by Ian Williams
She was bathing Mutter in a Christian lady’s bathtub. It had been difficult to explain why she’d shown up with Mutter, who could barely walk and hold her head up at the same time. So she lied. The heat broke down in the house while the owner was away in Vancouver. She had no way of reaching him. She phoned repair places in the Yellow Pages and they all said it might take weeks. Weeks? It had been a cursed winter. More work for you, Felicia said. She got one place to send a man, just to look and he said there was a part they needed to order but that too could take weeks. Felicia went deep into the fictional details. Anyhow, she really appreciated this Christian lady’s roof over her head. May the Lord richly repay.
The real details weren’t sorted yet. A certain deceiver would be back from Vancouver today, stay home for a week, then Montreal. She would not call him when he returned. Let him run frantically to the hospitals, let him call the police, let him worry himself an ulcer.
Close your eyes, she told Mutter.
Mutter squirmed. But Felicia had to wash her hair. She shielded Mutter’s eyes and poured some water over her head. The water traced her neck, her shoulders, the long slope of her breasts, and pooled between her stomach and thighs. This is what awaited her, Felicia thought, when the men are gone. This body. She asked Mutter without asking her. Mutter answered without a word.
Felicia began lathering her with a washcloth, systematically, from the neck down. How had her closest friend become a woman four times her age, who did not speak to her, or perhaps English anymore, a woman who asked questions by rolling her great eyes upward, who displayed approval by sucking on mashed sweet potatoes, by turning her head toward the snow? Day after day, she neither lived nor died.
She waited in the armchair for someone who purported to be a certain someone before she found out who the real someone was to go to work and come home.
Elsewhere in the house, the phone rang.
* * *
+
A knock on the bathroom door.
* * *
+
She stayed on the phone longer than she intended.
When she came back, she was shivering. When she came back, Mutter was. Her hair was wet. It clung to her skull. When she came back, she saw her, herself, she saw him, shivering in the bathtub.
XY
17.
Edgar returned from Vancouver on Thursday morning but he waited until late that night to retrieve Mutter. He was going to be as inconvenient and disruptive as possible.
He didn’t know exactly where Felicia was but he began where she would. He went to Christian Lady’s house. She told him that there was no room in the inn for Felicia, well for Felicia, but not for Felicia and a woman in his mother’s condition. She was staying at another Christian lady’s house. It was almost 1:00 a.m. Christian Lady spoke with uneasy fervour, a rush of information, as if she was being visited by a Communist officer.
At Other Christian Lady’s house, Felicia opened the door before he rang the bell. She had been warned. It was after one.
Get your things and let’s go, Edgar said.
Go where? Felicia was calm in an annoying, rehearsed, pseudo-sophisticated way. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
Look, Felicia, I was on a plane all night and worked a full day today. Quit the charade.
And I’ve been looking after your mother for the last three days because you did not make a phone call
I did not authorize you to take my mother anywhere.
to make arrangements. You should have procured a nurse as I notified you in my letter dated January 1.
He snatched her wrist. She snatched it back. He snatched it back. She snatched it back.
Damn it, Felicia. He gave up.
What kind of man leaves a woman in her state alone?
I left her with you.
That’s why she’s here, Felicia said. And she’s going to stay here until you arrange—and prove that you’ve arranged—a nurse for her.
Prove to you?
Yes, Felicia said. To me. In writing. Your word is dust.
Edgar looked at the night sky. He needed to guard this part of his past. He feared that Felicia would laugh at him if he told her the facts of his enviable marriage. His wife had run away from her parents. She lived with a roommate in the apartment below his. He was supposed to be in university at the time. She suggested the road trip to California. After they married, they shared an apartment (building) together (she kept her apartment—and roommate). They had more brunches out than breakfasts in. She partied him to exhaustion and brought stoners back to their apartment (building) afterwards. She didn’t come home for days at a time. The whole romance happened very quickly. Before Christmas, she had left him and had already been married twice on TV. But in real life, she said she was taken.
Edgar said, Felicia, it’s no big deal. She’s not based in Toronto anymore. She’s moved on.
She’s moved on?
Get Mutter, get your things, and let’s go.
Your mother’s sleeping, Felicia said. Come back in the morning. She opened the door to return inside. The landlady was sitting at the bottom of the staircase waiting to see to it that her front door was locked and all the lights turned off.
I brought you something, Edgar said.
I don’t care. Felicia closed the door.
He rang the doorbell immediately.
From inside: Felicia, I have tenants.
I know. He’s going.
Edgar rang the doorbell again. Then he knocked. Felicia stepped outside.
Mature people don’t slam doors, Edgar said.
I didn’t slam it, Felicia said, still holding on to her resolution to be civilized.
I brought you something. Two things.
I don’t want anything you have to give me. All I want is for you to find a nurse for your mother and go your way.
As if he hadn’t heard, Edgar pulled her hand from her armpit where it was folded, and placed a long narrow box in it. I wanted to give it to you at home, he said.
When Felicia didn’t open it, he took the box back, and lifted a gold watch with a small black face out of the case. He held it by the tail in front of her eyes.
Felicia would not give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Edgar took her wrist again and tried to latch the watch to it, but kept fumbling in the dark, so Felicia broke her reserve and clasped it. She wouldn’t show pleasure, but he could tell that she was admiring it. The hands were so fine, just a hair thick.
It’s for your time, he said. I thought that up on my own.
She snuffed.
And this. He reached into his pocket and held up a ring. She should have recognized it from Mutter’s things.
But she asked, What is this?
I resized it, he said.
What is this, Edgar?
Vater used to say that jewellery is to a woman what alcohol is to a man.
Edgar, what—
It’s not what you’re thinking, he said. He put it on the right finger, wrong hand. You know I can’t right now.
What is it?
I want you to get used to having some weight on you.
XX
18.
Upstairs, in a bottom drawer, Felicia had only one pad left. All week while Edgar was in, was where, was away, she kept telling herself, I have to buy pads, I have to buy pads, but she couldn’t leave Mutter alone and it was arctic outside [Your hair looks dope, pretty lady]. He’d be back soon. He was probably in the aisle of a plane waiting to disembark. If she could just reach him, she would ask him to— No, she couldn’t ask him to pick up pads any more than she could ask him to pick up the still beating heart of a young Aztec virgin.
Let’s see. He left for Calgary, yes, on a Sunday. On Tuesday, she convinced herself that she was only a week late, not already a week late. On Wednesday, she showered vigorously, hoping to hurt herself. On Thursday, she uncovered a complicated biological relationship between grief, motherhood, and childbearing. Why didn’t people
explain these things to women? By Friday, she had analyzed Edgar’s sex talk more than Great Expectations. He had a vasectomy. [I heard it.] You heard it? [Loud and clear.] He said he had a vasectomy. [It was disgusting, the two of you talking like that but, yeah, I heard it.] She thought he said he had a vasectomy.
She was inexperienced in these matters but not stupid, despite the rejection of her high school certificate from her small unrecognized island. A man with a vasectomy should release dust or smoke or breadcrumbs or cream cheese or at least a smaller volume of fluid [he’s like a Super Soaker] but she always had to wipe herself clean afterward with a rag she kept in the bathroom only for that purpose. She wasn’t stupid. She received a patchy, condescending education from girls in Form 5, who said that you couldn’t get pregnant when you were menstruating or just after, which left a long middle. The middle-middle, they had said. The closer you get to the middle of your cycle, when you felt most normal, that was the most dangerous time. [You always look dangerous, pretty lady.]
On Saturday, in faith, Felicia lined her panties with one of Mutter’s diapers. She could feel the edge along her thigh.
Felicia thought she heard the garage. She thoughted wrong. She thought he said. He had. Hadn’t he? He had n’t he had n’t he said he had n’t he said he had n’t he?
Something—her concentration, her memory, her reasoning—was off since Edgar left for Calgary. Definitely. She accidentally put the flour in the fridge instead of the pantry. She forgot to put the garbage out last night. She didn’t want to do anything but doze in the same patterns as Mutter and think. Mutter. Did she give Mutter her tablets?
The middle-middle. That would be the second week in February. Or maybe there was some aberration. Maybe it was when he just got back from Ottawa and realized he hadn’t paid her for the month, for he paid her in advance. He had wiggled out the last of his sawdust into her (soon he would withdraw and flop on his back, soon he would suck a cigarette, soon he would place an arm over his eyes and tell her about the size of Vater’s shoes). She had returned from the bathroom, adjusting the back of an earring, and he reached into the drawer of the side table for his chequebook and a pen.
This might be the wrong time, he said when he finished writing. He jabbed the head of the pen on his chest to retract the tip into the barrel.
It was the wrong time. Definitely. But Felicia took the money. At least it was a cheque, not cash.
XY
18.
Edgar’s flight, at least, was on time.
Normally, when Edgar returned from a trip, Felicia would be at the door with 360-degree, first-class service. That Sunday, after a week away, he didn’t even get economy service. He stood in the doorway of the living room, calling for Felicia, whining the last syllable, waiting, as if he had forgotten how to take off his coat. He had smoked on the flight and in the car, but he wanted a house-cigarette, a drink, a shower, meat. He wanted help taking off his big-boy coat.
Down the hallway, in the dark, he saw Felicia’s silhouette sit up and lean its forehead on the inside of its wrist. Then it, she, walked to the kitchen without a word.
It’s so good to see you, Edgar, darling, he said. How was your trip?
He met her in the kitchen and pinched her hip.
Don’t provoke me, Edgar. Felicia turned on the oven. She took out his plate and laid it face down, a habit from her small unrecognized island where house flies waited on plates for food.
A little conversation, he said.
Don’t make none.
Edgar unbuttoned his shirt and eyed her warily. Her hair was growing back. Did he forget something? Was she on—of course.
Ah, he said, knowingly.
Ah, what? Felicia said.
Ah, you’re having your—he circled a finger where her uterus would be—your time.
She washed a tomato and began slicing it thinly.
Edgar stepped close behind her. She elbowed him back.
Hard day playing dress-up? he asked.
She turned and pointed the knife toward him.
I want to know how you could go to work or Calgary or wherever the hell you go
Felicia, there’s no woman in Calgary or Moscow or the moon.
and come back here like you is Mr. Innocent? How you could look me in the face every day since my mother, bless her soul, and your mother was in hospital and lie
No one’s lying.
and lie straight to my face. What kind of man— Only a dutty, treacherous, old man have the gall to be so boldface as to take advantage of a girl when she at her most, her most, her most vulnerable condition, to deceive she right to she face, when he know, he know, everything that girl suffer in this country,
What on earth are you—
when that girl take she hand and clean up he mother vomit when no nurse was coming, and leave she education to wipe this woman bottom, what kind of man could turn around and lie to this girl—don’t look at me—
Edgar looked down.
lie to me to get your way, like all them common, low-class men with no principle? She stopped there.
Click.
Are you—?
You tell me, Edgar. You tell me.
* * *
+
Priority number 1: Get the knife out of Felicia’s hands without asking for it. Priority 2: Get this baby nonsense out of Felicia’s head.
On the plus side, she seemed spacey and unaware that she was holding a knife. On the minus, she seemed spacey and unaware that she was holding a knife.
Edgar began with an assault of facts and ended with the semblance of an argument: you’re not a doctor, you’re late, your hormones are doing that woman thing, ergo Latin Latin Latin.
I know how I feel.
Edgar opened his hand and beckoned for the knife. Unless you know what it’s like to feel pregnant, no, Felicia, I don’t think you know how you feel.
I want you to explain to me how I could be—
You can’t be, Edgar said.
I can’t be?
No, you can’t be. You’re not.
I’m not, eh? Tell me why I am not.
Because I—
If you going to keep on lying, help me God, I go cut your throat right now.
I didn’t lie, Edgar said. She was aware of the knife now and Edgar stepped backward to the fridge. He could always swing open the door if she lunged. He never imagined himself as a news story where the neighbours attest that he was quiet, kept to himself, took care of his mother over footage of a bodybag emerging from the house, but Edgar conceived his bloody death now. It was Felicia, after all, who told him the story of the three beheaded girls. Her people killed each other as punctuation.
So, what, I is the Virgin Mary? I have fruit in my womb?
I said I thought about having a vasectomy—put down the knife, Felicia—meaning I didn’t want children, he continued, meaning that precautions should be taken.
By who?
By who do you think?
So this is my fault, Edgar? This is my fault? You gone and defend yourself by throwing this back on me.
How could you not read between the lines?
Because I schupid. She clamped her head. Because I real doltish. Because from day one in this country I was a damn fool.
Edgar saw his opportunity. He darted and grabbed her wrist. They struggled with the knife. He needed to immobilize her entire arm.
That’s not what I’m saying.
Then you is a lecherous, treacherous, nasty old man. She wouldn’t surrender the knife. Which is it? Tell me, nah.
Edgar had her by the wrist. She crouched, turned her back to him, as if defending a basketball and they travelled from the kitchen down the hallway. When she tried to turn on him, he lifted her up by the waist, her knife-arm flailing, and threw her into the garage and shut the door.
* * *
+
Time passed.
Edgar lit another cigarette and turned on the radio.
Felicia banged on the b
ack door. She was howling epithets and threats and comments on Edgar’s moral character and manhood and he was shouting back through the door.
Tell me how, was the last thing she said.
Because you’re stewpid, Felicia. He drew out the u. You’re a stewpid minx.
Well, now you talking the truth, she said. You finally talking some sense. I real stewpid.
He paused his pacing at the front door to discipline her with paternal authority. I was perfectly clear with you from day one, Felicia—no children,
You does lie too much.
no children and you knew that marriage was out of the question, which is not to say that I can’t commit. I can. I have. I am. Very commitable. But you can’t corner a man
I corner you?
into doing what you want. You don’t go and manipulate a man because you want a child.
When Felicia began talking again, he strolled to the other end of the hallway, talking to himself, more or less along the same lines. He stopped at the far end of the hallway in front of the parlour bedroom. The weather was bad on Mutter’s forehead.
We’re going to send her to die Alpen, he said. Hysterical. This better not be your child. There’s no child. I’m married. Hh. Mutter coughed. You call that a marriage? Mutter said although she couldn’t or didn’t talk anymore.
* * *
+
The garage was having the desired effect. It was supposed to be a padded room until Felicia stopped acting like the girl from The Exorcist. But the garage wasn’t padded. In fact, it had many breakable things.
After a few minutes of quiet, Felicia slapped the door, an open-palmed sound. Edgar crept down the hall and placed his ear against the door.
Silence.
I hope you listening, she said. Listen real good to me.
Then Edgar heard a crunch, followed by drumming of various depths and resonances.
He didn’t even put on his shoes.