You Are Not What We Expected

by Sidura Ludwig

  Isaac knocks the lid closed, sits back down on the toilet, and pats Ava on the back. He leans against the wall and the counter by the sink with his eyes closed. Ava sits on the floor and leans against the tub. She thinks that he may have fallen asleep from all the activity; his mouth is partly open. But then he closes it and swallows slowly and says, “Of course I do. She came out to see me after she left here. She was a mess. I told her to go back and be with her kids. And then I never saw her again.”

  “What do you mean she came out to see you?”

  Isaac opens his eyes now and Ava notices how they droop, sacks of skin hanging in misshapen U’s. She doesn’t remember him looking this way when she was younger — perpetually sad.

  Your grandmother knew she was coming my way. She called me. She said, ‘If Carly comes to you, don’t you help her. She needs to come back and be with her kids.’ And I said to her, ‘If she’s so messed-up, maybe she shouldn’t be with those kids.’ But your grandmother was always about getting Carly to do the right thing. For you guys. You know, the kids would make her straight. I saw all kinds of messed-up people in L.A. who had kids and they didn’t do shit for them.

  “Carly showed up at my place. Shaking. Eyes all red. She wanted a job or to sleep on my floor. I told her, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not going to let you bring any of that shit into my life.’ ”

  “What shit?”

  “She was on all kinds of stuff. A walking chemical lab. Always was. Very experimental. You know that. Everyone knew that about her.”

  Ava doesn’t answer. She doesn’t say, I don’t know a fucking thing. Even though she feels like she’s been flipping channels all her life and finally she has stumbled on the show featuring her story.

  Isaac says, “I let her come in. I gave her a cup of coffee. I had a good business, you know. I sold stuff on eBay. But I didn’t need staff. And I told her that. I said, ‘I don’t need anyone to help me.’ And she said something about all her stuff getting stolen on her way out there. She couldn’t cut hair without her supplies. She wouldn’t be any trouble. Sleep on the couch. She said, ‘Isaac, you’re my only hope.’

  “I looked at her and I was like, ‘You left your only hope back in Toronto.’ But she was a wreck. So then I said, ‘You must think I’m a real fool. You think I’m going to let you and your junkie friends shoot up around my place? What, you think I owe you? I don’t owe you.’

  “She said, ‘You and me, we’re the same, you know.’ And I said, ‘Nah. Nah, we’re not.’ And she said, ‘Yeah. You just think you’ve got it all figured out. See, I know I don’t. You just don’t know it yet.’

  “That made me mad, right? I never needed anyone. I never got married, right? I never had kids. And I was happy, right? I loved L.A. I loved the sun. I loved a good place to eat. I’d go out and people thought I was Dustin Hoffman. You know that? People used to come up to me with their script ideas. I signed some autographs. I lived in this place where everyone was trying to be someone, except for me. I was the happiest man on the Sunset Strip. Who the hell did she think she was?

  “And if she hadn’t been standing in front of me like that, shaking and stinking and looking at me like I was the one who didn’t know what he was doing with his life, I might have taken her for dinner. I might have spent one evening with her. Maybe if she said she needed one night and then a lift to the bus station so she could make her way back home. You know, you didn’t do anything to deserve her. And Elaine left all alone to raise you guys.

  “I gave her a bunch of money. I don’t remember, five hundred dollars? It was enough to get her back home. I gave it to her, she didn’t ask. But I gave it to her and I said, ‘This is enough to get you home. And you’re going to take this to buy yourself a ticket.’ But she knew she wasn’t going to do that. And I knew she wasn’t going to do that. It’s not like I was giving her the money so that she could go get high. I just wanted her to leave. I said to her, ‘This is all you’re ever going to get from me.’ And then she left.

  “I didn’t even tell Elaine that I saw her. You know that? When Elaine called and asked me to come back here to help her out with you guys, I never said a word. And I guess she never came back, eh? I guess that was it.”

  Ava doesn’t think she has the strength to stand. She almost asks Isaac to help her up. Her mouth is dry and pasty. When she swallows, she feels like the back of her throat is sticking together.

  “I probably would have done the same as you,” she finally manages, as if they weren’t talking about her mother but some stranger who needed kindness for one night. As if, after all this time, there wasn’t any difference. “I’m not going to blame you.” But even as she says this, she knows she won’t ever come back. She can’t possibly do any of this again.

  He says, “You need to get me home.”

  When Ava wheels Isaac from the car back to the home, he says to her, “I didn’t mean it. You’re not like your mother. You’re kinder. You’re not nearly as selfish.”

  “She had her demons,” Ava says. It’s a line her grandmother used to use. Carly’s demons, like the way some kids collected stuffed animals, or stickers. Ava used to imagine her mother lining up her demons on a shelf, dusting them. Shining their little heads, because in Ava’s imagination they were made out of pewter.

  “You’re more together than she was. Way more. People must say you’re doing pretty well. Considering.”

  “People don’t know,” Ava says. She pushes the wheelchair across the front mat. The electronic door to the home slides open. She’s hit with the smells of ammonia and chlorine, and then fish sticks because it’s now suppertime and they are passing right by the dining room. A nurse walks over from behind the front counter.

  “Isaac! We didn’t know where you were. And you almost missed supper. Did your daughter take you for something to eat?”

  The nurse comes around the back to take over pushing the chair and Ava lets her. Ava backs away toward the sliding doors, like she has to get there before they close and lock her in. She says, “Okay. Bye, Isaac. Take care.”

  The nurse turns the chair around and Isaac is waving at her with his good hand. He’s calling, “Really! I meant it. You’re so much better.”

  But Ava is already running out the doors, stumbling into the outside, spitting out her breath like she ate something she couldn’t stand. She’s digging through her purse to find some tissue for her running nose, for the saliva around her mouth. She pulls out the postcards that she never gave Isaac and she folds them into quarters, rips them into squares and then tosses them into the garbage, all those pieces of sunshine and prayer and golden, gleaming sand.

  Acknowledgements

  Writing may be a solitary act, but I learned so much about the importance of community while working on this book. Thank you to:

  Everyone at the Sarah Selecky Writing School. To my teachers, Jennifer Manuel and Lana Pesch, for pushing me to dig deeper with my stories. To my fellow students, for your encouragement and wise critique. To my fellow faculty, for including me in your writing life. To Nicole, for the Friday emails. To Sarah, for believing in me, cheering me on, and celebrating every step.

  To Jami Attenberg and the Humber School for Writers for the space, guidance, and accountability to pen the first draft of this collection.

  To Zsuzsi Gartner and Jennifer Manuel for your early evaluations of this manuscript.

  To Marnie Ferguson for the phone calls, laughs, and pep talks.

  To the incredible team at House of Anansi Press. Maria Golikova, managing editor; Jennifer Lum and the design team for the gorgeous cover; Linda Pruessen for your great copyediting eye, Sue Sumeraj for your expert proofreading; everyone in marketing and sales for championing this book, especially Laura Chapnick and Curtis Samuel. Many thanks to Sarah MacLachlan and Janie Yoon for enthusiastically bringing this collection on board. Janie, thank you for always being there. Most of
all, thank you to Michelle MacAleese, my brilliant editor and friend, for all your guidance and support.

  To my VCFA community, for all the love and for inspiring me daily to pick up my pen.

  To my family: my parents, my siblings, and my in-laws, for always celebrating my ups and never letting me get stuck in my downs.

  To my kids: Boaz, Dalya, and Isaac, for reminding me to keep going, even when it’s hard.

  And especially, to Jason, who never let me stop, keeps me on track, and has always believed this dream of mine would become a reality. I love you for all this and so much more.

  SIDURA LUDWIG is the author of the novel Holding My Breath, which was shortlisted for the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. Her short fiction has been published by numerous literary journals and anthologies. She works as a communications specialist and creative writing teacher, and her creative nonfiction has appeared in several newspapers and on CBC Radio. She is currently working on her M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults through the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, she now lives in Thornhill, Ontario, with her husband and their three children.

  HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year”.