What We Hold In Our Hands (10 page)

While Len was brushing his teeth, I pulled on my coat and slipped outside to see the stars. I thought of Esty's story—how May Starling had summoned up a stranger out of her need to be loved, then, without effort or malice, imagined his death as a way of simplifying his love, keeping it as straight and pure as an arrow.

The dark sky showed off its darts of light, but Esty's moon stood out like a fist holding secrets, holding our frozen love and buried dreams, our helplessness and anger, so white it made my knuckles burn.

Compact

GILDA'S YOUNGER SISTER, TONI, IS DYING. THE CANCER
launched
in her ovaries a year ago. Now, even after radiation and chemotherapy, it has conquered her blood, infiltrated her bones, broken down hips, pelvis, spine.

Gilda sits by Toni's bed, watching her sister's breath, convinced she can see it stir the dimly lit air, air perfumed by two dozen stalwart daffodils she bought to replace the drooping rosebuds from Toni's husband, Michael. Last week he moved into the guestroom where he can sleep without fear of rolling over and crushing Toni, who, only a year ago, was teaching spin classes and Pilates at one of Gilda and Ed's health clubs.

Moonlight settles on Toni's smoothly gleaming head, and forty-one years collapse beneath Gilda, who remembers her baby sister's golden fuzz of hair, the smile that had seemed like a secret shared between the two of them, the fullness that had flooded her eleven-year-old chest, how the word, “love,” had become real, a warmth she could feel in her blood, on her skin.

Although married for several years, Toni and Michael have chosen not to have children, a decision that used to trouble Gilda, but now seems like a blessing.

“I have your kids,” Toni used to say.

“But they're growing up. Soon they won't be around much.”

“Still it's fun to see what they'll do.”

“Fun for you maybe.”

Gilda's four children are old enough to vote, and have all, one after the other, found their own ways to disappoint or alarm her. Josh is living with the wrong woman, Jenny dating the wrong man, Lisa pursuing the wrong career—modelling—she's pretty but what chance does she have? While Robin, her youngest, is in the wrong university—a three-hour drive away—and never answers when Gilda calls. Her husband, Ed, is in the wrong too. Lately, he can do nothing right, but has yet to stop trying. His patience, so scarce when they were younger, has grown in step with Gilda's impatience, threatening to calm and console her when what she wants most is to cling to the comforting weight of her anger and sorrow.

“Gil,” Toni whispers.

Her labouring voice pulls Gilda close.

“I'm here.”

“I don't want you to feel angry about this. Promise.”

“What do you mean?” Gilda wants to grab Toni's words and squeeze the meaning out of them.

“Don't blame everyone when I die. Don't take it personally like you always do.”

Toni's eyes open to reveal a sly flicker.

“What do you mean always? When have I ever lost my only sister?”

“You get angry and withdraw. I don't want you to do that because of me. Promise.”

“Isn't anger one of the stages of grief?”

“Just promise, or I'll pinch you like I used to.”

“Okay, I promise. But you're not dead yet.”

The next morning, after Ed has left for work, Gilda is drinking coffee in her terry bathrobe and weeping over the Sports section (Toni is a Blue Jays' fan) when her best friend, Carol, knocks at the kitchen door.

“I'm taking you shopping.” Carol drops her leather and gilt purse onto the table and fills a mug from the coffee pot.

“Can't. I have to sit with Toni.” Gilda clings to the newspaper.

“Let the nurse take care of her. Just for today.”

“But the injections are buying us time. I don't want to waste it shopping.”

“You won't be any good for Toni if you have a nervous breakdown.”

Gilda's grip on the paper tightens. She wants to strike her friend with it, to mess up her tidy blonde do and crisp ivory collar, but Carol gives her a small sad smile and reaches for her free hand.

“Okay.” Gilda releases the baseball news.

“Now go put on something nice,” Carol orders.

Her bossiness and Gilda's angry responses used to cause brief but bitter fractures in their long friendship, but they've managed to outgrow that old pattern, gaining faith in each other's fondness and loyalty. And, although Gilda would never admit it, lately she has begun to find comfort in being told what to do.

In the shoe department at Holt's, Carol pulls Gilda away from the shiny black loafers she's been eyeing.

“You have a pair of those already. You need something new, something Ed will like.”

“You're nuts. Ed doesn't care about my shoes.”

“He'll care about these.” Carol dangles a pink sandal with three-inch heels.

Gilda shakes her head.

“We'll each buy a pair and get the guys to take us out for dinner.”

“I wouldn't enjoy myself.”

“I hate to see you put your life on hold because Toni's sick. I'm afraid you'll forget how to start up again afterwards.”

“Afterwards?”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” Carol pushes the pink shoe at her. “You'd have loved them in the old days.”

When they used to babysit Toni, she'd kept them busy playing beauty pageant in her mother's high heels and her own lacy party dresses, pulling evening gowns and shoes from their mother's closet for Gilda and Carol to try. The gowns had been tight on Gilda, who'd had to make do with fringed shawls, silk scarves, and beads, while Carol had slipped into the fitted dresses and zipped them up like they'd been made for her. But Gilda had inherited her mother's small feet, so the delicate pumps and sandals had always fit her best.

“Okay. I'll try them.”

A sleek young man brings Gilda the sandals in a size six. They are too wide and look ridiculous with her black pantsuit. She tries some turquoise sling-backs and a pair of white wedges that tie around the ankles. Then she finds the red shoes. They're like a pair from her mother's old closet, with slender heels and pointed toes that make the uppers look like red triangles. The forgiving pleated edge of the triangle accommodates her high arch while the backs hug her heels without slipping or cutting into her skin.

“These are better. I don't feel like I'm trying too hard in these. We're not teenagers anymore.”

“No kidding.” Carol is considering her own feet in a pair of apple-green sandals.

“Don't worry. You're still drop-dead gorgeous.” Gilda can't help feeling oversized around Carol, as if she's been cut from too bulky a remnant of material.

As they step stiletto-heeled along Bloor, Carol says, “Give me your purse.”

“What for?”

“Just give it to me. I want to put something in it. A surprise.”

Gilda shrugs, handing her red bag to Carol, who picks through the contents.

“Aha!” She flourishes Gilda's old black compact before dropping it into a garbage bin at the side of the road.

“What did you do that for?”

“It was so old you could've gotten a disease. Look. I bought you a new one.”

Carol slides a silver compact from the pocket of her beige trench.

Gilda is used to her friend's impulsive behaviour, her oddly expressed generosity.

“It's nice,” she says. The gift feels smooth and cool in her hand, but heavier than she expected. The lid is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx in the shape of an elephant with an uplifted trunk.

“That's good luck,” Carol says.

Gilda flips open the compact. In the magnifying mirror, her nose is red and splotchy from the March wind, narrow gaps appear in the black line edging her lids, and the delicate skin there is puffy and green from not sleeping, but her eyes look bright enough, still the same inexplicable blue, shared by no one else in her family.

“Come on.” Carol grabs her arm.

Gilda's ankles wobble a little, making her feel like a kid parading around her parents' pink and aqua bedroom. It was Carol's idea to wear their purchases out of the store, their old shoes tucked into new boxes inside crisp shopping bags. Now they're going to the Four Seasons for afternoon tea—also Carol's idea.

In the hotel lobby, an enormous marble vase overflows with red and yellow striped parrot tulips, yellow lilies, and pussy willows.

“Spring,” says Gilda, sticking her nose inside a tulip, sniffing its subtle perfume. “Toni would love these. Maybe we could bring her here.”

“Just for today no talk about Toni, okay? Tomorrow you can buy her all the tulips you want.”

They order a full tea, their Darjeeling and Earl Grey arriving along with a three-tiered dish full of goodies. Gilda pops a miniature roast beef sandwich into her mouth. Chewing slowly, she feels the fragrant heat of fresh horseradish rise through her nostrils. She thinks of Toni—how they used to grate the root for Easter dinner, laughing together as their eyes streamed, how she'd take a bite of horseradish and pretend to be choking on it so that Toni could come to her rescue with a glass of ice water.

“Michael didn't get home until eight o'clock last night,” she says, twisting her linen napkin.

“He just can't deal with it. Don't be so hard on him.”

Michael is working longer hours than usual. He comes home, briefcase full, eyes dull and unblinking as if they've been switched off at their source.

What is it about the Taylor sisters' husbands? Why do they go along for years—attentive, devoted even—then fizzle out like defective fireworks?

Two and a half years ago, Ed took Gilda out for an expensive dinner so he could tell her that he didn't love her anymore. Red wine,
foie gras
, and filet mignon to ease the blow. Sobbing, she threw it all up in the ladies' room. Why couldn't he have told her at home over a bowl of soup?

Ed has recovered from his midlife upheaval, but Gilda still holds it against him. Forgiveness has never been one of her strengths. He tries hard to redeem himself, teaching her to golf, planning weekend trips, but whenever he tells her that she looks beautiful or he loves her, she slaps on a distant little smile like a reflective shield, prepared for the next time.

Since Toni's illness, Gilda's relationship with her own body, always troubled, has become even more estranged. Everything about it repulses her, from the fleshy pads of her thumbs, the skin loosening under her chin, and the pouches of fat under her arms, to the solid curves of her calves, the ample rounds of her breasts, and the cellulite dimples on her bum. She should have been the one to get sick. She is older, eats too many chips and desserts, and although she works in the business, never spends time in the gym. So why Toni? Why not her? Wouldn't the cancer cells thrive on Gilda's discontent and self-loathing? If only she could stand in for her sister like a sacrificial lamb, paint her own healthy, plentiful blood on Toni's doorway.

Carol pours Gilda more Earl Grey. Gilda takes a sip, feels her body sink into the armchair.

“She stopped breathing last night.”

Toni had started awake on a noisy in-breath.

“Gil,” she said. “Remember our pet rabbits?”

“Stinky and Bowling Ball?”

“Remember when Stinky died and Bowling Ball developed an insatiable appetite?”

“He got rounder and rounder.” Gilda laughed.

Toni was laughing too, her body shuddering, her breath sharp and raspy.

“It hurts.” She reached for Gilda's hand.

Gilda found herself wiping away her own tears with the hand holding Toni's, causing the two of them to start laughing all over again.

“Have a scone.” Carol drops one onto Gilda's plate.

Gilda picks up the heavy silver butter knife, which slips from her unsteady fingers. Bending to retrieve it, she catches sight of the red shoes. They seem to have arrived fresh from another era, the costume of a vanished and hopeful self. She tries to wiggle her toes, but even though they can hardly move inside of the neat red triangles, they don't feel uncomfortable.

Returning the knife to the table, she says, “I should be at work today.”

“You need a break. Everything will be fine without you.”

“The funny thing is, the less I work, the less I feel like myself. But I don't miss it. I'm not sure I even want to go back.”

“Maybe you've had enough.”

Ed had tried to explain his declaration of lapsed love. “It was one of those things that as soon as I said it, I didn't feel that way anymore.” His smile had been somber and lonesome.

Gilda looks down at the red shoes. “Toni says I take things personally and get angry.”

“You do,” Carol says. “You're touchy.”

“How did I manage to keep
you
as a friend all these years?”

“I know you'd do anything for me.” Carol slices a chocolate tart in two. “Do you want half?”

“No, you eat it.”

“Come on, chocolate triggers endorphins.”

Gilda lays her napkin over her plate.

Zipping up her mouth is one way to shun the things of this world that Toni is leaving behind. Gilda will be here to love them for a good many years more, to love roast beef and scones, tulips and new shoes, to love Ed and the kids, no matter how angry and afraid she feels that her children no longer need her, that they've left her behind, and Ed could leave too.