Roost

by Ali Bryan

  26

  Christmas morning goes off without a hitch. We sleep in until eight then open our stockings, which are made of red felt and have our names along the cuffs in glitter glue. The “G” has been removed from Glen’s and is used for Optimus Prime, who gets a box of Tic Tacs and Transformer Band-Aids. Mine contains a juice box straw and a pair of earrings Wes has taken from my bedroom. I make a big deal about the earrings then move on to the presents under the tree.

  We are not methodical. Paper is ripped and bags dumped out. Clothes are tossed like they were received in error. My children look like meth addicts in search of a hit. Wes gets a paper cut and the medical tape I used to wrap their presents comes in handy.

  “Who’s this one for?” Wes asks, holding up a present.

  “That’s for me,” I say, reading the label, “from Grandpa.”

  Wes returns to the tree and I open my present.

  “What is it?” Wes asks, picking his nose.

  I flip over the box. “It’s a Perfect Meatloaf Pan.”

  “What’s a meatloaf pan?”

  “A pan that makes meatloaf.”

  “Why?”

  I have no explanation for him. Not for the pan or for the reason it was given to me.

  “What do you guys want for breakfast?”

  They agree on scrambled eggs. I serve them with ketchup and sliced oranges and pour myself a second cup of coffee. I catch Wes trying to open a packaged Star Wars figurine with a steak knife.

  “Put that back!” I yell. “I’ll open it in a minute. Frig.”

  I take a scoop of birdseed and a handful of peanuts out back for the birds. The jays are the first to arrive. They carry off the peanuts. Dan sends a Merry Christmas text. I reply with the same message.

  He texts, What did you get from Dad?

  I reply, Perfect Meatloaf Pan.

  He writes, Real African Mango Weight Loss System.

  WTF? Are they pills? What about Allison-Jean?

  Yes, pills. A RoboStir.

  What’s that?

  It’s like a whisk that stirs by itself.

  Fuck, I type.

  What time for dinner?

  I reply, 5. We’re having meatloaf instead of turkey.

  K, he writes, Anything that needs stirring, we’ve got covered.

  Smaller birds assemble at the bird feeder and peck at what’s left. They remind me of my children. Feisty and petite. Eager. Other than the occasional squawk it is quiet outside. There is no sign of the deer. The highway traffic is light. Wes slides open the glass door.

  “Open this now!” he hollers, holding a Clone Trooper.

  “Excuse me? Is that any way to talk your mother?”

  “I said please.”

  “No you didn’t.” I grab it from him. “Go get dressed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to your Uncle Dan’s for a bit.”

  “What for?”

  “Because it’s Christmas and that’s what you do on Christmas. You play with your toys and you spend time with family and have dinner and stuff.”

  “Can I bring my Clone Trooper?”

  “Yes, but hurry up and get dressed. Mommy has to start getting ready for dinner.”

  I drop the kids off at Dan’s and spend the afternoon cooking a large bird and chopping vegetables. I accidentally drop two peeled potatoes in the garbage and call them assholes then I burn a piecrust and tell it to fuck off. My mother would not like this. She was calm in the kitchen and organized and did not curse. She kept her favourite recipes laminated and wore an apron. I didn’t even wash my hands before I started prepping the meal.

  After checking the progress of the turkey, I shower and dress. The tree still has nothing on top and I make a second attempt to find the Christmas decorations. The basement is cold. After checking a few Rubbermaid bins filled with manuals for small appliances, VHS tapes, and notes from university, I give up. I return upstairs, pull out the craft box, and begin fashioning an angel out of cardstock and pipe cleaners, saving the face for last. I take out a picture of my mother from a stack we’d sorted through before the funeral and use it as a reference. I work on the eyes several times but can’t get them right. It’s a terrible rendition, but I place her on the treetop anyway, just as Dan and Allison-Jean show up.

  It takes them several trips to empty their van of food, gifts, their children and mine. Allison-Jean makes a beeline for the oven and pushes a dish of stuffing to the back. She is dressed up, as are her children. The baby looks like a Scottish golfer in her plaid beret and knit tights.

  “Can I do anything?” she asks.

  “I could use some help setting the table,” I reply, putting away the glue and scissors.

  “What time’s Dad coming?” Dan asks, pouring himself a Guinness.

  “Any minute.”

  He sips his beer then carries it cautiously to the living room. Allison-Jean sets the table. She seems distressed by the mismatched plates and paper towels I put out instead of napkins. The kids spread toys over the floor.

  “Why don’t you guys change?” I suggest to Wes and Joan. Wes goes into his room and emerges in the same shirt but a new pair of jogging pants.

  “I meant into something nice.”

  “We don’t have anything nice.”

  “Yes you do. Put that shirt on that buttons up the front.” He sighs, but leaves once again to get dressed. Joan comes out in her bathing suit.

  “No Joan. That is wrong.” I pick her up and carry her back to her room. “Let’s put on a dress like your cousin Hannah.”

  She smiles in agreement and I lead her to her closet. She chooses a summer dress. My father appears at her door in time to help pull it over her head.

  “How’s my Joanie?” he says.

  She gives him the thumbs-up and leads him down the hall. He’s wearing corduroy pants and a pit-stained turtleneck. He’s missed the belt loop at the back of his pants. The oven timer goes off in the kitchen, and together Allison-Jean and I serve up dinner. Dan gathers the kids to the table and feeds Emma a bottle. My father does not offer to carve the turkey as he does every Christmas. Instead he appears ready for a nap.

  “Are you going to sleep, Dad?”

  He perks up and sits upright in his chair. “No, no,” he lies.

  “Then, do you think you can do this?” I hold up the knife.

  “Yes,” he says rising to this feet. “Of course I can.”

  Allison-Jean and I take our seats. We catch each other glancing at the extra chair at the table. My mother’s chair, in the same place it was during her birthday party.

  Joan says, “Where Grandma?”

  I point to the treetop and whisper, “Grandma’s an angel, remember?”

  “Where’s Grandma?” Wes shouts from across the table.

  “On the tree,” I whisper, hoping my father can’t hear our conversation from the kitchen where he’s carving the bird.

  “On the tree?” Wes appears confused.

  Dan nervously pulls himself closer to the table.

  “Well can we get her?” Wes asks.

  Dan shakes his head. Nods towards my father in the kitchen.

  “But she should be with us!” Wes argues.

  My brother and I make eye contact and exchange gestures.

  Finally he gives in. “Whatever.”

  I go to the tree and pluck my mother off the top.

  “Can I see?” Wes asks excitedly.

  I hand him the angel. “I never knew Grandma was Asian.”

  “Wes, Grandma wasn’t Asian.”

  “Yeah, but …”

  “Mommy can’t draw.”

  He shrugs his shoulders and hurries back to the table where he proudly places treetop Mom on her chair. Dad places a serving platter of turkey on the table. Dan quickly takes the visible dark meat, while Allison-Jean serves the kids. I remember the cranberry sauce is still in the fridge. I get up to retrieve it as my brother starts aggressively cutting his turkey.

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nbsp; “I think,” my dad proposes, “we should each say something we miss about Janice.”

  Allison-Jean smiles weakly. Wes reaches for the treetop Grandma. I adjust his blue tissue crown from the cracker he snapped open earlier as he returns to his seat.

  “I’ll start,” I offer. “I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the novelty earrings she wore at Christmas. And lipstick. Christmas was the only time she wore lipstick. There was something about that combination that made you realize just how much she loved Christmas.”

  My dad chuckles, “You’re right,” he agrees. “She used to get me to check her teeth for lipstick. They were always clean.”

  “I miss the way she sang to our kids,” Allison-Jean says.

  “Or hummed,” I add.

  “Or whistled,” Dan says.

  “Hummed, whistled. Didn’t matter what it was, she could always get the kids to sleep,” I say.

  Dad pours gravy on his sweet potatoes.

  “I like when Grandma gave us gum!” Wes shouts.

  “Not so loud, Wes.”

  Dan swallows. “I miss her apple strudel. And how she put oranges in our stockings.”

  “That was me!” Dad says. There is a spot of gravy on his turtleneck.

  “I liked her house,” Hannah says quietly. Allison-Jean takes her daughter’s hand and gives it a squeeze.

  Liam says, “I liked how Grandma used to buy us a nutcracker every Christmas.”

  I had forgotten about the nutcracker tradition. When it gets to Dad’s turn, the adults anxiously await his answer. He wipes butter from his chin with the back of his hand. Manoeuvres his tongue behind his cheek like he’s trying to remove food caught between his teeth. Then he crosses his arms, leans back in his chair, and says, “The thing I miss most about Janice is the way she folded the towels.” And I start to laugh. Dan joins in.

  “I’m serious!” My dad exclaims. “Your mother used to fold the towels perfectly. In thirds. They don’t fit in the linen closet otherwise.”

  He takes his napkin from his lap.

  “Watch kids.” He pushes his plate forward and spreads the napkin in its place and says, “First you make sure all of the corners are flat.”

  Hannah and Liam observe carefully. My kids jam their cracker toys in their food. It alarms me that Liam is only six months older than Wes.

  “Then you fold it in thirds. Yes, Hannah, just like that.”

  Dad continues going through the steps.

  “Pass me the turnip,” Dan says.

  When he is finished folding the napkin, Dad says, “There you go! Isn’t that the perfect napkin? That is how she folded the towels.” Dan and I start to laugh again and this time Dad joins in. The laughter spreads around the table like a junior high rumour until we realize Dad’s crying. One by one the kids slip away from the table. Dan begins to well up and abruptly leaves the room. Allison-Jean throws her arms around my dad. Her big body envelops him like a sleeping bag.

  “She would have loved that,” she says affectionately. “It works with dishcloths too. You can fit more in the drawer that way.”

  He pats her arm with thanks and she exits, presumably to check on my brother.

  I rise from the table and offer to make Dad some tea.

  “I would like that,” he replies. He sits alone with treetop Mom and waits while I go into the kitchen and fish a tea bag out of a Victorian Christmas tin. My brother joins me to deposit his empty beer stein. There is no space on the counter and he looks at me helplessly.

  “Put it there,” I gesture towards the stove.

  He tucks the glass under his arm and carefully moves the stack of dirty dishes to make room. The challenge stresses him out because there is not enough space. When he attempts to push a pot out of the way, the glass slips from his armpit and falls. Gravy flies up and splashes his face.

  “Help!” he cries.

  “It’s just gravy,” I say, handing him a dishtowel.

  He gags and says, “This is wet.”

  I turn my back and begin scraping plates into the garbage.

  “Allison-Jean!” Dan calls.

  Outside it starts to snow.

  27

  By the second week of January, most of Christmas has disappeared from view. The kids find the occasional piece of tinsel and floss with it, but most of the toys have been sawed out of their boxes and have been scattered around the house. Treetop Janice is packed away in a bin where she is likely to stay.

  My father joins the local recreation centre and begins swimming in the mornings. Dan goes with him on occasion and they have breakfast together at a contemporary diner just outside of downtown. Cinnamon toast with fruit and hand-cut hash browns. I finish removing the roosters from the kitchen leaving a border of tobacco-yellow wallpaper glue behind. The new knobs I buy for the cupboards look wrong, like stilettos paired with track pants, and I give up halfway through the project.

  At work I am temporarily assigned to sponsorship marketing. It is a break from proofing flyers and advertisements, but it means I have to attend events on behalf of the company starting with the Senior Winter Olympics. I want to slit my wrists.

  I am filling the trunk of my car with biscuits and fruit trays in preparation for the opening ceremony when the daycare calls. It seems Wesley has become obsessed with death and has been asking his classmates how they want to die. Turtle Grove Daycare is not happy about this, and the administrator asks if Glen and I are available to discuss the issue.

  I call him but he can’t meet after work.

  “Do you have any time now?” I ask. “Because I don’t have to be at work until eleven.”

  I call Turtle Grove to let them know we are coming for 9:30 a.m. I arrive first but wait inside the car with my hands splayed in front of the vents. I can’t get warm. Glen pulls up in a new SUV.

  “Where’s your car?” I ask as we head towards the doorway.

  “It’s not exactly a winter car.” He tosses the long end of his scarf around his neck.

  “So you have two cars now? Like a winter car and a summer car?”

  “I have two cars,” he affirms.

  “Oh. I see. So what about spring? Fall? Cars for those seasons too?”

  “No. It means I have two cars. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “I don’t even have a winter jacket.”

  “Then buy yourself a winter jacket.”

  He charges forward across the dry grass and doesn’t hold the door open. Wes’s teacher meets us outside the preschool room. The hallway smells like macaroni and bleach.

  “Thanks for coming in,” she says. Then she repeats some of the questions Wes has asked his classmates, including, “Would you rather die in an avalanche, be eaten by a bear, or get shot in a bucket?”

  I make a mental note to ask Wes what it means to get shot in a bucket.

  “The scenarios he offers are quite graphic and are disturbing to some of the children. I know you recently suffered a loss, but is there anything else going on we should be aware of?”

  Glen and I share a dumbfounded exchange.

  “I can’t think of anything specific,” I say. “I mean we certainly don’t allow him to watch those types of shows on TV and he doesn’t play video games and he isn’t exposed to violence or anything.” I look at Glen. “Can you think of anything?”

  “No,” he says shaking his head. “Occasionally I’ll have the news on when he’s in the room but if it’s anything inappropriate I change the channel.”

  “Well perhaps he is still trying to cope with his grandmother’s death.” She lowers her voice to sound sensitive.

  “Yes, maybe,” I say.

  “We’ll talk to him,” Glen assures Wes’s teacher. “We’ll sort it out.”

  “Please,” she replies, shifting in her seat. She takes her glasses off and polishes them with her sweater then leaves to bring Wes from class.

  I turn to Glen. “What does that mean, ‘do you want to get shot in a bucket?’”

  �
��It means he’s four,” Glen replies. “Most of what he says doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know … it’s just weird. I wonder what he meant.”

  “Please don’t ask him.”

  I sigh. “I’m not going to ask him.”

  “This is the same kid who asked Santa for a peach turbine for Christmas.”

  “What the hell is a peach turbine?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, whatever,” I say defensively, but Glen has already moved on.

  He examines artwork on a bulletin board. Coloured turkeys, fire trucks, people that look like cucumbers with asterisks for hands. He is standing too close. Like he might be trying to sniff the drawings.

  “Do you need glasses?” I ask.

  “Pardon?” he says, looking at me over his shoulder.

  “Glasses. Do you need glasses?”

  “No, no. Just looking at the brush strokes.”

  “Right.”

  Wesley comes trudging through the door. “Daddy!” he yells. “Look at this!”

  He hauls up his pants and shows off a bruise.

  “How did you get that?” I ask, wondering if he got shot in a bucket.

  “We were playing this game and there was this part where we had to like jump over this stick because it was like on fire and I smashed my knees on the floor like this.” He demonstrates.

  “Up off the floor,” Glen orders. He bends down to refasten the Velcro on Wes’s sneakers.

  “Do you know why we are here, Wes?”

  “To take me to McDonald’s?”

  “No,” Glen says. “We are here because Mrs. Annie said you’re asking your friends how they want to die.”

  “Yeah,” he replies, puzzled.

  I join the conversation. “Well that type of talk isn’t appropriate for school. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.” He picks at a staple on the bulletin board’s alphabet border.

  “Don’t pick at that,” Glen says. “Okay? And no more talk about death. Save those conversations for home. For Mom and Dad.”

  “Okay.” He sighs. “Can we talk about it tonight?” He plays with his father’s scarf.