The Circle, page 16
They don’t eat much after that. Nevaeh’s still hungry but it seems wrong to chow down when her friend is so sad so she leaves everything on the cold stove so she can eat some later. The baby’s covered with sprinkle cheese so they give her a bath, and Evangeline, as if she knows something is wrong, makes Cedar laugh with her little splashes and eating the bubbles. Nevaeh leaves Cedar watching Netflix while she goes to put Evangeline down. She has to rock her for a bit because she never got really good at sleep training. Couldn’t stand the crying. Bezhig wasn’t all that better either. Evangeline is such a daddy’s girl and he would rock her to sleep every chance he got. So she got used to it. Nevaeh doesn’t mind. She likes the quiet time to cuddle with her baby. She doesn’t nurse her to sleep anymore though. She knows that’s not recommended at all.
Cedar’s halfway through an episode of Friends when Nevaeh comes back in. “I can go back, if you want.”
“Naw, don’t worry. I’ve seen them all before.” Nevaeh pulls up her phone. That guy sent a fucking dick pic. What is wrong with people! She blocks him and deletes the app. Again. She just opened this one up again yesterday. Fucking Tinder. She messages Bezhig’s mom that she doesn’t have to take the baby tomorrow but his mom texts back that she wants to. “Haven’t seen my girl in too long,” she says. It’s only been like a week but she loves her grandbaby like that.
Nevaeh doesn’t know what to do with a whole night to herself. She could message people but it’s been a while. She doesn’t know the last time she went out anywhere. It’d be nice. But then again, it’s not like she wants to.
“Need anything? I think Bezhig left a Coke here.”
“Naw, I’m good.”
“Your sister’s hard, Cedar. Hard as fuck. Hard as they come. If anyone can be okay out there, she can.”
“I know. I, I can’t even remember her face anymore. You know?”
Nevaeh does. She remembers not seeing her mom for so long and she was so young, for like a year she thought she made her mom up. Like having a mom was a daydream and not her real life. When they did finally let Nevaeh see her, her mom looked so different than she remembered. Not better or worse but not the same. Like she changed. Like she was a stranger trying to pretend she was her mom.
Nevaeh also remembers when she met Cedar. When they lived at that foster place and the girl cried all the time. Cedar had lost her little sister then. That’s the worst. Losing a little kid is the fucking worst. Nevaeh can’t imagine anything worse. Of course Cedar doesn’t want to lose another sister. Her last one.
“Has your mom been around?”
Cedar shakes her head. “She knows. But she’s out of town somewhere. Not worried, she said. Fuck.”
Nevaeh’s surprised at the swear and her jaded tone. Little Cedar’s growing up. Getting a little hard herself.
* * *
—
She walks Cedar to the door and they make plans to get together the next day. Cedar says Nevaeh should come over and drink wine and smoke weed with the university kids. Nevaeh’s never met Cedar’s roommates and they sound stuck up but she’s curious enough to go. That and she doesn’t want to be at home all by herself all night.
She checks on the baby, who’s snoring and sleeping on her belly with her little butt in the air. Evangeline does this now. It’s supposed to be okay now that she’s older and if she moves to her stomach on her own. You’re not supposed to put babies on their stomach when they’re newborn. Nevaeh’s getting more confident about it every day. If she ever has another kid, she knows she’ll feel better about everything all the time.
Bezhig wanted to have another kid right away.
“It’s nice when kids’re all close together. Get them all out of the way, all at once.”
“It’s not like you have to be pregnant all the time. All at once.”
He laughed like it was funny. “We could have a boy. One of each. Then we’d be done.”
“I’m not even twenty-one, Bey. I want to finish school at least. Get a house.”
He waved his hand at her like he was dismissing her. “We can do all that whenever. We got our whole lives.”
He wanted to move in too. Wants to move in. Have another baby. Get married, even, one day. He’s always wanted his own kids, wants to do a good job raising them. Nevaeh wanted that too but she wants other things as well. Like a career. She always thought it’d be so good to have a career.
When she filled out the application for school, one of the questions was why did she want to be a dental hygienist. She said because she really believes in good oral health, but that was a lie. Well, not really a lie, she is really good at keeping her teeth clean, and Baby’s teeth too. They brush every night. She even flosses sometimes. But she wanted to be a dental hygienist for more than that. The real reason was, when she was a kid, her teeth were really messed. Her mom never took her to the dentist because she was too busy surviving and stuff so when Nevaeh went in care, her first foster took her to the dentist all the time. That one was a decent lady. A bit spineless and her husband was a total ass, but the lady took her to the dentist so that was good. Nevaeh loved the dental hygienists. They were all pretty with full makeup on and important-looking in their scrubs and stuff. She never met one that wasn’t nice to her, that didn’t smell nice and look like they took care of themselves. That was all she wanted to be when she grew up. To be important, at least a little bit, and look like she knew how to take care of herself. She tries. She never goes out without her hair decent and some makeup on. Evangeline too is always clean, has a bath every night, and her hair is always brushed, her clothes always clean. No one is going to ever doubt her baby is well taken care of. No one would ever try and take her baby off her.
Nevaeh turns off the TV and goes out for a smoke. She never smokes inside or around her baby but sometimes, at night, she likes one. At the end of the day. When she can sit on this little balcony, cross-legged on the cement because she doesn’t have any chairs, and she looks out over the back lane, can hear the cars swooshing by on Sherbrook, can even see them through the houses. It’s a pretty good place. Better than she thought she’d have. Almost as good as what she’s really wants. She doesn’t want to lose it. Not for anyone. Not even Bezhig. She wishes there could be a way to have him and have everything she’s ever wanted too.
Her phone dings.
She smiles before she even looks. She takes a long drag and knows. The sky’s almost clear and everything’s gonna be okay.
“Hey baby,” it reads.
She leaves it on read and finishes her smoke. He left her stewing for three days, so he can wait another minute.
LOUISA TRAVERSE
I would kill for a large bag of ketchup chips and about four chocolate bars. Maybe a Slurpee. Definitely a Slurpee. Junk food. All the junk food. It’s the one thing I do when things go fucked. I am ashamed of it. I do it in secret. I hide around corners, and can inhale ketchup chips like it’s my job. Keep m&m’s in drawers. Get Slurpees even in the winter. I figured out, the other day, I’ve done this my whole life. Loved all the food that’s so very not good for me. It’s been, like, the longest relationship in my life, besides my family. Definitely longer and more reliable than any man I’ve fallen for, or my kids. Sure, it’ll probably kill me. But only if these fucking men don’t do it first.
Gabe called last night. “What the hell is going on!” was how baby daddy number 2 started.
“Hello to you too.”
“Don’t.” His sigh deep, knowing. “Don’t start, Lou. What the hell is going on? Why am I finding all this out from your mother? Why are you avoiding me?”
“Avoiding” means not answering his texts. “Mother” means meddlesome Cheryl, I should have known.
“It’s okay, Gabe. It’ll be fine. It’s all a big stupid, epic misunderstanding.”
“Jake is in Remand!” The words as brutal as the tone.
“It can’t stick. This kid, person, must have took off or something.”
“Or something,” he scoffs.
I know everything he means by this. I know the meaning of every one of his gestures and half gestures. But I still say, “What the hell does that mean?”
“Lou.” This guy and his fucking “Lous.”
“Do you actually believe Jake”—my voice goes high, then, conscious of Baby in the other room, I lower it to a sinister whisper—“could do this?!”
“No, but, Lou.”
Like I can handle his fucking “Lous” right now. “No of course not. Of course not.” If I say it enough, it’ll mean something too.
“That doesn’t mean it’s going to go away, Lou.”
He knows me too well too. Knows waiting for things to go away is my MO. My own gesture and half gesture. The other thing I’ve done with absolute reliability my whole life.
I had a counsellor a couple years ago. Started seeing her this one time Gabe went up north and I was convinced he was gone for good. Convinced he should be gone for good and we were better off without him. She said, asked really, for me to think about avoidant personality.
“Not as a diagnosis or a…life sentence, but as something to consider.”
I looked it up. It was nothing like me. I am excellent in a crisis. I am calm and collected no matter what I do. I can see the practical things I need to do and do them. I skip my usual tendency to overthink, to overanalyze, and get down to business. I can take in an overwhelming amount of information and not get overwhelmed. I take it one thing at a time, and I told her so.
“But what about your emotions? What are you feeling when you are doing?”
“Nothing.” Because it’s true.
She leaned back like she had made a point and I moved on to something else that was going on. All that shit with Jake then. Jake acting out because his stepdad had taken off again. Jake needing a man and I couldn’t keep one. I didn’t tell her that feelings aren’t facts. That feelings don’t really matter. They’re sneaky, useless little fuckers that need to be avoided so I can do all the shit I got to do.
* * *
—
I choke through a blueberry muffin as I wait for Shannon. Got to eat something halfway healthy, even though it makes me nauseous. Self-care is so annoying.
Shannon, sharply dressed in a pantsuit, comes in to get me in the waiting room. Not like a Hillary Clinton pantsuit but a suit suit. Well fitted. Tailored, I guess. Zero chip crumbs on their shirt. Polished and pretty. They wear their hair down and it never looks messy. They just got married. Wear diamonds and white gold bands on their finger like you’re supposed to. Their wife is also a lawyer. There’s a picture of them both on their desk. They both wore off-white suits and light-hide beaded moccasins. Backlit by a sunset and archway of pink flowers. The symmetry as gorgeous as the people.
“We have options,” they said. The coffee I brought them sitting there. Steam slipping out of the opening. “I don’t want you to think we’re out of options.”
I didn’t say anything. I let them go over all the “options” again. All the things that really involved pleas and number ranges that really meant years. Jail time. Federal. Manslaughter.
Federal means Stony. Mountain. The old institution they don’t call a penitentiary anymore but it still looks like one.
It takes half an hour to there from downtown. I’d taken enough clients there. Clients who’d get babysitters, time off, arrange everything as well as somehow manage to look their best. They’d endure the long drive, the seemingly endless walk-through security checks, questions, pat downs, and locked metal door after locked metal door. All this for the chance, the all-too-brief opportunity to be close to the person they loved. Usually they couldn’t even touch each other, and if they could it was only a moment while they were watched suspiciously. There was always something put between them—a table, a plastic barrier, jealousy of freedom, misunderstanding of confinement, trauma, pain.
Most would cry all the way back to the city. It was never enough. Never what it was supposed to be.
“What about if this kid shows up again? If she just took off to cause trouble?” I’m not looking at Shannon as I ask. They’re too good-looking. They’re sitting too straight. Backlit by the sunny day through their big office window.
“What about his story about the blood? Where it came from? Did you find this kid Dug? Well I guess he’d be a man now.” I know I’m rambling.
“Lou, I’d really rather not go down that path if we don’t have to.”
“Why? If it can explain why there’s blood on the knife he had. It’s whose blood it is!” I try and look at them now, the tall city buildings behind, the sun behind one. Their white shirt perfectly white.
Shannon leans back, swivels in their chair a bit. “The story seems…a little far-fetched.”
“Jake would never make it up. I remember when he got out of all that. When he was a kid. He was really messed up.” The holes of my son’s childhood filled up. The things I wish he’d never seen, never knew he’s seen. As useless as the rest of me.
“That makes it even worse, Lou. I mean, what if we got forward with this and the kid died since? Or died from that? There are too many unknowns. It’d be too easy…”
I get their meaning even before they do. “You don’t think? What the hell? You don’t know my kid. You didn’t see him cry like a baby.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what I can prove.” Shannon leans forward again. “And that’s on me. They only have to cast doubt. This could cause doubt.”
“But can’t we do that too? I mean, there’s not even a body!” The last word echoes.
“No, but.” They sigh deep. “The river’s always been a good hiding place. Lots of bodies never come up again. It’s a, sadly, too common story.”
“But my kid, these people don’t know my kid. He could never, would never.” My voice shakes so I stop. Look away again.
I am grateful when Shannon doesn’t say anything.
I take a breath. Gather. Resolve. But when I look back, their shiny eyes are full of pity.
I take another breath. The silence grows uncomfortable.
“That’s a really nice blazer,” I say and believe it. “Where’d you get it?”
* * *
—
I check my phone after I leave. After Shannon walks me to the elevator and likely doesn’t think of me again. I know the drill. I do the drill. Crisis is so much better when it’s not your own. I wish I was at work. I wish I was doing a home visit, dealing with something that required my full attention. But I am not. But I cannot.
When I get outside, cool in the shade between the buildings, I check my phone twice. Once to check for him, and then again for the time. He didn’t text me back.
I didn’t want to have my parents’ relationship, what Cheryl and Joe had. Have. I hated their back and forth and back again. They say kids always want their parents together, but I never did. My parents together meant years of living in the bush, going to that stupid small-town school and hearing them fight when we went to sleep. Stupid fights. Never nasty, but all the time. Their breakups meant going home, back to the city, to Kookoo and our cousin Stella, to the school we liked and the kids that looked like us. Mom was better too, in the city, on her own. Dad was Dad. I never understood what they hung on to in each other, how Mom got quiet ’cause Dad was quiet. How she’d feel stuck and have to escape. How they’d half-heartedly date other people and we’d pretend to care. I thought it was Gabe who took up with other people in between, but now I guess it’s me too.
I check my phone again. He didn’t text yet, but my friend Rita calls.
“So what’s the latest?”
I sip on my half-drunk coffee and smell the pissy smell of the city. I walk slow as I talk.
“He’s going to take a plea deal?” she says after I tell her. “That’s crazy.”
“I know, but it’s not looking good.”
“They got nothing. Who is this lawyer? Fucking lawyers!” I can imagine her hands flailing with the word.
“Shannon’s good. I trust them. They’re trying to be realistic, they say.”
“Hell with that. Get a second opinion. If he can sit tight then that Phoenix will show up and he can go home.”
“But what if she doesn’t?” It’s so hot already. I need more sugar.
“It’s only been what, a week? Not even?” She lets the question hang.
I try and stay in the shade of the buildings. Resent the sun.
“This is bullshit,” she says. “It can’t stick.” Ever defiant.
“I agree with you,” I say, without clarifying what I agree with.
* * *
—
When Gabe started going up north, it was supposed to be temporary. He was going to take care of his aunt and uncle. They were elderly. He was a good guy. I was busy down here. I had my family down here. Then all that shit with M happened and I was really busy down here, really had my family. He’d come down when he needed to, took the boys to things when he had extra cash. Came down when my Kookoo died. Held my hand through the whole Ceremony and service like he’d never leave. Left the next day.
I didn’t want us to stay together. It was more convenience than anything else. I didn’t have time to go through his things in the closet or basement. Made more sense for him to stay with us when he came down.
Then sometimes he’d buy me a bottle of my favourite wine. Sometimes he’d cook his specialty lemon pepper chicken we all loved. Sometimes he’d brush my arm so gentle and innocent and I knew I’d move toward him when Baby went to bed. I would take his hand and lead him into my room, our room, and I’d feel whole again, for a while.
* * *
—
Jake’s face looks sunken, his skin pale. The plastic between us gives off a glare that blurs his eyes until he sits down across from me. Close enough to touch. But I can’t touch him.
