This One Because of the Dead

by Laure Baudot

  “Actually, I’ve been eating vegetarian. It’s so crunchy granola out there.”

  “Holy moly. What the heck is that?”

  He ignores her, so she taunts him a little more, trying to get him laughing with her. “No B on B?” Their name for bologna on bread.

  “Do you know how they make that stuff?” He uses words like nitrites and nitrosamines, and she loses the thread of what he’s saying. He’s always been smart, always good with words. As he talks, hope rises in her, seeing as now he’s noticing her in a way he wasn’t before: as a real person, with feelings and needs and wants. Now, he is interested.

  She interrupts his processed-meat talk. “Glen, how long’re you staying?”

  He nods as if he’s been waiting for her. “I was thinking of coming home.”

  “What about work?”

  “I’m gonna take a break.”

  “You going back to school?”

  “What? No.”

  She thinks about it for a few seconds. “You’re not becoming one of those Buddhists, are you?”

  “Nothing like that. Although it’s not so bad, you know.”

  He paces, goes to the window, and parts the greying muslin curtain. “I thought the area was gentrifying.”

  “Some say that.”

  “Look, to tell you the truth, I quit.”

  “Oh.”

  She’s not sure if she’s relieved or angry, or maybe both. What will they do for money? All of a sudden she can’t breathe, seized by her memories of the early years when she didn’t know how she would provide for Glen, until the job at WellLife — with benefits and, for the first time, a feeling of being good at something. That time she made tomato sauce from scratch, discovering there was something beyond the eat-sleep-earn cycle.

  “Why’d you quit, Glen?”

  “Maybe I was sick of being beaten up.”

  He sounds mocking, but when she looks at him she sees some pain behind his eyes. Maybe it’s the sting of failure, of wanting to give when no one wants to take. She knows that feeling well, from raising Glen. Now, when she could use some help, she wishes he’d turn some of that helping attention to her.

  Glen lifts an eyebrow at her. “Aren’t you happy I’m home?”

  “Yes, I am! I am.” She rushes toward him and then, catching a whiff of her sour scent, stops short. “Maybe you could look for something here.”

  “For sure!” he says. He rises and, shock of shock, takes his dishes with him. She hears him clattering in the kitchen. “Where’s your broom, Mom?”

  “What for?”

  “Crumbs.”

  She follows his gaze toward the floor, the dots like sow-bugs rolling around. They might as well join the dustballs that rise and settle whenever the wind blows, she thinks. “In the lean-to?” she muses, and he goes to look.

  She used to be house-proud, back when Robert first bought the place and fixed it up, pounding the baseboards back in and painting the walls and ceilings. He even got an electrician friend to replace the knob-and-tube wiring that was part-and-parcel of these old Victorians. Sandra mopped the hardwood floors with vinegar and dusted the oak mantelpiece. She loved the high ceilings; after living in her grandparents’ bungalow her whole life, she felt she could breathe.

  When Robert’s handiwork didn’t come in anymore and he got depressed and took it out on her, she took over the maintenance. She plastered the hole in the hallway that he had kicked in, washed his vomit off the toilet’s base. She kept herself up in the same way, shaving her legs and dyeing her roots with Clairol. And when Rob went away for good, she continued to love the house. She used to thank God that he didn’t fight her for the place — no doubt he knew he’d lose that battle.

  She’s stopped cleaning, now that she couldn’t afford her mortgage. She felt deflated, just gave up. But every once in a while, she gets sick of herself and her house and she washes the counters and mops the floors, and gives herself a good scouring. Then she looks at the elegant hardwood, and the Victorian ceilings that awed her when Robert first brought her here, and she cries and asks her house for forgiveness.

  Glen comes back from the kitchen with a straw broom and dustpan. She watches, astonished, as he bends over like a stem and sweeps up his crumbs. He leaves again and she hears him hitting the pan against her metal trashcan.

  “Hey, Mom, what happened to The Beast?”

  She’d forgotten the name he’d given to her bread maker, back when he was little. “It’s in the shop.” She’s glad he can’t see her face. The bread maker is a Braun. A sturdy brand. Good thing Glen doesn’t know that it’s impossible to break a machine like that.

  He comes back in and smiles. “Remember how the kids used to beat me up for bringing in your whole wheat rolls?”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Water under the bridge.” He pauses for a moment, thinking. “Hey, you’re not becoming a minimalist, are you?”

  She rubs her hands again, suddenly aware that maybe it’s a nervous habit.

  He continues. “Although some say it’s good for you. Very Zen. I know someone who sold all her things to hike the West Coast trail, and she said —”

  “Excuse me,” Sandra says. She goes to the bathroom so he won’t see her cry, and takes a bit longer on the toilet than necessary. The familiarity of the bathroom calms her down. It looks the same as it always has, with a woven basket containing her plastic nail brush and pharmacy-brand hand cream, and her pink toothbrush in a plastic cup on the sink. One time, after he beat her, Robert bought her a purse. She should have sold it, but she got so mad that she dumped it in the garbage bin.

  The bread maker. What a story. She had won the bread maker at one of WellLife’s annual fundraising lotteries, when she was a new employee. She read the manual that came with it at least ten times, then bought flour and yeast, made dough, and after the first failures, made a round loaf, as airy and delicious as anything she’d ever eaten, including her grandmother’s sponge cake.

  That was only the beginning. She went to the library and got some cookbooks, all Italian, in memory of her grandmother, who wasn’t Italian, but had gone to Rome on a holy pilgrimage. Sandra could only afford discounted vegetables and cheap cuts of meats, but still, she was hooked. Her favourite dish to make was carbonara, which she made with one egg instead of four, and one slice of ham instead of three.

  Later, when her boss was away, she made a giant pot of homemade spaghetti sauce for WellLife’s residents. Her boss was furious and yelled at her about the two hundred dollars’ worth of tomatoes she’d squandered. But after he calmed down, he leaned forward in his swivel chair and confessed that one of the residents had liked the sauce, praising it to her mother, a patron. When the kitchen manager quit, her boss promoted Sandra in her place.

  All this, because she had brought the bread maker home — and only because she thought she could resell it. She never did, until now. It was the last thing to go, after the heirloom table and the sofa she had bought with her first paycheck.

  When Sandra returns from the bathroom, Glen has removed his sweatshirt and is doing pushups. “Glen! Are you exercising?”

  Her glance flits across bruises on his lower back, on his kidneys. Bruises the colour of bumblebees and violets, which puts her in mind of the garden at her grandparents’ Windsor house, before the factory laid her grandfather off and he got sick and her grandmother got sad.

  He grunts for two more push-ups and flies up, recoiling a little on the back of his heels. “That feels good.”

  Now that she’s looking harder, she sees that he looks better than the last time she saw him. His skinny arms have some bulk around the biceps. Then she recalls his comment, about the she who sold all her belongings to go hiking the West Coast trail. “Glen, do you have…? Is there a girl?”

  He smiles. “Hard to hide stuff from you.”

 
She stares at him. So that’s it. And if the past hour has shown her anything, it’s that he’s really fallen. That’s what love does. Or certain kinds of love. The right kind makes you love yourself more. Like when Glen was eleven and a half, and she looked at him needing her, and decided she’d had enough of being her husband’s doormat.

  “She took care of me,” Glen says. “You would love her, Mom.”

  Just like Glen, to be so keen about something. Until his passion gets squeezed out like a J-Cloth being wrung out. Sandra hopes that this interest will last. Silently, she praises the girl who’s taken her son off the streets.

  “Mind if I take a shower?” He’s off, taking the stairs two by two like he always did. A minute later, he calls down, “There’s no hot water!”

  A month ago her neighbour told her to turn off the hot water when she’s not using it, to save money. She won’t know if he’s right until the next bill.

  Before she has time to make something up, Glen is already galloping down the basement stairs to turn it back on. Five seconds later he whizzes by her. “I’ll shave while I wait. Do you have any razors?”

  “Try under the sink!” she yells up. “If it’s rusty don’t use it!”

  For a few moments, she’s elated by his energy. But as she stands in the doorway of the living room, she again wonders how she’s going to hide the facts from him. “Woohoo!” she hears from above, a sign that the water is still cold. She listens to hear if he’s going to turn it back off, but he doesn’t, and she sits down on the hard plastic chair, which after a while hurts her lower back.

  He brings the smell of cheap soap and shaving lotion down with him. “Here, I have something for you. Jenny made it.”

  It’s a circular cap, knit in garish colours. Suddenly Sandra can picture the girl. A waif with long, blonde hair. A hippie. She starts to laugh. No way she’ll wear that hat. She’ll give it to Old Kingsley at WellLife, on her next shift. Then she remembers that it will be a long while until her next shift.

  “I was thinking we could move in with you, if that’s cool.”

  “Here?”

  “She likes cooking. You could hang together!”

  So he wants a home, then. First the girl, then the nest. Like how Sandra got pregnant soon after meeting Robert, way back. How he went out and started a contracting business and bought this old Victorian with good bones.

  It seems to her that her family has always been about good bones. Trouble is, sometimes bones get broken, and even if you fix them, they don’t seem to stay fixed. Like they’ve been weakened too much and won’t be again what they used to be.

  “How long before you go back?” Sandra asks.

  “We’re not going back,” Glen says. “She’s here, in the city, at her parents’ house. Did I tell you that she’s from here too?”

  “Can’t you stay at her parents’ place?”

  “Not a chance. Her parents are nuts. Mom, do you not want us here?”

  “Of course I do.” She’s doing the calculations, trying to see the situation from all angles. Maybe if she tells him about the house, he’ll be able to help her figure out how to make some cash, enough to — she keeps doing this, she realizes. Trying to recoup what has already been lost.

  “We’ll be in the basement. You won’t see us at all,” says Glen.

  “I guess we can figure it out.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” The “thanks” seems perfunctory, as if he assumed she’d say yes. Of course she would. And now she has. What has she agreed to? Where will they go when the house is gone? Yet, her heart swells briefly at the thought of having him under her roof again, of smelling his cheap shaving cream waft into the kitchen in the mornings, of serving him his Cheerios. He comes toward her and bends down to embrace her, his hands briefly touching her back. When he releases her, his nose is wrinkled. “Why don’t you sit down,” Glen says, frowning at her.

  “I’m all right.”

  “No, sit down.” He helps her lower herself in it. She doesn’t tell him that, at fifty-five, she’s not an old lady needing help. But maybe she is, after all. In the bathroom mirror she’ll catch a glimpse of herself, with her sleepy eyelids, and her mouth puckered from too much smoking, and see her own mother. He goes into the kitchen and she hears the suck of the fridge door opening. “You really have nothing. We can go out to eat. You working later?”

  Has he already forgotten?

  “No!” she calls out from the living room.

  She wonders how long it will take before the bank seizes the house. She’s been waiting for the past ten months. Have they forgotten about her? Maybe there’s a chance she’ll be able to keep it. But she knows the bank will come. The people in charge always come when there’s something they want. Not like the years nobody came to visit or to help, when they looked the other way.

  Glen comes back in. “Mom, get dressed. We’ll go for pizza.”

  “I really don’t feel like it, Glen. I’m tired.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll get us takeout. No, wait. I’ll get Jenny and then I’ll get takeout. You’ll love her, I swear.” He goes out the front door and she feels a blast of winter air, whip-cold and metallic.

  Maybe, if the house gets taken, her boss would let her stay at WellLife. But no, there aren’t any rooms even for would-be residents, and won’t be for years to come.

  There’s a noise and frosty air and Glen is back. “Mom, you have any cash? I’m out.” He doesn’t even look ashamed, just like his old twelve-year-old self wouldn’t.

  She’s already reaching for her synthetic handbag when she remembers that her wallet is empty. “I’m sorry, Glen. Haven’t had time to go to the bank.”

  “Okay, no worries. I’ll ask Jenny. See ya.”

  He runs out the door. The inner door closes on its hinges with a protesting squeak, as if the house were a living, breathing thing, reluctant to let one of its occupants go. Sandra wants to cry. For her lost dreams and for what seems right now like the end of the line for her family. She wants to weep for unspoken things, for things Glen hasn’t said to her. That he loves her. That he’s forgiven her for her mistakes, for letting Robert beat her, for giving Robert up to the cops.

  But still, Glen has come home. He’s in love and he’s different and he’s come home, and maybe, just maybe, love will make him stick. She thinks about bread: how she never knows if the yeast is going to take, if the bread is going to rise. It’s labour and it’s luck; and no one can tell you if it will work out.

  On the Train to Antibes

  When I was seventeen, I met a guy named Ames on the train between Paris and Antibes. I was in a corridor, looking out at the unfurling landscape of telephone wires, coniferous trees, and yellow square houses with grey tiles the shape of tears. He paused opposite me and leaned against the glass. After a few seconds, he lifted his head, having found out that if you rested too long against the window, the rattling glass would bruise your temple. “Vous êtes seule?”

  “Oui.”

  “Ah, American.”

  “Canadian. But I speak French.”

  He introduced himself, pronouncing his name with a short a that sounded like the o in the word love. “Tu veux prendre un café, Jeanne?”

  “D’accord.”

  He led me through the train to a first-class dining car. There were salmon tablecloths, plush armchairs, and pink napkins folded into triangles on porcelain plates.

  “You sure we’re allowed to be here?”

  “I have a first-class ticket. My father likes to take care of us. At least, from a distance.” He asked for two coffees and two mineral waters, clearly used to ordering people around.

  He had a narrow face, deep-set brown eyes, and short hair parted on the left. There was a small dent in his chin, which marred the picture, but not too much. His cologne, sweet and strong in a way I had begun to recognize, was typically French. His h
ands were large: they grasped the espresso cup with thumb and forefinger, leaving the rest of the fingers curled at the side of the cup like crumpled paper. He drank the coffee in one gulp.

  He told me he was on his way home from an army base near Paris, after taking leave from the service to deal with an urgent family matter. It was impossible to get tickets going south in August, with everyone travelling in that direction, so his father had bribed an official to get him a ticket. “Some poor sod lost his berth.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Oui.” He sounded only moderately sorry. He gestured to the waiter and pointed to his empty cup. “And you? You’re on a trip to discover yourself? No, no, don’t be angry. Je plaisante. I’m glad I met you.”

  The anger that had driven me to leave home was beginning to dissipate, leaving in its place an emptiness which I filled with brief sexual encounters. I’d already slept with several guys since starting my trip two months earlier. In Amsterdam I walked the canals and smoked pot with a fellow traveller. At one point, I leaned against a canal wall and let my companion, a redhead from Britain, lick my ear. I gauged that my transition to fearless adventuress was really taking hold at that moment, and as his tongue circled the seashell of the inside of my ear, I closed my eyes. Since then I’d slept with Dutch, Belgians, French, and a Senegalese who was visiting his sister in Paris. Sex was losing its novelty. I was getting bored.

  The train car’s sliding doors hissed open and a tall, thin woman walked in. Her auburn hair, done up in a bun, accentuated her high rouged cheekbones, and her eyes were almond shaped, Slavic-looking. She clip-clopped past us on high heels. “Un café, s’il ­vous­ plait,” she said as she sat down. She opened a briefcase and began marking up some papers with a red pen.

  She reminded me of my sixteen-year-old sister Maddie, who always acted as if the rest of us didn’t exist. During our worst moments, I blamed my parents for her narcissism. She would draw them to her as if she were a flame and they the moths, and I would feel left behind. But did my mother favour my sister? I don’t know: nobody calibrates parental attention as carefully as an unhappy sibling does. I have no children of my own. I don’t want to be tied down to anything. But I am the godmother to two girls. The eldest is so precocious that it would take serious effort not to be enthralled by her — and the younger one already seems to teeter on the edge of understanding that people judge her differently from her sister.