What is it that Olivia wants? she asks herself again, and this time there is an answer. Olivia had counted on moving home, on living in the house with Cleo and Sam, while she looked for a job in Vancouver. That is it. And being Olivia, she cannot say that: she cannot ask for what she most wants, if it requires someone else’s generosity to gain it. She will never make herself vulnerable. She must deny that she ever wanted to move back, because Cleo has decided to sell the house and move into a small apartment where there is really not room for Olivia. A space that won’t be Olivia’s home, only a sufferance.

  It is difficult for Cleo to imagine what Olivia is thinking: it has always been. Olivia is more like Trent, emotionally, as Sam is like Cleo.

  Cleo says: If I kept the house, would you want to stay here? I’d need you to pay rent, of course. But it would be nice for me, not to have to sell the house.

  She means that. She loves her house, has always loved it. It’s just been a tight couple of years for her since she and Trent split, and she makes considerably less with her new business than she did working for Aeolus.

  She gazes out, through the wide opening in the wall of glass sliders, at the trees and bushes that both shelter and are sheltered by the house. The tall Douglas firs, their branches a marbling of shadow and light, their trunks flickering with pine siskins. The pale swoop and call of one of a pair of grey jays that nest in the tops every summer. The reddening maple, the red berries of the mountain ash that will harbour waxwings through the winter. The sliver of ocean, blue and silver, in the distance.

  It is a kind of labour, perhaps. If she can do it right, which is to say if she can wait it through with fortitude, wait out the pain, a new Olivia will be born, a young woman who has all of Olivia’s best traits, her sweetness, her funniness, her agile mind;— and who will also be amiable, who will be able to see Cleo as simply another human being, another woman, who is related, of her tribe, who is deserving of respect and affection and slack-cutting.

  Or, not a new Olivia, but a new Cleo-and-Olivia. For it is the in-between that must be given birth to, the new web that will connect them.

  What safety, what sense of security, does she still need to give her daughter, for them to reach that point? How does she need to change, herself?

  How much more income would she need to be able to afford to keep the house on her own? It’s not that much, actually. She would be house-poor, to borrow a term from her foster mother, Mrs.;Giesbrecht, meaning people who spent all they had, more than they could afford, on a fancy house, and couldn’t afford other things. She’d be house-poor. But she could afford it.

  She might like to stay here, in her beautiful mid-century house, rather than move into a condo.

  But more importantly, she wants another chance with Olivia. She wants a chance to repair and rebuild what was broken or unfinished, between them.

  Olivia says: Of course I would pay rent. How much would you want?

  Sam says: Wait. Are you going to stay here? I would want to stay also, then.

  Cleo says: I thought you were looking forward to sharing a house with your friends?

  Sam shrugs. If you’re moving into a little apartment.

  She can’t think. Is this an option? Has she been about to make the wrong decision? Should she stay in the house, at least for a couple more years?

  She says: I don’t want to cook and clean for people. You’d have to pull your own weight, you two.

  Olivia says: There will be three of us. My boyfriend Christian too.

  So like Olivia to drop a last-minute bombshell.

  Cleo sits up late with Olivia. They must discuss this person, how long he has been in Olivia’s life (three years); what he is like, what he does. He is Dutch, Olivia says. He works in international aid. It doesn’t matter where he lives, as long as it is near an international airport.

  It is the boy Cleo intuited, when Olivia had wanted to leave school: she had wanted to go travelling with him. And Olivia had guessed, correctly, that she would lose him, if they were separated. Twenty-two is young for a relationship to survive separation, new friends, new adventures. But they have reunited; Olivia has found him again and won him back.

  No thanks to Cleo and Trent, of course, that it has worked out, for it very nearly didn’t, Olivia says. She very nearly lost him, the love of her life. He had gone travelling with somebody else. It is only chance that they got together again.

  Cleo doesn’t say: You should have told me. She does not know that she would have responded differently to Olivia’s request to be funded for travel, three years ago. She doesn’t know if she believes in the love of a life. And what kind of self-esteem did Olivia have, Cleo would have asked, that she would pursue a man who could be satisfied with convenience, who would prefer her, but take up with another woman if she weren’t available?

  She doesn’t say any of this. She sees, now, that in this web that will be built between herself and Olivia, certain things must not be said or asked, while other things must be voiced.

  She says, you’re welcome here, the two of you. You’ll have to pay extra rent for him.

  So she will not sell.

  Outside, in the Douglas firs, a barred owl calls Who cooks for you, who?

  What will I tell the real estate agent? she asks.

  Mom, Olivia says, reprovingly. Have you signed a contract?

  She has not, yet, no.

  38

  The meeting happens in a hospital boardroom, a small room with a large table, a scuffed floor, a whiteboard, and surprisingly dusty windows through which the feeble January sun is not quite penetrating. There are six of them around a large table: Owen’s therapists, a hospital administrator, Duane, Mandalay, Owen himself, his wheelchair positioned between her chair and Duane’s.

  The news is that Owen is ready to be discharged.

  Oh, they are discharging him from the hospital too quickly. Why are they in such a rush? He has been doing well on the orthopedic ward. In spite of the humiliations and inconveniences of being a patient, he is doing well. He is healing. The best of neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons and therapists are available. She is able to come by the hospital every day; it’s accessible from her house and the campus. She had thought he would stay here until he was walking, dressing himself, speaking. Owen’s head bobs a little, above the neck brace; he has trouble swallowing his saliva; he can’t get his tongue and lips and larynx to cooperate in forming sounds.

  But they need the bed, they say. Owen is ready to move into something long term.

  The hospital administrator asks Owen now if he is following the conversation. By BC law, Owen is still a minor. He’s not yet nineteen. It’s her decision; she’s his custodial parent, for another few months. But it’s good they are asking. She takes his hand, squeezes it. He squeezes back. His grip has improved a lot, the past week.

  Owen nods jerkily, says yeah, and it’s more of a word than a grunt today. He is getting so much better, where he is, where she can visit every day for a couple of hours. But he will be happy to go home. She knows that.

  The neurological therapist, kitty-corner from her at the table, says now that he thinks Owen’s speech difficulties, his lack of control over swallowing and head movement, is not the result of high spinal cord damage or brain damage after all, but of local impact from the fall, from bruising and interior bleeding and nerve damage in Owen’s neck and throat area. They are going to try a new direction, in his therapy.

  That is good news, right? she asks. If it’s local damage? And he can have the therapist visit, right?

  Good news, generally, the therapist had said, cautiously.

  She thinks it is good news. Anything that is not spinal cord para­lysis or brain damage is good news, right?

  They want to move Owen to a different hospital, a rehabilitation hospital.

  But I have a house, Mandalay says. It’s in a great location. There’s lots of room.

  It’s quite feasible, Mandalay says. We can easily bring in a hospital bed and all of the therapy equipment. I’ll get a ramp made. There are only a few steps to the front door. I’ll get a walk-in tub put in.

  She looks sideways to Duane for confirmation. It will be easy to convert her house. He knows that. She has been awake for several nights, thinking it out. The logistics. Though she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. She’s looked up online to see everything they would need, made itemized lists, priced out equipment and home care visits, researched grant money available.

  The hospital rep, Lisa, says, Owen still needs twenty-four-hour care, at this point. We understand that you work. . .

  Yes, Mandalay says, but I’ve interviewed four care aide businesses. There’s a lot of support available, through the Vancouver Health system. I’ve checked. . .

  Duane says, Mandalay, I don’t know if I agree that this is the way to go.

  Of course it’s the way to go. Owen should be at home. He should be at home, where he grew up, with her there to give him security, support. That is clear.

  She knows she’s talking too quickly. The meeting slot is so short, for a decision like this. And she’s had too little sleep and too much coffee, and too much is at stake for her. For Owen.

  Have you thought about what you would like? the hospital admin­istrative rep, Lisa, asks. She has a good manner; she talks to Owen as to a fully-abled adult. But perhaps she asks too many questions of him, too quickly. Have you thought about the pros and cons? And do you have a preference?

  Mandalay squeezes her son’s hand again. Give him strength to follow the topic, she thinks. To articulate his preference. She knows he will want to be home, out of an institution. She will fight for him. It’s just that his speech is not there yet.

  She says: Owen, it’s going to be a hospital full of elderly people who have just had hip replacements. It’s too far out of the city. I won’t be able to visit very often.

  Duane says: What I’m thinking is this private rehabilitation facility. It’s set up to do everything Owen needs.

  He has brochures. He produces them from his briefcase.

  Lisa says: That is a very good place. It’s expensive, of course, but it’s probably the best, for sports rehabilitation.

  We can pay for it, Duane says, firmly.

  I’m happy to go with public health, Mandalay says, equally firmly. It’s done fine so far.

  Mandalay, Duane says.

  And she knows; she knows. He has gone over this more than once. How it is the private therapists that Duane has paid for who have helped Owen most, in the hospital. How the best cervical spine specialist in North America was flown in to do the surgery, and that’s why it was successful. (Max Gibbons had paid for that.) How right from the beginning, it was Duane’s promptness in kneeling on the ice and doing CPR on Owen that had saved him from permanent, irreversible brain damage, because it took so damned long for the medical attendants in the arena to respond.

  But it’s still an institution. Owen needs to be at home, with his own things around him, with his family. The facility is just another hospital. Owen will be surrounded by strangers, staff and other patients. And the facility isn’t close, for her, either. It’s three bus rides.

  Mandalay, Duane says. You can’t take it on. And the house isn’t set up for a wheelchair. The doorways won’t be wide enough. The bathroom. . . I can’t even start.

  She can’t believe that Duane isn’t on board with this. That he is not supporting her. That he is siding with the institution, trying to put a barrier between her and her son.

  Old resentments flare up now into her heart and throat. She is the one who knows Owen, who knows what nurtures him, what helps him thrive. She is the one who has been there with him the past eighteen years, or most of them, until Duane encouraged the hockey. She burns now: Duane has ever been her adversary, trying to usurp the boys on pretext of the logical, the mainstream, the authority of institutions.

  The neurological therapist says, now, in a voice absurdly neutral, inhumanly matter-of-fact, that Owen himself has a preference, has a right to input.

  She knows this is true. And she thinks she knows what Owen wants, but he isn’t really able to articulate it, yet. The speech is not coming along as fast as she hoped.

  Owen says, his head swaying slightly, his jaw working as if he has a big morsel of tough steak in his mouth: Rehab.

  He says it very clearly. He must have rehearsed the syllables. Re-hab.

  You’d prefer to go to a rehabilitative hospital? Lisa asks.

  Owen nods. Yeah. He squeezes Mandalay’s hand, doesn’t look at her.

  The physiotherapist says: The facility your dad is thinking of is a good one, Owen. It has a physio centre right in it, with a spa and pool and a hoist and exercise rooms. Individual rooms, twenty-four-hour on-call care.

  Owen nods. He nods emphatically, clearly aware that he has to distinguish intentional from his involuntary movement.

  This is what you want, Owen? Duane asks.

  Yeah, Dad, Owen says.

  Mandalay works for hours, driven by a furious compulsion to clean out her house: she piles boxes and bags of the boys’ things, outgrown clothing, books, toys, on her front walk to be taken away by a charity pickup service. She scrubs; she polishes. Duane, visiting for one of his now infrequent dinners says that the house is looking rejuvenated. He seems tired, of late; he cooks less often, brings prepared delicacies, instead.

  Then she dreams she is in one of the Asian grocery/pharmacies on East Broadway, and an elderly Chinese man in the dress of an earlier century is giving her a small celadon jar sealed with a cork and red wax. Smoke is travelling from the jar, but it is also cold to touch. She understands that the jar contains a medicated ointment for her hands. It’s a good counter-irritant, the elderly Chinese man, who is a doctor, tells her. But don’t eat it! Very poisonous!

  She dreams that she uses the ointment, and discovers that she is no longer angry. Just like that. The anger has left, somehow, been swept away, with no residue. She feels calm hopeful even. Equanimous. When she really wakes up, she has to wonder if the anger has really left her. It’s a mystery.

  What’s this? Mandalay asks.

  It’s a deed of gift. Duane says. For my half of the house.

  What do you mean?

  It’s all yours now.

  She can’t make sense of what he’s saying. Why? she asks.

  He shrugs. I don’t need it. You do. I’ve realized. . . there are things I should take care of now.

  She feels suspicion bloom in her. She’s known Duane a long time, now. They’ve been in this uncertain partnership for twenty years. They’ve been together longer than most married couples.

  Okay, she says. And it’s in trust for the boys, or something?

  No, Mandalay. It’s yours. You own it outright. You’ll have to pay the taxes. But you can do anything with it you like.

  She still can’t process it.

  Thank you, she says, finally. It doesn’t seem enough of a response, but she has been caught unawares, and she just knows there is something behind Duane’s sudden benevolence that she is not seeing.

  You won’t have a large pension, he says. Seeing as you started your career so late. But this will help you manage, if you don’t do anything stupid.

  Duane has such an empathetic way of putting things.

  I’ve got funds set up for the boys, he says. For their education and so on. Not trust funds. They’ll have to work. But there will be funds to help them buy their first condos. They’ll need it, in this city.

  She literally doesn’t know what to say. That’s very generous, Duane, she manages. She’s conscious of strange emotions: confusion perhaps is the most noticeable. She understands neither Duane’s gesture nor her own reaction.

  Duane grins, his old ironic grin, his expression too amused, too self-satisfied to be truly malevolent, but too cold to be friendly. She looks at him, the breadth of him in his leather jacket, which is kind of a carapace; the creased heavy skin of his cheeks and neck; the shining bald head. He looks like a Bond villain, as much as anything.

  Old walrus, old villain.

  But she also imagines, involuntarily, his body holding hers.

  Demon lover. He will always use his ramparts of money to wall her in, to wall her out. He loves what she loves: the beauty of the world, of the senses. But he also loves, in his not-so-secret heart, to have her in his debt.

  And perhaps she is not adverse to that. Perhaps she likes it, in her secret self.

  She can afford to like it; she has the luxury of liking it, because she is free. In herself, she is free.

  She tells Aidan, on the phone.

  Yeah, Aidan says. Dad likes doing things for people.

  Is there a note of criticism in his voice? Toward Duane, or toward herself?

  She tells Owen, visiting him in the rehab hospital.

  Damn, he says. I was going to buy you a house. With the royalties to my biopic.

  I know, Owen, she says. (Don’t show pity. Don’t show in any way that she thinks he is damaged, lesser.) But as I have a house, now, she says, maybe you can buy me a car.

  You’ll have to get your licence.

  I’m planning to do that.

  Really? You want me to teach you how to drive?

  Do you think I don’t know how to drive? Owen, I’ve been driving since I was fourteen.

  Yeah, he says. Well. You still might need to learn some things.

  No doubt, she says.

  Are you going to quit your job?

  Quit? she says. And do what?

  Do your art full time.

  It hasn’t occurred to her that she could do that. I still need to live, she says. Groceries, taxes, all of that. But maybe she could.

  She could have a studio in the basement. A real studio. Give classes, sell her work. Her long-term basement tenants are leaving, having completed their degrees. They’re heading to grad school. They have become a true couple, these two young persons who have made their home in her basement suite for the past few years. They are moving into their adult lives. She could turn the suite into a studio.

 

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