She wouldn’t have gotten into a flap over a jacket. She wouldn’t have run over to the school to look for it, or asked Hosea to think back or retrace his steps. She wouldn’t have asked why this was the third jacket he had lost in as many months or why his jackets always had grass stains and leaves and twigs and dirt on the back of them as though he’d been rolling
around on the ground like a crazed horse with a bad case of ringworm. Why, thought Hosea, did he possess none of her insouciance? Why, Hosea thought further, did her laissez-faire attitude towards just about everything irritate him so?
Finally Hosea went inside the house. He remembered hoping his mother would act normally and be upset about the jacket, and yet knowing she wouldn’t be upset comforted him. What Hosea got from his mother was what he wanted but what he didn’t get was what he felt he needed. Euphemia would have disagreed with this, he knew. “Why shouldn’t I do my best to make you happy, Hose?” And he would have said something like, “Well, it’s just that maybe I need more discipline or maybe you should get mad at me more.” And he’d tug at his shirt and stare at the ground and Euphemia would look at him and then pull his head to her bosom and rub her lips in his hair and laugh. “Oh, Hose. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.” He remembered the song she always sang exuberantly at full volume. “Man’s life’s a vapour, full of woes …”
Anyway, that day Hosea tiptoed inside hoping to make a silent detour of the kitchen and go directly to his bedroom. But Euphemia was right there, standing at the stove, her back to Hosea. He changed his mind and decided to surprise her instead. He crept up behind her and said “hello,” clear as a bell, and Euphemia, startled by the sudden greeting, twirled around and knocked him against the stove. Hosea put his hand out, against the red-hot element, to break his fall and wound up with a large oval-shaped burn on his right palm. Euphemia had apologized profusely and rushed around getting butter and ice and ointment for Hosea’s burn. Afterwards Euphemia and Hosea had sat at the table, the little white wooden table in the kitchen, and Euphemia had said, “Hosea, I want you to go outside and pick some roses. We’re going to visit somebody very special later this evening.” Hadn’t that been it? thought Hosea.
Yes, that’s what she had said. Because Hosea remembered the thorns from the roses pricking the burn on his palm, even after Euphemia had tied around it a beige piece of cotton from one of her aprons. Hosea even remembered thinking that he deserved the pain, that it was a token of his allegiance to Tom who had been caught by the big boys when Hosea hadn’t and who was probably experiencing some pain right then, too.
This was the memory that had been triggered when he had banged his right palm against his desk, trying to keep himself from falling over backwards in his chair. Hosea looked at his right palm. There was a very faint trace of scar tissue. Unless it was bumped in a certain way, and it never had been until now, he felt no pain there. He brought his palm up towards his face. He stared at it. He moved his lips over it. Nothing. He couldn’t remember anything else of that day. The roses had pricked his palm, so therefore he had picked them. And he would only have picked them if his mother had asked him to. And she would only have asked him to pick roses if they had been going to see someone very special. Like, for example, the future Prime Minister. “Your father,” Hosea recalled the words Euphemia had spoken on her deathbed, “is the Prime Minister of Canada.”
But why couldn’t he remember what happened that day he picked the roses? Hosea sat at his desk now and slammed his fist against his thigh.
Who was the special person? Had Euphemia told him or hadn’t she? Had he asked? Had he wanted to know then? Had the special person been the man who was now Prime Minister of Canada? Why had Euphemia, on her deathbed, told Hosea that his father was John Baert, the Prime Minister of Canada? Surely she had been hallucinating. She must have been crackers, substituting reality with good intentions. She had always wanted the best for Hosea, after all, and knowing Hosea’s
penchant for public office, his respect for politicians, and especially successful leaders, people who didn’t shrug their lives away but made decisions and tried to change the world, she had made up this one final ridiculous story. This was her parting gift to Hosea, the words, “Your father, your father, is John Baert.” And then, “Come back …” The words not spoken to Hosea or to Dory or to a doctor or to the Lord, but to John Baert, the stranger on the horse, the young man from long ago with the dark curls on his neck, her only lover, the father of her beloved Hosea.
But had she made it up? Hosea wondered. Or was it true? In any case, if he had met his father on that day, perhaps his father would see, in Hosea, a resemblance to himself? Hosea had, since the day Euphemia told him his father was the Prime Minister, stared long and hard at any photograph, any news footage of the Prime Minister trying to see some similarities. They both had blue eyes and dark hair, but then so did millions of people. Hosea remembered the rhyme the American people had chanted when Grover Cleveland was the president and news broke out he had fathered an illegitimate child somewhere along the line: “Ma, Ma, where’s my pa? He’s gone to the White House, ha ha ha.” But what if what Euphemia had said was a lie? Or simply morphine-induced rambling? Hosea didn’t want to think about that. He had the letter, the form letter with the photocopied copy of the Prime Minister’s signature promising to visit Canada’s smallest town. Hosea had always been interested in maintaining Algren’s status as smallest town. It had kept the town on the map and given the folks in Algren a dose of civic pride, of recognition beyond being the birthplace of the Algren cockroach.
But now, since the arrival of the letter three months ago, Hosea’s job became clear. It was more than a job, though: it was his mission in life and his only dream. He must bring the Prime
Minister to Algren. He must. “John Baert.” Hosea murmured the name quietly, his eyes tightly closed, his mind trying to batter down the door that blocked his memory of that day he burned his hand and picked the roses.
“I
think he’s dead,” Summer Feelin’ whispered.
“I doubt it. His lips are moving,” Knute whispered back.
“Say something, Mom.”
Knute cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”
Hosea, for the second time that afternoon, lurched forward in his chair and banged his scarred palm against the edge of his desk, sending a few paper clips skittering off the side.
“Caught you sleeping on the job, eh? Ha ha,” Knute said. Summer Feelin’ stood beside Knute, holding her hand and staring at Hosea, who was now tugging at his shirt with one hand and smoothing the already smooth surface of his desk with the other.
“Oh no, oh no, I wasn’t sleeping. I was just, thinking, so how are you, Knutie? Hi there, uh … Autumn … uh, May?”
“Summer Feelin’. Say hi, S.F.”
“Hi, S.F.”
“Ha, ha, that’s her little joke.”
“Oh yes, that’s, uh …” Hosea felt his hand go to his shirt again but this time he stopped himself from tugging by lunging towards the floor and picking up the fallen paper clips.
“Well, I just thought I’d take you up on that job offer,
remember, when you came by to visit my folks you mentioned that—”
“Yes. Yes, I remember. I do, well, I will have work for you. Quite a bit of work, actually, very soon. Well, what I’ll need you to do, mainly, is, you know, answer phones, write letters, make appointments, that sort of thing. Generally, keep the place in order.”
Hosea hadn’t expected Knute to show up quite so soon. Actually, he hadn’t expected her to show up at all. And now he was having a hard time explaining what it was he wanted from her. He could have kicked himself for not being prepared. He needed a young, attractive woman at his side, plain and simple, if he was going to impress the Prime Minister. Look at all the politicians. They all had attractive aides and writers and handlers, not to mention young, beautiful wives. Lorna would do just fine as the wife, Hosea figured. Granted, she wasn’t that young, and she did stoop slightly and forget to do little things like lay down her collar or straighten her necklace so that the diamond Hosea had given her was often draped over her shoulder instead of hanging down towards her cleavage, but Hosea loved her and was confident she would pass muster with the Prime Minister. Who knows, by then she might even be living with him in Algren? And Knute would be his lovely and capable assistant, provided she wore something other than torn jeans and police boots. Hosea could picture it now. There he’d be with Lorna on one side and Knute on the other, waiting for John Baert to emerge from the limousine, to offer Hosea his hand and—
“So when do I start?” asked Knute. She could sense Hosea was nervous about this whole thing. Summer Feelin’ was trying to drag her out of the room so she was trying to get it over with as fast as she could.
“Start. Well. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. Say about ten o’clock.”
“Okay,” said Knute. “Sounds good.”
“Oh, Knute?”
“Yeah?”
“How’s your father’s health?”
“Oh, comme ci comme ça, you know …”
“Hmmm … Do you think his heart is getting stronger?”
“I think so, yeah. He’s learning to juggle.”
“Juggle? Really?” For a brief moment Hosea was nine again and he heard Tom’s voice. “Run, Hosea, run!” It seemed like just the other day. “Juggling, well, what do you know?” said Hosea.
By then Summer Feelin’ had dragged Knute out of the room and halfway down the hall. Knute managed to yell over her shoulder to Hosea who was still sitting at his desk tapping a paper clip against his teeth, “See ya tomorrow!”
The snow was melting and the sun was hot, so Knute and Summer Feelin’ walked home with their jackets tied around their waists and this was enough to make S.F. flap. Normally when she flapped in public Knute tried to calm her down. She’d take her hand or rub her back or say her name or get S.F. to look at her and tell her what she was so excited about. But this time Knute thought she’d just let S.F. get it out of her system. They stood right in front of the big windows of the Wagon Wheel Café and S.F. stood on one spot, her head back, mouth open, and flapped like she was about to lift right off the ground. Knute was excited, too. The world is full of possibility at that precise moment when winter jackets are taken off for the first time in Manitoba. Things were okay. Living with Tom and Dory, working for Hosea, hanging out with S.F. She wouldn’t be featured in
Vanity Fair
, but …
A couple of men in the café noticed S.F. and pointed at her and stared for a while and then went back to their coffee.
When she and S.F. got back to the house they saw Combine Jo lying on the ground in front of the front door. Tom was sitting in a lawn chair beside her wearing a tuque and a down-filled jacket and reading a Dick Francis novel.
“Hello, ladies, how’d the interview go?” asked Tom.
“What the hell is she doing here?” said Knute.
“Do you mean what the hell is
she
doing here?” said Tom, “or what the hell is she doing
here?”
S.F. crawled onto Tom’s lap and peered down at Combine Jo. “Is she dead?” she asked Tom, who looked at Knute and winked.
“No, she’s just resting.” Tom put his head back and swallowed a couple of times for the benefit of S.F. who had, recently, become intrigued with his Adam’s apple and liked to follow its course with her fingertips. “Aack, not so hard, S.F. I’ll choke.” He bulged his eyes and Summer Feelin’ giggled.
“This is ridiculous,” Knute said and went inside the house. She had to step over Combine Jo’s right arm, which was stretched out as a pillow for her head. She had almost made it into the house. Her bloated fingers grazed the sill of the door and, as Knute stepped over her, lifted slightly as if she were waving.
Knute stormed into the house and flung her jacket onto the floor.
“Why the hell is Combine Jo here and what the hell is she doing lying on the ground?” she yelled in the general direction of the den, where Dory had been painting for the past few days.
“Oh, Knutie?” came Dory’s reply. “I’m glad you’re here. Jo fainted and she’s too heavy for Tom and me to move so I just sent Tom out to sit beside her and keep an eye on her ‘til she woke up. You know, it’s warm enough out there today for her to lie there, and anyway he’d likely have another heart attack if he tried to lift her, you know, and my back isn’t—”
“She did not faint, Mother, she passed out. She’s drunk. I’m not a child. I know when somebody is drunk. You know, I’ve been drunk myself, I realize when something like this is happening.”
By now Dory had come out to the kitchen. She was covered in paint and wearing her SoHo T-shirt. Knute was sitting on the counter, swinging her legs like a kid and drinking milk directly from the carton.
“I’m not hauling her inside if that’s what you think,” she sputtered through a mouthful of milk. “Forget it.”
“Okay, okay, Knutie, calm down, okay? Just calm down.” Dory put her hands on Knute’s thighs and looked at her imploringly in very much the same way Knute looked at S.F. when she flapped.
Just then Combine Jo came thrashing through the door holding S.F. in her arms with Tom behind her, invisible except for his arms moving wildly around her trying to make sure she didn’t drop S.F. or smash any part of her against the walls of the front entrance. As Combine Jo and S.F. ricocheted from wall to wall one of Jo’s sleeves caught on the hall mirror, which yanked it right off, sending bits of glass and plaster flying and Tom, still in his tuque, started doing a sort of jig to avoid stepping on it, saying, “Dory? Dory? Dory, you gotta help me here.”
“Goddamn it!” Combine Jo slurred as one of her feet involuntarily slid out in front of her like Fred Astaire and then began to plow her way to the living room couch. “Christ, girl, hang on! We’re almost there!” she told S.F., who answered meekly, “I am. I am.” By this time Tom and Dory were flanking her like two tugs bringing in the
Queen Mary
, and Knute was frozen to the spot, livid.
“Ho!” Combine Jo belched out as she fell onto the couch. S.F. kind of dropped beside her and then attempted to climb off the couch, but before she could escape Combine Jo grabbed her
by the shirt and said, “Not so fast, you little devil. I want to have a good look at you.”