Why are you always trying to fix everyone? she said. Why can’t you just support me without shoving your opinions in my face?
I’m not trying to fix anyone, Con, that’s not what I’m saying. Rose looked so injured. This is just something I thought would be really good for you. Something I wanted us to share.
Connie pulled her hair back away from her face.
You don’t have to go – Rose took another quick suck on the little snorkel of her inhaler – it was just a suggestion.
Sure, let me just take a thousand dollars out of my nonexistent bank account, leave my three children, and fly off to Wichita.
I was thinking I’d pay for the trip. You know I’ve saved up a little, and nothing would make me happier. Think of it as a favour you’d be doing me, Rose said and gave Connie a weak grin.
A favour? Connie said. You want me to do you a favour at a time like this? This is my crisis, Mom. It’s not yours. See what I mean?
There was silence for a long time. One of the children upstairs cried out in their sleep.
Let’s just talk about it in the morning, Rose said, and Connie immediately felt a profound need to sleep.
The next morning, she came down for breakfast, headachey and nauseated from lack of sleep. On the table were three bowls with the remains of cereal, half-drunk glasses of milk. Rose was just cleaning up. She stopped when Connie entered the kitchen and wiped her hands with a dish towel. She watched Connie take a seat.
Zeus wants to go see his birth parents, Rose said. And he asked me what I thought, and I hesitated to encourage him. But I think I was wrong. Of course it’s what every child needs – to know their parents. I’ve been thinking about this all night and I want you to think about it too.
Think about what? Connie said. She was distracted by the noise of the TV in the background. The volume was on way too high. What about his boyfriend? she said. Doesn’t he have a boyfriend?
He just died.
Really? Oh no, poor thing.
Rose passed her half a grapefruit in a bowl.
We’ve never been much good to him as sisters.
Well, now’s your chance, Rose said.
What can we do?
I don’t know, Rose said. But I was thinking if the three of you drove together to Wichita, it would be a chance to reconnect with him, and then you’d at least be taking him part of the way to New Mexico. You could fly to Toronto, get Hannah, drive to Chicago, pick up Zeus, and head down to Kansas.
Connie stared at her mother in disbelief.
I’ll pay for it, Rose said. Your ticket, the rental, and money for gas, the lot of it.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Connie said. I can’t really see this happening. Honestly, Mom.
Hannah would agree if you asked her to do it for you. She loves road trips. Besides, she’s always had a soft spot for Zeus, you know? She’s more loyal than you give her credit for. Rose turned and resumed washing the dishes.
You and Hannah were so different growing up, she said, looking out the window. Hannah always so lost in her imagination. There was never anything quite as compelling as the stories she conjured up for herself. You, on the other hand, Rose said, turning back to Connie and drying her hands. You’ve always been so grounded. You didn’t like to be caught off guard. You hated surprises. I remember thinking, Con will never be impulsive, but she’ll always be prepared.
I’ve never been prepared for anything in my life, Connie said.
That’s not true. You’re a great planner, and things have pretty much turned out the way you wanted them to.
Connie leaned forward and stared into the glistening intricacy of her half-eaten grapefruit. I never planned to go bankrupt, she said, then straightened up. Why am I even thinking about this? Have you forgotten what just happened to me? Where am I going to live? How am I going to pay the bills? Where’s Harlan? I don’t even know where my husband is!
Rose passed Connie a mug of coffee. You’re just going to have to be patient for a little while about a lot of things.
Connie looked at her mother and clenched her jaw. What about the kids?
We’ll take care of them, Rose said. She was gaining ground, and she knew it.
And you think Zeus is just going to buy into this sudden family convoy?
There’s only one way to find out.
Don’t you think, Connie said, that what I need right now is to stay and try to work things out with Harl? Shouldn’t I be out looking for him?
You won’t find him if he’s not ready to be found.
What if he needs me right now?
He needs to hit rock bottom is what he needs. And then he needs to pick himself up again.
It was true, the last thing she really wanted to do, right now, was talk to Harl. Let him rot over there for a while at his sister’s place, if that’s where he was, in that sour and smoky living room, drinking a Kokanee, with the TV on full blast.
Rose stood behind her daughter and put her hands on her shoulders. This will be something good for you, for all three of you, whether you know it or not. Rose was massaging her shoulders.
Emma called her from the living room, but Connie didn’t want to move. Emma and Theo came into the kitchen, both talking at the same time about what cartoons they wanted to watch and who was allowed to use the remote control. They stood very close and Connie stroked their soft faces and said, in a gentle voice, that she’d be there in a minute. When they were gone, she asked her mother, And what if I decide not to go?
Nothing changes if you don’t give it a chance to change, Rose said and kissed the top of her daughter’s head.
2
Hannah and Connie carried their luggage through Chinatown. They were waiting at the corner of an intersection for the light to change. Beside them was a pet store. In the window sat a fat brown bunny, its nose twitching rhythmically. Connie was tired from her flight the night before, and the time change, and perhaps that was why she found it so impossibly sad to see this flaccid bunny on sale, first thing in the morning, with a price tag for twelve dollars. Today was Halloween, and above the rabbit, the cardboard cutout of a witch on her broom hung from the ceiling by a string, rotating in the circulating air.
I don’t know how I can persist in loving Norm as much as I do, Hannah blurted, when he’s causing me so much grief.
Well, at least you know you love him, Connie said wearily. The light turned green and somewhere behind her a man whistled and it made Connie stiffen. Then she realized it was the crossing signal for the blind.
I just can’t reconcile how really life-affirming this relationship has been for me, Hannah went on, with his refusal to have a child. It’s like a death ship at the centre of something really beautiful.
Death ship? Connie asked. Her sister could be so melodramatic. Don’t you realize, she said, that everybody’s just trying to reconcile all the time the good aspects of their lives with what they hate about it too?
Connie didn’t sound very sympathetic, Hannah thought, but then she understood she was probably thinking about her own situation. She’d noticed how sad Connie looked when they left the apartment. Norm had made a big show of saying goodbye to her in front of her sister, and it made her feel sorry for Connie.
It had taken them only five days to plan the trip, from the moment Connie called her until now. She liked the idea of being there for her sister, who rarely, if ever, appealed to her for help. She hadn’t seen Connie in a long time and was amazed by what was happening to her. To have your house repossessed, and all the things you thought you owned? It was unbelievable. She’d never had the luxury of having any money to lose. It had always been a struggle.
Besides, now was as good a time as any for a getaway. She wanted Norm to stew over the baby thing – and she really liked the idea of seeing Zeus again. Connie had asked her to call him, and she’d agreed. Then she and Connie had talked about how Hannah should introduce herself after so long and what to say to him. When they’d come up with a plan, she made the call and found Zeus easy to talk to and open to their offer of getting him at least part of the way to New Mexico. The last time she saw him, he was fourteen and still living with her parents in Toronto. She’d been visiting from London and had taken him to her favourite bakery on Queen Street, where they sat by the window and ordered mint tea and ginger muffins with lemon curd. It was an incredibly sunny day and she remembered how the yellow curd had gleamed like amber. Zeus had hung on her every word – aloof and yet with a smouldering intensity that signalled he was in need of attention himself.
He’d carefully smoothed the lacquered curd across the open face of his muffin, then offered to roll a joint.
My God, Zeus, she said, how old are you?
I’m fourteen, he said.
I guess that’s about as old as we ever get.
Look at me, he said, shrugging helplessly. I live in a rectory. I don’t have many friends.
When they got up, Hannah had hugged him, exuberantly, then felt silly because she hardly knew him. They left the bakery and she said, Come on, and took him to the roof of an old warehouse downtown, where they sat looking out over the skyline and got high. It started to get dark and a fog came in off the lake in a milky haze, blurring the bright billboards and neon ads. They could just make out the name of the Sutton Place Hotel. The letters seemed to hover in the air, attached to nothing, like the lurid dreamscape of a futuristic city. They rechristened it Mutton Face, then the Lamb Chop Hotel. They spoke in cat and dog noises. They talked about staging an opera consisting entirely of barks and meows and police sirens. Hannah da-da-dee’d the finale to Turandot while Zeus swung one-handed from the fire escape. They both froze and stared when his trucker’s cap came off and floated down to rest on a flat expanse of pebbled roof twenty feet below.
How could Hannah have forgotten about a boy like that? What monkey selfishness was she carrying around on her back that she hadn’t considered his need for a phone call once in a while? She hadn’t bothered, not once, to go see him. She was pulling these memories out like the soft ear of some forgotten pocket of her past and feeling remorse for not having taken her role as a big sister more seriously. She would go with him and her sister to Kansas. She would make amends. She would think about calling Caiden Brock. He and Julia live in Wichita now, Connie had said. Apparently, they had three boys, that’s what Mom had told Connie.
Caiden’s parents were friends of the family, and whenever they’d come over to visit, Caiden would pull her aside when no one was looking and feel her up. He had his foot in her crotch at Christmas dinner one year, the whole time under the table. It turned her on so much. But she was so young – just thirteen, fourteen – and he was nine years older. Hannah didn’t know what to do. He’d come by the house and take her for a ride on his motorcycle, then drop her off and leave. It drove her wild with helplessness. She wasn’t sure he was interested in talking to her at all. She just wanted him to keep doing those things to her body. She used to like going to his parents’ place, even when he wasn’t there, because his mother would always pamper her. She’d order Chinese food. They never had food like that at home. Mrs. Brock was the only person she’d ever heard speak in tongues. It happened in her living room. Hannah hadn’t wanted to be rude, so she pretended to be moved.
There was another time she faked it, at Anglican summer camp. Caiden was there as a camp counsellor. They sat together at the big final worship service, where all these urban kids from non-religious families were getting up and approaching the rustic communion rail to be saved and converted. Hannah wanted to show him how spiritually deep she was so pretended to be having a religious experience. She even stood up and lifted her hands into the air and pretended to cry a little.
Nothing like this was going to happen at that church on the outskirts of Wichita because she had no intention of actually going inside, but something about the trip excited her. Something about a bland life having no taste. Like the white of an egg, she thought, noticing a box full of quail’s eggs that an old man was selling. He was sitting on a red bucket, the eggs on an up-ended wooden crate. Beside him, a woman selling tiny bird’s-eye chili peppers out of a styrofoam takeout container.
I need to go to the bank, Connie said, and exchange some money. Are you taking any cash?
Hannah shook her head. I booked us a rental and got CAA maps, so don’t go faulting me, as usual, for doing nothing.
Let’s try not to fault each other for anything on this trip, okay?
Hannah said she was fine with that, and soon they were crossing a nearly empty lot towards a car rental office. This i
s the place you chose? Connie said. It looked dilapidated.
Hannah said she’d reserved a Prius, but they couldn’t see a Prius anywhere. The only two vehicles in the lot were a Cadillac and a small, brand-new, white pickup truck. They got a really cheap deal on the truck, a Ford Ranger, and this is what they took.
Connie was too tired to drive and complained of having to do so much of it at home, so Hannah drove, aggressively and with the lock-jawed concentration of someone who rarely drives. They lurched and bolted their way out of the city. Traffic thinned past the suburbs, and after an hour or so, they started to come across open farmland. Properties divided by a single line of trees, their trunks grey and black, like fences made of tarnished cutlery. Here and there, marooned in the fields, small islands of green conifers. In the shelter of a long escarpment, the trees still dark red and orange.
Connie was leaning against the door, her cheek resting against the cold glass. Her body gave a sudden jolt. In a fraction of a second she’d imagined it – sucked out onto the shoulder, the rip and claw of gravel as she hit the ditch. I thought the door was swinging open, she said. Once again, she double-checked the power locks by pressing the switch four times.
That’s the third time you’ve done that since we got in, Hannah said.
Is it? Connie said distractedly. Her thoughts were elsewhere. She was missing her children, their ripe pear-scented breath. And then she conceded. I don’t know why I’m so nervous, she said.
It comes from trying to conceal a desperation, Hannah said. You know, the loss of all your worldly possessions? Maybe you just need to let it go and grieve.
What, and make the tragic spectacle of my life even more public?
I’m not public, Hannah said.
Look, I can only behave the way I know how to behave, Connie said. And at the moment, I’d rather keep my feelings to myself.
Sorry, Hannah said.
Connie didn’t want to open up to her sister but found she couldn’t help herself. I don’t want to care about the house, she confessed, but it’s crushing me.
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