by Su J. Sokol
“You’d best keep that promise, Laek, because if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll kick your ass so hard that, that …”
She’s moved closer to me again, so I grab her wrist and pull her to the edge of the bath. “Come in here with me and you can kick my ass all you want. Please.”
“There’s no room for me in there,” she answers, pulling her wrist out of my grasp and folding her arms across her chest.
“There’s a perfect spot right here,” I say, spreading my legs apart.
Her cheeks are flushed now, pinker than her fist. She bites her lip but it escapes into her rosebud smile. “Fine,” she says, sounding exasperated, but I focus on her hands tugging on sleeves and pant legs. Once undressed, she steps into the bath and settles down. Takes a quick intake of breath. “Fuck! Are you trying to kill me? Your legs are like ice.”
“You can help me defrost. And I can wash your hair. Hand me the shampoo.”
She dunks her hair under the water and I start to lather it up. Her curls are soft and wet and covered with suds. I play with them, trying to make her have rabbit ears and other weird hair shapes. Janie is rubbing the cold out of my legs. She keeps on adding more hot water. When I’m done with her hair, I reach for the soap and wash her back. It doesn’t take long. It’s so small. I start washing other places.
“Yeah, I’m really dirty down there,” she says, laughing a low, throaty laugh.
My hands move all over her body. I want to touch every inch of her. “You smell good, Janie. And you’re so … slippery. So warm and, and so slippery.” She shifts and I slip myself inside her. I’m heating up now from both within and without. It feels like paradise. I’m transported by the wet warmth and fragrant soapy smell. I make it last as long as I can.
Janie has climbed out of the tub. As she leans over the side to open the drain and add more hot water, I kiss her soft curls.
“You smell like spring,” I say. “Do you think spring’s coming?”
“Spring? What’s spring? I think I have some distant memory …”
“I can tell by the light. We still have a good stretch of winter to go, but it’s coming.”
“It’s minus fucking twenty-five degrees outside.”
“I’d go out naked into that cold every day if this is what I got when I came back inside.”
“Put that idea out of your head. I’m not going to enable that type of crazy behaviour.”
“You’re very … solid and reasonable, Janie, you know that?”
“Is that a compliment or what?”
“Yes, a compliment. And me? What am I?”
“You’re fucking crazy. But also gorgeous and wild.”
“What else? Do you think I’m deep?”
“You’re complicated, anyway.”
“I love you, Janie.”
“I love you, too. And thank you for saying you’ll try to change. You are very, very good, and that’s the real reason I love you.”
I lift my knees up, sliding forward so that I can put my whole head under the surface. I lie like that for a while, ears and eyes under, only my nose and lips peeking out. My mind drifts in warmth and happiness. I find I’m falling asleep. That’s when I realize I’ve finally gotten over my fear of water.
FORTY-FOUR
Janie
“Are you wearing your long johns, Laek?” I ask, walking into our bedroom.
“Janie, you have two kids, not three. But if you want, put your hands down my pants and you’ll see what kind of underwear I have on.”
“Ew!” Siri yells from her bedroom.
I step closer to Laek so I can whisper. “Does she have superhuman hearing?”
“Yeah, maybe.” He speaks more quietly too. “She seems more her old self lately. What do you think, Janie? Does she seem happier to you?”
“She’s made a lot of friends, which helps. Though I wish she’d bring them around more.”
“I’m also worried about her problem with French.”
“Yeah, I mean to talk to her about that again. Maybe today.”
Simon bursts into the room. “Come on, already! All the queues de castor will be gone!”
We head out the door. “Daddy,” Siri says. “Where’s your new jacket?”
Laek pats himself. “Oh yeah.” He goes back and puts it on. “I would’ve remembered it if Mommy hadn’t gotten me all worked up about my underwear.”
“Two kids, huh?” I say. “Let’s go, Siri. We’ll let ‘les boys’ bring up the rear.”
At the park, we go into a round glass building to rent skates. We store our shoes in small built-in wooden boxes that double as seats, warmed from below by some geothermal system. Stumbling down to the ice, I nearly wipe out on the rubber matting. This does not bode well. Laek is the first to push himself out onto the smaller rink reserved for less-experienced skaters, first checking that Siri and Simon are making out OK. He looks over to me and I wave him on. I plan on taking my time.
“Look, Mommy,” Simon says.
Laek is circling the ice in smooth, fluid movements. He comes to a stop in front of us.
“Daddy, how did you do that? Mommy said you’ve never ice skated before.”
“I guess it’s because I know how to magna skate.”
“You can magna skate, Daddy?” Siri’s voice is between incredulity and awe.
“Yeah. It’s something that came in handy when I was a teenager. Come on, kids. I’ll take you both around with me. I’ll come back for you, Janie.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” I catch myself again before I almost fall.
I manage to complete only one circuit in the time it takes Laek to go around several times, with Simon holding his right hand, and Siri, his left. I wonder if I could get away with just stopping now. But no. Laek looks down at me with a mischievous smile and offers his arm.
“Don’t touch me!” I say to Laek. “I can do this myself.”
“C’mon, Janie. At this rate you’ll never see the other side of the lake.”
The kids are watching me. I guess I have no choice. I let Laek lead me out onto the ice.
“Laek, Laek, wait! We’re going too fast; my legs are shorter than yours!”
“Your legs aren’t any shorter than the kids’ legs and I was going twice as fast with them.”
“I’m gonna fall, I know I’m gonna fall.”
“You’re not going to fall. How could you fall, with me holding you up?”
“I’ll pull you down too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You hardly weigh anything.”
“I weigh plenty. Plus it’s like … like a force of nature, with the world’s desire to see me on my ass stronger than your ability to stay on your feet.”
“Janie,” he says, stopping.
“What?”
“It’s not. It’s not what the world wants.” I look up at him. He has a surprisingly serious expression on his face. “And please don’t underestimate my ability to stay on my feet.”
I don’t say anything, suddenly finding myself in the middle of a conversation I didn’t know I was having. But just as suddenly, Laek smiles.
“I know how to solve your problem.”
“I don’t have a problem. I just don’t like skating.”
He continues as though I hadn’t spoken. “Here’s what you need to do. You need to fall.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to avoid!”
“Exactly. And you’re so focused on it, you can’t even skate. So fall. Right now. Get it over with. Come on, Janie. Trust me.”
“OK, OK, I trust you.”
I let go of Laek and let myself fall.
“How do you feel now?”
“Well, that wasn’t exactly pleasurable, but I think I’ll live.”
“Good. Now that you’ve experienced falling and see that it’s not the end of the world, you can concentrate on skating.”
Laek puts his hand out and I pull myself up. He draws me in close. “Just relax.”
After we’ve gone around a few times, we find Siri and Simon waiting for us.
“Can I have my hot chocolate now? And my queue de castor?” Simon asks.
“Sure,” I say, stepping off the ice.
“And you, Siri?” Laek asks. “Do you want to take a break now or would you like to skate some more? Maybe go out onto the big lake and skate really fast?”
“Yeah! Let’s do it.”
Simon and I bring our hot chocolates out to a small, low bench next to the ice. I look for Laek and Siri and spot them right away. Laek is unmistakeable, a tall, dark, athletic form. I admire the way his black jeans look with his sleek black jacket. His dark hair has grown out again and spills out of the bright headband he’s wearing under his old tuque. Siri is striking too, tall and athletic, but with the body of a young woman.
They finally stop in front of us, Siri’s face flushed and her eyes sparkling. “That was amazing. I can’t believe how hyper-fast we were going. It was like flying! And you gotta see those ice sculptures out on the lake, Simon. They are epic.”
“Daddy, would you take me out to the lake, too? I want to go fast and see the sculptures.”
“Sure. But to see the sculptures well, it would be better not to go too, too fast. Come on.”
Siri settles down next to me.
“Do you want any hot chocolate, Siri? Here, have some of mine.”
“Yum. Mommy, you can’t believe how fast we were going. It was hyper, really hyper. I can’t believe Daddy magna skated. Did you know about that? Did you ever see him?”
“No. You know, Siri, there’s a lot about your Daddy that you don’t know. There are even things I don’t know. It’s why … Listen, I’d like to talk to you. Is that OK?”
“I guess so.”
“We probably should’ve had this conversation a long time ago, but I didn’t think you were ready to listen. And maybe I wasn’t ready either.”
Between the stress of preparing for the refugee hearing and trying to get by on very little money, I’ve hardly had the energy for anything but day-to-day survival. But now, Laek’s got a job, the rest of us are in school, and our permanent residence application seems to be moving along. Plus, there’s an openness in Siri’s expression that I haven’t seen in a while.
“Siri, I want you to know that you had a right to be angry about how we moved the family to Montréal so suddenly. Even though we had no choice.”
“If only you had told me first.”
“Would that have made it OK? If we’d told you, but made you keep it a secret, even from Michael? Would you have still enjoyed camp? Been happy about the move?”
Siri looks down. I don’t know if she’s thinking about my questions, or just trying to figure out how to “win” our argument. But I’m not trying to win an argument or even have an argument. I just want to talk to her.
“I don’t understand. I have a right to be angry, but you didn’t do anything wrong?”
“I guess I’m just trying to say that I love you and … that I wish so much we hadn’t had to do something you feel has hurt you. Even though I can’t change what’s happened, maybe there’s something I can do to try to make up for it a little.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Or what I mean is, that it’s up to you. What if we say I owe you something. A big favour, or a wish. And that I have to grant it, like a fairy godmother.”
“Could be anything? Anything at all?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, within reason. I’m not going to murder your little brother, for instance, no matter how annoying you find him.”
“Speaking of Simon …”
I look up to see him skating towards us, Laek right beside him.
“The sculptures are hyper-awesome! And there’s an artists’ atelier where we can make our own ice sculptures. Can we go over there? It’s at the other side of the lake.”
“Sure. That sounds like fun,” I tell Simon.
“Janie, would you mind if I skated around a bit by myself while you guys do that?”
“No, go ahead.” I watch Laek take off.
We skate over together, Siri holding my hand and Simon on the other side of me, talking my ear off about the sculptures he saw and what he’s thinking of making. I’m surer on my feet than I was earlier, but Siri is already so much better than I am, pulling me along with her smooth, confident glides. How suddenly this creeps up on you. One day, you’re holding your toddler’s hand as she takes small, unsteady steps, and then all of a sudden, without warning, she’s holding your hand and supporting you.
“Maybe you should go out for hockey, Siri. You seem to have caught on to this skating.”
“Maybe.”
“Daddy would probably hate the idea, of course …” I look up at her slyly, thinking that if anything might motivate her, it’s the idea of Laek disapproving of hockey. “But it would be a good way for you to better integrate here, in your own special way.”
I don’t like buzzwords like “integrate,” but still, it’s descriptive of what we need to do now, both for ourselves and to ensure that our application for permanent residency is granted.
“I don’t want to play hockey,” Simon blurts out. “It looks more like fighting than playing to me. There’s even blood on the ice sometimes!’
“You don’t have to play hockey, Simon. There are other ways for you to integrate.”
“Like ice-sculpturing, right?”
“Right,” I say, as we arrive.
Once Simon’s settled with tools and a block of ice, I resume my conversation with Siri.
“There’s something else I want to talk to you about,” I say, sitting down on the bench.
“If you’re going to give me a hard time about my French grades again …”
“It’s not your grades I’m concerned about. It’s your refusal to learn and speak French. Maybe you think that if you don’t learn French, you won’t have to stay here. Or maybe it’s just your way of punishing us. But Siri, cutting off your nose to spite your face is never a good idea.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Trying to hurt us by hurting yourself. And it does hurt us when you do that. But in the end, it’s still yourself that you’re hurting.”
“I’m not trying to hurt myself. It just makes me mad, being forced to speak French.”
“So don’t do it because you’re being forced. Do it for your own reasons. To become bilingual. To open up doors that might otherwise be closed—Québécois music, francophone friends, interesting job opportunities. These are the reasons to learn French.”
“And otherwise you won’t give me that present, that wish you promised.”
“One has nothing to do with the other. You have that wish no matter what. Even if you end up failing French. But I’d rather you didn’t. For your own sake.”
“Alright, Mommy. I’ll work harder and try to pass French. And speak more French at school. But I don’t want to speak it at home. Especially not with Daddy.”
“I hope you’ll change your mind about that at some point, but for now …”
“I was hoping you would change your minds, after you lost the refugee hearing.”
“Just because we lost the hearing doesn’t mean it’s safe for us to go back. The reason we lost … it’s complicated, but it’s not because the things we said weren’t true.”
Siri looks at me sceptically, but I don’t know what to say. We made a decision to protect the kids from details that might be frightening or traumatic. Even if I thought it was better that Siri under
stand more about what happened to her father, it’s Laek’s story to tell, not mine.
“Don’t you like being here even a little better than before?” I ask her.
“Yeah, I guess. But I still miss my friends. I don’t understand why I can’t see them.”
“Maybe someday, but right now things are still uncertain. We have no legal status here.”
“Mommy, Siri, come look at what I made!”
We walk over to take a look. “Excellent, Simon. It’s a black panther, right?”
“Don’t be silly, Mommy. It’s an ice panther.”
“It’s great,” Siri says. “Mommy, could me and Simon go tubing now?
“Sure. You guys go ahead. Why don’t you return your skates. I’ll wait here for Daddy.”
The kids skate back towards the main building. Once they’ve gotten off the ice, I look for Laek. My eyes find him right away, not just because of the figure he cuts but because of how fucking fast he’s going. His right hand is behind his back, like a speed skater, and his left hand is resting on his thigh. As he goes around the lake again and again, I notice that I’m not the only person watching him. There’s a group on the shore pointing and a number of skaters on the ice simply staring at him. This worries me for some reason, but it’s not like he’s breaking the law or anything. Still, I’m glad when he finally spots me sitting alone and makes a dramatic stop right in front of me, the sound of his skates sharp as they dig into the ice.
“Hi,” he says, with a huge grin on his face.
“Hi, yourself. Are you having fun?”
“Yeah. But I’m ready to do something else, if you want. Where are the kids?”
“They’ve gone over to the hill for some tubing. I wouldn’t mind trying that myself.”
“Sounds good. I can return our skates.”
I let Laek lead me back across the ice to a bench. He kneels down in front of me and unlaces my skates, slipping my feet out and rubbing them gently. There’s something deeply erotic about how he does this. It feels wonderful.
“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back,” he says, as he stands up with my skates in hand.