How Far We Go and How Fast

by Nora Decter

  NORA DECTER grew up in the North End of Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook University and a BA in English and Creative Writing from York University. Though she now lives most of the year in Toronto, Ontario, she wrote the first draft of How Far We Go and How Fast at a cabin in the woods in Manitoba. She has a rock ’n’ roll past. For more information, and to hear the songs Jolene plays in the book, visit noradecter.com.

  ONE

  “I’m wet,” a voice whimpers in my ear.

  My eyelids snap open as my head jerks from the pillow. Evan stands beside my bed, hair disheveled, naked from the waist down. Chicken legs shivering.

  “What?” I blink, trying to clear my head.

  “I’m wet.” Now the tears come.

  “Evan!” I grab his wrist and drag him, wailing, toward his bedroom. “Not again!”

  In the early-morning sun filtering through the blinds, Maisie is still asleep in her bed next to his, curled up with a matted lamb. I strip the blankets and sheets from the mattress, cursing under my breath. I fling everything in a pile at his feet.

  “Disgusting,” I say, eyeing the foul wet circle. Rounding on him, I bring my finger right up to his pale face. “Tonight, you’re wearing a pull-up.”

  “No! No diaper!” He sobs harder now.

  “Yes, diaper!” I snap. “If you act like a baby, you have to wear a diaper.” Maisie stirs in her bed, makes a chirping sound and rolls over.

  Evan gives up arguing now and shivers, tears running down his cheeks. He scratches at his peed-on legs. He looks so pathetic, I start to feel sorry for him. I check the clock for the first time. Mickey Mouse’s hands tell me it’s 6:15 AM. I was cheated out of an extra fifteen minutes of sleep.

  “C’mon,” I say, taking his hand and pulling him to the bathroom. I mop him up and find a clean pair of underwear. The plastic garbage bag I always put under his sheet has slipped to one side in the night, so I scrub his wet mattress for a minute before giving up. What’s one more stain at this point? He waits on the sofa in his Batman underwear while I wake up Maisie and get started.

  Breakfast. Shower for me while they’re eating. Lunches. I lay their clothes on the sofa and let them watch some alphabet cartoon while they dress themselves. That gives me ten minutes to get myself ready. Right before we leave, I try to wrestle a brush through Maisie’s straggly mess of cinnamon curls.

  She shrieks, trying to writhe away. I clamp my hands on her shoulders and push her back down. “Sit still! You want to look like a hobo on your first day at a new school?”

  She gives me a dirty look but gets her shoes on when I tell her to. I help Evan into his.

  “All ready?” I say, trying to sound more cheerful. Evan nods slowly, and Maisie just stares. “Okay then.”

  I lock the door behind me, and we shuffle to the end of the hall. The elevator smells like piss again. I blame the loser on the floor below us, who roams the halls in his bathrobe half the time.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I tell Evan and Maisie, making them stand on either side of me. This place is even more of a dump than the last, and that’s saying a lot. In the lobby we follow a worn path across the dirt-colored carpet to the main door and step into the bright September sun. Once outside, Maisie perks up and starts to tell me about her dream, which involves a farm.

  “I got to ride the pony as much as I wanted,” she says, skipping over the cracks in the sidewalk.

  I pick up the pace. Evan almost runs to keep up, two fingers gripping my belt loop. We follow the sidewalk to a strip mall half a block away, stopping in front of a rainbow-striped sign: Little Treasures Day Care. Someone has thrown a rock through the corner of the sign, so the r in Care doesn’t line up anymore.

  Mrs. Carrigan, the owner, smiles at me as I push through the streaked door. I nod at her and crouch to help Evan take off his shoes and sweater, which I drop into his cubby. Then I corner Elaine, who runs the three-to-five-year-old room. She reminds me of a donkey, with her flat, tawny hair and the way she brays at the kids. Evan’s only been coming here a week, and I already know Elaine’s useless. Government subsidy covers most of the day-care fee, but it still feels like we pay too much for this place.

  I get straight to the point. “Can you make sure Evan comes home in the right socks today?”

  “Those were his socks.” She frowns and pulls her head back, which gives her about four chins.

  “My Little Pony?” I say, eyebrows raised. “I don’t think so.” Without waiting for a reply, I turn and herd Maisie out the door with me.

  We have about thirty seconds to make it to the bus stop on the corner, so we cover the rest of the block at a full-out run. Maisie’s backpack thumps up and down with every step, and I hear her puffing behind me. I turn and take her hand, slowing my pace a bit.

  We make it with ten seconds to spare. The bus is packed. I finally find one seat near the back door and point for Maisie to sit down. Holding the bar above my head, I sway as the city slides by: cop cars, dogs, old people raking leaves, pawn shops, parking meters.

  Maisie unpacks her backpack in her lap and shows me where she wrote her name on all of her school supplies. “I like this one,” she says, pulling the cap off a glue stick. “The glue is pink.”

  After ten minutes, I ring the bell. The bus slides to a stop in front of Sir John A. Macdonald Elementary School, where we squeeze out with a few others. The bell has already rung, and the hallway’s a solid wall of children. Two boys wrestle each other, swinging backpacks and laughing. When they trample on my feet, I give them a good shove and say, “Watch it.”

  We weave our way to the grade-two classrooms and scan the class list outside the door for Maisie Bennett. This is it. Her teacher, Mrs. Williams, strikes me as the cookie-baking-grandma sort. Silver hair pulled back in a hippie ponytail. Laugh lines around her eyes. She extends her hand to me as I leave Maisie at the door.

  “Isabelle,” I say, shaking it. “I’ll be back to pick up Maisie after school.” I give Maisie a pat on the head and push my way through the swarming hallway.

  Back out on the sidewalk, I look up and see my final destination across the street—Glenn Eastbeck High School—where I’m about to begin my first day of grade eleven.