by Carrie Mac
I could feel my pulse throbbing all the way to my fingertips.
Stop it, Maeve. Breathe.
Maybe he would finally come and I’d be passed out on the floor. He’d see the security guards and the firefighters and the paramedics standing over me.
I needed to go home.
Coming to Vancouver had been a terrible idea.
Gut churning. Heart pounding and pounding and pounding. Fingers tingling as I dug in my backpack for the stupid paper bag that actually worked. I pulled it out and breathed into it, the top bunched in my fist. Three boys strode past in matching jerseys, laughing and pointing. I pulled the bag away.
“It’s glue.” I held it out, already feeling better. “Want some?”
They shook their heads, laughing.
I checked my phone with trembling fingers. No messages.
My throat was so dry that it hurt to swallow. I dug for some change to go buy a drink and felt something bunched up at the bottom of my bag. I pulled it out. It was the silk scarf Mom always wore. It was tied into a loose knot, with something inside. I brought it to my face and inhaled. Roses and geraniums and Mom. Now I could slow my breathing down. Inhale. Exhale. Now I could try to calm down.
I could be home by lunchtime the next day. And Mom would be there, even if she wasn’t. Her clothes in the closet, the way the furniture was arranged, the quilt she’d made me, with the stars in all colors and sizes, the garden and all the vegetables that we’d planted, growing and growing, as if they were ignoring the fact that she was gone. As if that were possible.
Dan offered to keep an eye on me while Mom inoculated babies and swooned over her new geriatric boyfriend at his clinic in Haiti. He said he’d love to, in fact, and other than his shifts at the hospital, he was a homebody just like me. Sometimes he spent the entire day in his fuzzy one-piece rainbow-unicorn pajamas playing the guitar and drinking coffee. His house was only five minutes through the woods, or ten minutes along the road. He’d even offered to have me over for dinner every night. He was a really good cook. Plus he was a nurse. So he could handle things.
“Maeve, no.” Was that pity in her eyes? Disappointment? I couldn’t tell. It was no, that much was for sure. “Not this time.”
And I knew why. Because the first and last time I had been left alone had been a complete disaster.
“What if I stayed at Dan’s place the whole time?”
“And you’d crawl into his bed in the middle of the night instead of mine?”
We both laughed. This was not as weird as it sounded. Dan liked big hairy men who looked about as gay as your stereotypical hockey player. And I liked girls.
Or, one girl so far. For not quite a month.
—
I untied Mom’s scarf and a card fell out. On the front was a picture of us that Dan had taken the fall before. We were sitting on the porch with our pumpkin harvest all around us. Seventeen pumpkins, lined up on the steps.
I love you, pumpkin. Don’t worry. Xoxoxo, Mom.
It was like she had texted me back. Sort of.
I wound the scarf around my wrist and then unwound it. Wound it around again. Unwound it. I would not cry in the bus station. I would not.
—
I should’ve taken out my sketchbook again. I should’ve drawn the old woman eating a sandwich all by herself, or the man mopping the floor, his sleeves rolled up, his back stooped. I should’ve drawn one line and then another and another until it built something apart from my worries. But instead I just wound and unwound the scarf until my wrist felt hot.
I didn’t want to call Dad again. If he was on his way, he shouldn’t pick up. He knew better, but he still talked on his cell while he drove, even though I told him not to. Every year over three thousand people died because of distracted driving. And that was just in the States. Not as bad as the one death every forty-eight minutes from drunk driving, but bad enough. Dad had already been lucky in that category once. Once that I knew of, anyway.
Or what if he was looking for his phone when I called and it was in his bag and he leaned over too far and lost control? What if he was in the hospital on life support and they couldn’t find a number to call because his cell phone had been destroyed in the crash and he’d forgotten his wallet at home again? What if he was all alone, with a tube down his throat and machines keeping him alive? Or maybe not. It could be even worse than that. What if he was dead? Dead. What if he was dead and I was sitting there waiting for a dead person who would never be coming?
An accident at work. He’d fallen off a catwalk on set and broken his neck and they just hadn’t called Claire yet.
William “Billy” Glover, aged 41, died tragically in a workplace accident. He leaves behind his wife, Claire; his daughter, Maeve; his two young sons, Corbin and Owen; and his unborn child due in September. After a successful career as a musician with the Railway Kings, Billy became a scenic artist in the film industry, working on major films such as—
Would it mention Mom? That would require a rewrite:
William “Billy” Glover, aged 41, died tragically—
Stop it, stop it, stop it.
He was not dead. He was late. People were late all the time; it didn’t mean that they were dead.
And then, as if to prove it, he hollered my name from the door.
“Maeve! Let’s go!” He had no idea that I was composing his obituary. “I’m double-parked, kiddo.” I barely had time to stand before he grabbed me in a bear hug and crushed the breath out of me. He stood back and took my wrists. The one I’d twisted the scarf around so much still throbbed, hot in his grip. “Look at you, all adult and shit. I just saw you a few months ago. You were, what, three years old?”
“Funny.”
“Come on, I don’t want to get a ticket.” He lugged my suitcase toward the exit. “Want to drive?”
“No. I do not want to drive,” I said. “It has wheels.”
“What?” he said. “The truck? Of course it does.”
“The suitcase,” I said, fuming. “It has wheels. You can pull it.”
“It’s not that heavy.”
—
His truck was parked with two wheels on the sidewalk in a no-stopping zone, right in front of the girl with the violin. She was playing something classical now, and as I came around the front of the truck, she smiled at me.
She smiled at me. But why? What kind of smile was that?
Your dad is an asshole?
Nice parking job?
Serves him right?
“Hey, buddy, hang on,” Dad said to the security guard who was writing down his plate number. “There was nowhere else to park.”
Or was she just smiling at me in a nice way?
“You’re obstructing the pedestrian walkway.”
“Come on, man. Don’t write me a ticket.” He threw my suitcase into the back of the truck. He rooted in the glove box until he found an old five-dollar bill. “Here, take it.” The security guard just shook his head and kept writing. “Asshole,” Dad muttered when the guard tucked the ticket under his windshield wiper.
“I’ve been waiting over an hour, Dad.”
“Shit.” He grabbed the ticket, crumpled it up, and threw it in the general direction of the security guard.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Seriously? An hour?” He opened the driver’s-side door. “I thought your bus pulled in five minutes ago. Sure you don’t want to drive?”
“The last time I drove, I almost hit a deer.”
“But you didn’t, right? Deena said you handled it like a pro.”
“She didn’t say that.”
“Okay, no, she didn’t.” He shrugged. “Still, why not give it another try? Horse, fall, remount.”
“I have never ridden a horse in my entire life,” I said. “Did you know that almost eighty thousand people end up at the hospital every single year because of horse accidents?”
“It’s just an expression.”
“Still,” I said,
“it’s not helpful. My bus pulled in an hour ago, Dad. An hour that I have spent worried sick.” I got in on the passenger side. I did up my seat belt and crossed my arms. “And just so we’re clear, I absolutely do not want to drive in the city. Ever.”
He started the truck and bumped off the sidewalk, joining the traffic waiting to get out of the tiny parking lot.
“You didn’t answer your phone. A bunch of times.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“How come?” He’d grown a goatee since I’d visited at spring break. It looked good on him. He was wearing sunglasses, even though it was completely dark now. His black hair was artfully shaggy and had a blue streak at the front. He looked like a rock star, except for the paint-splattered jeans and hoodie and boots. “I thought you were lying unconscious in a hospital bed, Dad. Or dead.”
“None of the above. All good.” He turned up the music. “Jimmie Vaughan. I love this one. Keith Ferguson on the bass. Sure you don’t want to drive? Last chance. We can switch places while we wait for these taxis to get out of the way.”
“I do not want to drive! I want to know why you—”
“You still a lesbian?”
“What?” I was caught off guard. “As far as I know. Why? Why the hell are you even asking? I want to know why you were so late. AA? NA? Got caught up with a painting and totally zoned out?”
“Easy, beast. Oh, hey, some guy at work asked me if you had a boyfriend, because his kid just moved in with him too and he wondered about setting you up on a blind date. And I told him that you liked girls. But then I figured you might’ve changed your mind after, you know, after what’s-her-name moved away.”
Jessica.
Jessica Elena Elliston-Haywood.
“Which is totally okay, by the way—keep us posted. I just thought that chick might’ve been a one-time thing, you know?”
“Not chick. Jessica.”
“Jessica, right.”
“I still like girls,” I said. “It wasn’t Jessica-specific. As far as I know.”
“Duly noted.” He patted my knee. “And how’s Ruthie? Still awkward and smart?”
Oh, Ruthie. Of course she was still awkward and smart. And so stupid, too.
“She’s fine. Stop changing the subject.” I glared at him. “What was so important that you were an hour late?”
“Look, here I am now. Not dead.” He rolled down his window, pulled a cigarette from a pack of American Spirits on the dash, and lit it. “It’s all good, kiddo.”
“You said you were going to quit smoking before the baby comes.”
“Go figure, no baby yet. You’ll be the first to know.”
“Smoking kills almost half a million people every year. And secondhand smoke kills fifty thousand people a year. Dad, that’s almost five times the population of Port Townsend.”
“The baby is due in September.” He took two deep pulls on the cigarette before flicking it out the window. He honked as a taxi driver in front of us got out to help with his customer’s luggage. “I’ll quit by then, boss.”
His ears were turning red, which always happened just before he lost his temper. I figured that out when he was driving me to a friend’s sixth birthday party. I wouldn’t stop pestering him for driving the ten blocks without his seat belt on. I just would not shut up. I kept begging and he kept not doing up his seat belt until we were both screaming at each other, and then he hauled off and slapped me across the face.
His ears were that same color now. Which was why I was not going to tell him about the risk of fires started by tossed cigarettes.
“In the meantime,” he said, “don’t nag me about it. I get that enough from the twins.”
“September isn’t that far away.” I did the math. “You have eighty-one days.”
His ears were fiery red now.
“I know the due date, kiddo. Even if I’m not the one who’s pregnant.” He turned up the music. Conversation over.
“Babies come early all the time,” I murmured, but he didn’t hear me. Or he was ignoring me.
The last time I’d visited, Corbin had flushed Dad’s cigarettes down the toilet. I’d thought it was hilarious, but Dad did not find it funny at all. He yelled at both boys and took eight bucks out of their piggy banks and stormed out in a huff to buy another pack. His ears were pretty red that time too.
“I can hear you thinking.” One more taxi in front of us and then we could finally turn out of the lot. “I’m a big boy, Maeve. I’ll handle it. Now leave it alone.” He pushed his shades up and grinned at me. “It’s good to see you. I missed you, kiddo.” He pulled me into a headlock and planted a noisy kiss on my forehead. When he let go, I saw her again. The girl with the violin. She was looking at me, her violin in one hand, the bow in her other. She was looking right at me. I smiled, and she smiled back. And then we were driving away. She got smaller and smaller, until I couldn’t see her anymore and she was just another girl I would never get to know.
Dad and Claire and my six-year-old brothers lived in a three-story U-shaped complex with a landscaped courtyard in the middle. There were some smaller apartments, but mostly there were apartments with two or three floors with very small footprints, so it was like little blocks stacked on top of one another. Each home—however many bedrooms—had a front door that opened out into the courtyard. There were long, snaking cracks running down the length of the building. The whole complex leaned a little to the west, like it might slide all the way downtown in an earthquake. Dad insisted that it did not lean at all, but whenever I visited, I tried not to look at those cracks.
Dan and I had had an earthquake-kit competition back home. Mine included everything on all the lists, plus things like tampons and antibiotics, layered in a big garbage bin on wheels, but Dan trumped me by putting his kit in a giant rolling toolbox with everything meticulously organized and labeled. I’d had to buy him a dozen doughnuts.
Dad and Claire’s earthquake “kit” was a flat of family-size pork and beans, a can opener, and a flat of bottle water.
While Dad fumbled with his keys, I studied the concrete courtyard, thinking I should do a marble test with the boys. We could prove that the building really was leaning. If it was condemned, they’d have to move somewhere safer.
“Maeve?” Mrs. Patel popped out of her place next door and held up a plate of samosas as a greeting. “You’re here!”
“Mrs. Patel!” I gave her a hug.
“The plate. The plate!” She laughed, righting it before the samosas could slip off. She was wearing the same pink cardigan she always wore over her sari. There was a hole at one elbow now, and a dark stain beside the top button. “I hear we have you for six months?” Behind her and up the stairs, a commercial blared on her TV. Gets out all grass stains! Guaranteed!
“Six whole months.” I took the plate.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Patel cupped a hand to her ear.
“Six months!” I took a bite of one. “So good. I’m so hungry.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” She gave my wrist a playful slap. “Wait a minute. I have tamarind sauce.” She disappeared and was back a moment later with a little dish.
“Come over tomorrow.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. “I will deal the cards for rummy.”
“I will. Thank you.”
The last time I’d visited, I’d told Mrs. Patel that she needed a new sweater because she wore it in all the family photos on her wall, and so it seemed like she never aged past when she started wearing it. Mrs. Patel laughed and laughed. I like that very much, she said. Imagine, never getting old! This is my magic sweater, then. My fountain-of-youth sweater. I shall never stop wearing it. Not ever.
When I’d visited in the spring, Claire announced a “family project” the moment I arrived.
“It’ll be so much fun!” She handed out painting smocks. “We’re all going to help turn the closet in the downstairs studio into ‘Maeve’s Space.’ ”
Usually they managed to clear just
enough of the floor for the blow-up bed each time I came, but in the spring they—meaning Claire—had organized everything so that the room was tidy for the first time ever. Dad did commissioned portraits when he wasn’t working on sets, so his easels and paints now lined one wall. Claire made dolls, so her bins of fabric and doll forms and her sewing machine lined the other.
The walk-in closet was empty, the beat-up walls patched and ready for paint. A double bed took up the space in the middle of the room. The twins were jumping on it, the gray cotton surface dappled with nondescript stains. I tasted bile.
“What’s that face for?” Dad said. Corbin jumped into his arms. Then Owen. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s filthy.”
“Claire steam-cleaned it. Both sides.”
Nosebleeds, leaked periods, dried semen, vomit, the ghost of farts past, and everything that comes with all of that. Sex and violence and insomnia. Arguments in the middle of the night. Wet dreams. And the bugs.
Just think of the bedbugs.
Vancouver had an actual bedbug registry. You could look up any address and see if there was (or had ever been) a bedbug infestation there. Entire blocks lit up on the website, including several apartment buildings on streets far too close to Dad’s place. I’d put in Dad’s address once and an alert had popped up. I’d run screaming from the computer and all the way outside, where Claire had found me and explained that it had been isolated, at the other end of the building, and had been dealt with professionally.
Bedbugs are common in East Van, she’d said. As if that made me feel any better.
I knew why bedbugs were common in East Van. Because everyone was sharing their shitty old furniture. Dumped in the alley on moving day. Friendly trades. As seen on Craigslist. You take this couch; I’ll buy that chair; need some new clothes; want this extra duvet? I have to get rid of this mattress, but it’s still perfectly good. No bedbugs. I promise.
