Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19 (2 page)

Everything I can think about had been thought by then except the thing that can't be thought – which is, WHERE IS IT, DAD? Where is it? And so while George, who loved Dad, clears his
throat into the mike, I scan the room. It's true, Dad, I'm looking to see if you left a clue in the restaurant although it's totally illogical because you didn't know you were going to die, but
OMG
, where can it be? You cannot have left me with nothing. You cannot have ditched my gala birthday treasure hunt. It's like I'm on a different planet that looks exactly like the old one. I'm supposed to be in Toronto in two days, Dad, so c'mon. Get it together. But there you are, in a box smaller than my backpack. I did an excellent job on the collage.

‘Leonard passed on,' George says, which is what kind of phrase? His voice shakes and he starts again. ‘Leonard passed on while walking around his lake with his beloved Rita, two of his favourite things.' Ouch. Things? ‘He went in a place of beauty and he went in peace.'

Not exactly, George. Because first Leonard said, ‘Let's sit down,' then he said, ‘Oh no,' then he crumpled face first into a pile of logs. Rita told me exact details. ‘I couldn't turn him over,' she said. ‘And you know your dad wasn't that big. That's how I knew he was gone, you know, dead weight.' Nicely put, Rita. The last ten minutes have lasted basically a decade, so how long was Leonard's last minute? Really long, I'm guessing. And how beautiful is face down in a woodpile if you're not a chipmunk?

What you realize when you're in room full of older people, I don't know how old, but at least as old as Joan and Leonard and mostly older, what you realize is that they know life sucks. You look at their faces and they
know
they're putting in time and, yes, they have their little rewards like
TV
and alcohol and pharmaceuticals and yoga. But nothing means anything, you can see it. I don't know if it's always been this way, you can't imagine it has, because then what's with reproduction? Revenge? Anyway. If I needed evidence that the whole human experiment was over, and, really,
I don't, but if I was about to have an optimism seizure, well, all I'd have to do is look around and, uh, no. What does everybody clearly know once they've tried out something supposedly major-life-event like marriage? Dread plus hunger minus ambition. Which is what I feel sitting there not seeing a clue to my fifteenth-birthday treasure hunt. I order another pancake.

A lot of
AA
people have to talk. I'm Bob, I'm Joe, I'm Francine. Really, when you get down to it, the whole funeral thing is a performance event for people who otherwise can't get enough attention. How mean is that, but Bob just said, ‘Leonard saved my life,' and I seriously doubt it because after Leonard's first
AA
meeting, he emailed me to say, ‘Never become an alcoholic. You can't imagine how boring these people are.' Nobody talks about the things he loved, like his Coleman stove, or the things he hated, like Liberals. And nobody talks about how genius he was at treasure hunts which anyone who was really his friend knows. Only one person mentions Paige and me and not how much he loved us.

If you've ever sat on a suitcase with all your weight, that is pancake number six. A woman two tables away smiles at me as I cut it up. I smile back and Joan turns to see and goes all oh-hi, but doesn't look exactly happy. ‘Who's that?' I whisper. ‘Old friend from Timbley,' she says.

I conquer the pancake then crochet like a demon, especially when the drumming involves tambourines. At least they don't know that Paige plays handbells. The lizard tail's almost done, and I'm all about getting it pointy. We're bubbled in our sadness, and it's just about over. Rita invites everyone over to her home, still Leonard's home too, she says, to chant and scatter his ashes. How heinous. But I have to go look through his den. Joan half-smiles at me, as in
it's almost done
, when Rita says our names.
‘I'm so honoured to know Leonard's girls,' she says, holding up Dad. ‘Dree? Paige?'

Joan takes Paige's hand and reaches for mine but when everyone looks at us, she shrinks into her chair. ‘It's okay,' I say and heave myself up. Rita's holding Leonard up again. ‘Did everyone see Dree's beautiful work on Leonard's – '

‘Box,' I say. ‘It's a box.' I hear a hushed
oooh
, possibly internal because once I'm in front of Rita, I know what acid reflux + clamminess + room spinning equals. I totally would have made it, but Rita pulls on my arm. The dam breaks. Unspeakably gross. I actually hear a splash. Joan springs like a panther and propels me to the bathroom like mothers do. It is de finitely one of my top ten disgusting moments – in fact, next to when the hamster exploded, the most disgusting moment of my life – partly as a gastrointestinal event, partly as female bonding ritual. Every female in the building is now in this bathroom. Between rounds two and three I lock my door to keep them out of the cubicle.

‘Is she all right?'

‘We're sure going to miss him.'

‘It's her birthday – '

‘Joan told me –'

‘Well, he tried – '

‘Oh, honey, we're so sorry,' someone says to Paige.

‘She had too many pancakes,' Paige says.

‘She looks so much like him.'

I try to say, Could you leave please? It comes out like
Kwoodlepees
.

The door swings yet again and clickety click, the sound of Rita shoes. ‘Joan, what can I do, I feel
terrible
.'

‘Nothing, Rita. There is nothing you can do.' Joan's voice is flatter than my hair.

‘George can give you a ride to the house.'

‘We won't be going to the house, Rita.'

‘I will,' I try to shout. It's like someone cut the power. Silence.

‘Dree, this is awkward?' Paige whispers through the crack of the door.

Joan's right there too. ‘Honey, your –'

‘Do not say birthday,' I say.

*

Okay, so, hopefully, I'll have no memory of the memorial, but you'd think it would feel significant to have your father's ashes on your lap while sitting in the chair you helped him choose at Sears. But no. Life is totally banal and, surprise, so is death.

Upstairs at Rita's house, weirdly alone because Joan and Paige refused to come, I go through everything, including the computer. My backpack's full of his magazines and office supplies, mostly paper clips which he loved and so had multiple boxes of and also his favourite pens, the Bic
R
3 Fineline. I have his overdue library books and a bunch of little things and I don't want anything uncontained so, yes, the little plaid suitcase comes with me too. It has lived on the bottom shelf of his bookcase forever, home to the most hideous art on the planet. He'd put up the clown painting every few months or the creepy sketch of death and always Joan would say, ‘For god's sake, Leonard, take that damn thing off the wall.' I get the worst jolt of all when I unsnap the case because now I'll never know why he liked these pictures and also, there's the box of teeny white envelopes he used for treasure hunt clues. Blank. I check the side pockets. I check them again. And again. I rifle through the envelopes. He was all excited when he found them at a garage sale. ‘Will you look at
these, girls? We're in business.' Not anymore, Dad. I take the pictures out despite deep empathy for their ugliness and leave them on the shelf for Rita.

Another low rumbly laugh comes from the living room where George and the other Grill guys tell stories and drink George's secret scotch out of coffee mugs. But the
AA
and yoga people provide the main soundtrack. They've merged to chant around the house with Rita. When they finish, they'll scatter ashes. They're almost done. I can feel them closing in.

I pretend to be Paige and sit still, pretend he's still here and try to absorb. There's the tragic plaid wallpaper border I tried to talk him out of. Here's the table he made out of a big door he found somewhere,
my most glorious find
, he called it. I scrape off the ladybug sticker on the doorknob. By tomorrow, everything that's him will disappear. That makes me so tired. I lay my head on the keyboard. It smells like cigarettes. Thank god he didn't quit smoking because how lame would that be, to quit and die anyway. I try to make my face heavy against the computer keys.

A new chant starts up, something like
parcha parcha oh oh oh
. It's now or never. The cardboard box is easy to open but there's a black plastic box inside that's not, then there's the plastic bag of ashes all sealed up with a metal tag. Dad, I hope this doesn't screw up your next life. The tag's impossible and the chanting's almost in my ear, so I stab a pen into the bottom corner of the bag and pull until there's a decent hole. His coffee cup is empty, hopefully because it was a fabulous final cup. There's dust and panic but I get three quarters of a cup of Dad before the invasion.

It's one of my quicker exits. Rita and I slip by each other, her looking at the suitcase I'm carrying in one hand, me focused on keeping the cup in my other hand out of sight. There are long
sticky words, but no one tries to hug me, and I get to the kitchen unscathed.

I think seriously of taking his cappucino machine, but it takes up half of the counter, so, really. There's a toonie on the table and also Rita's purse. It's more of a bag, really, no major clasp on top or anything. Anyway, Rita's all about Buddhism which I think means nothing's real. Also, don't be attached.

So, wow. Five tubes of Lancôme lipstick. Two things of pills, possibly convenient, but no, she'd notice. She's got coupons and a daytimer, her phone and a book that features a suspiciously happy woman on its gold foil cover.
Heavenly Riches
. Talk about tacky. One zippered pocket with change. The other one jammed with paper. No, not paper. Well, yes, paper – but envelope paper. Two teeny white envelopes. For me. Me, Rita, not you. One envelope is empty with symbols on the front, which I so totally get. The other is blank with something small and hard inside. Thank you, Dad. Thank you. A key. A tiny key. Way to go. I totally get this, Dad. First clue, last clue. We're in business.

‘I can take the bus,' I tell George, but all five guys get up at once and put their coffee cups together on a side table. ‘Take 'er easy, buddy,' they say to each other and everyone pats George's shoulder and nods at me. My face is wet, so I must be crying, but my mind's too fixated on the key for emotions. I've got to move. The last thing I see in House of Rita is Leonard's grey sweater hanging on the coat rack. Outside, I let the cold air snap me into place. George comes out, and I give him the suitcase and say I'll be right back. ‘All set?' he says when I come back out with the sweater. He's wiping his eyes and I don't have to say anything all the way home.

Go ahead, people. Scoff. Treasure Hunt sounds très lame, I'm not saying it doesn't, but who cares about terminology. Treasure Hunts mean 1) several clues in public places; 2) random prizes; 3) fun!; 4) secret cleverness. My father was a
TH
genius. This afternoon, most of him was sprinkled around his barbecue, but some of him was sprinkled around:

That was the main clue he left me. That and a key I shouldn't get too excited about but am because that's what you do when that's all there is. It's hanging around my neck until I find the lock. In Churchill Square (Get it? Church + hill + square), I look under the trees, on the stairs, all over the statue and find the usual sinister nothingness the square is known for. What finds me is the saddest security guard in the world. ‘Looks like we're getting more snow,' he says. I sprinkle my cup of Dad as I go. Talk about poignant. I check all the old places. Nothing.

For your own TH:

1. Put Clue 1 on Facebook or hand it to people if everyone's starting together. Let's say Place 1 is the Ghandi statue outside the downtown library. Clue 1 could say: Rhymes with
candy
.

2. At the Ghandi statue, you'll hide Clue 2. And so on.

3. If you know how many people are playing, you can leave little prizes. Good places in Edmonton are pamphlet racks at city hall, plants in MacLab theatre and the sculpture in front of the Winspear.

In September I had an epiphany. Others called it a breakdown because I was fourteen and had recently cut my own hair. Everybody had an opinion. I got caught in a bad energy field (Rita); I was lazy (Joan); predictably nihilistic (Paige); anemic (Grandma Giles); possibly lesbian (Santini, school counsellor); underchallenged (Ms. Riddell, biology teacher); bloody brilliant (Leonard). I knew it was an epiphany because I knew what epiphanies were. The week before, I had happened to be in English 10 when Trenchey talked about epiphanies and he was quasi-interesting for the first and only time. That kind of coincidence has to mean something.