Skinny (8 page)
Strapping broken ribs is discouraged,
After the call, Mom and I go to the hospital in silence. We walk through the brightly lit halls, down to the children's section,
where Holly is sitting up, stoned on painkillers. There's a bandage over her nose and she's arranged on a pile of pillows.
I check to make sure they haven't strapped her ribs. She has a wan smile on her face and says, "Hey!" a little too cheerily
as we pull chairs up next to her bed.
Mom's face is riddled . . . with what? I can't tell anymore. Perhaps a mixture of anger and relief, or simply the exhaustion
of someone used to hearing bad news. But she's smiling too as she takes Holly's hand and mine in the other.
I am the first to speak, reaching out to stroke Holly's hair.
"You OK?"
"Yeah." She tries to smile but her chapped lips crack.
"Don't ask me what happened. Whatever. Don't."
Holly looks straight ahead at the drawing of Winnie-the-Pooh scooping honey from a jar. It's not a very good depiction: old
Winnie looks like a jaundiced, jovial rat.
But I wasn't planning on asking. I know the aggression of Catholic girls in Holly's world, how they love to fight. It was
my world too, for all of grade school and high school; seven long years of untenable hell. I also know what Holly is capable
of: I've seen her do handstands on gravel, belly flop off a six-foot diving board. Holly lives for this stuff, but then I'm
surprised because she starts talking, slowly, in her old-Holly baby voice:
"I'm sorry, Mommy. So sorry."
Injuries known as "crash injuries" are due to severe pressure.
While Holly stays in the hospital overnight, Sol takes me to a nice Italian place in the east end. He looks handsome; he's
clean-haven and smells of soap, though he manages to spill red wine on his shirt before we've even ordered food. He's even
gotten his cast off and shows off his dextrous wrist by rotating it in circles over the table. It looks thinner and paler
than his other wrist.
"Did it hurt when they cut it off?"
"Naw, but I hate hospitals. Makes me nervous being in one, no offence."
"I know. Most people don't like hospitals. I keep thinking of Holly, looking so small in that blue hospital gown. I keep thinking
of her nose," I say as Sol peruses the menu. I don't look. I already know what I want. I always order the same thing at good
Italian places: mussels in white wine sauce and garlic bread. Filling, but the lowest possible calorie count.
"Did you find out at least if Holly got some punches in?"
I shake my head. "No, she likes to do daredevil stuff. This one time she tried to jump off the roof into the driveway through
the basketball net. But she doesn't like to fight people. Except me, of course."
"So, when's she coming back?"
"Tomorrow, or maybe the day after. They say she landed on her head, well, her face, really, so they want to keep her for observation."
He nods.
My glass misses my mouth and I end up spilling water on my face. Sol takes his napkin and wipes it off.
"I miss your hair," he says. I've got it wrapped up in a blue scarf tonight, presentable.
"Oh, I used to have really great hair, not to be vain, but I take pride in five things in life—my studying skills, my hair,
and. . ."
The waiter arrives with a dish of spiced olives, garlic bread, and a steaming plate of Alfredo pasta. He uncorks another bottle
of wine, pours a glass, and offers it to me. I take a sip.
—
We used to have beautiful hair. We.
So it begins. I panic about the food: three olives, almost a hundred calories, if you round up. Sol starts to pile the pasta
on my plate and a sweat breaks out on my forehead.
"I didn't order this! I can't eat it."
"I ordered i t . . . relax," Sol says, giving me a sharp look.
—
He's upsetting, upsetting the balance of everything. Everything
been calculated, planned out, and then he comes in and
—
I pop two more olives into my mouth and try not to think too much about it, what the hell, it's a special occasion. It's a
date, for God's sake, and, in some ways, my first proper one. But at the back of my spine I feel a humming, and as he continues
to load pasta on my plate I practically yell, "That's enough!"
Sol looks around at the people at the tables next to us who smile nervously back at him, twirling their pasta on their forks.
The waiter asks us if everything is all right and Sol nods and refills our glasses with wine. After the waiter leaves, Sol
leans towards me. "You wanna tell me why you're so on edge?"
"Not really, I want to eat, let's just eat, OK?" I say, my mouth half-full of pasta and two salty olive pits lodged under
my tongue.
"Don't you like this place?" he asks, picking up his fork and letting his dark eyes fall on my naked shoulders. "I thought
you were
always
hungry."
"I am. Love pasta," I say, shovelling a forkful into my mouth, wondering how many I can manage before pushing the plate away
and excusing myself to the washroom.
Etiology: 1) the study of origin, specifically termed in medicine as the science of disease; 2) used, in a more general, non-medical
sense, to term assigning of cause.
Holly's coming back today, so Mom and I are trying to do some kind of spring cleaning, though it's already the beginning of
June. She's mopping the floors and I'm standing on a chair trying to unhook the curtains from the rod so we can wash them.
When Mom and I are alone in the house, with hours spread before us without having to go shopping, or pick Holly up from some
practice, or drive me to some appointment, I like to ask her about her past, about Thomas, and about her boyfriend, her fiance,
I should say, before Dad. I know some pieces of the story. I know that the fiance's name was Misha. That she was supposed
to marry Misha, but he died four months before the date. The part about Dad—how they met and fell in love—is vague. Will learning
about the past help me understand what happened to Thomas and me? Why we failed?
Perhaps the scientist in me is desperate to locate the source of our unhappiness with each other. Maybe I need a fairy tale
about my parents' courtship to believe in. For whatever reason, I'm curious, I'm compelled to ask questions, to gather evidence
about my unfinished business with my father before my case is complete. This never-ending dossier I add to, subtract from,
invent invisible paperwork for, this dossier labelled Love—I carry it with me everywhere.
Although I've heard the story too many times to count, I need to hear it again. Each time I feel that I miss something. Mom's
storytelling is like watching an old movie. Maybe it's her accent, or the fact that she's translating and I have to pay more
attention to the colloquial, because, in all the ephemera—the wit and flirting and costume changes—I've somehow lost track
of what's really going on. It's a game Mom and I play: she warms up to it slowly, she pretends she is revealing cabal information
and I prompt her, faking ignorance though I can anticipate every part of the story. She looks up from the floor and leans
the mop against the counter when I speak.
"So, tell me again about the sanatorium, but tell me about before too, when you were a nurse in Hungary."
She shrugs, then goes to the sink and pours herself a small tumbler of clear apricot liquor, takes a sip and pours me one,
too. We clink glasses and then she tilts her head.
I cringe as the sweet alcohol, the taste of my mother's courage, burns down my throat.
"What do you want to know?"
"Why. Why you went to the sanatorium."
She holds the bottle up to the light, checking to see, maybe, if there is enough liquid to finish her story.
"I met your father at one of Misha's parties, in Hungary. He was drunk, your father, not Misha, and was slurring his words.
He was tall and had the most amazing blue eyes, and wore poor clothes and all the women laughed when he told his crazy stories.
Anyway, it was a dinner party and, after dessert, I was in the dining room, arranging the flowers I'd ordered for the party.
"He came up behind me. I could see him coming because there was a mirror and I should have turned away but I didn't. I stayed
there, smelling the lilies, waiting to see what he would do. He stood behind me for a good couple of minutes. No one even
noticed us, standing there, looking at our reflection. He was standing there, inhaling me like I was the flowers. And I could
smell the liquor on him, I could smell the sweat on his clothes and the cigars Misha fosted on him."
"It's
foisted,
Mom, foisted . . . Anyway, did he say something? What did he want?" It never fails, I'm always outraged and thrilled by Thomas's
indiscretion. I open the fridge and get us two beers, pour them into glasses and squeeze lemon in, the way Mom likes it. We
move out onto the front porch where the sun is shining. The floor is drying and the curtains are in the wash on delicate,
so we have time. She sits in the swinging chair at the edge of the porch and I sit next to her. She puts her arm around me.
"Cheers," I say, smiling. Mom smiles back, licking the beer sweat off the edge of her glass.
"So, what happened?"
"Your father said, 'What are you doing here? You don't belong here, and you can't convince anyone, not even him.' So I turned
around and slapped him."
"What did he mean you didn't belong there? You were going to
marry
Misha."
Mom slides her eyes over to me as if I've caught her on something but she gathers herself quickly.
"I guess he meant, politically, socially."
"So what does that mean? That you weren't a Communist? That he was out of your league?"
"Something like that. Let's just say I wasn't the ideal wife for Misha."
"But—"
"You can't understand it, I know. I was a nurse, Giselle, just a nurse."
I laugh. "What do you mean, 'just a nurse'? Isn't that the point of socialism, that everyone's equal?"
"Yes, Giselle, in theory, in a perfect world, as they say, but not in practice."
"I don't understand."
"Look, it wasn't just that, as a student I was involved in a couple of anti-regime protests, clubs . . ."
"And you gave all that up when you met Misha?"
Mom gives me a cutting look and leans towards me, speaking slowly.
"I can't explain it to you. I can't justify it. Things were not like they are now. I met a man, a good one, despite his politics,
then I met your father. So, do you want to hear the end of the story or not?"
Suddenly I understand that the more questions I ask Mom, the less she'll talk. That although I've grown up to the hum of her
voice explaining the old world to me, the context of the forces that guided her will always remain mysterious.
"You, Giselle, are my daughter. You can listen to my stories, but you cannot judge."
I nod. "OK."
"Misha came running over," she continues. "He tried to smooth over the situation. He said he thought Thomas had had too much
to drink. Misha hugged me, in front of everyone. I'd caused a minor scandal in the presence of his colleagues, but he was
kind." She turns to me and studies my eyes, as if she sees something in my face she wants to describe, needs to talk about.
"Your father wasn't a bad man, Giselle."
I take the glass hanging loosely from my mother's hand and meet her gaze.
"I know, Ma, so what happened?"
"They kicked your father out on the street, like in cartoons, on his ass."
"God!"
"Yes. But there was a letter in the flowers with an address on it. He was going to work in a sanatorium, he'd come there to
tell Misha that he was going away"
"But then he got distracted? By you?"
My mother flushes and talks into her hands.
"There's something I've not told you before. I knew Thomas before I met Misha. We went to high school together, only he was
just graduating when I began school. He knew I had started nursing school, he knew my father, my mother. . ."
"Whoa. What do you mean you
knew him?
You knew Dad before you even met Misha?"
She ignores my question and rests her head on the top of my head as we sway into the last part of the afternoon. "Your father
never got invited back. Thomas was Misha's personal doctor, but Misha died not long after that big scene, their goodbye, I
guess. That's why I followed your father to the sanatorium, to get away from everyone, and everything," she says, as if it's
all clear, as if it's all completely logical.
My mother picks up her head and sniffs the air, turning away so that I can't see her eyes: story's over. She rocks the chair
with her heels. 1 think about how she says his name over and over, pushing out the edges of her lips and shifting her eyes
away.
Misha.
Quickly, so fast, I could almost pretend I didn't hear the rapture catching in her throat like a sob.
Generation time for TB is relatively normal for a highly contagious disease under unsanitary conditions. Transmission is via
airborne droplet infection: coughing, sneezing, and singing can transmit it.
Sol arrives in a beat-up old Chevy just as Mom is pulling out to go pick Holly up from the hospital. Sol goes over to the
car and introduces himself through the window. Mom gives him a big smile and then I can see her winking at me and giving me
the thumbs-up all the way down the street. I have a feeling I know what she will say later: "Gizella, you did not tell me
he was so warm. He's warm!"
"You mean hot, Mom . . . Yes, he's handsome."
I take my feet out of Holly's sneakers and snake them through the grass as Sol flops down next to me and kisses my cheek.
"That was relatively painless."
"I think my mother thinks you're good-looking."
"Well, can't say I blame her." Sol plucks the beer bottle out of my hand and takes a swig, then he tries to smell my armpit.
"Hey!"
"You smell good, like bleach and grass and sweat. Like tennis shoes and beer and lemon." He steals another kiss—a long one.
My head gets dizzy when he does that. I haven't eaten anything all day except an old lead-heavy zucchini muffin Holly brought
home from her home ec class, leaving the French toast Mom made me in the oven to dry out.