The Figgs, page 2
“Not until later. Leslie and I will just hang out in the cafeteria.”
The street was empty.
“Who’s Marissa?” Randy asked. “Have we met her?”
“No.” Derek stared out the window.
“Is she a girlfriend?”
Tom and Vanessa laughed.
“Fuck off.” Derek pulled his hat down. “She used to work next door to the depot.”
“That’s Blond Marissa,” Vanessa offered.
“She worked at the Christian bookstore?” Randy tugged at his salt-and-pepper beard.
“The carpet store,” June said. Her eyes met Derek’s in the rear-view mirror.
“Yes,” Derek confirmed. “Carpet One.”
June turned left. She knew exactly who Marissa was. Last summer she’d surprised Derek at work so he wouldn’t have to take the bus home, and he was having sex on one of the recycling depot’s slanted aluminum counting tables. Her six-foot-two baby boy with the skinny girl who worked next door. June had recognized her orange Carpet One T-shirt despite the fact it was bunched up around her neck like a loop scarf, the ends of her blond hair wet like paintbrushes, dangling over her son’s chest. Derek frantically sucking on her fingers like a giant baby farm animal. It was not unlike the way he used to breastfeed. And their movements! So jarring, like they were travelling down a waterslide without the water. It could not have been comfortable, but they just wouldn’t stop. Their mouths remained open and drawn to the side like they’d each had a stroke, while cases of empty beer rattled and vibrated on the manual conveyer belt flanking the table.
June shivered. “What hospital is she at?”
“Lougheed,” Derek replied.
“Turn right,” Randy pointed.
June put on the blinker. “I know how to get there.”
For a second, she closed her eyes and tried to remember Derek as a child. How he pulled his sport socks up over his jogging pants. The affectionate way he dismantled his Wagon Wheels. His blue pogo stick. That terrible show with the bouncing lemur he obsessed over. But the moment passed, and instead she recalled the red lace underwear that had been draped over his head like a fast-food hairnet. And his sex face. Stroke face. Fist eater. Pervert. Baby boy. Man. Son. Father?
Randy turned in his seat to face his children. “You know all three of you were born at that hospital?”
Derek stared at his iPhone. “She’s one hundred percent effaced and five centimetres diluted.”
“Dilated,” June said.
“Whatever, it says diluted.”
“Autocorrect,” Tom sang.
Randy looked worried. “You can read, son, right?”
“Yes, I can read! What kind of question is that?”
“Everyone calm,” June said.
“Well, tell Dad to stop asking me stupid questions.”
“Guilty.” Randy raised his hand.
June raced to make a green light. “To be one hundred percent effaced means her cervix is thin.” She searched for a better term. “Ripe.”
“Like a big juicy peach,” Tom offered.
“Love peaches,” Randy said, closing his vents. “Remember the peaches we got in the Okanagan that time? They were as big as grapefruit.”
“What the hell does five centimetres dilated mean?”
“Means her hole is this big.” Tom approximated the size with his hands.
“Tom,” June scolded. “Don’t do that.”
“What? It’s true.”
June exhaled. “At ten centimetres she’ll be ready to deliver.”
Randy sat up straight. “I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“Did you not know she was pregnant?” June asked.
“I sort of knew. But not until last week.”
“How do you sort of know?”
“She sent me a text saying she was eight months pregnant.”
“And you couldn’t see that earlier?”
“I haven’t seen her. She doesn’t work at Carpet One anymore.”
Tom leaned forward. “How do you know it’s yours, bro?”
June wondered the same thing. She pulled up to a red light behind a Hummer.
“Because.”
June and Randy turned simultaneously toward Derek.
“Because?” Tom asked.
“Because she said it’s mine. I’m the only one she was with at the time.”
June ignored Vanessa’s raised eyebrows in the back seat.
“You are one hundred percent positive that this is your child and not someone else’s?” Randy questioned.
“Yes, okay? She won some stupid singing contest last summer and that’s all she does now.”
“A singer.” Randy smiled.
June tensed.
“Go,” Tom hollered from the back. “It’s green.”
June accelerated too quickly, knocking everyone into their headrests. “A singer?”
“What?” Randy replied. “Maybe the baby will be able to sing. It would be nice to have a singer in the family.”
“A singer,” she repeated. “It would be nice to have a singer in the family. You know what would be nice to have in the family? Maybe someone with a little ambition. A few life goals.”
“Like what? Knocking up a carpet rep? Playing the ukulele?” Tom crossed his arms. “Is it not enough that I own my own company?”
June honked at a man texting in the car beside her. “But don’t you want to travel? See the world? Buy a house?”
“With what money? You know how many toilets I need to scrub to pay off my student loan?”
“Can everyone just shut up?” Derek said.
June could see the hospital in the distance. The car fell silent, but it hummed with thought. June didn’t know what the others were thinking about, but she was thinking about Marissa. Carpet consultant. Berber buyer. Feeder of fingers and illustrator of sex face. Purveyor of red lace. Of grandchildren. And Derek. She tried to guess how much he made in a week working at the recycling depot, counting bottles by fours, and whether it would be enough to buy diapers. How much were diapers these days? She thought about how small newborn diapers were. No bigger than her hand. And then she stopped thinking and started feeling. Dread. Anticipation. There was going to be a baby. A real baby with toes the size of peas and fuzz on its shoulders.
“So, Leslie,” Randy said, shifting again to face the back seat. “What do you do?”
“Dad,” Vanessa groaned.
Randy looked at June for direction, then at Vanessa. “What? Is that wrong to ask?”
“I’m a carpenter.”
“A carpenter?” Randy looked like he’d witnessed the magic of Christmas. “Did you hear that, June?”
“I heard.” June changed lanes toward an exit.
Randy turned nearly 180 degrees in his seat, and was practically sitting on his knees. “I am a carpenter,” he said proudly.
“I know.” Leslie smiled.
Vanessa rolled her eyes. June drove into the parking lot, below the hospital’s looming blue H.
Randy repositioned himself. “A carpenter and a singer,” he said wistfully.
June pulled up beside the ticket dispenser. She rolled down her window, but she was too far from the machine.
“Shoot.” She put the van in park, unbuckled her seatbelt, and climbed partially out the window. The machine made a pleasing mechanical sound that Randy mimicked. June slipped the ticket in the sun visor, and accelerated. The engine revved, but the van refused to move.
“You’re still in park,” Randy said.
June changed gears, her face hot.
“Seven centimetres!” Derek shouted from the back seat. He had already taken off his seatbelt.
Tom approximated the size with his hands. “That’s about this big.”
June started driving at the same time the black and white control-barrier gate swung down to its closed position.
Randy shielded his bushy head as the van crashed forward, crudely severing the gate from its post. It landed with a thud on the cement surface of the parkade, splintered and bent, before June slowly rolled over it, everyone bracing for the rise and fall of both sets of tires. An automotive waltz.
Tom slow-clapped.
Randy was speechless, his hand wound tight around the handle above his window.
“That wasn’t my fault.” June looked for an arrow to tell her which way to turn. “It closed before I had a chance to drive through.”
“Because you took too long,” Vanessa said, twirling gum around her finger. June went the wrong direction and ended up at a dead end.
“You’ll have to back up,” Randy suggested.
June attempted to put the van in reverse but instead turned the windshield wipers on high speed.
Tom leaned forward between his parents. “You know they probably have cameras that saw you do that.”
“Thomas,” Randy said sternly. “Zip it.” Randy pressed his thumb and pointer finger together and pretended to zip shut his own lips.
Tom looked out his window. “Just sayin’.”
June inched backward until she could turn in the correct direction.
“Eight centimetres.” Derek gripped Randy’s headrest while gazing wide-eyed at his iPhone. “Stop, Mom. I’m getting out.”
Derek left the sliding van door open and made a beeline to the corner stairs.
“Wait!” Randy called after him.
“I’ll meet you in there,” Derek replied, without turning around.
June crept up two levels of the parkade and pulled into a spot flanked by vacant spaces. She poured sweat and searched for something she could use as a fan. Randy got out of the van and started running. You Were Chosen was left behind on his seat. June tried to stuff the book into the glove compartment, but it wouldn’t fit. She waved it in front of her face as Vanessa and Leslie climbed out of the back and headed toward the hospital’s main entrance. A page fell out of the book and onto June’s lap. The paper was yellowed. The text read “Everyone has a birth mother.” June jammed the page back inside the book and shoved it into her purse, clambering out of the van and closing Randy’s door.
The parking garage air was ripe with exhaust and spring. Ahead, patients smoked in wheelchairs. A jaundiced man played the harmonica. He had no legs.
June caught up with everyone when she reached the main reception desk. It was manned by a volunteer wearing a red vest.
“I’m looking for Marissa,” Derek stuttered.
The volunteer scanned a sheet in front of him. “Last name?”
“S-s-s-simms or Simmonds…Simons! Simons?”
Randy frowned. “You don’t know her last name?”
“Labour and delivery,” June interrupted.
The man raised his eyebrows. “Third floor.” He pointed toward the elevators.
Randy rushed ahead to push the button, and then positioned himself so that he was equidistant from both elevators. Vanessa and Leslie headed down a corridor marked cafeteria.
“Tom, text me,” Vanessa said, before rounding the corner. She paused and looked at Derek. “Good luck, little brother. Break a vagina.”
When the elevator to Randy’s left dinged, he charged towards it.
“Dad,” Derek said. “I’m the one having the baby.”
Randy stepped back when the door opened, but then hurried in before a nurse and a patient hanging onto an IV pole were able to get out. He held the door and ushered the remainder of the family inside. Before June had a chance to turn around, Randy had already pressed the close door button and was staring hopefully at the floor indicator lights.
There was a notice promoting a breastfeeding clinic fixed to the wall. It was written in four different languages. Was Marissa going to breastfeed?
The elevator opened on the third floor. June grabbed Randy by the elbow as he attempted to get off first.
“What are you doing? It’s not like you can go in the delivery room.”
Randy stopped and waved for Derek to go ahead. Tom followed, texting as he walked.
“He needs to do this on his own,” June said.
Derek stared at a series of wall placards. Behind him, Randy was motioning wildly toward the labour and delivery reception desk. Derek used his finger to scroll down the sign.
“There,” Randy jumped in. “Reception. That way.” He pointed down the hall.
June smacked his arm.
“He was taking too long,” Randy whispered.
Derek set off for the double doors and stopped at a desk that was still decorated for Easter. A row of pastel eggs, like paper dolls, dangled from the front, and a green and pink woven basket was set to the side. It was filled with grass and a family of stuffed chicks. June plucked one out of the basket and separated the coarse yellow fur around its face. “Where are its eyes?” she asked, placing it back and examining another.
“Mom, what are you doing?” Tom unwrapped a stick of gum.
“These chicks don’t have eyes.” She went for a third chick but was interrupted by a long hideous groan, followed by intermittent yelps.
Tom froze. “What the hell was that?”
June put the chick back in the basket and buried it, along with its siblings, under the grass. The noises continued. This time from another woman. First screaming, followed by a long droning growl. Like a Doberman was trapped in her diaphragm.
Tom laughed loudly, arousing sneers from a clerk stationed behind the desk. She balanced a phone between her shoulder and ear.
June raised her finger. “That,” she pointed, “is the sound of labour. Respect it.”
“It’s just…did you hear the last part?” Tom imitated the growling sound.
June ignored him, and looked around for Randy and Derek. “Where did they go?”
Tom peered down the opposite hallway from the noise and shrugged. June went around the other side of the desk where another hall branched out in two directions. To the right, she saw Randy on his toes, straining to see inside a delivery room. June joined him.
They heard a woman’s voice. “You’re ten centimetres,” she said. “In a few minutes, we’re going to start pushing this baby out.”
A sob. “I can’t.”
“Marissa,” the woman continued. “I need you to listen to me. It’s time. You can do this. Just remember to breathe, and don’t push until I tell you to.”
Marissa cried. June pushed the door open wider. From this angle she could see Derek. He had taken off his hat and was standing at Marissa’s side, his fingers splayed across her shoulder. She could only see a bit of Marissa’s face, which was puffy and wet and terrified. June was suddenly angry. Where was Marissa’s mother? Her father?
“Okay,” a different voice said. “On the next contraction I want you to push down as hard as you can. Like you’re having a bowel movement.”
Tom repeated, “Like you’re having a bowel movement,” and laughed.
“Go wait with your sister,” June ordered.
Tom surrendered, and left.
June hugged herself. “Where is Marissa’s mother?”
“I don’t know.” Randy pushed the door open a little further.
“On three,” the voice commanded. “One…two…three. Push, Marissa! Come on, Marissa.”
“Come on,” Derek added faintly.
June looked up and down the hall nervously. “Are we allowed to be here?”
Minutes went by. The cheerleading continued. There were messy exhales and clenched forearms. A nurse left the bedside and returned seconds later with a cloth. Underneath the bed, amongst the clogged feet of Marissa’s team, was a pair of black Converse sneakers with neon orange laces that were dirty and frayed. June wondered if they were Marissa’s. Her Carpet One sneakers? Her singer ones? Her playground shoes? She worried they would be left behind. She focused on the sneakers.
“I see some hair, Marissa!”
“Hair?” Marissa repeated, her voice like a pixie.
“Lots of it,” the doctor replied. “We’re getting there, Marissa. I need you to stay with me. Focus.”
Focus, June thought. She zeroed in on the shoes again, tuning out Marissa’s whimpers. Randy jumped beside her. “It has hair!” he whispered jubilantly. The rubber toes of the sneakers were supposed to be white, but one of them had been coloured in pink, and there were ink lines drawn on top. Were they words? A symbol? She squinted. Imagined what was there, and then she blinked, and when she looked again she saw Derek’s face. Why was Derek under the bed?
“Derek!” June cried, grabbing Randy by the arm. “He fainted.”
A nurse attended to Derek.
June nudged Randy. “Go, help her!”
“How am I supposed to help her? I can’t go in there.”
“Go!”
Randy pushed the door wide open.
“That’s my son,” he announced.
The nurse acknowledged Randy with a nod. “It’s common,” she waved. “Some of them faint.”
“The head is almost out,” the doctor said. “On this next push, Marissa…”
The nurse returned to the foot of the bed and grabbed one of Marissa’s feet.
Derek propped himself up on his elbows. His face was greenish white. An awful colour, like the dirty aquarium glass at Vanessa’s work. Pistachio ice cream. June summoned for Derek to get up, but Randy misunderstood and grabbed his son by the ankles and attempted to drag him out of the delivery room.
“What are you doing?” June crept into the room.
“I thought…”
“Derek, get up!”
He looked stunned.
“Come on,” she said. “It’s almost time.”
June helped her son into to a seated position. She kept her eyes down, wanting to respect Marissa’s privacy. How awful, June thought. Marissa couldn’t be more than twenty. Instead of a singer, she would be a single mom. Did she own a car or would she be one of those single moms who had to take public transit in the middle of winter, pushing her stroller to and from bus stops, bags of canned goods and homogenized milk dangling from the handles, a gas-station coffee in her hand? And what about work? Who would look after the baby? Would Marissa and Derek trade off, or would she ask a neighbour down the hall who smelled like sausage and was always home because he was under house arrest?
