by KT Morrison
“She is Geoff’s, Nia,” Ang said. Her face wasn’t anxious anymore. It was firm. She let Nia go and she stood, took the letter from Lisa.
Lisa said, “What are you doing?”
“Is she Geoff’s?” she said, holding it up like Lisa was.
“She is, I know she is. You have to see her drawings. She’s doing...Geoff is doing a book with her.”
Donna said, “Awww,” quietly next to her.
“I know, right?” Nia said, through tears.
Angie asked again, “Is Odele Geoff’s baby, Nia?”
“She is,” she said.
Angie ripped the envelope in two. Lisa gasped, “No, wait.”
Nia cried again, tears going down her cheeks.
Angie ripped it again. Gathered the torn sections and ripped them across one more time. “Just like that, Nia. She’s Geoff daughter forever and ever.” She let the torn pieces flutter to the floor like petals at her feet and Nia watched them. Then Angie stooped and gathered them, disappeared to the kitchen.
The room was quiet for a moment, then Nia said, “Why am I such a fuck up?”
“We all are, Nia, in our own way, believe me.”
“Am I selfish?”
Donna laughed. “Yeah. You are. But I love you,” she said, stroking her hair.
“Am I?”
“You’re a grown-up now, Nia, okay? You have to do grown-up things. You can't be old Nia. It wasn't really that cute when you were nineteen, either.”
Nia sighed, fell to her friend and let her arms hold her.
When Ang got back she swiped a glass of wine and handed it to Nia, taking one for herself and sitting next to her. She held her glass up for a toast.
“I can’t,” Nia said.
“Can’t what?”
“This,” she said, bobbing the glass of wine in her hand. “I’m pregnant.”
Lisa gasped with joy, choked it then, held it back, let her happy sound fall.
Angie made a pained face. “Rocco?”
Donna let her go and she stood up, adjusting her dress.
Nia said, “Are you leaving? Don’t go, please...”
Donna made her own pained face and slipped her hands under her dress, eyes rolled up as she fidgeted up there. “I’m not leaving,” she grunted. Her fingers worked under the fabric, pulling at something.
“Ah, sheezus,” she sighed, pulling a pair of black Spanx down her thighs. “Fuck, that’s better.”
She stepped out of her heels and she kicked her intimates off. “No, I’m not leaving,” she said, “tonight we’re going to party like its 1995.”
Ang said, “’95?”
“Yeah, when we were thirteen. Where you keep your pyjamas?”
Nia smiled, said, “Bottom drawer, on the left,” pointing to her dresser.
Donna found herself a pair, tucked them under her chin, held up some more folded comfortable cotton things. “Anyone else?”
Ang and Lisa nodded and Donna threw them for them to catch.
Lisa held the flannel pyjama pants with rubber ducks on it, smelled the laundry smell. She said, “I didn’t know you guys back then. I never went to a pyjama party.”
“It’s okay,” Ang said. “It’s never too late.”
Donna pulled her PJs on under her dress, swinging her hips to get them up. She paused then, looked at them all. Slowly lifted her dress up. She bared her belly. “I’m not drinking tonight, either.”
Angie shot up off the bed. “Shut the fuck up! Are you kidding me?” Her pretty mouth peeled wide in a smile. “Donna?”
Donna plopped back down next to Nia in her dress and pyjama pants and she said, “We’re going to be pregnant together, Nia. We can help each other...”
“Oh shit,” Angie yelled, and she put her wine down on the nightstand and she clapped her hands to her face.
Nia said, “Are you serious? Oh Donna, oh, I’m so happy for you, shit...” she put her arms around her and hugged her.
“Shit what?”
Nia said into her hair, “Nothing, just...I never even asked you how you and Tony were doing...”
“That’s because you’re selfish...”
“Fuck, I am,” Nia grunted as she squeezed her tight.
Angie sat on the other side of them and put her hand on Nia’s belly.
Donna said, “We’re going to be pregnant together. You’re not alone, Nia, you’re not alone.”
38
Mournfully Sung
Thursday, October 19th
GEOFF
Maria and Rocco’s baby, Peter, died on October 15th. Rocco was somewhere west of Moosonee, about nine-hundred kilometres north of the city, camping in the wild forest somewhere off the rugged coast of James Bay. He blew the heart out of an eight-hundred-pound bull moose from two-hundred yards away at about the same time his son took his last breaths in a hospital in Etobicoke. His son was dead for two days before he returned to the outfitter and was reached by satellite phone.
Peter was more sick than Rocco had ever let on. More than he would ever admit. The deafness was a by-product of a greater syndrome. He died of renal failure, his misshapen kidneys not working well enough to keep him alive. Peter had lived longer than the doctors had predicted but he was always doomed.
Odie sat up front in the tan leather bucket seat of the Volvo, watching out the window at the gathered people. He watched her watching them. She was an amazing girl, turning into an amazing young woman. She was going to make the world her own one day.
They were parked in the cold grey parking lot at the McAvery Funeral Home in Royal York. The Volvo pointed at the double front doors of the low, flat-roof, brick building with cedar shingles. The doors were open and the Memorial service was departing. Peter’s funeral was tomorrow. He’d never been to a baby’s funeral.
It was Odie who had told him the sad news. A phone call came on his land line at the island. Rocco’s deep voice, sombre and despondent, a polite greeting and then he asked to speak to Odie. She took the call, walking around the maple floors in her pyjamas and bare feet, her head bowed, her little Nia mouth twisted with worry as she received the news.
They both cried in the kitchen, hugging each other and letting their heads come together to touch. Geoff didn’t know Peter, nor did Odie. Not very well, at least. She did love her Papa Rocco very much.
They cried because sometimes life was just tragic and nothing made any sense. In the afternoon, they hiked the frigid trails along the mainland shore of the property and Odie told him she wanted to pay her respects.
Odie was staying with him, solely, for a four-week stretch. Nia arranged it with him in a cryptic e-mail saying she would be away. He didn’t know how to get a hold of her to tell her the news.
So this morning he dressed Odie in her serenest outfit. A black skirt, black leggings, and patent flats. He brushed her hair back and he held it in place with a headband. They drove four hours from the island all the way to the city and to the funeral home. He wouldn’t go in. He had no right. He'd pay his respects from the parking lot. Wouldn't intrude on this troubling time with the reminder of the terrible things that had transpired between them all.
They sat in the car with the heat on and they watched. Black Cadillacs and SUVs rolling into the parking lot. Dragonieris and Mastrocolas of all ages disembarking from vehicles and making their way to the grim building. From withered and shrunken elderly educing the old country, hobbling bow-legged, to the greatest of great grandchildren carried in arms of mothers in heavy black coats.
Now they were departing, gathered in small groups around the circular driveway with the withered garden in the centre, shrubs wrapped in burlap for the oncoming winter. Hugging and shaking hands, giving curt firm-mouthed nods to one another. Men went to start the cars to warm them up.
He reached over and held Odele’s hand. Rocco was there in the crowd, a head above the others, his bulk stuffed into a black suit. His face was wan and cheerless, his eyes puffed and watery. He held Maria. Maria rocked in his arms. Her hair
was pulled back in a bun, and she wore a black skirt and white nylons. She didn’t look like the woman who had struck terror into his family’s heart a year ago.
There was another big man in the crowd. A man who must have been Rocco and Dino’s father. He was an aged dead-ringer for Rocco. Almost as big. Shrunken probably from hard labour, his back stooped, giant gnarled hands hung low at his thighs below the cuff of his suit coat. He had a shock of thick grey hair over his worn out face. Life was tragic. One day that would be Rocco. All the things that had transpired in the last year would be distant memories. And if you were to tell someone the dirty and hurtful things that old man had done when he was thirty no one would believe you. Death would come for them all eventually. One day Rocco would be dead. Geoff too. Even one day, hopefully far, far in the future, his little Odele would pass from this earth as well.
The door behind Rocco opened and Dino was there. Stepping out into the cold, holding the door for Stacy, her leading their two boys. He clasped his hand around Rocco’s neck and he squeezed him.
“Did you want to pay your respects, baby?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
He’d told her he would stay in the car on the drive down. Told her how his presence might stir up some bad memories for Rocco and Maria. She seemed to understand. He wondered how she would piece together this phase in her life as she grew older. The night that woman beat up her mother in their front hall. How mom and dad separated shortly after that. How her mother moved in with that woman's husband. When would she figure it out? When would his daughter understand that her mother was unfaithful? How would Odie feel when she realized that their happy family came apart because her mother slept with another man? When that happened, when she came to realize the truth, when her understanding of the world got broader and she understood the relationships between men and women, would she ever ask him? One day he would tell her. It might be hard, but he would have to let Nia off the hook. He couldn't let their daughter believe that Nia had brought an end to the family. He would have to tell his daughter that he was complicit. He could never tell her the awful things they did. Not the details—the lust they had, the horrible acts that were committed—but he wouldn't let Nia be the one to take the blame. That might be the day O would learn Geoff wasn’t her father. But then she might think that the family was really ended the day she was born. That it was Odie—she was the reason her mom and dad couldn’t be together. He hoped that day was a long way off. He needed time to prepare.
“Come here,” he said to her. She turned and he kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right here, okay? Look both ways before you cross the lot, rem—”
“I know,” she said, clunking the lock open slowly, preparing herself for what she would do.
She slipped out of the car and closed it behind her. The cold rushed in and gave him a chill. Odie walked to them, looking both ways. Her pace quickened as she got close and Rocco spotted her. He squat down in his suit and she ran to him and he grabbed her up and stood, tossing her so her hair danced around. He held her against his chest, her legs dangling under his forearms. She kissed his cheek. Odie made the big sad man smile. She talked, her little hand smoothing his shiny black tie. Rocco nodded, his brow lowering with the importance of her words, his smile curling with the freshness and innocence of her youth. Maria rubbed Odie’s back. Both hands on her, squeezing and holding her shoulders. Maria turned then, and Geoff could see her fish a tissue out of her purse and dab her eyes.
Rocco turned with Odie, bouncing her, and held her to Dino. Odie said something to Dino, and he smiled and laughed with her. His face filled with joy. He took her little hand and he kissed the back of it.
Geoff didn’t have a twinge in him. It was all long gone and buried. He was at peace with it all. This was for Odie today, and being jealous was about Geoff, and he wouldn't do that any more. Odie was one of them and she meant something to the Dragonieri brothers. They might mean something to her one day too. It didn’t change a single thing. It didn't change a single day he’d ever spent with her. Breaking the budget to get the best baby monitor when times were tough, painting the oak tree that would protect her, the day she left him to stay at sleepaway camp, the joy when she returned, the day she consoled him after the haunted barrel ride...those were days he spent with his daughter. She would always be his daughter, Odele Kane.
Rocco handed her to Dino and he held her now. Stacy was with Maria and Dino kneeled in his black suit and he introduced her to his little boys. They shook her hand awkwardly, their feet turning sideways on the concrete and probably scuffing their shoes. They were handsome, dark-haired boys. Odie looked in Dino’s eyes and she spoke to him. He listened and nodded, standing again and rocking her. She touched Rocco’s sleeve and he turned, bent to hear what she would say. He nodded, covered his mouth, then he kissed her forehead.
Dino carried her away from the awning, out to the grim daylight and he walked towards the lot, spotted the Volvo. He walked her to the open path between the winterized garden and the row of cars where Geoff was parked facing them. He set her down and he kissed her cheek. He whispered something to her that made her nod. His hands came away from her waist and he looked left and right for her and then she skipped across the lot to her dad.
Dino’s eyes met his through the windshield. They both held a good long moment, both of them expressionless. Dino nodded to him and Geoff nodded back. Dino watched until Odie climbed in next to Geoff.
“Hi, baby,” he said to her. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, Daddy,” she said, clicking her seatbelt.
When he looked back up Dino was walking back to his family with his hands in his pockets.
39
Refuge
Friday, November 17th
NIA
“Maybe we should turn back,” Odie said.
“No, baby, it’s okay, we’re halfway there.”
“Will the lake be frozen?”
“No, Odie. Not for a while. It’s not cold enough yet.”
The snow had been sudden, getting worse too, the farther north they went. It whisked from left to right across the road. The BMW would pull with the wind, then it would shift abruptly, gusting hard in the opposite direction and her feathery car would be buffeted. Visibility was now shortened to a dozen car lengths.
They were on the 48 doing forty in an eighty. Hazard lights flashing now. The road was white with drifting snow, one of the first storms of the winter so the shoulders were bare, not yet piled with ploughed snow. Single lane in each direction, winding up and down hills under towering pines and spruce, their boughs cradling a bright white bundle.
When she'd returned from her sad lacuna, her four week restoration, Geoff was in New York City. She picked Odie up in Agincourt at Kelly's. She'd parked down the road, gripped her wheel tight, staring at their house, gathering her courage. While she was away she had made important decisions about what she wanted in life and how she would get them. Odie was her bulwark. Gathered her strength then and parked in the driveway, stiffly walked to the door and knocked. Trish answered, courteous but cool, and she called for Odie.
She collected her bubbling daughter and wondered what Geoff had told his sister. How much did they hate her?
Now it was a week later, Geoff back in Canada, and it was time for Odie to return to her safe island. The refuge he'd built for them both in the cottage that at one time would have been for them all. The forecast had called for snow but she had not expected this.
“Okay?” Odie asked.
“Yeah, I'm okay, O.”
“No. The makeup?”
“Oh, for the wedding?”
“God, Mom, yeah...”
“Yes, I will do it for you. Baby, I'll show you,” she said, taking her white knuckles off the steering wheel for a moment to brush Odie's hair back from her face. O smiled and turned to her, black eyes dazzling with the bright dancing white outside their windows. “Anything for you,” she said.
There was going to be a wedd
ing this winter. Two young happy women in love. Geoff’s sister and her partner were to tie the knot at the Royal York in the city. There was no invitation for Nia but she would be there, lurking in the shadows, helping her daughter if she needed. Even if it was just to paint her pretty face, she would be there.
There had been another surprise on that car ride home from Trish and Kelly's. Odie in the passenger seat retold some very sad news. Something Nia should have known, but didn't. Peter had passed. She had suspected that Peter’s deafness had come with greater sickness but she never anticipated his passing.
Rocco had fallen in love with her when his family needed him the most. His feelings for her were real but instigated by the dirty things they did. Nia had wiped away all the bad in his life. Gave him something to run to, an escape from all the worry at home. Rocco needed an escape. Did it for himself. He suffered, but he was as selfish as Nia. In that way they were perfect for each other. Also why they would never last. Geoff wanted to build an escape for his family. Geoff was a man. He was more masculine than Rocco. Being a man wasn't about strong hands and a big cock, bravado or even confidence. It was how they did the right thing. It was how they nurtured life.
“Baby?” she said, looking over at her beautiful daughter again. “Do you think I'm a good mom?”
Odie gave her a caricature of puzzlement. “Don't be weird, Mom.”
“Tell me,” she joked.
“No,” she laughed.
“Tell me,” she demanded, slapping her hand on the wheel.
Odie giggled, settled into her seat and looked out the windshield again. “I love you, Mom,” she said.
“I love you, baby. I wasn't...I wasn’t a good kid. You’re a good kid.”
“Mom,” Odie said, alarmed.
“You are—”
“Mom, Mom, Mom,” she said, eyes wide and her knees drawing up.
“Fuck-shit-fuck,” Nia hissed, slamming on her brakes. The car whipped left and right, fighting for traction, struggling to find it in the streaming snow. Dead ahead, two cars in the roadway, no lights. A sedan on the right, trunk popped open, crumpled bumper. The back was raised off the road, wheels up, nose pointed in a snowy ditch. She twisted the wheel, yanking hard into the skid. On the left, the back half of a compact SUV. The nose was smashed, the motor mangled. Broken plastic and glass littered the road between the two, a shredded peel of curled rubber lay in a spreading puddle. “Fuck!” Nia yelled, her heart screaming out of her chest. German engineering beyond her comprehension took over, thought for her wheels, got her straightened then stopped.