Roost

by Ali Bryan

He removes it for a second, but soon goes back to chewing the figurine’s head while he flips pages.

  “So pineapple on half then.”

  Glen goes into the living room to order the pizza. Wes begins to whine.

  “Stop whining, Wes.”

  “But all the pages are marked.”

  “There are four hundred pages in that book. They can’t all be marked.”

  “But they are,” he says, crying.

  “Give it to me.” I snatch the book from him and begin flipping through the pages. They are all marked.

  “Fuck,” I mumble under my breath.

  “See?” Wes says, spinning around in his chair.

  “Joan you can’t make a scribble on every page,” I say, holding up the book.

  “Cat squirrel,” she responds.

  “Do you want ham or pepperoni?” Glen hollers from the living room, covering the mouthpiece of the receiver.

  “Ham!” I yell, tearing the least scribbled page out of the book. “Just use the other side.”

  Wes takes the paper reluctantly and asks me to spell “welcome home.” I pick up one of the few markers that still has its top, and write in block letters for him to colour in. The marker quits before I finish, so the Home is fainter than the Welcome.

  “Start on that,” I say. He obliges, filling in the letters with an assortment of colours. I clean up the breakfast dishes while Glen and Joan watch TV.

  “I’m going to get their stuff ready.”

  Glen nods and smiles.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he says.

  I turn down the hall and begin packing their bags with pajamas and school clothes. I find a banana in Joan’s sock drawer at the same time my phone plays the xylophone indicating I have a message.

  Dan’s text says, mom will be discharged on Friday or Saturday.

  Thank God, I reply, sinking into Wes’s bed.

  Coming home Sunday, he adds.

  I write, see you then, and lie flat on the bed. I remember when Wes used to force both Glen and me to lie with him. The discomfort. Our attempts to creep out without him waking up. The doorbell rings.

  “Grandma!” Wes yells. I hear his chair push back from the table.

  “I’ll get it,” Glen says. “It’s probably the pizza.” He steps loud and heavy towards the front door.

  “Why do you walk like that?” I say, although he’s not in earshot. I get up and watch Wes scramble in front of Glen, with his sign.

  “Grandma is in Cuba,” I remind Wes, but he holds up the sign anyway as Glen opens the door.

  “Hi,” Wes says.

  The delivery driver ignores Wes and hands the pizza to Glen.

  “Come away from the door, Wes,” I say, tugging at his shirt.

  I take the pizza from Glen and head to the kitchen. Wes follows and hangs off me.

  “Get off my arm!” I yell, placing the box on the table. “You almost made me drop it.”

  He sits on top of the table and says, “I want six pieces.”

  Glen joins us in the kitchen. He removes Wes from the table and places him in a chair.

  “Where’s Joan?” I ask, looking at Glen and Wes.

  They both shrug and simultaneously take slices of pizza using their hands as plates. I sigh. Joan arrives at the table and kneels on her chair. One fist is clenched.

  “What do you have there?” I ask.

  She opens her hand and reveals a pile of her hair.

  “Nice, Joan. Perfect.”

  10

  Mom’s released from the hospital on Friday. They want to keep her close by for a couple days, but she’s back on the resort with my father and brother. Dan sends pictures. My mother appears sunburned but mobile and surprisingly content. I tell Dan the kids and I will meet them at the airport Sunday, and he says that’s fine.

  I spend the next two days in and out of training. Our software is being upgraded. What could have been taught in two hours is spread out over two days. I spend some of the time proofing a series of new banners that will hang in our produce departments. Pictures of giant artichokes and dewy peaches paired with their respective growers.

  I spend my last childfree hours Sunday afternoon working on the kitchen and invite my friend Cathy to help. She is resourceful, single, and a heavy-duty mechanic. She runs her own shop. I have known her since elementary school and though she is over six feet tall, a veritable Viking, she has a feminine face and hair she can pin-curl. A bombshell on stilts without a lick of athletic talent. She enters without knocking.

  “Hello, hello,” she says, holding a tray of Starbucks. “They didn’t have any peppermint so I got you chamomile instead.”

  “You are awesome,” I say, taking the drinks to the kitchen.

  She removes her leather jacket and hangs it on the back of a chair, nearly tipping it over. “You’re getting rid of the roosters,” she observes.

  “Finally,” I reply, passing her the chisel.

  I take the lid off my cup and remove the teabag. Cathy ascends the stepstool, her head bent to the side, and begins scratching away at one of the birds.

  “When do the kids get back?”

  “Around six. Glen will have fed them because we’re meeting my parents at the airport.”

  “Did they finally go to Paris?”

  “No,” I reply, slurping my tea. “They went to Cuba.”

  “Cuba?”

  “Yeah, my brother paid for it.”

  “Go Dan,” she replies, moving the stepstool to the next rooster.

  “Except my mom got hit by a boat and had to go to the hospital.”

  Cathy stops chiselling. “But she’s okay?”

  “Yes, thank God. I think it was just a mild concussion.”

  “What a sin.” She exhales with relief and descends the stepstool. She picks up her tea, takes a sip, pushes her hip to the side. I stare at her curiously. “I just came from the chiro,” she explains. “My hip was out.”

  “Weren’t you there yesterday too?”

  “That was for my back.”

  “So how often do you go to the chiropractor?”

  “Two to three times a week. Depending.”

  I barely shower three times a week. “Wow.”

  “You should do it,” she says. “Even just to get assessed.”

  “My back is good.”

  Cathy shrugs. She looks out into the living room. “What’s with your door?”

  “It’s a long story,” I reply.

  She goes to the back door. “Is it even on the track?”

  “It’s in the track. My dad said he fixed it. And then we tried to go outside and it attacked us.”

  “Your father was never a handyman. Remember the time he tried to fix your bike?”

  “Yes,” I groan.

  “Didn’t he put the seat on backwards or something?”

  “The handlebars.”

  “Right.” She laughs. “And you could never drive in a straight line afterwards. I remember that bike. It was too big for you.”

  “That’s because it was my brother’s. He never rode it.”

  Cathy removes the door effortlessly, props it against her knee, and properly places it on the track. She bends over the toolbox that’s still in the living room, where my dad left it. She pulls out a screwdriver.

  “How is your brother anyway?” Cathy asks. “Did they have their baby?”

  “No, she’s due sometime before Christmas. He’s fine.”

  Cathy uses her shirt to buff out a handprint on the glass.

  “He’s actually on his way back from Cuba with my parents. He flew out there when my mom got hurt to play rescue hero.”

  In response, Cathy does a ninja kick.

  “Wow. That looked surprisingly natural.”

  She shrugs. “Must be the parkour.”

  “The what?”

  “Parkour. It’s like track and field but downtown. You jump over benches and stuff. Climb walls. It builds coordination and agility.�
� She pushes a curl away from her face.

  I am bewildered. “Who signs up for this stuff? I mean, who else besides you?”

  “All sorts of people. Watch.” She slides open the door — demonstrating that she has indeed fixed it — takes two giant steps back, then runs outside and vaults over the deck railing to the grass below. “That’s parkour!” she yells from the lawn.

  Parkour is disturbing. Like nightclub dancing or naked maid service.

  Cathy hops up onto the deck. She looks pleased and is slightly out of breath.

  “Nice,” I say. “Where in the heck did you discover parkour?”

  “In the community recreation guide.”

  We return to the kitchen and finish our tea. Mine is lukewarm.

  “Thanks for fixing the door.”

  After Cathy leaves I take off my bra, microwave leftover lasagna, and eat it standing. The top noodles are overcooked and hard. There are still bits of wallpaper on the floor. I corral them into the corner with my sock and put away the toolbox. Dan sends a text to say their flight is delayed an hour. I sigh, knowing it will be too late to meet them now. The kids will be home soon and disappointed.

  I quickly search Joan’s room for the I Spy book I hate so I can hide it. Forty pages of creepy collages: masquerade masks, red lipstick, vintage clowns, antique dolls. It’s like a scrapbook from the set of Saw. I spy with my little eye a lampshade made of skin. I find it just as Glen arrives.

  “Hello,” he calls, Joan pushing in front of him.

  I drop her book in the oven drawer and kick it shut.

  “Mama,” she says, pulling off her socks. I kiss her on the cheek and taste ketchup.

  “Where’s Wes?” I ask Glen.

  “Coming,” he replies. “He forgot something in the car.”

  Wes appears minutes later with a Transformers figure.

  “I gotta run,” he says, dropping the kids’ bags in the hall.

  “Okay,” I say, picking up Joan’s socks. “Thanks for taking them.”

  “Yeah, no problem.” He calls for Joan and Wes to come say goodbye then jogs down the front steps to his car.

  “How was your weekend, bud?”

  “I’m starving.”

  “You’re starving? Didn’t Daddy just feed you?”

  “Yeah, but it was disgusting. He made us eat long things.”

  I make him toast and peanut butter and wonder about the long things before searching for Joan. I find her curled up at the end of her bed nearly asleep.

  “Did Joan eat her long things?” I ask Wes, returning to the kitchen.

  He nods, wipes peanut butter from his cheek. I get Joan’s blanket from the front hall and tuck her in properly. Wes appears at her door holding the Welcome Ho sign.

  “We never finished the sign!” he says, alarmed.

  “I know,” I say, hushing him with my finger. “We can finish it tomorrow.”

  “But Dad said the airport was tonight.”

  I guide him out of Joan’s room and explain, “Their flight is delayed.”

  “But I want to go to the airport.”

  “Another time,” I assure him, putting the sign on the top of the fridge. He is too tired to argue. I motion for him to climb onto my back and carry him to the couch. He pulls a blanket over his lower half.

  “Did you have fun at Daddy’s?” I ask, pulling him close.

  “Yeah,” he replies. “Can you get my Optimus Prime?”

  I look towards the front hall and muster the energy to get up. I move Wes off of me and go to the kitchen. Optimus Prime is on the table. It is neither vehicle nor robot but somewhere in between. A pupa of plastic made in China. One leg, half a front bumper, a single headlight. I fiddle with it, attempt to convert it into a car, but can’t figure out how to get the wheels out so I instead try to make it a robot. I fail. It now has a wheel, two arms, and a head. Asshole.

  “Who bought this for you?” I ask from the kitchen.

  Wes pokes up from behind the arm of the couch. “Daddy.”

  “Well it doesn’t work.”

  He slides off the couch and retrieves it anxiously. He pushes the robot’s head and swivels its limbs until it looks like an ambulance.

  “See?” he says, showing it off. “It works.” He returns to the couch and gets back under the blanket.

  “Bedtime,” I say, scooping him up, carrying him to his room, and placing him in his bed. “Love you, Wes.”

  I return to the kitchen, pour a glass of wine, and examine the ambulance. I find the robot’s legs tucked in the back. Sirens and a steering wheel but no place for a stretcher. I release them. It is now a vehicular Centaur. I flick it towards the sugar bowl.

  After nine the phone rings. It’s Dan. He tells me that somewhere over Sable Island on Air Canada Flight 919, my mother passed away of a massive stroke.

  11

  Initially I can’t comprehend the news. I say okay as though he’s told me to take out the garbage, and I hang up the phone. I stumble to the table and knock over my glass, which hits the sugar bowl with an audible clink. The kind of sound that should precede a kiss or follow a toast. I think of the island. Its impossible thinness. An eyelash in the sea. Its wild horses, silver-haired bats, and the seals. The seals! Dragged to the bottom of the ocean by Greenland sharks, blind and obtuse and out of nowhere. I think of their descent into the dark. The sudden quiet. Mom flipping through a magazine or righting her blouse or buttering my father’s bread when the blood began to clot and parts of her brain started to die off. Little bits of Janice disappearing like the contents of an advent calendar. Memories and facts snuffed out, cell by cell. Her brain, like the island, made virtually invisible by the darkness of night. Porch lights extinguished, lighthouse dead in the fog. My mother in the aisle, flanked by the plane’s emergency lights, with the seals below and my father above and the ponies roaming aimlessly between. The phone rings again.

  “You hung up,” Dan says.

  I try to stand but lose my footing and fall to my knees. Wes’s Transformer lies face down in the puddle of wine on the table.

  “I know,” I reply.

  “She’s gone,” he says, and it sounds less permanent this way. Like she might be gone to get milk or an oil change.

  “I know.”

  “And she’s not coming back.” He breaks down and sobs. Noises tumble out of his mouth like vomit. Breath all chopped up, chest in a blender.

  “Where are you?” I ask. My house is so quiet.

  “Yarmouth,” he whispers.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Hospital,” he says, passing off the phone. The exchange is messy.

  I wait for my dad.

  “Dad?” I ask. “Are you there, Dad?”

  “Claudia … she just … she was just going to stretch her legs.”

  I wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands.

  “They put her in the basement. She’s in the basement over there. They shouldn’t put them in the basement. Basements are cold. She doesn’t have her slippers.”

  I take the phone away from my ear and sob like my brother. Dan whispers from my lap they will call tomorrow. I hang up and toss the phone on the counter. It spins and comes to a stop beside the knife block.

  “Are you looking for something, Mommy?” Wes wanders down the hall towards the kitchen.

  “Your Transformer,” I say.

  “It’s on the table,” he says. “Beside you.”

  “Right,” I reply, pulling myself up. I pick up Optimus Prime.

  “Yuck,” Wes says. “Why is he all wet? He smells like the place we take the recycling to.”

  “He went swimming,” I explain.

  I towel-dry the transformer and carry Wes back to bed.

  “You okay, Mommy?”

  I nod and pull the covers up to his chin. He has Glen’s chin, pointed with a slight depression. I stroke it with my fingertip.

  “Will you sing?”

  “Sing what?” I ask.

  “Anything.”


  I can’t think of anything to sing. I try to remember what my mom sang to me but I can only think of Rita MacNeil and the Men of the Deeps and the jingle from Sleep Country that makes me want to knife my mattress. My mother could not sing. She had no range and made up lyrics. Replaced entire phrases with humming. Wes waits for it to begin. I take a deep breath and make up a song about the transformer.

  “You used to be an ambulance …”

  Wes is unsure about this song. He turns onto his side and closes his eyes. I back out of the room, making up lyrics, inventing a chorus that has Optimus Prime wishing for his legs. I feel heady and nauseous and slump back down at the kitchen table, which is still sticky from the wine. Mom needs her slippers. I can go to her house and get them and drive them to her. Yarmouth is only three hours away. Four hours? Three and a half? How do I get to Yarmouth? Is it the 102 or the 103? I will put the kids in the car and drive south and bring Mom her slippers. I slide on my Toms, look in the fridge for my keys. A cantaloupe rolls out, which I kick. Fuck you. I go to my laptop and google hospitals in Yarmouth. Yarmouth Regional. Providing care to 64,000 people in Shelburne, Yarmouth, and Digby Counties. Care? Is that what they call it? Putting mommies in the basement without their slippers? Maybe I could take her a sleeping bag. There should be one in the linen closet. A double one from when Glen and I went camping. I tear the closet apart until I’m surrounded by a heap of towels, most of them pilled, all of them old. And piles of sheets. Fitted ones all bunched up like beehives. Pillowcases I never iron. On my tiptoes I pull on the top shelf, straining to see, it creaks with my weight. There’s the sleeping bag in the back, and I yank it by the cord of its polyester sheath. It tumbles on top of me, like a fabric sausage. I pull until it’s completely free from its shell: navy plaid, unwashed, smelling like wood smoke. I climb inside.

  12

  I wear sunglasses at breakfast. We eat Corn Flakes. I don’t tell them about Grandma. I find a note from Turtle Grove in Joan’s backpack saying she needs more diapers. I search the house and manage to scrounge up four. It is an ordinary day. On the way to daycare we pass the same woman walking to work that we always do. Her gait and headband are the same. We get the red light by the high school. Wesley talks the entire way. Of zombies and Japan and the corn twists he never gets in his lunch. I want to tell him to shut up. I want to scream it.