Escape Velocity

by Robin Stevenson

  I curl my knees up and wrap my arms around them, and when I close my eyes, I hear Dad saying, “Ah, Lou, listen to this song. This song breaks my heart.”

  Breaks my heart. We never think about our own actual, physical hearts pumping away in our chests so faithfully, but we talk about hearts all the time.

  Good-hearted, kindhearted, tenderhearted: that’s how people always describe my dad. A heart of gold. “You know, Lou, your dad may have his problems, but his heart’s in the right place. He’ll find someone else.” That was Dana Leigh, after she left him.

  The heart of the matter.

  Heartfelt.

  Heartache.

  Heavyhearted.

  Brokenhearted.

  Heartless. Coldhearted. Dana Leigh again, last summer, talking about my mother: “A coldhearted bitch. What kind of a mother abandons her own child?” Dad just shook his head. “Men do it all the time,” he pointed out. “Look at your friend Carly’s husband.” Dana Leigh was quiet for a minute, perched on the end of our living-room couch with her feet on Dad’s lap, watching the cigarette burning between her fingers. I stood frozen in the hallway, eavesdropping, waiting to hear what she would say. “That’s different,” Dana Leigh said eventually. Then she sighed. “Poor Lou. Well, at least she has you.”

  My teeth are clenched so tightly my jaw aches.

  Heart to heart, I think. Take heart. Lose heart. Heart of stone.

  When the record ends, I make myself get up and walk over to Tim Hortons. Other than the bars, it’s the only place that’ll still be open. I buy a chicken-salad sandwich, a Boston Cream donut and a coffee, and sit at a corner table. It’s almost midnight and the place is empty.

  Dad will be home in a couple of days, I tell myself. The doctor said he was stable. I pick at my sandwich. I thought I was starving, but the food is suddenly unappealing and I don’t want to be here anymore. Everything feels a little unreal: the plastic seat too hard and smooth, the lights too harsh. Even my hands look freaky, all those tendons and veins visible beneath the skin like some creepy scaffolding. I feel kind of like I did when I was fourteen and my dad’s friend Ken gave me some acid at a party back in Vancouver. I crashed my bike and wandered around alone all night not even realizing my face was all bashed up.

  I wish Dana Leigh had stayed with me after all. I wish she’d ignored my protests and said that of course she wouldn’t leave me home alone.

  “I have to close up,” the guy behind the counter says. “If you aren’t eating that, you want me to pack it to go for you?”

  I suspect the sandwich will be even less appealing tomorrow. On the other hand, I still haven’t got any groceries, so I nod and take my food up to the counter. “Thanks. Sorry.”

  He wraps the sandwich and tucks it into a paper bag with the donut. “Well, have a good night.”

  I have an almost overwhelming urge to tell him that my dad had a heart attack. “You too,” I say instead. “You have a good night too.”

  Back home, I spend a couple of hours tidying and cleaning the house. Wash the kitchen floor, vacuum, fold a load of laundry. I watch some TV and eat the donut and the sandwich, which aren’t too bad after all. At two in the morning, when I am finally starting to feel tired, I change into a baggy T-shirt and boxers and crawl into bed.

  And I can’t sleep. Not a chance. My mind is zinging all over the place: Dad in the kitchen complaining of heartburn, Dana Leigh holding me tight, Dad lying in a hospital bed with his eyes closed.

  I think about the bottles of pills in the bathroom cabinet and wonder if one of them would take this awful anxious feeling away. Maybe even let me sleep. A couple of years ago I’d have tried that, but drugs of all kinds scare me now. I get out of bed, drag my blankets to the living-room couch and watch TV until I fall asleep.

  Five

  When I wake up, sunlight is streaming in the window and the phone is ringing.

  “This is Dr. Ramirez,” a male voice says. “Is this Lou?”

  “Yes.” My pulse quickens.

  “We met last night. Is your aunt there?”

  “My…” I realize he means Dana Leigh. “No, she’s out. Is my dad all right?”

  He clears his throat. “Your father had an episode of tachycardia a couple of hours ago.”

  “What?” I pull my feet up under me on the couch. “What does that mean? Is he okay?”

  “It means he developed a very rapid heartbeat.”

  “Is that…I mean, he didn’t have another heart attack?”

  The doctor’s voice is low, careful. “No, but it can be quite serious. We were able to correct his heartbeat, bring it back to normal.”

  My own heart is racing.

  “We’re transferring him to Foothills.”

  I shiver and pull the blanket over myself. “In Calgary?”

  “Yes. They have a cardiac-care unit. They’ll do an angiogram, take a look at his heart and see what kind of damage there has been, see how many vessels are blocked.”

  “And then what? I mean, if a blood vessel is blocked?”

  “He might need what is called an angioplasty. If there is some narrowing of a blood vessel, they can put something called a stent in to dilate it. But let’s take this one step at a time.”

  “Can I come in and see him? Before he goes?”

  “He’s already on his way to Foothills.” He pauses. “Actually, he’s probably there by now.”

  In Calgary. Two hours away by bus. “When can he come home, do you think?”

  There’s another pause. “It might be awhile. When we shocked him to correct the tachycardia, he had a small stroke. It happens occasionally. A blood clot forms in the left ventricle, breaks off, travels to the brain. He has some left-sided weakness as a result.”

  “A stroke? He had a stroke?”

  “The first priority is getting your father stabilized with respect to the cardiac problems. After that, we’ll see. You’re fifteen, right?”

  I nod, clear my throat. “Yes. Fifteen.”

  “I’ve asked the social worker at Foothills to contact you.”

  “A social worker? What for?” I have to call Dana Leigh.

  “She can fill you in, let you know how your father is doing. Help you to make arrangements.”

  After I hang up, I call Dana Leigh, but she isn’t home. I sit on the couch for a while, but she doesn’t phone. So, not knowing what else to do, I pull on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and walk to school.

  I’m halfway there when it occurs to me that I should perhaps let my mother know that Dad has had a heart attack. I really don’t want to call her. The truth is, I am a little afraid of my mother. It’s been over a year since I saw her. Before that, I’d kind of gotten used to the way things were with us, but actually staying with her in Victoria— seeing where she lived, being a part of her life for more than an hour in a restaurant—stirred up all kinds of stuff for me. Even though the visit was hellish, I’ve thought about her a lot since then.

  My mother would have no way of knowing this, but I’ve read all her books. Three collections of poems. Two novels: Leaving Heaven, which came out two years ago, and Escape Velocity, which got published this fall. Reading her books makes me feel like I know her, but of course, I don’t really. I don’t even know if any of the things she writes are true. I asked her about one of her poems once, on the phone, and she was dismissive: “Poems aren’t autobiography, Lou. You should know that.” And her poems are mostly strange and hard to follow. Often I don’t know what they are about at all.

  But her novels are different. They seem to me to be full of clues, coded information, slippery grains of truth. Why did she never want me? I’ve underlined whole passages of her novels, lines of dialogue, anything that might answer that question. Here’s a paragraph from her first novel: Every time the baby kicked, his hard feet jabbing at her lower rib, Gillian felt a tightening in her chest. She thought perhaps it was her heart growing harder. The future was closing in and setting around her, as gray and hard as cem
ent. That could be about her. The character in the novel, Gillian, is even younger than Mom was when she got pregnant—only fifteen, same age as me. She lives in this religious community, sort of a cult, and she got pregnant by this much older man who had always been a father figure to her. My dad is fifteen years older than my mother, so that sort of fits too. Except for the cult part. Also, in my mother’s novel, Gillian’s baby is stillborn. So obviously that doesn’t fit either.

  Her second novel is more clearly autobiographical. The details might be changed, but not the feelings. In Escape Velocity, a woman called Claire leaves behind her two children, ten-year-old Alice and eight-year-old Billy, and runs away from the grinding monotony of laundry and lunches to pack and always the bottomless wanting, the clinging bodies and groping fingers, the endless neediness of children. It hurts to read it, to think that’s how my mother sees me. Wanting, clingy, needy? She knows nothing at all about what I want. She has no idea what I need.

  She never even gave me a chance to cling.

  I’m late to school, and the hallways are empty. I run my fingers along the cool metal of the lockers and try not to think about anything at all. When I get to my classroom, I slump to the ground outside the door and wait for the first-period bell to ring. I can hear Mr. Samson talking about vector diagrams and ray diagrams.

  When the other kids all leave, I stand up and go into the classroom. “Mr. Samson?”

  “Lou.” He looks at me more closely. “Is everything okay?”

  I smooth down my hair self-consciously. I didn’t even look in a mirror before I left the house. “My dad had a heart attack last night.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.

  “Oh no.” He stands up, steps toward me as if he might hug me but then stops, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. “Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve taken him to Foothills.”

  “So who is taking care of you?”

  “Well, my dad’s ex-girlfriend took me to the hospital last night.” But I know this isn’t what he means. “I’m okay, though, on my own.”

  He frowns, folds his arms across his chest. “You’re fifteen, right? What does your mom say?”

  “My mom?”

  “Yeah, your mom. In Victoria, you said.”

  “Yeah. She doesn’t know yet. I mean, it only happened last night.”

  “I think we need to call her,” he says. “Do you…look, I think I should take you down to the school counselor, Mrs. Robson. She’ll know what to do.”

  The school counselor is short and squat, with sparse dark hair that frizzes out on either side of the wide pale stripe where it is parted. “Well, you can’t stay home on your own,” she says. “Do you have any family that could come and be with you?”

  “Why can’t I stay on my own?” I ask.

  “You’re too young, Lou. And who’s going to take care of you? Take care of the house? Get the groceries, cook, pay the bills, do the laundry…”

  “I do most of that anyway,” I say.

  She shakes her head, and I can see that she doesn’t believe me. It’s true though. I do all those things. Not very well, perhaps—we eat a lot of take-out—but other than paying the bills, it’s not like Dad does any of it.

  “Mr. Samson says you haven’t called your mother yet.”

  “I tried this morning but there was no answer,” I say, looking her in the eyes so she won’t guess it’s a lie. “Do you think someone could give me a ride to Foothills?”

  “Let’s try your mother again,” she says.

  “Do you know the number?” I say.

  “It’ll be in our records.” She rolls her chair over to the computer on her desk and clicks away for a minute. Beside me, Mr. Samson is silent. When I look at him, he gives me a guilty sort of smile, like he knows he’s let me down. I wonder if he is relieved to have handed over the responsibility to someone else. Sometimes he doesn’t seem grown-up enough to be a teacher.

  “Aha.” Mrs. Robson puts her hand on the phone. “Are there any custody issues I should know about? Does your father have sole custody?”

  “Nothing official,” I say. “I mean, they never went to court or anything. But I’ve always lived with my dad.”

  “You do see your mother though?” Her finger is poised, ready to dial.

  “Sometimes.”

  Mrs. Robson dials the number and, to my surprise, holds the phone out to me. I take it and listen to it ring. I picture my mother’s apartment: the hardwood floors and brightly patterned carpets, the sleek wood and leather furniture, the artwork hanging low on the pale gray walls, the white-tiled kitchen with its glass-fronted cabinets. Not expensive—my mother isn’t rich—but elegant. “I don’t think she’s home,” I say at last.

  Mr. Samson and Mrs. Robson exchange looks, and I feel a flicker of anxiety. “I have a phone number for Foothills,” I tell them. “I’ll call there after school, okay? I bet Dad will be okay with me staying on my own for a few days. Or I can stay with my boss, Dana Leigh.”

  Mrs. Robson nods slowly. “I’ll make a few calls. Let’s take things one step at a time.”

  I don’t want to be at school anymore. It seems silly to be here, going to classes, listening to teachers going on about all the usual stuff. So halfway through my third-period class, I stand up, pick up my books and walk home. The phone starts ringing as soon as I get in the door. I pick it up, heart instantly racing, and brace myself for a doctor’s voice.

  “Lou?” My mother.

  “I tried to call you.”

  “My god, Lou. I just got a call from a social worker at a hospital in Calgary.” She makes Calgary sound like it’s Timbuktu, like the issue here is the location of the hospital and not the fact that Dad is in one at all. “Kristy someone. She says your father has had a heart attack.”

  “Yes. Last night.”

  “And then I got a call from some woman, Dana someone. A friend of your father’s, clearly.”

  “She’s my boss,” I say. “At the World’s Biggest Dinosaur.”

  “The what?”

  “The World’s—”

  “Never mind. And then another call from your school about two minutes ago.”

  “From Mr. Samson?”

  “No. Mrs. Something. A woman with a completely forgettable name. Anyway, everyone seems to think you will have to come here.”

  “To Victoria? That’s ridiculous.” My hands are sweaty, and I wipe my palms on my jeans. “Who says so?”

  “All of them. The social worker, the school, your father’s friend.” She says friend like it’s a bad thing, and I wonder what Dana Leigh said to her. She’s not a fan of my mother.

  “I’m fine staying here,” I say. “Really, I am. This way I can visit Dad more easily. And besides, he’ll be home soon.”

  “That’s not what the social worker said. Apparently he had a stroke, did they tell you that? He’s practically paralyzed on one side. It could be weeks—even months— before he can come home again.” She sounds upset, almost angry. As if this is all Dad’s fault.

  I hesitate. “Do you want me to come?”

  “Well, to be honest, the timing really couldn’t be worse,” she says. “But I suppose you’ll have to.”

  She can’t even pretend to want me. It sucks, but I’m used to that. What I can’t stand is the thought of being so far away from Dad, the thought of him being in hospital and no one visiting. “What about school? And I have a job here.”

  “Well, there are plenty of good schools in Victoria.” She is quiet for a moment. “Why aren’t you at school now? I wasn’t expecting you to answer the phone. I was going to leave a message.”

  “I came home,” I said.

  “Right.” She sighs. “Well, I’ll have to talk to your father, but it looks as though you’d better get your things packed.”

  After I hang up the phone, I pick up my copy of Escape Velocity and stare at my mother’s photo on the jacket flap. It’s a black-and-white headshot, taken in front of a lake. Her w
hite-blond hair is long and loose, the breeze blowing strands across her face. She is laughing. Under the photograph is her bio: Zoe Summers is a critically acclaimed Canadian poet and novelist. Her first novel, Leaving Heaven, was short-listed for the Giller Prize, and her three collections of poetry have received numerous awards. She currently makes her home in Victoria.

  The phone rings. I slide the book back onto the shelf and pick it up. “Hello?”

  “Hi. This is Kristy Nichols, the social worker at Foothills hospital?” She says it like it’s a question. “Is this Lou? Garland Hendricks’s daughter?”

  “Yeah. This is Lou.”

  “How are you doing, Lou? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. I spoke to your mother this morning.”

  “Uh-huh. About that…”

  “Your dad wants to talk to you. He was very relieved to hear that you are going to your mother’s.”

  My heart sinks. “He was? Can I talk to him?”

  “He had an angiogram this morning, and it looks like there’s some narrowing of one of the blood vessels, so he’s having an angioplasty done. They’ll put a stent in to dilate the narrowing, and he should be feeling a lot better after that.”

  “Enough to come home?”

  She hesitates. “You talked to Dr. Ramirez, right?”

  “Yeah. He called this morning.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m sure he explained that your father had a small stroke?”

  “Yeah. Some left-sided weakness, he said?” My mother’s voice is still in my head: practically paralyzed.

  “That’s right. He’s going to need to go to a rehab hospital after his heart problem is stabilized. It could be a couple of months before he’ll be able to manage at home.”