Simple Recipes (13 page)

“Harold!” Thea’s daughter will sink to the floor. “Talk to her. Make her see. He’s moving and I have to go with him. Or else
I’ll die. I can’t stand it.”

Harold will stand up and walk towards them. He will remember a magician he saw once lying on a bed
of nails, how the magician laughed the whole time. He never even shed a drop of blood. Harold will think that he could do
that, if he put his mind to it. All the things that once seemed impossible. He will walk towards his wife and daughter and
realize how far away he is from the boy who sat sorrowful on the roof. Hell feel a pain in his heart, reach up to touch it,
and Thea will walk across the room to him. His body will be so light shell catch him in her arms. Hell see the look on her
face, terrified. Terrified. But not Harold. He will be holding on to her with all his strength.

Thea

When Thea met Harold last year, she was a decade younger than he. Thea worked as an outreach nurse. She drove around in a
government van handing out clean needles and condoms and jokingly called herself the Protection Lady. In the van were racks
of brochures and pamphlets. She sometimes scribbled notes to Harold on these, grocery lists in the margins of Hep B info sheets.

Thea kept her hair loose, long enough to reach the small of her back. There were fine lines webbing out from the corners of
her mouth, streaks of gray in her hair. They radiated from her forehead, single strands that Harold would seek out with his
fingers.

“What did you go and do that for?” she asked when Harold plucked one with his thumb and forefinger.

He had a boyish smile. She strung her arms around his waist and they sat on the couch together watching television. They watched
The Price Is Right,
Thea biting her lip nervously while a middle-aged man swung the big wheel. “Go Big Money,” Thea said, squeezing Harold’s
hand. Parked in front of the television, she thought of all her days spent lying on the brown carpet in her parents’ basement,
watching
Divorce Court
and
Donahue.
When she was sixteen, she used to lie there and plan out the details of her life, what kind of marriage, what kind of children,
what kind of person.

Driving with her partner Betty in the outreach van, she kept her eyes on the drug addicts and young girls. The girls seemed
to turn old right in front of her. Their skin just dried right out, their hair turned limp. If she were the Pied Piper, she
would lead them away from the city, over the Cascade Mountains, down into the idyllic valley. If she hadn’t drowned herself
in
Donahue
episodes when she was a teenager, would she be here now, working these streets? The very idea made Thea laugh. To think that
talk shows had shaped her life. It was so ludicrous yet true.

Early in her relationship with Harold, they had driven down to the docks to watch the longshoremen, the Lego blocks of cargo
being loaded deep into the freighters. It was a bright afternoon, Thea
told him, “I have an excellent memory. It goes with my line of work, I guess. I remember everything someone tells me. I just
pack it down. I’ve always been good with secrets.”

“I don’t have any secrets to give you,” Harold said.

She nodded her head. After a moment, she asked, “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” he said. His face was tired and he had grown too skinny for his clothes. They hung in creased folds along his sides.

“Good,” Thea said, grasping his hand. “Because I’ll never, ever forget anything you tell me. I’ll always remember. I’ll always
remember everything you tell me.”

Thea came from a good family. Her dad was a lawyer who had a tendency to yell in conversation, “
HOW WAS SCHOOL
?” he would shout, “
DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING AT ALL TODAY
?” Her mom, a nurse, curled her body forward as if fearing attack. She whispered to Thea, “Is that lipstick you’re wearing?
Who gave you lipstick?” Thea yelled at her dad and whispered at her mom. At sixteen, she diagnosed herself as schizophrenic.

“I’m hearing voices,” she told her father.

“
WHAT
?”

“I’m hearing voices.” She danced around like a witch. “Boo! Boo! You know, voices.”

“
RIDICULOUS
!”

Her mom puttered around the kitchen, lips puckered in a constant “Shhh.”

Thea developed a booming voice. She had to just to make herself heard. Dinner conversation was warfare.

“You wouldn’t believe how much I paid for this asparagus —”

“
PASS IT OVER
!”

“—
per pound.
Isn’t the world crazy?”

“Here, Dad. Have them all”

“You won’t believe what the supermarket girl said to me —”

“
IS THAT THE CHECK-OUT GIRL WITH THE LAZY EYE
?”

“She said I should just climb down off my wallet and get in line behind everybody else. Can you believe it?”

“
IT JUST ROLLS OUT THE SIDE OF HER HEAD
,
LIKE SHE
’
S
CRAZY
.”

“Really. Why, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.”

“
CAN
’
T
THEY OPERATE ON SOMETHING LIKE THAT NOWADAYS
?”

When she was twelve, Thea asked her mother if she loved Thea’s father absolutely. Her mom frowned. “That’s a difficult question.
Do you want me to answer honestly?”

Thea nodded, bracing herself.

“Feelings come and go,” her mom said softly. “Some days I love him more than others. Some days I don’t love him at all.”

At sixteen, Thea fell in love. It was the first time and she was carried away by it. The man was thirty-one years old. He
was a helicopter pilot. All year round he worked for Search and Rescue on Mount Seymour, scanning the ground for missing people.
At night, she would sit with him, parked in deserted schoolyards, falling in love in the front seat of his truck, the steering
wheel marking patterns on their pale winter skin. After months of this, Thea decided to bring him home. She snuck him through
her window and into her bed. She pressed her index finger to his lips, daring him to have sex with her on her adolescent bed.
He couldn’t resist. Thea didn’t know she could be this way, her face shocking into misery and happiness, her hand coming down
hard on his bare back, believing that some unknown part of her was breaking off and deserting her. She glimpsed its shadow,
its out-of-breath escape, and knew she’d never bring it back again.

When her helicopter pilot fell asleep beside her, Thea made the decision not to wake him. She held on to him, her fingers
tracing patterns across his chest and down his leg, then over onto her own bare skin. In the morning, she heard her mother
climbing out of
bed. She heard the shower come on. With her heart in her throat, she listened to her mothers approaching footsteps, Thea pictured
what it would look like, her sixteen-year-old body tangled up with this hairy man. She closed her eyes. The bedroom door swung
open. Her mother took a half-step into the room, Thea’s heart was deafening. There was a long silence. Then her mother closed
the door, Thea listened to her mother s silent retreat down the hallway, and the firm click of her mothers door closing.

She was overcome by joy and disappointment.
See,
she wanted to cry, I
love him absolutely. It is possible, and I do. I do.
She didn’t move. She lay in bed, already missing her mother. Her helicopter pilot, sound asleep and snoring, didn’t wake
for hours.

Pregnancy never frightened her, even when she packed her suitcase, the same one that had seen her through summer camp and
three weeks in Germany. She left her parents’ house, the sad, faded carpet and the basement television, and booked herself
into a home for unwed mothers.

Her helicopter pilot carried her suitcase. He was melancholy. He talked about looking down from the helicopter into the white-out
snow, looking for a glimpse, a colorful jacket, a tarp, a single thread of
smoke. And when they spotted it, he zeroed in, the helicopter swaying above the ground like a damaged bird, the missing persons
looking skyward, arms lifted. Thea lay in his arms and thought of all the growing she would have to do to keep him happy.
She was so young, after all, and now this baby was coming. Life was running away with her. Months ago, she was fumbling through
trigonometry, sines and cosines, now she was reading up on baby s first month, she was watching videos ofunderwater births,
midwives, breathing. Some of the other girls in the home had ultrasounds of their babies. Thea held them up to the light,
and studied them. This baby was just like her. Coming out of this blurriness, waiting to come out sharp and resolute.

On the day of her ultrasound, Thea waited at the clinic for him to come. He was very late. She did the ultrasound without
him. Her baby wrapped its legs around the umbilical cord, and bobbed like a deep-sea diver. She sat on the steps of the clinic
afterward, the photo on her knee, untouched. A strong wind might come and blow it free. When it started to rain, she walked
home. There were no messages for her taped to the door. She phoned his number, fingers sliding over the rotary dial, but no
one picked up. Thea scanned the papers for stories of hikers lost in the mountains. She willed one up there, waiting in
silent desperation with his tarp, his fire dissipating into air. Her soon-to-be husband wavering above,
tuttuttut
of the choppers.

One day, she stepped out to stretch her legs. On her return she found a note from him, and a gift. A silver-plated bracelet,
something that wouldn’t cost more than thirty dollars, the kind of thing you rushed to the mall to get before you hurried
to catch a plane on your way out of the city. She held the note to her chest and tried not to miss him. But she remembered
everything he had ever said. Every word.

Years later, when Josephine is almost fully grown and Harold has moved into the apartment on the seventeenth floor, Thea will
be taken aback by her life. She’ll look at her daughter and Harold, her strange and wayward family, and be overcome with fear.
She’ll think that this is the trouble with having too much. She cannot bear the thought of losing one thing.

One day, Harold will collapse in the living room. Even as she is terrified, even as she catches him in her arms, some part
of Thea will be relieved. She will think that if Harold survives this, they will have paid a debt — a debt to unhappiness,
a nod to tragedy. In the hospital, she will think,
Just one decade of happiness. Please, whoever you are} just one.

Standing by his hospital bed, Josie will hold Harolds hand, “You were really scared there, weren’t you?” shell ask,

Thea will nod, afraid to speak.

“You really love him, don’t you?”

How Josie will remind Thea of herself— those probing questions, that youthful wisdom. She will steal a look at her daughter.
“Absolutely.”

“It’s funny. You hardly know him.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s only been a year. How did you get so attached?”

Her daughter will leave her at a loss for words. That night, Thea will drive through the dark Vancouver streets, out to Trout
Lake, where Harold once rode his bike as a boy. Out to Rupert Street, and the house for unwed mothers. She will see the ski
runs on Mount Seymour all lit up, and in the foreground, the rows and rows of houses. Late at night, she will park her car
in front of the apartment. Fumbling for her keys she will catch a glimpse of a car she recognizes. Inside the car will be
Josie. The boy will be reclined against the driver-side door. Josie, pressed up against him, her hands on his neck. Thea will
feel her heart stop. She will step off the sidewalk, into the bushes. From behind the row of trees, she will stand and watch
them.

Thea will remember holding Josie for the first time. Josie was red and scrawny, with a full head of
thick, brown hair. One eye was open just a crack. Her hair was tousled and wet. Thea had hugged the bundle to her chest, weeping,
not because she saw Josie’s father in Josie’s sad, scrunched-up face. But because Thea realized that in all her mistakes,
in all the failures and missteps, she had finally managed to do something supremely well. Before that moment, she had never
understood it was truly possible. Thea will stand on the grass, leaning against a tree. Inside the car, Josie will slip her
T-shirt off. Thea will stare up at the rooftops. She will rest for a while standing there. Then she will catch her breath
and head inside.

Josephine

It was a clear night. Josephine and her mother sat on the balcony drinking fruit punch, looking out over the expanse of houses
and industrial docks. They could see as far as the sulphur hills and the double strand of lights along the Lions Gate Bridge.
Inside the apartment, Harold watched
Jeopardy
!, shouting out the answers.

Josie sipped her punch. She had never been afraid of heights. Even as a child, she used to come out here and pitch forward
over the railing, her legs lifting high off the ground. The sensation made her dizzy, as if her stomach were plunging straight
out of the soles of her feet.