What We All Want

by Michelle Berry

  “What do you think?” Dick asks. He is close behind her. He can smell a musty odour, mothballs, coming off of her coat. He is amazed because he thought his sense of smell had left him years ago. He figured the formaldehyde had stripped his nose of all its nerve endings.

  “This one is beautiful.” Hilary points to the Blue Diamond.

  “Ah, a favourite.”

  “Too expensive,” Billy says. “Even for Thomas. Look at the price.”

  “Why don’t we talk about all this with Thomas later,” Hilary says. She is starting to get nervous. The room feels stuffy and close. “We’ll talk it over and get back to Dick.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Dick says. “Consult among your family and then make an appointment to see me. Hilary brought me some clothes, a wig, and a picture. You go home. You call me tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll begin to preserve your mother.”

  Dick watches Hilary and Billy Mount leave the funeral home. He watches Hilary stand beside the car, he watches Billy help her in and then move around and open the trunk. Dick feels strange suddenly, as if he has the flu. His stomach rumbles and his bowels churn. Stress sometimes makes him feel this way but Dick doesn’t think he’s stressed. He doesn’t know why he would be stressed. Although part of his childhood did just walk through the funeral home. Part of something he often tries to forget. He’s spent so long trying to boost himself up, turn himself inside out, that seeing his past creeping in, remembering what he once was, may possibly be the cause of his stomach worries. What was he once, Dick thinks: fat, shy, pimply, short, ugly, friendless, the son of a funeral director. He shuffles his weight from one foot to the other. And what is he now: fat, shy, friendless, and a funeral director.

  He’s moved up on the ladder, he supposes.

  At least he’s taller now. No pimples. He’s grown into his ugliness. It almost suits him.

  He looks again at Hilary in the car. She looks angry. She is shouting something at Billy who has just started the engine. She is waving one hand in the air, the other is clutching at her seat belt.

  Hilary has to get back in that car again. “Really, Billy, we should just take a taxi.”

  “To the airport? Do you know how much that would cost?” “Maybe Thomas could just take a taxi to my house.”

  “You told him we’d pick him up.”

  “I could take a taxi home and then you could both come back after you pick him up.”

  “Hilary, just get in the car. We’re halfway to the airport now.” “Oh God, oh God,” Hilary says as she sits back down in the passenger seat.

  Billy moves around the car to the trunk. He opens it and pulls out a bottle of Scotch in a paper bag. He unscrews the cap and gulps. The liquid burns his throat. He gulps again. Hilary is rattling her door, trying to get out. Billy put the child safety locks on the doors. He

  wipes his lips with the back of his hand and then takes another gulp.

  “What are you doing?” Hilary screams at him as he gets into the car. “You left me in the car. You locked me in. I could have suffocated.”

  “Calm down.” Billy starts the engine.

  “You idiot,” Hilary shouts.

  “I’m not an idiot.” Billy drives towards the airport. “Don’t ever call me that. If I didn’t lock you in you would have —”

  Hilary is breathing heavily. “I can’t stand cars, I can’t stand cars, I can’t stand cars.”

  Billy turns on the radio. He thinks it’s as if Becka didn’t really die. She’s right here beside him, only thirty-nine years old instead of however old she was. Billy doesn’t know. Who the hell knows how old their mother is? Hilary and Becka lived together for too long. They fed off each other’s fears and paranoia. It’s almost all right for an older woman to be afraid of everything, but Hilary is still young. And Thomas is afraid to fly. Billy sighs. He wonders how his brother is coping up there in the sky. Of course, Billy thinks, that could just be an excuse that Thomas has dreamed up in order not to visit. Who knows? Thomas wasn’t afraid of much when they were kids. He was always the first to jump off the high dive at the public pool, or the first to try the rope swing in the garden. Matter of fact, Thomas taught Billy everything he knows about taking risks. He taught Billy not to pay attention to kids when they laughed at him, taunted him because he had no father and his mother stayed locked in the house, because his mother didn’t sew his clothes or buy new ones, because he had to do the grocery shopping with his red wagon dragging behind him, or because his sister talked to herself as she walked to school. He taught Billy how to fight, where to punch the hardest, where his knuckles should connect to break a nose. Thomas himself never got in fights. He managed to skirt around trouble, leaving it behind. But Billy came home bloody almost every day. He would wipe off the blood with the kitchen sponge and eat whatever crap Hilary had made for dinner.

  And she wonders why he rarely visited. Who wants to remember? “There’s something behind the furnace,” Becka would whisper to them at the table. “I think it’s a rat.”

  “We don’t have rats,” Thomas would say.

  “Then I don’t know what it is. It was staring at me. It had red eyes.” She would hold herself together with her thin arms, clutch at the sweater wrapped tight around her. “I want you to get rid of it. I want it out of here or I won’t be able to sleep all night.”

  “Are we there yet?” Hilary says. “Are we almost there? I’m going to take a taxi back.”

  “We’re almost there. It’s just up ahead.”

  Hilary sees the lights of the airport ahead of the car. “Do you wonder what he’ll look like?” she asks. “I’ve been wondering.”

  “Like Thomas,” Billy says. “Only older.”

  “Like Daddy?”

  Billy looks at Hilary. “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “Not really,” she says. “But Mother has those pictures. To me they are just black-and-white pictures of a man who looks familiar.”

  “I was too young, I guess,” Billy says.

  They pull into the parking garage and Billy steers Hilary through the airport to wait at the gate for Thomas. She looks awkward in her fur coat and ripped tights, her hair all messy, her face red and chapped. She is biting her fingernails. Billy feels ashamed to be standing there with her. He roams over to the computer terminals to see if Thomas’s plane is on time.

  Hilary starts talking to the man standing beside her. He is at the airport, he says, to pick up his girlfriend. He is carrying a bouquet of roses which he will give to her to make up for the fight they had before she left.

  “She left to visit her mother,” he says. “She was mad at me and so she went home.”

  “Why was she mad at you?”

  The man shrugs.

  “My mother just died,” Hilary says. “I’m here to pick up my brother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I think she left because I’m always working,” the man says. “I’m always at the office. I’m really busy.”

  The man’s cellphone rings.

  “I’m not going to get it,” he says, obviously agitated. “I’ve promised myself that I’m not going to answer it all the time. Only half the time. Every second call.”

  “He’s my older brother,” Hilary says, ignoring the ringing. “He hasn’t been home in years. I don’t know what he looks like any more.”

  The man’s hands keep moving down to the phone in his coat pocket. He fingers it. The ringing continues. The man’s eyes are searching the airport.

  “I could answer it quickly” he whispers. “Before she comes.”

  “Thomas might have a cellphone,” Hilary says. “I never thought of that. He’s rich. He sends wonderful Christmas presents. He has everything.”

  “Yeah, what?” the man answers his cellphone and his manner instantly changes. He is loud and confident, holding his finger in the air to stop Hilary from talking. “What do you want? Quit your nattering and get to the point.”

&
nbsp; Just then the doors open and a woman comes out carrying her suitcase. She is lovely, dark-haired, tall. Hilary watches her. Her eyes light upon the man. He waves at her but doesn’t stop talking on the phone. She walks up to him and takes the flowers out of his hand. She walks past him and out the front doors of the airport. Hilary saw the look in her eyes. The woman hails the first taxi, hops in, and disappears. The man stands there, holding his phone away from his ear. Hilary can hear a small voice buzzing from the phone. He

  stands there with the phone out, his shoulders slumped, his eyes weary. Then he closes it up, puts it in his pocket, and walks alone slowly out of the airport into the cold evening air. As he walks out his phone begins to ring again. Hilary can hear the tiny, muffled sound coming from his coat pocket.

  “My mother just died,” Hilary whispers to herself. “And I’m all alone.”

  Billy moves over to stand again beside Hilary “You really shouldn’t wear that fur coat,” he says. “You look like a prostitute.”

  “A prostitute?” Hilary looks around at the people mulling at the airport, waiting for their families and friends to come out from behind the mottled glass doors, and she touches the fur on her chest. People are looking at her. They are always looking at her. She touches her hair, her lips. She catches her reflection in the glass doors. Her reflection disappears as the doors open and Thomas, on unsteady legs, walks towards them. His face is pale and drawn, his eyes are sunken. He is talking to a young woman. He nods at her and says goodbye and then he looks up and sees Billy and Hilary and he straightens up tall and walks, suddenly confident, towards them. His face flushes, his eyes brighten. It is the same Thomas who left them years ago, only older.

  “How was your flight?” Billy asks, shaking Thomas’s hand and taking his luggage.

  “You look tired,” Hilary says.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.” Thomas gives Hilary a hug. He smells mothballs and feels the old fur warm and soft and slightly holed, under his grasp. He can’t believe he is alive. The world looks fresh and vibrant, the browns and golds and oranges of the airport explode before his eyes. “It’s good to be here. How are you both?”

  Billy starts walking towards the exit doors. He has swung Thomas’s small suitcase over his back. He turns to watch his brother and sister come towards him. Thomas walks with his arm around Hilary’s shoulders. He leans into her, listening carefully to what she is saying. Billy looks around the airport and notices people turning to watch them—the beautiful man and the strange-looking woman, her hair hanging ratty around her face. Hilary is so thin she is walking on stilts.

  “Mother’s dead, Thomas,” Hilary says and it’s only then that she begins to cry.

  2. The House

  It is late. They are in the kitchen.

  “Jesus, Hilary. Where did you get all these dolls?” Thomas says. “I know you’ve always had dolls, but this is ridiculous. It’s like a museum in here. They stare at me.” Thomas picks one up and then quickly puts it down. It’s like hundreds of little children looking straight into his soul. Silent watchers. And the house is dirty. There is a smell in the kitchen, something rotting somewhere, dishes piled high on the counters. He has the urge to breathe into his handkerchief, tie it around his face like a cowboy. The table has food crumbs and sauces caked on it. Thomas picks at this with a dirty knife that is sitting on the table. Chunks come up. He wipes his chair before he sits down but he still feels as if he’s sitting on something hardened and aged with time. And he thought that flying in that airplane might be the worst of his experiences.

  Hilary looks around. “They are mine and Mother’s.We’ve always had dolls.You know that.”

  “So many? I remember only forty or so.And most of them were in the living room or your bedroom. Not all over the house.”

  “You’ve been gone a long time, Thomas. We buy them whenever we have extra money.”

  “And when did the house get so messy?”

  Billy sits at the kitchen table. He looks around him. “Remember that man who lived in that brick house painted yellow?” Billy says. “Remember how we’d throw rocks at his windows just so we could watch him come outside in his pyjamas, a pot in each hand, waving them in the air? God, that old man smelled. And his house smelled. It smelled like shit and rotting meat and alcohol. I remember when he died the police found a bunch of dead cats in the basement and there were rats all over the place.”

  “It’s not that messy,” Hilary says. “I just haven’t done dishes in a while. I haven’t cleaned the counters or mopped the floors. I just haven’t wiped the table. I don’t even own a cat.”

  “I never threw rocks at his windows,” Thomas says. “You threw rocks at his windows?”

  “Yeah.” Billy laughs. “Everyone did.”

  “We’ve never had rats here,” Hilary says thoughtfully. “Although Mother sometimes thought she saw them. Maybe mice, but no rats. And we had ants all over the kitchen floor once. Remember that?”

  “I can’t believe Becka tolerated this mess,” Thomas says. “You used to be so clean.”

  “Mother’s been in bed, Thomas.”

  “Surely she must have come downstairs —”

  “She lay in bed for a long, long time. Until she died. You don’t know how sick she was.” Hilary turns to look in the fridge for something to offer her brothers.

  “Those ants,” Billy says. “We couldn’t get rid of them. I remember my socks were black on the bottom from stepping on them all the time.”

  Hilary’s hands are shaking. She has been cold ever since she took off that fur coat and threw it on the hall floor by her shoes. She feels as if she has shed her skin, as if she were an animal who has moulted for the summer. Hilary pulls out an old can of frozen orange juice. “Yes,” she says. “She was sick, sick, sick.” She looks around for a container. “There’s juice and water. Nothing else.” Hilary finds a container in the cupboard over the sink. It’s dirty. “There’s preserves and pickles in the basement,” she says. “Things like that.”

  Thomas says. “We’ll have to clean this place.”

  “And then they were gone suddenly,” Billy says. “They just picked up and left. All those ants.”

  “I could put out a pickle plate.”

  “We’ll have to throw things away,” Billy says. “Shit, we’ll need a dumpster.” He is holding a doll in his hand. Blonde hair and pink dress. Billy takes a peek under her dress. She is wearing lace underwear. Little-girl underwear, with frills and bows. “I have a friend who runs a construction business. He could probably get us a dumpster. If he put it in the driveway, we could throw things off the front porch.”

  Hilary looks away from the container. “Throw what away?” She looks at her brothers. She takes the doll away from Billy and cuddles it in her arms like a child.

  “Everything.” Billy circles his hands in the air.

  “How do you go in there?” Thomas asks, indicating the living room. “How do you watch TV?”

  “How do I go in there?”

  “The rocks.”

  “What about them? What do you mean throw everything away?” Hilary turns from Thomas to Billy and then back to Thomas.

  “How do you walk on them? Why the hell did you put rocks all over the floor.”

  “What was there before?” Billy asks. “I can’t remember?”

  “It’s like walking on a stony beach. Why does everyone find that so hard to understand? Why is everyone giving me such a hard time about it? You just have to watch you don’t twist your ankle. You have to tread lightly.”

  “Everyone?” Billy asks. “Who’s everyone?”

  “The two men who took Mother away thought it was strange.”

  “It is strange, Hilary,” Thomas says. “Who else has rocks on their living room floor?”

  Hilary shrugs. “It took me a long time to put them there,” she says. “I’m not about to get rid of them easily. Now do you want a pickle plate or not?”

  “I think it was carpet, wasn’t it?
A pinkish colour?”

  “Hardwood floor,” Hilary says. “It is hardwood.You can see it still if you just look between the rocks.”

  “Jesus, Hilary, do you know what kind of damage rocks will do to a hardwood floor?”

  Billy is looking over Hilary’s shoulder into the fridge. Hilary has given up on the orange juice. She puts it back in the freezer and puts the container in the sink with all the other dirty dishes. She puts the doll she is holding on the counter.

  Thomas walks to the doorway of the living room and looks in. He puts one Italian leather shoe down on the floor and then the other. He inches forward, slipping slightly, catching his balance. It does feel like walking on the beach. There is a dent in the couch cushion from where Hilary must sit to watch TV. He looks at the dolls everywhere, large dolls in various poses propped up against every available surface. He remembers how his mother would touch the dolls when she passed, run her fingers over them. They’ll have to throw them all out, Thomas thinks, and picking up all these rocks will be a pain. Not to mention the sanding and refinishing of the floor.

  “Do the dolls cost a lot?” Thomas asks, coming back into the kitchen.

  “A little,” Hilary says. She doesn’t tell him that she spends the money he sends her on the dolls. She doesn’t tell him that she hasn’t eaten a proper meal in months. She pays cable bills, phone bills, hydro and water bills. And she buys dolls. There is a store close by that sells these dolls—not the one at the mall that the two men who took Mother away mentioned, another store, walking distance—and she visits it once a month, buys clothes and material to make new dresses and beads and pearls and ribbons for their hair. She has boy dolls and girl dolls and mother dolls and father dolls. There is even a grandfather doll up in her bedroom that she likes because she can comb his beard.

  Billy goes out to his car and brings in some beer.