The Secrets Men Keep

by Mark Sampson

  Out in the parking lot, I am full of a hollowness I can’t put into words. I almost don’t want to leave; I don’t want to allow Reggie to escape this place with his secrets unacknowledged. But it’s too late. Beth has hustled ahead of us and is now waiting at the driver-side door of my Corolla. When I get there, she sticks out her palm at me as if checking for rain. I hesitate and she dons a look that says, You promised, even though I didn’t. I exhale slowly, but then drop the keys into her impatient hand. She spins with delight, unlocks the doors, opens hers, and drops behind the wheel with an excited poof.

  ~

  Except she did have her moment. Aunt Lois. I know, I wouldn’t have believed it either. But I got this story from my mom, and it was later confirmed by the gossip channels of the family.

  It happened the following summer, when Lois was home in Sydney for a visit. Everyone commented on how together she seemed a year out of Reggie’s passing. Sad, but, you know, coping with it all. During her visit, a whole crew decided to go to the Smitty’s one morning for brunch—my parents, Lois, several other aunts, and a cousin with a new baby, her bassinette propped on its own chair. Their table was boisterous—full of laughs, complicated orders and lots and lots of gossip. Maybe too much gossip, which Lois sat through silently.

  When the food finally came, Aunt Lois’s order was wrong. Simple enough: strawberry pancakes, no whipped cream. When the waitress set the plate in front of her, Lois looked down to see a swirling white dollop right in the middle of it. She didn’t hesitate. She picked up the dish, and as the waitress swung back around after putting the last order on the table, Lois threw it at her. Or at least, that’s how some people described it—that the plate actually flew through the air. My mother was more diplomatic. She said, And then your aunt shoved it curtly across the table and told the waitress to get it right.

  The poor girl was profuse in her apology as she took the plate away, and she got a corrected order in front of Lois within minutes. But in the meantime, my aunt just sat with her hands knitted atop the table, her head down, her eyes quivering, her face blushed but still willing to hold its ground. The entire table had stopped talking and just looked at her.

  Leave it to my father, sitting at the other end, to say exactly the wrong thing. Ho-hoh, he yelled down, his voice full of cynical mirth, looks like somebody’s been living in America too long!

  Mom said she turned to him then, and for the first time in their 35-year marriage, told him to shut his fucking mouth.

  ~

  We drive east with the sun at our backs. In true southern Ontario fashion, Toronto’s Sunday night traffic begins thickening around London. Beth drives with her spine straight as a rod and her hands at 10 and 2. Her eyes are huge and hyper-alert as cars swarm past us on either side. Perhaps things would be easier if there were an actual traffic jam, but our speed never drops below ninety. We find the 403 and begin our beeline to the QEW. Beth asks for some music and I locate Jazz FM for her. Ten minutes later she tells me to turn it off, it’s distracting her. Curtis speaks occasional words of encouragement from the back seat, but Beth acknowledges these with only a small clicky thanks before redoubling her concentration.

  I stare out at the highway’s passing megamalls and suburban enclaves as twilight falls upon them. I feel out of sorts with myself, out of sync with the final, quiet moments of this day. I’m not sure what I could have said to Aunt Lois to make this feeling pass. Should I—should we all—have just apologized for not saying anything to her about Reggie before it was too late? I don’t know. Some things are just too large, too impossible to broach.

  I look up to see a road sign that indicates our lane will be exiting. I motion to Beth. Catching the sign a bit later than she should, she hurries to signal, checks her rearview and pulls left. The blare that explodes behind us fills the car. Beth screams and yanks us back to our lane, the Corolla wobbling on its axles. Curtis and I seize up in our seats, grasping our armrests in a panic. An 18-wheeler tears out of our blind spot and thunders past, black exhaust spewing and horn howling its indignation. Beth is hyperventilating. I sit up stiff in my seat, glare at her as she does her shoulder check and gets us—safely, thank God—into the proper lane.

  What the hell was that?

  She says nothing as she holds the wheel in a death grip. Just pants and pants, her eyes gone glossy. Curtis sits up and reaches around the headrest to put a comforting hand on her neck. But I am capable of no such sympathy. The acid rises in my throat and my eyes bulge.

  Beth won’t look at me. Won’t peel her teary focus off the road. So I lean in, close enough for her to sense my rage. I open my mouth, and let my words roar.

  ADVOCATE IN ABSENTIA

  “Thank you for calling Nova Scotia Tourism, this is Lynn.”

  She waited, impatient, through the dull hiss in her headset. Lynn never understood that slight pause that some people took before speaking to a 1–800 operator. In the background she could hear a child wailing, a parakeet crying out inside the echoey dome of its cage.

  “Yeah, hello, is someone there?” A man’s voice, gruff and distorted by static.

  “Yes sir, go ahead.”

  “Yeah, I’m callin from Mississippi. Can ya hear me up there?”

  “Yes sir. How can I help you today?” More commotion in the background, voices tripping over each other and the bark of a dog.

  “Yeah, look, the wife and I are planning a trip up to Nova Scotia in July”—the man pronounced it a sweaty, southern Joo-lie—“and we were just wondering: Should we have a bunch of reservations already made before we show up? Or can we just find places to stay as we go?” Then, making no attempt to cover the phone, yelled: “Would you just sit and relax, woman! I’m asking her. I’m asking her.”

  The wife, Lynn thought. He actually referred to the woman as the wife. Mentioned with the same possessive lethargy as one might mention an outboard motor or new RV. She felt a pang of sympathy for the woman as Lynn envisioned this man and his entire existence. The meals he ate, his leisure activities, the way he voted every four years.

  “Accommodations in Nova Scotia tend to be scarce come July,” she answered. “I recommend you and the wife book a few places in advance. Do you have a copy of our travel guide? I can help you pick out some hotels if you like.”

  “Just hang on a sec.” Then, not covering the phone again: “Marlene, Mar-lene, go see if you can’t find that guide book they sent us.” When he came back on the line, he quieted his words. “Look, I hate to ask this, but you folks up there in Nova Scotia, y’all got runnin water in your tawlets, right? I mean, I ain’t gonna have to bring up one of them portable tawlets with me, am I?”

  Before Lynn could fathom a response, the man did cover the phone and say something, then something louder and more aggressive to the wife. The static clattered and the phone rattled before he came back on again. “Look, she’s all in a tizzy here. I’ll have to call you back.” Then an abrupt click and he was gone.

  And just like that, her sympathies for the man’s wife dissipated as fast as they had come. Lynn returned to the drab grey cubicle she lived in for 10 hours a day, with its computer and binders and the provincial map pinned to the wall in front of her. The stale air around her was choked with the bustle of ringing phones, of churning faxes, of coworkers gossiping between calls about who among them was sleeping with whom.

  ~

  She heard Paul come crashing into the cubicle next to hers, several minutes late for his shift. Management had moved him down to this corner three weeks ago after he had caused a ruckus at the other end with the new girls who had started at the beginning of May. The cubicles on either side of Lynn had been empty all winter, and she had been thankful for their silence. Now, Paul appeared hell-bent on disrupting her quiet little world.

  “You should have come to the Palace last night, Lynn,” he said, popping up like a prairie dog over her cubicle wall. �
�The DJ was so on. And let me tell you this—there was romance in the air. Even you could’ve gotten It last night.”

  “What, exactly, could I have gotten?” she asked him.

  “You know. It.”

  Paul was always talking about It. Gettin’ it. Givin’ it. Doin’ it. He was 24 years old, with crisp blue eyes, hair spiked with gel and a slight curve to his nose, like a girl’s. He usually came to work wearing silk shirts and cargo pants, his own unique take on Business Casual. It was the well-glossed look of someone who didn’t believe he’d have to work in a call centre for very long. Both he and Lynn started together two years ago, had been in the same orientation group. She remembered him as a chatty guy, talking once about his great ambition, though she couldn’t remember what his great ambition was.

  “Paul, for the last time, I’m never coming to the Palace with you. You know it’s not my fucking scene.” Perhaps she would have gone on to say that if he asked her to someplace else, someplace decent, someplace respectable, then she might possibly . . . But then a tone sounded in her headset, followed by the hiss of dead air. “Thank you for calling Nova Scotia Tourism, this is Lynn,” she chimed, turning back to her desk.

  After finishing her call, Lynn wheeled around the corner to find Paul meticulously laying out his papers in front of him, then adjusting and readjusting the position of the pens on his desk. He spotted her staring at his intricate arrangements. “Organization is next to Godliness,” he said.

  “Really? Where does sitting there without your phone turned on rank?”

  “Say, I really like your necklace,” he said, unfazed. “Where’d you get that?”

  “This?” She fingered the rope of beads that dangled around her neck. Paul had developed this habit since landing here three weeks ago—making abrupt comments about some part of her dress or demeanour. “A friend of mine gave it to me,” she answered, “as a reward for getting off meat and becoming a vegetarian.”

  “Really? You’re a veg-e-tar-ian?”

  “Hey, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Oh nothing. But why did you do it? Was it animal rights, or a health thing?”

  “Well I . . . the thing is, when I started, I . . .” His question was a bit infuriating. Why had she given up meat? It had happened more than three years ago now, when her friend Rebecca had converted her, and Lynn tried to remember under what grounds. They had discussed chickens in high-density pens, cows grazing in fields that had once been rain forests, but they had also talked about cholesterol and cancer-causing oxidants.

  “I guess a little of both,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s been a while since I thought about exactly why.”

  “You’d think you’d remember something like that,” he said. “I mean, it must’ve been a struggle to give up meat, if your friend had to reward you with such a nice necklace.”

  He was right. It had been a struggle. She remembered that much. Okay fine, Paul, she thought, you’ve proven there are no flies on you. Stop looking so smugly adorable. Another tone sounded in her headset and she wheeled back over to her desk. “Thank you for calling Nova Scotia Tourism, this is Lynn.” When she finished, she found Paul standing up from his desk and peeling off his headset before moving towards the aisle leading to the door.

  “I’m skipping down to the cafeteria. Can I fetch you anything?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “You sure about that? Can’t bring you back a tofu burger or a handful of trail mix?” He beamed at her. Waited for a response.

  She glared back. “You’re not funny.”

  “Yes I am,” he answered. When she didn’t remove her scowl, he said, “Oh relax, Lynn. We’re always remembered for what makes us conspicuous.” Then he smiled at her, mostly with his eyes, and disappeared down the aisle.

  ~

  Lynn lived with her cat Miles in a basement bachelor apartment in the west end of the city. It was an unassuming box she had moved into after dropping out of her first year of university, despite her mother’s pleas and her father’s lectures. Lynn’s apartment was the antithesis of everything her parents had wanted for her, but it was pride as well as pragmatism that kept Lynn living there. The rent was cheap. The apartment was small and therefore easy to keep clean. It was just a short bus ride to the call centre. The neighbours were quiet and anonymous. And Miles loved the place, spending his days stretched out on the window sill overlooking the alley.

  She came home that night to her little cell, fuming about tofu burgers and trail mix, wondering why such things made her conspicuous to someone like Paul, pondering the things that made him conspicuous and what it was about his sharp blue eyes that she couldn’t keep out of her head. She came in the door, set her keys on their hook, and scooped up Miles before he could get out. “Howya doin’, boy?” she crooned, stroking him. She went over to her machine to find a message waiting for her. She thought perhaps Paul had dug her number out of the personnel database and called to apologize for being a prick, or at least to flirt a little more. But it wasn’t him. It was her mother.

  Talk about things that made a person conspicuous. Carolyn Macpherson may have been a petite person, but the sound of her husky, phlegm-glazed voice belied her size. “Hi Lynn, it’s just, em, Mom calling. I was hoping we could chat. I scheduled an appointment with that . . .” A pause as she wheezed into her fist, away from the phone. “Excuse me, dear. An appointment with that specialist I mentioned. Anyway, give me a call. I’d like to talk.”

  Lynn dialed the house. Her father shouldn’t have been home to answer—he, a professor at the same university she had dropped out of, was teaching an evening graduate seminar this semester—but if he did answer, she was going to hang up. She wasn’t in the mood to sit through one of Michael’s blunt reprimands about her life’s failings.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Oh hi, Sweetie. Thanks for calling me back so soon.”

  “No problem. So what’s the story with this specialist? When do you go see him?”

  Lynn sat down on her futon and let Miles climb into her lap as her mother began to talk.

  “The appointment is next Thursday. I’ve been to the family doctor but I didn’t like what he told me, so I went and got a second opinion. Anyway, both recommended I see somebody with particular expertise.” She began describing symptoms and problems she was having when Lynn cut her off.

  “Wait a minute, what kind of specialist are we talking about, Mom?”

  Carolyn said nothing at first.

  “Mom?”

  “He’s a cancer specialist, Lynny.” Then, as if to reel in the heavy line she had cast, said: “But I don’t want you to worry, Sweetie . . . it’s just a precautionary exam.”

  Cancer. Lynn rolled the word around in her mind, measuring its syllables, gauging its cadence. “Have you told Dad?”

  A heavy sigh. “No, I haven’t. I figure there’s no need to concern him just yet. If something comes from these tests, then I’ll tell him. But . . .”

  “And yet you’ve told me.”

  “Yes, but . . . see the thing is I—”

  “You’re afraid to tell him.”

  “Lynn, please, Sweetie, this is hard enough as it is. Please don’t start.”

  “You’re afraid he’ll think you’ve been keeping secrets from him. You’re afraid he’ll explode on you over this.”

  “No. No, that’s not true. You don’t understand. He’s not like that anymore. He’s gotten better, Lynn. He and I have been getting along so well. You wouldn’t believe the changes in him. If you’d just move home, you’d see for yourself.”

  “Then why haven’t you told him?”

  Lynn waited, but her mother had no answer for this. For Christsake, grow a backbone, woman. If you think he’s changed, then why pussyfoot around something as serious as this?

  Lynn sat there
as her mother continued talking, trying to warp their conversation to end on a positive note. After she hung up, Lynn climbed up onto her bed and took Miles into her lap. It was only then that she realized she was shaking.

  ~

  The next day at work, Lynn sat in her cubicle taking only the occasional call. Eventually, Paul wheeled around her wall to check in on her.

  “You’re a bit conspicuous by your silence today, Lynn.”

  “Must’ve eaten some bad tofu last night,” she snapped without turning around.

  Paul laughed uneasily. When she still didn’t look at him, he said, “Okay, I’m sorry I poked fun at your beliefs yesterday. I was only messing around.”

  “Apology accepted. Now go away.”

  “No, I mean it. Let me make it up to you. I know this great Pakistani restaurant on Quinpool. Definitely your kind of place. They have a whole separate menu for vegetarians. Let me take you there, Saturday night, as my way of saying I’m sorry. And we don’t even have to do It afterwards.”

  “No.”

  “Fine. We can do It afterwards if you want.”

  “Go away, Paul.” She reached over and flicked on her phone. An instant later, the tone of an incoming call went off in her headset. “Thank you for calling Nova Scotia Tourism, this is Lynn,” she sang by rote. The caller kept her busy for a good twenty minutes. When she finished, Lynn saw that Paul had gone to the cafeteria and brought her back something, setting it on the corner of her desk without her noticing. A spinach samosa. Her favourite.

  ~

  And what if it was cancer?

  In the downtime between each call, Lynn obsessed over that question, could not keep the defining feature of her mother from seeping into her mind. Her mother smoked. Heavily. Throughout Lynn’s childhood. Her parents would fight—colossal arguments, almost weekly it seemed—and then her mother would smoke. She’d sit at the table in their dining room after Lynn’s father had stormed out, and she’d go through two or three packs in a row. Her eyes would be puffy-red and leaking, her lips quivering after each sorrowful puff. No sooner would she crush out one cigarette then she would light up another, until her ashtray was overflowing and a morose fug hung over her head. And sometimes, when Lynn was small, she’d walk up to her mother when she was crying, looking to be her ally, to tell her everything was going to be all right. And she’d take Lynn up onto her lap, up into that fug. “Why does he do it?” she’d cry uselessly. “Tell me why he does it, Lynny.” But Lynn had no answers to give her. Not then, and not now.