Cricket in a Fist (26 page)

The photograph had surely been taken that very day, the memory
of which had always been painful, had always haunted her moments of fierce longing and regret. It was terrible to think how she hadn't detected anything ominous, that there was no foreboding of doom. Despite an amassing of potent, private tragedies, such as the ease with which her parents became unidentifiable dots below the horizon, life would always resume as usual; the three of them, it seemed certain, would continue indefinitely as they were.

Yet it had started that day on the beach — so many times since then, Tamar had held herself in check. She had stood still as a statue and watched from across the street as her parents were led from their house, and when she did move, she ran in the wrong direction: away. Yes, her choice had saved her life. Still as a statue she'd stood, still and silent as a plank she'd squeezed herself above the van Daams' ceiling during raids. Perhaps it was true that she couldn't have saved her parents, but all her life she had remained immobile; she had steadied herself, listening to her own heartbeat, while the world crushed Ginny's soul thin as tissue paper, crumpled her up and threw her away. Why hadn't Tamar tried harder? And now it was too late; it was the second-last day. In less than twenty-four hours, she would return from the Remembrance Day service at the war memorial and towel her hair dry before sitting at this very desk to sort through files, trying to convince herself she could still run the business by herself, and would answer a knock on her office door, expecting to see Cassandra or Marcy.

Ginny. In a new, tight hyacinth blue sweater and a black skirt, holding a shoebox to her chest with a freshly manicured hand. Between her fingers, an unlit cigarette. Her hair was cut and styled. A smart, contemporary look. Only a professional facial can give skin such a glow. She had gone to another salon. And her clothes — every slim curve of her body showed. “I hope you're not busy,” Ginny said, stepping into the room. “May I?”

“My God,” said Tamar. “Look at you.”

“Yes. Listen. I thought I should tell you in person that I'm leaving tonight. I got rid of most of my old things, but I brought you these.” She offered the shoebox, but Tamar didn't take it, so Ginny walked across the room and placed it on the desk, beside the ledger. “Oh,”
said Ginny, looking down at her own hand, following Tamar's gaze to the unlit cigarette. “Would you like one? You smoke, don't you?”

“No,” Tamar said, truthfully. She hadn't touched a cigarette in over a year. “What is this, Ginny? You can't travel alone. You're not well.”

Ginny laughed, not the hysterical, choking spasms of her illness, but briefly, cheerfully. “I'm well,” she said. “I'm not going to be called Ginny anymore. I'm Virginia from now on. I'll be leaving tonight, so” — she clasped her hands and smiled apologetically — “so, goodbye, Tamar.”

“Who will you travel with?” said Tamar. “Where will you be? How will I reach you?”

“I don't know,” Ginny said. “I don't know what my plans will be.”

It was Minnie's shriek in the stairwell, that piercing scream, a year and a week and four days earlier, that had straightened Tamar's spine along with her resolve, leaving no room for panic. She told Cassandra, at the reception desk, “Phone for an ambulance,” and within seconds she was down the stairs and past her daughter's limp frame to sit by her head. She told the girls to wait outside.

Ginny's body had been slanted toward the Inner Beauty exit, and Tamar knew not to touch or move her, despite how awkward and uncomfortable she looked, lying head first that way. She carefully extracted the bundle of folded papers from Ginny's grasp and put them in the pocket of her trousers, then took the hand in hers. How horrible it was to see a loved and memorized face unconscious — and how entirely different from watching a sleeping face, which always looks childlike and vulnerable, open and terribly naïve. The face of someone unconscious is a thing with no personality, and Tamar realized what it meant that Ginny had witnessed her father's death, had seen his unnaturally bent body beside her on the sidewalk all those years ago; the girl had surely carried that image ever since.

But what startled Tamar the most, what haunted her and would
have her lying awake staring at the ceiling all through the night while Ginny flew to Spain, and through many nights in the years that followed, was the sensation of Ginny's hand in her own. As Tamar sat on those stairs willing life back into her daughter's body, Ginny had squeezed back, then opened her eyes and stared. Tamar met her daughter's eyes — not a stranger's eyes and not the eyes of someone who has forgotten her own name. It was Ginny, faculties intact, with the same look she'd had before leaving with Asher fifteen years before, only calmer, more determined and without the edge of hysteria. It was as though Ginny had grown into herself, become mature, and made a decision that she knew, although she was sorry, was the right one.

Tamar was sure that during those precious, terrible moments in Inner Beauty's exit-way she had seen a glimpse of her daughter at her best, what she could have been if Tamar hadn't allowed her own parents to disappear, hadn't permitted the past to follow her across the ocean to paralyze her and leave her mute at all the most important moments. And when Ginny closed her eyes again, she looked more asleep than deathlike. Tamar felt a sharp stab of recognition. Fear. She was sure something had changed, that Ginny would awake to make accusations at last — to demand explanations. Tamar imagined herself explaining.
Sometimes, my love, a person is so sorry, it seems insulting to apologize. As though an apology, as though words, could begin to make up for the harm one has done. As though one has the right to ask for forgiveness.
With fear but also with relief, she anticipated admitting how many times she had rehearsed this conversation in her head — more times than Ginny would probably care to know.

“There are some things I've been waiting to tell you,” Tamar told her daughter on the last day. “Sit down.” She motioned toward the desk chair, but Ginny didn't move. “It's about your father. Aga was here yesterday, and I was telling her . . . about your father. The day he died . . . ”

“Tamar. I'm sorry.” Ginny glanced toward the door.

“I've been waiting to talk with you, though. It's about time we
talked about it, don't you think so? There was an old letter. A very old letter. I found it in your hand.”

Ginny touched Tamar's arm, her pained, pitying expression unable to disguise the joyful conviction that she was already on a plane, already gone. “Goodbye,” she said.

“Virginia,” Tamar said. “This is absurd. This is unbelievable.”

“Please. You don't understand. It's good. Everything is fine.” Ginny had her hand on the doorknob.

Tamar stood beside her desk, stood stock still. If she were more like Robert or Asher, she would long ago have thrown herself at the girl's feet to hold the fabric of Ginny's skirt in both fists and beg her for another chance. Sometimes the only reasonable course of action, Tamar saw, too late, is to howl and cling, to cry love and promise to change. When she heard the sirens outside, Tamar had held her daughter's limp hand tightly and told her that everything would be all right. Oh, but she had feared the wrong thing.

J. Virginia Morgan Workshops
        [[email protected]]

To: [email protected];
      [email protected]

Thank you for registering for my Willing Amnesia™ workshop! Don't forget to stop at the door and pick up your registration package, which includes your copy of my latest book, Accidents.

     “Willing amnesia” is the revolutionary life- practice I developed nine years ago after a head injury that left me with an enlightening episode of temporary memory loss. During the three hours we spend together, I will show you how willing amnesia changed my life and can change yours, too. Since I developed these techniques to take control of my life, my career has soared with three best-selling books; I have improved my self-image; and I never waste a moment. I want to share my discoveries so you, too, can harness your freedom and shape your future! Together, we will practise exercises to help you centre yourself in the present. Unlike psychotherapy, my methods are straightforward and don't involve years of talking about painful memories. And unlike a lot of the many self-help approaches available today, mine takes a
holistic approach: whatever the problem areas in your life happen to be, my methods can — and will — help.

     You will need to bring one object with you, so please carefully choose an item in advance. Go through your desk drawers and the back of that shelf at the top of your closet to excavate a “buried burden.” Go through your drawers and find an object that's been in there for at least a year. Hold the object for one minute and then write down three words describing how it makes you feel. If those words are negative, if you want to shove the object quickly back down under your sweaters, then what you hold is a buried burden. If you cannot bring yourself to dispose of this item, but would never put it out on your coffee table for all to see, then you've found what we're looking for.

     Together we will forget our troubles and forge ahead into a future where anything is possible — as long as you're willing!

     J. Virginia Morgan

Jasmine showered quickly under cold water, soaking her bathing suit, and passed several nude women before walking around the tiled corner. Everything about it was good: the smell that she felt in her sinuses and her eyes; the rough concrete under her feet after she abandoned her flip-flops by the wall to hurry, shivering, to the edge of the slow lane; even the bad radio music echoing against the water and up to the high, high ceiling. The room's colour scheme was brown, beige and yellow, maybe intended to remind you of the beach. Several people were circle-swimming just fast enough to stay afloat, and Jasmine pulled down her goggles to slip in for a couple of warm-up freestyle laps. One middle-aged lady jerked along with her legs way down in the water, resting her torso on a kickboard. Justin, Jasmine's old swimming coach, used to joke that those boards had two purposes — to improve kicking and to fool people into thinking they were actually swimming.

Besides the chlorine and the radio music and the occasional sound of a lifeguard's whistle, every pool was different. The height of the ceiling, the acoustics, the colour of the tiles and the walls. Jasmine usually swam at a public pool, and this one seemed even bigger than the one at Dad's university, though both were Olympicsize. The ceiling here was higher, and there was a second, smaller pool off to the side for old people and babies who didn't know how to swim. An aerobics class was flailing around in there. High overhead, in the wall above the balcony, was the long window of a room
at street level where people could watch from the comfort of sofas. Agatha was up there, surveying the scene from behind glass so the chlorine wouldn't sting her eyes and frizz her hair. She was trying to be in charge again, as if the night before had never happened. As if she hadn't gotten Jasmine stoned, had never suggested they ride around on the subway, eating Thai food out of cardboard boxes and whispering about the other people on board, laughing until they cried.

It would have made sense to go swimming the day before while Agatha was working; the pool was only a few blocks from the bookstore, but Agatha didn't want to leave Jasmine alone even for a second. Jasmine had brought her swimming gear just in case and mentioned the pool again as her sister unlocked Eternal Present. “That's okay,” Agatha said. The doorway was full of beads on strings that you had to push aside to get in. “We'll go together, tomorrow.” As if Jasmine couldn't be trusted alone; as if she hadn't been going to the pool by herself after school since she was twelve. As if she hadn't taken the bus all the way to Toronto with no help from anyone, and taken the bus to Aylmer before that. What Agatha didn't know was that Jasmine had been drunk on peach schnapps a week earlier in Benna's house, dancing to hilarious disco music, making Benna laugh until she cried, no parents to be seen. But Jasmine knew she had to be a good guest — she didn't want Agatha calling Dad and ruining everything. So she put on her clothes and ate the cereal her sister put on the table, even though she never ate cereal because she hated how it was always soggy by the time you got to the bottom of the bowl. The apartment looked different in the daylight. Worse. It was just a big room with a lot of stuff thrown into it. The walls were too white, and the corners too blunt, and the ceiling was cardboard, with a big, brown water stain. While Jasmine did her eyeliner and finished drying her hair, Agatha stood at the door with her jacket on, repeating a million times that Jasmine was making her late.

Practising her bilateral breathing, Jasmine waited for all the events of the last thirty-six hours to fit together; she waited for a clear picture of what she was going to do next. Everything was all planned out, except the three words. Three perfect words. In the
middle lane, she pushed off hard, streamlining her body, arms straight, hands clasped above her head. When both her ears were underwater, the sound was like the inside of a seashell. She counted more than two seconds before breakout and then slowly built speed, like Justin had taught her, and was surprised that her body felt normal, not even achy, and definitely not sick like after she drank the peach schnapps. Drugs were supposed to be so bad, but she felt completely fine, and no more addicted than before. When she rolled over for a length of backstroke, Jasmine tried to spot Agatha up above, but her goggles blurred everything.
Blurry
was a good word for how J. Virginia Morgan made Jasmine feel. As if she couldn't get a clear idea of anything.

Jasmine had spent most of the previous morning sitting in a big beanbag chair, flipping through magazines about tattoos and crystals and watching Agatha say hi to Eternal Present customers as they came through the beads, which wasn't very often. A couple of times, people asked Agatha to open the jewellery case, and one woman bought a T-shirt with a picture of a frog on it. Jasmine liked the chunky stainless steel rings and wished she had some extra money, but she couldn't spend anything because she only had just enough for a bus ticket back home, or to somewhere else. So as soon as she bought something, that was it. She was in Toronto for life, or until she figured out how to get more money.