I lift the fabric to my face, but it doesn’t smell like home.
~
dance
toronto is such an orderly city,stand right, walk left on the escalators to the subway station platforms. Tidy queues at the bus stops. And privacy once you sit down. Sarah likes the anonymity, the way people leave you alone. On the busses in Winnipeg, people always start chatting away when they sit beside you; in Toronto you’re left in peace. She’ll be at the dance venue in about twenty minutes, plenty of time to help get things set up.
Gail has invited Sarah to a women-only dance, a benefit for the first ever rape-crisis centre in Toronto. Zero government funding, so they need to raise money. Plus they want to raise awareness about the whole issue of violence against women. That’s the term they’re using now for wife-beating, rape, child molestation. Women Against Violence Against Women is another group Gail’s involved with. WAVAW. The acronym seems baby-ish, or cry-baby-ish, wah-wah-wah. They have to say against twice because they can’t be for something. Sarah wasn’t sure about the whole thing, but the penny said yes. And she gets it, she gets that the crisis centre they’re raising money for has to use an all-woman staff because so many women are scared off from even reporting a rape to male cops or doctors who don’t believe them, or make them feel they asked for it.
Nobody ever asks for it.
Gail wants her to come early; Sarah’s going to take a couple of shifts selling beer tickets. Not manning the table, staffing it. Word wars: Gail insists on chair, not chairman, doesn’t like man hours or even man-made, writes memos using s/he. How do you even pronounce that? Gail loves slashes. It’s exhausting.
At Union Station there’s a kid ahead of Sarah, he looks to be about 11, who’s hopping right up the stairs, just for the hell of it, energetic little guy. That happy in his body. Sarah passes through the permanent, synthetic smell of cinnamon buns, her mouth watering as it always does, fooled into wanting.
They’re holding the dance in a big empty barn of a place. She sees Gail off in a corner, her arms around two women, waves, and Gail cuts across the cavernous room towards her. One of the women, it’s Barb, follows. Barb has her red hair tucked under a checked cotton scarf, a couple of curls peeking out. She’s wearing denim overalls and Sarah can’t help thinking Rosie the Riveter. Barb is all business, though, and soon they’re counting the float, setting up the cash box, setting out the tickets.
The all-woman band is warming up on stage, tinkering with the drum-kit, hooking up their guitars. They’re a just-coming-together seven member group called either The Association or The Nihilists, depending on which day you ask them. The lighting crew is fiddling with the set-up, and the erratic switching on and off of banks of lights has colours stuttering across the band members’ faces and torsos. Spotlights nose their way across the stage, highlighting the music stands and empty stools rather than the performers.
Barb takes a long swallow of her beer. She looks down at her hands for a minute, then smiles and looks up at Sarah. “So, about three years ago I was living in Kingston and the girls I was sharing a house with left the back door unlocked. I woke up in the middle of the night, and there was a man lying on top of me in the bed.” Barb’s laughing now. “I’m one of those people who is always crazy-mad if anyone wakes me up. If I fell asleep in front of the TV, my brothers used to have to poke me with a broom to get me up, because I’d automatically flail out at them, slug them in the face if they weren’t careful. Twice my size, hockey players, and still they were scared of me. That night, when the weight of the man woke me up, the only thing I was was angry. The guy had his hand near my throat and I grabbed at it, but what I didn’t know was that he was holding a knife. So what I grabbed was the guy’s knife. Grabbed the blade of his knife with one hand and threw the guy off with the other. Screamed blue murder and my housemates rushed in and the guy ran like hell.” Barb laughs again. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. I scared the guy off, right? Nothing really happened. Well, the cut on my hand, that was bad, I needed stitches. But they let me out of hospital right after they sewed me up, didn’t even admit me. My housemates made such a fuss, but it could have been worse. Here.” Barbara sticks out her hand. There’s a deep scar across her palm. “Good thing it didn’t hit an artery. I grabbed hard.”
Sarah takes Barb’s hand, holds it in her own. Three years ago. The scar looks new, a shiny, tight pink path across Barb’s palm.
Women have been seeping in since the doors officially opened but now there’s starting to be a real lineup. Barb jokes around with everyone but still works quickly, efficiently, making swift change, tearing off the tickets. During a lull, she gets them each a Coke. She clinks their bottles, Sarah and Barb, a good team.
Once they’re done the shift, Barb heads directly for the dancing. Gail hustles over with a big grin on her face, grabs Sarah’s hand and pulls her onto the dance floor. She’s going to make Sarah have some fun whether she likes it or not. After a couple more dances, Barb comes up to them. Her kerchief has disappeared and her hair’s a red shock around her face. The band breaks out into the Beatles’ ‘She Loves You’ and Barb starts hand-jiving with Sarah, something she hasn’t done since she was a little kid with her big sister Rose, and Barb’s spinning her around and back and forth. Everyone, including Sarah, chimes in loudly, and mostly in tune, to the ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ chorus. When the song ends, Barb pulls Sarah into a big hug. “You are fantastic,” she whispers into Sarah’s ear.
Barb has clearly had her fair share of beer.
“All right, ladies.” The lead singer, a skinny woman in tight black jeans and t-shirt, who looks to be almost six feet tall, draws the word out to about six syllables. The audience erupts in a rumble of elated shrieks. “We’ll close down this set with one last slow dance,” more shouts, “and then we’ll be back before you know it!” Cheers and yells.
The singer starts to croon into the mike and the women start pairing up, giggling or intent. Barb and Sarah are standing about two feet apart. They move towards each other, and each raises a left arm to the other’s shoulder. They stop and giggle. Sarah looks up; Barb’s about a head taller. “You lead,” Sarah says. Barb puts her arm around Sarah’s waist, then pulls her closer. Sarah’s never danced close with another woman, but she likes this. She can’t feel the scar on Barb’s hand, but it’s there.
The music stops. “That was nice, but I really gotta pee.” Barb veers towards the washrooms, then veers back to Sarah, pulls her into a corner. “C’mere.” She’s leaning into Sarah, this huge happy smile on her face. “That was fun. That was really fun, dancing with you. You’re a good dancer.”
Barb should see Rose. Rose is the dancer in the family.
“You’re, you’re just a beautiful dancer,” Barb says, smiling even more. “Little sister.” She puts her hands lightly on Sarah’s chest, a palm on each breast. A soft bit of pressure. “And you know what? You’ve got beautiful little breasts.” Sarah doesn’t know what to say. Barb kisses her on the mouth, a quick buss, puts her forehead down for a second on top of Sarah’s head. “I really gotta pee.” And she’s gone. That’s okay. Maybe Barb’s embarrassed. Maybe she isn’t. It’s okay. Sarah likes how Barb likes her, however Barb likes her.
Sarah goes back to the beer ticket table. The woman who’s taken over asks her to count the float and she’s bent over the cash box when she feels a kind of murmur in the room, a ripple of unease. There’s a bit of a crowd at the door, some voices raised, some sort of commotion. A woman she doesn’t know but recognizes as one of the organizers comes marching across the room, red in the face, maybe a bit drunk.
“Hey! You! You Sarah? Gail’s sister?” She’s almost shouting.
Sarah nods.
“Well, there’s a man at the door who says he’s your boyfriend and he has to speak with you and Gail. Some sort of family emergency. This better be good.”
Sarah feels the room churn around her, grips the edge of the table. Rose. Feels the blood drain fr
om her face. She has to find Gail.
The woman is going on about this being a special place, they are trying to create a space for the women at this dance, when suddenly Gail is at her side, and Barb, and Caroline.
“Shut the fuck up, would you?” Barb says quietly to the angry woman. She takes Sarah’s elbow. Gail is already striding to the door where Michael is standing, his face a painful mix of delicacy and sadness and grief.
“Look,” he says when they reach him, “I know I’m not supposed to be here.”
Sarah shakes her head. It doesn’t matter.
“I got to my apartment after work and your parents called. They’d tried to reach you at your place too. They’d left me about six messages on the answering machine but they kept calling.”
It’s Rose it’s Rose it’s Rose it’s Rose.
Gail’s holding onto Michael, hugging him, burying her face in his chest. The irate women at the door have altered, are fading away. Barb and Caroline stay with them, a protective arc.
“What is it?” Sarah asks.
“She tried to hurt herself. David took her to Misericordia. Your parents are there.”
Hurt herself. Violence against women. Self-violence.
Gail is holding onto Michael, her fists caught in his shirt. “Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?”
“They don’t know. I don’t know. Your dad was pretty wrought up. We’ll call them when we get home.”
“Is she in ICU?” It’s Caroline, the curly-cloud-hair woman, asking. Is Caroline a nurse? Did Gail say she was in med school?
“No. I don’t think so. I think they mentioned a ward number. I wrote some of this down.” Michael’s hands are tentative in his pockets.
“That’s good,” Caroline says, touching Gail’s shoulder gently. “That’s a good sign, Gail.” She turns around, looks at Sarah. “Really, it’s a good sign.”
“We have to go,” Sarah says. She walks past Barb, past Caroline, past Gail still gripping Michael’s shirt, into the street.
~
home
she’s going home. snug in her aisle seat, seatbelt fastened, watching a toy Toronto diminish under the wing of the plane, a Tinkertoy CN Tower in the distance, the lake secret this morning, holding itself back, silent and alert. Soon she’ll be watching Ontario stream by below, farmland giving way to intricate patterns of forest and lake as soon as they reach the southern tip of Georgian Bay. It’s hard to believe in flying, even though the science is clear, lift and thrust. It’s just so unlikely that this packet of metal can hold itself suspended, the force moving it forward stronger than the force of gravity. Just over two and a half hours in the air and she’ll be in Winnipeg. Toronto–Winnipeg by car is 26 hours hard driving. Ten hours ago Sarah was at the dance with Gail.
They called their parents’ house in Winnipeg as soon as they got to Gail’s loft, three of them huddled around the phone. Pat’s usually firm, bright voice was wavery, thin. Abe was at the hospital with David, they didn’t know much. That afternoon Rose had seemed a bit better and David had gone out to do a couple of chores – gas up the car, get a few groceries. He wasn’t gone more than an hour, but when he got back he found Rose in the bathroom. Pat didn’t say what Rose had done. Tried to hurt herself, that’s all they had. After they hung up, Gail had gnawed her way through the options with Michael. He’d finally convinced her that Sarah should go, Gail couldn’t possibly get away. She was in the middle of a big case, meetings lined up back to back for the next three days.
Michael drove Sarah to the airport first thing in the morning, bought her a ticket on the next available flight. She didn’t argue about the money, gave Michael a stiff hug as she walked to the gate. None of them had slept much, though Sarah knows she must have dozed off and on, curled beside Gail on her bed, Michael cramped on Gail’s sofa. They stopped on their way to the airport at Sarah’s rooming-house where she threw fresh underwear and socks, jeans and tees into the old brown hard-shell suitcase, flotsam she’d somehow inherited from Sosha, their dad’s cousin. The brass hinges snapped shut. Michael would phone the Centre for her, explain that she couldn’t come in to work.
Sarah must have slept through the rest of the flight because she’s woken by the jolt of the plane’s wheels hitting the tarmac. She loves coming down to land in Winnipeg – the shadows of occasional clouds the only irregularity among the tidy green and gold squares of prairie farmland – and now she’s missed it. She files down the aisle, through the gate; the sliding doors open and the escalator takes her down. To her family emergency. Whatever she’s going to find. Every single time she comes home someone is waiting for her at the bottom of this escalator. So often Rose, big sister picking her up, taking her home.
Sarah scans the cheery crowd, eager greetings, hugs, a couple of kids hopping up and down holding a home-made sign, Welcome Home Grandma, and there’s Abe, all six feet of him, broad-shouldered, head of thick grey hair, beside the baggage carousel, talking with a heavy-set rumpled-looking man. Not looking for her. She calls Dad and he looks up, touches the man’s arm, moves towards her as she moves towards him.
Abe pulls her into a bear hug and she lays her head against his big strong chest. So solid. Nothing surer than her father’s chest. The fresh smell of the plain white shirts he always wears, the light, comforting smell of him beneath it. She can feel Abe swallowing, blinking.
“It’s okay, Sarah. Your mom’s at the hospital visiting with her. David went home to get a little sleep. The doctors say she’s going to be fine.”
How can Rose be fine? Nothing is fine anymore; nothing ever will be. Something has slipped in their lives, a crack in what their world is supposed to be. “What did she … what did she do?”
“Let me get your bag. We’ll talk in the car.” Abe grabs the bag off the carousel, an easy swipe of his big paw. “You’re still using this antique? Sosha would be pleased as punch.” Smiling in spite of himself. He always insists on carrying her bags and for once Sarah doesn’t protest. They’re not saying anything as they walk to the lot, the sunlight a soft weight across their shoulders, no wind. Sky-blue sky, the sky is never this blue in Toronto, this open. He sets the suitcase in the trunk, slams the lid down to make sure it locks and, for a second, rests his hands on the warm metal. They get in and he puts the key in the ignition, then stops, doesn’t start the motor. Rests his big hands on the steering wheel.
“She cut herself, cut her wrists. David found her on the bathroom floor.”
Sarah’s holding onto the door handle, doesn’t want to let it go.
“Crosswise just below the palm.” His voice is dry, pinched. He clears his throat. “The cuts go – people know, everyone knows – the cuts go lengthwise if you mean business.” Clears his throat again. “There wasn’t much…she didn’t bleed much.”
Sarah has to think of her sister bleeding, blood emptying her out, and the thought expands into an old physics lesson: the three states of matter, solid, liquid and gas, and only a solid has a set shape and volume, a liquid has a set volume but no shape, it takes on the shape of its container. She remembers that it’s a gas that expands to fill its container but her thoughts have no container. And Rose? What will happen if Rose is lost to matter?
“She was unconscious when he found her,” Abe is saying. “The bathroom door was locked. David said he doesn’t even remember how he broke it down.” He keeps swallowing, he’s having trouble speaking. “Of course he called 911.” The emergency right here; their own emergency. Abe touches the ridge of bone above his nose, closes his eyes briefly. “The doctor, this pipsqueak, he can’t be older than you, he says it was more a cry for help than a genuine attempt. But I don’t know. The door was locked. She lost some blood.” Abe turns away from Sarah, turns the key in the ignition and they sit for a minute, the car quietly idling.
Abe reverses, pulls out of the parking lot. Blue sky above them, improbable flight. “The doctor, I mean, I don’t hold that much to one doctor’s view – was he even a real doctor? he mi
ght have been some sort of student doctor – but he was probably right. A cry for help.”
You’re not here and I need you.
Weren’t they enough? Wasn’t their love enough, even at a distance?
“So the medication wasn’t doing any good?”
Silence. They’re pulling out of the parking lot, pulling onto the road. Not another car in sight, the road all theirs.
“Dad?”
“She wasn’t taking the pills. She told David she flushed them down the toilet. One a day, so it looked like she was taking them.”
Stupid. Just stupid. A cry for help! She had help right there and she didn’t use it.
Stupid. Stupid Rose.
She touches Abe’s arm. “Can we go straight to the hospital?”
“That’s where we’re going. Then we’ll head home, get you something to eat. Mom has some fresh smoked goldeye in the fridge for you.”
~
Rose is in a locked ward, psych ward. They have to buzz to be let in, and a nurse comes up to the door, her face professional, wordlessly opens for them. Abe leads them around one corner and then another, that awful pale green painted on every wall, then they’re at what must be Rose’s room. They stand together at the threshold and there’s the hummingbird mother, Pat, who puts down her magazine, flits in an instant from the chair beside Rose’s bed to Sarah, puts both hands along her face, they’re eye to eye. Her small mother, wound up tight, clockwork. “She’s all right, Sarah. She’ll be fine. I think she’s asleep right now.”
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