Vanishing and Other Stories

by Deborah Willis

  FOR A WHILE, my mom worked the early shift on weekends, and when she did, George cooked breakfast. He always made bacon, then fried bread in the bacon grease. I’d sit at the table in my pyjamas and watch him cook, which he said he learned to do from his mother.

  “She’d be proud of me,” he liked to say. “I’m the only guy in history who managed to live off powder for three years and not get thin.”

  George didn’t mind doing the dishes either, or the laundry. He had lots of time, because he didn’t work. George’s work, he told me, was to stay clean. At the time, I didn’t know what this meant, staying clean, but George said it was a full-time gig. Soon, when he got his confidence up, he was going to look for a job.

  “I used to be in finance.” He chased a bite of his toast with coffee. “I was a gambling man, a broker.”

  I didn’t know what those words meant either—finance, broker—but I liked listening to George in the mornings. And I liked when my mom came down the stairs in her nurse’s uniform and George would say, “There she is. My saviour, my sweetheart, my dove.”

  He said it in a funny way—what Mom called highfalutin—and Mom would laugh. Then he’d serve her the bacon and toast he’d kept warm in the pan. She’d sit at the table and sip coffee from his cup.

  ALICIA’S GOT OVER a hundred and fifty points and will beat me easily.

  She says she’s forgotten her childhood. “My brain’s so full of drug reactions and side effects that everything else has been pushed out.”

  She wants me to tell her a story, which means she probably wants me to talk about Claire. Instead, I talk about easy things. I remind Alicia of when the two of us cooked mac and cheese then watched sitcoms together. I remind her of when she and I played Snakes and Ladders and she was such a sore loser.

  “Still am.”

  I remind her of how good she was at hockey, when she fought to be able to play on the boys’ team. Of the time she bodychecked me to the ice and I broke my hip.

  “It was bruised.” She gives me a kick under the table. “And it was your coccyx.”

  “Alicia the Enforcer. You deserved the name.”

  “That’s probably what made me go into medicine—repentance for all the injuries I caused.” She pushes aside her plate of half-eaten pizza. “We should celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “The fact that we’re alive. The fact that we never fell through the ice.” She stands from the table and heads to the kitchen. “We should have a drink.”

  She seems suddenly bustling and dangerous, and it reminds me of her mother. Claire and I were always on and off, and sometimes she would disappear for days at a time. Then I’d wake up one morning and she’d be in the kitchen as though she’d never left. She’d have made coffee, read the paper, and be doing a cryptic crossword.

  “Gavin and I used to make ourselves drinks with tequila and strawberries.” Alicia’s opening all the kitchen cupboards. “We’d pretend we were on vacation. We’d turn up the heat in the apartment and pretend we were in Mexico.”

  “You’re on vacation now.” I watch her pull two glasses down from a shelf. “But I don’t have any strawberries.”

  “You don’t have any anything.” She pulls down a nearly empty bottle of vermouth and a nice bottle of Scotch one of my customers gave me at Christmas. It’s still got a green ribbon tied around its neck.

  “You’ll want to mix that with water or something,” I say. “Put it on ice.” But she pours it straight. “That’s not how you drink Scotch. Scotch is a sipping drink.”

  Alicia hands me a glass. “So sip,” she says, then she puts level over a triple-word-score box.

  WHEN GEORGE WAS AROUND, he was the one who usually tucked me into bed and told me a story. I was eight then and thought I was too old for bedtime stories.

  “Too old?” George said. “No such thing as too old.”

  George’s stories weren’t like Goodnight Moon or Peter Rabbit or anything else my mom read me. My favourite was about a bear named Ted who lived in a forest with his wife, Louise. Ted and Louise had a small house, they ate caramels at every meal, and they were happy. That is, until Ted got laid off from his job in the caramel factory and had to go into the nearby city for work.

  That’s where he met a sly fox, a scout who noticed his size and bulk and convinced him to try boxing.

  “So he’s up against the top fighters in the world.” George told this story the same way every time. “And guess what?”

  I sat up in bed, because this was a good part. “What?”

  “He wins every time. It’s his bear instincts. He’s a born fighter. He’s raking in the cash, and women love him.”

  At first, Ted sent most of his winnings home to Louise, along with letters saying how much he missed her. But then he started spending his money on other things: drinks for himself and his new friends, clothes, a Lamborghini with leather seats.

  “He parties hard and begins to lose his edge,” George said. “He loses matches. He loses friends. He wakes up one morning, sitting in his own piss, and realizes what a mess he’s made of himself.”

  “In his own pee?” This detail got me every time.

  “He has black eyes, three shattered teeth, and his right ear’s been slammed so hard he hears a buzzing all the time.”

  I shut my eyes at this part. I hated this part.

  “So he packs up his bags—his trophies, his robes, his gloves. He’d had to sell the car to pay back debts, so he gets on a bus. He goes back to the forest.”

  “Back to Louise?” By this point, I usually felt sick to my stomach. “Is she mad at him?”

  “Louise is a tough old bear. She looks after herself. She’s been foraging for berries all summer.”

  “But she doesn’t like Ted anymore.”

  “She likes him. But she doesn’t say so. Not at first.” George was a romantic, and this was his favourite part. He’d usually lean forward and whisper it. “She takes his big bruised head in her hands and makes him promise never to box again. ‘Promise me,’ she says.”

  “And he promises.”

  “And he means it.”

  “And they’re happy.” My eyelids felt heavy at this point. They closed on their own. “And they live in the forest forever.”

  “You bet.” George brought the blanket up to cover my shoulders. “Forever.”

  AN HOUR LATER, Alicia and I are loaded. I’m drunk in a good way, right on the edge of falling asleep. Alicia keeps taking her own pulse and saying, “Holy shit.” She says she wants to go outside.

  “I’m serious,” she says. “Why don’t we go skating?”

  “You’ve forgotten what it’s like out there at night. You’ve forgotten about the wind chill.”

  “It’ll be like old times. Maybe you’ll break an arm.”

  “It’s dark.” I close my eyes. Open them. “And neither of us has skates.”

  “Come on.” Alicia stands, holds the edge of the table for balance, then goes toward the closet. “I never get to do this.”

  “I don’t know.” I feel myself slipping down my chair. “I’m pretty tired.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re drunk already.” She starts pulling things from the closet: scarves, mismatched gloves, a pair of snow pants I’d forgotten about. “I could give you something for that. I could give you something that would keep you up for days.”

  “You’re nuts,” I say. “You’re a wacko.”

  “It’s now or never, Dad.” She starts pulling the snow pants over her jeans. “That’s what we learn in med school. Do things today, because tomorrow you’ll be on dialysis.”

  “They teach you that?”

  “No.” She’s got the snow pants over one leg. When she tries to pull them onto the other, she nearly tips over. “It’s what they should teach us.”

  She reaches for her shoes—the useless canvas ones. The Scotch has changed her movement, or maybe my vision, but she’s not like a magpie anymore. She’s got the slippery grace of
a fish, those shadows under the ice.

  She walks toward me, the snow pants swishing as her legs touch. I knew this would happen. I knew one day I wouldn’t recognize my daughter—she’d be a stranger, someone I find fascinating and frightening. She looks at the board and puts down rely.

  “There,” she says. “I win.”

  MY MOTHER MET MY FATHER when she was eighteen. His eyes reminded her of pictures of Antarctica she’d seen in National Geographic—pictures of dense blue ice. Not that he was a cold man. “He was funny,” Mom told me. “He made me laugh so much my insides hurt.”

  Now he lives in Lethbridge, where he grew up. Once, a few years ago, he drove up to have coffee with me. We met at the Lazy Loaf and Kettle, and he wore a bleached denim shirt the same colour as those eyes. His hair had gone grey and he had the shy look of a person who’s wasted his life. I think he wanted to be friends. Or maybe he only wanted to tell me his story. I didn’t care to hear it. Instead, I told him about Mom. She was still working as a home-care nurse. She took care of people who couldn’t walk to the bathroom on their own, who couldn’t cut their own toenails. “People,” I said, “who have no one left to look after them.”

  “She’s a hard worker,” my dad said, and I resented that. The way he talked like he still knew her.

  “My wife left me thirteen years ago,” I said. “She never called in all that time. Except once, in the middle of the night, when she was feeling lonely.”

  But my dad—his name is Christopher, same as mine—nodded like he’d heard this kind of thing a hundred times. He stirred NutraSweet into his coffee.

  “When Claire left, my daughter was at this age where she was curious about everything. Always asking questions.” I took a sip of my coffee. “She kept asking where her mom had gone, where exactly. Eventually I quit making things up and told her the truth. Which was that I didn’t know.”

  “You have a daughter?” my dad said. He didn’t seem to get that this was possible, that time had whipped past him so quickly.

  WE’RE UNDER THE BRIDGE where kids like to scrawl graffiti, standing on a spill of mud that leads to the water. The cold has sobered me up a little.

  There aren’t any street lights here, but sometimes light from a passing car catches on the water and shivers there. The river isn’t totally frozen and chunks of broken ice rasp against each other.

  I’m in my workboots, my parka, and a toque I don’t normally wear because it’s got an Oilers logo. Alicia is zipped into one of my old coats and has a blue scarf wrapped around her neck. She’s brought what’s left of the Scotch, holding the bottle by the neck with a mittened hand. She leans against me, her arm in mine, and watches her own breath spill away from her. She takes long drinks from the bottle.

  “This stuff is good,” she says. “Once you get used to it.”

  Then she lets go of my arm and walks to the edge of the bank. She’s drunk and full of nerve. She heads out onto the stretch of ice that’s formed over the water, and I can hear snow crunch and the ice creak under her weight. She stops at the edge, where water laps at her shoes. She’s far from me, her body tilting toward the river. She kicks at the water and the spray catches some light, maybe the moon, and looks like a bottle shattering.

  “It’s different here,” Alicia calls back at me. “This used to freeze solid.”

  She kicks at the ice she’s standing on, digs at it with her heel. And I try to imagine what happened to George, where he got to, what he’s doing.

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go back.”

  She kicks again, and a piece of ice breaks off this time. It drops into the water. Either George got fat or thin. Either he grew old or he didn’t.

  “Alicia, let’s go. You’ll catch a cold.”

  Alicia drinks the last of the Scotch and pitches the bottle into the river. I hear it hit the water, then it turns and bobs in the current. “I don’t feel the cold anymore.”

  That’s when I move. I walk toward her and nearly slip on the frosted-over mud, but catch myself. I don’t care that I don’t know her anymore, and that she’s too old to be held. I grab her hand. I hold it so tight it’s like I can feel the bones and blood and nerves. “Yeah,” I say. “But you will.”

  AND THEN GEORGE WASN’T AROUND to tell me stories. I don’t remember much about his leaving. I guess he might have packed up his things, but I don’t remember that. I don’t think he said goodbye.

  I was only seven when he left, but around that time I started to look after myself. I would get myself into my pyjamas, and if there was no one home to tuck me into bed—if Mom was working, and she was always working—I’d bring my pillow and blanket down to the living room, curl up on the couch, and go to sleep in front of the TV.

  But the night George left, Mom tucked me in. She called in to the hospital and said she couldn’t make her shift. I had grown pretty big by then, but still, she carried me to bed.

  “Where’s George?” I asked.

  Mom didn’t say anything. She tucked my sheet around me. She pulled it so tight I couldn’t move.

  It wasn’t till years later that I understood about George and how he could never be still, how his need would never let him rest. But that night, lying on my back with my arms straight at my sides, I didn’t get it. I just imagined him in the centre of a boxing ring: a stout, flabby bear of a man, swinging and swinging his fists at nothing, and always losing.

  “TELL ME ANOTHER STORY,” says Alicia.

  She’s in her old bed, under the ABC sheets she used as a kid. Her room is exactly as she left it. There are yellowing posters on her wall and her closet is full of clothes she doesn’t wear anymore.

  I’m on the edge of her bed, and I can feel her bones through the sheet. “I don’t know any more stories.” It’s past midnight and my head feels heavy.

  “Tell me anything.” She closes her eyes and I notice the sweat on her temples and upper lip. She pulls the sheet higher and says, “Tell me about you and Mom.”

  So I tell her how Claire and I used to stay in bed all day: sleep past noon, make love till dinner, order food and eat it in bed. There were times when we couldn’t get enough of each other. When we had to be apart for more than a few hours, it was like a sickness. I tell her about when we first moved into this apartment. We repainted the place, and the yellow walls seemed warm and sunny.

  “I never knew any of that. I never knew that about the yellow paint.” Alicia turns on her side and holds a corner of the pillow, the way she always slept when she was a kid.

  I keep talking. I tell her that Claire and I used to go skating together. That we’d glide along the river holding hands. This is a lie, but I say it anyway. I say it because I want to give Alicia something. Because she’s my daughter, and because whatever she’s coming down from is making her shake.

  “But Mom never liked skating.” Alicia opens her eyes, and for a second she’s sober. “Mom didn’t own skates.”

  I touch my daughter’s hair, hair that’s as dark as a river at night. “Things change, Alicia,” I say, even though it seems I’ve been this drunk forever.

  r e m e m b e r, r e l i v e

  YOU PULL HIM TO THE GUEST ROOM by the sleeve of his tuxedo, the sheen of it crumpled between your fingers, and count the steps under your rushed breath until you both drop to the floor, one of his hands fumbling with your tiny black belt, the other pushing the green skirt above your knees, all of it so sudden and stupid there is no stopping—certainly no kissing—and his zipper slides down so easily it’s like you’ve done this before, then he’s heaving like an idiot, his breath hot on the crown of your head, and just as you think, How long will this take? he pulls out and spills himself all over your thigh in a pumping sputter, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth making an O, and you feeling the wet of it slide down your leg to the ivory carpet, a stain, this night, and you, thirteen.

  THE DAY BEFORE your sister’s wedding, a Friday, your mother refuses to leave her bedroom. She lies on top of her duvet in a blue sh
oulder-padded suit, black nylons that cover her stilt legs, and black heels. Her room is high-ceilinged, and kept as clean and cool as a museum. The housekeeper, Rebecca, tucked the bedsheets into perfect, smooth corners this morning.

  Your sister, Crystal, scowls at the sheer-curtained window. Her hair is tied up and her soft arms are crossed. You are thirteen, the youngest, and you watch from the doorway. Black-and-white photographs of your father—his glasses, moustache, the lines of his brow—stare back at you from the walls, grim and faded. It occurs to you that your father used to sleep in this room, with its perfume smell. He died ten years ago, and memories of him are like the photographs: grainy, flat, not really alive to you ever.

  Your mother repairs a button that fell off one of her blouses. Sewing is a chore she enjoys doing herself because she likes to make use of her slender, elegant hands.

  “God has ripped my eldest from me.” The button drops into a fold in her blue skirt. “Torn her like a sliver from my hands.”

  “That’s not logical.” You know this kind of routine, these dramatics. “If Crystal was a sliver, you’d want her gone.”

  “Are you going to leave too, Cassy?” Your mother leans toward you. “Are you going to forget me?”

  “Mother.” You lean against the wall and slouch, a rebellion in itself. “You were happy about this wedding months ago. You arranged the entertainment. You chose the menu.”

  Crystal turns to your mother with wet, turquoise-rimmed eyes. “You’re still mad about the dress, aren’t you, Mom?” Your sister plans to wear a puffy, blindingly white thing, with gathers and folds and complications your mother can’t abide. “It’s the stupid fucking dress, isn’t it?”

  Your mother ignores her, sniffs. “Cassy, get Mommy some coffee.” Then she almost smiles. So she is half joking, exaggerating her role of distressed mother-of-the-bride. The sun from the balcony window hits her cheeks, and her hair is uncombed and scattered over her shoulders. She reminds you of a stage actress, stunning and deceitful. “Without sugar, please.”