by Ian Williams
A worm came to the surface of Edgar’s mind. Mutter had sacrificed him in that moment to save her own life. He had no ally. And now she was doing the same.
He had told Felicia all of this, though without saying any of it, during their first interminable night together. He told her everything the first night.
XX
22.
You, Felicia said.
Mutter died today. Edgar cleared his throat of four months of dust. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.
You wasn’t there?
It was early, he said.
Felicia hadn’t seen him since he doused her with gasoline and lit her on fire while sharing a bag of popcorn with Feather. Where was she now? One flap of Edgar’s shirt hung over his pants. Tendrils of veins creeped around his sockets. He had never looked more like Mutter than at that moment.
Edgar gripped his wrists. Can we talk inside?
Felicia hadn’t opened the door fully. Only her face was visible. He better think again if he thought she was going to invite him inside and offer him sweetbread so he could triumphansee the room she improvised for herself in Christian Lady’s parlour and finger the thin makeshift curtain that apportioned her privacy from the hallway.
Edgar said, I thought you might appreciate knowing.
What you want me do? Raise she from the dead?
Edgar paused a moment. He nodded slightly, as if he expected this treatment, then turned and walked down the concrete path toward his car.
The encounter whooshed by too quickly for Felicia’s satisfaction.
You can talk on the bench, she shouted after him.
He turned back. (Are you going to put your head on my shoulder?) She held her position behind the door.
Haltingly, he told her that Mutter’s cancer had recurred and progressed. He had mistaken the symptoms. But so had the doctors. She had stopped eating and drinking for two days before he took her to the hospital. Where was Feather? Mutter was dehydrated. Where was Feather? The second time he took her, they discovered that the cancer had metastasized, he meant but he said reproduced, to her bones. He said nothing about Feather. Three weeks later, she was dead.
You could have told me she was in hospital.
She wasn’t. She was at home. Downstairs. There was nothing anybody could do. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Do you mind if I smoke?
Yes, she said.
He closed the pack. There’s a small private service next Friday. I thought you should know. He stretched to offer her a card with a date written at the back but she did not move so he left it on a corner of the bench. Please come if you’re able.
Edgar’s movements were too casual, too familiar, for the occasion. Didn’t he feel responsible in the slightest for blowing smoke into his mother’s face, for feeding her the diet of a prisoner? More than once, she had observed him, sitting on the couch, killing Mutter with neglect the way one kills a plant. (The plants!)
Then, suddenly, Edgar’s face crumpled. He crumpled. And Felicia rushed to hold him up. She thought he was fainting with exhaustion. It was the only time his whole life she would see the ugly childlike contortion of his crying mouth. Tense. Pink. Slimy.
All night, in the parlour, he said. I spent all night. Alone. I put on all her jewellery. Last night. This morning.
Felicia pulled him closer to help him up. Mistake.
Edgar looked at her upper arms as if for confirmation.
Felicia? he asked.
She liked to believe that she wasn’t quite showing when she wore loose clothes that hung from her breasts, but her upper arms were definitely fatter in this sleeveless top, and Felicia saw in Edgar’s face that he recognized a difference in her, as a man who knew her body intimately.
XY
22.
The minister glanced several times at his watch, so Edgar took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came. That is, except for Edgar’s brother, who flew from Germany mostly to settle the estate, Edgar thought, and a bowtied friend of his father’s. Mutter had no friends except for the wives of Vater’s friends. One of them, when she learned the news, paused, confused, with an expression that suggested that she thought Mutter died years ago. Edgar did not tell Jazz, his legal wife.
Last week when he had sat on a bench outside Christian Lady’s house and told Felicia of Mutter’s death, she asked him if he was glad.
A branch of lightning blazed through him. Are you? Were you glad when your mother—
Don’t bring my mother into this.
I mean, Felicia, what a galling thing to say!
She didn’t take it back. She had read his relief clearly despite his best performance of grief.
Felicia’s honesty could make her abrasive but not malicious. If she were in the viewing room that day, she would have stood beside him as Mutter’s body slid into the furnace and the other men exchanged infuriatingly glib, good-natured memories of the woman, how she used to do this or that for Vater, and asked them to show some respect for the occasion, what kind of animals are you, bowtie or no bowtie. She was not polite but she did display a firm adherence to protocol, occasion, and ceremony so it surprised Edgar that she did not even call. All week.
Jerry entered and explained that the incineration process was complete. The home would remove the residue that could not be consumed—the coffin’s screws and hinges, fillings if Mutter had any—pulverize the bones and process the ashes.
Cremains, Edgar’s brother said. I was reading about the process.
We prefer to call them ashes, Jerry said. He glanced at Edgar.
Edgar said nothing. On the way home, he sat in the backseat of his own car with the urn while his brother drove and made an international deal with Bowtie.
A week later, a sympathy card from Felicia, addressed to the Gross family, finally arrived. Edgar’s brother opened it.
Felicia Shaw, Felicia Shaw, he said. I don’t remember a Felicia Shaw. You?
Edgar said nothing.
Whose wife is she?
No response.
Who’s Felicia Shaw? His brother dropped the card on him.
There was a Bible verse about trumpets on the inside. One of the girls, Edgar finally said.
On the evening that his brother was to return to Germany, Edgar scooped some of the ashes into a teapot. His brother gripped his forearm to stop him. They wrestled delicately, trying not to disturb the scoop, then his brother, red-faced, word-whipped him for disturbing the ashes, which were to be taken to Germany, before marching up the stairs. It sounded like his brother was ripping paper slowly in half but he was only drawing himself a bath. Edgar scooped the ashes with a teaspoon as if measuring sugar. How cowardly, Vater accused him from the inside, to perform defiance against the dead, you impotent ass. You big man. But Edgar continued scooping Mutter’s lungs out.
After returning from the airport, he dug a grave the size of a baby’s coffin and buried the teapot. When he looked up, the leaves were rusting at their edges. Early.
* * *
+
Two days after his brother returned to Germany and he had buried Mutter, which is to say two weeks after she died, depending on whether it was night or morning, Edgar heard from Felicia, via Christian Lady. He was rummaging through a drawer for a matching sock. He almost didn’t answer. Felicia was in hospital. (What you want me to do? Raise she from the dead?) He almost didn’t go.
X
1. The drugs were a thick, colourful Ferris wheel.
2. He was there.
3. He left.
4. He turned.
5. He left.
6. He returned.
7. His skirts whirled dervishly around the sun.
8. He could never leave.
9. It was early and he was early. It was early for him and he was early for it.
10. She fed him from her breasts and she fed him from her neck and she fed him from her forehead.
11. She woke up and he was talking in full
sentences, though in another language.
12. As I was saying, he was saying.
13. Your father so ugly your own mother run from him, a three-headed girl told her.
14. As I was saying, he was saying. As I was saying, he said.
15. She woke up and she had two mothers, briefly, until they died under a tree in Babylon.
16. She woke up and he was with her and he was with him and they were they.
17. When he squeezed her upper arms, she was supposed to undress and walk obediently into the chambers.
18. She woke up and she was in a movie where he was saying it was all just a dream then she woke from the dream which was just a dream.
19. She was supposed to shovel her grave with a teaspoon and wait to be shot from behind.
20. She woke up and he was crying in an accent that was neither English nor German.
21. Turn over, he said to her once. No. Turn over, he pleaded. What’s wrong with my face? For a change.
22. She woke up and he was smoking inside a crematory.
23. She woke up, expecting him to come back as he always did with an afterthought, so she sat holding him and smiling for one minute, two days, three weeks, four years—
Y
Boy oh boy.
THE SEX TALK
Mom, are you my mom?
Of course I’m your mom.
My real mom?
Yes, your real mom.
Then why don’t you have a husband?
Who tell you so?
Nobody. But how can you be a mom if you don’t have a husband?
I’m your mom. Don’t talk like that.
You’re not just a lady?
Listen, next time somebody asks about your dad, you tell them that you have a dad. And to mind their business. And to come talk to me.
* * *
+
Mom, where’s Dad?
Away.
Away where?
All over. He’s a pilot. He has to fly airplanes all over the world.
Does he ever fly here?
Sometimes.
And he comes to see me?
Sometimes at night but he says don’t wake you.
And he sleeps in your bed?
Yes. In his uniform.
* * *
+
Mom, does Dad have a big airplane or a small airplane?
A big one.
How many people can he fit on his airplane?
More than a hundred.
A million?
Not so many.
* * *
+
Mom, where’s Dad now? Calgary.
Where’s that?
Far.
* * *
+
Where’s he now?
Still in Calgary.
Is he always in Calgary?
No.
Then how come you always say Calgary?
Because he’s always in Calgary when you ask me.
Does he tell you when he’s coming home?
No. He just comes.
Does he come through the door or the chimney?
The door. He has a key.
And a key for the airplane too?
Yes, a big key.
* * *
+
Mom, where’s he now?
The sky.
* * *
+
Mom, is that Dad’s airplane?
No, I don’t think so.
How do you know?
His airplane has a red tail.
* * *
+
Look, that one has a red tail.
But it’s too small.
* * *
+
Is that his plane? It has a red tail and a maple and it’s big and everything.
That’s him.
Finally.
Wave. Go on. Wave to Daddy.
* * *
+
Do you think he saw me?
Yes.
But he was so high.
He tell me he see you with his special binoculars. And he say he wave back.
And what else?
And, well, he tell me you’re a big, handsome boy, like a soldier. And he say that you should be a good boy and sit quiet in class from now on and listen to Mommy and do everything she say while he gone.
* * *
+
Mom, do you think Dad will take me and you on his plane?
Where you want to go?
New York.
New York?
Or Calgary because he likes Calgary. Or we could just go up in the sky and come back down.
* * *
+
Mom, I don’t think Dad lives here anymore.
No? Where does he live?
I think he lives in heaven. It’s closer for his airplane.
You smart, boy.
I figured it out.
You did. Dad used to be here and then he went up to heaven.
Is he Jesus?
No. But if people behave themselves, they get to go to heaven.
Or if they’re old.
* * *
+
Mom, does Dad see Jesus when he’s up there?
Yes.
Is Dad old?
Kind of.
Older than Jesus.
No.
Older than you?
Yes.
How old?
Old as the hills.
Is he rich?
Very rich.
How rich?
A millionaire.
* * *
+
Mom, is Dad dead?
No.
But you said when you die you go to heaven.
Only if you’re good.
Was he good?
Sometimes he good and sometimes he not.
That’s why he goes up and down.
Exactly.
* * *
+
Mom, do you think Dad has another family and that’s where he stays when he’s not here or in heaven?
Your dad’s either with us or alone. He don’t have no other family.
But what if there is another one with another boy who’s just like me and a mom who’s just like you?
Then they’d be the same as us.
Right, only they live in Calgary and sometimes he forgets where he is and stays with that family instead of us.
There’s only one boy like you in the whole world.
Are you sure?
Positive.
Is there anyone like you?
* * *
+
Mom, do you think it’s good that Dad spends so much time away?
I like being here alone with you.
I don’t think it’s good.
Why not?
Because if he’s not here, he’s always doing something with the other boy.
I tell you already there’s no other boy.
What if I have a brother who’s just like me?
You have plenty friends. There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Yeah, but I can beat them all up.
Did you beat somebody up? Is somebody’s mother going to call and tell me you were causing trouble?
Pretend, pretend. You’re such a girl sometimes.
* * *
+
Mom, can I have a brother?
How about a fish?
No, a brother. Can you make me one?
It’s not so simple.
With Daddy. I know.
What do you know?
And can you make him older?
* * *
+
Mom, everybody has to bring a picture of their family to school.
Can’t you draw one?
No, Mrs. Henderson says it has to be a photo.
We have pictures.
I want one with Dad in it.
Well, we don’t have any.
None?
I don’t see what’s wrong with a picture of you and me.
; Everybody else has pictures with their dads and they have brothers and stuff.
Okay, I’ll look.
* * *
+
Are these all the pictures of me?
Every last one.
Are these all the pictures of Dad?
Yes.
All of them?
All.
How come you don’t have any with me and Dad together?
He didn’t like pictures.
Can I keep one?
I’m keeping them for both of us.
But can I keep one for myself?
Which one?
The one with him in the airport with his suitcase.
I’ll keep it safe for the both of us.
* * *
+
Mom, I think it’s time for a new dad.
What’s wrong with the old dad?
He’s never here.
I’m always here though.
Mom, I’m seven. I can’t wait forever. My clock’s ticking.
You real old.
And you’re not getting any younger, doll. If we get a new dad then that way you won’t be alone. Is that what you want? Do you want to be alone forever, Mom?
* * *
+
There’s a plane.
I’m over him.
* * *
+
Mom, how much money do you have?
Enough.
I was thinking that you should marry someone really rich.
Your dad was very rich.
Someone richer.
That go be impossible.
Really? If he was so rich, how come you’re not together?
Who said we not together?
Mom, I wasn’t born yesterday.
Sometimes grown-ups separate but they still together.
So you’re still together?