Low

by Anna Quon

  There was a sizzle of the frying pan in the kitchen. Her father had said he was making tea, but it sounded like he was getting ready to fry something. Adriana got up off the cot and avoided looking into her old bedroom door, taking her knitting with her as she made her way to the kitchen.

  Mr. Song was frying dumplings and Adriana’s stomach rumbled at the sound and smell. It felt like a long time since she’d eaten anything. Her father was wearing the same old apron. Didn’t he have to get back to work?

  “I took the afternoon off,” he said, without turning around. “I thought I deserved it,” he said, smiling over his shoulder. Adriana sat at the kitchen table. She hadn’t had dumplings in years.

  “Do you want to go for a drive when Beth gets home? To see what the hurricane did?” Mr. Song asked eagerly. Adriana wasn’t sure how to tell him, but she’d seen more of the hurricane than she cared to remember. Her father peered at her, disappointed that he wasn’t able to interest her in something. ‘No thanks dad,” she said, to make up for it. “I’d rather stay home.”

  Her father put a plate of dumplings in front of her. “Chinese hotdogs,” they used to call them. “You look hungry,” he said. She knew he meant she’d lost too much weight, that he was worried.

  She smiled and shrugged, while spearing a dumpling with her fork. “Hospital food. Leaves something to be desired,” she said, with her mouth full. She was surprised at how good it tasted, how very early memories of her tiny grandmother, fingers dusty with rice flour in a dark Toronto kitchen, came coursing into her mind as though her sinus passages had just been cleared by wasabi.

  Mr. Song watched happily. “Beth and I made them,” he said. Adriana looked up. Her father hadn’t made dumplings with her since her grandmother died. “She wanted to make something special for you to come home to,” he said. His eyes were half sad. “We froze them… a bit of an experiment.” Adriana imagined him chopping the pork, water chestnuts, green onion, ginger and garlic with his cleaver while Beth, eyes wide as if spellbound, shaped the little rounds of rice flour dough as efficiently and mindlessly as a machine. She’d probably been doing it since she was a preschooler at Aunt Penny’s elbow.

  “Beth likes to cook,” Mr. Song said, almost to himself. “She’d like to be a chef when she grows up.” He shook his head. “I never expected. I always thought she’d be more like your mother than me.” Adriana felt her cheeks flush. It was she who was more like her mother, Adriana realized. She didn’t cook, had no interest, and she could read for hours in bed, like her mother had, mooning and melancholic. It was easy for her to wander around the house in a dressing gown, without noticing the passage of time or accomplishing anything in particular, just as her mother, with a cigarette between her fingers, had done. Adriana was grateful she didn’t have her mother’s wicked temper, but maybe it was buried in there somewhere, trying to gnaw its way out.

  Adriana was eating the final dumpling, already filled with regret for the meal’s end, when the screen door slammed and she looked up, startled. Beth stood motionless, staring at her. She looked healthy Adriana thought, with rosy spots on her cheeks. “Hey Beth,” Adriana said, raising her hand weakly in greeting. She felt wobbly, as though she were a newborn colt. “Thanks for the dumplings. They were delicious.”

  Mr. Song gave Beth a hug. “Adriana’s home for the weekend,” he said. “Isn’t that…” he squeezed Beth’s shoulders. “I’m just so happy!”

  Beth said nothing but sat down at the table, on the other end of the seat to Adriana. She took her homework out and bent her head over it, pressing hard with the pencil as though she were trying to carve with it. Every so often she’d glance up as though to see if Adriana was still there.

  Adriana wasn’t sure but she thought Beth might want to be alone. “I’m going out into the yard,” she said. As an afterthought she said, “I’m going to take some knitting.” Mr. Song squinted at her, surprised. Adriana “I want to take a look at the dead tree,” she said by way of explanation. He nodded eagerly. “The hurricane took it down for me,” he said, beaming at both of them. “Good oldJuan.”

  Adriana let the screen door bang shut behind her, and felt her father’s eyes follow her across the yard from the kitchen window. The air was still the endless gold of the September just past, but the shadows were a deepening blue in the late afternoon. Adriana rounded the pile of wood that came from the old maple tree and sat on a stump, out of sight of her father. She missed the smell of the fires her parents used to make to burn piles of leaves and weeds, and the potatoes they buried in the ashes to bake, that came out charred or glowing like coals.

  Adriana took out Samantha’s sweater. She was surprised how quickly and easily it came apart in her hands, the blonde wool full of kinks and curls, like her mother’s hair. She cast some stitches on to her needle and knit, her mind wandering like wood smoke, her hands working as though under a spell.

  Darkness was pushing into the sky when Adriana finished the scarf. She wrapped it around her own neck and made her way toward the light from the kitchen window. She could see her father moving back and forth from the stove to the counter and table, as he cooked. When she opened the screen door she saw Beth sitting at the kitchen table, head bent over a drawing she was making, her ringlets gently swaying above the table. She didn’t look up when Adriana sat beside her, but her eyes shifted to a spot beyond the paper, in front of her. Adriana glanced down at the drawing. It was a picture that seemed to have been drawn by a much younger child, of herself and Beth and their father. Mr. Song stood with long arms outspread over both of them, like a scarecrow, with a shock of black hair. Adriana had a slim but curvy figure in a brown dress with pearls (it must have been something Aunt Penny wore at some point, Adriana thought, but she recognized herself because of the lopsided haircut). Beth had drawn herself squatting and hunched over something—a doll? An animal? It was hard to say because it was covered in a nest of scribbles.

  She put an arm around Beth’s shoulders. Beth stopped drawing but didn’t look up. Adriana thought she felt a jolt, like metal in the sudden presence of a magnet—as though Beth were clinging to her, even though her arms remained by her sides.

  Mr. Song dished up some rice and beef stir fry and set a plate in front of each of them. He was beaming, tenderly, Adriana thought. Both his girls sitting together at the table, his family together at last. Adriana half-smiled at him but she was concerned about Beth, who seemed exhausted. Defeated.

  Even though she was half full of dumplings, Adriana picked up a fork and ate. She was tempted to feed Beth, pushing a fork into her mouth but thought better of it. She squeezed Beth’s shoulders and smiled, squinting at father, who chewed happily, his eyes shifting back and forth between them.

  “I got word today that I can retire, next month,” he said, cheerfully. Adriana stared at him. Beth looked up, blearily. “Early retirement,” he said. “They’re downsizing and offered me a package.” It was hard to believe he was so cheerful. Adriana knew her father loved his job. “I’ll be able to spend more time with you guys. Travelling and such.” He said.

  Mr. Song talked about the way it had happened. He had been sitting in his office, working on a problem and had to go to the bathroom. As he stood at the urinal, his boss casually parked himself two urinals over. Mr. Song was nervous because usually he didn’t cross paths with anyone in the bathroom, particularly his boss, who maintained a deliberate, almost exaggerated, friendly but formal distance from his employees.

  “You know, David,” Mr. Bridges, said, as if confiding a secret. Mr. Song stiffened. His boss cleared his throat. “Our company has been going through some changes, as you know. We’re restructuring. And rethinking our priorities. And your life has changed too…it would seem you might like to spend more time at home.” Adriana could see Mr. Bridge’s face. Smarmy, tender-eyed. Hard as iron.

  Mr. Song felt shocked. He stood at the washroom mirror after his boss had left. It
dawned on him that what Bridges had said was true. He did need to spend some time with Beth and Adriana. That’s what was missing, what they were all missing.

  “And so I decided to come home,” he said to Beth, who stared at the table and Adriana whose eyes darted around, avoiding his.

  Adriana knew then that she would call Jazz that very night, and that with or without Jazz, she’d move out, the same week if she could. Before her father’s change of life, and before she was sealed in the tomb of her childhood once and for all. It was different for Beth. She still needed to be a kid, but Adriana’s problem had always been that she needed to grow up.

  After supper, Beth went to bed in Adriana’s room, without brushing her teeth or washing her face. Maybe Adriana’s sudden homecoming, along with their father’s big news, was too much for Beth to absorb—but she knew her sister was making an effort because Beth had thrust the picture she’d drawn across the supper table to her. Adriana smiled and waved her goodnight as though she might never see her again.

  Adriana sat at the kitchen table, only half listening to her father’s cheerful chatter, and knit a second scarf, this time for Jeff. Around 9 p.m., she called Jazz at home from the spare room. “Hello?” came a sleepy voice on the other end of the line. There was something fatalistic sounding about it.

  Adriana rubbed her cheek. “Hi Jazz,” she said, sounding as upbeat as possible. Jazz perked up.

  “Where are you calling from?”

  “My dad’s,” Adriana said. “I’m on a pass.”

  Jazz was silent. Adriana hurried on. “Jazz, I had an idea. What if we got an apartment together, you and me?” She had to get it out of her mouth, to make it real. “I could get a job, and you could get a student loan, and we’d be roommates.” They’d rent a modest place, in a shabby old house somewhere in the north end of Halifax. They’d shop for some second hand furniture, eat like students, and start to make a grown up life for themselves.

  Jazz still said nothing. “Jazz, are you there?” Adriana asked, anxiously.

  After a pause, during which Adriana’s heart tumbled into her stomach, Jazz said, in a hopeless monotone, “Okay.”

  It was Adriana’s turn to go silent. She had hoped Jazz would be enthusiastic. “Well,” she said finally, “Do you want to… wait until you’re feeling better to decide?” She could hear Jazz shrug, hugging her elbows with the phone tucked under her chin.

  “No,” said Jazz, “It doesn’t matter. Let’s do it.” Adriana didn’t know how to respond. “Okay,” she said. Jazz put the receiver down without saying goodbye.

  Adriana stood there for a few seconds, with the phone in her hand. This was Jazz, who taught her to blow smoke into a bottle of beer and drink it; Adriana’s comfort and protection in high school when her friends froze her out. Jazz, who volunteered to babysit for a girl who’d got pregnant in Grade 10 and dropped out, and who wheeled the baby in the stroller to school and up and down the halls, smiling and waving like the Queen. Jazz, who after talking to the school psychologist over several months about her father’s death, decided to become a bereavement counsellor, if she could dress up like Pippi Longstocking and make balloon animals for the kids. She was told that perhaps she could not, so Jazz decided she’d be a doctor instead.

  Adriana realized that, weak and fragile as she felt, it was her turn to be the strong one, the cheerleader and coach, the surrogate parent. It would be Adriana getting Jazz out of bed in the morning, making sure she got out the door to class, cooking their supper when Jazz came home. Adriana knew it and she was willing. Her father would be fine, and her sister, well, Beth could come over on the weekend, and Adriana would talk to her about Viera. She would tell Beth a different story about their mother than the one she had told to herself. The Viera she shared with Beth would be gentler—less hurricane, more wounded—a woman far from her home, whose eyes crinkled with tenderness over the swirl of her child’s hair. That was how Beth would come to know her.

  Chapter 37

  Adriana returned to the hospital on Sunday evening, just before 9 p.m. with the scarves she’d knit for Samantha and Jeff in her backpack. She looked in the kitchen and common room for Samantha, but she wasn’t there. Elspeth greeted Adriana at the nursing station with a smile. “You’re back!” she said. “Right on time.”

  “I’m not staying, Elspeth,” Adriana said. “I just came to say goodbye to you and Samantha.” Elspeth’s forehead wrinkled. “I can’t blame you for wanting to leave,” she said quietly. “But would you consider waiting till the morning for discharge? To see the doctor one last time and get your meds and prescriptions?” Adriana shook her head firmly. “Dr. Burke can let my GP know what to prescribe me,” she said. Elspeth’s face relaxed. “Well you know what you want. I knew you had that in you.”

  Adriana felt shy suddenly. Elspeth had paid her a compliment that was worth receiving. “Is Samantha here?” she asked, glancing up the hallway. Elspeth’s mouth was firm. “She’s been discharged Adriana. That’s about all I can tell you.” Adriana felt stunned. “But where did she go?” Adriana asked, in a small voice.

  Elspeth didn’t answer, but her eyes shifted to someone coming down the hall behind Adriana. It was Marlene, in her red parka and fur hat, humming “We Shall Overcome” in a tremulous falsetto. She wore sunglasses, But Adriana could see a blue and brown bruise the size of an orange around her left eye, and a cut to the right corner of her mouth, which dragged it down in a lopsided frown.

  Adriana stared in horror, as Marlene ambled up to her. “Marlene, what happened?” she asked. Marlene came too close to her and poked her in the breastbone. “Your friend,” she said ominously. Adriana looked confused and took a step back. “Your friend, that overgrown cow,” Marlene continued, her voice rising. Elspeth, her back to a post, arms crossed, simply said, “Marlene,” and Marlene whirled around and screeched, waving her arms in the air. “I don’t want her near me,” she yelled. ‘Don’t come near me!” Her angry sobs echoed down the hall till she slammed the door to her bedroom behind her.

  Adriana’s stomach ached “Samantha didn’t…” she began, but the look on Elspeth’s face stopped her. “You know I can’t tell you anything, Adriana,” she said regretfully. Adriana knew. She held out her hand to Elspeth. “Good bye,” Adriana said, squeezing Elsepth’s fingers. “And thank you.” Elspeth nodded. “You’ll do just fine,” she said quietly, and disappeared into the office.

  Adriana, went out to wait at the bus stop. Jeff and Melvin were standing at the gates with a few other patients, who were having their final smoke of the evening last. It was dark but Adriana could see they were sharing a cigar between them, the glowing end leaving a trail like a fire fly behind it as Jeff waved it in the air. “And when Bartholomew told her he had no love to give her, she lost it. She turned over a table like this,”and he swept his arms forward as though shooing away an animal. “And then Marlene started ranting, and Samantha lost it again, and then they got into it.” Jeff tipped back his head as though contemplating the stars, and blew a column of smoke above his head. “They both gave each other shiners. I don’t know who got the worst of it. Samantha was stronger, but after the first punch she just let Marlene beat her like an egg.”

  Adriana stood beside them, not knowing what to say. She took the scarf she’d made for Jeff from her backpack and handed it to him silently. “Adriana!” he said, “ Wow isn’t that perfect!” He seemed overcome, and unsure of what to do. “Thank you,” he said humbly, fingering the olive-coloured wool, fringed in blue and rust and lavender.

  Adriana crossed the street to the bus stop. From there she could see Jeff drape one end of the scarf around his bandaged neck, passing the other end to Melvin, who wrapped in over his own shoulder. The two of them swayed like drunken men and pretended to dance the cancan, while Jeff held the cigar high in his right hand. Melvin’s laughter, clear and bright, pealed into the night sky like a trumpet.

  Epilogue
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  One Sunday morning, a couple weeks after Adriana and Jazz moved out to a basement apartment in the north end, Mr. Song called to invite them both to dim sum, to celebrate Adriana landing a job as a cashier, and his own retirement. When he and Beth drove in the laneway to pick them up the car made a noise like a passenger plane. The muffler had fallen off, but her father insisted they go to the restaurant all the way downtown anyway. When they pulled up in front of it, the three girls had their hands over their ears, Adriana bundling the ends of Samantha’s scarf into ear muffs. She wore it every day in memory of her friend, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t find an obit in the Herald or a news story about a murdered transgendered hitchhiker. Samantha had simply disappeared.

  Adriana followed her father into the restaurant. Jazz and Beth brought up the rear, looking pale and gaunt, Beth with a runny nose from a cold she’d contracted at school. She was doing very well in her class, better than Mr. Song had hoped, even, but she seemed as prone to infection as a preschooler. Adriana worried that it was due to post traumatic stress’s effect on the immune system. She’d told her father this and he’d mentioned her concern to his GP, who rolled his eyes and said Adriana better go to medical school before making diagnoses like that.

  Adriana thought seriously about that. She wondered what her chances would be like of getting into med school, and figured if they knew about her mental illness, they’d be slim to none. Doctors were the very last people to admit to having a psychiatric illness, Jazz had told her. Apparently it was okay to be a crazy person working as a drug store cashier or on social assistance, but not a doctor or a nurse. She figured the only place her experience in the mental hospital would be seen as an asset and not a liability might be if she became a peer support worker, or maybe a writer.