by Alice Zorn
She sighed and slouched on her stool. “It drives me crazy sometimes to think I’ve got a daughter somewhere in the world, and I don’t have a clue what’s become of her. She’s twenty-seven, assuming she’s still alive. She might have a baby by now. I could be a grandmother! She’s my daughter and I don’t know anything about her.”
“That’s …” But Fara didn’t even know what that was.
“At least with your sister,” Maddy said, startling Fara with the sudden shift, “you’ve got some memories. Sure, she’s gone. It’s horrendous how you lost her. I don’t doubt it for a minute. But she had a life before she did what she did. You had experiences, right? Things you can remember about her or that you did with her.”
Fara gazed at her, not sure if she’d ever realized that.
“You can’t believe,” Maddy was saying, “how I wish … oh, the silliest things! I wish I knew if my daughter has my hair or her father’s. I don’t remember much about him except that he had straight red hair. Maybe she does, too. Or maybe she’s got his straight and my brown? Or my frizz and his red? Maybe she’s got a big bum like I do and my mom did.” She slapped her buttock. “For her sake, I sort of hope she doesn’t or she’ll never get jeans that fit.”
Even if Maddy was turning it into a joke, Fara could hear how serious she was. “Maddy, I’m really sorry. I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well. It’s the past, right? Twenty-seven long years ago. The woman who took her obviously isn’t bringing her back or telling her where she came from. All these years I stayed here because I figured it was the only way she’d ever find me again. I even bought the house.” She slapped a hand on the counter. “Now I want to put it to good use. I’m starting this baking business with Yushi, who, as it happens, is the same age as my daughter. To me that feels right. Mind you …” She lifted a finger at Fara. “I haven’t told her any of this, and I’d appreciate if you don’t. I’ll tell her one day. First, let’s see if we can make a go of this.”
She pulled one of the plastic binders toward her and began flipping through recipes. “Listen to this — hazelnut torte with mocha buttercream. Tarte à la crème fraîche with redcurrant topping. Don’t ask me where we’ll get redcurrants, but Yushi wants them.”
Johannisbeeren, Fara thought, surprised that she remembered the word. She hesitated then said, “My mother has redcurrant bushes.”
“Do you think she’d give us some roots or cuttings? I could plant them out back.”
“But you won’t have enough currants to do anything for a couple of years.”
“We intend to be around for a while. You wait and see. We’re going to make a mark in the Montreal dessert scene. Look, we even have business cards.” Maddy leaned across the counter for a lime-green box with an ivory top she opened. She handed Fara one of the smooth ivory cards embossed with a discreetly swirled font. Rose en Amande. “I wanted Marzipan Rose, but it doesn’t work in French — Rose en pâte d’amandes. Too long and clumsy. So it’s Rose en Amande. Almond Rose. And if people can’t figure out what it means, maybe they’ll be curious.”
“I like the name. I think the whole idea is great and hope you … break a leg?”
Maddy laughed. “For a pastry chef, it’s probably crack an egg.”
Over supper Fara told Frédéric about Maddy’s new kitchen and showed him the business card for Almond Rose. She didn’t tell him about Maddy’s baby, though the story and what Maddy had said about the completeness of her loss affected her deeply. She felt dazed, as if she could still hear Maddy’s voice.
While he did the dishes, she leaned against the window watching the Morse code of snowflakes against the beam of light from the high, hooded street lamp in the alley. The bare branches of Maddy’s maple were like uplifted arms receiving the night and the snow.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” she asked.
“In the snow?”
“Just up to the canal and back.”
The sidewalks hadn’t been cleared yet and they tromped side by side, kicking through the white fluff. Snow had softened the edges of brick, stone, and asphalt. It was a hushed world.
“At work,” Fara said, “they’re asking me when we’re going to have a housewarming party.”
“Are we?”
“Maybe next summer, when people can spill into the backyard.”
“Have you decided yet when to invite your parents?”
Her parents still hadn’t seen the house. They didn’t often come to Montreal, though they lived closer than Frédéric’s two sisters, both of whom had visited, bearing housewarming gifts. One had even returned to bring their mother so she could give her blessing. Fara’s parents had said they would wait until the house was finished. The rooms were all painted now, but there would always be work to do in an old house.
“They won’t want to drive in the winter with the snow,” Fara said.
“But they expect us to go see them at Christmas. It’s the same trip for us as for them.”
“They’re older.”
“Not that old.” He didn’t understand their indifference. Fara was used to it by now. Or rather, she had taught herself to expect no better. It was how they’d always been.
But Frédéric — dear Frédéric — was still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. “How about you invite them? Your dad would like all the wood in the house.”
Her father would see the slant of the door frames that had shifted with age. How Frédéric hadn’t succeeded in sanding every last fleck of paint off the floors. That the kitchen counters should be replaced. The old cupboards too. That the cellar wasn’t finished. Probably the only detail he would approve of would be the French doors. Her father should have had a son — or a son-in-law — like Eric.
She and Frédéric climbed the low hill off the road to walk along the canal. A broad swath of snow had settled between its stone and concrete walls. At the lock, water tumbled with a gushing force that kept a pool of black water open, where ducks swam or clustered on a rim of ice.
“Look at them,” Fara said. “Inside their duvets.”
She and Frédéric stopped to watch the ducks, one of whom squawked protest that they hadn’t brought food. On the other side of the canal glowed the warm windows of the condos that used to be the old Redpath factory.
“You know who I wish could see the house?” Fara asked.
Frédéric turned to her.
“Claire.”
He tucked a strand of hair under the brim of her hat, smoothed his fingers across her cheek.
She blinked, knowing she was about to start crying. “Today when I saw Maddy …”
“Yes?”
“She said something about memories — how lucky I am to have memories of Claire. She made me realize I’ve let Claire’s death …” Her voice wavered and she took a breath. “She made me realize I’ve let Claire’s death and the way she died totally eclipse her life.”
Frédéric pulled her to him, but she lifted her head because she had more to say. “And that’s wrong. It’s so unfair to her. She died — she killed herself — okay! But she also lived for twenty years.”
“Fara,” Frédéric murmured.
She pressed her face into his chest and said it again to herself, because it was important. “She lived.”
Fara sat on the bed with an envelope of photos. One by one she examined them, trying to place where and when they’d been taken.
Here was one of Claire at about three years old in a coat, hat, and boots in the snow by a city park bench, holding a beach ball. Fara could just vaguely recall the beach ball. Their parents wouldn’t have known the striped balls were to be used at a beach in the summer.
Here Claire sat cross-legged on the living room floor of her apartment with Tiger sprawled across the cradle of her thighs. She was massaging his neck, her hand deep in his ruff. Tiger had stretched and flexed
his claws. Fara had taken the picture and given Claire a copy. She’d never seen it in Claire’s apartment, but when she’d emptied Claire’s wallet after her death, she’d found the cut-out square of the cat, the edge of Claire’s jeans, and her hand in the cat’s fur.
Fara set the photo of Claire and her cat next to a collage frame with six openings. She wanted to choose five pictures of Claire at different ages.
From downstairs, even with the French doors closed, Fara could smell the banana bread she had cooling on a rack in the kitchen. Not everywhere in the house, but between the bedroom and the kitchen, scent travelled along a secret tunnel between the wires, planks, floors, and ceilings. In the morning, before the alarm went off, she woke to the smell of the coffee brewing on its preset timer.
Frédéric was working in the next room, assembling bookshelves. The whine of his new electric screwdriver cut across the yodel of opera he had playing on the radio. He didn’t care for opera but must have been too focused on his new screwdriver to change the station.
There were a few baby pictures, but they weren’t labelled. Fara couldn’t guess which were of her and which of Claire. Both had had blond hair and blue eyes as babies. If she asked her parents, would they be able to say?
Here was a picture of Fara and Claire in matching wool dresses their mother had made. Fara shivered, recalling the itch of the fabric. Their mother hadn’t lined it, and wearing the dress was torture. But each collar was adorned with a white crocheted flower. Fara set it next to the frame.
Also by the frame lay a photo of Xavier, the young man who’d killed himself. Fara thought Claire might like him as a boyfriend. Let the dead have a romance, why not? She’d chosen a picture where his eyes had a wry sort of warmth. She would have to cut away the young woman who was also in the photo, which would be easy since she wasn’t touching him, only smiling coyly at the camera.
Fara wondered who had taken this picture of Claire in a midnight blue, strapless dress. Fara had never seen her wearing it because she hadn’t gone to Claire’s graduation. She was already living in Montreal and hadn’t made the trip home. Had she even been asked? Graduations didn’t use to be the extravagant affairs they were now. Still, it would have been Claire’s last fancy occasion. Fara put the photo between the one of Xavier and the one of herself and Claire in the wool dresses.
Hanging the pictures felt like a way of showing Claire the house. And Fara, too, would see Claire every day and remember how she’d looked in life. How she’d been.
Maddy
Maddy scrubbed the bathroom sink, rinsed and swiped at the suds. The cleanser bubbles were harder to wash down the drain than the dirt. She peeled off her gloves, catching sight of herself in the mirror. Cheeks too bright, hair electrified. Muscled lines between her brows. Had she been scowling all her life? She poked her tongue at this harried version of herself.
When she’d finished cleaning, she would shower with the vanilla-scented mousse Gaylene had given her for Christmas last year. Wash and condition her hair. Wear her velvet harem pants and a thick turtleneck. A spritz of perfume, why not? Have a glass of wine and relax in the new upstairs living room. She’d paid the man who sat outside the dépanneur to come with a buddy to carry the sofa and armchair upstairs. His hips and spine weren’t aligned, but his arms were firm as tree limbs. She’d seen him around the neighbourhood hoisting lumber and hauling sacks of cement. In the Pointe, he — not Leonard Cohen — was your man.
When she’d extended the kitchen into the front room, Yushi had suggested using the upstairs room with the balcony as a living room. Maybe next spring they could even replace the old wood balcony with treated pine and a wrought-iron railing. It was high time she stop thinking about this back corner of the house as the woman with the braid’s room.
Maddy was committed — more committed than she’d ever been. All these years of working at the patisserie and staying in the house had suddenly revealed themselves as the long and necessary preparation for this venture.
And now everything was happening so quickly! Maddy sometimes had to plop onto a chair and remind herself that this whirl of change had all depended on her first step. Who was it who said you were free to make the first decision — like jumping out a window? But once you jumped, you couldn’t stop yourself from falling.
Some of Yushi’s bags and boxes already stood piled in the room that would be hers. Whatever could be transported by car would leave less to move later. Yushi said Rose had a friend with access to a van to move the furniture. He would help Rose move, and Yushi, too. Yushi was going to help Rose find a place. Her boyfriend would be moving in with her, but Yushi said he seemed as naive about practicalities as Rose was.
As Maddy carried the vacuum cleaner upstairs, she glimpsed Jim’s tail flitting around a corner. It was the one beast he feared. She didn’t even have to turn it on.
She hadn’t quit her job at the patisserie yet. She didn’t care what happened to the patisserie but didn’t want to leave her old colleagues in a fix. Just now she was training Yushi’s replacement. She would give notice the day before she left for her Christmas vacation. Her long record of employment at the patisserie gave her the advantage of being at the top of the seniority list — the only employee able to stay home during the pandemonium of holiday entertaining. She and Yushi would have their own pandemonium of last-minute planning.
When Yushi gave notice, Pettypoo snapped that Yushi needn’t bother returning the next day. Moments later, everyone behind the counter could hear Zied bellowing from the kitchen. Was Madame crazy? It was too busy in this month before Christmas to work one person short! Pettypoo mounted the stairs, lips dry, face scarlet. Jaw wagging like a ventriloquist’s puppet, she told Yushi that she would be expected to work her final two weeks. Yushi had stared at Pettypoo, not speaking, until the older woman backed away, fingers touching the gold crucifix at her neck. Behind Pettypoo’s back Cécile gave Yushi a thumbs-up. Cécile had said she wanted to come to work for Maddy and Yushi when they were ready to start hiring.
Maddy scraped the head of the vacuum cleaner across her bedroom floor. If it weren’t howling so loudly, she would start singing.
The drill of the doorbell echoed inside Yushi’s apartment. Maddy stood on the landing, her breath puffing clouds. She’d carried up one of the empty recycling boxes that had been tumbled along the frozen sidewalk. On the side of the box was printed PROPERTY OF IRELAND. Who else but Yushi?
Rose opened the door with a questioning expression. “Yushi’s in the shower,” she said. She took the green box from Maddy and walked off down the hallway.
Maddy stepped in, unbuttoned her coat but kept it on, and headed into the front room. From the bathroom came the muffled drum of water.
Steps soundless, Rose returned and slid onto a chair at the table before a pad of graph paper. Squares were shaded to form a large V. She glanced up and saw that Maddy was looking. “It’s an oeil de perdrix. It makes a …” With her fingers she shaped a diamond in the air.
“You plan what you weave on paper first?”
Rose smiled, but as if to herself, not at Maddy. “I should. I don’t always.”
“Yushi doesn’t always use a recipe, either.”
“Yushi’s good.”
“The pillow you made Yushi looks pretty good, too.”
Rose’s smile faded. Didn’t she like getting compliments? The conversation felt delicate — as if the wrong word might make her bolt.
She’d picked up a pencil and was using the tip to count squares. Her profile looked different with her hair pulled back into a short, stubby ponytail. Maddy was reminded of her mother, who’d always worn her hair in a bun. When she’d stood in the kitchen with her circles of dough and a bowl of cheese and potato filling, she’d had the same absorbed expression. The same high curve of her forehead. The silence, too. Her mother, immured in her Old World values.
Yushi always said Rose’s ta
citurn manners stemmed from growing up alone in a cabin with her mother. What kind of a life must that have been for a child?
The shower had stopped, but Yushi still didn’t appear. Maddy shrugged off her coat and sat on the sofa with a view into the hallway.
Into the silence Rose said, “Do you want some tea?”
Maddy understood that she was trying to be sociable, albeit in delay. “Thanks, but Yushi won’t be long, I hope. We’ve got to move some boxes and there’s stuff to arrange in the kitchen at my place.”
“That’s okay.” The words sounded hollow. Maybe lonely? Yushi had told her she was Rose’s first friend. Then along swooped Maddy, taking her away. Even if Rose had a boyfriend now, men were men. Women wanted women friends.
“You know,” Maddy said, “you can always come visit Yushi at my house. I won’t always be there. You can come see Yushi when I’m not home.” Maybe Rose didn’t understand that people could have several friends. “Yushi told me you’re going to look for an apartment in St-Henri or the Pointe, so you’ll be close.”
Rose kept shading squares with her pencil. This must be one complicated weaving pattern.
From down the hallway a hair dryer roared. Yushi always looked as if she’d only just pulled on her jeans and raked gel through her hair. Who would have guessed that her careless appearance demanded such a lengthy toilette?
Again Maddy noticed Rose’s quiet absorption in her task. The dangly yellow earrings she wore must be Yushi’s influence. “Are you growing your hair?” she asked.
Rose tucked her chin close, as if embarrassed, then lifted it. “My boyfriend likes it.”
“You’ll be able to twist it up when it’s longer.”
“Or braid it. I used to have a braid like my mother did.”
Maddy nodded, impressed. Those were the most words Rose had ever said to her at once.
Then Rose added, “She had a really long braid.”