Interference (12 page)

The phone rings again.

Caroline doesn't answer it.

There is a knock on the door. A voice. “Knock knock,” the voice says.

Caroline doesn't hear it.

In the baby's room Caroline reaches down into the crib to pick little Carrie up but the baby doesn't know her and screams even louder when she sees the older girl's arms coming in. There is a sudden smell in the air. Caroline stands there, seventeen years old, her mother dying, an essay on
Othello
due, a fucking war book to read, and a baby shrieking so loudly she can't hear herself think. There is the smell of shit in the air and someone crank-phoning her. Caroline resumes crying. She joins the child. Both cry. One loud and wailing and uncomfortable. The other with shoulders shaking, big, loud gulps of air. Until finally the baby stops crying and studies the older girl. She moves over to the far side of her crib and curls up in the corner, one eye open on the big girl who is still sobbing, and she sniffles once, twice, closes her eye and falls asleep. Her soiled diaper looks huge, warm and wet.

Downstairs there is a knock again. A quiet tap, tap, tap.

Caroline settles down on the floor of the baby's room and looks around. There are bears and dolphins and dinosaurs and princesses — toys everywhere. There are books in a large pile in the corner. A closet door is open and Caroline can see small, wildly coloured dresses hanging in a row, a laundry bag on the floor. Caroline doesn't remember when she was little, but she remembers her brother, Jude, when he was young and how their mother would bend into the crib to take Jude out when he cried. How she would soothe him by blowing on his neck until he giggled. Caroline would say, “Now me,” and her mother would lean down and blow on Caroline's neck and the warm breath would turn cold quickly and Caroline would shiver and laugh.

How is it possible, Caroline thinks, to lose your mother? She's not even gone, and I've lost her. Once her mother bent down to blow on her neck, now Caroline is taller than her mother and her mother will never blow on her neck to make her giggle again.

They didn't tell Caroline or Jude about the cancer until it was confirmed and there was no turning back. So there were a couple months where the siblings knew something was up, where they could feel it in the air, which seemed thick with sorrow. Caroline thought her parents were getting a divorce. She assumed, from the way Jude was acting, that he didn't think anything. He just waded through the liquid air sluggishly and came and left the house silently and with skill. He wouldn't talk to Caroline about it. Caroline complained a lot: why was everyone so quiet? Why was everyone ignoring her? “Why,” she asked one night, “is everyone being so nice to each other?”

Her mother. The operations. The chemotherapy. The radiation. Her nails cracked and fell off. Her hair fell out. Her eyebrows and eyelashes disappeared. Her mother's skin was covered in rashes. Her cheeks red and scaly.

Sometimes, still, Caroline catches her mother crying in the bathroom. The door is locked but Caroline can hear the deep, guttural sobs.

And all she can think, all the time, is
it's not fair
.

“Life isn't fair,” her father says. “Get used to it.”

But Caroline can't understand that. Or she doesn't want to understand that. It doesn't make sense to her. I'm only seventeen, Caroline thinks. For some reason I thought life was fair.

Max pushes open the door and comes into the room. Caroline stands, bends to scoop him up before he meows and wakes the baby, and carries him with her into the hall. The fresh air in the hall hits her. She really should have changed the baby's diaper.

The diaper reminds Caroline of the story circulating around her high school these days. Jude says it isn't true, but Caroline is sure it can happen. Liquid Leonard is what they call him now, all the kids. Left to die in his reclining chair. Left there for four months. Leaked straight through to the basement.

But the most disturbing thing about this story, Caroline thinks, is that his wife lived there with him. She kept taking in the dinner, left it there on his TV tray. She gave him the TV guide. She sprayed him daily with Raid to keep the flies off. When they found him, the story goes, he had that week's TV guide right beside him. And his dinner was only a day old.

“Can you imagine the smell?” Jude says.

Caroline thinks of him, Liquid Leonard, slowly sinking into the recliner. She thinks of his wife, not being able to handle his death, wanting to ignore it, thinking it isn't fair that he died before she did. She gags a little, there on the stairs at Dayton's house, a small gag as the imagined smell combines with the left­over diaper fumes from the baby's room. Max hisses and jumps out of her arms.

A door slams downstairs. Caroline jumps.

The phone rings again.

Dayton stands outside on the front porch, watching Caroline walk quickly down the dark sidewalk, trying not to slip on the ice, towards home. Strange girl. She looked stoned. Her eyes were all red. But Dayton supposes Caroline is a more appropriate babysitter than Trish's daughter, Rachel, who is only twelve. Even if Caroline might smoke pot.

Still, Dayton wishes the girl had got a ride home from her mother. Claire tried to pick her up. Dayton could hear her on the phone arguing. But Caroline wanted to walk and Claire didn't seem to have the will to fight her.

The hockey game went well tonight even if they lost again. Dayton is getting the hang of it. She's able to throw her small weight around a little more. She takes chances now. She trusts her equipment to protect her. And, even if it doesn't, she trusts her teammates to save her from harm.

Inside, the phone rings again. Caroline mentioned there were a lot of prank calls. Dayton wonders if it's John. She wouldn't be surprised if he was calling and hanging up. A grown man. It seems so childish. But Dayton doesn't know exactly what he is capable of — after all, Dayton took his daughter and disappeared. Dayton turns to go inside, to answer it, when she sees something in the mailbox. As she reaches for it, a pamphlet, something moves outside under the tree in the shadows. A person? A little man? A boy? She swivels quickly back to see what it is, but there is nothing there. Forgetting the pamphlet, Dayton goes inside and shuts the door. Locks it. The phone stops ringing. She leans back on the front door. She wonders when she will stop worrying about John, about the fact that the emails stopped, that he seems to have lost his job. When will she stop worrying? Is that even possible? When will she feel safe inside her house, or even outside of it? When will she be okay?

When Dayton stole Carrie out into the night, whisked her away from California, away from John, she didn't think it all through properly. She felt she had reason to leave. John's affair. John's verbal, emotional abuse. She was worried for herself. Worried for Carrie. But stealing your child in the dark of night, escaping through the air, lying to the customs officers, renting a house with cash and fake identification, and settling in as if nothing will hurt you, that's just plain crazy. What was she thinking? Dayton sinks down to the floor and takes Max into her lap. Was there no other option? What else could she have done? What if she had gone the normal route — divorce — and John had retained custody of Carrie? What if she couldn't see her baby ever again, or only on weekends? John, after all, had the job. Dayton had nothing. Except an old bottle of Prozac she is ashamed of, hidden in her underwear drawer. Prozac John could easily use against her.

“She is depressed,” he could say. “She needs to take pills.”

But Dayton hasn't touched the bottle of Prozac in years. Even when she feels she really needs to start taking it again, she doesn't touch it.

Dayton tortures herself with questions like this.

And what happens when the money she stole runs out? She has no credit cards anymore. He stopped those.

What happens when John comes after them? Because he will. She knows this.

Max purrs happily. His small spine curls and he is a ball of black in her lap, his tail wrapped up to his nose, sleeping. Dayton can smell herself. Her sweat, the salty, garlic smell of it. Her hair smells stale and mouldy, like her hockey equipment. She imagines that this is what Trish's husband, Frank, must smell like. The equipment Dayton wears is, after all, his. She can hear the wind pick up outside and the tree branches tap, tap, tap the side of her house.

Just now, when Dayton watched Caroline head home down the empty, dark street, she wished, with all her heart, that she was as lucky as Claire. Claire has it all: Ralph, her kind husband; two nice children; a safe, easy home for her daughter to head towards. Claire has everything. Even the little argument she had with Caroline on the phone about picking her up. Even that was done well. It's not fair, Dayton thought.

Dayton wishes that she had that scanner she was talking about in the grocery store. She would scan everything she wants in life, just bleep things into the hand-held device and, at the end of it all, she would drive her car up to the back of a store and load everything into it: a father for her baby, a house, a job, money, the legal right to live here, her groceries, even clothes, everything. Maybe she'd even scan another cat to keep Max company. Bleep.

Upstairs Carrie begins to cry. Dayton sighs and stands. She brushes the fur off her lap, makes sure the front door is locked, turns off the lights in the hall and downstairs, and climbs the stairs to see what Carrie needs. The smell hits her when she reaches the landing.

Outside, the tree taps. The pamphlet blows out of the mailbox.

Outside, Caroline is almost home.

Outside, he waits under the gigantic tree, a smallish figure, and he watches the house. Then he ducks out from behind the tree and catches the pamphlet as it blows past.

And, further on, Claire stands, arms crossed on her chest, her fuzzy scalp shining, in her front window, waiting for her daughter to come home.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Followup to phone call

Tom,

I'm sorry I wasn't originally able to help you find the man you were looking for. However, shortly after our phone conversation I ran into him! What are the chances of that? I knew he was not part of our shelter system. I was certain of that. I am also certain that he has never used our shelter. So I figured you were out of luck. Then, just this morning, I ran into him. Literally. My car even bumped him a little. Let me explain: he works at the full-service car wash on Braid Street. My windshields were a bit steamy and I touched him slightly with my front fender as I drove into the area where they dry your car down after the automatic washing. They use really soft towels. It's actually quite a good service. Anyway, I didn't mean to bump him. It was an accident. All of this doesn't matter and he took a grand tip from me, the point is — he works there. You can find him now. Just go down to Braid Street and get in that god-awful line of cars needing to be washed. I'm sure this is your man — 100% sure — how many men sport scars like that? I've never seen anything like it.

Hope this helps you. I think it's great that you want to pay him for helping you rake. I can understand that completely. Please don't hesitate to visit our Men's Shelter anytime you are in the area — we could use men like you volunteering!

Cheerio,

Art Spack

Abernackie Men's Shelter

Braithwaite Drive, Parkville

8

It's Lego in the basement with her brother, Charlie, or reading by herself in her room or helping her mother wash up the lunch dishes or watching her father watch sports on TV. That's all there is. So when Becky knocks on the door and asks Rachel if she wants to hang out, Rachel decides that's the best option or alternative. Rachel doesn't particularly like Becky but she hates Sundays even more.

Option and alternative were two words on this week's spelling test. Two words she got wrong. Now her mother is making her use them at every opportunity — which was another word on the test. Rachel has no idea how using a word will make her spell it correctly. But she has no option. Or optian? Altarnetive?

“What do you want to do?” Becky asks. She is leaning in the doorway, letting all the cold air in. Rachel won't let her into the hall. She never lets Becky in. Becky is sick of it. “Let's hang out at your house. My house is too messy.”

Ridiculous, Rachel thinks — which is one of last week's words — Becky's house is spotless. “You just don't want me to mess up your bedroom.”

“Yeah, well,” Becky says. “It's true. You always make a mess.”

Rachel shrugs. “Let's go up to the school then.”

Becky looks behind her, out into the street. “I guess.”

“Shut the front door,” Rachel's mother calls from the kitchen. “You're letting all the cold air in.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. It's always “you're letting all the cold air in” or, in the summer, “you're letting all the hot air in.” Rachel wishes her mom would make up her mind.

It is crazy cold. Becky runs home to put on her snow pants and boots, her hat, scarf and mittens. Rachel begins the process of suiting up. It's like getting ready for deep-sea diving, her grandpa always says. Rachel snorts when he says it, as if it's funny, but she's sick of him saying it. Every damn time she sees him he says it, “deep-sea diving.” She thinks he got it from a movie. It's not even his own line. But she humours him, because he's old. And because he's her grandpa and he gives her great gifts. And she loves him. That too.

Rachel doesn't know why adults think they are so funny. Her mother is always cracking jokes that make no sense. Her father laughs loudly at himself. Even her teachers think they are hilarious.

“You certainly woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” her mother says, coming out of the kitchen and drying her hands on her thighs. “You've been muttering to yourself all morning with a nasty scowl on your face.”

“So?”

“Just mentioning it. Don't shoot me.” Rachel's mom holds her hands up as if she is under arrest and backs into the kitchen. “Have a nice afternoon. Don't freeze to death.” She laughs.

Hilarious, Rachel thinks.

The girls pass the new woman, Dayton, getting out of her car. She isn't dressed for winter. She isn't even wearing mittens or a hat but she has great leather boots on. High ones. With a bit of a heel. She's from California, Rachel thinks, so she has an excuse. And she has fashion sense. Rachel wishes she were from California. Actually anywhere else than here. Rachel's sick of winter. She also wishes she had fashion sense. She looks down at her snowsuit and sighs.

Becky thinks Dayton is stunning. When she gets older she's going to live alone with her own baby daughter and wear boots like that. Becky is certain of this. Her house will be spotless, her baby won't even drool. Everything will be perfect.

“Hello, girls,” Dayton says as she bends into the back seat to get her daughter.

She is thin and lovely. Rachel babysits for her occasionally (there is no way she's getting that word right this week — two c's and two l's but only one s — it makes no sense).

“Hi.”

The girls walk on.

“My hair is the same colour as hers,” Becky says.

“What?”

“Me and her,” Becky thumbs back towards Dayton, still bending into her car. “Our hair.”

“No, it isn't. Hers is much blonder. Yours is dirty blond.”

“No, it's not. It's not dirty.” Becky knows her voice is shrill but she can't seem to make it lower.

“So what?” Rachel says. “I babysit for her.”

“You shouldn't be. You're too young.”

Rachel speeds up her walking. Her snow pants shuffle together, making a shushing noise. “I'm not too young. Why would she hire me to babysit if I was too young? You're just jealous that she never asked you.”

“I'm too busy to babysit,” Becky says. She fingers her newly capped tooth. The canker sore is gone now, but the cold makes her mouth ache.

“Yeah, right.” Rachel laughs. “Busy with what?”

“Homework.”

“I'm in your class,” Rachel says. “We never get homework.”

“I work on my spelling every week. That's homework. Practice makes perfect.” Becky purses her lips and blows through her teeth. She knows Rachel is failing spelling. In fact, she knows Rachel is really dumb when it comes to spelling. She got “periodical” wrong. How is that possible? It's exactly like it sounds. She got “possible” wrong too. The weird thing was, she got “impossible” right.

Like most things she does, Becky finds spelling really easy.

“You piss me off,” Rachel says.

“Rachel.”

“Well, you do.”

“Well, you shouldn't swear.”

“Piss is not a swear word.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it's not. It's something you do. We all piss. Don't you? Piss. Piss. Piss.”

“It is a swear word. Maybe if you learned some new words you wouldn't need to swear. Maybe if you learned some new words you'd be a better speller. My mom says that people who swear just don't have a large enough vocabulary.”

“Fuck off. I can spell that,” Rachel says. “Can you?”

They have trudged up to the schoolyard and they stand there now, looking around. It is empty. The climber looks stiff in the wind. The trees bend. Snow blows across the field.

The schoolyard is a movie set. An expanse of violent white, a small climbing structure, several scraggly trees. A fence. And nothing else. When it is recess or lunchtime the yard is full of bodies, but on Sunday it is deserted and dismal. It is vacant and insignificant. A ghost playground. Rachel rubs her mittens together and walks towards the climber. Becky joins her.

“We aren't allowed on that in the winter,” Becky says. “If we fall it'll be really bad.”

“Why? The snow is soft.”

“But they say we can't.”

“Who cares?” Rachel climbs up and sits on the slide. “There's no one here. It's not school time. They don't own us. Whee,” she says sarcastically — which is another spelling word for the week, sarcasm — “this is fun.”

Becky rolls her eyes and looks away. She looks around for the man in the Falcons hoodie. Even though he's wearing a winter coat now, she still thinks of him as the man in the hoodie. She rubs her cheeks with her mittens. Her mouth aches. The hoodie man isn't there. He never is when anyone else is around. The other day Becky saw him walking past Dayton's house. The new woman. He was looking at her house, keeping watch on it. As if he were looking for someone. Becky stared at him for about ten seconds, studied his back. He had his winter coat over his hoodie, but he keeps the hood up so she still can't see his face. Becky wonders if Rachel has seen him, but she doesn't want to ask because Rachel will roll her eyes at Becky, like her teachers do.

He's not here now. Maybe he is invisible. Maybe only she can see him. Maybe she's just stupid.

Not as stupid as Rachel, of course. At least she can spell.

Over the fence comes a kid bundled up even thicker and bulkier than the two girls. The kid gets stuck a bit at the top of the wire fence but pulls free and drops to the snowy ground and begins the difficult shuffle towards them, struggling in the wind and snow. Rachel sits on top of the climbing structure and watches the kid's long approach, stumbling and tripping in the snow.

“Who's that?”

Becky turns and watches. The snowsuit is blue. That could mean anything. It is no one they recognize.

“I don't know.”

It's a girl.

“Hey,” she says, panting from the exertion of pulling her snow pants and boots through deep snow. She stands too close to Becky and looks at her. Becky stares into the new girl's dark brown eyes and says, “Hey,” back. They are the same height. “You're in my personal space,” Becky says, finally, and backs up.

“Yeah?” The girl turns and walks over to the climber. “I'm here to climb. I don't care about your personal space.”

“You aren't supposed to,” Becky says. “Climb, that is. You are supposed to care about people's personal spaces. It's impolite not to.”

“Come on up,” Rachel says. “You might as well ignore her. She never stops talking.” The day has gotten interesting, Rachel thinks as she watches the new girl climb up the structure. The girl dangles from the monkey bars, her padded legs swishing as she swings upside down.

“Be careful.” Becky knows all about concussions. Head injuries can last a lifetime. She did a project on it in school in the fall. Sometimes athletes who have had concussions years ago turn violent and kill their wives. Sometimes they die for no reason. Becky also did a project on shock and another on post-traumatic stress disorder. Becky thinks that maybe someday she could be a doctor or a psychiatrist with all she knows about these things.

“Becky, Jesus,” Rachel says. “Let a girl have some fun.”

“Yeah,” the new girl says, her face turning red as she hangs upside down and glares at Becky.

This is one of those times where Becky should just turn around and go home. Often Becky feels that way. In an awkward situation, when someone is doing something stupid or bad, Becky knows that she should go home. She usually does. But today, she stays. She's curious to see what happens next. She sort of hopes the new girl will fall on her head. Besides, her mom and dad have been arguing a lot lately and so she doesn't want to go home and sit in that house of tension and silence.

The girl pulls herself up and sits high on top of the bars. “I come here a lot,” she says. “Most weekend days.”

“Where are you from?” Rachel asks. “You don't go to this school.”

“Maybe I do.”

“That's impossible,” Becky says. “We'd know you then. We know everyone at this school.”

“Not everyone,” Rachel says. “But most everyone.”

“I pretty much know everyone,” Becky says. “I'm on the student council.”

Rachel sticks her tongue out at Becky. “You don't know the kindergarten kids, do you? Or the ones who are new to the school this week? There's always someone new to the school.”

“Yeah, well.” The girl wipes her runny nose with her mitten. Rachel slips down the snowy slide and walks towards Becky. They stand there together and look up at the girl on the climber.

“What's your name?” Rachel asks.

“None of your beeswax.”

“Fuck,” Rachel says. “You're weird.”

“Rachel,” Becky gasps.

The new girl looks impressed with what just came out of Rachel's mouth. “Hannah,” she says, as if they have passed a test and she is giving them something for it. Good girls, her smile says. “My name's Hannah.”

“Fuck,” Becky whispers so that the other girls almost can't hear her. “Hannah.” Becky likes that name. It's a palindrome. She loves palindromes. Anna. Eve. Noon. Civic.

Rachel giggles. “Nice one, Becky.”

It turns out that Hannah lives nearby. She attends the Catholic school in town. She says it's better. She says the kids are smarter. Because this is interesting, they have never met anyone from the Catholic school, and because she has promised them hot chocolate and they are cold and bored, Rachel and Becky decide to follow the girl home.

“How far is it?” Becky is looking around. They've been walking in a direction she hasn't walked before, away from her house, not towards it.

“Not far. Come on. Stop dragging your feet.” Hannah walks quickly ahead of them. “Come on, come on, come on. You guys are slow.”

It's a small house. With a roof over where you'd park the car. Becky says, “You have a car park,” because she likes to show that she knows things. Rachel sighs. There is no car in the driveway. Hannah opens the side door and walks inside. Rachel and Becky stare at the spot she vacated and then look at each other.

“Should we go inside?”

“There's hot chocolate and I'm freezing,” Rachel says.

“But we're not allowed to go into strange people's houses.”

“She's not strange, just a little weird,” Rachel says. She smirks.

“Come on,” Hannah shouts. “You're letting in the cold air.”

Letting in the cold air, letting in the hot air. Rachel pauses for a minute, thinking about her mom, and then takes one step forward. Becky holds her back. Grabs hold of her arm. “We don't know her. We shouldn't be going inside. What if it's a trap? Stranger Danger.”

Hannah pops her head out and waves her arms. “Seriously, hurry up.”

“I don't even like her,” Becky says. “Do you?”

Rachel thinks about her own house. She thinks about Charlie playing Lego by himself in the basement. Her mom and dad are probably in front of the TV watching hockey. Maybe something good is cooking for dinner. But Rachel doesn't want to go home. Becky is a drag and Rachel wants some excitement in her life. Everything seems to happen the same way every day. Winter. School. Weekends. Homework. Spelling tests. Nothing new. Nothing different.

“I'm going in,” Rachel says. “You can walk home alone if you want. In fact,” she whispers, “get lost. I don't want you here anyway.”

But Becky doesn't want to leave. There is no way she's going anywhere alone these days. She pulls at her mouth, and then follows Rachel into the house.