Just Pretending

by Lisa Bird-Wilson

  He still allows his little sister Wanda to contact him, and in turn she passes on the tiniest tidbits of information quietly, quickly, with a neutral tone, her voice free of judgement.

  “Sal got a new job,” she says. “In a theatre. He takes the tickets.” You comment that this is funny, since Sal hates movies. She doesn’t answer. The whole situation is painful. She doesn’t want to be in the middle, but she is anyway. You long to ask Wanda what Sal has said about you, “the stepmother,” or about your husband, their dad. You want to try to understand Sal’s reasons, his resentments. But you know enough not to ask. Instead, you look at his emails, the short, crisp sentences: Fuck off and Leave me alone. The lines are so short you find it impossible to read between them. Neither you nor your husband “get it.”

  You’ve always been pleased to tell people you have seven children, learned to say their names like a chant: Sal, Jordan, Maria, Dez, Wanda, Aaron, Zach.

  “Never mind it’s a blended family,” you sometimes say defensively. “We raised them all, full custody. All seven.” Sal’s the oldest, your husband’s son. Your oldest, Jordan, is also a boy. Sons.

  You suspect you know how your divorce, when he was seven, affected Jordan: the instability, the many many moves, the grinding poverty and vulnerability of a family headed by a single mother. You suspect you know because you have your own guilt, remorse, shame. Regret. You suspect oldest sons are destined to have it the hardest. You suspect your memories are suspect.

  Sal too was devastated by his parents’ divorce, but differently. You only know bits of the story, didn’t have to live it like his dad.

  “She kidnapped them,” he’s told you. “Right after the last family court decision, where she lost custody.” They were taken to Montreal, where they hid out, didn’t go to school. There were months of searching and uncertainty. You don’t know all the details, but you’ve seen the aftermath, the anger and the tantrums. Insecurity all around. Your husband sometimes cries when he talks about that time in their lives. You know all you really need to know.

  Sal accuses his dad of remanufacturing reality, which makes you laugh out loud. You know it’s unwise, but you say anyway, “Don’t we all? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Otherwise, how could we live with ourselves, in the end?” No one seems to appreciate your contribution.

  Seven children, two of them artists. So far. Not surprising, the two artists are the two oldest sons, Sal and Jordan. Their artwork hangs in almost every room as if the whole house is a shrine to lost sons. You sense a future when the house will be like a shrine to all seven children, whom you know, in advance, you will miss with the dull ache of amputated limbs. You never want that day to arrive. This, now, with the oldest son, is hard enough.

  Sal’s work includes screen prints, drawings, oil pastels. Large pieces. Bold colours. You imagine the dark lines are angry, that the overarching theme of all the pieces is rebellion. The look of the artwork begins to change for you. It seems to look at you accusingly as you enter rooms, as you pass from room to room. This artwork that’s been left behind, as if the son knew he ought to leave something before blowing you all off. More likely, you realize, he gave it no thought.

  Your husband’s office has artwork on the walls too. Artwork and photographs. All the artwork was made by Sal; all the pictures are family photos. And yet there’s a certain irony to this because you suspect his father’s business, money, work ethic, whatever you want to call it, is just the thing Sal is rejecting. You have a moment when you wish you could take Sal by the shoulders and shake him. You want to make him smarten up.

  Part of you would be afraid to shake Sal. You imagine he could strike you, shouting, “Fuck off. Leave me alone.” You wish you didn’t have to live with that.

  Sal’s absence hovers. Increasingly, you and your husband find yourselves in various rooms of the house, questioning the air. As you gather laundry from the bedrooms together on a Saturday morning, he says, “Maybe I said something? The last time we talked?” Second guessing. First son. You listen, grateful that he doesn’t shut you out. You’re not sure why you think he might. His bewildered look prompts you to reach out and hold his hand. You listen. You want to say that time is likely the answer. That when Sal matures, when he experiences a big event – decides to get married, has a child, experiences grief, catastrophe or loss – he will come back. But you hold back on saying this because you know it’s unsatisfactory and really just a guess, anyway.

  “Jeff Shaw’s getting married,” Wanda tells you. Jeff is Sal’s childhood friend.

  “When?” you ask, calm.

  “This weekend,” she answers, careful to keep emotion out of her voice. “Sal’s here for the wedding.” They’re getting to the age for that. Sal turned twenty-five this year. Later, you overhear her on the phone when she says the address out loud and you write it down, pocketing the scrap of paper. You want so badly to drive to the house, to park out front. You imagine surreptitiously taking his photo from your car when he opens the front door, not sure what this photo would prove. Better yet, you imagine boldly going to the door, ringing the bell, and asking to speak to him. Then you imagine hearing his voice from somewhere inside, “Fuck off.”

  Imagining standing in that doorway, you remember a time when you were first divorced and your little boys weren’t returned to you after a visit with their dad. You went to where they were and politely rang the doorbell, no idea what you’d do next. Your brother-in-law answered, and when you asked for the boys, he looked guilty and embarrassed as he shook his head. You stepped into the doorway, past the brother-in-law, walked right through the house, down the stairs, found the boys happy, oblivious, playing video games in the basement. Your fake happy voice told them to get their shoes because it was time to go home. You all left together. It was that easy, that time.

  So you imagine going to the door for Sal and hearing “Fuck off” from inside the house, then stepping anyway through the door, walking boldly into a stranger’s house to command this oldest son to get his things and come home.

  Later, you show your husband the address you wrote down, where Sal’s staying, and ask him if he wants to go by the house. You’re emboldened by your memories and imaginings. But your husband seems paralyzed. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know what to do.” So you don’t do anything, and then Sal is gone again, back to Vancouver and his raw-food diet and communistic ideals.

  Partly you feel contempt for the poor-little-rich-boy game Sal is playing. You are staggered that he doesn’t account for how lucky he’s been, for all he’s been given. You are tempted to make a list. Fortunately, you don’t. Instead, you think of your hopes for these seven children, Sal, Jordan, Maria, Dez, Wanda, Aaron, Zach. From the beginning, your hopes were for the bunch of you as a family. You wanted the family home that you all built together to be their home for always – a soft place to fall, should they need it. You wanted them to come together in this home at Christmases and birthdays, for them to eventually marry, to bring their children, to find comfort here. You berate yourself for believing in this happy family, and you wonder if you could have ever done enough. You doubt that you did enough. Doubt even that you did your best.

  “You can’t escape your family,” you tell your husband. “He’ll be back.” You’re afraid of the consequences of being wrong about this – waiting for him to come to his senses when maybe you should do more. Afraid to make the wrong choice, you avoid making any move. You come to realize that inaction is a choice too.

  Your husband looks for some sort of answer. Maybe there’s someone to blame. He tells you his theories, one by one, like sweaters he tries on, then sheds. Soon, the sweater-reasons litter the floor around you until you’re swamped by them. They go: Sal resents his dad for marrying you; Sal’s mother said something bad about his dad; a family friend said something; Sal is suffering from a mental illness; Sal is acting out repressed anger about his parents’ divorce; Sal believes his dad didn’t support his art; Sal is angry about
money; Sal rejects money. On it goes. Still, neither of you “get it.” You want to tell your husband you think it’s a mistake to look for a rational answer in an irrational situation. The only thing you know: Sal is not who you thought he was.

  Sal is an articulate guy. He could simply tell you what his problem is. Instead he’s chosen the most hurtful path he can find. Fuck off. Leave me alone.

  You know things you are not supposed to know. You know there was a girlfriend, quite a few years ago now. Shortly after they broke up, he made a hasty move to Winnipeg. She had a baby boy. You’ve always been suspicious the baby was his, even though he denied it. You wish you had done more at the time. For Sal, you secretly fear the worst and hope for the best. Pray he doesn’t turn up on Hastings Street someday.

  You track down the ex-girlfriend’s number, then use the reverse directory to find her address. The first time, you only drive by, quickly take in the small wartime house, painted a deep shade of blue. Curtains close every window, making the house look muffled and insular. You can hear the cars just half a block away speeding down one of the city’s major traffic arteries. It appears no one is home.

  The second time, you drive down the back alley more slowly, take a good look. The back lawn is overgrown. There is no rusty swing set planted in the long grass, no tipped ride-on toys scattering the cracked patio. Only a single plastic chair sits beside the back door. Butts litter the broken cement. You must have the wrong house; you think she must have moved.

  The third time, you park two blocks away, pocket your car key and walk down the back alley. The day is warm and dry, and the gravel crunches under your sneakers. You feel out of place. Obvious. The alleyway is littered with garbage; ripped plastic grocery bags scatter bits of lives along the fence lines and amongst the weeds.

  A child’s voice makes nonsense singsong murmurs close to your right ear. You look over your right shoulder and see it’s a trick of sound carried like a ventriloquist because the child is in his yard, behind his fence, isn’t talking to you, hasn’t noticed you at all. He sits on his shins, his legs doubled underneath him, plays in the gravel and weeds and says his incantation again.

  “Doodee doodee doodee.”

  You stop to consider the boy. He must be three or four. He’s tiny – fragile. He wears blue jeans and a Celtic green t-shirt that looks washer-soft. You imagine he smells like fabric softener and dust. The notion of lonely brushes past you like a cat and lingers for a moment afterward. On his nose, a spray of freckles. He’s playing with something, a Barbie doll that’s naked from the waist down. He dances her along the gravel on her tiptoes, her long blonde hair swinging. You watch him pull a plastic syringe from the dirt and jab at her leg.

  “Doodee doodee doodee doo,” he sings.

  You’re relieved to see there is no sharp needle in the syringe.

  When you get home, you strip every piece of art from the walls, every picture from every room, until the house is naked and raw. You are sweating from the effort. When you’re done, the framed pieces are piled like bones in the centre of the garage. The pile is immense, several bodies of evidence. Without thinking, you pick up the phone, call the real estate agent, leave an incoherent voicemail about appraising the house for the market. You don’t know what you’re thinking. You find as many boxes in the basement as you can and begin to fill each one with the articles from the shelves of your house. Years of accumulation. Seven children worth of stuff. You find his first glass bowl. His dream was to make it as a glass blower. It’s why he went to Vancouver. When your children ask you what you are doing, you say, Cleaning up. Go play.

  You’re sitting in the midst of boxes, tissue paper and the artifacts of your lives together when your husband arrives home. The adrenaline has worn off, and you are in a quiet state of shock. He sits beside you on the floor in his business suit, and you tell him everything – about the blue house and the curtains and the overgrown yard and the busy street and the butts and the weeds and the doll and the needle.

  “He has long hair,” you say. “It’s brown. And curly.” You wait while the image settles in your husband’s mind. Likely the image of Sal as a little boy, you think. You say that you think the boy has his mother’s nose, pushed in at the eyes.

  “His shoulders are very thin.” You don’t like the way your voice has started to sound like you’re pleading.

  When he asks, you tell your husband you think the boy looked happy enough.

  Later, you lie in bed, spent but unable to sleep. Part of you wants to make demands, as if someone owes you something, some lost years that can be repaid. You can’t stop thinking about the little boy. Left behind like the artwork, by accident. An oldest son. The window is open, and the street you live on is quiet. The cedar outside the bedroom window has grown over the years past the second-story window so that its branches scratch lightly at the glass. At times, you have the impression someone is outside the window, looking in, trying to get your attention. But really, it’s only the cedar.

  mister x

  Beate pulls her short, rabbit-fur jacket closed over a flat bead-board chest, crosses her arms. Her childlike fingers, hidden under her elbows, habitually stroke the soft, white fur. Honey-blonde hair, moments ago alive with winter static, now lies close to her scalp as though frightened. Her head resembles a tight, round melon. She peers over the counter at the nurse.

  The nurse wrinkles her nose as if imagining white rabbit hairs floating in the air. She waves away an illusory bit of fluff.

  “Name?”

  “Wha…?”

  The nurse puts her pencil down and leans forward to over-enunciate “Who are you here to see?” Beate, who’s not stupid, knows the nurse thinks she is.

  Inside Beate’s head, Ivy whispers, She doesn’t think you’re stupid. She thinks you’re a retard.

  “I…don’t…” Beate stammers. This was a mistake. She can’t believe she skipped out on Rick and left him to run the shop, put one foot in front of the other, took the number eleven and transferred twice to come all the way out here.

  Ivy says, You gonna turn back now?

  Beate blocks the sneer in Ivy’s voice and says, “Mister X. I’m here to see Mister X.”

  In a pile of comics in her room at home lies a first edition, in a plastic sleeve, where Mister X made his debut. Mister X: Marvel supervillain. Mister X can read his opponents’ minds during a fight by using his powers of telepathy. He sees his opponents’ moves in advance and can stay one step ahead at all times. Since his only superpower is telepathy and not strength, he’s worked hard to master every form of combat and to build the strength he does have to the highest level possible. Even though he’s a villain, Beate sees the possibility for good in him. She fantasizes that Mister X will use his powers of telepathy to see her and do just one act that will redeem him: save her. He is, by far, her favourite Mister X.

  A faint tune plays in the shadows, and he can’t quite put his finger on what it might be. The swirling vortex somewhere behind him blocks him from hearing it clearly. He cranes his neck first to the right and then to the left, and still the mystery remains a vague impression at the periphery of his perception. He imagines the vacuum-like sound coming from a huge, sucking black hole. He keeps his body tense to prevent falling in. A voice calls out out from the void one cryptic word: misdirects. He wonders if it’s God.

  He’s in a private room. Beate can hardly look. She’s seen a lot of things in her sixteen years, but nothing like this. She puts her hand to her face, smells the baby powder scent that reminds her of taking care of Momma. The smell makes her want to vomit.

  This isn’t him, Ivy declares. Ivy. I.V. Internal Voice. Beate hates her and yet can’t get along without her.

  Beate gazes at Mister X through squinted eyes. If he would open an eye, wink at her in his way that suggests they share a delicious secret, then she’d know. But his eyes are fluid-filled and swollen shut, purple. They remind her of cartoon black eyes, the kind Fred or Barney might slap an enorm
ous red steak over. A respirator moves his chest up and down, tapping out a flat tuneless beat.

  Blood is caked under his nails; the knuckles of his right hand are cut and scabbed over. Ivy laughs at Beate for trying to be quiet. You can’t wake him. He’s in a COMA. Beate stands close on his left side, afraid to touch him. She looks at his hands because she can’t look at his face. Closed head injury. Blunt trauma. The nurse’s words loop in her head. Tentatively she puts her hand out, softly traces the place on his wrist where she imagines a tan mark from his wristwatch lingers. She already knows the watch has been stolen along with all his other possessions: jacket, boots, wallet, ID, jewellery. She shivers to think of him alone and cold in the February night after he left her place. Her fingers dig into the fur of her jacket.

  She read once about a spy called Mister X. He was an anonymous French agent in the XYZ Affair. Three agents – X, Y, and Z – were sent by France’s foreign minister to offer a cleverly veiled insult to American envoys attempting to resolve a diplomatic dispute. The anonymous French agents, X, Y and Z, were later vilified by the Americans. They went down in infamy. Beate prefers the idea of infamy, as a concept, over fame. It seems much more realistic.

  He lies flat to anchor himself and plants his cheek next to earth as soft as black velvet. The faint liquorice scent reminds him of another time, twenty years earlier, a time when the sounds were similar, swirling patterned but indistinct, a time in the womb when his mother compulsively ate the fresh dug loam from beneath the poplar tree, searching for hidden deposits, nutrients, iron, elements from the mother of us all to nourish the life inside her belly. He’s tasted dirt before and knows it to be scattered through with love. His fingers dig, and the velvet ground gives way.

  Talk to him. He can hear you, Ivy prompts.