Girl in Shades

by Allison Baggio

  “Your loss, ho-bag,” I hear the guy ahead of me say. The guys are drinking beer on the bus without the driver noticing. I knew I should have sat closer to the front.

  “That girl is a freak,” one guy says and his friend across the aisle turns around to see me.

  “Cool dreads,” the guy wearing a Labatt Blue hat and T-shirt says to me.

  “Thank you.”

  He turns around again towards the front. They are students going back to Trent for school. I am left wondering what they could possibly be learning.

  Someone’s playing music out of a portable player. My heart sticks in my esophagus. Corey Hart — he’s still following me. They’re playing his song and calling it retro.

  I am by your side

  In this truth I will confide

  You can always count on me

  I will never hide you see, oh no

  ’Cause I will never disappear

  Turn the darkest corner I’ll be there

  “Turn that shit off,” someone yells, and Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train” comes on.

  It’s early September, Labour Day weekend, and hot, almost thirty degrees Celsius, but nothing compared to the dry heat in India. Nothing I can’t handle. The bus ushers me into Peterborough for the first time. We drive through town, up hills, down one-way streets, into awkward intersections before pulling in at the downtown Greyhound terminal. I let the drunk students pile out ahead of me. One of them folds over the curb and pukes on the sidewalk before getting up to join his buddies.

  I have an address and nothing else. Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness, I think as I get in a taxi.

  “I need to go to 235 King Street,” I tell the dark-haired man behind the steering wheel. He sucks on his cigarette.

  “Any chance you could put that out?” I ask him.

  “You would like me to put out the cigarette?”

  “You got it.” To my surprise, he does, tossing the butt onto the wet pavement — the rain has just started.

  He drops me off in front of a six-floor apartment building. I pay the cabbie with the money Aunt Leah gave me, adding a little extra for putting out the cigarette. He has another one lit before he pulls out of the parking lot.

  She’s in apartment 311. Third floor, eleventh apartment. I take the steps slowly, stumbling under the weight of my duffle bag and brand new rolled-up sleeping bag. I step up onto the top step like I’m stepping up to receive an award. A woman with a hooked nose in a green velour housecoat meets me in the hall.

  “Yes,” she says with a crooked smile.

  “I’m looking for Eleanor McCann,” I say.

  “Well, she’s in number 311, but who knows if she’ll open the door or not.” The woman holds her fingers up straight beside her mouth. “She’s not very social.”

  “She’s my grandmother,” I tell the woman matter-of-factly, and she apologizes and goes back into 304.

  I knock four times before I realize it’s open. Open so that you just have to push, not even turn the knob.

  “Grandmother,” I say as I walk in, noticing how strange the word feels. “Grandmother,” I say again, just to prove it.

  A tiny voice from the living room: “Hello, there.”

  “Grandmother McCann, it’s me, Maya.”

  She’s sitting in a blue La-Z-Boy facing the TV. There’s a man on the screen trying to sell her a new sofa.

  “Sylvia?” She turns her head to look at me with her shrivelled face, deep-set eyes, and flesh puckered at the mouth.

  “Grandmother McCann, is it okay that I’m here?”

  “You sit right down here,” she says pointing to a folding chair beside her. She’s trapped behind a TV tray with a bag of WonderBread and some cheese slices still in the plastic. “I started to worry when I didn’t see you yesterday at Mass. You are always up there in the first pew.”

  “No, I think you’re mistaken. I’m not . . .” She raises her hand and drops it to her heart, hidden under a floral muumuu and what smells like a thin layer of Vicks VapoRub.

  “Of course you aren’t. I cannot believe I didn’t recognize you when you came in.”

  “Grandmother McCann . . .” I open my eyes wide and wait for her to say my name.

  “Marigold!” she says. “My beautiful daughter, Marigold. You finally came back to see me.”

  She doesn’t remember me. I’ve come two hours by bus, and she doesn’t even know who I am. I think about how she reacted when she found out I was going to be born, how she left me in the park, poisoned my baby bottle — or was that just a dream?

  “Marigold dear, I’ve waited all these years to tell you how sorry I am for what happened. My life without you has been a shadow of what it should have been. First I lose your father, and then you and the baby . . . I should have been much more careful with that baby.”

  I take a deep breath, look to the ceiling and sigh, rolling back the tears with my hot breath.

  “Tell me, Marigold, how long will you be staying?” She is reaching out to me with her crooked old fingers. I let her stroke my bare arm.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t stay long.” How long does forgiveness take when the person doesn’t know who you are? “I’ll stay for dinner, but then I have to go.”

  “But I have nothing prepared.”

  “I’ll get takeout. You just stay here.”

  I leave my stuff on the floor of her apartment, and by the time I return with a paper bag filled with Chinese food, Grandmother McCann has fallen asleep in her chair. Still tucked behind the TV table, she’s wet herself and it’s dripped down and created circles on the carpet.

  I move the table aside, pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, amazed by how light she is.

  “Thank you, Marigold,” she says after I have changed her clothes and laid her into her bed. “Did I tell you I’m sorry about the baby?”

  “I know, Mother,” I whisper. “I forgive you.”

  As I leave, the light around her face glows blue to opal white, heating the space between us.

  The cab driver hasn’t heard of it, but I get him to take me out there anyway.

  “Near Douro, you say?”

  “Yes, an old cabin with a huge rock in front of it. It’s on the Indian River.”

  “A rock? That’ll be easy to find.”

  “I’ll pay you to help me find it.”

  “All right, lady, but we’re losing our light here.”

  We drive to the outskirts of town, past open fields with greasy tractors, past new highways being laid, past roadside stands selling autumn corn. He slows down just past Douro and goes south. Then, he turns down the first gravel road with no signs, our tires slowly crunching pebbles, me bouncing in the back seat. The sun has almost set completely. Soon, we use our headlights as probes, combing up and down dusty roads with only trees as scenery, occasionally coming across a house lit by a single light bulb, or a cottage boarded up for fall. That’s not it, that’s not it. With nothing from the front seat, not even from inside the cab driver’s mind, I start to consider that maybe I am searching for something that doesn’t want to be found.

  And then something taps me on the shoulder.

  “What about that!” I say.

  “It’s a boulder, yes, I’ll give you that, but there isn’t no cottage ’round here.”

  “Let me out of the car.”

  “I can’t leave you here, lady. It’s dangerous at night. There are black bears.”

  “I don’t care, let me out.” I open the door the second the car stops, and reach back in to give him the last of my money.

  “I can’t leave you here, lady,” he says again, not taking the twenty-

  dollar bill.

  “Look, there was a driveway,” I say pointing to a dirt road, covered up by brush. “A driveway must lead somewhere.”

  “You’re
taking a chance.”

  “So I am.” I slam the car door, throw the money in the open window and steer my feet in the direction of the bush.

  “I’ll come back in an hour just in case you need a ride back!” I hear the man yell out the window. I ignore his offer.

  The car speeds away, leaving me in the intimacy of the near-black night. A moon fades in, stars pop out.

  I push through tree branches with my bare arms, stamp on leaves with my sandals, and work myself deeper into the bush.

  I don’t have to go far. I find it. The cabin where I was conceived — now broken down and covered with vines and rot. It looks like part of it might even have caught on fire at some point.

  The cabin where Amar took my mother.

  The door pushes open with my hand. “There is nothing valuable in here,” people must say when they find it. Nothing valuable to them. A bunch of crappy boards, cracked windows, mice droppings, broken bottles.

  The perfect spot to be alone with myself, and to try to make my mother real again.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The inside of the cabin is filled with dust, dirt, and stagnant air. It reminds me of the space inside my mother’s teepee — lonely, like it’s waiting for something. I throw my backpack of food and clothes into the corner and unroll my sleeping bag onto the ripped, outdated couch. Was it here they sat?

  It starts to get dark so I reach into my bag and get a candle and match. I light it, and as I did in India, sit quietly in the glow from the flame, dancing, flickering just for me.

  This place is dripping with parts of my mother. And of Amar. It is filled with all that they both were, and all that they never became: together or apart. A tree branch hits the window outside, shaking in the wind, alerting me over and over. Tap, tap, tap — is it my mother welcoming me back?

  The memories of this room are suffocating.

  I eat some banana chips from my pocket, and then close my eyes and try to meditate. I go into myself and it feels familiar — nothing can get me in here. But soon, like a burning instinct, my eyes spring open and I know what I have to do. I dig into my bag for the notebook I brought, my notebook. It’s thick, and its empty pages seem to call me by name: Maya, Maya, it’s time. Yellow and green flashes spring from my body like jumping grasshoppers in the dark.

  I start writing as soon as I screw the legs back on a single chair and clear some old newspaper and ash off the table in the kitchen. I start the story of my mother’s death from the beginning. The story of when my mother kicked her frame.

  My pen scratches on the paper like I am carving history. I push so hard that I make indents on the next page, and the next, and the next. I write about the teepee, about when my mother refused treatment, shaved her head. I tell the story of when the people came to try to help her, when they waited outside our house to see her, how they prayed in a circle for her to live. I also write about how, maybe, she didn’t deserve all the attention she received.

  I write about my father, his moodiness, his longing to help, his frustration, the way he used to pace the hallway when he felt sad.

  I write about the baby, my little sister who never got a chance because she was dying before she could even see the world.

  I write about the day we dragged my mother to the hospital, the day I got my period for the first time. How she seemed to see something that I couldn’t near the end. How brave she was through it all.

  I think about the people who’ve hurt me, and whether it was even about me at all. I think about the people I may have hurt, like Mrs. Roughen, Elijah, Connie, and Jackie — was she really so awful? Was there in fact something within me that was hurting all along?

  Outside the cabin, the rain has started again. Water dribbles on the broken windows and rotten wood, churning up the musty odour of memory and the whispering sound of secrets that were never spoken.

  I keep writing, page after page, line after line, filling the notebook with the story of my mother and her exit from this earth. I scribble tiny words until my hand aches, until my fingers seize, until my head spins, until my eyes can hardly focus on the page in front of me. I steady myself and finish the story of my mother’s death, as I remember it. My perspective, my truth. I reach into myself, and what I discover is that my mother never really went anywhere. And that it’s all real — all of it. Even the illusions are part of the truth.

  When I’m finished, I close the notebook on the table. No more empty pages. No more lines. I close the notebook and push it away from me. A shiver slithers up my spine. The sun has set for the second time since I started writing. Sleep pulls at me. I’m weak with hunger and thirst.

  Instead of lying down to sleep, I open the cabin door and go outside, walking ten paces over moss and cracked dirt. I hear the swish of water through the black on the other side of the overgrown trees. Was it here? Was it here they made snow angels? Was it here that I was conceived? I drop to the ground. It calls me. I put my back against a tree.

  Above me the stars greet me like they have been waiting, pricking points of light all through my body, relaxing me. “All is forgiven,” I say but no one hears. No one but the wind, and a little red cardinal on a branch.

  Fly away if you decide, the bird says without opening its beak. You’re still here when you go! He flaps his wings through pine and disappears.

  And then it all comes down to me. Me and this night. Me and this story. Buried in a thousand shades of green, by an old cabin where I started to be. That which has been blocking my vision has dissolved. Could it be that I know all I need to know?

  I close my eyes and see nothing but white light, and then flashes of memories that send warmth through my body.

  I’m in Aunt Leah and Buffy’s hot apartment hugging them both at the same time. Aunt Leah is round and cozy under my right arm, and Buffy is fragile and familiar under my left. I can feel hot breath on my face from each of their mouths.

  I’m sitting in the Retro Café with Elijah shortly after I came to Toronto. He’s smoking a cigarette and holding my hand across the table. We’re laughing in a hushed way, about how strange it feels to be looking at each other again.

  I’m in India. Amar and I are meditating together in the dirt. A huge flock of black birds unfurls above us, flapping their wings frantically across the blue sky. We turn at the same time and beam at each other.

  With that, I see a tunnel. The same old tunnel I have heard about, with shining lights trying to suck me in. In my peripheral vision: moving shapes, people, spirits, walking towards the end. In my body: calm, centeredness, a sense that I am one with all these other figures, that nothing can stop us if we all walk together. So I follow.

  And then she appears, out of nowhere, or out of the only somewhere that really is. My mother. Young, strong, not scary like when I saw her in the closet, and she’s holding a baby — a healthy, pink, wiggling baby that smiles and laughs when my mother tickles her feet. My sister that never was. I stop to watch them. Mother looks up at me and smiles.

  I reach out and she puts the baby in my arms. My sister is surrounded by amber light that keeps her warm and comforts her. She has no tears, only grins that ripple like waves over her face.

  We sink into one another, but soon the baby pulls away and looks towards her mother — we both do — and I hand her back. Mother smiles again and takes a step backwards. I stretch my arms out towards them in urgency. Grasping at what was, what is.

  Then, like warm water pouring down over my head, I can feel their peace, their happiness. Mother begins to walk away until I can barely distinguish the shape of her body from the dark shapes beside her. Away, until they are all one with the white light. I’m alone, but not. There is a giant magnet pulling me back to where I came from.

  And with a thought I’m back, over the cabin, hovering in the air. Is that me down below? I’m laid out on the ground, flat on my back. Not me but the shell of me. I
see that the sun is coming up, and I know it’s not over. With a long sucking breath, I plunge down and land back in my body.

  I’m awake and looking up at the sky, brilliant with pink and orange from the approaching day. It’s warm and the rising sun heats my face just like it did in India. There is so much more for me than this, I think, so many more.

  I stand up and stumble back into the cabin through the door that doesn’t close all the way. I’m dizzy and weak and longing to get out of here. All my things are laid out where I left them, and my notebook with my mother’s story is closed and lying on the table.

  I start to frantically sweep piles of old newspapers and twigs into one corner of the room with my foot, trying to make things more orderly than when I arrived. I push open the mildewed curtains so the sun shines in. I rub the sleeve of my shirt over the old kitchen countertop and across the windowsills, leaving dark smudges on my arm.

  Next, I pack up my belongings into my bag, pick up the notebook and hold it lovingly against my chest. This was you, Mother. Good or bad, this was it.

  I put the notebook under my arm and grab my things, leaving my sleeping bag unrolled on the couch. I stand in the doorway of the run-down cabin, looking into the empty room one more time. I hear a car pass by on the road and I wonder if another one will be by soon. The door creaks as I try my best to shut it. I turn then, looking towards the overgrown path that will lead me away from here.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  My father takes my mother and me into the backyard. He wears his work suit and holds a paper bag in his hand. It’s summertime. I am nine years old. My father clutches the top of the bag with white fingertips and then, pulls something out, like a rabbit from a hat, long and thin and wrapped in plastic.

  “A bubble maker!” he tells us.

  “But it looks like just a stick with some strings hanging down,” I say.