Still Life with Birds

TODAY, LIKE EVERY WORKDAY, BEGINS IN the restaurant kitchen. Without turning on the radio to break the lake’s silence, Ariana makes a cheese and chive omelette for the two of them to share. Plates and espressos in hand, she climbs the back stairs and enters Violetta’s bedroom without knocking.

“Vi. It’s time.”

“It’s time to begin, isn’t it,” Vi warbles from her bed, deliberately off-key. Ariana has learned to interpret every blink of her sister’s one functioning eye, and when Vi winks, she looks past the stare of the blind right iris, glazed wide open. Vi giggles, picks up her meter and tests her sugar levels. Ariana, perched on the foot of the bed, has to look away when Vi slides the needle into her upper arm.

They eat in silence. Ariana rolls the ties of Vi’s yellow sunhat between her fingers and sips her coffee. Vi still surprises her, flashes of humour embedded like unexpected glass. She can see the lake through the window, smooth except for the ruffle of wild waterfowl along the shore. “Bonne anniversaire, ma belle,” she says to Violetta.

“Don’t say it, Ariana. Please.”

“Vi, we need to talk. You could have broken your collarbone last week. That doctor … ”

“I know what he said.” Vi holds up both hands, her fingers waggling into quotation marks. “‘Post-transplant steroid use can lead to osteoporosis.’ I’m fine. Don’t fuss so much, Ari.” Vi is dressed before Ariana can move, her feet quiet on the hardwood. “I’ll go feed the ducks.”

“Wear your hat!” Ariana flings the hat toward the stairs. “Remember what he said about skin cancer!” Vi’s whistling echoes up the stairwell. Ariana frowns and runs downstairs, grabbing the hat en route from the top riser, drops it on the kitchen counter near Vi’s favourite stool. She can’t wait on Vi, needs to start the duck pâté and confit. Making them brings back memories of Grandmère at the butcher block, her deep laugh, but memories are no comfort when she considers the possibility of life without Vi as well.

During a lull at lunchtime, Ariana steps out of the sweltering kitchen. It’s just as hot outside, the air hanging in wavering lines, and sweat leaves a long smear across her sleeve as she wipes her face. She’s glad to see light glinting from the windshield of Gordon’s truck at the far end of the parking lot. The orchardist’s presence means Vi will smile more than usual. Yet every time her sister returns from an outing with Gordon, a noose of resentment tightens around Ariana’s ribcage. What kind of woman resents her own sister’s friendships? Especially a sister who’s bedevilled by physical frailties? Five years since Grandmère summoned Ari home from France, where she was working at her cousin’s bakery in Toulouse. It was autumn in the south of France. Ariana returned to a blizzard in Saskatoon, and to Vi, red-faced, hooked up to a dialysis machine, shrilly haranguing the nurses. Soon after, while Grandmère waited in the family room, Violetta and Ariana were rolled into the brightly lit operating room on parallel gurneys, holding hands.

Ariana herself has no time or inclination to socialize. All she’s ever wanted is to cook, to own a restaurant. At the end of each day, she has no energy left to spend on a friend, or a lover, for that matter: Vi takes all her emotional currency.

She has read somewhere that saving a life ties two people, in this life and into the next. Not that she’s a Buddhist, or even clear on the concepts of reincarnation or karma, but from the moment she offered her kidney to Vi, the feeling intensifying after the surgery itself, she has felt accountable for her older sister. What adds a worrisome chafe to the yoke is the hard fact that organ recipients rarely live more than fifteen years after their transplant. Vi is thirty-five, nowhere near as strong as she used to be when the three of them, Vi, Grandmère and Ariana, spent their time and energies tending the market garden and greenhouses.

Her older sister hasn’t sounded so cheerful since her time at university. Before the transplant. Gordon is good for her, no doubt about it. She should simply rejoice that Vi has lost her pinched look.

The lot is jammed with cars. It won’t be many weeks before the patio is empty at lunch — the sun is noticeably cooler now that September has fluttered halfway through its rounds. The back door slides soundlessly shut behind her, and Ariana goes back to work, assembling salads, plating galettes, arranging trays of bread and pastries. Violetta strides back and forth through the patio door, her hands full on every pass. It’s Ellen’s day off, and Ariana, expecting a slow day, had only scheduled Gwen. Vi, who rarely serves, volunteered to wait tables when the parking lot started to fill.

Ariana sighs, catching a glimpse of Vi smiling at a small girl in a gingham sundress. It’s just the two of them since Grandmère died, three years gone last April. She misses Grandmère’s pragmatic nods and quick hugs. The fact is they won’t get rich running a seasonal lakeside bistro and patisserie. It’s fine for her, but what does Violetta want to do with the rest of her life? Vi never mentions it, but Ariana feels her sister’s clock ticking.

Ariana jumps at an unexpected touch on her shoulder, and a voice in her ear. “I’ve brought you a few more sour cherry trees.”

“Gordon! You startled me.”

His short blond hair is dark with sweat, his Smithbilt in his hands. “Sorry, shortcut through the kitchen. D’you mind?”

“No, of course not!” Gordon’s freckled face, sunburned despite the hat, reminds her of a puppy, all bounce and wide-mouthed grin. She had been prepared to dislike him the first day he showed up for lunch, another redneck farmer, but his intake of breath and widened eyes at his first taste of her duck galette had disarmed her.

“I set the trees by the back door. They’re the hardy varieties I took Vi to see last week at the university. Didn’t she tell you? I’ll dig them in after lunch.”

Ariana recalls her sister returning that day, her hair loose on her shoulders, her face relaxed. Her small, secret smile as Gordon’s truck pulled out of the yard.

“Too funny,” Ariana says. “The trees’ varieties, I mean. Romeo and Juliet.”

Gordon flushes right up to his hairline. “Yeah. I guess.”

“You’re so good to us! Thanks, Gordon.”

“No worries. You both work way too hard. Need some lookin’ after.” He puts on his cowboy hat and light-foots through the screen door toward the patio. Ariana stares at the door as it swings back and forth. Why was he blushing? This man’s generosity is wearing down that worry-stone’s hard edges.

As if on cue, Ariana hears her sister’s voice, a sharp rise of consonants. “Merde!”

Spinning around, she sees Vi stumble, caught on the fly by Gordon, his short, stocky body surprisingly nimble as he leaps from three strides away to Vi’s side. He stabilizes the plates in her long hands, jokes with the guests who dodge the flying cutlery, ruffles the gingham girl’s hair. After all is returned to rights, plates safely delivered, Vi and Gordon stand together beside the Amur maples that line the patio, Gordon’s arm folded like a wing over Vi’s shoulders, red leaves like bloodstains collecting beside her collar.

Violetta is flushed, patting her chest when she returns to the kitchen. Ariana can feel her own blood pressure climb several points.

“Vi! Are you all right?”

“Just a little light-headed.” Vi stoops to rub her calf. “I barked my shin on one of those tomato planters. Did you see that tiny girl, Ari? So cute. She reminded me of you when you were little. Same button nose. I was afraid I’d fall on top of her.”

“Sit down, will you? They’ll be all right out there without you for a few minutes.” Ariana shoves the stool toward her sister. “I’m so terrified every time you take a tumble.” She wants to pat her, but Vi has collected so many bruises lately, she’s reluctant to pat anywhere. Nothing broken. A relief. But the injuries seem to be coming more rapidly. It’s as if her sister’s inner spring is unwinding. She settles for a quick hug but misjudges its placement. Vi winces and leans away. “Oh, Vi, I’m sorry. That’s it, this is the last time you talk me into letting you wait tables.” To Ariana’s surprise, Vi doesn’t put up an argument. “You’re lucky Gordon was there. He brought more trees.”

“He said as much.”

“Here. Eat something.”

Vi plucks the slice of bread from Ariana’s hand, pecks at it, swallows.

“Vi! Stay put a minute longer!” Her sister’s grin is back on her face before she disappears through the swinging door.

Gordon has been here almost every day this month. On each trip, he has unloaded something unexpected from the back of the pickup — shrubs, rosebushes, and once, a new hoe to replace Ariana’s after it had snapped in her hands. Ariana has offered him money, but he shrugs her off, his chuckle reminding her of the coots’ clattering voices in the reed beds. “Maybe lunch later?” he always responds, rubbing his chin and grinning before he slides away. “I’ll just go see if I can help Vi. She in the office?”

Ariana rolls pastry as she looks out the kitchen window, the dough pooling beneath her rolling pin the way the water ripples around the teals and pintails. Bistro Étoile is a deliberate re-creation of the small lakeside cafés she visited in France, right down to the two-tone umbrellas fluttering over the patio tables. Grandmère had immediately seen the possibilities of the idea when Ariana broached it after her return from France. “You’ve learned all I can teach you,” she said. “It’s time.” Her square hands, so like Ariana’s, shook slightly as she handed Ariana a cheque. The morning they opened four years ago, Ariana stood outside beside her, their shoulders just touching, watching the umbrellas. Waiting. When the first cars edged down the long driveway beside the lake, she hugged Grandmère and went inside to cook, a tiny prayer to St. Honoré, the patron saint of pastry chefs, flitting in her head. Please, make it last, make this last. Keep my sister safe. She didn’t dare say it out loud.

The dough beneath her hands feels springy. Ariana fits it into a tart pan, her fingertips fluting the edge into a wave. Vi’s near-accident this afternoon is a wake-up.

Ariana flicks the switch on the overhead fan. Through its muffled roar, she hears Vi’s voice.

“Are there any cookies left? What about profiteroles?” Vi, standing before the counter, holds out a basket, her grey eyes wide, smiling. “That man has the most amazing appetite!” She reaches out and tucks a strand of Ariana’s cropped black hair back behind her ear. She’s humming under her breath, a French nursery tune that Ariana vaguely recognizes. Vi always hums when Gordon’s in the vicinity. Her face changes then, from its normal narrow aspect, somehow becoming rounder, more childlike.

Ariana finds herself humming along. She fills the basket with cookies, then gives Vi a little shove. “Go on then.” She nods, observing the two of them bending over the tomato planters. Gordon is Vi’s first real friend since the transplant. On his first visit, after appreciatively downing the galette, Gordon consumed several pastries, two double espressos, plum eau de vie, candied hazelnuts. He stayed long after the patio emptied, gazing at the lake as it swelled into wavelets under the heavy westerly breeze. At four o’clock, he braved Ariana’s kitchen. “Excuse me?”

Ariana looked up from her corner desk. Up close, she saw that his fair hair was muddled with grey and two vertical lines cut deep clefts in his forehead. His hands on his cowboy hat were weathered but clean.

“Can I help you? Your bill, maybe? My sister will be — ” Violetta was upstairs, rebalancing her blood sugars with a shot of insulin and a bowl of lentil soup.

“Oh, no! I don’t need anything else,” he said. “You must be the chef-sister. I just wanted to say thanks, to you, and to my lovely server. Amazing.” Violetta glided down the stairs at that moment, and Gordon’s steady gaze left Ariana’s face for hers. “Everything. Just … amazing.”

The garden looks nearly done, plants slumping from last night’s frost, when Ariana carries her basket out to harvest the last of the zucchini. She’s ready to rest, too. While she usually appreciates the constancy of their clientele, today she wishes they’d all just pack their bags and fly south, like the grebes and geese. The winter closure lets her recover from early mornings and long hours on her feet in the kitchen. Lets new recipe ideas bubble to the surface. Beyond the raspberries, she spots the new cherry trees, slim whips in a cluster, already planted.

Vi looks exhausted, leaning on the kitchen counter, when Ariana returns with the vegetables.

“Sit down, Vi.” Ariana drags over a stool. “Has Gordon left? I wanted to say thank you.”

“You just missed him,” Vi says. “Stop fussing!” But she obediently perches on the stool. “I’ve been thinking, it’s been years since you had went out and had some fun. When did you last have a date, Ari?”

“Not interested,” Ariana replies shortly. “I’ve got plenty to keep me busy here.”

“I know you do. Just asking. You could use a break.” Her voice changes tone slightly, dropping. “That guy you met in Toulouse — ever hear anything from him?”

“No.”

“All right. You don’t have to snap at me.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. My hands are full, Vi.”

Vi hangs her head. “I know it’s on my account,” she says, flushing as she makes eye contact with Ariana. “But Gordon and I have been talking, Ariana.”

“Yes, I know. I saw the trees, he’s already planted them, at the south end of the raspberry canes. Fast worker, that man.”

Vi smirks. “He thinks we should build a berm. Plant more trees, a whole orchard. More berries. Turn the place into a real agri-tourism gate-to-plate destination. And make wines.” She gathers up the zucchini and heads for the sink without looking directly at her sister.

“What are you suggesting? We aren’t wine makers, and neither of us has the energy or time to take on another project. It’d take years to learn how to make fruit wine.”

“Gordon is. A wine maker, I mean.” Vi’s pale cheeks darken. “I’ve invited him to come back tonight. For an after-hours dinner.” She looks sideways at Ariana. “I want you there. At the table, I mean, with us, not in the kitchen.”

“What? Why’s that? You never invite people to dinner.”

“We want to talk to you. About … about the future. So let’s just eat what Grandmère would serve, right? Something simple, whatever you’ve already made. Bread, duck, beans. Don’t fuss. Please.”

“What do you mean, the future? Whose future?” Ariana, mystified, standing flatfooted in the kitchen. Vi, smiling to herself, tidying the dining room.

The women set the best patio table, but the wind blows in off the lake with a vengeance. It begins to rain, slanting drops that cut through the air and the lake’s surface. Autumn has arrived, abruptly, as it always does.

“We’ll have to eat indoors, Vi. Sorry.”

Violetta carries in the sunflowers, scatters their petals on the tablecloth, adds glassware, cutlery, candles. When the table is set, she restlessly washes and re-washes glasses, polishes immaculate forks. Ariana retreats to the kitchen and turns on the radio. When she lifts the lids of the pots, the aroma of anise-scented duck underlaid by earthy beans fills the room. Vi comes in, prowling the narrow walkway, picks up baking sheets and rolling pins, sets them down with a clatter and bang.

Ariana nudges her. “For crying out loud, Vi. Go for a little walk, the rain’s stopped! I’ll call you.” She leans against the stove, watches the vast sky streaked with clouds. On the lake, the wild waterbirds are gathering, canvasbacks, buffleheads, teals, merganzers in matched pairs. They lift off in successive waves, heading south, their wings drumming, water slapping.

Vi returns, slightly out of breath. When she stumbles over the lip of the kitchen door, Ariana leaps, trembling, her arms open, remembering as she scrambles the graceful arc of Gordon’s rescue. Before Ariana can cross the kitchen, Vi regains her balance. Ariana feels a heavy knot beneath her sternum. She can’t guarantee their lives or their income, can’t keep Vi safe, can’t even catch her when she trips.

“I’m all right.” Vi opens the cooler and pulls out a bottle, splashes wine into two glasses and sits on her favourite stool, her miscreant feet tucked under her. “The hospital isn’t our only anniversary, remember? Our fourth season, nearly done.” She hands her a glass. “Salut.”

“Salut.”

They sit at the counter in silence.

Ariana hears the roar of a defective muffler. Gordon’s truck. The creases in Vi’s forehead ease as he hurries in and lightly kisses her tidy braid of hair. Observing that intimate gesture, Ariana wonders what else she hasn’t taken note of.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says. “Did you tell her, Vi?”

Vi’s face turns pink. “I was waiting for you.” She grabs Gordon’s hand. “We want to have a baby, Ariana.”

“What?” The glass in Ariana’s hand almost slips through her fingers. Wine spills on her lap. Gordon, stifling a grin, picks up a towel and passes it to her. Ariana’s hands flutter. “You’ve never said anything about babies before!” Only once before — a wistful comment made a couple years ago, watching two toddlers with stains around their mouths follow their mother from stall to stall at the market, their chubby hands clutching half-eaten strawberries. Ariana had dismissed it as a passing fancy, far too risky for a diabetic with only one kidney and a short life expectancy. “Gordon? He’s like a brother! Isn’t he? Aren’t you?” She looks from one to the other.

Vi starts to laugh. “A brother? That’s what you thought I felt? Oh, Ariana. You need to get out more.”

Ariana flushes and ducks her head. “You could have told me,” she mutters. “Why didn’t you?” Her sternum contracts and releases. Gordon, his arm around Vi beside the maple trees. Catching her, his arms briefly suspending her above the earth. Blushing in the kitchen.

“You said it yourself, you have enough to worry about, Ari.”

“But a baby!” Ariana looks at Gordon. “This feels awfully out of the blue.”

“Sorry, Ariana,” Gordon says, reaches for the wine bottle. “Can I?” She nods, and he refills their glasses, then pours a third. “We’ve been talking about it for awhile, but didn’t want to bring it up until we’d worked out the details. We’ve got it all figured out, and we want your … your blessing, I suppose. Your good will. I don’t want Vi to wait tables anymore.”

“I’m with you there.”

“I thought I’d build an addition onto the house, an east wing, so we wouldn’t intrude on you. Then a winery on the north side. I’ll put in more canes, they’ll be producing in two years. And more cherry trees. Maybe haskap, they’re doing well in field trials, and more rhubarb. Surprising, what good wine rhubarb makes.”

“Grandmère made rhubarb wine,” Vi interjects, her eyes bright. “Remember, Ariana? No, maybe not, you were too young.”

“Never mind the wine! What about you?”

The sun breaks through the patchwork clouds, long shadows, surreal light.

“What about me?” Vi touches her sister’s arm, gently, like leaves descending. “I love Gordon. This is more of a chance at life than I thought I’d have. It’s just like the birds, Ari. Things come and go in their own time.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean I want to think about … you dying.”

“Then don’t. But I want you to be to my baby what Grandmère was to you. When it’s time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You wanted to talk about what next, Ari. Well, what next has arrived, and it’s time to talk about it. No, don’t fuss. It’s a fact. All this day-to-day stuff is just detail. We have to talk about the big picture. About what might happen. I’ll need your help. With the baby, I mean.”

“But, Vi — ”

The lines in Vi’s face loosen. “Ariana, you know what’s coming. So does Gordon. I may have ten years.”

Ariana shivers. Her innards clench and release, freeing a blur of relief and guilt and chagrin. She knows exactly what Vi intends to say.

“If we do have a child, and if … when … well, I want you to help Gordon raise it.”

Vi’s voice trails off.

Ariana looks at Gordon, his hands sheltering Vi’s, and understanding flickers, like light on the water. “But I’m not mother material.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What do you think you’ve been doing for the past four years, caring for me?”

“That doesn’t make me a mother!”

“You’re right. Sorry.” Violetta reaches out, her hand nesting on Ariana’s skin. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. We can learn together.”

“And the restaurant?”

“Listen, Ari, I don’t know all the answers or what will happen. I don’t. But I’m willing to take it on trust if you are. It’ll all work out. Always does.” She looks curiously at Ari. Winks, her sightless eye a moon in the fading evening light. “You’re over-thinking this. What does your gut tell you?”

“My gut?” Ariana breathes in. “I don’t … ”

“Do you need some time to think about it?”

“No, Vi. I don’t need to think about it.”

The lake is still, the autumn moon re-emerging as the rain slows. Ariana slings a jacket over her shoulders and leaves Vi and Gordon together in the kitchen. She can see the shadows of their figures move close together as the patio’s outdoor lights flicker on. Something close to envy fills her as she watches them dance.

Wandering along the path beside the lakeshore, tears on Ariana’s cheeks feel cool in the breeze as she tries to imagine Vi’s crooked smile superimposed on a child’s face. She pulls her hands from their pockets. Wide palms. Square knuckles. A maker’s hands. So like Grandmère’s. Ahead of her, several coots stop squabbling and lift clumsily into the air with a heavy drumming of wings.

The envy fades, replaced by a current of possibilities. She wipes her cheeks with her jacket sleeve and stoops, picking up a smooth small stone that just fits within the cradle of her palm. A rapid release, and it skips across the lake, one two three four five skimming arcs that the avocets ignore. With a bobbing nod of her head, Ariana enumerates each quick touch of stone to water. She lifts her face to the birds, their impermeable bodies graceful in the air, their beaks pointing south. Their parabolic lives will bring them back in the spring. That much is a certainty.