The Figgs, page 16
He lowered himself on top of her, with the slow and deliberate rhythm of a boom lift, his older abdominal fat pressing into her. It was suffocating and lovely. He slid two fingers between the buttons of her shirt, catching her nipple between his fingertips. She imagined the same fingers slipping inside her. It surprised her how quickly she got aroused. She reached for the Astroglide, even though the name always made her think of the Japanese robot cartoon reruns Tom had watched obsessively as a child during breakfast. She pictured Astro Boy’s red boots, Munster hair, and glossy tear-drop eyes. His self-titled theme song. Tom’s chin dripping with rainbow-tainted milk from his Lucky Charms.
She grabbed Randy’s huge penis to make the thoughts go away. She imagined Randy when he had a Knight Rider moustache and wore tall socks and played driveway basketball with his shirt off. She remembered the suit he wore when he emceed his brother’s wedding. She lifted her hips into him and he thrust deeper inside her. The ceiling tiles became Chinook clouds, the blankets capes, the entire room a golden palace. June orgasmed like she was twenty-one.
When it was over, Randy’s legs settled. He slept, June cried. Hormonal tears. Astro tears. Like her soul had plummeted off the top of a fifty-storey building and just when she felt it had been returned, she heard Jaxx crying. Like he’d been yanked away from his mother. She pulled off the covers, climbed out of bed, and made her way to Derek’s room to tell him it was going to be okay. Sort of.
When she reached Derek’s room, Jaxx was still crying and Derek looked forty-eight. Bleary-eyed and arthritic. He was standing by his bed as though a fire alarm had gone off and he’d forgotten the part about evacuating.
“Does he need a bottle?” She reached into the crib to pick Jaxx up.
“I’ll get one ready,” Derek yawned.
June looked around the room for somewhere to sit. Derek’s computer chair was part of their old dinette set. “You need a rocking chair.” She held Jaxx differently now. As though he was adopted. Because his mother was not present and Derek had not been there during the pregnancy to make Jaxx aware of his scent, his voice, his existence. Trauma by association, or lack thereof. He was part of her club. A dirty assembly of adoptees, which also included Fergus. She and Jaxx and Fergus.
Derek returned with a bottle. “Here.”
June sat on the end of the bed and tipped the bottle into the baby’s mouth.
“Is Marissa going to see Jaxx tomorrow?” she asked. “After his appointment?”
“Maybe.” He crawled back under the covers on his bed that was too small.
“She needs to see him, Derek.”
“I can’t force her to see him.” He folded his pillow. “If she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t want to.”
“You know the only thing a newborn knows is his mother. He pines for her.”
“Jaxx?”
“All babies. It makes them feel safe.”
“He knows me,” he said. “I keep him safe.”
“I know. But he still needs a mother.”
Derek gave her a troubled look. “What about mothers who die in childbirth? What about their babies? They survive. They learn to adapt and love the one they’re with.”
June didn’t have an answer. Partially because Derek was not part of the club and wouldn’t understand, and secondly because she was thinking of the song “Love the One You’re With” and trying to remember who was who in Crosby, Stills & Nash. She knew the song was about lovers, not adopted people. It was about settling, and it made her angry, because she believed people shouldn’t settle, and she decided Crosby, Stills & Nash were probably secretly singing about adoption. Hey you, infant down there! You’re not my real baby, but I suppose we can pretend.
“Besides, if she’s not going to be a part of his life, wouldn’t seeing her make it worse?”
“Huh?” June replied.
“If all Jaxx thinks about is his mother, wouldn’t seeing her only once in a while be almost worse? Like a tease?”
June hadn’t considered this. Was some mother better than no mother? Derek’s reasoning seemed plausible. Jaxx certainly didn’t seem traumatized.
“Well?” Derek asked, leaning on his elbow.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. Why had she said anything? Jaxx seemed like a well-adjusted baby. Why hadn’t she read the whole article about adoption? Maybe the next paragraph said something wonderful about adoption. The trauma of adoption dissolves within weeks after separation, with the adopted child’s brain developing faster and more completely than his non-adopted counterpart. Adoption trauma can be cured with bottles of formula and a big family. It’s cool to be adopted. Dads can be moms too. Jaxx finished his bottle before June reminded herself that Jaxx wasn’t actually adopted.
“Forget what I said.” June balanced the empty bottle on Derek’s bed. “You’re doing a great job. All you can do is meet his needs with as much love as you can give.” She rambled encouragement for five minutes. Establish a bond! Give him skin-to-skin contact! The skin-to-skin part made her shudder, because she thought of skinned animals dangling in a butcher shop. Jaxx burped. She told him he was a good baby.
“You know, Derek,” she said, transferring to the floor where she could change Jaxx’s diaper. “I’m proud of you. It didn’t seem to cross your mind not to assume full responsibility for Jaxx.”
“I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to consider my options.”
“True.” June rolled up the used diaper. “But still.”
“I knew I’d have the support,” he said. “From you and Dad. To do the right thing.”
June knew this was meant to be a compliment, and she was grateful Derek felt supported, but doing the right thing implied the alternatives were the wrong things. Like adoption. She zipped Jaxx into his pyjamas and swaddled him in a receiving blanket dotted with ice cream cones, humming quietly while he sucked on his hand. Derek started snoring, so she took Jaxx out to the hall and paced back and forth until she got tired and retreated to the landing. The family crest was still off centre, but she couldn’t adjust it with the baby in her arms. She’d fix it after.
She sat and waited for Jaxx to close his eyes, running her bare feet over the carpeted stairs below her, displacing crumbs and dust. She wondered if her birth mother had the same elongated second toe. Bony and crooked like a walking stick. Her adoptive mother’s feet were wide, her arches high. Shoes were always a problem — never enough support, and on the rare occasion too much, which made her feet ache. Margaret was the only person in the nursing home who wore running sneakers to breakfast in her wheelchair. The yellow Adidas shoes were the last practical gift June had given her. Anything wrapped she waved away. Anything she couldn’t pet, she rejected. The last time June visited, she walked in on her mother spoon feeding a teddy bear wearing plastic headphones.
June carried Jaxx back to his room. Derek was facedown on his bed with one arm dangling off the side, snoring intermittently. She lowered Jaxx into the crib and went back to her room. Randy was on her side of the bed. She’d forgotten to straighten the crest. She grew up with things having to be exact. When she pulled sheets down to make a bed, the fold had to be a consistent width from one side to the other. Ingredients were always levelled in their tin cups and spoons. Pinches were measured using a handwritten formula her mother had designed and taped to the inside of the baking cupboard. A pinch of salt was a quarter of a teaspoon, cinnamon an eighth. June pulled the covers up around her neck, suspecting her birth mother only ordered takeout.
On Mother’s Day, June and Randy drove to her mother’s nursing home — a four-storey wood and brick building that looked like student housing. In between the two walkways that connected the east and west parking lots to the main entrance were a fountain and several benches that had been supplied by the families of deceased residents. The fountain was not working today, as it hadn’t been on either of her last two visits. Randy strayed from the walkway to look inside. He felt for the drain. “It’s probably clogged,” he called to June, who was waiting outside the front doors.
They were greeted by June’s favourite nurse — a Caribbean woman in her twenties who appreciated Margaret’s love for the sea. Yulu wore fuchsia lipstick and made rum cake for the residents at Christmas. For special occasions she played the steel pan, which made all the residents happy. It was all for show. Outside the home, Yulu was into heavy metal. Vanessa saw her at concerts.
“Well, hello there,” she said, adjusting the tie of her white cardigan. “Your mom just finished her breakfast.”
Randy signed in at the desk and helped himself to an After Eight from a fish bowl. June followed the nurse down the hall. Yulu was pear-shaped and walked with a slight limp.
“She was a little forgetful today,” Yulu said, stopping to wait for Randy to catch up. “She insisted she had already eaten breakfast and then asked why she wasn’t being seated with her husband when I took her down to the dining room. But we did have a good chat about the ocean.” Yulu whispered outside June’s mother’s room, “And she still doesn’t know I hate swimming.” She put her finger to her lips and smiled as she pushed open the door. “Margaret,” she said, almost singing. “Your daughter’s here to see you. Happy Mother’s Day!” She patted Margaret’s shoulders affectionately, and then turned her wheelchair around from the window to face June.
Margaret reached absently into the air.
Yulu stopped. “Oh, you want your Paro?”
Margaret seemed to nod.
“Okay, honey, let me get Paro.”
June and Randy wondered what Paro was. A fancy new medical device? A nutritional supplement? Randy took both of his mother-in-law’s hands and kissed them while they waited. “Hi, Mom,” he said.
Yulu returned a minute later with a stuffed baby seal perched on a cheap gold novelty pillow. She placed it on Margaret’s lap. June saw an immediate change in her mother’s disposition. Her shoulders relaxed and she radiated a soft glow, like a tea light. And though she still looked lost, she didn’t seem alone. When her mother stroked the seal’s head, it moved its face in response and blinked. Its eyelashes were long and black. The animal seemed to inch forward on the pillow and yawn.
“Is it real?” Randy asked, mesmerized. He reached his hand out to touch it.
“Randy,” June said, sitting on the bed. She nudged him with her elbow. The commotion caused Paro to blink and turn its head.
“It looks real,” he said, stroking the pup under the chin.
Paro reacted by nuzzling Randy’s hand the way a cat might. June thought she could hear purring. Her mother became protective and pulled Paro closer to her.
Randy continued to act like the seal was real. “Can I have a turn?” he asked.
Yulu, still standing at the door with hands resting on curvy hips, laughed. “She’s not much for sharing when it comes to Paro.”
Randy pulled his hand away. “Where did it come from?”
“They’re made in Japan,” she said. “Didn’t Tom show you before he gave it to her?” Her voice went all high-pitched with surprise.
“No.” Randy was disappointed.
June was embarrassed.
“He brought it in a few days ago.” Yulu pointed in Paro’s direction. “That thing costs thousands of dollars, and I’m telling you right now, he’s worth every penny.”
“Thousands of dollars?” June repeated. She lost her balance though she was sitting down. “For a stuffed animal?”
“That’s not a stuffed animal,” Yulu corrected. “He’s a therapeutic robot. And I wish we had a hundred more just like him. I got to keep him under lock and key.” She held up a key attached by a chain to a wooden block. PARO had been written on the wood in thick red marker.
“I’ve never seen your mother happier,” she said. “I’ll be back in a bit.” Yulu turned to leave. “But watch out, though. He might bite.” She laughed her way out the door.
June sat in shock while her mother continued to cuddle the robot. She was both offended and overjoyed. Part of her wanted to throw Paro across the room and curl up on the gold pillow in its place. She wanted her mother to stroke her hair. She wanted to be responsible for making her mother happier than ever. She felt selfish and childish. I’m the girl with the one blue hand. Your only child and it’s Mother’s Day, not Paro’s Day. But the glow projecting from her mother was undeniable. It actually seemed to raise the temperature in the room by two degrees, where most visits June found it too cold to take her coat off. And the room felt small and cozy, the way it should. Over the previous year, the growing disconnect in her mother’s brain made her small square room seem like an impossibly long hallway with high ceilings and dollhouse furniture. A hallway that grew longer and darker with each visit, her mother at one end and June at the other. Today was different, and she found herself whispering “Thank you” into Paro’s fluffy ear.
“Did you just talk to Paro?” Randy asked.
“Shut up,” she said. “I can’t believe Tom did this.”
“I can.” Randy was proud. “He’s a good son.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Remember on his sixth birthday, he asked for donations for the food bank instead of gifts?”
She nodded, remembering that he specifically requested cereal because he’d learned it was the most important meal of the day.
“And he was probably closer to your mom than any of the other kids.”
Margaret scratched the top of Paro’s head. June moved her purse to the floor. Her mother had given Tom money to buy his first industrial vacuum and paid to have five thousand flyers designed and printed. June didn’t know the details of their arrangement. Whether the money had been a gift or a loan. In fact, she only found out about it a year into his business. She wondered now if Paro was some form of repayment. She felt proud and equally guilty for badgering Tom about his debt and still living at home. Had his down payment gone to Paro? She hadn’t realized that his love for things Japanese extended beyond anime and sushi.
“How are you, Mom?” Randy asked, placing his hand on Margaret’s knee. But Margaret didn’t reply. She and Paro were on their own little ice floe in the arctic. It made June think of Vanessa’s stuffed animal collection. How she was lost to the real world when they were in her grasp. June felt antsy. She wanted to bring up her adoption, and Paro was getting a back massage. The more her mother withdrew, the more she wanted to club Paro over the head.
“Mom,” June said. “Tell me about my adoption.”
Randy gasped. “June, do you really think this is the time?”
“Yes,” she argued, like her mother wasn’t there. “I need to know. I need to hear it from her. Mom?” June touched her mother’s arm.
Her mother put her finger to her lip the way Yulu had and made a barely comprehensible shhh sound while pointing down at Paro’s head.
“Yes, Paro is lovely,” June replied.
“I think she means Paro’s sleeping,” Randy whispered.
June could feel the buzz of anxiety in her head.
“Paro’s a robot! I’m the one who’s alive.” She said this to Randy though it was directed at her mother. “What if I never have another chance to ask?”
“Just play along, June,” Randy whispered.
She exhaled deeply and asked her mother if she should get Paro a blanket. Her mother did not reply, but looked pleased when June laid a small quilt over Paro’s back. She whispered into her mother’s ear. “Can you tell me anything about my birth mother?”
“Baby’s sleeping,” her mother replied.
June was agitated. Disappointed that her mother would not discuss her adoption. Horrified that she felt disappointed.
Randy tried to console her. “I just don’t think she understands, June. She’s too far away.”
It was that disconnect that frustrated June. Her lips had grazed the opening of her mother’s ear canal, yet her words fell into an abyss.
Randy took her hand. “If you want to know more, you’ll have to go through your birth mother. Reply to the ad.”
Margaret motioned again for Randy and June to be quiet. Randy started to sing “Farewell to Nova Scotia,” as he used to when Margaret was still aware and capable. June slipped out of her chair and went to the front lobby. Yulu was in the back office with a clipboard tucked under her arm. She was eating an apple. Its flesh showed the colour of her lipstick.
“You’re all done today, Mrs. Figg?” Yulu asked.
“Soon,” she replied weakly. “I was just going for a walk.”
“And how’s your mom doing?”
“Not great,” she admitted. “Though she seems quite happy with that seal.”
“Paro’s the talk of the home,” she said, tossing her core in a wastebasket. “We’re trying to raise money for a communal one.”
June smiled. It seemed both ridiculous and sad. The raising of funds for a robotic asshole that sent your parent on a one-way trip to Siberia.
“Give me a shout when you’re ready to leave, and I’ll lock him back up.”
“Thanks.” June ducked into the washroom beside the office and splashed a handful of cool water on her face. She looked haggard. Her hair dry and coarse, the skin around her cheekbones heavy. She washed her hands and stopped at the empty front desk, helping herself to an After Eight. On the desk, she noticed an open stamp pad beside the computer. A date stamp and a half-eaten Caramilk bar lay dormant next to it. June bent over the desk and placed her hand on the stamp pad with CPR pressure. She made sure the ink covered her entire hand, the blue-black colour migrating into the hairline creases. The receptionist, an ordinary-looking woman with eighties spiral hair, appeared from the back office. June quickly removed her stamped hand, placed it behind her back and held up the empty After Eight wrapper.
“I’ll take that, Mrs. Figg.” The receptionist smiled.
June returned the smile and hurried down the hall toward her mother’s room. Randy was sitting on the end of her bed with Paro. Her mother still looked content, and she wondered how Randy had convinced Margaret to give him a turn. June kept her hand behind her back, her heart thrashing around in her chest like a flank-strapped rodeo horse. Randy stared at her curiously. Her hand shook as it bent outward from her elbow. She held it there, fingers splayed like a catcher’s mitt, and waited.
