by Ali Bryan
Glen pulls his keys from his pocket. “Well thanks a lot. I agreed to bring them here to save you the trip, but I have work to do. The least you could have done was come straight home.”
“Just go,” I say. “Get out of here.”
“That’s it? No ‘Thanks Glen for watching the kids’?”
“You want me to thank you for watching your own kids? Sorry that was such an inconvenience. Just leave.” I want to hit him.
He walks out and I lock the door behind him. I stumble over my luggage, overwhelmed and tired, and check on the kids from their doorways. I don’t risk waking them. I remove my bra in the hall, unzip Mallory’s suitcase, and pull on her pajamas.
43
I wake up the next morning with Joan curled up at the end of my bed. Like a cat squirrel. I slide her up beside me and pull the blanket over her legs, which are cold to the touch. I go to the bathroom, and then check on Wes. He opens his eyes when I enter his room.
“Mommy?” he mumbles, confused.
“It’s me,” I assure him. “I’m back.”
He smiles through a yawn.
I give him a hug. “Miss me?”
“Of course. Can we have pancakes?”
“I have to check if we have syrup. I heard Cathy got to babysit you last night.”
“Uh-huh. And we made cupcakes.”
“YOU got to make cupcakes? I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll show you!” He throws back the covers, runs to the kitchen, and points inside the fridge. “See? We brought some home for you!”
A tray of pint-sized cupcakes takes over the middle shelf. They are covered with lumps of white icing and black sugar.
“Those look spectacular!”
Wes jumps. Joan appears in the hallway, rubbing her eyes. I tell her good morning and she comes into the kitchen. She smiles at the open fridge.
“Cupcakes!” she says.
I pick her up and give her a good squeeze. “But not for breakfast.”
I turn on Treehouse and make pancakes from a box.
“Do we have school today?” Wes asks.
“Yes, but we’re going in a bit late.”
Dan calls. “The junk people are coming this morning.”
“What do you mean this morning? I just got home. It’s 8:30 a.m. How did you even call them already?”
“I left a message last night and said it was urgent.”
“When are they coming?”
“At 10.”
“Is Dad going to be there?”
“Don’t know, don’t …”
“Care. I know you don’t. He didn’t even come home last night.”
“He must have because his car was there this morning.”
I hang up.
“Was that Grandpa?” Wes asks.
“No, it wasn’t Grandpa.”
We finish breakfast and I dress the kids for daycare. I throw on paint clothes. Wes asks, “Are you a painter?”
“No, honey. I am not a painter.”
“Then why are you wearing those paint clothes to work?”
“I’m actually going to Grandpa’s to help do some cleaning.”
“How come?”
“Because he needs some help.”
“Can I help?”
“Sorry, bud. It’s a grown-up job.”
“I want to be a grown-up.”
“No you don’t. Not yet, anyway.”
“How come?”
“Because sometimes being a grown-up sucks.”
“But why?”
“It can just suck, Wes. Like you have to go to work and look after people and sometimes you have no one to play with.”
He sighs dramatically.
“Can me come?”
“No, Joan. You can’t come either.”
“Because of the bugs?”
“No.” Yes. “Come on. Put your shoes on. Let’s get to school.”
I drop them off and get back in the car. It occurs to me I might get trench foot wearing my sneakers in Dad’s house, so I go to Zellers and buy a pair of rubber boots. I also find packages of 3M face masks and medical gloves in the pharmacy. The cashier observes my purchases curiously. I get to my father’s house fifteen minutes before the junk people are scheduled to arrive. Dad is not home. I text Dan and ask where he is.
Allison-Jean picked him up, he replies. I’m on my way.
I thought you weren’t coming? I write back.
He doesn’t respond but arrives several minutes later wearing head-to-toe nylon and rubber gloves.
“Are you wearing a snowsuit?” I ask.
“It’s a tracksuit.”
“Why, are you planning on going for a run in the kitchen?”
“I didn’t want to ruin my good pants.”
“Are your good pants the ones with the pleats?”
“Claudia, grow up. It’s going to be a long day, so can you just close your mouth?”
I open a package of gloves as a large blue truck with JUNK written across its side in white block letters pulls up. A bear-sized man gets out of the driver’s seat. He looks like I expected. Tall, wide, gnarly hair. He extends his hand to Dan first and then to me.
“Should we get started?” he asks.
Dan quietly asks whether he’s been briefed about the circumstances. He smiles affirmatively.
“It happens all the time with old people.”
Sure, when the old people have no kids and live in a shed in rural Montana.
“He’s only sixty-three,” I say. Dan glares at me. The junk man, Lenny, returns to his truck to retrieve his partner and a pair of industrial-looking work gloves.
“Why did you say that?” he whispers. “We could have at least pretended he was ninety.”
“It’s just weird thinking of Dad as old. He’s only sixty-three. If he’s this bad now, can you imagine what he’s going to be like when he’s ninety? You and Allison-Jean will have to build a wheelchair ramp and one of those easy-access bath tubs.”
“Me and Allison-Jean? No, no, no. That is … no, absolutely not. Nope.” He shakes his head.
“Well I could never do it. I could never afford it, and besides there is only one of me and there are two of you.”
Lenny checks the door and finds it still locked. Dan, red-faced, pushes past me with his key. He is so angry he forgets to pull his mask up and gags loudly when he enters the front hall. I put on my mask and rubber boots. Dan yells for me.
“Why would you do that outside for the neighbors to see?”
“Like they don’t see the giant truck with JUNK printed on it?”
“For all they know it could be regular household stuff we’re getting rid of. Building materials, a broken toaster. You make it look like we’re recovering bodies.”
“We probably are!”
He makes his angry teeth and summons me in, gagging again before having the sense to slide his face mask over his nose.
“Whoa!” Lenny says, surveying the living room and what he can see of the kitchen. “This is probably going to take a few days.”
“A few days?”
“We could try for less,” Lenny says, carefully making his way through the house. “If we work around the clock we could be finished tomorrow morning, but that depends on how quickly we are able to get rid of stuff.”
“That should be easy,” Dan butts in. “Most of it’s going.”
“Well not most of it,” I argue. “We’re keeping a lot of it.”
“Like what?” Dan asks, pulling his rubber glove securely over the sleeve of his track jacket.
I look around. “Like that curtain rod up there.”
“Fine, we’ll keep the curtain rod.”
“And the Doggy Steps!”
“What the hell for? He doesn’t have a dog.”
“You could use them for Emma. She could use them to get into her crib.”
“She can’t walk.”
“Then I’ll take them.”
“You don’t have a dog.”
“I might get a dog.”
“So you’d get a dog but you wouldn’t take in your father?”
I grab the Doggy Steps and check the outside packaging for evidence of anything nasty, then carry them outside and place them beside my car. Back inside, Lenny and his partner work aggressively. Trashing and sorting and asking for direction.
“What’s this?” Dan asks, holding up a box with a poodle and a walkie-talkie on the front.
“I don’t know. It looks a like a baby monitor or something. Flip it over.”
Dan does. “The Bark Buster,” he reads.
“The Bark Buster?”
“That’s what it says.”
“What does it do?”
He reads under his breath for a minute then says aloud, “It stops dogs from barking. There’s no way he has a dog … is there?”
I pause to consider this.
“There are feces in the kitchen,” Lenny offers.
He says it in such a nonchalant way that both Dan and I stop and stare at each other.
“Did he just say there were feces in the kitchen?”
“I think so,” I nod.
“I can’t do this,” Dan says shaking his head wildly. “I … I … I …”
“You have to do this,” I interject.
“No. No, I don’t. This is not my responsibility. I can clean up coffee cups and empty bottles and whatever the hell that thing is,” he says, pointing to a cauldron-like pot hanging from the ceiling by a chain. “But I don’t do feces.”
He pushes through the front door and disappears. “I don’t do feces either!” I call after him.
“He’s all yours, Claudia! He’s all yours.”
Lenny gives me a moment before holding up the next item he wants permission to trash.
“Yep,” I nod, without looking. “Get rid of it.”
I think about Dan’s last comment. I want to believe he means Lenny is all mine. That I can pocket Lenny like a piece of pyrite, bring him home, and show him off in a bowl on my dresser. But it’s clear he means Dad. Dad is all mine. The bugs, the big underwear, the old man breath, the bits of food in his new long hair. My body shakes from the adrenaline.
Lenny takes a sip of his extra large coffee. A pack of cigarettes juts out from his chest pocket. He sees me staring.
“Want one?’
“Yes,” I reply, steadying myself from a wave of nausea.
Lenny draws one from the pack and lights it for me. I flick ash on the floor and realize I’m standing on a picture of my mother. “Oh, Mom,” I say aloud. “You do not want to see this.” I manoeuvre my foot over her eyes like a blindfold. Lenny works away. All in a day’s work.
44
I leave Dad’s at four, exhausted, and take a quick shower at home before leaving again to pick up the kids. Both are drizzly.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask Wes.
He complains of a headache. Rests his head in his hands and scowls from the back seat of the car.
“How about you, Joan, how was your day?”
“Bum-stick.”
“Right. Listen, kids. Grandpa is coming to stay with us for a while.”
“Like a sleepover?”
“Yeah, like a sleepover. He has to have some work done on his house so he’s going to live with us until it’s finished.”
“He can have my room!” Wes offers, leaning forward in his car seat.
“What’s in your mouth, Joan?” I ask, looking in the rear-view mirror. “That’s very good of you to offer, Wes, but Grandpa’s going to take Joan’s room. It’s closer to the bathroom.”
Wes looks puzzled.
“Old people have to use the bathroom a lot.”
“When’s he coming?”
“Tonight,” I say. A truck pulls in front of me with no warning and I slam on my brakes. “Asshole!”
“You just said asshole,” Wes informs me.
“Yes, Wes, I did. And sometimes people are assholes.”
“Ms. Patty is an asshole,” Wes says.
“Wesley!”
“Well, she is! She told me I budded in line but I was really there first.”
“Don’t call your teacher an asshole, okay? Joan, what are you chewing on?”
Wes tells me, “She found a granola bar by her cubby. It wasn’t hers.”
I shake my head. “Joan …”
“You an asshole.”
I drive in stunned silence the rest of the way. Once home, I serve my kids microwave pizza and call Glen.
“I need a hand,” I say.
“Can’t do it, Claudia. Just sold two paintings and the gallery wants to give me my own show.”
“But I’m telling you, I really need your help. Dad is coming over and I need help moving the double bed out of the basement and then I need someone to watch the kids while I check back on the junk people.”
“The junk people?”
“My dad is a hoarder, Glen.”
There is a long pause on the other end of the phone. Then he asks, “What do you mean, a hoarder? You mean he collects things?”
“Like the TV show, Glen. The house is a write-off. He has to stay with me.”
He sighs.
“Please, Glen. After this I won’t ask you anymore. Just help me get the bed.”
“I will help you move the bed, but Claudia, you can’t just call whenever you need something and expect that I can do it. I mean I try to help you out when you need help but we’re not … you know …”
“Married? Yes, Glen, we never were. That’s not the point. The point is the kids have two parents and right now they need you.”
“No, Claudia, that is the point. It’s not the kids that need me. It’s you who needs me, but you can’t keep making last-minute demands and just expect me to drop everything at the snap of your fingers.”
“Are you going to help me move the bed?”
He sighs again. “I can be there in about twenty minutes.”
“And the kids?” He does not reply. “Never mind about the kids. Just help me get the damn bed.”
I hang up the phone.
“Okay guys. Daddy’s coming over to help me set up Grandpa’s bed and then we’re going over to Grandpa’s house for a minute.”
“But I’m tired,” Wes complains. “I want to stay home.”
“I’ll buy you ice cream,” I bribe.
“Me too?”
“Yes, Joan. You too.”
When Glen arrives, we share few words beyond those associated with moving the bed.
“I can stay and watch the kids for a bit,” he offers as I give the mattress a final shove against the wall.
“No, thank you,” I say coldly. I close Joan’s closet door and throw her stuffies into a round tub.
“Claudia. Don’t be difficult.”
“Don’t be difficult?” My neck tenses and I look into his eyes. Eyes that are becoming less familiar. He wipes his hands on his pants, pants I’ve never seen before. I’m suddenly aware of the length of our separation. The accumulation of an entire wardrobe. Underwear I didn’t buy, pants with pockets I’ve never emptied before throwing them in the wash. “You don’t know what difficult is.”
I leave him in Joan’s room.
“Come on, kids!” I say in a fake voice.
“Are we going for ice cream now?”
“We are, Wes. Put your coat on.”
“Claudia?” Glen says, following us to the door.
“After you,” I reply. He obeys, Wes follows him, and then Joan, wearing snow boots. It is twelve degrees outside.
When I pull into my dad’s, it is late and approaching bedtime. I tell the kids to wait in the car. They obey and continue licking their soft serve. Lenny and his partner have made progress.
“Hello,” he says. “You’re just the person I was looking for.”
“Sorry it took
me a while.”
“No problem,” he says, pulling off his gloves. “I spoke with your brother on the phone a few times so we’re all good. It’s just all the stuff against that wall I need help with.” He gestures to an obscene pile. I cover my nose. “What of it do you want to keep?”
I examine the pile closer. Cards from Mom’s birthday. An old cross-stitch. The afghan we slept under, on the couch, when we were sick. I take an end of the afghan and tug it slightly. It causes an unopened box to tumble from the top.
“None of it,” I reply. “I don’t want to keep any of it.”
“Not even that nice blanket?”
When I make a second attempt to free the afghan, I see that it’s covered in oily blotches.
“Not even that,” I reply.
“I’ll give you a minute. I’m just going to go out to the truck and have my supper.” I follow him out to check on the kids. Joan has ice cream in her hair. I do my best to get it out with a napkin.
“Can we go in?” Wes asks.
“Nope. Grandpa isn’t home, remember?”
“What does J-U-N-K spell?”
“It spells junk.”
Lenny emerges from the truck with his partner. He finishes a banana and tosses the peel in the back.
“I’ll be right back, okay, Wes? Joan?”
I follow Lenny into the kitchen. “Do you want the contents of the fridge gone?”
He opens the door so that I can take a good look inside, but I say “Yes” after only a glance.
“Freezer too?”
I open the freezer. There are casseroles stacked on top of each other. I presume they’ve been there since Mom’s funeral. Recipe cards with instructions are illegible under frost-covered bags. The ice smells old. The whole appliance hums.
“Clear it out,” I instruct.
Lenny offers me a comforting smile. “Makes it easy,” he says.
“Are you okay if I leave?”
“Oh yes,” he assures me. “Your brother said he’d be back around nine.”
I thank him and navigate my way to the front door. I flip through some unopened mail bundled in the entryway.
“Are you still there?” Lenny calls from the kitchen.
“Yes,” I yell back.
“I have something for you!”
“What is it?”