by Julie Paul
Sammy kept on singing, “Ding dang dong” over and over again, under what had become a cloudy sky.
Donna’s words stung, even if she was onto something: I did have to get away from there. But as much as I wanted to peel out and head back to Toronto right that minute, I couldn’t leave. I had to face my father. I wanted to hear what The Emp had to say.
I went to sit in my car. The sky had started to spit. I began to move one hand over the other, stroking my skin, a strategy called “Pet the Bunny,” a calm-down technique I hadn’t needed since I left therapy.
There was no bruschetta for dinner, no famous Greek salad. While I was still in the car, all windows and doors closed, Donna called Sammy up from the beach. I stared at him and imagined it was Patrick I was seeing, imagined him into the part of my life I’d already lived through. Big brother at my birthday parties. Big brother teasing me about boyfriends. Big brother driving me places.
Eventually I left the car and went inside. Somebody had made a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches and left them on a plate in the middle of the table. I wasn’t hungry, but Sammy had grabbed three triangles and was zooming them through a dune of ketchup, just like he’d done in the mall. Donna had the Uno cards out. She said Mom had gone to lie down.
I went to my room. Our heads—Mom and mine—would be nearly touching, separated by only a few inches of plywood and panelling. I heard Donna and Sammy playing Uno at the coffee table in the living room just outside my door, and above that peaceful sound, The Emp, snoring in the far bedroom.
I walked past the game, pulled a chair in from the kitchen table, and carefully closed the door. I sat beside the bed. “Dad,” I said. “Get up.”
When he didn’t respond I took water from the glass on the bedside table and flicked it at him. “Get up, will you?”
His cheeks twitched with each spray, until he turned over and moaned. I moved on to clapping in his ear and finally he thrashed himself awake.
“Dad,” I said quietly. “I know.”
The Emp sat up and rubbed his ruddy face.
“What?” He tried to focus on me. “What are you talking about?”
“Patrick,” I said. “I know about Patrick.”
He opened his red-rimmed eyes and looked right at me before sinking onto his back again. “Donna tell you? Or your mother?”
“George told me first, they told me the rest.”
His voice was raspy and dry. “My little son. Patrick.”
Then it dawned on me: Patrick; Patricia. I was named after this dead boy. Their way of keeping a little bit of him alive.
“You were trying for another boy,” I said. “And got me instead.”
After a moment, he said, “Yes.”
The Emp said yes.
Twenty-seven years of being an outsider, in that one word. Yes. I’d been a replacement for Patrick. But not a good one. Not good enough.
“And you were drunk, right?” I whispered. “The day Patrick died.”
He struggled onto his elbows and sat up again. For what was the first time in years, The Emp was really looking at me. He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I could hear Sammy exclaiming about the sunset from the living room. My mother’s bed creaked and I could make out the shuffle of her flip-flops. The show must go on.
I couldn’t wait to tell them the truth; it would feel so good. My brother was dead because of this man. A lie lay buried in the foundation of this family because of this man.
I had to tell them the truth, didn’t I?
Didn’t I? Yet.
Yet, if I did, the most likely scenario would be destruction.
Donna would flip out, maybe pull Sammy away from his grandpa.
Mom would be hurt, never forgive me.
The family would distance themselves from me even further.
I wouldn’t get to see Sammy.
I leaned in close to The Emp’s face again. “Who else knows?”
His nose was running. “No one,” he whispered. “Other than God.”
I left my father lying in his own mess and went to find Sammy. The weather had turned fair again, but the lake was still mottled with choppy waves. Donna and Mom were sitting on the deck, teary faces staring at a decent sunset, cups of tea on the table. Sammy was back on the beach, padded in his foam and nylon shield.
I ran down the steps to him. Sammy, my little not-brother stand-in.
At the shoreline stood his creation: a whole fortified city, complete with walls and moat and little pirates peeking from around the corners.
“Look at my castle town!”
“Amazing.” He’d made a very cool town. I knelt down to get closer.
“This is where the king lives,” Sammy told me, pointing at the biggest castle, nearest the lake. “It’s strongest.”
The castle was already being licked by tiny waves, but he couldn’t see that. It would be the first to topple. The stones he’d made into a fence around its perimeter were shifting in the small surf. I was about to point out the weaknesses, to tell him to abandon the castle and start again farther in, but I couldn’t break it to him. He’d put his heart into that castle, and I wanted it to work as badly as he did. I grabbed a broken bulrush that had floated in and stood up, pointing it into the sky.
“Long live the king!” I cried out. Wasn’t that what the Brits said, when their monarch died?
“Long live the king!” Sammy shouted, stretching his short arms out of that orange life jacket as far as they could go.
“Come here.” I walked about ten steps to the end of our small beach, out of Donna’s view, and Sammy trotted behind me. When he was close enough, I squeezed the two black clips on his life jacket’s straps and popped it open.
I kissed his cheek. “Our secret,” I whispered.
Viable
In her house, Juna told him, everything had to be homemade. Juna was loading textbooks from her locker into her backpack, math on the bottom, English on top. “How far do you take that?” Stavros asked her. “I mean, beyond bread? Do you grow wheat, like the Little Red Hen?”
Juna laughed. “Let me tell you, we take it as far as it can go in the grimy heart of the city.” She paused. “My mother is—well, you’ll see.”
“She’s what?” Stavros touched Juna’s earring, the one made from a feather and a rosy glass bead.
“Kind of like that earring,” Juna said. “No, like me wearing this earring here, and this one over here.” She lifted her hair away from her hidden ear to reveal a gold stud, its shine gone.
“Different,” Stavros said.
“Think of other words.”
“Unique?”
“Turn that one inside out and you’re getting closer.”
“I can’t wait,” he said. How weird could she be, with a daughter as rad as this? “Anything else I should know? Should we bring something, like for lunch? Corn chips, salsa?”
Juna pulled on the hemp cord to cinch her bag. She looked at Stavros and shrugged, her face red. “Toilet paper,” she said. “Unless you’re comfortable with what we use.”
Stavros went cold. There were substitutes for toilet paper?
He’d known Juna for a couple of years, and now she was tutoring him in a few subjects, just to get him up to par after the accident. It was something people liked to talk about, getting body-checked into the boards so hard that two thoracic vertebrae and a collarbone had snapped. He’d had to take a year off, between Grades 11 and 12, to recover. Juna was a year younger, but her brain worked in ways that amazed him. That was what he liked about her; that and her curves, her shy glances between the strands of her bangs.
After a slow, sweet walk, they arrived at her house. At the door, made of planks of grey driftwood, they could smell garlic frying.
“No vampires here,” he said.
Juna smiled. “No, but we do have bats.” Then, in a louder voice, she called out, “Mom, we’re here!” and opened the door.
Stavros had to duck to get through the
entrance, but down in the living area, he could straighten up to his full six feet.
Juna’s mother was stirring a mix of veggies in a giant wok. “Hi! I’m Diana. Welcome!” she cried. “Juna, take over here so I can give this boy a proper greeting.”
Juna took the spoon and shrugged at Stavros.
Diana opened her arms, closed her eyes, and said, “Give me a hug.”
Stavros had never hugged such a short woman. Her head burrowed into his belly, and his hands, when they hugged her, pressed into shoulder blades no bigger than playing cards.
“You smell good,” she said, still holding on tight. “Like wood shavings.”
Stavros laughed and gently extricated himself from her. “I was, um, sanding something last night in this shirt.”
“Oh, really? Juna, is he one of us?”
“I don’t know, Mom.”
“Are you?” Diana asked Stavros, seductively.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
She swept her hand through the air, gesturing at the whole room. “We built it all, ourselves.”
“Whoa,” he said. “Juna told me you were—creative—but I had no idea.” He looked closer at the half-painted walls, the built-in nooks, the spiral made of coloured stones stuck right into the plaster.
Diana beamed. “Well, it was a work of love. And it was either this or the rubber room, son.” She tapped her head. “Therapeutic, living like this.”
“Stir-fry looks done,” Juna said.
“Perfect,” Diana said. “I’ll get the chopsticks!” She turned back to Stavros. “What were you sanding, son?”
He looked at Juna. “Um, a hockey stick?” He wondered if he should have said a desk, or a sailboat. But Diana most likely knew about his accident. There was no use hiding his passion for the game.
Juna pulled out a chair for Stavros. “Here,” she said. “Head of the table.”
The chairs were made of bent branches, and Stavros was afraid he might fall like Goldilocks when he sat down.
“It looks great.” Juna spooned the stir-fry into three big, misshapen pottery bowls. He peered into the bowl he’d been given. “Are those, like, beets?”
“Yes, sir,” Diana said. “Good for the blood. Women need to eat beets, you know. We lose iron every month.”
“Mom,” said Juna.
“Would you like some bread?” Diana passed the basket of dark grainy bread to Stavros, who took a chunk and buttered it.
“So how’s Grade 12 going?” she asked him. “Now that you’re a couple of months into it.”
“It’s good enough. Juna’s a big help with science.”
“She’s a bright and shining star, you know.”
“Mom,” Juna said again.
“Well, it’s true. And what do you think of your lunch?”
Stavros’s mouth was burning. He’d worked his way around the bitter green stuff and chosen things he recognized—carrots and celery—although none of it seemed cooked right through. “Spicy,” he said. “Delicious.”
“Hot peppers are also good for the blood. And so are the collard greens, and—”
“Okay, Mom.”
Diana smiled and kept eating. For a few minutes, no one spoke. To Stavros it was nice, in a completely surreal way. At home no one talked at mealtimes, on the rare occasion they were eating together, but it wasn’t calm like this. Stavros remembered having better meals with his own mother at the table. She’d passed away last year.
Finally, Diana said, “So. You know why Juna has brought you here.”
Stavros looked at Juna, then back at Diana. “Uh, for lunch? To meet you?”
“Yes, of course,” Diana said. “But we also wanted to ask you for a favour.”
“Me?” Stavros wiped his forehead with his cloth napkin. He wasn’t used to heat in his food.
“Mom, why don’t you just let the guy finish his lunch,” Juna said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m full.” He wasn’t, but the food was too much. Eating was not supposed to be painful.
“We’re looking for a . . . donation,” Diana said.
Shit, Stavros thought. They know about the family business. They think I’m rolling in it. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll have to ask my dad, but how much did you have in mind?”
Diana laughed. “We don’t want money, honey.” She took a deep breath through her tiny mouth—she was like an elf, really, delicate features and bright eyes—and her face was surprisingly smooth for a mother, like maybe all these spicy vegetables had worked on her to keep the aging process at bay. Then Stavros looked at Juna—wowzers. Now there was fresh. “We want your seeds.”
Stavros blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“We, well, me, more than Juna. We want to get pregnant. I mean, I want to.” She paused. “I’m still fertile, you know. Forty-nine, and still as regular as the national time signal. So I’m taking it as a sign. An opportunity. I’m just missing one thing.”
Juna sniffed a laugh. “A rather important one.”
“You don’t have to decide this instant,” Diana said. “It’s a lot to digest.”
Stavros looked at his bowl of food, still half full of blood-building ingredients. He felt like he’d swallowed a cement block. They were already trying to medicate him, to bring him up to speed.
Juna got up and started clearing the table.
“What would you like for dessert, honey?” Diana asked him. “We’ve got yogurt and stewed rhubarb, or some raspberry sorbet that Juna made.”
Stavros’s mouth was still burning. He didn’t want to stay for dessert, but he could imagine how good that frozen fruit stuff would feel on his tongue, so that’s what he asked for. While Diana was scooping it into bowls, he communicated with Juna silently.
“What the hell?” he mouthed.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed back and shrugged.
He shook his head. What would he tell them? He didn’t want to think about the logistics, but he couldn’t help it. Diana’s little breasts swung free in her loose dress.
“Here we are,” Diana announced. “Sweets for the sweet.” She set sorbet in front of Juna and Stavros, and dug into a bowl of plain yogurt. Stavros couldn’t stop himself from watching her.
“Calcium,” she said, pointing with her spoon at her bowl.
Stavros focused on his dessert instead. It did feel good in his mouth. “You made this?” he asked Juna.
She nodded. “Even picked the berries myself.”
“It’s really awesome.”
“Thanks.”
An awkward silence at the table, the scrape of spoons on pottery.
“So what are you two working on, in science?” Diana asked.
“Cells,” Juna said. “Mitosis, chromosomes, that kind of thing.”
“Perfect,” Diana said.
“Listen, I better get going,” Stavros said. “My dad, um, wants me to help with this thing, and, I should probably, like, go.”
“Okay,” Diana said mildly. “But do think of our request, darling. It wouldn’t be a true donation, of course. We would compensate you, too.”
“Compensate?” Stavros raised his brows. He hadn’t thought about being paid.
“We could work out all the details, later, if you really were interested.”
He wanted to ask her how much they were thinking, but that would mean he was thinking about it, too. Was he thinking about it? He looked at Diana’s face, perky and suntanned, not thin and yellowed the way his mom’s was when she died. Diana looked happy, even though she was maybe a little hyperactive. She had the energy for another kid. But him, a daddy?
“Um, just one thing,” he said.
Juna looked up from her sorbet.
“Would I have to, you know, change diapers, and shit?”
Diana laughed. “Honey, you only have to think dirty thoughts and then give us the results in a cup. We’ll take care of everything else.”
Stavros blushed. “I better go.”
A cup. Bet
ter than the alternative. Way, way.
“Throw me a pen, will you?” Stavros’s sister, Alexa, was on the couch, reading a novel. She underlined passages that she either liked or hated. Stavros thought it was lame. He was at the computer desk across the den, looking up sperm banks, pretending it was for science class. He tossed Alexa a pen without looking at her, and it hit her in the head.
“Shit!” she said. “You’re a dolt.”
She’s right, Stavros thought. And how can I be a daddy and a dolt at the same time? But while he was searching insemination, and how long sperm was still good—viable was the word they had used—between ejaculation and injection, he was also looking up flights to India. His secret plan was to travel there after graduation, set off with backpack, sandals, and a portable water filter. So far, the flights were around twelve hundred dollars, and then he’d need living expenses for—how long? He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He just wanted to get there. The sad fact was that his father would gladly pay for the whole shot if he were going to Greece, the family’s homeland, or anywhere else in Europe, or even Australia. But the whole continent of Asia was out of the question. Stavros would have to foot the bill, and leave secretly, too, with only a note on the door to let them know. Asia was why his mother was dead now, or so his father thought. If she hadn’t believed her guru-slash-yoga-instructor about healing with breath, she’d have received medical help in time.
How much would Juna and Diana pay him for his donation? And would they still pay if it didn’t work?
Alexa started laughing. “They just named the baby in here Sonnet,” she said. “Who names their kid after a poem?”
He turned around to look at her. “A poet?”
“Humph. There are better names than that.”
“Like what?”
“Like about ten thousand other names. Babynames dot com.”
He wasn’t going to search baby names. But another teeny question surfaced: if he donated, would he get to name it?
The spermatozoa have whip-like tails to propel them forward through the hazardous and challenging environment of the woman’s inner anatomy. Their one purpose is to meet a ready egg. Stavros stopped reading, folded his arms on the desk, set his head down, and closed his eyes. His whole body contained these swimming creatures trying to get out. Not that he was horny—anything but. He just felt . . . too alive. Teeming. And with something that someone might want. Someone with a ready egg. He shuddered and tried not to think of Diana, “as regular as the national time signal” Diana. Instead he went through the steps in his head, what he’d have to do if he went through with it. Sexy thoughts. A quick release into a sterile container. A rapid, purposeful bike ride to Juna’s house, where she would take the jar from him like it was the fuel for the Olympic torch. Load up the baster with his offering. Pass the torch to her mother. And then—
