by Zoe Whittall
Miranda?
In her periphery, she noted that it was indeed Miranda, slumming at One-Stop Burgers. And with the school secretary? Was she in a David Lynch movie? Sadie bolted, knowing she had only a few seconds before she’d be noticed, and ran towards the picnic table closest to the restaurant door, where she sat as though waiting for a friend to come out. She could see Miranda and Dorothy hunched over trays of food. She noted Miranda’s Lexus sparkling between the scattered offerings of Hondas and Toyotas.
The table was carved with missives, declarations, pejoratives, and dick drawings. She chewed at the straw, running her finger along Jane Is So High and Missy Fucks Hard and glancing back in the restaurant, both curious about and repulsed by Dorothy and why she would be at One-Stop Burgers with a student.
She pulled her hood over her head and looked down, scrolling through various apps on her phone, then reread Kevin’s email. A group of kids showed up eventually, settling in at the next table, and looked over at her. She had her headphones on so they would think she was listening to music, but she was eavesdropping on bits of their conversation.
That’s that girl.
Her dad, fucking pervert.
Rich kid.
Slutty private-school girls.
Best blow jobs, am I right?
Like you would know.
Shut up.
What is she staring at?
She looks sad. You like those emo girls, don’t you?
Sadie was readying to leave when one of them lit up a joint, and she remembered what she had come for. She cocked a hip and performed the confidence she didn’t feel. “Hey, are you holding? Or know anyone who is?” She’d heard that in a movie once.
When they stopped laughing at her, they pointed out an idling car at the edge of the lot. “He’s a balding guy named Gary. He always wears a plaid shirt and smells like onions, but he’s harmless.”
“Thanks,” she said.
The girl nodded and smiled warmly, before Sadie left and walked over to the car.
Gary was amicable enough. When she’d pocketed the two grams of pot, he said, “I also make my own organic yogurt and we’re starting a line of pickled beets and radishes. Tell your parents! I mean, only about the pickles!”
She gave him an awkward thumbs-up and walked towards her bike. She was fiddling with the lock when Miranda came storming out of the restaurant, Dorothy behind her, dropping a large cup of soda that splashed all over her skirt but not bothering to pick it up.
“Miranda, it’s okay. Let me at least give you a ride home, dear,” she said.
Miranda stopped and turned around, glaring at her.
“I have my own car, duh.”
Miranda got into her car, music blaring as soon as she turned the ignition. Dorothy watched her peel out of the lot while trying to wring out her skirt. Sadie tried to stand still and not make any noise so she wouldn’t get drawn into a conversation with her.
sadie was pulling out of One-Stop when her phone beeped five texts from Jimmy. All apologies. She typed Fuck you. Then erased it and decided not to reply.
When she got home, she packed the one-hitter and wrote Kevin a long email, about how she felt about her father in prison, Jimmy, her mom. It was pages long. In the morning she went to the track and ran and ran, and at each vibration of her phone she stopped, hoping it was a response from Kevin. Every minute felt slow, and looped.
She was lying on the grass by the track when his response finally came in.
“I’ve been wondering how you must be feeling. The complexity of it all.”
Kevin was the perfect outlet, and he’d actually asked her how she felt. He wanted to know how it was impacting her emotionally. There was almost an entire page of questions. He wasn’t being paid to ask, like Mrs. Caribou or Eleanor Rockbrand. He wasn’t doing it in hopes she’d relax enough to be his normal into-sex girlfriend. He wasn’t doing it because he was her parent and felt guilty or obligated. He was actually interested.
twenty-five
andrew and jared had resumed some moments of normalcy, but they were fleeting. It always felt as if the moment could break at any time. This morning, Jared placed a plate of crepes and caramelized peaches down on the table in front of Andrew, who appeared to be reading the New York Times on his phone but was really just skimming headlines. Andrew felt the weight of how hard Jared was trying, and how he just couldn’t reciprocate, and he briefly longed for a boyfriend who was callous and self-involved.
It was a rare weekend, one when Andrew was home for its entirety. Jared had yet to accompany him back to Avalon Hills, which they both knew was straining their relationship. Andrew could tell that Jared’s compassion was approaching its limits, but he was still behaving with care and patience.
“It’s odd,” Jared said, taking Andrew’s phone out of his hand and turning it off dramatically. “My friends say so as well. Imagine a heterosexual couple, if your wife didn’t come with you during a family crisis?”
Andrew spooned some Greek yogurt onto his crepes, inhaling.
“No one here is a wife, Jared,” Andrew said wryly.
Not getting married, now that it was finally legal, was another sore spot. Jared wanted nothing more than an extravagant party, a celebration of hope and justice, as he called it. Andrew thought gay marriage was fine, but that the gay movement was obsessed with it as a way of begging the state to accept them, approve of them. He didn’t want it. “We’ve been together for seven years. What would a party do? We both know we’ll be together forever,” he’d said, the standard line.
“Plus, my mom and sister are coming to us this weekend for Christmas. There’ll be plenty of opportunity for you to showcase your wifely side.”
Jared looked pained and pushed his plate aside.
“Are we a family, or what? Because if we’re not, I am out. I’m tired of this. We’re not in university anymore. I’m not someone to play house with when you come back from the baths.”
Andrew was taken aback by Jared’s sudden explosion.
“I want to go with you to see your father,” he said.
“No.”
“Why? What are you afraid of? Why won’t you let me support you?”
“It just — It’s too much. Why take that on?”
“Let me be there for you,” Jared said. “You need support.”
“No, what I need is for you to listen to me when I tell you what I need, which is to not go with me to jail just so you can feel fucking needed. God, selfish much?”
“You’re mad because I believe he’s guilty.”
“No, you’re entitled to think what you want.”
“Women don’t lie about this stuff, Andrew. You need to accept the possibility, the probability, of his guilt.”
“People, regardless of gender, lie all the time, about a million different things. You’re being illogical!”
“You’re being ideological,” Jared said. “Just admit it’s emotional, it’s difficult to be objective, it’s hard. Just say it: it’s fucking hard.”
Andrew got up, walked towards the sink, and threw his plate of crepes with such force that it broke in two as it collided with the stainless steel.
He grabbed his phone from the island and left the apartment.
twenty-six
after some coaxing, Joan convinced Sadie to come to her support group with her, for Family and Friends Day. Dr. Forrestor explained that it was important for their support systems to see the purpose the group served.
Joan woke up early and made strawberry pancakes to sweeten the deal. Sadie came in from her morning run and assessed the brunch offering. “I just think it’s weird, the premise of the group. Is it so women can feel better about not divorcing their sorry husbands and getting on with their lives?”
“It’s a place to vent our frustration or anger or sadness, with people w
ho understand how difficult it is when a loved one is in jail and has done something terrible. It takes its toll on families, you know.”
Sadie snorted. “Believe me, Mom, I know it does.”
“Who do you talk to, besides Eleanor Rockbrand?”
“I dunno. Elaine, Jimmy. Sometimes Andrew and I talk on the phone.”
“You do? That’s wonderful.” Joan took a sip of coffee.
“Andrew worries about you a lot. Sometimes I think he worries about you so that he doesn’t have to feel what he feels about Dad.” Sadie cut up a pancake into neat quarters, spiralled some syrup onto each portion, and took a bite.
“It’s very difficult for me to share my feelings with you about what has happened. This is a safe space to share your feelings, if you want to, with people you’ll never see in your regular life, and with the help of a counsellor who has experience with people in our situation.”
“What is a safe space? What does that even mean?”
Joan took a sip of coffee and stared out the back window. The trees needed pruning, the boathouse needed a new roof. She wanted to go back to bed.
Sadie finished her final bite of pancake.
“I guess it’s only an hour.”
“Afterwards we can do whatever you want — the movies, the mall, whatever!” Joan said.
“I just want to come home and keep studying,” Sadie said, a little sourly, rinsing her plate in the sink and leaving it there.
“Okay, we’ll go after I get back from church,” Joan said. “Do you want to come?”
Sadie shook her head. She hadn’t been to church all year. Joan’s attendance hadn’t been stellar since the arrest, but earlier in the week some of the ladies from the United Church women’s group had called to see if she’d be coming back this week. She couldn’t tell if this was out of pity or genuine concern. She didn’t know whether or not to believe anyone anymore. If someone at work said, “I’m going to go get you a coffee,” and then they returned ten minutes later with the coffee, Joan felt overwhelmingly grateful that they had stated the truth and then followed through. When she saw Mr. Henshaw out for a walk, she wondered if he was actually out meeting his mistress at the hotel by the highway — Mr. Henshaw with the pair of elderly basset hound rescue dogs, the cane, and a collection of miniature hound sculptures in his yard, the one who said, of his wife of forty-something years, “The old bat is still the love of my life, still beautiful.”
“You just never know about anyone,” she’d said to Nancy at work.
Nancy had nodded and rolled her eyes. “Don’t I know it.”
Nancy had been making sure no one was mean to Joan at work. She’d nip it in the bud when any of the gossipy young nurses whispered or threw a side-eye to each other. Joan was grateful, but was also growing a little miffed at the presumption that she and Nancy had some shared trauma.
One morning when Joan was waiting for an English muffin to pop in the toaster in the staff kitchen, Nancy hovered, selected an envelope of strawberry mint tea from the box beside her, and confessed to Joan what her late husband’s secret was, the cause of his distress and suicide. After she said solemnly, “He was … gay,” Joan had to stop herself from exclaiming, “That’s it?” She knew that any kind of deception felt horrible, but seriously, she thought, it’s not like your husband was a serial killer or a … It’s not the same.
Instead, Joan had just nodded sympathetically. She needed to keep all the allies she still had.
joan walked into church during the second verse of “Morning Has Broken.” The sanctuary was maybe only half full, and she knew everybody, even just by the backs of their heads from her spot in the last pew. Normally she sat close to the front to hear the sermon. Sharon McFarlane sat with her mother in the back as well. Her mother was aged, and she could easily lean her walker against the wall. Sharon turned and offered Joan a warm, genuine smile. She nodded in response. Whenever Joan smiled at people these days, she felt that if she really offered back her usual warm smile, it would somehow be deceptive or seem crazy. Like, what did she have to smile about? Everyone would know it was a lie.
In finding out about George’s potential deceptions, she was starting to question her own ability to be honest as well.
She let her mind wander during the hymn, realizing she hadn’t joined the choir this year, and that it was getting close to Christmas and the Woodbury family had received only two cards so far — one from Clara and one from Joan’s great-aunt Judy in Florida. Normally there were a pile of them in a basket on the mantel that they would all read through on Christmas Eve. The Christies were having their annual drop-in at the end of Lakeside Drive, and Joan hadn’t been invited. Some people she knew from church had taken pity on her, but that was just what it was: pity. They felt they were doing Christ’s duty, and for the first time Joan could understand how humiliating it feels to be on the receiving end of dutiful kindness. She could now understand the women who received their carefully wrapped charity Christmas baskets, how they always said thank you with a pained sort of smile, some outright hostile. Joan used to drive around delivering the baskets after church on a Sunday every December. She used to think, Oh, they are so stressed out with the time of year, with not enough to go around. But she now saw in these activities the glowing inauthenticity of the Church, reaching out to the disadvantaged for some ulterior motive, to do God’s work. She understood that maybe the volunteers didn’t even see the recipients’ faces; they saw only points in God’s good favour, and used their actions as proof that they were virtuous people despite their many repeated sins. Joan never would have thought this before; she had never doubted her own kindness or sense of duty. Why would you ever question people who were trying to do something good for the world? This new cynicism felt awful, but it came at her in moments that felt unavoidable. She didn’t automatically trust anyone anymore. Trust was now something that required an extra beat, a moment of consideration.
Joan had been christened at Avalon Hills United Church, and so had her mother, her grandmother, and both children. She felt comforted by the woody smell, the art made by Sunday school students that lined the walls, made out of pipe cleaners, macaroni, and clumps of white glue. Even though George was pretty much an atheist in private, he was an active Church-goer and enjoyed chatting and debating with the minister over coffee about the finer points of the sermon. He helped to organize fundraisers and brought in theologians to talk on special nights, but Joan knew he had never really been a believer.
The minister spoke warmly, confidently, about the importance of community and connection. Tears streamed down Joan’s face, and she dotted at them with a stiff Kleenex from her pocket, and then the sleeve of her blouse. No one noticed, but she felt as if a spotlight was shining on her, and that at any moment pitying eyes would all turn her way. The choir leader began the first verse of a song she didn’t know, and Joan took the opportunity to dash out. She had thought maybe she’d stay for coffee and squares in the basement, a little catching up, but she was too frightened to face anyone.
Clara hadn’t set foot in a church, apart from weddings and funerals, since she had mumbled her way through her confirmation ceremony in a hungover daze, something she had done to make their mom happy at the time. When Joan told Clara that she was attending church again to help with her loneliness, Clara had shrugged. “If that’s what you’re comfortable with, Joannie. But you know, church people are usually all fakey-fake nice and Jesusy on Sunday, but don’t really give a damn when people are in real need.”
“I don’t believe that’s true.”
“When Dad died, they all brought casseroles over, but after two or three days no one stopped by to help with the sorting, or called to check in.”
“We didn’t ask for help, either.”
“We shouldn’t have to.”
Clara believed that people rarely did the right thing on their own but, at the same time, that
she shouldn’t have to school everyone in decency.
“People cannot read minds, Clara.”
Joan didn’t want to be a spectacle, even though she’d known the entire congregation for most of her life. Why couldn’t they return the care she’d given out over the years?
Joan sat in her car in the church parking lot, collecting herself, watching some of the Sunday school boys run around the lot, twirling their tiny ties like lassos. She missed being part of a team, walking into church with her arm linked in George’s and hearing his off-key harmonizing on the hymns.
when she got home, she kept the car warm and waited for Sadie to come out so they could drive to the support group. Joan warned her daughter while she adjusted the mirrors. “You may feel judgemental of people,” she said, “which is understandable. I was that way at first. They might seem like stupid ladies, you know, the kind of women you might see on a talk show. But they have good hearts, Sadie. They have been through so much. And they keep coming back every week and they help each other out. It’s very genuine.” She was babbling, and Sadie nodded at her periodically. Joan was surprised by how she was describing the group; she hadn’t really been all that aware of the shift in her feelings, that she’d begun to empathize with and appreciate the other women.
When they arrived at the health clinic, Joan put the car in park and turned to Sadie, who was texting.
“Honey, you okay? You’ll be fine?”
“Mom, it’s a bunch of ladies in a basement for an hour. I think I can hack it.”
“Okay, because we can leave at any time if you aren’t comfortable.”
“Sure,” Sadie said, opening the car door.