Toby (15 page)

The boy cried, absently and automatically, into the clean sheets. He fell asleep with the three of them huddled in the doorway.

Toby sat with his parents for an hour, in front of the television, drinking stale herbal tea. Edward fell asleep.

“Now we have two of them,” whispered Karen.

“Not for long. His mom knows where to find him.”

“No one cares what I think.”

“If you’d seen that place, Mom.”

“These hasty choices, made in confusion, sometimes weakness, they’re the ones that determine everything.”

“Are we still talking about Hugo?”

“If, if. If someone took me aside, forty years ago, and showed me the future.”

“What would you have done, Mom?”

She sipped her tea.

The next day would be busy, as Nahla had received worrisome news about her pregnancy. She was taking at least a few days off, to rest and consider. Karen would handle the morning shift at the Dollard Chien Chaud, and Toby would take the afternoon—with his little helper.

At ten o’clock, he pulled a mottled hunk of foam from the closet and a few sheets from the dryer. Hugo’s head was on one pillow and his arms were on the other, so Toby pulled one of his 1990s sweaters from a drawer and folded it into a ball. He lay listening to the boy’s gentle breaths, his occasional sigh.

A car alarm woke Hugo. Again, he wanted his mom. The boy sat up on the bed, and there was just enough light coming in from outside to see his eyes shining with terror. Toby climbed into bed with Hugo, careful not to squash one of his limbs, and held him and hushed him until he fell asleep.

Karen stood in the doorway,
dressed for work, the cordless telephone at her ear. At first, she was integrated into Toby’s dream about Benjamin Disraeli, who was, at once, Toby. Then she wasn’t in the opposition benches of the House of Commons at all. She was in his bedroom, and Hugo was sitting up and peeking over Toby’s chest.

“Yes, I understand.” Her cheeks were pink. “I
understand
that you, all of you, are slandering my husband and my family. And for what? A few thousand dollars?”

She listened, and pink bloomed to red.

“Who is it, Mom?”

“You’ll next hear from our lawyer,” she said, and pressed the end button.

“We have a lawyer?”

“Hi, pumpkin.” She sat next to Toby and spoke to Hugo. “My name is Karen. I’m so very pleased you’re here. Anything you want, anything at all, just ask.”

The boy stared at Karen. Karen stared at the boy.

Then: “They’re crooks.”

“Who are?” Toby picked up Hugo and followed Karen into the kitchen.

“They’re hatching a scheme, some ridiculous scheme, to besmirch your dad.”

“What are they saying?”

“What do you
think
they’re saying?”

Karen tossed cutlery into the sink, and asked rhetorical questions of no one, and cussed. Toby consulted the insurance policy and phoned the law firm of Whyte, Gladstone and Newman. Garrett said he would look into it and phone back, but he was fairly certain the insurance company would consult and act upon the police and fire department reports.

There was another problem. Karen had two last-minute appointments at two different banks, to look at alternative financing arrangements for the shops, and hoped that Toby could mind the Dollard location all day.

“I was going to call the last of my friends today—my ‘friends’ in the industry. I wanted to follow up on some follow-ups, Mom, for jobs in Saskatchewan.”

“Saskatchewan.”

“In the summer, apparently, it’s lovely. They have rivers.”

“It’s a day or two, Toby. We’re having a crisis here.”

“The longer I wait, the more I’m damaged goods. Today Saskatchewan, tomorrow…I don’t even know. Afghanistan? You have to seem in demand, even if you aren’t. And what about Hugo’s diaper changes? It’s unsanitary.”

“Your dad’ll be there.”

They were in the living room, where the small grandfather clock Edward had inherited donged eight. It was the first Toby had heard from the grandfather clock, which had been broken since 1989. A hunger for coffee arrived with
disappointment, as Toby had forgotten the espresso machine in the condo. Then again, if he were to put the espresso machine on the passenger seat, he would be admitting that his retreat and failure were complete. Of course, his failure
was
complete. The condo was officially for sale. He was officially unemployed. He would be officially sleeping in his parents’ basement if he were not sleeping in his old bedroom with the two-year-old that was, unofficially, his charge. It was deeper than failure. It was trailer park.

Hugo recovered from the scary clock and played with a set of red and white building blocks that predated Lego, building towers until they were too tall to stand on their own. It smelled as though he had filled his diaper again. Potty training would have to commence immediately. Karen stood behind her rocking chair, arms crossed.

“All right, Mom.”

“You’ll do it?”

“If you change Hugo’s diaper. I’ll watch.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Wait for Catherine.”

“If she doesn’t come back?”

“She’ll come back.”

Karen shook her head.

“She has to come back.” It had not occurred to Toby that she might not come back. “Couples who can’t have kids fly to China to adopt. There’s a little boy right here in Dollard. He’ll be bilingual by the time we’re done with him. They’ll jump at the chance.”

Karen picked up Hugo, sniffed him. “Now that’s a smell only a mother could love.”

They were out of white buns at the Chien Chaud, so father, son, and abandoned boy drove west to Costco first. Edward insisted on carrying Hugo on his shoulders from the Chevette through the parking lot. He weaved and wobbled. Hugo gripped his curly salt-and-pepper hair.

“Ouch. Ouch. Third-degree burn there.” Edward veered right and placed his hand on the trunk of a red Hyundai Elantra. He leaned toward the back window, as though he expected Hugo to hop off his shoulders and somehow land on his feet.

“Poney!”

Toby rescued the boy and they went straight to the fluorescent-and-concrete bakery section, and loaded the cart with buns. The Chien Chaud was due to open, so Toby turned the cart around and headed toward the cashiers. Hugo, safely inside the cart, with a strap around his belly, slammed the rails and said, “
Plus vite.
”

“See? You can talk.”

“
Vite, vite.
”

“We shouldn’t run, Hugo. People will think we’re flustered, out of control.”

“Are you kidding me?” said Edward.

Toby at first assumed that Edward was taking issue with the substance of the teaching moment, and he prepared to defend his philosophy on running in public. Instead, bland suede bomber jackets with an elasticized waistband had been kidding Edward. He zipped up one of the jackets and puffed out his chest, which had always been his manner of judging fit and quality. “Eighty-five bucks, for a
suede.
What do you think?”

“Do you want me to answer honestly, Dad?”

“Hey,” said Hugo.

Edward raised his eyebrows. “Hugo loves the look.”

“Hugo’s two.”

“You have two,” said the boy, in English, his first sentence in English. Toby bent down and took Hugo’s hands in his. Hugo looked away and back, shyly. “You have two,” he said again.

“Pronoun trouble, Hugo. Say, ‘I am two years old.’”

“No.”

“Say it: ‘I am two.’”

Hugo did not say it. He pulled his hands from Toby’s and rocked from side to side in the cart, like a blind boy playing the piano. For the first time in days, even months, stretching back farther than Toby could calculate, as he crouched near the suede rack in Costco, he was happy. Not
being happy
on camera because someone might be watching, or satisfied after shooting a clever segment on elevator etiquette, or proud to be with Alicia or on a billboard. But actually happy. It didn’t last long, but it lasted long enough to frighten Toby. This was not his son. He was not a father. He had agreed with Alicia that someday they might want to have children, but both of them had seen friends with babies struggle with their ambitions, their houses strewn with ugly plastic toys, smelling of mashed bananas and diarrhea, and with each passing year the opportunity to have a child faded without Toby feeling an ounce of angst. He would have to take Hugo in to child welfare. It was wrong, even dangerous, to wait a day longer. For all Toby knew, he could be called to Saskatchewan by the end of the week. The last thing he wanted was for Hugo to become attached to him.

Edward turned around. “Be my mirror. There aren’t any mirrors.”

Starting with the collar, Toby moved down the jacket, pointing out obvious signs of mass production and poor quality. The style was not garish but non-existent, really, rectangular and baggy at once, as though the designer wanted to avoid making any statement about the wearer of the garment other than,
No, I have not yet given up completely. But I’m close.
Of course, it would melt in the rain.

At first, Edward appeared wounded. Then, curiously triumphant. “Fine,” he said.

“Fine what, Dad?”

“I’m just gonna walk right out with it.”

“What do you mean?”

Edward leaned in, so only a few inches separated them. The whites of his eyes had been invaded by veins and a yellow tint. “If they don’t have the guts, the integrity, to make something nice, with a statement, like you say, I’m just gonna wear it right on out of here.”

“You mean steal it.”

“I mean walk right out, like I own the place.”

“You can’t.”

“You’re goddamn right I can.”

Hugo clapped. “Goddamn.”

“Please, Dad.”

“Don’t touch the jacket. Don’t touch me. Don’t even look at me.” He winked. “We’ve never met.”

“I’ll buy the jacket. I want to. It’s my gift to you.”

“You’re unemployed,” he said, in a mock Toby voice. “You live in your parents’ basement. And besides, it’s the principle of the thing.”

“What principle? What principle do you mean?”

“Pay for those buns and your mom’ll get you back. Meet me in the parking lot at oh-eleven-hundred.”

Edward walked stiffly into the vacuum cleaner section, and Toby decided not to follow him. He called Karen immediately, for advice and possible rescue, but her phone was off.

The buns were twenty-two dollars. At the checkout, the woman who stacked the buns in a box meant for frozen lasagna recognized Toby from television and asked for his autograph. She was fortyish, with a wedding ring and either a cold sore or a pimple on her lip.

Toby wrote
Love the buns, best wishes
on one of his photos.

“Your son is cute.”

“Actually—”

“His mom is lucky.” A cold breeze circulated near the giant doors, so she wore a winter jacket with white animal hairs about it. She unzipped it to reveal a tight blue T-shirt and continued packing the groceries. “She must be beautiful.”

“I don’t know her well.”

“You’ve drifted apart.”

“Something like that.”

“So you’re a single father.”

“No, no, no.”

“You ever have…” She laughed. “You’re Toby Ménard. Of course you have no free time. But if you ever do, and you want to grab a pint or something. Or I can get my hands on some weed.”

Toby looked at her ring, demonstratively.

“It’s a total sham, a disaster. He’s an idiot. Believe me.”

Hugo pointed to a large woman in the lineup, buying
frozen meat, and repeated a name he had learned from one of Toby’s old books earlier that morning: “Humpty Dumpty.” Toby didn’t know whether to discipline the boy or respond to the checkout woman’s offer of sexual intercourse. He imagined rolling around in a bed full of cat hair. At the same time, he expected to see his father, weeping, escorted by a security guard into a small interview room. But there was no sign of Edward. Not in front of the kosher hot dog stand—vile multinational competitor—or at Customer Service, where the brochures and coupons lay.

“Let me give you my number, Toby.”

“Perfect.”

“Humpty Dumpty!”

Her name was Antoinette, and she wrote her phone number inside a pudgy valentine heart with an arrow through it.

Outside, Edward leaned on the Chevette like Robert Redford.

For the first hour at Le Chien Chaud, Edward and Hugo sat at the table nearest the washroom. Edward read the same four books aloud. Hugo placed his hand on two of Edward’s burn-peeling fingers. Six customers came in, all of them looking for coffee. Toby pulled some dogs out of the freezer and placed them on the rotating oven. He wiped the machines and studied the digital cash register. He found the baroque station he liked, on the satellite radio system, and leaned on the counter. Curious George was following some ducks to a lake. It made for a rare sort of discomfort, the possibility of day passing into day with no bite of ambition, no anxiety about progress, or the lack of it. The story turned out well, with everyone understanding that the monkey’s curiosity,
which had at first seemed troublesome and dangerous, was actually a blessing.

“What if the banks say no to Mom?”

Edward shook his head.

“The house?”

“Leveraged up.”

There were no customers until Randall and Garrett showed up together just after twelve thirty to order far too much food—out of charity. Randall was in the same suit he had worn before, even though there were grease smudges on his neck and about his ears. They joined Edward and Hugo at the table nearest the washroom, and everyone was introduced.

“So, you’re babysitting?” said Randall.

“Something like that,” said Toby.

“Just for the afternoon?”

“No.”

“Who’s his mom again?”

Toby couldn’t bring himself to explain as Hugo stared at him. “A friend. She’s on vacation.”

“A friend?”

Toby tried to change the subject. Since he was in Dollard, with some extra time, maybe they could start up a Benjamin Disraeli Society. Meetings, a lecture series, fashion shows. It seemed a shame, his expertise going to waste.

“That’s a thought,” said Garrett. “I’ve always liked fashion shows.”

“What sort of friend?” said Randall.

Edward placed his palms on the table. “He slept with a wacko Québécoise, and she abandoned her kid with him. That’s pretty much it, right?”

“Thank you, Dad.”

“No way!”

Garrett elbowed Randall, changed the subject. “The legal secretary couldn’t find a precedent for an overturned decision on an insurance payout. They’re pretty careful, those insurance companies.”

To avoid an emotional scene, Karen had neglected to tell Edward that the insurance company had decided to withhold payment on the car. The bank price of the Old-smobile was seven thousand dollars, which Edward had already characterized as out-and-out thievery. Now even
that
wasn’t coming.

“There’s been a decision?”

“Mom found out this morning.”

“And she didn’t tell me? Why?”

“It’s not confirmed.”

“Garrett’s secretary knows and I don’t know? It’s my car.”

“Can we speak about this in the back, Dad, or maybe in the washroom?”

“I’m embarrassing you.”

“Dad.”

“Oh, I’m
embarrassing
you again, in front of your precious friends. I’m so sorry.”

Garrett and Randall investigated their hot dogs with exceptional concentration.

“Who else knows?”

“No one.”

“The Moroccan neighbours, surely they know. The mayor?”

“This is inappropriate.”

Edward opened a ketchup package and threw it at Toby’s face. It hit him in the cheek, but very little, if any, of the sauce escaped. So Edward opened a second package, squeezed
some of the ketchup out, and daubed Toby’s forehead. The ketchup was warm and fragrant. “How about that? Is
that
appropriate?”