In the Field

by Claire Tacon

Canning is still the same. You could shoot a corset drama here and only need to edit out the power lines.

  It’s well dark when I pull into my mother’s drive. I let the boys sleep for a few more minutes, and look at the house, a lone light on in the kitchen. Nothing’s really changed since my father’s death almost thirty years ago. My mother’s repainted the house, but always in the same robin’s egg blue Dad chose. I think about what’s waiting inside—the mismatched furniture and crocheted throw pillows that my mother collected in the seventies, that she’s kept looking new with meticulous cleaning. The hideous olive and mustard backsplash that Dad laid behind the stove using a box of tiles he found at the dump. I was nervous bringing Richard out here the first time, having him see where I grew up. It felt like showing up to a tapas party with mini-donuts. This time, I worry it’s Stephen who’ll think the place is corny.

  I hoist Luke onto my hip and Stephen groggily follows behind. My mother’s left the place unlocked. There’s only the one lamp on and it’s hard to see our way around. I find her dozing in the armchair, a word-search book in her lap. She’s wearing the sheep-print flannelette housecoat that the boys gave her a few years ago. The fabric pools around her hips. We must have misjudged the size.

  It takes her a minute to get her bearings. “You’re here.”

  “I didn’t think we’d get in so late.”

  I motion for Stephen. He stands in front of his grandmother, unsure of what to do. She gets up to give him a proper hug. “Look at how big you are. I thought you were Richard at first.”

  Luke’s still asleep.

  “It’s fine, we can visit in the morning.”

  I almost trip on something on the stairs, but regain my balance. I undress Luke down to his briefs and T-shirt and tuck him in.

  Stephen wants to know if he has to brush his teeth.

  “Don’t bother. Do you want to call your father?”

  Stephen flops on the bed.

  “I’ll let him know we got in.”

  My old room is a time capsule from 1979. It bears all the marks of my life before and after the death of my father. He painted the floorboards brown, even though the wood underneath would have been a nicer neutral. He also chose the massive circular rug under the bed—bid on it at a church rummage sale. It looks like a fabric mosquito coil, green and brown tubes twisted round and round. The sheets on the bed, however, were bought when I was in grade nine—pale beige with sprays of yellow flowers and curlicue green stems—my widowed mother’s taste.

  The twin-sized bed has a crocheted ladybug blanket over the comforter. Whenever Richard’s come out before, we’ve put the boys in this room and slept on a double futon in the spare room. Once, Stephen had fallen asleep on our bed and it was so late that we decided to share the single bed instead of disturbing him. We were younger then and it was an adventure, hanging onto each other so we wouldn’t fall off in the night. I wonder if that’s how it would be if Richard were here now, if we’d have any contact that giddy.

  I open the drawer of the nightstand and pull out an old paperback from university. On the flyleaf I’ve written my name, the residence address and course number. I may as well have been going off to summer camp and ironed my name into my underwear. There’s a dormer window on the East side, facing out to Dad’s old tool shed. In the last summer before university, I used to open the window and straddle the sill to smoke up, a towel under the door so my mother wouldn’t catch me. As I work my toes through the blanket’s crochet holes, I can summon the twin feelings of expectation and suffocation that I felt living here. I guess I’ve gotten as far away as I can, living downtown, teaching at Guelph, instead of working at the Co-op grocery like my mother or the Michelin plant like Dad.

  There’s lots I remember about my father—his mannerisms, how much fun he was to tag along with, the way he’d whistle himself out of a bad mood, even his swears. What I can’t do is reliably picture his face. Sometimes it happens in dreams or when a memory flashes, but it’s nothing that will hold still and let me examine it.

  Back in Toronto, I’ve got two framed photos of him. The first is from a beach bonfire and he’s got an arm around a string bikini version of my mother, a can of beer in his other hand. The second is Dad holding me as a baby—I’m bundled into his coveralls and he’s looking straight into the camera. That’s the picture that comes to mind the most, even though I could have no real memory of it. It terrifies me, this idea that my own memories of my father have already been lost, rerecorded like VHS—the memories paved over by photographic artefacts.

  In the morning, I see why I tripped on the stairs—my mother’s been using them as a filing cabinet, storing mail, newspapers and flyers on alternating steps. The bottoms of the stacks already tea-dyed.

  My mother’s hunched over the stove, slicing a quarter cup of butter into a cast iron skillet big enough to brain a bear. To her side, the pancake batter waits in an oversized measuring cup with a chipped spout. It’s a benchmark scene from my childhood, replayed every Christmas, birthday, first day of school. As steady an indicator of our family’s progress as my height charted against the door frame.

  She’s still in the housecoat from yesterday, the too-long sleeves hanging dangerously close to the burner.

  “You going to come say hello?”

  She sweeps the butter across the heat as I hug her. An unwieldy sideways embrace, her shoulder aligned to my sternum.

  “Did you sleep?”

  The grease has splattered over the backsplash so I grab a J-cloth from the sink. When I reach for the faucet, I find it’s filthy. Along the basin, the caulking’s gone black with mildew and there’s a thick, furry smudge between the sink and the wall. Bits of dried food pock the countertop.

  I should have given her more notice.

  “Can I make you some coffee?” I ask.

  “I’m cutting back,” she says. “Makes my heart race too much.” Last time we were here she couldn’t start her day without two full mugs. “There’s some orange juice in the fridge. I got cranberry cocktail for the boys. Do they still like that?”

  I grab three glasses from the cupboard. There are still lip stains on one and I discreetly wipe the rim with the hem of my shirt.

  “Did you go to bingo on Monday?”

  “Haven’t been in years.” It’s hard to make out her words because she’s facing the stove, which is against the other wall, in between the door and window. Most kitchens work the stove into the cabinetry but Dad didn’t want to pay for a fume hood. “It’s like your father always said, if all the little old ladies who play the lotto every week just saved their money. . . .”

  “I thought bingo was more of a social thing.”

  “Hand me a plate.” The stack of pancakes has grown too high for the one she has in the oven. I retrieve a plate from the cupboard, willing myself to not look. She deposits the pancake and motions for me to open the oven door.

  There’s an old linoleum table at the far end of the kitchen and I give it a wipe before grabbing placemats from the hutch drawer. Mercifully, the placemats are all clean and the cutlery looks fine. I polish the forks with a tea towel anyway.

  When I’m fetching the napkins, however, I find mouse turds in the back of the drawer. There’s a small hole in the back panel, no bigger than a quarter, scratch marks around the edges.

  “Have a seat, Ellie.”

  “I’ll just set the table.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

  Upstairs, someone flushes the toilet. Stephen comes down a few minutes later and my mother wraps him up in a big hug before he’s even in the kitchen. “You’re so big. Ellie, he’s so big. What do they feed you in Ontario?”

  Stephen tries his best to not squirm away, unsure how to respond. He’s only met his grandmother a handful of times.

  “I miss you boys so much.”

  I answer for him. “We miss you too.”

  My mother scoots Stephen into a chair and fusses pouring his juic
e. “I’ve saved the last of the batter for our special pancakes.” The bubble in her voice flattens at the end as she appraises this grown version of her grandson. “Maybe you’re too old for them.”

  He shakes his head politely, encouraging her as she pours three blobs to form a decapitated Mickey Mouse.

  “Is Luke up too?”

  Stephen checks that his grandmother’s back is turned and points upstairs, mouths wet the bed. I blink out my understanding. He mimes projectile vomiting.

  Luke is naked from the waist down, his bum on the very edge of the double bed. He’s been rubbing his eyes but isn’t crying anymore, thanks to Stephen. As much as he teases his younger brother, he can also be very tender with him.

  It doesn’t take long to clean up, but in the brief time it takes to shower Luke, I can see that the bathroom’s in worse shape than the kitchen. The ceiling paint has buckled and started to shed onto the floor. When Luke pulls the toilet seat up to pee, the underside is flecked with splotches of dried urine. There are spots of mould in the bowl itself and a layer of dust on the visible toiletries. It’s nothing that would be amiss in a college dorm, but completely out of character for a woman who once kept our under-sink cupboards clean enough for surgery.

  I curb my impulse to explore further because Luke’s nervous enough already. He hasn’t seen his grandmother since he was two, after which she’s only existed for him as a disembodied voice on our weekly phone calls and as a signature on cards and presents.

  Downstairs, Stephen’s steadily chewing his way through the juvenile pancakes. My mother’s busying herself over the stove, just as unsure of what to say.

  “Another giant,” she says as soon as she sees Luke.

  He doesn’t move from my side.

  My mother crouches down. “Knee-high to a grasshopper you were, last time I saw you. Now you’re almost as big as your brother.”

  Luke loves that.

  “Do you remember me?” She leads him over to the fridge. “Recognize anyone?”

  The fridge is plastered in photos of the boys. There’s a wallet size of Stephen from each grade running parallel to the handle. Next to it is a smaller column for Luke. There’s even a picture of Richard and me at our wedding and a 5 x 7 of Luke’s entire grade one class that I forgot we sent. Luke relaxes after he’s seen the pictures, as if they’re proof that she actually belongs to him.

  “Why don’t you tell your Grandma about the assembly?”

  Stephen takes his time, as if the whole process is painful. “We had graduation last week.”

  “Did you win any awards? Ellie was always winning this or that in school.”

  “The principal had favourites,” I explain. “Stephen did very well on his report card though. Straight As and one A plus.”

  He sighs out a correction. “Mostly A minuses.”

  “That’s still an A,” my mother chirps. “No shortage of brains in this family.”

  “I had an A plus too,” Luke says, eager to participate now that Stephen’s broken his silence. Between demonstrating his reading skills with the syrup label blurb and recounting his dance performance, Luke safely steers us through breakfast.

  The toilet bowl is sweating. Along with the water faucet, our glasses of Coke, the gap where the seal has failed on the fridge, anything fortunate enough to be cooler than the thirty-one degree kiln outside. The condensation pools where it falls, unable to evaporate in the humidity. We prop open the front and back doors, inviting a cross-breeze that never arrives. The boys are bored.

  It’s as good a time as any for a swim. My mother stays behind to have a lie down.

  Parking is a length of gravel in front of the old White Rock community centre, a squat yellow and brown bungalow. The boys are skeptical when we leave the car and wander back through a grass corridor towards the woods. They haven’t swum much in fresh water because Richard isn’t fond of setting foot in anything he can’t see clear through to the bottom.

  Stephen hacks his arms against the grass like a machete. “Are there leeches?”

  “I’ve never gotten one here.”

  “What are leeches?” Luke asks.

  “They’re big worms that swim up and suck your blood.” Stephen wriggles his finger up behind his brother’s ear.

  “No they aren’t.”

  “Yes they are.”

  Luke slaps his brother away. “Are they real?”

  “Leeches are completely harmless.”

  We reach the wooded area and make our way along a rock and clay path towards the water’s edge, the soil dried and yellowed in the heat. A bunch of logs are chained together across the river, perfect for diving. On the other side is the electrical dam.

  “You’d better be careful that a leech doesn’t swim up your shorts,” Stephen taunts.

  “Make him stop it.”

  “Stop it, Stephen.”

  “It’ll bite off your wiener.”

  “Stephen.”

  Next to the water there’s another warning sign, a stylized depiction of a swimmer being sucked into the turbine. Growing up, we came here all the time, but I still hesitate. The sign’s probably liability insurance for Nova Scotia Power, but there’s a chance someone did drown here. Stephen’s a good swimmer, but Luke’s so young we shouldn’t risk it. “I’m sorry, boys, we’ll have to go to the beach at Lumsden’s instead.”

  I don’t want to draw their attention to the sign. Between this and the leeches, Luke’ll never want to go swimming again.

  “This is dumb,” Stephen says. “When are we signing up for soccer?”

  I don’t bother to reprimand him, just lead back up the path and get in the now-boiling car. At Lumsden’s, it’s only a quick dip before the sky clouds over, rains.

  Dinner is pork and beans. The pork being sliced wieners and the beans being canned. The boys love it. As I scoop the food onto my fork, what comes to mind are the thick mucous trails left behind by mating slugs.

  The boys do the dishes. At home they don’t have many chores because we have a dishwasher and a cleaning lady who comes twice a month, but they don’t protest when I ask Stephen to wash and Luke to dry. It’s nice to see them working together.

  That’s what I tell Richard when he calls. I’ve taken the cordless outside for privacy but have to flatten myself against the slat board siding to keep it dry.

  “Stephen seemed grumpy about it.”

  “He did a good job anyway.”

  As Richard speaks, I curve my neck to cradle the phone as if it were his chest my face was pressed against. At this point, I just want us to make up.

  “Your mother sounds happy to see them.”

  “We’re having a nice time. How’s the fort?”

  “Hot. Too hot to cook. It’s my third night of Thai food.”

  “Eggplant?”

  “Chicken panang with pumpkin.”

  “Your dad come over?”

  “Last night.”

  “You know, he was smart, getting out of the house and moving to the condo.” I lower my voice so no one will overhear. “I think this place is starting to get away from my mother. There was an open box of crackers in a drawer and the mice got into it.”

  “Doesn’t sound that bad.”

  “It’s not.” A pickup tears out of the neighbour’s drive. “It’s not. It’s just not like her.”

  “So help her clean.”

  Richard’s tone makes me wonder if he talked to Prescott today.

  “Is it true that she doesn’t have a TV?”

  “She doesn’t have cable.”

  “So no FIFA?”

  “Unless it comes on CBC or ATV.”

  “Did you get a chance to check out the soccer leagues?”

  “It’s the first day.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “Well, if we’re cleaning tomorrow we probably won’t get to it until the end of the week.”

  “Sign-up deadlines are usually in May.”

  “I’d rather the boys didn’t
get hanta virus before the cheque clears on the league registration.”

  “Hanta virus comes from deer mice.”

  The fake-look-wood on the alarm clock clashes with the oak-stained pine nightstand. I’ve been staring at it for the past twenty minutes, watching the plastic numbers flip through from one nineteen to twenty to two. I’m not getting to sleep anytime soon, so I might as well get up, get started.

  Because the tub is brown, the filth doesn’t show as acutely. When I rub the finger pads of the rubber gloves around the enamel, thick grey grime collects in the ridges. The accumulation of sloughed skin and soap looks obscene against the relentless yellow of the gloves. A few squirts of Tilex and the place reeks of ammonia. Normally, I’d clean with vinegar or baking soda, but the filth has passed the scope of eco-friendly cleaners. I prop the window open with an old can of hairspray.

  The grout has turned black on the tile backsplash and I spray wildly with the cleaner, working it in with an old toothbrush. The toothbrush digs deep grooves into the putty and when I rinse it off, a couple of tiles fall and clank in the tub. I freeze, terrified it’s woken my mother or the boys. Stupidly, I crouch behind the shower curtain, as if that could conceal or excuse this.

  The black mould has spread so far that the underside of the tile looks like it’s covered in lichen. There must be a leak—who knows what condition the wall is in.

  After my father died, house cleaning became my mother’s and my weekend ritual, everything scheduled by hour. Saturday mornings: tidying, laundry, ironing. Afternoons: yard work and vacuuming for her, homework for me. Sunday mornings I’d do the bathroom; she’d scrub every surface in the kitchen. We’d both dust the rest of the house, liberally spraying Pledge on squares cut out of Dad’s long johns. The afternoons were reserved for “special tasks” like the monthly emptying of the fridge and defrosting of the freezer box.

  We’d finish by four and would sit down for an early supper, usually fried bologna served on toasted white bread and held in place by a smear of highlighter-yellow mustard. Sometimes I’d be relieved early and could go ride my bike to a friend’s. I remember coming back early one day and seeing my mother hunched over the tub that I’d cleaned that very morning, using an old toothbrush to bleach the grout.