Watermark

by Christy Ann Conlin

  The old ladies blamed Elizabeth’s cancer on her lifestyle — the tree planting she did in the clear-cuts high up in northern British Columbia, exposure to some sort of pesticide. If she had stayed in Nova Scotia with a normal job none of it would have happened. They viewed her education as something that had made her vulnerable, a thing which stole her inborn wisdom and replaced it with disease. Elizabeth said it was genetics, an inherited genome triggered by who knows what, a demon lying in wait. At first she was sure she wouldn’t die, but then she knew she would stop breathing in the hospital bed, her lungs full of fluid, the “Get well soon, Mommy” drawings on the wall like posters in a kindergarten class.

  Adam doesn’t want to think about Elizabeth’s death throes anymore. He takes a deep breath. “Ladies, we should turn back,” Adam says firmly, rubbing his hands together because he is very cold now. He hears a sound but he isn’t sure what it is, almost like water. Maybe they are closer to the bay than he thought, and it’s been lurking there the entire time and only now the tide is high and the white caps are crashing on the shore. “We really need to turn back before night falls. I need to pick the girls up at the babysitter’s house.”

  But Charlotte and Doris carry on as though they don’t hear him. None of this was part of the day’s plan. Adam now worries they’ll be stumbling back in the dark. If the battery dies on his cellphone they won’t even have a flashlight. A hatred for technology fills him, how he’s become so dependent on one small rectangle. Adam fears they’ll go off the path into the woods and then fall into a ravine. Or tumble off a cliff and crash into the bay below. “Look, I really don’t mean to rush you but it’s a work day for me tomorrow. I have to go home. My daughters are waiting for me. I had no idea how long this would take.”

  It is almost as though he could hear Elizabeth scoff about his need for a plan. Werner Herzog says storyboards are for cowards. It was why she lived her life from moment to moment, why even with the children she hated a routine. Why she had not gone to the doctor when she first found the lump. His terror at losing his beloved wife has been replaced by a bottomless hole of thick loss.

  The sun is lowering quickly. Adam looks at his phone. Still no signal.

  And then he sees it — further into the clearing, the remains of the stone foundation of the old house. It’s now full of brown grasses and dwarfed by overgrown lilac bushes along its edges, their decaying blossoms like black spears at the top of the high branches.

  “We need to go back.” Adam keeps repeating this, his voice vibrating, the words falling off his dry tongue.

  “A cup of tea would be nice. Your wife always brought a thermos of tea. And fresh biscuits. She was such a sweet, thoughtful young thing, even with that one hard year she had.” Charlotte gives him her sly grin again. “Did Bethie ever tell you about how when she was a teenager she got sent to the youth detention centre? She punched a girl right in the head. Gave her a concussion. Bethie beat her to a pulp. And you go on about Herman having bad blood, Doris.”

  “Charlotte, my land! That’s ancient history. Adam doesn’t need to know. Bethie was a good girl. She was a sweet thing. She had spirit. Bethie was a one-of-a-kind girl.”

  The shadows falling on the ground seem alive, everything spilling outside his field of vision in a full bleed. Adam can’t force this new information or this moment into a grid even though he keeps trying and trying. Elizabeth had said only that she was a tomboy growing up, how she couldn’t stand being teased. There is no gutter between the panels, no empty space between images. The panels won’t even take shape. Adam has no control over time here. He’s trapped in a documentary film about his life and it can’t even be neatly edited. His heart thuds, his breath frantic like Elizabeth’s when she was in labour with the girls, panting like an animal. An owl hoots. Far off, a coyote yips. The old ladies have been talking the whole time Adam has been thinking. Their chatter is as constant as the dry leaves whispering in the forest.

  Adam looks up, beyond the overgrown foundation, and spots a small weathered wooden shack to the north of the clearing, behind a thin stand of firs. “I’m going to say again we need to turn back, ladies. We’re going to be stranded out here in the dark.” His breath steams out in the chilly air.

  Charlotte looks toward the fir trees and back to the path. “But it’s Herman’s birthday. He likes to come into the woods. It’s where he goes during the hunting season.”

  “But he’s in jail . . . isn’t he?” Aunt Doris asks again. She’s now completely uncertain. Maybe she was always uncertain, and Adam can finally see it — this part of him which agreed to the insanity of this trip also hears thoughts, tastes fear, senses heartbeats and can see through masks. He was blind before, that was the problem. He just saw what he wanted, but not the whole picture. There was a safe border around everything, but now there is a bleed to the edge. Adam can’t stand this. He tries to think in panels, but none come to him. He sniffs the air like a beast sensing danger.

  “I have to pick up my children from the babysitter. Tomorrow’s a work day. How many times do I have to say this? For the last time, let’s turn around.” The anger in his voice echoes through the clearing.

  The bushes shake and there is the sound of branches and twigs snapping. A cold breeze blows on their faces. Herman walks out from behind the high dead bushes. The surprise in those familiar dark eyes narrows into fury.

  “Lookee what we have here.” Herman’s strange, angry laughter booms out into the clearing in sharp bursts.

  “He’s out of jail? Charlotte, you horrible person, you knew.”

  “I just want to have a visit with my oldest grandchild, Doris. Oh, Herman, I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you. But we came all this way for your birthday. And I brought Aunt Doris, just like you said to.” Charlotte begins to warble “Happy Birthday” in a grotesque voice.

  Charlotte is delusional. Adam wonders how he could possibly have missed her senility, how Doris too must have looked the other way, made excuses and justified her sister’s irrationality, her odd changes.

  Doris tries to smile but she can’t quiet manage it and gives Herman a grimace. “Your grandmother is confused, Herman dear. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Shut up, you filthy old bag. I am trouble. You come looking for me, you get what you come looking for.”

  Charlotte’s face crumples. She brushes a blood-red leaf off her dress. “Herman, you’re a good boy. You just always like to march to the beat of your own drum.”

  “Ain’t it the truth. You just march right back here with me, Grandma. Back around behind the bushes. You too, Aunt Doris, you dirty, rickety spinster.” Herman grabs them each by an arm. Charlotte falls and he pulls her to her feet. She sobs but she lets Herman lead her forward. Doris struggles and he twists her arm. She whimpers. All at once, Adam can move, and he takes a step.

  Herman waves his fist at Adam and growls. “Now you, boy, get going. Or else.”

  “Or else what? Let them go, Herman.”

  The old ladies are both crying.

  Herman lets go of their arms, bends down and picks up a shotgun from behind the high bushes. He points it at Adam.

  “You know you don’t belong here, boy. You go home to the little girls. I’ll count to three and if you’re still here then you won’t leave me with no choice but to start with you. So let’s see you run like a dog. I’ll give you a head start while I take care of the ladies. Then I’ll come after you.”

  Adam runs. He has a plan. He will run like a dog and call 911.

  Night looms down. Adam lurches back along the path that had once been a road, the dry roar of leaves at his feet muffling the gunshots.

  The wind slithers in the branches and moans through the woods. Adam sees the ecstatic truth has been inside him the whole time. He howls at the trees. He doesn’t know how many gunshots fire behind him, if there were one or two or three shots, or if there have been an
y gunshots at all, if Herman is thrashing through the woods after him, because Adam is breathing so hard he can only hear his heart hammering in his ears, the blood bashing in his brain, and his own voice screaming and echoing back I am Werner Herzog, I am Werner Herzog as he comes out on the road under the early stars in the indigo sky. Still no signal but Adam screams “I am Werner Herzog” into his phone when he dials 911 even though it doesn’t connect, still screaming this once his phone finally picks up a signal as he drives along the dirt road and along the top of the dark mountain which drops down and bleeds into the valley of cowards below.

  Occlusion

  The world looks different upside down. The blood pounding behind my eyes and my unusual position distort perspective. There is no natural light. I can’t tell if what I’m seeing is real. I picture myself in a photo, me strapped into some sort of industrial swivel chair, half naked, with my right breast hanging out.

  I’ve never been upside down this long, not as a child on playground equipment and not as an adult in a yoga class. Not in the park with Saul, my six-year-old, wanting me to hang from my creaky knees while singing “Ode to Billie Joe,” a song Saul’s grandmother taught him when she still took care of him, before my father’s dementia took over.

  I was given a sedative before the procedure because I was having an anxiety attack. I’m already on anti-anxiety medication and antidepressants, prescribed right after Saul’s father died. And I’m on medication for neuropathic pain from a car accident I had when Saul was three and I was hurrying to a meeting after dropping him at daycare. My body seems to have recovered from the whiplash and concussion, but my neurology hasn’t. Now add this nice pill from the nurses and my mind is wandering and dreamy, my thoughts drifting clouds.

  My poor mother. I remember when she started putting little Saul in front of the television, turning up the volume to drown out my father’s almost constant yelling, directed everywhere and at everyone except my son. We don’t fully understand why, but he doesn’t perceive a small child as a threat. His outbursts increased as his world began to dim. A thin shadow falling on the hardwood floor by the hearth was a treacherous ghost. He would put his false teeth in the bread box and would cry when he noticed his teeth were gone, accusing my mother of pulling them out while he slept. A small noise seemed an explosion to him, and suddenly he was lost in the Korean War. He would scoop Saul up, lurching out the door and into the woods as he moved into a realm we could not perceive.

  Saul wasn’t afraid. He has always seen his grandfather as a man living between two worlds. As my father’s worlds became narrow and distorted, so too did our perspective change — the day-to-day magnified, separated out from the bigger picture, as though we were living with tunnel vision, trying to survive one more sundown.

  And now I’m stuck in this chair, upended, stoned, unable to see anything clearly.

  * * *

  The nurse, Clara, has said we’ll be underway any moment but that was a while ago . . . I think. I would know Clara’s voice anywhere. She has a way of laughing at the end of her sentences, even when she’s upset. I took her daughter’s photos when she was born. Right now I can’t even imagine holding a camera — I can see only inside myself, strapped here, waiting, my memories emerging as though my unusual position has jostled them from where they were sealed.

  I took the portraits of Clara’s newborn last year up on the maternity floor. Instead of taking the elevator I walked up the three flights of stairs. There was no time for exercising. Helping my family as well as single-parenting was overwhelming. It was a triumph to make it through each day. Walking up the stairs seemed like a way to multi-task and cross exercise off my endless “to do” list. My heart pounded and my footsteps echoed in the stairwell. I was gasping for breath and had to stand at the top of the stairs, composing myself. Most people forget that hospital staff have personal lives, their own joys and sorrows. It is one of my jobs for money to support my art photography, helping parents create memory books of the birth day. Doing a photo story for them. Helping them write poems and short personal essays to accompany the photos.

  This morning I was in the outer waiting room when Clara came to get me and bring me to the inner waiting room, where I was deposited into a little stall and given a johnny gown and a robe. It seems like days ago I was in the little stall but it has only been a few hours. I must have taken a long time because a woman who wasn’t Clara asked if I was okay. I came out and she pointed to a chair. I recognized Matilda then. She’s near retirement. Her children are grown, but one of her daughters fell off a cliff over at the shore when she was four. How do you ever get over that? Sometimes Matilda gives community talks about child safety. My friend Athena interviewed her once for a national radio program on grief.

  Athena was supposed to drive me to the hospital for this procedure, but I’ve been so anxious I gave her the wrong date. I texted her from the taxi on my way here and she said she’d get off work and drive out to the hospital as soon as she could. Athena always keeps her word. When you have a best friend like her there isn’t much more in life you need — except good health.

  Athena is six feet tall and has waist-length black hair. She’s a radio producer and lives in the city. She travels a lot with her work. Her great-grandfather came from Lebanon. When she introduces herself as Athena people correct her and say she must be from Greece. Athena laughs at this. She thinks it’s funny how I call myself the “panini generation” because it’s cooler than “sandwich.” Athena would see the humour in how long I’ve been dangling upside down, waiting and waiting for the tests to start.

  * * *

  It was good to hear Clara’s familiar voice. I hadn’t known she worked in the day surgery unit. The hospital clothes are pale and smell chemical-fresh. The same smell from when I gave birth to Saul, six years ago — institutional and oddly comforting.

  I sniffed the folded johnny gown before taking off my sweater and bra, then stripped naked except for panties. I cradled the pile of green, could almost feel Saul as a newborn in my arms, see him jaundiced and yellow, wrapped in a white cloth which smelled just like the gown. We were in hospital for a week after he was born.

  But that was another time here, in a different ward.

  * * *

  Athena and I became friends when she attended my photography show Portraits of Grief at a gallery in Halifax. Her niece was in one of the photos. Saul was just a baby then and I had brought him along. He slept in his baby carrier.

  I texted Athena when I got the results back from the first mammogram. Abnormal. Athena had been in Toronto at a meeting. She had stepped into the hall and called me on my cell. “Don’t worry. It’s probably nothing, Honeycakes.”

  This is Athena’s nickname for both me and Saul.

  Then the second test was abnormal, too.

  They sent a letter both times. For efficiency. Clarity. So it’s in black and white.

  It was a cold day, with a little late-March snow on the ground. The sky was low and grey. The grass was brown and the tree branches were bleak. It was splendid nonetheless. I texted Athena, who called again. I was crying this time. “Could I have chemo and keep working?”

  Athena was quiet. “Sure.” Then she cleared her throat. “Are you fucking crazy, Daisy? Do you know how hard that will be?”

  I was quiet. Just my gulping breath.

  “If you push yourself, maybe,” Athena said.

  More silence. We both know I’m self-employed. No insurance.

  “It’s probably nothing,” she said. “But if it’s something, it’s probably treatable.”

  * * *

  Right now I’m upside down and Clara is talking but I can’t make out the words. It’s hard to hear upside down. I feel safer with my eyes closed so I can retreat to my inner terrain. Deep breathing . . . four counts for each breath, a hold before exhaling, a hold before inhaling. If you can control your breath and heart, you’ve got it made. T
his is what I’ve been learning in the community mindful yoga and meditation classes my doctor recommended. Still, my heart pounds and the blood whooshes by my ear canals. When they tip me back around, the blood will pour out of my mouth, a libation to the gods.

  A prayer for good genes. For my breasts to be healthy.

  * * *

  Maybe they really have forgotten me. The chirping machines, dinging gadgets, and computerized charts hold their attention, not me, Upside Down Daisy.

  While immobilized like this, the last person I want to think about is my sister, Ruth, but of course she forces her way into my mind just as she forces her way into my life. My sister Ruth always says people can’t escape the clutches of their past. She says, in her superior way, that if you apply her formula, you can hold off grief or catastrophe, melancholy, dementia, or blindness. She’s a physiotherapist and she tells all her patients they’ll recover if they do the exercises exactly how and when she tells them.

  Ruth’s thirty-five, eleven years younger than I am. There was a brother in between but he died shortly after he was born. He had a hole in his heart. Ruth says she’s lived her life in his shadow. My father couldn’t get over his disappointment that she was a girl. Ruth says she should have been born first because I’m so immature and make such bad choices she has to act like a big sister. Ruth has never stopped telling our mother this. It makes her cry but Ruth doesn’t care. In fact, it’s her goal.

  It’s like Ruth is a horrible self-help book I’ve absorbed, and while I’m waiting captive here in this hospital room, mean things Ruth has said or done appear in my mind the way spring ducks come flying in and land on a pond. I’m so cold and my body hurts so much being suspended like this, and I can’t get Ruth out of my mind.