Escape Velocity (11 page)

I've asked Dad so many times about all this, but I've never talked to my mother about it. I wonder what her side of the story is.

I can't imagine asking.

I flag down Justine in the hallway after my first class. “I found some places for homeless people. Street people and stuff like that.” I pull out the list I made from the places I found online. “I searched shelters and drop-ins, but there's kind of a lot of them.”

Justine takes the paper from my hand. She sucks on her lower lip while she scans the list. “Well, some of these are shelters for, you know, women in abusive relationships or whatever. My mom works in this one.” She taps the page with a heavily silver-ringed finger. “Transition House. They won't tell you who's staying there.”

“Your mom does? She's a counselor or something?”

She gives me a look. “So?”

I shrug. It seems bizarre that Justine lives in a group home if her mom is a counselor. It doesn't say much for counseling if a counselor can't even work out things with her own kid. “So nothing,” I say. “Anyway, I don't think she'd be in one of those places. I was thinking more like places where someone might hang out if it was cold, or get a free lunch, that kind of thing. I mean, I don't really know if she's even homeless.”

“Why do you think she might be?”

I explain the whole thing about the clapping woman and my mother's reluctant admission. “She looked scruffy. Poor. And my mother said she was drunk the one other time she saw her.”

Justine raises an eyebrow skeptically.

“I know, I know. Maybe she has a job and a nice apartment and she just likes to wear old clothes and gets drunk sometimes.” I shake my head. “Look, I don't know the first thing about any of this, okay? But she looked pretty rough. Besides, I want to find her, and unless she shows up again at another one of my mother's book things, I don't see how else I can. So I might as well try this idea.”

“And you want to find her why?”

I shrug. “Just do.”

“You want to try to help her, don't you? Get her off the streets?”

“I don't know. If I can, I guess. But I think my mom should, really,” I say. “I mean, it's her mother. Even if they don't get along or whatever, she shouldn't let her be homeless.”

“Your mom doesn't know you're looking for her, I take it.”

“Right.”

Justine shakes her head. “We better get to class.”

“Which of these places would you try? If you were me?”

She makes a face. “I'm not exactly an expert, you know. Before I moved where I am now, I used to stay at friends' places mostly. Sometimes I crashed at St. Andrew's or the Y. There's a youth shelter that uses a bunch of different spaces.”

“What about older people? Do you know where they go?”

“I haven't even heard of some of these places,” she says, looking at my list. Then she taps the paper with one finger. “Try StreetLink, or the place on Pandora. I guess those are the main ones. The one on Pandora does free lunches, and a lot of folks hang out on the boulevard down there.”

I stick the paper in my pocket. “I'll check it out. Thanks, Justine.”

She starts to walk down the hall; then she realizes I'm not following. “Lou? Aren't you coming?”

I shake my head. “I'm going to check out this place.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Well, I can't go after school or my mother will wonder where I am. Anyway, people go there for lunch, you said. So I need to get there by lunchtime.”

She hesitates. “You want me to come with you?”

“No. I'll be fine.” It sounds like she has enough problems, and I don't want to be responsible for her skipping classes too. “Just tell me how to get there.”

The drop-in shelter is easy to find: a dozen or more people are clustered in front, smoking and chatting. I half open the door, and then hesitate, suddenly feeling awkward. It's unlikely that the woman—my grandmother—will be here. But what am I going to say to her if she is?

A woman opens the door the rest of the way. “Come on in,” she says. She is small, with crumpled brown skin that looks as soft as an old paper bag. Her hair looks young though, long and black and glossy. She could be anywhere from forty to seventy.

“Thanks.” I step inside and look around. Bulletin boards covered in brightly colored flyers, a cool tiled floor, a door opening into a larger cafeteria-style space. One woman is asleep on a chair in the lobby area, but judging from the noise level, more people are in the other room.

“Have you been here before?” the woman asks me.

I shake my head.

“Welcome, then. My name is Nina. Come on, I'll show you around and we'll get you some lunch. Hot soup. Turkey and cheese sandwiches.”

I follow her toward the lunchroom. “I'm not here for that. I'm actually looking for someone.”

She smiles at me, waiting.

“Actually, my grandmother,” I explain. “That's who I'm looking for. She's got long gray hair and wears skirts…”

My voice trails off.

“What's her name?”

“Um, her last name might be Summers.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Doesn't ring any bells. We don't always know people's last names though. You don't know her first name?”

I feel like I should explain, but it is too complicated.

“I've never met her,” I say. “I think she might be homeless, but I don't really know that either.”

Nina shakes her head. “Well, you might as well have something to eat since you're here anyway. You look like you could use a good meal.”

I look down at myself self-consciously. “I'm fine. I'm not even hungry.”

“Maybe just some soup then,” Nina says.

I follow her into the lunchroom and let her put a plastic-wrapped pack of crackers and a bowl of soup on a tray for me. The room is filled with tables in long rows, and maybe half the seats are taken. There are at least thirty or so women here. Some of them look pretty bad. One old woman has a big sore on her forehead and dark purple bruises all over her bare forearms. A few are very skinny, and one is moving oddly, jerking about and waving her arms almost as if she is dancing. Others look totally ordinary, not like they're homeless or even really poor. One young Native woman has two kids sitting with her, eating sandwiches.

None of them looks anything like Zoe's mother.

“She's not here,” I say, and a lump swells in my throat. I don't know why I am so disappointed. I knew it was a chance in a million that I'd find her so easily.

“I'm sorry,” Nina says. She stands up. “Do eat your lunch. And feel free to talk to me or one of the others if we can do anything to help.”

I nod and stir the soup. Tomato, thick and red. I have a feeling Nina doesn't believe me and wonder if she thinks I am on the streets myself. The smell of the soup is making me nauseated, but I don't want to offend anyone by not eating it.

I look at my watch. Almost noon. One o'clock in Calgary. I wonder if Dad has had the surgery yet. Maybe he is in surgery right now, unconscious on the operating table, a mask over his face and tubes everywhere. A gloved hand holding a scalpel over his bare chest. Would the surgeon draw a line on his skin first or just cut? I imagine sharp steel slicing through skin and yellow layers of fat, like I've seen on
TV
shows; imagine the surgeons and nurses making small talk while they pry my father's rib cage open and expose his beating heart.
Thump thump. Thump thump
. Do they stop it somehow, or do they cut between beats? How do you fix a heart anyway?

I keep wondering what will happen to me if my father dies. I hate that I'm thinking about myself, but I can't help it. Being with Zoe would be lonelier than being alone. My eyes are prickling with hot tears, and I rub my hands across them roughly.

“Are you okay?” A girl is leaning across the table toward me. She's a few years older than me, bleached hair cut short and tucked behind her ears, a black knit cap, snake-bite piercings.

“I'm fine,” I say.

“If you say so.” She takes a sip of coffee and drops her eyes.

I push my soup away. “My dad's having surgery today.”

“Oh.” She makes a face. “Serious?”

“Yeah. Heart surgery. So, you know, I'm kind of worried about him.”

“That sucks.” She drains the last of her coffee. “He'll probably be okay though. I'm going for a smoke. Coming?”

I shake my head. “No. I'm looking for someone. An older woman. I think she's homeless. Do you know any other places like this where she could be?”

She shrugs. “Not a clue. Sorry.”

Outside the shelter, the wind funnels down the street, lifting leaves and plastic bags from the sidewalk, cutting right through my thin sweater. I fold my arms across my chest and walk quickly. I walk past someone sleeping in an alcove by an empty storefront, an army-green sleeping bag pulled over his head. Or her head.

I slow down, letting my eyes linger on the backpack the sleeping body is curled around. I could walk right past my grandmother and never know it.

It takes me half an hour to get home, and by the time I arrive, I am freezing cold and seething with anger.

I don't understand how Zoe could be selfish enough to turn her back on her own mother. I let myself into the apartment and am relieved to find it empty. I don't feel like seeing my mother right now. Besides, technically I should still be at school. I don't see why Zoe should care that I'm skipping classes, but it's one less thing to deal with if she doesn't know.

I grab the phone and lie on the living-room couch with my feet resting against the wall in a way I would never do if my mother was here. I call my father, but it rings and rings and he doesn't answer. Eventually I hear a tinny version of my own voice:
Hi, you've reached Lou's cell phone. Leave a message and I'll get back to you
. I hang up and try the social worker, but I get her voice mail too. My stomach is unsettled, and I keep remembering the sickly smell of that tomato soup and wishing I hadn't eaten any of it. I leave a message for the social worker, hang up and stare at the phone for a few minutes. I can't stand not knowing whether my dad is okay.

Finally I call Dana Leigh at the WBD. She picks up right away.

“It's me. Lou.”

“Lou! Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

“I'm fine. Do you know if Dad has had the surgery yet?”

“He's having the surgery today,” she says. “That's all I know.”

“You think he'll be okay, right?” My voice wobbles.

“Oh, honey. He'll be fine, Lou. He'll be just fine.”

“You don't know that.”

“I do,” she says. “I am absolutely sure he'll be okay. He's a fighter, your dad.”

A fighter? I'm not so sure about that. I love my dad, but what I have seen over the past year looks more like someone admitting defeat. “Call me if you hear from him,” I say.