by Lou Allin
Though she might need to reschedule a few evening commitments, Belle could refuse them nothing, so often had they come through for her. “He’s all packed and will ride over on his bike. We’ll drop off the duffle,” Hélène said, speaking rapidly as she called out directions to Ed. “I’ll keep in touch every morning. And I’ve included a cookbook. If you run short on food, my freezer is yours. I marked the meatless casseroles.”
“Be careful on Route 17. It’s a killer.” Two women had died near Sturgeon Falls the day before when a semi-trailer had crossed the line and forced their Civic into a rock cut. Sometimes snow could be an unexpected buffer against the cruel rib bones of the North.
Micro arrived at her door not much later, carrying a backpack, breathless but energized with new responsibilities. “Rusty’s going to stay on guard at the house,” he said as he stroked Freya, curious at the break in routine. “I’ll go back to feed her. She drinks out of the lake. Her doghouse is insulated. And I locked my bike under your deck.”
Belle sorted out the information, massaging a crease between her eyes that might signal her anxiety. In winter, she would have insisted the dog come along. She showed Micro the sofa bed in the basement rec room, where she’d turned on the long baseboards to chase the chill. Those babies would suck back hydro like pigs at a trough of maple syrup. She pointed out the half-bath nearby and issued the usual admonitions about not flushing paper. “I know,” he said. “Aunt Hélène gave me a hassle. It’s gross, though.”
“If you want gross, try a septic tank full of papier mâché,” she added with a grin.
After he had settled in, she gave him a tour of her computer room, its walls lined with bookcases. “Want to play Grim Fandango?” she asked. That creative art deco style game with Death as a travel agent had captivated her with its wry wit and salsa music. Then she bit her tongue. Nice subject for a boy with a murdered mother.
“I finished that one when I was a kid. I’m more into Myst V and Dragonshard. I brought them with me. And I get some hints from the chat lines. Is it okay if I play them?”
Belle did an internal eye roll at the first real problem. She hadn’t discussed any Internet rules with the DesRosiers, nor did she have any locking software. Even her Sympatico e-mail brought the occasional spamwich about teenaged babes and their predilections for ungulates. “Sure. Just don’t erase anything on my hard drive. And better stay off the net until I get permission from your aunt. You’d grow old waiting for pages to load with my tin-can-and-string phone lines. No high-speed connections out here.”
Studying the shelves with an interested gaze, he pulled out a mushroom book, turning the pages. “Crossbones. Way cool. That means poison. My friend Chris’s grandmother takes him with her to hunt them.”
“Chill” had come and almost gone, but “cool” had mellowed like a fine Bordeaux. “I’m sure she chooses the right ones, but I wouldn’t risk it.” Micro rushed to hospital, poisoned in the woodswoman’s care.
This emergency required a steep learning curve for an only child who’d fashioned a family from a pair of dogs, Nell the Border Collie, who died at thirteen, then Freya. If Hélène had brought a Siberian husky pack, Belle would have had them performing a ballet in minutes. As she watched him leaf through the book, she wondered if dogs and kids were similar, except that kids could talk. Fearsome difference. Her watch read eight o’clock. What was his bedtime? Did he watch much television? That was out, except for Turner Classics. Action pictures, horror or science fiction, not female weepers. How about homework?
“Micro,” she began, standing awkwardly behind him as he replaced the mushroom book and selected The Annotated Frankenstein, opening the large coffee table book as his grin expanded. She saw a wicked set of eighteenth-century surgical implements, then a full-page dream sequence with gnarly tree roots morphing into a woman’s long hair. “I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms,” one line said. This was no bedside reading.
“Awesome. I did a book report on the monster. All he needed was a friend.” Belle smiled to herself at how well he had transcended the stereotype of the Karloff films. He yawned and stretched as Freya mirrored his actions in the doorway, and he focused a bit unsteadily on Belle. “I’m kind of tired. Do I have to have a bath? I’d rather read. Can I take this?”
Belle was absorbing data like a sponge on uppers. She felt her pulse racing, the easy control of a solitary life slipping away. Too much responsibility. What if something happened to him while . . . She realized that her clenched mouth was making her cheek muscle ache.
“Belle? What’s wrong?”
She touched his thin shoulder, deceptively strong and wiry, a man under construction. “Nothing. No bath. Take a shower upstairs in the morning.” She rapped her temple with the butt of her hand, trying to recall Hélène’s rapid-fire instructions. No one could talk faster than an Italian. “Hold on. We’d better settle something now. How are you going to get to school again? I should know, but remind me.”
He answered in a confident, logical flow chart. “A bus lady from the Catholic schools lives down the road. Aunt Hélène already called and told her to stop here. Seven thirty sharp. They’ll leave me at St. Charles on Falconbridge Highway, the last catchment spot, and a taxi will take me to St. Francis.”
Catchment. She was learning a new word every ten minutes. Belle went to bed wondering what might happen tomorrow, her sense of security sent spinning. Waking at midnight with an anxious bladder, she yanked herself over the edge of the waterbed, reluctant to leave its rolling warmth. Freya was gone, her sheepskin cold. Grumbling, she flicked on the lights, hit the bathroom, then crept down the carpeted stairs to the first floor, tiptoeing to the basement. With a brilliant pocked pumpkin moon gleaming through the windows, she could see the dog curled up with Micro in a snoring competition on the sofa bed.
Belle was up at 6:05 a.m. with one snooze alarm, pouring coffee in the kitchen as the sky reddened petticoat streaks above the far hills toward Outlet Bay. Sailors take warning. Rain trickled down her windows. Water covered her narrow sand beach and was lapping over the second stair of the railroad-tie retaining wall. Two feet higher than in May. Her rockwall was nearly submerged, including Big Marie, a five-foot boulder that had challenged the abilities of the hundred-dollar-an-hour backhoe operator.
Hélène called at six thirty, weary but positive. Their grandson was still in intensive care, treatment pending the results of a barrage of tests. “If he’s as tough as you two, he’s bound to rally,” Belle said before they hung up. Then she realized that she had forgotten to ask about Internet access.
She drummed her fingers on the fridge door. Would Micro drink chocolate soy milk? Eat cheese and eggs and English muffins? No peanut butter or jelly. Not a flake of cereal passed her lips. Cold breakfasts left her the same way. Just her luck that he’d want something exotic like Count Chocula . . . or Frankenberries. If he was insistent, they could always make a dawn raid on the DesRosiers’ cupboards.
She heard the water pump hum into action as the toilet flushed downstairs. Barefoot, Micro came into the kitchen, dressed in long black silk boxers and a black t-shirt, a change of clothes over his arm, his thick lashes heavy with sleep. “Freya wanted out,” he said. “She was standing at the door. She’s a great dog. A lot smarter than Buffalo. But I miss him.”
“Good man. I put more towels for you in this bathroom.” Then she raised her eyebrow. “Plenty of time for a shower.”
He nodded and padded out. She had forgotten how groggy kids were in the morning. A hyper child, she had rarely slept well, and sometimes her father, the designated dresser, had come in to attach one sock, then the next as she dozed in bed. That was why she never begrudged him a second of care. When she’d been a baby, he had nearly pinned her chubby thigh to a diaper, but at least he had made the effort in a time when men left nurturing tasks to their wives.
Twenty minutes later, Micro emerged in clean pants and a cotton pullover. Belle crouched at the wood
stove in the living room, shovelling out ashes. She looked up with a grin and handed him an insulated gauntlet. “Want to make yourself useful, as my mother used to say? Take this bucket outside to the parking area. Even with all this rain, I can’t dump ashes in the bush until they’re totally dead. Be really careful not to spill them down the hall or onto yourself.”
While she was still crumpling papers, Micro returned to warm his hands by the stove. “You heat the whole place with this?”
She urged the fire into action, adding cardboard, kindling, then a couple of maple pieces, letting her rip. The cascading crackles in the pipe told her that creosote was building up. No time for a lazy-man’s controlled chimney fire now. This weekend maybe she’d play it safe and climb onto the roof with her Roto-rooter brushes.
Checking the keys for the draft, she laughed. “Propane is my backup. The furnace goes on until I get this going in the morning. Once I get the stove charged, it’s good for the day.”
He wiped his face. “It’s really warm. No sweaters like at home. You could wear a bathing suit.”
Refilling her coffee as he settled at the kitchen table, she asked, “OJ? And what else do you . . . drink?”
He assumed an offhand look and pursed his lips. “Oh, coffee. Lots of milk. Mom calls it a latte.”
Mom calls it. His heart hadn’t accepted what his mind understood. She was no psychologist, but she judged this as a normal response. One day at a time.
A toasted English muffin with aged cheddar cheese worked for both of them. Warming milk for the latte and pouring out the juice, she felt strangely awkward, compelled to keep making conversation with her guest, yet wondering if he preferred a quiet early morning as she did.
Noticing the time approaching the magic seven thirty, she stood up suddenly as she remembered another duty. “Lunch? I don’t know what I . . .”
Swallowing the last bite of muffin and blotting his mouth with a serviette, he waved his hand. “No problem. We have a caf at school.” As if to anticipate her next question, he pulled out a small Velcro wallet and pointed to a bank card. “I have my own account from the websites I’ve made. I’ve saved over two thousand dollars for university.”
Belle nodded, impressed. “I hope you have that invested. Savings accounts pay pennies these days with low inflation.” She explained the advantages of money-market accounts and mutual funds.
“What’s ‘liquidity’ mean?”
At the office, Miriam had booked off with a migraine, but the phone didn’t ring, and no one walked in the door. As she left work late that afternoon, Belle did some studious shopping, having consulted the cookbook that arrived with Micro: Where’s the Meat? was a sensible manual for parents with vegetarian children. What she needed was Precocious Child-Rearing for Dummies, complete with self-correcting exercises. By the time she was home, he was cycling back from feeding Rusty.
“Now about dinner,” she began hesitantly as he climbed to the deck, the key to his aunt’s house on a string around his neck. “Refried-bean-and-cheese burritos okay? Fresh tomatoes from my garden.”
“I can make real rice in the microwave to complete the nutrition triangle. It always comes out perfect. Mom taught me a few tricks in the kitchen.” His voice was bittersweet, but that was the second time he had mentioned Bea, a healthy start in resuming his life.
She felt like touching his hand, which rested on the deck rail like an innocent brown mouse. “I liked her very much, Micro. She was a great lady. Not every woman can run a successful business and handle a family at the same time.” Too sexist, she thought, adding, “Nor can a man.”
“My dad was a doctor,” he said with a wistful expression. “I wish I could be like him, help people, but I’m more into computers.”
“Computers help people all the time. Hospitals and labs couldn’t run without them. And children don’t always follow the family profession,” she said. Then she explained her father’s job as a film booker, and Micro’s eyes glinted with flecks of gold in the autumn sun falling behind the purple western hills. “You got free passes to every show in town? Wow! I bet everyone wanted to be your friend.”
TWELVE
On Saturday, Belle had a viewing in Mallard’s Green subdivision south of town. Since Micro said that his best pal Chris Forth wanted to see the new Vin Diesel action picture, he drove in with her. So far she appreciated three things about the boy: he was quiet, he was a quick learner, and he never complained that he was bored, an annoying adolescent trait. As they bumped over the former rail crossing near the beginning of her road, he asked, “No trains any more? I remember seeing tracks here.”
She explained that as competition from truck traffic eliminated unprofitable routes, the rails had been lifted a few years ago, leaving a raised path of dark slag. “This is now part of the TransCanada Trail,” she said, pointing east. “That way leads to the Ashigami Lake area and eventually into Temagami, with its magnificent virgin pines.” She noticed that he giggled at the last few words, but left him his joke. Explaining the mysteries of sex was not in her job description. “Bikers use it, horseback riders and snowmobiles and quads, too.” Purists in southern Ontario, happy to make choices for their northern brethren, wanted motorized vehicles banned, but remote wilderness regions needed both. Sudbury bridged the gap.
She slowed at the dip by Philosopher’s Pond, one of many kettle lakes left by the last glacier, and began to climb the steep hill toward the mailboxes. “If you sponsor parts of the trail, your name goes on a kiosk. I bought three metres in Saskatchewan for my mother. She was born in Saskatoon.”
His eyes sparkled at the idea. “How much?”
“It used to be less, but the current rate is seventy-five dollars a metre.”
“Hiking is neat. My dad took me to Windy Lake, and we did the 10 K trail.” Then his voice softened. “That was the summer he and my sister . . .” He rested his head against the window.
At a bungalow on Churchill Drive in New Sudbury, they picked up Chris, a sweet blond boy, towering over Micro, with a winning smile, the usual baggy jeans, sweatshirt and a Jays cap on backwards. “Nice to meet you,” his mother Penny said as she waved them off and a middle-aged woman scissored herself out of a car and limped to the door. Chris explained that Penny was a registered massage therapist who worked out of her home and was studying to be a doctor. “And she’s forty-five!” Chris said as his mother groaned and mimed a swat.
Then they took Barrydowne Road to nearby Silver City on the Kingsway, a megatheatre with fifteen screens. Belle had been there only once. She preferred to remember sitting at the top of the second balcony in the old Uptown, one of Toronto’s stately queens built in 1920 in the days when the building itself entertained.
The boys were arguing in the back, some obscure point in Lord of the Rings. “No, Sauron was—”
“Was not. Don’t you remember . . .”
Belle tuned out the din. One boy, peace. Two boys, all hell breaks loose. Then, despite her efforts, she heard a word which hit like a slap. “You retard!” The van rocked as they shoved each other.
She pulled into Midas Muffler, stopped, and leaned over the seat, arching one eyebrow until it ached. This last gesture got their attention. “Retardation is a medical condition, nothing to joke about. My cousin Nick has . . . Down’s Syndrome. He’s the dearest person in the world.”
Chris said with a stricken voice, “But we . . .”
Micro added, “We’re sorry. We didn’t know.”
“Next time amaze your friends and use a more creative word. ‘Buffoon,’ ‘bumpkin,’ ‘clod.’ ‘Jerk’ is short and effective.” They settled down, probably wondering if she were going to cancel the show. Belle stifled a chuckle. A lie about “Nick,” of course, but it brought home the concept. She wasn’t guiltless. When she had been their age, the insult du jour was “spastic” or “spas”. Her purple-inked diary a la Mary Astor had fifty variations, including “spasmopolitan”.
At the theatre entrance, eyeballing the
times, Belle opened her wallet and pulled out forty dollars as their faces broke into smiles. “My treat. Play some video games in the lobby afterwards if I’m not back exactly at five.” She aimed a finger like a gun. “And not too much popcorn or candy,” she added. Setting limits would be expected. She hadn’t known Bea, but she’d bet the woman knew where to draw the line in the shifting sands of youth.
The showing at Mallard’s Green went well. Belle hosted ten people. Just in time to prevent a major mudslide from the constant rain, the quick-fix sodding and mature mugho pines and junipers from Hollandia Nursery Landscaping had transformed the handsome new brick model with double garage into an established home. Two couples said that they were definitely interested and would call Monday with an offer.
“Yessssss!” she yelled to herself at 4:45 as she packed her attaché case. No problem vetting. One couple drove an Infiniti, the other a Jaguar. They could play off against each other and better the builder’s price; $275,000 wasn’t chump change. Costa Rican cloud forest on the horizon. A new fridge with a pull-out bottom freezer to replace the shuddering cottage orphan.
She had noticed through the early afternoon that the wind had picked up, blowing plastic bags across the lawn. The day had been overcast, and she had watched a woman walking a brindle boxer and struggling with a broken umbrella. The more sheltered streets of a city gave a false sense of security. As she entered the van and paused to wipe her glasses, she knew Wapiti would be a raging monster if this continued. She felt like buying dynamite, driving to Outlet Bay, and blasting the dam wide open. Tough luck, cottagers downstream. Why didn’t man leave Mother Nature alone?
As she crossed town, stoplights cha-cha’d in wild abandon. This wasn’t hurricane country, but close enough. Hazel and Connie had rampaged through Ontario decades ago. The radio was reporting flooded camps along the rivers which fed Lake Nipissing. The boys were waiting on the steps of Silver City, pointing at paper cups and wrappers soaring forty feet into the air. Excitement lit their faces, another video game, but with deadly potential.