In the fifteen minutes it took us to reach the border Letitia had removed her dress and panties and shoes and sat stoically, completely naked, in the back of the van. Alba was waving Letitia’s panties out of the window, threatening to show them to passersby. Letitia refused even to look at her, let alone take the bait and lunge for her panties. Hope and Maya were arguing about how many planets there are, nine or ten or thirteen or twenty-three, and Dill was back in his car seat chewing on an uncapped Crayola marker. A glorious fuchsia dye stained his lips, his teeth, his tongue, his cheeks, his hands, and his saliva, mixed with breast milk, was drooling out of the side of his mouth in fuchsia.
The guy at the border pointed at Dill behind us and said, “I think the baby has a problem.” As Lish had insisted, she did the talking. I think the border guys were a little confused, not sure exactly what to do with us, but it gave me time to wander off to a pay phone. Lish started filling out some forms and I took Dill with me to the phone. The girls romped around in the patch of grass behind the Customs building.
I dialed and listened to a few rings. The answering machine came on. My dad’s voice sounded far away and serious, very professional: “I’m sorry I am unable to answer the phone at this time. Please leave a message with your name and number and I will call you as soon as I am able. Thank you.”
“Uh. Dad. Dad? It’s Luce. I’m calling you from the—”
“Lucy?” My dad had picked up the phone.
“Hey Dad. Screening your calls?”
“I’m just trying to avoid Mrs. Sawatsky. Do you remember her, from down the street?”
“Yeah. So what, do you owe her money or something?”
“No. No. It’s not that. She’s quite determined to have me for dinner some night and I’m not sure.”
“What? You mean like a date? Geez.”
“Well. No. No. Regardless, I have no intention . . .”
I couldn’t believe it. My dad on a date? This was ridiculous. The peeling paint on the honey sign, my dad on a date. How long had it been, anyway?
“How are you doing, Lucy?” asked my dad. “And Dillinger? How’s the apartment working out for you?”
“Oh. Great. How are you?”
“Very good. Very good. Uh.”
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you say hi to Dill.”
I put Dill’s mouth to the receiver. Fuchsia marker ink got all over it. “Say something Dill. Say hi to Grandpa. Say hi, Dill.”
“Mom,” said Dill. I heard my dad saying some things like Hello Dillinger, how are you? It always cracked me up to hear my dad say Dillinger.
I took the receiver. “Did you hear that, Dad? He said mom. I guess it was the first word that came to mind. He’s pointing at the receiver now. I think he remembers your voice.”
“Oh. Well. It’s been quite some time since . . . uh . . .”
His voice would be all that Dill would remember of my dad because he had never seen my dad. We had talked a couple of times on the phone, though, to arrange for me to get stuff from the house and things like that. I know it seems weird that a grandpa did not see his grandchild, but I don’t think it was that he didn’t want to, just that he didn’t know how to. I think it made him sad. My mom, me, Dill, everything in his life hadn’t turned out the way he had thought it would. I think he thought I wanted him to leave me alone. Which I did—but then again I really didn’t. But how was he to know. “So Dad,” I said, “I’m at the border with a friend of mine and her kids. We’re going on a little holiday.”
“Oh yes? Very good. Do you have a reliable vehicle?”
“Yeah. Very.”
“Good. Good.”
“Dad. You know we drove past the honey sign.”
“Oh yes.”
“So. Dad.”
“Yes, Lucy?”
“Why don’t we get together some time?”
“That’s a good idea. Very good. I’d enjoy that very much. When will you be back?”
“Oh. A few days. I’ll give you my number and you can call or I’ll call you back when I’m home.”
“Very good. Just one moment while I get my ballpoint pen. There we go.”
I gave him my address and phone number, and then said, “Well okay. I guess I better get back to the van.”
“So uh . . . the honey sign. It’s still there, is it?”
“Yup. It’s still there.”
“‘Well. I imagine there’s a lot of water in the country?”
“Oh yeah, tons. Everywhere.”
“Very good then. I uh . . . I appreciate your calling me, Lucy.”
“Okay. Sure. So I’ll see you soon?”
“You bet. Very good.”
“Bye.”
“Goodbye. Uh . . . Lucy?”
“Yeah?”
“Drive carefully. No speeding, hey hey.”
I laughed. “Okay, Dad. See ya.”
This was one of the longest conversations we’d ever had. I wondered if my dad was trying to slow his life down to somehow make up for the fast and furious pace my mom lived life at. She sped through her life while he tried his hardest to cling to the rigging. Just to stay afloat. My mom didn’t care about sinking because she was always moving, like a waterskier skimming along the top of the water. If you slow down, you sink, seemed to be her motto; if you sink, you drown. Maybe it was best if my dad and I talked to each other over the phone, on our way somewhere. Phones and imminent departure force a person to speak. Hey, he even cracked a joke—about the speeding. My mom used to measure everything in terms of driving time. I’d ask, “How long is the average labour, mom?” “Six hours,” she’d reply, “the time it takes to drive to Regina.” But my mom drove too fast everywhere and my dad would say, “No, no, it takes at least seven hours to drive to Regina. And that’s with only one coffee stop.” “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” my mom would say, “you can easily do it in six.” Anyway, my labour with Dill wasn’t six or seven hours or the time it takes to drive to Regina. It was exactly three-and-a-half hours.
Even my mom couldn’t have driven to Regina in that amount of time. Everyone said Oooh, that’s short for the first baby. And I was thinking Yeah, about the time it takes to drive to Grand Forks. I mean, you can’t just sit in the back seat of a moving car all the way to Grand Forks from Winnipeg and imagine you’re in acute pain and your insides are lurching around wildly the whole time. That would seem unbearable. When you’re in labour all sorts of odd and mundane things happen and the time goes by. A road trip to Regina or Grand Forks is far less exciting than being in labour. That is, if you’ve ever been in labour.
I had to pry the phone out of Dill’s hand and he started to cry. I wandered into the waiting area so I could sit down and change his diaper and nurse him. When I got there the girls were walking around and around on top of the plastic orange chairs singing to themselves and Lish was arguing, mildly, with the Customs guy. It seemed he was suspicious of us. Why did we want to go to Colorado? To see a friend. Where does this friend live? In Denver. All these children are yours? Yes. And hers. How much money do you have? When do you plan to return? Do you have any communicable diseases, open sores, fruit, pets, firearms, telephones, or otherwise deadly weapons? Finally he asked, “What do you do in Winnipeg?”
“I raise my children.”
“I mean for a job? Your line of work?”
“Like I said—”
“Yeah, yeah, every mother’s a working mother, but what is your source of income? Do you understand that question?”
“Yes, at night I perform delicate bowel surgery on uninsured American geriatrics. That is my reason for wanting to enter the United States.” She raised her voice. “I’m on SOCIAL ASSISTANCE. ISN’T THAT BLOODY OBVIOUS?”
“You’re going to have to calm down, ma’am, if you want this application processed.”
I tried not to stare at both of them. The girls didn’t seem bothered by this exchange. But I was worried that we wouldn’t be allowed into the States if they knew we were on the dole. We weren’t supposed to leave the province, let alone the country. Did they know that?
The big guy behind the counter and a couple of smaller older ones who seemed more relaxed all huddled back behind a desk. Then they started talking about us and looking at us and finally went into a little room. They closed the curtains on the window separating us from them.
Lish was mad. “What the hell is this? Albania? I wouldn’t even want to get to their stupid country if it weren’t for Gotcha. I can’t do a damn thing without some government asshole stepping in to okay it, to fucking monitor my entire life. Why don’t they just fucking put me into a zoo and watch me on those little video cameras?”
“Shhhh. Lish. We have nothing to hide. They’re just bored. The big young guy probably has a lot to prove. They have to go through the motions. Just sit here and relax. You want a jawbreaker?”
“No.”
“I do.”
“I do.”
“I do.”
“Me too.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
I bought four jawbreakers for the girls and told them to keep them hidden from Dill because I was afraid he’d choke on one. All the girls sat in silence then, their jaws moving like crazy around the big bulges in their cheeks. Slowly black jawbreaker juice trickled out of the corners of their mouths. Dill was pulling himself up to all the girls, one by one and saying something like Wha Da Wha Da and pointing to their mouths and to me and Lish Wha Da Wha Da. The girls, caught up in the excitement of the conspiracy against Dill, remained silent and opened their eyes wide and shrugged their shoulders, black juice trickling down their chins and their bulging cheeks. Finally, the Customs guy called us over, very seriously, as though he were going to tell us we had inoperable tumours all over our bodies.
Lish said, “Oh. Coffee break’s over, eh?” to the guy, who didn’t smile or even look at her.
All he did was barely move his head quickly down and back up and say, “Enjoy your stay.”
“Gee thanks,” said Lish. “Can you guarantee—”
“Lish!” I said, “we should get going.” I didn’t want her to start crusading again. If she started lecturing this guy we’d never get across the border.
“Right,” she said. “Let’s go.” I couldn’t believe it. She was agreeing with me! And then she looked at the guy and said, “Thank you,” and she smiled at him!
We picked up all our stuff and herded the kids toward the van.
“Proud of me?” she asked. I nodded. “I just get so fucking pissed off sometimes . . .”
“Apparently,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“You know,” she said, “I feel like that puppet in Mr. Dressup, what’s her name? Casey?”
“I think it’s a he,” I said.
“Whatever—have you ever noticed how bitchy she is?”
“He,” I said. “Yeah, he’s got a short fuse. I would too if all I had for company week after week was an old man and a dog.”
“And if you were a puppet,” added Lish.
“Right,” I said. I nodded.
“And Lucy! You’re Finnegan! You’re the dog! You keep nodding and not saying much.” Lish loved this idea, she was laughing. She put her head next to mine. “What’s that, Finnegan?” she said in a high voice. “You want to get going?”
“Woof,” I said.
Letitia was staring at us. “Finnegan doesn’t make any noise at all, Lucy,” she said in a serious tone. Lish just laughed.
The United States of America. Both Lish and I had, of course, crossed this border many times when we were younger and were travelling with our parents: weekends at the Holiday Inn in Grand Forks or Fargo or sometimes even as far as Minneapolis. Wearing our new Levis over the border so Mom didn’t have to declare them. Not to mention the new sneakers, underwear and t-shirts. But since we had become adults ourselves, and poor ones at that, our trips anywhere had been almost non-existent, unless you count the laundry room downstairs. That little lift we once felt entering another country wasn’t there this time. Everything looked the same, except that the roads were better than in Canada.
Had my dad and I been talking about my mom? Not really, I guess. And yet he had made the crack about speeding and I had mentioned the honey sign. Only the two of us could have known what we were talking about. Maybe that was progress. Maybe we just didn’t realize it was. Do we see ourselves growing old or do we wake up one day and startle ourselves looking into the mirror? It happens in steps. So I told myself that our conversation was progress.
Soon Dill would be walking and my dad would think he’d always walked, knowing he hadn’t really, but somehow not believing it because he never saw it. Maybe we can’t imagine what we’ve never seen. If Lish doesn’t see Gotcha again, ever, she will retain her memory of him: the memory of passion, if not love. If Podborczintski asks me who Dill’s father is, I still will not be able to give him an answer. At least I know who mine is, and I could say I was talking to him just the other day.
Lish had changed black t-shirts from one that read “Talk Minus Action Equals Zero” to one that had the Pepsi-Cola logo on it, but instead of the swirling letters spelling Pepsi-Cola they spelled Peepee Caca. She’d designed it herself. Since we had arrived in the United States she had taken on a more serious look. And I noticed the fields were drier over the border. It was getting hotter. The kids were playing some game having to do with catching up to the disappearing patches of water on the highway. Naturally they kept disappearing just when we were getting close. The game consisted of getting all excited by going oh o h OH OH GONE! over and over. I remembered a sign I had put on the back window of our car when I was travelling with my parents. It read “Help I’m being Kidnapped!” Nobody seemed to care. They all went swooshing past, grinning. Even when I gestured madly for them to cut the car off and rescue me they laughed. Some just looked annoyed. Others didn’t look at all. I grabbed my neck and shook my head, sticking out my tongue and rolling my eyes. I pointed a finger that looked like a gun to the side of my head. I did everything to get noticed. Nothing. Nobody stopped. My parents didn’t even turn around. The radio kept playing the hog and crop report. The cars kept whizzing past and the patches of water kept disappearing. I guess I looked like I belonged in the back of that car with that woman and that man. I suppose some people just sense if someone belongs or not.
All the girls, except Hope, who was too sophisticated to be naked in the back of a van, had removed their clothes. Dill was chewing on a shoe. The van wasn’t making any weird noises yet and we were almost in Grand Forks. Geez, Podborczintski would be mad if he found out we had left town. I smiled. The dole. Daddy to us all. Would we ever stop running away and needing it at the same time? Anyway, right now we were looking for one of those low-slung fleabag motels with a lot of burnt-out neon and an angry teenage son or daughter left behind the office counter who you can be sure never heard of hotel management courses. We were, after all, on a fixed budget. I had reminded Lish that we had all the camping gear in the back of the van, and she had looked at me and arched her eyebrows and said, “Who’re you kidding? We’re not Terrapin and Gypsy. If I’m gonna meet the love of my life after five years I’m not gonna have that refugee look you get after camping with kids. It’s overrated, trust me. Maybe one kid and the Marlboro Man to start the fire and put up the tent. Then maybe. You know, wine spritzers and no bugs and hand-knit sweaters and perfect roasted marshmallows and bird sounds coming off the lake. A little skinny dipping after the one wellbehaved child has happily gone to sleep in the tent. Then maybe. In the meantime, look for a motel out your side. We’ve got more practical survival skills, Luce.”
After we had put the kids to bed and they were sleeping and Lish and I were lying awake in the dark, I noticed she was very quiet. Our limbs made the only noises as they rubbed, from time to time, against the stiff motel sheets. Then Lish sighed and spoke. “Maybe this is stupid.”
“What? What’s stupid?”
“This. Just taking off in search of some guy I met five years ago and happened to get pregnant by. I think it is. Stupid. What the fuck am I gonna say to him anyway?”
“How should I know? Like I’m an expert in communications.”
“But it could be good. I guess.”
“This.”
“Yeah. I guess. For sure.”
Only me and Teresa back at Half-a-Life knew that there couldn’t be anything, good or bad, between Lish and the busker. Because it hadn’t been anything to begin with: I know I should have learned my lesson a long time ago when me and my cousin wrote those fake love letters to her brother and permanently screwed up his life. Who did I think I was, anyway? Lish’s life wasn’t a Brazilian soap opera, and it wasn’t up to me to decide what happened next. For all I knew Gotcha was married with three kids and living right in Grand Forks working at Wal-Mart.
This whole crazy thing was really because of my selfishness and a big fear that without Lish’s happiness my own would crumble. And if that happened, what would happen to Dill? That’s about what it amounted to. I figured if she got some postcards from the busker saying how much he really cared and thought about her and then he just up and died somehow, dramatically, trying to reach her . . . I thought that would be a better way to remember him. And for the twins too. Better a dead father than an absent one. I thought. Look at my mom. I seem only to be able to remember the funny, good things about her. I miss her, but her death is less painful than my father’s life. He only makes me feel sad. And I wonder why we could never get it together just to get along, just to feel relaxed with each other and laugh suddenly at the same stupid thing. What happened in between the time he held my hand all the way to The Waffle Shop and called me his bombshell blonde and my adulthood? Better dead than absent, I say. Or I think I say. Now I just don’t know. I realized after calling my dad at the border that things could always, maybe, change. Better a late father than an absent father.
But it was too late to turn back. Was it wrong to make up a person when they’re gone? We do it when they’re dead, so why not when they’re missing? Not dead, neatly buried in the ground, but missing. Teresa was my accomplice. I had let her in on my scheme. To a certain degree, Teresa depended on Lish, too. This was the plan: when we got to the Badlands we’d call to ask about the mail and Teresa would tell Lish that another postcard had arrived. One from a friend of Gotcha’s, saying he’d been killed in a drive-by shooting coming out of a movie theatre in downtown Denver. Just like John Dillinger.
I used to think my mom had staged her death. She must have been burnt out from the stress of counselling people and had plotted her death (hell, if I could fake a death, why not her?) and had taken off to South America. Speeding through banana plantations in a Land Rover, doing crossword puzzles in Spanish, laughing at the world and her great escape as she whizzed along patting the top of the Land Rover with her hand. You know how all mothers are nervous about getting their baby mixed up in the hospital. Well, how do I know it was really my mother in that coffin? Well. I do. I know it was her, because if she was still alive she’d know about Dill and the three of us would have lunch more often. I was a fool, a major league fool. My dad at least figured it out that mom was gone for good and maybe he was a lonely recluse because of it. But he knew the truth. And let it be.
“Lish?”
“Yeah?”
“Good night.”
“Yeah, okay, good night. The kids were pretty good, weren’t they?”
“Yeah Lish, they were. They were very good.”
“Sweet dreams, Lucy.”
“You too.”
Frankly, I was tired of dreaming. And I was feeling wide awake. More awake than I had felt in months. I needed to convince myself of only one more thing. That what I was doing was right. That my life was funny, and Dill was a lucky boy, father or no father. I would go through with this whole Gotcha business and hope that later on sometime I could tell Lish the truth and we could laugh. If I never told her the truth, I hoped that we could laugh, too. At the age of eighteen I told myself I would be happy. And if I could do that, I could finally embrace the sadness and the truth of my mother’s death and remember her for who she was.