by Jamie Zeppa
The doorbell rang. “Pizza’s here,” Dan called. “I got it.” Grace went into the kitchen to get plates.
At the window, Dan pulled a few leaves off a plant. “Fresh basil?” he asked Dawn, who said, “Sure.” He tucked three tiny leaves onto a pizza slice and handed her the plate.
Grace shooed the cats off Dawn’s lap, then sat on the sofa and accepted a plate of pizza from Dan. “Now, Dawn, how did you come to be stranded in the city?”
“Ma, maybe she doesn’t want to talk about that right now.”
“It’s okay,” Dawn said, swallowing. The sharp, sweet taste of basil cut through the hot, oily taste of the pizza. “I don’t mind.” She didn’t feel as bad as she thought she would. She had lost Justin, but she hadn’t handed over her university money to Andre. She had lost Lighthouse, but she had found her way in the dark, and then she had found her long-lost relatives. She was actually feeling pretty good. Grace had never heard of Lighthouse or Universal Consciousness, but Dan said, “Universal con artists, more like. They hand out pamphlets on Yonge Street, right?”
They also wanted to know about her dad, where he lived, what he did in Toronto.
“I don’t have his new number,” Dawn said. “He used to live on Spadina, but that was last year. He was looking for a bigger place. He was working at a club. I don’t know the name.”
Dan said he could find Dean. He knew people in the business; he would ask around.
It was close to midnight when Dan left. Grace said, “Dawn, I know it’s late, but you should call your grandparents and let them know you’re here.”
Dawn said, “They’re going to be so mad.”
“They’ll probably be more relieved,” Grace said. “And surprised. I haven’t talked to my brother in years.”
Dawn’s hand flew to her mouth.
“What’s the matter?” Grace asked.
Dawn realized that Grace didn’t know about the two ugliest words in the English language.
Dawn talked to Vera first. Vera asked her if she was all right, and was she sure, and when Dawn explained where she was, there was a long pause. Then Vera said, “I’m going to wake your grandfather.” Dawn passed the phone to Grace and went upstairs to see the room Dan had prepared for her. It was a boy’s room, with a shelf of trophies and a dismantled drum set. Two more cats were asleep on the freshly made bed. She opened the door to the other bedroom, which contained only a bed with a wooden chair beside it and a small dresser. On the dresser, a framed photo of the baby Dan stood next to an old-fashioned hairbrush. There wasn’t even a mirror. Except for Dan’s old room, it was the barest house she had ever seen, and yet it was perfectly comfortable and clean and warm.
At the end of the hallway, on a little wooden table, a small, polished statue of the Buddha sat between a book called Zen Koans and a tumbler of water containing three purple tulips. Under the table, a very old black dog slept on a blue rag rug. He lifted his head when Dawn knelt beside him and looked at her with rheumy eyes. Downstairs, she could hear the murmur of Grace’s voice. “This is very sad,” she told the dog. It was happy because it was a reunion, but it was also sad because of all the wasted time. “My grandpa’s going to die,” she said, and her throat ached with unshed tears. “And my dad doesn’t even know.” The dog put his head in her lap.
The next morning, Grace brought her up a cup of hot chocolate in bed. Her eyes were red, but she smiled at Dawn. “I told Frank we would drive you home. Dan’s going to rent a car.”
“But we’re going to wait until Dan finds my dad, right?”
Grace said, “I’m sure Dan will find him. He knows a lot of people. But Vera thinks—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Vera thinks we should come right away.”
Afraid she would spill her hot chocolate, Dawn put the cup on the bedside table. “At Lighthouse, they said those who couldn’t face death didn’t understand life. Do you think that’s true?”
“Maybe,” Grace said, “but it doesn’t make it less sad.” She studied her hands for a while. “I was just a small girl when my mother died, and I couldn’t face it. Frank was older. He was okay. But there’s no way around the sadness, whether you face it or not.”
One of the cats jumped up on the bed and curled up on Dawn’s lap. Dawn scratched between its ears until it began to purr.
Grace said, “If Dan can’t reach your father before we leave today, he’ll keep trying from Sault Ste. Marie.”
Dawn reached for her cup again. “Did you know my dad was adopted?”
Grace nodded. “Oh, yes. Frank wrote me.”
“So he’s not your son, then?”
“No.” Grace looked confused. “Dan is my son.”
“But he thinks you’re his mother.”
“Who does?”
“My dad. He found a picture and a birth certificate,” Dawn said. “He thinks he’s Daniel Turner and you’re his mom. But obviously, if your Dan is that Dan, then you’re not my dad’s mom.”
Grace said, “A birth certificate? But Dan was born before Frank and Vera adopted your father.”
Dawn shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. It’s all mixed up. I think he only saw the papers once. After that, they hid the box or something. He said Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t tell him anything, but he heard from other people, like neighbours or something, that Grandpa had a sister who had a baby.”
Grace said she had left Dan with Frank and Vera to find work in southern Ontario. It took her over a year to be able to set up a home, and when she went back to get the baby, Vera didn’t want to give him up, but Frank said they had to let him go. “They adopted your father after that,” Grace said. “But people didn’t talk about adoption back then. It was all a big secret. Because it meant the mother had had sex before she got married. That was something shameful in those days.”
Dawn nodded. According to Mrs. Ditmars, it was still something shameful. “But did they know who his parents were?”
Grace said, “They got him through the Children’s Aid. I don’t think they were given much information.” She got up. “You know what? I have all the letters.”
The letters were in a battered red tin box with flaking gold trim. Dawn sat in bed, with the letters spread out around her. They were written on all kinds of paper, some in pencil, some in spidery blue ink. They were short, one or two paragraphs, but there were dozens, still in their envelopes, which had been neatly slit, and some had photos.
Dear Gracie,
the first one began.
Hope you and the little one have settled in all right down there. Your friend seems like a nice girl, someone to help out, very important if you’re going to be on your own. Snow started again after you left. Had to climb through the window to shovel out. Vera in a bad way, missing the little one. I am too. But it is right he is with his mother.
Dear Gracie. Spring very late this year. No sign of thaw. Vera still very low. Sits and stares. Some days doesn’t get up. Mrs. McCabe has been by two or three times. She can arrange for us to adopt. Vera says no, but Mrs. McCabe says think about it.
Dear Gracie. Garden finally planted. Vera somewhat better. Still has low days, but no longer taking the medicine. Made her sleep all the time, anyway. Mrs. McCabe came by with the forms again. Vera still saying she has no heart for it. Mrs. M. says to push her, says everything will change when the baby comes into the house.
Finally got word they have a boy for us. A little older than we expected, just over a year old. Will receive him in two weeks. Weather warming, will plant soon. Love to you and Danny.
The next letter said,
We named him Dean. Mrs. McCabe came by to visit and remarked on how close it was to Dan. Well! It never even crossed our minds. Vera busy but happy. Days very warm, but rain every night. Everything growing very well.
The photo was slightly out of focus: a baby bundled in a white blanket, a white cap on his head.
The next photo showed a child being bathed in the kitchen sink.
Anothe
r picture of Dean. Very good baby. Never cries, never fusses to be picked up. But have to wonder the condition of the places he was in before he came to us, three different ones according to Mrs. M. When we got him, he didn’t know he had a pair of legs. Walking all over now.
“What does that mean?” Dawn asked. “My dad didn’t know he had a pair of legs?”
Grace said, “I think it means he was kept in a crib in the foster homes or wherever he was. So he didn’t have a chance to begin crawling.”
“But he was a good baby. He never cried.”
Grace was quiet for a moment. “Well, you know, Dawn, babies are supposed to cry. It’s how they call for us.”
Dawn said, “When my sister was born, Grandma said that Geraldine—that’s my stepmom—was giving the baby the wrong message because every time the baby cried, Geraldine went to see what was wrong.”
Grace smiled. “I never did understand how that was the wrong message.” She stood up and said she was going to pack for the trip north.
Dawn studied the rest of the pictures, her father in diapers, in shorts, in long pants with a fishing rod. A teenager in a white jacket, his hair falling into his eyes. A wedding picture of Laura and Dean, Laura smiling directly into the camera, Dean talking to someone off to the side. There were pictures of her and Jimmy as babies, as toddlers, opening Christmas presents, standing side by side under the apple tree. Grandkids with us now, Frank wrote. Probably for good. Mother not likely coming back. She skimmed through the rest of the letters, news of the garden, the neighbourhood, Dawn taking piano, Jimmy starting at a new school after some trouble with windows. The last one, dated eighteen months ago, ended with, Should get up and fix the leak in the basement sink. Tired lately. Feeling my age, I guess. The box was empty now, except for two mismatched buttons.
Dawn reread the letter that announced her mother’s departure. There it was, the unthinkable written down as if it were the weather report. Spring colder than usual. Mother not likely coming back. What made him think that at the time? What had her mother said? How had it all unfolded? Why didn’t she know? It was suddenly the craziest thing she had ever heard, not what had happened, but that no one had bothered to explain it to her, aside from her mother’s speech about being left holding the bag. As if she and Jimmy were something to be stuck with. What a thing to say, she thought. And her father! “At least you know who your parents are.” As if that made it all right. She kicked back the covers, scattering the letters as she got out of bed. As soon as she got back home, she was going to start asking questions, whether people wanted to answer them or not.
Replacing the letters in the little red box, she looked one last time at the first picture of Dean, the hazy white bundle. The thought of a baby crying for someone until he just gave up trying brought tears to her eyes. She wasn’t even sure if it was her father she was seeing. It could be any one of us, she thought.
Dan arrived in the rental car and handed Dawn a black cotton sweater and a long black skirt. “Left behind by a roommate,” he said. “I thought you might want a change of clothes.”
Dawn ran upstairs to change. When she came back down, Dan was saying to Grace, “—left a message to call home.” He smiled at Dawn. “I found your dad.”
“You talked to him?”
“No, someone he works with. We have his number now.” Dan smiled. “I’m a pretty good detective, if I do say so myself.”
Dawn didn’t have the heart to tell him how many ways a phone number did not count as finding Dean.
They got to Sault Ste. Marie at dusk. Dawn had to give directions to Dan, because Grace was no longer sure of the way. They passed the school, the corner store, the cemetery, and then they were on Sylvan Avenue, sitting in the driveway, all of them looking at the three-storey red brick house. Dan said, “Well, it’s certainly the most beautiful house on the street.” Dawn could see what he meant: the hedges were flowering, roses climbed the trellises, and the apple trees spread their arms over the garden. Inside, her grandmother would be knitting and her grandfather would be dying, but there was no way around that.
Dawn opened the front door and let Grace go in first. Frank was sitting in the armchair under the lamp, with a blanket in his lap. “Gracie,” he said, and Grace burst into tears. Amazingly, she only cried for a second. It was like a sneeze. “Frank,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you. Vera, how are you?”
“As good as can be expected, under the circumstances,” Vera said.
Then the door opened and Vera’s face went slack. Dan strode in, set down the luggage, kissed Vera on the cheek and shook Frank’s hand. “Hello, Aunt Vera,” he said. “Hello, Uncle Frank.”
Jimmy came downstairs, and there were more introductions and handshakes. Vera told Jimmy to bring the luggage upstairs and Dawn to set the table for dinner. She had made fried chicken, and even Frank sat at the table and ate a tablespoon of mashed potatoes. Afterwards, Dan helped clear the plates, and Dawn made tea. Grace watched Frank, Frank watched Vera, and Vera’s eyes followed Dan everywhere.
“Did you recognize the neighbourhood?” Frank asked Grace. “It started to fill up after the war. The Cherniaks sold first. After John went overseas. You remember him, Grace?”
Grace held the teacup to her lips, blowing to cool it. “Yes,” she finally said, and set her teacup down.
“He came back a different person,” Frank said. “Drink? Boy, oh boy. And mean? Scare the fleas off a cat. And his son was the one that got Dean into all that trouble with the law. Left him holding the bag.”
Now that, Dawn thought, was the correct usage of the phrase.
“That’s a shame,” Grace said. A message went between her and Vera that Dawn couldn’t read. Then they both drank their tea.
After tea, Dan said he was exhausted from the drive, and Vera and Jimmy took him upstairs. Dan was going to sleep in Jimmy’s room, Jimmy in Dawn’s room, and Dawn and Grace in the attic room. Downstairs, Dawn listened from the kitchen while Grace told Frank about her business. Her company had cleaned offices at night, Grace said. Her employees had had young children, and they had rotated child care. It hadn’t always worked out, though, and sometimes they had lost clients because the head of maintenance didn’t care whose kid hadn’t come home from school or whose boyfriend had locked her out of the house in her nightgown. He only wanted the wastepaper baskets emptied on time. But the business had managed to survive. It had never made a profit, but everyone had gotten paid.
Dawn had finished drying the dishes, but she lingered in the kitchen, refolding the dishtowels, standing on a chair to wipe down the cupboards and the blue-faced clock.
“It must have been hard, though,” Frank said. His voice was raspy, and he had to rest in between sentences. “All by yourself.”
Grace said, “Oh, we had a lot of help. Theresa—you remember Theresa—she sent money. Came to stay. Looked after Danny.”
“He’s a good boy,” Frank said.
“He is,” Grace agreed. “But it was hard for him. He spent a lot of time at other boys’ houses. When he was fourteen, he practically lived at his friend Joey’s. They had a nicer house, a car, a backyard full of toys. A father.” She sighed. “He always wanted more family than I could give him.”
“You did a good job, Gracie.” There was pause, and Dawn could hear her grandfather struggle with his breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more to help you.”
“You did the most important thing,” Grace said.
“It was hard for her.”
Dawn heard a quick little sob.
Grace said, “She’ll be all right, Frank.”
Over the next few days, Dawn noticed that Vera and Grace didn’t like to be in the same room, but Vera and Dan had taken a shine to each other. “Let me do that,” he said, taking the broom or the duster out of her hands. He helped with all the cooking and went through Vera’s recipe cards, asking questions and copying things down in a little leather notebook. They talked for almost an hour about pastry and the particu
lar advantages of lard. It was funny, Dawn thought, because Dan didn’t look like the kind of person Vera would go in for. His hair was too long and his jeans had rips at the knees and he wore a leather wristband. But when he said he would drive Vera to the pharmacy at 3:00, he was ready at 2:45. And when he cooked, he cleaned up as he went along, so that when the meat pies went into the oven, the stovetop was shiny and the counters were clear.
The house was busy. Laura brought a pot of soup, a pan of lasagna. She never stayed for long, but Vera always said thank you for the food. Geraldine brought flowers, and Vera scolded her for wasting money, but she washed out a vase and put them on the dining-room table. Amy sat on a stool beside Frank, who lay on the couch, and showed him photos of her dance competition. Frank could only stay awake for short periods of time. He took in long, slow, noisy breaths, but he said he wasn’t in pain. “Do you have to get back?” he asked Grace. She shook her head. “Dan has to go back on Monday, but I’m going to stay.”
Dan was planning dinner for everyone for Saturday night, using six kinds of preserves from the basement and all the vegetables in the freezer; Vera was going to make the dessert. A year ago, it would have been almost unwishable: having Laura, Geraldine, Amy, Vera, Frank, Grace and Dan all at the same table. Even adding Dean to the table, Dawn thought, was not unthinkable. He could probably sit right between Laura and Geraldine; there were so many abnormalities now that one more wouldn’t make any difference. But no one mentioned Dean.
Saturday was unusually warm. Dan cooked the roast early in the morning so the kitchen wouldn’t get too hot, then made pancakes topped with Vera’s raspberry jam and whipped cream, and they all sat on the dark green benches under the apple trees to eat them. In the afternoon, while Grace went to the cemetery and Vera crocheted a doily, Jimmy and Dawn helped Dan in the kitchen, learning the difference between chiffonade and shredding. When the kitchen got too warm, they took Dan down to the creek, where a little breeze skimmed over the green shallows. They walked from one end of the overgrown path to the other, and then squeezed themselves onto the flat rock under the chokecherry tree. “Apparently,” Dan said, “my mother used to bring me down here when I was a baby.” In the riot of green across the bank, birds carried on a noisy conversation. The sun was strong on their hands and faces.
