The Heart Begins Here

by Jacqueline Dumas

Wanda had been tidying papers all morning, opening and closing cupboard doors, glancing up at the clock. I hadn’t even heard her go out.

  Curiosity led me outside to introduce myself, but the chic young woman did not return my smile. Instead, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her trendy coat and gave my faded parka and baggy sweats the once-over with her cool blue eyes. I mumbled an offer of tea and retreated inside to put the kettle on. Ten minutes later, Wanda came in alone. “Cindy sends her regrets,” she said. “She had an appointment.”

  “Is that Freddie’s girlfriend? The one we’ve been hearing about? How do you know each other anyway?” I asked.

  “I know her from work. She’s our part-time chaplain.”

  “And what, she just happened to be walking in our back alley? I thought she and Freddie lived on the other side of town.”

  “She’s thinking of putting in an organic garden, so I invited her to drop by and see mine.”

  “Funny you’ve never mentioned her.…”

  “PARTNER SWITCH!” called Wanda.

  Freddie scowled in response and drew Cindy closer, but Wanda grabbed her and led her away across the floor.

  Freddie and I faced each other awkwardly for a few moments, Freddie’s fists bulged at her side. Circling couples bumped into us until finally she seized my hand to furiously whirl me through the last half of the dance number. I could feel her glowering over her shoulder at Wanda and Cindy who were spinning smoothly around the perimeter of the other couples. When they remained on the floor for the ensuing waltz, Freddie responded by ramming me backwards straight through the centre of the dance floor and into Wanda.

  “Partner switch!” called Freddie, thrusting me at Wanda and snatching her girlfriend out of Wanda’s clutches.

  THE DANCE WAS ONLY the beginning. Two Sundays before our scheduled departure, I awoke at dawn to a rustling from the walk-in closet. Wanda was getting dressed. Her hair looked damp, so she had taken a shower. The clock read six-fifteen a.m.

  Something at work was bothering her, a file she should’ve attended to earlier in the week. She was going into the office for a while.

  “On Sacred Sunday?”

  “Oh, for chrissakes, Sara. Don’t ruin it by turning it into an obligation.”

  Her words stung. Sacred Sunday was an oasis of time in which to mitigate the pressures of the preceding week. It was a morning for unhurried love, followed by a late breakfast, an afternoon movie or walk, and maybe a spaghetti dinner in the evening. No outside intrusions allowed. And it was Wanda who had so designated the day.

  She wasn’t sure when she’d be home, probably sometime in the afternoon. She had to meet one of her associates to, “you know, get advice regarding a particular client.”

  “Who is it?”

  “You know that’s confidential.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Wanda. Not the client, your associate.”

  “Oh, umm, our chaplain....”

  “Your chaplain? You mean Cindy Lottridge? Seriously?”

  “And why wouldn’t I be serious? Her opinions are worth a hell of a lot more than those of my other so-called colleagues....”

  “Why not use her name in the first place? It’s not like I haven’t met her or anything. Anyway, I thought she left a few weeks ago. I didn’t realize she was still the chaplain there.”

  “That’s right, but I still confer with her now and then.”

  It was late afternoon before I heard from Wanda. Would I feed Snuffles for her?

  I had spooned food into the cat dish hours before, and my special Sunday spaghetti sauce was simmering on the stovetop.

  “Go on and eat without me,” said Wanda. “I’m not sure when I’ll be done here. The situation is more difficult to sort out than I thought it would be.”

  Was that music I could hear in the background?

  “Look, just forget it, okay? I phoned out of consideration, to let you know I’d be home late. Obviously, I shouldn’t have bothered.”

  7.

  ON LONG WINTER NIGHTS, my grandmother would play Solitaire in the kitchen of her isolated prairie farmhouse. I never saw her lose. She would win with one cheat, two cheats, four cheats, whatever it took, and every once in a while, she won without having to cheat at all.

  That’s the way Wanda seemed to want it. Every situation a winning one with as many cheats as necessary.

  I uncorked a bottle of red wine and sat down in front of the TV with my plate of spaghetti. On one channel was a sitcom with a floppy-wristed character providing the comic relief. Apparently being gay was amusing. Being gay and miserable must be hilarious.

  Snuffles leapt up next to me. He purred and kneaded my stomach with his front paws before settling into my lap.

  He was not usually so affectionate with me. I had made efforts to befriend him when first moving in with Wanda, but he remained Wanda’s cat. I generally countered by ignoring him.

  I dozed off and awoke to some tuneless humming on the back porch. I turned off the TV and rolled off the couch. Snuffles ran upstairs.

  “Still up?” said Wanda.

  Her cheeks were flushed.

  She kicked off her boots and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I heard the lock turn and the tub start to fill.

  Wanda was having a bath at three in the morning? And she was locking the bathroom door?

  She hummed and sloshed around in the tub for what seemed a very long time, then headed straight up the stairs to the bedroom.

  “Don’t start in on me now,” she said as I followed her up. “It’s been a long enough day as it is.”

  Wanda bent to rub noses with Snuffles, who was now on the bed stretching and yawning in greeting, as if he’d been loyally waiting for her all evening.

  “Awww…. How’s Mummy’s little Snuffley-Wuffley? Did you miss your Mummsy-Wummsy?”

  Wanda’s displays of affection to her cat were excessive at the best of times, and it was particularly galling to watch the cat receiving the attention I felt I deserved.

  “You could at least tell me the truth!” I cried. “Where’ve you been all this time?”

  “Careful, you’ll scare Snuffles.”

  As if on cue, Snuffles leapt off the bed and disappeared into the closet.

  “So, since when did you turn into a housemother?” said Wanda.

  “Don’t be insulting. I was worried. Something could’ve happened….”

  Wanda put her hands up in surrender, as if I was the sheriff and had her cornered.

  “Okay, okay, you win. I’m a selfish shithead. Agreed? Now, can we please go to bed and get some sleep?”

  She began to rummage through her dresser.

  “Ah, I knew it was here somewhere.”

  She pulled out the flannelette nightie her sister Danuta had sent last Christmas. With her back to me, she untied the bathrobe, dropped it to the floor, and tugged the nightie over her head.

  I had never known Wanda to wear it, or, for that matter, anything else to bed. She slept in the nude, even in winter.

  “Wanda, what’s going on?”

  She turned as if noticing me for the first time since coming in the door.

  “I’m sorry, Sarie honey. I don’t want to fight with you.”

  She cupped my cheeks so gently my eyes welled up.

  “I am sorry, truly I am.”

  I started to cry.

  She put her arms around me and pulled me close like she used to do.

  “Look, we’ll talk about everything soon, I promise,” she said. “But can we give it a rest for now? It’s late and we should try and get some sleep. Okay?”

  She gave me a squeeze. “Come now. Six-thirty comes awful early.”

  I undressed but stood sobbing by the bed.

  She rolled under the quilt and held it open. “Come on
, Sweetie, please.... Come, Sariekins. Let me hold you....”

  Despite my hurt, I melted into Wanda’s arms wrapped around me, pressing my face into her soft breasts, breathing in their flannelette softness.

  Unlike Wanda, I didn’t have to deal with life-and-death issues on a daily basis, just inefficient publishers and the odd cantankerous customer. Nor was I obliged to take shit from less-qualified superiors or tedious government bureaucrats or even ungrateful clients. If customers were rude or just plain annoying, I had the option of showing them the door. Wanda was stressed, that was all. Once we got away, once she could relax away from work, everything would be okay again.

  I snuggled in closer to the now sleeping Wanda, who, in her dreams, elbowed me in the chest and jerked away. I tried to rationalize away this latest wound, and I lay awake for hours feeling rejected and sorry for myself pushed away on my side of the bed.

  By morning, I had persuaded myself once again that, okay, maybe Wanda was infatuated with someone else, but the time together in Hawaii, just the two of us, would put everything right. For one thing, we had experienced similar struggles that went right back to our childhoods, which meant that we understood each other on a deep level. We had been the odd ones out in our respective families. Even now, as adults, neither of us managed to quite fit in, and as a result, we had formed what I had come to believe was an unbreakable bond.

  A PARTICULAR HALLOWEEN PARTY stands out.

  We had only been living together a few months and debating what to wear to the party when Alice’n’Peggy invited us to join their group as members of a coven.

  For reasons that still escape me, Wanda and I came to an unspoken agreement that witchwear involved old straw brooms and green faces streaked through with black wrinkles. I drove to the dollar store and bought garish makeup for the occasion.

  We were the first of the coven to arrive. Everyone already at the party was in costume, but not like us. The other women shimmered in guises that ranged from a sexy honeybee to a saucy French maid to a young femme in a baby blue (Freudian) slip. Wanda and I, on the other hand, were caricature witches from a scary children’s book, grotesque hags from the patriarchal nightmare. All that was missing were the warts on the tips of our noses, and that was only because we hadn’t been able to figure out how to make the warts stick.

  Our other coven members arrived—elegant crones in flowing black robes, Celtic necklaces, and soft flattering hats, and of course, no ugly witch makeup. Even Alice’n’Peggy glowed with strength and power. Sweat built up under my green sixties-shag-carpet-shade goo. My eyes stung. I escaped to the bathroom before they could see me.

  In the bathroom, I attacked my face, but no amount of scrubbing could wipe away the humiliation. At an earlier time in my life, I would’ve got drunk to prove I didn’t care.

  Wanda did get drunk.

  WITHOUT AN OUNCE OF good sense from either of us, Wanda and I went ahead with our long-delayed honeymoon.

  I had persuaded myself that her infatuation would lessen each morning as we woke up next to each other in bed.

  Wanda, as she later confessed, had convinced herself that getting thousands of miles away might stop her from so desperately wanting Cindy.

  Trish managed to get us to the airport on time. It wasn’t her fault we were in such a rush. She arrived early, but Wanda had taken ages dropping off Snuffles at the cat hotel, which is nothing like a hotel, more like a kennel where the dog run is next to the cat cages. Wanda hated leaving him there.

  The cat hotel is only a few blocks from the house, yet I had had time to load the suitcases in the car, check and recheck the windows and taps, and turn down the hot water tank. I had even had time to say goodbye to my mother.

  WERE IT NOT FOR the telephone, I doubt that my mother and I would have any kind of relationship. She moved out to the country soon after my father died, and she seldom comes into the city anymore.

  “I’m praying for a nice flight for you,” she said. “And did you know, by the way, that Mrs. Kobash’s daughter takes her to Hawaii all the time? Every second winter, she says. I’d love a nice holiday like that, although I don’t know if I’d want to go at Christmastime. I’d miss the snow, I know I would. And what’s Christmas without snow? It sure would be nice, though, a trip like that with your only daughter, but I suppose flying is not safe like it used to be, what with the hijackings going on nowadays. Which reminds me now, don’t forget your St. Christopher medal.”

  “Wasn’t he de-sainted?” I said. “I thought they decided he never really existed.”

  “Well, he’s still listed in that book of saints your father had. He had a special devotion to him, your father did. You remember how St. Christopher saved him from that speeding train.”

  I had heard the story hundreds of times about how my father had tripped and knocked himself out on a railway tie when he was twenty-one, and how St. Christopher had appeared and lifted him to safety just as the train was about to run him down. My father knew it was St. Christopher because of the staff and the knotted white robe. The story never explained what my father was doing walking along the tracks in the first place, but I had my own theory that involved him passed out in an alcoholic stupor and a felicitous passerby with a walking stick dragging him to safety.

  “You still have it, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, although I had misplaced the medal years ago, along with the plastic St. Anthony, patron saint of lost objects.

  “Mrs. Kobash says the sun is much stronger there than we’re used to. The first time she went she used loads of sunscreen, but she got burnt anyway. Be careful, Marguerite, with that skin of yours.”

  My mother is the only one who calls me that. I was christened, “Sara Marguerite,” and until my father’s death, both of them called me “Sara.” I don’t know why she took to calling me, “Marguerite.”

  Like my paternal grandmother, I was named after Louis Riel’s younger sister, Sara Riel, who chose “Marguerite” as her religious name. Sara Marguerite, aka Sister Marguerite-Marie, was born one hundred years earlier than me on the exact same date, October 11. Perhaps my father hoped that some of Sara Riel’s nineteenth-century piety and loyalty would re-emerge in my twentieth-century soul, or that naming me thus might influence my disposition and guarantee the kind of loyalty my mother still accords him twenty-five years after his death.

  In keeping with my father’s peculiar sense of humour, my five younger brothers were christened after the saint names of villages and towns that my father discovered on a Québec road map: Adalbert (who we’ve always called Bert), Elzéar (El), Onésime (Zimmy), Flavien (Flavio) and Ubalde (Ubie). Having since driven by some of those Québec road signs, I count myself lucky not to have been named Pamphile or Euphémie.

  My father liked to boast that he was descended from the Riels, but he was a man who lived by illusion, self-fabrication, and practical jokes, so over the years, I’ve come to question this dubious family connection to the heroic stories of resistance on the Prairies. And although I’ve never explored a lineage that could easily be verified or disproven, I have read Sara Riel’s letters to her brother Louis several times and concluded that in her place, I would have fled with him south across the border, unlike Sister Marguerite, who remained in the convent at Île-à-la-Crosse.

  Although something other than passivity may have kept Sister Marguerite in the convent. Her letters attest to a particular devotion to one of her convent sisters, one Sister St. Michel, and I secretly relish the possibility that the similarity between my namesake and me is even more intimate than my father ever imagined.

  “Dear God, how sad it is on earth!” Sister Marguerite writes when it seems at one point that she and her beloved Sister St. Michel are to be separated.

  Along with this dubious connection to Louis Riel, my father also preached the doctrine of La Survivance, the belief that the French language and religion would
outlive the humiliating English Protestant conquest of the Northwest. In that regard, I’ve let down the side, as I no longer attend Mass, and I barely speak the language anymore.

  Sister Marguerite, Sara Riel, died in December 1883 at the age of thirty-four, two years before her brother Louis was hanged for treason. She was buried at Île-à-la-Crosse.

  My father always maintained that her death was a cover-up, the result of being pushed down a flight of stairs by a murderous government agent.

  “NOW MARGUERITE, you do remember those red rashes you used to get when you were little,” continued my mother.

  How could I not?

  “Is anyone going with you?”

  “Yes, of course. Wanda.”

  “You don’t mean that person you share the house with?”

  The automatic indignation at my mother’s mulish denial of Wanda’s place in my life was quickly replaced with the even greater frustration of not knowing what that place was anymore.

  “Yes,” I simply said.

  “You know what they say, Marguerite: Familiarity breeds contempt. And if you’re always in the company of other women, men will hesitate to approach you. It’s not like you’re getting any younger. But I suppose it’s never too late to find a husband.”

  “Except that I’m divorced, remember? And Dan is still alive. The Church doesn’t recognize divorce, right? Only death.”

  “You can always get that first marriage annulled. That’s what Mrs. Kobash’s daughter did. She remarried and had a baby, her daughter did. Mrs. Kobash only has the one daughter, you know, just like me. And now, she has the cutest little grandson....”

  “Yes, well, I am past the childbearing age.”

  “But not too old to get a husband. That Dan now, what a nice man he was. But don’t get discouraged, Marguerite. Remember, there’s a cover for every pot. You haven’t found the cover that fits yet, that’s all.”

  At that point Wanda finally walked in, her throat all blotched like when she’s had sex.

  I looked away, refusing to begin our honeymoon vacation in a suspicious state of mind.