The Falls (12 page)

I hardly ever went down there, and never on my own. I was grateful that the washer and the dryer were up on the main floor. Actually, my mother should have been grateful too. If they'd been down in the basement, she'd have been doing the laundry by herself all the time.

“Are you coming?” my mother asked.

Startled out of my thoughts, I felt embarrassed—too old to be spooked by monsters in the basement. I thundered down the remaining steps, trying to act cool and unconcerned.

My mother knelt down on a small piece of carpet in front of a large wooden box—the cedar chest that had belonged to her mother. It was filled with papers and pictures and postcards and notebooks. She pulled out a large manila envelope.

“I was going through my stuff, and some other things that were down here, to find things that related to your father . . . and to me when I was sixteen.” She opened the envelope and pulled out a photograph. “This might be the best place to start,” she said.

It was a picture of my father, of course. I wasn't sure but I thought I remembered it. He was smiling—a friendly, confident smile—with his arms folded across his chest. I looked closely at his eyes. Were they my eyes?

“I'm afraid the picture isn't in very good shape,” my mother said.

She had that right. The edges were frayed, the tip of one corner gone completely, the colours were faded, and it was stained.

“It's pretty rough,” I agreed.

“Well, that's what happens to a photo when it's dragged around every day and then almost flushed down a toilet.”

“Flushed down a toilet? Who would do that?”

She pointed at me.

“Why would I try to flush a picture down the toilet?”

“Let me explain. For about three months before you turned four you carried that picture with you everywhere. Sometimes that was a problem. You'd put it down and then forget where you'd left it, and you'd cry and cry and cry until I found it.” She laughed at the memory. My mother had such a nice laugh that it always made me smile. “Do you remember any of this?”

I shrugged. Something about it twigged some memories, but not really.

“For a while I thought you were going to grow up left-handed.”

“I'm right-handed,” I said, raising my right hand.

“I know that. It's just that you always held that picture in your right hand and used your left to pick up a fork to
eat or hold a crayon to colour. I think it was your way of having your father around.”

“When did I stop carrying it?”

“The day you turned four. The day of your birthday party.”

“I must have gotten a lot of presents that day if I finally put the picture down.”

“You did get some nice things—at least, I guess you did—but that wasn't it.”

“Then what was it?”

My mother didn't answer. She was looking down at her hands, folding and unfolding, kneading her fingers together.

“Mom?”

She looked up. “You have to understand that I was young.”

I knew that. What I didn't know was what she was afraid to tell me. My stomach started to tighten.

“You were upset because your father didn't come to your party.”

“Was he supposed to come? . . . Wait . . . he died when I was three . . . right?”

She nodded. “And I know I needed to tell you . . . it was just . . . I didn't know how to tell you, or when to tell you.”

“You didn't tell me on my birthday, did you?”

“It was just that you were going on and on about him not being there and how he didn't even send you a present.”

“Did he ever send me a present?”

“He used to send you presents all the time,” she said.

“I didn't know that.”

“Maybe I wasn't thinking straight, or maybe I was drinking,” she went on.

“Maybe?” I asked, harshly, and then instantly regretted it.

“Okay, I was probably drinking. So right after your party ended I told you that your father was gone. I tried to explain how he couldn't come to your party because he was up in Heaven. I tried to be gentle . . . honestly.”

I had no doubts about that. Even as a drunk, my mother had never been mean. Not even when people were mean to her.

“It must have been hard,” I said. “I guess I got pretty upset.”

“That was the strange part. You didn't get upset at all. At least, you didn't scream or yell or anything. You didn't even cry. You just walked away and went to the bathroom. And when you came back, the picture wasn't with you. I found it in the toilet, still spinning around, but floating on the surface.”

“It must have dropped in by accident,” I said.

“No. You told me you tried to flush it away. You told me you didn't want the picture anymore because you didn't have a father anymore. I dried it off and decided to put it away somewhere safe until you asked for it again. I thought it would only be a day or so. But you never did ask. A couple of times I tried to give it back to you and you said you didn't want it. That you didn't want any pictures of your father.”

“Do you have many pictures of him?”

“Dozens and dozens.” She patted the envelope. “Right here. You do want to see them, don't you?”

“Yeah,” I answered, although if I'd been completely honest I would have said that I really didn't know.

She pulled out another picture and handed it to me. “This is probably my favourite.”

My father looked really young. His hair was a messy mop of brown, his eyes—my eyes—shiny and smiling. “He's wearing his leather jacket,” I said.

“He loved that jacket,” my mother said. “He would have worn it swimming if he could have. Did I mention that jacket to you before?”

“I guess you did.” I didn't want to tell her that it was Candice's father who'd told me about it.

“How old was he when this picture was taken?” I asked.

“I think around twenty-one.”

“He looks younger.”

“He had to be at least twenty-one because I know this was taken after you were born.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because your diaper bag is in the picture,” she said, pointing out the pink, striped bag by his feet. I'd been so intent on looking at him that I hadn't noticed it.

“I always thought he looked so cute when he was carrying that bag. Big, tough guy wearing that leather jacket and carrying a little pink diaper bag.” She laughed, and I couldn't help laughing along with her. “Of course, he didn't carry it that often.”

No surprise there.

“Because he was usually carrying you.”

Now that
was
a surprise.

“You always looked so small in his arms. He loved holding you. You'd often fall asleep snuggled up on his chest while he lay on the couch watching TV.”

I tried to picture that. But instead of a picture, I had a feeling in my chest—a warm feeling like I was pressed against somebody.

“Your father always loved babies.”

“Shame he didn't like them when they got a little bit older,” I blurted out, the words escaping before I was even aware of what I was going to say.

“Your father didn't stop loving you because you got older.”

“Then why
did
he stop loving me?” I demanded.

“He didn't.”

“Then he had a strange way of showing it, by taking off.”

“If he hadn't died he would have—”

“He wasn't there
before
he died!”

“But he would have been . . . I know he would have been . . . it was just a matter of time.”

“I guess denial isn't just something people do around alcohol!” I snapped.

My mother didn't answer. She looked shocked. And then hurt. I felt bad. She'd been hurt enough in her life without me adding more on top.

“You knew him better than me,” I said. “Maybe he would have come back.”

She nodded her head. She had a dreaming sort of look in her eyes. “I know he would have.”

“Why did he leave?” I asked.

“Work. He had to travel. That was his job. You can't be part of the circus without travelling.”

“My father was in the circus?” I asked. That was a new one for me.

“Not
in
the circus . . .
with
the circus. He was in charge of set-up and making sure all the equipment and all the rides worked and were safe.”

“Sounds like he was a handyman.”

“He was more than that. Your father and machines . . .” she said, shaking her head. “I guess that sounds like you, as well.”

I couldn't figure out how somebody I hardly remembered—who'd been dead before I was even four—could be such a big part of me. I guess, actually, I was a part of him.

“Your father got that job in the circus the strangest way. Let me show you.” She poked around inside the envelope and pulled out a newspaper clipping. Was she going to show me a want ad? The paper was old and faded and folded and yellowed. I was afraid it was about to disintegrate.

“I've got to be careful . . . I don't want to rip it any more.”

Carefully, delicately, she handed the clipping to me. The headline read “LOCAL MAN IS HERO.” Under that was a picture of a Ferris wheel—and somebody was climbing up one of the spindles, almost at the top of the thing! The figure was little and the face was turned away, but I knew who it had to be.

“We were there at the circus, the three of us, when the Ferris wheel got jammed,” my mother said. “And they couldn't get it going again, and there were these two young boys near the top—really not old enough to be on that ride by themselves—and their mother was on the
ground, crying and wailing away, and the two boys were up there crying as well. So the boys get all excited and stand up, and one of them looks like he's going to climb right out. People are screaming and yelling at them to sit down and be calm, but you hardly ever get anybody to be calm by yelling at them. So your father hands you to me and he just starts climbing up the Ferris wheel.”

“Wow.”

“It gave me the heebie-jeebies just watching him—you know how I feel about heights.”

My mother wouldn't even go out on the balcony of an apartment—no way she'd even
ride
on a Ferris wheel.

“But your father climbs right up, like he's just going for a stroll, and talks to the kids, and calms them down. Then he climbs back down and
fixes
the Ferris wheel.”

“He fixed it?”

She nodded. “He opened up the panel on the side of the machine, borrowed a few tools, and within five minutes he had it working again. The Ferris wheel started turning, the crowd cheered, the mother hugged her kids, and the owner of the circus offered him a job, right there on the spot.”

“A happy ending.”

“Happy except for the part where he left a week later,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Don't be. I shouldn't have been surprised. I knew your father wanted to leave. He
hated
the Falls.”

I guess that was something else we had in common.

“It was just a matter of where and when.” She took the clipping back from me and looked at it. “I wanted us both to go along with him, but he was too wild and too young.”

“You were both too young.”

“I guess we were. That clipping brought back memories I'd almost forgotten,” she said. She looked close to tears. This obviously wasn't any easier for her than it was for me.

“I guess you wish you hadn't saved the clipping.”

“I didn't. I didn't even know it was here until I started going through this stuff looking for pictures.”

“So Grandma saved it?”

“
One
of your grandmothers.”

I gave her a questioning look.

“Do you see those boxes over there in the corner?” she asked, standing up. “Come look.”

I followed her across the basement, keeping one eye on the furnace as I walked by.

“These two boxes,” she said, touching each with the tip of her foot, “and this crate and this barrel are filled with things that belonged to your father's family.”

“My father? Why would his family's stuff be here?”

“Remember I told you that they lived just a few houses down the street?”

“Where the parking lot is now,” I said.

“And his mother and my mother were friends. I guess you could say so were your grandfathers . . . at least until I got pregnant.”

“That doesn't explain why this stuff is here,” I said.

“I'm coming to that. I told you about your father's father and how he had drinking problems. Those problems led to money problems, and they lost their house. They couldn't meet the mortgage payments. So the bank took back the house and they had to leave, but they really
didn't have a place to go to—not a permanent place. So when they moved they asked if they could leave some of their things here until they settled in somewhere else.”

“And they never came back for it?”

“They ended up moving pretty far away, and then they found out how expensive it was going to be to get the things out there, and one way and another it all stayed here.”

“They've been dead for a long time, right?”

“A long time. Your father's mother died about two years after your father died. She took his death pretty hard. I think she died of a broken heart. Nothing's worse than the death of your child . . . especially when it's your only child.”

I thought maybe that was aimed at me. “And his old man?”

“He died a year or so after that. I was surprised he lasted that long. Years of alcohol abuse take a pretty hard toll on a body.”

“So this stuff,” I said, gesturing to it. “Who does it belong to?”

“You, I guess. Your father was an only child and his parents are gone.” She shrugged. “I'd forgotten any of this stuff was even down here.”