by Tina Chaulk
“Not for long, I can bet.” His mouth moves a little, making what passes for a smile from him. “But I can’t believe you have to put up with it either.”
“If I knew that investing in the company would mean I’d have to work with him—”
“Jack would have lost the business. You know damn well he wouldn’t take the money from me.”
Three and a half years ago, Dad had decided it was a good time to expand, but he moved too much too fast, and when the cost of labour and materials skyrocketed, Dad had two choices: take my money or go under. So Jamie and I combined the $20,000 I had and the $5000 Jamie’s parents gave him to become part owners of Collins Motors.
“But why did I have to let Jamie in on the investment? Now I’m stuck with his terms or he’s going to go after fifty percent.”
“I don’t understand why he wants a job here anyway. Not like he likes cars or knows anything about them.” Bryce doesn’t look up from the work order he’s writing on.
“No. Maybe he just wants to torture me. Doesn’t matter why, I suppose. Twenty percent and a full-time job is what he wants and that’s what I’m stuck with.”
“He won’t be around long,” Bryce says. “You wait and see.”
I want to believe him but think back to a year before, when Bryce said the words, “He’ll be okay.”
“Maybe,” I say and head off to the lunchroom to boil the kettle.
The rest of the morning flies and by eleven, I’m dismantling the dashboard of a Ford Windstar in order to replace the bulb in the speedometer. The job is frustrating and to make matters worse, the minivan I’m working in smells like something has long since died inside it. The stench hit me when I opened the door, making my eyes water. I hold my breath as long as I can before leaning out of the car to take another deep breath of fresh air. I won’t dare get too close to the fast food bags strewn over the back seat and piled up on the floor.
Something touches my leg and I exhale a blast of air with a start and a squeal.
“Hi, partner,” Jamie says as I look out of the van.
“I’m busy.”
“I see.” He leans down and looks in the van. “Can I help?”
“No. Go see Bryce. He’ll tell you what to do. Maybe you can try something easy, like change a tire or something.”
“Yeah, I’d like to learn how to do that.” Jamie smiles and I want him away from me. I hate him too much to like that smile.
I try to return to the dashboard but I want to know where Jamie is and what he’s doing. I lean out of the van and see Jamie talking to Bryce. Jamie is grinning and Bryce’s face can best be described as a scowl.
Looking at Jamie studying a work order Bryce is pointing at, I realize that both the men I loved will now be in the garage — one in the flesh and the other in memories represented by a horrible place on the floor next to the toolbox I won’t let anyone close.
I manage to avoid Jamie most of the day and leave the long-empty garage at 8:20. I make a stop at the liquor store on Kelsey Drive to buy a bottle of Bacardi Dark Rum. Driving up Kenmount Road, I put on my sunglasses and even then it’s hard to see with the late May sun so low in the sky, filling my windshield with brightness. I turn left into the Anglican cemetery, the only place I can visit Dad. He is between Alfred Taylor, who lived to be eight years old in 1967, and a couple by the name of Sherren, who have a heart-shaped headstone and died within two years of each other.
Pulling my nylon coat tight around me, I still feel the cool wind cut through, making me shiver. I’m the only one here in the cemetery. I suddenly feel lonely. At least until I reach Dad.
Dad’s headstone is a plain one. “Beloved father and husband” is etched on the face, along with a verse from a bible Dad never looked at or believed in. I hadn’t wanted the verse on the stone. Mom said it wouldn’t hurt to hedge his bets since he’d only ever been in a church five or six times in his life, including his own funeral. I told Mom that he didn’t need to go to church and God would know what a good man he was. Didn’t matter. She insisted on a line from Psalm 30: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And there it is, right there under March 16, 1948 - May 29, 2007. The verse almost feels as wrong as the date somehow, like anything joyful could ever come out of this painful place.
“Hey, Dad.” Somehow I hoped it would be easier after a year, that I’d be able to breathe again and stand here without hurting.
I kneel down and straighten up the flowers I brought yesterday. I always bring marigolds. They smell a little bad but are pretty and they remind me of him in a way. All that sweetness with a little bit of stink, just from being yourself and doing what you do.
“I wish I had something good to tell you, but nothing’s changed since I was here yesterday. He showed up at work today, all smiley like he always is. I always loved his smile and now I want to slap it off his face. Bryce is not happy about it either, but he says we have to deal with it. He’s the sensible one now. Now that you’re gone.”
My hand runs over his name on the headstone without even meaning to. I realize my hand is touching it only when I feel the roughness under my fingers.
“Dr. Carson was in this afternoon. He’s been in Germany on sabbatical for two years, so when he came in he asked for you. He said it so easily: ‘Where’s Jack?’ and I couldn’t say anything. I just stared at him with my mouth open, trying to find something to say. I must have opened and closed my mouth a half dozen times. I was like a guppy. But Bryce must have known what was going on. He came over and walked away with Dr. Carson. I wish I could have told him you were at the dentist or something, maybe lied so we could both pretend for a few minutes that you were still there. He came over again and apologized. He felt so bad. I said it was okay. I didn’t cry.”
I shake my head. “Haven’t cried at all today. I decided that I wouldn’t cry anymore and so far today, it’s worked.”
I feel silly for saying it, for pointing out something we never really talked about. I cry at coffee commercials and insurance ads. Just like Mom. Just like Nan Philpott. Handed down to me just like my upturned, little nose and my small frame. Dad would always turn away and pretend he didn’t see when I started to cry or when I tried to resist my tears.
I stand up and rub my knees. Our talks are usually not long and sometimes I just sit here, but being with him, touching base with him makes me feel a little better.
“Bye, Dad. I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe you could put in a word to God about Jamie. Maybe arrange some smiting or something. Or at least ask God to have Jamie not want to work at the garage anymore.” I pat the headstone before I turn to leave.
I drive to my duplex off Thorburn Road. This was the house I shared with Jamie, and I probably should have moved, but everything was already there and I just never got around to it. Even though the house next door has two Rottweilers in the backyard that scare the bejeesus out of me, it’s home. I like to be here during the few hours a day I’m not in the garage.
My answering machine isn’t blinking and I wonder once again why I bother to look. My friends know not to call. I see them on weekends. My mom also never phones. She knows I’ll see her on Sunday for our usual weekly visit. We sometimes watch a movie, talk about the week, have supper, and try to ignore the empty place at the head of the table.
I walk to the answering machine and press play anyway, knowing there is one message there. It waits every night for me.
“I finished the Tobin job, so no need to come in tomorrow. Mom is cooking dinner anyway so we’ll see you then.” Dad’s voice echoes through death and to my ears. His strong, deep voice speaks offhandedly, unaware how many times I will listen to his message.
Twenty-two words preserved on my answering machine’s cassette and duplicated on two other tapes in case I might lose one. They were not Dad’s last words, but they are the only ones I have left.
I pour Bacardi into a tumbler Jamie bought when he moved into the house. He decorated everything, always having a b
etter eye for things like that. If not for Jamie, I’d still have the old green couch Mom and Dad gave me from their rec room and milk crates with a sheet over them as a coffee table. Instead, I have a maple cocktail table and a plush, navy living room set of sofa, loveseat, and chair.
Jamie insisted I go with him to pick out the furniture, so I went along and nodded my agreement with whatever he suggested. At least until he wanted the beige couch. Looking at the fabric, I recalled years of my mother’s frustration with trying to keep everything clean from dirty hands. I remembered the sound of plastic squeaking when I sat on Mom’s light-grey sofa because Dad said a man should not have to change his clothes before he sat on his own sofa. I looked around the furniture store and told Jamie to find something darker or none of my money would be used to pay for it. Since I was the only one with any money, Jamie relented. My one and only decorating choice in the whole house.
I turn on the TV and flick through the channels, stopping on a biography of Jane Fonda for a moment before moving on and finding an old black-and-white movie on AMC. Katherine Hepburn is in a boat with a greasy-looking Humphrey Bogart.
The rum tastes good and before I know it, half the bottle is gone. My eyelids are heavier than I can manage to keep up. Just before I pass out on my usual place on the couch, I think maybe Bogey looks a little like Dad and don’t even bother to fight the tears I have struggled against all day.
2
AT SIX THE next morning, I clear off a small space on my dining room table, pushing aside piles of bills and junk mail. I put my coffee on top of a coupon for Subway and open up a small notepad I dug out from a kitchen drawer. I write my name on a page then write it again, continuing for two 4” x 5” pages of my name. More than five years of writing Jennifer Flynn and initialling everything JF, means I have to relearn my old signature. You would think that writing Jennifer Collins again would be like riding a bike, but more often than not, the C in Collins, despite my best efforts, looks like it started as an F.
Although I haven’t legally changed my name back, I decided I don’t want to use Flynn anymore. I really haven’t been Jennifer Flynn in a while. I stopped being married to Jamie more than three months ago.
That morning had been warm for February. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see the cars in the parking lot outside the garage. I was working, when I heard a song on the radio. “Happy” by Bruce Springsteen. Our song. The song we had played for our first dance at our wedding reception. The song Jamie so often sang to me after we made love. I finished the job I was working on, showered in the garage, and decided to see Jamie before going out with the girls for our usual Saturday afternoon brunch. I just wanted to see him and to talk, maybe even something more if time and mood permitted. I used my key and walked in. I knew Jamie would be surprised.
I heard a sound coming from the back of the apartment and didn’t realize right away what it was. It was a moment later, when I got closer to the sound and saw a stiletto shoe in the hall, then a bra in the bedroom doorway, that it all made sense. I had heard the same sound many times before. Despite not wanting to, in spite of knowing it would change everything if I walked through that door, I did. I saw. Jamie’s naked body bent over someone who was on all fours on the bed, banging on her, each movement accentuated with his groan. The back of this nameless woman’s head snapped back with each forceful thrust from Jamie, her long hair flicking around like a whip slapping Jamie’s face. His back glistened with sweat. I knew if I could see his face, his eyes would have that hungry look I thought was mine, and I thanked God his back was to me.
They had no idea I was in the room. I was quiet, unable to speak because they had stolen all of the air from my lungs. I just stood there for two or three minutes, staring, hurting, dying, suppressing a scream until something seemed to snap and rage took over where the pain had been. I went straight from denial to anger in seconds, a new record for Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief.
I could tell from his pace of movement and panting that he was about to finish. I thought about screaming to stop him before he could, but then my eye caught the other shoe, the twin from the one in the hall. I looked from the shoe to Jamie, back to the shoe, back to Jamie.
The scream Jamie let out a few seconds later was not one I had heard before, and it was not the natural culmination of the act he’d been consumed by. It was the sound of footwear hitting the back of his head, and I left before he could turn around. I could still hear his swearing and crying when I walked out the front door with a smirk on my face and tears in my eyes.
I return to the notepad. If only getting back to who I used to be was as easy as learning to sign my name again.
A couple of weeks after Jamie started work, I walk into the garage and see Aunt Henrietta waiting in my office. This is the third time she has been here in the past month. Bryce calls her a hypocardiac and she isn’t alone in her obsession with her car. A few of our customers have the same problem and, although they make us a lot of money by coming in so often, dealing with them is rarely worth the income.
“Morning,” I say. Bryce nods. Henrietta doesn’t bother with the formality of hello.
“That back tire is making an awful racket and Bryce is going to have a look at it. He says it’s probably the hubscrew.” She nods and furrows her brow, reflecting the seriousness of announcing that she has cancer or that the sky is falling.
“You want my car so you can go shopping or something while you wait?” I ask.
“Will it take a while to fix the hubscrew?” She glances at Bryce but her questioning stare lands on me.
“Umm.” I look to Bryce. He returns a small grin.
“Nah,” Bryce says. “Loose hubscrew shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”
I nod.
Aunt Henrietta doesn’t pay for any of the work we do on her car. She never has. Bryce was the first one to come up with our fake repairs on her car. He spent several hours looking for a strange sound Henrietta had heard in her car, including removing the centre console between the seats, and the lower dash. Then he finally figured out that Henrietta had been hearing the movement of a Coke can with the pull tab inside, which would roll forward and backward under the seat, rattling as it did. He swore that he would never waste that kind of time again.
The next time Henrietta came in with a vibration, Bryce checked to make sure all was okay. When he could find nothing wrong, according to the story that has been told over and over, Bryce told her she had a broken stilt assembly. Dad, who had been there, looked at Bryce with question marks all over his face. Dad didn’t crack a smile but he and Bryce laughed for a straight half hour after Aunt Henrietta left with her car exactly the same as it was when it came in.
Over the years Aunt Henrietta has had hundreds of repairs done to her car, many of them real but the majority fictitious. The hubscrew has been used before, but it’s a good one and it makes Henrietta happy.
Jamie walks in fifteen minutes later, when Henrietta is showing Bryce and me the latest pictures of her five-year-old Sarah. Henrietta refers to Sarah as her miracle child. She was conceived when Henrietta was forty-six years old, after doctors had assured her, years before, that she could never have a baby. No child has ever been as smart or kind or beautiful as my cousin Sarah, at least that’s what Henrietta thinks. I think she always has a runny nose and spends way too much time styling her dolls’ hair.
When Jamie sees Henrietta through the office window, he turns around and is walking away from the office when Henrietta spots him.
“Jamie,” she shouts, her voice jolting me. “Did you take my Tupperware container on Sunday?”
I feel like I’ve fallen through a rip in the universe and landed somewhere else, maybe in another time. Is Aunt Henrietta having a stroke or something? Why is she talking to Jamie about Tupperware?
“What?” I ask.
Aunt Henrietta turns to me. “I think Jamie took my green cookie container. You know, the one that used to be Mom’s.”
No, I d
on’t know. I don’t know the colour of anyone’s Tupperware. Ever. I turn and catch Jamie making some kind of signals to Aunt Henrietta.
“Where would he have been to take your cookie container?”
“Mom’s.” Henrietta shrugs.
I turn to Jamie who has come up next to me. “You were at Nan’s? Why?”
Before Jamie can even open his mouth, Aunt Henrietta pipes up. “He goes there every week. Every Sunday at two like clockwork.” She looks around and must notice the faces on Bryce and Jamie. They look like someone has just blurted out the non-existence of Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny to a four-year-old.
“What?” Henrietta says, looking to Jamie and Bryce. “She’s not a youngster. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“How long have you been visiting Nan?” I ask Jamie, close enough to his face that I can smell the coffee on his breath.
“Since you split up,” Henrietta answers.
“Are you a ventriloquist, Jamie? Because whenever I ask you a question, this one answers and it’s getting confusing.”
“Excuse me?” Aunt Henrietta says, her voice up an octave on “me.” “I will not be spoken to like that. I’m just telling you the truth. That’s more than anyone else. Big deal. Jamie visits Mom. Who cares?”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I ask her.
“Because everyone figured you’d be angry if you knew about it.”
“Well, I am now. Because you kept it from me. Like I’m too fragile to hear something as simple as that. Wonderful. Glad to know my family thinks so much of me.” I start to walk away, to get out of the office before I smack something when the question hits me.
“Did Mom know this?” I turn around and three faces have the wordless answer written on them.
In my bay, I pick up a cloth and start to clean a wrench. I don’t have a work order and I don’t want to go back in the office. I think about the Sundays I suggested to Mom that we visit Nan and how she always talked me out of it.
