The Better Mother (35 page)

Cindy is looking for him. This he knows without even thinking. He can feel her confusion, her fear that Danny might know it was she who suggested that Frank be forced to take a leave of absence. He can see her crunching in on herself, her shoulders curling forward, her hands twisting in her lap. He’s angry, and he’s sure Cindy knows it as she sits at her scratched, thinly varnished desk at work, as she rides the bus home, as she washes her office clothes by hand in the double-depth sink in the basement.

It’s afternoon, and Danny closes the door to Frank’s bedroom, where Frank is sleeping underneath two blankets and wearing flannel pyjamas over his long johns. Once in the hall, Danny looks into the bathroom, at the rubber gloves and toilet brush set out in the middle of the floor to remind him that he needs to clean it today. The phone rings.

The only calls Frank ever gets these days are the daily check-ins from his mother, and calls from his doctor’s office reminding him of his appointment the next day. Danny checks his watch. Too early for Frank’s mother, and he doesn’t think Frank has another appointment for at least five days. He picks up the phone.

Even if she never uttered a syllable, he could tell who she is by the sound of her breathing, by that particular hitch in her exhale.

“Danny? Is that you?”

“Cindy,” he says, “why are you calling here?”

“Is Frank all right?”

“No, of course not. He’s doing shitty, if you really want to know. I’m paying his bills, cleaning the sores on his back, even holding him up when he sits on the toilet. Does that sound like he’s all right?” His voice has reached that pitch where it will soon be incomprehensible; the sound of it panics even him.

Her words come out as half-sobs. “I didn’t know.”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Don’t call here again.”

Cindy half whispers, and it comes out like a hiss. “I called to say that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get him fired. I just thought the bank should know, that’s all. It’s not my fault they made him leave. Why would I hurt him? He’s my friend too.”

“Some friend.”

“Danny, I’m asking you to forgive me.”

He turns to look at the closed bedroom door, wondering if Frank is awake and can hear what he’s saying. “Fine. I forgive you.”

“You don’t mean it. I can tell.”

Danny twirls the phone cord around his fingers and thinks about hanging up, but he can’t.

“You know what?” Cindy’s voice rises and she talks slowly, measuring every word she lets loose. “There’s plenty for me to forgive too. How about you leaving me alone with Mom and Dad? How about you running away so you could live the life you wanted? What about me? Do you ever think
that I might like something different too? Do you think I like living at home, having to explain where I’ve been every time I come home after nine o’clock? I’m almost thirty years old. How do you think that makes me feel? Or do you think about me at all?”

And Danny wants to say that he didn’t know, but the truth is that he did. Everything she has said is true, but if Danny were ignorant, perhaps he wouldn’t need to be forgiven. He knew he was leaving Cindy. He knew he wasn’t trying to make his parents even a little bit happy. He knew that he was sacrificing his sister for his own imperfect freedom. As long as she never mentioned it, though, he could pretend that he hadn’t run away and ignored the needs of everyone else. But now there is no such comfort.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Really.”

“Good. Now we’re even. I have to go.” And she hangs up, the click of the line sounding tangibly final.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry
plays in his ears as he walks to the bathroom and picks up the toilet brush. He hears Frank rustling in the bedroom and he wants to yell, “Just a minute! I just need a minute!” But yelling would startle Frank, send his heart racing in a way that isn’t good for anyone, so Danny sits on the edge of the tub and waits until Frank’s voice begins calling through the door.

It happens so gradually—like the light changing from night to dawn—that Danny doesn’t notice until the very end, until the change on Frank’s face is almost complete.

They are in Frank’s bed. Danny is curled around him, warming him with his own body. Lately, Frank has been
unable to fall asleep, shivering no matter how high the heat is, no matter how many blankets cover him from chin to toes. Danny is dozing, falling in and out of sleep, waking when he hears a noise in the street, sleeping again when he realizes the noise is only a passing car, or the soft footsteps of a cat on the windowsill. Frank breathes quickly and then slowly, and the breaths themselves seem to skip and stutter, but Danny is used to this; he simply holds him tighter and puts his feet on Frank’s icy ones.

For a time, their breathing in tandem soothes Danny, and he sleeps undisturbed.

He wakes suddenly and opens his eyes to see the pink light of early morning through the window. He sits up, propped on one elbow as he groggily tries to figure out what has woken him. There are no noises in the street outside, no thumping from the upstairs neighbours, not even the hum of the refrigerator. The silence is absolute.

And there it is, the thing that has shaken him out of sleep. The silence. The total absence of sound.

He leans over Frank, puts his fingers to his neck. Nothing. He turns his head toward him, holds his hand over his open mouth, hoping to feel the heat of his breath. Nothing. He touches his forehead. Cool, like a cup of coffee left out overnight.

Then Frank shudders, and a long, wheezing breath escapes from his body. His eyelids flutter, and he looks once at Danny, his eyes travelling over his face, stopping at his nose, his cheeks, his mouth. Danny holds his head with both hands, afraid to let go.

“What are you thinking?” Danny whispers. “Tell me.”

Frank shudders again, and his eyes close. He grows limp, and his thin, thin body falls into Danny’s. He lies motionless, his mouth still open, his head resting against Danny’s stomach.

Strange how these things are always so quiet. Danny wonders why the earth isn’t groaning underneath them, why thunder and lightning aren’t crashing outside. Looking at Frank, being this close to the knife’s edge, this close to an emptiness he has never seen before, Danny feels that he is being sucked away, as if a vacuum is pulling at him inexorably. He closes his own eyes and forces himself to count to ten before opening them again.

When Danny finally looks up, he sees that dawn has passed and the morning has fully arrived. As usual, he never saw the transition.

THE UNTOLD
1958

On a sweltering Saturday afternoon, Betty stood at the counter in the curio shop, turning all the bills in the cash register face-up. She was rarely alone here, but Doug had to help a friend move, and the children were at Uncle Kwan’s, celebrating the birthday of one of his impeccably dressed daughters. Betty could never remember their names, mostly because their perfection left a gritty, bitter taste in her mouth. In front of others, though, she smiled and said her poor memory was the
result of the girls’ prettiness; who could tell them apart?

She sat on the stool, but stood up again when someone walked by the big front window.
Look busy
, she thought.
Do something
. Bending down, she spied a box of unsorted lacquered chopsticks, red and black and ivory. She lined them up on the counter and began matching the pairs, careful to check that each pair was the same length. She hummed.

Betty jumped and looked up when the bells on the door rang violently. This was no pretty tinkle from someone opening the door politely; this was the sound of someone pushing with all her body weight, someone unafraid to announce her arrival.

A tall woman, with sunglasses dangling from a gold chain around her neck, stepped into the shop. She wore a red shirtdress, tightly belted at the waist, and high, delicate, white sandals. Betty stared at the glossy brown curls brushed away from her face and clustered around the back of her head. She put a hand to her own black bobbed hair, which Doug had cut last week, making five snips and declaring that it looked finished enough for him.

The woman looked up and down the aisles, her eyes narrowing in the dim of the store.

“Can I help you?” Betty asked.

She stepped forward and smiled. Betty could see that a fine, translucent dust covered her whole face in a smooth, even layer.

“Yes, honey. I need some paper fans, the more colourful, the better. And since I’m here, I may as well stock up on some of those red silk slippers too. The men love those.” She winked, and Betty fought the urge to wink back.

As Betty gathered up a pile of fans, the woman leaned on the counter and said, “I never tell any of the other girls about this place. I don’t want them copying my act, you know.”

“Your act?”

The woman inspected her red-painted fingernails. “I’m a dancer, sweetheart.” She picked up a fan, unfolded it and began waving it at the base of her neck. “And not the respectable kind either.”

Before Betty could say anything, this woman in red grabbed a second fan and struck a pose, holding one in front of her breasts and the other by her pelvis. She fluttered her hands and the fans seemed to magically hide and reveal all at the same time. She hummed a song Betty used to hear on the radio. Betty blushed, realizing that if this woman had been naked, she would have seen the side of her breast, the skin below her belly button.

Chuckling, the woman threw the fans back down on the counter. “I can tell you enjoyed that. You should come to the club sometime, catch my show.”

Betty giggled, shaking her head. “Oh no, I could never do that.”

“Why not? Lots of ladies come to watch us dance, and not always with their husbands either.”

“Thank you for inviting me, but I am very busy. My children need a lot of attention, you know, especially my son.” Inexplicably, Betty wanted to tell this woman something about herself, something that promised to be as revealing as the short dance she had just witnessed. She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “My husband thinks I baby him. Maybe he’s right.”

“Honey, you should just tell your husband where he can stick it. You’re the mother here. You know what your kids need.”

Betty swallowed a lump in her throat before answering. “I don’t like to argue.”

A loud laugh erupted from the woman’s mouth. “You’ll never get what you want until you learn to speak up. Trust me.”

“Do you have children?” Betty asked, trying to change the subject.

The woman pursed her lipsticked mouth and looked out the front window. “No, not a chance,” she muttered.

She continued to stare at the street until Betty began to wonder if she had gone too far. Or maybe the woman didn’t want to buy the slippers after all. A car slowly drove by, and a beam of sunlight flashed off its windshield and into the shop’s front window. Betty blinked.

When she opened her eyes, the woman’s smile was brilliant.
How on earth does someone have teeth that white and still eat food?
Betty thought. On the counter was a neat pile of bills in exchange for the fans and slippers.

As she turned away, the woman said, “Well, if you change your mind, I’m at the Shanghai Junk for the rest of the month. They call me the Siamese Kitten. It’s some show, I tell you.” She pointed her finger at Betty’s nose and, instantly, Betty felt guilty, as if that sharply manicured nail were ferreting out some unexpressed desire buried deep in her body. “I won’t tell your husband. I promise.” And she walked out, laughing, her heels on the wooden floor echoing through the shop.

—

Five days passed. Betty cleaned the big house in Shaughnessy with energy that surprised her. She found herself on her hands and knees, scrubbing the bathroom floor, alarmed at the mildew and dust that gathered in the rough grout between tiles. In the bedrooms, she flipped mattresses on her own, flinging them up and feeling a rush of air as they fell back on their frames. Mrs. Lehmann said nothing, just shook her head as Betty scurried into the kitchen for more hot water, her breath coming hard and fast.

As she was eating lunch, she ran a finger up her leg and wondered how it would feel encased in a fishnet stocking. How bright would a woman’s skin be under harsh spotlights? Would the howls of men distract her or egg her on? Before the thoughts could form any further, Betty swallowed the rest of her sandwich and ran upstairs with a handful of newspaper to polish the mirrors.

That afternoon, she walked through Chinatown, intending only to buy a whole chicken and some fresh noodles. She didn’t even have time for a short visit at the shop. But on her way to Superior Poultry, she circled the block that housed the Shanghai Junk. From the corner, she could see its neon sign, could even hear it buzz if she closed her ears to the traffic and concentrated. “ ‘It’s some show,’ ” she whispered, as she pretended to look at the mustard greens spread out on an overturned wooden box. The street merchant, a sharp-eyed old man, stared at her moving lips.

If she turned her head to the right, she would see the theatre’s front door. But she was afraid to look, afraid that the place was spewing irresistible magic and that she would be
drawn in, whether she struggled or not. Her hand in her jacket pocket grew hot, and she could feel the damp bits of lint lining the seams.

One look
, she thought.
It won’t hurt
. She stared at the black-painted door. And took a step forward.

Betty stood at the entrance, her hands clamped to her sides. Better to not draw attention to herself, especially here in Chinatown, where her husband’s friends seemed to be planted everywhere—in dark doorways, leaning against brick walls that swallowed up their dark clothes. There was a small gap between the club and the building next door, and Betty slipped into it for a moment, her eyes travelling up and down the street slowly, looking for any trace of someone familiar. After several minutes, with her hands brushing the exterior wall, she backed into the Shanghai Junk.

The sensation: like floating. The cool air lifted the hairs on her arms.