Five Roses (13 page)

Yushi was staring out the window again. “My mum would have been like yours. If he'd gone first. She would have wanted to be dead, too.”

Maddy didn't move, waiting to hear if Yushi would say more. She so rarely mentioned her private life and her past.

“My mum waited on him hand and foot. She got up every morning to make him fresh roti before he went to work. Laid out his clothes on the bed so he just had to step into them — his underpants, his socks, his shirt, his pants. Even his belt. Every day she did that. Even for his factory clothes, not just weekends. He liked to get dressed up. He's a real
saga boy
, my dad. He had this other woman he used to visit. He took her dancing. My mum knew about it, but she didn't say anything. She believed that no matter what a man did, a wife did her duty.”

Why was Yushi speaking in past tense? Her mom couldn't be much older than Maddy. “Where is your mom now?” she asked gently.

“She died. A year and a half ago.”

Maddy let out her breath. “I'm sorry.”

“That's partly why I left Toronto. It's easier not to see him. My sisters and my brother can't harass me about my
duty
.” She said the word with a Trinidadian lilt. And after a pause, her tone even again, “I hate the life he gave her. I hate how she put up with it. I hate how he didn't even wait three months to bring the other one to live in our house.”

Her controlled monotone reminded Maddy of how she used to clamp her arms to her ribs when women handed around babies. Everyone wanted to hold them and coo. Not her, thank you.

Yushi leaned away from the window, looking off down the hallway. “What are these other rooms?”

Maddy followed her. She was awed Yushi had told her as much as she had. She guessed Yushi probably didn't have many friends.

She tapped on the first door. “This room's for storage. It's just boxes and junk.” The next room was self-explanatory. The bathroom.

“Skylight in here, too?” Yushi glanced up at it. “Lucky.”

Maddy opened the next door onto an ironing board and a table with a sewing machine.

“You sew?” Yushi asked.

“It's my mother's old machine. She taught me, but I never liked sewing. If I have to, I can hem a skirt. But the machine and the scissors are the only things of hers I kept. She didn't have any jewellery — and I did
not
want her rosary. I think of this as her.” She opened her hand at the sewing machine. “Meet my mother.”

Yushi hefted the large steel scissors. “This is some serious hardware.”

“Polish make. Hard and heavy. Potentially lethal.”

Back in the hallway Maddy raised her chin at the remaining closed doors. “Those are the tenants' rooms. Two of them.”

“Aren't tenants trouble?”

“They take care of themselves. I just rent out the rooms. So far I haven't had problems, knock on wood.” She touched the door frame. “These two are leaving in a couple of weeks. I'm going to paint before I get someone new. The rooms could use some freshening up. I should tear down the old balcony, too. It's a fire hazard. I don't even know what's still holding it up. I think it's practically solid pigeon shit by now.”

Yushi traipsed behind her down the stairs. Again she looked around the kitchen with admiring eyes. “This is the best room, so big and bright.”

“You should see it in the morning with the sun shining in.” Maddy lifted the lid on the pot of ratatouille, releasing a moist cloud of good smells — roasted eggplant, red peppers, garlic, oregano. Plates and a basket of pita stood ready. On the deck, she'd pulled the plank table from the wall, wiped away the spider webs, and flapped out a red tablecloth.

They carried their plates, the pita, a dish of grated Parmesan, and bottles of beer outside. Maddy clinked her bottle against Yushi's. Yushi said it was nice to be there. She tasted the ratatouille and pronounced it good. She scooped a mouthful of stew with a torn piece of pita and said, “This would be really good with roti. I could show you how to make them — or we could get fancy and make buss-up-shut.”

“I'd like that.” Maddy had no idea what buss-up-shut was, but she liked the idea of Yushi teaching her to cook something new.

A furry orange bomb catapulted over the fence into the backyard. Yushi was startled, then laughed. Maddy didn't think she'd ever heard her laugh before. “Is she yours?” Yushi asked.

“
He
. Definitely a he. Tarzan of the alleyway. This is Jim.”

Jim stepped onto the deck, the curled tip of his tail questioning that Maddy had invited a guest. Yushi held out her hand for him to sniff.

“You like cats?” Maddy asked.

“More than some people I've met.” Yushi's bangle slid down her wrist as she scratched Jim's skull and around his ears. He squinted, seemingly indifferent, then butted his head against her fingers in obvious command.

Fara snapped shut an empty binder and slid it onto the pile in the corner of her desk. Zeery walked past the counter, eyes on her phone, thumbs busy. She'd changed from nursing scrubs into snug jeans and a form-fitting top. Her breasts, hips, and ass were outlined, her knees, shoulders, and cleavage covered. Her wardrobe was an object lesson on meeting her culture's guidelines for modesty in a world where she wanted to be seen as attractive.

“You could say bye!” Fara called. If humans were to adapt, then the next generation should be born with insect eyes on double-jointed thumbs — to keep people from falling on their heads while texting.

Zeery stopped moving but still finished her message before she looked up. “Why aren't you gone yet?”

“Tiff had an appointment. I said I'd wait. She came in early for me a couple of times when we had stuff with the house. Anyhow, go. Don't get stuck in traffic.” Fara waved her off as she pulled the mail basket toward her and started opening envelopes.

From down the hallway she heard the trundling and rattling of a cart. The sound belonged to a medieval costume drama, but it was only the young woman who delivered the tube feeding. She looked the peasant part with her solemn face, no makeup, hair tidy in a hairnet.

“Noisy cart,” Fara said. “I think it's got square wheels.”

The woman glanced at her cart. She didn't seem to realize Fara was joking. She handed Fara her clipboard to sign.

The stairwell door swung wide and one of the surgery residents strode out. The nurses would tackle him with questions, but Fara wanted him first. “Oscar!” She grabbed a patient's chart from farther along the counter. “Dupont's got a bed at Rehab tomorrow. We need an exit script.”

“Sure thing. Any food here?” He'd been in the OR all day. He took the chart from Fara as José nabbed him to co-sign an order and Guang twisted around in her chair to get him next.

Tiffany scuttled past, hips wagging, sandals swishing. “I'm here, I'm here. Let me dump my stuff.”

Fara snapped a rubber band around the stack of filing she'd sorted, pushed off her chair, and went to the med room to wash her hands.

“Beds are full,” she told Tiffany, who was fanning an infection control booklet at her neck and down between her breasts. “You should have a quiet evening. Don't let Oscar leave till he writes exit meds on Dupont.”

Tiffany groaned. “Why didn't you ask him?”

“I did. You're going to have to remind him every five minutes till he does it.” Fara grabbed her knapsack and escaped the nursing station. She ran down the stairs to the parking lot exit, saw a bus coming, and jogged to the stop.

Getting home now took longer. It was her night to cook, too. Shopping was more complicated now that they lived in the Pointe. She and Frédéric had been spoiled by having two greengrocers, a small supermarket, a bakery, and a fish store around the corner from their apartment. In the Pointe they had a twenty-minute walk to the nearest grocery store, where, even in the middle of the summer, peppers and tomatoes were shipped from Mexico, apples and pears from South Africa. If she stopped at the Atwater Market — also a hike — she could buy apples and pears from Quebec, but they cost even more. And this was during the summer. Money aside, shopping for supper every evening on the way home took up too much time.

She and Frédéric had to have a talk about groceries. And getting patio furniture, even if that was yet another expense. They obviously weren't going on vacation this year. Couldn't they at least sit outside while the weather was nice? Enjoy having a backyard.

The bedroom, too, needed to be moved. They'd painted, bought curtains, and put their king-size bed in the spacious upstairs room that seemed so perfect for a master bedroom. They hadn't realized it was impossible to sleep facing the street. Every night she was woken by revved-up cars blasting music, or some lone drunk having a garrulous monologue under their window. Last night she'd snatched her pillow and stomped downstairs to the sofa. That wasn't why they'd bought a house, was it? To end up sleeping in separate rooms on separate floors?

In the subway Fara stood with her hand clamped on a pole. Bodies and shoulder bags brushed her hips and back. She kept her chin high, glad that her head cleared the crowd. Especially now, during
armpit season
. She smiled, remembering who'd first called it that. Claire.

Fara had made a tortellini salad. She and Frédéric sat at the table that they'd placed before the window so they could see the deck and the backyard. On his way home from work, Frédéric had stopped at the Éco-quartier and picked up a composter. He wanted to put it in the far corner of the yard.

“Won't it smell?”

“It's not supposed to.”

Fara leaned at an angle to check that they wouldn't see it from the window and noticed the outline of a man through the slats of their fence. “He's out there again.”

“Who?”

“I told you. One of the guys from the rooming house. Maddy said they're harmless, but I don't like how he stands there. He's not watching anyone else's house, just ours.”

Frédéric leaned forward to look. “He's not doing anything.”

“He's watching us.”

“Don't get paranoid.”

“I don't like it.” She slammed down her fork and shoved back her chair.

“Fara, I don't want you fighting with the neighbours!”

“Standing there like that isn't neighbourly.” She yanked open the back door. By the time she'd loped across the yard to the gate, he'd sprinted down the alley and was turning the corner. A thin man with dark hair. What was his problem? Did she have to hang a sign?
This is not a bus stop. NO panoramic view. Keep moving. Get lost.

She trudged back inside. “Don't you mind that people watch you?”

“What can he see through the cracks in the fence? Not much.”

“Not much is still way too much. I don't like people gawking at me.”

Frédéric spit an olive pit into his hand and dropped it on his plate. “If he comes back, I'll talk to him.”

“I wish you would.” She stabbed her fork into tortellini. “Listen, you're not going to like this, but I want to move the bedroom.”

Frédéric widened his already wide eyes. The bed would have to be taken apart again. The brown-and-cream curtains had been bought specifically to fit the large double window.

“I
know
,” she said. “I'm sorry. I didn't know the street would be so noisy.”

“You'll get used to it.”

“The noise? You should know me better than that by now.” When they'd lived in an apartment, she'd rung doorbells the instant it was 11:00 p.m. and music disturbed her. She'd waged war with the neighbour who did bel canto exercises on the other side of an adjoining wall, telling him he sounded like a bullfrog having an amplified orgasm. She'd called the police to complain about the restaurant that shared their back alley, where the staff slung bags of garbage, including wine bottles, past midnight.

“So, you want to move the bedroom where?” Frédéric didn't bother to hide his exasperation. “The room next to the bathroom is too small and the room at the back isn't painted yet.”

“The room at the back. I'll paint it.”

“Are you sure that's where you want the bedroom?”

“It's not as big, but it'll be quieter. And we'll be in the same bed.”

He'd saved a piece of artichoke for his last bite. He always kept a morsel of what he liked best for the end of the meal. “What will we do with the front room?”

Now they half-smiled, both hearing the absurdity of having so many rooms that they didn't know what to do with them.

When the doorbell rang, she got up. So far this week they'd had Jehovah's Witnesses; a boy collecting cans and bottles to go to summer camp, though he couldn't tell Fara where the camp was; a man who offered to paint their cornice for a hundred dollars; another selling posters of the
Sacré-Coeur
de Jésus
. Did people actually buy glossy illustrations of a melancholy man pointing at his glistening heart wrapped with thorns? No thank you, Fara said over and over again.

This time there was no one. “Another prank,” she said as she returned to the table.

“Why do you do that? Every time you walk to the hallway you move to the side.”

She knew she did it sometimes, but not every time.

“It's the suicide, isn't it?”

“Not the suicide.” She gave a small shake of the head. Filling the hole hadn't helped. “The body. It's still …” She waved toward where it had hung.

He looked but saw nothing. Still, he considered the air as if he could. “So … what do we do?”

She appreciated that he said
we
. Some men would have dismissed it as craziness. Her problem and hers alone. Let her figure it out. “I don't know,” she admitted. “I'll eventually get over it — I have to.”

“How about you walk through that space over and over again? I could do it with you.”

She saw he wasn't joking and touched his hand. “Thanks, but it doesn't work like that.”

The doorbell rang again. “I'll go.” He strode to the door — right through the body.

She heard a man's voice. Then Frédéric was saying, “That's okay, we've finished supper.”

Eric. She gave him a push-button smile he returned with barely a glance. He wasn't visiting
them
. He'd come to see the house.

He kicked the toe of his shoe against the floor. “Have you decided yet what you're doing here?”

“We did it,” Frédéric said. “Sanded and varnished.”

Eric's head bobbed back with surprise. The floor obviously wasn't what he would call sanded and varnished. “A floor buckled like this? You should rip it up and put down a new floor.”

“We like this one,” Fara said. “You know, there are people who drive up from New England to buy these old pine boards.”

“Americans.” Eric seemed to feel that single word sufficed. He stood with his hands on his hips, still peering down at the floor. “What are you doing about the draft?”

“What draft?” Frédéric asked.

“You don't feel it? Don't worry, you will in the winter. Did you insulate the ceiling in the cellar like I told you?”

“We just moved in,” Fara said. “Give us a chance. Fred's still hauling out junk from the cellar.”

“Better do it before the winter. I'm telling you.” He rotated on his feet. “What are you doing about that?” He jabbed a finger at where the boy had hanged himself.

Fara stiffened. Frédéric glanced at her. “About what?” he asked.

“That great big space where all the cold air is going to suck up and down the stairs. What you need here is a set of French doors. You won't lose any light and you'll block the draft.” Eric outlined the entrance to the room with a knowing finger.

Fara began to stack the plates and cutlery with as much noise as possible. Was he determined to drain their bank account? “You just said to insulate the cellar. We can't start buying French doors, too.”

“It'll save on heating. The doors will pay for themselves.”

“Fred.” Fara gave him a look that meant get your cousin out before I push him out.

Frédéric was ignoring her, gazing where Eric had pointed. “He's right, Fara. Doors will change the way everything looks.”

“That's not what I said,” Eric interrupted. “It will still look open. French doors are glass, right? Even when you keep them shut, you can see through them.”

Fara sighed. Did he think they didn't know what French doors were?

“Look, Fara,” Frédéric said. He held his hand flat in the air and glided it across the entrance. “
Doors
. All along here.” He drew his hand back and forth.

Oh. Now she understood. Doors to block the body.

“That's right,” Eric said, mocking their slowness. “What you need here is doors.”

Fara stood at the fax machine waiting for the confirmation that her pages had been sent. The counters in the nursing station were messy with charts, stray medication records, an armload of towels that had been forgotten, an empty box of chocolates with its paper cups tossed willy-nilly. Why didn't someone throw away the empty box? Here and there a nurse sat writing. An orderly pushed a bin of isolation gowns down the hallway.

“Fara!”

She heard but didn't answer. Even leaning against the wall, she was taller than anyone else in the nursing station. All Brie had to do was lift her head and look around. But no, she preferred to bellow.

“Fara!”

The fax machine groaned and thrummed as it disgorged its wobbly page. Poor thing, it sounded constipated. Fara skirted the chairs wheeled against each other, spied her three-hole punch farther along the counter — where it
didn't
belong — and grabbed it.

“There you are.” Brie tossed a quadruplicate form on her desk. “Evenings wants to make an incident report against the kitchen. They were missing a tube feeding yesterday. Tiffany said you signed for them.”

“I signed for them because they came.”

“There wasn't any Vivonex for Labranche.”

Fara remembered Labranche's name on the list. Still standing, she reached for the phone that was ringing and listened for a few seconds. “Your husband is gone for a test. Yes. Probably another hour. Yes. Yes. No, the doctor will have to give you the results, not me.” She hung up, and though the intercom was buzzing, walked down the hall to the kitchen.

“What about that incident report?” Brie called after her.

Fara flapped a hand in the air. It wouldn't be the first time she was told something was missing when it was only misplaced. The tube feeding had probably been shoved behind a carton of chicken soup. How often had she said that the tube feeding shouldn't be kept where family members stored food?