Catch My Drift

by Genevieve Scott

  “What’s this business about needing permission to go out shopping?” Lorna asked.

  Alex bent to unfold another table. “I don’t need permission.”

  Lorna bit her bottom lip. “I think you do, Alex. And I think that’s crazy.”

  Alex straightened. “This may not be your scene, Lorna, but it’s not crazy. Do you really have no ability to uncouple things that are new to you from ‘crazy’?” He made quotes like little doe ears with his fingers.

  “Whatever, Alex.” Lorna held up her palms. “What I’m telling you is that I’m not comfortable with — ” she swept her arm out in front of her “ — any of this.”

  “That’s your work, Lorna.”

  “That’s my work?”

  “You see the world so negatively,” Alex said. “You should work on that.” He patted her upper arm again.

  “Work on that how? Should I spend a year on a commune, too? I’d love that, Alex, but where would that leave our children?”

  Alex’s eyes darted around the room, evidently panicked about who could be overhearing the rise in her voice.

  Lorna shook her head. “You know what? I’m taking Jed home.”

  Alex pinched his lower lip with his fingers. “You have to understand,” he spoke softly. “I’ve imposed on this community. I asked a special favour to allow Jed to stay here.” He picked up Lorna’s hand. His was a little clammy. “If I throw that generosity away . . . well.”

  Lorna stared into Alex’s worried face. She felt she did understand something. Alex may have felt stronger, but it wasn’t real strength. He was afraid. And Lorna understood that if she took Jed away tonight, if they all turned their backs, they might lose Alex. He would go on and recreate his life without them. He would fail his children, and in the long run that could fuck Jed up even more.

  At Breaking Bread, the dining area filled with the happy clatter of a high school cafeteria. It was the first normal thing to happen since arriving. The four of them sat at a separate table that Alex heaped with bowls of food: seaweed salad, brown rice with steamed vegetables, chickpeas. “All of the vegetables are grown here,” Alex said.

  “Where do you grow the seaweed?” Jed picked at his food. The smell of cigarettes came off his hair and jacket.

  Lorna didn’t make eye contact with Alex, and he didn’t continue on the farming. He asked questions about school that only Cara bothered to answer. While mashing chickpeas with her fork, she described a social studies project using a frightening number of likes and I don’t knows: “We just, I don’t know, we cut things out in the newspaper and paste them in a scrapbook. Like free trade or what’s happening with Sinead O’Connor. There’s no, like, point.” Normally Lorna would challenge this sort of laziness, but tonight she didn’t have the energy. At least someone was talking.

  “That’s something,” Alex said after such a long pause to chew his food that Lorna wasn’t sure if he was still referring to the scrapbook or something else entirely.

  Cara shrugged. “When are you coming back?”

  Alex served her more chickpeas. “I’m part of something here,” he said. “Like an ecosystem, remember? Who would take care of the shop if I went away?”

  “What about for a weekend?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Who’s we? Who decides?” This was Jed now, leaning back on the two legs of his chair. “Jim Jones gives you a hall pass, or . . . ?”

  Alex looked accusingly at Lorna. “I think a certain level of respect is missing there, Jed.”

  “Who’s Jim Jones?” Cara asked.

  “Some fucking psycho preacher who killed like nine hundred of his followers with Kool-Aid,” Jed said.

  Alex turned to Cara. “You don’t need to worry about any of that, OK? This is a healing place. Everyone here is happy.”

  Cara looked at Lorna. “I thought Jed was here for a punishment.”

  Alex put down his fork. Lorna cleared her throat. It was falling to her to redirect this disastrous conversation. “So!” She noticed how the brightness of her voice made Jed flinch across the table. “Tell us about some of your friends here, Alex. Who do you like to spend time with?”

  “They’re all friends, Lorna. Family, as a matter of fact.” Lorna tried to dagger him with her eyes, but he was staring off in that new dreamy way. “I’ve never had anything like it before.”

  Couldn’t he hear what he was saying? Lorna wanted to reach over and halt her daughter’s dumbly nodding head. You don’t have to agree with that: you’re his family. She wanted to hurl the gummy seaweed at the wall. Instead she put down her napkin. “Well, it was a long drive. I’m ready for bed.”

  “You’re going to bed now?” Jed flared his nostrils like he’d never smelt a bigger loser in his whole life.

  “You guys go,” Alex said. “Jed and I will clean up.”

  As a small child, Cara always begged Lorna to stay with her until she fell asleep. And it wasn’t so long ago that Cara would drag her sleeping bag into Jed’s room, or to the foot of Lorna’s bed, after seeing something scary on TV. Any small thing could frighten Cara, and as much as Lorna believed in independence, she couldn’t stand the idea of her daughter being alone with her fear.

  Tonight, Cara changed in the bathroom, in private, and got into bed with just the quietest “Night.” Lorna listened to her shift under the thin, papery sheets, heard her yawn. When her children were babies, Lorna was both relieved and terrified by their sleep. Several times a night, she would walk into the dark, hushed nursery room and listen for their breathing. She put a palm down on their narrow little chests. They were so helpless; she was so young. She had an urge to get up now and wrap herself around her daughter. When had she stopped touching her children? “Everything OK?” Lorna whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Comfy?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I’m not sure what we can do about that.” Lorna wasn’t entirely sure what made her tone so sharp. But she knew she hated being so inept, so incapable of fixing things for her children. It was easier when they were little.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Worse, it seemed like Cara didn’t want or expect much comfort from Lorna. Perhaps she’d forgotten that her mother had ever done things that could make her feel safe.

  Lorna wished she knew what could get Cara to talk to her like the mothers and daughters on TV. In focus groups, she used open-ended questions to get people talking, but these often seemed to irritate her kids. “What was the best part of the day?” she tried.

  “Lunch, probably.” She heard Cara’s legs kick around. “I don’t know. I’m really tired, Mom.”

  Lorna breathed out her disappointment. “OK, sweetie.”

  The river was easier to hear at night, or maybe it was distant cars. Lorna closed her eyes, listening to the rhythm. Lately, she’d been having trouble falling asleep. For Lorna, bedtime had become too much of a reminder of time itself: how much more of it was gone. At the end of the day, Lorna only ever felt older: no wiser, no more interesting or accomplished. She thought of herself at Cara’s age, fourteen, standing at the rim of a pool, so clear on what she ought to do.

  When Lorna woke, she was sure she hadn’t been asleep long. It took her a moment to orient herself. She was in a room with her daughter at the Black River Peace Center: not a place she’d ever imagined finding any of them. Next to her, Lorna heard shuffling, moving. Bare feet on linoleum. She rolled her head slightly and saw Cara crossing the small room and watched as she moved back and forth, from the wardrobe to the window, tapping each one. When she was younger, Cara was known to sleepwalk, usually when she was overtired. She never got very far, but once Alex found her curled up on top of the dryer.

  “Cara,” Lorna whispered. “What are you doing?”

  Cara stopped, her fingertips on the window glass, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Do you need the bathroom?”

  “No.”

  “I think you might be sleepwalking, honey.”
>
  Cara sank down on her bed.

  “Try to fall back asleep. OK?”

  “OK.”

  Lorna lay back, listening to Cara settle into her bed. What was keeping her daughter from sound sleep? Her long-haired father? Her brother’s stories about Jim Jones? If Cara was afraid of something, Lorna wished she’d tell her. Closing her eyes again, Lorna let the day’s faces and weird lines of conversation blur through her thoughts. Then, on the brink of sleep, she heard the slight yield of Cara’s mattress again. Cara’s feet hit the floor. There was a quiet tap, another tap. Lorna flipped around to say something, but just as quickly, Cara hopped back into bed. Lorna waited but there was nothing more. She’d have to remember to ask about this pacing in the morning. Sleep was important now. The last thing this family needed was a car accident tomorrow.

  Lorna woke to the sound of distant music — the recorder? The flute? — she lit the terra-cotta lantern and checked her watch: 5:17 a.m. Cara was a mound under the sheets.

  Alex was waiting for them in the foyer. He gave Cara a long hug and spoke quietly to Lorna over their daughter’s head. “Jed’ll be good here. You’ll see.”

  “Sure. OK.” She smiled at Alex, but there was a dropping feeling in her chest. As she watched his thin white figure pad silently down the long hallway, it seemed possible that he could disappear right into the walls.

  Jed turned up as Lorna and Cara were loading the car. He was wearing his jeans and ratty long-sleeve shirt. None of this white pyjama business, not yet. He held a terra-cotta candle, though it was nearly light.

  Lorna unlocked the car.

  “Do I have to dance?” Jed said

  Lorna turned around. “Dance?”

  Jed looked at Cara and started to gyrate his hips, his arms waving in the air, tongue hanging from his mouth. Cara laughed, a white breathy puff of air. She glanced quickly at her mother, uncertain. Lorna smiled back: it was OK.

  “Not if you don’t want to.” She put her hand on Jed’s shoulder. He didn’t move. Oh, how she wanted to keep her hand there. “Ten days,” she said. “That’s it.”

  Jed jerked the hair from his face and regarded her. Lorna could see that he thought she’d give in. He was waiting for her to say, “All right, you’re right. This is crazy. Get your stuff and get in the car.” But Jed was being brave; he wouldn’t ask her to take him home. If he did, she might agree. She wanted her children to ask her for things. But Alex was lost here, and he needed Jed more than she did. He needed to remember who depended on him. As for Jed, no matter how embarrassing Alex looked in those white pyjamas or what absurd things he’d say in the coming days, a son should know his father gave a shit.

  “I’m freezing,” Cara said. She was opening the passenger door.

  Lorna let go of Jed’s shoulder. “We’ll see you soon.”

  Jed held the lantern up to his chin. “Soon. Again. Again. Soon.” He bowed his head like Neel. Cara laughed again.

  Once they were in the car, Cara set her pillow up against the window and tucked her fists into the sleeves of her sweatshirt. Lorna thought of Cara’s strange behaviour the night before, but it had been a strange day. Better not to ask Cara questions that would embarrass her. Everyone needed to feel OK now.

  Lorna watched Jed in the rear-view as she drove away. A buttery smear of candlelight crossed his chin. She recalled that when Jed was a toddler, he was terrified of candles. Neither Lorna nor Alex understood where the fear came from. At his second birthday party, he worked himself into a frenzy over the lighted cake: dark pink face, gulping tears, his body shaking like a tiny engine. Then there was the night the power went out. Heart thumping, Lorna pulled two-year-old Jed from the tub and carried his slippery little body through darkness to the kitchen. She’d been impossibly young, terrified of electrical fires, masked men in the closet, god knows what else. She wasn’t thinking when she took a candle from the kitchen drawer and struck the match, the flash of light spreading across Jed’s betrayed, terror-stricken face. “Oh, Jed!” she said, her hand flying to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.” But he didn’t cry. Somehow, he knew she needed him not to. He looked at the beam of light on his naked chest and opened his hands to hold it.

  Shiva

  Spring, 1993

  There’s good food everywhere in the Grossmans’ house: glass bowls of egg and tuna salad, pretty plates of twisty apricot cookies, mini-bagels, sliced fruit. No one is eating, though. People just bunch together with their little white cups. No one bunches with me. I’m practically the only young person, minus a few cousins. I wish we’d leave, but Mom just poured herself a whole new glass of water with drowned mint leaves.

  On the drive over, Mom warned me not to expect much conversation. If the family wants to talk, she said, I should think of a couple nice stories to share. I was like, “What stories?” She just kept her eyes on the road. “We’re here for the family. If you can’t think of anything, just say you’re sorry for their loss.”

  I stand at the very back of the living room by the open patio doors. A few feet away from me, Violet, the cleaning lady, is sitting alone with a plate of food on her lap. I look away before she can catch my eye. I haven’t had an attack of the hell-thoughts in a long time. It would be the worst day for them to start up again.

  Where I’m standing, I can hear a radio playing at a neighbour’s house: “Warm temperatures will continue until Monday . . . ” Somewhere else, a sprinkler tick-ticks like a rattlesnake. For most people, it’s just a normal day.

  “Some of you might know Samantha Grossman,” Mr. Morris said in homeroom last Thursday, rolling chalk between his fingers. Everyone knew Sam: she was the fat girl. Sam wore basketball shorts every day until late October. In winter, she switched to a black velvet dress with a zipper that zigzagged up her wide back.

  Mr. Morris wrote the word meningitis on the blackboard. “It’s a freak case,” he said. “We’re trying to trace it.” Elliott Culver in the back row actually laughed. “Freak case,” he repeated. “Go figure.” I wanted to turn around and glare at him, but I was frozen. I felt exactly like I did when I was four years old and someone at the cottage let me float too far from the beach on an inflatable mat. Holding hard to the surface of my desk, it seemed like everything and everyone in the room was fading away from me, and I couldn’t do a thing to help myself.

  The public health nurse who came to school said anyone who’d had exposure to Sam — shared a sip of her juice box, was her example — should leave school immediately. I’m pretty sure no one shared a juice box with Sam, but everyone loved panicking about it anyway. My best friend Ash pretended to have used the same pipette in bio so she could miss school for a week. No one cared that Sam was dead.

  I watch a few people smoke cigarettes outside. It was back there that Sam and I tried smoking for the first time while her parents were out watching Ghost. We were so paranoid about the smell after that we brushed our teeth for ten minutes and ate pinches of curly parsley.

  In the reflection of the glass doors, I see Ruthie walking toward me. My heart jumps. I was relieved we didn’t see her when we got here. I figured she might be upstairs crying her eyes out; no one would blame her. When we first got the news, Mom was pretty much on the floor worrying about Ruthie and how she’d ever make it through this. But here she is.

  “It’s good to see you.” Her hand on the back of my neck is damp.

  It’s my turn to talk, but I can’t think of anything to say. I can’t say it’s good to see her, too. Sam’s dead, and that’s the only reason I’m here. I nod at our reflections. Ruthie was Miss Teen Winnipeg in 1970 and 1971; pictures in the basement prove it. She’s pretty compared to a lot of moms, with thick dark hair that always reminds me of chocolate cake batter rippling from a bowl. She looks good even today. Even without makeup.

  “You go ahead and call if you ever want to swim,” she says.

  I nod again. I can’t turn and look at her. I feel sweaty and knotted up inside, the worst kind of liar.

 
“I mean it.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” It comes out too muffled and rushed.

  “Pardon?”

  I really, really don’t want to say it again, but I don’t have to because a bearded man taps Ruthie’s shoulder at the same time.

  “Sweet girl,” she says. “You come say goodbye before you go.” Then she turns to speak to the bearded guy.

  The last time I saw Ruthie was at Soul Bakery a few months ago. I was with Ash and we’d just finished a Matinée Slims Menthol, which I’m pretty sure Ruthie could smell when she kissed my ear, all “Mwa!” She tapped the glass display case of cakes and pastries and said, “Now. Remind me, Cara. Which does Sammy like best?”

  Ash talked when I didn’t say anything. “Everyone likes blackout cake.”

  Ruthie didn’t even look at Ash; her eyes went straight back to me. “We’d love to have you over for Sam’s birthday next week. Give us a call.” She ordered a zucchini loaf, definitely not one of Sam’s favourites.

  When Ash asked who Sammy was, I said he was a family friend. I made up this story about a funny, strange kid who probably had a crush on me. I went on and on. It was actually pretty easy to lie.

  A few days later, Ruthie called Mom herself. I heard her voice through the cordless. “I think the girls have been cooking something up!”

  “We’re in grade nine,” I told Mom as soon as she got off the phone. “Who still gets their parents to arrange a sleepover?”

  Mom seemed nervous. “So you want me to call back and say you can’t go?”

  “Yes, please.”