A few days ago, I read MWP’s post on coming up with post topics and one of the ideas was to edit old stuff. Reading these pieces again has got me back into the creative frame of mind and for that I’m so grateful. I know they could stand more editing, some more than others, but I don’t think they are that bad, and to me that is an encouraging thought. When I read this next story this morning, the first real short story I ever wrote and which won a literature journal contest many years ago, I thought to myself, this is a good story. I have it. I can do this. So I’m off to work on the new story I’ve started. Thank you so much for reading these. I have always thought they were just for me, but that’s not nearly as much fun as sharing.

THE BEAUTY OF SNOW FALLING

I wake at first light. The house is quiet except for occasional creaks as it shifts and settles, contracting with the cold. The clock on my night table ticks dolefully. Outside is gray and purple, the sky thick. November isn’t one of my favorite months, dead and overcast, trees black like charred skeletons. Our subdivision is a ghost town – it’s still too soon for the early-bird Sunday employees to slip quietly out of their homes with steaming coffees and creep away in their reluctant cars for work. What a lonely beginning.

John sleeps soundly beside me, and I raise myself up on one arm to look at him. I do this often, and every time I see something different. Today I notice new lines around his eyes – they’re starting to form a faint intricate web on his face – and I want to touch him, to trace them around his nose and beside his mouth. I don’t dare for fear of waking him. Instead I slide cautiously out of bed and shuffle into my slippers. I need to make breakfast so we can eat in time to get to Mass at 8:30. My gaze shifts over to the clothes laid out on the chair beside the closet, ready for me to wear to church. John bought the skirt and blouse for me my last birthday – not what I would have chosen, the colors are all wrong. Quietly, I hang them back in the closet and choose a dress instead. John shifts in his sleep.

* * *

I can’t pray. John kneels in fervent piety, hands folded, head bowed, his back straight. He kneels until Mass begins, something I must do too. He says it makes me look lazy if I lean back on the pew. My back aches from the extra pounds I’ve put on since I quit my job at the public library to paint at home after the success at the craft shows last year. Originally, my painting had begun as a casual interest, taking classes and exhibiting pieces in the local craft shows. But after the offers that came and the encouragement from my instructor, I finally felt confident enough to paint on my own, which meant I needed a lot of time to myself to practice. It bothers me to think that John was right about me quitting the library, that I would regret being constantly holed up in the house. John had been happy my shows were successful, but he was not pleased when I told him I wanted to work at it full time in the spare bedroom. Nor was he especially happy when I had gone and given the library my notice anyway, wanting to be my own person, to do my own thing. He was right, though – being in the house all day only reminds me more of the fact that we have no children to fill the emptiness.

This thought strikes a familiar barren chord in me, and I let my mind play painfully along. Not being able to have children is still another thing that makes me feel I’ve failed John in our marriage of sixteen years. The disappointment on his face overshadowed mine the day we found out we could never have kids of our own. For John, any other way was out of the question: the children would either be ours or they wouldn’t and he preferred to have none at all, in that case. I can’t help but wonder what God was thinking.

I dwell on the gnawing pain in my back instead. The only thing I can think is to offer it up to God as John says, and I do, and listen to the mesmeric whirring of the ceiling fans, the occasional cough and sniffle and the murmur of the old woman praying her rosary behind me. For me, she’s become a piece of the church, as constant as the statue of Mary in the corner or the red eternity candle on the wall. Sometimes at night before I fall asleep, I can hear her muttering the Litany to Our Lady. “Virgin most merciful, Virgin most faithful, Mirror of Justice….” And then I say it, repeating, trying to make it meaningful, trying to be pious, like John.

My mind is blank. The thought of Communion makes me nervous, even though it’s a ritual I’ve participated in for years on end. It’s a mortal sin to take if you’re not right with God. I wonder if that’s so important to people still; it burns an imprint on my soul. “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.” The words take on new meaning. Instead I concentrate on the thick mingling aroma of candles and incense, essence of previous masses. I like the smell. It envelopes me, like two comfortable arms, makes me dizzy with time and tradition, reminds me of times past.

“I’m John,” he had said as I entered the room, “I’m teaching the catechism classes, welcome.” I nodded shyly and sat down. It was my first meeting. I had gone with a friend. I was nervous and apprehensive, afraid of commitment and also of my mother’s imminent accusations of betrayal of my Protestant upbringing.

John had beamed when he approached me afterward. Young and handsome, he was twenty-three, slim and dark-haired, with clear brown eyes that were warm and inviting. He smiled confidently and I was attracted to his vitality, his vigorous energy and ambition. I felt almost trapped in it – his aura encompassed me and overwhelmed my timid interior.

My mother hadn’t exploded the way I thought she would when I became a Catholic. In fact, she said nothing at all. She remained a quiet martyr, betrayed and wounded. I had done her a great disservice by undoing what she’d dutifully taken years to instil. She didn’t come to our wedding, which happened in John’s church, seven months later.

* * *

Mass is a blur. I’m conscious of making an effort to focus, staring at the others in front of me, watching as they listen to the sermon, as they scold their children with impatient whispers. I feel undeserving, unworthy of being here. Culpability makes my soul writhe, yet memories of warmth and acceptance tempt me still. John sits calmly, reading from his missal, his slim body shifting as we stand and recite the Penitential Rite. I watch him, still as handsome and neat as the day I met him years ago, and I notice again the lines on his face I saw this morning. Time makes everything different.

After Mass I stand beside him, subtle, smiling and murmuring the things he expects me to say. I’m waiting for his hand on my elbow, the nod of his head, and then, after he has updated everyone on his latest paper and accepted the flow of praise from his audience, we leave. I hear my name somewhere in the hubbub of the echoing, fading voices in the sanctuary, an empty faceless sound that lingers in the alcoves of the church.

In the car John smiles, refreshed, as he always is after Mass. For him it’s not only spiritual renewal but social replenishment after a hard week of teaching classes and churning out new ideas he tries on me, still, after years of blank looks and unsatisfying answers.

John glances at me while he drives. “Why can’t you make an effort to get to know them, Irene?” he says. After sixteen years he still asks.

I’ve heard it a million times before about the church women and I never have an answer, or I do, but my thoughts are voiceless. I can’t tell John I don’t feel comfortable with them, that I know they pity my inability to have children, that each longs to be the one who takes me under her authoritative wing, that I would be playing a half-hearted charade in my lack of interest. John knows I won’t answer his question, yet he unfailingly continues to ask it, drilling it into my brain, hoping that one day, perhaps, I’ll wake up and do what he asks.

I used to work with Linda Forbes behind the circulation desk at the library. She’s thirty-four, boisterous, and unmarried, though she frequently dates men and occasionally introduced me to them. We took lunch breaks together and sometimes went out for coffee, a habit we still keep. I admire and covet her tenacity, her boldness.

I invite her over for coffee as soon as we come home from Mass and I’ve changed into comfortable clothes. If not to prove to John that I do have at least one friend, it’s also because I need to break the silence. John will be in the sunroom, rocking in his chair, reading the Catholic Register, then he will move on to the current book he brought home from the university. I’ve stopped asking him what he’s reading. It’s all the same to me.

Linda arrives with fresh, warm chocolate-chip cookies she picked up on the way over. I like being with her, she’s non-judgmental, unexpectant. I don’t have to live up to anything. The door to the sunroom is open, and I move to close it, murmuring that I don’t want to disturb him.

“Linda’s here,” I say, “she’s in the kitchen.” Without looking up John nods, and my gaze rests on the back of his head a moment. His hair is thinning.

Linda’s made herself at home, and she sits at the table, sipping her coffee and munching on one of the cookies. I sit down across from her.

“So, how’s the job?” I ask, careful not to betray my wistfulness. I hide my face in my mug.

“Not as fun without you,” Linda replies, saying what I want to hear. “Your replacement’s a dead bore. You should come by sometime and see him.”

“Him?” I ask, surprised.

“Yeah, his name’s Ernie. Ernie! Can you imagine naming your kid

Ernie?” She laughs.

“Ernie?” I feel my face grow hot and my heart lurches, sending a strange wave of feeling through me. I take a big gulp of coffee and burn my tongue.

“You should come meet him sometime.”

“We’ve met, I think,” I say and take another cookie. My tone stops her from questioning.

John comes from the sunroom as soon as she’s gone. He pours himself a cup of coffee and glances at the cookies.

“I only had two, John. Hey, come here,” I invite him. “Hug me, it’s Sunday.”

He puts his coffee on the counter and comes to me, but his hug is preoccupied.

“John, why don’t we do something special tonight, watch a movie, maybe.” It’s been ages since we did that last.

“Mmm,” he says to his coffee, “maybe after the rosary.”

I nod. The routine of the night awaits me, something dark lurking in the corner of our evening. After supper I will do the dishes while John watches the news, and then we will say the rosary in the living room, kneeling in front of the statue John was given by one of the women in the church. Our rosaries dangle long and crystal from Our Lady’s hands, glimmering like diamonds in the flickering candlelight, until John takes them and hands me mine.

I try to pray, kneeling on a cushion from the couch. The light from the candles beside John illuminates his face, his closed eyes, with an eerie glow. I watch his lips move. His shadow on the wall engulfs mine, swallowing it whole, and I close my eyes. How long can we go on the way we do?

Another day gone, and we don’t watch the movie. Instead, John sits reading in the living room while I paint in the spare bedroom. I’m working on a treescape in winter. The trees I paint are living souls, silhouetted against a leaden sky, reaching upward with naked, searching limbs. Grey November clouds hang low and pregnant with snow. The painting doesn’t uplift or free me as I’d hoped. It only reflects the very thing I’m trying to escape.

Soon we’ll go to bed. I’ll have changed and washed and climbed into bed when he comes into the room. I’ll watch him peel off his clothes. His body is taut, skin stretched sparingly over strong muscles that move in perpetual, fluid patterns. I envy his health and attractiveness, his willpower and his regimental exercise. At forty he hasn’t changed much – he’s still as desirable to me as when we first met.

I wait in bed, facing my night table, willing him to turn me over and kiss me, tell me he loves me, but he slides in with the fresh smell of toothpaste and soap, kisses the back of my head and is soon asleep.

* * *

John’s already left for the university by the time I get up. Sunlight slides in through the window, bends onto my night table. It’s a welcome change of weather, and immediately my mood is lifted. Ken and Ruthie are coming this afternoon after Ruth’s pottery classes and staying for supper. I should tidy up and maybe bake something before I stick the roast in the oven.

John’s office is the only room I never clean. I open the door slightly and peer in. It smells faintly of pipe tobacco and old books and is in meticulous order. Since we’ve been in this house, he has never changed this room. Only the collection of books has changed, grown larger and older. The uniformity burns me. I’m overcome with the notion to destroy it, to disarrange everything, to smash something, or tear up one of his precious books. I’m tired of order.

I have to clean the windows; maybe it’s the feeling of claustrophobia, the need to have them appear as though they weren’t there. This house feels uncomfortably small. The sun’s gone. I feel the monotony of the weather weigh me down, loneliness washes over me. The trees outside are bereft of leaves. It’s the type of day that’s cold and sharp, the crisp air prophetic. Soon the dead grass will be white with snow, a change I welcome; there’s something about an untrodden blanket of snow that’s exciting in its purity, beautiful in its inspiration. Until then, I am a sad lump in my cozy house.

The roast has been defrosting since last night and I prepare it before I leave. I’ve decided that today I’ll drop in at the library and visit Linda, just to get out, maybe join her on her coffee break. I thought to avoid going there, afraid of seeing Ernie again, but the library is my place to go at the same time. Without it, I’d be forever stuck at home.

I’m greeted by a welcome warmth and the pleasantly familiar smell of laminated books when I open the door to the library. Linda calls out to me as I take off my coat. I catch a glimpse of Ernie reshelving books several rows away.

“Hey, just in time for my break,” Linda says. “Come sit with me.” We walk to the lounge and pour ourselves a coffee.

“Reminds me of old times,” I say, smiling as I make myself comfortable in my familiar chair.

“Ernie over there likes to sit in it,” Linda says, crossing her legs. I resist the temptation to remove myself immediately.

“How’s he working out?” I ask.

“In what way?” Linda laughs. “I’ve been trying to get a date with the guy for weeks! He just won’t let up.”

I smile and we chat for a while about the things we remember. Then Ernie walks into the room.

“Hey, Irene,” he says, standing at the door. He doesn’t hide his surprise.

“How’s it going?”

“Oh, same as usual, I guess.” Linda watches us with interest.

“How’s John?”

“He’s fine, Ernie, busy as ever.” There’s a pause as we search for more to say.

“Been painting much at all?”

“Not as much as I should.”

Ernie nods. There’s a silence I never once had with him, significant of time lost.

“So I see you took over my job, eh?” I make a vain effort to tease him. He smiles.

“Guess so.”

Linda stands up and rinses her mug in the sink. “Well, time to get back to work, I guess,” she says and moves past Ernie.

“I better get home, too, I’ve got a roast in the oven.”

“Take care, Irene,” says Ernie, and I wish I hadn’t heard it, but I turn around anyway. There needs to be an end somewhere.

“You too, Ernie.” I escape the awkwardness and walk with Linda to the front. She glances at me.

“That tension was thick enough to slice. Want to let me in on it?”

“Maybe another time,” I say, bundling up.

The late afternoon air is fresh and crisp as I step out and start for home. Everything seems sharp. The trees look blacker, more jagged. I wrap my scarf tighter around my face. I feel strange, nervous, jumpy. Seeing Ernie again doesn’t make anything better after all. Instead, my store of contrition is renewed with his fresh image. He was my secret, something I had all my own, something I did of my own accord. I had met him in painting class. I remember suddenly becoming self-conscious, shy, tucking away loose strands of hair and straightening my sweater. His warmth and familiarity attracted me to him. We began to meet for coffee in the afternoon; he picked me up from the library at the end of my shift. Ernie was so open and candid, so interested. He was everything I needed to fill the void of static afternoons before John came home. He became my confidant. When he decided we had to stop seeing each other, I felt a roaring in my head, a silence too loud to hear his explanation. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” he said once, quoting Eleanor Roosevelt. We’d been talking about my marriage, lying in bed, propped up on our elbows, studying each other’s faces, touching each other’s bodies. He kissed me tenderly, and instead of making love again, he got dressed and I saw him to the door. For a while I had been free, independent, unbridled. Ernie gave me room to breathe, motivation to paint, to be in love again.

* * *

The house smells warm and delicious from the roast. The aroma reminds me of home and my mother. I hear a car in the drive and take out vegetables from the freezer. It’s Ken and Ruthie.

“Hi, Irene,” Ruthie hugs me when I open the door, and catches me off guard. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them. I hug her back, sucking in her warmth and genuineness. She’s eight months pregnant, beautiful and glowing. It feels good to know she is a part of me, a real friend, a part of my past as well as my present.

Ken’s dressed smartly as usual, his tall youthfulness denies the fact that he’s thirty-five. He and Ruthie look good together. Ken takes Ruthie’s coat and hangs it in the closet.

“I’ve got the roast in the oven,” I say and escape to the kitchen to avoid Ken’s scrutinizing gaze. Like John, he’s a professor. He teaches psychology. Ken prides himself on being able to read me, especially through my art. He thinks John is running my life.

Their presence brightens the kitchen and the loneliness I felt before is wiped away.

“How’s the painting going?” Ruthie asks, settling heavily behind the table. She looks good, healthy in her thirty-two years.

“Well, it could be better,” I say. I can’t help but stare at her stomach. “I miss the library, really.”

When John comes home he is happy to receive company and the four of us chat lightly as I slice up the roast and then set the table. I’m quiet during the meal, watching the three of them. It’s at times like these – when John takes over the conversation – that I feel separate from them, unable to communicate, nothing to tell. My story is my own.

* * *

John treasures the moments we can pray together with friends. From his office, he brings two extra rosaries he’s made himself and gives them to Ken and Ruthie. They don’t protest. Except for Ruthie, we kneel in front of the statue of Mary, our shadows flickering, counting the beads. Our voices in unison find a pattern of intonation. For each bead, I chant my own prayer of forgiveness in my head, knowing what I know, feeling what I feel, not worthy to even be kneeling. My guilt runs deep, emphasized by John’s goodness and piety, his fidelity. His religiosity is an immense finger that points accusingly, a jutting finger, like the limbs of the tree outside the living room window. John’s innocent sanctity drives me farther from him. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners….”

When Ken and Ruthie leave, it’s all I can do to keep from holding Ruthie a little too long, hugging Ken a little too hard. I’m starving for what they have.

In the bathroom after brushing my teeth, I can’t keep from scrutinizing myself in the mirror. I notice my own wrinkles, the lines around my eyes and mouth in spite of the cream I smooth on at night. No cosmetic can stop time from passing, yet the ritual of using it remains etched in the schedule of my daily routine. I think of Mass yesterday morning and how next Sunday will be the exact same and how when I see all the children walk out for Sunday school, I will try to suppress my aching maternal instinct, again. Even the statue of Mary with the Christ child is depressing.

John hums in the bathroom as he gets ready for bed and then climbs in beside me. I lie still in my nightgown, my hands folded on my stomach.

“Nice people, Ken and Ruthie, eh?” he muses. “Good people.”

“Yes,” I reply, almost eagerly, needing the conversation. I turn to him. “I wish they lived closer.” Suddenly, I want more than anything to please him, to do what he wants me to do, to be the woman he wishes I was, independent, with my own friends, a stronger woman altogether. I can’t bear to hurt him further, he is so trusting. At the same time, I’ve decided not to tell him about Ernie. Some things really are better left unsaid. “John, I want to go back to work.” I amaze myself with the spontaneity, but I know this is what I really want.

He can’t contain his surprise. “What made you change your mind?” he asks.

“My painting’s not going so well, and I need to get out of the house and do something productive. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea, love.” John smiles and reaches out to smooth my hair. His tenderness startles me but is welcome, and I shift closer to him, carefully, tentatively. It’s been a long time since we’ve been intimate. John kisses me and puts a hand on my waist. I can feel my heart quicken nervously, but in anticipation of his warm limbs and lithe body as he envelopes me in a gentle embrace. Our lovemaking is a release for both of us, and afterward we lie close. I face the window, John nuzzles my neck. With my tears and his sighs, snow begins to fall.

Big swirling flakes drop silently from a white blanket of clouds outside our bedroom window, gradually covering the naked limbs of trees, hiding the deadened grass and dirty street corners. There is serenity in the beauty of snow falling; tomorrow will sparkle with newness, everything will be fresh and clean.

.

BUTTERFLY

When I first saw her it was across about thirty rows of reeking tomato plants in a haze of hot sun and a fog of nauseous pig manure. She had a red bandanna around her head, like a kerchief, and a short ponytail of blonde hair creeping out. Another bandanna covered half her face. Her shorts were khakis, belted around her waist, bunchy and baggy to hide her large thighs. A yellow tee-shirt became gradually untucked as she moved.

Until that day I’d been alone working seemingly endless fields of tomatoes in the blistering July heat, almost crying when I looked up to see that I was never anywhere near finished. I leaned on the smooth handle of my hoe and nursed the hardening, still tender blisters on the palms of my hands. In all the times I stopped to look at her, she never once glanced my way. I’m not even sure how I would have reacted if she had. Alone for a month, I felt socially inept, lost in my thoughts, blank. I had all the time in the world to speculate. A ten-hour day in the fields left much to the imagination.

Our meeting was inevitable, though. Having started at opposite ends, we were bound to meet somewhere in the middle. I stopped again, leaned on my hoe, waves of heat shimmering around my body, closing in on my face. I wiped sweat on my tee-shirt hung loosely around my waist, pulled out a squashed pack of cigarettes and lit one. I started smoking more when I found myself alone in vast fields of tomatoes, no farmer in sight, no cars, no cows to stare at me while I worked – just me on the hoe, sunburned, sweaty, grimy. It was the only thing left to do.

The girl went on. She never looked to see if I was working, never yelled at me to quit taking so many damn breaks. She didn’t pay attention to me at all.

At two, I could make out large sweat stains under her thick arms. She looked tender, reddened from the day’s work. She’d taken her lunch alone, leaving the hoe in her row to mark where she’d been and slowly walking to sit under a tree at the edge of the field. She sat down heavily, pulling the rest of her tee-shirt out of her damp shorts and tugging the bandanna from her face down around her neck. She left the other one in her hair. She reminded me of the lady on a container of Old Dutch, one of those European women who have unyielding though corpulent bodies, thick fingers from hard work. During my after-lunch smoke, I guessed her name. She looked like a Greta.

Her nose was burnt by the end of the day. We quit at five, hot, dirty, stiff. My shoes were full of sand, my socks brown from the dry earth. I watched her from the end of my row load the hoe into her car and sit to remove her shoes, also full of earth, and dust off her legs before she got in. Rings of dirt showed where her socks had been. She untied both bandannas, swung her hair loose from the ponytail, and once more pulled it off her neck. Without a word, she drove away.

I thought about her the whole way home. I’d felt grateful for her company, as distant as it was, grateful for the diversion. During supper I told my parents about her, about the tomato girl who had managed to veil herself in a silent haze of heat and the stench of manure and two dirty red bandannas. In bed I smoked and wanted her to be there the next day, too. At six-thirty the next morning, I woke experiencing a new desire to go to work.

Cloudless. Another scorcher. In the morning I always wore pants because the tomatoes were so thick and wet that when you passed through them, they left you soaked and green and reeking of tomato plants. When they were dry, I stripped down to shorts. A hot gust of wind blew dust in my eyes when I saw her drive up the path to the field. I coughed and lit my morning cigarette and tried to look as though I hadn’t noticed her come.

Maybe that day we’d reach the middle.

It was hard not to watch her. She was sort of like a tank, invincible, never stopping except to take the normal fifteen minute break during which she ate a granola bar and drank what seemed a litre of juice. I smoked, she drank. And when she got up, recapping her jug and retying her shoes, I stayed, resting in the shade, flicking ants off my bare chest.

The ground was hard, crusty: thin coulees ran between the rows of maturing tomatoes. We hadn’t had rain in a long time. With every hot blast of wind, dust made my eyes water, my skin gritty, grimy, mingled with salty sweat. I smoked and panted with exhaustion. My hoe was dull and hardly enough to crack the ground and root out the thistles.

A sharp tinging sound, like metal on rock, caught my attention. She was closer now, she’d been moving at a regular pace. At first she stood there, staring at the ground, probably wishing an alternative to talking to me.

“I broke my hoe,” she said, lowering her bandanna and squinting at me.

“Oh,” I said. I dropped my cigarette and stepped on it.

“Well, what now?” She stood with her hands on her hips. Large sweat stains widened under her arms.

“Let’s have lunch.” I dropped my hoe where I stood, and we walked our separate rows to the edge of the field. “Get your lunch and bring it over,” I said, settling against a tree trunk in the shade. She debated, then walked to her car.

* * *

“You should drink more,” she said, pointing to my juice box. “It’s too hot not to drink. It’s not good for you.”

“Yeah.” Now that we had bridged the gap, I didn’t have anything intelligent to say. “I’m Roy.”

“Andrea.” She took a big bite of her sandwich and brushed an ant off her leg.

“You live around here, Andrea?” I was trying out her name. I liked Andrea better than Greta.

“On Birch Crescent. By Victoria Avenue. You?”

“Victoria Ave.”

“Oh,” she said, and stopped chewing.

We listened to the crickets and flicked ants.

“It’s too hot to work,” I said, lighting up a cigarette and offering her one. She shook her head.

“I don’t mind it too much. I like this.”

“What, the heat? Hoeing?”

“Both. They make me feel like I’m working hard.”

I exhaled and looked her over. Without her bandannas, she didn’t look so mysterious, or like a European peasant woman.

“So, how did you end up in a job like this?” I asked her. I didn’t know what else to say.

This time she checked me out, searching my eyes. “I thought it would be good for losing weight,” she said finally.

“Oh.” I kept my eyes on her face.

“So what do I do about my hoe?”

“Got an extra one in my car. Always do. I’ve broken my hoe before, too.”

Andrea packed up her Tupperware and her jug of juice. I watched her walk to her car. Her shorts were stuck between her thighs. They rode up when she walked.

We worked side by side, hacking out the thistles that went on for rows. The field seemed boundless: a vast, green stinking sea of tomato plants, overrun by thistles and velvet leaf. Sometimes we ditched our hoes and got down on our knees, wrestling with the weeds or picking off tomato bugs. We put them on our hoe and stepped on them. They made orange splotches.

Sometimes I just sat in between rows, smoked and watched her work. She still wore the bandanna over her head, but she’d ditched the one over her face. She had a nice mouth.

By the end of the day, she had a huge blister on her bottom lip.

“I always get them,” she said, when she caught me looking. She was giving me back the hoe to put in my car. “It’s a sun blister.”

I suddenly wanted to tell her I had something, too, to make her feel less awkward, but I couldn’t think of what.

“Hey, you want to go out for coffee or something?” I sat on the front seat of my car and took off my socks and shoes. She was watching a butterfly.

“I can’t,” she said, crossing her arms. “Maybe another time?” Her bandanna flipped up in a sudden hot gust of wind, and the butterfly blew out of sight. She squinted after it.

I lit a cigarette. “No problem. See you tomorrow.” She nodded and went off to her car.

* * *

July grew hotter still. We finished the tomato field and got tangled in soy beans, hacking down old corn stalks and taking more breaks together. We carpooled. We talked about school and our families, especially our parents. We talked about life.

“You have a girlfriend?” she asked me one day, breaking the relentless scratch of the crickets.

“No,” I said, and stopped to lean on my hoe. I squinted at her in the sun. “What about you? You got a boyfriend?”

“Uh-uh,” she said and then started laughing. “I had one, once,” she said, “sort of. He went for my younger sister instead.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“Yeah.” She smiled then. She had a pretty smile.

* * *

Hotter yet. I started bringing the big thermos I had gotten the year before when I worked in corn, filled with ice water. I still smoked. Andrea lost weight. A lot.

“It’s too damn hot,” she said one day, throwing down her hoe. “We shouldn’t have to work. I can hardly see it’s so hazy.”

I leaned on my hoe. Sweat ran into the corners of my eyes. “Too damn humid,” I panted.

“Well, I quit. It’s not healthy. We could get sun stroke or something.” We walked to the end of our rows and sat under a tree. Mr. DeBoer, our boss, had already been to see us that morning, for the first time in a week, to check on our progress.

“Good job,” he’d said, “you’re good kids. I can trust you.” We nodded and he left. I lit a smoke. As soon as we sat, Andrea stood up again. “I know,” she said. “Let’s go swimming.”

“Where?”

“Let’s go to Woodrow Park. It’s only fifteen minutes away. Besides, it’s one o’clock, we can take lunch.”

She didn’t have to convince me much. DeBoer never came around more than once in a day. We grabbed the hoes, loaded them in the back of her car, and took off for Woodrow.

No one was there when we got to a secluded part of the pond.

“I’m swimming in my boxers,” I said. “Turn around.”

Andrea snorted. “Give me a break,” she said. “I see you half naked all the time. There’s no difference, shorts or boxers.”

“What’re you swimming in?”

Casually, Andrea pulled off her shirt, as if we’d always swum around half-naked together. So help me, I wanted to turn but I couldn’t. She smiled.

“I look good, eh?” She threw the tee-shirt in her car.

“You look great,” I said. She did, too. “What about your shorts?”

Andrea smirked. “Shut up, Roy,” she said.

I sat for a while and had a smoke and watched her go in. I had to psyche myself up first. The water looked cold.

“The water’s great,” she called. “Come on in.”

I turned to butt out my smoke, catching a glimpse of her yellow tee-shirt hanging on the front seat of her car. My shorts lay crumpled on the hood.

She was waiting for me as I waded in, hunching down in the water to keep warm. “Beats hoeing, eh.” She laughed.

She was pretty with her hair slicked back and water droplets on her eyelashes. She had developed a nice tan that brought out a sprinkling of freckles like brown sugar on toast. I lunged at her, grabbing her by the legs and pulling her under. She came up spluttering, water streaming in rivulets from her eyes and nose. She stared at me, puzzling, not sure whether to laugh or be angry.

“What,” I said. Water dripped into my eyes from my hair. We stood there, feeling the hot warmth of the sun on our heads and the tops of our shoulders. “What.”

Andrea didn’t say anything. She turned and swam off.

I stood in the water, chest deep and shivering, staring after her. She’d gained an inexplicable grace since the first time I’d seen her. I thought back to Greta and smirked.

I waded out of the water and lay on my towel, watching Andrea swim out until she was a tanned speck. After a while she swam back.

“Bring me my towel,” she called, crouching in the shallow water. I hoisted myself up, got her towel and walked to her. Suddenly, she grabbed one end and yanked me in. I toppled over, smoke and all, landing hard in the water. She laughed.

“What,” she said, and turned and swam farther out. I followed. She stopped, and when I reached her she put out a hand and smoothed away my hair.

“You ever swim naked before?” she asked.

“Sure, lots of times,” I remarked. With guys. She was reaching under the water, taking off her shorts. For someone who’d reminded me of the woman on the container of Old Dutch, she sure had come out of her shell.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” she asked, wading toward the shallow end to dump her shorts and underwear on the sand.

“What if someone comes?”

Andrea shrugged. She waded toward me, pale breasts shimmering in the water. Her legs flashed in the sunlight. She had lost a lot of weight.

“I’m pretty comfortable in my boxers, actually,” I said, moving slowly away from her.

“Come on, Roy. It feels nice.” She swam past me and dove under. Too late, I saw her body flash close and in a second my boxers were yanked down and from around my ankles. She stood several feet away, dangling the my shorts in her hand, laughing.

“Give them back,” I said. “I’m cold.”

“I can see that.”

“Come on, give them back. I’m going in for a smoke.” Andrea moved to stand in front of me. She reached for my hand and put it on her breast.

“Kiss me, Roy.”

But I couldn’t. She was pretty – beautiful in the cool water – but for some reason, I couldn’t kiss her, thinking of how things would be the next day. Still, I couldn’t take my hand away from her breast.

She leaned in, putting her hand on mine, and gently kissed my forehead. “Never mind,” she said. “Let’s go.”

I put on my boxers and watched her wade to the sand and put on her clothes.

The next day, Andrea told me about the new job she had gotten aside from our farming one. “It’s on Wednesdays and weekends,” she said while we sat eating lunch. She crunched a carrot. “I’ll be working with mentally disadvantaged people.”

“When do you start?”

“This weekend. It’ll be neat. A little bit sad, though, maybe, you know?”

“What do you have to do?” I asked. I felt somewhat betrayed. I hated that she had a life outside the fields.

“I’ll be leading art therapy sessions. That’s what I want to be, an art therapist.”

“So what, you just watch them draw?”

Andrea chose not to answer. She finished her lunch and took a swig from her huge jug. I lit a cigarette and leaned back against the tree we sat under. Sweat trickled down my lower back in the sickeningly humid air.

“Think it’ll rain?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “Guess we better get back to work.” She took her lunch stuff back to my car and went to her hoe where we had left off. Reluctantly, I followed.

After an hour I was exhausted. I stopped and leaned on my hoe. “Let’s go swimming,” I suggested. “The water will be warm on a day like this.”

“I don’t really feel like it. Besides, it’s going to rain soon. Let’s just keep going and knock off when it starts. Looks like a thunderstorm, maybe.” Dark, cumulous clouds billowed and bulged low overhead.

It caught us before we could even make it to my car, pelting our hot skin, coming down in torrents. We sat in the car, breathless, soaked through, and rolled up the windows. She looked cute in that red bandanna. Impulsively, I leaned over and kissed her. She was surprised but didn’t resist. Her lips were soft, yielding. A month or so ago, I would never have dreamed I’d be kissing Old Dutch.

She opened her eyes, and I couldn’t read the odd light in them, her head still cocked. “What,” I said. She merely smiled.

* * *

The next weekend, on Saturday, Andrea invited me to go with her to her new job. “Some of them can really draw,” she said. She picked me up, dressed in a pale green uniform. Her hair was back in its usual ponytail, and she wore a bit of makeup, something I’d never seen before.

“You look nice,” I said.

Her first group of the day had six people in it. A short woman, about sixty, hung on to Andrea’s arm. “This is Leona,” Andrea said, introducing her to me. “Leona, this is Roy.”

“Hi Roy, hi,” said Leona, looking everywhere but at me.

“Leona’s shy,” Andrea whispered, smiling, and she turned to lead the small woman over to their arts and crafts table.

When everyone was seated, Andrea set boxes of crayons in the middle of the table and gave everyone a pile of paper. She gave me one, too. “Draw,” she said. “There’s a space for you here.”

I pulled up a small orange chair and wedged myself in between Leona and a large pliant-looking man, about fifty. He reminded me of a soft-boiled egg.

“Today’s a special day for you, isn’t it, Calvin?” Andrea asked him.

Calvin bent over his paper. I watched his tongue move around in his effort to draw. “Muffins,” he said. “Saturday we get muffins. We get muffins here on Saturdays.” Andrea looked as though she was going to cry.

“That’s nice, Calvin,” she said softly. “You like muffins, don’t you?”

Calvin nodded and stuck his tongue out farther.

I picked a blue crayon and started drawing water. When I was finished, I wrote on the top, “Woodrow Park: To Andrea, Love Roy.”

Andrea looked over my shoulder. “Nice picture, Roy,” she smirked, leaning in close to my ear. “I guess we won’t be holding that one up for Show and Tell. We don’t allow nudity here.”

Calvin’s picture was the last to be held up. All of us were dumbstruck by its beauty. A kaleidoscope image of butterflies flitted across his page, brilliant in colour. At the very bottom, visible only if you looked hard, was a plump caterpillar, yellow and red.

Calvin had trouble getting his words out, stuttering, but finally we understood him. “Butterfly,” he said. “For you.”

“Pardon, honey?” asked Andrea.

“You-you’re like the butterfly I-I saw today. I love you,” blurted Calvin.

Andrea cried.

When we drove home that evening, I carried Andrea’s pictures on my lap. Traces of brown mascara stained her tanned cheeks.

“Do you know what I first thought of you?” she asked suddenly.

“What,” I said.

“I was really intimidated by you. I thought you’d make fun of me or something, you seemed so…cool. You looked…experienced.”

“What do you mean, experienced?”

“I don’t know. You knew what you were doing, you’d already been working there. Experienced with the work, I guess.” She drove into her driveway. “Want to come inside?”

“Wait,” I said, putting a hand on her arm. “How else experienced?”

“Roy…” A steady rain pelted against the car.

“Like this?” I leaned over and kissed her, keeping her gently in place with my arm around her neck.

“Maybe,” she said, smiling. “Let’s go inside.”

I covered her pictures with my jacket. “Don’t you want to know what I thought of you?”

“No!” she said emphatically, laughing. She looked so pretty just then.

That night in bed, I couldn’t sleep. At about two in the morning, I snuck out of the house and rode my bike to Andrea’s. Her bedroom was in the basement at the back of their house. I knocked softly on the window. She was up right away. The window opened.

“Roy! What are you doing here?” she whispered, squinting at me through the darkness.

“Come outside.”

She came through the sliding door, dressed in pajamas and a housecoat.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said.

“Do you always do this? go out for a bike ride in the middle of the night?” She pulled her housecoat tighter around her and shivered. Even then, with her hair all messed, she looked great.

We lay beside each other on the small hill behind her house, looking at the stars. I smoked.

“It was fun at your work today,” I said.

“Yeah. Aren’t they sweet?”

“You’re really good with them, Andrea. They really like you.”

“You think so?” She laid her head on my chest.

I thought of Calvin and his butterfly picture. I thought of the first time I ever saw her. I thought of Greta and Old Dutch, Woodrow Park, and the day I first kissed her in my car. I could still see her holding up my boxers.

“I love you,” I said out loud, trying out the words.

Andrea didn’t say anything.

.

DEEP, COLD RIVER

Late June. Even before I unpack the car, I sink low into the Adirondack chair on the front porch of our cottage, extend and stretch my cramped legs.

“Why don’t we unpack everything first and relax after?” Judy asks, laden with blankets and pillows. “You’d think you’d be glad to move after that long drive.”

“Five minutes,” I say, “and I’ll be right with you.”

Judy walks past me, storm door bangs shut behind her. Immediately I hear her opening all the windows.

“Phew,” she gasps from inside. “It’s like a sauna in here.”

It’s just about time for supper and I’m dreaming of a nice juicy steak on the barbeque. I catch sight of our little skiff roped to the dock down below. Jim must already have taken her out a few times. His boat got stolen last year.

I hoist myself out of the chair and stretch. Judy comes back outside. How we ever pack so much stuff into our little Honda I’ll never know, but it always seems like more than we left with when we have to unpack. I unload boxes of food and the cooler from the car and carry them into the kitchen. The familiar smell of musty air envelops me and I breathe deeply. It’s the fragrance of vacation. I open the cooler and crack open a beer right away. I don’t want to lose a minute of this holiday.

Judy has a suitcase of our clothes. She smiles when she sees me with the beer. “Couldn’t wait, huh? Want to open me one, too?” I pull one out of the fridge, twist off the cap, and hand it to her.

“Want me to get the barbeque going? I’m starving.”

“Slap a steak on for Jim, I think I saw him coming up.”

Jim Northrop’s been a friend of ours since we first bought the cottage about nine years ago. He lives up here all year, just his dog Rusty and him. His wife Edna left before we knew him. I haul the barbeque out of the back shed and fill it with coals. Then I fire it up and add the steaks. Sure enough, Jim and Rusty come up the long driveway. Jim’s got a beer and Rusty’s got one too, a can. Jim taught him to carry his beer around years ago. I still get a kick out of it, enough to want a dog myself.

“How’s it going, Jim?”

“Heyuh, Justin.” We shake hands, like we always do, and stand facing the river, drinking.

“Been out in Vera already,” Jim says. That’s what he calls our skiff. No one knows who Vera is or was, but Judy and I like to tease Jim about an old girlfriend.

“Catch anything?” I flip the steaks and slather them with barbeque sauce.

“Few trout. Enough for lunch tomorrow, too, if you want.”

Judy comes out of the cottage with dishes and more beer. We eat on the porch, facing the river, listening to the birds and watching fish jump. A canoe goes by, young boy and girl. They wave.

“Fleishman’s kids,” Jim says, mouth full of steak. “Good swimmers, those kids.”

“Who’s Fleishman?” Judy asks.

“Guy bought a cottage in March, came as early as the end of April. I sort of know him. Nice wife, too.”

“They near here?” I ask.

“Down river, about four cottages off. Same one as was for sale last summer.”

We remember which one. Near the Catholic church right on the river. Judy and I go on Sundays by boat. Neither of us is that religious, but Judy was raised Catholic and also likes the idea of going to church by boat. She and Father Ray have become good friends, even. He’s a good guy, likes to fish and have a beer every once in a while, so we have him over, especially when Jim’s around. Father Ray loves Rusty.

The three of us shoot the breeze for a while after supper. Jim pulls out some peanuts still in their shell, his favourite snack. Judy makes coffee and Jim tells us trapping stories and what it was like here this winter with everyone gone. By the time we split and go inside, it’s dark and chilly and the mosquitoes have chewed me over. I go around the cottage and shut all the windows, leaving the one in the bedroom open a crack. Judy’s got everything unpacked. Our clothes hang neatly in the closet and the bed’s at least got a sheet on it. I undress and give the cottage a once-over before locking the door and joining Judy in the bathroom. She’s brushing her teeth. I come up behind her, wrap my arms around her slim waist and bury my head in her neck. “Mmmm,” I murmur. Her hair smells like sunshine and the wind.

“Vacation,” she says and smiles at me in the mirror. Just from that smile, I can tell she loves me, though I never doubt it. We’ve been married fourteen years. Been happy for all of them, too, which is possible. Some of our friends think it’s strange we don’t have any kids, but it was a decision both of us made. Especially Judy, who says she really doesn’t have the patience for kids. I wouldn’t mind them all that much, but I’m happy the way we are, too.

The bed is stiff and musty, but we spoon and get comfortable. Judy falls asleep almost immediately. I lie awake and listen to the crickets. Through the thin curtains of the window the moon shines, giving Judy’s face a bluish glow. I bury my head in her neck and concentrate on her breathing.

Our first morning at the cottage we don’t get up until ten. Sunlight streams through the window, warm in Judy’s hair, and I kiss her head before she turns and kisses me. She sighs contentedly.

“I’d forgotten what it was like to sleep in,” she says and stretches. “Ten o’clock already. Let’s get up and have some breakfast before Jim gets here with the fish for lunch.”

We shower together, washing each other’s backs, then have boiled eggs and toast for breakfast.

“Want to go out on the river today?” I ask her, scooping egg onto my toast.

“Just me and you? No Jim?”

“No Jim,” I say and smile. Last year, Jim had tagged along on almost every trip out. We figured he was lonely.

“After lunch then,” I say. “I’ll get the stuff out of the shed, maybe a couple of poles, too. Be nice to catch some fish.”

We finish breakfast and Judy washes the dishes while I dry. We bide our time, which feels good. Afterward, both of us take a beer and sit out on the porch. Judy reads a novel. I love to watch her read, curled up in a chair like that. A big floppy hat covers her golden hair that she has half back in the silver barrette I bought her for Christmas one year from an antique shop. She’s beautiful to look at. Me, I don’t read much, maybe the paper here and there, but generally I like to draw. I’m a draftsman. Judy manages her own bookstore, A Room of Her Own.

Within two hours, Jim and Rusty saunter up the drive. We barbeque the trout in tin foil and drink more beer.

After lunch, Jim says he’s got some stuff to do and maybe he’ll come by later. We watch as he and Rusty amble down the drive. It’s a lonely picture. When he’s gone, we get everything we need down to the skiff. Judy puts on lotion and we take off, pushing out onto the clear, calm river. It’s like a mirror, like glass. You can hardly tell which is the reflection it’s so smooth. We glide through, listening to the oars in the water and watching for turtles. Judy trails her hands in the water as we go. There’s nothing like this. I look forward to it every year. I live for it.

The river’s not that wide, but wide enough for motor boats to pass through, and bordered by thick stands of trees and rows of cottages. It’s deep and cold. And while it’s clear, for a river, there’s no way anyone could see to the bottom. On the way, we pass the Fleishman kids again. They’re stopped in the middle of the river, and the girl’s sitting in the canoe, but her older brother is in the water hanging onto the boat, wetsuit, mask, flashlight, tank, and all.

“You kids looking for something?” I ask.

“Just diving,” says the boy.

“My brother’s certified,” says the girl and I nod.

“Find anything interesting?”

The boy shakes his head. “Lots more river to go,” he shrugs. “See lots of fish, though.”

Judy and I pass them and go a couple minutes farther. I cast a line into the river and recline. Judy smoothes on more lotion and sits back to read. Within minutes I have a bass, small but big enough for one to eat. He’s no trouble at all, this one, and I bring him into the boat quickly, unhook him and knock him one on the head. “That’s one,” I say. “Good size for you?”

Judy looks up, squinting, and nods. When she squints, she gets these lines in her forehead that for some reason make me feel a pang of love every time I see them.

My next fish is bigger and I need Judy to hold him still while I unhook him. After, she shakes her hand clean in the water.

“My ring!” she cries suddenly, taking me by surprise. She makes a desperate plunge with her arm, rocking the boat, but comes up empty. “My ring, grab it!”

I know if I try to reach it, I’ll tip the boat. The ring’s falling fast.

“Dammit, Justin, my ring!” Judy sits back in the boat and pulls her hat lower down her face. I lean over and lift it gently. She’s crying.

“That was my wedding ring, Justin,” she says. “Why didn’t you try to get it?”

I feel like I’ve betrayed her. “I would have tipped the boat.”

“So?” she says forcefully, but I know she’s upset about the ring more than at me.

“Judy, if I’d tipped the boat we would have lost it for sure. At least we know where it fell.”

“And who’s going to get it? Are you?”

I think of the Fleishman kids right away. “It’s worth a try, at least.” She nods, but I can tell she’s convinced her ring’s gone forever.

“Hey,” I say softly. “It’s just a ring. It’s not like our marriage is over. I’ll buy you a new one when we get home. If we can’t find this one.”

“It’s not ‘just a ring,’ she sighs, “and it’s not the same.” I know what she means. I think of when we picked out our rings, and the day we got married.

We sit in the boat, quiet. There’s very little current, the river’s calm, and there’s no breeze.

“Want me to yell for the kids?” I ask finally, breaking the silence.

“Okay.”

I cup my hand around my mouth and shout at the Fleishman girl in their canoe. She puts her hand up, shading her face from the sun. I wave my arms and beckon her over. She waves back and swishes her hand in the water. The boy comes up seconds later and she pulls him into the canoe.

“What’s up?” the boy asks as they paddle up beside us.

“My wife just lost her wedding ring right here. Do you think you could dive for it?”

“Sure,” the kid says and he moves to the bow of the canoe. “It won’t be easy,” he tells Judy before he goes. “There’s a lot of weeds.” He heads in as his sister holds the boat steady. We can see him until he blends in with the darkness.

About three minutes later, the kid comes up spluttering.

“Nothing,” he says, breathless, pushing up his mask. “Nothing but a bunch of weeds.”

He dives twice more before I stop him. I row back to the cottage feeling miserable. Judy is quiet the whole way, fingering the space where her ring had been.

* * *

Judy and I sit on the front porch of the cottage with a beer each. She reads, quietly munching on pretzel sticks. I sit in my Adirondack chair, legs outstretched, arms behind my head. The day is quiet except for the birds and the occasional boater down on the river. I finger my wedding band and watch Judy turn the pages of her novel. Her hair shines golden in the warm sun.

She’s still upset about losing her ring. “It’s like a part of me’s gone,” she’d said. I can see her point, but I’ve been thinking about how nice it will be to go and pick out a new one for her. It’ll be like old times.

“If you want, we can drive into town and find a jeweller right away,” I offer, partly to break the silence as we sit on the porch. “No holds barred, you can pick whatever you want.”

“I don’t want another one,” Judy says. If I didn’t know her better, I would have said she was sulking.

“Be reasonable,” I say, somewhat annoyed. “It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Things happen. We’ll get you a new one. It’ll be like going back in time, almost.” Actually, the idea appeals to me.

She looks up from under her hat and wrinkles her forehead the way she does when she’s upset. “Look, Justin, right now I don’t feel like getting another one, okay?”

“Well, you have to get one sometime, it might as well be now.”

Judy shook her head. “I think I’ll go without for a while,” she says as she gets up from her chair on the porch. The door slams shut behind her.

I stretch my legs, arms behind my head. She’ll get over it, our fights never last long. Still, I know she feels that somehow our marriage seems different. I remember her picking out her ring, how beautiful she looked, how happy she was to find something so unique. Gold, with stars around the whole band. She was right. It would never be the same, no matter what I bought her.

I hoist myself out of my chair and wander into the kitchen where Judy’s preparing supper. I hug her from behind, my chin in the nape of her neck. She continues chopping onions. I rub her back.

“It’s not my fault. You can’t stay mad at me forever,” I say.

“I’m not mad,” she answers, sighing. “I just can’t get it back.”

After supper, Judy goes for a walk by herself. I watch TV for a while, then decide to go up to Jim’s place.

Rusty greets me excitedly as I reach the path up to the old cottage. “Heyuh, Justin, what’s up?” asks Jim as I step onto the porch. “I just saw Judy go by a few minutes ago.” I shrug and sit down. Jim tosses me a beer and the two of us flick open the cans. I tell him about Judy’s ring. Jim rubs his beard as I talk and stares out at the river.

“You gonna get her a new one?” he asks.

“That’s the thing,” I say, “she doesn’t want a new one.”

“Huh,” says Jim, and he reaches into his overalls pocket for some peanuts.

We sit for awhile, shelling peanuts and sipping beer, watching the river.

“Funny thing,” Jim says suddenly. “Know Fleishman? the guy I told yous about earlier? He’s the guy Edna was with.”

“But he’s got a wife,” I say. “And kids.”

“Yup.” Jim cracks open another beer. It almost goes without saying, but I ask anyway.

“Where’s Edna, then?”

Jim shrugs. With Judy gone and things so awkward between us, I feel kind of a kinship with Jim as we sit on his porch and shoot the breeze. It’s the river, always the river that drags my attention away from everything else. It carried Edna away every night she snuck over to Fleishman in their skiff. It claims my wife’s wedding ring, takes a piece of her away and, for the time being, our marriage seems to float downstream mingled with the debris it collects from days gone by. I know soon enough things will be back the way they were – our lives are rooted together like the weeds in the deep, cold river.

.

CATHARSIS

This crossword I’ve started holds my attention only briefly. The rejection letter from Macaw Publishing sits on the kitchen table in two evenly torn pieces beside my coffee mug. I watch from the living room window Dan recently installed, fogging the glass, my sleeve wet from the condensation. Snow falls quickly, softly, swirling in gentle rounds, nestling briefly in the folds of my children’s scarves. My father glances up and waves, half hidden in a sparkling drift. I shiver. The kids’ snow pants are soaked through from so many snow angels but I can’t bring myself to call them in. I watch as the three build a manger scene in the snow.

What I need is a good hot bath. I turn from the window, concentrating on the soft bubbling of the aquarium and the clock ticking away the day over the stove. The fridge stops humming. Saturday, three days after Christmas. Soup and sandwiches night, I think, and the Saturday night movie with my father. Where is Dan?

I sit in the new rocking chair Dan bought me for Christmas and rock quietly.

The house feels empty, drab, surprisingly too quiet. Bereft of the Christmas cacophony of relatives’ whiny children, dogs barking, the finches in their cage in the living room squeaking over the noise, sounds of my own children fighting over the cat, and my aunt, crazy Auntie Lena, with her flaming nest of orange hair and her raucous squawks of laughter – bereft of the noises I am so glad are quieted, I feel oddly lonely. Every year we hold a reunion for Christmas; flocks of my family, herds of Dan’s flap the snow off their coats and stomp their slushy boots in boisterous greeting. Every year I spend hours in the kitchen preparing food while Dan goes out with the kids to collect wood for the woodstove in the basement. This year I felt tired, resentful of all the cooking as I watched Dan and the kids laugh and toss snowballs at each other outside. My father was in the living room, still trying to tame his flighty finches, his hands in their cage, but he noticed the wistful look on my face.

“You want help?” he asked. I shook my head. I like doing things with him, but only when we don’t have to talk, like when we watch the Saturday night movie together. The kitchen is too conducive a place for conversation, and I always feel a keen sense of awkwardness when I’m alone with him. I wonder at this, still: our inability to connect, our discomfort with one another. After so many years, it’s hard to remember when it all began. I turned back to my baking, kneading the bread dough too hard, relishing its yielding elasticity, until it began to shrink and I concentrated on squashing out the air bubbles. I braided strips of dough into loaves, dusting them with egg. My father went back to the finch cage.

Greg and Ruth crashed in through the sliding door to the kitchen, startling me, laughing.

“Mom, Dad said we could make hot chocolate for doing the wood,” Greg said, taking off his jacket and throwing it over a chair. Ruth stood on the mat, a fat rosy bundle of winter clothing, too done up to bend over and take off her boots.

“Take off your coat first, honey,” I encouraged her, wiping the dish soap from my hands.

My father came in to clean up after the kids.

“Don’t,” I said sharply, too sharply, as I always do. “They have to learn to do it themselves.”

“Then I’ll make the hot chocolate,” he offered.

I felt a pang of frustration. “No, you don’t have to do anything.”

Outside now the sun sinks, smudging the grey sky with pink and red smears. The fridge grumbles and hums again. I get up from my rocking chair and fill a pot with water for the soup. The formal words of rejection from Macaw run through my head.

Mechanically I make the sandwiches, cutting them neatly into triangles for the kids. Ham for Dan, tuna for my father, cheese for Greg and Ruth. Simple. I set the sandwiches on a plate and stir the soup.

How unbearably noisy this Christmas was – chaotic – tinsel and wrapping paper everywhere; Munchkin, our cat, almost brought the whole tree down batting ferociously at the decorations. Stupid thing. I tried to calm him but he squirmed and howled miserably, writhing in my lap: a twinge of dejection, sharp like shards of glass in my insides. I felt useless, sitting quietly in my rocking chair, watching Ruth painstakingly, all thumbs, try to unwrap her gifts.

“Here, honey,” I offered, leaning forward in the chair, “Let Mommy help.”

“Nooo!” she screeched, protecting her gifts, “I do it!”

I felt like slapping her, hard; a splash of cold water in my daughter’s face. My father’s eyes, piercing blue, attentive, watched me as I struggled to regain composure. Let him see what a bad mother I am. How unsuccessful.

I drop the spoon into the soup, startled by a blast of icy air as Dan stomps in. A bear in his heavy brown jacket, he lumbers to put his snowy boots in the closet. I lift the spoon out from the boiling soup with spaghetti tongs.

“Hi.” Dan kisses me lightly on the forehead, the day’s newspaper in his hand. He smells of pipe tobacco, deodorant, and outdoors. “Where’re the kids?”

“Downstairs playing with the cat,” I answer.

“Getting anywhere with the finches, Dad?” Dan looks up from his paper as my father comes into the kitchen.

“Not really,” my father says. “They’re independent birds, eh, not like bigger ones that always need you around. I’m not sure I can train these ones.” He shakes his grey head.

“Soup’s on,” I announce, as I do every Saturday. I’m getting tired of my own voice.

“I’ll call the kids,” my father offers and goes downstairs.

Ruth waddles into the kitchen.

“Daddy help,” she says, and Dan lifts her effortlessly into her chair.

I take a deep breath. “She’s got to learn to get up herself, Dan. She’s four years old.”

Dan doesn’t answer as he ladles soup into Ruth’s bowl. “What did you do today, sweetheart?”

“Played with the cat. I dressed him up in doll’s clothes.”

“Did you go out and play in the snow? I saw a manger out there.”

“And we made snow angels, too.”

Together we make the sign of the cross and recite the prayer before meals. My head bowed, I stare at my nails. I grew them for Christmas, but now there is the sudden urge to cut them all off, to wipe away the sparkling red polish, already chipped and peeling.

The finches squeak happily in the living room. I watch them as I eat my sandwich, the way they hop back and forth, switching places.

On Christmas Eve in an effort to commune, I tried good-naturedly to get near them, stuck my finger out for them to perch on, filled my hand with food as I saw Dan do; I spoke softly as though to babies. They fluttered around the cage, squawking as I persisted and then finally, exasperated, gave up. Stupid things. I felt monstrous, an intruder, fighting their rejection; but if Dan could feed them, so could I.

My father helps Ruth wipe soup from her shirt and face. I give my daughter a napkin.

“I got one already from Grandpa,” Ruth responds. She pushes the napkin away.

My jaw clenches and I change the subject, addressing my father.

“I thought maybe Dan and I could go out tonight and you could stay with the kids.”

“What about the Saturday night movie?”

“I’ll just have to miss this one, I guess. I thought Dan and I could go out together. Alone.”

“Oh.”

“You and the kids could play with the finches,” I offer lamely. He nods. Dan spoons his soup methodically, his head bent over the bowl.

“Anyone want another sandwich?”

Dan gets up. “I’ll make my own. You eat.”

* * *

At the sink later, hands deep in soapy water, I stare through the kitchen window and pick at my nails under the suds. Macaw makes rejection letter number seventeen.

“What’re you doing?” Dan comes up behind me and kisses my neck. “You’re done, aren’t you?”

I tear a nail slowly, look at Dan, and pull the plug. I watch the dirty water swirl and gargle down the drain, push food particles through the holes.

Dan leans casually against the fridge, wiping a soup bowl. “So where’re we going tonight, then?”

“Coffee? It doesn’t matter, I just need to get out of here for a bit.”

* * *

We’re quiet at first, blowing our coffees, warming our hands around the mugs.

“Haven’t done this in a while, eh,” Dan says.

“Not since Dad moved in, no.” There is too long a pause.

“Is that what this is all about? Your dad? I mean, you’ve been so snappy lately. He’s only trying to help.”

“I know.” I stare at my coffee. “I just feel sort of useless when he’s around. He’s always doing things for everybody.” Suddenly, I feel ready to burst and I take a deep breath. “But it’s not just him. It’s you, too, and Greg and Ruth. I just don’t feel needed.” I sip from my mug. The rejection letter from Macaw preys on my mind: yet another biting criticism of my worth. I can’t mention it to Dan. I’m not in the mood for sympathy. “I want to have some purpose, Dan. Every time I try to help Ruth, she wants either you or Dad to do it, no matter what it is. Greg doesn’t need me at all. The cat hates me. Even the finches don’t need me.”

Dan leans forward over the table. “You can’t train finches, Linda. They do what they like. And that’s a fact.” It is an unsatisfying answer.

“But you fed them, I saw them land on your hand.”

“I had their food dish. They were hungry.”

“I just want to start things over.” I pick at my leftover nail polish, stare at my fingers. I feel on edge, irritable, almost ready to make a scene of frustration. I look at Dan. “I’ll be right back, just going to the washroom.”

The mirror is dirty, streaked and spotted, and the overhead light makes my hair look greenish. I stare at myself. Sometimes I need to do this, get in contact with myself, talk to the woman in the glass. I think of unselfconscious Dan sitting alone, casually sipping his coffee while mine gets cold as I stand in the ladies room at Tim Horton’s, getting in touch with rationality, backing away from the brink.

I wash my hands, letting the warm water run through my fingers. The day’s rejection letter comes to me once again. I am fettered by refusal and it makes me want to start everything over. I look down at my nails. Chipped polish, one jagged from having torn it in the sink while doing the supper dishes. I bite it down, watching myself in the mirror, then impulsively tear and bite the rest short, uneven. Someone walks in, followed by a whiff of spicy perfume. I turn off the water, catch a glimpse of a remnant of my nails in the white sink – Christmas polish and all – push it down the drain, and walk out.

“You okay? I was just beginning to wonder.”

“I’m fine.” I smile. “Ready to go?”

* * *

My father sits on the couch in front of the television. The finches’ cage is covered and all the lights are off. His face is a bluish glow in the dark.

“Good movie?”

“Excellent. Come and watch.”

I hang my jacket and sit in my rocking chair. Dan goes to check on the kids.

“You’re home early,” my father says, watching the screen. “You haven’t missed much.”

I nod, rocking. “Just coffee.”

We watch the rest of the movie in silence.

* * *

Sunday is the family day to relax. After Mass, my father moves his chair into the sun in the living room and reads his current religious book, The Confessions of St. Augustine, after putting on Handel’s Messiah. Every now and then, he pauses to watch the finches flutter back and forth in their cage. Dan works quietly on the dollhouse he’s building for Ruth while she supervises. Greg moons over his fish he discovered this morning floating upside down in the aquarium. It is the third one this week, and the last of the three we had.

“Everything’s dying,” he moaned, flushing the fish down the toilet. We watched the orange body swirl lifelessly away, sucked down the drain.

I sit at the kitchen table, blank pages of my notebook open, waiting to be filled. After yesterday’s rejection, though, I don’t feel much like writing. What I feel like is for something new to happen, something different for a change. Some people paper their offices with rejections. I tear them neatly in half and stick them in my filing cabinet with all the rest, though I don’t know why. Tearing them is a sort of release, an act of defiance, not letting them have the last say. I do this in my mind when my children say no and run to Dan or my father, every time the finches flap wildly in their cage at my approach, every time Munchkin squirms in my arms. I tear each rejection apart. There’s something about tearing, ripping, that’s oddly satisfying.

* * *

I’ve been in our bathroom a little too long. Dan waits in bed with the light on, reading.

“Linda?”

“I’m fine,” I call automatically. I gaze at the new me in the mirror. “Just going to have a quick shower.”

I hear Dan get out of bed. “Can I come in?” he asks playfully. I hear him turn the knob, but I’ve locked the door.

“I’m going to be quick, Dan. Just a minute or two.”

The water is warm, therapeutic. I rinse the bits of hair on my shoulders and in my ears and watch it swirl down the drain. Squatting in the tub, I let the water wash my back as I push the last bit of hair down.

The floor is clean. I pull on my nightgown and open the door, letting out a whoosh of steamy air behind me.

“Oh my God, Linda. What the hell did you do?” Dan sits up abruptly, stark naked on the bed.

I crawl in beside him, feeling suddenly stupid and self-conscious. “Cut my hair, silly,” I say lamely. “What does it look like?”

“Oh my God,” Dan says again. He pauses, staring. “Why?”

“Something different. I needed a change.”

“For crying out loud, Linda, at twelve-thirty in the morning? Couldn’t you have waited till tomorrow and gone to a hairdresser?”

“You don’t like it?”

He decides to ignore my flippancy. “What’s gotten into you? What made you decide to just cut off all your hair?”

“I told you. I wanted something different. It was dry anyway. This way I can start over.”

Dan sinks under the cover. He doesn’t know what to think. I feel pathetic.

“I’m sorry, Dan. I’ve just been antsy lately. I’m tired of the same thing all the time. You know I get like this sometimes. I guess I took it out on myself. Should I go and get it fixed tomorrow?”

Dan looks at me and smiles tiredly. “It’s okay, I guess. Take some getting used to.” He kisses my forehead and my lips. “Crazy woman,” he says. “Turn around. I want to hold you.”

* * *

My father falls ill the next day. A simple cold, he says, no matter. This has never happened since he moved in with us, and I feel slightly at a loss. I bring him what he asks on a tray that I set for him on the bedside table. Hardly a word passes between us. He is tired and needs a vaporizer. I wait on him. He needs me.

It’s a quiet day. Dan’s out installing windows and the kids are at school. Ruth only does a half day and she’ll be home soon, but until then I sit with all the rejection letters I’ve ever received spread over the kitchen table. I’m taping them together.

Dad recovers from his cold on the couch in the living room. I’ve moved the finch cage in front of him so he can watch them when he’s not sleeping. I’ve brought him some tea. The CBC is on in the background.

“Linda,” he calls from the living room.

“What is it, Dad?”

“I like your hair.”

Ruth comes in as I hear her bus pull away.

“What did you do today?” I ask her.

“Where’s Grandpa? I want to show him this.”

“He’s on the couch in the living room. He’s sick. Can I see?”

Ruth hesitates. Usually, I am the last to see her work. She holds the large piece of paper up.

It’s a picture of our family: finches, Munchkin, and all. Except me.

“Where’s Mommy, Ruth?”

“In the house writing stories.”

“How come I’m not outside with you?”

“You never are.”

“Ruth-” I stop. She’s right. Instead of playing with my family, I’m sitting inside trying to create new ones.

“Can I show Grandpa now?”

“Sure. Then we’ll put it on the fridge.”

When Greg comes home, I’m still working on my letters.

“Hey, how was school?”

“Fine.” He takes off his jacket and dumps it on the back of his chair. “Where’s Grandpa?”

“Living room. He’s sick.” I listen as they talk and go back to taping my rejections together. What this means I’m not exactly sure, but once they’re whole I’m going to read them again. Other than transport myself into a reinforced black hole of despair, I guess I’m looking for clues, suggestions, ideas I am desperately open to now. I want to piece things together.

I haven’t started cooking supper yet when Dan comes home. He notices this first thing, then kisses me and pats my head. “Want to order pizza?”

“Sure,” I say, and continue reading the letters. “You go ahead.” I think I’m onto something and I’m not ready to quit.

“What’re you reading?”

“Just some old mail.” It’s a private thing, this criticism. I’ve always been proud of my writing in front of Dan. Somehow I haven’t been able to bring myself to show him the letters. I just give him the news.

Dan orders the pizza and I read down the page from Macaw Publishing, finger the tape joining the halves of the letter, considering. It is rare to receive suggestions. “…Perhaps make the Lorys do something a little more exciting than have crises at home….” This is somewhat disturbing to read. “Write about what you know” is something that has been instilled in me.

I scoop up the letters and place them back in my filing folders for later reference. I mean to get published, and somehow I’ve got to combine what I know with what the publishers want.

* * *

In bed with Dan I think about my father. When we were kids, my sisters and I spent much of our time nursing sick or injured birds. We papered shoeboxes, dug for worms in the garden, fed them alfalfa sprouts. The birds came almost daily. After thumping heavily against the large living room window, they fluttered, stunned, to the driveway below. Hardly any of them lived, but I do remember one, a crow. We let him go once he was ready. The four of us were always a little scared around the big bird: ebony feathers rustled and beady black eyes inspected us shrewdly as we peered cautiously through the banana box lid with jagged holes poked into it. Then it would tuck its head quietly into its back feathers and sleep. We all thought it seemed to want to die, resignedly, in that small space, with hardly any air. But on the morning of the fifth day, I woke to a hard pecking at my bedroom window, and there sat the crow, ready to go out. I didn’t dare try to stop him. Slowly, shaking, I opened the window. He sat for a moment, flapping his wings in preparation, then flew.

* * *

I take my father to the doctor three days later. Too weak to protest, he rides along placidly, watching out the window.

I have to help him out of the car, feeling how fragile he is, translucent, unshaven, weak. He is not so old, yet life and the death of my mother have taken their toll without me having noticed much before now. I struggle with my emotions as I walk him up the stairs. He is supposed to be strong. It’s strange, feeling the weight of his arm on mine. I’m afraid of companionship with my father, apprehensive of bonding.

I sit in the pale green waiting room. A shiny piece of silver tinsel is stuck in the arm of my chair. Cars go by, spraying slush along the side of the road outside the building. I watch for a while as a man steps uneasily on a ladder, unravelling Christmas lights from the tall pine tree in the plaza parking lot across the road. They still add Christmas carols as an insert in the Wednesday paper, a treat to find when we were kids because it meant going to the tree on Christmas Eve with the rest of the town to stand in a circle and sing. We always got hot chocolate after at Tim Horton’s.

To pass the time I flip through old Woman’s World magazines and read the short fiction. Variations on a theme, I think. And if I were to follow the advice from Macaw Publishing, my stories would be the same, each just another variation on a theme. I’d like to think that that’s not me, that I’m a new voice, a break from the ideal fantasy, that I tell stories people can relate to. I write about what I know, mix the real with fiction. Most of all, I write for myself, an act of purgation. This is why the Lorys won’t be going on some Caribbean cruise to earn themselves a name in print.

Dad emerges from the doctor’s office, stepping slowly, tiredly. “Everything’s fine,” he says. “Like I said, just a common cold.”

“Good, Dad. Let’s get you home, then.”

He smiles. “Home,” he says, and takes my arm.

I find myself relieved that he’s well and surprised at our lack of awkwardness as I help him in the car. Somehow the doctor’s diagnosis has managed to work a certain magic.

“How’s the writing going?” he asks as we drive.

“Slow,” I answer, “but I’m working on some new ideas.”

Dan’s home already and cooking supper when we get back.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he says, “I let the finches out. I guess I just wanted to see them fly around. The cat’s downstairs. It’s kind of neat letting them be free.”

I watch them for a minute exploring plant pots, nestling on top of books on the shelves in the living room. They seem friendlier out of the cage, not as flighty. They’re happier.

“They sound like squeaky toys,” comments Ruth, laughing.

“They’re glad to be free, love,” says my husband, glancing at me. “Is it okay to let them out for awhile?”

I’d forgotten what it was like to watch a bird hop around, pecking at the carpet. “Yes,” I say. “For as long as you want.”