On the Shores of Darkness, There is Light

by Cordelia Strube

  “She told you about Otto. And her parents.”

  “I knew that already. You told me that’s why you get to live in this house.”

  “Did I? Anyway, she feels you lack compassion. Do you know what compassion is?”

  “Of course.” She’s not absolutely sure but doesn’t want to look ignorant. She knows it has something to do with feeling sorry for people. She doesn’t understand why anyone wants people feeling sorry for them. Harriet doesn’t want anybody feeling sorry for her.

  Her father sits on the bed, removes her arms from his neck and sets her beside him. “Do you think you lack compassion, Hal?”

  “Of course not. Why are there no pictures of Otto anywhere?”

  Trent looks around. “That’s a good question.”

  “Maybe she hated him and is pretending she loved him. It’s easy to love people when they’re dead.”

  “Wow.”

  Harriet’s figured out Trent says “wow” when he can’t think of what else to say. “If she really loved him, she’d want pictures of him all over the place. She hardly has any pictures of her parents either. Just those.” She points to the two shots of Uma looking worried and her parents looking surprised.

  Trent stands and studies the shots. “I’ve never noticed these before.”

  “Do they look like they love each other to you?”

  “They were German.”

  “So?”

  “She says they weren’t very demonstrative.”

  “Maybe they hated her.”

  “Harriet . . .” He only calls her Harriet when he’s annoyed with her. “Why do you always have to be so negative?”

  “She drowned their son by swimming to the rock when she wasn’t supposed to. Why wouldn’t they hate her?”

  “Because she’s their daughter.”

  “Just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you don’t hate them.”

  “Whoa, can we start over here for a second?” Her father frequently asks if they can start over here for a second, as though it’s possible to delete what has just transpired. “It’s not a good idea for you to stay here, Hal. Not right now.”

  “Oh please, Daddy, I’ll be positive. I could go with you to the infertility clinic and wait in the waiting room. I won’t bother anybody.”

  “You say that now, but if things don’t go your way you’ll start barking or something.”

  “I promise I won’t bark.”

  Trent runs his hands through his hair flattened by the bike helmet. “I really want you guys to like each other.”

  “I like her.”

  “Then why don’t you tell her that? She says you’re confrontational with her.”

  Adults say she’s confrontational when she doesn’t agree with them.

  “You upset her, Harriet. Why would you tell her to get a job at Walmart? Don’t you realize she’s a little overqualified for that?”

  “What’s she qualified for?”

  He bends over to untie a knot in his bike shoelaces. “She’s an intellectual. She has a brilliant mind. Can you undo this knot for me, Hal?”

  An expert at knots, she unties it in seconds. “Is it okay if I stay with Gran?”

  “Wow. I can’t believe you’re even asking me that.”

  “I don’t upset Gran.”

  “That’s because she’s deaf and not that bright.” Trent scratches his thigh under his bike shorts.

  “She loves me,” Harriet insists although she’s not sure if this is true.

  “Of course she does, we all love you, Hal. We just need you to be a bit more understanding.”

  Harriet daubs vermilion onto Captain Elrind the Tarentola Gigas’ face.

  “Is that a dragon?” her father asks.

  “Yeah,” Harriet says to avoid having to explain that it isn’t.

  “Your mom wishes you’d paint some happy pictures.”

  “The dragon’s happy.” Harriet slashes a grin across the “dragon’s” face.

  “Another option, kiddo, is you can stay with Harriet and Irwin. You haven’t seen them in ages.” He means his rich parents who despise Lynne because she eloped with their only son and gave birth to a weirdo and a freak.

  “Please, no, Daddy, they hate me. I hate going there.”

  “They don’t hate you.”

  “They think I’m strange and don’t know how to sit still. There’s nothing to do there. Please, Daddy, I’ll be nice to Uma, and I won’t bark or anything.”

  Trent sighs and scratches his other thigh under his bike shorts. “Let me talk to Uma.”

  Harriet wants to scream, “Why do you always have to ask Uma?” Instead she focuses on transforming Captain Elrind the Tarentola Gigas into a happy picture. She starts lightening the shadows to make it look the way people think a dragon looks. She tries to paint it the way Yannick Piccard would paint a dragon.

  It seems like hours before her father comes back. First he and Uma talk below then clomp up the stairs to continue their deliberations in their bedroom. Harriet loathes the dragon painting. Trent leans against the violet doorframe and stares at it. “Wow. I like the flames.”

  “He’s blowing flames because he’s happy,” Harriet explains. “Sad dragons can’t blow fire.”

  “Wow. Show it to Uma. I think she’ll really like it.”

  “I don’t want to bother her.”

  “You won’t bother her. She really wants to talk to you. She’s in bed, go have a chat.”

  “About what?” She knows he wants her to apologize. “Did she say I could stay?”

  “She said you can come to the clinic and then we’ll see.”

  “See what?”

  “How things go.” Trent nudges her towards the door. “Go on, show her the dragon. She’ll love it.”

  Uma pats the bed beside her. “Come talk to me. Oh, is that what you were working on? Let me see.” Harriet shows her the grinning, brain-dead dragon. “Wonderful,” Uma says. “I used to draw dragons. And castles and wizards. Do you ever draw those?”

  “All the time.”

  “I loved the Harry Potter books. I know grown-ups aren’t supposed to read them but I couldn’t put them down.”

  Harriet found the good versus evil simplicity of the books tedious. She was forced to listen to them because Gennedy—a Potter-maniac—bought the books on CD and played them while they drove to Florida. When they arrived in Orlando, Lynne noticed what looked like a tumour protruding from Irwin’s gut. She and Gennedy freaked out in the Holiday Inn Express parking lot because they didn’t have health insurance. They drove back to Canada, listening to Harry Potter. It turned out the subcutaneous shunt going from Irwin’s skull to his stomach had broken. The fluid was collecting under his skin, forming a lump. The fluid had to be drained and the shunt revised.

  “I bet you’ve read all the Harry Potter books,” Uma says.

  “Every single one.”

  “Voldemort got what he deserved, don’t you think?”

  “Totally.”

  Uma adjusts a pillow behind her head. “I want us to be friends.”

  “Me too. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “I know that, honeybun.” Harriet hates it when Uma calls her honeybun. “I need to explain something to you.” Uma rubs night cream that smells of moth balls on her face. Harriet shifts a little farther down the bed.

  “When I was a little girl,” Uma says, “all I wanted was to be a mommy. Then Otto died and I didn’t believe I deserved to be a mother, or even to be loved for that matter.” Harriet doesn’t understand why Uma adds “for that matter” to the ends of sentences. “I immersed myself in my academic pursuits. A lot passed me by. But then I met Trent and it was like the world opened up to me. I felt things I didn’t know I could feel. I felt reborn. Loved.” Harriet doesn’t loo
k at her but can tell from the crackling in her voice she’s getting teary again. “Being loved is the greatest gift of all, Harriet. But you know what the toughest part about being loved is?” Harriet shakes her head, staring at the dragon painting. “It’s letting yourself be loved. I know sometimes you feel unworthy of love, Hal, and that’s why you act out. Let yourself be loved, honeybun. You deserve to be loved.” She stretches her arms towards Harriet but can’t reach her. Uma slides down the bed and strokes Harriet’s back the way she strokes the neighbour’s cat.

  Many dejected women and a few men sit in the waiting area of the infertility clinic. Filipinas in lab coats summon the women, one at a time, behind a partition to draw their blood. Harriet suspects the men slouched around the clinic reading newspapers and checking smartphones are waiting to find out if, like Trent, they must jerk off into a specimen container. Uma explained that her blood results and an ultrasound will determine if she’s ovulating. “Infertility treatment requires the patience of a saint,” she said. Nobody in the waiting area looks like a saint. Some of them lean back in chairs, closing their eyes. Some drink Starbucks coffee. Uma tugs on Trent’s sleeve. “Can you get me a grande non-fat sugar-free extra-hot no-foam decaf vanilla latte?”

  “Coming up.” Trent kisses Uma’s forehead. “You want anything, Hal?” Harriet has been on her best behaviour, never saying what she means but only agreeing and nodding when spoken to. “Hal? You want anything?” She would love a hot chocolate with whipped cream but fears it might be too extravagant at this hour.

  “May I please have an orange juice?”

  “Of course. Do you want to come with me or stay here with Uma?”

  Harriet looks to Uma for some indication of the appropriate move. Uma gives a saintly nod. “Go with your dad. I’ll be fine.”

  The lineup at Starbucks extends almost to the door. Trent takes her hand. “You okay?”

  Harriet nods, thrilled that he took her hand. She can’t remember the last time they held hands. “Do you remember when Mummy was pregnant she’d lie down and rest her Starbucks mug on her belly?”

  “I do.”

  “When I was little I thought that was why Irwin had a stretched head. I thought the mug had flattened it.” Harriet wishes her father would say something. Hand in hand, it’s almost like before Irwin was born.

  “Hal, your mother said something about Irwin having a hard time in show and tell. Do you know anything about that?”

  “He told the class about the shunt breaking in Florida. He said he had to have a ball cut out and they thought he meant he had his ball cut off. So they were teasing him about having only one ball.”

  “Kids can be cruel.” He releases her hand to pull a twenty out of his wallet, slides the wallet back in his pocket but doesn’t take her hand again. “Do you stick up for your brother at school?”

  Harriet wants to say, Do you stick up for your son, ever? but she understands that if she says what she means, he’ll call her confrontational and negative and send her back to Gennedy. “He’s in kindergarten. I hardly ever see him.”

  “When you do see him, does he seem all right?”

  Irwin never seems all right. “Sure.”

  “You see him at lunch, don’t you? Apparently the school has a zero-tolerance-for-bullying policy.” A zero-tolerance-for-bullying policy holds no meaning in the schoolyard. That adults believe policies change things astounds Harriet. At five, Irwin has yet to feel the full brunt of school bullying. The kindergartners play in a separate yard. In the fall he will be in grade one, in the big yard and defenceless. Harriet will be in middle school a bus ride away.

  “Uma feels you’re preoccupied with money. What I pay in child support shouldn’t concern you. Your mother shouldn’t be speaking to you about it.”

  How can it not concern her when she is one of the children being supported? It bugs her that adults pretend money isn’t important when it’s all they ever talk about, and yet when Harriet mentions that her father has been defaulting on child support payments, suddenly she’s preoccupied with money. This is why, when she gets a job at the bank and buys her house, she will never marry. She will never support or be supported by anyone.

  Ahead of them, a wiry woman holds up a compact mirror and smears mauve lipstick over her meagre lips. Harriet decides to paint the wiry woman’s snaky mouth later. She knows her father will continue to default on his payments. He will avoid her and Irwin and jack off into plastic cups so doctors can squirt his sperm up Uma. Her father is a spineless no-goodnik. She no longer wants to hold his hand. “Hindi bale,” she mutters which means “it doesn’t matter” in Tagalog.

  When the ultrasound reveals that Uma’s follicles have released two eggs, she becomes all creepy smiles and touches, sighing wearily as though she has accomplished something that required great effort. That normal women ovulate every month without even thinking about it doesn’t seem to occur to her. She is the mothership.

  Trent disappears into a room marked PRIVATE while Harriet tries to look engrossed in a magazine ad that says Science has never looked so sexy! The ad claims that CelluScience can reduce cellulite in forty-seven days. Harriet didn’t know what cellulite was until Darcy showed her the cellulite-busting cream Nina uses on her thighs. Darcy rubs it on her waist where she insists she has cellulite although it just looks like fat to Harriet.

  “Honeybun, why are you reading about diet products?”

  “There’s a bazillion ads for them. This one says it’s America’s strongest female fat burner. You can lose twenty-five pounds in three weeks.”

  “Harriet, if anything, you’re too thin.”

  “I was looking at it for a friend of mine.”

  “Your friend’s body-image issues shouldn’t be your concern.” She looks at the door marked PRIVATE. Harriet flips through the “Hollywood’s Hottest Couples” feature, wishing she had a pair of scissors to cut off their heads.

  “Does insemination hurt?” she asks.

  “There’s some minor discomfort when they push the catheter through the cervix.”

  Uma has explained, on a previous occasion, that the doctors open her vagina with a metal speculum and inject the sperm into the cervix through a plastic catheter. Harriet turns to a photo of Angelina as a teenager. Angie sits on a couch with her brother, James, who has the same big lips, stubby nose and staring eyes. “Did Otto look like you?” she asks.

  “I can’t talk about him right now, Hal. I have to relax.”

  “Sorry.” She looks at a shot of Angie and James with their mother, who also has the stubby nose but not the big lips. The mouth must come from their father. “Do I look like Irwin?”

  “A little.”

  “How?”

  “Same nose. Your dad’s nose.”

  “If Irwin were dead, they’d have called us, right?”

  “Irwin isn’t dead. He’s been through worse. He’ll get through this. He has a warrior spirit.”

  Uma has referred to Irwin’s warrior spirit before. Harriet wanted to ask what kind of spirit Uma thought she had but suspected Uma would say her spirit is evil, which Harriet fears it is. Mr. Rivera’s family believes in evil spirits that make tik-tik sounds that grow quieter as they approach, fooling the victims into thinking the spirits are farther away when in fact they’re about to stick their proboscises down the victims’ throat to suck out their heart, liver or unborn babies. The Riveras lower their voices if they sense one of these vampire-like witch ghouls is present so they can hear the tik-tik. Mrs. Rivera warded off not just aswangs but multos and manananggals by staring them down. She’d notice an evil spirit before anyone else. “Aswang is here,” she’d whisper. The rest of the family would flee but Mrs. Rivera would stay in her armchair and give the shape-shifting spirits the evil eye. Mrs. Rivera was very brave and wise, and Harriet never stops missing her.

  She puts the magazine down. “Filipinos bel
ieve in an evil spirit called aswang that enjoys eating unborn babies, sucking them out of the mothers while they’re sleeping. They always have bloodshot eyes from staying up all night feasting on babies.”

  Uma blinks several times. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “They ward off aswang with vinegar which they call suka. It wouldn’t hurt to spray some suka around the house.”

  “Thank you for sharing. No more talking please.”

  Trent, flushed, exits the PRIVATE room and hurriedly hands his specimen container to a lab-coated Filipino who takes the specimen container behind a swinging door.

  “Where’s he taking it?” Harriet asks.

  “To the lab to be washed.”

  Trent kisses Uma’s forehead again. “Now we just have to wait till they’re ready for you, Oom. How are you doing?”

  “Trying to relax. Please take Harriet somewhere.”

  “Why, is she giving you a hard time?”

  “If talking about Filipino demons that feast on unborn babies qualifies as giving me a hard time, yes.”

  “Harriet?”

  “I was just trying to be helpful. They ward it off with vinegar. It wouldn’t hurt to try. It’s good for cockroaches too, although mostly they swat those with flip-flops which they call chinelas. Chinelas is a way nicer word than flip-flops.”

  Uma closes her eyes again. “Take her away, please. I need some tranquility.”

  Trent and Harriet walk around the College Park mall, where office workers scurry to fast food outlets then hunch over tables, shoving pizza and burgers into their mouths. Her father calls Lynne but she doesn’t answer. Harriet spots an ATM. “Would you mind if I use the bank machine?”

  “Since when do you use a bank machine?”

  “Since forever. Mum taught me how.”

  “What do you need money for?”

  She can’t say to escape to Algonquin Park. “I want to buy a birthday present for a friend.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” Trent seems distracted, which makes sense, given the circumstances. Harriet is having difficulty banishing images of him jiggling his penis from her mind. Mr. Frogley in 515 was often seen lurking around the elevators jiggling his penis before his son put him in a home. Once, while he was jiggling, he accused Harriet of stealing his newspaper. Harriet barked at him and he ran away. Mr. Chubak told her that Mr. Frogley was a war hero who survived for five weeks on a life raft after his submarine got torpedoed. Harriet stopped barking at him after that.