What We Hold In Our Hands (9 page)

“Look, Peapod,” he'd say, pointing to the fine green seedlings that had appeared beside a row of onions. “You planted those last week. Remember?”

“Are those the carrots?” I'd ask, squatting beside him.

“Yes. And when they get a little bigger, you're in charge of thinning them. All you have to do is pull some out to make them less crowded. I'll let you know when it's time.”

“Okay.” I'd jump up and wrap my arms around his neck.

Squinting into the distance, he'd rise slowly, making my legs leave the ground.

“Don't drop me,” I'd cry, seeking safety in the belief that he never would.

Len wanted me to remember these and other, harder things—how my father's gardening phase hadn't lasted two summers, how I'd felt excluded from his later hobbies and sudden passions, like learning to fly an airplane or photographing blurry horizons. I used to skip rope in the basement for what seemed like hours, waiting for him to emerge from the darkroom he'd built. Sometimes I'd give up and go outside into the fierce sunlight, playing hopscotch on the paving stones that cut across his abandoned garden.

I gave Len a somber, apologetic smile.

He grinned back, ever hopeful. “How about that walk?”

“We already had a walk today. Remember?”

We'd navigated the twisting suburban streets, our heads bowed to the wind, walking silently, our arms a swinging bridge between us, until he'd said, “I'm worried about you.”

“Well, don't worry.” I'd stuffed my hands into my pockets. “I'll be fine. I'm not one of your patients.”

Len believed that unreleased emotions festered inside of us, spawning disease, that our bodies were fluid, and if we kept our emotions moving, we could transform ourselves, creating whatever reality we desired. Only, most of our clients either
couldn't
do this, or didn't want to. Perhaps they sensed my own lack of faith in Len's theories.

“I thought we were going to play cards,” Esty said.

“We are,” said my mother.

Len, who hated card games, yawned and rose from his chair. “Since no one wants to walk, I guess I'll go see what's on
TV
.”

“Maybe Grandma will tell us one of Grandpa's old stories,” I said, feeling a sudden panic at the thought of Len going, reaching out a hand to stop him. I wanted to be able to count on him to never leave me, even though I sometimes felt the urge to leave him, to pack up and go somewhere I'd never been, eyeing the distant horizon.

“What about the schoolteacher with the dreadful secret?” I asked Esty.

“That was so long ago,” she said.

“It sounds like a good one,” Len encouraged her.

“Let me see if I can remember. I want to get the story right, like he would have told it.”

“It won't be the same,” my mother said.

“I'd like to hear it anyway.” Len was standing behind me, working his fingers into my knotted shoulder muscles.

“That feels good,” I said, wishing I could always respond this way to his touch.

“The schoolteacher's name was May Starling,” Esty said. “I remember her name because she had a face like a bird's—delicate features, but her nose stood out like a beak. She wore her blonde hair in a bun and was pretty in a tall, gangly way. She came into the waiting room very standoffish, hardly spoke to me, just sat primly on her seat until Gus was ready to see her. I don't think she knew we were married. Some people didn't. New people mostly. Later I asked Gus about her, and this is what he told me:

“She sat on the other side of his desk and stared at him for what must have been close on a minute, then said, ‘You look like a trustworthy man.'

He said, ‘I try to be.'

She leaned in closer. ‘I'm in perfect health, but I need to talk to someone.'

‘People often come here to talk about their problems,' Gus said.

‘I have a dreadful secret,' she confessed. ‘And it's wearing me down not to be able to tell anyone.'

‘You can tell me,' he offered, laying his hand flat on the desk so that she could touch it if she wanted, if that would help her to get the story out.

She placed her hand close to his, but not touching, and said, ‘Last fall, when I was new to the school, I came in one morning to find a grown man sitting in one of the small chairs. He wasn't one of the other teachers so I thought he must be a father come to talk about his child, but he wasn't that either. He said he worked on the train, and he'd taken my ticket when I was moving here. He said I looked as if I'd been crying, which I probably had been, as I was sad to be leaving home and nervous about my new job. He'd stayed in the same car as long as he could, watching me, deciding he wanted to marry me. Later, at the station, he asked who I was and where I was staying. As he told me this, his dark eyes seemed to burn through mine, and his long fingers gripped the back of the chair. He stood up to grab hold of me and kiss me. I kissed him back. I could have stood there all day kissing him, but I knew my students would soon be arriving, and I couldn't allow myself to be found in such a position. So I broke away and said,
I can't marry you,
even though I thought I might like to if I had some time to get to know him. But he cursed me and pushed over the chair. I was afraid he might hurt me, but he sloped off out the door. The children came in. And the day carried on in the usual manner.

‘I never saw him again. I wanted to, but I didn't know where to find him. When I asked at the train station, they said he'd quit his job. Then a few weeks ago, I saw his ghost in my classroom. It was early morning before the children arrived, the same time he'd come before. I turned around from the blackboard, where I'd been writing a poem for the class, and saw him sitting in the same chair. But when I ran to him, he vanished.

‘And you see, I'm confused. I don't know if it was a real ghost or just my longing for him. I don't know if he died for love of me like in some old song, or if I'm just imagining this whole thing. And I don't know what's wrong with me. How could I have such feelings about a man I hardly know, a man so irrational, maybe even insane?'

“Gus tried to pat her hand where she'd left it on the desk, only now it was a fist, the knuckles white and trembling. He told her she needed to forget about this man whether he was a ghost or alive. She needed to get out with other young people, to go dancing, play cards or tennis. He prescribed a sedative to help her sleep. She thanked him, pressing his hand with her cold thin fingers, and left.

“Gus told me all this shaking his head, not knowing what to make of it. I told him, ‘She's a fine one to be teaching our children. There's something not right about her.' A year later, when the doctor from the next town came for a visit, we discovered that this May Starling had told him her dreadful secret too. So Gus called the new doctor in town, and sure enough, she'd been to see him as well. She'd been running around collecting prescriptions. ‘An addict,' I said. ‘Or maybe she just likes the sympathy,' said Gus. The new doctor was convinced that she really believed her story, that she'd imagined the whole incident out of loneliness. But when she walked out of Gus's office that day, there was defiance in her smile and a flicker of something that said she'd gotten what she wanted.”

Esty's eyes were bright and clear, her face flushed.

“Wow,” Len said. “I'd like to hear some more of Gus's old stories.”

My mother shifted in her chair. “That's not the story Dad used to tell. You've changed it.”

“It needed a little doctoring.” Esty gave her dry, cough-like laugh.

“Grandpa told me she had brown hair like mine.” He'd also told me that she'd held onto his hand the whole time she was telling her story, her fingers trembling inside of his.

“Gus's memory wasn't always the best.”

“I feel sorry for that May Starling,” Len said.

“May Starling!” my mother snorted. “That wasn't even her name. She was a teacher in my school. Her name was May Shaw. She was crazy as a loon and beat our hands with a big ruler whenever she could get away with it.”

“How come I never heard any of this before?” I asked.

“I didn't think anyone was interested in those old stories,” Esty said.

My mother screwed the lid onto the bottle of schnapps. “Let the dead lie is my motto.”

“I guess my father is the exception.”

“Your father was always the exception.”

I thought of my father lying sick in a Seattle hospital. His wife had called to say that he'd died of an aggressive liver cancer. They'd only discovered it a few weeks before it killed him. I'd thanked her for calling, but cursed her afterwards, hating her for not thinking to call me sooner, hating him for dying, for leaving me, hating myself for not having tried harder to keep in touch.

When Gus had died, my mother had invited Esty to live with her, but she'd wanted to stay in her own house. She still slept in the queen-size bed she'd shared with Gus all those years, but now she had a new companion—a small black Beretta she kept under her pillow to help her feel safe. I wondered if she'd be able to use it if she needed to. Her movements were prone to sudden pauses. Even though her mind was sharp, sometimes a glitch in her brain's ability to remember where it wanted to go could strand her body for seconds at a time, making her feel lost and weak.

What power she must have felt in her dream to be able to kill a man so easily, to beat away the memory of her cruel father, replacing him with one who was kinder and well-meaning, just as she'd done when she'd married Gus, leaving behind the harshness of her childhood for his friendly embrace.

“What about that card game?” Esty asked.

“I think I'll call it a night.” Len raised his hand in a parting salute.

“I'll be there in a few minutes,” I called after him.

“There's always time for a quick game of Gin.” My mother pulled the cards from their box. “Feeling lucky, Ma?”

“Luck has very little to do with it.”

“Grandpa used to say he was born lucky,” I said.

As the youngest of eight children, Gus hadn't been needed to help on the farm so he'd been free to finish school and proceed to college on a scholarship. After med school, he'd come home to marry his high school sweetheart, Esty, who'd had trouble accepting her good fortune, which must have felt alien and undeserved. She'd spent the rest of her life knocking wood and throwing salt over her shoulder.

Some of that salt must have blown into my mother's eyes, blinding her, affecting her judgment when it came to choosing a husband. My father had been a good-looking man. In photos he looks tanned and healthy, even in winter, and his grey eyes are wide and dreamy, causing me to wonder what he was thinking.

Esty has a photo of my father and me. He's sitting on the steps of her house, staring into the camera, a kite held loosely in one hand while I hold onto the other. My toddler self is leaning in the direction I want to take him, and our arms create a single line pointing that way. Looking at that picture, I always want him to get up from the steps and follow me, although I can tell from his indolent, sun-struck gaze that he has no intention of rising. Still I imagine myself leading him to my favourite destination, the meadow. The horses stand in the shimmering grasses like creatures from a fairy story. They lower their heads to chew the tall clover. The sun warms their dark flanks. My father lifts me so that I can touch their lustrous coats, which look richer and more enticing than chocolate. He holds me in his arms, making me feel safe, even though one horse's big eyeball glistens only a few inches from mine, and its yellow teeth are bared.

Len thought that he could remedy whatever was wrong in my life, just as he'd fixed things for me when we first met, just as he treated his patients, certain that he knew what was best for all of us. But how could he know? How could I? I didn't even know what my grandmother was feeling; instead I saw shadows from my own life playing over her face. The assumption that I could help anyone with their singular pain seemed as illusory to me as Gus's old magic tricks, designed to dazzle and distract, to win applause and approval.

Perhaps my mother was right that the man in Esty's dream had been Gus, telling his stories, charming his patients, performing his tricks of appearance and disappearance like a child playing peek-a-boo.

“Gin!” Esty fanned out her full hand.

My mother tossed her cards onto the table. “You always win.”

Esty seemed to hold all the luck that my mother was missing, but she'd brought her up to think that it was skill and cleverness she lacked. When my father left, she'd accused her of letting herself go. And I had blamed her too, when I wasn't blaming myself.

I got up from the table, rested a hand on my mother's shoulder, and let my chin brush the top of her head, where the grey was growing back in. “See you in the morning,” I said.

“Goodnight, Karyl.” She touched my hand as I moved away.