Going Down Swinging (37 page)

She looks vindicated—
Just cuz Wendy and Lilly said no way that Rhoda never did that before she was married or they wouldn’t watch the show
.

Well, the yoke’s on them. Is there a lot you’re not allowed to watch over there?

She shrugs, mumbles and clams up.

And so that’s how it goes, she drops crumbs and you try to make stuffing. It’s good, though. Mostly. You gave her the bed and you’ve been sleeping on the pullout couch—figured it would benefit both of you, since you can’t sleep and end up pacing around the house at all hours and you don’t want to bomb yourself with the pills it would take to put you out because—well, just because.

Because it feels good to be awake sometimes and hear her squeak and the blankets ruffle, to be able to go in there and say
there-there
, ask what she dreamed. The second night with you, she woke up and sat staring out the window. When you came to her, she said, I
feel like I’m forgetting something, like I’m supposed to be somewhere. I feel like someone’s coming
.

Just Charlie
, you said and kissed her.

Nights you can’t sleep and nights you can, you dream schemes of driving away, and it’s so real the steering wheel just floats under your hands and the top is down and Grace is bouncing on her side of a white leather bench seat, playing with the radio dials. You’re somewhere on the Prairies and there’s a breeze and the two of you are getting pink in the sun and she’s singing that song, that one she used to sing about a brand new pair of roller skates. “I ride my bike, I roller skate, don’t drive no car, don’t go too fast but I go pretty far. For somebody who don’t drive I bin all around the world; some people say I done all right for a girl.”

“Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without presents.” That was the first line of your favourite book when you were Grace’s age.
Little Women
. Maybe you were older. But you bought it for her anyway. And you bought her one of those little Kodak cameras and two games: Payday and checkers. And goofy things like a straw that coils around in circles before it gets to your mouth, and you were going to get her a Pet Rock but the really goofy thing was the price. And she got you these enormous fluffy purple slippers that you’ll never wear because they make you look like Carol Burnett. There’s one last one to open; it’s for you from her.
Wait
, Grace grabs the camera while you examine your present, wondering what in god’s name she’s picked out: shiny and flat and could only be a record. You shake it anyway, gaze up at the lights on the tree. She says it’s a new basketball and laughs uproariously, looks through the camera and tells you to be Christmassy.
Flash!
she yaps. You bring the present down on your lap and start lifting the edges of taped paper.
Faster!
she orders and reaches over as if she’s going to help.

Get lost, goofball!
you say. She rolls her eyes and leans back to flash another Kodak moment.
Quit it, you, I was busy savouring and now I’m going to look like an old hag in that picture
.

And it’s—who? You smile at the Cellophane-covered jacket, say,
How do you know who the Ray Charles Singers are?

I don’t. You said it once and I wrote it down
.

It’s one in the morning, Christmas Eve, and you’ve never been so grateful for another human being in your life.

Hoffman, Anne Eilleen

22.12.74 (T. Baker) As by agreement, Grace taken to her mother’s for the holidays. She will be staying until December 26th. I have already made arrangement to go to court on January 6th to request an early return of Grace to her mother, as Mrs. Hoffman is managing very well now. We had talked of a V.I.P. placement earlier in the month, and now that she is physically stronger, she has taken to the idea of a job quite well. She is still attending AA.

Except for pressure to visit her mother, Grace has not had any requests and has been doing very well, except for minor conflicts with Mrs. Hood’s little girls.

26.12.74 (T. Baker) Grace taken back to Mrs. Hood’s.

27.12.74 (T. Baker) Grace had tantrum over her allowance, slamming doors, etc.

Grace Thirteen
DECEMBER 1974

W
E ALL COUNTED
the days until February third, when I’d be gone for good. Mrs. Hood still tried to make me feel included, though: she told me one morning, while Lilly and Wendy were arguing about Jews and whether they’d survive through Armageddon, that their family vacation was coming up. Lilly’d been explaining to me, “We don’t get blood transfusions cuz it’s wrong. Or any bloods at all, even. Like in the war, Hitler tried to make us eat blood sausage but we wouldn’t but the Jews ate them, plus they fought amongst themselves. See, they’re not at peace with each other and they prob’ly won’t survive Judgment Day.” I was wondering if I should tell Josh that or if he rathered not know. I couldn’t stand it if God hurt Josh. Then Wendy yelled at Lilly that she shouldn’t talk about the Jews because they were God’s chosen people. And Lilly yelled back that she never said anything bad about them and “I can say Jew any time I want—Jew-Jew-Jew!” Mrs. Hood told everyone to simmer down and changed the subject with this thing about a trip to Harrison Hot Springs. She said they had friends there with a place and there would be room if I wanted to join them. Lilly rolled her eyes and I suddenly got a jumping under my jaw, like a big hopping nerve, while I tried to think of an excuse not to go. “I don’t have any money, though; I don’t think I can do trips.”

“Child Protection makes allowances for things like that. I’ve already asked Todd about it. So you give it some thought. We can probably make arrangements for you to stay somewhere if you don’t want to go. By the way, I’m working tonight, I switched evenings with another lady at work, so you kids’ll have to get your own dinner this evening.” She poured herself some more tea.

Lilly groaned. “I hate when we have to make ourself dinner—stupid Grace won’t eat anything.”

They kept on about McDonald’s and I tried to picture Mrs. Hood working at the White Spot, waiting on tables, smiling the way she did the first day I met her. “If you only work one night a week,” I asked her, “how do you pay for stuff? Do you get other money? Like, for me?”

“You’re rather inquisitive this morning, aren’t you?” Mrs. Hood looked at me like I was a cockroach on the counter.

“What’s that?”

“It Means You’re Nosey.” It would’ve been funny if Mum said it. My mind went out of the room and into a story about a dead cat a boy in school told me about. He said his brother went to the
SPCA
,
got a cat they put to sleep, boiled its skin off and put back together the bones. I wondered where it was, all skinless, put back together wrong, teetering till someone figured out all you had to do was flick it right and it’d clatter all over the floor.

Stuff seemed better if I wasn’t around the house. I spent as much time as I could at Sadie and Eddy’s or over with Josh and his mum, but then Mrs. Hood got it in her head that I was spending too much time at their places. So she decided she needed to give my friends’ mums something to show her thankfulness.

I watched her lining up batches of perogies on cookie sheets and tried to ask why without being inquisitive. I told her she didn’t have to: “Sadie and Josh’s mums invite me.”

“That’s fine, but it’s important to show gratitude.”

I stared at the white blobs. She was going to give Sheryl Sugarman and Alice a prize for being able to stand me. I went up to my room and waited until she called me down and loaded Wendy, Lilly, me and two trays of Saran-Wrapped perogies in the car and drove away.

We weren’t on the road that long before I forgot where we were going. Couldn’t remember if it was bowling or skating; one time we talked about bowling.

Or a meeting in someone’s house. Phyllis—my name’s not Phyllis, kept going through my mind, loud then soft, hard then slow. Who was that—where were we when I was Phyllis? Then nothing. It was like one of those blank-space-in-my-brain things. But giant.

We pulled up in front of a house and Mrs. Hood told me to go on. I looked out the window and reached for the door handle, except there was food on my lap, a thing of perogies.

Space.

Something about perogies.

Maybe if I felt around, asked questions like normal—“With these?” I pointed my nose at my lap.

“Yes! Go on, we haven’t got all night. I want to get home by a decent hour. And for goodness’ sake, don’t drop them.”

I walked up the path like a tightrope. I knew the house, I knew where I was; it was in there somewhere. On the tip of my brain. I went up the steps with the tray, wondering if I’d fall. With the perogies in one arm, I got the screen door open, but the tray started to go and
Phyllis!
I yelled that in my brain so God would hear, caught the tray against the door and knocked. Feet banged towards me, inside, and the door swung away and I grabbed hold of the tray with both hands.

Then Eddy, standing there. Eddy. This was Sadie and Eddy’s house. Sadie came up behind and they smiled and said Hey! and What’re you doing here? things like that. I smiled back. I was mostly glad someone I knew opened the door. Sadie and Eddy and me looked at each other and I looked back at the car, opening my mouth in case the reason might come out. Mrs. Hood’s shadow was hunched, her head ducked a bit so she could see me. Because I was supposed to do—something …

Alice came up behind Sadie and Eddy, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, saying, “Hey, what the hell’re you kids doin’, tryin to warm up the neighbourhood? Close the bloody door.” I smiled at her the way she was doing and Sadie and Eddy were doing until I figured out I must’ve made a mistake. Alice bounced her eyebrows at my tray and said, “Hey, are those for me?” and I looked at them.

“I think I’m in the wrong place, I can’t—just a sec,” and I ran back down the stairs to the car.

Mrs. Hood rolled down her window. “What are you doing?”

Just. Nothing. Space. And a tray. “Am I supposed to give these to them?”

Wendy watched straight ahead at the headlights on the road. Her mum leaned across and snapped, “Yes! Of course. Go! What are you doing?”

I turned slowly. Really slowly. Like a hand going in a birdcage, walking, and walking faster because maybe it was that I was in trouble. I came to the door where the three of them were whispering at each other. The screen door opened again and I tried to make my tray into words. “Yeah. These. These’re made—she made them for you.” Sadie and Eddy looked at each other and
duhed
me at the same time. I nodded and laughed because that’s what you do when you’re dozed-out and someone says, “Duh.”

Alice took the perogies. “Wow, that’s terrific! Well, thank, uh, what’s her face for me, that’s very nice of her—you comin’ in or what? It’s colder than a witch’s tit.”

In. “I don’t know.” And I looked back at the car and saw Mrs. Hood’s arm waving or pulling something towards her. Me, maybe. I looked back at Alice. “Um. No.” Eddy laughed. Sadie smacked him and he called her a lez. “‘K. Um. Bye,” and I walked away.

Next was Josh’s place. I did it fast and quick and didn’t talk that much to them.

The day after the perogie night, I called Todd Baker about Harrison Hot Springs and told him how I’d rather do something else with my vacation money. After that, I kept going over it in my head, what I was going to tell Mrs. Hood and how she wasn’t going to get mad. The next day in the afternoon, after Kingdom Hall, I figured it was a good time. She was baking.

Just act natural, I figured.

And I went into the kitchen where she was putting spoonfuls of dough on a cookie sheet. “Um. I was talking to Todd and—I said—well, he said that if I wanted to go do a different kind of thing, I could. And it didn’t have to be Harrison Hot Springs.”

“Uh huh.” She either wasn’t listening or it was going good.

“Like fo—the money they give for me doesn’t have to be for Harrison. I asked him and he said that if I didn’t want to go, that you’d be getting money and that I could get it from you.”

The air went different. She turned and stared. I went over, in my head, what I just said. Her eyes squinted and her teeth opened. “I do not believe what I just heard. Can you have the money? Is that what you just said to me? You want the money? You … have got to be the nosiest, most money-grubbing, intolerable child I ever—Your poor mother. How she ever managed to put up with you. Where you get the nerve is beyond my comprehension—that you dare!” She turned and yanked open the stove door, then went back for her cookie sheet, slammed it inside and banged the door shut. “That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m through dealing with you and I’m calling Todd this afternoon. Maybe your mother could do it for nine years, but I can’t. I can’t stomach this another day,” and she left the kitchen.

Space.

Eilleen Twelve
DECEMBER 1974

I
T’S
S
ATURDAY AFTERNOON
and you’re doing your roots, naked from the waist up, stained towel round your neck, plastic gloves on, covered in nut red goop, consistency of egg white, toothbrush in hand, bristles slimed and ready for the next parting of the hoary sea. You’ve just started working your way towards the back—hate the back, can’t see a bloody thing—when the phone rings. Shit. There’s crap on your ears and on your neck. And it’s ringing again. Shit. Drop your toothbrush in the goop cup. Oh, forget it, just let it ring. Nobody important ever calls you anyway. And you pick up the brush again, but the phone keeps ringing. Thing’s already rung half a dozen times; if you grab it now, they’ll hang up for sure.

Well, crap, hang up!

So you start pulling at the tips of the gloves—and then rinse them off instead. Swish them around and listen to the phone scream fire. Scream
fire
; does that mean someone’s being raped?— what is that thing again, if you’re on fire (dry your hands on your neck towel)—if you’re being towelled, scream rape. If your towel’s screaming—
Hello!?