Em
I wasn’t sure whether I should even call Ian on Sunday morning. Last night he had been in such a weird mood and didn’t want to stay over. But our roleplay sex had been so intense. It was the first time Ian had asked me to fulfil one of his fantasies. And afterwards, I’d felt this new closeness between us. Unspoken, of course, since when did Ian ever put anything emotional into words?
So, instead of calling, I chickened out and sent a text.
Finished your window covering. Let me know when you want it.
There, nobody could say I was too clingy. Just supplying information. Except that it was only 7:30 in the morning, so it was like I woke up thinking about him.
But Ian was an early riser too.
Bring it over anytime, he wrote back.
So I headed over.
“What do you think?”
I was surprisingly nervous as Ian looked over my handiwork. I had sewn a simple gathered café curtain and attached it at the top and bottom. To me, it looked contemporary and clean. It blocked the view of the place next door (which I suspected was some kind of crime house), showed off the fancy glass top, and let the sunshine in.
But Ian, who was easygoing in most ways, was dictatorial about his house. He had already made me return some planter pots to Winners because they were “too feminine.” Now I only did things that Ian approved beforehand.
He crossed his arms, leaned back, and squinted at my window coverings. That was a little distracting because his arms were so muscled and hot. Now that the weather was warming up, he had switched from long sleeved Henleys to tight T-shirts. I suspected he would go shirtless in the summer, which would render me useless as a helper.
“Not bad,” he said.
“Wow, don’t go crazy with praise,” I groused.
“You can do the other windows if you want.”
“Again, wow. What about ‘please and thank you, Em.’”
Ian chuckled. Then he wrapped one of those muscled arms around me. “You’re cute. Now let’s get to work.”
My job today was sealing and filling baseboards. Not only did Ian instruct me on exactly how to do each job, but he inspected my work and suggested improvements. While I could have found this irritating, I didn’t. Ian was an expert in this field, and I wasn’t, so I needed to learn. Besides, I was learning useful skills—stuff I could do at my parents’ place.
“This house is going to be so nice. I don’t know how you can leave as soon as it’s done. Well, except the neighbourhood.” While I was putting up the curtain, there were a lot of suspicious cars coming and going next door. And a big motorcycle.
“It’s a working-class neighbourhood, Em. Where regular people live.” Ian had pooh-poohed my crime house theories.
“Do you ever think about keeping one of your houses?”
Ian and I were working in the same room today. I preferred that, although we always argued about the radio station on his paint-splattered boom box.
“Not really. I don’t need a whole house.”
“You do all this work, and other people get to appreciate it.” As far as I could see, he didn’t cut any corners. If I bought a house, I hoped that the builder would be as diligent as Ian.
“I get to appreciate their money,” Ian said.
“But at some point, you’ll have enough money to retire on. Then you can live in your dream home. Remember, at Christmas you said you wanted to entertain more?”
“Do you remember every little thing I say?” he asked, but it wasn’t really a question. This discussion was irritating Ian for some reason, so I stopped talking. He was pretty touchy this weekend.
Sports talk radio was the only sound in the room. Why did guys think they had to say they were a “first time caller?” Was losing your on-air virginity a big deal? Plus they proposed the worst deals: a guy from the Sens’ fourth line for a talented rookie from another team.
“These trades make no sense. Anyone with a minimal knowledge of game theory would get that,” I said.
“Game theory? Is that something you do at work?” Ian asked.
“It’s a way of modelling behaviour between people,” I said. “You predict the decisions each party will make. The only problem is that you have to assume that people are rational and will make the most profitable decisions.”
“People often make bad decisions,” Ian said. Initially, I’d underestimated Ian’s intelligence, but he turned out to be very good at distilling ideas to their essence. He wasn’t a person who showed off his knowledge—unlike almost everyone I knew—so it was easy to misjudge him.
“It’s like the NHL,” I said. “If you knew the weakness of the other GMs, you could make the best deals. Maybe that’s why they keep recycling the same execs. Instead of someone new who could use predictive modelling to optimize their trades.”
“Like you?” Ian laughed. “In poker, if you win all the time, soon nobody will play with you.”
“I guess that’s true. Since there are only 32 teams, you have a finite number of trading partners.”
“You sure know a lot about hockey,” he said.
I’d learned because Lucas loved to discuss hockey. Did that mean I was too much of a chameleon? I tried hard to be a good girlfriend, but was I contorting myself to fit into relationships? Six months ago, I wouldn’t have thought that home reno was the way I’d be spending my Sundays. But I enjoyed this, just as I’d enjoyed discussing hockey with Lucas and his impressed friends. To put a more positive spin on this, maybe I was a person who could be good at a lot of things. Yes, that was the take I was going with.
Ian changed the radio station to country music, so we didn’t have to hear any more uninformed opinions. He liked to listen to sports radio when he did something repetitive, but music when he did something that required more thought. Again, I didn’t mention this because another thing that bothered Ian was feeling “psychoanalyzed.”
The longer we went out, the harder it was to keep pretending that this whole relationship was just for fun. I’d gotten over my initial snobbishness, and I now appreciated Ian for everything he was.
But I could see that Ian’s reluctance to commit would be my biggest hurdle. He was starting to interpret everything I said about the house as my desire to move in or take over. Even when I vowed not to say a word, my enthusiasm would take over when I got here. Ian set his own schedule. Being with him meant learning patience.
I made us a simple dinner of white bean pasta with broccoli and tomatoes. I’d had to scour the freezer and cupboards for ingredients.
“Can’t believe you made something this good outta nothing,” Ian said after he had a second helping.
“I like a challenge,” I said.
“I’m going to start tearing apart the kitchen next. Then it’s gonna be impossible.”
“Wanna bet? I can make miracles with a toaster oven and an electric kettle.” Whenever someone said something was impossible, at home or at work, I liked to brainstorm ways to make it happen.
After dinner, we went to Ian’s bedroom to watch a movie. There was no sex vibe tonight. Instead we just lay on the bed, holding each other. It felt lovely and peaceful.
“Did I do this last night?” He traced the line of a pale blue bruise at the top of my breast revealed by my open shirt.
“No, it happened last week. I was walking and reading at the same time, and I bashed into the doorframe,” I confessed.
Ian shook his head. Nothing like that would ever happen to a coordinated person like him.
I looked up at him. “I liked everything about last night. Except that you didn’t stay over.”
“Em, you never fail to surprise me.”
Was that good or bad? He didn’t look happy. I kept explaining. “I know it seems like I’m too needy, but I just don’t like being alone. I mean, obviously I live alone, but I prefer to be with people. I have ever since I was a kid.”
There was a long silence after my confession. Did Ian think I was too clingy?
“Is that because of Clayoquot Sound?” he asked.
Of all the questions Ian could have asked, that was the last one I expected. It was shocking in its accuracy.
“Are you psychic?” I asked.
Ian pulled me in closer. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
Yes, but was there anything I didn’t want to talk about? Ian meant there would be no quid pro quid confessions.
“I’m sure what happened to me was nothing like your childhood. My parents have always been so supportive of causes, which is noble and all…but your own children are important too.”
When I closed my eyes, I could see glimpses from that time. Mostly I remembered the uncertainty of not knowing what was going on. When I’d gone to see a therapist, she had remarked on how I was a textbook case of trauma leading to all my later issues. Being “abandoned” made me try to control my life and gave me a lingering discomfort in being alone.
“When they went to the protest, they left me with a friend in Victoria. I was only two, but I understood more than Yvonne, the lady I was staying with, realized. They were supposed to be gone for two days, and then they got arrested. Yvonne couldn’t keep looking after me because she had to work, so she passed me on to another friend, who was a complete stranger. I’m sure everyone tried to be nice, but nobody explained anything. I thought I would never see my parents again. I was crying all the time, which only made people treat me more like a baby.”
When I was teenager, I argued about this with my mother. She felt that I made too big a deal out of one incident, and I needed to get over it. But by then, I’d thought a lot more about options. My parents could have called their parents or siblings to fly out and get me. Then at least I would have been with people I knew. All my mother did was brush off these suggestions. And then she’d said, “If I told the authorities I had a two-year-old who needed me, they might have let me go. But I wanted to stay with your father and my fellow protestors in solidarity.” Of everything she could have said, that was the worst. She didn’t have the imagination and empathy to put herself in the place of her own daughter.
Of course I loved my mother. She was a generous person and that’s why she got so carried away with her causes. As she said, outside of that one incident, I’d had a happy, nurturing childhood. But when I was a mother, I’d be a very different one.
“I’m sorry. I know you hate when people complain about their childhoods,” I said. Ian only hinted at his own early years, but I knew that they were a lot worse than anything I’d gone through.
“No. I hate when people use their childhoods as an excuse for why they’re not doing better.” He stroked my arm. “You’ve managed to make a big success of your life.”
“Thank you,” I said. “So have you.”
He sighed. “I focus on the good shit. My grandparents came up big for me.”
Quiet followed this remark. I could tell that Ian was lost in thought, lost in a bad past. For once, I didn’t jump in with questions or consolations. I let Ian be.
Finally he said, “I don’t talk about my mother because it brings back some pretty shitty memories. But it’s the same for me—I don’t want to depend on anyone now because of her.”
Ian’s arm was around me, but he hardly knew I was there. I wanted to say he could depend on me, but how could I guarantee that? He’d have to decide for himself.
There was another silence, then Ian spoke again. His voice was soft and faraway. “It wasn’t about not having enough food or a safe place to sleep, but all the other stuff. I never knew what she’d do next. All I can remember is being fucking terrified.”
I pulled Ian’s head closer and stroked his hair. Right now it was so easy to see the small boy inside him. A boy who wanted unconditional love then and now. But would he ever be able to accept that love?