Adult Onset

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  Your sister.

  Book Two: Escape from Otherwhere

  Impossible to say whether it is day or night, a perpetual overcast has blocked the sun’s rays or trapped them here to grow stale. The ground is pitted and pocked—it could be the asphalt of an abandoned parking lot or schoolyard, except that no weeds are sprouting through the holes. It is unlike any place Kitty has ever seen on Hoam, where around each bend and over every hill is to be found a yet more perfect place for a picnic.

  She resists the urge to retrace the stepping stones across the viscous stream and return to the thicket where she left Mr. Morrissey nursing his hindmost foot. She would gladly carry him all the way back through the Forgotten Wood rather than take another step into this drear place that has no name. But the Ebony Elf, though crafty, does not lie. If she says this is where Kitty will find two Black Tears, then she must press on. She fingers the vial on its silver chain around her neck and steps further into the gloom.

  Kitty has seen marvels aplenty, not always pretty, so it is not the sight of the doll walking stiffly toward her across the pitiless ground that is perturbing, but the state of it. Not only is it naked, bereft even of hair, but half its moulded face appears to have melted then reset in shiny welts—the poor thing must have been thrown into the fire. Kitty waits and fights off a sense of approaching doom—after all, it is nothing but a harmless doll, lame and small. It stops in front of her. She can hear its laboured breath. It looks up at her with painted eyes that are scuffed but still discernibly blue.

  “Hello, Kitty.”

  Kitty freezes. How does it know her name?

  “Don’t you remember me?” the thing wheezes.

  Kitty shakes her head, suddenly reluctant to leave any part of herself behind here, even the sound of her voice.

  The doll is sad but insistent. “Why did you send me away, Kitty?”

  Kitty’s voice is barely a whisper. “I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “Do you know what they did with me?”

  What is this place? Is this Hell?

  Suddenly it hisses, “I was incinerated.”

  Kitty backs away.

  “Don’t leave me,” whimpers the doll.

  Suddenly its eyes flood black from lid to lid, and liquid night trickles down its damaged face. The tears! Kitty fumbles for the vial and makes a grab for the doll, but it evades her grasp, surprisingly agile.

  “Not until you promise!”

  “I’m not promising you anything.”

  “I am not a bad thing,” rasps the demon. “But I will not give you your precious Black Tears until you have granted my wish.”

  Kitty shivers. “What do you want?”

  The doll tilts its head. “Don’t you remember me, Kitty?”

  “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  “I am yours.”

  “No …”

  “I am Susie.”

  “Go away.”

  “Hug me.”

  Kitty is rooted to the spot, transfixed with horror and loathing. She longs to grab the fiend and hurl it, smash it against the cindery ground.

  “No.”

  “That is my wish.”

  Kitty almost sobs with anger and revulsion, “I can’t.”

  “Hold me, Kitty,” the thing wheezes, and stretches out its plastic arms.

  “Never.”

  “Never is what will happen to your brother, Jon. Never was, never will be.”

  Kitty is gagging as she steps forward, bends down and picks it up. She squeezes her eyes shut and hugs. The doll makes a sound—small but terrible. She hears a rustling, feels a tugging. And then it is over.

  She lets go with a shudder, as though she has just been sick to her stomach, and the doll drops to the ground. Kitty’s eyes are still shut when she says, “Now give me my tears.”

  When the doll does not answer, she opens her eyes and beholds the most remarkable transformation. The doll’s face is smooth and unblemished, its eyes merry blue, its mouth a rosebud. No longer naked, it is clad in a blue satin robe, fastened snugly about the waist. Kitty cries out and reaches for her. “Susie!”

  This time she hugs her tenderly; her doll feels so soft, just as she used to when Kitty was much younger, before she put her down one day and never picked her up again. Her tears are warm against Kitty’s shoulder. She cradles the beloved doll and looks lovingly into her sweet eyes where the tears are flowing—crystal clear.

  She flings it to the ground. “You said you would give me the tears! You lied! What am I going to do?! Now Jon will never wake up, he will never have been, and I’ll never get home!”

  Kitty begins to cry. Susie takes the vial from Kitty’s hand and catches the tears as they roll from Kitty’s cheeks in fat ebony drops.

  FRIDAY

  Remembered Pain

  She feels remarkably unscathed, considering how little sleep she has had. Last night she got to the bottom of something she did not know had been bothering her; and that can be better than sleep. She stayed up till three googling postpartum depression, ultimately ordering a book on the subject. Knowledge is power. The more she understands about her mother’s traumatic history and its effect on her own mothering, the better off her children will be. And it is nice to know that the coffee in her mug is completely decalcified. She rubs her arm and places a bowl of porridge in front of Maggie in her high chair and one for Matthew on his booster seat.

  “Matthew, it was so kind of you to lend Maggie your unicorn last night.”

  She will send flowers to Hil for real—freesia? Something that says “I’m sorry” without saying “I’m only sending you these because I’m sorry.” Daisies?

  “I didn’t lend it.”

  He is gazing up at her steadily.

  “You didn’t?”

  How, then, did Maggie get hold of it? There is something uncanny in the question, evoking as it does the spectre of a demonically nimble toddler, dropping to the floor, padding across the hallway …

  “I gave it,” says Matthew.

  “Matthew, it’s yours. Mumma gave it to you.”

  “I know.” He looks down.

  “Mine,” states Maggie.

  “Do you still feel bad about dropping it?”

  Tears flood his eyes. “I pushed it.”

  “Oh … Matthew, why?”

  He cries.

  “Oh sweetheart, it’s okay.” She strokes his head. “Matthew? Matt, honey? It’s all better now, I fixed it.”

  “I didn’t want you to fix it!” He smacks away his tears.

  “Gentle with yourself, Matt.”

  “No!” he roars.

  “No!” seconds Maggie.

  She has an insurrection on her hands. She crouches before him. “Don’t you like it anymore?”

  He is suddenly calm. “I did never like it, Mumma.”

  She swallows. Smiles. “That’s okay, sweetheart. It’s a sad song, isn’t it.”

  “Maggie likes it.”

  “I like it,” says Maggie, in oddly adult tones.

  She leaves the porridge pot to soak and they walk Matthew to school. Past Archie’s Variety. “ ‘Archie’s Variety,’ ” she says. The weather has aligned with the season, older children are off to school on bikes, music thumps from the open window of a passing car—Maggie is overdressed in her snowsuit, it is going to be a lovely day. There is a darkness in Mary Rose’s stomach. “ ‘Grapefruit Moon,’ ” she says. It is good that Matthew was able to tell her the truth about the unicorn, she is a good mother. The cute guy from the bike shop is setting out his sandwich board. “ ‘Early bird tune-up special,’ ” she reads aloud. She smiles at him; he is the type of young man she hopes Maggie will bring home one day—although why does she assume her daughter will bring home a boy not a girl? People who hate themselves are dangerous. “ ‘Freeman Real Estate,’ ” she says. Would she know if she had stomach cancer?

  “Mumma, why are you saying all the signs?” asks Matthew.

  The school bus i
s waiting when they arrive—the field trip to the Reptile Museum! She had meant to book Candace to babysit Maggie so she could take Matthew up there by car so he wouldn’t be killed in a crash. He boards the bus, overjoyed.

  Keira smiles, one hand on her big belly. “We have too many volunteers already, Mary Rose, don’t worry for a second!” She watches the pregnant young woman board and a doom opens within her, surely the vehicle is marked for death. Sue is waving to her from a window—she is seated between Matthew and Ryan. Sue is not the sort of person to be killed in a bus rollover. As long as Sue is on the bus, Matthew will probably not die. Mary Rose breathes out, then smiles and waves with the other parents as the big yellow bus pulls away. Her heart pounds as she watches a multitude of mittened hands in the rear window waving back.

  At home, a message from Gigi, “Hi, Mister, offer’s still good, call me.”

  What is she talking about? Much as she loves Gigi, her old buddy is among the ranks of those child-free friends who have time to go to movies mid-week and sit around leaving cryptic messages for people. She unbundles Maggie from her sweltering snowsuit and goes about rustling up a healthy snack. The late night is catching up with her, she is dying for a nap. You’re not twenty-five, you know. Twenty minutes is all she needs. She has committed to eliminating the morning nap and she will stick to it. Quit googling and go to bed early tonight.

  Craving sleep the way a vampire craves darkness, Mary Rose wills herself to the craft table, where she does a Ravensburger puzzle with Maggie. When claustrophobia becomes acute, she slips away and checks her e-mail.

  Hi Rosie,

  Mummy and Daddy will be arriving in Toronto on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. They had a wonderful time out here and I think they’re in good shape for the trip. I know they’re looking forward to seeing you. You’re doing such a hard job right now, Rosie-Posie, no one knows unless they’ve been through it … and then they forget! I’ve probably forgotten how hard it was too, but at least I know that I’ve forgotten. How’s that for logic?

  How’s Daisy? You can ship her out here if they order her destroyed. I’m serious, we will be a station on the underground pit bull railroad!

  Love,

  Mo

  There is one from Andy-Pat: a link to a site where an elephant is painting a watercolour. He is so far out of the loop, she is going to yank him back in—why should she have to go down to the train station of the cross all by herself this Sunday?

  APB all fraternal units: Mum and Dad stopping over by train on seventh at eleven hundred hours. Mustering for coffee and confusion at Union Station.

  xomr

  On the other hand, why should she facilitate his relationship with her parents? That’s what daughters have always done. What is the point of having lived a brave countercultural life if she is going to do the womany thing now and make her brother look good? The prodigal son: all he has to do is show up and a calf dies.

  Delete.

  Hi Mo,

  Thanks, I’ll keep you posted on Daisy. I’m going postal today to pick up the “mystery package”—I hope it’s there. I can’t bear the thought of Mum finding out that whatever it is she wanted to give me might be lost in the great shuffle called life. Maybe she “mailed” it into the garbage—you know, one of those complicated bins with a different opening for every kind of waste

  She deletes the last bit and sends it.

  Dear Dad,

  I

  She did not save the registered letter from her father. It arrived at her basement apartment more than twenty years ago on legal-size foolscap a week after she came out to her parents; she read it once then tore it up, aware of neither anger nor sorrow, only a belief that, while they were merely paper and ink to her, the words might hurt him terribly one day when her real father came back—how sad for Dad should he ever have to know what he had done to his daughter. It strikes her now that if she had spoken this thought aloud to a friend at the time, she might have recognized it as denial. Perhaps that is why we keep certain things to ourselves; so that we may also keep them from ourselves.

  One day, a year or so into the fatwa, she phoned him from the home she had recently made with Renée. Renée concurred that, of Mary Rose’s two parents, Duncan was the sane one; she had met them, Mary Rose having smuggled her home as a “friend” in the early days. Mary Rose felt sure that, but for her mother, her father would be able to refer to Renée as her “friend” and turn a bland eye on their shared bedroom. He would visit their home and take them for lovely lunches. He would never need to name—or curse—a thing. After all, he had seen it in her. Groomed her. He nicknamed her Mister and trained her to be better than a boy, never to take a back seat to one. Mary Rose and Duncan were signatories to the secret pact between certain lesbians and their fathers: Notwithstanding her overt feminism, the daughter, in exchange for throwing women under the bus as the inferior sex—along with any competing brothers—is granted honorary-son status. For his part, not only is he seen to be the enlightened father of a high-achieving woman, he gets to keep his throne because his lesbian daughter is neither a man nor in danger of bringing one home. All of this could have continued without anyone ever having to say the L-word. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. Why should father and daughter be kept apart by a cruel, crude mother? So one spring day, she phoned and asked him to come see her … She has not thought about that conversation in many years. She may have torn it up along with the letter. She types …

  Dear Dad,

  I wonder if Mum’s problems with postpartum depression informed the fury with which she responded to my coming out years later.

  She may have been consumed with guilt and anxiety because of all she had been through, and perhaps she believed she had damaged me somehow—especially during the very sad aftermath of Alexander’s birth and death when she would have been hard-pressed to focus her attention on an energetic toddler—and that this was how the damage was coming out … as it were

  Delete.

  She closes her laptop, scrubs the porridge pot, calls, “Maggie!” and experiences an audible click as a logical conclusion in the form of a question arrives in her consciousness after a journey of forty-three years: If I thought Andy-Patrick would have to be put in the ground if he was named after a dead brother, where did I think I was, having been named after a dead sister?

  Scour, scrub, scrape, “Maggie!”

  She is going to go down to Postal Station E and give some petty bureaucrat a big thorny piece of her mind. Why seek out bad drivers upon whom to vent one’s spleen when there is a Crown corporation to hand? Fucking posties, fucking pensions and benefits and backaches. She swings round with the pot and almost clocks the child on the head. “Maggie! Thank you for coming when Mumma called, sweetheart.”

  Her daughter looks extra pretty today for some reason, like a little candy apple blossom. “Hey, cutie-pie, wait’ll Mummy comes home and sees how much you’ve grown!”

  They will have a nice walk to the post office. They will take Daisy. They will show the postal people what a nice dog she is. Mary Rose will submit the form like a good citizen. The post office will release the mail. The suspense will end, her mother will shut up. They will stop in the park. They will have a nice time. She is a nice mother. See Jane put on her boots.

  Maggie sits on the step. Mary Rose stations herself below and takes hold of one little foot with one hand and one little running shoe with the other.

  “Boots,” says Maggie.

  “No problemo! Do you want the ladybugs?”

  “Yes, Mumma.”

  Mary Rose turns to the crowded rack and spots a single shiny red boot wedged at one end. She frees it—the left one, where is the right one?

  “Where’s your other ladybug boot, baby-girl?”

  She starts hunting for it. It is not in the basement. It is not in the backyard. It is not in the bottom of the stroller, it is not in the car. Where oh where is Jane’s other boot? Other Boot, Other Boot, fly away home! Mary Rose sighs. Where does a boot go
? Does it walk away on its own? Fiendishly skipping off to Hell? It is still not in the boot rack. Where the fuck is it? She kicks through the jumble of footwear that Maggie has obviously ransacked in an effort to be helpful, and with every kick she feels the tide of anger rising—do not fill above this line. Relax, it’s a boot, not a priceless heirloom.

  “Mumma can’t find your other ladybug boot, Maggie, you’ll have to wear these ones.”

  The Bean boots with safety reflectors.

  “No, Mumma, I will wear Sitdy boots.”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I can only find one.” This is a grammatical infelicity, it ought to be I can find only one, otherwise only is modifying find—

  “I can find one, Mumma.”

  “You’re such a good girl!” With that, she takes Maggie’s right foot and, gently but firmly, begins to pull the ladybug boot off it. Maggie goes rigid, shoots out her leg, and her heel finds her mother’s left nipple. Mary Rose releases her hold. She smiles, unruffled. It really does get better. “Okay, sweetheart, you can wear one of each.” Pleased with her patience, she hands Maggie a Bean boot. Maggie throws it at the wall.

  “STOP IT!” roars Mary Rose, corralling the bucking ankles, “NO!” grabbing the flailing hands, wrists, arms, “DON’T YOU FUCKING HIT ME!” She is sobbing the words with a force of violence she is diverting from her hands, “I’M GOING TO SMASH YOU!” Stop.

  Maggie is still struggling. Is that a good sign? Mary Rose’s hands are still around her daughter’s arms, her knees imprisoning her daughter’s knees, angry Madonna and child. Maggie is whimpering now, wriggling more than fighting.

  It is not that sound has deserted the air, it is that each sound issues briefly from a void into which it promptly returns. Dead. It is as though Mary Rose were hearing everything from behind glass. The air itself has changed such that time cannot pass through it, must go around it instead. It is separate in here. Sterile.

  Her hands are still around her daughter’s arms. Her hands can feel the small bones within their sleeves of flesh, bones like flutes. She watches her hands as, without warning, they pulse. Maggie screams. The hands loosen their grip but do not let go. They remain like manacles, encircling the arms. Like paper chains on a Christmas tree. She watches the hands: what will they do next? Something is going to happen, she cannot remember what.