Come See About Me (7 page)

Thirteen now,
Jeremy really only looked like Bastien around the eyes. At the funeral I
couldn’t stop staring at him.

“That was nice
of her,” I told Abigail, my throat shrinking. I’d been entirely absorbed in my
own loss, but news of the photos made me feel momentarily guilty about not
packing up any of Bastien’s things for his parents. I could let them have some
things he didn’t care about as much; maybe the clothes near the back of our
closet. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s a strong
woman, as you no doubt know, but this is testing her.” Abigail paused. “Testing
the whole family. Jeremy’s been so quiet. She worries about him.”

Bastien has said
more than once that his little brother was a tough kid. He said it with
admiration—that Jeremy could break a leg and it’d be like your average kid
stubbing his toe. According to Bastien, Jeremy was a complete jock whose love
of basketball was equaled only by his love of comic books—the biggest thing
they had in common.

“Is there a
night this week that’s good for you?” Abigail continued.

I didn’t know
what day it was. They all felt the same. “How about the day after tomorrow?” I
ventured. “Around seven-thirty?”

Abigail agreed
and the second I got off the phone I switched the TV over to the local news
channel to check the date: Tuesday, June fifteenth. Two days later, on the
Thursday of Abigail’s planned visit, I went shopping and made sure the fridge
and cupboards were fully stocked. I dusted every surface and cleaned
Armstrong’s cage with extra vigor while he roamed around the living room in his
ball. For the first time since my mom’s visit, I put on blush and eyeliner in
an attempt to revive my washed out complexion.

I couldn’t risk
Abigail reporting back to Bastien’s parents (which would inevitably then filter
to my own) that I’d lost it. My mother would fly back across the country in a
flash and next time she wouldn’t be able to ignore her instincts. There’d be a
bigger confrontation and still I wouldn’t do what my parents wanted.

I needed to hold
myself together until Abigail had come and gone; that was the easier thing.
Only
a few hours
, I told myself.
You can do it.
Given that she probably
wouldn’t stay long I sincerely believed I could swing it, despite my looming
financial crisis and everything else. I was friendly and almost talkative when
Abigail first stepped into the apartment. I made her chamomile
tea
and offered her a hot cross bun on a caramel-colored dessert plate.

We sat on the
couch together, drinking and nibbling at our buns, and I told her about Bastien
naming Armstrong after the other two greats.

“So what has
this one accomplished?” Abigail joked, tilting her head to indicate hamster
Armstrong across the room. “Does he have any special talents?”

“I think he must
be a late bloomer,” I replied with a smile.

And then Abigail
dug into her giant black leather purse and pulled out a floral gift bag. “This
is for you,” she said, “from Joyce.”

I’d assumed I
could set the photographs aside to examine later on my own, but as I opened the
bag I saw that Bastien’s mother had placed them inside a beveled glass keepsake
box. Within the box, the pictures (numbering at least thirty) were tied
together with satiny purple ribbon. I felt as though they were designed to
remain that way forever, that it was somehow wrong to disturb the ribbon, but
my fingers disagreed. They began unfurling instantly.

The first
photograph was of Bastien in a bumper car, smiling but unaware of the camera.

“I think he
would be about twelve there,” Abigail told me.

“At Playland?” I
asked. Playland was the oldest amusement park in Canada. My parents used to
take me at least once every summer. When I got older I went with Iliana; we’d
always ride the Hellevator at least twice.

Bastien and I
never went to an amusement park together. We were supposed to go to Wonderland
last September but a day-long thunderstorm broke out on the date we’d chosen.
We got halfway to the park before the downpour and light show started and we
had to come home. We got drenched to the skin running from the TTC to our door.
I started peeling Bastien’s T-shirt off before we even got inside and he was
running his hands across my breasts over my orange halter top. If there weren’t
so much traffic on Eglinton, and if it had been dark, we would’ve done it there
and then, against the side of the house in the thunder.

“I would guess
you’re right,” Abigail said as I flipped to the next picture, a baby photo of
Bastien, the left side of his face in focus and an adult hand holding a
children’s book open for him. His eyes were wide with delight and his lips
parted in a gregarious smile.

“He was such a
beautiful baby,” I pronounced, a tear beginning to snake its way down my cheek.
I set the photos back in the keepsake box and closed the lid, fighting for
control of my emotions. Bastien’s smile had never really changed. When he was
really happy he lit up a like a little boy.

“He was,” she
agreed. She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “He was.”

My throat ached.
My nose filled up with tears. A sob escape from my chest, a wounded animal
noise I usually only made when I was alone.

It shocked me to
hear it. I turned away from Abigail and cried into my free hand, but she held
the other one tight. My ribs hurt from heaving, tears flooded my face, and
Bastien’s aunt sat quietly by my side while I choked out the entire truth about
failing my classes, losing my job and the necessity that I stay in the
apartment that I wouldn’t be able to afford in just a few months’ time. I’d
lost everything and didn’t care. All I wanted was to stay there, as close as I
could to Bastien. And I couldn’t see how that would be possible.

Soon my voice
was in tatters and I released her hand and reached for my tea, my fingers
quivering as they looped around the cup. Abigail was looking at me with a
stillness that reminded me a little of Bastien. She sipped at her own tea, her
gaze steady on mine over the rim of the cup.

“When Alrick
passed I lost interest in the world too,” she said after a long moment. “People
grieve differently. And the people closest to you worry about you, but many of
them don’t know what to do with that worry.”

“What happened
to you?” I asked, setting my tea down and swiping at my tears. “After your
husband died? I mean, how did you get from there to…” I pointed at her together
state. She didn’t give off the aura of the kind of person who never wanted to
leave the house, and I remembered Bastien mentioning that she had her own
business, something to do with shoes.

“It didn’t
happen overnight. I turned inward when he died.” Abigail paused to glance at
her plate. “I had someone else running our business for me for almost a year. I
did a lot of the things it sounds like you’re doing—withdrawing from other
people—but I was in a better place financially. I could afford to do it.” She
stared thoughtfully back at me. “The experts say sudden death is the hardest.
Bastien was such a young man. He should’ve had more time.”

I hoped she
wasn’t going to launch into one of those speeches about God working in
mysterious ways or heaven claiming Bastien as one of its angels. I wasn’t
someone who believed death or destruction happened for a reason.

It occurred to
me that I was again being selfish—Abigail had lost Bastien too. I laid my hands
in my lap, held my breath and nodded patiently.

“Leah,” she
continued, “you’re not my child and I can’t tell you what to do, but you’ve
said yourself the situation here can’t continue on this way much longer. And
you know, all of Bastien’s family is out in B.C. He lived there all his life
except for the last few years. If you went back to your own parents there for a
while it wouldn’t mean leaving him.”

In a way she was
right, but the parts of our lives that we’d shared had occurred almost entirely
in Toronto. Moving back home to Burnaby would make me feel like those
experiences had never really happened. It would mean losing the only little bit
of Bastien that I felt I still had. And I knew I couldn’t cope with being
around my parents while I was in this broken state either. Having my mother
with me for four days was wearing enough; I’d slept for fourteen hours straight
the day she’d left. At home I’d never get the emotional space I needed. The
same would be true if I moved in with any of my friends. What they thought of
as helping me would only feel like crowding. I’d end up in a straitjacket,
worse off than I was right now.

My eyes began to
leak again as desperation ripped through me. I massaged my temples and said
nothing.

Abigail fell
quiet too. She continued drinking her tea in silence. Outside, a dog barked.
First one and then two. The neighbor’s dogs were always setting each other off
like that. If the barking went on for long Bastien would go and pet them
through the fence and, having distracted them, they would often stop.

“I’m sorry,” I
said quietly. “I didn’t mean to lay all that on you. Please don’t say anything
to Bastien’s parents. Or mine. It would just make things worse.”

Abigail slanted
her chin up as though secrecy was too much to ask of her. “Do you have some
plan you didn’t mention?”

“I’ll come up
with something,” I mumbled, knowing that I couldn’t and wouldn’t. I was like a
paralyzed person. Maybe I really was going crazy, driving myself straight into
a brick wall.

“
Leah
…”
Abigail sighed.

I should have
put the photographs aside without looking at them. We could have finished our
tarts and tea. Then I could have offered to pack up some of Bastien’s things
(textbooks and old clothes I’d hardly ever seen him wear) for next time.

“I just need
more time,” I pleaded, the sinking feeling inside me plummeting deeper by the
second. “I’m not ready to go.”

Abigail shifted
on the couch to face me more directly. “Do you think you could be ready in
September?” she asked frankly.

I willed myself
to nod but couldn’t bring myself to follow through. Not when she was staring at
me like she could see straight through me.

“You need a
little help,” she said. “There’s no shame in that. You call your parents and
see what they can do.”

They didn’t have
enough money to allow me to keep the apartment on my own. My mom’s salary was
decent but my father had only been able to work part-time, because of his
fibromyalgia, for years. My parents paid for my yearly tuition and textbooks
but couldn’t afford rent and expenses too.

“It’s not your
problem,” I told her. Somehow I needed to shift our visit back to the neutral
territory where it had had begun. I couldn’t believe I’d all-out broken down on
her like that. If I wasn’t down to the bone sad and lost I would have been
mortified at my outburst. “I really didn’t mean to bring it up. It was
just…seeing those photos.” I glanced down at the keepsake box. “I’m sorry I didn’t
get any of Bastien’s stuff ready for his parents. I meant to. At least a few
things.”

Abigail patted
my leg. “They’re all here, being taken care of. Getting them together is
something that can be resolved when you’ve decided what you’re going to do. You
give your parents a call within the next few days, though, okay? Let them know
what’s really going on with you.”

This time I did
nod. I didn’t have any other choice. I knew if I didn’t clue my parents in soon
Abigail would do it for me. She kissed me on the cheek before she left, said
she’d give me a call in a few days and that she hoped we could get together
again before she flew back out west.

I thanked her
for coming and walked her to the door. Once she was gone, the unbearable
reality of my situation pounded behind my eyes, threatening to steal any ounce
of self-control I had left. Quickly, I surrounded myself with Bastien’s most
comforting things—his charcoal cable-knit sweater,
Johnny Yang
sketchbook, and Armstrong (who I’d always felt was more Bastien’s than mine).
Armstrong wouldn’t sit still for long. I let him walk from hand to hand,
rotating one under the other for him like he was riding an endless escalator. I
cupped him to my chest as I put one of Bastien’s Ella Fitzgerald CDs on the
stereo and turned on the TV, muting the sound so it wouldn’t compete with Ella.

That was still
the frame of mind I was in—clinging to avoidance with every weapon I had—when
Abigail phoned me the very next night. “I have an idea for you,” she said with
a spring in her voice. “I know you really don’t want to leave the apartment you
have there—and I can understand why—but there are some things we just have to
do and I hope you’ll at least consider what I’m about to say.”

She told me
about her house in Oakville, a residence she and Alrick had owned for six years
before he’d died. They’d started their shoe business, named Bulla, out in
Vancouver fifteen years ago and then expanded to open a second store in
Oakville five years later. They’d lived out there for two years while getting
it off the ground and then gone back and forth between Ontario and B.C. But
since Alrick had died Abigail had been spending the majority of her time in
Vancouver, only venturing over to Ontario four or five times a year.

“So, you see,
the house is empty the majority of the time,” she explained. “I stay here for
two weeks or so every couple of months. The manager of the store here keeps an
eye on it for me in between, picking up mail and flyers that come to the door,
and I have landscapers to look after the lawn. There’s certainly room for you
to stay awhile”—she hesitated, sensing my building anxiety—“but maybe that’s
something you’d like to discuss with your parents first. I thought it through
last night and I’d be happy to have you for a while. I just wanted you to know
it was an option.”