The Selected Short Fiction of Lisa Moore (22 page)

T
he doorbell rings and Bethany lets herself in. She's wearing a red blazer and navy skirt. Coming from early morning mass.

Leaves fly in behind her, scrabbling sideways across the linoleum.

Trigger leaps off the kitchen chair and shoots down the hall, hitting the back of Sara's knees, slopping coffee, yelping, thrashing his tail against the coatrack.

The street behind Bethany is shiny, bluish after the rain. How bright. A boy on a bike, working hard, sun melting the chrome beneath him, obliterating spokes, the wheels flimsy as snowflakes. Flock of pigeons. An armful of flung bread crusts. A man with a stolen shopping cart, jitterbugging bottles and cans.

Bethany gives her red jacket a sharp tug, her eyes adjust to the dark hallway. Water drips on her from the ceiling.

Several drops hit her thick, grey hair imperceptibly until a single icy drop runs down the side of her face, startling her. The
church was quiet and dark. Seagulls flew over the skylight. Father Ryan raised the Eucharist, torpid complaint from the organ, seagulls screeching, wings slicing the pillar of sun from the skylight. His bald head.

Now this chilly drip. She touches her cheek. Doesn't know herself. How dark in here, cool. A deluge, part of her dream last night. Everything comes true.

That bathtub should be fixed, Bethany says. They won't fix anything. Peanut butter fingerprints on the French doors, dog hair. Dust on the light fixture, cobwebs. If they'd just listen.

Sara catches a glimpse of the trees in the churchyard over Bethany's shoulder. Big holey sponges sopping up the spill of sunshine, outrageous orange.

There's my little boy!

Bethany crouches, twisting on her ankles, one heel lifts from her shoe, a frost of stocking. Thomas starts down the hall, laughing.

The arch of Bethany's foot. Stretching and exposed in shimmery nylon. Sara imagines her as a girl. Grant McCarthy overcoming shyness. A Knights of Columbus dance before Grant went to war in Korea. The photograph near Bethany's bed. Her dress with satin shoulders, frothy skirt. Her hair is so dark it must be black, and curls, high French cheekbones. Maybe some Mi'kmaq, the dark tan in summer. She's saucy and adoring.

Her arms around Grant's neck, one of his hands on her waist. Looking into each other's eyes. Coming to an understanding, there in the photograph. From here they will have six
children, call to each other from different rooms over the vacuum. A station wagon, the beach. She will go to mass. They'll lose little Davy, see his red inflatable dinosaur dipping, rising. The Atlantic roughed up farther out. Bell Island, smoky blue, windows flashing. Grabbing strangers. Have you seen? About this high. But he's safe in the car. Laughter. Fell asleep. Laughter. But the inflatable dinosaur so far out. Asleep under the sweaters. They will both agree there is a place for everything. She will put banana in the blender. He will call to her from the basement, hand resting on the banister, head bent, listening. They will come into a windfall. He touches the fork, the knife, the fringe of the placemat, waiting. A glass of milk. A linen napkin. She serves him. He thanks her. He listens to her. She tells him. They change the wallpaper, she wants it changed so they change it. Wainscotting she wants, new linoleum. They both agree to do everything. They will do everything for the children. He does the crossword. He stands for a last moment before the TV. She will want a fire. He's leaning on the rake, wipes his forehead. The water tasting of sun-warmed rubber, cut grass, and brass from the nozzle. Is it brass? He turns on the sprinkler. They will work hard but enjoy it. The children will come with the snowblower. He lights the fire. Father Ryan. Grandchildren. A drop of water, the seagulls.

This is the content of the photograph by Bethany's bed: her hands on his neck, a swing band, the glint of a horn, the crowded dance floor, an unfurling streamer.

The picture is a quiet one. The picture is a vow.

Come to Nanny, says Bethany.

Thomas holds his arms out for balance, two pale blue mitts hanging on a bit of string from the cuffs of his snowsuit. He plunges, new shoes making sharp, triumphant smacks with each step. He dives into her arms, his cheek against her chest. Her raised heel slips back in the shoe.

Why don't you do something about that leak?

She scoops Thomas up, shutting her eyes and pressing her nose to his red corduroy chest.

Nanny's going to eat you.

She wets her fingers and flicks his filmy blond hair. His cheek, a tiny imprint of an anchor from the white plastic sailor button on her blouse. Thomas grabs her gold earring and she pries his fingers away.

He always goes for the earrings.

Sara kisses Bethany's cheek. She loves her mother-in-law, there is no question. Happy birthday, Bethany. She holds out an azalea in cranberry and silver foil. The foil flings shards of reflected sunlight into Bethany's face, over the walls. The shards turn and swim like goldfish in a bowl.

I told you, says Bethany. I didn't want you to spend your money.

To replace the one.

I'm bringing it back. You shouldn't have.

Try to enjoy it!

Sara lugs Thomas's gear out to the car. Penaten, Tempra, sippy cup, the royal blue Osh Kosh. The wind plows up New Gower, the leaves, a hamburger wrapper. Sherry O'Rourke in her lime green hat waves her purse before getting on the bus.
Bethany thinks royal blue is Thomas's colour.

When Sara gets back inside, slamming the door against the wind, Bethany has set the plant on the coffee table and is standing back.

I can't accept that.

Please.

It's not a good plant.

What do you mean?

The flowers are open.

I want to —

That plant is finished.

Sara picks up the plant and whisks it out the door. She'll go for a run around the lake. Or work on the proposal. These few hours —

Bethany takes Thomas often. Then her back gives. She's resolute, pushing Thomas's stroller, every weather. She and Thomas. The park with stale bread. The beaks, angry wings, afternoon fog. If Thomas falls asleep in the fresh air.

You should see the colour in his cheeks, Bethany tells her on the phone.

Sara stands in her own kitchen. An old mattress against the back fence, yellow leaves. A cat with a patch of fur missing steps along the tops of the pickets. Bethany's garden has the glossy rhododendron. The grass sliding from dark blue to emerald to fire green, glass wind chimes.

Are you sure he's warm?

You should see!

Thomas sleeps under an afternoon sky as dark as boiling
jam, the moon, school children running along the sidewalk with their hair flying out before them, spiralling leaves, the wind thrumming the hood of Thomas's stroller.

Sara puts the azalea in the back seat of Bethany's car. New leather and tweed. She puts Thomas in the car seat and stands back. Bethany catches Sara's sleeve through her open window.

That plant is half dead.

The seatbelt locks around Bethany as she speaks, moving with an almost unnoticeable whir. The elegant motion of the automatic seatbelt stirs Sara with its prudent luxury. This is Bethany: maven steeliness. Six children, a consulting firm, St. John's, winter visits to Florida. She keeps everything immaculate. Indecent to pay for something she's able to do herself. She will always take care of her own house. She likes gadgets, a long-handled lint remover, a grill that drains fat, a silver toast holder. But there's no clutter. She and Grant haven't succumbed to greed or any kind of eccentric frugality. They've worked steadily, been generous and careful.

The seatbelt rolls into place.

Thomas behind the window. The reflections of clapboard, telephone pole, tree branches swipe sideways, Sara's own face leaning in, obscuring him, then his hand on the glass. Little smack she hears. Pale palm. Bethany pulls away and then Sara runs to catch the phone.

She's holding a chocolate chip cookie in one hand, listening.

She's facing the kitchen window, the rain has begun. The mattress, the cat. If a black cat is bad luck, what about a white
cat? Where are Thomas and Bethany now? The stoplight near Don Cherry's Sports Grill? The rain leaves long, thin marks like sewing needles on the window. Butter she made these cookies with, his little hand in the sliding branches. She holds the receiver.

Dave says, I got the job in Montreal.

What Sara knows: They aren't as sophisticated as she thought. He is this; she is that. They are an invention of randomness. Relationship as lackadaisical conspiracy against. Against what? A situation not entirely without romance. But bracing, a hailstorm, a do-si-do on black ice.

The farmer's market. Bethany always says about the carrots. Thomas loves them with table butter. A little table butter. Go to the farmer's market, everything there is so sweet!

Bethany names the things that matter in life: a coddled egg, boiled wool, fresh sheets, doeskin gloves, ironed shirts, old-fashioned beans, table butter, the farmer's market.

The woman behind the vegetable counter, her breath hanging in the air. She wears a South American cap that comes down over her ears, the strings untied, gloves without fingers. Sara takes carrots and potatoes, a bag of brussels sprouts. Dave doesn't like them. He goes, But you buy it if you like them. Just because I don't, doesn't mean.

She never does. She never buys the things he doesn't like. She does this time. She wants the crenellated density, the fierce bunchiness, the dank green of a brussels sprout. He doesn't get to. He always. She has never. Bacon, liver, raw mushrooms, the stalks of romaine lettuce, these are the things she's given up for him.

She wants the organs, things that root.

She wants a chicken dinner, raisins and garlic in the dressing. A pumpkin with an emergency candle. The smell of roasting yams.

Sunlight strikes the jars of bakeapples and she wants to buy them just for the colour.

James Anderson. She remembers too late, Jim. She had been calling him Jim for the last two years.

Mr. Anderson.

Sara.

The whites of his eyes are yellow, almost mustard, and his lashes are crusted with a medication, something leaking. A new, dramatic frailty.

They ate together in the summer room. She was teaching him to cook. They sat at a glass and chrome table. A giant window that looked onto his late wife's rose garden. All the bushes were wrapped in burlap, wearing caps of snow. As the late afternoon turned into evening the window became black and reflected the two of them. Three floating candle flames. James's white hair.

Are you still willing to move to Montreal, Dave asks.

A housefly caught between the kitchen windowpanes. The cat on the fence flicks its ear, the mattress. The fly hyper-vivid, rubbing its forelegs together, one on top of the other, then switching, so the alternate leg is on top. The fridge cuts in. Such steadfastness, the absorbing industry. She takes a bite of the cookie. Yesterday she had wanted to. What had it been? Jayne had invited Nancy but had left Sara out. She'd felt the supreme
effort that casual intimacy exacts. The strangling network of her social life, these inadvertent slights. She'd crushed the paper coffee cup. Dave was already home when she got there. Before she had taken off her coat, he told her he wanted to leave. Imagine a city, he'd said. She had said, Let's do it. I want to go too.

Your eyes, she says.

I'm having an operation.

The bakeapples flare and flare and flare. The traffic. People turning on their lights. Dusk. Sara hasn't seen Mr. Anderson since Thomas's birth. He'd dropped off a sleeper, but Dave had got the door. She couldn't get up. She'd hardly left the bed. The weepy hours. Watching old movies. Every Paul Newman. Snow falling over the street, the car roofs, the branches. Accumulating silently, with diligence, covering the black, wet branches, floating against the grey dusk, under the streetlights, and finally against the blue-black sky. Waiting to hear Dave on the front steps, his key, the door. Hardly getting up. Paul Newman. Holding out his broken thumbs. Weeping over Paul Newman's. His eyes. His thumbs. They broke his thumbs in one movie. It had begun to snow in St. John's, and her milk had come in. Her milk and the snow. Dave was working. Weeping because St. John's, the Narrows, the snow. Someone brought a stew and she cried with gratitude.

She met with James's daughter. They'd known each other at the university. Emily and her new lover. Left his wife. Though it was the first time Sara had met him, she had the impression the ordeal had changed his face overnight. The face of a man who had altered his course. Emily drinking. They had been to see a
play. About an affair. Wasn't it about an affair, darling? A suffering wife. Didn't you think? But you don't.

The boyfriend rubs his eyes with his fists. A deliberate gesture, a sidewalk mime or caged ape indicating spiritual exhaustion.

It takes an incredible will to do the right thing, he says. Everybody must try. The courage you must summon.

It just didn't have a very satisfying ending, says Emily, that's my feeling. I wanted it one way or the other. Isn't that what you ask of a play? One way or the other? If I'd wanted shiftless ambiguity I could have stayed home.

Sara tried to remember what the man did for a living. Was it anything that would equip him? Did they have a car nearby at least?

It's very taxing being the world's biggest bitch, Emily says. She giggles.

Then she touches Sara's hand.

Stay away from my father, Sara, she says. Don't let him become —

Become what?

A lech.

You've got it all wrong.

Just listen to me.

Rain hits the kitchen window and Sara sees the garden behind the housefly. The fly is lost forever; the garden is alive with rain and colour. An orange towel fell off the line a long time ago and no one has bothered to do anything. It's half-covered with leaves. In the opposite garden there's a statue of
the Buddha with the gold paint coming off, the white plaster visible beneath.