Going Down Swinging (34 page)

There’s a soft knock at the door. Then a snappier one and you breathe deep twice, too deep, and your first step’s a dizzy one.

You open the door, fast and sweeping à
la
Harriet Nelson, and there she is. And him standing behind her. You say nothing to him and grab her, throw your arms in great octopus swings and suction her to your shoulder, lift her up just a little till your back shifts and maybe picking her up’s not such a good idea. Baker says he’ll be back at nine. That’s three and a half hours. How to pack a birthday and four weeks and a million apologies and sobriety and a clean house and fresh breath and love and love and no crying and lightness and mirth into three and a half hours. You swallow and hold her at arm’s length, even though it hurts to let her go that far, and think,
Let’s join the circus, the Marines, lets run like hell and never come back again
, but instead you touch her new hair like a sheared lamb and say,
Whose idea was this?
Not hers, she says, they did it. Call them jerks and tell her she’ll look good as new in a couple weeks. That’s the good thing about mops, they grow back. You squeeze her again because she’s rag-doll limp and you’re trying to squeeze out her scares, squeeze back the miles and miles and years and years since you’ve hugged another living soul. Then, slide off her coat, some little burlap sack of a thing she says they bought her with Child Protection vouchers.
It’s all right
, she says. I’m
not that crazy about it
.

You pat her shoulder and bring her into the living room, show her the pullout couch you got for twenty-five bucks and the
TV—
well, that was there before—but here, look at the bedroom; no, maybe not, it’s kind of depressing. She stands stock-still in this bedroom, then walks to the bed, kneels on one pillow to look out the window into the laneway and says,
It’s good how it’s on the ground like this—you could escape, you could get out lots of ways—like if there was a fire or something
. Don’t remember her being so concerned with fire safety.

You tell her that you thought you’d make pork chops for dinner and she could have raw carrots and radishes and a baked potato.
You like baked potato, right?
and you’re embarrassed that you had to ask that. The brain cell with that information seems to be on the fritz just now and she says
Yes
politely, which somehow is more humiliating than regular Yeah-of-course-what-kinda-dope-are-you kid tone.
Or we could have snacky finger food stuff like cheese and crackers and pickles and raw veggies with french onion chip dip and I got salt-and-vinegar chips too and peaner butter. For a nice peaner butter and jammitch sammitch?
She says it’s o.k., porkchops are good. But she seems funny, her voice does, her soul is lagging behind. And you want to cry because you feel exactly the same way.

While frying and slicing, you ask if she’s still taking baton lessons. She says it’s over, with a sullen stare into the table.
We had this recital thing that parents and people came to where we got judged and marked and stuff. Sadie got first place
, she says. Sadie’s beginning to piss you off too, but you brush it aside and say,
Well, how’d you do? was it fun?
and she says,
It was OK, I lost points because my mouth moved while I was counting and then I dropped my baton, except for it bounced on the tip and I caught it and the judges didn’t see
. And she smirks, looks pleased with herself—putting one over on the judges: a proud family history. She got Honourable Mention in the end and you expound on how fabulous that is. She’s not offering a whole lot of information, so you ask about Explorers and she says that they had a party at Halloween,
and we were all supposed to bring a dessert thing and I brought digestive cookies because I, well, first I went to the bakery and it was kind of expensive for just twelve cookies except if you buy twelve you get thirteen and it’s called a bakers dozen, so I bought that so I could get the extra one and then I kind of ate some of them and then there weren’t enough, so I bought digestive ones because I like them, but then at the party the other girl’s mothers all baked stuff for them and two of the girls looked at me and said, “Nice baby cookies—Smooth move Ex-Lax.” And they all started laughing at me, about bringing stuff out of a package and … I don’t know, I went a couple more times and then I quit
. Alas more evidence of your not-up-to-snuff mothering, but who do those brats think they are anyway, so you say
Well, who needs a bunch of crummy little creeps like that around? I don’t blame you, I’d’ve quit too
.

When the pork chops are ready and the potatoes are soft and the margarine’s on a dish beside a bowl of raw vegetables and cheese is cut up waiting to sit down on a comfy cracker, you say,
So would you like to eat at the table or in the living room and watch TV?
and she says maybe we should eat at the table as if that might be the wisest because what if the dinner cops pull up, we’ll be screwed.

It’s quarter to eight before she seems remotely like herself. It happens in mid-bite of chocolate cake and comes out in the shape of a squiggly giggle and before you can stop yourself it’s out your mouth:
Did you tell Todd Baker about a dream you had with a man chasing you down an alley?

Chocolate gooed
yeah
.

Oh, Grace, why?

What d’you mean? Why not?

Bee—Sweety! Don’t you get what—don’t you see how he took that? He reported it, you know, he said, “I’m sorry, Eilleen, but I don’t feel that I had a choice.” And he was insinuating that you could’ve been molested by “one of my men,” as he put it—not to mention the fact that he thinks that my drinking may have caused you irreparable damage. I don’t know—maybe he was right. But honey, things are different now—I’m better and I’m scared that if we’re not careful, they won’t give you back to me. Please be careful, if they—just—I couldn’t stand to lose you for any longer
.

She looks pissed off, stares at her icing, scrapes off a forkful and sloughs it on the side of her plate before taking another bite of cake.
But I dreamed it! And it was kind of a weird dream and it was like a story and I felt like telling it and I never—and anyway, you weren’t even in it. I didn’t say anything about you!

Why have you done this; she’s nine years old; how the hell is she supposed to know?
I know, Angel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry things have been so bad that you would have nightmares like that, but I’ll make it up to you. I feel like he tricked us into this whole thing, anyway. Neither of us thought you’d be away this long and look what they did, that … snotrag’s got you there for three months
—and suddenly she chokes on her cake, laughing and coughing and laughing and laughing.
What’s so funny?

Snotrag! You said snotrag
, and she coughs and says, I
think I got chocolate cake up my nose
.

By quarter to nine, she’s sitting in a pile of ripped-up wrapping paper and a pencil crayon set and felt pens that smell like fruit and a novel called
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
and The Game of Life while the face of a Timex glints off her wrist. And as if on cue, as if suddenly someone had yanked blinders off this part of her brain, her head jolts up and her mouth says,
Henry! Where’s Henry?
She looks embarrassed and ashamed like a bad mother and you know the feeling because that name has just made you feel like the worst one on the planet. She stands up, then sits back down.
Where’s Henry, why didn’t he come? Is somebody else looking after him?

Yeah, that’s it, someone who had to move to Texas and needed a cat. Think. Shit, it’s almost ten to. Baker’ll be here. Not now. I
don’t know. He’s a cat. He’s around
. And you suddenly wish your child had narcolepsy, just for now. But there’s nothing to do but stutter and ask her if she’d like a cup of tea with you and she says,
Mum!
and you crack, turn off the faucet and say,
Damn. Oh angel, I’m sorry, I lied. I just—Henry fell. At least we think that’s what happened. After you went to stay with the Hoods—and that’s a fitting name for them if I haven’t said so already—h-huh, ah, well, I went into the hospital and George was in town, so I got hold of him and asked him if he’d go over and feed the cat. And, uh, you know how Henry used to get outside from the window by climbing the stucco up and down the building? Anyway, George said he found the cat lying out on the grass below the living-room window and his back was broken. And George didn’t want me to see him, he thought I should let him handle it and he thought it’d be better if we didn’t tell you, or I thought, if we just made something up for a while. Until things settled down. He was dying, sweety—so George took him and had him put to sleep. I’m sorry
. Oh god—you’re a liar and an asshole: your children get broken and your children’s children. Even if you’d sent him to the
SPCA
he might’ve had a better chance. And your voice cracks when you say, I
didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to tell you. If I could go back and change things I would. I promise. I’m sorry
.

Her face is dewy, a river is flowing underneath. It’s five to nine. Shit-shit-shit. There’s no time to be who you were trying to prove you were. She nods and folds her arms and nods until her whole body is nodding and she looks like someone in a nuthouse.
Please, baby, honey, it’ll be all right—Henry knew you loved him and it was—we’ll get a new cat, we’ll get a kitten together
. You’ve got her on your lap now, rocking her yourself; if she’s going to rock like this, you want to at least pretend it’s you who’s rocking her. Then she starts to shake and sob and the tears come in a torrent. They pop from every pore on her face, her arms limp so you have to pick them up and tie them around your neck.
Oh, honey. Shhhh, it’s OK, I promise everything’ll be OK. I promise-promise-promise. Please, Lamby, Todd Baker’ll be here any minute, and if he sees you so upset, he might not bring you back, he might think seeing me is too upsetting for you. Please don’t cry, please. Shhh, it’s OK. There, honey, there, it’s OK
, but this is four weeks’ worth, or four months or years, or it’s all the tears of all the stolen babies in the world. And there’s a rap on the door. On time, of course—why the hell do these fuckers always have to be on time? Doesn’t anybody dawdle any more?
Listen, lovey, we’ll get a little fluffy kitten and we’ll—and in a couple weeks it’ll be Christmas
—and you toss
Just a minute
over your shoulder—
and we’ll have lots of time, just the two of us. We can do anything we want, please, angel, please don’t do this. I know you’re sad—me too, but they might not bring you back
. And the knocking starts up again, so you ease out from under her, sit her back in the chair before you go to the door.

Todd Baker’s standing there, uncomfortable and sheepish, smile plastered on. He looks down as if he’s about to kick at the dirt with his toe, then ambles into the kitchen. You titter and tap fingers on your breast plate, say,
Grace is a little upset, I just told her about Henry, her cat, and
—you shrug at the room to say the rest is obvious. Grab a Kleenex off the table and kneel in front of her to dab, run your fingers back through her hair, and her arms come forward and she flops face first into your neck. And you say,
Oof, sweety
, and hug her and thump your palm slow against the rhythm of her panting tears.
Sorry, we just need a second
, you say to him, carefully reading the I-Feel-Like-A-Dolt printed in block letters across his forehead.

He rubs the corduroy patches on the elbows of his blazer, jams hands in his pockets and pulls them back out.
Yeah, oh course, take all the time you need. Grace, did you tell your mom about the bird you got for your birthday?
She snorts and chokes a yes.
Oh
, he says, pulls the left hand out of his pocket and stuffs it back in again.

Hoffman, Anne
Eilleen

13.12.74 (T. Baker) Grace went to visit her mother today and stayed for the evening. Things went fairly well. I have spoken at length to Mrs. Hoffman, asking for her help in insuring that Grace does not run from Mrs. Hood’s and she has been cooperative in this matter.

Grace Twelve
DECEMBER 1974

I
COULDN’T STOP FEELING
like I was going to cry after being at Mum’s. Seemed like I should’ve been able to stay; she was sober now and she had a new place and she was going to
AA
again. I thought that was supposed to be the reason I had to go to the Hoods’ in the first place. And you could tell she was better cuz of how much she got done by herself, got everything moved, got the phone hooked up, got us a pullout couch, and got me birthday presents on top of it. She was still kind of shaky, but she was her again. And still I wasn’t allowed to stay. At night, I lied awake and made up dreams about racing down the street with nothing but a bag of clothes and Lyle. That’s what I called Todd Baker’s budgie, Lyle. He lived beside my bed in his cage hanging from the stand Todd brought me.

The night after, I decided I had to work harder at training Lyle. I was doing it by sticking my hand in his cage every once in a while like
The Handbook of Budgies and Budgerigars
said to do to get him sitting on my finger like the bird in the picture. I wasn’t doing it that good, though—I was supposed to use a pencil or a stick to bring him along slowly, but I wanted him to like me now. I wanted him to sit on my shoulder and go with me everywhere. Anyway, I kept sticking my hand in and Lyle kept screeching and flapping until I gave up and read some of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
. But I went back to the cage because I figured if I did it super slow, if I moved really slowly to the cage, put my hand in, really slowly—then Mrs. Hood yelled up the stairs for lights out and I yanked my hand and sent Lyle squawking his head off.