Left

by Theanna Bischoff

Greg looks away. “It’s...they have to identify risk factors for flooding...” Is he really going to get into it? How much of this will his parents actually understand? When he told them about his proposed Ph.D. thesis topic his mother’s eyes had completely glazed over. Doing a Ph.D. in the first place had been Greg’s mother’s idea—she’d shaken him awake one morning as a little boy and told him she’d had a dream of him becoming a scientist. She liked to tell him about the time in junior high that she and her brother had gone fishing and discovered the dead carcass of a one-eyed frog. She’d taken it home, wanting to preserve and study the birth defect, but her mother had screamed, thrown the corpse immediately in the trash, and told her if she ever brought home any wildlife again, she could go without dinner. Despite the memorable one-eyed frog, she’d majored in English and never finished her degree. Greg wondered how his parents would have felt if he’d decided to study art in university like he really wanted. But then, he would have actually had to show his sketches to someone.

  “Like what risk factors for flooding?” she asks, now.

  “Like...logging...forest absorption...you know, all of these things could cause runoff, potentially raise the water levels in Kananaskis River, which flows into the Bow.”

  Greg’s dad leans forward and sniffs as his mother takes the bread out of the oven. “Better loosen my belt!”

  How quickly could Greg get through this dinner? Tomorrow is Tuesday, and on Tuesdays he watches Summer after school so that Abby can work late at the salon, so he won’t be able to get his marking done then either—and he’s supposed to post the grades by Wednesday.

  “What’s runoff?” his mother asks, playfully swatting Greg’s father away with an oven mitt and grinning. Seriously, these two people almost got divorced six years ago? Now teasing each other in the kitchen like newlyweds?

  Greg looked away. “Excess water...you know, the soil can only absorb so much, so it gets infiltrated to full capacity, and then the surplus...it has nowhere to go.”

  His mother leaned back down into the oven to remove the pork dish. “So where does it go, then?”

  “It just...spills over everything, causes water damage, flooding. Especially if it’s polluted. After it rains, for example...”

  Rain. Natasha, running. Running in the rain. All the peripheral damage. “Just—give me a second,” Greg says. He steps around the vacuum and into the bathroom, closes the door behind him. Turns on the fan. Sits on the edge of the tub. Puts his face down between his knees. Feels the pressure building behind his eyes.

  Make it stop. Make it stop.

  His phone vibrates in his back pocket. He blinks, retrieves the device. He doesn’t recognize the number, but what if it has something to do with Natasha? He hasn’t not answered an unknown number since 2002.

  “Hello?” he mumbles.

  “Hey,” comes a male voice. “Is this Greg?”

  “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “Oh, hey! This is uh, Cam—Summer’s dad?”

  Why on earth is Cam calling him? No no no no no…“Is Summer okay?” Greg blurts.

  Cam sounds surprised. “Uh, yeah, man, she’s great. Listen, I was just wondering if you wanted to like, hang out some time? Go for a beer or something?”

  Greg can hear his parents laughing outside the bathroom. One of them has told some kind of joke. He takes a deep breath.

  ABBY

  YOU MADE ME PROMISE I’D GO TO UNIVERSITY. TOLD ME IT would set a good example for my future child. Told me I had the potential. Told me university was different than high school, that I could choose my classes, study what I wanted. You swore I would like it.

  So I promised. What choice did I have? You’d opened up your home to me, bought me a crib and a changing table, made sure I had child support. You’d even set up a savings account for soon-to-be-Summer so that she could go to university someday.

  You were kind of a snob about that kind of thing, you know. Like, what’s wrong with people who go to community college or trade school? Or people who get a job after high school, like waitressing or admin assisting, and just stick with it forever? If you’d been alive when I got offered the scholarship to go to college for hair and esthetics, you would have shit your pants. I would have got one of your serious big sister lectures, complete with hands on hips, pacing, creased brow, pursed lips. Words like, “seriously,” and “vital,” phrases like, “setting your life course forever.”

  But that’s a moot point, isn’t it? Because if you were still here, I wouldn’t be the poor uneducated single mother whose sister went missing, and therefore, I wouldn’t have been offered the full tuition scholarship in the first place. You always knew you wanted to be a nurse, but I never knew what the hell I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t even really want to be a hairstylist. I just wanted to piss Dad off, since, at the time, he was in the business of withholding my trust fund unless I went to university and got a real education. I wonder where you got your academic snobbery from. Eye roll.

  You always knew you wanted to be a nurse, ever since your heroic childhood rescue of Josie’s brother in the ravine. Every time I heard that story growing up I wanted to throw something. Like, who could possibly live up to that? You had to set the bar impossibly high, didn’t you? I didn’t have a chance.

  Anyway, I’m thankful for that scholarship, not only because I got to give Dad the metaphorical middle finger, and because now I can make a decent enough living for me and Summer, but also because I actually like doing hair. Let’s face it, I was never going to be the kind of person who could sit behind a desk all day. And I’m way too much of a fuck-up to have a job like yours with real responsibility. I know I got the tuition offer because you went missing and it made the college look good in the press. But I’ll take whatever scraps I can get.

  When people sit in my chair, they tell me things. Like how their brother is an alcoholic. How their spouse cheated on them. How they’re too scared to get a divorce. How they hate their mother-in-law. How they went to their grandfather’s funeral but couldn’t cry. And they let me rub shampoo into their scalps, fringe their bangs, create soft layers that frame their face. And when they leave, I hope they leave a little bit better.

  I cut Greg’s hair and Josie’s hair for free in exchange for babysitting. Dad would have a fit if he knew I let Greg babysit. Fuck that. I know whoever posted that lie is a shit disturber. People post all kinds of stuff on Jason’s message board and none of it is true. You loved Greg and Greg loved you and if none of this had happened you would have gotten back together. It was only a matter of time. Nobody ever loved me an ounce of what Greg loved you. To be honest, you leaving him was a huge mistake, Tash. When you have that kind of love, you don’t let it go. I wouldn’t have.

  Last year, Greg was sitting in my chair, after hours, and I was brushing the strands of hair from his neck, when Summer printed her name for the first time with the S the right way—a major deal. Greg and I cheered and Greg hoisted her up onto his shoulders and paraded around the room and banged into my co-worker Shayna’s station and knocked over her hot rollers and a box of bobby pins.

  Summer laughed and laughed and laughed.

  You should have been there.

  GREG

  USUALLY, GREG LEAVES HIS OFFICE DOOR CLOSED, EVEN though he doesn’t have a window. Initially, his mother tried to decorate the office, mounting his framed doctoral degree on the wall opposite his desk, bestowing him with a cactus, the only plant, she teased, that could grow in a room devoid of sunlight. Sometimes Greg gets caught up in his research and doesn’t realize the passage of time; he has, several times, left his office to find the university hallways empty, the parking lot barren. His degree hangs crookedly now, covered with a layer of dust.

  Early on, Greg made an implicit deal with the cactus. He would not require it to maintain its appearance, nor to bear the burden of making his office appear homey or inviting. He would, in fact, not water it. He would simply allow it to die as opposed to suffer. Greg can’t hel
p but pity this stoic Cactaceae, spines out, defenses up. What is it protecting itself from? Why should it have to live out the rest of its miserable existence under a dingy 1970s light fixture with Greg as its only other living companion? Still, years have passed, and despite Greg’s refusal to water it, the cactus remains steadfast, barely shrivelled.

  Over the summers, Greg sometimes lets his office door hang open. There are so few students wandering the halls, and it can get so hot without a window to crack. The door hangs open, but she knocks anyway, and Greg startles.

  “Oh,” she says, “sorry!” She has long, thick, caramel-coloured hair, flushed cheeks. She must be lost.

  “Uh, no problem,” Greg says. Did he shower today? This is why he shouldn’t leave his door open. “Can I help you?”

  She smiles. “Uh, yeah, can I come in?”

  Greg looks around. There is only one other chair in his office, a stiff metal folding chair currently serving as a resting place for a stack of textbooks. “Okay,” he says, and goes to clear her some space, toppling the books in the process. Is she like a new department admin or something? Maybe with some sort of complaint? Shit.

  She reaches down to help him re-stack the books, and they each apologize over top of each other, until she eventually sits, and crosses her legs. Smiles at him again. “I’m Sylvie. We haven’t met, but um, I’m a doctoral student here, well, not in this department but—” she stops. “Let me start again. I’m Sylvie—I’m doing my doctorate in criminology.”

  Greg’s stomach drops. It’s been a long time since he’s had a voyeur, especially since he grew out his beard and started using his middle name. He used to get phone calls, even, somehow, after he changed his number; letters requesting interviews or blasting him for his supposed guilt; or condolence cards, usually of the religious variety, fluffy clouds and blurry doves and silver crosses, all of which reminded him of Josie. One letter had, oddly, not referenced Natasha at all, but been, instead, a bullet list of the writer’s transgressions, in shaky, smudged penmanship. Unsigned.

  What does this girl—this criminologist—want now?

  She must have seen something in his face change, because she looks embarrassed, starts to apologize again, rushes to explain. “I’ve been working at the police department on my thesis, and I was asked to look at Natasha’s file…”

  She keeps rambling. Something about Reuben. Will Reuben never leave Greg the fuck alone? But Greg’s brain sticks on that one word—Natasha. Natasha Natasha Natasha Natasha. Almost nobody says her name anymore. Beautiful syllables like three keys on a piano played in sequence, a little trill. Na-ta-sha.

  He takes a shuddery breath.

  “He’s wrong,” she’s saying. “I told him flat out. Of course, he didn’t want to believe me, but I thought you should know that I—that someone—advocated for you. What he’s doing—it’s like victimizing you all over again. And it’s preventing the case from being solved. In my opinion.” She shakes her head.

  “We should close the door,” Greg says, and stands to do so, almost tripping over the books. What if someone walked by and heard all of this? He’s been having nightmares since he heard about Tash’s watch, her dark hair tangled around the strap. During their relationship, they’d given each other scalp massages while cuddling in front of the television, using a timer to designate turns. When she wasn’t looking, he’d twist the timer knob so he could get a little bit of extra love, feeling her gentle fingers probing the sore spots at the base of his neck and just above his ears. “You’re so tense,” she used to tease. A few nights ago, he’d dreamt that he’d been giving her a head massage, but then her dark hair began to fall out in clumps, into his hands. Her scalp exposed and bloody. Her blood on his fingers, underneath his nails.

  The girl—what was her name again?—blushes. “I’m sorry, this is so awkward. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Thank you,” he says. He looks up, into her eyes. Blue, where Natasha’s had been brown. Her eyes seem genuinely sad. He’s not sure what he’s thanking her for, but what else can he say?

  NATASHA

  November 1983

  Dear Diary,

  Today is my golden birthday! It’s November 11 and I am eleven. Plus its extra special because November is the eleventh month. I thought my golden birthday was going to be the best birthday ever accept that this is the worst birthday ever because my mom wasnt here. My dad told me she wasnt coming home for my birthday and she isnt coming home for even CHRISTMAS. she didnt even call. She missed my birthday party last weekend and the stupid person who lives at my house now who’s name I wont say got a store cake. I didnt want a stupid cake from a store. I wanted my mom to make me a cake like always. So I wrote my mom a letter that said PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME HOME and I MISS YOU. I was crying and I put some of my tears on the letter so she would see how sad I was. But I didnt know where to send it and Dad wont give me her address or her phone number. I HATE HIM. I ripped up the letter and flushed it down the toilet. Im 11 now. I need to tuffen up and not be a cry baby.

  THINGS TO DO TO NOT BE A CRY BABY

  by Natasha S. Bell

  1. start running laps around the block so I can get super fast and strong

  2. watch the saddest videos ever and make sure I DONT cry and if I do I have to watch them again like old yeller and bambi and the yearling and dumbo and sofies choice

  3. walk to school past the house with the scary pit bull

  4. if I feel like being a cry baby again listen to happy music like the tape I got for my birthday from Jason and also eye of the tiger

  5. think of more things to not be a cry baby

  GREG

  EVERYTHING GREG KNOWS ABOUT CAM, HE’S HEARD FROM Abby or Summer. According to Abby, Cam is an inconsistent parent, sometimes surprising Summer with expensive gifts, other times cancelling on her with little notice. Most of the time, she’s told him, Cam shows up fifteen to thirty minutes late and seems quick to get going, ruffling Summer’s hair at the door, saying, “Come on, Kiddo.” His partner, Jessica, who Abby hates, either doesn’t come during pick-ups, or waits in the car. Cam doesn’t typically come to Summer’s birthday parties, though Abby makes the point to invite him. He and Jessica host their own parties. Greg remembers Natasha telling him about how, every year on her birthday, some part of her kept expecting her mother to just show up, to walk through the front door. But then, Natasha had had her mother and father together in her life for ten years, whereas Summer has always known her parents apart. And Cam has stayed around—Greg has to give him credit for that.

  Summer rarely talks about her father, but her comments tell a story similar to Abby’s—“My daddy bought me this bike,” or, on the occasion when Abby calls him, panicked and in need of a sitter because Cam has come down with a very sudden flu or Jessica booked a surprise weekend away, “Daddy couldn’t come play with me tonight.”

  Greg isn’t at all surprised when Cam shows up to Swan’s Pub twenty minutes late, but seemingly in no rush. Cam pulls up a chair to Greg’s table and waves down a waitress, says, “Corona?”

  “Sure,” says the waitress, and grins at Cam. Seriously? After he flagged her down and didn’t say hello or please or anything?

  “Sorry I’m late.” Cam takes his jacket off, drapes it on the back of the chair. But he gives no explanation as to his tardiness.

  “No worries.” Greg has been aimlessly sipping Coca-Cola for the past fifteen minutes. His tumbler is almost empty.

  Cam gestures towards the drink. “Rum and Coke? Nice. Want another?” Before Greg can answer, the waitress returns with Cam’s beer, and Cam tells her, “He’ll have a refill. On me.”

  “Thanks,” Greg says, though he still feels guilty when he has more than one pop, Natasha’s voice still in his head. As the waitress heads for the bar, Greg excuses himself to go to the washroom. Cam says, “Sure,” and immediately pulls out his cellphone.

  Greg pees, even though he doesn’t have to, and, on the way back, sidles up to the
bar and catches the waitress’s attention. “Hey,” he says, “would you mind making all of my drinks virgin?”

  The waitress screws up her face. “What do you mean?”

  She can’t be more than twenty, Greg thinks. “Like, any time that guy—” Greg glances towards their table, “—orders me a drink, just make it without alcohol.”

  The waitress glances down at Cam’s beer and the drink Cam ordered for Greg, already prepared.

  Greg adds, “I’ll still pay for the alcohol. Just add it to our tab.” How can he explain that there’s no way he’s getting drunk with Cam?

  The waitress shrugs, slides another tumbler under the tap and fills it with regular Coke. “Whatever,” she says, and hands Greg his pop and Cam’s Corona.

  Back at the table, Cam puts his smartphone down on the table, but face up. “So,” he says, and smiles. Does a head bob kind of thing. “What’s new with you these days?”

  Greg forces a smile. “You know…just keeping busy with work and stuff.”

  Cam smiles again, takes a sip of his beer. “Yeah, me too. Daily grind.”

  “Right.”

  Cam takes another sip, and so does Greg. Cam does the head bob thing again.

  Finally, Greg says, “So, what’d you want to talk about?” Might as well get it out in the open. Might as well get this whole thing over with.

  “Right,” Cam says. Another sip. He’s downing his beer awfully fast, Greg notes. Or is this just how young people drink now?

  Cam continues. “I guess I just wanted to like, get to know you and stuff, because I know you babysit Summer sometimes.”

  Sometimes is a bit of an understatement. It’s more like twice a week. But Greg knows better than to open up about the true frequency—Abby’s family would freak if they know how involved he was in Summer’s upbringing, especially now, given the message board posting, given that he’s lawyered up. It all makes him look guilty, but the Bells have assumed he’s guilty all along. He has no necessary ties to Natasha’s family anymore. He could just refuse to babysit, avoid fueling the fire. Just avoid Natasha’s family altogether, cut off all contact. But he knows that’s not what Natasha would want. “What do you want to know?” he asks Cam.