The Nearly Girl

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “Eughh, Nana, let’s not talk about the physicality of the whole thing,” Amelia said. “I’d prefer to believe I simply sparked myself into being, rather than being the result of some gross bonding of sperm and ovum by two of the weirdest people alive.”

  “You are wearing purple feather fish hooks for earrings,” Henry said, “and half of your hair is white and the other side is Kool-Aid blue. Every single fingernail is a different colour and you’re covered in what I hope are henna tattoos, not because I have anything against tattoos, but because yours look like you drew them yourself with a brown sharpie.”

  “I did,” Amelia said proudly. “Thank you for noticing.”

  “I could call you weird,” Henry said mildly. “Or I could call you interestingly creative and I choose the latter, that is all I’m saying.”

  They went out to the car and Ethel noticed Megan staring down at them from the upstairs window but she didn’t say anything.

  “Give me directions,” Ethel said. “I’ve never been to your home, remember.”

  “It wasn’t my home until now,” Henry said. He pointed the way until they pulled into the driveway of a huge mansion.

  “Wow,” Amelia said. “Cool.”

  “Will you be all right in there, Henry?” Ethel asked. “You can always come and live with us again if you want to. Meg will get used to it.”

  “Thank you, Mom, but I’m okay. Like I said, I have plans to redo the place, you’ll see. And Amelia, now that you know where I live, please don’t be a stranger. Come by any time.”

  “Your meds seem to be working,” Ethel said hesitantly.

  “Sometimes better than others,” Henry replied. “And for now they are good. Don’t worry, Mom. I’ve got a doctor here. I am going to do my best to keep it together.”

  He opened the car door. It had started snowing lightly.

  “Goodnight, family of mine,” he said and then he sauntered up the path and let himself into the house.

  6. FAMILY

  WHEN HENRY ARRIVED BACK IN TORONTO, he moved into his parents’ house and then he gave every single possession away to Goodwill and the Salvation Army. Everything, except for a few items of his father’s clothing, a paisley silk dressing gown being one of them. He also kept the mattress from his bed, and his collection of model airplanes that still hung as they had for all those years, but now fluttered dustily in an empty room.

  Henry dragged his mattress into the living room and placed it neatly in front of the fireplace on the hardwood floor. He had no need for a blanket but he had kept one pillow and he had also kept the heavy drapes, so he could shut out the world when he chose.

  “Minimalistic,” Megan commented when she first saw the house, shortly after Henry’s return.

  Henry had arrived at the house in Scarborough early one morning.

  It was three a.m. and only Amelia was awake.

  “You want to go somewhere?” Amelia asked when she opened the door but Henry shook his head.

  “I need to see your mother.”

  “She’s sleeping and if you wake her up now, she’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll wait,” Henry said. “You can tell me about you.”

  “Nothing to tell,” Amelia said, leading him to the living room.

  But they chatted easily for hours until Megan stumbled up from the basement in search of her morning cigarette and coffee. “Henry? My god, you scared the shit out of me. What are you doing here?”

  “Megan, is that you?” Henry was distracted by Megan’s new look and he stared at her.

  “Yeah.” She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke at him. “What do you want, Henry?”

  “I need your help,” he said, twisting his hands. “Can you come to the house?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Sure.”

  Amelia was stupefied by her mother’s acquiescence. She had expected Megan to bark a negative retort and slam back downstairs. “I’ll put some clothes on. Give me a moment. Amelia, will you make my morning shake?”

  “Eughh, gross, but yes, I will,” Amelia said, taking various protein powders and mixtures down off the shelf.

  The three of them drove to Henry’s house, with Megan smoking and sipping on her shake while she drove, and Amelia sitting in the centre of the back seat.

  Henry led them inside the house. He took them to the kitchen that was also bare, save for a kettle, a can opener, a soup pot, and a spoon.

  “There,” he said, pointing to a mountain of mail on the polished marble island.

  Megan began to sort things into piles, and then she opened the letters while Henry and Amelia watched her.

  “Henry, do you know how to pay property taxes and keep the garden maintained and things like that?”

  He looked at Megan blankly.

  “I thought not,” she said. “Fine, I’ll take care of it. Some of these are overdue. Henry, if you want to live here, you’re going to have to participate in some real-world activity. But it will just be for a morning. Can you do that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You need to come with me, to the bank. I can manage all of this for you so you can carry on living here but you need to try to seem normal for a morning when we meet people.”

  “No need to be nasty, Meggie,” he said mildly. “Thank you for helping me. You have always helped me. I know I haven’t been the ideal husband. Of that, I am perfectly aware.”

  “At least you dedicate your poetry books to me,” Megan replied.

  “And me, Mom,” Amelia piped up. “He dedicates them to me too.” But Megan ignored her.

  “I will need to keep some cash on hand,” Henry told Megan, “so I can take taxis to my appointments with my doctor. But Meggie, how will I remember to go?” He was panic-stricken.

  “How often do you need to go?”

  “Once a month. Not a lot but you know me. How will I remember?”

  “I’ll take you,” Megan had said brusquely. “Come on, my family such as you are, let’s be off.”

  “She’s amazing,” Henry said to Amelia. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her.”

  Megan laughed. “Yes, he did.” She started the car and Henry, sitting in the passenger seat, carefully snapped his seatbelt into place.

  “But you looked different then,” Henry mused.

  “She’s a body builder now,” Amelia offered from the back seat and Henry studied Megan.

  “But why are you so orange?”

  “Oh for god’s sake, it’s just the tanning lamps, Henry. I go a bit orange is all.”

  “Tanning will kill you,” Henry said, a worried frown creasing his forehead. “Even I know that. Those tanning lamps especially.”

  “They haven’t proven anything,” Megan argued. “Being tanned makes me look more cut.”

  “Cut?”

  “Ripped, chiseled, sculpted.”

  “And your hair wasn’t so red,” Henry said. “It had red in it, yes it did, but it was beautiful, like chestnut with red, and it was shiny and long, and I loved how it smelled. I loved how you smelled.”

  “Too much information,” Amelia said, from the back.

  “You smell different now,” Henry said, sniffing Megan. “You smell chemical. And your hair is very brittle.”

  He touched her hair and Amelia expected her mother to slap his hand away but instead she saw Megan lean into his touch and even close her eyes for a moment.

  “Road, Mom, road,” Amelia said, amazed that her mother seemed to love her father even now, despite her bitter fury at how things had turned out.

  “We’re here,” Megan said as they pulled into the parking lot of the bank. “Let’s do this thing.”

  They got out and Megan studied Henry who she had dressed in a pair of his father’s dress suit trousers a
nd a white shirt, items of clothing that he had thankfully also kept. “You look deceptively together.”

  “Meg, please, stop talking like that,” Henry said and he took her hand and she grinned at him.

  “You’ll hold my hand even though I smell chemical?”

  “You think I would let a few chemicals bother me?”

  “You two are too weird,” Amelia said.

  Several hours later, Henry staggered out of the bank. “That was exhausting,” he said, leaning against the car, looking haggard.

  “But it’s sorted out,” Megan said. “Now you can go back to being a happy recluse.”

  “Can we get some breakfast?” Henry asked and Amelia brightened.

  “Good idea, Dad!”

  “It’s nearly three in the afternoon but whatever,” Megan said and she took them to an all-day breakfast diner.

  “Pancakes and scrambled eggs,” Amelia said. “With black coffee, please.”

  “You’re too young to drink coffee,” Megan said automatically. “I’ll have a white egg omelet,” she said to the waitress. “With one poached tomato. Easy on the grease, please.”

  “I’ll also have pancakes and scrambled eggs,” Henry said. “And can you bring lots of syrup?”

  The waitress put a jug of syrup on their table and left without a word.

  “Here we are,” Henry said, beaming at Megan and Amelia. “Having a family breakfast.”

  “Yeah, like twelve years too late but it’s the thought that counts,” Megan said. “Henry, where did you go, all this time?”

  “Kamloops. It was nice there.”

  “You never wrote to us but you kept publishing books of poetry? Why didn’t you write to me?” Amelia could hear the hurt in her mother’s voice.

  “I’m so sorry, Meg,” Henry said and he took her hand. “I stepped out for longer than usual, I know. I wasn’t in a good way after Ed died. I felt like I was going mad. Things seemed fine when he was around but then everything changed. So I left and then, when I was in Kamloops, the poems just kept coming to me, and I kept writing them down and then I posted them to Lionel and he did the rest. I didn’t speak to him once the whole time. My job is to write the poems and send them. Lionel does the rest, and the rest doesn’t matter to me.”

  “No more pissing on them?” Megan asked and Henry laughed.

  “No. I don’t even remember that night. There is so much I don’t remember. I remember you being born though,” he said to Amelia. “My whole world made sense then. It did. You were the sunshine of my life.”

  “But you left me too,” Amelia pointed out.

  “He couldn’t help it,” Megan defended Henry and Amelia turned to her, open-mouthed.

  “What? How can you say that?”

  “I never said he could help it. I always just said it wasn’t fair how life had turned out, that he was this way.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” Henry said and their food arrived.

  “I was so jealous of you,” Megan said to Amelia as she blotted the excess oil off her food with a paper napkin. “He loved you more than anything. Much more than he loved me.”

  “I loved her differently, Meg,” Henry said, drowning his eggs and pancakes in syrup. “You are the love of my life, and Amelia is the sunshine.”

  Two fat tears welled in Megan’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks and she wiped them away with one hand.

  “I don’t understand any of it,” Amelia said.

  “You will, one day,” Henry said.

  “She does stuff like you,” Megan said. “Gets on the wrong buses, doesn’t feel the cold, does weird shit.” Megan cut her omelet into tiny pieces and blotted them again.”

  “You do?” Henry looked at Amelia with interest but she focused her attention on her pancakes.

  “Nana says the world sees things differently than me,” she said.

  “Yeah, so differently she has to be home-schooled,” Megan said. “Mom’s teaching her.”

  “Do you need money?” Henry asked.

  “We’re okay,” Megan replied, “but if we ever do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “I am government-funded,” Amelia said proudly.

  “Who’s this doctor you’re seeing?” Megan asked Henry.

  “Someone I got referred to by my doctor in Kamloops. I didn’t go and see anyone by choice. I kind of lost it there and ended up in a hospital. But I was lucky, instead of some idiot like Shiner, I got a great doctor who understands me. He said I should see this guy. I hope he’ll be okay.”

  “If not, we’ll find you someone else,” Megan said and Amelia was startled by her gentleness. Where was her brittle, angry mother?

  “I’m done,” Henry said abruptly. “Can we go?”

  “Sure, you go and wait for me at the car,” Megan said and Henry rushed out of the restaurant.

  Amelia looked questioningly at her mother who shrugged. “That’s Henry. He’s always done that.”

  When they got outside, Henry had vanished.

  “He’s always done that too,” Megan said, unlocking the door. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine.”

  “But how can you be sure?” Amelia was panic-stricken.

  Her mother looked at her curiously. “How can you not understand when you do the same thing?”

  “But I know how to take care of myself,” Amelia said.

  “Believe it or not, so can your father.”

  “I still think we should look for him,” Amelia said, refusing to open the car door.

  Megan sighed and shrugged. “If you want to go hunting ghosts, that’s fine but I’ve got to give a class in two hours and I need to catch up on my workout. I missed my morning session.”

  “I can’t believe you!” Amelia stormed off and stood at the edge of the parking lot, watching her mother start the car.

  Megan drove up to where Amelia was standing and rolled down the window. “Come on, Amelia,” she said. “Last chance for a ride home or I’m leaving you here.”

  Amelia cast a desperate glance around but she knew that her father would be impossible to find and she had no yearning to be left wandering the neighbourhood of strip malls and dollar stores. “Are you sure he knows how to get home?” she asked, climbing into the car.

  “He got himself all the way home from Kamloops, didn’t he? And then he even managed to come and find me now, when he needed me. It’s amazing what Henry can do, when he wants to.” The old note of bitterness had crept back into her voice.

  “He loves you, Mom,” Amelia said, not wanting to lose the feeling of familial love and Megan nodded and put on a pair of sunglasses.

  “Yeah, that’s true, honey.”

  Amelia, happy to be called the rarely-used affectionate term, stayed silent until her mother dropped her off at home.

  “See you later, Mom,” she said and Megan gave a wave and drove off.

  “We have the weirdest family ever,” she said to Ethel after she had filled her in on the day’s events.

  “Ordinarily I would say something like all families are weird,” Ethel said, getting out her notebooks. “But in this instance, I’ll agree with you.”

  “Ah Nana! No school today!”

  “And why not? It’s not my fault you’ve been off jaunting. But you can choose, math or English.”

  “English. Why can’t we study Dad’s poems?”

  “Because I don’t have a clue what they mean. You’ll have to wait until you get to university for that.”

  And when Amelia did, years later, she was amazed and baffled by the genius of the words and the magic of the imagery.

  “Apparently he’s mad as a hatter,” one of her fellow students commented, a boy she had hitherto found cute.

  “Real geniuses are,” she had said coldly, and she gathered her books and left, and she never spo
ke to the boy again, much to his confusion.

  Amelia had decided to study using her mother’s maiden name. “I don’t want any confusion or expectations from my teachers,” she had said. “And if they know that Dad is my father, there won’t be a way around it.”

  Megan understood. That Henry had achieved the level of national acclaim that he had, had come as no surprise to Megan, but that he continued to be prolific amazed her.

  “He sees it as his necessary contribution to life,” Amelia tried to explain to her, after Henry had told her how he felt.

  “I get that,” Megan had said, “but still…”

  PART II:

  AMELIA AND MIKE (2011)

  7. GROUP THERAPY: SESSION ONE

  “GREETINGS ONE AND ALL! I am Doctor Frances Carroll and I am going to change your life forever!” The therapist’s beady eyes glittered and his teeth clacked like tiny yellow castanets.

  Amelia glanced at the cute young man across the room. He met her gaze and smiled. That caused an unexpected but pleasant flutter in her belly. She blushed slightly, hated herself for it, and turned her focus back to the manic Dr. Carroll.

  “Yes, I am going to change your life. And in case any of you are wondering, I intend to change it for the better. Things could, and usually do, if left to their own inherently destructive devices, coupled with the humanistic natural condition and predilection for disaster and destruction, get much, much worse. But, in your cases, things will improve.

  “There are no guarantees in life, this much is true. But if, and it’s a big IF — because in the end it’s up to you, people, I can lead to you to water but I can’t make you drink — but if you follow my lead and take careful and accurate heed of my game plan, you WILL improve. You will no longer face the world as your phobic fear-ridden terrified selves. No! You will stride with confidence into every room, you will seize every bull by the horns, and you will shout your names from rooftops: I was here! You will tell the whole world: I AM here and I am here to STAY!” He paused and looked intently around the room. He was perched on the edge of his chair, with his small, red-sneakered feet planted firmly half a foot apart, his hands resting on his knees. He darted quick bird-like glances at each person in the circle.