She

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

chapter twelve

  A BAD DAY

  SHE STEPS OFF the Avenue Road bus and walks to the intersection to cross from corner to corner to corner. As she waits for the light to turn green, to let her cross over to the mini mall parking lot, she catches sight of the familiar Ride Link sedan pulling out of the lot and turning right onto Eglinton Avenue. It speeds away, west. She pulls her black wool coat sleeve up to check her watch, the February wind cutting into her wrist. Her watch shows the same time she arrives at this corner every week. She quickly releases her sleeve. Why’d he leave early? How could he miss seeing her standing waiting for the light to change? Thirty more seconds and she’d have been there. Thirty. More. Seconds. The wind stings tears out of her eyes. The first new year without Jim but with her grandmother is shaping up to be a crap year. She hates February, she sniffs; she hated January; hell, she hated December the worst, with all that false bonhomie and all those glaring colours of cheer and all that exchanging of gifts around her.

  She obeys the green light and walks till she’s in the parking lot and scans the area until she finally, truly understands that she’s not getting a ride today. Panic shoots sharp needles into her heart, into her brain, making her nerves flame. She can’t think straight. She doesn’t know what to do. The phone, rises the thought. She doesn’t have a cell phone. Canadian cell carriers think everyone’s leaking money from their pockets. Well, she isn’t. So she can’t afford a cell phone. She doesn’t know what to do. The pay phone, rises the thought. But where is a Bell pay phone? Bell has been making them disappear faster than Atlantic cod.

  She struggles against her dissolving thoughts and focuses on finding a pay phone. She must call TARC and tell them Ride Link left without her. She must call TARC and ask them to send it back. She must call TARC. She holds on to that thought as she enters and exits shops and convenience stores to look for a phone. At last, she spots one. Dingy, dinged, and now costing fifty cents, it still works when she picks up the dirty handset gingerly to hear the dial tone. Cool relief drowns the panic, and her mind clears. She takes out her Palm and looks up the number for TARC. With the Palm in one hand, she fishes for two quarters in her purse with her other gloved hand, slots the quarters into the phone, and dials the number.

  “TARC.”

  She says her name then blurts out baldly that her Ride Link has left without her.

  “It left?”

  “Yes, it left without me,” she starts feeling overwhelmed.

  “Were you late?”

  “No, I was on time. Right on time.”

  “I don’t see it here yet. Oh, no, there it is, outside the doors. I don’t think it’ll be able to come and get you though because it has another place to go to right after this one.”

  “But how am I going to get there? I’m going to be late for my appointment. I have to see Zenobia. How can I get there on time? Can’t it come back? It won’t take long.”

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s left already.”

  “How will I get there?”

  “You know the way to walk here?”

  “Yes,” she stifles a threatening sniff.

  “Then that’s okay. It’ll be a long walk, but you can do it this one time. I’ll tell Zenobia you’ll be late. It’ll be fine. And I’ll have a word with Ride Link to make sure they don’t do this to you again, okay?”

  “Okay,” she replies and hangs up. But she wants to scream: “I’ll miss the appointment. I really needed to see her for the whole appointment today. The walk is too long. How will I ever make it?”

  She inhales sharply, deeply for a count of four, exhales for a count of four, inhales and exhales again. Three times she repeats her deep breathing until the panic, that feeling of reality overwhelming her, sinks back into her depths. She walks out into the knife-cold air. She pulls her long, warm black scarf up over her mouth and tramps west along Eglinton.

  The February sun is out, spiking rays and shadows onto the sidewalk she’s walking along. It burns her cheek, while the wind cuts her with cold. The sky stretches a canopy of sun-bleached blue high up, but she hardly notices as she bends her head down against the cold and tears.

  She’s thankful she’s wearing sunglasses. She started wearing them to protect herself against seeing the rudeness of TTC patrons and the callous indifference of TTC drivers and the garbage everywhere. It enrages her. She fears that rage will break out and then boomerang back onto her. But the sunglasses have also proven useful to hide her often smudged and leaky eyes on her way home from her many appointments.

  She turns onto a residential street, alternatively walking on cleared sidewalk and slogging over frozen footprints of slush. The metaphorical elephant is sitting on her chest as usual, and the crushing pain increases with each step. That elephant is soon crushing her muscles, her ribs, her heart. The pain cracks her mind, and back up comes the panic. She trips over an ice rut, her scarf slips down, and she stops. She hiccups a sob away. She wants to turn around and go home. She wants to curl up with Smokey. She’d be better off at home; no point making all that effort when she won’t benefit much anyway, not today. She begins to pivot.

  Wait a minute, where did that thought of quitting come from? She can’t quit; she has to keep going. She has to get better. Even a small benefit is better than none. She has to try and get there to salvage some part of her appointment with Zenobia. Screw her pain. She pulls her scarf back up, pulls her shoulders back, raises her head, glares straight down the length of the street, and thinks: TARC is down there. Aim and keep going. She puts one foot forward confidently and slides on a rut. Quit, a voice entices her. Go home. She looks down to ensure she doesn’t keep tripping, throws the pain out of her cognizance, shoves that betraying panic down, and thinks only of getting there. She steps forward again.

  The pain won’t be put out so easily. Her breathing becomes more shallow and erratic. But it doesn’t stop her. One foot then the next. One foot then the next. When she reaches cleared patches of sidewalk, she speeds up toward her destination. The wind freezes her tears to her cheeks, and the sun quickens her on from behind. Soon, she sees the TARC building and steps onto bare concrete. She quickens her step, panting noisily, and practically flings herself through the sliding glass doors into the warmth of the building.

  She strides up to the receptionist and puffs out “I’m here” before moving on toward Zenobia’s office, while unwinding her scarf that’s dappled with frozen droplets of exhaled breath, pulling off her hat, and ripping off and shoving her gloves into her pockets. She steams into Zenobia’s office, coat undone, and collapses into the chair next to where Zenobia is sitting. She breathes hard, too hard to speak.

  Zenobia smiles, “You got here! Congratulations! That was great. Do you know how many would’ve given up and gone back home? But you didn’t. I’m so proud of you! We have five minutes, but you’ll have your full appointments with Sunny and Rona.”

  “I … really … wanted … to … see … you.”

  “I know, Diane told me. But don’t worry, we’ll catch up next time.”

  Frustration rips at her and makes her want to howl. Instead she sits up, overheated but too tired to take her coat off. She steadies her breathing and tries to speak again.

  “Here, why don’t I help you off with your coat, and then I’ll walk you to Sunny’s office,” Zenobia says as she stands up, pulling her up with her spirit, helping her off with her coat, taking her hat and scarf and stuffing them into a sleeve, draping the coat over her arm, and leading her back out the door and down the hall to Sunny’s office. “I’m really proud of you. I know this is frustrating, but you didn’t let it stop you. That’s so amazing. Do you know how amazing that is?”

  Not so amazing. She totally missed her appointment. She couldn’t walk fast enough because of those stupid uncleared sidewalks and her own screwed-up body with that awful pain in her chest. Surely, she must be having the longest-lasting heart attack in the world. She feels her pulse surreptitiously. Fast but steady. She thinks this thoug
ht every day. And she tells herself every day that she can’t be having a heart attack every day before feeling her pulse to reassure herself it’s still there. How would she know if she ever did have one though? How would it be any different from what she feels every day? Her doctors don’t think it’s a big deal. Stupid doctors.

  “Here we are! I’ll see you next week,” Zenobia chirps as she leaves her at the open door where Sunny is waiting and hands her her outdoor gear.

  “Hi, how are you?” Sunny asks her as she closes the door behind her and gestures to the client chair. She bursts into tears as she sits down, burying herself under her purse and gear, reaching for a Kleenex. She spills all her anxiety and frustration. She’s getting tired of bursting into tears, of bawling every night before she can sleep, of the pain and exhaustion. Every morning she wakes up and has to talk herself into getting up, knowing the day will be one horrid thing followed by a nap followed by another amazingly-easy-thing-that-is-amazingly-hard-to-do thing followed by increasing pain followed by loneliness followed by another huge effort to do one simple thing followed by frustration at how the simplest thing is like a war against herself, fighting for the ease of doing something as easy as writing a simple email to answer a simple question, which becomes a lengthy ordeal of reading and rereading the original to make sure she read it right, which she usually hasn’t, and then replying in a way that’s complete and can’t be misinterpreted, which between using nonsense words and not finishing her thoughts, it usually is if she doesn’t take the whole day to work on it.

  She wheezes in air.

  And all she gets from her friends is how “effort-full” her emails look, as if they can see how hard she has to think when writing them. And they’re always avoiding her phone calls. Well, Nance doesn’t usually avoid her calls, but she is becoming harder and harder to reach. And her grandmother only wants to talk to her on Wednesdays when she sees her for their weekly shopping trips. God forbid they have a simple phone call. All that cooking Grandmother insists on her doing is tiring her out too. She longs to sleep in Friday mornings. But between the homemaker and waking up over and over during the night, she gets even less sleep than normal Thursday nights. To top it off, she doesn’t even get a chance to wake up properly because as she’s eating her grandmother-prescribed oatmeal in the dining room, her homemaker is clanking dishes in the kitchen five steps away. There’s no peace anywhere. And why is she crying now?

  She honks her nose and keeps her head down.

  Sunny tells her a story: “I had this client, a woman like you. Every time she came in, as soon as I asked her, ‘how are you,’ she’d start crying. This happened every time, and I started to become paranoid that I was upsetting her somehow. I felt so bad. I asked her one day what am I doing to make you cry? She told me that she had to hold herself together all week because no one was interested in hearing about her troubles or helping her out, but when she walked into my office it was the one time she felt support. It was the only time it was safe for her to let go. So it’s okay to cry here. It’s good to cry. It relieves the stress and pain of your situation.”

  She raises her head, Kleenex over her nose, “But I’m so tired of it. Doesn’t it ever stop?”

  “It will. Give it time. You will get better. Look at what you did today. You felt abandoned, and you must’ve been overwhelmed with how to cope. I know how Akaesman can interfere with clear thinking and make you feel unable to cope with a sudden change like that. Yet you persevered! You didn’t quit. That is so amazing.”

  She thinks about it for a bit, eyeballing the floor again. She lifts her head up determinedly and wipes her eyes.

  The rest of her TARC day finishes as usual, and she gets home as fatigued as usual.

  She collapses in front of the television, not caring that she’s supposed to have a healthy snack. “Who can walk that far,” she grouses, “all the way into the kitchen.” She’s lucky she got to the couch. Smokey jumps up beside her, snuggles into her slouched side.

  A couple of hours later, she’s breathing normally again. The elephant on her chest has lost some weight. And her hunger is stronger than her fatigue. She gets up, Smokey jumping down with her. She sees Smokey’s empty dishes, frowns at herself, guilt rising up and smacking her heart. She apologizes over and over to her cat, who twines around her legs in response, purring.

  The cat’s dishes filled, and Smokey noshing greedily away, she’s finding fatigue dragging at her cheeks, weighing her arms down, sinking her chest again. She reaches for the easiest thing she can eat, a bag of popcorn she bought at the drug store back on Tuesday when she had to pick up her medications. She shuffles back to the couch, bag of popcorn in one hand, cold glass of water in the other, and falls back onto the couch to watch Jeopardy.

  The cordless phone her grandmother gave her rings shrilly, startling her awake.

  “You need a break.” Grandmother is nothing if not direct. No small talk, no hi, how are you, for her. “… to your Aunt Liv. She’s agreed to have you visit her for a week. I’ll come by next Wednesday to pick you up and drive you there. I’ll drive you home too at the end of the week. Have some things packed. I don’t want to be packing for you. As it is, I’ll be putting in a long day for you, making the four-hour drive there and back.”

  “Aunt Liv?”

  “Yes, you remember her? Your father’s oldest Aunt. She lives up near Huntsville. The brisk country air and snow will do you good. Get you out of the city and away from these appointments. All these therapists are getting you down.”

  She wonders how she’ll get a break from Akaesman. No escaping him. Ever. Except when she’s asleep and that’s only when he and the stupid phone let her sleep.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” she says quietly.

  “Write it down in your Palm.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you writing it down?”

  She sighs and thinks about where her Palm is. Her purse. She drops the phone onto the couch, creaks up, dislodging Smokey, and goes to get her Palm out of her purse. She taps the event in. She limps back to the couch, her right hip having locked itself, sits back down, picks up the phone, and says, “It’s in.”

  “Good. Be ready.”

  She presses the End button and puts the phone down on the coffee table. That’s when she sees Srukar. She freezes in position: How did it get there? It was last in her night table drawer where she’d hidden it all those months ago. She’s sure she never moved it out of there.

  She stares at it with heavy-lidded eyes. Her eyes slowly close. She drifts off, her body swaying back. She snaps her eyes open, and it’s still there. Not only that, it looks as fresh and warm as when — who was she anyway, that visitant, that hallucination? — offered it to her. She closes her eyes again. Snaps them open. Yes, that bun, Srukar, is still sitting there. She leans forward to touch it gingerly. It’s real. She snatches her hand back and continues to stare at it, remembering how suddenly at peace she was when that visitant appeared and stretched out her hand to her, the hand that held Srukar.

  She wants that, she suddenly decides. She wants some peace. She wants kindness. She craves that gentle caring. She doesn’t want to be alone anymore. She grabs and stuffs the Srukar in her mouth. It’s warm and doughy, like freshly baked bread. She chews its softness reverently, and warmth floods her mouth. Its comforting scent rises through her palate. She swallows. It slides down her throat silkily. Peace slips out of her esophagus and into her surrounding flesh, relaxing her chest, her stomach, her muscles. She eases back against the cushions, and her eyelids drift down. Her body is like water, soft and clear and in harmony. Her senses come alive without drowning her, as if she can hear and smell and see and feel all the beauty of the world. That sloe presence deep within her brain stirs as it tries to shatter her experience, but this effulgent revelation Srukar has given her diminishes it into nothing. She can sense the stillness of a flat peaceful pond. All she knows, all she feels is peace.

&n
bsp; Sleep.

  She falls asleep and slumbers till dawn, not hearing the sudden parade of telemarketers ringing her phone or the cars growling up the street or the fight that erupts outside in the hours wee.

  ~~~*~~~