Greg had shrugged. “It’s managed to survive this long.”
“Well, I’m going to water it,” Sylvie announced, retrieving a plastic water bottle from the side pocket of her backpack and tipping the remaining contents onto the dry dirt.
Sometime later, maybe a couple of months, Sylvie had been with him when Abby called, needing a last-minute sitter, and so he’d introduced the two women, and then he, Sylvie, and Summer all had Vietnamese subs together when Abby left for work.
Maybe a year into their friendship, Sylvie finally defended her dissertation, and to celebrate, planned a trip to Prague to spend some time with her brother, a married expat living in Paris with his husband and their adopted son. Prague had always been on Sylvie’s bucket list since she was a kid. Greg had asked what else was on her bucket list. Tash had goals she’d talked about, but, to Greg’s knowledge, she’d never formalized them into a list. She’d simply wanted to marry, to have two children, to someday get her Masters in nursing, and to start a charity to support women burned by acid attacks in countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia. She hadn’t been big on travel, which had suited Greg fine. In grad school, he hadn’t had the money to travel, even if he’d wanted to.
Sylvie had showed him her bucket list, which she’d saved on her computer; a list preserved from her childhood and added to over the years. Hold a snake, take a cooking class, walk a suspension bridge, get a tattoo, milk a cow, keep a journal every day for a year, eat ostrich, go two weeks without spending any money, sing at an open mic night, send someone an anonymous gift, take a photography class, donate blood, research family tree, be present at a birth, donate hair to a cancer charity, grow a tomato garden, learn CPR, read an entire encyclopedia, wear a kilt, enter a pie-eating contest.
Several items had already been crossed off. She’d asked if he had a bucket list. Finish his Ph.D. had been the sole goal in his mind for so many years. He’d accomplished that goal years ago. Now he had no direction really, other than going through the routine motions of taking a shower, going to work, not killing himself. But Sylvie’s list made him think, and that night he’d told Summer about it, and she’d started one. Over the next few weeks, they’d crossed off a few items together. Learn to figure skate. Taste sushi. Get a picture drawn by a caricaturist. Summer added get a kitten. He’d have to work with Abby on that one. He wondered if Abby had a bucket list.
Greg had offered to drive Sylvie to the airport for her flight to Prague, and she’d accepted; when he pulled up at her apartment in his still dented Chevy (he’d never had the heart to fix the damaged bumper), she’d emerged with a large backpack slung over one shoulder. Her hair! She’d chopped it all off. It looked good, but whoa!
“Your hair!” Greg exclaimed.
“Oh yeah!” She’d reached up and touched her bare neck. “Abby cut it for me. I thought it’d be easier for travelling. I’ve had long hair forever. I needed a change.” She didn’t ask his opinion. He wondered why Abby hadn’t mentioned that she cut Sylvie’s hair. Were they friends now? Did they hang out without him? Had Sylvie donated her thick, fawn-coloured locks to a cancer charity? He could see Summer adding this goal to her own bucket list—Summer was such a bleeding heart, donating her allowance to the SPCA, befriending the child in her class who had cerebral palsy and was in a wheelchair, volunteering to pick up trash at recess for her school’s environmental club. Greg was particularly proud of the last one. Still, he wished sometimes that she would have a thicker skin—if she hurt so much for other people, she would undoubtedly hurt badly when life’s traumas came her way, which they inevitably would.
He popped the trunk for Sylvie and offered to load her backpack, but she said, “I got it,” and slung the sack into the trunk herself, climbed into the passenger seat beside him. Patted her small handbag. “Ready.”
He suddenly didn’t want her to leave. Anything could happen to her in the next three weeks. What if he never saw her again? He leaned over and kissed her.
After a second, he could feel her kiss him back. When they broke apart, she smiled. “About time.”
On the drive home, he wondered—now what?
And what about Natasha? Had she kissed anyone since him? The person who had taken her—did he kiss her? Did he force his lips up against hers? He pictured Tash’s beautiful lips—licorice sweet. It could be anybody. He doesn’t know—he won’t know—who kissed her last. And if it had hurt.
The other day, Sylvie mentioned that it’d been four years since she defended her dissertation. Which means four years they’ve been together now. Greg’s memory has always been shit, but especially since Tash disappeared. Sylvie doesn’t seem to care, though, about noting or celebrating anniversaries. Greg suddenly remembers—he can’t go swimming today, he promised his mother he’d have breakfast with her. Usually, they have breakfast on Sunday mornings, Sylvie included—his mother hovers less when they have a routine—but his parents are driving to the Okanagan tomorrow morning, so he’d agreed to move it a day earlier. He hadn’t told his mother about Sylvie for almost six months after they started dating, unsure of what to really say. He and Sylvie had never really talked about it. He didn’t even know if Sylvie ultimately wanted to get married or have children. Sometimes he wanted to know, but still, he just kept his mouth shut.
Why Sylvie was with him, he didn’t know. He was probably—definitely—a terrible companion, a hollow shell of a human. What did he have to offer?
But then they’d had their first argument—his memories about the details are blurry, but it was the first time he’d seen Sylvie cry, and it had made him sick to his stomach. Of course, she would leave now. Whatever illusion she’d had about him, about them, was shattered, right? He’d blurted everything to his mother that day.
“Do you love her?” his mother had asked.
Did he? Was he even capable of love? And, if he did love Sylvie, should he be telling his mother before telling her?
Luckily, his mother hadn’t waited for him to answer. Instead, she’d said, “You need to think about what kind of life you want—if you want her in it or not. If you want her in it, you let the little things go. And sometimes you let the big things go. I can’t believe I ever thought about leaving your father. I was so stupid. And selfish. When we lost Natasha, I realized, it wasn’t about me being happy or fulfilled or enlightened all the time. It was about just showing up every day, on the days when everything about him made me feel warm and fuzzy, and on the days when he couldn’t do anything right and I was furious with him. If, at the end of the day, as I was falling asleep, I could hear your father’s annoying snore beside me as I drifted off…” She’d reached across the table and taken Greg’s hand, then sang, off-key. “Love is not a history march.” She looked up. “You get it?”
He’d nodded. But—what? History march? Did she mean he should never have let Natasha go, because they had so much history?
He thought he recognized the tune from one of Natasha’s ’80s CDs. As he had a million times since that July night, he wondered where the hell her CDs had gone. He found an ’80s station on the radio and let it play whenever he was driving or alone in the house for the next three days, the music so painfully reminiscent of Natasha it felt like he’d sliced a vein shaving, blood and melody spilling and mixing, unable to clot. On the third day, he’d almost had enough, almost couldn’t tolerate it any longer, but then, there it was. The same tune his mother had sung.
He’d heard her wrong. Of course he had. It was victory, not history. In mishearing the lyrics, he’d missed her point entirely.
She’d meant, there was no sure thing, no clear right answer, not a test you could pass. When the notes filled the room, he was at once back in Natasha’s car, listening to her sing along to the suddenly familiar song. He could practically smell her hair.
Tash had used to tease him about always getting the words to songs wrong. He hummed along quietly. How much else had he gotten wrong without even realizing it?
HIM
&
nbsp; WAS IT HERE? THIS STREET, WHERE WE TURNED OFF? OR THE next one?
The third left? Or the fourth?
That night, when I got home, I couldn’t stop shivering. Like I could still feel the rain in my bones. My muscles ached. The skin on my hand felt raw from where I’d gripped the shovel. You gave me a fuckin’ blister.
I staggered to the shower, stood under the hot water, still in my boots, my jeans. Dirt and grit swirled around the drain, disappeared.
And then I peeled off the wet clothing, one piece at a time, left the hot water running. Stepped naked out into the bathroom. Swiped my hand across the foggy mirror. Looked into my own eyes.
Now, whenever I come out here, I get frickin’ allergies. My lungs seize up and my eyes start to water. I’m like, wiping my nose with my sleeve trying to focus, trying to remember if it was this tree or that tree.
Everything looks different now, with the houses going up. They’re closing in. Back then it was just the middle of nowhere. I wasn’t paying attention to directions that night. I didn’t think it through. You got me so riled up. It was your own damn fault.
NATASHA
OCTOBER 1984
Yesterday, Natasha stayed home from school with a bad cold. Her dad was at work, and Kathleen took baby Abby to the pediatrician, so Natasha was home alone. She fell asleep on the couch, but then something made a rumbly noise outside, like a garbage truck going by, or maybe a robber breaking in. Last time Natasha went camping with Josie, Josie’s dad told a story about an old man who lived at the end of a dark street, and some kids went trick-or-treating at his house late one Halloween night, and (he put his flashlight under his chin) “they were never heard from again.” Josie’s mother said, “Brian, cut it out, you’re scaring them!”
Natasha couldn’t sleep after the noise, especially with her runny nose. She took a roll of toilet paper back to bed with her because it would probably last longer than Kleenex, even if it was scratchier. She wished for some pop to sip, but Kathleen had a rule—no “soda” in the house, too much sugar. Natasha’s mom used to make root beer floats; the foam from the ice cream and pop mixed together always tickled their noses and made them laugh. That was before Mom hurt her knee from slipping at the skating rink and had to get surgery. After that, Natasha made the floats and brought them to Mom in bed and sometimes brought her her medicine, too. One time, Mom’s hands were so shaky, she spilled root beer in the bed. So sticky! Natasha liked taking care of her mom. Mom called her, “my little nurse.” Natasha needed the cough syrup. She tried to reach it at the back of the medicine cabinet, but when she pushed a chair over and climbed up, she got dizzy and had to get back down.
A couple of times she has snuck into baby Abby’s room at night to hold her. She has to be careful not to wake her sister. One time, this happened, and Kathleen came rushing in all crazy with her pink silk bathrobe a little bit undone, and her makeup smudged.
“I heard her start to cry so I got up to rock her,” Natasha said, her heart beating really fast. But Kathleen actually wasn’t mad; she told Natasha if she wanted she could feed Abby some formula. “Two scoops with hot water. But not too hot. Test it first.” So Kathleen went back to bed, and Natasha went downstairs and made a bottle and squirted a little bit on her arm, then came back upstairs and fed baby Abby in the rocking chair.
Natasha and Josie don’t go to the same school anymore because, for grade seven, Natasha’s dad moved her to a private school where she wears a uniform and knows nobody except Kayla, who is now her stepsister, but they don’t like each other. There are a couple of girls in her homeroom that invited her to eat lunch with them, Nicole B. and Nicole P., and they both have mood rings. Most of the kids at her new school have gone there since kindergarten, except there are a few who moved later, like Patrick and Penelope Lam, who are a brother and sister from China, and Gregory Morgan, who moved from Vancouver last year, and who both Nicoles think is cute. Natasha might have a crush on him, too. She hasn’t decided, she kind of thinks Robbie Palmer in French class is cuter. The Nicoles think baby Abby is adorable, even though Nicole P. swears she’s never going to get married or have kids, and Nicole B. says she’s going to adopt after they had to watch that video in health class of a woman giving birth.
Before, when Natasha was sick or upset, her mother would tell her the story of the night she was born, how her dad fainted because of the blood, how her mother waited too long and had to push Natasha out without any medication, how her father went to A&W to get her mother onion rings and a root beer float because she was so hungry after the labour. Kathleen doesn’t eat fast food.
This morning, when Natasha went back to school after having been sick, Robbie Palmer came up to her at her locker and said, “I have the notes from French class if you want them,” and he looked really cute in his Adidas jacket.
Natasha strokes the top of baby Abby’s baldy head. Uncurls one of Abby’s fists, inserts her finger. Baby Abby’s fingers curl again around Natasha’s, and she makes a small sucking noise in her sleep. Natasha puts her face close to her little sister’s head and inhales. “Robbie Palmer talked to me today,” she tells the baby. “Josie says she’s not going to date until she’s fifteen. I wish Josie and I went to the same school.” The baby feels warm, smells like baby bum cream. Abby’s little chest in her pale pink onesie pulses up and down, up and down, as she breathes.
SUMMER
LAST WEEK I HAD TO GO TO A FUNERAL FOR AUNTIE JO’S twin brother Jason. It was the first funeral I ever went to. I had to miss school for it, because it was on a Monday, which meant missing French, my favourite. A lot of kids in my class had gone to funerals before me, for their grandparents and stuff. But my parents had me really young, so my grandparents are young, too. For grandparents, I mean. Some of the kids in my class have parents who are practically the same age as my grandparents. Also, I’m the only kid in my whole family, so I think sometimes all the grown-ups forget that I’m here when they talk to each other, which means I know all the gossip, all the things I’m not supposed to know.
Like, I know that everybody’s saying Jason died of a seizure, but also I heard Mom on the phone with Auntie Jo saying something about an overdose, and maybe it was accidental or maybe it was on purpose. Overdose means drugs, and on purpose means suicide. I met Jason’s son once at Auntie Jo’s house a long time ago, like first grade or something. His name is Finn, and he’s two years older than me except my mom says boys aren’t as mature as girls. It’s really sad how Finn doesn’t have a dad anymore. Even though my parents aren’t married to each other, I still get to see both my mom and my dad.
I feel like getting married is bad luck, because everyone in my family and also most other couples that I know aren’t even happy anymore, or maybe they were never happy. Like, according to my mom, Auntie Jo’s husband Solomon is a douchebag and Auntie Jo really wants a baby and she tried for a long time but now she’s almost forty so it’s probably not going to happen. P.S. What does douchebag really mean, anyway?
Auntie Kayla is almost in her forties and she already got divorced once and she is a doctor, except not the kind that does medical stuff. She’s a shrink. I don’t think she has time to have any kids because she’s too busy having a career. I was supposed to be the flower girl for her last wedding, to Uncle Drew, but my mom said, “yeah right,” and we didn’t even go. The last couple of times we had a family dinner, Uncle Drew didn’t even show up. Like, twice in a row. So, I’m pretty sure they’re fighting a lot, too. Also my dad and Jessica fight a lot, even more now because she has to give herself all these shots so she can get pregnant, and my dad yells at her that the hormones are making her psycho! My Grandma and Grandpa Bell got separated last year, so now technically both of them have been married twice and it didn’t work out either time. Pretty much nobody I know has a happy relationship, except maybe my friend Celeste’s parents, who go for walks around the block holding hands, even when it’s snowy out. But maybe that’s a lie. Adults do a lot of pretending everything
is fine.
I was kind of worried at the funeral that I would have to look at Auntie Jo’s brother’s body in the casket, but apparently he got cremated, so I only had to look at a picture of him at the front of the funeral home. The picture had Finn in it, when Finn was a baby. Real Finn sat in the front row with Auntie Jo. Finn has blond hair like Auntie Jo, except curly and a bit long and one of the curls kind of sticks up on his forehead. He’s kind of cute—if he went to my school, Celeste would probably have a crush on him. I don’t know why I had to go to the funeral, because I didn’t even really know Auntie Jo’s brother, but my mom said we were going to support Auntie Jo, and that she supported us a lot when I was a baby and when Aunt Natasha went missing. Also, Jason was a computer nerd, and when my mom was pregnant with me, he came over and rigged up a whole baby monitor system so that my mom and Aunt Natasha could hear me in every room of the house and he did the MISSING website for Aunt Natasha for so many years.
Auntie Jo has a blog on there that she’s been doing since before I was born. I wonder if anybody except me reads it anymore. I read it all the time, even though nobody posts much these days. I read the old stuff over and over, like how my mom watches reruns of her favourite TV shows. My favorite posts are when Auntie Jo puts memories up there, about when she and Aunt Natasha were kids together. Like, how they used to play this game called “Roommates,” where they would pretend to be university students and they made their own little apartment in Josie’s basement with old furniture and Josie’s mother’s old purses and shoes, and a New Kids on the Block calendar. My mom said New Kids on the Block were kind of like One Direction except in the ’80s, and then she played me some of their music and we had a dance party.
Celeste and I never played any games like that. When we were younger, I always wanted to play “Detective,” where we took walkietalkies around in the park and looked for evidence in trashcans and solved crimes. One time, I found a toonie, and another time I found someone’s ID card for their job at Staples. Then Celeste said it was a stupid game and refused to play anymore. Now all she wants to do is have nail parties—she even bought little brushes so she can paint designs on our nails, she gives me pedicures with polka dots and stripes, but it’s so boring to have to sit there while it dries. Speaking of detectives, the detective who is in charge of Aunt Natasha’s missing case is called Reuben, and he got split up from his wife, too.
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