Where We Live, page 14
Owen says: I guess you’ll have Aidan for another year, anyway.
Owen. We need to talk. This isn’t the way to handle things.
He doesn’t reply. She walks on: her anger cools, as she had known it would, but is replaced by a kind of cold plug in the bottom of her stomach.
Owen turns up to retrieve some of his belongings a couple of days later. He seems neither angry nor distressed, but there’s some difference about him. Some minor shift. Something withheld. Is it her imagination. No, she knows Owen, knows when he’s holding back.
It will pass. Intuition tells her to let it go, let it pass. But she can’t let him leave like this, with space between them. Are you angry with me? she asks.
No, Mom.
But there’s some new wall up. Owen is generally open about his feelings. He’ll tell her when he’s angry;— at her or at Duane. He always has.
Okay? she asks Owen, meaning, Are we okay?
Owen’s hug is brief, and he’s out the door sooner than she expects.
Guarding against her. Guarding himself against her.
18
Trent says, in an accusing voice: I have not felt any real warmth or affection from you in years.
Okay, Cleo says. She remembers not to react, to let a little space follow his words, to let a little space open between the jolt of them and her own response, as the therapist has been suggesting. She stays still. She envisions the space. They are sitting at the dining table, just the two of them, the smeared and daubed dishes and the scraps from the meal still on the table. She has a glass of wine, her second; Trent, the remains of his carbonated drink.
They have begun to have these conversations, lately. Well, since Trent’s parents died in close succession, and he began to have sleeping issues, and starting seeing a therapist, and then had asked if they could see a therapist together. Which they have done exactly twice. The whole session had been spent on communication techniques, which Cleo had initially thought was reasonable, but then had wondered about, because the therapist had focussed more on her than on Trent. He hadn’t understood, which should have been obvious, that it was Trent who had the communication problems, who needed to learn how to listen and also to edit himself.
But she had participated; she has been practicing the key take-away concepts. And the one about leaving space between her experiences and reactions is a useful one. She’s read it elsewhere, too.
How long, she had asked the therapist, should this space be?
The therapist had looked confused.
If you can’t measure it, Cleo had explained, it’s hard to believe in.
Five minutes, the therapist had said. Try five minutes.
So she listens to Trent. Okay, she says again, and nods. It occurs to her now that this isn’t a fair statement: that she does nothing but express care for Trent. She takes care of the house and meals. She took time off work to fly to Ontario with him for his mother’s funeral. She works full-time, brings in as much as Trent does, pays half of everything.
But she does not say this. She doesn’t dwell on it, either, but puts it in a kind of mental box;— a clear plastic one, so that she won’t lose track of it, won’t forget about it;— and focuses on keeping the empty space. It’s a funny sensation, unnerving, to do that. But she can do it.
Trent says: I realize I’ve wasted my life. I’m fifty years old. I don’t care about my job. I have no friends. I don’t have a marriage. When my dad died, I realized: I’m next in line at the checkout.
Now into the space, a trickle of sympathy. Yes, she can understand what Trent is saying. She does feel for him. She sees him now for an instant as a vulnerable human being, and her heart contracts for him.
But the five minutes are not up. She has to hold the empty space, can’t let even this positive response seep in. She gives it a box, its own box.
The thing is, Trent says, I can’t keep waiting for you to be there for me. I can only control my own response.
He sounds like he’s repeating something he has been told, but only half-remembered, she thinks. Typical. And, typically, so wrong. And then: keep the space empty. Another box. She remembers to put a label on this one: a label for her own emotion, which is probably contempt.
Five minutes is an awfully long time.
I’m sorry, she wants to say. She just wants to make it all stop, now. I’m sorry; I’ll try harder. But she holds her tongue. There is something that she may say at this point, but she can’t remember what it is. Oh, yes.
I’m listening, she says.
The thing is, Trent says, the thing is, this isn’t working for me anymore. I’ve decided I want to move out.
Okay, she says.
One more minute. But a grey mist is rising now, filling the space. How will she live? Can she afford the mortgage on this very expensive house, on her own? Likely not. And there is the kids’ education, which they are not nearly through yet.
She’s going to have to lose her house, her beautiful house.
The minute is not up. Breathe, she reminds herself. Breathe.
What she experiences now is something like a near-death experience; it is a near-death experience, perhaps. The whole history of her marriage to Trent, their twenty-five years together, flashes before her mind.
She sees their wedding, impromptu on Kits beach, a couple of colleagues as witnesses, a wedding that had been so offbeat, so out-of-the box, that she had thought (and Trent must have, too) that it presaged a different life together than what they had actually had.
She sees Trent’s face, open, ecstatic, alive, at the births of Olivia and Sam. She sees him lying on the floor, both children astride him, flapping his arms. (Had that happened only once, or had it been a favourite game?) She sees him look up, or fail to look up, a thousand times from his screen. She sees his lips curled in disgust (fear?) at her suggestions for trips, decorating plans, art movies, jazz clubs, overtures to new acquaintances, moves to the city, moves to rural areas, unfamiliar foods, social or philosophical or psychological theories or revisions, alterations in sexual positions, and proposals for exercise.
She sees his shoulders slide inward and earthward slightly, each morning, as he picks up his laptop case and lunch bag for two hundred and fifty working mornings a year, for twenty-five years. Six thousand mornings. (Six thousand mornings of processed cheese on white bread.) She sees herself turn away from his awkward, un-skilled, but ineluctably hopeful questions, complaints, jokes, embraces, a thousand thousand times.
It is her Damascus moment. She sees this.
But the five minutes are not up. And into the last few seconds of their space, what flows into her mind and body is not love and light and optimism, but only a slight shift, as of a lens being twisted into focus. A new image, herself for twenty-five years trying to read Trent, to shape herself into the space she has imagined around them both.
Trent stops speaking. She says nothing. She looks into his eyes and nods.
Trent’s face twists with some emotional force she can’t identify. Fear, or resolution, or both. Fine, he says, as if she has made a statement. I’ll pack and be out in a couple of days.
And now the space opens wide, and she could not cross it with a simple reaction if she wished to. She does not know what this means, or what she feels, only that it is a change, an opening of something, and that it is happening. That is all.
Okay, she says. Okay.
19
The specialist says: I don’t think that there’s anything more we can do.
Cliff has been expecting, and not expecting, to hear this. It seems that he has always known;— from the time that wall of mud began crimping itself in folds, sliding toward him. Known even before that. Known since he saw that building site in West Van with its steep drop of raw earth, the gaping sockets of the arbutus and maple and cedar and salal that the oversized excavator had ripped from the soil and heaped for burning.
Known years before that, when he was falling backward down the stairs at Loretta’s place, falling forever toward the floor below, the place that was determined to connect with the back of his head. Known when Loretta’s hands shot out, as he stood at the top of the landing telling her he was going to leave. He’s always known that at some point he will hit the ground and not get up again.
But at the same time, he’s always believed that this surgeon, who has touched the secret places of his spine, who has traced the branching roots of his nerves, like the root ball of a sapling, who has peered at the open front of Cliff’s brain, would always be able to repair him.
Nothing more, Cliff repeats.
What does that mean, nothing more?
It means there are no more surgeries I can do that will change anything, the doctor says.
He has a heavy seeding of white hairs, and Cliff thinks: The first time I met him, he was younger than I am now.
There are x-rays and MRI scans both in Cliff’s patient folder and on the computer. See, here, here, the doctor says. Cliff doesn’t know what he is looking at, but nods minutely. The doctor isn’t trying to make him feel stupid, but he knows he is stupid.
Veronika has come along, to drive him into the city, to ask the questions he will forget to ask, but she is feeling stupid too, he can tell. They had been expecting that there would be another surgery. They had tried to prepare for this pre-op consultation by remembering all of the things that happened the last time, and the time before that, but now that there will be no surgery, they can’t think what to ask.
The doctor says, I’ll refer you to the pain clinic. I’ll give you another prescription.
Well, you see, it’s not so much the pain, Cliff says. He sees the doctor’s face tighten a bit, there. They’ve had this conversation before.
It’s the pain that inhibits your range of motion, the doctor says, as if he has memorized that line. It’s what he always says.
I’ll refer you for more physio, he says.
Cliff has tried the physio. It cost two hundred and fifty dollars for one visit, and wasn’t covered by his insurance, and it didn’t do anything.
In the car, Veronika says: You could ask for a second opinion. Veronika is addicted to hospital dramas on television. She thinks she knows something about medicine.
I already see the best neurosurgeon in the city, he says.
That may or may not be, she says.
He’ll let that go. It was ignorant, but he’ll let it go.
Veronika says: In this country we have permanent disability payments from the government. You will get that. It’s lucky.
If you say so, Cliff says.
You can tell those Punjabi brothers that you quit, Veronika says. No more getting the crap under-the-table jobs. You can just say I quit.
He has not, in fact, worked for the Singh brothers for years, though he does own still a small interest in the company, and on paper, at least, he is an employee. He does not want to think about that, his non-job in the company that used to be his. Keep your attention on the road, he says.
How are you feeling? Veronika asks.
How do you think I’m feeling? he says. He is not going to be robbed of his right to feel the way he does right now. Though what he feels, exactly, he can’t really say.
Veronika thrusts out her lower jaw and sucks her lips in. It’s a particularly unattractive look. She’s sulking, that’s all.
In the night Cliff wakes with a surge of intention. He needs to get the paperwork done for the permanent disability claim. It will be less money but he will have freedom to do what he likes. He can take courses, maybe learn to make something. He can refinance the house; the mortgage is almost due, and if he takes a longer term, the payments will go down, even though he’ll end up paying more to the bank in the long run. He can change the insurance on his truck to pleasure only. He needs to get the damned garage cleared out. Maybe he’ll just hire a hauling company to take it all away. He’ll give Veronika notice. Or maybe she can just stack her boxes along the wall.
He should get his house in order.
He should get another dog. A pup. Their little dog Buster had died a few years back and Veronika hadn’t wanted to get another one: she was worried about who would take care of it when they were both at work. But he could have one, now.
He could look into getting one of those scooters.
Things will get better with Veronika. He knows he needs to be nicer to her.
He falls asleep again around six a.m., and doesn’t hear Veronika leave for work. When he wakes again, it’s mid-afternoon. He’s really thirsty, and has a caffeine-withdrawal headache, but other than that he feels pretty good. He has a plan; he’s going to get a grip on his life, now. Wrestle it into shape. Things are going to be better.
Veronika will be gone awhile yet. Maybe he’ll make dinner.
He showers and dresses and goes to the kitchen, which is very neat, as always, dishes washed and put away, countertops wiped, chairs pushed neatly under the table. He’ll make coffee; he’ll make himself some breakfast. Then he’ll see what he can find to cook for dinner.
On the table is an envelope with his name on it in Veronika’s printing. He opens it. A note, not a card. He reads it twice, but it doesn’t really make sense, except, finally, as a dull clanging in his diaphragm.
She can’t really do that, can she?
But a part of him feels that he has known all along that she would leave.
20
Belinda is lying down. She looks shrunken, yellowed. She can’t talk long, Joe says. Her mouth sores. Joe helps her sit up, props her up with pillows.
Mandalay needs to talk about her work. Nobody but Belinda understands what she’s trying to do. She will distract Belinda, anyway, by talking about art making.
I don’t know what I want to do, Mandalay says. I need a new topic. I’ve done the shelter thing to death, I think.
Belinda looks bemused, as if Mandalay is telling her something fabulously irrelevant.
I mean, Mandalay says, I have so many ideas running through my head all of the time, or I did when I was younger, but now I really have to come up with something, my mind is blank.
Belinda says: Process.
What do you mean? Mandalay asks.
But now Belinda just looks bored or irritated. She says: Call Joe. I need to. Lie down. My meds.
Mandalay says, Belinda, what can I do to help? Tell me what I can do.
Belinda shuts her eyes.
Joe comes in. A difficult day, he says. She is not feeling so well today. Tomorrow will be better.
What Mandalay is feeling is something like panic. Belinda, her mentor, her friend, her guide. She needs Belinda to get better. At least to come to her show, which is only a week away. Her first show. She has been counting on Belinda to be there.
She feels those things, she knows, because other things are crowding at her consciousness. Easier to fill the space with the current feelings, refuse to let the more painful feelings in.
She remembers Belinda blurting out;— it would have been four years ago;— uncharacteristically rattled, her eyes wide with her news;something odd on my mammogram. They had been walking along False Creek, East through Charleston Park, as they often did, Mandalay finding Belinda in her office, after her class, the two of them setting out in the sunshine or drizzle, whatever was on offer. Herself saying, I’ve heard that happens often, really high rate of false alarms, it’ll turn out to be nothing. At the same time, the cold finger of fear in her innards.
Then the succession of bad news: disturbing ultrasound, disturbing biopsy, disturbing margins, disturbing number of affected lymph glands. Surgery, radiation, chemo. Mandalay holding Belinda’s hand while a technician threaded a tube through a small incision in her arm, up a vein into her neck and back down to a larger vein in her chest. Had brought her smoothies and taken Belinda and Joe’s daughter Harriet, the same age as her twins, overnight and organized a casserole drop-off and found a bong.
And Belinda had got better: she had grown eyebrows and sported a chic buzz cut; she had cut out alcohol and gone on an Ayurveda retreat and a trip to Columbia, and she had returned to work. A good two years. And then the cancer had come back, in Belinda’s spine and pelvis and liver and brain, finally, as if enacting a scorched-earth retribution, and in spite of the chemo it had persisted.
Now Belinda has collapsed in on herself, has from one week to the next given up walking, stopped eating, lost the ability to form complete sentences. How can that happen?
Mandalay can’t find the time to go to visit Belinda for a few more days, and when she does, there are many people in Belinda and Joe’s house. She finds her in a rented hospital bed in the living room of her house, which never was really a conventional living room anyway, and now has become a sick room. There’s a bag of dark orange fluid hanging under the bed, and she thinks it’s blood, but then realizes that it is very, very dark pee. There’s a morphine pump connected to a tube that disappears somewhere into Belinda, into a picc line, Mandalay knows.
Belinda is propped up on pillows, and her skin is deep yellow, as if she’s been gilded.
She can’t really speak. She can’t form words. Harriet, her daughter, is home, now, stunned, bruised-looking. The shock, Mandalay thinks. She should have been brought back months ago, so she could spend time with Belinda before she became too ill to interact. She should have been allowed the time to get used to Belinda’s dying.
Mandalay must not stay long: she must leave time for Harriet, now. She’ll come back, she promises Belinda. Belinda nods, grimaces. Harriet’s cat Clytemnestra is lying on her chest, purring, kneading a little. Belinda strokes the cat’s fur, occasionally. Her hand is a yellowed claw.
Two of Belinda’s sisters, women who are brown-skinned, freckled, with Belinda’s kinky hair, and the same wide, graceful swing of her shoulders and pelvis, have come to help. They are both nurses, Mandalay knows. They are there so that Belinda can stay at home. They can administer the morphine pump. They can make sure Belinda is peaceful. They moisten Belinda’s lips with ice chips; they sponge her face.
