Yesterday (12 page)

“And where’s he taking you this year?” the receptionist says into the phone during what sounds like a less formal conversation than the ones I’ve overheard so far. “Ah, very nice. Lucky you. I’ve only been there once and everything was delicious. But listen, as soon as he’s fi nished with the patient he’s in with, I’ll have him call you back, all right?”

Not ten minutes later Doctor Byrne emerges from his offi ce with a man in a ski jacket. The receptionist nabs the doctor before he can disappear back inside his offi ce and informs him that his wife called. “Thanks, Marjorie,” he says to the receptionist. Then he turns his attention to me and my mother and instructs, “Please come through.”

“I have a wedding anniversary coming up on the weekend,” he explains as my mom and I fi le into this offi ce behind him. “So the pressure’s on.”

“Your anniversary?” my mother asks.

Doctor Byrne pinches at his eyeglasses. “That’s right.

Seven years.”

Since Doctor Byrne looks about sixty, I would have guessed he’d been married for decades. Maybe it’s a second wife and because I’m in no hurry to talk about myself I ask, “Where are you taking her for dinner?” I heard the receptionist ask his wife the same question over the phone.

“A place in Yorkville— the Bellair Café.” Doctor Byrne smiles and launches into a series of questions about my fainting spell and how I’ve been feeling lately.

I admit that I have a headache (which I downplay the intensity of) and tell him it mostly happens when I don’t sleep well, that school’s been a big change from my old one in New Zealand and that I’m feeling a little stressed. The fainting I explain away by emphasizing that I was grossed out by the grasshopper even before my lab partner began slicing it open. I laugh and tell Doctor Byrne that I guess I won’t be going to medical school.

“Well, let’s have a look at you then,” he says. Doctor Byrne listens to my heart, checks my glands, shines a light inside my ears and then whips out a tongue depressor and peers down my throat.

“I can feel the slight fever,” he says, directing his comments at my mother. “It could be that she’s fi ghting something off but since there are no other persistent symptoms for the moment I’m just going to suggest that she try to get more rest and drink plenty of fl uids. You can give her acetaminophen for the fever if that’s bothering her.”

“It’s not,” I tell him.

“And of course if she develops other symptoms, I’d like to see her back here.”

“What about the headaches?” my mother asks.

Doctor Byrne plants his palms on his thighs and looks me directly in the eye the way few people can sustain for long. It reminds me of how Nancy stared at me in the restaurant last Sunday. “Any confusion, Freya?” he asks. “Any dizziness— apart from today, that is?”

“What do you mean by confusion?” As soon as I’ve said it I wish I could take it back. I should’ve just told him no.

Doctor Byrne adjusts his glasses. “Disorientation. Memory problems. Word-fi nding diffi culty. Hallucinations.”

Hallucinations.
Like thinking I’m someplace else. I see my mother scrunch up her shoulders at the word and I quickly shake my head. “Nothing like that. More like confusion over the difference between the metathorax and mesothorax.” Two terms Derrick used in relation to the grasshopper earlier.

“I wouldn’t worry about that unduly.” Doctor Byrne’s eyes twinkle briefl y. “And I can hardly tell you to study harder when you’re already under stress from changing schools and everything else, can I?”

The unnamed everything else is my father’s death. People don’t like to mention it unless there’s no way around it, as though saying it will make it true all over again and send me into shock.

Doctor Byrne asks if I would mind waiting outside for a moment while he speaks to my mother. This must be the part of the visit when he and my mother confer over my stress and grief levels. I leave them alone, relieved to have made it through the examination without giving away too much but fi xating on the other symptoms Doctor Byrne asked me about. The only one I’m not actively suffering from is word-fi nding diffi culty.

I wish he’d explained what kind of condition all the other symptoms could indicate. On the other hand, even if he had I wouldn’t have admitted to the symptoms. No matter what Doctor Byrne— or anyone— says I don’t trust them the way I trust myself. It’s how someone who is paranoid would feel but if I can’t trust my gut I can’t trust anything.

Back in the waiting room I skim through the same copy of
Life
magazine that my mom was looking at before we were called into Doctor Byrne’s offi ce. A girl named Brooke Shields is in a skimpy swimsuit on the cover, striking an uncomfortable-looking pose that’s probably supposed to be sexy. Minutes later my mother joins me and we walk out to the car together. “I want you to take it easy tonight, all right?”

she says. “No homework. No going out. Lie down and relax.

“Humor me,” she adds before I have a chance to reply.

“Okay, okay.” I climb into the car and belt myself in while my mother, on the driver’s side, does the same. “What did Doctor Byrne say after I left?”

My mother’s face is weary. “Nothing new. He thinks you’re a little worn out emotionally and that it’s been taking a physical toll.”

Exactly what I want him and everyone else to think, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep up the pretense.

At home I pop acetaminophen for my head and do as my mother suggests. Curled up on the couch with a glass of chocolate milk beside me on the coffee table and a mixture of music videos and soap operas playing out on the TV, my brain’s on a rampage, alternately running over the details of the bizarre dreams I’ve had in recent weeks and racking my mind for a way to get through to Garren.

There must be a record of what happened to my father on fi le with the Canadian government. It could take a while to get my hands on it but it’s possible my mother clipped one of the newspaper articles about the explosion from the
Herald.

If she did, they’re likely somewhere in her bedroom, which I won’t be able to ransack until she leaves for work tomorrow morning. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that I can’t put off seeing Garren for long. I’ve covered for myself so far but that can’t last. The dreams have begun to break through to my conscious mind.

Aside from the deaths of our fathers, all I have to offer Garren is visions and vague feelings. Without evidence he’s not any more likely to listen to me than he was the last time but I have to try anyway. It’s either that or end up locked in a rubber room.

The day feels endless and fi nally, around six o’clock, while my mother’s cooking dinner and Olivia’s parked safely in front of the TV watching a
Gilligan’s Island
repeat, I scurry up to my mother’s room and ease open each of her dresser drawers. The right-hand drawers are full of her things— underwear, hosiery, pajamas— and the left side contains a selection my father’s clothes that she couldn’t bear to throw away— a Star Wars T-shirt, a navy cashmere sweater, jogging pants and an entire drawer of black socks.

I stare at the Star Wars T-shirt, an illustration of Luke Skywalker wielding a lightsaber emblazoned across its front.

This was one of the Tshirts my dad liked to throw on for doing yard work or other household tasks. He was wearing it with his Adidas running shoes and faded blue jeans the day before he died, mowing the lawn while my mom planted lettuce, ginger and turnips in the garden. I glanced through the kitchen window at the two of them, Mom wrapped up in her seeds and Dad catching sight of me at the window. He paused to wave and I waved back, never dreaming that I’d only have him in my life for another day.

The memory of that moment feels as solid as yesterday, unlike many of my memories from before we arrived in Canada. I still can’t believe he’s gone and I lay my hand on the T-shirt and silently vow,
I’m going to fi nd out what happened to you. I won’t let the truth stay buried.
With my eyes smarting I continue scouring the bedroom. There’s a squat fi ling cabinet stored within the walk-in closet and my heart quickens at the sight of it. I slide open the top drawer, sink my shaking fi ngers inside and discover copies of various fi nancial statements, receipts and contracts, as well as my family’s medical and education records. Disappointingly, the bottom drawer is completely empty. There are other parts of the closet left to search but I’ve taken too long already. Dinner will be ready any minute now and Mom will be sending Olivia up to look for me.

I’ve put my mother through enough today and don’t want to have to scramble for a lie she might not believe. I grind my teeth together as I slip reluctantly out of the room, counting the hours until I can return to fi nish the job.

In the morning I don’t remember my dreams but I feel profoundly unsettled, like I’m standing on a fault line while balancing on one foot. No one needs to come upstairs to urge me to get ready for school. I’m wide awake and moving long before my alarm goes off. Freshly showered and with my makeup done I watch Olivia crunch sleepily on her cereal and my mother brew coffee.

“How are you feeling, Freya?” my mother asks, tapping her nails on her coffee mug.

“Better,” I tell her. “More rested.” Truthfully, the headache’s gone too.

“And the fever?” My mother coasts over to touch my forehead.

“You could just wait for me to answer, you know.” I try to swat her away but she’s already made contact. “I’m old enough to know whether I have a fever or not.”

“You do feel cooler,” she notes.

“I know,” I chirp with only a dash of sarcasm.

My mother’s front teeth peek out from under her top lip in an expression that’s part smile and part grimace. “Try not to faint today.”

I laugh, despite the tension whirring underneath my skin and once my mom and Olivia have gotten into the car and driven off I race back up to my mother’s closet. Overnight I’ve grown more desperate and impatient and I make a mess, pulling things like spare blankets and shoe boxes from their shelves and leaving them abandoned on the carpet. I revisit the fi ling cabinet— and then the dresser and bedside tables— in case I missed the articles the fi rst time around. But maybe she didn’t keep them in the fi rst place and there’s nothing to fi nd.

Just to be thorough, I search my own room in case I’m the one who kept the articles. With my memory full of holes that’s a distinct possibility. However, there’s no sign of them in my room either and as I’m slamming drawers shut it occurs to me that Olivia would have been just as likely to keep any record of the explosion as I would have. I rush into her bedroom, heading straight for her desk where I fi nd the original December 18, 1984, clipping about my father’s death in the top drawer.

GAS EXPLOSION CLAIMS LIFE OF

STAFF REPORTER

A Canadian diplomat and a local employee of the Canadian High Commission were killed in an afternoon gas explosion late yesterday afternoon.

Firefi ghters were called to the house at 37 Coventry Terrace in Howick at approximately 5:30 p.m. after witnesses reported that property had been leveled by a blast and was engulfed in fl ames.

Marcy Cooper, who lives directly across the street from the destroyed home, said, “The sky lit up and the whole house collapsed in an instant, taking a car that had just pulled into the driveway with it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was like something out of a nightmare.”

The incident claimed the lives of Luca Kallas, a senior fi nance offi cer with the Canadian High Commission, and Brenda O’Callaghan, one of the owners of the Coventry Terrace home who had been locally employed by the High Commission as a property assistant. Two other residents of the Howick neighborhood were injured by fl ying glass and debris and were taken to Auckland Hospital for treatment.

Fire offi cials believe a natural gas leak caused the explosion. Investigators are continuing to probe the cause of the incident.

I slip the article into my biology binder to protect it from the elements and decide to leave two notes on the kitchen table in case I’m not home before Olivia or my mother arrives back at the house. The note to Olivia says I might be a few minutes late again. I apologize and tell her that something came up but that I’ll be home as soon as I can. My mother’s note is more diffi cult because I know she’ll feel I’m letting her down. If I’m home in time I’ll destroy both notes, but if I’m not my mother will be as angry with me as Garren was when I see her later. With that in mind I jot down: Mom,

There’s something very important that I had to do after school, which is why I’m not home with Olivia. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more than that I’m helping a friend in trouble but I’ve made a promise. I know I’ll probably be grounded and won’t argue.

Freya

I fold the note into thirds and shove it into one of the envelopes my mother keeps to mail off bills, scrawling “Mom”

across the front of it and then sealing it so that Olivia won’t be able to cheat and read my words. Since most of what I’ve written is a lie it wouldn’t really matter whether she reads my mother’s note but if I
were
telling the truth I’m sure I’d be secretive.

With the notes fi nished I dart into the family room and pull a 4 x 6 snap of my family (my mother in the center of the frame with her left arm sloped around my father and her right around my grandfather, Olivia and me standing in front of the trio, me hunching down so I don’t block my dad’s face) out of its mantelpiece frame. I hide the empty metallic frame underneath the TV stand and hope that no one will have a chance to notice it missing.

There’s no photograph of my father in the
Herald
article so technically the family photo doesn’t prove anything but it can’t hurt for Garren to see me with my parents and little sister when he’s been thinking of me as someone who’s toy-ing with him. The blond version of myself in the photograph doesn’t look evil or conniving; she looks happy and loved.