The Taste of Ashes

by Sheila Peters

  “It seems a bit clichéd at first, but the jagged branches on the snag make you wonder what kind of danger those boys are jumping into.” The voice paused. She turned. It was the guy with the mescal, David. He looked very pleased with himself and a little bit drunk. “And the oblique angle of the light is very nice.”

  “Excuse me,” she said and snatched her pack from a hook by the door. She was threading her way down a path toward Marine Drive when she heard feet running behind her. She stepped off the path into the underbrush. It was David, his face flickering in the light filtered through the trees as he passed her. His footsteps paused as he reached the street below. She waited until he had climbed back up the hill before extracting herself from the blackberry thorns. A few minutes later she was squatting in a flowerbed on the street’s wide meridian, unable to hold back any longer.

  Shifting awkwardly, trying not to splatter her shoes as her pee hit the ground, she dug her hands into the dirt to balance herself. Her fingers brushed something and she dug deeper until they were wrapped around a hard, smooth shape. She tugged harder and pulled up a bulb. She must have planted a thousand bulbs with Isabel over a dozen Octobers. She dug around and pulled up another, then more and more until the dirt was littered with their round bulges.

  7

  Isabel handed the parcel card to the postal clerk without thinking. He must have seen the alarm on her face when she recognized the tiny writing on the package.

  “Bad news, Ms. Lee?”

  The box rattled slightly as if filled with padded golf balls. “Just a surprise, that’s all.” She smiled at him and walked out into the bitter darkness. She was glad she’d worn a scarf and thick tights that morning. The wind found the seams in her coat as she walked down the back alley toward home. She clutched the parcel to her chest, the fingers in her thin gloves freezing into pain. Her back ached from a long day standing at the till and she was so Friday-tired she tried to hurry, half running and dodging the frozen puddles gleaming in the lights streaming out from all the warm houses full of kids and friends and families planning their weekends. Her purse kept slipping off her shoulder and banging against her thigh, the strap twisting and tangling in the ends of her scarf.

  When she finally reached her back gate, she was locked in shivering spasms. One tug reminded her she’d latched it from the inside that morning. She stared between the high slats at her dark house. She’d been hoping for Lance. Hoping for the gate to be open, the lights on, the heat turned up, something cooking for dinner to distract her from whatever surprise Janna’s package contained. She cut through the neighbour’s yard and stumbled across the frozen ditch up onto the road by her front gate.

  She stood for a minute to catch her breath. Through the side window of her dark house, she could see the pale glow of the microwave clock. The wind whistling along the straight swath of the railway tracks rattled the bare branches of the lilacs against the porch. She did not want to go in. She did not want to see the breakfast dishes she’d left on the table. She did not want to stand shivering while the furnace clunked on, rattling and banging until it warmed up. She wanted to throw Janna’s package under a clump of tattered thistles and flag down one of the passing cars. She wanted to get a ride to the warmth, noise, and light of a Friday night bar. She watched headlights approach and pass, approach and pass, almost tasting the hot rum she would order.

  A gust of wind full of grit snapped her out of her longing and up the steps to fumble with the front door lock. She was close to tears when she stepped inside, desperate now just to get warm. But before she could even close the door behind her, a small shape hurtled out of the darkness to throw itself against her legs, claws scrabbling at her tights.

  Mercifully the lights flicked on and a loud “Surprise!” rang out before she booted what turned out to be a puppy down the hall. A jolt of pure rage coursed through her as she looked at the smiling faces of Trevor and Soryada, the staff from the store, Jasmine, Alejandro, and most of the other people from the farm. She blinked back her tears and fury, wondering who had thought this up. She looked across the living room to where Lance stood with her aunt, Alice. He shrugged and shook his head. Frank grinned from the back door.

  “Gotcha!” he crowed. “Totally gotcha!”

  “Frank, you do anything like this again and I’m going to compost you,” she said, struggling to make it sound like a joke. She turned to hang her coat on a hook and tucked the parcel under a heap of mittens and scarves. She had no intention of opening it in front of an audience. She squeezed Alice’s hand and wondered what they’d have done if she’d flagged down one of the passing cars. Wishing she had.

  As if Alice knew what she was thinking, she pulled her close and whispered, “Now you behave yourself, young woman. You may be all of forty-nine, but I’m still keeping an eye on you.”

  After the standard Lee birthday dinner of hot dogs (with the addition of tofu wieners for the vegetarians), potato chips (organic), and salad, everyone crowded into the living room. Soryada carried in the cake, a huge tiered platform slathered with white frothy icing and lit with dozens of candles.

  Isabel took her time, exclaiming over the decorations, counting and miscounting the candles. When she finally blew them out, three emerged from the smoke, still burning amidst a cacophony of whistles and claps.

  “My three loves,” she said simply, thinking of Janna. Wishing she was there beside her. Janna used to make her beautiful birthday cakes copied from glossy magazines. Cakes shaped and decorated to look like bouquets of flowers, one year a wheelbarrow full of paper daffodils, another time all silvered to look like a sheet of ice and decorated with a figure skater twirling a glittering skirt and a long head of red licorice hair.

  “Thanks, Soryada,” she said, slicing through the rich icing to release the smell of chocolate and cinnamon.

  Trevor pulled his girlfriend under his arm, her head against his shoulder. “Just be glad we talked her out of another Mexican tradition,” he said.

  Soryada giggled and whispered.

  “Tell us,” Jasmine said.

  Soryada moved to sit beside Isabel. She smiled at her, a beautiful smile in spite of slightly crooked teeth and a small scar whitening the corner of her upper lip.

  “I would take your hair like this.” She slid her hand under Isabel’s bangs as if feeling for a fever and put the other hand on the back of her head.

  Alejandro laughed and shouted something in Spanish.

  Isabel cried out, struggling, as Soryada suddenly pushed her face toward the cake.

  Alejandro shouted, “Mordida, mordida!” and translated as Soryada pushed Isabel down until her nose touched the icing. “Bite, bite!”

  “At home,” Soryada said, “we would push your face right into it!” But she released her, and, as Isabel spluttered upright, she reached out one finger and flicked the cream off the tip of Isabel’s nose. She licked it and grinned.

  Isabel looked into her brown eyes, the irises flecked with golden light, and was completely disarmed by the girl’s merriment. She hugged her. “It’s a good thing you stopped where you did,” she said, “or I’d have had to eat the whole cake myself.”

  Lance brought in the presents as everyone chattered and ate. Isabel exclaimed over the gardening gloves, tools, and gift certificates. An answering machine from Jason. She shook her head at Frank’s extravagant orchid shipped direct from a specialty store in Vancouver. As she sat back, someone released the puppy from wherever it had been hidden. It exploded into the pile of wrappings, chewing the paper, barking, and licking icing from sticky fingers. Its fur was a feathery mass of burnished red.

  “Whose is he?” Isabel asked.

  Trevor sat him up and waggled his paws. “Isabel, I’d like you to meet Perro. Perro, Isabel.” He stretched one of the puppy’s paws toward Isabel. “Your new momma.”

  The dog yipped.

  Isabel stared at him. “What would I do with a dog, for heaven’s sake? I’m at work all day. It’ll pee in the hallwa
y. It’ll destroy the garden.”

  “We’ve trained him. If you give him his toys, he’ll chew them instead of your plants. Try him out for a month and I promise if at Christmas you don’t want him, we’ll take him back.”

  The puppy’s sharp little teeth nipped at her fingers. They were red and sore from the cold, but somehow the little teeth were welcome. Isabel felt something in her loosen, and she struggled not to cry.

  “What’s its name again? Perry?”

  “Perrrro,” Alejandro said. “It’s Spanish for dog. But you have to roll the rrrs, or it means ‘but.’”

  “Pain in the butt,” she nodded.

  “No, no, but — as in the coordinating conjunction.”

  Jasmine groaned. “As in the exception. I like all my presents pero the dog.”

  “I love you, pero not your taste in sweaters.”

  “Your head is swollen, pero your dick is limp.”

  It degenerated, as it often did with the farm crew, into unfathomable hilarity. Perro bounced from one giggling group to another as they collapsed together onto the couch and carpet.

  Alice handed Isabel a flat package. She gasped when she saw the advent calendar glittering with hundreds of tiny golden leaves and bell-like flowers. It promised to reveal the secrets of Christmas plants: poinsettia, holly, ivy, the small trees that produced frankincense and myrrh. Alice beamed across at her with such pleasure, Isabel almost cried again. Alice was the only one from either of her parents’ big families who didn’t judge Isabel for her failings. Alice was the one who kept her mother close.

  By the time Isabel said goodbye to the poor sad store clerk tearful over the transfer of a promising boyfriend, Lance had gone to bed, and Soryada was making up the couch while Trevor took the dog outside for a last pee. Leaving her presents in a heap on the kitchen table, she climbed the stairs, reassured by the presence of warm bodies in the house, by the evidence of friendship.

  It wasn’t until she was lying in her bed, the lights from the railway yard orange beyond her curtains, that she remembered Janna’s parcel tucked away downstairs. She thought about sneaking down to get it, but she could hear the quiet voices below her and she didn’t want to explain. Waiting for the house to settle into silence, she wished her girl was home. Whenever Janna sensed that Isabel was upset, she’d come into bed with her to talk, and they’d often fall asleep together. Her smell of clean hair, what was the face cream she used then — something that smelled like peaches? She’d twitch in her sleep, yelping as her muscles jerked. Isabel would think about Álvaro at those times, remember the shape of his face, the sound of his voice, the way he was delighted with simple things: the little rose at the centre seam of her bra, the zippered compartments in her purse. After they had made love, if there was space and time, he would go through the papers, the makeup, and the loose coins to organize them. Make a tidy pile of the garbage. She would hide the orange candies he loved just so he could find them. He would reapply her lipstick for her and wipe off the smudges his fingers left on the golden tube. He would brush her hair and clean the brush, letting the strands of dark hair float away in the currents of air.

  She remembered the way the river changed from swollen June brown to dappled green as the summer passed. The wild raspberries and saskatoon berries she fed him just before he disappeared. It was as if thinking about him with Janna dozing beside her would somehow make Janna know her father in the ways that really mattered. Because there seemed to be no way to talk out loud about their time together without making it sound pathetic. Or dirty. Father Walter’s voice curdling in her ear. She still sometimes mourned Álvaro as the lost love of her life — until her anger forced her to deride herself for being such a fool.

  Isabel finally fell asleep. She dreamed a long erotic dream, orgasming in a vague memory of breath in her ear and a mouth between her thighs. When she awoke in the early morning darkness, the wetness between her legs brought back the dream, but the pulse of release was not the climax she remembered. It was the beginning of her period. Periods that were becoming more and more haphazard. By the time she’d taken a shower, dressed, and gone downstairs, Lance was already lacing up his boots. The dog was at his feet. She’d forgotten the dog.

  “I’ve already taken him out for his morning constitutional. He should be okay for a while.”

  “How do you feel about dogs?”

  “Animals should not be given as gifts.” He rummaged for his mitts through the pile scattered by the back door. “But if you decide to keep him, we’ll have to move stuff like this out of his reach. Maybe build him a run. I’d be able to stop by at lunch since I’m so close, take him out for a quick walk.”

  Isabel had been looking forward to a quiet cup of coffee and maybe some birthday cake for breakfast. Not a puppy. “What should I feed him?”

  “They brought food. I’ve already put out a bowl for him.”

  “Do you think he’d like a little trip to Terrace? Think how much Dustin would love him.” Lance’s relationship with his son was complicated. He had to walk a fine line with the boy’s mother or she’d block his access. The visits had to be kept simple. If they had too much fun, Dustin paid for it in subtle ways, Lance said. He was twelve.

  “A puppy would definitely be too much fun,” he said.

  She was surprised when he bent to give her a quick hug. “Happy birthday.”

  “Don’t feel you have to stick around for that stuff,” she said. “You’re always welcome, but there’s no obligation.”

  He had a way of receiving information, a kind of calm analysis that she still wasn’t used to. He thought before he answered. “There’s a certain pleasure in feeling obliged,” he said, zipping up his jacket. “It’s when others try to impose obligations where there are none that I get irritated.” He pulled on a hat.

  She held Perro back, both of them standing in the blast of frigid air that rolled in from the frozen morning. His truck was already running, boiling up great plumes of exhaust. She could see the stiffness in his walk, but he no longer used the cane. He didn’t say much about his injuries. Time and physiotherapy seemed to be making him stronger, but with all that metal pinning him together, the cold had to be painful.

  She switched off the back porch light and the dog followed her into the kitchen where Lance had already washed up. The puppy hunkered down over his bowl, his name tag clanking against the metal as he crunched on the food. Isabel looked out the side window across the dry stalks of the raspberries and the small patch of grass under the linden tree, her favourite spot to sit when the tree was in fragrant bloom and the evening sun stayed high long enough to make it all the way around to the low horizon northwest of the mountain.

  Right now, the only light on the butterfly bracts and red stems came from the orange rail yard lights, but the morning sun lit the mountain’s peak. The sky was clear and little wisps of snow trailed off the high windy pinnacle. Isabel swallowed a couple of aspirin to ease the menstrual cramps already spreading across her lower back, poured herself a cup of coffee, cut a piece of cake, and sat down to consider what to do with Janna’s parcel.

  When Janna drove off with her boyfriend, Isabel hadn’t believed she’d be gone long. When Jason called to ask what the hell was going on and why had Janna decided to move in with them and finish her Grade 12 in Prince George, she still didn’t think it was permanent. Several pleading phone calls later and a disastrous visit when she ended up screaming at Jason’s wife on their doorstep for not letting her in to see Janna finally got the point across. Janna wasn’t coming home. By Thanksgiving, Isabel had pulled herself together and given up booze for what she hoped was the last time. For a few months she wrote polite letters every month telling Janna what movies she’d seen, what clothes were in the store, about the lovely jackets Isabel’s cousin had brought in to the fancy clothing store he ran on Main Street. Which of Janna’s girlfriends had won track meets and what boys were in trouble. She sent her a subscription to the local newspaper and put together a box
of Christmas treats for her. But when New Year’s passed without any word, she stopped.

  Trevor tried to set things straight when he returned from a long drilling job in Portugal. By the next Mother’s Day, she received a polite card with irises on it. “Have a great day, Mom. Things are fine here.” A scarf for her birthday and a basket of soap and hand cream at Christmas.

  Isabel waffled between an almost overwhelming urge to stalk the hallways of the community college where Janna went after she finished high school and an angry determination to do nothing at all except get on with her own life. Still sober, she was surprised to find she was able to have fun. To laugh at jokes, to delight in gardening successes. To tell those who asked that Janna was doing well at school and enjoying life in Prince George. But when she finally got to see her at her graduation last spring, she felt as if she was standing on one side of the Bulkley River at Moricetown Canyon and the beautiful young stranger Janna had become was on the other, the big river chock full of snow melt rushing between them. In the old days, the only bridge across was a precarious jumble of driftwood lashed together with telegraph wire. Now it seemed like even that was gone.

  Isabel examined the parcel. The girl was a perfectionist. The brown paper’s tidy corners were fastened with neat squares of tape, the label perfectly centred, a band of clear plastic packing tape protecting it. No return address. She turned it over, running her fingers across the paper as if she would feel some warmth from her daughter’s fingers transmitted to her hands. The sweetness of the chocolate cake curdled on her tongue and she tried to wash away the taste with coffee. Cramps crawled up her spine. She slid a fingernail under a flap and severed the tape. The paper lifted and she slit another piece of tape. She slid off the paper, spread it carefully, and looked for some clue to her daughter’s life. Please recycle this bag. More tape. She used her icing-clogged knife to hack through it, already chafing at Janna’s orderliness. She lifted the lid, and felt through the styrofoam chips to pull out four zip-lock bags each labelled with the names of tulips, each containing four bulbs, some with dirt still clinging to them. Geanka. Van Nelle. Purple Prince. Dark Secret.