Web of Angels

by Lilian Nattel

  “Problem?” Amy asked.

  “Cathy needs help with babysitting,” Sharon said. “I’ll pop over as soon as I’m finished here.”

  “Just another month next door for us,” Amy said. “Ingrid can’t wait to move, but I’m glad we have some overlap with the new place. It gives us time to clean and get set up.”

  “So it’s working out?” Just a few more cheques to enter. Number 525. Payer: Sadowsky Realtors. Amount: $1731. Account: rent. Taxes: category 1.

  Amy nodded. “We painted and put a better lock on the basement door. Ingrid is OCD about the gun cabinet now.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “And then with Cathy, well it didn’t help.”

  “What with Cathy?” Sharon looked up quickly then back at the computer.

  “You know we caught Cathy sneaking into the house again and trying to get into the gun cabinet.”

  “Uh huh,” Sharon muttered concomitantly as if this wasn’t news to her. “When was that exactly?”

  “Right before Ingrid went to the shooting range with you.”

  The target from that day had gone up on her wall in March. It was now nearly Mother’s Day. “That long ago,” she said.

  “Ingrid didn’t tell you?” Amy asked.

  “Not right then.”

  “I guess she was too upset. I heard a noise and went downstairs, thinking the dogs needed to be let out. It was pretty funny really. I was calling the dogs and walked in on Cathy looking at me blankly, bold as you please, with a credit card in her hand. Probably her mom’s. I was ready to call the police and charge her, but Ingrid said to forget it. No harm done and she’s been through enough. I thought, And she’s the good one! Her parents have their hands full still. So of course I said that Ingrid had to tell you.”

  “Of course,” Sharon said.

  Amy put her hands on her hips. “I know that look, Sharon. She didn’t tell you, did she? Typical. Well now you know.”

  “Yes, I do.” But she didn’t really. Two and two wasn’t giving her four, but three and a third or some other odd number like the square root of negative five. She turned off the computer. “I’m all done for today.”

  “I’ll write you a cheque.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  The receptionist was coming from the surgery as Sharon left the office, and they nearly collided. Behind her Sharon could see the sinks, scales large and small, operating tables, on one a dog anaesthetized, the other vet scaling his teeth. There was a smell of wet dog around the receptionist. Sharon said, “See you,” and rushed out. “Old MacDonald” chimed, and the clinic door closed behind her.

  Sharon turned onto Seaton Street, the wind chasing clouds above her head. Cathy had called, asking Josh if his mom would please please come over because the baby wouldn’t stop crying and her parents were away and she didn’t know what to do. Sharon walked past the yard of the candy-coloured house, where the fountain was running, the boy peeing into the garden of tulips, the lamppost in the corner hidden within lush ivy, its leafy arms stretched along the hydro wires. She turned left onto Lumley. Down the street was the school and the ramshackle cottage, which had been called Mammy Brown’s in a less informed time, and was boarded over, still unworthy of a heritage plaque. Sharon looked up at the sky and the roofs of her neighbourhood: pink, green, grey, brown, two-toned. Her own house had black shingles, curled by age, and lately Dan had been talking to roofers. Cathy’s house had the highest grade of architectural shingles, a textured look meant to imitate slate. Sharon rang the bell.

  “Oh, Mrs. Lewis!” Cathy opened the door, her face panicked. Barefoot, jeans rolled up, she was wearing a white blouse discoloured in a couple of places, smelling faintly of deodorant. There was mail on the hall table, bills addressed to Rick Edwards, a flowery envelope from a women’s shelter for Dr. D. Dawson, a magazine renewal for Heather Edwards. “She won’t stop!”

  “Let’s go see,” Sharon said, leaving her bag on the hall table.

  The den smelled of air freshener, which took away most of the baby poop odour. Cathy’s textbooks and binders were on the couch, the TV on. Scattered everywhere: diapers, bottles, baby toys in bright colours, soft, expensive, intended to stimulate a brain already over-stimulated by the myriad sounds and sights outside a darkling womb. The baby’s face was red and scrunched, mouth round as she wailed from her infant seat on the rug.

  “What’s wrong?” Cathy asked, her own face scrunched up. “I fed her, I burped her, I changed her. She won’t stop.”

  “Eh eh eh,” hiccup, “Eh eh eh eh.” Such was the baby’s commentary from her infant seat on the rug.

  “I know, I know,” Sharon said, kneeling. Soothing the baby with her voice, she unbuckled the harness, moving a hand under the soft curve of the baby’s skull as she lifted her out of the infant seat. Sharon’s breasts were slightly sore as if she could make milk on demand. “Linny might need to burp again.”

  “Is that all?”

  The crying was less intense as she lifted Madeline. That powdery baby smell—Sharon had missed it more than she’d realized. Her arms still remembered how to hold a baby, her hands the right way to cup the head as she put the baby against her shoulder, patting her.

  Cathy turned off the TV. “Did Linny burp?”

  “Not yet.” Sharon moved the baby to her lap, holding Madeline face down while she rubbed the baby’s back. Then a pat. Rub, rub, pat. The little back tensed. Released. Ahh, there it was. Sharon turned Linny over, smiling while the tiny mouth found her fist. Tongue like a kitten’s darting in and out. A rosebud mouth sucking strong. Eyes blue-grey, the true colour unknown as yet. A baldy still.

  “I thought she was having some kind of attack,” Cathy said, squatting, examining the baby for signs of the terrible ordeal they’d just been through. The baby was fine; it was Cathy who was shaky.

  “I think she could probably have some more formula. Can you get the bottle?”

  The den was quiet now that the baby had stopped crying. Sharon held the bottle, warm from the microwave, and cooed, “aren’t you a cutie” and “aren’t you a good girl” as the baby nursed. There was a new family portrait on the wall. In it Debra held the baby, Rick’s arm was around Debra, Cathy standing beside him with her all-purpose smile. The four of them were shot close within the frame of the photograph, little foreground and no background as if nothing and nobody mattered outside their tight grouping, casting out all memory of what might be missing.

  “She’s still hungry I guess,” Cathy said, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside them. “They decided that I should take care of her every day after school and on weekends. It’s my punishment for having a sister that got pregnant.”

  “Is it a bad one?” Sharon asked.

  “No—not that bad.”

  When she’d had enough, the baby pushed at the bottle and thrust out the nipple with lips and tongue. Another great burp emerged as her back was patted. Then Sharon held the baby upright, feet touching the floor. How wonderful to be vertical! Baby had a name, Madeline, she had a pet name, Linny, and she had reconciled herself to existence, her eyes no longer on the light around things but on things themselves, focused, bright, meeting Sharon’s gaze. She turned her head to find her young auntie. A smile as she saw Cathy who smiled back lovingly, gently bouncing the baby’s fist on her palm, letting her grab a finger. It occurred to Sharon that what was intended as punishment instead was providing solace for both these children.

  “Thanks for coming over. Sorry I was a moron,” Cathy said.

  “Not at all. I’ve had three kids. You should have seen me with my first. It isn’t true that you know how to breastfeed automatically or that the baby does. I thought my nipple would fall off before I figured it out.”

  “But you’re …”

  “I know. Flat.” Sharon glanced at Cathy. She wasn’t exactly enormous either, but she was just fourteen. Still. “Size has nothing to do with how much milk you have. I had lots. I could have fed twins. It wa
s just learning to get it out.”

  “I don’t think I would breastfeed. Bottles are more convenient.”

  “Not necessarily. Your breasts are always there.”

  Cathy tickled the baby under her chin. The baby giggled. “Mrs. Lewis, does sex hurt?”

  She asked in honest ignorance though her insiders would know the answer to that and their answer would be, Yes. Always. Sharon needed to choose her words carefully and, as the mother of a son, her hands were suddenly moist. “Is this something you’re thinking about?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Even if someone’s had a lot of sex, it can hurt if you feel pressured or nervous,” Sharon said. “But when you’re grown up and feel comfortable and happy with your partner, it’s really nice.” They sat close, mother and maiden, who was no maiden technically speaking, but a girl whose loneliness passed through her body into Sharon’s, where it slipped into a spot that was just its shape. And there was no more wavering, no more thinking she was crazy or imagining things. Sharon leaned toward Cathy, for she was a finder and she’d found these children. In the cleft of her broken heart was a resting place for them. She said as she would to her own daughters, “Like when you’re, oh I don’t know, twenty-five?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Lewis,” Cathy said so virtuously that Sharon burst out laughing. And when the girl asked what she was laughing about, Sharon hugged Cathy with reckless abandon, feeling the girl’s stiffness melt, cuddling into her shoulder like Emmie or Nina. It lasted no more than half a minute. Then Cathy grabbed hold of herself and her maturity, and sat up straight. The baby was blinking and yawning.

  “I think Linny is ready to go down,” Sharon said. “Where’s her crib?”

  “Upstairs.” Cathy stood up, getting her backpack from the couch and slinging it over a shoulder out of habit. Even when her parents were out, she wouldn’t leave her stuff lying just anywhere. “Coming?”

  The staircase was steep and narrow, the handrail of oak, the baluster wrought iron with graceful curves between the posts. On the wall was a gallery of small paintings that matched the rise of the stairs, each of different water creatures: dolphins, seahorses, tropical fish in bright colours. Surely they didn’t lead to anything monstrous, Sharon thought, forgetting that humans routinely surpassed the monsters of their imaginations. On the forbidden second floor, she stopped behind Cathy, looking down the hallway. At the far end was a small window of frosted glass. There was only one door, halfway down, which opened into an office.

  “Mrs. Lewis?” Cathy called.

  Following her, Sharon stepped into the office, which led at either end into bedrooms that had no other way in or out but through the office. The crib was in Heather’s room, which was sparsely furnished with the necessaries, cramped by crib and change table. The curtains were made of eyelet cotton, as were the bumper pads and the quilt, the bed covered with a chenille spread, all of it white. The only colour was on the crib itself, the headboard painted with the cow jumping over the moon and the footboard with the cat playing the fiddle for the dish and the spoon. “My sister did that,” Cathy said. “Wasn’t she good?”

  “Yes, very. The detail.” Not just a cat, a dish and a spoon, but a willow pattern plate, a carved wooden spoon, a calico cat with strokable fur. “That must have taken her a long time.”

  “It was the only thing my parents let her paint. I expected her to mess it up on purpose. But she didn’t. She worked so hard. I don’t understand, Mrs. Lewis.” Cathy pulled the latch, lowering the side of the crib. “How could she make this so beautiful and then kill herself?” Her eyes were pained, angry. “And Linny—Heather didn’t know Mom could get her out.”

  “I don’t have an answer, honey. I wonder about that, myself.” Sharon laid the baby down on her back. The window faced the alley and the garages that lined it, the tiring sun staining clouds red. “The room is so bare. Did your parents give away everything?”

  “Uh huh, but there wasn’t much.” Cathy held on to her backpack protectively. “They stripped her room the last time she ran away. The nanny sleeps there.” She pointed to Heather’s bed. There were no posters or photographs, no bookshelves. Daisy wallpaper that would have irked a kid who gelled her hair straight up. In the alley a motorcycle was revving. “I used to keep Heather’s portfolio on my key chain. But Mom took that too and probably threw it out.”

  “On your key chain?”

  “It was a flash drive.”

  “Not a grey one.”

  “Yes, it was small. Just a gigabyte.”

  “I wonder.” And on the inside Sharon could see through another’s eyes: Debra searching her bag, fishing for her chequebook. A clinking sound, so slight as to seem imaginary, except to someone who noticed every tiny change. “I found something in the dining room. It couldn’t be this, could it?”

  “OMG, is it?” Cathy snatched the stick out of Sharon’s hand, turning it over greedily. An ordinary flash drive, a cheap brand, it could be any of the kids.’ “Let’s check. I just need to get the password.”

  They went through the door to the office. One wall was lined with cabinets, tables against the other walls, four computers, cables running between them, a flat tablet hooked into the laptop. It was a working room with many doors and door jambs stuck under to keep them open so that everything could be seen from here: the hall, the bedrooms, even a tiny bathroom with a shower stall and lockable medicine cabinet. Cathy’s room was peach and white, with sheer curtains over the blinds, a swag valence, and ruffled bedspread.

  “Emmie would love your room,” Sharon said.

  “She can have it.” Cathy frowned. “The password isn’t here. I should have changed it to something I could remember, but numbers and letters are safer.” She searched all the pockets of her backpack, then ransacked drawers. There was a lace doily on top of the dresser, a crystal atomizer with gold tassels on the doily, also a lacquer enamel makeup tray. The makeup was pristine, since everything Cathy actually used was in her backpack. There were framed awards on the wall, for dancing, for figure skating, for academic excellence. A hutch of shelves on her desk held a collection of porcelain and wood music boxes. This room was larger than her sister’s, or seemed so without the baby furniture. It faced the front of the house and the second floor balcony, though nothing could be seen through the blinds. Cathy lifted the bedspread, her backpack slumping on the peach carpet as she looked under the bed. Kneeling, she paused as if thinking. Or listening. “I forgot. It’s in the music box.”

  “This one?” Sharon tipped up the roof of an alpine chalet. Nothing. Then she lifted the lid of a wooden music box with a painted cat on the lid. Inside was a folded piece of paper with a string of letters and numbers.

  Cathy took the paper from her and shut the music box. “That’s it. Let’s use my laptop.” Cathy led Sharon into the office.

  Pushing her hair back, Cathy sat down at one of the tables. In a couple of minutes, her laptop was booted up, the flash drive plugged into a USB port. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, face close to the screen as if she could jump into it and be with her sister again.

  There were portraits of kids. Dozens of them. Toddlers. Kids in a park. Street kids. Twins in a jogging stroller. Many of a boy with cloudy eyes and a little girl who’d lost her front teeth and resembled him. Like the crib paintings, they were drawn with painstaking detail, the texture of hair, the wrinkle of clothes, the hue of skin and the softness of it, the set of a mouth, the twist of posture. She must have erased and redrawn her lines again and again to get that realism. Why would a girl so preoccupied with the crackling vividness of children want to prevent the birth of her own? There were several portraits of Cathy: stormy eyes; the lips about to swear; the girl next door smile; others. Heather had known her sister in all her forms.

  “She was talented,” Sharon said.

  “That’s why I took art. I told my parents I was supposed to have a drawing tablet for class. It plugs into the computer or you can use it on its own, then you
back it up on a stick and delete.”

  Sharon nodded. Sketchbooks were awkward. A flash drive could be hidden in a sock drawer, a pocket, a tampon purse.

  “My parents wouldn’t let her get anything. So I told them I needed it for school.”

  “What’s that?” Sharon asked, stopping Cathy as she was about to click next. The image on the screen wasn’t like any of the others, depicting Wonder Woman in wild colours throwing her lasso, hair streaming purple and green like the stained glass in the front door, breasts about to pop out of her bodice.

  “That’s mine. But art is over. I should delete it.”

  “Leave it.” Gently pushing Cathy’s hand aside before she pulled out the flash drive, Sharon wondered why she’d never noticed the callus on the girl’s middle finger. It came from pressing hard, the faint charcoal marks on her fingertips from smudging paper. Sharon had made assumptions: the other sister was the artist; the other sister was the bad girl. “I like it.”

  “Why?” A sardonic smile: Cathy had switched. This was the kid who arm-wrestled, the one who snapped bubble gum in her father’s face. Eyes of a newborn, more grey than blue—a newborn left in a dumpster. As the girl doodled on the tablet with a stylus, lines appeared on the screen, hinting at the picture that might emerge. She was the artist, not Cathy, Sharon thought.

  “I like what you did because it’s interesting. Different.”

  Pause. Staring at Sharon. “Tomorrow’s Mother’s Day.”

  “Yes it is,” Sharon said.

  “I got a card for the mother,” she said, dragging out “i” and “the,” taunting. The fake “i,” the missing “my.” Offering the truth, fairly sure it wouldn’t be heard by the dumb old mom standing before her. Flat-chested, skinny, long hair rust red. Hardly a wonder woman. “Of course, Heather isn’t here to get one.”