Falling Under (28 page)
Mrs. English has taken over the second floor of a charm- ing country inn for her event. We stomp the snow off our boots, check our coats, and head up the ribbon-festooned staircase.
Bernadette’s outfit gets quite a few surprised-and-quickly- stifled glances, but she is too busy looking for Faith to notice. I keep a wary eye out for Mrs. English.
Being taller, I spot Faith first. “There she is,” I say, and wave.
She waves back and pushes through the crowd to get to us.
“Thanks for coming,” she says and gives each of us a kiss on the cheek.
“So,” Bernadette says, “what is it you wanted me to see?” “Just wait.”
We don’t have to wait long.
The music is turned down and Mrs. English steps onto a makeshift platform near the fireplace at the far side of the room. She is in a well-tailored burgundy suit and looks much more normal than in my high school memories.
“Good evening, friends!” she says and launches into an account of the year’s accomplishments.
Beside me, Bernadette is pursing her lips and retucking her hair behind her ear every few seconds. Faith stands with her hands clasped in front of her and her sheet of blond hair falling across her face.
The next section of the speech encompasses finance, family values and the need to fight corruption and moral disintegration. I fight hard not to glaze over.
I glance at Bernadette and she rolls her eyes.
“On a personal note,” Mrs. English continues, “though I will continue to be outspoken in my opposition to issues such as gay marriage and abortion.. .”
Faith and Bernadette both go very still.
“I intend to approach these issues with more... love in my heart and with the hope that
prayer
will work to guide those who are on the wrong path . . . back to where they be- long. God loves all, and we should attempt to do the same. Bless you in the new year and thank you for coming.”
While the crowd claps, the three of us turn to look at each other—that is, Bernadette and Faith stare at each other and I stare at them.
“You... did you tell her?” Bernadette asks. Faith nods. “My whole family.”
“Holy shit,” I say.
“Oh!” Bernadette says, and her hands fly to her face. “Oh, my God. How did it... Are you okay? What hap- pened?”
“It wasn’t particularly well received,” Faith says. “But, well, as you can see, slightly better than I expected.”
“They’re praying for you to come back to the light?” I say.
She grimaces. “Something like that. I haven’t been locked up or married off though, so that’s something.” She turns back to Bernadette. “I told them about you. I told them you were the reason, that I was going to lose you and I couldn’t . . . that I just couldn’t.”
Suddenly they’re both crying. Bernadette reaches out to take Faith’s hands.
This is where I should be discreetly stepping away, but instead I’m playing lookout, which turns out to be a good thing.
“She’s coming,” I say to them in a low voice. Bernadette drops Faith’s hands.
“Will she... does she know it’s me?” Bernadette asks in a fast whisper.
“Shh,” Faith says. “Hi, Mom. Good speech.”
“Thank you, dear.” She takes a moment to check out Bernadette and then me.
“Which one?” Mrs. English asks. Faith blushes.
Bernadette reaches out her hand.
“I’m Bernadette and this is my friend, Mara.”
Mrs. English narrows her eyes and takes Bernadette’s hand. “It seems you are a person of influence over my daugh-
ter,” she says.
“Ah . . .” Bernadette says, and darts a questioning gaze at Faith.
“Mom,” Faith says, “you promised.”
Mrs. English, still holding Bernadette’s hand, steps closer and smiles brightly while saying, “You will find that I, too, am a person of influence. I love my daughter.”
“Ahem,” Bernadette says. “Well, I look forward to get- ting to know you and your family better. Faith is a wonder- ful person. You should be very proud of her.”
“Humph,” Mrs. English says, and glances at Faith. “I said I’d try and I will.” She turns back to Bernadette. “I’ll be praying for you both.”
And she walks off.
I let out a long whistle of air.
“Nice in-laws,” I say to Bernadette. Faith snorts.
“I wish I’d worn a different outfit,” Bernadette says.
“I wish you’d shut up and get us all out of here,” Faith says, and bats her eyelashes at Bernadette.
With all the love in the car, I’m surprised we don’t levitate back to Toronto.
N
eedless to say, I’ve never liked Christmas.
Every year I spend Christmas Eve with Bernadette’s family and reject all invitations for Christmas Day.
For years I was fought over, pressured, guilted by Dad and Mom, to choose between them. One would think they’d come to some kind of half-day-each agreement, but not my parents—why agree when you have the opportunity to wage war? Once I was old enough to choose, I stopped celebrating altogether.
Usually I just paint.
This year though, I go to my closet, take out the Lucas shoebox and bring it to the living room.
Wishing like crazy for a drink, I open the box.
On top is a Polaroid of us at graduation. Our arms are flung around each other and we’re grinning like five-year- olds. So young.
Lucas was fond of taking photos, so there are lots. One by one, I go through them. Interspersed with the pictures are Valentine’s Day cards, birthday cards, the occasional love
note left on my pillow. My throat aches, but I force myself to read every word, take in every detail. I come across a Christmas poem he wrote me one year. It says:
Mara, Mara, why so sad in the happy season?
Trees and Santa make you mad I don’t know the reason.
I say it out loud and laugh.
Once the box has yielded up its painful treasures, the question is what to do with it all? Surely going through it isn’t enough—not even close.
The phone rings.
Usually I don’t answer the phone on Christmas Day, but today I do. It’s Mom. Maybe it’s just the state I’m in, but something in her voice touches me, forces me to remember I love her. The next thing I know, I’m suggesting we have lunch tomorrow and we’re making plans to meet at a pub up the street from me.
I take Dad and Shauna’s call too—it seems that capitula- tion is the theme of the day. Or one might call it change.
I decide to organize the Lucas stuff. I start chrono- logically, making a pile for each semester and then create subcategories—photos, letters, notes, cards, etcetera. I will buy a better box, one with little files where all of it can go. Or maybe I’ll purge most of it. Some of it. But not yet.
There are tiny sketches too, working drafts, and, finally, three sculptures from Lucas’s pre-tennis-ball-and-shellac phase that I’ve been keeping in a dark corner of the basement.
Anything I like, I put on display in the house. Seeing it every day will be hard to get used to, but I think it would make him happy.
I wander from room to room searching my soul for a way to integrate, to rehabilitate, to find someplace less painful for his memory to exist.
And finally I go to my studio and paint until I cannot keep my eyes open or my fingers moving any longer.
6
It’s been over a year since I’ve seen Mom, so I hardly notice the food at lunch.
As always, I feel scruffy and freakish in my jeans and cotton sweater next to her in her beige wool suit, silk scarf and precarious-looking leather boots.
Even the day after Christmas, she has her laptop, cell and PDA.
“How are you?” she says.
I fiddle with my napkin. “Good. Really good.”
And she smiles and is perhaps proud that I am so to- gether.
She regales me with work stories and at the end of lunch hands me a gift bag.
“Mom . . . you didn’t have to.” She pats my arm. “Open it.”
I reach into the tissue and pull out a small box. Inside is a miniature artist’s palette made of crystal.
I am speechless.
Mom starts to shift in her chair. “If you don’t like it, I can exchange it.”
“No, it’s . . . beautiful.”
“Well, I know I don’t get the whole art thing, but I thought you might like it.”
“I do.”
“Merry Christmas, honey.”
I try not to cry on the walk home.
6
After the moderate success of lunch, I decide to be really wild and drop in on Dad and Shauna in the evening.
They invite me to dinner and I accept.
Shauna gives me a pair of turquoise earrings from Mexico and Dad sits calmly on the couch watching
Six Feet Under
on DVD and asking the occasional question.
“So,” he says, “what happened to your boyfriend...
Hugo, wasn’t it?” “We broke up.” “How come?”
I sigh. “It’s complicated.”
Dad nods. “Relationships aren’t easy for you, are they?” “No, Dad,” I say. “They’re not.”
He reaches out and pats my knee.
“It’ll get easier someday,” he says, and smiles fondly at Shauna. “I promise.”
6
New Year’s Eve, I find myself on Erik’s doorstep.
He is alone. There are dark circles under his eyes and his skin is pale—he looks like hell.
“Well, well . . .” he says.
“You were right,” I say. “We’re not quite done.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m not fucking you tonight, Mara.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You’re here.” I flush and he smirks.
“Shouldn’t you be at some swanky party with your boyfriend?”
“You know, that really doesn’t suit you, Erik.” “You’re right.” He sighs. “You’d better come in.”
I slip past him and make my way to the couch, where I curl up in the corner. Erik gives me a quizzical look and sits down at the other end.
“Hugo and I broke up,” I say. “And I went out and stood in traffic.”
Erik frowns. “Seems a little over the top. How long have you known the guy?”
“It wasn’t about him,” I say. “I stood on the streetcar tracks. I stood there and waited and I almost let one hit me. I considered it.”
His eyes widen.
“We have to talk about Lucas,” I say. He shakes his head.
“Erik.”
“No.” He gets up and paces to the bedroom door and back.
“You know you never answered my question that night,” I say.
“What question? It was five fucking years ago.”
6
Lucas is a sound sleeper, and there are things you need to know, things only Erik can tell you.You creep from the bed, grab some clothes, and tiptoe to the living room to put them on. The streetcar carries you across town to Erik’s place where you see red light glowing from the window behind the fire escape. You haven’t been here for weeks and planned never to come again. This is the last time and you’re here for
answers.
Since the excruciating family dinner, you’ve been trying to reconcile the Erik you’ve been fucking with the half- brother Lucas despises. Your heart and loyalty must be with Lucas, but the story of Erik’s childhood speaks to you. You know now why you were drawn to him. It wasn’t only his beauty, wasn’t just physical. Like you, he knows the extrem- ity of loss, of being lost. He knows what a scary place the world can be. This knowledge is something Lucas does not have, an awareness he is missing. Lucas believes the world is a good place and that people live happily ever after.You were hoping his belief would infect you, inspire you, and perhaps heal your pathetic, jaded soul.
But instead, something in Erik called and you responded, proving your worst fears about yourself. You are doomed to selfishness, doomed to fail the ones you love, just like your parents. You are a faithless piece of shit who will never de- serve to be loved. You have a sick feeling that when you go inside and ask the questions you need to ask, Erik might prove he is just as bad, possibly worse.
You go up the stairs and knock on the door. He opens it a crack and peeks out. Seeing it’s you, he opens it wider, lets you in and shuts it quickly.
“Did you know?” you ask, and look for an answer on his face.
He lights a cigarette and gazes at you through narrowed eyes.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he says.
6
“What question?” Erik says again. “You remember.”
“Not really,” he says. “Besides, you were the one cheating on Lucas, not me.”
“I know that.”
“There’s no absolution here, Mara. We have to just live with it.”
“I know that too, but someday I’d like to think I might be happy. I’d like to believe that everything I touch isn’t going to turn to shit.”
“Good luck,” he says and shrugs. “There must be something we can do.” “Besides fucking?” he says.
“Yeah, besides that.”
He sneers. “Oh, I get it. You want to talk about feelings and cry and all that shit.”
“Well, I want to talk at least.”
“Bad news: I don’t.” But he lowers himself onto a stool and hunches there.
“Tough,” I say, and push on. “Let’s start with this: why did you have sex with me? In the beginning.”
His eyes lift and meet mine. “I thought that was pretty obvious.” I can read his wicked thoughts as if they’re my own, but I am not to be distracted or deterred.
“Listen.” I lean forward. “Let’s just get this out of the way, because I’ve wondered all this time and I need to know.”
“Fine. Get to it,” he snaps.
“You and Lucas hated each other.” “Check.”
“You came back years later and tried to make amends, he rejected you.”
“Check.”
“He was a spoiled brat who’d had a perfect life compared to yours and he had no empathy, no room in his heart for forgiveness.. .”
“Where’re you going with this, Mara?”
“And there he is, all golden and smug with his art and his trust fund and his precious girlfriend.. .”
Erik stands. “I think you’d better shut up.”
I stand too. “It wouldn’t be that hard, once you get that job at the school, to find out who she was, what class she was in, and then wave your big dick around and fasten your dark-soul eyes on her and somehow know, because you know him, that a part of her must be starving for someone just like you.. .”