Adult Onset

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  Mary Rose opens it. A creased black-and-white photo.

  “I meant to frame it before I sent it to you,” says Dolly.

  In the photo, Mary Rose stands between her mother and her sister, looking down at the stone, flush against the grass. It is etched with letters and numbers that are fuzzy and will be likely fuzzier under magnification. Mary Rose’s dress is white like the stone, while draped across her left shoulder is her mother’s sweater. And resting there, offering comfort along with the warmth of the sweater, is her mother’s hand. It strikes her suddenly: the sweater is covered in a floral pattern. Tulips.

  “Thank you, Mummy.” Mary Rose is more surprised by this word that has slipped out and shown its tail, Mummy, than by the photograph. After all, she already knows what is written on the stone.

  “The dates’ll be there,” says Dolly, putting on her reading glasses, leaning forward to look. “Although you might need a magnifying glass.”

  “It’s okay, Mum. I’ll look when I get home.”

  “What’ve you got there?” asks Duncan, putting on his glasses, reaching for the photo. Mary Rose hands it to him. He looks at it and nods slowly. “Well, well. I remember taking that.”

  “What time of year was it, Dad?”

  “We placed the stone in springtime,” he says, and closes his eyes.

  Dolly pipes up. “I found it in my jewellery box! What was it doing there?”

  “Did you take it from the photo album, Mum?”

  “I must have. Unless—Dunc. Dunc, dear, did you take this photo out of the album?”

  “Why would I do that?” he asks, his voice a little husky.

  “Because it’s … a sad picture?” says Mary Rose.

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Dad, Maureen sent me a link to a site … Canadian military graves abroad, I’ll forward it to you. Dad?”

  He opens his eyes, his brows elevate congenially, his lips compress in a good-natured upside-down smile. “What’s that, sweetie pie?” He turns his blue eyes to her.

  I love you, Dad.

  “How’s the genealogy going?” Her heart is shredding.

  He sits forward. “Well now, there’s a fella in Boston, name of Jerome MacKinnon, he’s an accountant with Deloitte, and it turns out he and I share a marker on the Y chromosome, which puts us right back to the Clearances.”

  Dolly’s eyes narrow, she speaks slowly. “You know, that must have been a hard time, when I think about it.”

  “Don’t think about it,” says Duncan.

  Andy-Patrick helps himself to a chocolate tile and offers the tray to his mother.

  “Mmm, ever good,” says Dolly, her mouth full of vowels.

  “Let’s go, Doll Face, we got a train to catch.” Duncan helps his wife to her feet and she steadies herself on his arm.

  “Did you want the moonstone, Mary Rose? Here, you have it.”

  “That’s okay, Mum, I’m really happy to have the photograph, thank you.”

  “I’ll take it,” says Andy-Patrick.

  “What do you want with a lady’s ring?” says Duncan.

  “He can give it to Mary Lou,” says Dolly.

  Andy-Patrick opens the velvet box and slips the ring on his pinky. Duncan rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but grins and slaps Andy-Patrick on the shoulder.

  “Bye, Dad,” says Mary Rose.

  He bonks her on the head. “Thanks for coming to see us off, Mister.”

  The redcap greets them by name and laughs at something Dolly says. Duncan beams with pride, and they mount the narrow escalator up to the platform. Two little old people in bright clothing. Near the top, they turn and wave, then disappear.

  Somewhere, a train has disgorged a tide of commuters that washes past them now. She goes to slip the photo back in its envelope.

  “Can I see?” asks Andy-Patrick.

  She hands it to him.

  “What’s that you’ve got on?” he asks.

  “Mum’s sweater.”

  “Looks more like a scarf.”

  She looks over his shoulder.

  It’s a sling.

  Because she fell, or was pushed, punished, rescued. Or it was a cold day. Or it was warm.

  “What’s the matter?” he says.

  She speaks before she is aware of formulating the words. “You helped me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That time when Mum called and asked you to come for supper? You said, ‘I can’t, Mary Rose and Renée are here.’ ”

  “Yeah?”

  “And then …” We can’t know which words will undo us. She waits until she can trust herself to speak. “It was over. The whole bad time.”

  He hands her a hanky. “It’s clean.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “At least you’re not crying and driving.”

  “I mean I’m sorry for being a shit to you, A&P.”

  “You’ve never been a shit to me.”

  “Yes I have.”

  “I’ve deserved it.”

  “I’m bored with being a shit to you, I’m bored with you deserving it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m amazed you carry a hanky.”

  “Chicks love it.”

  “You carry it because you cry.”

  “Chicks love it.”

  She puts the photo in her pocket.

  He says, “Can I ask you something? Don’t be mad.”

  “What?”

  “Would you call me Andrew from now on? Or at least Andrew-Patrick?”

  “Sure.”

  The streetcar rattles up Bathurst Street past Toronto Western Hospital and she notices Balloon King is gone, in its place a Starbucks. At the corner of Bathurst and Bloor, she glances out the window for a trace of herself—this happens quickly, such that it slips into consciousness as “normal.” Is that all there is to insanity? Slow it down: she has just turned her head, looked out the window and searched the crowd at the intersection to see if she was among them holding a bunch of tulips. She was not. She pictures swift faeries, a legion of puckish creatures chuckling as they trip through the regions of her mind. Is this what happens when you stop being angry for a moment? The light turns green.

  Someone saw what happened to the flowers. There is always a witness. She shared a moment of her life with the people and pigeons at this corner yesterday, now they have dispersed and what is to say it mightn’t have been an important moment?

  She gets off the streetcar at the subway station and continues on foot up Bathurst. “You pick yellow,” Winnie said. And she said something else too … “You buy only one.” Mary Rose goes cold. What if she never had the first bunch of yellow tulips at all—what if she hallucinated them? But that could have been the language barrier, Winnie may have meant, “I want you to pay only for this bunch, not the previous bunch.” She stops outside Archie’s Variety—the voice of Kiri Te Kanawa soars out, “Swing low, sweet chariot …” She could pop in now and ask, “Winnie, did I leave with yellow tulips the first time I came in?” What if Winnie replies, “No. You come only once”? Would that prove Mary Rose went missing for … the amount of time it took to buy tulips? Has she lost a piece of time? It is one thing to speculate as to the existence of parallel worlds, it is another to realize you may have entered one. That is not science fiction, that is psychosis. Unless the other worlds are real … indeed, they are more mathematically probable than she herself is. Was the whole episode an especially vivid déjà vu? Winnie might be mistaken—forgetful, like the best of us. How can Mary Rose know for certain? Winnie waves to her from inside the store. She waves back, and keeps going.

  Hil comes home. They hide Easter eggs for the children. She finds the costume that Mary Rose hid behind the brogues.

  “Put it on.”

  “I meant to return it.”

  Hil pulls off the tags and tosses the confection at Mary Rose.

  “Hil, no, it’s like I’d be in drag, it’s more your thing.”

  “Mister? You have
to remember something. I like women. Now put it on and get back in here.”

  “… Can I have a back rub?”

  ——

  The faeries cease their daylight raids and resume their dream haunts. Rage is in remission. The kitchen is clean but not too clean. A storm has passed, Kansas-sized, but Mary Rose feels the prickle of renewable force, can see it in the way leaves rustle in the absence of wind, in the livid quality of evening light, smell of electricity in the air. Glimpse of old pathways, vines parting, brambles beckoning …

  The psychoanalyst is in the same building as the hypnotist. Different floor. The pneumatic drills are gone. Maybe this is who her accountant was visiting—that is more disturbing than a hypnotist; Mary Rose can accept that her accountant might grind his teeth at night, she has a harder time accepting he has a subconscious.

  On one side of the room, two upholstered swivel chairs face one another. On the other side is a couch—halfway down its cushioned surface she makes out the imprint of someone’s bum. She takes a chair. The analyst sits opposite.

  Mary Rose says, “I’m here because everything is fine.”

  It is time to make a fresh incision through the scars; allow sections of Time to bleed afresh, then re-graft them. After seeks Before. She will be her own donor this time … She clicks on the blank document called “Book” and types …

  December in Winnipeg, 1956. The sky was huge and grey. The regional bus groaned, its exhaust thick with carbon …

  Daisy dies in May. It is almost as though she waited until it was safe.

  “Where is she, Mumma?”

  “Mumma, where is she?”

  Like a magic trick, the city is suddenly in full leaf.

  The lady at the counter smiled and said, “Oh, when’re you due?”

  “The baby’s dead,” she said. And the sales lady started crying.

  “Don’t cry,” said Dolly. “I’m not crying, don’t you cry.”

  She phoned to invite him to visit her home on his own. She was in the bedroom she shared with Renée; mauve walls, a Georgia O’Keeffe print of an iris, it was the eighties. It was around four or five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Renée was puttering in her workroom, turning something into something else. Mary Rose dialed her parents’ number. Her father answered. She knew her mother was out at choir practice.

  “Mum’s out at choir practice.”

  “That’s okay, Dad, I wanted to speak with you.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s up?”

  She asked him to visit her home. He said no. She realized she had been unclear, she tried to be more specific. “I know you can’t come with Mum because Mum won’t come here, but you could come.”

  No.

  “You could come on your own.”

  No.

  “Please come.”

  No.

  “Please.”

  She started to feel unreal, saying things she had not planned to say, things that were bypassing her head-traffic controller, the more laconic he was, the more she unravelled. “You’re my father, you could come see me, Dad, please Dad, please see me.” She sounded to herself like a robot. “I’m begging you, Dad, please, please, please come and see me in my home, Dad please. It doesn’t matter what Mum thinks, you can do what you think is right.”

  “I do think it’s right.” He spoke calmly.

  Dear Mary Rose, You have chosen to go down a path that we, as your parents, cannot follow …

  She heard herself moan, she hugged herself with her free hand and started to undress. She went into the bathroom because she was not safe. She needed to be in a place where she could know she existed. She ran the water.

  “I’m your daughter, and I am telling you that you are doing a terrible thing, Dad, a terrible thing to me, please stop doing it.” She was saying things no one in her family said, not even people in movies said these things, people in books did not say them. She sat in the tub, hot water lapping about her hips, she hugged her knees, felt her breasts soft against them, stroked her head, her shoulder, rocked, it’s okay. Water is real, it holds you, tells you you are there, there, there, Daddy’s got you. “You’re saying you hate me!” She screamed it.

  “I’m not saying that to you. That is what you are saying to me.” His tone was detached, reasonable. Your lifestyle is opposed to the values with which we raised you, and by insisting upon adhering to that lifestyle, you have turned your back on us …

  “When you have had enough, perhaps you’ll come home.”

  “I have, I visit your home all the time, why won’t you come to my home?”

  “That’s not a home.”

  “It is so!” She screamed it. “It’s my home!” She screamed it. “I have friends who would refuse to visit you and Mum because of what you’re doing, is that what you want?” She was shaking. Renée came in, Mary Rose waved her out.

  “That’s up to you.”

  … our door cannot be open to you in the way that it was in the past.

  “So if I stopped visiting you in your home, you would not seek me out.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “You could let me go.”

  “You let yourself go.”

  “You would let go of me, and you would never come after me.”

  “You’ve turned your back on us.”

  If you had a broken leg, we would take you to a doctor. In this case, it is your mind that is broken, but you kept it from us …

  “My heart is breaking, Dad, it is breaking right now.”

  He was implacable.

  “We are prepared to come see you when you decide to take the help we are offering.”

  He was glass.

  “What help?!” She shrieked it, shocking herself, yet even amid the sense of unreality, another sense was emerging, a deep recognition. Naked and shrieking, she made a decision to listen to everything he had to say so she would have all the information. Get him to say it. Don’t tear up the letter this time. “I’m your daughter,” she said.

  “Not this part of you.”

  “No ‘part’!” Bang! on the glass. “Only one Mary Rose!” Bang bang! “I am the same one you loved and were proud of, I am the same, I am the one you carried, I am the one!” Sobbing, deciding, knowing this sorrow was already in the past.

  “The Mary Rose I know does not choose to live the way you are living now.”

  “You said, ‘Do it your way.’ I am brave.”

  “You are sick.”

  She cried into the phone. Renée returned with a glass of wine, set it on the edge of the tub and withdrew. He didn’t hang up. Was that a good thing? Or was he determined to show he was impervious? As long as she was the crazy one, he was the sane one.

  “I love you, Dad, why don’t you love me?” Calm now.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But if I don’t change, you will never welcome me or come into my home.” No more banging. Just hand smears.

  “You have chosen to go down a path that—”

  “You don’t want me to have love.”

  “What you have is not love.”

  She curled over her knees. “What if someone had said that to you about Mum?”

  “There’s no comparison.”

  “I love Renée, she is my family.”

  “She’s not my family.”

  “What if you hadn’t been allowed to marry? You were considered to be different colours in those days.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “You want me to be alone for the rest of my life.”

  “Being homosexual is not wrong. Practising homosexuality is.”

  “Oh. I’m supposed to become a nun?”

  Silence.

  “Wow. Okay, you’re wrong. That’s a bad reason to become a nun or a priest. What you’re doing to your own daughter now is a sin. You want me to hate myself.”

  “I don’t know what happened along the way to pervert the normal course of your development. I’m in the dark about that. If you had let us know
early on that you had these tendencies, we would have been able to help you. But you shut us out. If you’d had a broken leg—”

  “I had a broken arm, and you didn’t do anything.”

  “We didn’t know it was broken.”

  “Why didn’t I get an X-ray?”

  “No one thought your arm could possibly be broken.”

  “It hurt. All the time.”

  “We’re getting off topic here.” topeec “If you were a drug addict, I would not be doing my job as a father by giving you more drugs when you beg for them.”

  Absurdity can be a balm. She splashed her face clear of mucus and tears, and spoke calmly. “If I had told you when I was a teenager and still living at home, you would have taken me to a psychiatrist.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you would have had me hospitalized and treated. Electroshock, maybe.”

  “That’s one option, but you never gave us the chance. You hid your disorder from us.”

  She cried again, but not in anger. “I haven’t believed in God since I was fourteen, Dad, but I believe in Good because I have been looked after and I believe in Love because somehow I knew enough not to show anyone, not even myself, who I was while I was still in your hands. I am so scared when I think of what you would have done to me, and when I think of that, I think that what you are doing to me now is something I can handle because I’m twenty-three and all you can do to me now is hate me.” She was shaking when she got out of the bath, but she had the information.

  The next time she saw her parents, it was as though she and her father had never had the conversation. Her mother did her laundry. Her father poured her a Scotch and asked about her work. They ate, they chatted, she and Dolly played Scrabble. At some point, the three of them found themselves at the kitchen table. Her father’s gaze drifted to a corner of the ceiling as the crazy light entered her mother’s eye and it began again.

  When Odysseus finally makes it home, he is much changed, but his loved ones know him by his scar. Will she make it home? Will she recognize herself?

  Grafts leave scars on the skin, yes, but on bone too. Scars make you stronger, and they help tell a story; like striations in igneous rock, a story of eruptions and epochal inches. Her scars can take her home. Down to the bone, into the marrow, down among the stem cells where the stories germinate.