by Kim Aubrey
Esty’s eyes were bright and clear, her face flushed.
“Wow,” Len said. “I’d like to hear some more of Gus’s old stories.”
My mother shifted in her chair. “That’s not the story Dad used to tell. You’ve changed it.”
“It needed a little doctoring.” Esty gave her dry, cough-like laugh.
“Grandpa told me she had brown hair like mine.” He’d also told me that she’d held onto his hand the whole time she was telling her story, her fingers trembling inside of his.
“Gus’s memory wasn’t always the best.”
“I feel sorry for that May Starling,” Len said.
“May Starling!” my mother snorted. “That wasn’t even her name. She was a teacher in my school. Her name was May Shaw. She was crazy as a loon and beat our hands with a big ruler whenever she could get away with it.”
“How come I never heard any of this before?” I asked.
“I didn’t think anyone was interested in those old stories,” Esty said.
My mother screwed the lid onto the bottle of schnapps. “Let the dead lie is my motto.”
“I guess my father is the exception.”
“Your father was always the exception.”
I thought of my father lying sick in a Seattle hospital. His wife had called to say that he’d died of an aggressive liver cancer. They’d only discovered it a few weeks before it killed him. I’d thanked her for calling, but cursed her afterwards, hating her for not thinking to call me sooner, hating him for dying, for leaving me, hating myself for not having tried harder to keep in touch.
When Gus had died, my mother had invited Esty to live with her, but she’d wanted to stay in her own house. She still slept in the queen-size bed she’d shared with Gus all those years, but now she had a new companion—a small black Beretta she kept under her pillow to help her feel safe. I wondered if she’d be able to use it if she needed to. Her movements were prone to sudden pauses. Even though her mind was sharp, sometimes a glitch in her brain’s ability to remember where it wanted to go could strand her body for seconds at a time, making her feel lost and weak.
What power she must have felt in her dream to be able to kill a man so easily, to beat away the memory of her cruel father, replacing him with one who was kinder and well-meaning, just as she’d done when she’d married Gus, leaving behind the harshness of her childhood for his friendly embrace.
“What about that card game?” Esty asked.
“I think I’ll call it a night.” Len raised his hand in a parting salute.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I called after him.
“There’s always time for a quick game of Gin.” My mother pulled the cards from their box. “Feeling lucky, Ma?”
“Luck has very little to do with it.”
“Grandpa used to say he was born lucky,” I said.
As the youngest of eight children, Gus hadn’t been needed to help on the farm so he’d been free to finish school and proceed to college on a scholarship. After med school, he’d come home to marry his high school sweetheart, Esty, who’d had trouble accepting her good fortune, which must have felt alien and undeserved. She’d spent the rest of her life knocking wood and throwing salt over her shoulder.
Some of that salt must have blown into my mother’s eyes, blinding her, affecting her judgment when it came to choosing a husband. My father had been a good-looking man. In photos he looks tanned and healthy, even in winter, and his grey eyes are wide and dreamy, causing me to wonder what he was thinking.
Esty has a photo of my father and me. He’s sitting on the steps of her house, staring into the camera, a kite held loosely in one hand while I hold onto the other. My toddler self is leaning in the direction I want to take him, and our arms create a single line pointing that way. Looking at that picture, I always want him to get up from the steps and follow me, although I can tell from his indolent, sun-struck gaze that he has no intention of rising. Still I imagine myself leading him to my favourite destination, the meadow. The horses stand in the shimmering grasses like creatures from a fairy story. They lower their heads to chew the tall clover. The sun warms their dark flanks. My father lifts me so that I can touch their lustrous coats, which look richer and more enticing than chocolate. He holds me in his arms, making me feel safe, even though one horse’s big eyeball glistens only a few inches from mine, and its yellow teeth are bared.
Len thought that he could remedy whatever was wrong in my life, just as he’d fixed things for me when we first met, just as he treated his patients, certain that he knew what was best for all of us. But how could he know? How could I? I didn’t even know what my grandmother was feeling; instead I saw shadows from my own life playing over her face. The assumption that I could help anyone with their singular pain seemed as illusory to me as Gus’s old magic tricks, designed to dazzle and distract, to win applause and approval.
Perhaps my mother was right that the man in Esty’s dream had been Gus, telling his stories, charming his patients, performing his tricks of appearance and disappearance like a child playing peek-a-boo.
“Gin!” Esty fanned out her full hand.
My mother tossed her cards onto the table. “You always win.”
Esty seemed to hold all the luck that my mother was missing, but she’d brought her up to think that it was skill and cleverness she lacked. When my father left, she’d accused her of letting herself go. And I had blamed her too, when I wasn’t blaming myself.
I got up from the table, rested a hand on my mother’s shoulder, and let my chin brush the top of her head, where the grey was growing back in. “See you in the morning,” I said.
“Goodnight, Karyl.” She touched my hand as I moved away.
While Len was brushing his teeth, I pulled on my coat and slipped outside to see the stars. I thought of Esty’s story—how May Starling had summoned up a stranger out of her need to be loved, then, without effort or malice, imagined his death as a way of simplifying his love, keeping it as straight and pure as an arrow.
The dark sky showed off its darts of light, but Esty’s moon stood out like a fist holding secrets, holding our frozen love and buried dreams, our helplessness and anger, so white it made my knuckles burn.
Compact
GILDA’S YOUNGER SISTER, TONI, IS DYING. THE CANCER launched in her ovaries a year ago. Now, even after radiation and chemotherapy, it has conquered her blood, infiltrated her bones, broken down hips, pelvis, spine.
Gilda sits by Toni’s bed, watching her sister’s breath, convinced she can see it stir the dimly lit air, air perfumed by two dozen stalwart daffodils she bought to replace the drooping rosebuds from Toni’s husband, Michael. Last week he moved into the guestroom where he can sleep without fear of rolling over and crushing Toni, who, only a year ago, was teaching spin classes and Pilates at one of Gilda and Ed’s health clubs.
Moonlight settles on Toni’s smoothly gleaming head, and forty-one years collapse beneath Gilda, who remembers her baby sister’s golden fuzz of hair, the smile that had seemed like a secret shared between the two of them, the fullness that had flooded her eleven-year-old chest, how the word, “love,” had become real, a warmth she could feel in her blood, on her skin.
Although married for several years, Toni and Michael have chosen not to have children, a decision that used to trouble Gilda, but now seems like a blessing.
“I have your kids,” Toni used to say.
“But they’re growing up. Soon they won’t be around much.”
“Still it’s fun to see what they’ll do.”
“Fun for you maybe.”
Gilda’s four children are old enough to vote, and have all, one after the other, found their own ways to disappoint or alarm her. Josh is living with the wrong woman, Jenny dating the wrong man, Lisa pursuing the wrong career—modelling—she’s pretty but what chance does she have?
While Robin, her youngest, is in the wrong university—a three-hour drive away—and never answers when Gilda calls. Her husband, Ed, is in the wrong too. Lately, he can do nothing right, but has yet to stop trying. His patience, so scarce when they were younger, has grown in step with Gilda’s impatience, threatening to calm and console her when what she wants most is to cling to the comforting weight of her anger and sorrow.
“Gil,” Toni whispers.
Her labouring voice pulls Gilda close.
“I’m here.”
“I don’t want you to feel angry about this. Promise.”
“What do you mean?” Gilda wants to grab Toni’s words and squeeze the meaning out of them.
“Don’t blame everyone when I die. Don’t take it personally like you always do.”
Toni’s eyes open to reveal a sly flicker.
“What do you mean always? When have I ever lost my only sister?”
“You get angry and withdraw. I don’t want you to do that because of me. Promise.”
“Isn’t anger one of the stages of grief?”
“Just promise, or I’ll pinch you like I used to.”
“Okay, I promise. But you’re not dead yet.”
The next morning, after Ed has left for work, Gilda is drinking coffee in her terry bathrobe and weeping over the Sports section (Toni is a Blue Jays’ fan) when her best friend, Carol, knocks at the kitchen door.
“I’m taking you shopping.” Carol drops her leather and gilt purse onto the table and fills a mug from the coffee pot.
“Can’t. I have to sit with Toni.” Gilda clings to the newspaper.
“Let the nurse take care of her. Just for today.”
“But the injections are buying us time. I don’t want to waste it shopping.”
“You won’t be any good for Toni if you have a nervous breakdown.”
Gilda’s grip on the paper tightens. She wants to strike her friend with it, to mess up her tidy blonde do and crisp ivory collar, but Carol gives her a small sad smile and reaches for her free hand.
“Okay.” Gilda releases the baseball news.
“Now go put on something nice,” Carol orders.
Her bossiness and Gilda’s angry responses used to cause brief but bitter fractures in their long friendship, but they’ve managed to outgrow that old pattern, gaining faith in each other’s fondness and loyalty. And, although Gilda would never admit it, lately she has begun to find comfort in being told what to do.
In the shoe department at Holt’s, Carol pulls Gilda away from the shiny black loafers she’s been eyeing.
“You have a pair of those already. You need something new, something Ed will like.”
“You’re nuts. Ed doesn’t care about my shoes.”
“He’ll care about these.” Carol dangles a pink sandal with three-inch heels.
Gilda shakes her head.
“We’ll each buy a pair and get the guys to take us out for dinner.”
“I wouldn’t enjoy myself.”
“I hate to see you put your life on hold because Toni’s sick. I’m afraid you’ll forget how to start up again afterwards.”
“Afterwards?”
“Sorry, sweetheart.” Carol pushes the pink shoe at her. “You’d have loved them in the old days.”
When they used to babysit Toni, she’d kept them busy playing beauty pageant in her mother’s high heels and her own lacy party dresses, pulling evening gowns and shoes from their mother’s closet for Gilda and Carol to try. The gowns had been tight on Gilda, who’d had to make do with fringed shawls, silk scarves, and beads, while Carol had slipped into the fitted dresses and zipped them up like they’d been made for her. But Gilda had inherited her mother’s small feet, so the delicate pumps and sandals had always fit her best.
“Okay. I’ll try them.”
A sleek young man brings Gilda the sandals in a size six. They are too wide and look ridiculous with her black pantsuit. She tries some turquoise sling-backs and a pair of white wedges that tie around the ankles. Then she finds the red shoes. They’re like a pair from her mother’s old closet, with slender heels and pointed toes that make the uppers look like red triangles. The forgiving pleated edge of the triangle accommodates her high arch while the backs hug her heels without slipping or cutting into her skin.
“These are better. I don’t feel like I’m trying too hard in these. We’re not teenagers anymore.”
“No kidding.” Carol is considering her own feet in a pair of apple-green sandals.
“Don’t worry. You’re still drop-dead gorgeous.” Gilda can’t help feeling oversized around Carol, as if she’s been cut from too bulky a remnant of material.
As they step stiletto-heeled along Bloor, Carol says, “Give me your purse.”
“What for?”
“Just give it to me. I want to put something in it. A surprise.”
Gilda shrugs, handing her red bag to Carol, who picks through the contents.
“Aha!” She flourishes Gilda’s old black compact before dropping it into a garbage bin at the side of the road.
“What did you do that for?”
“It was so old you could’ve gotten a disease. Look. I bought you a new one.”
Carol slides a silver compact from the pocket of her beige trench.
Gilda is used to her friend’s impulsive behaviour, her oddly expressed generosity.
“It’s nice,” she says. The gift feels smooth and cool in her hand, but heavier than she expected. The lid is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx in the shape of an elephant with an uplifted trunk.
“That’s good luck,” Carol says.
Gilda flips open the compact. In the magnifying mirror, her nose is red and splotchy from the March wind, narrow gaps appear in the black line edging her lids, and the delicate skin there is puffy and green from not sleeping, but her eyes look bright enough, still the same inexplicable blue, shared by no one else in her family.
“Come on.” Carol grabs her arm.
Gilda’s ankles wobble a little, making her feel like a kid parading around her parents’ pink and aqua bedroom. It was Carol’s idea to wear their purchases out of the store, their old shoes tucked into new boxes inside crisp shopping bags. Now they’re going to the Four Seasons for afternoon tea—also Carol’s idea.
In the hotel lobby, an enormous marble vase overflows with red and yellow striped parrot tulips, yellow lilies, and pussy willows.
“Spring,” says Gilda, sticking her nose inside a tulip, sniffing its subtle perfume. “Toni would love these. Maybe we could bring her here.”
“Just for today no talk about Toni, okay? Tomorrow you can buy her all the tulips you want.”
They order a full tea, their Darjeeling and Earl Grey arriving along with a three-tiered dish full of goodies. Gilda pops a miniature roast beef sandwich into her mouth. Chewing slowly, she feels the fragrant heat of fresh horseradish rise through her nostrils. She thinks of Toni—how they used to grate the root for Easter dinner, laughing together as their eyes streamed, how she’d take a bite of horseradish and pretend to be choking on it so that Toni could come to her rescue with a glass of ice water.
“Michael didn’t get home until eight o’clock last night,” she says, twisting her linen napkin.
“He just can’t deal with it. Don’t be so hard on him.”
Michael is working longer hours than usual. He comes home, briefcase full, eyes dull and unblinking as if they’ve been switched off at their source.
What is it about the Taylor sisters’ husbands? Why do they go along for years—attentive, devoted even—then fizzle out like defective fireworks?
Two and a half years ago, Ed took Gilda out for an expensive dinner so he could tell her that he didn’t love her anymore. Red wine, foie gras, and filet mignon to ease the blow. Sobbing, she threw it all up in t
he ladies’ room. Why couldn’t he have told her at home over a bowl of soup?
Ed has recovered from his midlife upheaval, but Gilda still holds it against him. Forgiveness has never been one of her strengths. He tries hard to redeem himself, teaching her to golf, planning weekend trips, but whenever he tells her that she looks beautiful or he loves her, she slaps on a distant little smile like a reflective shield, prepared for the next time.
Since Toni’s illness, Gilda’s relationship with her own body, always troubled, has become even more estranged. Everything about it repulses her, from the fleshy pads of her thumbs, the skin loosening under her chin, and the pouches of fat under her arms, to the solid curves of her calves, the ample rounds of her breasts, and the cellulite dimples on her bum. She should have been the one to get sick. She is older, eats too many chips and desserts, and although she works in the business, never spends time in the gym. So why Toni? Why not her? Wouldn’t the cancer cells thrive on Gilda’s discontent and self-loathing? If only she could stand in for her sister like a sacrificial lamb, paint her own healthy, plentiful blood on Toni’s doorway.
Carol pours Gilda more Earl Grey. Gilda takes a sip, feels her body sink into the armchair.
“She stopped breathing last night.”
Toni had started awake on a noisy in-breath.
“Gil,” she said. “Remember our pet rabbits?”
“Stinky and Bowling Ball?”
“Remember when Stinky died and Bowling Ball developed an insatiable appetite?”
“He got rounder and rounder.” Gilda laughed.
Toni was laughing too, her body shuddering, her breath sharp and raspy.
“It hurts.” She reached for Gilda’s hand.
Gilda found herself wiping away her own tears with the hand holding Toni’s, causing the two of them to start laughing all over again.
“Have a scone.” Carol drops one onto Gilda’s plate.
Gilda picks up the heavy silver butter knife, which slips from her unsteady fingers. Bending to retrieve it, she catches sight of the red shoes. They seem to have arrived fresh from another era, the costume of a vanished and hopeful self. She tries to wiggle her toes, but even though they can hardly move inside of the neat red triangles, they don’t feel uncomfortable.
