After (8 page)

“Next Monday, instead of going to the cemetery, you’re going to the psychologist at school. I made an appointment for you.”

“I don’t need a psychologist. I’m not a freak.”

“You’ll go anyway!
Point final.
”

I stormed up to my room and banged the door behind me. I grabbed my guitar and sat on my bed hammering at the strings, but I couldn’t block out the sound of Luc crying in the living room. He was probably scared that what was left of his family was cracking some more.

T
he next morning, I slept in. When I came down to breakfast the house was empty. Sputnik’s leash was missing from its hook so I knew that Maman and Luc had taken him for a walk. There was a small wooden chest on the table. I read the note folded on top of it:

I held it for a moment before I opened its metal clasp. Inside was a battered pipe I’d never seen Papa smoke, a couple of old snapshots of him as a young man standing on the pier, and a deck of playing cards that was at least as old as the pictures. When I shook the cards out of their box, a folded piece of paper fell to the floor. I smoothed it out:

In 1953, my father would have been just twenty years old, but his handwriting hadn’t changed. I’d never heard him talk about the Loyal Order of the Companions of Poker or any reunion. In fact, the only time I remember him talking about Toronto was when he was on a rant about the Maple Leafs. I refolded the paper and put it back between the cards. I carried the box upstairs and stowed it with the Rangers jersey in my bottom drawer. Despite these little glitches: the note in the box was obviously written in fun, it was almost forty years old, and it referred to something that everybody involved had probably forgotten–
if
they were still alive, I felt like I had won the lottery. I know it sounds crazy, but I thought that if I could just get to the reunion, I’d meet up with my father. I can’t explain it. It’s not like I was delusional. I knew what was real and what wasn’t. I just didn’t want to accept it, that’s all.

W
hen I came home from school one rainy spring afternoon, the back door was unlocked, so I knew Maman was home from work. She was sitting on the living room floor with photographs scattered around her.

“I miss him so much.” She hugged herself and rocked as she sobbed. “I had an urge to look at our wedding pictures. We were so happy in them.” Finally she wiped her eyes with the shreds of Kleenex in her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how late it is. It’s time to make dinner.”

I longed to talk about Papa with her, but it was as if all my feelings were locked in a safe and the key had gotten lost. I went upstairs to my bedroom without saying anything.

When spring comes to our street and the snow recedes, the crop of mittens and hats that have been frozen in drifts all winter begin to surface like exotic flowers. I started to notice that there were whole hours when the grief ebbed and left patches of normal life behind it. It was like finding a lost mitten when you’ve almost forgotten about it. That’s when I would think about what we’d be having for supper or what was playing at the movies or whether I should do my Spanish homework before my science assignment. Slowly, slowly I began to prefer being with my friends to being alone. Their jokes were still pretty lame, but I knew they were trying their best for me, and that counted for a lot.

The nights remained gruesome long after the days became easier. Hard as it was to accept that my father was dead, it was a piece of cake compared to accepting that he’d committed suicide. Night after long night I would lie in my bed thinking of him hanging from a crossbeam in the attic, surrounded by boxes of our baby clothes and an old sewing machine and gold Christmas balls. It would be easier to believe that he was killed by a stranger than to admit he’d killed himself, because then there would be somebody for me to hate. I couldn’t hate my father.

A man from the insurance company came to talk to Maman.

“Finish giving Luc his lunch,” she called from the front door. I cut Luc’s toast into soldiers, poured tomato soup into his Kermit bowl, and put on coffee for Maman and the insurance guy.

When I carried two mugs into the dining room for them, they were sitting across from each other with papers spread all over the table. The agent’s briefcase lay open between them. I could see pens and a calculator and a calendar neatly arranged in it. Neither of them looked at me.

Without warning Maman stood up, stuffed the papers into the briefcase and threw the whole thing at the man with impressive force. He ducked, and the case crashed to the floor.

Maman stomped out of the room and up the stairs. I could hear her ranting as she paced up and down the hall above us.

The agent straightened his jacket and picked up the briefcase.

“You won’t be able to collect on your father’s life insurance,” he explained, red-faced. “I’m afraid it was not a
natural
death.”

I snapped the leash on Sputnik and dug Luc’s jacket out of the closet. “Come on, kiddo. We’re going to the park.”

“Why?”

“I think Maman might want to be alone.” I could hear a variety of furious slammings and stompings above us.

It was a bright April day. Luc climbed up on the swing, and I pushed him. I didn’t know how much he’d taken in of the scene Maman had created, but just in case, I wanted him to forget about it. I wanted him to soar high in the sky. In French we say as high as a grown-up’s hat. He shrieked with laughter.

We walked Sputnik to the off-leash part of the park and found an empty bench. Sputnik did a play bow to a passing collie that looked like it was carrying a tree in its mouth. The two of them took off, playing tug-the-branch.

“You know what, Francis?” Luc sounded as if he had worked out a puzzle. “Papa is dead.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And that’s why Maman cries a lot.”

“Yes, I know.”

He trained his blue, trusting eyes on me. I hated when he looked at me like that. “Francis, teach me how to play the guitar.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to be alone.” I didn’t have to wonder whether or not Luc had figured out the insurance stuff. Nothing much got by him.

My little brother. My little Luc. It hit me how much life is like poker. Some people draw all the good cards, and others only dream that they’ll get a decent hand some day. Luc’s cards were pretty dire for a kid so young.

If I were God, if He exists, I would make a rule that people get to send the person they’ve lost three messages. They could ask for advice or tell them that they were loved and are missed. One of the questions I would ask Papa is, how do I take care of Luc? I don’t know what the other questions would be.

When we got home from the park and I had put a plate of cookies in front of Luc and wiped the mud off Sputnik’s paws and hairy belly, I found Maman in her usual place, curled up at the end of the brown corduroy couch, Papa’s vest clutched tight against her body. Despite the sheer nuttiness of her having built a fire on this warm day, she seemed much calmer. A TV evangelist was pacing back and forth on the screen. She was watching him punch the air with the sound off.

“Maman?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Do you believe in God?” It had never occurred to me to wonder what she believed, but now it seemed urgent for me to know.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes me feel better.”

“That’s it?”

She turned her attention to me. “I want to think that your father is in some kind of paradise and that he’s looking out for us,” she said firmly.

“You really believe that?”

“Yes. I like to think that he is our guardian angel. You want to know something, honey? Sometimes, especially when I’m here, in front of the fireplace, I feel some kind of a presence around me. I don’t know. Maybe it’s him.”

I wanted to believe her, but I wasn’t sure what to think. I never felt any presence, ever. She reached out to ruffle my hair and smiled, really smiled at me for the first time since last June.

T
hat old Grief Monster had its own schedule. Just when I thought my head was clear of the water, it would rise up like a sea serpent and drag me down again. I could be pointing to the pizza in the cafeteria line, or trying to work out an equation in math when it would grab me by the legs and pull me under, so that I felt like water was pouring into my lungs. I thought I had cried all the tears that a human being could possibly cry, but evidently there is no limit. I
was
turning into some sort of grief freak. I discovered every single spot in the school where you can cry without being seen. You’d be amazed at how many there are.

Everybody liked Houston. I’m not saying that just because he was my best friend. It was impossible not to like the goofiest guy in the entire universe. He made people think that the world was one good laugh. When Aunt Sophie first met him, she shook her head fondly. “That boy is a tonic. That’s what he is, a tonic.”