Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19 (14 page)

‘But, Rita, I don't understand Leonard's account.'

‘No?'

‘He said there was a special account for me – '

‘Maybe that bill hasn't come yet.'

‘No, he was depositing money in – '

Rita laughs or coughs, who knows which, and talks and cries in a long but mostly incomprehensible torrent. Eventually, I decipher. For the first time in my life, I have failed to imagine how bad things could be.

I run to his den, needing Good Leonard, Dad Leonard, kind, funny and true Leonard. The Leonard who doesn't embezzle from his wife and lie to his daughter. The den is trashed. Books ripped, computer smashed – full-out demolition. I fall against the door and make a noise.

‘Time to go, speshhl grll.' Rita wobbles in the hall. ‘Door's this way.'

Oh my god. ‘Rita, I need to get a picture.'

‘You
want
something?'

The doorbell rings again. Talk about lucky. ‘Make them go,' she says.

I'm diving through books, yelling about the picture, creepy, small, did she see it, and she wants to know why but not as much as she wants the doorbell to stop ringing. I see ghastly yellow and, yes, there's the clown painting trapped underneath the tipped-over bookcase. I kick books aside, turn the case on its side, ignore Rita's breath which is rank and in my face.

‘Make. Them. Go,' she shouts. ‘Thiziz all mine, mine.' For someone who can hardly stand, she's got a powerful arm swing and I lose my balance when it connects with my shoulder. Talk about a fortunate fall. There's the picture. It's hidden under files and she doesn't see me take it. She does see the key hanging from my neck when I stand up.

She makes an unspeakable sound.
Ahhhhh
is more or less what I say. She lunges for my neck with both hands and falls onto the books.

The doorbell rings again. This is one plucky sponsor. I run for the door yelling, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'

He didn't know he was going to die, I keep telling myself on the bus home. He thought he'd be able to pay Rita back the forged credit cards, thought she'd never have to know. It was some kind of delusion because he was mentally ill, he didn't mean to hurt anyone. That's the best I can do and, frankly, Leonard, it sucks. My hand is around the key, ready to pull it off my neck, fling it away dramatically.

Friday morning, I'm on my way to Timbley. The bus driver says good morning like he means it and I sit right behind him and imagine confessing. As in, Ohhh bus driver, have I ever messed up. In my head, he nods knowingly, says, Yup, yup, well, you had to make some tough choices there but good for you. You followed your heart. I replay the scene about fifty times and feel microscopically less loathsome. I feel zero interest in finishing Paige's wretched purse but pull it out of Dad's little plaid suitcase anyway. At least I can get the damn strap done.

Maybe Leonard is also feeling confessional. He and Tim are doing the
hey, yeah, hey
guy thing.

Man, I really messed up with Dree
.

You sure did, buddy
, says Tim.

Also Rita, but Dreebee – she's most important
.

You betcha
, says Tim.
Smart girl you got there
.

BTW
,
sorry about your suicide
.

Hey, not your fault. Sorry I checked out
.

Thanks, Tim
.

The river's solid ice, trees are stiff and bare, and the people on Calgary Trail walk like all their bodily fluids have congealed. It's the kind of day you
have
to be driven through. All the sins in the world have solidified.

Somewhere, somebody's felt guilty for twenty-five years because they heard Rinkel order Leonard outside that night, because they know it wasn't Leonard's fault Tim died. Maybe right this minute that person is feeling guilty, maybe he's dying, machines beeping beside the hospital bed. His hand motions me
to come closer because he, maybe she, is too weak to speak properly. I'll tape the conversation, I need a recorder, then I'll get a lawyer, sue Rinkel, surprise Joan with a new house. Joan will say, Can you believe this place, so fabulous and all thanks to Dree.

The
Timbley Times
is on low buzz. People come and go, sloshing coffee into their mugs without ever standing still. I go straight to the archive shelves because why complicate things by asking. Rose is at the back, yelling about some photo that's disappeared, and everybody's ass in on the line until it's found.

Okay. 1994. I have to read the headlines again, have to know how bad it was. Otherwise, Dad, I don't get how you could be such an effing jerk.

I haven't found the page yet when Rose bangs through the swinging doors followed by High-Waisted Pants Guy. ‘Heya, Dree, I didn't expect – ' Rose says. ‘Wait for me in my office, Donald.'

‘Remember when you said I could stay over, you know, help Jessie with her Social project?'

‘It's so good to see you,' she says, all auntie voice. Ahhh. Warm regard. As good as apple crisp. ‘Dree, she needs some time. Listen, give me a few minutes – you okay with this?' She points to the 1994 book, I nod, and she whips round to ask Donald did he have a stroke this morning, he needs to explain Page 3 otherwise.

I fixate on the first headline, the day after Christmas, '94, and then skip a few days ahead to where Leonard is first named. The story is squeezed between ads for Shur-Grain Chick Starter and Craxton's Radio and Television Service. God. If one of my future traumas ever gets reported, please god, not between chickens and
TVS
. Okay, Leonard, I can almost like you again. Well, I can be something other than completely appalled. I catch an article I missed first time through.
Staff too afraid to come forward, claims union. According to unofficial reports, staff are being threatened by
hospital administration regarding the Letorneau suicide. Dr. Rinkel, chief medical officer, says the claims are nonsense
. So, there really are people feeling guilty out there.

‘The processor is down,' someone yells while re filling her coffee.

‘Christ,' Rose yells back, pushing aside a cubicle divider to walk into the room. ‘And it's magically fixing itself while you stand here, Shirley?'

‘I'm going, I'm going,' Shirley says.

‘You know,' Rose says to me, looking at the article, ‘you know, I always wanted to print something saying your dad got shafted. But no one would talk.' I keep my eyes on the yellowed newspaper. ‘Listen. Jessie thinks you're great. Just give her a bit more –'

We both cringe at the sound of whatever Shirley's done to the processor. Rose goes, I get on my coat. Great? Not loathsome and utterly repulsive? Jessie thinks I'm great?

‘Hiii,' I yell after tripping over the step into 4Ewe and dropping the suitcase.
Hiii
, as if I had been dropping by every day this time for about six years. ‘Sorry,' I say when I see her on the ladder. ‘Sorry.'

She looks down and keeps stuffing wool into a wall shelf. ‘Hey.' Voice dry as old bologna.

‘Did you get my emails? There were only a couple, well whatever, a few, never mind, it doesn't matter.' My face goes red, the rest of me curdles. Tragic uncoolness. ‘I brought you something.' She flinches when I unsnap the suitcase and then recovers in the same second.

‘I'm kind of busy.'

‘I'm pretty sure your dad made it, my dad had it – '

She's beside me holding the picture all in one move, and I explain it was always on the wall, took me a while to remember it looked kind of like your drawing, and look,
TL
at the bottom.

‘I see it. Your old man had my father's art?'

‘My dad was maybe his friend.'

‘He let my father kill himself then took his art?' Jessie doesn't take her eyes off the picture as she edges away from me.

‘Maybe they were friends, maybe your dad
gave
– '

‘My dad
gave
his life.'

‘So
my
dad got blamed for everything and – '

‘Well poor effing him. Do you mind?'

‘What?' It comes out like
waaaa
.

‘Look, it's not about you. My number one? Avenge my father's death.'

‘Avenge?'

‘What?' She squares off, hand on hips.

‘Well, avenge. I mean, what a word.'

‘It means to get revenge.'

‘I know what it means. Just – it's so Batman.' The suitcase is still open which means Marcels, Marcel ingredients and Paige's half-done purse fall out. ‘Sorry.' Silent hostility is never good for me, even when I'm not crouched on the floor of a wool shop, so I keep talking. I tell her I discovered something amazing about Christmas and sex, she'd love it, and also, would she like Marcel 19, the last one, with gloves and green boots. After she shakes her head without even looking down, I trip on the step on the way out and make it back to the
Times
office without looking up.

I have to talk to Rose. She can make Jessie like me again, maybe. I don't hear any talking from outside her cubicle, so I slip in between the portable room dividers. But Rose is there, standing, and so's Donald the computer guy. The cubicle is small, and Rose and Donald aren't, and suddenly there we all are, too surprised and too close to speak. I lean back out of the way, forgetting that it's not a real wall, and so I just keep going, the divider
thumping Shirley who slams against the archive shelf. The sounds of destruction are loud and various and end with the coffee pot smashing against the concrete floor. Well, technically, the last sounds are Donald saying, ‘Man down, man down,' and Shirley saying, ‘Sweet Jesus.' A long silence follows with everyone standing over Shirley and me, me pulling my top down to cover my gut.

My mind refuses to participate in the moment. Really, square root of blank – until Rose puts her hand on my arm and says, way too kindly, ‘Are you okay?'

I'm a terribly crier. We're talking serious mucous involvement plus red blotches plus sweating. Rose asks Shirley if anything's broken and why the hell she's still lying there then. Shirley says it's the only goddamn way she can get a break. Donald and the others get operational and Rose pulls me into her de-cubified room. She takes an energy bar out of the desk drawer. ‘Have some protein. No, really, you look like hell.' I take a bite because it's the easiest thing to do. Then I produce a lot more mucous.

Except for all the dead people, and me, nobody's here. Talk about quiet, especially in the ancient section. The gravestones are all crumbly and tilted, like they've been chatting and eating crackers. Rose said she comes here to talk to Tim, so maybe Jessie does too. He's probably way down by the benches where everything's shiny and straight. That's where Grandpa Giles is, next to Anton Starchak whose big black headstone says ‘A noble example was his life.' Poor Grandpa, a fireman whose house burned down while he was passed out drunk on the couch, and he's stuck beside someone perfect for eternity. It's bad enough sitting beside Paige for ninety minutes three times a week.

I'm post-adrenalin relaxed and feel like drifting around here smelling pine and imagining the grief of others. As in the parents of ‘Our darling Annie, 9 months & 13 days,' who has a mossy lamb on her stone. ‘Weep not, Father and Mother, for me, for I am waiting in glory for thee.' Oh, right. Très comforting.

In the new section, a lot of the headstones are flat, like labels on a massive underground cabinet, so it's crowded and I probably won't find Tim. I don't really know why I want to anyway.

Maybe I've finally summoned Leonard because is that cigarette smoke? I lean against the willow, the last thing between me and the smoker.

‘Go, on,' says the woman, holding out a Tupperware container. ‘Tastes like a holiday.' She's eating grapes and smoking. Versatile. I take a couple and say thanks.

‘Did you know Tim Letorneau?' I rock on my feet like a weirdo but momentum feels important in a graveyard.

‘Nope.'

‘How about Leonard Johnson?'

‘Nope.' She points at a gravestone. ‘You ever hear of Roger Blackstone?' No. ‘Got him that carnation.'

‘Wow, that's real?' I say, because we are talking screaming red.

‘Roger wouldn't go for nothing fake.' She puts a lid on the grapes. ‘Bunch of Letorneaus over there, six rows down, maybe ten.'

I thank her, even though she has turned away, and walk by dozens more dead people. I wonder if I've ever walked by someone or sat beside someone on the bus who died that very day. At least one, I bet. And I'll never know who. Someday I'll be that person to a bunch of other people.

Did Leonard feel relieved, even a little bit, as he died? No more
AA
meetings, no more car problems. All done. All the work of being human, done. Maybe that's what Tim needed, what they all got. Okay, Dad, really, do you resent not having a tombstone? Because I'd have visited wearing long black drapey things.

Robert Letorneau. Marie Letorneau. Sylvie, James, Donald. At the end: Timothy Michael Letorneau. ‘Hi,' I say. ‘Please make Jessie like me again. And if there's something I'm supposed to do, let me know.' I pull out Marcel 19 and explain Marcel's mitochondrial curiosities re: transformative power as I wedge him into the base of the gravestone. The trees rustle back.

On one side of this cushion cover, your face is framed by happy colours and flattering trims. On the other side, the same photo is transferred onto stained fabric and slashed, ugly, possibly painful items are glommed all around it.

You need:

A photo of yourself, at least 8 by 12 cm Photo-transfer paper, or some other way of getting photo onto fabric. Happy trim and ugly trim Thread and/or glue