Flush

by Sky Curtis

  “Got me,” he shrugged. “The boat’s name was the Barbara D.”

  “Yeah, right.” I gathered up my purse and put on my jacket. “And Radcliffe was trying to steal water from Lake Ontario. You know what this gesture means, Jack?” I put my finger in the air and acted out pushing a small lever down.

  His lip curled as he watched me.

  “It means you’re busted, Jack. Every card you played tonight was a lie.” I did the pushing the lever gesture again, only this time I blew out a great whooshing sound effect. “This means you are a busted flush. It means I know you are only giving me shit, and I am flushing it.”

  Jack was infuriated, “C’mon Robin, give me a break.” This Jack was familiar, his eyes as hard as black ice. But then his mood changed faster than a chameleon’s colours and he gave me a wide-eyed blameless look. Great, a psychopath.

  I laughed, “See you around, Jack-off.”

  The young woman with dreadlocks was watching this exchange with interest. When I walked past her slouching in a chair I saw that she had written a full page. She looked up and beamed at me, her hand covering her work. She gestured with her thumb towards England. “Dishonest,” she said.

  It must have been her go-to word. That was twice she had used it. I nodded in agreement and gave her an exasperated shrug while raising my eyebrows at her hand covering her work. She smiled back at me and extended her other hand in a “what?” gesture, while spreading the other completely over her work.

  Looked like everyone had something to hide and no one was embarrassed about it but me. Me? I would wait until I was behind my locked door to pour myself a glass of wine. Okay, a tumbler. But no one would know what I was doing. I would sit there enjoying myself and think about the day. I had it all planned out.

  I pulled open Cindy’s car door.

  She was curious. “So, what did you get from England?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Thanks for waiting for me, Cindy.” I slammed the door. “I got nothing. He is such a liar.”

  “All reporters lie; that’s why people hate us.” She looked over her shoulder and pulled out into the traffic.

  “I’m not a liar.” I did up my seat belt.

  “You will be,” she said with conviction, pulling a U-turn and heading east to Yonge Street.

  Maybe I would. I liked the games.

  “He knew nothing about van Horner yet. He says Radcliffe was going to steal fresh water out of the lake, and the name of the boat is the ‘Barbara D.’ Knowing the way he lies, it’s probably the name of a woman with an initial, because his lies usually have some truth in them. I’ll get the research department on that. Forget driving me to my car. It’s closer to my house anyway. I just want to get home.”

  “Okay, I need a drink too.”

  She knew me too well.

  “No, I gotta let Lucky out.”

  “Nice try.”

  I smiled in the dark. Friends were good.

  21.

  ON SATURDAY MORNING I CLAMBERED UP from the oblivion of sleep. With my eyes still tightly closed, I did a cursory run through of my state of the nation. Arms? Check. Legs? Check. Head? Check. Not bad, all considering. One huge glass of wine had turned into two and then three. Or were there four? How many bottles had I opened? What time did I stop? I couldn’t even remember getting into bed. And where was Lucky? I blindly patted the bed around me until I felt his soft head. Okay, at least I didn’t leave the dog out all night.

  I smacked my lips. After a night of heavy drinking I usually woke up with what felt like cotton balls in my mouth but today I had woken up with a layer of something slimy on my teeth. What was it? Animal fat? Oh joy. Was this the punishment for eating fast food? Why on earth did I sabotage myself? I knew junk food was bad for me. I knew I was fat. I knew I had to lose weight. And yet I still stuffed my face with garbage. I should be eating quinoa and lightly stir-fried kale. Bits of raw fish and rice. Not hamburgers and fries.

  I was in such a bad mood.

  My duvet was wrapped around my legs and I kicked at it irritably. Already I was hot. The day promised to be a scorcher, yet again. I rolled over in bed, my nightgown straining at my back, constricting my shoulders. I heard a stitch rip. Fuck.

  When I opened my eyes sunlight was bashing around the edges of what was supposed to be a room darkening shade. Another fake guarantee. A lie. Everyone lies. I had read the cellophane packaging. Guaranteed to keep the room dark. Guaranteed to keep a room cool. Guaranteed to insulate. Yeah yeah yeah. Lucky was looking at me expectantly. His head was tilted and his cute little ears were cocked. What the hell did he want? I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, felt a pain in my back, groaned, swore, and trudged to the bathroom. It was seven-fifteen.

  I climbed back into bed for a few more minutes and felt Lucky snuggle into my chest. I rubbed my tongue over my teeth, trying to scrape off the grease in my mouth. I needed to go organic. Maybe talk to my naturopath about nutrition. Oh wait, the drinking. First things first. What did Sally tell me to do? Yeah, three things. Every morning I was to make a note of three things I was grateful for. And this was day one. Great start. I was in such a bad mood. But okay, I would do the job.

  I lay on my back and tried to clear my mind. Years ago I had learned that to calm myself down I should focus on the breath. So I did. Yikes. I should have brushed my teeth. It smelled like a rat had crawled into my mouth and died. My mind wandered. At least I didn’t have cigarette breath. Thank heavens I had quit smoking years ago and my asthma had mostly cleared up. I had also grown an inch! It was the oddest thing, given that I was twenty-four at the time. How did that happen? Wait. Concentrate. Three things I am grateful for.

  Clear the mind. I lay very still and waited for a sense of gratitude. It was hard to find any sense of thankfulness for the way I felt, frankly, given what an irritable temper I was in. I was such a bitch. For the past few years I had generally been crabby. My bad hair day stretched over a decade. So, it took more than a little effort to try and open my mind to gratitude.

  When my mind drifted into any murky canyons, those dark places where my thoughts became trapped, like my marriage, or money stresses, or the kids when they were teenagers, I pushed it back into clarity. After about five minutes of boomeranging back and forth between suffocating dark shadows and bright daylight, my brain finally settled in the light. I felt padlocked doors creaking open and beams of sunshine filtering in. I liked the way it made my head feel, unlocked and somehow wider. Open.

  Finding the first thing I was grateful for was now easy. It was right beside me on the covers. Number one: I was grateful for my dog. Granted, I would rather have a man beside me in my bed, well, maybe not, but there was nothing quite like patting the head of a lovely soft pup first thing in the morning. I was right when I told Sally that my dog’s soft fur was something I should be grateful for. I reached out and stroked Lucky behind the ears for a minute or two. He was as soft as a velveteen rabbit. He looked at me with his lovely doe-brown eyes and I cooed sweet nothings to him. He rolled over and presented his belly for me to pat. I could feel my heart swell with love for this little creature and the day looked a little brighter.

  Okay, on to number two. What was I grateful for? I looked at the sunlight illuminating the edges of the roller blind and knew there was a nice day shaping up outside. I imagined myself doing my job at the Express, chasing down leads or whatever crime reporters do, in the pretty sunshine. Oh wait, it was Saturday and I didn’t have to go to work! Hooray. I stretched languidly and imagined the sunshine warming my back as I gardened. I sensed my heart lifting. Yes, I was grateful for sunshine and I could feel my thankfulness spreading through my heart.

  So, two down, one to go. I was getting a little antsy, lying in bed and doing such a Zen Buddhist thing. Not to be demeaning to those who did Zen Buddhist things. I was a Unitarian and a new Buddhist, hence the meditation app. I needed to calm d
own my stress levels. Acceptance was key. Non-judgmental approaches. Respect for all. Universal harmony with the divine. World peace through inclusiveness, a goal. But still, I had my problems with Buddhism. I wasn’t sure it suited me. All that effort to let go of anger and only feel peace? If you asked me, inner peace wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. It was my opinion that it was fleeting, illusive, and frankly, extremely dull. Anger, on the other hand, was never dull. I’d rather feel a burst of rage, act on it, and move on than spend days trying to sit with it, or ignore it, or clamp it down, only so it could rise up and bite me in the ass later. Anger was a great motivator. Anger created change. Anger was passionate and passion was so alive. I wouldn’t be lying in bed trying to think of three things if I hadn’t got angry at myself for the way I was living. Was I grateful for anger? Seemed a bit contradictory.

  On the other hand, maybe my difficulties with Buddhism was why I drank. Did drinking make me feel alive? Did it rev me up so that I felt like I was enjoying a party? Did it drive me? Was it fun? You betcha! I loved it. It was the only time that meek and mild Robin MacFarland could let loose. That letting go of anger business, that just wasn’t for me. Not now.

  I was out of steam for this gratitude shit. Fuck it. I was done with the stupid exercise. I’d made a good start. And a start was a start. Two things to be grateful for were better than no things. Maybe I would do better tomorrow. I kicked my legs and tried to untangle them from the sheets. I had to get going.

  As I put my feet over the edge of the bed I noticed the lovely wood grain in the hardwood flooring. Was it the poet Rumi who said there were a hundred ways to kiss the earth? Yes, Rumi. I felt the souls of my feet touch the wooden floor and thought about the trees that grew out of deep damp earth in lush forests. I could almost smell the muskiness of the moss and ferns as I stood up and stretched forward, working the kink out of my back. My heart felt attached to the universe in a loving way. And there it was, the third thing. Without even trying I had come up with it, the last thing to be grateful for: the earth and all that grew upon it.

  The day went by smoothly, with me feeling a little more content with my lot in life. Before the morning really heated up, I puttered in the garden, feeling the sun on my back as I pulled weeds while not caring a jot about dirty fingernails. I took the transit system downtown and picked up my car, completely unmindful of the crowds. Then I did a food shop and wasn’t pissed off with the lineup at the checkout. I washed my clothes and didn’t mind folding them. I cleaned the kitchen floor without being irritated as I scratched at the dried dog food by Lucky’s bowl. I walked the dog without tugging at his leash, telling him to hurry up. I noticed these changes in myself and marvelled at them.

  But I still loved to drink. Because we’d had to cancel Friday night, Cindy and Diane came over after dinner for a get together. The three of us made some inroads into a king-sized bottle of wine while watching an old Western on TV. Each week we switched up the genre we picked, searching through Netflix for something that suited us. Tonight we were in a giddy-up, hi ho Silver kind of mood. After the bottle was almost gone we started pouring the ginger ale, wild things that we were. We also scarfed down a whole family-sized bag of potato chips and laughed a lot. At ten we ordered pizza and gobbled it down. We were having fun.

  The three of us hashed over our work week. Cindy confessed she was nervous interviewing members of the Vipers. I complained about the lying Jack England and how I couldn’t figure out why Radcliffe was dead. And Diane bitched about her current case: a prominent Toronto family member had evaded millions of dollars of taxes and she was trying to put him into jail. Her family had had terrible financial struggles while she was growing up in downtown Toronto above a storefront, and her anger at the arrogance of this fat cat was palpable.

  I was grateful that the three of us had such a nice relationship. My friends shoved off around midnight, after several cups of coffee, and we blew kisses at each other across my front patch of grass as they got into their cars. Journalists and lawyers often drank too much, but I knew they’d be okay driving. We’d only had two and a half glasses of wine each over the course of almost five hours. I figured the last thing anyone would do around me was drink and drive, given what had happened to Trevor. I thought about that as I finished off the bottle of wine.

  Sunday promised to be muggy and hot. Again. When I cracked open my eyes I went through the same exercise of thinking of three grateful things. I took my time, remembering it wasn’t enough to list the three items; I actually had to feel the gratitude permeate into my being. That’s what Sally had wanted me to do. This was a mission to change my mind. I was grateful for rain that nourished my garden, grateful for the fresh food in my fridge, and grateful for my children, who were coming for dinner that night with my parents.

  After a leisurely breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt, I trundled across town to the Unitarian service. It was always short and sweet, with the constant reminder about the interwebbedness of life. This jived with the Buddhist philosophy as well, and I certainly believed it. But I was glad the service was short, leaving the rest of the day to myself. Periodically throughout the afternoon, while I prepared a vegetarian casserole and chicken stir fry for Sunday dinner, I contemplated the Minister’s message: how what affects one person affects all of us, that we are all part of a whole. I wondered how my drinking impacted my family and felt guilty.

  That night when everyone was sitting around the table, catching up with each other about their week, I was self-conscious every time I lifted my glass to my mouth for a slug of wine. I felt so guilty about it that I only had one tiny glass while they were in my house. Without the hand to mouth distraction, I found I was able to focus better on what was going on at my table. That was interesting. And perhaps new. I felt guilty about that too.

  The dinner didn’t start out well. My aging parents were battling to stay in their own home. I listened as my father complained about everything he had to do: mow the grass, clean the windows, wash the floors, take out the garbage, change the tires on the car, fill the oil tank. The endless list was punctuated with him angrily thumping the table, sometimes a little behind the rhythm of his diatribe. He was slowly losing his memory. It was as if one by one post-it notes were falling off his body and scattering at his slippered feet. Around him lay the lost reminders of things to do and I watched as he struggled to pick them up, pissed off at himself. When he was like this, I wasn’t about to remind him that they no longer had a car. Every time his hand crashed down on the table my mother cringed. She was bowed over with osteoporosis and her poor back bent even more when he was in one of his moods.

  The Zen Buddhist approach to letting anger go was looking more attractive.

  None of this affected their appetites however. As I sat at the head of the table, a position I rotated with my kids after Trevor had died, I watched with astonishment as they plowed through heapings of vegetables and chunks of chicken. Had they not eaten properly all week? I didn’t dare mention the words “rest home.” The last time I brought the topic up my father had shouted at me for two hours, all the while my mother recoiling from his anger, shrinking into her chair, her watery eyes overflowing.

  Although the kids were disturbed by their grandparents’ slow demise, they sat quietly as my father roared, eating and keeping their heads down. They’d heard it all before. I was so proud of them, watching them blossom and grow into adulthood. Once my father settled down, his anger spent, the kids began speaking, changing the whole tenor of the table.

  Maggie, the oldest, was showing off her new boyfriend, Winchester. My mother peered at his chin stud and said, “What a pretty diamond, dear.” We all tried not to laugh so that my mom didn’t think we were laughing at her, which of course, we were. At least she hadn’t commented on the colour of his skin, which was a risk, being from that generation and from England.

  The answer to the mystery of Evelyn’s text earlier in the week was revealed
when she asked everyone at the table about laser surgery to erase her tattoos and wanted to know the names of some good cosmetic surgeons. I was grateful she wasn’t thinking of altering her body in some way, which I thought was perfect. Calvin, my second oldest, had started a new job and regaled us with hilarious anecdotes about his boss. Bert, the baby of the family, talked about going back to school, which I wondered about; he had always hated school. My older brother Andrew, who was away on a business trip to Israel of all places, would have cheered him on because he’d always felt that Bert was an underachiever. I always replied to his observations about my children that it was none of his damn business and that he had no idea what went on in someone else’s family. Andrew and I didn’t get along that well. I’d ask Bert about school later, when it was just the two of us. Bertie was sensitive.

  Eventually the dinner had turned into a warm and happy evening that ended too soon, with Calvin volunteering to drive my parents home. I was grateful for my family, warts and all. After they left, amid noisy hugs and promises to get together again soon, I sat down in my comfy reading chair in the kitchen and polished off the rest of the bottle of wine, the guilt I felt earlier dissipating with each swig. No doubt about it. I loved to drink. The distress about my parents, the worries about my children, the concerns about the Everwave story, and ultimately the pain in my heart from the holes Trevor had excavated in my self-esteem faded into the distance as I sat in my chair in the kitchen, glugging straight from a bottle of wine, Lucky at my feet.

  22.