Adult Onset

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  “Mum!”

  “You don’t have to grab me, Mary Rose!”

  “You have to wait for the lights.”

  “ ‘By your children be ye taught!’ ”

  Mary Rose ignored the pretend slap, the lights changed and they crossed.

  “ ‘Secrets from Your Sister,’ ” said Dolly.

  Mary Rose stopped her mother at the door, gently this time, with a hand on her forearm. “Mum? What were you afraid of?”

  “I was afraid I was going to hurt you,” said Dolly, as if this were self-evident, as if they had been over it a thousand times.

  “Hurt me how?”

  Dolly’s brow contracted with effort, she gestured with her right hand, as though urging something on, attempting to rouse memory and dress it in words …

  “I was afraid …”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “I was afraid of my hands.”

  She said it with an air of bemusement, as though she had just come across something at the bottom of a drawer, something she had forgotten she’d lost.

  She disappeared into Secrets from Your Sister. Mary Rose followed.

  A young woman whisked Dolly away—she had chopsticks in her hair. Mary Rose heard giggles and chit-chat coming from the change room as two young women went in and out with various sizes and styles. Laughter gave way to murmurs and Mary Rose made out the words, “Well, she started crying, so I said, ‘I’m not crying, don’t you cry …’ ”

  Half an hour and a bra fitting later:

  “Your mum’s amazing.”

  “I love your mum.”

  Home.

  Supper.

  Tea.

  Dolly went out for a walk without telling anyone, got lost and was escorted home by another “nice young fella.”

  Scrabble.

  Dolly placed two letters for thirty-seven points—the origami of Scrabble. Mary Rose placed VIOLINS and got the bonus fifty. Dolly won.

  She ensured her parents were settled comfortably in the guest room, then headed upstairs.

  Her mother’s ramblings were the most unreliable form of evidence: eyewitness testimony. And what did it change? Her parents were old, they had reached cruising altitude. What right had she to roughen their ride with questions belched from the past?

  She got into bed and reached for The Origins of Totalitarianism.

  But she did not grow drowsy, she was … vibrating. It wasn’t Hannah Arendt. The tea. Her parents drank it like water and slept like babies.

  “Do you think they’re warm enough down there?”

  “I put the heater in their room,” said Hil.

  “I don’t want them to catch cold.”

  There was a missing piece of the puzzle that plagued her: why had her father sat by while her mother savaged her over that ten-year period? His glassy silence, his averted gaze.

  I was afraid of my hands.

  “So it wasn’t the first time she tried to kill you.”

  Hilary was sitting up in bed moisturizing her feet.

  “She didn’t try to kill me, that’s the point.” She knew she shouldn’t have told Hil. “She was afraid of her thoughts.”

  “She pictured harming you.”

  “She … I don’t know what she pictured.”

  “That’s a sign of depression.”

  “I’m not depressed.”

  “I mean your mum. She probably had postpartum depression. How could she not have?”

  Depression was a word Mary Rose had never known her parents to speak unless prefaced by the words the Great.

  “Well yeah, of course, that … makes complete, perfect sense.”

  “I think that’s what happened to me after Matthew was born,” said Hil.

  “But … we adopted him.” This was the danger of downtime: true confessions. Intimacy. When can we all just go back to work?

  “That doesn’t matter,” said Hil.

  “Did you … picture harming him?”

  “I pictured harming myself.”

  “Jesus. I thought you went into therapy because I was driving you crazy.”

  “I actually don’t think it had anything to do with you.”

  “Oh. I guess now you’re going to tell me climate change and the Middle East aren’t my fault either. I don’t know if I can handle this much mental health, it’s killing my ego.”

  Hil leaned forward, gave her a peck on the lips and put the jar of ultra-rich foot therapy into the drawer of her nightstand. Mary Rose glimpsed the fuchsia dolphin-shaped vibrator and said, “Do you want a back rub?”

  “Sure,” said Hil, surprised.

  And fell asleep five minutes in. When it came to sex lately, Mary Rose had begun to wonder how much less she could take. She lay, conscious of her own mature largesse in not resenting Hilary for falling asleep. Hil worked hard. She needed her rest. “Hil? Are you asleep?”

  “Mm? Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I just—can you not sleep? I’m sorry, babe, I’m just not in the mood while we have guests.”

  “You mean having my parents in the guest room doesn’t function as an aphrodisiac?”

  Hil chuckled.

  Mary Rose continued, “Oddly, somehow it does for me. Maybe my parents were right, I am sick.”

  “Stop it.”

  “What? It’s funny, I was … being funny.”

  “It’s not funny. Come here.”

  “What? No, not if you’re not into it.”

  “I’m into it.”

  “You don’t have to just to please me.”

  “Why shouldn’t I want to please you?”

  “Because …”

  “I love you, I want to please you.”

  She pulled Mary Rose on top of her and bit her neck, took hold of her hips, started to move beneath her.

  “I’d rather you were into it,” said Mary Rose.

  “I am.”

  “… I’m not.”

  “I guess you’re not ‘sick’ after all.” Hil rolled over.

  “Don’t be mad. Are you mad?”

  “No, Mister, I’m not mad, I’m … I feel for you.”

  After a few moments, Mary Rose became aware of the peaceful cadence of sleep on Hilary’s side of the bed. “Hil? What did you mean, ‘it wasn’t the first time’?”

  Hilary sniffed awake, then said, “When you came out she tried to kill you.”

  “No she didn’t.”

  “You said she wished you had cancer. She wished you were dead, choking on shit—”

  “Not ‘choking’—”

  “She cursed you.”

  “Exactly, she didn’t try to ‘kill’ me.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  Tug at the duvet, reprised roll-over.

  “Why are you being mean now?”

  “I’m sorry, that was mean, I just …” Hilary turned to her and propped her head on her hand. “They were cruel to you. Young people commit suicide over that kind of thing.”

  “Yes, well I didn’t kill myself and that’s a huge difference: I’m here. She didn’t stab me or get someone to drive me into the canal.”

  “No, she was a wonderful mother. And I’m sure your father would have drawn the line at honour killing.”

  “Why are you so down on my mother all of a sudden? She’s over eighty and she plays on the floor with the children. She runs into the freezing cold Atlantic like a kid. She brings gifts and sends cards and prays for us constantly and thinks you’re wonderful. At least my mother’s not a snob.”

  Hil just looked at her.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mary Rose.

  Hil got up and went into the bathroom, quietly closing the door behind her.

  “Hil? Hil, I’m sorry. Hil?”

  Patricia wasn’t a snob. Yes she was, but a nice one. At least Mary Rose hadn’t said “drunk.”

  The bathroom door opened suddenly and Hil came out. “Get out.”

  “What do you mean, what are you talking abou
t?”

  Mary Rose knew it was bad because Hil was not crying and she herself sounded like a guilty robot. She felt numb, she knew most of her brain was shut down—she even wondered what an MRI would show in terms of which areas were lit and which were in darkness. Where was the switch? Words issued from her tin mouth. “Don’t get hysterical, Hil.”

  Hil smacked her fist into her own mouth—“Hil,” said the robot, “don’t bite your hand.”

  The robot attempted to remove the hand—thwack! “Don’t touch me!”

  “Hil, don’t scream.”

  Hissing, eyes wide, through her fist, “Get out, get out, get out—”

  “I’ll go. I’m going now.”

  She spent the night on Matthew’s trundle bed and woke up feeling as though someone had swung a cat inside her. It could have been worse. It could have been What did you get for Christmas? Divorced.

  Mary Rose having successfully held off Maggie’s nap until this afternoon now steals into Matthew’s room and lays out all his new Baby Gap outfits on his bed, arranging them in action poses, before fetching him up.

  He stares. “Who are they?”

  “They’re your new clothes.”

  “Where’s Bun?”

  “He’s right there.” She points to where she has nestled the stuffed bunny in the embrace of a striped rugby shirt.

  He solemnly retrieves Bun from the phantom “child” on the bed and pops his thumb in his mouth.

  “Matthew, it’s not thumb time, sweetheart. If you’re tired, you can have a nap.”

  “No, I can’t. Those kids are on my bed.”

  “Matthew, they’re clothes.” She scoops them up and starts folding and putting them in his drawers.

  He watches her. “Matt, honey, right now you’re showing me you’re too tired to do anything but suck your thumb.”

  Silence. The stare.

  “Hey, sweetheart, I forgot to show you the best thing. I fixed your unicorn.”

  She draws his attention to the window ledge where the tiny glass creature stands, a milky cicatrice at its neck the only indication that it was ever decapitated. She winds it and it commences its slow pirouette, tinkling out its query. He stares at it.

  “Why don’t you snuggle down with Bun and I’ll call you when Diego’s on.”

  He abruptly withdraws his thumb, drops Bun to the floor and casually treads on him on his way out the door.

  “Matt?”

  “I’m not tired,” he says without turning.

  Maggie wakes up, Mary Rose changes her, then gets her into her boots and jacket, then waits while Matthew gets himself into his own, then she gets them out the door and down the street then and then and then she wades through conjunctions all the way to the park, over Maggie’s protests, “I do not want to go to the park, Mumma. No park. No, no, me no park!”

  The mud has frozen into welts. Two or three other toddlers are at play while a couple of nannies sit auditing the sandbox, alongside an actual dad whose tempered enthusiasm and steady pace peg him as a stay-at-home parent. He displays neither the compensatory jubilance of the divorcé nor the studious distraction of I-happen-to-be-working-from-home-today. He displays nothing, even his coat is a version of Mary Rose’s standard-issue quilted down, so thoroughly has he donned the drab feathers of the female. Mary Rose is the only mum. “Hi,” she says. The dad nods, the nannies regard her warily, as though she might be an immigration officer. The children play Sand-in-Eye. Howls. Five tranquil minutes of Montessori-minded categorizing of shovels and sieves, followed by shovel-whack-on-the-head. Screams. “Maggie, come help Mumma with the sandcastle.” Cat poo captured in sieve. Matthew assembling trucks and backhoes from differently scaled universes. Fifteen minutes. Maggie on the slide, Maggie on the swing, Maggie falling on the concrete of empty wading pool. “Five more minutes, guys.” Matthew not ready to abandon his roadworks. Maggie nowhere in sight! Found in orange sliding tube. “I do not want to go home, Mumma. No home. Me no home, no! NO!” Feet going like a circular saw as Mary Rose picks her up.

  “Matthew, please leave the truck in the sandbox, it doesn’t belong to you, sweetheart.”

  He throws the truck. “Why can’t you buy me a brother?”

  At home, she helps them off with their outdoor clothes and then makes hot chocolate and then wipes it up from off the over the out from under before and after and thenandthenandthen creeps in this prepositional pace from day to day … What day is it? What month, what year? Behold the foot calendar, breeding tulips out of the dead … April. Thursday. The fifth. She blinks … this week is hurtling by. Right, Hil is previewing tomorrow night.

  A text from Gigi.

  Mister, did you get my message? It’s even better the second day—can I come over?

  She’ll have to go through the skipped phone messages and find out what Gigi is talking about before replying. On the other hand, she has to head her off—

  Love to, but early bedtime tonight, scratchy throat.

  xomr

  It isn’t a lie, she will have a sore throat if she doesn’t go to bed early tonight—the missing morning nap has begun to take its toll on her if not Maggie.

  She dials.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  “You’re there! Did you get the—”

  “No, the mail is suspended.”

  “Still? What about Hilary?”

  “She’s in …” If she tells her mother that Hil is actually in Calgary, not Winnipeg, will that start a whole new loop? But her mother can’t even remember that Hil is away, so she may as well adhere to reality. “She’s in Calgary.”

  “What’s she doing there?”

  Sigh. “I thought I mentioned, she’s directing The Importance of Being Earnest.”

  “You said she was doing that in Winnipeg.”

  “… Did I?”

  “That’s where your sister was born.”

  “Maureen was born in Cape Breton, Mum.”

  “Not Maureen, Other Mary Rose!”

  It is difficult to determine which is more arresting: her mother’s sudden reference to “Other Mary Rose” as “your sister” or the stage-farcical tone she has employed.

  “Oh right, thanks, Mum.”

  “She was born dead.”

  “I know, Mum, is Dad there? I need to know when you’re arriving.” Stop. For God’s sake, Mary Rose, listen behind the tone, the woman is elderly, drifting into dementia, her manner may be offhand but the words, the words …

  “Let me get my purse.”

  “Mum? Mum, before you get your purse.” Go for it, robot. “That must have been a hard time.”

  “What time?”

  “When you lost Other Mary Rose.”

  “Oh … Well, you know, I popped into the Hudson’s Bay store on my way home, I didn’t get into Winnipeg that often, and the saleslady said, ‘When’re you due?’ And I said, ‘The baby’s dead,’ and she started crying, and I said—”

  “Did you hold her?”

  “Hold her? No, no.”

  “What … did they do with her?”

  “Oh, I think she was incinerated, listen now, we’re stopping over at eleven on the seventh, have you got a pin?”

  Mary Rose pauses while her neocortex tries to sort out the difference between the two halves of the sentence her mother has just spoken, for Dolly’s tone has given no indication that they are anything but twinned, when in fact they are as different as … Winnipeg and Calgary.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes—”

  “We’re getting on the train today.”

  “Today?!”

  “We arrive on the seventh.”

  “Okay, wait—” Where is her datebook? “Maggie, sweetheart, where is Mumma’s big book?”

  “Hi, Maggie!” Dolly yells in Mary Rose’s ear as behind her there rises a clatter, and a cry from Matthew.

  “Maggie!” she yells before she has time to turn around.

  But it is Daisy—usually so dainty around toys and toes. I
s she dragging her left hind paw slightly? Dolly bursts into song, “… Hut-Sut Rawl-son on the rillerah and a brawla, brawla sooit …!” Maggie grabs at the phone.

  Where is her datebook? Her whole life is in there. What was she doing before her mother called? “When does your train get in, Mum? The seventh?”

  “That’s it, or wait now, the eleventh.”

  Matthew is crying.

  “Seven, two, one, two, two, two!” yells Maggie, trying to open the dishwasher—Mary Rose pulls her back, and grabs a pencil from the telephone drawer—the lead is broken. She grabs another, it is new and yet to be sharpened. She snatches a scented marker from the craft table.

  “Okay.” She turns to the foot calendar and writes 7 in the square marked 11 in root beer Smencil.

  “That’s right,” says Dolly, “seventh at eleventh.”

  “… Do you mean seven o’clock on the eleventh or eleven o’clock on the—”

  “Eleven. Will we see Hil?”

  She writes 11 on the 7 square.

  “No, Mum, she’s out west—”

  “We’ll see you on eleventh, then.”

  “The seventh—Maggie, don’t touch! Matthew, hush for goodness sake.”

  “I meant to give it to you last summer.”

  “Give me what?”

  “It’s a small little thing. I think you were looking for it.”

  “You mean the packeege?”

  “I better hang up now, Daddy’s got lunch on the table.”

  “He does?” Is she dreaming? Is she dead? “Dad made lunch?” Her father can barely boil water.

  “Bye, doll.”

  Click.

  She stands for a moment, in the rubble of the phone call. Then rallies and puts on a Teletubbies DVD for the kids on a portable player at the craft table and they squeal with joy at the sight of the big baby face in the sun. Something about the face makes Mary Rose uneasy, it is … slurry. In the kitchen she turns on CBC radio while she tries to think what to make for supper—a woman in Yellowknife can play “Jingle Bells” on her dentures and the Catholic Church has just made another large payout but no admission of guilt to victims of sexual abuse.

  “Dipsy, Laa-Laa, Po and Tinky Winky!”

  It was two days after her sixteen-hour personal power outage on her father-in-law’s couch in Halifax—where she had listened to the sounds of Maggie’s second birthday party below—when they pulled into the driveway of her parents’ comfortable condo late. Every year, she formed the intention of setting out early enough to arrive before sundown, and every year they drove the final gruelling two hours in darkness on a stretch of road she’d come to think of as “Night Danger Highway” for the number of warning signs illustrated with leaping deer and charging moose. The first leg of their journey back home to Toronto was done, and they would stopover for a few days with Dunc and Dolly in Ottawa.