Belinda's Rings

  I like to tell myself that I knew what it was to be a mother then. It’s a cheesy thought but it also makes me feel less anxious about little things in life like the way my hair looks or getting a good mark in Science. To a mother, there’s nothing more nerve-wracking than realizing that your kid is an entirely separate person. You don’t even know it, but for the longest time you think of that kid as a part of you, like an extra arm or leg. But really, there’s a space between you and him that you’ll never be able to reach through. A no-man’sland. And that means that no matter what you do, your kid’s life is out of your control.

  It was like I was back in that lake when Jess told me Wiley and Squid were gone. I ran up to Squid’s room to check if he was there because I didn’t know what else to do. I looked under the pillows and threw off the covers and rifled through his shelf piled with stuffed animals. Jess was standing in the doorway, watching me and whimpering softly. I wanted to slap her.

  What should we do? she said. She had a big cowlick in her hair and she was smoothing it down with one hand. What about school? He’s supposed to be at school.

  Yeah, I said. So are we. I don’t think that’s our biggest concern right now.

  Jess left and I could hear her in Mum and Wiley’s room, opening drawers and clacking hangers.

  Some clothes are gone, she called out, but we both knew that didn’t mean anything ’cause there was no way to tell whether the empty hangers were for Wiley’s clothes or Mum’s. I joined Jess in their room and sat on the edge of the unmade bed. Jess was staring into the closet and chewing her nails like crazy.

  Maybe they went for a walk, she said.

  With the trunk? I said. For a split second I started thinking about the green trunk and how it was the perfect size for Squid’s little body but then I made myself erase that thought. And anyway, I said, the car is gone.

  Maybe they went to Wiley’s friend’s house. What was his name? Bill something?

  All I got was Bill, I said. He seemed like a creep.

  Jess was already rummaging through Wiley’s dresser drawer. We both got our hands in the drawer and there were a ton of prescription bottles and a box of condoms that we just pretended to ignore. My stomach started to feel queasy.

  Here, Jess said, pulling out a small black address book. She flipped the pages but every one was blank. She looked at me like she’d just been tricked.

  We have to call Mummy, she said.

  How do we call Mum? I said. She told us yesterday that she’s moving hotels. We don’t even know what city she’s in right now.

  We’ll try calling the old hotel, Jess said. Maybe they know where she went.

  I just shrugged and let her run downstairs to the phone. It was a dumb idea but at least it was something. I tried to remember if I’d heard what Wiley and Bill were whispering about the other night in the garage. I’d been feeling so sorry for myself that I hadn’t bothered to pay attention. All I could remember was Squid saying that he didn’t have to go to school the next day, and when I thought about that it started to sound like something Squid would say to get invited along. But that had happened on Saturday night, and Wiley had been home for the whole day on Sunday. He and Squid watched infomercials all morning while I did my homework at the kitchen table. Wiley even helped Squid and Jess clean out Princess Leticia’s terrarium. I saw him at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the algae off the plastic water dish, and I remember thinking he seemed eerily happy. He was using the dishcloth we’re supposed to use for the countertops and grinning away to himself like it was the most fun he’d ever had.

  I felt pin-prickles race up my neck.

  Jess appeared in the doorway, huffing from running back up the stairs. They don’t know where Mum went, she said.

  Surprise surprise, I said.

  But she’ll call, right? I mean, she’s got to call at some point.

  She’ll call and give us her new hotel number.

  So what, we just wait around twiddling our thumbs?

  I don’t know, Jess whispered. Her eyes filled up with tears. I don’t know what else to do, she said.

  Usually I’m not much of a sap, but as soon as I saw Jess crying I felt tears running down my cheeks too, a feeling like horseradish burning in my nose. I suddenly started thinking about how crazy and twisted this whole thing was; it would never happen to anyone else I knew. If Nikki woke up one day and her dad and her brother weren’t there, she wouldn’t bat an eye about it. She wouldn’t have any reason to worry about her dad and brother being off somewhere alone together. She would probably think to herself, Huh, that’s kinda weird, and just assume everything would make sense later. But then I realized that something like that would never even happen at Nikki’s house in the first place, because her mom would be making breakfast in the kitchen when Nikki woke up, and she’d explain everything before Nikki had a chance to notice. Thinking about that made me feel like my life was really messed up. My brother was alone with my stepdad and I’d never felt more scared in my entire life. And next thing I knew I had my arms around Jess and I could feel her tears soaking into the shoulder of my shirt.

  I hate Mummy, Jess said into my shoulder. Her voice vibrated through my skin. On any other day, I wouldn’t have thought much of what she said. Everyone says they hate their parents at least once in their lives. The difference was that Jess wasn’t talking about hating Mum because she was too strict or nagged us all the time. I think what she really hated was the fact that we needed Mum, and she didn’t need us.

  We spent the rest of the day watching TV and the clock. We watched three episodes of Friends in a row and didn’t laugh once. Jess kept picking up the phone to make sure we had a dial tone and putting it back down. We’d decided that there was no sense panicking when they’d only been gone for a few hours. I told Jess I was sure that they’d show up for dinner and that seemed to make her feel a little better even though there was no reason for us to believe that at all.

  When it got dark enough that we had to turn the lamps on, Jess switched off the TV and said, I’m going to leave here when I graduate.

  What? I said. How?

  I’ll get a job, she said. And Sebastian will come live with me. She was staring at me like a robot, her eyes blank and no expression. You can come too if you want, she said, and she started fingering a stain on the couch.

  You can’t move out, Jess, I said. You have to go to university.

  The thought of Jess living somewhere on her own was so ridiculous I couldn’t even imagine it. She’d be calling Mum every five minutes.

  Then I’ll move in with Daddy, I don’t care, Jess said. I’ll tell him he has to let me bring Sebastian. I’ll pay rent or something.

  You’re not making any sense, I said.

  This doesn’t make any sense, she said. What kind of a mother leaves her kids with a crazy person?

  At that moment, the phone rang. Jess stared at me for a second as though she didn’t believe what she was hearing. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen, chanting in my head Let it be Squid, let it be Squid, let it be Squid.

  Hello? I said.

  Hi honey, Mum said. You okay? You sound out of breath.

  Oh — hi, I said. I’m just. I was running to pick up.

  Well I’m sorry I’m calling so late, she said. We went straight to the field. I only just arrived at the hotel.

  S’okay, I said. It doesn’t matter. I held my breath between sentences, trying to disguise the shaking in my voice.

  You weren’t worried? she said.

  Nope.

  Oh. All right. So how are things there?

  Fine, I said without even thinking. We’re just doing nothing. Jess was standing in front of me with her hands spread out. She mouthed Who is it? I put a finger to my lips and shook my head.

  Okay, Mum said. Well everything is good here too. I saw my first crop circle today. We walked around inside it and everything. It just appeared yesterday. Over a thousand feet in diameter, can you believe that?

  Wow, I
said in a flat voice. Neat.

  Very neat, she said. But I can’t talk long. I’m just going to give you my new hotel number, okay? In case of emergency.

  Have you got a pen?

  Shoot away, I said. There was a pen lying on top of the microwave in front of me but I didn’t pick it up.

  It’s area code zero-one-three-two-three — Uh huh, I said. I waved my hand at Jess to act like everything was normal. I wasn’t sure if she could hear Mum’s voice coming through so I ducked my chin down close to my chest. My head felt full of steam.

  Eight thirty-nine, five-one-two. Did you get that?

  Yep, I said.

  And it’s the Gladwyn Hotel.

  Got it.

  Good. So, nothing else is new? School is going well?

  Peachy, I said. My voice almost quivered.

  Okay, well I should go, Mum said. It’s late here — I’m going to bed in a couple of minutes. Give Jessica and Sebastian hugs for me.

  ’Kay, I will, I said.

  Love you.

  Yep, you too. Bye.

  I hung up the phone and rolled my eyes at Jess. It was just Rose, I said. Asking about homework stuff again. I started walking back to the living room so I wouldn’t have to look Jess in the eye. The pits of my stomach twisted themselves into one big knot.

  Oh, Jess said, following me. She plunked back down on the couch. How much longer do you think we should wait?

  It’s five o’clock now, I said. Maybe a couple more hours. I didn’t want to wait around any longer but it seemed like there wasn’t anything else we could do. Jess nodded. I’m pretty sure she was thinking the same thing. And I knew that if I told her it was Mum on the phone, she would want to tell her everything, ask her what we should do, bawl like a baby and beg Mum to come home right away. Before I picked up the phone, I’d thought that was what I wanted, too. But as soon as I heard Mum’s voice on the other end, it didn’t seem fair. Mum was the one who left. I felt like she shouldn’t be allowed to get involved in our problems. She didn’t deserve to worry herself sick about Squid or feel like she could never forgive herself if something happened to him. At that moment in our lives there was nothing more important to me and Jess than Squid, and all Mum could think about were a bunch of useless circles — meaningless pictures stamped into grain fields in the middle of nowhere. As far as I was concerned, she didn’t have a right to know.

  Grace? Jess said. We were looking at each other in the blank screen of the TV. Jess was twirling her hair around one finger.

  Yeah? I said.

  What happens if Mummy never comes back?

  I think I smiled then, by accident. It wasn’t that I thought it was funny. It just made me feel really strange to hear Jess actually say it out loud. It was the kind of feeling you get when you hear something you know you weren’t supposed to hear, like a raunchy sex joke. As if hearing it makes it possible, even real or true.

  XIV

  IT HAD BEEN NEARLY two years since Belinda saw the spacecraft. On that evening, she’d had a fight with Wiley and couldn’t sleep. Wiley had announced that Handbrake, his old band, was getting back together.

  It was amazing, Wiley had said when he got home from the bar. It was like — spiritual. We thought we were just getting together for beers for old times’ sake, and then finally we all broke down. Turns out we’d been thinking the same thing. I was the first one to say it. I said, Guys, we really were a hell of a band, and I wish we would have tried to make it.

  But you did try, Belinda said. Almost eight years ago. Didn’t you go to an agent and get turned down?

  Yeah, Wiley said. But we only went to the one agent and then we gave up. We could’ve kept trying. We could’ve gone without an agent for a while and built up our name ourselves.

  Does that work? Belinda said.

  Whaddyou mean does that work? If you’re good, you make it work. That’s the point. We didn’t try hard enough, and now we’re all regretting it.

  Belinda let the silence hang for a moment. Wiley’s eyes, bright as glass, waited for her approval. She wanted to smother them out, extinguish them with her fists.

  You can’t be serious, she said. You have a child.

  Wiley’s face contorted, a rude shock twisting his lips. So what? he said. This can’t be a grown-up job? You think I should teach kids to play piano for the rest of my fucking life?

  Belinda had gone berserk. She called him immature and irresponsible, a deadbeat. Wiley had called her a dictator. The fight had fed itself from there. It lasted too long, packed with the same tired complaints repeated over and over. Jessica, Grace, and Sebastian had barred themselves in the basement living room with the television blaring.

  Everything always has to be your way, Wiley kept saying. Nobody else matters. It’s all about YOU.

  Hours after the fight had ended, after they’d grown tired of screaming and offered their empty apologies, his accusation still clamped on her thoughts. Wiley had fallen asleep just as quickly as any other night, and Belinda hadn’t even been able to keep her eyes shut without strain. She couldn’t make sense of Wiley’s argument; it had no basis. How could she be selfish? She who had no life of her own, whose every decision and every action was made for him and her children? She was back in her old cycle — the marriage she thought she abandoned years ago. She’d left Dazhong because he didn’t allow her to be her own person. Somehow, she’d continued to drift since then, chasing after the pieces of herself, strewn and floating in different directions.

  As she lay in bed staring at the ceiling, a craving for a cigarette interrupted her thoughts. She hadn’t smoked once in the nineteen years since she’d quit cold turkey, and this was the first craving she’d felt since Jessica was born. Without restraint, she slipped out of bed and down to the garage, and found the packet Wiley had hidden years ago in an old plastic cooler. The smoke soothed her lungs like a warm wind. She found herself opening the garage door to let the night shine in. It was fairly balmy because it was summer, but Belinda’s skin prickled under the fresh air. Outside it was silent.

  When Belinda was a small child, her mother told her stories of the witching hour to keep her from leaving her bed at night. It happens in the middle of the night, her mother said, when everyone is asleep. If you’re not asleep, the creatures of the night will come for you. The witches and the demons and the ghosts. You’ll know they’re on their way when everything is dark and deadly silent. That’s how you know they’ve got you.

  That night, as Belinda stood on the driveway and listened, she couldn’t make out the faintest sound or movement. Up and down the street, the trees and houses and cars and telephone wires were part of a photograph, silent and suspended in time. The crackle of her cigarette as she drew in seemed as loud as a bonfire.

  And then, she felt the atmosphere brighten ever so slightly, as if a match had been struck somewhere behind the dark curtain of the sky. She looked up and the sky was blotted with inky blue clouds, a few dull stars like grains of sand sprinkled between them.

  The spacecraft appeared in a blink. Three round lights pierced the dark, each one glowing white as a moon. Together they made the three points of an empty triangle.

  It must be an airplane, Belinda told herself. Some sort of high-tech military craft. But then the lights began to move, or rather, glide, fixed in their triangular orientation. They glided in a diagonal motion, a quick slash across the sky like a checkmark. Belinda had never seen an airplane or any other machine move with such grace. The craft changed direction in a sharp but seamless motion and glided west, more slowly this time. There was something organic, even delicate about the spacecraft’s movements; it seemed to dangle from an invisible hand, letting the wind carry it like an enormous kite. Belinda held her breath, willing her memory to record what she was seeing. The lights hovered only a few seconds longer before they went out, as quickly as they had appeared, snuffed by the shadows weaving through the sky.

  Belinda didn’t move. She fixed her view on that spot in
the sky, her eyes flicking across the vague outlines of clouds, searching. Minutes passed. The cigarette tucked between her fingers smouldered into an ashen claw. The lights never reappeared.

  When Belinda got back inside the house, her hands felt numb and she realized she had been cold. The time on the microwave said 3:58 AM. She had been standing on the driveway for almost an hour, wearing only her pajamas and slippers. But she felt as though she’d just emerged from a mountain lake, fresh and clean, the air against her skin like tiny bites of electricity. She had witnessed something extraordinary. The lights had been real — there was no doubt in her mind. And no matter how she tried to make sense of what she saw, she couldn’t escape what she knew to be true. It was a UFO. A flying object like she had never seen. It was unexplainable.

  The RCMP seemed the best place to call. She’d heard of people reporting UFO sightings, but she’d never taken such stories seriously before. The police would probably be less sympathetic, too busy with more pressing matters.

  I’m calling to report a UFO, Belinda said into the phone. And I’m not crazy.

  Can I get your name? the woman on the other end asked. She sounded unsurprised, even bored.

  Belinda Spector, she said. It happened about an hour ago. Just over my house, these lights —

  Can you please describe what you saw, Ma’am? The woman sounded as if she were reading from a script.

  When Belinda finished her story, the woman said, All right, Ma’am, we’ll look into it. Thank you for letting us know. She hung up.

  Belinda considered calling back, but she didn’t know what she would say. She wanted the woman to believe her. Anything she could think to say — You have to believe me! or I’m telling the truth! — sounded hackneyed.