At the airport, I see her before she sees me. I watch her push past people, walking at her usual brisk pace, all business, even on vacation, eyes fixed straight ahead, posture erect. She looks like Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, with her red-blonde hair and oval face, dressed in a smooth beige suit. The only problem is that this goddess, since I turned nine and she found herself newly divorced, had turned her back on the idea of love.
I think if it were up to my mother, there would be no marriage, no long-term affairs, no short-term trysts, no sex on the sly. All kinds of romantic love — its variations and mutations — would be eviscerated from the world. But I might be exaggerating. I watch her pushing her way to the front of the luggage terminal, an apology in the form of a faint, bloodless smile on her pale lips. Maybe a few embers still simmer inside her heart. Maybe not.
We stare at one another a minute and then hug awkwardly. She holds me tightly, as if weighing the effects of the past few months by the strength of my bones. It is how I have always known she loves me, not by her words — she was never gushy or emotional — but by her long, hard, bone-crunching hugs. She rarely embraces acquaintances or even friends under the best of circumstances, preferring a crisp handshake. But when a situation irrefutably calls for a hug, like now, as we stand, mother and daughter, meeting in the airport after several months, she rises to the occasion and does it thoroughly. I think of Archibald idly. “I never do anything halfway…” It is something they have in common.
She has three days of vacation, all, she says, her busy schedule can spare. It is her first time in Vancouver in many years. I wonder if she considers what became of our old house. If it is still like coming home after all those years. If it reminds her of what she lost. But these are subjects we studiously avoid.
We walk downtown, and it rains, as it usually does this time of year. We duck into a bistro to get a bite. It is a warm, dimly lit tavern. We peel off coats and scarves and stack them onto a chair, where they rest in a wet, heavy pile. I sip a cappuccino. She has a glass of wine.
We have surprisingly little to say to each other. Usually, we can pull enough from the viscera of our lives to fuel a decent conversation. She asks me a few questions about Archibald and my job but doesn’t really press for details. This catches me off guard; I expected more of a grilling. Something about her is off, like soda without the fizz. She drums her fingers on the table. “So, have you thought about grad school?”
And there it was out on the table, her obsession with my post- secondary education. “Actually, I have registered in a drawing class. Charcoal.” I wait for her reaction. She frowns slightly but says nothing.
“You look good,” she says, eyeing my thrift-store cowboy boots. “What are you doing with your hair these days?”
It hangs over the shoulders of my sweater, in amber brown twists, unravelled.
“I don’t know. I brush it occasionally.”
“It looks like you have split ends. I have a new conditioner you can try.”
“That’s you, Mom,” I say with a grin. “Always looking for split ends.”
“Well, in your case, they are hard to miss.” She smiles back efficiently.
I invite her over to the apartment for dinner and a home-cooked meal, a.k.a. some of Maria’s frozen lasagna. Archibald is out of town for ten days in Florida, basking in the sun, living the high life, so we’ll have the place to ourselves. She says she prefers to eat out.
We spend the next day shopping and then go to a play. Afterwards, we sit in the hotel lounge. Even though she is directly across from me, she seems especially absent, like there’s something she knows she has forgotten to do.
My mind wanders while she talks about a potential transfer to Oregon. I realize that this is her perfect job. Constantly relocating makes it easier for her to avoid real relationships and to abandon anything that becomes too uncomfortable. Unfortunately, it’s been the same for me. From the time I was nine, we moved from province to state, to province again. By my third year in high school, I’d gone to four different high schools and made eight best friends. I can no longer remember most of their names. This continued until, at age sixteen, I told her I wanted to go to boarding school because I was exhausted from moving. It was the only time I saw her express any doubt. “Have I been neglecting you?” she had asked in response to my request.
“No, not neglecting, exactly.” It’s just like you took a long vacation and sent a walking and talking android home in your place. I spent my last year and a half of high school in a mid-sized school in Toronto with a bunch of other motherless girls.
Now I look at her. She has not aged, except for her hands, which are rough and etched with wiry blue veins. I want to connect with her just this one time. Tell her about Sam and Michael. Of Sam’s cello playing. I wonder what she would think of Michael. I know too well that she would think Michael was a no-good, philandering playboy. “Do you ever hear from your father?” she asks. It is her yearly inquiry.
“He sent me a card for Christmas. You must have given him my address. He even sent me a picture.”
“Is he still at the same hospital?” she asks idly.
“I think he may have a private practice now. I’m not really sure. He’s still in London obviously; he mentioned they’re going on vacation to Italy this summer.” His wife is Italian.
“You should call him. Go visit him in the summer,” she suggests.
“What? Visit him and his wife and their infant daughter? I don’t think so. Not this year,” I say, peering into my drink. He had invited me repeatedly, year after year, but eventually, he stopped. It had been easier to just let him go, rather than deal with the messiness of his newfound domesticity. Mom had never gotten over him. And I could never embrace what had altered my mother so entirely.
This is the truth about love I learned a long time ago: some people get hurt and do not recover, do not bounce back, do not ever love again. It was simpler to let Mom think of him as a philanderer than a happy family man. It was a routine she understood. And she had only ever been half-hearted in her suggestions that I go, I knew. It was what she thought she should say. She was the Goddess of Fidelity, except now she was faithful to her pain, to loneliness.
I stand in the airport and watch her go. My eyes follow her rapid, joyless walk. I know she runs from places, from people. And I know she would never admit this: she runs from me, too. I am sorry to see her go, but mostly I am relieved. “I love you, Mom,” I say to myself in the empty airport. I imagine her sitting on the plane in the middle of reading notes for her next meeting, looking up and saying, “I love you too.”
I sit on the sofa, eating junk food, my fingers stained orange from the fake cheese. I am watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick about the end of the world, though I’ve lost track of the plot. Everyone I know is out of town for New Year’s. Sam, Michael, even Archibald, and Mom has come and gone. It’s just me and the remote.
I click off the TV and decide to get a little fresh air. Half an hour later, I am wandering downtown, weaving in and out of groups of partygoers, trying to enjoy my solitude.
I duck into a crowded pub and press my way towards the bar. A woman in her late thirties with long dark hair and dark crescent moons under her eyes takes my order. I take my glass of wine and squeeze into a stool at the bar. Down the bar, a short man, balding, with a protruding pot belly drinks his beer and smiles at me congenially. I smile stiffly and finish my drink.
Back at the apartment, I rummage through my coat pockets in search of my house keys. I empty old gum wrappers, coins, used movie tickets, cookie crumbs, and bus transfers onto the floor. I pull out a smallish, newly cut gold key from the depths of my pocket and look at it inquisitively. Then, I remember. It’s the key Michael gave me before he left for New York. I was complaining about Archibald’s maniacal mood swings. “Treat it as an escape route,” he had said, pressing the key into my palm. I had taken it as a lark, but now I hold it in my hand — it’s light and smooth and compellingly shiny.
I open the door cautiously, feeling the excitement a burglar must feel. It opens soundlessly onto the polished floor. I quickly move to the side panel to disarm the alarm, as I have seen Michael do many times, but I notice it is not activated. He must have been in a hurry, although Michael’s organization is only exceeded by his charm.
I walk through the dark, empty apartment and pause in the living room. It is strange to be here, alone, on New Year’s Eve. I run my hands across the kitchen counters. Everything is spotless, except for a bowl and a spoon in the sink. I look down at it, sitting in the stainless enclave. Yes, he must have been in a hurry. The faucet drips a steady rhythm, the pitter patter of small feet across a bare floor. I open the freezer and pull out the bottle of vodka I know will be there. My fingers slide over its frosty surface, and I move the bottle from side to side, watching the clear fluid lazily slip up and down, coating the bottle’s insides. I take out a tumbler. There are worse things than a night alone in a place like this.
I make my way into the living room and flick on the overhead track lights. I search through the huge CD collection organized in a custom-built unit. I feel like something light, but not too light, a singer, another voice to take me through the night. I pause at Ella Fitzgerald. Perfect. I turn around to put it into the sleek stereo system tucked into the dark wood shelves.
“Who the fuck are you?” a scratchy voice says from behind me.
I leap up and whirl around. “Baaaaaa!” I scream like a mutant sheep.
I find myself face to face with a young, tiny blonde on the staircase behind me. She stands about four steps up from the bottom, hands on her hips, looking very irritated. How did she get down the stairs so stealthily? I take a step closer and then stop.
“I’m — who the fuck are you?” I ask after I find my voice. I look at her closely. She’s very young, younger than me, too young, fresh-faced with dewy skin. She wears jeans and a sweatshirt that says ROOTS across the front. She’s no more than 5'3" and cannot be over fifteen. She continues to stare me down, like a toy-sized guard dog. I find her strangely intimidating. It’s worse than I thought. I have been fooling around with a pedophile.
“I asked you first.” She taps her foot impatiently. “Or should I say, which one are you?”
“I’m Maggie,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting…”
“Obviously.” She surveys me critically. I think I recognize something in those eyes. They are an intelligent dark blue, calm and confident. She would make a good poker player.
“So, you’re the latest,” she says and saunters down the steps like Ginger Rogers minus Fred.
“Well, I’m definitely not the maid or the nanny,” I say, my irritation growing. I have the sense this little thing could get the best of me.
“I was just taking a nap,” she says, “My flight got in this morning.”
“And that would make you who? Goldilocks?” I ask. We are two women, both in possession of keys to Michael’s apartment. I was not moving without an explanation.
“Close, ditz. I’m the daughter,” she says, lips curling into a self-satisfied, pixie grin.
“The daughter? You’re Michael’s daughter?” I repeat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner,” she trills like a TV show announcer. “Come on Bob, tell her what she’s won.”
“I had no idea…”
“Sex can lead to more than orgasms.” She smiles ruefully, much older than fifteen.
“But he’s away until next week.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
“Does he know you’re here?” I ask.
“Does he know you’re here?” she challenges. I look away for a second and then reply too late.
“Of course. I mean, I came to pick something up.”
She scans the room, and her eyes come to rest on the vodka bottle sitting on the kitchen counter.
“In that case, I think you should share.”
“Aren’t you…?” I say.
“Underage? Naturally,” she says and rolls her eyes. “But something tells me you aren’t going to call the cops.”
She has my number. I put my hands on my hips. She ignores me completely.
She crosses to the kitchen, pulls out another tumbler, pours a shot, and downs it before I can respond.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I ask as she pours a second shot. “Don’t you think you should go easy on that stuff?”
“Please. I attend an all-girls’ school in England. I have more than this with breakfast.” And I believe her. I remember a few hard-drinking Brits from my boarding-school days.
I take my glass and consider it dubiously. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” I say. “Alone.”
She considers me for a moment, blue eyes glittering slightly. “Visiting my dad for the holidays, having some quality time. Only it looks like he forgot to pencil me in.”
“You’re kidding,” I say, shocked. Could he really have forgotten his own daughter on Christmas? “Maybe he didn’t know…”
“He forgot.” She shrugs and licks her lips, the first crack in her veneer.
“Are you sure?” I ask, desperately attempting to come up with alternatives. “Maybe something came up. Important.”
“Yeah, she was probably really important,” she says, now looking as though she’s enjoying my shock.
“It’s happened before?” I ask, incredulous. I had never been stood up, never forgotten.
“Once or twice,” she says, shrugging.
“That’s terrible,” I say and gulp back my drink. And then, it hits me: there is no way he would spend New Year’s alone.
“Yeah, well,” she says. “Guess he’s out of the running for Father of the Year again.”
I stare at her for a beat. She stares back. I take the bottle and pour us both shots. “So, did you call your mom?”
“It is New Year’s. She’s out with her latest.” I begin to feel like a character in Bleak House.
“So you’re stuck here by yourself?”
“Is it me or are you especially stupid?” she asks. I wonder if her broken, dysfunctional lifestyle has transformed her into a bitter forty-year-old or if she came that way. “No offence,” she adds to soften the blow.
“None taken,” I say.
“Want to order a pizza?” she asks.
We sit in front of the TV watching an old Jimmy Stewart movie. At least she has decent taste in movies. The vodka bottle rests half-empty before us on the coffee table; a couple of bags of junk food sit at our feet, along with an empty pizza box. She handles her booze like a trucker, true to her word. I am tottering on the verge of sleep.
She pokes me with her foot. “Happy New Year,” she says.
“What?” I lurch and sit up, fully awake, wiping a string of drool off my chin.
“New Year’s. It’s now. Happy 1994,” she says.
“Oh, right,” I say. “Happy New Year.”
She walks me to the door. “Well, thanks for dropping by,” she says, as if I were a meddlesome but well-intentioned neighbour.
“No problem,” I say.
“Take it from me, you’re a cut above the rest. At least the ones I’ve met.”
“Thanks,” I say, although from the tone of her voice I can tell it’s not much of a compliment.
“Maybe I’ll see you around,” she says.
“Sure,” I say. “Hey, you never told me your name.”
“Amelia,” she says.
“’Night, Amelia,” I say.
“Give my regards to the old man,” she says, giving me a small, mirthless grin as she shuts the door.
I stand for a moment, considering. Thoughts drift through my head: Michael with a daughter. Michael as a crappy father. Michael in the arms of someone else, someone with dark hair and dark eyes, like soft, burning coals.
Happy New Year, my ass.
I cross my legs over his under the table. It is mid-morning on a Sunday in the middle of January. The sun flickers through large tear-shaped windows, weaving patterns onto the floor boards. He has two newspapers that he reads at once, a New York Times and a Globe and Mail. He drinks black coffee while he reads. I watch the crease that scrunches his forehead as I skim the local paper.
We are in Whistler, on the outskirts of the city, a couple hours’ drive from Vancouver. The château we are staying at is called the Bear’s Lair, of all things. But after two days, I can see where it got its name. It is cozy like a lair. There is a fantastic Jacuzzi downstairs where you can open the windows and sink into the warmth of the tub and let the snow blow in. Since Michael has returned from his trip, we’ve been taking calculated risks, going places in public view. We are coming closer to being a couple. I toy with this idea in my mind, skirt around its contours.
I think about Amelia and his embarrassment when he returned to find her note. The litany of his excuses: she had changed the dates of her vacation without calling him; his new assistant had forgotten to tell him; her mother was trying to make him look like an imbecile. He explained that he had called Amelia and her mother, begging forgiveness. She was going through a difficult phase, but he adored her. He was glad I had been there, so she wasn’t completely alone. Maybe this was true. Maybe it wasn’t. I remember my shock: Michael with a fifteen-year-old daughter. I look him over; how old does that make him? Pushing forty-five, unless he had been a very young father?
“Michael?” a feline voice says. I turn to see a well-coiffed woman in a wool pantsuit with frosted blonde hair approaching our table. “You didn’t tell me you were coming!” She smiles a forced, bright smile. He hesitates for a second and then kisses her on the cheek.
“It was last minute. How have you been?” He is the other Michael. The author, the businessman.
“Great. Fabulous.” She drips enthusiasm. “We just bought a new condo.” She turns to me.
“Maggie, this is Jennifer Ray. A friend. She works for the Daily.” Ahhh, I think. He had been delighted about a recent article in the Daily that depicted him in glowing terms as a sex symbol, philanthropist, intellectual.
“Jennifer, this is Maggie, my niece.” He lies seamlessly with not a second’s hesitation.
“Nice to meet you,” I say in my most virginal manner. We touch briefly when she extends her ringed hand and I extend my own unringed hand. Her skin is hard and smooth at the same time, like plastic.
On the way home in the car, I tease him and call him uncle every chance I can get. He apologizes and says that Jennifer is a professional gossip under the guise of a journalist.
I say I understand, but I keep my hands in my lap all the way home.
Grandma visits me in my dreams again. We are entwined, my mother, grandmother, and me, in this dreamscape. In the aftermath of the crash, the car sits crumpled, and I cry and cry. A toddler, sitting on an embankment, inconsolable. When I turn to find my mother, she sits beside me, stunned.
She turns to me then. “Magali, I am being punished. I can’t cry. Not a tear.”
So I cry for her.
I wake up. I stare at the easel Archibald bought me for my birthday. I have left it untouched all these months, preferring to scratch away on a pad with pencil. In the darkened room, it looks barren, beautiful, like a snowy landscape. It has intimidated me until this point; I haven’t picked up a brush since I was a teenager away at school. But now I have something to paint. I will paint her. I search out the paint tubes that I’ve collected here and there over the months.
And it all comes back as if it were yesterday. The paint flows easily, fearlessly, from my hands. I work on it for days. Archibald doesn’t seem to notice my paint-smeared hands. When I am done, I have painted her. She stands between parted red curtains. The stage is the cavern of the crash, now just a crater, filled with white wildflowers. She is alone, standing in a faded green dress. She looks like my mother, only older. Grandma. Her hair is styled in a bob. She smiles and holds out her hands.
And real or not, she is the woman from my dreams.
Outside, everything is thawing from the morning frost, moist and grumpy. Inside, it is much the same. It has been an all-male gathering. The twins have colds. Rita is visiting relatives in Germany. Leo lets out a sigh that turns into a burp. Archibald flips him a disapproving glance and then belches himself after swallowing the remains of a cucumber sandwich.
I collect the spare cups and spoons on a silver tray. Sam helps me, picking up crumpled napkins. Marcell has fallen asleep on a cushion on the floor. I trip over the cat on my way to the kitchen, and she hisses.
I eye Zoltan. He’s the only one allowed to spend time with Archibald in his study, with the exception of Marcell. He carries a little notepad with him that he tucks into his jacket when he leaves the room. Archibald says he is an aspiring writer, but he gives me an uneasy feeling. He talks a little too loudly and smiles at me like a condescending uncle. I don’t need any new uncles.
I turn on the kitchen tap and try to wash red paint off my elbow, a remnant of my latest painting.
“Do I get to see any of these paintings?” Sam asks as he loads the dishwasher.
“What?” I am not displeased he has noticed.
“I assume that paint on your arm is not from redoing the walls.”
“True,” I say.
“So when?”
“One day soon.”
“Megs, can you come in here?” Archibald calls from the living room.
“What?” I re-enter the room, hoping that Archibald isn’t looking to spice up the mood with me.
“See, they are green,” he proclaims. “Just like Mi Tie’s.”
“What are green?” I ask.
“No, they are blue,” Marcell disagrees with one eye open.
“Your eyes,” says Archibald. “Leo said you have Mona Lisa eyes. But you can’t because they are green and not brown at all.”
Leo blushes. “I could have sworn.” He collects the cards and begins shuffling.
“Isn’t it Mona Lisa’s smile that’s famous anyway?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
Zoltan holds his fedora in his hands on his knees, scrutinizing it. Apparently, my eyes are not that interesting.
“They are not green,” says Marcell emphatically, closing both his eyes and returning to his nap. I am surprised at the force of his opinion. He is indifferent on most subjects.
“Do I have a say in this?” I ask.
Leo shrugs apologetically.
Archibald takes a step closer to me, peering at me through his spectacles. “What would you know?”
“They are grey,” Sam says definitively from behind me.
“Ha! You might be right,” concedes Archibald coming far too close. “Greyish. I will give you that.” The matter closed, he thankfully loses interest. “Now deal me in.”
Marcell has fallen back to sleep, his indifference renewed.
The phone rings and I answer. It is my mother, on her cell. She rarely calls me; it is usually the other way around.
“Can you talk?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“I’m coming to town, in two weeks, for a conference. Just for a couple of days. You probably won’t be able to get the time off with so little notice. But I thought I should let you know,” she says in her hurried fashion.
“You can never tell. I’ll ask the powers that be.”
“That isn’t really—”
“Hang on,” I insist, although I don’t particularly feel like another visit.
Back in the living room, Marcell is snoring. Leo stares doubtfully at his cards. Archibald is tickling Mi Tie with his stocking foot under the table. Sam is into a bowl of peppermints.
“Archibald, I need next Tuesday or Wednesday off.”
“How come?” He doesn’t look up from his game of footsie with the Persian beast.
“My mom is coming to town.”
“How intriguing. Mom is flying up just to see you, darling daughter?”
“Well, no, not really. She has a conference. So, what do you think?” I hurry.
“If there’s nothing pressing, then knock yourself out.”
“I call,” says Sam, surveying his cards with a pleased expression.
“Crap,” says Leo.
“Crap and steaming piss,” Archibald remarks as Sam puts down a full house. “Why don’t you invite Mumsie over for lunch while she’s here?”
“I don’t know. Mumsie will probably be pretty busy,” I reply doubtfully.
“Well, you can ask anyway. I would love to meet the woman who is your primary influence. Anyway, the milieu in here needs a little freshening up.”