When Chester and I arrive at the apartment to get it ready for Helena, we are pleasantly surprised. The landlord has kept it in tip-top shape. He has left a box of supplies — batteries, fuses, light bulbs — and all we need to do is make sure everything is in running order.
We replace the battery in the sun-burst clock that was one of David’s prized possessions. Chester is charmed by the clock’s audible ticking that emanates from the round face with gleaming brass spears branching out. Over the diamond-shaped hour markers, the sweeping seconds-hand shifts erratically.
I tell Chester how Jane and I used to imagine that a sleeping genie resided in the clock and was having a fitful nightmare. Chester gives his take on what’s really the cause — Peter Pan’s crocodile is trapped in it. He struts along the parquet floor singing “Never Smile at a Crocodile,” and recites the words, “tick-tock the croc,” to the clock’s ticking, as he pretends to chase me while tapping his teeth together, and my heart expands with love for the boy in this man.
I wish I could tell him the ticking has a different message for me. I have come to accept fate, accept death, and the sudden news about my surgery has left me numb with apprehension and doubt. Should I hope for recovery, only to be let down? I put on an air of optimism for those I love, but my heart is empty. I have lost faith. And so I am left with my betraying heart that dissolves hope as soon as it discerns the ruse, before hope has the chance to germinate. How could I tell him that deep inside I am like an iceberg, frozen in despondence?
We dust the brown leather sofa and accent it with large burnt orange pillows. We set a pot of flowering freesia on the teak dining table — now seen as retro and fashionable — and imagine Helena delighting in the sweet fragrance floating through the angular space of this third-storey apartment. Chester replaces the light bulbs in the drape-chain hanging lamp with six hammered glass panels, two each in blue, amber, and amethyst, and we bask in the ambiance emanating from the coloured panes.
That night, Chester and I sleep in David’s large wrought iron bed. The tea-light candles cast a flickering glow on the ceiling mural, and we search for the red hummingbirds among the green leaves and orange blossoms of the trumpet vine painted in the mural, and he tells a story he’s never told me before.
Chester places my palm on his chest. “You feel it? You feel the tick-tock the croc in my chest?”
“Sure do,” I say, giggling.
“Once upon a time, there was a five-year-old boy,” Chester says in his storytelling voice, husky and warm.
“And his name was Chester,” I say.
“Ah, you know this boy,” he says, chuckling. “One day, he was at the Fairchild Botanic Garden in Miami. Through the tangle of the mangrove swamp, a sparkle of sun in the green bog catches the boy’s eye. He approaches, stealthily, through the undergrowth, footsteps soft on the mossy earth. An alligator is sunning on a muddy bank. Silent. Large and grey like a submarine.”
He kisses my cheek and lowers his voice to a whisper. “The boy crouches beside it, the palm of his hand on its scaly, steely hide. He glides his hand along the roughness of its ossified scutum. The boy’s temples are pulsating. His small hand presses tightly against the alligator many times his size.”
I feign a frightened look. Chester raises himself on his elbow and looks deeply into my eyes. “The boy’s heart beat pounds in rhythm with the alligator’s. And the moment is an eternity. He’s at one with the life force of the massive animal — the boy and the alligator, one life, one heart.”
“Grooowl!” Chester roars.
I scream, laughing.
“It’s not the alligator. It’s the boy’s parents!” He chortles. “They snatch him away and run. The boy had wandered off, and they’d been looking for him. He glimpses his mother’s cried-out face, pale like raw fish. His father’s grimness. Why the worry? The boy never felt threatened. Exhilarated! But not fearful. The alligator wasn’t about to harm him. Or was it?”
Chester’s hand on mine, he runs my palm along his chest. “Feel it?” he says. “You feel my clandestine heart? The alligator beat in my bosom?”
“I had the pleasure of meeting your alligator,” I say. “At the same garden.”
“You’ve been to the Fairchild Garden?”
“A few years back. Helena and I went to see Mark di Suvero’s exhibit. Five of his installations. We took a ride on his famous ‘She’.”
“Did you sit on the swing?”
“We sure did. That’s the largest swing I’ve ever seen. A suspended platform,” I say, and promise to show him the photos.
“That sculpture has magical powers,” he exclaims and gathers me into an embrace. “And you saw my alligator?”
In candlelight, Chester looks enthralled. “Was he huge? Was he fierce? My alligator?” He is laughing and his put-on voice quavers, but I wonder if a small part of him actually believes it could be the same alligator — the small, adventurous five-year-old boy.
I savour the moment. “The hugest I’ve ever imagined. It just lay there on the bank of a pond. They’re a common sight. But this one was humongous. Helena and I stayed far away, though. We were amazed the alligators live in those ponds in the midst of the garden and the visitors simply wander around. Small children, as well.”
“Must be well fed in those bogs — frogs, snakes, turtles, wandering small childr . . .” He stops, eyes wide in the dancing shadows.
He props himself on his elbow, leans his ear to my chest, and listens to the beating in my breast. He tells me my covert heart is also thumping to the tick-tock the croc rhythm and he thanks the alligator for sharing its heart and tells me he and I and the alligator are as one. Invincible. And for the first time in a long while hope again takes root in me. And we dream.
CHAPTER 46
September, 2010
I INHALE THE fragrance of the lavender bouquet Chester brought this morning. A tiny card hanging on a purple ribbon reads: “To Blossom with love. Your alligator.” He leaves love notes throughout my house to keep my spirits high, and to me he is Hansel from the fairy tale who sprinkles bread crumbs to help him find his way home — his way to me.
It has been several months since the stem cell transplant. I still think of the first critical hundred days in the hospital as a century in exile, an interlude between my previous life and my new one. Like the princess who pricks herself on a spindle and instead of dying is cursed into a century-long sleep — my hundred days, a hundred years of fading in and out of fever. And it is hope infused by love and teeming encouragement that sustained me and propelled me through the rough times. I am a new person in so many ways, I find myself trying to remember the other Blossom, the weary, listless, feverish and fearful — fearful not just of dying but of living as well. Those days are behind me now.
After the exile, I was able to return home and continue with medication under the transplant team’s close observation. The last couple of months have been almost free of complications, and my medical tests show dramatic improvements. In the past few weeks, as if a miracle had occurred, my energy level has been soaring. Each day I wake up, I find myself believing Helena’s stem cells have magical properties that have infused me with her zeal for life. Helena is like a winged fairy. She disseminates joy among us as if she were the spring rain and we the flowers in her garden. She is in a festive mood and David’s old apartment, which for decades has been the place to reminisce, and in Helena’s words, the place to laugh and cry and pray and be grateful, is still our refuge. We’ve celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and Jane’s official welcome to the family she’d always belonged to. Chester’s new name for Helena is Mother-Humming-Bird-Wing and he utters it shortened, and it sounds like, Muing. She adores her new moniker and claims it has brought her mystical powers from some ancient civilizations of the Orient. He tells us it’s a take on the common Chinese name Ming, which literally means “enlightenment.” He settles on her nam
e being Mother-Muing and she wears it proudly as she flutters about and hovers over us, her children — she, our communal mother. Chester teases her that she is at once Tinker Bell and Wendy — spreading pixie-dust infused with love.
This weekend Jane is visiting, and Helena and Chester are preparing dinner at David’s place, and although no words are spoken as we all know I still have a long way to go before I am out of the dark wood, I know it’s to celebrate my recovery.
I waited at my house for Jane’s arrival from Ottawa so we could drive to the apartment. When we get there, David’s retro kitchen has been roused back into action. The aroma of baking bread wafts from the stainless steel bread maker on the counter, and the appliances are buzzing like bees in a clover field. Chester is blending fruit shakes in the red blender. Helena is whipping egg whites. And the mint-green Kaidette stand mixer Chester had rewired is kneading cookie dough and humming laboriously.
Jane and I retrieve the vintage Pyrex bowls and platters from the cupboards. We place the mixed greens in the gold butterfly bowl, the lentil salad in the spring blossom one, and the asparagus in the two-tone orange pudding basin. Chester serves the fruit blend in the stemmed plastic glasses in an array of misty colours — yellow, pink, purple, and lime green — with matching reusable straws washed with a miniature bottle brush kept especially for that purpose. It’s a balmy summer day, and even the bees and butterflies seem lazy.
Chester has washed the patio furniture and replaced the chain on the rattan swing chair which, although bleached from the many summers, remains sturdy. Jane beats me to the rattan chair and climbs in, and after a few minutes of swaying, drink in hand, she bounds out and guiding me by the shoulders, plants me in it as if I were a cat.
I curl up in it and sip the fruit blend and recall that this was Liza’s favourite seat. Liza’s swing. And my memory of her materializes. She is snuggled at this same spot, the Queen Mother special in hand. Her dark hair with auburn highlights painted by the sun is spilling over her shoulders, and I am reminded of the transience of life and the importance of living in the moment.
I still do live in the moment, and yet, hope has rooted itself in me and is sprouting fast, like the green sapling stretching out of the avocado pit I suspended with toothpicks over a tumbler of water and placed on my window sill. The sunshine beating down on my hair and shoulders warms the invincible alligator heart beating in my chest. My eyes meet Chester’s and I can read his thoughts. Human body is guided by a purpose of its own — to heal itself.
Helena sets the black wrought-iron patio table with David’s mismatched flow blue china and his mismatched sterling silver cutlery. Jane lights the candles planted in the Chianti bottles that seem cemented to the chipped milk-glass plates by decades of use — by old wax that had sculpted rutted paths along the sides of the bulbous purple bottle glass and glazed the straw wrapping.
Chester has taken on the role of chef and the dinner is scrumptious — baked salmon topped with lemon wedges, roasted sweet potatoes, steamed asparagus, and a tossed green salad with red radicchio and avocado and Jane’s homemade sundried tomato dressing. As we make up our plates Helena tells Chester that even David could not have prepared a more perfect meal. We know being compared with David is the best praise anyone could receive from Helena. Chester raises a toast to us, the family with alligator hearts — and we chime in with “tick-tock the croc.”
For dessert, we have fresh berries. We pass the whipped cream dispenser from one person to the next, and as we pile up the frothy topping, Jane and I reminisce about those decadent Sunday breakfasts from our childhood.
After we clean up and dusk sets in, the mosquitoes move onto the deck and we retreat into the living room and sit on the sofa in front of the Silvertone Suburbanite slim-angle TV. The newscaster appears and fades into the static-filled screen as if he were Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago — Anna’s and Liza’s all-time favourite movie —marching through the blizzard-ridden Siberian landscape. We strain to get the gist of the news on this snowy channel, the only one with some reception, as the cable service has never been connected.
* * *
The following day, after Jane leaves for Ottawa, Helena and I sit in my rose garden. It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon, and as we sip lemonade, I say to her: “I miss you already, and you haven’t left yet.”
“I changed my flight. Staying for another week. Not leaving tomorrow. The following Monday.”
I jump up in excitement. “That’s fantastic! You’re staying for the unveiling!”
The long anticipated reinstallation of Flower Power has finally begun. Mark di Suvero is in Toronto overseeing the reassembly of the refurbished sculpture. The official ceremony will take place on the weekend. Jane will be returning to Toronto for it as well.
“Lucky I could change my flight,” Helena says. “Especially now that I don’t have to worry about last night’s storm. That little maintenance company’s a dream. The one that takes care of my trailer. Those two women look after everything. They took all the precautions, covered the windows and all the rest. The storm did no damage. When I get back, it’ll be as if I never left.”
“You’re lucky to have them,” I say.
“Learned everything there’s to know about maintaining a place from Anna. Pity her will hasn’t been settled yet.”
“The lawyer says it should be any day, now.”
* * *
On the morning of the unveiling, Chester insists on driving instead of the four of us taking the subway, and Jane is glad. She came in the night before and the long bus ride, after a busy week of classes, left her drained. We arrive at the sculpture’s new site, a prominent platform among high rises with clear visibility from the Queen Elizabeth Way and the railway lands, at a courtyard just south of Front Street on the West side of Spadina. I am not disappointed with the sculpture’s new home — it will have many admirers. Although I cannot help but wish it were back at the place of its creation where I could visit more often.
Helena says: “I’ve seen Flower Power’s birth in High Park. Seen it get run down. And now I see it rise again. It’s spectacular.”
Mark di Suvero, although aged, is tall and energetic as Liza used to describe him, and beaming with enthusiasm. He announces that Flower Power blooms again. He talks about the importance of the sculptures he created in Toronto, back in 1967. This was the first time he had the opportunity to work on a project of massive scale and to create pieces with steel I-beams, which became the focus of his career.
“In 1967,” di Suvero says, “I was very dedicated to an idea, as I am now, that the world can exist in peace.”
Helena whispers: “That’s all we ever wanted. Peace. That’s what David died for.”
After a few speeches, the gathering begins to disperse. We walk over to di Suvero and introduce ourselves. He shakes our hands, and I can hardly believe that we’re talking to this great man, to this world-renowned artist. He recalls Liza with much fondness and tells us how she kept the project moving smoothly and made sure the sculptors’ supplies and equipment were plentiful and timely. He tells us that the Symposium provided a springboard to his career and how glad he is to be back in Toronto and to have his sculpture refurbished and reinstalled. I have heard so much about di Suvero and have spent so much time by his sculptures, I feel as if I have known him most of my life.
We say our goodbyes, and I have a strange feeling that Liza is with us.
di Suvero’s conviction about peace is etched in my thoughts. I was named after Flower Power — it gives me certain rights — I dedicate the new Flower Power to the world in peace.
Chester leaves to pick up the car, and we make our way toward the street to meet him.
Suddenly, a young man wearing a baseball cap blocks my way and shoves a microphone in my face. “You’re Blossom Grant, aren’t you?”
I freeze. Helena places her palm over the mike. “Take a hike, young man,�
� she says firmly.
“Excuse me,” I say, and try to get by him.
“Excuse us, young man,” Helena echoes. But he stands in front of us, with an elderly man holding a camera next to him.
“I know who you are,” Helena cries out looking at the camera man. “Out of the way, you hound! Or you’ll be hearing from my lawyer!”
Jane steps in front of us and spreads her arms out. “Step aside, or I’ll call the police,” she says to the reporters.
The young man slips under her arm and, pushing the microphone to my mouth, shouts: “You’re Liza Grant and David Gould’s ‘love child’ aren’t you? David was accused of stealing that block of Carrara . . .” I step back, away from him. He moves closer and reaches for my arm, and as I try to free myself from his grasp, I stagger and fall, landing on my knees and my palms. Jane rushes to my aid, and Helena screams, “Police!” and pulls the cell phone out of her purse. I close my eyes and wait a moment to let the pain in my knees dissipate.
I hear an irregular tapping on the cement accompanied by heavy footsteps and a sound of something dragging. When I look up, James the policeman is leaning over me. He and Jane are calling out: “You all right?” Jane slips her arms under mine and tries to lift me.
“Give me a moment,” I say. “I’m fine.” I get off my knees and sit on the cement pad. I hear a siren. James says: “I saw them. Called the police.” He walks toward the approaching vehicle. Two officers step out. James talks with them briefly, and the next minute they are handcuffing the reporters and guiding them into the back of the cruiser.
CHAPTER 47
HELENA CHANGES HER flight again. She will stay until after the Christmas holidays.
“What’s the point of flying back and forth,” she says. “My maintenance crew is so good, the place is better taken care of than when I’m there. Those women should be cloned.”
Stone Woman Page 24