Contents
Adrift
One
Two
The Desert
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Archive Fever
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Unpacking
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Return Trips
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Acknowledgements
Of Related Interest
Adrift
1984
One
Their house had always been a wreck. The difference was that back then Rita assumed all houses were like that. Paint on the porch peeling, like old nail polish. Full of boarders, or “guests,” as Lily liked to call them; everyone lined up in the cramped hall to use the bathroom at night. The floors of some rooms were so uneven that if Rita closed her eyes, everything seemed to spin gently, the feeling of drunkenness, she’d realize years later.
Cracks in the bricks up one side had gotten worse. Now the whole house looked tilted, about to sink.
It was a bright, hot morning in July. Under normal circumstances, she’d be out for a jog. Instead she was here, squinting up at her childhood home and lingering on the pavement, as if someone had stood her up. Through the yellowed curtains of the house across the street, an old lady peeked out, probably wondering what on earth Rita was doing here, for the second morning in a row, no less. Maybe Rita looked as though she were on a mission to scope the neighbourhood, one of those rich Asians in the slum landlord business.
A little girl ran by, her bright green T-shirt appearing to pulsate with the most amazing greenness, and it seemed impossible that normal life was continuing on — kids were out enjoying the nice weather.
For a blissful moment, Rita felt like she could press the rewind button and slip back, so easily, into thinking that everything was going to be just fine. Of course it was. Lily had antsy feet. And a whimsical heart. She’d wandered off before and had always come back. It was the trademark of women of her generation: despite their veneer of stoicism, deep down anger simmered. They were tired of doing everything for everyone, sick of life as doormats. So from time to time, they blew off steam, hit the road. All mothers did this — or felt like doing this — didn’t they? Rita was a mom and she’d felt that way before, as though she were destined to live like the little red hen. It was normal to go on strike, wasn’t it?
She closed her eyes and let the darkness take over, not the comforting darkness of sleep, but a deeper, more frightening blackness. The pep talk she’d just been giving herself lost all conviction, sounded as hollow as it was. While it was true that Lily had traipsed off before, she’d always been found within a few hours.
Someone had left a pile of old clothes on the curb. A faded mauve shirt with a crushed-in collar. Baby-doll pumps in dark cherry leather, the round toes scuffed and flattened, like they’d been stepped on. Lily had once worn shoes like that and carried a matching handbag.
A wheezing sound gathered force from somewhere, and it took Rita a moment to realize that it was her own breath — the air shortening, dying in hot bursts in her throat — and all she could think was that maybe it was already too late. A vision swept over her: a small, pallid face touched by a bluish tint, generic and expressionless, the way dead people appeared on TV. She squeezed her eyes tighter and refused to believe that face could be her mother’s.
Three days ago, Lily had gone missing. “Missing people with a history of memory problems often go back to the places they used to live,” the police officer had said, handing over a FAQ sheet for family members. It seemed this sort of thing happened more often than you’d guess. The cop — a woman, wearing just a trace of nude lipstick — tried to be encouraging, but not overly so. She’d been through the drill before.
Bloor-Lansdowne. Not the poshest part of Toronto, that was for sure. The houses were crammed so close together that they appeared to be falling into each other at uneven heights. Translucent shower curtains turned front porches into makeshift sunrooms, every second house festooned with Christmas lights that never came down. Very little about the neighbourhood had changed since Rita’s childhood (beyond the opening of a new strip club). Even the humid air, mixed with the humidity of her own palpitating body, seemed too familiar, oppressive.
What was she supposed to be doing? It didn’t seem likely that her mother would miraculously stroll by. Yesterday Rita had knocked on the door of the old house. An old tawny-skinned guy had answered. “No,” he’d said flatly, when she showed him Lily’s photo. He kept saying no in response to all her questions; perhaps he didn’t understand English.
Over his shoulder, she could see someone shuffling in the shadows. Peering in, she half expected Grandpa or Aunt Haruko to come into focus, as though for all these years their ghosts had remained right here, keeping the home fires burning. But Aunt Haruko would have never let that grime build up on the windows. Now the place was inhabited by a hodgepodge of sad souls from far-flung, war-torn countries, the mysterious odours of all their foods clashing, blending together in an oily fug.
Unclean.
Yet that was what people had once said about her own family. Rita had never managed to forget the peculiar, withering sensation of being looked at that way. And now, a couple decades later, here she was on the other side of that pitying, judgmental gaze.
Up and down the block and for four blocks in all directions, she’d plastered her bright yellow sheets on phone poles, telephone booths, mailboxes. MISSING PERSON across the top. The photo had been taken on Lily’s honeymoon last year. Although only the head portion had been cropped, Rita couldn’t help but see the larger image: smiling vivaciously, her mother was perched on the edge of a chaise longue, white foam waves crashing down behind her, pina colada in hand, the tiny pink umbrella as bright as her lipstick. Sixty, she could easily pass for ten years younger. Her dyed black hair fell in loose, permed curls, remarkably similar to the way Rita remembered it as a child.
Back then, Lily would pull Rita onto her lap and tell stories about a faraway land. Glittering green dragons went to war with monster centipedes, which wound their way around mountaintops, like a trail of distant, glowing lanterns. A warrior named Momotaro burst forth from the belly of a peach, and a princess slipped out from the hollow of a bamboo shoot. But it was the strange, sad tale about a fisherman that drifted into Rita’s mind now.
One day, when Urashima was out fishing, he met a beautiful sea princess. She lured him to her underwater kingdom, where he stayed for many seasons, seduced by her resplendent riches. At some point, however, their relationship fizzled, as all relationships eventually do. On the day of his departure, the sea princess gave Urashima three presents to remember her by, but she told him not to open any of them until he got home.
When he reached his old village, he noticed the landscape looked different: many more houses had been built on the hillside and new roads had been added out of nowhere. Bewildered, it took him quite some time to find his old house.
All that remained was the stone doorstep.
Beside himself, Urashima didn’t know what to do. He opened the first present that the sea princess had given him. Inside was a single white feather. As the lid cam
e off the next box, a cloud of smoke choked him. The third box contained a broken mirror that revealed the wizened face of an old man.
Although there’d been some redemptive aspect to the ending — something about Urashima being transformed into a bird — Rita couldn’t really remember that part. The image that had stayed with her was an old Japanese guy, standing on the threshold of his vanished home. Staring into the cracked glass, he was transfixed by a face he barely recognized.
Back at her apartment, she stood by the door for a long time. The sound of her heartbeat blended into the hum of the fridge, punctuated by creaks and laughter from the university kids above her.
Rita felt like a stranger here. She was a stranger here, having moved in only last week. Not much unpacking had been done before Lily pulled her disappearing act and everything came to a standstill. Boxes were stacked in the hall. A few had been opened, their contents dumped out. A tangle of bright sweaters lay on the floor, a limp turquoise arm reaching out to her lifelessly. A stable of My Little Pony figures pranced on top of her LP collection — Michael Jackson and Laura Nyro looking up soulfully, enigmatically — and Lite-Brite pieces had rolled all over, caught between the scratched up floorboards like a shattered beer bottle.
The mess that was her life.
All alone, she had no buffer of distractions to take her mind off Lily’s disappearance. It intensified an old feeling. She always felt out of it for days after Kristen left on one of her month-long visits to her dad in Vancouver, yet the lulling, biscuity scent of the top of her head stayed behind, her hair still baby soft even though she was six now, grubby paw prints left all over the fridge and mirrors because Rita couldn’t bring herself to wipe them away. The solitude — the “me” time — she thought she’d been craving for months oppressed her with its quiet monotony until she would force herself to go to the gym, call up her single girlfriends, get dolled up and go out, drink too many gin and tonics, flirt with some dude who wanted to buy her another, go home with him maybe.
Kids were playing Hacky Sack in the park outside her window, their loose Guatemalan garb flapping like kites in the wind. She thought she recognized the kid with shaggy hair — hadn’t he been in her class a few years back? How surprised he’d be to see Mrs. Takemitsu here in Kensington Market. A sudden impulse to sneak up on him, bum a smoke. Her students probably pictured her in some prissy, oatmeal-bland house out in the suburbs, which wasn’t that far off from where she’d lived before the divorce. But this was where she’d always belonged, this was where she’d spent her happiest art-school days, amid the incense and rotting garbage and graffiti-covered alleyways. Throughout all those sham years of her marriage, her real self had remained right here, fingernails caked with cyan and sienna.
No doubt Lily would be less than impressed with Rita’s new digs. She wouldn’t see charm in how the sunlight filtered through the grungy bay window, showing off the stained glass panel. The chipped marble fireplace had been blocked off, unfortunately — it was a fire hazard to let your tenants roast marshmallows, the landlord had said with a laugh — but it would still be perfect for hanging Kristen’s stocking up at Christmastime.
If Lily were anywhere to be found, Rita would invite her over for dinner. She’d been meaning to do so for a while. For years, really. Right. Well, better late than never. Tears prickled her eyes. Something — some guilt or bitterness or regret — strangled her breath, the edges of the room fading, blurring. Chicken from the European butcher, rubbed in cumin. A tomato and avocado salad, everything perfectly ripened. She imagined them feasting and drinking wine until their cheeks were flushed and tingly, as though they were the kind of mother and daughter who did this all the time.
Three days earlier, the phone call.
“Rita, is that you? Is your mom there?” It was Gerald, his voice staccato.
“No, why would she be here?” Rita rubbed her eyes and sat up, the alarm clock a fluorescent blue blur. Her glasses slid on. 6:48.
“Lily’s gone — I can’t find her anywhere.”
A dull ache spread up the nape of her neck. Queasiness filled her stomach.
It was almost seven, no need to get alarmed. Lily might have just stepped out for milk. Maybe she’d stopped somewhere for a coffee and cruller. Normal people did such things.
Still, Rita skipped her shower. Just brushed her teeth, popped in her contact lenses. Her coffee maker was packed away somewhere, so she cracked open a Coke.
Her little white Dodge Colt made sputtering noises, but it had been doing that for a while now. The drive up Yonge had never been so fast, so quiet, the street like a deserted fairground. Willowdale, what a different world. Wartime bungalows interspersed with pseudohistorical, newer houses and a couple of horrendous hacienda-like mansions. Their house was fairly inconspicuous until you noticed the pair of lion gargoyles that Gerald’s first wife had had installed around the door before dying of cancer.
It had been a while since Rita had felt this fear and doom wrapping around her, nuzzling up, like an old pet. Lily was missing and this might be the beginning of one of her bad spells. Maybe this time she wouldn’t be okay. Oh, God. It felt so familiar, so horribly familiar. More normal than the state of something resembling happiness that Rita would experience upon driving her daughter to daycare and baking banana bread and standing in front of the chalkboard, thirty bored faces peering at her. Those moments frightened her with their precariousness, their porcelain fragility. What a fake she was. Living in a state of crisis came naturally to her (at least that’s what Cal had said at their last marriage-counselling session, right before they’d agreed to throw in the towel). Although Rita didn’t entirely agree — surely, the breakdown of their marriage also had to do with his overly close “friendship” with a certain platinum-blond hygienist — she could admit, in retrospect, a grain of truth. It was just easier, in her experience, to assume everything was on the verge of turning to shit.
And now, what did you know? It was actually happening.
Gerald greeted her at the door, his weather-beaten cheeks infused with fiery energy, blondish-white hair flying off in all directions. “The police just got here. Officer Davis and a Chinese guy.”
In the kitchen, the Chinese guy introduced himself as Officer Lee. Pretty hard to remember that name, Gerald. He had Buddha-chubby cheeks that made him look incredibly young. It was unusual to meet an Asian cop; Rita didn’t think she’d ever seen one before. She felt a pang of sympathy over the flack he’d had to take from his family for not going the med-school or MBA route. Officer Davis also appeared young. Muscular build, ice-green eyes, a sandy ponytail. Pretty in a plainish way, if a bit heavyset. She looked bored; they both did. These rookie cops were dragged out to house calls on the hour, placating people about their vandalized sheds and missing dogs — the dull stuff that never led to car chases or drug busts.
“So Mr. Anderberg was telling us about Lily’s disappearance,” Davis said.
“As I was saying, I woke up real early. Her side of the bed was empty. I thought Lily was just in the bathroom at first, but when she didn’t come back, I thought, okay, she’s down in the kitchen with a cuppa Ovaltine. You know how she is with her sleep troubles.”
“Yeah, it runs in the family.” Rita wondered what other sleep habits he’d discovered. According to Cal, she was no better, gnashing her teeth like she was chewing up eggshells.
“So I went down to the kitchen and Lily wasn’t there. Searched the entire house, even the garage. That’s when I discovered her car’s gone.”
“What about her purse?” Lee asked.
“Ditto.”
“So she went out somewhere.”
“In the middle of the night? Why’d she leave without telling me?” Gerald’s voice was anguished.
“Look, Mr. Anderberg, let me give it to you straight up.” This was Davis now. “In ninety percent of these missing person cases, the person shows up within
a day, at a friend’s house or something. Went out, forgot to leave a note, that sorta thing. So the first thing for you to do is put together a list of Lily’s family and friends and start calling around.”
“I’m not familiar with her friends in the Japanese community.” Gerald looked over at Rita.
“Me neither. But if you give me Mom’s phone book, I’ll see who I can recognize.”
“That little black book’s always in her purse.”
Rita stared back at him, an ache forming across her forehead.
“In any case, you folks need to put your heads together,” Davis continued.
“Where’s Tom?” Rita asked. Stretched out in business class, a Caesar in hand, coasting to the other side of the world, most likely. Her brother had an amazing ability for being unreachable at times like this.
“No idea. Left him a message. Told him to get his butt over here.”
Bank and Visa statements fanned across the kitchen table. Davis explained that they’d be monitoring Lily’s accounts for withdrawals and credit card charges, which would indicate where she was spending money.
“That could take a while.” Gerald sighed. “Lily hardly ever charges anything. For some reason she prefers to pay cash. I’m always getting at her for carrying too much dough around.”
He said it like it was just one of his wife’s charming idiosyncrasies. The real reason Lily always kept her wallet well stocked, Rita suspected, was that she still lived in fear of being made to evacuate at a moment’s notice. Not that she ever talked about the bad old days or even admitted they’d happened.
Camp.
Occasionally, when Rita was little, Grandpa used to tell stories about this place where the sand blew so fiercely that stepping outside was like standing under a shower of pinpricks. “Where was this camp? Were you on vacation?” Rita would ask, although she couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to visit such bleakness. The old man wouldn’t answer, staring off into space, his cheeks hardened like a walnut shell. As she got older, she came to understand that it had been an internment camp, where all people of Japanese descent had been imprisoned on suspicion of being traitors throughout the war. But Lily insisted she’d never set foot in any such place. Maybe they sent the farmers and poor people away. Not us. We never left Little Tokyo.
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