Adult Onset

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  “I’m afraid that it’s true. And I’m afraid that it isn’t.”

  “Sweetheart. It’s right in front of you.”

  She looks at her face in the big black window. Shock of white, gaunt and shadowed. Like an X-ray.

  “Mary Rose? What you’re telling me is very sad, I’m sorry.”

  “How was your preview?”

  “We got a standing ovation.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Mary Rose—”

  “I’ll get some friends over tomorrow, I’ll get some help. Don’t worry about the kids.”

  “I’m more worried about you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too, good night.”

  “Mister?”

  “I won’t hurt them.”

  “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “I promise.”

  •

  She hangs by the wrists, looking down over the bright green grass where her father is playing catch. If he looks up, what will happen? What will she have to feel? What will she have to know?

  •

  She goes upstairs and looks into Maggie’s crib. Bone cysts are not genetic, but they are hereditary. Today she did not pass them on to her child. What about tomorrow? She can get help with her anger. She can get help sorting out what happened and did not happen to her and who’s on first, the chicken or the egg? She can hang on to the balcony for dear life until she grows strong enough to haul herself back to safety. But, she wonders, is there a surgical procedure to open the heart? Because right now, she would give anything to be able to feel—without the kick-start of anger—the love she knows she has always had for her child. She can see this love. Behind glass. Sleeping. With a fragment of poisoned apple lodged in its mouth.

  SATURDAY

  Swerve

  At eight a.m., she calls Sue.

  “Want to get together with the kids? … No, everything’s fine … Exactly! … Ha-ha … Perfect, see you then.” Sue has seen through her already, and this early morning shout-out just confirms what a mess she is. What if the unthinkable occurs and she cries in front of Sue? But Sue is as close as she can get to Hil right now, and she needs a Hil.

  She lets Maggie colour in her datebook but draws the line at handing over her entire bag. She leaves the breakfast mess and gets down on the floor with Matthew and a mountain of Lego. Today is a different world. A house fell on her last night. Her whole mother fell on her, yet here she is playing in the rubble, and wearing a macaroni necklace. She sings, “ ‘It’s a beautiful day in this neighbourhood, a beautiful day for a neighbour …’ ” She is pain free and, not exactly dizzy, a bit off to one side—as though she were sticking out of herself at an angle. Normally she would try to stuff herself back in, but today she is going to let it be.

  Matthew takes a block from Maggie. Maggie hits him with the datebook. He screams. Mary Rose makes peace without yelling—without wanting to yell. She has a sense of reprieve. Something has withdrawn … The catastrophes flash in her periphery just as they did yesterday, but depleted of force—perhaps she could learn to live with them the way some people learn to live with voices. Indeed, her sobriety is intoxicating as she goes about motherproofing her home.

  At 8:10, she calls Candace. “Can you do Monday morning?”

  “I’ve got my cake decorating class.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Are you stuck?”

  “No, not at all. Yes. I am stuck.”

  “I’ll bring Maggie, she’ll enjoy it.”

  If the thing comes back, the children will be safe. It is as though she were getting her affairs in order in the event of her sudden disappearance.

  What about tomorrow? She can bring the children to the train station for the hour-long stopover, her parents will enjoy that, and then …? The vacant sun-pressed plain of a Sunday afternoon … Think: you know hundreds of people, Toronto is seething with family entertainment, go paint some clay pots, jump on a trampoline in a cavernous facility north of the 401. Or maybe just a quiet day at home with the kids—

  “Give it back!”

  “No!”

  “Mumma-a-a-a!”

  She calls Gigi and leaves a message. “Hi, want to go to the zoo with me and the kids tomorrow afternoon? And then stay for supper, actually can you come for supper tonight too?” Does that sound like a cry for help? She recalls it is all of 8:15 of a Saturday morning and hopes Gigi has her ringer turned off—unless she has spent the night at the home of her latest “lady friend.” The doorbell rings just as she hangs up. Daisy does not go crazy—tuckered, perhaps, from her crib-side vigil. Who can it be at this hour of the morning? Animal Control? She peeks through the window. Gigi is standing on the porch with a pasta pot and her motorcycle helmet. Mary Rose opens the door.

  Gigi is built something like a pasta pot herself. Her coal-black curls are slicked fresh from the shower, she sports a leather jacket, a vintage bowling shirt and her signature sly smile. “I was in the neighbourhood with a batch of meatballs on the back of my bike, so I thought I’d drop by, see who’s hungry.”

  Maggie tackles Gigi’s legs, Daisy lumbers from the landing, Matthew saunters up and informs his godmother with professorial gravitas, “I have a helicopter that goes underwater and fights snakes.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Here, let me take that,” says Mary Rose.

  Gigi is born and bred Toronto, a genuine St. Clair Avenue Eyetalian. She called herself a dyke back when you could still get beaten up for it on a Friday night, she called herself a dyke when you could be censured for it by lesbian feminists, she called herself a dyke when lesbian feminists reclaimed the word, and she still calls herself a dyke now that “queer” has rendered the term quaint. “I’m a dykosaur,” she likes to say.

  “What are you doing up this early on a Saturday?” asks Mary Rose. “Or did you not go to bed?”

  “Oh, I went to bed.” The slightest gleam enters her eye.

  “The kids have gymnastics at nine, want to come?”

  “Does a bear defecate in the woods?”

  She has known Gigi for twenty-five years. She is a serial monogamist whose sexual appeal for straight women from every walk of life is as mysterious to Mary Rose as it is irresistible to said women, and is either evidence of Gigi’s internalized homophobia combined with fear of commitment, or simply evidence of Gigi. Mary Rose makes room in the fridge for the pasta pot and reflects that longevity is nine-tenths of friendship—you can’t know, when you’re twenty-three, which friends will be there for the duration.

  They walk down to the Jewish Community Centre, where Gigi watches Maggie’s Kid-tastics class in the gym, freeing Mary Rose up to watch Matthew’s swimming lesson. They stop at the park on the way home and play tag, jackets flying open and Sue arrives, a vision of waffle-knit loveliness with her perfect baby and rambunctious sons.

  “Sue, this is my friend Gigi.”

  Mary Rose watches them shake hands and sees Sue blush. How does Gigi do it? Matthew finds a bird’s nest, Ryan steps in dog poo, Maggie runs after the big-brother Colin and repeatedly face-plants in the sand.

  Her cellphone rings. “Saleema, hi … You’re a mind-reader … Perfect.”

  Gigi has joined Ryan and Matthew, pushing them on the roundabout. Colin is running around it in the opposite direction with Maggie in hot pursuit. He stops short, causing her to run smack into him and they both fall.

  “Colin, be gentle!” cries Sue, making a move, but Mary Rose stops her with a hand on her sleeve, calling, “Maggie, be gentle!”

  Sue laughs. Mary Rose says, “He’s a great kid, both your boys are really nice.”

  Sue bursts into tears.

  “Oh,” says Mary Rose stupidly, and fumbles a gently used tissue from her sleeve.

  Sue takes the tissue and blows her nose. “I’m so glad you called this morning, Mary Rose, I don’t know what I would’ve done.” Then she throws her arms around Mary Rose and hugs h
er. Mary Rose instructs her arms to hug back and waits to find out what is going on. Sue squeezes her and says in a voice taut with emotion, “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Do what?” Mary Rose sounds in her own ears like a shell-shocked Bob Newhart.

  “You’re always so calm.”

  Over Sue’s shoulder she sees Ryan and Matthew chasing Colin through the climbing structure with its multiple levels and lookouts while Maggie, stranded on the ground, ululates in frustration at the base of a metal platform which is just above her reach. Colin suddenly leaps from the “crow’s nest,” lands on the platform with a clang and reaches down over the bars of the railing for Maggie. His toes are almost off the platform but he manages to grasp her by the wrists in an effort to pull her up and over the railing. Mary Rose watches. He is not hurting her, nor is Maggie in danger should he let go—her feet are inches from the sand—no, here is what has caused the warmth to leave her hands, and the breath to stall in her chest. He can’t do it. Colin is not strong enough to pull Maggie up over the railing and onto the platform. He is seven. She is two. It’s right in front of her.

  Sue has released her, is saying something.

  “No, no, come to my house for lunch,” replies Mary Rose—evidently she has heard and processed what Sue has said. Gigi rejoins them, Sue discovers that Gigi knows her brother-in-law from the film industry, and “I love your jacket, Gigi, it looks so authentic.” Mary Rose smiles, strolls over to spot Maggie on the slide. Then who was it?

  “Bum down, Maggie, bum down, that’s right.”

  Her mother. Caught Mary Rose just in time as she climbed on an overturned bucket, reached up and went over the railing. Then why isn’t it part of family lore? Caught her just in time—Then why is Mary Rose hanging, facing out with her back to the bars? Caught her turning over a bucket in a bid to reach the railing, “I’LL TEACH YOU!” By the wrists, up and over the side, “IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?!”

  “Good job, Maggie! Go again?”

  Unless it didn’t happen at all.

  Back home, spelt animal cookies and strawberry milk. Sue nurses the baby. Mary Rose puts on Raffi and they all dance. Her macaroni necklace breaks. They make a fort in the dining room with three-hundred-thread-count sheets. Colin bodysurfs headfirst down the stairs, Ryan and Matthew follow suit—tears.

  Unless it was her father.

  Matthew’s hamster gets loose, Maggie sticks a macaroni elbow up her nose, Ryan finds a tube of lipstick, Daisy corners the hamster under the bathroom cabinet, Gigi coaxes it out with peanut butter. Lunchtime. Matthew sneezes and tomato sauce comes out his nose.

  No, her father is down there, playing catch with a version of himself … what is this memory made of? What is any of them made of? Did she situate him down there in order to exonerate him? Or to reassure herself that he would catch her if she fell? But in the dream—memory, rather—her fear is that he will look up. And see … what? That she is in danger. That she is … in pain. And she will know that he knows. And she will fall …

  Saleema and Youssef arrive with cupcakes—Saleema can’t stay, okay maybe a cup of tea. Her head scarf is a study in strobing hounds-tooth. “You might want to post a warning,” says Gigi. Mary Rose takes her aside. Gigi says, “Sorry, did I offend her?”

  “What? I don’t know, I was going to ask if you could stay over tonight.”

  “Sure,” she says, and doesn’t ask why.

  She knows Gigi will have to arrange doggie care for her black Lab, Tanya—the dog can’t come here because Daisy would eat her. Mary Rose glances at Daisy’s dish—she hasn’t touched her breakfast. The doorbell rings.

  “Here’s your mail.”

  “Thanks, Rochelle.”

  A glut of bills and flyers.

  Rochelle doesn’t budge. Is she waiting to be asked in? Does she wish to join the merriment? “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  Mary Rose has thought Rochelle socially awkward, but it dawns on her now that Rochelle may be that rare personality type, the Fearless Pauser.

  Finally the woman speaks. “Are you all right?”

  “… Are you checking on me?”

  “Yes.”

  “… Thank you.”

  “When’s your next book coming out?” Rochelle turns purple.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There was no package.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Say ‘hello Dolly’ for me.”

  Mary Rose chuckles, but Rochelle’s affectless expression suggests a joke has been neither intended nor registered. “I will do that.”

  “Your dog didn’t bark.”

  Mary Rose looks up at the landing. Thwack, thwack. “She’s tired.”

  “You’re welcome,” says Rochelle. And leaves.

  Mary Rose turns, about to regale her friends with the absurdity of her spectrumy neighbour, when it arrives like the mail in her hands, delayed but dogged: what her mother meant when she said, “Here we are”: Mary Rose is alive. Her mother didn’t kill her. She sets the mail down on the front hall table.

  “I’m going out to buy flowers,” she announces. “I’ll be right back. Let’s go, Daisy.”

  Daisy’s tail twitches politely, but she remains curled on the landing.

  Mary Rose is walking alone; no dog, no stroller, no child by the hand, she hasn’t so much as a bag. Unaccommodated woman.

  “Hi, hawney.”

  “Hi, Daria.”

  Daria is on her porch as usual. “Kids okay?”

  “Great, thanks, grazie.”

  Daria sees everything. If something were to happen to Mary Rose, Daria would be able to tell the police exactly when she left her house—it has shaped up to be a nice day.

  Passing the park, she notices a cluster of crocuses in the bruised turf—they weren’t there this morning. Her children are safe. She has made them safe. Hil is right, it doesn’t change anything; time to let go of the balcony.

  Archie’s Variety. Should she buy the flowers now or wait till after she’s had a walk? “Hello, how are you?” Winnie practically sings it.

  “Hello, Winnie.” Mary Rose smiles back. Classical music is playing. What is Winnie’s Korean name? Would it be rude to ask? Maybe it is Winnie.

  “How is your mummy?”

  “She’s fine, Winnie, thank you for asking.”

  Just inside are several tubs of tulips, red, white, and only one yellow bunch. She takes it and places it on the counter.

  “You pick yellow, pretty.”

  Mary Rose reaches into her pocket but comes up empty. “I’m so sorry, I forgot my wallet, I’ll be right back.”

  But Winnie will not hear of her leaving without the tulips, saying, “You trust me.”

  Out on Bathurst Street once more, Mary Rose is a bit lightheaded but that is unsurprising, she keeps forgetting to breathe. She looks down at her feet to steady herself as she walks. This sidewalk could be anywhere, this could be any time in the last hundred years. Speed up the frames and see all the feet through time, hers among them, her mother’s appearing alongside for a moment, likewise her children’s, and all the others, feet like schools of fish, her own recurring but less frequently until they fail to reappear, then fewer feet. Then disintegration, ash, grass, forest, sand. She will still be part of it, though unimaginably diffuse. She looks up. Bathurst is a dingy glare, Saturday traffic zooming in a spray of grit. Without her wallet, she is without ID; were she to be killed today how long would it take for the information to reach her friends at home with her children? This is why it is important never to just “pop out” and leave one’s child alone in order to track down the source of a car alarm … of course one might just as easily die in one’s own home—best, really, never to be alone with a child who cannot yet dial 911.

  Nothing has ever been hidden, she is merely putting the bits together. Like a dinosaur skeleton at the ROM; not all the bones come from the same animal, still you get an idea of what the beast looked like. Unless it was mythical and none of it eve
r happened. Unless it was mythical and something like it is always happening.

  She could ask.

  “Dad, did you know? Is that why you took her to a psychiatrist?”

  “I took her because she was blue.”

  “Did you see her do it?”

  “Did I see her … what, break your arm? Of course not.”

  “No one sees what happens between a parent and a child in the middle of the deserted day.”

  “I would have known.”

  “No one can know.”

  “You just answered your own question.”

  The day has dulled. Poetry is gone from the sky, nothing is like anything else, everything is merely what it is. Did it happen?

  An ambulance is parked outside the subway station, silent lights flashing, a streetcar squeals past. She feels oddly light, her limbs seemingly in a process of distension; without pain to staple her to the present, her head is floating upward. It is as though the whole of her has only ever been held together by a string, slackening now like a faulty puppet. All of it happened, none of it happened, it is still happening …

  The package is somewhere. Other Mary Rose is somewhere, when I die I will be everywhere … She needs an angel to carry a message from the top of her mind way down to her darkness where words waver and go out or else ignite the air. What angel, what bird of pray or ebony elf will volunteer to carry this message? Which of them is small enough to squeeze between yet bold enough to go behind the lines, below the words—down, down to the bottom of the well with the message: “War is over. Peace now. I’m coming for you”?

  Victim of a victim … Crime continues to be played out until it is understood, at which point, like a spinning chunk of kryptonite, it slows, ceases mid-air and drops to the ground with a harmless klink. Is that all there is to a trauma? A sad mother, a father who wants everything to be okay. Damage bred in the bone; a bone with holes, like the stops on a flute doomed to sing the truth. Depressed mother. Crying baby. Closed door. Why is it not a truth universally acknowledged that an absence of trauma under these conditions is remarkable? Why is it anything but ordinary that Mary Rose’s mother might have injured her, then sought to bury it along with the dead babies? And why is it surprising that truth makes its way out through the body like a vine invading from within? What you mistook for sinews now revealed as sprouts from a seed swallowed long ago, creeping, pushing, straining toward the light, ensnaking arteries, choking heart and lungs; vines disguised as veins, forcing blindly out, I’m going to smash you!