Twelve
Life moves around Nat’s absence the way the tides flow and ebb over the fallen cliff-rock. At school, the basketball team rides a winning streak, girls nab dates for the upcoming Sadie Hawkins, and the student council sells tickets for a fundraiser for the Koshkins. Sabina’s Boutique is decked for Christmas, and I spend sheltered hours in the workroom flourishing purses for holiday shoppers. At the Riverboat we celebrate Ellis’s fiftieth, Gordie Lightfoot singing “Happy Birthday” while an unsung sweet sixteen decomposes like the fallen leaves.
Despite crapdom’s chaos and debauchery, I have a harbour. Todd, bless his big fat heart, removed his closet door, tacked up a sheet, and crammed my cot mattress into the two-by-five space. The way the edges curl I feel like I’m in a lifeboat. My sister-house may be scattered but here, in Toronto, Todd, Aaron, and Ellis make a damn fine brother abode. And bonus, O’Toole’s under-dealings have provided Mikey and me with a hedge of protective thugs.
* * *
November is overly mild and blue-skied. The boys chase paper planes across the field as I float on Jake’s words. His last letter contained a calendar of days, thirty folded word-pictures to be opened one a day. Lovely gifts, like this one from last summer: Close your eyes. We’re on the marsh, in the dinghy, your body resting against mine. Late sun fires the rushes, silver, gold, pink . . . An egret, wings stretched, passes over, spots your toes, landing for a closer look. We bob with its weighting on the bow. Now, remember the windrush as she lifted off—
“Whoa, Ari, did you see how far that went?” Alex smiles—almost.
“Spectacular.”
No reporters wait for news these days, so we see Alex and Joey through their front gate. Joey asks, “Can we go swimming again with Mikey and Aaron tomorrow?”
“That’s the plan.” They walk the path to their limbo and we head crapward.
It’s disorienting to smell anything other than decay upon opening crapdom’s doors. Baking? Cookies?
Mum and her recliner are missing from the front room. The Dick and Snake are at the crap-covered dining table, a file, a heaped plate of cookies, and half-empty glasses of milk between them. The Dick says, “Unless, we get somethin’ soon, Brass’s shuttin’ the whole thing down.” I shudder at the Koshkins never knowing where Nat is. More, I tremble at the thought of the Dick without this distraction.
Snake says, “Gimmie that file. We gotta be missin’ a nose on our face.”
In the kitchen, O’Toole empties oatmeal into a hefty bag, while a thug reloads the containers with bagged weed and a covering of oats. Another amicable bandit named Pinto measures brown sugar into a bowl. “Afternoon, doll. Saw the recipe on the can, and”—he points his cigar to a mountain of cookies—“ta da. Try one. Good as grammaw’s.”
They are good. Crunchy and loaded with Chipits. He watches me chew while trying to digest the tableau in the backyard. Mum is in her chair, snuggled under the filthy car blanket, drinking rum from a bottle, staring at the garage window like her favourite show is on.
“Fuckin’ cough of hers was driving all us right ’round the bend.”
“Yeah. It’s her gift.”
I begin the massive clean-up while O’Toole places containers of Quaker Oats back into the carton, resealing it so it looks untouched.
It’s long past nine before crapdom empties and Mikey settles. I’m tucked in my nook, jotting essay notes on the suffragettes, when Todd says, “Anyone bring your mum in?”
“Her blood’s ninety proof. She won’t freeze.”
Leaving her when you remember seems scummier than her forgetting you on the shore.
I sigh as I clamber out. When will you learn to keep your friggin’ snout shut?
Thirteen
The thing about a mild November is you’re lulled into forgetting that winter is coming. Monday, December 1st has me running to escape a stinging ice rain. Inside school, I down my hood and see twenty cops in the hall. Over the PA we’re told to proceed to homeroom and wait.
Ellis is taking attendance when the principal knocks and hauls Wendy out.
When the door closes, Sean says, “Bet they found her.”
Ellis pales, then distracts us with a story prompt. “Okay, finish this sentence: ‘I walked into the kitchen and’—Sean, what say you?”
“Uh . . . Mom was peeling potatoes.”
Responses down the row are an interesting sociological study: Mom was cleaning, cooking, ironing, mopping up dog barf. He reaches me, “Ari? ‘Walked into the kitchen and—’”
“The mafia were baking cookies.”
Sean says, “Sheesh, you’re a freak.”
Before Ellis can ask fiction or non-, the secretary comes on the PA, “Everyone, please proceed to first period.”
In French, I drift out the window and see Wendy being escorted down the front walk and into her mom’s car. You remember Mum ever picking me up?
Duh, a million times by your neck-scruff.
Truth.
Next morning, Wendy is absent. On the way to math, Sean says, “You live with a cop. You must know something.”
Following the Dick’s warning that I’m to keep my mouth shut until police decide what gets out, I say, “I don’t. I swear.”
“Heard they found her shoes.”
“From who?” I ask.
“Matt heard it from Cassie.”
The rumours are true. Yesterday, when the janitor went to bring in the Remembrance Day wreath, he found a one-of-a-kind pair of sneakers tied to it.
Last year, inspired by my canvas runners, Natasha and I flower-powered hers with psychedelic swirls and peace signs. Riding a creative high, she disassembled her weighty charm bracelet, fastening the varied tokens celebrating her life through the gromets. Tinkling heralded her every movement. Now, the cacophony of a thousand students can’t cover the absent chime.
When I collect Mikey after school, his top lip is puffed. “Geez, what happened, bro?”
“Sitting on the monkey bars at lunch, just thinking, next thing I knew my lip was stuck.”
“Oh, major bummer. What’d you do?”
“Mr. McGregor melted me off with tea from his thermos.” He tucks his mitten in mine. “Can I tell you something? Secret?”
“Unload away, kid.”
“They found Natasha’s shoes.”
“Who told you?”
“Alex. Before he went to his aunt’s. I promised not to tell but, Ari, they found them at your school. She was wearing them when, you know. What does that mean?”
Shivers skitter up my arms. “Don’t know.”
“Can I go with you at Christmas?”
“It’s your mom’s week with you.”
His boots are too thin, and snot bubbles from his nose. “What if . . . if she has the flu again?”
Nine weekends out of ten, Laura has been “coming down with something.” “We’ll sort it. There’s Sabina’s or maybe we’ll just freight-hop home.”
“Like hobos, eh.” His cough has a barky edge. “Do I have any wool?”
“We’ll get some at Woolworths. Gotta get more Buckley’s. My mum’s like a bloody flock of whooping coughers, eh?”
“I just pretend there’s a colony of seals outside my tent.”
Nearing crapdom, Ronnie is seen teetering down the snowy street in a bomber jacket, micro-mini, fishnets, and sandals. The house is tomb-quiet when we enter. Mum sits in her chair, glassy eyed and hell-hot. Her cough has transitioned to a strangled wheeze. Mikey says, “Should we get a taxi?”
The cold will send Mum into paroxysms, ending with a boot-full of phlegm in the backseat of a cab. And the lines between good thug/bad cop are so fuzzy that calling an ambulance to this house of thieves feels ill-advised. The keys to O’Toole’s Camaro are right where he usually drops them when he rides with the Dick. “Grab a bucket while I stuff her i
nto her coat.”
The Camaro is flightier than the aunties’ truck, but the gears are like butter to shift. I slip into a spot near emerg. Mikey says, “How’d you learn to drive?”
“Huey taught me.” I lift the seat to let him out of the back. “Go nab that wheelchair by the door.”
I know she’s bad when the nurses move her to the head of the queue; still I endure two humiliating hours answering questions. It’s going on eight when a merciful nurse bolsters my bicep. “You and your brother go on home now. We’ll get her sorted.”
Back at crapdom, thug cars are out front. Snake greets me as I drop the keys on the mountain of past-due mail. “Hey, cupcake. How’s tricks?”
“Just dumped Mum at the General. Pneumonia.”
“By ambulance?”
“No. Borrowed O’Toole’s wheels.”
He laughs from his belly. “Oh, you got balls.”
Mikey says, “Don’t tell, okay.”
Snake winks a promise of secrecy. “So, some weird shit going down with those shoes, eh?”
Mikey worries. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Where’d you hear it?” I ask.
“Oh, I got connections. Boys in blue. Fellas in red. Men in green.”
“Police, Mounties, and army?”
“I’m a friendly guy.”
Mikey says, “My brother Ricky’s a soldier. He fixes the biggest trucks they got.”
“You don’t say.”
Mikey looks at me, then backs up the stairs, “Um, no, don’t say nothin’. It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Okay, Einstein,” Snake says. “So, cupcake, you’re good at stories. What’s your gut sayin’ about the guy that made the drop?”
Snake’s words are warm against the December draft seeping through crapdom’s cracks. I wedge on the step, between a stack of Penthouse and foul bowling gear. “Natasha’s charmed shoes on a memorial wreath seems kind of, I don’t know, creative. Poetic almost.”
“What’s the buzz at school?”
“Haven’t heard anything.” Reality is, the voice in my head is so chattery, I’ve missed the twittering outside. “Why’re you helping the Dick solve this?”
“I got nieces. Three beauties. It’d kill me if anything happened to them. Plus, can’t hurt to have a detective in my pocket. Am I right?”
“Better than one in your hair.”
“Brass was scaling back the investigation, then a clue falls from the sky. Halpern thinks the guy’s cleaning house, but mark my words, he wants to play. You just wait and see.”
“Oh.” I stand. “Um, Snake? The army thing? Ricky’s keeping it hush-hush so it’s a big birthday surprise for his dad.”
“Secret’s safe with me.”
“Appreciated.”
Secrets are about as safe as ice cream in a fat lady’s fridge, eh, Ari.
Fourteen
The following week, Jake’s letter and hope of a Christmas train heading east float me up the steps to school . . . I sit for hours on the foundation of our house, trying to figure how to build a windowed wall that will withstand a maritime blow. We have to build it so the ocean comes inside, don’t you think . . .
Once inside, my content disappears like the snow on my boots. Teachers are clustered, crying.
I turn, heading for the exit before the devastation of details hit. My history teacher leans cross-armed against the wall. “You’re to go to homeroom, Miss Appleton.”
“I can’t, sir.”
If I had to give contempt a colour, it’d be the tanned hue on Mr. Corbin’s face. “What makes you think that you’re above the rules?”
“I’ve no idea what borders me.” I back away. “And, you know, sir, under this unholy mess is someone who wants to understand herstory and what it means more than any kid on the planet.”
A heavy sprint lands me in the nest. I call Todd, tell him he needs to get Mikey, then uncradle the phone.
I love silence, love the way light splinters through quiet and how Babcia’s featherbed feels softer under my bum and the wall feels liquid at my back. In silence, the clutter of smells—cinnamon, camomile, soap—has a bigger space. I close my eyes and see a tiny seahorse turning off lights inside me, closing doors, softly like the aunties did at day’s end when I was little.
Time moves in light-inches, from the bed, to the chair, to the counter. I light a joint, not because I’m sad or scared. The whining in my head, No fair, no fair, no fair, I can’t go home now, is intolerable.
Len’s sweater and my woolly socks are small comforts as I feel the ground I want to be on collapsing away under me. I lie down on the bed, grab hold of my stuffed Zodiac, and stare at night shadows on the wall.
Opal light and a soft rap surface me. “Ari? It’s Mina.”
I let her in and she does what women do, makes tea. For a long silence we perch at my counter. I sip an inch, inhale, exhale, ask, “Is it better knowing or not knowing?”
Mina sighs heavy. “Better or not, Natasha’s end is known.”
“For sure?”
“Police got a tip to check the ventilation access on the roof of an industrial building, just northwest of the CNE. They found a body.”
Snake’s words, “he wants to play,” slither through the hollow in my chest. “What happens now?”
“Halpern asked me to bring you by the station.”
“Why?”
“To identify a piece of clothing.”
* * *
At the station Halpern asks me only one thing: to identify the remnants of a tie-dyed shirt.
“Is this the one you helped Natasha make?”
“It is.”
“We shouldn’t need you for anything else right now. Please no info to the press.”
At the front desk, the Dick pushes his bulk to a stand. “This is tough, kid, really tough. We’ll get the guy.”
O’Toole moves down the corridor like a bad smell. Under his movie star looks is pure slime. “Oh, sweet thing, you need a hug?”
The Dick snaps, “Back off.”
“What’s your problem, Irwin? Just delivering photos from the lab.” O’Toole opens a file, like a teacher shows a page to a class.
The Dick’s hand spans it in a millisecond. “Just back the fuck off.” He turns to me. “Theresa still at the General?”
“Yeah. Doc says it’s a bad case.”
“Keep Mikey with you for now. Don’t want him at Laura’s ’til you get the clear from me.”
Fuck Mikey. I just want to go home.
Jasper twists on my shoulder. Wait. Was the Dick being human?
Fifteen
Jennah comes with me to the hospital. Mum’s in and out of delirium. I just want to put a pillow over her face and be done, with her and everything here. Jennah, however, bats her forget-me-not blues at the doctor and wrangles Mum a stint in rehab after the pneumonia is tamed.
I brush down Mum’s squirrel-nest hair and offer juice. She swallows, rasping, “You’re a good girl, Junie.”
“Oh, for fudge sake, Mum,” Jennah says. “It’s Ari. Your good girl is Ari.” She snaps on elegant black gloves. “Come on, sis. We don’t need any more shit.” She insists me down the hall. “How is it that lovely Natasha’s gone and that waste of skin goes on?”
“That’s how Mr. Koshkin feels about me.”
“If he thinks that”—she links arms with mine—“then he doesn’t know you from Adam’s Appleton.”
“Do you know how long before they’ll have a funeral?”
“Sooner than later. Wilf said there wasn’t much that her body could tell the coroner.”
I hope the blast of fresh air will settle my belly. It doesn’t and I hurl onto winter-killed marigolds.
“Jesus, you’re like June. Never knew when that girl was going to puke all over e
verything.” Jennah sacrifices her hankie and I wipe my chin. “Wonder where June got herself to.”
“Last sighting was Coombs, British Columbia. I often send postcards there, to June and Spring Appleton, but never hear anything.”
“Hard to imagine June with a baby, eh.” We reach Jennah’s shiny red car. “You stopping to see Jillianne on your way east?”
“How can I go now?”
“Oh, sweetie, how can you not?”
* * *
Sunday, AD—after discovery—it’s too cold to sit, so Aaron and I walk the shore. “I don’t get the reasoning in a prayer vigil, do you?”
His head waggles his bewilderment. “Why’d you think I’m here, not there?”
“You know, if I’d stepped off the train and been told that Wilf had pummelled Jennah into the great beyond, or June had been found with a needle in her arm, or Mum knifed Jacquie, or Jory tripped out off the church steeple, or Jillianne had offed herself, it would’ve seemed the natural order of shit. But this is the universe messing with good.”
“I really hate that you think you, or your sisters, deserve awfulness.”
“It’s hard to shake free from the Appleton family tree.” Mitten bumps glove as we amble along. “Not for a squabble, but for hope to grab on to. What’s Linda’s take on this?”
“She’s really struggling. She had complete faith Nat was going to be found alive.”
“Well, there’s something. Maybe there’ll be a philosophical realignment that will make the pair of you less of a cat and fish.”
He stops sharp. “You see a cat in Linda?”
“A sleek panther.” He steps off the boardwalk, footsteps cracking the crust of frozen sand as he moves toward the lake. I scurry to catch up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it as a negative. It’s an exquisite animal. Don’t be pissed. It’s just a ridiculous game I play.”
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