After (7 page)

“Luc, when we die, we don’t need to eat anymore.”

“What about chocolate?”

“Not even chocolate.”

“Will I die, too?”

“Not today for sure, Luc. Not tomorrow either. Don’t worry about it.”

“Can I talk to Papa while he’s dead?”

I wished he could. I wished I could, too. “Of course you can. In your heart. You can tell him all the things you want to in your heart.”

“Can I talk to him with you sometime?”

“We can do it right now if you want.”

My eyes were starting to water, but I didn’t want to cry in front of Luc. I took a deep breath, and carried him up to his bedroom. I could hear Maman below us. In the kitchen, the tap was running. Luc pulled on his socks and I handed him his teddy bear.

We knelt at the foot of his bed, and I showed him how to fold his hands and pray, something my family didn’t do a lot, except for funerals, baptisms, and weddings. To tell the truth, I had no idea what I was doing, but Luc was looking at me with such trust that I knew I had to wing it.

“Okay, this is what you do, Luc. You have to repeat after me.”

“After me,” he said, squeezing his eyes tight shut.

“Papa.”

“Papa,” he said.

“Good night from the bottom of my heart.”

“Good night from the heart of my bottom.”

“Stop it. That’s not funny.” I tried to sound stern.

“Sorry. Good night from the bottom of my heart.”

“Papa, I love you so much.” I whispered the words.

“Me too,” he said.

I kissed him on the cheek and gave him a bear hug. He climbed into his bed. I straightened his covers around him and smoothed his hair.

There was a photo that I took last May in a Snoopy frame on the little table beside Luc’s bed. The crabapple tree in the backyard was in full blossom. Maman stood
in front of it, next to Papa. Luc was perched on Papa’s shoulders, laughing right into the camera. The blossoms surrounded them in a pink halo. I looked at the photo, turned off the light, closed the door, went to my bedroom, and cried.

1
993. Bill Clinton succeeded George Bush as president–no more vomiting on the Japanese prime minister. In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center went off, killing six people and injuring over a thousand. Kim Campbell became Canada’s first female prime minister. For about five minutes. Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands in Washington, DC after signing a peace accord.
Jurassic Park
, and
Schindler’s List
were released, and k.d. lang with Eric Clapton won a Grammy for the best pop vocal performance. I started to notice these things, but there was still a hard slog ahead of me.

As the winter dragged on I began to spend Friday afternoons riding my bike to the Mount Royal Cemetery
instead of going to school. It’s a good twenty-minute ride, all up hill, which I’m here to tell you is long enough to freeze off your ears and your nose twice over. I didn’t want anyone to know, especially Maman. I knew she went to the cemetery too, because there were often footprints in the snow and fresh flowers on the grave, but I didn’t want her to find out what I was doing. She would have flipped about my cutting classes, for one thing. But mostly it felt like something so personal and so private that I had to keep it to myself. I would take a book to read and sit by the tombstone until I was too cold to stand it. Sometimes I had whole conversations with him:

“Hey, Papa! How’s life up there? Do you know how much I miss you? Luc talks about you all the time. He thinks you will come back. I’ve tried to explain, but he doesn’t get it. Sputnik doesn’t get much exercise these days. Are you mad that mostly we just let him out in the backyard? For Maman, it’s different. She barely talks anymore. She goes to work, comes home, peels onions, cooks dinner, washes the dishes, and sits in front of the fire. That’s about it for her. We haven’t touched your slippers or your jacket since you’ve been gone. It’s strange to say
gone.
If only I knew where you’ve gone, but I don’t.”

Sometimes I felt close to him. Other times I felt like he was a galaxy away.

It was the last gray day of a damp and frigid March. Aunt Sophie had picked up Luc for an excursion to the doughnut shop, and Maman was still at work. We have a candle shaped like an owl that sits on the mantelpiece in the living room. I got it down, set it in the middle of the kitchen table, and lit it. I pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and placed it in the center of the room.

“Papa, if you can hear me, please, make the chair move.”

It didn’t.

My mother spent more and more time at work. She said she did overtime to pay the taxes on the house. She developed a mantra: “I pray to God for good health so that I can keep my job. That’s all I ask.” The more she said it, the more terrified I was that she’d get sick and die.

I skipped more and more school, partly because I could barely stand to be with Houston. When I couldn’t weasel away from him, he’d rattle on about being in love with a girl from the twelfth grade. Love. What an improbable idea. Though it was a refreshing change from the Song of Caroline, it made me crazy to listen to him. One spring day when everything had turned to mud, but there was that softness in the air that can transform Montreal into the most beautiful place on earth, I was unlocking my bike at the stand in front of the school. I had just enough
time to ride up to the cemetery and back before it was time to get Luc from day care. I looked up to see Houston standing in front of me.

“Francis, dude, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“Stop it. I’m not as stupid as I look.”

“I never said you were stupid.”

“You’re never home when I call, and you don’t stop by my place when you take a walk after supper like you used to. You know what?”

“What?”

“Maybe you lost your father. Okay. I’m sorry for you. But I lost my friend. I lost you.” His face was splotchy red.

“I miss you too, dude,” I said.

“It’s hard for me to say this, but I want my buddy back.

The guy with the weird hair and the skateboard under his arm. You know, that spoiled little brat? Wait a second. That’s not you! That’s Bart Simpson.”

“Easy mistake.” I straddled my bike, not knowing what else to say.

Houston continued, his voice rising. “But seriously, you’re my best friend. Remember when you came to my place every night for two whole months in grade five because I wrecked my neck break dancing? Where’s that guy, Francis? Where is he? I’m looking for him, you know, but he’s turned into some sort of grief freak. I miss him, you know, dude?”

Houston was crying. I had never seen him cry before–except when he wrecked his neck.

“I don’t know where you went, but come back.” He hugged me, right there in front of the bike rack. I started crying, too. If anyone was watching us, and I’m sure they were, I didn’t notice.

“I’m sorry, man,” I said.

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“I feel like I’m in a girlie movie.”

“Me too.”

We laughed.

“Want to come to my place tonight? You have to try my new Play Station. You’ll see, it’s freaking great!”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Francis!”

I realized how much I had missed him, and I nodded.

“Great! What about seven-thirty?”

I hadn’t forgotten about the cemetery, exactly, but pushing my bike, I walked home with Houston. When we got to my place, he put a hand on my shoulder, like he used to. Neither one of us said a word, but we were friends again.

Beginning of April. The days were growing longer and the boulders of frozen, dirty snow that had choked our street were almost gone.

I had skipped school that day–and the two days before–to go to the cemetery. Crocuses and tulips were sprouting on the lawn.

When I got home Luc was sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, watching
Sesame Street.
My mother was rooted to her usual spot in front of the kitchen sink, washing dishes as if she hadn’t moved since morning.

“How is it going, sweetheart?”

“Good. How was your day?” I rummaged in the cupboard for a cookie. I snapped it in two and gave half to Sputnik.

“Good. Yours?”

“Good, I just told you.”

“What classes did you have today?”

“Uh … math and biology.” There was something about her voice that should have warned me.

“What did you learn today?”

“Lots of things. Why?”

“Because the school secretary called to tell me that you didn’t show up.”

She dried her hands on the dishcloth and looked at me with an I-know-everything-so-don’t-try-to-lie-to-me expression that would freeze a rhino in its tracks. “Where were you, Francis?”

I don’t know if I was ashamed or afraid or angry or embarrassed. I just knew I didn’t want to tell her.

“Where were you? Don’t make me ask you again!”

“I was at the cemetery. Happy now?”

“What were you doing there?”

I stared at the gray swirls in the linoleum tiles on the floor. “I was visiting Papa.”

She didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. She just looked at me with a fed up expression as if I were six years old eating ice cream and getting more on the floor than into my mouth.
Sorry I’m a mess, Maman.