Dead Mom Walking

by Rachel Matlow

  * * *

  —

  LATER THAT MONTH I flew to Iceland for another escapist hiking adventure. I was sad to be leaving Molly so early in our relationship, but I’d booked the trip months earlier. Back in March I’d been conducting some fantasy research into hiking trails when I read about the Laugavegur Trail, a winding, fifty-five-kilometre route through Iceland’s uninhabited southern highlands. It was described as one of the most remote trails in the world. The caramel-coloured mountains and black sands looked like another planet—exactly what I was craving. I took one look at the sparkling blue glaciers and majestic canyons and summoned my inner Liz Lemon: “I want to go to there.” I booked my mountain huts that instant.

  Having spent my first evening soaking in a natural hot spring at base camp, I set forth the next morning across neon green moss, snow patches, and rolling lava fields. I’d hiked about twenty kilometres when I came to the edge of a plateau. There I stopped to take in the breathtaking view: vibrant yellow rhyolite mountains in the distance and a pristine turquoise lake nestled in the valley below, where I’d be spending the night. They say that most accidents happen when you’re close to home.

  I very slowly began the steep descent down the mountain, pressing my hiking poles firmly on the ground and placing one foot gingerly in front of the other. I was carrying a heavier pack than usual—I had all five days’ worth of food with me—as I zigzagged my way along the narrow, dusty trail. As I was nearing the bottom, my right foot slipped on some loose pebbles. It happened so quickly, but I remember it in slow motion: the tottering of my ankle as it struggled to keep me upright before finally giving way. I fell back into a seated position on the slope, dizzy, faint, and nauseated.

  With whatever wits I had, I quickly detached myself from my backpack, afraid that if I passed out, my bag might roll over the drop to my left and take me with it. It took a few minutes of lying there in a blur for me to come back from the shock. I tried to stand up, but it was too painful to put any weight on my right foot. I sat back down. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I knew I’d really messed up. I was alone, in the middle of nowhere, on the ledge of a mountain, without a literal leg to stand on. “One of the most remote trails in the world” echoed in my mind. I was a city kid—what business did I have being out here on my own in the first place? I was officially a cautionary tale.

  I stared at the crystal blue lake, only about five kilometres away. I was so close, but how I’d make it there was anyone’s guess. Then, to my great relief, when I looked up behind me I spotted two figures heading down the mountain. A few minutes later, as they came around the bend, I greeted them casually so as to not cause alarm: “Hi! I twisted my ankle. Can you please help me carry my bag down?” They were a young couple, a woman and man, with indistinct European accents. Loaded up with camping gear, they were obviously much more prepared for the elements than me. For starters, they had a first-aid kit. The woman gave me a couple of painkillers and wrapped my ankle with a tensor bandage while her boyfriend went ahead with my bag down the mountain.

  “Okay, walk,” she instructed me.

  I tried to stand up again and steady myself on the slope, but the pain was just too intense.

  “I can’t!” I cried.

  “You have to!” she ordered.

  Getting my navel and eyebrow piercings in the 90s had led me to believe I had a high pain threshold, but this was impossible to bear. So, instead of hiking down the slope, I ended up shimmying my way down on my butt. When I finally got to the bottom, the couple wished me well and handed me off to Oscar, an Icelandic tour guide who radioed ahead for help.

  I joined up with his tour group of mostly Canadians, including a couple of doctors who handed me an assortment of pills for what we all assumed was my sprained ankle. Someone carried my bag. I figured out a way to walk by slanting my right leg outward and using only the inside of my foot. Luckily it was mostly flat the rest of the way, except for two rocky river crossings. Oscar, a Viking type, piggybacked me through the water.

  I was high on adrenalin and the trail mix of painkillers I’d been throwing back, not to mention an immense feeling of gratitude toward my various saviours. About a kilometre away from the shelter, two very large men in red rescue patrol uniforms caught up with us and offered to carry me the rest of the way.

  “It’s okay. I’m fine!” I told them. No need to be so dramatic. (I’d sprained my ankle once as a child while playing at a friend’s house. Mom brushed it off, but I couldn’t walk—Josh had to come and wheel me home in his Toronto Star newspaper cart. I wonder where I learned to downplay my injuries.)

  When I arrived at the shelter, I sat down by the edge of an icy stream and dipped my foot in. My ankle was the size of a grapefruit. But the swelling would go down by morning, I figured. That night I made rehydrated beef stroganoff in a bag, washed down some Tylenol with Jameson whisky, and somehow managed to climb up to my assigned top bunk.

  In the morning, with my adrenalin down, I couldn’t walk at all. I hopped on one foot over to the warden’s hut, using my hiking poles for balance. Still hopeful, I wanted to inquire into the possibility of staying another night, thinking I’d need maybe one more day to recover. Elva, the hut warden’s partner, was a trained first responder and insisted on examining my ankle.

  As she gently rocked it up and down, there was an audible clicking sound. “I think it’s broken,” she said. “You have to go to the hospital.” Broken?

  Elva wrapped my ankle in a mouldable splint while her husband made some calls. Luckily a man named Siggi, the husband of another woman who worked on the trail, happened to be heading back to Reykjavik that day, and the surrounding rivers were low enough that he could come get me in his four-wheeler. I sat in the back seat with my leg propped up, bracing myself as we drove over rocky bumps and dips in the Mars-like surface of the highlands. At one point we passed by the notorious Eyjafjallajökull volcano that had erupted just a few years earlier, disrupting flights across Europe.

  As we munched on the beef jerky and dried mango that I no longer had to ration for the trek, I took the opportunity to ask Siggi about Iceland’s elves. I’d been fascinated by the country’s relationship with the magical creatures ever since I did a story about it for work. Apparently more than half the population believes in elves or at least wouldn’t rule out their existence. Roads are even diverted so as not to disturb their dwellings. (According to folklore, misfortune awaits those who build in elf territory.) Siggi told me there were even mediums who could communicate with them.

  “What do people think of these…elf mediums?” I ventured. “Are they considered crazy?”

  “Nah, just a little eccentric,” he said, tilting his hand back and forth. Sounded like someone else I knew.

  When we arrived in Reykjavik a few hours later, I thanked Siggi as he helped me into a wheelchair and rolled me into the ER. My doctor was a sweet woman with large red-rimmed glasses and a blond ponytail. “My name is Bjork,” she said. Of course it is.

  It turned out that my fibula—that is, my outer calf bone, not my ankle after all—was broken in two places. Bjork was amazed I’d been able to walk on it, adding that I was very lucky I didn’t need surgery—it was a “clean break.”

  I called Teddy with the news. “I pulled a Mother,” I told him. I was humbly reminded of one of her favourite sayings: “When you point your finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you.” Teddy booked me a new plane ticket home and was there to pick me up the next day. By now he was used to being the family airport-hospital express shuttle.

  I’d rented out my apartment for the length of the trip, so I had to stay with Mom for a week. She took care of me as well as she could with her one working arm. Molly came over and slept in my bed next to Mom’s infrared sauna, a hulking physical reminder that I hadn’t yet told her about Mom’s cancer. I was getting really good at this denial thing.

  Mom and I laughed at w
hat a sorry sight we were: she with her elbow in a purple cast, cradled in a sling; me with my leg in a blue cast, propped up on a chair. We looked like mirror images of each other, wartorn and broken. What had become of us?

  The truth is that neither of us were getting out of this unscathed. I could no longer assume the role of the sturdy foil to Mom’s fragility. I too was broken, crushed under the weight of a backpack filled with food, and what else? The cracks in my perfect durable facade were showing. And like her, I wasn’t ready to acknowledge it.

  * * *

  —

  I WENT RIGHT back to work. That September I was responsible for the show’s Toronto International Film Festival coverage. I hopped up and down theatre steps, determined not to let a broken leg slow me down. I attended industry parties and went out to dinner with friends. I even went on a weekend camping trip with Molly and her family, canoeing and portaging on my crutches. “The only disability is a bad attitude,” I’d say with a cheeky smile.

  I didn’t like accepting help from anyone—asserting my independence was another way to minimize my ailment. It was especially hard to let Molly help me. I liked being the steady, balanced one, but now I couldn’t even carry a glass of water. It was hard to admit that I was both mentally and physically off-balance. I tried to stop her, but Molly insisted on doing my laundry and other chores. And, little by little, I let her. I don’t know what was more challenging—allowing her to help me or admitting to myself that I wasn’t as self-sufficient as I’d thought.

  A couple of months into our relationship, Molly and I were hanging out on my couch one evening when she looked into my eyes and said “I love you.”

  I froze. I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” I replied. Molly gave me a tentative half-smile, searching my eyes. “I mean, I believe I feel that way too,” I said. I didn’t want to leave her hanging, but I also wasn’t about to say something so meaningful on an emotional whim. “But falling in love is like being on drugs,” I continued. “You’re not thinking clearly. It’s too early for me to say those words. I need more time to be sure.”

  “Okay,” Molly said, rolling her eyes and then leaning back in to kiss me.

  But it was the conversation we had a few weeks later that really made me squirm. We were lying in bed when Molly said she’d sensed some tension between Mom and me.

  “Do you want to know the real reason I’m annoyed with her?” I asked.

  “Uh, okay,” she said, hesitant.

  “Promise you won’t feel sorry for me, all right? Don’t say ‘Aww’ or anything, okay?” I was already anticipating the panicked feeling that other people’s reactions used to bring out in me. Molly gave me that look of hers that lovingly said “You’re a weirdo” and agreed to my terms.

  I hid my face with my hands as I told her the whole story: how Mom had been diagnosed with cancer four years before, how against my wishes she’d been trying to cure herself, and how we mostly just pretended that she didn’t have it anymore.

  Molly was keeping a blank face as per my request. When I finally asked her what she thought, she told me things made more sense to her now. Apparently Mom had made a sly comment to her about me not agreeing with her “choices.” I was relieved to have told Molly. I felt closer to her, even though I was still keeping to myself another distressing situation.

  * * *

  —

  BY SEPTEMBER, it was getting harder for me to play-act as if everything was normal at work. I was sitting in the audience at the Sony Centre watching Jian interview Lena Dunham about her new book. “With more and more pop culture figures like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift embracing feminism, how do you see the movement evolving?” Jian asked. I knew the words before they faux-stumbled out of his mouth. I’d written them (he’d been bullying me into doing his homework outside of CBC as well). “It’s all about equal rights for men and women,” Lena replied. “I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t be on board for that—unless they’re a monster,” she said, half-joking. Dun-dun-DUUUUN. The audience chuckled, but I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Given what I’d heard about him, I couldn’t listen to Jian wax on about feminism anymore. I was used to being used by him, but now I felt gross about helping him masquerade as someone who genuinely cared about women. I knew I had to find a way out. But I was afraid of what he might do to sabotage my career if I tried to leave.

  Jian liked to give random shoulder massages to a few of us producers in the office. Once in a while, without any warning, I’d feel his hands on my back. I’d instantly freeze up, but then I’d tell myself to relax, that he was just being nice. I didn’t want to make him feel bad by shrugging him off. But I could never ever shake the feeling that in those instances he was sending me a direct message: Don’t forget, I’m in control. He’d literally have his hands around my neck.

  I didn’t know exactly how I’d get away from him or where I’d go next. But sitting in the audience that evening, I knew I had to run. Just as soon as I got off my crutches.

  10

  BOILED FROGS

  One Friday in late October I walked into work like any other morning—except I was limping. It was one of my first days off crutches. Q was already live when I arrived at my desk, turned on my computer, and put my headphones on to listen to the show’s internal feed. I was surprised to hear the voice of one of our regular guest hosts instead of Jian. My heart began beating faster. Could this be it?

  Although he cut it close every morning, Jian never actually missed a show without advance notice. My eyes widened and I slowly scanned the office. Everything appeared normal, but I had a strong sense that something was up. I walked over to the control room, where Brian was directing. As I opened the door our eyes met. In that split second I knew.

  By that time I’d almost given up hope that the rumours about Jian would ever come to light, or that anyone would ever come to our rescue. I assumed he’d managed to sweep it under the rug like everything else. But that afternoon the team was summoned to the boardroom, where our boss and management informed us that Jian was taking an “indefinite” leave of absence. They wouldn’t tell us why. People were confused, with some thinking Jian needed time off to grieve his father, who had recently died. Those of us in the know gave one another looks. Shit was going down.

  Late Sunday morning, I got a text informing me of an emergency conference call. I dialed in just as the head of radio began reading a statement: “The CBC is saddened to announce its relationship with Jian has come to an end.” My jaw dropped. I had a brief feeling of pure jubilation before the shit show started unravelling in real time.

  Late Sunday afternoon, Jian posted a fifteen-hundred-word statement on his Facebook page in which he claimed that the CBC had fired him for his “private life.” He compared his sex life to “a mild form of Fifty Shades of Grey” and dismissed the not-yet-made-public accusations as a “campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer.” Fifty Shades of Grey? Jilted ex-girlfriend? Wow, this is what happens when he writes his own shit?

  By Sunday evening, my happiness about his being fired turned to heartbreak. The Toronto Star published allegations from three women who said Jian had physically attacked them on dates without consent. I felt nauseated and shaky as I read the details. “They allege he struck them with a closed fist or open hand; bit them; choked them until they almost passed out; covered their nose and mouth so that they had difficulty breathing; and that they were verbally abused during and after sex.”

  It’s amazing, the difference between kind-of-knowing and actually knowing. It may not be much of a leap in terms of facts, but it’s a giant plunge in terms of how it feels. It’s like the lifting of a sheer veil. You saw the fuzzy outline of shapes, but now you clearly see the horror for what it is—you really experience it. Complete and utter dread. And, because you’d seen the clues, you get the bonus feelings of stupidity and regre
t.

  When I arrived at work on Monday morning, it was obvious that maintenance had been working overtime. The twenty-foot poster of Jian that had been on the side of the building had been torn down, and the wall that bore his giant face outside our studio looked as though it had been scraped away by bears. They had loved him for so long, and now they couldn’t get rid of him fast enough.

  When I got to my desk, a pamphlet had been left on my chair. There was a black-and-white photo of a wilted flower on the cover under the heading “Experiencing a Traumatic Event: Recovery and Coping Strategies.” It began: “You have been given this handout following the occurrence of an unexpected and potentially traumatic event…” NO SHIT. Colleagues were breaking down. Sean looked destroyed when I saw him in the hallway. He couldn’t cope and was on his way home. We all looked like abused animals released from a cage after years of captivity. We were disoriented. The light hurt our eyes.

  That afternoon I went to the studio to see Hozier perform his haunting song “Take Me to Church.” I entered the control room where a few of my co-workers had already congregated. Someone handed me a glass of sympathy Scotch, sent to us from colleagues down the hall. We looked one another in the eyes, but no one said a word as we clinked our glasses. Ding-dong, the witch is dead—not a joyful cheers but a collective relief, a solemn acknowledgment. With the horrible allegations coming to light, there was nothing to celebrate. We sipped our single malt as Hozier’s powerful voice rose to a crescendo. It was four minutes of solace before we got swept back into the tornado.

  By the end of the week, eight women had accused Jian of assault. There was a sense that the country felt betrayed. Many people asked me, “How could such a sensitive, feminist guy assault women?” They’d drawn conclusions about him based on the show’s progressive journalism. I hardly blamed them—Jian had never purported to be anything different from his on-air persona. He had people fooled.