Rabbit Ears (14 page)

Beth

Calling Mom that night is rough: getting up the nerve, waiting while it rings. She’s brisk on the phone. “Tell me where you are. I’ll be right there.”

I wait for her on that couch by the door, while Kaya stays in back with Diana and Michelle. Jane’s mother sweeps Jane and Samantha away in the meantime. Turns out Jane got her call in before Michelle had a chance to stop her.

Mom arrives strong, but there’s something about her shoulders and her cheeks, as if the bones in her back and her face have melted a bit and sunken down. She hugs me and holds me away from her and looks into my face.

“You’re all right,” she says, and I bite my tongue on a wailed
No, I’m not. I’m not
. She doesn’t need that right now.

“Where is she?” she says.

Raven brings Kaya out then, and Mom wraps her arms around Kaya without a word and without looking into her face like she did into mine. It’s like she doesn’t want to see what’s there. Not yet. She just wants to hold her messed-up daughter in her arms.

“I’m taking her to treatment tonight,” Raven says to Mom. “I’ve found her a bed.” She hesitates. “If that’s all right with you.”

Mom nods, still holding my sister tight.

In the end, Kaya has to wriggle herself free. “I’ve got to go, Mom,” she says.

So we go home without her, yet again. And despite the fact that Marlene and Michelle are in the back seat of the car, Mom cries all the way. Tears drip off her chin. At the red lights, the sobs turn to wails.

I watch the tears, the scrunched-up face, and wonder about the big cold space inside my chest. When I’m alone in my room … I think to myself. When I’m alone I’ll cry.

Kaya

You stand in the grungy little bathroom and splash cold water on your face, doing your best to keep your eyes off the tiny mirror above the sink. Your makeup is gone. One whole side of your face is black and blue. Your side aches from throwing up with bruised ribs.

And you remember.

You first found out about Mr. Grimsby one day when you were playing in the ravine with Diana. You were in Grade Three then, and it was early in the year. Diana kept stopping that day, like she needed to be somewhere else. The two of you had blocked a tiny creek and a pond was forming. You were looking for something to serve as a boat. And you looked up and Diana was still.

“What are you doing? Help me find a piece of wood that will float properly,” you said.

“I … I have to go,” Diana replied.

“You have to go where?” That’s when she told you. She wasn’t ashamed yet, so the story came out easily. He had just moved in on the street behind hers, stepped across the lane and introduced himself, a cane in his hand and a hat on his head.

“And he did a handstand, right in our backyard, even though he’s old!” Diana said, lingering on the word
old
. “He invited us to visit, me and my sisters, and I went. All by myself.” She sounded proud of herself at this point: she, the youngest. “He served real tea, in china cups. And the prettiest little cookies. His friend made them. Jennifer. His housekeeper, I think she is. And you should see inside his house. Lots of kids play there. They do projects and things. Outside too. He has this toy car you can actually drive. But he invited me in for tea! He doesn’t do that for everybody.”

You wondered about the story a little bit. Going into the house. “Isn’t that dangerous?” you asked. “Going into his house alone, I mean.”

“Oh, it’s not alone. Jennifer’s there. And besides, Mom and Dad met him. Remember?”

“Right.” You had to admit, it sounded fun. Not so much the tea and cookies, but the toy car. And the handstand. You loved doing gymnastics, but you hadn’t mastered the handstand yet and you had never seen a grown man do one except on TV.

Diana left that day, and you stayed and found just the right bit of wood, and launched it on the pond, but it wasn’t much fun, really, after all that. And you soon felt wet and cold.

When you arrived home, you turned the door handle and pushed, letting the door open slowly, silently. If you could just sneak into your room, wet and muddy as you were, you could relax for a bit. Draw maybe. Or write, even.

The house seemed quiet at first, and you put a foot on the bottom step. Your room was right at the top. Then, there was Mom in the front hall, hair kind of wild, eyes flashing.

“You’re filthy. Where have you been?” She was like that sometimes, on top of you out of the blue. Furious. Just as often, it took no effort to sneak past her to the safety of your room. You had no idea why. You didn’t know then that Dad was sick.

“In the ravine,” you responded, “with Diana.” Mom didn’t need to know that Diana had gone away and you stayed there all alone.

The day you went to Mr. G’s with Diana, it was because of rain, and also because of the box. She had come to the ravine unwillingly, because you had wheedled. You were making a sort of a house now, with rooms, up on a flat place above the creek, under a tree. No, not a house, you told your friend. “A fort. That’s the river, rushing by. Many have drowned there. And here is the fort, well guarded.”

Diana got into it a bit, finding pieces of wood to make the walls, assigning areas for sleeping, for cooking, for eating. But then it started to rain. At first it didn’t make it through the trees, but soon drips were finding their way down the neck of your shirt.

She stopped and looked at you. A serious look.

“What?” you said, putting down the piece of the south wall that you had been wrestling into place.

“Today you should come,” she said.

“Come where?” You knew perfectly well.

“To see him. Look. Look what he gave me.”

Diana held out her hand, and you stepped forward, and breathed a long breath of wonder, lifting your fingers to touch. She was holding a tiny golden box, painted with the most delicate, astonishing scene you had ever seen. A swan glided across smooth water, leaving a long triangular wake. Over and under the swan a willow tree grew and reflected, and on the sloping shore beneath the tree, a girl sat in a white dress, knees drawn up, arms circling them, entranced by the same vision that was entrancing you.

With two fingers, Diana pressed on the edge of the lid, and the scene was broken as the box opened, revealing its blue velvet lining, fat and inviting.

She looked up at you, smiling. “I’m going to keep my best necklace inside,” she said. “He gave it to me. It’s mine.” And, “I told him all about you, and he officially invited you. Officially,” she repeated.

A tree branch shifted under the rain’s weight and a small torrent fell right on your head. You swiped at your face with a dirty hand as Diana clicked the lid down and whisked the box to the safety of her pocket.

“All right,” you said. “I’ll come.”

His first words to the pair of you were “What a pair of ragamuffins!” His accent was funny, precise. Snooty, you might have called it. He had white hair and a soft, clean-shaven face, with big pale eyes. His smile was full of warmth and humour, despite the snooty accent. His teeth were big and white and straight. He was so old, they were probably fake, you thought.
Ragamuffins
might sound like an insult, but it didn’t feel like one. It felt as if he loved nothing better than to welcome a pair of damp, muddy girls into his neat-and-tidy house.

Diana beamed up at him. “Mr. Grimsby, this is Kaya,” she said. Then she turned her beaming face on you. “Kaya, this is Mr. Grimsby. I told you he wouldn’t mind that we’re all muddy. You don’t, do you, Mr. Grimsby?”

His smile widened. “Not at all. Lovely to meet you, Kaya. We’ll get the two of you cleaned up straightaway. Please leave your shoes by the door, and hang your coats on those hooks.”

It turned out that everything Diana had told you was true. After you cleaned up in the guest bathroom, with pretty embroidered guest washcloths and towels, Mr. Grimsby poured out tea from a silver pot into tiny china cups. He served homemade cookies.

He bustled in and out of the kitchen, looking very proper, you thought. His shirt had long sleeves and a collar, and kind of a crisp look to it. His pants were crisp too, and his shoes had laces and gleamed. He wore reading glasses on a string around his neck. His hair was long and wispy, not neat like all the rest of him.

“Can I show Kaya the toys now?” Diana asked when you had barely swallowed the last bite of your first cookie. “And the other boxes?”

She showed you toys unlike any you had ever seen, let alone been free to play with. But best of all was the man himself. He asked questions and listened to the answers, his head cocked just a bit. He wanted to know about Mom and Dad and Beth. He wanted to know about Grade Three, about your teacher, about other students. He wanted to know about your passions. He was fascinated by your tales of what you and Diana were creating in the ravine.

Diana bubbled over with excitement, showing you paintings and dolls and a dollhouse filled with tiny perfect furniture and quilts on the beds, instructing you to tell him about this and him to tell you about that. She told her own stories as well, and answered his questions about things that had happened since her last visit.

After a bit, Mr. Grimsby stopped asking questions and smiling at everything you said. He asked you to set the dollhouse straight, and then he told you that it was time to go home. Just you. “Diana has a bit of tidying to do from last time she was here,” he said quietly. “You take yourself off now, dear, but do feel free to come for another visit soon!”

You were surprised to find yourself walking down the sidewalk all alone, surprised and kind of deflated, empty inside. At home, Dad was in bed. One of his bad days. And nobody even asked you where you had been. Not that you had any intention of telling. You were pretty sure what that would lead to:
No, no and no
.

You planned to keep Mr. G all to yourself, and a whole week passed before you had a chance to go back.

He was in his front garden, pulling weeds and pruning roses. “Good morning, Kaya,” he said when you got
his attention. He smiled up at you and then you saw him see your face, really see it. He struggled to his feet. “What’s wrong, my dear?”

Your face dissolved then. You hated the feel of it. The wobbling chin, the squinching cheeks and eyes. You knew just what it looked like, how pathetic it was. Mom had always huffed her impatience when your face did those things.

Mr. Grimsby didn’t huff. He invited you in. He got you to sit in one of the big fancy chairs at the dining table with a little stool for your feet so you would be comfortable. He made tea, and gave it to you in a flowered cup edged in gold with lots of milk and sugar stirred in. Then he asked you all about it. You talked and talked and he looked at you and listened and his eyes even filled up with tears when you told about how sick your dad was. How Mom had told you, finally, that he had cancer.

He poured you another cup of tea, even sweeter than the last. He asked you more questions, and while you were answering, he pulled a pad of paper in front of him and picked up a thick pencil, and he started to draw.

You were puzzled, and you stopped talking.

He looked up and saw you staring at the paper. His lips tensed slightly. “It’s all right, Kaya. I’m just going to draw while we chat.” He looked at you and his face relaxed into a smile. “I’m drawing you, actually. See?”

And he turned the paper toward you, and you looked at the simple outline of head and shoulders.

“Now, you were telling me about that fort of yours. It’s mostly gone now, you say?”

It was hard to keep talking while he was so intent on
the pencil in his hand, but whenever you paused, he asked another question, and eventually he put the paper down and turned his attention full on you once again, and you talked and talked and talked.

At one point he got up and went in search of something. When he came back, he pressed a tiny metal swan into your hand. “It’s pewter,” he said. It was a dark silvery colour, not white like a real swan, but it had all a real swan’s grace and beauty, and the tiny size to make it extra special.

“A swan,” you breathed, “like in the picture on Diana’s box.” It wasn’t quite as special as Diana’s box, but you pushed that thought away, ran your finger down the slope of the creature’s back.

“Swans are special,” he said, “just like you. You can keep it in your pocket. For comfort.” He crouched down and placed a hand on each of your upper arms. “Our little secret.” Then he looked at his watch. “Now, my dear, I think it’s time for you to go home. Or your mother will wonder where you’ve been.”

As you got up and walked toward the door, fingering the swan in your pocket, you glanced at the pad of paper on the table, longing to see what he had drawn, but he had flipped another page over top, and it didn’t seem polite to ask.

Off you went, home.

“Is that you, Kaya?” Mom called from the kitchen.

“Yes,” you said, your voice coming out as a squeak. You drew a breath. “Yes,” you called out, more forcefully.

“I don’t like you going off like that, without a word to anyone,” Mom continued, not setting foot outside the kitchen.

“Sorry, Mom,” you called back. “I’m going upstairs.”

And up you went, to your messy room, where you curled up in your safe, warm bed, put the tiny swan beside you on the pillow and thought and thought and thought.

It wasn’t long before you went back. And it was just as special as before. And like the other times, the moment came when he said that it was time to go. “I hope to see you again soon,” he said, and his smile reached right inside you. He wanted to see you! “And next time you come … which I hope will be soon … I’d like you to come to the sliding door there. See?”

He was pointing to the sliding door in the dining room. “You can come in from the lane and up onto the deck, and try the door. If it’s locked, I’m not home or I’m busy. If it’s open, you can just come right in!” His grin was broad and welcoming as he led you out onto the deck and pointed to the gap in the hedge that separated the garden from the lane.

A crackly feeling way down at the bottom of your spine sounded a warning. But it could not compete with the warmth, or even with the secrets themselves, which felt special, just for you.

Tomorrow, you were thinking, as you half galloped home. You’d come back tomorrow.

And you did. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Week after week. Month after month. Sometimes the sliding
door was locked, and you wandered off, the tight ball of anticipation and fear that had gathered in your gut gradually crumbling, spreading thick poison everywhere. Sometimes he went away. Sometimes the door was locked but you would hear a hubbub from the front. You’d go round by the street and join the kids in the big toy cars.

One of those times, Diana was there, shrieking with laughter as she barrelled down the sidewalk in a go-kart. When she saw you, all her laughter drained away, and she left quickly.

Often, though, the door would slide open at your touch, your gut would clench as you entered. And he would be there. And he would smile and rise from his desk or the kitchen table or the big easy chair in front of the fireplace. Always, he would make you tea or juice and offer cookies. Always, you would sit and talk, and he would listen.

Sometimes the moment would come and he would say, “Time to go now.” And you would. Other times, he would glance at the basement stairs. And you would descend. Step. Step. Step. And you would go into that room. And, as best you could, you would do what Mr. G wanted. Over the years, he wanted more and more things. It was your job, you told yourself. He was kind to you. He listened. And he asked of you these … things. They were the least you could do. You prided yourself a little bit on your strength.