The Rain Barrel Baby

by Alison Preston

  Venus was so bright it looked like more than a star. Frank stared at it till his eyes lost their focus and the light became fantastic. He pulled himself back.

  “How are you getting along with it, Gus? The baby, I mean.”

  “Well, I must say, it’s not an easy thing to put behind me. I think about it a lot and dream about it a bit, but it’s not as bad as it was.”

  “I wake up after three hours,” Frank said, “and then I can’t get back to sleep. It’s always just three hours. I don’t think I can live on that.” He looked over at Gus. “Sometimes I think I’m going insane.”

  “Jeez, Frank, that sounds horrible. All I can say is that I’m sure it’ll eventually pass. I know that doesn’t do you much good right now. I went through a similar bout once. Around the time they forced me to retire. I used to sit out here for hours — thank God it was summer — and watch the sun come up. But it wasn’t fun, I’ll tell ya. I wasn’t really worried about anything in particular. I just couldn’t come up with anything good to think about. And my mind was too jittery for sleep.” Gus put his feet up on the wooden railing that ran around the porch. “I should put something more comfortable out here to sit on,” he said. “Something that would accommodate a man’s legs and feet. In the daytime,” he went on, “I would roam around the house and yard lookin’ at things that needed doing that I didn’t have the energy for. I swear to God, I broke down and wept more than once, scared the bejesus out of Irma. I felt like my life was over, except I hadn’t died. And then I got better. Just like that.”

  “I wish I could have met Irma.” Frank stretched out his long legs and rested his feet on the rail next to Gus’.

  “I wish you could’ve too, Frank. She was great.”

  “I knew her to see her. I knew who you both were way back when. She was pretty. I remember thinking she was pretty.”

  “That she was, Frank. That she was.”

  Frank was worried about his kids. He worried a lot, especially about Em, who seemed so old somehow. He wondered if they shouldn’t have named her Emma. Maybe a little girl’s name like Amy or Tracy would have been better.

  Morning had come early that day to the Foote house, with Sadie leaping into action at the first sign of light. Her mother’s absence hadn’t made her any less joyful. She sat in her yellow pajamas atop Frank, who was trying to stay inside his daydream for a few moments longer. Or maybe he was asleep. Anyway, it was a marvelous dream in which he was ordered by some higher law to have sex with Audrey. They were in the desert at night, under a million stars like in that old Eagles song. They were sometimes their young selves and sometimes their present selves. They gazed into each other’s faces and at some points, if the concentration was strong enough, they could move smoothly into each other’s consciousnesses.

  “Good morning, Daddy.”

  “Good morning, Sadie dear.” Frank could hear the television. Garth must be up too.

  “Time to jump up,” Sadie said.

  Frank smiled. “Well, I don’t think I’ll be doing much jumping this morning, but I guess it is time I was up.”

  He got out of bed slowly, feeling a tight lump of pain between his shoulders. He pictured himself with ice for his neck, a huge cup of coffee and the newspaper, heading straight back to bed.

  When he looked in on Emma he saw her elfin face turned inward to a worrisome dream. Sadie started towards her, but Frank swept her up and away to her morning rituals, and closed the door so his other daughter might sleep on. His back was killing him so he took one of the anti-inflammatory pills that Dr. Kowalski had prescribed. They were pretty good and there wasn’t going to be time for ice.

  Sadie was soon set up beside her brother in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal. Garth had already eaten, judging from the small array of items laid out in front of him. There was an expertly opened empty tin of sardines, a spoon, and a glass of chocolate milk. Frank had to repress his gagging instinct, but admired his son for his expertise with the key on the sardine tin. Not a ripped finger in sight.

  “Howdy, Garth.”

  “Hi, Dad.” Garth’s eyes didn’t leave the TV. It was an Avengers rerun.

  “Mrs. Peel,” said Sadie happily as she settled in beside Garth.

  “Yup, that’s her all right.” Frank smiled down at his kids. “Don’t forget to clean up your breakfast stuff, Garth, before Hugh gets too interested.”

  Hugh was their one-year-old cat who sat in a corner of the room staring at the sardine tin.

  Frank made coffee and called the hospital. Denise had had a quiet night. He went back upstairs and looked in on Emma, who was now sitting at her computer in her pajamas.

  “Hi, Em. How’s it goin’?”

  She erased the screen. “Hi, Dad. Pretty good, I guess. I have to do a science project and I don’t know where to start.”

  “Science project, eh? Hmm.” Frank paused so his daughter would think he was giving this some serious thought. He also knew that she knew better. She was impossible to lie to, even silently. He supposed this was a good thing. It kept him on his toes.

  “I’m thinkin’ about a volcano,” she said.

  “That’s a good idea. It could erupt.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I was thinkin’.”

  “Would you mind coming downstairs for a minute, Em, so I can speak to all of you at the same time?”

  “What about?”

  “Well, your mum and stuff.”

  Emma sighed as she put on her robe and slippers to accompany Frank downstairs.

  “My head aches, Gus,” Frank said now, staring straight ahead into the darkness. “It aches all the time.”

  Gus grunted companionably and said, “How’re those kids of yours?”

  Frank turned to look at his neighbour. “God, I’m so worried about them, Gus. Em seems so old and Garth can’t take his eyes off the TV and all they ever seem to want to talk about is death. I don’t think I can bear it if Sadie ever gets less happy than she was first thing this morning. And it’s got to happen. It’s happening right now and I don’t feel as though I’m up to it.”

  Gus reached over and touched Frank’s shoulder. “It’s hard being a father, Frank. And you’re doin’ good. I know you are. You’re doin’ real good, in fact.”

  “Do you really think so, Gus? You’re not just saying that?”

  Frank recalled how adrift he had felt that morning as he gently pushed Emma ahead of him into the living room, where he turned off the TV in an effort to get everyone’s attention.

  “Hey!” shouted Garth.

  “Quiet,” Frank said. “I want your serious attention for a few minutes.”

  Emma and Sadie both looked at Garth to see how he would react to missing the resolution of Mrs. Peel and Steed’s latest adventure.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve already seen this one.”

  “Good,” said Frank. “Okay. I’m not sure how long your mum is going to be away this time, but it could be for longer than a few days. I’ve decided not to ask Bosco to come and stay with us and we’ll just see how it goes. We’ll see if we can manage, the four of us.”

  “Who’s Bosco?” Sadie asked.

  “Oh. I guess you don’t remember him, Sadie. It’s been a couple of years. He stayed with us the last time your mum went away. He’s your great uncle, my dad’s brother.”

  “Who’s your dad?” Sadie asked.

  “My dad is your grandfather, but he’s been dead for several years, so you never got to meet him.”

  “How did he die?” Garth asked.

  “He had a heart attack,” Frank said.

  “Massive?”

  “Yeah. I guess so. He died from it, so it must have been pretty big.”

  “Did he die quickly?” Emma asked.

  “Yeah,” Frank sighed. “I don’t think he knew what hit him.”

  “Where’s Mummy?” Sadie climbed onto Frank’s lap and he was glad to change the subject back to the even more difficult one of Denise’s absence.
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br />   “Well, Sadie, Mummy hasn’t been feeling very well, so she’s gone into the hospital for a rest.”

  “To the Chemical Withdrawal Unit?” Garth asked.

  “Well…yes.”

  “Is it because she wet her pants?” Sadie asked.

  Frank pictured his grown-up daughter at a support group in the twenty-first century, sharing, “My mother wet her pants when I was six. I never got over it.”

  “Well, that’s part of it, I guess,” he said. “Anyway, she misses you all very much and trusts that we’ll all be able to take care of ourselves. And she asked me to ask Gus, next door, to keep an eye on us too.”

  Emma made a kind of huffy sound at this point.

  “Em, I know you feel you don’t need taking care of, but Sadie and Garth do. With my work and your school, we’ll be busy, you and me. We should be really grateful to Gus for being such a generous neighbour. Maybe he’d help you with your science project. He’s real good at stuff like that.”

  “I don’t need taking care of,” Garth said.

  “I do, Daddy,” Sadie said.

  “I know you do, Sweetie, and you’re going to be taken care of real well.”

  “I’m not old enough to take care of myself yet.” Sadie looked at her father with fear on her little face.

  A thin outline of pain had settled itself around Frank’s head and stayed there all day.

  He turned to Gus now. “Thanks, Gus. You’re a good neighbour and friend.”

  “Anytime, Frank. Anytime.”

  When Frank stood up to leave, Gus asked, “Have they buried the little gal yet?”

  “Yes, they have. At Brookside Cemetery. In the children’s section.”

  “Is there a marker for the grave?”

  “Yeah, one of those white slabs. It says Jane on it. That’s my fault, I guess. They wanted a name and that’s the one I came up with.”

  “Jane’s a beautiful name, Frank. That’s one of my grandmothers’ names.”

  Frank didn’t mention to Gus that Jane was also the name of the baby Greta gave away twenty-seven years ago. It had seemed like a secret when she told him. That Jane had been on Frank’s mind a lot. She was on his mind now as he trudged back across the yard to his own house.

  And Gus didn’t tell Frank about the woman in the car, although he started to once or twice. He decided that now wasn’t the time. The poor guy had enough on his plate.

  Gus stayed up. He’d had enough of sleep for one night if it was going to mean being frightened by images of evil women with rotten teeth. And he didn’t have a job to get up for or a family to synchronize his meals or moods with.

  The weight of Frank’s woes saddened him and left him wondering how he could better help his friend. But alongside the sadness was a whir of energy that buoyed him up and he knew better than to question or ignore it. He saw the paling of the sky in the east and trusted with all his heart the good feeling and the new day.

  CHAPTER 14

  On Tuesday Frank knocked off work a little early and went home to work on his garage. And to see his kids. Just Emma and Sadie were home; Garth had stayed at school for soccer practice.

  Frank had an idea involving Jane Mallet, the daughter Greta Bower had given up for adoption. It was a feeble hunch — no alarms were ringing — but it was a hunch nonetheless. And it was the only thing he had when it came to the rain barrel baby, so he supposed he should follow it up.

  His arms were getting tired. He had been scraping old paint off his garage for only thirty minutes but he was ready to pack it in.

  I must really be out of shape, he thought, if I can’t even prepare my own garage for paint without feeling as though I’m going to have a major health episode of some kind.

  Frank’s hunch, as well as being feeble, seemed a little far-fetched, so he had kept quiet about it. He didn’t share it with Detective Sergeant Fred Staples, or with his boss, Superintendent Ed Flagston. The official reason he gave himself was that he was grasping at straws, but there were other reasons swimming about in Frank’s thoughts. Reasons that had to do with Fred’s black and white way of seeing things, and his own tendency to hide the police manual under his mattress at times.

  He didn’t want to involve Greta unnecessarily. She seemed so emotionally frail to him. He supposed he could be making that up, casting himself in the role of protector to make up for all his failures.

  He couldn’t save Denise and worried that he was the root of her problems. She had seemed so…well…unalcoholic when he had first met her. She had been working hard to put herself through university. And she had done it — graduated with a degree in anthropology.

  Her plan then was to work for awhile — she got a job with the provincial government in the archives — and then go back and get her master’s degree. She wanted to go on archeological digs, research the past. She wanted to go to Egypt.

  Denise hadn’t wanted kids; she’d been definite about that. Frank had wanted them so badly he could taste it, but he wanted her, too, and figured she’d come around and get over her desire to travel the world looking for things that happened thousands of years ago.

  She didn’t come around, but she got pregnant by accident and Emma was born. Frank had been so afraid she would have an abortion that he lost thirty pounds. He thanked God for the Catholicism that had been drilled into Denise as a kid.

  They had both agreed that Emma shouldn’t be an only child and then, oddly, it had taken five years for Denise to become pregnant again.

  She had been fairly well organized in her drinking. Never touching a drop when she was pregnant or breast feeding, but then going on binges. She usually managed to get supper on the table and the kids tended to, half-heartedly, but sometimes just barely. Frank had insisted on a mother’s helper part of the time and had taken two fairly lengthy leaves of absence from his own job to help out at home. Denise’s drinking had gotten worse since Sadie was weaned over five years ago.

  Frank had suggested more than once that she try heading back to university for a course or two towards that once longed-for master’s degree. But she didn’t figure she could do both that and be a mother.

  You combine being a mother and drinking like a wild woman! he had wanted to shout. You could substitute the courses for your benders. It would be easier! But he never had. He supposed the whole mess was his fault. He had wanted kids so badly. Surely that wasn’t wrong, was it?

  “Hi, Dad.” It was Garth, smiling full tilt into the sun.

  “Hi, Garth!” Frank came down off the step-ladder. “Do you want to help me scrape the garage?”

  “No thanks.”

  Frank chuckled. “I don’t blame you. It’s a horrible job. How was soccer practice?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  Frank noticed that Garth’s neck was dirty. “Maybe you should have a bath. What do you think?”

  “No. I’m fine, thanks.” Garth continued along into the house.

  Frank wondered if Sadie’s neck was also dirty. He’d have to check. And if Garth wasn’t cleaned up at bedtime he’d make him take a bath and clean out the tub afterwards.

  Frank sat down in a shady spot and leaned against the old wood of his garage.

  Greta had been taking care of herself reasonably well for forty-two years. She had a hugely successful baking business and as for her drinking, Frank figured he was probably just overly sensitive to it because of Denise. But he didn’t want Greta involved unless she had to be. She was so messy.

  He also didn’t want to embroil the mysterious Jane Mallet in something unless it became necessary. And he hadn’t even met her yet. But it was time to find her; he had a feeling it wouldn’t be hard. He could start with the River City Health Centre.

  In the 1960s when a baby was adopted, the names of the birth parents were still put on the adoption order. A copy of this order was given to the adoptive parents if they wanted it. Frank had checked. Greta had told him as much, but he didn’t put a lot of stock in what Greta said.

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p; Frank pictured the adoption order filed in a shoe box of important papers high on a shelf in Mother Mallet’s closet. And young Jane, snooping as children do, through the mysteries of her mother’s fabrics and scents, for secrets better left alone.

  Frank took off his shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his eyes. It was too hot for this kind of work. He made a pillow out of his shirt and placed it behind his head. Now all he needed was a cold drink. He was going to have to have a shower before figuring out what to do about supper. Manual labour on such a hot day was a stupid idea. Frank felt as though he was full of stupid ideas.

  Jane Mallet knew who her mother was. Frank didn’t doubt that. Nurse and happy marriage stories aside, he believed the basic information that Greta had given him: her daughter had been in touch. But why? She hadn’t wanted to get together with Greta, but she obviously knew where Greta lived if she had contacted her. That was a little odd.

  Greta Bower was also a little odd and sometimes that ran in families. She was also a woman who had given away her child. Being given away was as good a reason as any for hating someone, Frank thought, for wanting to punish them. Perhaps Jane Mallet had placed her own dead baby in her mother’s rain barrel as a form of twisted revenge.

  Emma held the screen door for Sadie, who balanced a tray containing a frosty glass of lemonade and three chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven. She approached her father carefully and didn’t spill a drop.

  CHAPTER 15

  In her dream, Ivy can’t come clean. She showers and scrubs and showers again, but she can’t rid herself of the dirt. It comes from within. She sullies the world with her presence. Everything she touches is tainted with her filth.

  Ivy Grace collects things with points. Dull points as in those eraser tubes where you pull a string to reveal more of the rubber. Sharp points as in scissors and pencils honed to nothing. Paper clips. Keys. Bottles. Bobby pins. Ornaments. Knives. Forks. Garden tools. Wieners. Licorice whips.

  There are a couple of criteria: they have to be longer than they are wide and they have to be under a specific length. If one end is narrower than the other it is a bonus but not a necessity.