Over Our Heads

by Andrea Thompson

  “May I?” She sat down, and opened her briefcase without waiting for an answer. On a pad of yellow paper, Rachel saw the notes. The woman’s writing was messy, but still you could make out a few of the words. “Mother.” “Wanda.” “Dead or Alive.”

  Rachel sat across from the woman, looking quick at the light switch. She didn’t need to touch it; looking was enough. She looked once, only once.

  “So when was the last time you saw you mother?” Ms. Fletcher asked.

  “When she lived here,” Rachel replied, immediately feeling like an idiot when she noticed the look of puzzlement her cryptic statement was met with.

  “After she brought Emma back,” Rachel tried again. No, no. That didn’t help. She was giving this woman the wrong impression and coming off like a flake.

  Nina’s purse began to buzz.

  “Excuse me,” she said, adding, “My daughter just learned to text.” Nina opened her purse and glanced at her phone. Rachel took the moment to compose herself.

  “I was eleven, Emma was ten,” Rachel said. “It was 1977.” Better. That was better. She started to feel more herself and answered the rest of the questions with her usual level of clarity. Facts, they were Rachel’s business. She put together facts and made sense of them. What was the probability that Wanda would be found? It was too early to say. There were too many variables not yet accounted for. One of which was this Ms. Fletcher. So far, Rachel liked her. She was cool, unaffected, and efficient. She didn’t try to console Rachel, or heaven forbid, do something ridiculous like reach across the table and pat her hand. No. She was there to do a job, and so far seemed to be doing it well. If appearances were any indication, Ms. Fletcher would up the probability of getting this mess sorted in time considerably.

  “Oh my God! Nina? Nina Buziak?”

  Rachel turned around. Behind her, Emma was standing in the doorway, staring at Ms. Fletcher as if she had seen a ghost. Buziak? Where did she get that name? And how did Emma have any connection to this calm, competent woman sitting at their grandmother’s kitchen table.

  Ms. Fletcher’s composure faltered for a moment. Her brow furrowed, she took a deep breath as if winded as she looked towards the door.

  “Emma,” she said. That was all. No emotion was betrayed on her face, yet her voice suggested recognition, and something else that Rachel couldn’t put a label on.

  “What are you doing here?” Emma asked, now starting to giggle.

  Nina was about to reply. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, as she stared behind Rachel to the doorway where Emma stood. Lester was standing next to Emma now. At least he had put a shirt on.

  “Oh my God.” It was apparently Nina’s turn to call out the name of the lord now. It became clear to Rachel that something was going on that she didn’t understand. Details and information that it seemed everyone in the room was privy to, except her.

  “Lester,” Nina said, still staring. “Lester – Templeton? It’s Templeton right?”

  Lester smiled.

  “Yep, that’s right. Templeton. It’s me.”

  Emma walked over towards Nina, as if she was going to touch her. Make sure she was real.

  “Nina Buziak,” she repeated. Rachel was getting frustrated. Okay, clearly everyone here knows everyone’s name. Enough already.

  “So, you all… You all know one another?” Rachel needed to say something to insert her presence once again into the proceedings. Just when it seemed things were beginning to move forward, that this Nina Fletcher, or Buziak or whatever her name was, actually had the ability to solve the Wanda dilemma and put things back on track, all it took was for Emma to merely enter the room for the whole process to slide into chaos.

  Lester beamed. Nina looked decidedly flustered and uncomfortable.

  “We all go way back,” Emma said, giggling again.

  Great, Rachel thought. That made it clear as mud. Way back where? Okay, enough staring and giggling and making no sense. Time to get the morning back on track.

  “Anyway, Ms. Fletcher…” was all Rachel managed to get out of her mouth, when there was a knock at the door. “Oh, for Chrissake, now what?” Rachel said, not meaning to say it out loud. She was on her feet, pushing past Lester with a slight shove that felt cathartic, and moving to the door.

  The peephole showed two men standing on the porch in overalls. The repairmen. She had been eager for them to come. They were supposed to be at the house half an hour ago. Still, she resented their presence now. It took her from the kitchen, and the conversation that continued on without her. Rachel opened the door and gave the men their instructions: paint the garage, then repair the fence and the eaves. Check back with her after that to see what else. Was she barking at them? They looked frazzled and confused, like they wanted to linger and tell her their life stories. No, instead, they began to ask stupid questions about what kind of paint she wanted them to use, and how she wanted them to secure the eaves. Had she considered replacing them altogether? Because to them, it looked like it would be just as much work to repair what was up there than to tear the whole thing down and start new. Then they began to argue about the possible costs of a new installation versus the relative length of time repairs would likely last until they would have to be done again.

  “For fuck’s sakes, just fix the thing.” Oh. That didn’t come out right at all. The men both stood staring at her, speechless. One turned to leave.

  “No! I’m sorry,” Rachel said, feeling insincere. Apologies in general were a waste of time. If you did something and it was a mistake, it would become apparent by the fact that you didn’t do it again. Apologies always seemed like sucking up, a way to get off the hook. “I’m sorry,” Rachel repeated. “My mother. Our mother died a few days ago. This was her house. We just want to clean it up enough to sell.” She had no idea why she lied. Things were happening too fast. There was no time to think clearly. Instead, she felt like she was flying on instinct, doing whatever her impulses dictated. It seemed as if, with each breath, the probability of her taking a misstep was increasing exponentially.

  The men seemed relieved by her explanation, as expressions of condolence passed over their faces. That was worse. She should have left it at the swearing. Now she got pity. Pathetic.

  “Sorry,” she said again, in spite of herself, then closed the door.

  21.

  THE FIRST TIME that Rachel heard about Emma was on a postcard from Wanda that arrived out of the blue. It had been three months since she’d left, and in that time, there had been no word, not a whisper of news. Then one day after school, Rachel opened the mailbox and there it was, a postcard from Vancouver.

  It was a photograph of a cityscape, with two huge, looming, snow-covered mountains in the distance. British Columbia was pretty, but dangerous. Rachel learned about it in social studies class. There were potential landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis to deal with there.

  Scrawled across the back: Made my way out here for a break. Will settle in for a bit before I head home, love Mom. And underneath, PS: To Grandma, I found her.

  Her. There was a her out in Vancouver who Wanda had found. Someone from before, when she left and did something so bad that nobody would talk about it after. No, that wasn’t true. Rachel’s mind pulled up memories and spun through them for evidence like she was searching a library microfilm. There had been moments, the few times Grandma was allowed to come and visit them over the years, moments between mother and daughter that Rachel never quite understood.

  “You should look for her,” Grandma had said, stirring gravy in her snowman apron the year Rachel got an Etch-A-Sketch for Christmas.

  “You should leave it alone,” Rachel’s mom replied, her hand slippery with grease, fumbling with the faux wooden handle of a carving knife hilt-deep in turkey.

  “If you don’t go, I’m going. She needs to know she has family.” Grandma had stopped stirring af
ter that, letting the bottom of the gravy pan burn.

  Rachel had thought they were talking about her. She was seven, and the day before she had been over to play at her next-door neighbour Julie Yamagata’s house. Julie had a type of bathrobe she called a “kimono” with birds and mountains on it that she let Rachel wear. Rachel had figured that her mother and grandmother thought she had gone over to the Yamagata’s again, and had fallen so in love with the satiny Japanese robe that she forgot who her real family was. It had been the only thing that made sense at the time. She was a kid back then. She hadn’t yet realized the importance of keeping track.

  There had been other moments too, when Rachel had wondered if there were more going on in her family than she was aware of. These moments, like little splinters on the surface of their everyday life, seemed to lead into a world that only Wanda and Grandma could understand. Sam had given her the impression that the parent to watch was her dad. But all along it had been her mother’s stance on some unseen fault line that sent the tremors through the earth beneath them all. Rachel’s father hadn’t been the one with the secrets. He had been quiet, but simple. Wanda? Wanda had been the one to watch. It had been the aftershocks of her decisions that tore their family apart.

  “Humph, we’ll see,” was what Grandma said when she finished reading the postcard and put it back down on the dining-room table. Rachel watched from the hall, her fingers itching for the light switch, forcing herself to stand still. It was the worst. The worst news ever possible. The her was a little girl. Rachel’s sister. Wanda’s secret daughter. A few weeks afterwards, when Rachel came home from school, there she was, sitting on the couch. She was almost Rachel’s age, with dark curly hair and dark skin. She looked foreign, and wore a silver chain around her neck, with a turtle pendant the size of an egg. She looked at Rachel. Scared. Hopeful. Rachel looked away. She wished they would take the little brown Turtle Girl back home. Rachel wanted her father back, not some stranger who was supposed to be her sister now.

  “Rachel,” Grandma said from behind her. “Rachel, this is Emma dear. She used to live in Vancouver, and now she’s going to live here with us. She is your sister. Well, half sister to be precise. But the point is, she’s family now, so we’re going to welcome her with open arms.”

  “Where’s Sam?” Rachel asked, refusing to look at either Turtle Girl or her grandmother.

  “Rachel, I know it’s all very sudden, but you have to…” Grandma tried, but Rachel turned away and left the room in search of Sam. On her way past the kitchen, she stopped. Wanda stopped too, frozen to the spot with one hand holding a jar of mustard, and the other hand propping open the refrigerator door.

  “Who are you?” Rachel asked, not giving Wanda any time to reply, instead, she turned away, and stomped up the stairs. When she reached the landing she stopped for a moment then turned to look back down into the kitchen. Wanda the Question Mark was still standing where Rachel had left her, the stupid mustard jar still in her hand, and her mouth hanging wide open.

  Sam wasn’t in his room, but upstairs was better than downstairs where everything was in the middle of becoming terrible. Rachel went to her own bedroom instead, and took her father’s tie out of her Easy-Bake Oven, where she had stuffed it after she had tucked it aside the day they had gone through his clothes. She balled it up, trying to make it fit inside her fist, but her hand was too small. Instead, she lifted her shirt, wrapped it around her waist, tied it and dropped her shirt back down. It reminded her of the time she saw the picture of Muhammad Ali in the newspaper. His fist was pumped in the air, and his waist was circled with his thick shiny heavyweight belt. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

  “Rachel!” Grandma’s voice was calling. It was okay. Rachel was ready now.

  Downstairs there were sandwiches and cookies on the table, like they had company. But Turtle Girl wasn’t company. She was staying put whether Rachel wanted her to or not.

  “Come sit with us Rachel,” Grandma said. Rachel grudgingly shuffled towards the couch next to her grandmother. At the other end was Turtle Girl. Wanda was in the rocking chair, drinking rum and Tab from a coffee cup and lighting a smoke off the end of her last one.

  Rachel flopped down, sending a ripple through her grandmother to Emma on the other end of the couch. “Where’s Sam?” Rachel asked again.

  “Sam’s working at the Burger Chef. It’s just us girls,” Grandma replied.

  Rachel looked over to the other end of the couch, where Emma sat wide-eyed. Rachel still hadn’t heard Turtle Girl’s voice, but you could tell, she was soft. Rachel could take her.

  “Where is she supposed to sleep?” Rachel asked her grandmother.

  “Sam’s moving out, so she can get his room when he’s gone, and in the meantime she can sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep on the pull out,” Wanda replied, puffing.

  “You can take the guest room, Wanda,” Grandma said “Or stay in there with me. It’s a double.”

  “I’m fine on the pull out, thanks,” Wanda said, not looking at her mother.

  “Sam’s moving out? What are you talking about? Since when? Where’s he going?” Rachel wanted them to stop talking about stupid things and get to the point of how exactly her world was being ripped to shreds.

  “Oh sweets, don’t be upset,” Grandma said. “It won’t be till after he graduates. He’s decided he’s going to take a year off before he goes to college and try living in an apartment with some friends. I, of course, think it’s a terrible idea, and that he should just go right into school. He could still live away with his friends if he wanted to, and I told him I’d cover the rent and tuition for him, of course, but your mother here just –”

  “Yeah, okay Mom, enough commentary.” Wanda’s rum and Tab was almost done. It wasn’t her first. Rachel could hear it in her voice.

  “Well, he never told me anything, so I don’t know –” Rachel started.

  “He told us before he went on his shift tonight. You weren’t home from school yet,” Wanda said. “He met Emma, too. Right, Emma honey?” Rachel looked at Wanda, looking at Emma. Then she looked at the light switches. What she really wanted to do was set something on fire.

  “Um, yes. I met Sam. I guess he’s my half brother. I guess.” Emma spoke. Her voice didn’t match how scared she looked. It was deep like a grown up woman. Sam. Her half-brother.

  Rachel looked at her grandmother. “Why don’t me and you go live somewhere? What about your apartment in Florida?”

  Grandma laughed, then covered her mouth, like she didn’t mean to, but it slipped out. Still, the laugh travelled, and landed like a bruise on Rachel’s cheek. “No, hon, we’re all going to stay here together. It’ll be good, you’ll see.”

  The last time Grandma had used those words, after Rachel’s father died, Rachel had believed them, and they had come true. This time they seemed like flimsy, desperate crumbs for Rachel’s hunger for solid ground. There was none. Landslide. Earthquake.

  Rachel stayed silent, while Wanda and Grandma made polite talk with Emma.

  “Yes,” Emma said, “I liked Vancouver, but I didn’t live there. We lived in New West, in Foster’s – um – in a foster home. There’s a river in New West, but to get to the ocean you have to go to Vancouver. I like the ocean better. Um – Yeah.” Emma smiled like a puppy waiting for a treat.

  Wanda smiled too, put on her sweet listening face, squinting in her own smoke. “And were there any other kids at the, ah, place where you were honey?” she said.

  Oh give me a break, Rachel thought. Honey? It was honey now? Oh, wait till she saw. Wait till little Miss Turtle Girl saw what really happened around here when all the new niceness settled down. Rachel almost felt sorry for the girl for a moment. Then, no. She wouldn’t be duped. It was a trick of the enemy to get you to feel for them. Then, when you were all suckered in – wham! They gave it to you when you least expected it.

  “Yes
, there were other kids where I used to live,” Emma said. “Jamie Francis, who’s from England, but that doesn’t mean that he’s gay, and Lester, who is – um – um – different. And there was this mean girl, who smelled like bacon. She got sent away because of kissing Just Jack in the car. And there was Mamma Shirley, but she wasn’t really…”

  Well, at least she was a blathering idiot. Rachel knew the type. Eager to please. Easy to manoeuver.

  “Emma,” Rachel said. Emma stopped mid-sentence. Wanda and Grandma turned to look at Rachel, with a mixture of hope, fear, and warning in both of their eyes. “Emma, how about I take you outside and show you the backyard? Would you like that?” Rachel could play along. She knew the words to the make-nice song as well as anyone else.

  Emma perked up like it was Christmas. “Is it okay?” she asked Wanda. Wanda nodded. “Yay, hooray. Thanks, Rachel.”

  Rachel got up and led the way, thinking, this was going to be a piece of cake.

  As soon as they were in the backyard, Emma started chirping up. “Do you guys have any pets here?” she asked, peering around the yard, and then to the yards next door.

  “Yes, I have a cat,” Rachel replied quickly. “Say, Emma?” She went on, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

  “Yeah,” Emma replied.

  “I really like your necklace. So you met Sam, eh?”

  “Oh, thanks,” Emma said, looking down at her turtle pendant. “Yeah, I met Sam. He seems nice. He’s way older than you are, though. Wow, I just can’t believe I’m here. Like, a minute ago I was in New West with Jenny and Big…” Rachel cut Emma short.