~
MY PARENTS ARE EERILY quiet when we materialize back in front of Hi-Lo and explain about chasing Devin down the street. Morgan wants me and my parents to come back to their place for coffee so that we can discuss things further, but my father complains that he’s tired. We drop Morgan and Jimmy off at their apartment building, and as we pull away from the curb Morgan waves to me, forming a phone with his fingers and mouthing, “Call me.”
I’ve been wrong to be jealous and angry with him. I didn’t think he even really knew because we’ve never fought in the almost feral way some brothers and sisters do. Even now I know the jealousy hasn’t been fully vanquished, but my new awareness has shrunk it, changed it.
In the car Mom finds her voice and starts firing Devin questions at me. What he looked like. Whether he seemed healthy or not. If the girl he was with appeared to be his girlfriend. Why he would run from Morgan and me.
My answers are incomplete and vague. He looked okay. Not much skinnier than when he left home. I have no idea who the girl is, not anyone I’ve seen at our house. Devin ran because he doesn’t want to talk to any of us, but I don’t say that to my mother, and anyway, it’s obvious. At first I’m surprised that my mother’s as composed as she is — maybe deep down she believed Devin was dead and the fact that he’s striding around Toronto hopping on subway trains sounds like good news. But later that night, when I’m trying to sleep, I hear crying and ragged voices from my parents’ bedroom.
I wait for it to stop. It doesn’t. I dial Morgan, who immediately calls our land line. After a few minutes my parents begin to quiet down, so this time my big brother can be assured he did something right. Then Morgan calls me back on my cell and chats about nothing like he’s trying to distract me.
After a bit I ask if Jimmy’s still awake too. “He went to bed a couple of minutes ago,” Morgan says. “While you and I were on the phone.”
“I was going to text him my email address but I guess you can pass it on to him.”
“Sure, I’ll do that,” Morgan tells me. “And next time we’ll just have you over for dinner like the original plan. I’ll leave it to you whether you want to bring someone or not.”
“You mean the guy, don’t you?”
“Exactly,” Morgan says. “The guy. Or not, whatever you prefer.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.” I yawn into the phone. “I’m about three seconds away from unconsciousness so I better say good night.”
“Good night, Serena,” my brother says, and I feel like I know him a bit better than I did before Devin left last June. Is it awful to think there may be some good things about Devin’s disappearance?
I put my cell down and snuggle into my pillow. After spotting Devin earlier I’m positive I’ll have one of my two dreams about him, but when I wake up to the sound of my alarm at eight o’clock the next morning I can’t remember dreaming at all. No one else is awake yet, and normally I wouldn’t be up this early on a Sunday unless I had to go to work either, but I made up my mind what to do next just as I was dozing off last night and it can’t wait.
I’m going on a Devin quest again. A quest I won’t quit until he speaks to me. Just me.
Morgan might help, if I asked him, but when I do find Devin I don’t want him to feel like we’re ganging up on him, ready to play the home version of Intervention. I just need to know that he’s okay, or that he will be, eventually.
I eat a bowl of Raisin Bran, leave a note for my parents, and creep out of the house. Then I text Genevieve to inform her she’s my alibi and that I’ve gone searching for Devin in Toronto. It takes me longer than ever to get downtown because the local bus that hooks up with the commuter train to Toronto’s running on a lame Sunday schedule.
There’s no wind or snow today but the temperature’s bleak and I shiver in my hat and layers as I retrace last night’s steps along Cumberland Street. If I were skating I wouldn’t feel the cold so much. Of course, if I were skating there’d be hot chocolate too. So I pop into Starbucks for severely overpriced hot chocolate and scan the faces of the other customers. The old Devin usually preferred independent coffee shops, but if I want to maximize my chances of locating him I’ll need to stop in to every coffee shop and fast food restaurant between here and Queen Street West.
I’m under no illusions that I’ll find him today, but he can’t hide out forever. I’ll come back to Toronto whenever I can, for however long it takes. In Starbucks I dole out my change with one hand and hold my phone out with the other, pushing it under the barista’s nose and asking if she’s seen my missing brother. She barely gives my cell a glance before shaking her head and telling me no.
I put my gloves back on and slip back outside with my hot chocolate. The city rapidly becomes a blur of greasy food, ground coffee, and people replying that they’ve never seen my brother. Questioning the service industry people works best because they can’t shake me off and are more likely to have noticed Devin in the first place. I know I remember the customers that stop in regularly at Total Drug Mart — I probably remember some of them better than they remember me because normally people just want to fast-forward through the transaction and jump to more interesting moments in their lives. Me, I’m stuck behind a counter for hours at a time.
Some of the people I show Devin’s photo to stop and take the time to absorb the image and search their memory. Others couldn’t really care less but look at it anyway. In between my fast food stops it’s so chilly outside that I think about Bucky and his owner on Queen Street. I hope they’re not out in this, but if they are I have another five-dollar bill set aside for them.
When I lose feeling in my fingers, despite my thick gloves, I decide it’s time for lunch. After inhaling the scent of so much grease and sugar, the only thing I can handle the thought of is rabbit food so I buy a fresh fruit tray at Cultures and stay awhile to get warm. Back out on the street afterwards, I begin the whole cycle over with a fresh hot chocolate and a string of fast food restaurants.
I skip most of the clothing stores and lurch past a strip club. The sign’s top line promises: “THE BEST ALL NUDE DELICIOUS HOT GIRLS.” The second reads: “VISIT OUR VIP ROOM. WELCOME TOURISTS!”
Wandering by the Eaton Centre shopping mall, its warmth tempts me. But for some reason I think I’ll have better luck out on the street so I keep going, popping into any place that will feed a person for less than five dollars. That makes the Golden Arches top of the list, and I stumble into McDonald’s, reaching for my cell in my back pocket as I join the line. My eyes scour the customers — a family of five, two young Asian women grabbing a table by the wall, a trio of teenage guys in gang colours. I can’t explain, but when my gaze lands on Devin, gulping down a jumbo-sized drink near the window, the sight doesn’t come as a shock. It’s as though on some level I already knew I’d find him here.
That’s the way it seems for a moment or two anyway. Seconds later my heart’s up in my mouth and I’m welded to the spot under my feet.
Now. Before he sees me. I wrench my left foot up and then my right. My legs obey and rush me over to Devin’s window seat. He doesn’t even see me coming.
I stand directly in front of him so he can’t run without pushing me aside.
Shit. That’s what he’s thinking when he looks up at me. I read it in his face. He screws up his eyes as he stares at me, cringing in his seat. Then he clamps his lashes shut and lets his mouth fall open.
My brother’s hair is the same colour as mine, but it looks as though he hasn’t washed it in a few days. He has the kind of scalp that gets oily fast; that’s like mine too. His eyes are deep-set, like my father’s. If you look closely enough you’d recognize bits of all the other LeBlancs in my brother Devin. To my eyes he seems overly skinny for his frame, but people who don’t know him may not think so.
“So sit,” Devin barks. “Stop staring at me.”
“You’ll take off,” I tell him, my voice unnaturally intense for such a mundane location. Drama must happen all the time at McDonald’s, but stupid reality show type melodrama. Devin and I shouldn’t have the crucial conversation we’re in for at a place whose mascot is a clown.
“I won’t,” he mutters.
I don’t believe him.
“I won’t,” he repeats with an ultra-sharp edge. “Shit. Sit, Serena!”
I angle my body towards the chair next to his and drop reluctantly into it.
“Shit,” he says again, both hands rubbing at his hair. “What’re you even doing here?”
Duh. “Looking for you.” I stretch my legs out a bit under the table and accidentally knock one of them against his.
Devin doesn’t move to accommodate my legs. He glares at me in silence. That green shell coat I’ve spotted him in before is slung across the back of his chair. He’s wearing a blue polo shirt with the number 15 on the front and grey pants, and I can’t stop staring at him. “Morgan and I went after you yesterday, you know,” I continue. “Even after you went down to the subway. We were on the platform, searching for you.” I push my chair back to make room for my legs. “I’ve been looking for you all day.”
Devin’s expression is disinterest mixed with irritation. “You’re wasting your time.”
“I get to decide what’s a waste of my time,” I tell him.
“Okay.” Devin yawns and rubs his eyes. He has dark circles under them, something he was always prone to, only now they’re more pronounced. “Whatever.”
“Whatever? Do you have any idea what you’ve done to Mom and Dad?” Devin’s soul has been sucked out of his body. He doesn’t look like the Devin from my zombie dreams but the vibe surrounding him is the same. It’s like he’s not even hearing me. “Mom’s been an inch away from having a complete breakdown since the moment you left,” I explain. “All she does is visit her doctor and haunt eBay. And Dad, there’s nothing he can do about it so he pretty much just sits around too. Their whole lives revolve around staying home in case they hear news about you.”
I straighten my back against the uncomfortable McDonald’s chair and spit out, “At one point we thought you might be dead. Somebody found a body in Newmarket. Mom called the police because it could’ve been you.”
My neck cranes forward. “Every single day at our house is a day you’re not there, a day where we have no idea what’s going on with you.”
Devin smiles bitterly, his hand rhythmically tapping the table. “Dad and Mom did that to themselves. They’re the ones who kicked me out, if you remember. So why don’t you lay the blame where it belongs.”
“What else could they do but kick you out with the way you were acting?” I’m not getting through to him at all. “You punched Dad. You were stealing things, fighting with everyone.” Bringing weird people home. Using. I stop myself before adding the last two to the list, but I could go on and on.
Devin’s mouth puckers. “They’ve done a number on you — you’re brainwashed through and through. Seeing everything from their side.”
“You honestly think it was different than that?” I ask him. “Don’t you even remember what you used to be like before you started with the …” I can’t bring myself to put a name to his problem. Meth is such an ugly word. I never realized that before last June.
“Serena.” Devin holds his sides as he hunches over the table. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to you romanticize the past like it was so perfect. You know what I felt like before? Like shit. Like nothing.”
He reaches for his shake, closing his fingers around it but not picking it up. “So you think you can come looking for me and change my life? I already did that. It’s done and this is it. I’m not changing back to the person I was before, and it sounds like you’re the one who needs to learn to deal with that — you and Mom and Dad.” He yanks his legs towards him under the table. “I have places to be. I need to go.”
“Places?” I repeat. “Where?”
“Oh.” Devin forces a laugh. “Don’t we sound like Mom now?” The contempt in his words throws me off balance. It’s not fair for him to hate Mom so much after all the worrying she’s done about him. He must be frozen on the inside, his heart and mind a solid block of ice.
“Right,” I say sarcastically. “How embarrassing for me to actually give a shit about you and what you’re doing with your life. How embarrassing for me; how embarrassing for Mom.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Devin grumbles as he gets up. “Do we have to be so melodramatic?”
I stand too and watch him tug on his coat. It has a zipper around the back of the neck that suggests a missing attachable hood and one of the sleeves bunches partway up his arm. He yanks it down to cover his polo shirt as he looks at me sideways. “I’m cool,” he mutters, bobbing his head as an afterthought. “Really, okay? And you’ll be okay too if you just stop worrying so much. I don’t even know why you …” His hands comb restlessly through his hair again.
“What?” I ask him. “What?”
“Why you bothered,” he adds. “This is the way things have to be.” He shrugs.
I put my hand out to stop him, thinking he’s about to move. I’m not ready for him to disappear on me again. Even this shitty, hollowed Devin is better than none at all. “You can’t just leave like this. Give me a number to call you at — a cell or your land line. Something.”
Devin stands in front of me, his head tilting slowly to one side. “I think with the way things are now it’s better that I don’t.” He edges past me, turning to add, “I have to go. Take care, okay?”
I follow instinctively, just a step behind him. Out on Yonge Street, Devin turns and looks at me, his breath lighting up the cold air. His hands find their way inside his pockets as he frowns. “You can’t follow me forever, you know.”
He doesn’t know about the dreams I’ve been having about him. He doesn’t know about Gage or my friends or Total Drug Mart. He hasn’t asked me one single question about myself and what I’ve been doing all these months. “Don’t you care at all?” I ask him. “Would it matter if I dropped dead tomorrow?” I’m losing my voice but it doesn’t make any difference; I don’t think I have anything else to say.
Devin pushes more air out of his lungs and says, “You’re going to be fine. The last thing you need is me in your life, fucking things up for you.”
“So don’t fuck things up.” The words slice at my vocal cords.
“And they said I was the smart one.” Devin smiles weakly. “Be good, Serena. I’m outta here.” My brother disappears into the crowd of Yonge Street shoppers milling around us and I don’t try to stop him. Morgan was absolutely right; Devin doesn’t want our help. He’s exactly where he wants to be. Somehow I thought I could change that. I thought the strength of my hopes for him could make him well, as though I’m living a fairy tale where wishes have magic properties.
I didn’t even fully realize that’s what I believed until Devin proved me wrong. It’s so cold out on the street and I’ve been wrong about so many things, but I’m not sorry I came. I line my back up against the nearest wall and let it catch me, sadness choking up through my throat and demanding I recognize it for what it is. At last, I’ve let my brother go.