Winners:
- First – Heather E. Tucker – Coming and Going
- Second – Nora Landry – Reel Love
- Third – Erin Thomas – Visiting the Sun Princess
- Honorable Mention – Jacquelyn O’Brien – Disconnect
Finalists:
- Noelle Bickle Fedde
- Tina Collett
- Jill McWhinnie (Stouffville)
- Suzanne Robinson
- Sonia Suedfeld (Langley, B.C.)
- Heather Tucker (second story)
Judges:
- Barry Dempster
- Sharon English
- Barbara Kyle
First:
Coming and Going
by Heather E. Tucker
I’m spying from behind the terracotta pot on my front porch. At twelve I still fit into spaces more suited to a gerbil. Dad fills the doorway, blocking the inside light except for a little spilling over his shoulder onto my sister’s face. Zoe says, “Dad, please, call Sunnyside and tell them I can take Granddad.”
Dad chins toward Zoe’s boyfriend waiting by the van. “Is he coming?”
“Nana wants Manny there.” Dad closes the front door. Zoe whispers, “Night, Daddy.”
Manny approaches, “Any luck?”
“No. We’ll have to kidnap him.”
My pillow’s stuffed with dreams of justifiable felony and my single bed feels too short.
It’s 8AM, already hot, too hot to be wearing black, but it has a Bond feel to it. The kidnapping’s in progress when I arrive. Zoe’s in white. Very clever. She speaks angel-soft to the nurse, “I understand you have rules, but it’s my Nana’s birthday.” Zoe buttons Granddad’s shirt and flattens his scarecrow hair.
The nurse applies the wheelchair’s brakes. “He’s in no condition to be moved. Your father has power of attorney and he said no.”
Holy schmoley, Dad’s got powerful lawyers involved.
Zoe phones home. “Dad, Manny’s not coming today. Tell the nurse Granddad can go.” She hands off the phone and mops up Granddad’s drool. Manny commandeers the chair out the door.
I stealth through parked cars. I’m discovered coiled by the van’s rear tire. Manny says, “Hey, Jonah. You coming with us?”
“Um… yeah, Dad said it’s okay.” Truth is, he’d sooner see me deep-fried in porridge. Zoe crosses her arms waiting for my confession. “He thinks I’m riding with Auntie Violet.”
Zoe spreads a plastic cloth over the seat. Easy as lifting a Jet-Puffed marshmallow, Manny puts Granddad into the van. “Sit in back with Amisha.”
“Who?”
“Ami, my little sister. Nana invited her.” I peer into the van’s dark interior to– a jewel, a star, the total eclipse of my life…
Zoe positions blankets and pillows. “There, Granddad, how’s that?”
Granddad’s face has pinked up and his eyes look happy. I’ve been researching dementia. Brains need oxygen. All the O2 in Sunnyside has been displaced by poo fumes.
Zoe says, “Climb in. We’ll drop you at the lake road and you can walk in.” If I’m caught with Zoe there will be a Vesuvius from Dad. Zoe’s a fornicator, plus Manny’s a Hindu, making her a heathen fornicator. —She is who I aspire to be.
Dad kicked her out at seventeen when, while mining for a mint in the zippered compartment of her handbag he ‘accidently’ discovered Zoe was on the pill. Nana scooped her up quick. She knows a great cast-off when she sees it. Nana lives in her cottage so really Zoe’s punishment was a perpetual vacation. I hightailed it to Dr. Flaherty and requested this magic pill. He gave me a cuff on my ear and a confusing lecture about sex being a holy onion.
Manny takes the wheel so I guess he’s dropping us off. Too bad he’s not coming because I have a new excommunication plan: marry a Hindu. I have 160 kilometers to win Ami’s hand. I tug the sweaty wool at my throat. My opening line, the best I can come up with is, “Nana likes me in black. It’s her birthday so I… ”
Swedish Berries linger on Ami’s breath. “I like black.” It’s the best thing any girl has ever said to me. Cherry breasts rise and fall with her sigh. “Can you figure this one?” When she lifts the brainteaser in my direction her right baby finger grazes my left.
I receive the book and yellow pencil, still warm from her touch and place the number six where it belongs. I pass by obvious squares and pencil in a nine. Our eyes meet. I think she understands. She bites her bottom lip on one side. “You want some berries?”
I take five, as a dowry. It’s more than enough.
Granddad’s struggling with major phlegm trouble. As I thwap his back everything feels cosmic big: young Jonah with my new love smuggling old Jonah to his forever love. I catch sight of the cottage cutoff ahead. Since Dad’s always hogging the Jesus help-line with requests I call upon Vishnu for a smooth entry. Manny stops to let Ami see two deer at the side of the road and holy dharma Aunt Violet pulls up behind and asks, “Car trouble?”
Three steps and my butt is planted in her ancient Caddy. I kiss her saggy cheek. “How’s the rheumatism, Auntie V?”
Nana’s waiting. She’s sun-warmed and family-gathering rosy. Dad has more of an exposed-oyster hue. I whisper in Nana’s ear. “Wait till you see Zoe’s present.”
Nana scolds, “Anybody brings me more crap they’re going headfirst into the outhouse.”
The van coasts in and gods have mercy, Manny’s forgotten he’s not allowed to come. I’m guessing Nana knew the surprise because before Manny has the door fully opened she’s hugged up to Granddad, crying, “Jonah, Jonah. Oh, my Jonah.”
Zoe stretches and Dad’s teeth scratch. “You lied to me.”
“No, Daddy. Manny’s sleeping in the boathouse with the rest of the boys so he won’t be coming today.”
Dad lifts his hand and Nana says, “Son, that smack would be for me. They’ve only done what I asked.”
Aunt Violet tests Manny’s ready-for-rescue bicep. “Zoe, can he come to my birthday, too.”
Granddad is moved to the shade and he’s—smiling? Granddad is smiling, like when he used to catch a big fish or a grand sunrise.
Cottage birthdays are like no other. I think it’s because of the skin. Everything from spanking-new baby bottoms, wet-sand-testing toddler toes, cannonball-leaping cousins, fireman muscles, sinners in two-piece’s, uncles sucking guts back up to their chests, aunties with wags and sags and the Greats with more hills and valleys than a world map. Mom and Dad, fully-clothed watch from the back deck. I ask Nana, “Why didn’t Dad want Granddad or Manny here?”
Granddad is in an Adirondack set in the water, trousers rolled up, feet buried in weed mush. Zoe anoints his head with a kiss then puts his hat on. Nana says, “Your father can’t look at where he’s going and can’t bear seeing where he’s never been.” She pats my face with a floury hand that always smells of bumbleberry pie. “Always look Jonah. Don’t miss the firsts and lasts and all the life in-between.”
I give Ami the yellow feather I found and watch her weave it into the black silk of her hair. Ami softly gives me her sweeter-than-berry mouth. I wonder if Granddad is remembering his first kiss. He smiles through spasms and cramps and shitting his diaper. Manny, lifts him from the chair, gentling him to the bed where baby Grace was just rediapered. Zoe cleans him up as if performing a holy ritual on a sacred day. Nana holds Grace and gazes at Granddad smile-snoring through a nap. “Gracie, I wish you could know your Great Granddad. His great spirit, mercifully strong and strongly merciful.”
I say, “Nana, we’ll just tell her to look at Zoe and she’ll see an exact reincarnation. Except for the boobs.”
Summer-suited ladies kick like Rockettes singing, “There’s no Nana, like our Nana…” Ami’s bathing suit is pink. Zoe’s is a rainbow. I wish Mom had a blue one. Everyone blows at the 75 candles so Nana will get her wish. Granddad smacks his mouth around cake, chokes, coughs then opens for more. Nana kisses a little icing off his lips.
Cottage nights always end with lakeside fires. Nana’s holding Granddad’s hand and he might be humming Danny Boy along with the uncles singing. Nana sighs, “This has been the sweetest day I can ever remember. Find your own beds kids. Granddad needs his sleep.” Manny carries him inside. Ami releases my hand, knowing I’m needed to put on his warm socks.
Unraveled, Nana’s hair falls past her waist. Her nightgown floats like a ghost bride. “Your Granddad and I spent our first night in this old bed.” Beneath quilts she burrows under Granddad’s arm then looks at Zoe. “Bless you for this.”
Granddad’s propped on pillows. Zoe places a pill back of his tongue. “Swallow, Granddad.” He swallows one, then another, another, then several more. They must be Zoe’s magic pills because he doesn’t cough once. She whispers, “Night Nana, see you in the morning. Bye Granddad, come visit my dreams.”
Granddad’s lips rise like a sleepy moon when Nana kisses his papery cheek. “My sweet, sweet love.” The fragrance of cedar floats in with the soft kum-ba-yah. “Go sing with the others. Sing for Granddad.”
I nestle beside Ami, feeling too big to hide in small places anymore. I watch my father’s tired face from behind the fire and pray he’ll discover Zoe’s mercy and the smile that follows great spirits into eternity.
Second:
Reel Love
by Nora Landry
Everything I know about love, I learned at the movies. Well, almost everything. Some stuff I learned at the hockey rink.
R.J. McCormick was all layers and old woolen sweaters, different colours, some frayed at the wrists, some frayed at the neck. His tee shirt was tugged out of his jeans, his parka always as undone as his Kreb Kodiaks. His shiny brown hair always needing a cut and topped with his old Canadiens toque. He had a habit of answering every comment or question directed his way with a long, drawn out, disbelieving “Naaaw?” R.J. was the eternal skeptic and I whenever I got the chance to actually talk to him, I was always explaining.
“No, really, R.J., it’s true…”, only to see that slow, lazy smile creep across his face, then feel that red-hot blush creep across mine.
R.J. was sexy. He drove the zamboini after school and on weekends, and we girls sat in the bleachers and watched as he glided gracefully around the curves of the rink. His hair blew back from his face and his cheeks glowed red, and like that kid in “A Christmas Story” on his triple dog dare, I longed to risk the tip of my tongue, for just a little taste of him.
I’d seen him swimming at Larkin Lake. His stomach was smooth and flat and he curved up like a Y through his chest to his shoulders. His lips were red and full, movie star lips.
It was those lips and those shoulders, backlit by the sun setting into the lake; that was the opening scene for me. I know we’re not a typical couple, him so handsome and confident. But unlikely pairings are the stuff that big romance is made of. Think Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neil or John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. It was like that.
Every school day morning since that day at the lake, I’d stumbled around my mudroom, tying and retying my running shoes, or aimlessly searching for a mitten or a glove that I knew was lost.
And my mother would call, “Hurry Sharon, you’re going to be late.”
And I would glance out the mudroom window and up the street, tap my foot impatiently. But I wouldn’t leave until I saw R. J. McCormick casually sauntering down the road. Then I was in a hurry, tugging on my jean jacket and grabbing for my math text so that I could casually saunter out my driveway at precisely the same moment that R. J. went by.
And then he would walk down his side of the street and I would walk down my side of the street, all the way to 7th Avenue, where he turned left to go to Bishop Francis O’Malley and I turned right to go to Eastlawn Secondary. The perfect shot would have started tight on my face and then pulled back with the music swelling. This was real life and there was no music, but it was perfect just the same. It was like the best 6 and half minutes of my day.
That night there was a gang of us hanging around outside Bishop Francis O’Malley, on the dark side where they were building the addition. Someone found an open basement window.
“Who’s got the guts to go in? Betcha five bucks no one does.”
“No way. It’s trespassing,” another voice. “It’s under construction; it’s dangerous.”
R.J. stood up. “I’ll go,” he said. “Who’ll go with me?”
I jumped to my feet before I even realized what I was doing. “I’ll go,” I said and tried to catch my breath, “I’ll go with you, R.J.”
“You Sharon?” he said. “Naaaw???”
But for once I didn’t explain.
“Is someone down there?” a voice called from around the darkened hallway corner and my heart stopped. Stopped, right there in my chest. You know how in the movies the heroine is so scared that she clutches her chest and throws her head back to show off her hair and you know that her heart has stopped? It was like that. R.J. grabbed my arm and put the fingers of his other hand over his own lips.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s the custodian.” He turned into a doorway on his left, opened the door and pulled me inside. I heard the click of the latch as the door closed behind us. Then footsteps approaching.
I turned to R.J., but he just said “Shhh” again, turned my shoulders and pulled me close to him. He stood with his back to the wall and I felt his heart pounding against my back – through all those layers. I wondered if my heart would start again and then beat in sync with his. Like in the movies.
I heard the custodian’s footsteps coming down the hall, closer, closer and then they stopped. The doorknob jiggled. R.J.’s breathing was so hot and loud on my neck that I was sure that the custodian could hear it too. The knob turned very slowly, and clicked as it unlatched.
I could not breathe. It was like I had forgotten how. R.J. pulled me even closer to him and we pressed our bodies hard and flat against the wall. The door opened, slowly, slowly, and then hurled toward me and smacked on the door stop, barely two inches from my nose. A flashlight gleamed and from behind the door I caught small, short glimpses of the room we were in. A future science lab; the flashlight beam glided over lab tables and sinks and glimmered off of new glass cabinet doors. Then just as suddenly as it came on, it blinked off. Feet shuffled. The door swung closed. Then the footsteps, loud at first, then softer, softer, and then the faint whisper of a whistle drifted back to us.
I took a breath. I felt R.J. take a deep breath, and noticed how closely he had pulled me to him. I could feel his chest and his legs and his thighs. His heart was beating and mine was beating too, in sync with his. Thththump thump, thththump, thump.
I shifted my weight because one of my feet had gone all pins and needles. As I shifted, he turned my shoulders again, this time towards him. He was going to kiss me. I knew he was. We had just narrowly escaped. After the narrow escape, the hero always kisses the heroine. Think Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in “Romancing the Stone”. It was like that.
And then he did. He leaned down, his breath was warm and sweet, his mouth was wet and hot, and I could feel the fuzz on his chin and his cheeks. It was just like I had dreamed it. It was wonderful.
I looked up at him. I willed time to stand still. I willed him to see me, like Humphrey Bogart saw Audrey Hepburn in “Sabrina”, when he finally realized that she was the girl for him. That’s what I wanted. I wanted that look, the one I had been giving him from my mudroom window every school day morning since I’d seen him at the lake. But when I found his eyes, it was like they were already dancing past my face, already down the hall.
“Wow,” R.J. said. “That was close. Almost getting caught like that, it was cool.”
“It was sort of… romantic,” I ventured.
“Romantic? Naaaw??? Come on,” he said, as he opened the door. “Let’s go, collect my five bucks.”
I followed him down the hall and watched as he pulled himself up and out the basement window and started off in the darkness.
“Hey,” I called softly. “R.J., I need a hand.”
“Oh yeah. Sorry,” he turned back and reached down and pulled me out.
I bent down to close the window and dust off my pants and I could hear him calling, “Hey guys, you owe me five bucks. We nearly got caught. It was so cool.”
And when I looked up, I could see the back of his sweater fading into the darkness.
You know that part, at the end of the movie, when you know it’s over but the lights are still dim and the music hasn’t changed and the credits aren’t rolling yet? And you know that in a minute the lights are going to come up, and you’re going to see the gum stuck to the seat in front of you and the spilled pop on your shoes and the discarded popcorn plastered to the floor. And you lean back in your seat and close your eyes and try to hold on to the story for just a few minutes more. That part where you know the movie is over, but you really, really wish it wasn’t?
It was like that.
Third:
Visiting the Sun Princess
by Erin Thomas
I didn’t recognize my cousin.
Her long, red hair was hacked short. That was one difference. Mostly it was in her face—she looked dried out, shriveled. And so thin.
She hesitated, seeing my expression, then reached her arms out. “Hey, loser,” she said. “Good to see you.”
“You, too, freak,” I said. The word sounded thick in my mouth. I always called her that, just like she always called me loser, but in this place it felt wrong.
A lot of things felt wrong here. Someone had tried really hard to continue the rich-people resort illusion from outside, but it didn’t work. The carpeting and cushy chairs were right, but the people were wrong. The ones who worked here wore scrubs and security cards; the ones who didn’t wore other signs. Blank stares. A wheelchair for one woman.
A man walked by, having a conversation with no one.
Lindy and I hugged. She wore a giant sweatshirt, even though it was a hot day. Underneath, her shoulder blades stuck out like wings. I thought of a moth, thin-boned and dissolvingly fragile.
I wondered what she felt, hugging me.
“Why don’t you girls go for a walk?” Dr. Freidman suggested, so we did, happy to get away from Aunt Laura while she talked to the doctors. Only Lindy wasn’t allowed to leave the grounds yet, so there weren’t a lot of places to go. We followed the path down to the waterfront, not saying much. A man rode a lawnmower back and forth on the manicured grass. I breathed deep, liking the green smell.
The wind blew hard off the lake. Lindy shivered.
“Are you cold? Do you want to go back?” I asked.
“No,” she said. She looked at the building. “I really don’t.”
I pointed to some large rocks, a cluster of them sticking out into the water. “It’s sunny there.”
We felt warmer sitting on the rocks; a stand of trees, folded drunkenly over the water, stopped the wind. There was a beachy smell of washed-up seaweed, but I only noticed it for the first few breaths.
I looked at Lindy. Wrists like little sticks. Her jeans hung loose on her body. My legs, solid and tanned in shorts, looked like giant logs by comparison.
She saw me looking. Shook her head. “Don’t,” she said.
We listened to the waves, an ongoing rush. My skin was all goose-bumpy. I wondered how to start.
Lindy spoke first. “Guess this is weird for you, huh?”
“No, not really.” It was. I was conscious of every word that dropped from my mouth. It didn’t used to be so hard to talk to Lindy.
It wasn’t because of where we were. At least, I didn’t think so. I had trouble with everyone, lately. The secret I carried around with me was so big I couldn’t talk around it.
I wanted to show someone, take the note out of my pocket and show someone, and then it wouldn’t be just me.
“Oh, sure. It’s every day you visit your cousin in the loony bin.” She pulled herself in tight like a seashell.
I took a long time, trying out the words in my mind. I needed to get this one right. “It’s okay. I like to see you. It doesn’t matter where.”
There were sailboats out on the lake, white triangles against a sky so pale blue it hurt to look at it. The sails looked crisp, like fresh-ironed shirts, the kind Dad wears to work.
I do the laundry. You never know what you’ll find in a pocket.
Suddenly, she laughed. “You’ll get this. Do you remember those wings they bought us?“
I remembered Lindy, back-lit by the sun so that the red of her hair and the gold of her wings made a halo. Standing on the jumping rock at the cottage. I nodded.
“I drew them,” she said. “We have to do this thing where we draw ourselves, how big we think we are, then we stand beside it and they take a picture, to show us. Every damn week. One time I drew those wings on mine. I didn’t tell them what they were.” She sounded proud. This was a victory, a piece of herself that she kept private.
But then, why draw the wings?
There was a lot I wanted to ask. Did she draw herself bigger or smaller than real life? When they took the picture, did she stand in front, so the wings looked like they grew out of her skinny shoulder blades?
“Did you ever cheat on Mitchell?” I asked.
“No!” she said. “I would never. Why would you even say that?”
That was my opening. The note was in my pocket; I couldn’t feel it, but I was aware of it all the time. I reached for the right words, but they didn’t come out in time.
Lindy laughed. “You like a boy, don’t you? What, is he taken? Because you know if you ever need to talk, I’m here. I’ve told you that before.” She smiled. “I was tempted once,” she said. “Janice and I went down to Florida last March, do you remember?”
I half-listened to the story of the stranger on the beach, still trying to frame the right question. Was there even a question?
Lindy finished that story and started another one. So then I knew what to do.
She needed me to listen to her. Maybe even tell some stories that I remembered, about her, about us together. Show her to herself, the way she used to be. Turn her around and let her catch the sun.
Then she would be strong enough to help me. Then it would be my turn.
“Do you remember the time we camped out in the backyard and I got my period for the first time?” I asked, picking dried moss off the rock.
She nodded. “You were so upset.”
“You told me all about when you got yours, so I’d feel better. Then you went in, even though it was midnight or something, and grabbed me a pad and some painkillers.”
She shook her head, her mouth curving up slightly. “I don’t remember that,” she said. “I remember my first time, though. Grade eight graduation. It was awful.”
That wasn’t the story she had told me before.
The trees cast a shadow that stretched out towards the rocks we sat on, reaching for me.
“Lindy?” I tried. “I need to talk to you.” It was my turn. I’d been waiting so long to tell somebody, to ask somebody what to do, and now that I had my chance, the words stuck in my mouth.
She jumped to her feet in a single motion, like a cat. “Don’t,” she said, balanced on the rocks. “I don’t want to talk about it. All I do, all day long in this place, is talk about it.”
She thought I wanted to talk about the eating.
I clambered up, too, so I was standing across from her. The rocks equalized our height.
She looked at me, then, really looked at me, up and down, the way the boys at school do when you have to walk past them in the hallway. Looked my thighs, looked at the bulge where my t-shirt hung over the top of my shorts. Looked at my arms, which were as big around as her legs.
Then looked away.
My face got hot. “What’s your problem?” I asked.
She stared at me like I had slapped her. Her face opened—eyes and mouth, wide open. Then she started to laugh, too loud. She laughed harder, but it sounded frantic.
Then she pulled her arms tight around herself and started to cry.
I didn’t know what to do.
I said her name, once or twice. Tried to touch her shoulder, but she pulled away.
It took a long time before she stopped crying.
She just stood there, staring out at the waves, leaning out like she was ready to jump or fly. I reached out to steady her.
She looked at my outstretched hand. “You gonna save me?” She touched my hand. Just softly, first, then she squeezed it tight. I remembered how strong she used to be. “It’s only a foot deep.”
I pulled away, placing my hand in my pocket, feeling for the hard corners of the paper folded there. Whatever it meant or didn’t mean, it was mine to deal with.
I’d stay here with Lindy, listen to her stories, then drive home with Aunt Laura, not speaking. And tomorrow I’d think about Lindy, but she’d be here. Just here. And she’d be thinking about whoever was looking at her, her Mom, the doctors, whoever.
“Hey. You know I’m going to be okay, right? It’s just going to take a while.” She sounded like she was trying to make it true just by saying it. Or maybe she was trying to reassure me.
I didn’t know. She probably didn’t, either.
Honourable Mention –
Disconnect
by Jacquelyn O’Brien
Scotland
He stands at the bar, his bar. The smooth, wooden surface is littered with newspapers and dirty glasses. It’s lunchtime but there are only a few people here; just a couple of serious drinkers and a small office outing. Overhead, horse racing drones on the TV.
He takes off his glasses and rubs his forehead, concentrating hard on the paper. He starts at the back, working through the sports and crosswords to the celebrity break ups. The murders and politicians on the front page will be frowned at later.
The paper excludes everything else; customers, employees, crises. When he’s finally done, he casually asks the room, “Did somebody mention tea?” He repeats the question every five minutes until ‘somebody’ brings tea.
Day drags on into evening. Customers increase in number and volume. Tea is replaced by whisky, horse racing by loud pop music.
Raised voices at the other end of the bar cause him to half rise from his stool but his wife rushes over to defuse the situation. Sitting back down, he mutters to those around him, “It’s easier for a woman to deal with it, she’s not a threat to them.” His audience has heard all this before.
He carries on, “It’s just as well I’m a wee guy; if I’d been built like my father with my temper, I’d have been dangerous.”
Cigarette smoke mingles with beer and sweat. Watching the smokers, he brags again how easy it was for him to give up, even after 40 years of 40 a day. Why can’t they do it?
He talks about his iron will power, but he doesn’t mention the fear that forced him to stop. Fear of another heart attack, fear of being vulnerable, fear of death.
It’s late now and the customers have gone. He’s alone with the young barmaid, a ‘nice wee lassie’. She listens to his stories of flash silk shirts and the street gangs of the fifties and sixties.
He tells her about his beautiful, talented grandchildren, about the son who has achieved so much and his pride in them all. It’s such a shame they live so far away.
“Family’s the most important thing in life,” he tells the girl.
Normally, he only calls his son if there’s big news, like a death in the family, but sometimes, late at night, like now, he wants to call and tell him how proud he is.
He finds the number, written so carefully and neatly in the little book. It takes a lot of concentration to dial all the numbers; he’s frustrated by the time he gets it right.
The bloody machine! They never seem to answer when he calls at night, but they must be in. It’s ten o’clock there.
He slams the phone down and pours another drink. Calming down, he says “Maybe I’ll call tomorrow.”
He knows that he won’t. He knows that he can’t tell his son that he’s proud of him in daylight.
The morning will bring more papers, more football news. Maybe he’ll call just to talk about the game, maybe not.
Canada
The family room is cluttered with a sea of plastic toys, the inevitable detritus of children. The kids are in bed and he is relieved, it’s been a long day and he’s been waiting for the chance to see this game.
Outside, the wind seems ready to pick up the old farmhouse. It doesn’t so much creak as scream with each fresh burst. Some would say that the farm had been a bad choice; too much work, too much land and too small a house coupled with not enough money, not enough time and not enough knowledge.
He bought it for one reason, the kids.
It was a big undertaking, especially with the hours he works, but it was in the right area and it was the right price. Now the kids have lots of room to play and a childhood he could never have had.
He’s sharing the couch with several cats and dogs, entitled, or so they believe, to full ‘human rights’. He’s always been a sucker for animals and for the kids’ pleading, so it’s been one stray after another. He has sworn, again, that there will be no more additions.
The phone rings. He meets his wife’s eyes, his stomach lurching. He pauses the game and goes to the phone.
Stamping back to the couch he says, “It is him. Thank God for caller ID.”
Across the room his wife says nothing, she knows how this goes.
“He’ll be drunk and I don’t have half an hour to spend on the phone. I’ve just sat down. He’ll have nothing to say anyway.”
“OK.”
He throws himself back on the couch and presses play on the remote. The dogs settle back into their warm spots and in seconds it’s like the phone never rang.
He stares at the TV but after a few minutes he realizes that he has missed a goal. He’s been too busy chewing his nails and thinking about a pub thousands of miles away. He can see his dad sitting at the bar, drinking and miserable.
He wonders if his son will screen his calls to avoid talking to him. Surely not! There are a lot of reasons why he doesn’t want to talk to his Dad and he’s not going to make those mistakes.
He feels guilty for avoiding the call, but he knows that his Mum would have phoned during the day if it was important. When the phone goes at this time, it means that his Dad is drunk and the conversations are always the same.
“How are you, Dad?”
“Fine.”
“Anything new happening?”
“Not really.”
Why does he phone when he has nothing to say? He feels a bubble of anger in his chest thinking about it. He never asks about my life, Christ he doesn’t even know what I do.
His daughter comes downstairs, “What is it now? It’s after 10.”
“I’m just going to the bathroom.” she says.
“Hurry up, you should have been asleep over an hour ago. You have school tomorrow.”
“OK.”
He feels guilty immediately, knowing that his anger is nothing to do with her.
She disappears upstairs for the night and he returns to the game. He thinks over the childhood that shaped his relationship with his father. The truth was, it wasn’t the things that his Dad had done, it was the things he hadn’t done. He just wasn’t there to do them, he was always at the pub.
He wasn’t there for football games or swimming or even the puppies being born. He was always at the pub. Every night, he’d wait for Mum to fall asleep after dinner, then go out.
At least that was one thing that he could definitely say was different. He was always around for his kids; he was there when they got up, when they ate and when they went to bed. He was lucky, working from home had benefits, and he was proud of the choices he’d made.
Thinking about his own kids again, he sneaks up the wooden stairs, avoiding a trip on the step that’s so much higher than all the rest.
Pausing outside the bedroom door, he listens to the deep breathing of his son. He peeks in; he’s spread-eagled and snoring just like daddy will be soon. Opening his daughter’s door he sees that she has turned off the light but that her acting requires work. The ’sleepy’ look isn’t very convincing.
“Sorry I shouted, baby. Get some sleep.”
“It’s OK. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Closing the door, he knows that his relationship with his kids is very different from the one that he has with his father. He can’t begin to imagine the word love coming up in their conversations.
Someone had once told him that almost all parents just did the best they could with the tools they had. He knows that this is true of his own Dad, God knows what his childhood was like.
Maybe he’ll call him tomorrow, they could talk about the game. Maybe some other stuff, but likely just the game.
It would be better than nothing.
Nick Cockerton, Oshawa, Ontario
Lauren O’Brien, Cannington, Ontario
Breanna Proulx, Oshawa, Ontario
Riley Sims, Whitby, Ontario
Victoria White, Whitby, Ontario
Nadya Domingo, Ajax, Ontario
