Aunt Jean asked me to come home directly after school. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. She has to run up to Bloor Street to the bank. She has an appointment with the bank manager.
I don’t mind. Mom is working an extra shift and there’s no one out on the street to play with because the days are getting so short now.
I’m supposed to watch Jimmy while Aunt Jean is gone. Sometimes that’s very hard to do, depending on whether he’s having a good day or a bad day. When I come in the front door, I can tell it’s been a so-so day. Aunt Jean has managed to do some things like the laundry and the dishes. The potatoes aren’t peeled. So, I help. I sit at the kitchen table with a pot of water filled with muddy potatoes from the garden. I select a paring knife that I test with my thumb. Aunt Jean keeps her knives very sharp, because you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than a sharp one.
Jimmy swipes at me, wanting the knife.
“No, Jimmy.” I try to distract him with a rag doll.
He lunges at me again. He’s bigger than me. Two times as big as me, but I’m quick and wiry.
I put the potatoes and the knife on the counter, well back. Together, Jimmy and I cover the table with newspaper. I carve a star in one of the potatoes and dilute a bit of food coloring in water and pour it in a pie plate.
Jimmy stamps the star all over the paper, letting me finally get at the potato peeling.
“Stay on the paper, Jimmy. You’re making a mess.”
I hum a tune and Jimmy stops to listen. This is New-Jimmy behavior. I mean, he liked my singing before, but it never captivated him like it does now. It really didn’t.
I won’t tell my mom that I’m watching Jimmy for Aunt Jean. Aunt Jean is paid to watch me, not me to watch Jimmy. Since the troubles, I know my mom has paid Aunt Jean more wages. Half again what she used to pay. It’s expensive to take the streetcar downtown to see the doctors at Sick Children’s Hospital. The doctors who looked at Jimmy are all specialists. They think he has terrible headaches but because he can’t talk, they can’t tell for sure. They poked and prodded and X-rayed Jimmy’s poor little brain, but other than that, Aunt Jean says they don’t seem to know what to do.
Except Dr. Phillips. He has a plan. He thinks there is pressure on Jimmy’s brain. Jimmy has a bruise on the brain and Dr. Phillips thinks he could relieve it by drilling a hole in Jimmy’s head and sucking out the blood like a vampire.
I’ve noticed something about troubles. When Jimmy first “fell off the swing” and he was lying in a coma, his house was filled with ham and scalloped potatoes. There were Empire cookies and date squares. Cold roast beef and coleslaw. There was so much food that it spilled over into our side of the semi-detached house, because my mom has a refrigerator that my grandfather bought before he died. Aunt Jean is still using an old-fashioned icebox and it’s not that easy to get ice anymore. The food lasted for two weeks. I mean, the delivery of the food, and then it stopped. Just like that. It didn’t dwindle down to one canasta lady bringing one thing, and another coming forward a few days later. I mean, it just stalled out at the two-week mark, like two weeks was sufficient time for us to get used to the new Jimmy.
Well, it wasn’t.
I heard my mom and Aunt Jean talking over their teacups while I was supposed to be memorizing my spelling list. An operation for Jimmy will be very expensive. Aunt Jean will have to mortgage the house. She’s gone up to Bloor Street to sign the papers and the scent of Chanel No. 5 that she dabbed behind her ears to impress the bank manager remains in the house.
I’m not stupid. If you mortgage a house, you get money from the Bank, but you have to pay it back. If you don’t pay it back, you can lose your home and be on the street with your suitcases. Aunt Jean is always reminding us what it was like in the Great Depression. The war didn’t hold a candle to the Great Depression, except that Bertie died. And Aunt Jean has had to sell so many of her grandmother’s things and her wedding gifts. You might think my mom and I are fairly well set in comparison, because my grandpa left us his house with all the stuff in it, including a piano. But we’re not. There are expenses, real expenses for heating oil and food. We stopped my piano lessons shortly after Grandpa died. Like Aunt Jean, we just get by now.
Jimmy likes show tunes. And big band tunes. He’s partial to Glen Miller. I turn the radio up when he’s on, but even so, it’s not as calming for Jimmy as my voice singing Glen Miller. I hand Jimmy a wooden spoon. He beats the table and keeps pretty good time. I sing into a whisk. We make such a racket that we don’t hear Aunt Jean come in. She’s been standing watching us for some time, I think. Me singing and Jimmy beating on the drum.
Aunt Jean’s face is pale. Bits of hair, gray and brown, straggle out of her bun. She’s twisting her hands like Jimmy does when he’s agitated.
“Mercy, Aunt Jean, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Sit down.” I push a kitchen chair toward her. I run some tap water and hand her a glass.
I’m afraid to ask the question, but I need to know. “Did the bank manager say no? Can’t you get a mortgage?”
Aunt Jean takes a tiny sip and closes her eyes. The lids are fluttering. It’s going to be a long one.
“Aunt Jean. Tell me.” I try to sound bossy. “Now.”
“There’s already a mortgage.”
“Neither did I. Apparently, Ted holds a mortgage. The bank did a search at the Registry Office and there’s already a mortgage in Ted’s name. The bank won’t give me any money.”
“But this is your house!”
“Three years before my Jake died, he needed money and borrowed some from Ted. Ted registered a mortgage.”
“And Jake never told you?”
“Never. I haven’t paid back a red cent to Ted. He never asked me to.”
I take the potatoes to the sink and dump them in. I wash all the garden dirt down the drain. I’m buying time.
I turn around and face Aunt Jean. “It’s simple. Tell him to forget the loan. Tell him to make you a gift.”
Aunt Jean straightens her shoulders. “I already did. Ted has another solution. He wants to move out of his apartment and into your room upstairs. I called him from the bank.”
“Oh, no!”
“Ted says I can’t afford to pay him back so the house is as good as his.”
Jimmy gives the wooden spoon a mighty swack. The handle splinters and breaks in his hand.
Jimmy snorts and wails. I want to wail, too, but I’m far too grown up.