by Various
“Drugs? You think I’m on drugs?”
I look to Mom for help. She says, “Honey, you have changed dramatically this past year—changed your clothes, your hair, cut off all your old friends—”
“Take a urine sample if you want. Jeez.” I throw up my hands, trying to think of a logical explanation to give them. Too much coffee. Late-teens crisis. Hereditary insanity. PMS.
All these explanations seem more ridiculous than a harmless old man whose grasp of reality is stronger than mine.
“I must’ve been imagining things,” I say. “The school year’s almost over. It’s stress.”
Jerry glances at Mom for her reaction. She looks sceptical.
“You know,” I say, “it must be those all-nighters I’ve been pulling, studying King Lear for the English exam. I can’t give Mrs. Daniels an excuse to fail me, after what I said to her.”
He nods. “Well, be sure to get a good night’s sleep. You won’t be able to write your exams if you’re tired.”
Case closed, thank God. Mom says, “I’d better start dinner. You staying, Jerry?”
“Sure. Need help?”
He joins Mom in the kitchenette, leaving the details of Emma Barclay’s life and death sprawled on the coffee table. I gather them up and chuck them back in their folder.
I almost believe it myself—the all-nighters spent poring over King Lear—except we’re doing Hamlet this semester.
I hate being a teenager. No one takes you seriously. Adults think you’re a rebellious hipster who can’t see beyond that festering microcosm called high school. They think you don’t know anything, don’t understand anything. And we don’t. Because no one tells us anything, no one’s straight with us. Ironically, the only adult who’s been sincere with me is Barclay.
“Cordelia.”
And yeah, sure, you can throw pop psychology at me. I’ve seen enough daytime talk shows to recognize that as the daughter of a working class single mother, I’m using Barclay as a father figure. But the truth is that I feel sorry for him.
“Hi, Professor Barclay,” I say, stopping in front of his cardboard throne although I know that there’s birthday cake waiting for me at home.
“Thou art mistaken, dear child,” he says, tipping the contents of his paper-bagged bottle down his throat.
“Oh. Right.” I pluck the baby rattle from the shopping cart and shake it above his head. “I’m not Cordelia, Your Majesty. I’m your Fool.”
His face brightens. I drop the rattle back into the cart. “But I can’t stay. I brought you something, though.” I pull a sandwich and a drink box from my schoolbag. “It’s not much. I’ll buy you something better after I get birthday money.” I set the food on the ground so our hands won’t accidentally touch. “See ya.”
“I prithee, my Fool,” he calls out. I stop, turn. Slowly, because I’m not sure if reality is going to slip through my fingers again, even though Barclay hasn’t touched me.
A homeless old man in ragged toque, grimy dress shirt and ill-fitting wool slacks squints at me with bleary eyes. “Dost thou believe that Cordelia shalt return? Her exit was ever so unnatural, so hasty.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I—I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”
I give him an exaggerated bow and nearly knock the briefcase from a passing businessman’s grasp. “Crazy teenagers,” he mutters, scuttling off the curb and onto the crosswalk. I bow again and start for home.
“Break out the cake,” I say as I fling open the apartment door. “The birthday girl’s home.”
I drop my schoolbag and enter the living room without bothering to unlace my boots. “I accept cash, cheques, and most major credit cards—what’s he doing here?”
Jerry stands beside Mom, his arm around her shoulders. I think, Oh no, this is it, they’re finally getting married, but then Mom says, “Honey, I have something to tell you,” in a really shaky voice, like she’s been building up the courage to speak to me for years. And she said I, not we, so I know that Jerry’s only there as moral support. Which perplexes me even more.
Mom holds out a birthday card-sized envelope that’s addressed to me in an unfamiliar, old-fashioned cursive scrawl. I take it.
“Who’s this from?”
“My—your grandfather. My father.”
A chill creeps slowly over my body with icy cold feet. “I thought Grandfather was dead.”
Mom takes a deep breath and says, “He is to me.” The resigned tone of her voice tells me that she’s just burned all the bridges behind her.
“You told me Grandfather was dead.” My voice curves upward, high and shrill. Jerry squeezes Mom’s shoulder but looks at me, unblinking, unsurprised. “He knew—and not me?”
Their silence betrays assent.
“What about my grandmother? Is she dead to you too?”
Mom says, “Mama died when I was young, like I told you. That much is true. But Daddy—” She sighs, and to my surprise her mouth twists into a bitter, contemptuous line. “After all this time, Daddy wants to reconcile. I want nothing to do with him. But you’re eighteen now. An adult. You can make your own decisions. You can pass your own judgment on that proud, stubborn son of a bitch.”
I’m so shocked at Mom’s harsh words that my mouth shoots off without thinking. “Ha. Look who’s talking. Now who’s the proud stubborn bitch?”
“Watch what you say to your mother!” Jerry barks. But Mom’s one step ahead of him.
Her slap hits me so hard and fast that I drop the envelope. “You don’t understand,” she says. “I loved him so much. He was my hero. I could always depend on him. After Mama died, Daddy was there to take care of things, take care of me, no matter what. And then he threw me out.”
So that’s why Mom got all freaked out the other day when Jerry started talking about fathers and daughters. “Because of me,” I say, rubbing my stinging cheek.
“Yes.” She closes her eyes. “Because I was pregnant with you.”
“What about my father?”
Jerry says, “Go on. Tell her. She deserves the truth.”
The truth. Ha. And Mom’s always lecturing me about blurting out things that no one wants to hear. Because no one wants to hear the truth. Look what happens in fairy tales—the king kicks out his youngest daughter after she tells him she loves him more than she loves salt. Lear banishes Cordelia. Emma Barclay runs away.
I squeeze out a small smile. A smilet, as Barclay would say. And suddenly I understand what Mrs. Daniels means when she says that there’s little difference between comedy and tragedy. No one likes the truth, so they laugh at it. They laugh because if they don’t, they’ll cry—or start screaming.
I say, “So my father’s not a jerk after all, even though he ditched you when you got pregnant? And all this time I’ve been hating him when he’s really a saint.”
I stare in horrified fascination as Mom’s eyelids flicker and a single tear escapes, running down her face in a thin rivulet.
“Honey,” she says, “your father raped me.”
Oh dear God.
“He took me home after a dance . . . Daddy was out, and—and—”
Oh. Dear. God.
“It was a small town, you know. Word got around. Everyone thought it was my fault, that I’d led him on. They didn’t have words like ‘date rape’ back then. Good girls didn’t do it; bad girls did and got what they deserved.”
Emma Barclay’s sulky, dark-lipped face flashes in my mind. The misfit. The daughter who’s too smart and mouthy for her own good. Had Emma gotten what she’d deserved? Bad things happen to those who don’t fit into the status quo, after all. Look what happened to Mom.
Does that mean I’m a bad thing?
Now that she’s confessed the brunt of the truth, her remaining words flood out. “When Daddy found out I was pregnant he kicked me out and I haven’t been back since.”
Oh dear God, say something. For once in your life, can’t you say something?
“You told me Grandfather was
dead,” I say.
“He is to me.”
“You told me lots of things.”
Jerry says, “She doesn’t have to justify her choices to you! She was only trying to—”
Mom holds up her hand. Jerry shuts up.
“You were little,” she says, “and wanted to know why other kids’ drawings of families were different than yours. You couldn’t understand.”
Couldn’t understand. How condescending. I’d expect that from Jerry, not Mom. “Please,” I say, realizing helplessly that I’m about to be very cruel. But it’s so easy to be cruel. Easier than swallowing pride and admitting to things that are better left unsaid. “Please, help me understand. You lied to me all these years. Or did you mean to tell me, but got caught up in the illusion that we were a happy family of two? The two of us, against him? Do you wish it had never happened? Do you wish that my f—”
I choke on the word, but then I wield it like a blade, as sharp as a serpent’s tooth. “Do you wish that my father hadn’t touched you? Do you wish I’d never been born?”
“Honey, that’s not fair.”
“Do you?”
She looks away, unable to give an answer. She looks away at the stack of night school textbooks, the polyester supermarket smock tossed over the second-hand sofa, the faded linoleum in the kitchenette. She looks away, but it’s answer enough.
I’m eighteen now. An adult. I can make my own decisions. I choose to start walking without any direction save for the front door.
People laugh at the truth because if they don’t, they’ll cry—or start screaming. Surprisingly I haven’t started laughing or crying or screaming yet. I don’t know what I feel. I just know that I have to keep walking, or else the terrible truth will catch up to me.
“Cordelia, whither thou goest, child?”
“Hi, Professor Barclay,” I say.
His face struggles with the name. “Thou art mistaken.”
“Please,” I say, wearily, “not now.”
“Art thou ill? Thy wraith-like appearance distresses thy sire.”
Barclay reaches for my hand. I pull away but it’s too late. Our fingers graze each other. The world twists and tumbles. Turns upside down and inside out. I don’t know if it’s Barclay’s madness or the weight of Mom’s confession that’s pressing down, overwhelming me, spinning me like a top.
And I remember that he’s the only adult who has ever been honest with me, who has ever told me the truth—albeit his version of the truth.
“Father,” I say. “Sire.”
Barclay’s hand trembles around mine.
“Sire—”
CORDELIA:—’tis I, regretful Cordelia, thy once-beloved daughter. I beg thy forgiveness for my trespass.
KING: (Embraces CORDELIA.) Nay, thou art a Fool. ’Tis I who must plead forgiveness of thee.
CORDELIA: Sire, I… (Steps away.) No—I cannot—I can’t—
KING: Cordelia, daughter, thy vexation is unseemly.
CORDELIA: I can’t—no—
“—no.”
I break away from Barclay’s grasp. This is no more real than my childhood, when it was just Mom and me united in the wake of my supposedly deadbeat dad. It’s just another illusion. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing out the vision of Barclay as King Lear. Two men dance in front of me, fighting for my attention: one with dignity, one without, both sad and tired.
Part of me wants to believe that this white-haired old man is my father, instead of the bastard who wouldn’t take no for an answer. But the other part of me is brewing anger in a cauldron too small for its contents.
No. This is no more real than my childhood. “For the hundredth time, I’m not your daughter. I’m nobody’s daughter.” I push down the hurt; anger oozes and bubbles up around it, taking its place.
He grabs at my hand again. “Cordelia, daughter—”
“Let go!” I wrench myself away. This is no more real than my childhood. “Your daughter’s dead! Your daughter’s dead, old man. Don’t you remember?”
He drops my hand as if it were a live snake and suddenly I’m left with the vision of one man. Barclay. Not the proud king, nor the delusional professor, but Barclay as he must have looked the second he heard his youngest daughter had been murdered. As I must have looked the second Mom told me that I had no father, only a history of violence and family scandal. The look of someone who has nothing—no hope, no love, no reason for living.
At least I have Mom, and as much as I hate to admit it, Jerry too. You’ve got to like a guy who loves your mom, without pressure, without ultimatums, without words, even though he’s not getting laid.
Love without words. I want to tell Barclay I’m sorry, but for the second time in my life I’m speechless. This is what all those misfit girls—Mom, Cordelia, Emma Barclay, that youngest salt-loving daughter in fairy tales—must’ve felt that fateful day they were banished from their home. A terrible helplessness, an inability to think of the words that’ll make everything all right again, the words that’ll make their fathers love them again.
A deflated shell of a man sits before me on his cardboard throne, weeping uncontrollably. “Emmy,” he says. He looks up at me and smiles sadly—one of those tragedy-defying smilets. There’s a little bit of Lear in his eyes, but I know that the king is gone.
Barclay’s delusions were no more real than my childhood. But they were real to him; hope was all he had left. And I took it away. Me and my big mouth. I take his wrinkled, sunburned hand in mine. Nothing happens—he’s still Barclay, still weeping, repeating Emma’s name over and over as if it’ll bring her back.
I sit with Barclay until I can’t watch his pain anymore—a mirror of my face half an hour ago—and then I retrace my steps back home in fierce, rapid strides.
So my happy childhood was a big fat lie, but it was real to me. Maybe Mom wasn’t as happy, but I can see now that it took guts to raise me. She could’ve abandoned me, or given me up for adoption, or she could’ve let herself become overwhelmed with resentment. But she didn’t. That took strength. And love. Like telling your royal prick of a dad that you love him more than salt.
Mom emerges from the kitchenette as I burst into the apartment.
“Honey,” she says, her smile faint but firm, “you’re just in time for cake. Happy birthday.”
Her eyes are as red as mine but neither of us mention it.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say. I’m sorry and I love you, I don’t say. I give her a hug that breaks the world record for length and ferocity. Some things are sweeter, more honest when left unsaid. And sweeter still when understood without words.
She pulls a white envelope from between the pages of one of her textbooks. At first I think it’s my eagerly anticipated birthday money, but then I see that the flap is torn and the front is addressed in a now-familiar, tear-stained, old-fashioned cursive.
“He sent me one too,” she says, and I know that even though Barclay will never have his Cordelia, Mom’s found her Lear. Exeunt all.
I adjust my grip on my duffel bag and pray that my good dress isn’t too wrinkled under a couple weeks’ worth of laundry. I hope my wedding gift surprises Mom; my roommate helped me strip the dye from my hair last night, revealing a natural brown.
The panhandler perched on the corner mumbles to himself, even though I’m fair game; a young student home from college for the weekend, sure to have change in her pockets. After all, she needs quarters to call her parents from the bus station. But the old man stares at the asphalt, knobbly knees pulled under his chin, his chapped lips opening and closing silently. He doesn’t even look up at the well-dressed woman who stands in front of him, speaking in low tones.
I draw closer and realize that the panhandler is Professor Barclay, and the woman looks like—
“Emma?” I say, unable to help myself.
The woman turns, her eyes widening with shock and trepidation, and I see that the resemblance is only faint. She’s a good ten years older. One of her sisters, then. “Regan
,” she says.
To cover up my embarrassment, I point at Barclay and say, “I thought he was in rehab.”
She closes her eyes, briefly. “He was. Got him off alcohol, but they couldn’t do anything about his stubbornness.” Her smile is rueful. “He won’t talk to us.”
She bends over her father and tucks a twenty into the empty coffee cup at his feet. “See you next week, Dad,” she says, walking away. He continues to mumble without acknowledging her.
I drop my bag and squat beside him. I have to lean in to hear his voice above the traffic. “Actus est fabula,” he says. “Actus est fabula.”
But even though Mom and Jerry are getting married, the play’s far from over. Minor characters bleed off the stage and into the wings. Malvolio leaves town humiliated, swearing revenge. Demetrius never receives an antidote to the love potion. Barclay returns to the streets, and I’m the same misfit I always was, albeit with different coloured hair.
“Hi, Professor Barclay,” I say.
He tilts his white head, noticing me at last. “Do I know you?” he asks.
I settle back on my butt and sit cross-legged. Mom and Grandpa aren’t expecting me for another half hour. “My lord, dost thou not recognize me?”
He squints. “Cordelia?”
My smile wavers for a second. “No—’tis thy Fool, Nuncle.”
“Ah. Good Fool. Loyal Fool.” I can almost see the dignity seeping back into his bones. His back straightens. His chin lifts.
The baby rattle and shopping cart are long gone, so I pull my keys from my jacket pocket and dangle them from the key ring. The keys catch the light from the setting sun and make a thin, tinny jingling sound, like a handful of bells with stuck clappers. A passer-by drops a quarter into the coffee cup.
Originally published in the Shakespeare theme issue of
On Spec, Winter 2002 Vol 14 No 4 #51
E.L. Chen’s short fiction has been featured in anthologies such as Masked Mosaic and Tesseracts Fifteen, and magazines such as Strange Horizons. Her first novel, The Good Brother, will be published by ChiZine in 2015. She lives in Toronto with a very nice husband and their young son.