by Claire Tacon
He’s still unmoved. “Looks to me like you’re doing an autopsy on my acreage.”
“I am, Clarence, I am.”
“Thing is, it ain’t dead yet.” The ash on his cigarette has grown to the size of a knuckle.
I lead him over to some vials of solution and he eyes the equipment suspiciously. “When you’re through all these tests, where are you sending the results?”
I toss him a set of safety glasses. “I’m not the Board of Health.”
The experiment is a crude test of the soil’s organic content. I assign Stephen the task of shaking the sample, which he executes with the vigour of an electric paint mixer. When the colour’s settled I get Clarence to match the shade to the test swatch.
He adjusts the brim of his hat to accommodate the goggles. “Two?”
The vials are passed around and the rest of the group concurs.
“It’s good. That’s medium.”
Melanie notes the findings. Clarence just stands there, his brow pinched, bewitched by the scientific equipment.
“This stuff works?” he asks, as if I’m peddling snake oil. “I’m an old dog, Ellie. I’m done learning new tricks.” Still, he lingers as I finish up with the experiment, helps us fill the hole back in.
At the end of the day, Marc shakes Stephen’s hand, extending it into a high-five and fist bump. If it was me, Stephen would groan, but he plays along with Marc. “So do you think your Dad would let us steal your Mom for a semester? We could start with a six-credit soil intro and build up a whole agroecology program.”
Stephen’s flinches as though what Marc’s proposing is a real possibility. I tousle my son’s hair, keeping the mood light. “I don’t know about Richard, but I could be persuaded.”
We swing by the library on the way home, so Stephen can check his email. I’m so buoyed by the day that I browse some job sites and fire off a resume to a posting at the Kentville Agricultural Centre. It’s too far, but it’d be good interview practice. At the very least, it’s another chance to get my name out.
“So you finally got our son interested in science,” Richard says. Stephen’s given him the play-by-play. It’s the first time we’ve said more than a perfunctory hello since the car argument and his voice sounds lubricated with a stiff scotch.
“He was great out there.” I slide off the fact that I hadn’t mentioned getting in touch with Marc, let alone setting up the lab.
“It sounds like you’re making some good contacts.”
“Yep.”
“Good for you.” He continues, chipper, as though nothing’s shifted between us. “Dad and I have started clearing out the basement. He’s got an idea to excavate some of the backyard so it’s partially above ground so we can put in two rooms with standard windows.”
Finishing the basement so the boys can have separate bedrooms is a project that resurfaces every few years but has always been postponed.
“I wanted to ask how you’d feel about having your own office down there. That way you can have your own space if you’re going to be looking for teaching or doing freelance contracts. Dad’s measuring up a shelf for your soil samples.”
In contrast to his manic pitch, there’s a heaviness in his pause. “It’s all settled with U of T. They’re bringing in one of our recent grads.”
The defeat in his tone makes my question redundant but I ask anyway. “How did it go?”
After severe erosion, there’s a process called isostasy that causes the underlying bedrock to rise up to fill the void. It works like a raft on water—as weight is removed from the Earth’s crust, it floats further up from the mantle it rests on, providing parent material for future soil. However, it’s not a simple equation of loss and replace; it can take tens of thousands of years before the soil achieves its former depth and fertility. All I can think as Richard details the plans for the office is that this is his botched attempt at isostasy, maintaining the equilibrium with an inadequate offering.
My mother nods at a couple on the other side of the bleachers. “Those are the Hartley’s kids.” Stephen is already across the field, warming up with the rest of the soccer team and Luke’s jogging on the spot next to them, imitating the exercises.
“Who?”
“You remember a few concessions over when you were growing up?”
“They look younger than me.” By a lot, I think.
“Louise got breast cancer you know.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“Full mastecto-whatever.”
“Chemo?”
My mother makes a face and waves me away. “I don’t know. Sold their house and moved to Mexico—some kind of witch doctory centre. Mumbo-jumbo along the lines of what you want to sign me up for.”
This morning I suggested she book an appointment with a naturopath since she’s still adamantly against a physical.
The coach kicks a spare ball over to Luke and he tries bouncing it on his knee like the older boys. Stephen’s shifted to the far side of the line-up, getting the maximum distance between himself and his brother, mortified by the attention he’s attracting. I rise to call Luke back, but my mother stops me. “Just leave him. He’s got to sit through the whole game, doesn’t he?”
There’s still no sign of Max or Bernie. At five to seven Max sprints out from the parking lot and apologizes to the coach. A few minutes later, Bernie arrives and chats with a few other people before joining us.
My mother asks where Linda is.
“Took Lisa to her Mum’s.”
“Luke will be sad,” I say.
“He getting sweet on her?”
The whistle blows and the ref waves Luke over to call the toss.
I scoot to make room for Bernie but he motions for me to stay in place. “I’ve got to head out. Linda wants me to pick up some roast chicken for dinner.”
When he’s left, my mother whispers out of the corner of her mouth like a ventriloquist, her eyes still facing the field. “It’s because of you, you know.”
“What?”
“Bernie not staying.”
“Why?”
“Linda’s had two guys run off on her before. She’s laying down the law this time.” My mother frowns. “I’m not saying anything, Ellie. But Linda’s mom is going to have words with Bernie—Mary Hutchins told me.”
“Fat Mary?”
My mother lowers her voice to a hiss. “Be nice, Eileen.”
“You’ve called her that for years.” She must have heard this at the co-op yesterday. I should have known—she was gone two hours getting fruit.
Our team scores and a father on the other team, the same one from the last Kentville game, calls out, “Come on Brad, wake up.” His son wipes his hands on his shirt then runs a bit faster.
Stephen looks at me as he jogs back to the starting line and motions like he’s clicking a camera. I’d forgotten that I’m supposed to be taking pictures to send Richard. I focus on the viewfinder, happy for the excuse to ignore my mother.
Stephen passes quickly to Max, who gets the ball out and over the centreline. The dad on the other team calls out, “Brad, keep your eyes on the black one.”
Christ. The freckled kid tries to close the distance between himself and Stephen, but my son is too fast. The play nears the bleachers and I’m able to snap a few action shots of Stephen sneaking the ball past his opponent.
For a long stretch, neither team can manage a play. As the ref blows the whistle for half-time, Max gets the ball and cocks his leg back to shoot. The play’s dead, but he kicks the ball anyway, frustrated.
My mother’s busy eating carrot sticks from a yoghurt container.
“So what did you tell Mary?”
She waves a carrot to show me her mouth’s full.
“What do you think?”
She shrugs the question off as if she can’t remember her end of the conversation. It’s this kind of gossip that makes small towns so claustrophobic.
Across from us, Brad is busy receiving a lecture
from his father. Brad doesn’t seem too interested in soccer at this point, just kicks at the sod while his father blusters. “You can’t let them take the ball from you like that. Blackie’s a ringer, you’ve got to take him out.”
That’s it. I leave my mother and walk right up to the man. He’s taller than I’d thought. I only come up to his chest. The father nods to me. “Yeah?”
“You can’t call my son ‘blackie.’”
His upper lip curls into a snarl as if to say, he’s yours? Brad’s mortified. “He’s black, isn’t he?”
“He’s Trinidadian-Canadian.”
The man’s head is slightly oblong, the skin acne-scarred, a ball of pastry dropped on the floor and carelessly brushed off. “You get knocked up from one of the seasonal workers?”
My arms go rigid from the adrenaline. The man watches, amused, as I struggle to keep my voice low and level. “My husband is a professor at the University of Toronto.”
“So what’s your problem?”
“I’m not going to have some asshole screaming at my son from the sidelines.”
“What’s wrong with the word ‘blackie’? He hulks over me. “I didn’t call him a nig – ”
My fist connects with his collarbone. He catches my wrist and I hang in his grip like a dangled fish. “Why don’t you just piss off? Your son shouldn’t even be on the team.”
“Because he’s black?”
“No.” He draws out the vowel. “Didn’t register in time. You blow Jason McInnes for a jersey?”
The ref jogs over, same beanpole kid from the first game. He gets in between us, forcing the man to release me. The ref looks him straight in the eyes like he’s staring down an aberrant dog. “I’m giving your son a red card if you don’t settle down.”
The rest of the field snaps into view. Everyone is staring. There are people ten feet across from us in every direction eyeing the spectacle. No one has stepped in to restrain him.
“I’m just trying to give my son a few pointers and this bitch is telling me what I can and can’t say.”
“You can’t talk like that, sir.” This kid can’t be more than nineteen, can’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds.
The man spits on the ground and grabs his son’s jersey. Brad’s eyes are welling. “We’ll be complaining to Parks and Rec.” He pokes at the ref’s chest. “I want you fired. And I want this cunt and her son out of the league.”
The ref blows the whistle so loud we have to shield our ears. He presses a red swatch against Brad’s chest. The father grabs his elbow and raises his fist, up yours. He drags his son off the pitch. It’s obvious Brad’s going to be in shit tonight. That part I feel badly about.
I march over to my son, the whole team tracking my approach. I angle my body so they can’t see his reaction when I ask if he’s all right. He doesn’t answer.
“We should call it a night.”
Stephen glances at Max then at me. “Can I finish the game?”
I wait another moment to make sure it’s what he wants.
On the way to my seat I notice that my wrist is starting to bruise. There’s a red welt on my hand from where my fist balled up around my wedding ring. Luke is sitting on his hands, next to my mother, tears running down his face. My mother isn’t making any effort to comfort him. He wraps his legs around my waist and leans his head into my neck. “It’s okay,” I repeat, rocking him against me. “It’s okay.”
Play resumes. Luke stays on my lap. I worry about whether I should have called the police, whether I’m guilty of assault because I threw the first punch, whether a cop out here would understand that kind of provocation.
My mother catches my eye and shakes her head as if she’s asking me if that was necessary.
“What?”
“Was that the big city stuff you were telling me about?”
Ten to eight and no sign of Bernie. We mill around the parking lot so that Max won’t have to wait alone. He and Stephen pass the ball back and forth to each other like it’s a Hacky Sak, never letting it touch the ground. I think they’re talking about the soccer dad but they’re a ways off and I can’t make out what they’re saying. I scan Stephen’s movements—the force he drives into his kick, the timbre of his laugh—trying to ferret out any injuries beneath the surface.
I didn’t realize how hard it would be for the boys out here. How much they would stand out. Back within the confines of our house walls, we’ve always felt like a family, same as any other. It’s a primal bond, not something I appreciate other people throwing social theory at. But what I’m realizing more and more is that once we open the front door, the world comes rushing in, filing us into separate categories.
Most of the other families are gone now. We pack the soccer ball and the backpack in the trunk and my mother sits in the front seat, the door open and her purse on her lap, irritated by the wait. Luke leans on the car hood watching the older boys.
Max raises his arm, takes a sniff and then recoils. “Onions.”
Stephen laughs and pokes his nose into his own armpit. He groans.
The truck pulls in a few minutes later but Bernie doesn’t get out of the vehicle. My mother’s probably right—Linda’s laid down the law. Instead, Lisa runs over to Max and he wipes his sweat on her arm. “Special delivery.”
She stomps on his foot, disgusted. He swings her over his shoulder so her face is in line with his armpit. “Sniff it,” he says, with a voice like character in a zombie movie. He staggers with the weight of her all the way to the truck. “Sniiifff iiit.”
We pull into the ice-cream stand just as it’s closing. My mother stays in the car to eat hers, but I lead the boys back to the menagerie just off the parking lot. We stroll over to the goat cage. It’s just a pen now, with pigs in a stall next to them, but there used to be a whole jungle gym set up for them with planks and steps for them to climb. Luke wants to feed them, but I refuse to deposit a loonie in the dispenser. Undaunted, he leans up against the pigpen, trying to call the sows over.
Stephen licks his cone staring out towards the duck pond.
“I got a good picture of you playing that you can email your Dad.”
“Thanks.”
I put my arm around Stephen.“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Stephen nods. “Max said that he was the coach last year but he got fired because the parents complained that he was always yelling at the kids. So he took Brad off our team. Max says Brad’s pretty okay, it’s just his Dad who’s. . . .”
“A fucking asshole.” I put my finger in front of my lips and roll my eyes towards Luke. He’s still squatting happily by the pigs, trying to lure the piglets over with a high-pitched oink.
Stephen smiles conspiratorially. “I was just going to say jerk.”
“He’s jealous,” I say, crunching up the waffle cone. “It’s because he knows you’re talented.” I wait until he’s looking me in the eye. “If you don’t want to play soccer anymore, you don’t have to.”
Stephen shakes his head. “It’s just him. The other kids are okay. The coach thinks we have a shot at the playoffs this year.”
“Because of you?”
He balls up his napkin and stuffs it in his pocket, nodding shyly. “But they wouldn’t be until late August.”
“If you want to stay, we can stay.”
“Dad too?”
“We’ll call him as soon as we get in.”
We wander over to the peacocks. They’ve gotten worn down since the last time I saw them, although maybe it’s not the same birds. Their tail-feathers are molting and dirty, penned in by their too-small enclosure.
Lying in bed, waiting for Richard to call back, the physical reality of the fight hits me. The ring and pinkie fingers of my right hand have doubled in girth, the bruises like strawberry stains. There’s a dull throbbing, but I can articulate all the digits, so I probably haven’t broken anything. My biceps are sore from straining and my stomach muscles are starting to tighten, but the full reckoning p
robably won’t hit until tomorrow morning.
Richard talked to Stephen for a solid hour when we got home, until he had to drive Terrence to the train station. I thought I’d done a good job of defusing the situation but there’s such a marked contrast when Stephen gets off the phone that I realize he’d still been on edge. It’s a reminder that as Stephen gets older, there are places I won’t be able to follow him.
Between that thought and the pain, I’m feeling pretty melancholy by the time the phone rings.
As I run Richard through the incident I get a clear picture of him ticking through the minutia of bedtime. The familiar sounds—his weight on the mattress as he changes, the bathroom taps, leather slippers on the tile floor—narrow the distance between us.
“Do you think you should go to the clinic?” he asks when I tell him about the bruising.
“What are they going to do?” I flex my hand instinctively as if to reassure myself. “Even if they’re broken, they’ll just tape them. Anyway, they’re not broken.”
Richard mumbles his relief. We lapse into silence.
“Boys get to bed okay?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Again, pause.
It’s obvious that Richard isn’t giving himself permission to speak what’s on his mind. “Just say it.”
“What?”
“Whatever it is.”
Richard still hesitates. He pronounces the words carefully, as if they’re fragile items he’s unpacking from a crate. “Ellie, I haven’t told you all the names I’ve been called over the years. In anger, in jealousy, a cruel throwaway. More times than I can remember. I’ve never raised a hand to anyone.” His voice is soft and empty of rebuke, but I’m mortified.
“If it was our son?”
“I understand why you hit him.”
“You think I shouldn’t have.”
“What if you’d been hurt? I mean seriously, physically hurt. The last thing I want is for my wife to, God I don’t even want to think about it.” Richard falters. “It’s just not worth it. I don’t want the kids getting into fights. I don’t want them putting themselves in danger.”
