Left

by Theanna Bischoff

  Copyright © Theanna Bischoff 2018

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication—reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system—without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying of the material, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright before proceeding.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bischoff, Theanna, 1984-, author

  Left / Theanna Bischoff.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-988732-43-5 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-988732-34-3 (EPUB).--ISBN 978-1-988732-35-0 (Kindle)

  I. Title.

  PS8603.I83L44 2018 C813’.6 C2018-900594-7

  C2018-900595-5

  NeWest Press wishes to acknowledge that the land on which we operate is Treaty 6 territory and a traditional meeting ground and home for many Indigenous Peoples, including Cree, Saulteaux, Niisitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, and Nakota Sioux.

  Board Editor: Anne Nothof

  Cover design & typography: Kate Hargreaves

  Cover photograph via Unsplash

  Author photograph: Stefanie Barton

  All Rights Reserved

  NeWest Press acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Edmonton Arts Council for support of our publishing program. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada.

  201, 8540 – 109 Street

  Edmonton, AB T6G 1E6

  780.432.9427

  www.newestpress.com

  No bison were harmed in the making of this book.

  PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

  Wordsworth said, “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”

  For Carrie, Stefanie, and Rachelle—thank you for always being present for the breathings of my heart, both on and off the page.

  JULY 2002

  Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night.

  —Edna St. Vincent Millay

  ABBY

  WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU SAID TO ME?

  Something about the weather.

  Not very poignant, but you didn’t know. You thought you’d be back in an hour. I could see the orange Lycra straps of your tank top criss-crossed in the back before you pulled your jacket on and opened the front door. The detective asked me later if I remembered what you were wearing. An orange tank top, I told him. Black leggings, black windbreaker.

  You wanted to get in a run before it started raining. I could always count on you to know the forecast. You’d say things like, “Put mittens in your backpack, Abby. It’s going to snow.” Or “Don’t forget your sunscreen, Sis!” You were always prepared.

  In the doorway, holding one foot behind you in some sort of runner’s stretch, you said, “You should rest. Pretty soon you can kiss sleep goodbye. When my niece gets here.”

  “Or nephew.” Sitting on the couch, I shifted my belly, pulled your yellow fleece blanket up to my chin. When my OB/GYN had asked if I wanted to know the gender, I said no. It made it too real. You would have found out. You liked to know everything. When I was seven, you showed me your old Ouija board, rested your fingertips lightly on the plastic dial, and told me about how, when you were a kid, you would try to ask the spirits what you were going to be when you grew up, where and when you’d meet the man of your dreams, how you’d ultimately die. Seven-year-old me asked the spirits if Mom and Dad would let me get a hamster—which they totally didn’t, because I’m the daughter who forged Dad’s signature to explain my missing homework, who ran myself a bath and then got distracted watching TV and let it overflow, who opened my Christmas presents when our parents weren’t looking and then tried to re-wrap them.

  A niece. You knew. You knew you knew.

  With the front door open, I could see bruised clouds hanging low in the sky, the sun beginning its slow descent for the summer night. I said, “It looks ugly out.” Pregnant at eighteen. Maybe I should have asked the Ouija board some more serious questions about my future.

  You slid your windbreaker over your shoulders. Smiled. Zipped. Said, “I can outrun this storm. See you in an hour.” You turned. Your dark ponytail swung.

  I slept. I dreamed of having a C-section, of doctors lifting out each of my organs, one at a time. Lungs, liver, intestines, heart. Mom wouldn’t let you be in the room when I was born, even though you really wanted to. Sorry—my mom, your stepmom. I always forget to word it the right way.

  But you, you never forgot anything. You would have remembered all the details—not just the orange tank top, black leggings, and black windbreaker, but the grey running shoes with pink laces, too. You would have remembered that the black windbreaker had a slim silver stripe from shoulder to wrist cuff. You would have remembered the black plastic digital Timex watch you always wore on your right wrist. I didn’t remember that stuff until later, after other people mentioned it. And you would probably have remembered the stuff none of us could remember either, like whether you were wearing earrings, and, if so, which ones?

  You wouldn’t have fallen asleep on the couch instead of waiting up for your sister to come home to have dinner together. Not you.

  I awoke to the thick, humid scent of bubbling gravy. My stomach growled. What time was it? Were you late getting home? Had you run for longer than an hour? You’d said, “See you in an hour,” right? Maybe you’d come home, but you’d decided to let me sleep. You must have forgotten to turn off the Crock-Pot. You’d gone into your room to read or to make a phone call. You’d come in quietly, not wanting to disturb me. You—

  My bladder tightened. I swung my legs over the side of the couch. Stood up. “Natasha?” Squinted. Pushed up off the armrest. Padded into the kitchen.

  The light on the Crock-Pot glowed green in the dark. I flicked on the overhead light, lifted the clear glass lid of the Crock-Pot, almost scalding my hand. The lid clattered to the floor. Brown slop had crusted along the edges of the pot; the stew inside had congealed, a sludgy mash. On the kitchen counter sat your cellphone atop a stack of bills labelled with sticky notes in your handwriting.

  Upstairs, in your room, your bed was made, as usual, the top edge folded over, exposing the floral under layer of your dark purple bedspread. A lavender lace bra with scalloped edging hung by one strap from the inside doorknob. My own breasts felt swollen and heavy.

  My room. Both bathrooms. Down the stairs. I called your name again. “Tash?”

  Back in the kitchen, the microwave blinked at me, 12:00, 12:00, 12:00. The storm must have reset the power. I leaned against the counter, rubbed at my belly where some contour of the baby forced itself, probably trying to escape.

  Had I missed the storm? Through the blackness outside my window, I couldn’t tell. Maybe you’d gone inside somewhere to wait it out. Or maybe you’d come back and then left again. I opened the door to the garage. There was your black Mazda, parked tight against the left wall to leave space for your bike and winter tires.

  I got the cordless phone and sat down on the staircase by the front door, staring at the space where I’d last seen you. Dialled.

  I hadn’t talked to Cameron in eleven days.

  “Abby?” Cam’s voice sounded thick. “What the fuck? Are you in labour? It’s one in the morning!”

  One in the morning? A fist closed around my breastbone. “No, I just—I need help, my sister is—”

  “I told you not to call me unless you were having the baby.” Dial tone.

  Back in your room, I found your silver watch on top of the dresser, the watch Greg gave for your last anniversary. You wor
e it for special occasions, swapping it with the plastic Timex you never left home without. You hadn’t worn the silver watch since you and Greg broke up, but you hadn’t put it away in your jewellery box, either. 1:17 a.m.

  What?

  Work. Maybe you went into work. Maybe you got called into the hospital last minute for a shift. But—without your car? Without leaving me a note? I phoned anyway.

  “Natasha Bell? She’s not on shift right now.” The nurse’s voice sounded too chirpy for one a.m., too chirpy for the burn unit. That day, before your run, you’d told me how you’d bandaged the rotting, puss-oozing, third-degree flesh of a drunk undergraduate who’d tripped and fallen face first into a fire-pit trying to roast marshmallows. A not so subtly disguised lesson about substance abuse for your little sis.

  “Are you sure?” I felt the hot pulse of my bladder.

  “I haven’t seen her tonight. But I can page her, hang on.”

  I shut my eyes, leaned against the staircase railing.

  “She didn’t answer. If she comes in, or if I see her, I can call you back. What’s your number?”

  I brought the phone with me into the main floor bathroom and peed a furious stream into the toilet, legs shaking. Tash, what the fuck? Where are you? I pulled myself to standing. I put a fist against my chest, inhaled sharply. I reached for the phone, but knocked it noisily into the sink.

  I couldn’t breathe, but I dialled anyway. The phone rang and rang and rang.

  You’d said you weren’t going to get back together with Greg. But, where else could you be? Maybe you did leave me a note, and I just didn’t see it. Maybe it fell behind the counter or something.

  Then—Greg’s voice, groggy: “Hello?”

  “Is Tash with you?” I blurted.

  Pause. “Uh, no. Why? What time is it? Is everything okay?”

  The baby heaved itself into my ribs.

  And I thought of you, at the door, a dark ponytail, a stretchy orange shirt. Your bangs pinned back. Your left cheek dimple. The wisp of a cool summer night creeping through the open door.

  Had I even said goodbye?

  NATASHA

  AUGUST 2001

  “We’ve grown apart.” These are the words Greg’s mother chose as a way of announcing that she and Greg’s father have decided to get a divorce. As though the divorce happened to them, almost by accident.

  Why did Greg’s parents feel the need to have Natasha there for such an announcement? Because Natasha has dated their son for so long that she’s part of the family now? Practically a daughter-in-law, even though she and Greg aren’t even engaged yet? Or because Greg’s mother didn’t want her only child to be alone while hearing the news that his parents were ending their thirty-two year marriage?

  Greg’s parents have looked the same for as long as Natasha has known them; both husky, pear-shaped, dark-haired. Would Greg’s body, still lean and toned from years of swimming competitively in adolescence, eventually follow this trend? While telling their son about their dissolving marriage, Greg’s parents looked even more alike, their faces scrunched in concerned resignation, like siblings, together since high school, as though the world had shaped them both, and they’d shaped each other, in the same way. And yet—apart. They’d somehow grown apart.

  Greg’s mother, Gillian, had reached across the kitchen table and put her hand over Natasha’s hand rather than her son’s. Greg withdrew his hands from the table and placed them in his lap, even though his mother hadn’t actually touched him. Gillian winced, glanced sideways at Greg’s father, said, “We’ve been together so long, I stopped being me.” Greg’s father nodded. Natasha counted seven tiny rose-shaped buttons on Gillian’s pink cashmere sweater. Her stepmother, Kathleen, would have called the buttons juvenile, would have pointed out how the sweater’s fabric strained over Gillian’s stomach.

  Natasha slid her foot over until it touched Greg’s under the table, remembering the first time she’d made this gesture, age fifteen, sitting beside him on the couch watching some horror movie about some crazed stalker who phoned his target while she was babysitting and then breathed heavily into the receiver. She remembered that Greg had on a grey T-shirt and Levi’s, and he’d smelled like warm pizza; she remembered the electricity—the hum in her foot and her calf as she nudged it slightly over and over and over until her leg lined up right beside Greg’s leg, her sock foot and his sock foot, the outer seam of their jeans fitting together like a zipper.

  But, at the kitchen table while his parents prattled on, Greg had slid his foot away from hers. He got up and left the table, the kitchen. She heard a door slam.

  Now, three months after Greg’s parents announced their separation, Natasha stands in her pink satin dress at the front of the church in the four-inch heels her best friend has chosen for all her bridesmaids. Natasha, maid of honour, grips Josie’s bridal bouquet and tries to make eye contact with Greg in the rows of guests, but his eyes focus elsewhere. Pink—how cliché. When the vows begin, Jo passes Natasha her bouquet of pink and white roses, the look and smell of which remind Natasha of a funeral.

  The priest has a deep voice and his microphone volume is too loud, raspy. He sounds like Darth Vader reading the vows. “Solomon and Josie, have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?” The microphone hisses with each breath.

  It’s like Greg’s parents invented divorce, the way Greg now carries on. Hot black tar bubbles in her gut every time Greg says he doesn’t want to talk about it, every time he wants to her to leave him alone, every time he yells at her, “Thirty-two years! Doesn’t that mean anything to anyone?” For years, when she’d talked about her own parents’ acrimonious split, her father’s infidelity and remarriage, her mother’s abrupt abandonment of the family, Greg had innocently commented, “Isn’t that water under the bridge, now, though?” But now that it’s him on the receiving end, he suddenly gets it.

  After the ceremony, she can try to find a Band-Aid to put over the spot where the back of her shoe has rubbed up against her Achilles tendon, a blister waiting to burst.

  Josie, in her white tulle parachute dress and twinkly tiara, at the front of the church, with Jesus suspended on the cross dangling above her, is acting like she’s invented marriage. Josie, who met Solomon after a four-year period of not making it past a second date. Natasha had often comforted herself when another birthday, another Christmas, came and went without Greg getting down on one knee. At least Josie was unmarried, too.

  Well, not anymore.

  “I, Josie Elise Carey, take you, Solomon Michael McKinnon, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse—”

  Josie barely knows Solomon, the youth pastor at Josie’s new church. Greg complains every time Natasha tries to get them to go on a double date, says Solomon gives off a skeezy vibe, which is kind of true, but Natasha has to give him the benefit of the doubt, for Jo’s sake. Today, their wedding day, is the one-year anniversary of the day they first met. Has Solomon seen Josie vomit chocolate cherry cheesecake because she forgot to take a Lactaid? Has he had to run to the store to buy emergency tampons? Has he read one of Josie’s exorbitant credit card statements? Does Solomon expect Josie, whose biological clock sounded its alarm after her twin brother’s son was born last year, to support them financially while he pursues his dream of “ministering to the Christian youth of Calgary?”

  They haven’t even had sex yet. Does Solomon know that his born-again virgin-white-cake-topper bride, has slept with three different men, including Natasha’s cousin Dustin on the day the girls graduated from university? Josie’s engagement ring has a tiny cross engraved on the inside, to represent her promise to wait for marriage, as though her virginity could simply grow back.

  After the rehearsal dinner last night, Greg had crawled into bed and flicked the lamp off without saying anything, then rolled away from her. He’s been so irritable; Josie’s wedding is probably triggering feelings about his parents�
�� separation. Be calm, Natasha had thought, be calm. “I’m setting the alarm for seven. I need to meet the other bridesmaids at the salon by eight.” No answer. “You okay? You were really quiet tonight.” Despite their divorce proceedings, Greg’s parents kept inviting Greg over for family dinners, all three of them together. “Love?” Natasha said, again. “You okay?”

  Greg yanked his pillow down over his face. “Can we not talk about feelings? For once?!”

  Greg’s parents were divorcing because they had different interests. Greg’s mother was going to take a pottery class and his dad was going to help a buddy renovate a turn-of-the-century character house. Different interests? After thirty-two years of marriage? That couldn’t be the only reason—could it?

  “You may now kiss the bride!”

  Solomon gives Josie a sanctimonious closed-mouth kiss. The guests clap. Natasha scans the pews for Greg. There he is, just behind Josie’s parents and twin brother, Jason.

  What does growing apart really mean? If anything, Natasha and Greg, together since high school, just like his parents, have grown together, like a tumour wrapping its way around a spinal column. What is she going to do with him? Or, for that matter, without him?

  Maid-of-honour-Natasha, big-smile-for-her-best-friend’s-wedding-Natasha, passes Josie’s bouquet back to her friend and takes her steps down the aisle, linking arms with Solomon’s chubby best man. Josie had wanted her brother to be her “man” of honour, letting him and Natasha share the role, but Jason had said he didn’t believe in all of Josie’s Jesus crap, and then Jo didn’t talk to him for a week, after which Solomon said he wanted a traditional wedding and Jason lining up there with all the women would have looked inappropriate. So that was that.

  Natasha’s face feels stretched. She points her smile at Greg, but Jason catches her gaze instead, grins, rolls his eyes. Her high heel slices at the rawness on the back of her heel. Good thing Josie and Solomon have left the church already and don’t catch Jay’s cynicism. The last thing this wedding needs is a family feud.