Mud Girl (16 page)

But then there's Fiona, and Abi's next thought is how it's amazing that manners and kindness can come and go with just a generation or two.

There's a sound from Dad, and she looks at him. “Could you make some…coffee, please?” he asks. He looks at her through the black rims, and she feels as if it's the first time in too long that he can actually see her.

“Of course,” she says, hoping the quickened beating of her heart isn't too obvious. She can't help but stand there and stare at him for a moment before putting on the kettle.
Coffee. He asked for coffee.
She puts spoonfuls of instant in a couple of mugs, pulls down an extra for herself. Celebrate! Then goes back to putting the milk in the fridge, and a tub of margarine.

She wonders if Colm doesn't add a few things to the boxes. Probably does it in such a way that Fiona wouldn't know. Can imagine her yelling at him – why would he do such a thing?

When Abi looks out the window again, there she is, in the car, smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke rings through the open window, moving her head in time to the music. She turns quickly and sees Abi watching and a small smile comes
to her face. Abi moves away from the window, wishing she hadn't been spotted, and moments later there's the slam of the car door, and Fiona is in the doorway, hand on hip, and looking even more impatient than before. She watches her grandfather and Dad, a sneer on her face.

“So,” she says. Her voice is low, but Abi knows she's talking to her. “You know Stu Stevenson?”

Abi has to think for a moment. Stu – he's in English class too. The guy with the bleached-out yellow hair and the shy smile.

“Well, do you?”

Abi nods, unsure of what to expect from Fiona. “I've seen him looking at you in class,” she goes on. “I think he likes you.”

Abi is quite certain that no matter what she says, Fiona is quite capable of turning her words into something she never intended. So she says nothing.

“He's a loser,” says Fiona. “But even you probably know that already. Do you know he lives in a foster home? And he's lived in more than you can count. I don't think anybody wants him.” The way Fiona moves her eyes around the kitchen and the living room cause Abi to think that Fiona feels the same way about her.

Abi tries to put together what she knows about Stu. Stu struggles, that's what she remembers most. He does exams with
the principal because he needs twice the allotted time. Now Abi remembers the word dyslexic. And he always chews his nails when Mr. T, English teacher, asks questions. Except Mr. T never asks Stu, so he doesn't need to go without those nails.

“How do you know that? About the foster homes?” is all Abi can think of to say to Fiona.

Fiona's eyes rest on her now. “Everybody knows that,” says Fiona.

“Not everybody,” says Abi. “Only the people who have nothing better to do than to stick their nose into other people's homes.” She's surprised even herself.

Fiona turns to her grandfather. “When are we getting out of here?” And she stands, glaring at him as he goes on with his chess move and explains some other part of the game. He waits for Dad, who takes a hand from his temples to move a pawn.

Fiona huffs and puffs.
Won't take much to blow this house down.
Abi likes how Colm ignores her, even as she edges toward the door.

Another huff.

Colm moves a knight, one, two, three.

And a puff.

“Okay, girl,” he says grudgingly. “You can hitch up the horses.”

Fiona flounces off back to the car, and Colm looks up from the table to meet Abi's eyes. “Don't listen to her, and
don't be taking any of her words to heart. I like that young man, Stu. He lives near our house.” He stands and rests a hand on Dad's shoulder. “I'll be seeing you, Will. Practice with Aba.” He nods at her, his eyes entrusting her with something, though she's not sure exactly what.

She waits until they're gone to open the cupboard door. Dad moves another pawn, and sits waiting. He takes off the glasses and massages the bridge of his nose, rubs at his eyes.

“He's gone, Dad,” she says.
Please, please, put those glasses back on.

“Oh, I know,” he answers easily, sliding the glasses back into place. “I'll be ready for him next time.”

Abi warms up his coffee, pours in more fresh whole milk. Dad smiles at her, as close to a real full smile as she's seen in too long. As they drink, she sees his eyes sliding to the side of the table where he's pushed the chessboard.

“Are you trying to figure out what move Colm is going to make next?” she asks, and something in her feels like a wriggling puppy, so happy his mind has a crack, an opening.

He nods, sipping. “He's going to do something with that knight.” His hand hovers over the little green horse head. “Then I could move my bishop here…like this, see?”

She sees a light in Dad's eye and hears something in his voice that she hasn't heard for a long time. Something is awakening in him.

The screen door swings open behind her. Dad raises his head to look. Abi sees a flash of his awake eyes. Then:

“You!” he exclaims. “Holy Mother of God – it's…” And he stops, as if he can't say the name. “You,” he says again.

Abi goes cold.

Ernestine stands in the doorway, her face the colour of tripe.

Mum used to boil up a piece of tripe now and then. Cow's belly. The colour of grubs. She always ate it alone.
This is the thought that passes through Abi's head when she sees Ernestine's face. The colour of tripe.

Ghosts

D
ad walks around the table with a hand placed on the Arborite. Then he gets close to Ernestine.
Close
, standing right in front of her as if he doesn't believe she's there. One of those “touch it and it'll disappear” things. She looks him squarely in the eyes, but Abi can see she's shaking as if a winter's gust followed her through the door. With those heels, she's not much shorter than he is.

Suddenly, Dad shakes his head. Hard. And he turns back, this time to his chair in the living room and pulls his glasses off as he sinks into it. Looks out toward the river, through the back window. Abi watches him like that for long seconds, until she realizes she's waiting for him to turn around, until she realizes he's not going to. When she turns to Ernestine,
she's not moved – just a horrible look has come over her face, sort of twisted and indescribably sad.

“I'd better go,” she says in a whisper. “Oh, I'm so sorry.”

She leaves, before Abi's numbed mind can think of anything to say, and after she's gone, there's a deadness to the house, with Dad sunken in his chair,
TV
still off, and Abi with this feeling that she'll never see Ernestine again. Maybe never see Jude again after yesterday. Or Amanda. Back to being just her and Dad.
Me. I.

She moves that stupid knight of Colm's. Maybe he'll never come back either. That would make Fiona happy! Oh yeah, it would.

Can't say how long she sits at the table. Abi finds she's watching Dad, waiting for him to move, waiting for that light in him to come back. It hadn't been only in his eyes; it had been in his movements, too, in the crinkle of his lip in a half-smile. Made her remember that he used to be even funny sometimes. Now it's darkness and stillness.

She remembers talking with Ernestine about falling in love, and about the pain of it…those odd words of hers: “
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea…maybe I shouldn't be here…
” Those words had something to do with this; there was something between Ernestine and Dad.

So why had Ernestine – no,
Mary
 – shown up that first day on the wharf? All that Big Sister talk…it was all
rubbish
, as Mum used to say.

Abi feels a sudden thrust of yearning to hear that word again.
Rubbish…
and you could still hear the touch of accent Mum had worked to erase.

Images come to Abi now: Ernestine's face all twisted over Dad, deaf in his chair that day, or all anxious as he leaned over the river. So
why
had she come along? Why?

Adults did just whatever they wanted to do. They acted as if they cared, but there was always something else going on – something they thought you were too young to hear or you wouldn't understand.

Abi understood all right. Or enough for now. Enough to know that she didn't really matter. Everyone thought she was old enough to care for herself – and she was. But you could be old enough, and you could still
matter
, too.

When Abi stands, her chair falls away behind, and she jumps at the crash. She didn't know that her push had so much force. Somehow it makes her even angrier, and makes her feel better too. Angrier and better.

She throws things into that old purse and slams the door. She doesn't bother peeking in the window; she knows he hasn't moved. She doesn't slow until she reaches the bus stop.

The bus arrives, and the driver isn't Horace, and she realizes some part of her was hoping to see him. For what? Some reassurance that there is one adult in her life who is truly
grown-up. No.
Mary. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, what's up with you, Mary???

“Where's Horace?” Abi blurts out. It scares her how her own voice sounds all bleating like that.

And even more so, when she hears the calmness of the driver.

“Horace just started his four-week vacation,” he says evenly, pointing out to Abi that she hasn't yet taken her transfer.

Four weeks!?

She takes a seat toward the back, and leaves the transfer in the dispenser. It bugs her that she feels alone like this. As if she could stand on the bus and shout, scream at people, then pass out, smash her head on the metal tubing that passes over the backs of the seats…and nobody'd care. Somebody – eventually – would drag her off through the back door. No, she knows it wouldn't be like that, not really. The driver would have to rush back, people would hover over her, someone would punch nine-one-one into their cellphone, but the only reason any of them would do it is because, if they didn't, somebody would sue them. Who? Dad?

Abi doesn't realize she's snorted out loud until the thirty-something guy next to her turns to stare.

“Something funny?” he asks, and his voice isn't sarcastic. He actually looks as if he'd like to know what's funny enough to make her laugh out loud.

“Not really,” she says, but wishes there was something to share with him. Even if she could just tell him he makes her hopeful.

He splits a half-grin before he goes back to looking out the window.

“It's an ugly river, isn't it?” Abi says.

“The river's the river,” he says. “People have built ugly things around it.” He doesn't turn around again.

She thinks of her dad painting the back of the house, the river side, that blast of blue.
Nothing can make this house pretty
, Mum said.

The bus turns onto the brief stretch of highway, and then into town, and she pulls the bell when they hit the first string of stores and a bank. She doesn't stop at the first bank, though. She has to walk to the next. Only then is her breathing regular, and she thinks maybe she can get the right words out.
Sometimes you need to do things – even difficult things
. She can hear Mum's voice.

She lays her identification out on the high counter and the woman behind it shows Abi how to fill out the forms. “A chequing account?” she asks.

It's going to cost her almost fifteen dollars for the cheques, but Abi wants them. She likes cheques, she's decided. She wants the plain green-striped ones that look businesslike. No, she doesn't want an address or phone
number on them. She doesn't want to live there, but she doesn't tell the woman that.

“Do you like your job?” Abi asks her.

The woman looks up at Abi from the forms she's filling out, and she pauses before answering as if it's a question she's not thought about in a long time.

“Good benefits,” she says.

“Benefits?”

“You know – medical, dental, insurance, pension plan, vacation. I'm up to four weeks paid vacation now,” she says, pointing out where Abi's to sign. “I go to my folks' cabin for almost a month and lie in the sun.”

“They pay you to do that?”

She smiles. “Pretty soon I'll have so much maternity leave coming to me that I think maybe I will have a baby after all!”

Abi doesn't know what to say to that. Nothing is probably best.

“Do you want a passbook or would you like a monthly statement sent to your home?”

“A passbook, please.”

She fills in a little book, puts it into the computer, which spits numbers onto the first page, and hands it to Abi. “That's it.”

She looks at it. There's the sixty-five dollars, the fifteen eighty-nine for cheques, and the forty-nine eleven that's all hers.