Kaya
Your next class is English, and you surprise yourself by going.
The second you sit down, the rage swirls away. Inside, you shrivel up, but outside, you straighten your shoulders and paste your best sneer onto your face.
You grip the sides of your chair and tense up in self-defence, but the horror of it all scratches and pokes at your skin from the inside out. It’s here now, and it’s not going to go away.
After school, late that afternoon, you leave the house quietly. You are empty-handed, no change in your pocket for the bus, no bag of stuff, not even one of your teeny-tiny purses slung over your shoulder. Mom is in the kitchen. She can’t hear the door from there. For once in her life, Beth is out.
Your feet walk you along the sidewalk. You look down at them, wondering. You reach the corner and turn … right, away from the buses on Tenth Avenue. Stop at the curb. Your stomach turns all the way over, twisting your intestines into a taut rope. You look both ways and cross the street.
Trudge, trudge. Your gut pulses painfully. Two blocks and you’ve reached Fourteenth. Right again. Halfway down the block you grit your teeth and insist that your feet stop. You can see the house just ahead. It’s been a year, almost, since you last set eyes on it.
Minutes pass as you stand there, looking at the small grey stucco house, at the bushes, so overgrown that the front windows are almost invisible, at the dried-out lawn, surrounded now with yellow police tape. Along the walkway from house to sidewalk, the roses thrive. One of them is still in bloom, and you can see two blossoms from where you stand, big and pink: Queens of Sweden.
You are frozen on the sidewalk. Your eyes stare at the house, but don’t see, so at first you don’t notice the shift in the curtain, the face that peers out. There’s a moment outside of time, when that woman is looking at you, and you know it, but you don’t. Then you blink. That is not a happy face. She looks as if she’s shouting, but you can’t hear her through the glass.
She disappears from the window and a moment later the front door opens, and she’s out on the front step, shouting audibly now. You’re turning, running, the sound of her voice burning into your brain.
“Stay off my sidewalk—” are the only words you take in.
You don’t look back. You run and you run and you run all the way home.
Standing in your bedroom, on that September afternoon, with your back to the door, your breath heaving out of you and in, you wish you had your hands on Diana’s throat. You would strangle her on the spot. And she would deserve it. She would. She would. She would.
You throw yourself on your bed, but that is not a good place to be.
“Kaya?” you hear from outside your door.
“Leave me alone!” you scream.
Then you have to jump up and run past your sister to the bathroom, where you collapse onto your knees and throw up. You flush the toilet and kneel there, your forehead against the cool porcelain.
The horror keeps growing in your gut, your chest, a live thing. You only know one way to quiet it.
Beth
I stand there at the top of the stairs for a bit. I hear the toilet flush and figure she threw up. She wouldn’t run past me like that just because she had to pee.
She doesn’t know I saw her running outside. I was walking the dog—her dog—about to turn the corner onto Twelfth, almost home, when she came tearing out of a side street. Fourteenth, I’m pretty sure. She was charging toward me, but she didn’t see me. I don’t think she saw a thing. Lucky she wasn’t hit by a car crossing the street. Anyway, I got into the house ahead of her and was standing in the living room when she burst in and charged up the stairs.
Now, Kaya shoves past me into her room, Sybilla at her heels. At least she’ll let the dog comfort her.
I go downstairs and pause at the front door, thinking for a moment more before I put my coat on and head outside, dog-less now, down to the corner, up Discovery, two blocks, turn right. I walk slowly down Fourteenth, see the police tape and pause in front of that house. I stare a bit, until a woman yanks the front door open and glares at me. Her hair is a mess. She’s wearing an ancient man’s robe. Her feet are bare.
“This is private property,” she says.
I’m standing on the sidewalk, but, “Sorry,” I say, and walk on, pondering.
“Did you hear that that old man up on Fourteenth with all the toy cars and things killed himself yesterday?” Mom’s friend says. “Shot himself in the head. Outside in his front garden at eleven o’clock in the morning.”
She stops talking, looks pleased with herself. It’s not yet noon on Saturday—Mom’s not thrilled to have a visitor.
“I don’t think I knew him,” Mom says, her brow all crinkly.
But at the mention of the toy cars, I have gone rigid. I remember something. Two things. About the house on Fourteenth and the man who lived there.
I consider saying, “But, Mom, you do know him. He came to Dad’s funeral.” But I don’t.
Mom is frowning. “Think about the kids on that street,” she says, “and his children, if he had any.”
“Oh, they said he did. On the radio,” the friend says. “Grown sons. Grandchildren too, I’d say. He was an elderly man. Seventy-nine.”
I am staring now at Kaya, who is home today and up already, down on the floor in the corner of the kitchen with Coco. Her hand has stopped moving on the cat’s back and her chin is up, her gaze fixed on the kettle, just about to boil.
“Was somebody going to make hot chocolate,” she says.
I turn toward the counter, eager, all of a sudden, to put a cup of hot chocolate into my little sister’s hand.
Kaya
You keep still in the kitchen that morning, only your right hand moving, after the briefest of pauses, over and over again, along the cat’s spine. Then, when the topic of conversation shifts, you release the cat and struggle to your feet. And it is a struggle. Your legs have filled with ice.
You stand in the shower until the water runs cold and you begin to shake from the chill instead of from your own sobs. The liquid sluicing down your body and into the drain could be that man’s blood, and no amount of showering will rinse all of it away.
When you come out of the bathroom with a towel clutched over your chest and return to your room, Beth is sitting on your bed.
“Are you all right?” she says. She stops talking then, as if her brain is thinking, thinking. Her eyes show concern. And fear.
You stand before her, dripping, blood and brain matter still clinging to your skin. You feel your mouth open, the word no begins to form somewhere in your belly. The N makes a leap all the way up into your throat—but it can’t get out your mouth.
With a sharp shake of your head, you growl, “Can’t I have a little privacy? Get the hell out of my room!” The fury that sweeps through you is almost refreshing.
Reliably, Beth’s chin wobbles. She shoves a clump of hair behind her ear as she stands, eyes on the ground. “I …” she says. “I …” She stumbles out of the room, her shoulders already heaving before she manages to get the door closed behind her.
Her absence flings you back upon yourself, and the fear that you saw in her face ricochets through you. You know what would feel even better than torturing Beth, but you are resisting that. You’ve resisted it all the way since yesterday.
You shimmy into a pair of jeans and pull a T-shirt over your head. It’s time to go downstairs and put on a show, convince your mother and your sister that there is nothing wrong with you. Not a thing. Maybe you can convince yourself while you’re at it.
“How do pork chops and lemon meringue pie sound?” Mom says as you glide into the kitchen, the picture of happiness.
“Yum!” you reply. “I’ll make the crust. Where’s Beth?”
“In her room,” Mom says. “She seems really upset about that man’s suicide.” She looks puzzled. “You don’t think she knew him, do you?”
You know damn well why Beth is upset, but you let her misery slide into oblivion along with all that blood and brain matter and what it means. Oblivion is a big place, but it’s getting pretty full and gross—really, really gross—like an overused outhouse. Don’t look down, you tell yourself silently. Your voice in your head is sharp and bossy, and you need that right now.
Beth
I am tired. Every bit of me is tired. I’m so tired that when I leave Kaya, I don’t even try to fight back the tears. I cross the landing to my room and fall onto my bed. I feel like falling to the floor instead, praying to some sort of god out there that what I suspect—what I am starting to know—is not true. It can’t be true.
I lie there while the tears drain out of me, and slip into a weird kind of sleep.
I struggle when hands shake me, and force my eyes open to Mom’s worried face.
“Supper’s almost ready, sweetheart. Are you all right?” Mom says, and I nod blearily and slide my legs out of bed.
I wash my face and go downstairs to the smell of baking. In the kitchen, Kaya is pulling a pie, heaped with golden meringue, from the oven. Mom rushes out the back door to check something on the barbecue.
I slide along the bench behind the kitchen table, and let them bustle. Kaya looks fine, happy even. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the roses at Dad’s funeral didn’t mean a thing.
I was twelve, I guess, or maybe just thirteen, when I escaped the house one Saturday afternoon and went for a walk. Rare for me. Anyway, I was close to Fourteenth when a kid-sized car occupied by a great big boy tore across my path and almost hurtled right into the street.
“Sorry!” the boy shouted, grinning like crazy. He didn’t look sorry at all.
“That was awesome!” another boy called as he ran right into my path as well.
Behind them came an old man, smiling broadly. He hobbled a bit, balanced on a cane, but he looked kind of elegant in a jacket and tie and an old-fashioned hat.
The second boy looked at me and we recognized each other in the same moment. From school.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” I replied, awkward, looking for the words that would free me to continue on my way.
The man reached us and held out his hand. “I’m Mr. Grimsby,” he said. “I live right up there. In the house with all the roses. Would you like a ride?”
“No, no,” I said. “No, but thanks, Mr….”
“Grimsby,” he said again. “Well, drop by anytime. That’s what Paul and Dave do.”
Grimsby, I thought, as I walked on. Grimsby. On the way home I passed the house again. The boys and the man were gone, but the roses and the toy car still sitting out on the front walk identified it for me. The rose bushes were in full bloom, all pinks and reds, and a massive birch tree in the backyard hooded the house in green.
I wouldn’t mind riding a little car like that, I thought.
Then I imagined my bulk squeezed into the tiny seat. I could just hear Mr. Grimsby’s “I’m sorry, dear. You’re just a bit too big.”
I glimpsed Paul and Dave at school the next day, out in the breezeway. I could go up to them, start a conversation. After all, we had a topic, ready to go.
But I did not.
The second Grimsby event, the one where the roses were orange, not pink or red, came later. I am not going to think about that one today.
I’m both reassured and chilled by Kaya’s smiles, by her gushing about her pie, and, as always, I manage to turn my attention to the food.
The dinner is good and I wolf down two helpings. Pork chops, heaps of boiled potatoes with lots of butter, corn on the cob. Green beans. Then the pie. Mom chatters away about work and her words are soothing, filling all the empty spaces. Kaya smiles and nods and nibbles. I gaze at her now and again, looking for signs. I try to tell myself that the smiles, the comments and the nibbles mean that my instincts are wrong. Kaya is just fine.
Kaya stands up as soon as she has taken her last bite. Her smile is bright and wide, but by now I’m not at all convinced that it’s real. “Anyone want to watch a movie?” she says.
Mom smiles back, as always. “Yes, let’s!” she says. “The dishes can wait.”
She chooses Mary Poppins, and we all watch together, munching on popcorn with tons of butter, even though we’re all full of chops and pie, and singing along to all the songs. I look over at Kaya at the end, when Mary Poppins is floating away over the London housetops, and tears are pouring down her face. The front of her T-shirt is wet.
She’s been snuggled up to Mom through half the movie, and at the end, she kisses her on the cheek and gets up. “Good night, Mom,” she says. Then, “Good night, Beth.”
I don’t like it that she says good night to me like that. I don’t like it at all.
“Good night, Kaya,” I say, but it feels more like goodbye.
The next day is Sunday, but Mom disappears into her room to work. Kaya spends most of the day in her room too. I have to lie in wait in the upstairs hallway to catch her on the way back from the washroom.
“Do you remember,” I say, “when you were taking those two roses upstairs the day of Dad’s funeral?”
Even in the dim light of the hall, I see her eyes go wide and kind of blank.
“It was that man that gave them to you, you said. Mr. Grimsby. That’s the man who shot himself.”
It takes her a long moment, but at last she nods again, and her eyes, if anything, go wider.
“Why?” I ask.
The story comes out of her almost as if I pushed a button. She doesn’t need to think. She just talks. She seems kind of like a great big talking doll. As I listen, I grow sick with dread.
“He had them with him at the funeral,” she says. “And I was kind of crying. And he said he was so sorry, and he gave me the roses.”
She stops and looks at me. There, her eyes say. Happy? She moves as if to pass me, but I make a wall, a big fat wall. I keep talking.
“We ran into each other right there on these stairs,” I say, pointing. “And I asked you where you got them, and you said that Mr. Grimsby gave them to you.” I look at her closely. “It sounded like you knew him.” I pause again. “I thought maybe you rode in one of his toy cars like the other kids. But it wasn’t that, was it?”
It takes her a moment. She’s definitely thinking now. And she’s getting mad. “It was at the funeral,” she says. “He gave them to me there.”
She knows I know she’s lying.
“Why are you hassling me about some stupid roses from Dad’s funeral?” she says, and shoves past me, almost stepping on me to get to her room. I follow her and listen at the door and hear banging, as if she’s drumming her feet on the floor, and great heaving sobs. I want to go in there. I do. I’m too scared, though. What’s happening is too big for me. Way too big.
The next morning, Kaya is gone, suitcase and all.
It’s me who realizes it, me who nudges open the door to the empty room, who examines the nest of a bed and judges it un-slept-in, who looks in the closet for Kaya’s special suitcase covered in tapestry farm animals and finds it missing.
“She left in the night,” I say, frantic and breathless from my rapid journey from bedroom to kitchen. “She’s gone. So’s her suitcase.”
Mom kind of collapses against the kitchen counter, and I watch her dissolve, all tears and confusion. My own body straightens, its shaking stilled.
“We should call the police,” I say.
“She never took her suitcase before,” Mom says.
I hand her the phone.
“You go off to school now, honey,” Mom says after she hangs up. She’s got herself under control. “I’m going to talk to the officer who’s coming over. Then I’m going to take a drive downtown. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find her, pop her in the car and bring her on home.”
Mom is taking action like moms are supposed to. I breathe deep, swallow my misery and head upstairs. One thing for sure: I am not going to school.
I walk along the sidewalk on the other side of the street and try not to look like I’m looking. The house with the taped-off front yard is kind of grungy looking, old stucco, overgrown bushes, dead lawn. Someone’s done some sort of gardening since I was here two days ago, though. Pretty extreme gardening, actually. There’s a heap of stuff on the lawn, and all the way along the path a row of short stalks stick out of the ground. Every one of the rose bushes has been cut down. That’s where he shot himself, I think, and I look for signs of blood even though I know I won’t see it from across the street.
I look for signs of life. Nothing. The house looks abandoned, and the yellow tape cordons off the path as well as the yard. I reach the corner, cross and start down the sidewalk on the same side as the house.
Two years ago, the front yard was littered with toys, the rose bushes were covered in blooms, the grass was green and those boys were having a gas.
I pause in front of the house and peer at the lawn, at the path. I still don’t see any blood.
I’m lifting the police tape and stepping onto that path when a car comes around the corner. I pay no attention until it speeds up and draws to the curb right behind me, facing the wrong way and screeching just a bit as the driver applies the brakes. The driver is a man and he is out of the car and after me, but I’ve already dropped the tape and taken off at top speed. This can’t be happening. Again!
“You kids make me sick,” he shouts, “coming around here peering into corners.”
“Dad!” Another voice—a girl’s.
I slow down and glance over my shoulder.
His daughter’s in the car, but she has the window open and she’s leaning out. “Dad!” She almost screams this time. “I’m going to call the police,” the man shouts, but at least he has given up the chase. “Can’t you people give my father some privacy?”
I’ve never read the obituary section before, but on Tuesday morning I slip out of bed while Mom is still sleeping, ease open the front door, grab the paper and take it up to my room. Whatever happens, I don’t want Mom to start thinking what I’m thinking. Not yet.
There it is, right at the top.
Alan Grimsby: 1919–1998
Survived by his loving companion of forty-three years, Jennifer Ainsworth, and his four children, David, Adrian, Cedric, and Charlotte, and seven grandchildren.
The funeral will be held at St. Anselm’s Anglican Church, Saturday, October 3, at 11 a.m.
That’s only four days from today. I read and reread, but find few clues. It makes no mention of how he died. No bullet to the brain here. And it says nothing about his life either. Except.
Four children. Which was the shouting man with the daughter?
And what about that “loving companion”?