“Well, keep the computer in the basement like you decided, then. He can go to his friends’ houses if he wants to look at porn.”
“You’re so nonchalant, Luke.”
“Some things are inevitable, and if they’re inevitable, I don’t see the point in becoming stressed out about them.”
We left the Black Dog in considerably better spirits, the both of us. We were on time for our appointment with the lawyer. It was a very dry and dull meeting for the most part. But it wasn’t without its surprises.
The most recent market evaluation of my parents’ house had put its selling price at over four hundred thousand dollars. I had realized I was about to inherit money, but the sheer number of zeroes made my blood run cold. It was a hell of a lot of money. It changed everything. I immediately realized that I had no further tie to Vancouver if I wished to leave it. I could quit my job. I wasn’t going to have to worry about money for a long time. Maybe ever.
The other surprise concerned a painting that my parents had purchased at an art auction fifteen years ago — a prairie landscape by Irving Morton. It was a beautiful painting; I remembered it from my teenage years. It was a farm in the Dirty Thirties, starting to fall apart, presided over by an enormous sky, in which clouds were building on top of clouds in the makings of a late afternoon thunderstorm. You looked at that painting and feared for the owners of the farm. Their feeble wooden structure seemed to have no chance against the ferocity of what nature was about to throw its way. It was the kind of picture you could lose yourself in. And it was going to the Brookfields.
After the appointment, Laura asked me if I would take the painting out to them in New Sarepta. She was simply too pressed for time. She wanted our parents’ house cleared out and ready for sale as soon as possible. Everything besides that painting was staying in the family. If I took it to the Brookfields’ tomorrow, it would be a major load off her mind. She would leave me the Ford Windstar for the journey. She could do without it for the day. Howard could pick her up from downtown that evening. I could return the Windstar the next day and stay for dinner.
“The kids would love to see you again,” she said. “They keep asking after you.”
I didn’t have much choice but to say yes.
16
It was a brilliant autumn morning. There was a V of migrating geese in the blue sky. The trees were being shaken down by the wind, which scattered the last bursts of colour into the air, like hundreds of miniature kites. In a passing meadow, I could see cattle at a trough, their snouts puffing out dustings of silver breath. Meanwhile, the van was luxuriously warm. The road was almost entirely mine. The painting was tied down safely in the back. I had the radio on. I even tried to whistle.
The Brookfields’ house was how I remembered it, apart from the effect of the passing years. The stain on the wood was fading, part of the eavestroughing was sagging, and the windows needed a good wash. Grass and weeds were growing through the gravel of the rough parking area out front. You could tell the aging inhabitants of this place didn’t take the pride in ownership that they had in their younger days. They were letting things slip.
I took the painting out of the van unaided. As I did so, I heard a voice calling to me.
“Luke, hold on a minute.”
It was Stella. She turned her back. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, so I simply ignored her. I climbed up the three steps to the door. Suddenly, I met her coming out from inside the house.
“I was just getting my shoes on to help,” she said.
“I don’t need any help,” I replied.
She looked garish. Her makeup was caked on thick, especially around her eyes. It gave her almost a clown-like appearance.
“Is Jacob home?” I asked.
“Yes, he is.”
I felt doubly anxious at that pronouncement. I had thought that he might be on campus. But no, here he was coming to the door. Unlike his wife, who was dressed up like it was a night on the town, he had on casual around-the-house clothes: jeans and a T-shirt.
“There’s our man,” he said, grinning at me.
“This is the painting.”
“Of course, of course. Your sister promised you would appear at about this hour.”
He was in an especially haughty mood. Being in his own domain seemed to give him more confidence than he’d enjoyed at the funeral.
“Let me take that,” he said, reaching for the painting. It was large and cumbersome and shielded half my body.
“No, I’m alright,” I said.
But he took it anyway. Then he ordered me to follow him. He said he would need my help hanging the painting in their bedroom. I didn’t want to see his bedroom, but it would have been downright impolite to refuse. Stella followed us the whole way.
“We’ve heard you’ve been doing work on the old house,” she chattered. “That’s really good of you. Painting and fixing things. Who knew you were so handy? I know Laura appreciates it. She called us yesterday. What a terrible time for her. Did you hear about the barbecue they had stolen? God, I can’t imagine it. You would’ve thought that was a nice neighbourhood, but it doesn’t seem so anymore. It makes me glad that we live out here. People are honest out here.”
Jacob set down the painting. We were in a small room, dominated by an enormous bed. There was also a desk and a computer. The computer had just been in use; you could see he had been reading the Edmonton Journal. Jacob looked around. He picked up a hammer from the desk and a couple of nails. He explained what he was going to do. He was going to hammer a nail into the wall at one end, then he was going to use the spirit level to check for the right place for me to hammer in a nail at the other end.
“It’s too heavy to hang from just one spot,” he said.
Stella continued chattering while we worked. It occurred to me that Jacob must have had years of tuning her out, just as he was doing now. The fact that he did so did not seem to really bother her.
“We should have you all over for dinner some time,” said Stella. “I’d like to see the kids again. We should do it before you leave — that is, unless you’re leaving right away. But Laura said that you want to stay a while.”
I turned from the wall from where I was holding my end of the spirit level. I simply gave her a nod of acknowledgement.
“That’s it,” said Jacob. “Drive her home.”
He gave me the hammer and the nail. I tapped it in, and then we finished the job by hanging the painting. We stood back and examined it.
“I adore that painting,” said Jacob.
Then they offered me some coffee. I had been preparing for this, preparing to say no. But the way they made the offer, so half-heartedly, made me change my mind.
“I can stay for a while,” I said.
Jacob nodded to his wife, who seemed to have frozen in the doorway, blocking our exit. Stella abruptly sprang to life. As we returned to the living room, she disappeared into the kitchen and started clattering about in the cupboards. Jacob gestured grandly to an armchair where I should sit.
“So,” he said, folding his fingers together on his knee as he reclined on the couch. “Tell me about things.”
It was such a vague question that I shrugged and said nothing. He would have to try harder than that if he actually wanted a conversation.
“You look tired,” he continued.
This was news to me.
Stella shuffled into the room. She sat down next to Jacob and, like him, stared at me like at an animal in a zoo that you expect to do something interesting.
“Nice colour in your cheeks,” she said. “It must be from working outside.”
“Sure,” I replied. “It’s from working outside.”
“How much longer do you plan on staying in our fair city?” Jacob asked. The part about the city being fair was undoubtedly sarcastic.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“No firm plans?”
“No.”
“When do you have to go back to work?”
“I don’t know.”
Jacob raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t know? How can you not know?”
“I don’t have to go back to work. It’s not financially necessary.”
“Oh, I see.”
I had caught him off guard. As if alarmed, Stella jumped up — she’d been still for scarcely a minute — and disappeared into the kitchen again. It was silent for a long moment.
Then Jacob said, “If I may say so, Luke, you seem to be going through a bit of an existential crisis.”
“What?”
“That’s how I’d characterize it. An existential crisis. Are you familiar with what that is?”
I couldn’t stand his condescending tone.
“I’ve heard the term. I’ve never had it applied to me before.”
Jacob nodded and smiled, looking very satisfied with himself.
“Well, I think it does apply to you. Let us consider your situation. You have returned to your home, and you don’t have any definite plans to leave. But I haven’t heard of any definite plan as to what you’ll do if you stay. Apparently, you have lost your way in Vancouver. You didn’t become an actor as you had dreamed. You are not even sure of your relationship. Am I right? Does this sum up fairly accurately what you’re going through?”
Hearing this was awful. Seeing his smug expression was half the torture; the other half was realizing all that he knew about me.
“What is more, you have just gone through one of the most traumatic experiences anyone can go through. The death of loved ones. The loss of both parents. Any of the challenges you face would be difficult, even in isolation, but coming all at once like this… It must feel very… very dislocating.”
“You’ve been talking to my sister.”
“Naturally I’ve been talking to her. I’m not clairvoyant.”
“I’m doing just fine,” I replied.
Stella re-entered, this time carrying two mugs of coffee. One for me and one for her husband. She said, “I didn’t put any cream or sugar in yet.”
I nodded. “That’s okay. I drink it black.”
I hoped that the brief distraction of the coffee arriving would end Jacob’s line of questioning, but he continued to stare at me the whole time.
“You are a lot like your father,” he said.
“How do you mean?”
“You pretend that you are always fine, that you don’t need anyone’s help.”
“I don’t need—”
“But clearly, Luke, you’ve lost the plot a bit, have you not? Nobody expected you to still be here this long after the funeral. Normally, you hurry right back to your life on the coast. This time, you’ve affixed yourself to the ancestral home. We’re all rather surprised.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
Jacob looked at his wife, who had finally settled in beside him for good. Then he looked at me.
“Us, and your family.”
“I don’t see what is surprising about it.”
“It’s just not what you normally do.”
“My parents don’t normally get killed in a car crash.”
He made an exaggerated wince as if I’d said something distasteful.
“Luke, I’m not attacking you. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with what you’re doing. In fact, there is everything right with it. There is no need to hurry back to Vancouver under the circumstances. You need some time to yourself. But, you know, it might not be possible for you to deal with all of this alone.”
“Deal with all of what?”
“Deal with their death, and everything else.”
“What do you mean, deal with it? What I’m dealing with is painting my parents’ house so it can be sold. I’m saving us hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. That’s all. I’m on a paid leave from work, which is my entitlement. What else am I dealing with? I’m dealing with fixing the storm windows. I’m dealing with delivering your painting, which I have done. I’m dealing with packing their belongings into boxes and taking them to Goodwill. I’m dealing with eventually packing the rest and taking it to Laura’s. That’s what I’m dealing with.”
He nodded slowly.
“I see. I see.”
“What do you see?” I snapped.
“That’s the level you are operating on.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re dealing just with the surface of things. All right. Sure. You are being a responsible son, Luke. But these are your parents.”
“I know they’re my parents. Christ! I know what has happened. They’ve been killed, which was tragic. Which was completely untimely. Which could have been prevented, maybe.”
“I’m really not trying to attack you, Luke. You don’t need to be defensive. Tell me if I’m overstepping my mark.”
“I think you are overstepping your mark. It’s not for you to psychoanalyze me. You don’t know anything about me. Some chat with my sister doesn’t make you an expert.”
“Not an expert, Luke. I’m a friend. I have sympathy for your situation. And I can’t help but notice you talking about their death in clichés. You say their death was tragic and untimely. Of course it was those things. But these are stock phrases. It’s as if you haven’t internalized it yet.”
I was furious. I stood up and I reached into my back pocket. The photo was there. I took it out and I held it up for him to see.
“Explain this.”
That jolted him. You could see both him and his wife flinch. But Jacob recovered quickly. He swallowed hard. He looked at his wife and took her hand and pulled it into his lap.
“Can I see this?” he asked.
I let him have the photo. He studied it closer.
“Okay, now I remember this.” He looked up at me. The smile was already leaching back into his face. “You’ve found out about us. It was probably going to happen, eventually. It’s amazing it took so long, actually.” His wife was staring at him. “Stella and I have had an open relationship for many years. So did your parents. On occasion, Leonard and I would wife-swap. He would sleep with Stella and I would sleep with Mary. That’s it. That explains this photo. Mary took it about a year ago. I’d forgotten about it.”
I couldn’t say anything. I was still on my feet. I’d been ready for anything — ready even for violence. But I’d not been ready for this.
“It was something to liven up our marriages. We all enjoyed it. Nobody got hurt. I know it must make you uncomfortable to hear about it, but you asked, and now you know. If I didn’t tell you, well, what would you think, looking at the photo? I think it’s pretty obvious what you would think. Do you mind if I take this back?”
I had gone cold. My body hardly felt like my own.
“Have it back,” I replied.
I watched him squeeze Stella’s hand.
“How often did this go on?” I asked.
“Luke, please, that’s an indelicate question. I’ve told you everything you need to know. I applaud your determination to get at the truth. As someone of insatiable curiosity myself, I totally understand this… But be satisfied that you have the truth now.”
17
It is 1979, or maybe even longer ago, and my father and I are in the crowds at the festival midway under a baking sun, and like half the other youngsters, I have become short-tempered and petulant. I am pleading for an ice cream. My father says, yes, we’ll get you an ice cream, but look how long the lines are. Let’s just take the train away from here and get you an ice cream somewhere quiet, somewhere that you can enjoy it. Suddenly, a balloon lazily flops out of the sky like some dozy, bloated insect, and it lands on my foot. I kick at it. The balloon is only two-thirds inflated. It is soft like a pudgy stomach. I run after the balloon, out of the grasp of my father, then between long legs. Somebody is yelling at me, and now it’s my father yelling at me — but I’ve seen a flash of mischief on some other urchin’s face, and I know we’re both chasing after the same balloon and I must get to it first. The balloon takes a side
ways lurch along the ground and is then kicked aside carelessly by a grown-up. My adversary and I are sent off on a chase in a new direction. I can hear my father’s voice, but I’m ignoring it, not only because I have to beat this other ruffian to the balloon, but because I want to deliberately spite my father because he should have bought me an ice cream twenty minutes ago when I first asked for one. Whump! The scamp and I collide with the balloon between us — like a new stomach that has grown from him to me. We look right into each others’ eyes out of sheer surprise. This moment probably only lasts a second. Then the balloon wiggles out and escapes, and he — he is the one that manages to catch it and grasp it by its knotted umbilical cord. Why is he the one that catches it and not me? Because my father has appeared out of nowhere to apprehend me. He grabs my arm and clasps it tightly, right by the bony knobble of my wrist. His grip is so tight it hurts. I am watching the other kid run away with the balloon. He turns to look back, grins because he’s in the clear, then plunges into a thicket of legs and out of sight. And I’m stuck. I’m trapped. My right arm is starting to smart. My father is shouting at me. How tight his grip is! It is as if I have been apprehended by a machine. He seems to me in this moment impossibly strong and inhumanely cruel. Even after he lets go of my arm, the smarting won’t go away for several minutes. I look at the skin around my wrist. It is red, as if I have been stung by a bee. This is my earliest memory of my father.
There is another moment from roughly the same time in my childhood where I am watching my mother from my high chair in the kitchen. She has interrupted dinnertime to run outside into the yard. Laura has tripped over her hula hoop and planted her face right into a freshly manured flowerbed. She is crying. My mother hoists her up and carries her inside. To cheer her up, she gives Laura a special treat: a Fig Newton. We usually only have Fig Newtons when Laura comes home from school. An extra Fig Newton is an extra-special event. I become petulant and I throw my plastic cup, kick my legs, and have a little tirade at the world until I too am placated with a Fig Newton.
My mother says with a long-suffering sigh, “You won’t always get what you want.”
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