The Box Garden (18 page)

Coming into my mother’s dimly lit living room with its flickering television screen and its cleanly shabby furniture, my senses play a perceptual trick on me: I see, it seems, not those who are actually there—my mother with her mending, Judith with her book, and Martin with his newspaper—but the ghostly shadowed presence of those who are missing. My father—shy, secretive, stoic, perpetually embarrassed—reading his paper much as Martin does, with hunched concentration as though he were perched temporarily in a doctor’s waiting room. And Judith’s children, Richard and Meredith: their absence is marked by her weary inattentiveness to the novel she’s reading, the way she jerks the pages over; her real life belongs to another place now. And Seth, the grandson my mother has not even inquired about, the grandson for whom she does not knit mittens or mufflers and whose birthdays she does not remember (he is, after all, the extension of a daughter who has twice disgraced her family, first by running away and then by getting divorced); Seth who is the most important person in my world is suddenly briefly visible, filling this little room with his absence.

“Seth!” I suddenly exclaim.

“What’s the matter?” Judith says, looking up.

“I’ve forgotten to phone Seth.”

“It’s not too late, is it?” Eugene asks, hanging up his raincoat.

“Do you mean long distance?” my mother asks.

“I just want to see if he’s all right.”

“But it’s long distance.”

“It’s after eleven,” Judith says helpfully. “Don’t the rates go down after eleven?”

“After twelve, I think,” Martin says.

“It’s all right,” I tell my mother. “I’ll leave the money for the call.”

“A waste of money,” she shrugs. “And when you’ve been out to a restaurant and everything.”

“I really must see how he is.”

“But you’re going home Friday night. Why would you want to go and run up the phone bill for nothing?”

“But I have to. I really must,” I insist, knowing I sound unreasonable and shrill. “I simply couldn’t sleep a wink tonight unless I know everything is all right.”

“But what could go wrong?” my mother says giving one last dying protest.

“There’s the phone ringing
now,”
Eugene says. “Maybe it’s Seth calling
you.”

But it isn’t Seth. It’s Doug Savage and he’s phoning from Calgary.

“Hiya, Char,” he says as breezily as though he were phoning from next door.

“Doug!” I stumble, a little confused. “Well, hello.”

There is a short pause—perhaps we have a poor connection—and then I hear Doug saying, “Just wanted to tell you not to worry.”

“Worry?”

“Just wanted to let you know everything’s fine.”

“But ... but what are you doing in Calgary?”

“Oh, you know me, just a little trip. Always here, there, or somewhere.”

“And Greta?”

Another pause. “Has Greta phoned you at all?”

“No. Was she going to?”

He hesitates. “Just thought she might give you a buzz.”

“Well, no she hasn‘t, but as a matter of fact I thought I’d phone her tonight. Have a word or two with Seth.”

“Oh, God, Char, save your shekels. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they’re home tonight anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Something about the band. A rehearsal, I think.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling suddenly let down and disappointed. “I forgot about that.”

“Well, don’t let it worry you. Everything’s fine. Fine.” His voice trails off.

“Maybe I’ll try tomorrow night.”

“Great idea. You do that. Having a good time?”

“What? Oh, yes, uhuh, a good time.”

“Take care then. Bye for now.”

“Bye, Doug. And Doug ...?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for calling. That was really nice of you to think of phoning. But why ... I mean why exactly
did
you phone me?”

“Didn’t want you worrying, that’s all. Just thought I’d let you know everything’s fine. Good night then, baby.”

“Good night,” I say. And stupidly, cheerfully, add, “Sleep tight.”

“She never talks to me anymore,” Judith is saying of her daughter Meredith. “Not the way she used to when she was a little girl.”

Children. Judith and I lie in bed listening to our mother in the kitchen making breakfast and we talk about our children.

“I’m always reading those articles about how parents are supposed to keep the lines of communication open,” Judith says. “And now and then out of duty I make a stab at it.”

“And what happens?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She—Meredith—just smiles. Mona Lisa. At least
sometimes
she smiles. Other times she cringes. As though the thought that we might have something in common was unspeakable. Everyone’s always telling me how charming she is, and it’s true she’s got this non-McNinn effervescence. And a kind of wild originality too, but to me she doesn’t say one word.”

“You don’t sound as though you mind all that much,” I say.

“Mind? Oh, I suppose I should. After all, I’m her mother, she’s my only daughter, why shouldn’t she be able to pour out her heart now and then. But the truth is, Charleen, I couldn’t bear it if she did. All that anguish.”

“You must be curious though.”

“In a way. I’m always wondering what she’s thinking about. Or what she does when she’s not home. After all, she’s eighteen. But eighteen is such a ... well ... such a suffering age. Remember? Sometimes I feel I’ve only just recovered from it myself. To listen to her ups and downs would kill me, and I think she knows it too. She senses it. She’s got a kind of rare psychic radar—she always had but now and then she looks so bedeviled that I’m afraid she’s going to break down and take me into her confidence. She’s come close a couple of times. But then she stops herself. I can almost see her mumbling her vows of silence. And, strangely enough, I’m rather proud of her for it, for going it alone. I admire her for it. And I’m grateful, even though I know I’m failing her somehow, I’m grateful to be left alone.”

“What about Richard?” I ask her.

“Richard,” she shrugs. “He’s always kept things to himself. Of course he’s a boy. They’re always more secretive. I suppose that’s what you call a sexist judgment. Does Seth confide in you?”

I pause for a moment, not really wanting to admit that he doesn’t. “No,” I say slowly, “but I don’t think it means anything.”

It’s true that most of the time these days Seth and I speak to each other in monosyllables—sure, yeah, okay—but these words are our accepted coinage of familiarity, the sort of shorthand which forms unconsciously between people who are naturally in harmony. It has never occurred to me to think that his lack of explicit communication might be an attempt to hide something from me; his nature has always been exceedingly open, and, if anything, it is this openness that worries me, openness with a suggestion of vacuum, a curious, perhaps dangerous acquiescence.

“I used to think it was strange,” Judith is saying, “that we never told Mother anything when we were girls. All my friends used to rush home and tell their mothers everything. But we never did. At least I never did.”

“Neither did I,” I say firmly. “Never once.”

“You know,” Judith says thoughtfully, “looking back, I don’t think it’s all that strange. I think she must have sent out a kind of warning signal, a thought wave, saying ‘Don’t tell me anything because I’ve got enough to cope with as it is.’ ”

“Perhaps,” I nod.

“Anyway,” Judith continues, “I’ve come to the place now where I know she and I will never be able to talk. I’m absolutely sure of it.”

Her certainty surprises me; it seems rather shocking to be so final, and I am forced to admit to myself that I have by no means surrendered. Somehow—it is only a question of finding the point of entry—I will break through our terrible familial silence. I came close, very close, yesterday drying the eggbeater.

Judith springs out of bed and begins to get dressed, but I lie under the blanket a few minutes longer; I am still sleepy, my mind begins to wander, but I am not thinking about Meredith or Judith or about my mother or even about the girl I once was. For some reason I am thinking about Seth. And the small string of worry that plucks away at me.

After breakfast—toast and coffee in the kitchen—we take up yesterday’s small routines. Eugene goes downtown for his conference, and Martin carries his newspaper into the back yard. It is rather cool outside; a wooly sun struggling through massed clouds, the grass still wet from yesterday’s rain. My mother sets up the ironing board in the kitchen (the smell and sight of its scorched cover pierces me with nostalgia) and she presses, through a clean, damp tea towel, the dress she will wear for her wedding. Cocoa-brown crimpeline with raised ribs, a row of dull, wood-looking buttons down the front, long sleeves and no collar.

“It came with a scarf,” she says, frowning narrowly, “as if a scarf made up for no collar.” Her lips turn inward thinly, visible, measurable emblem of her complaint. “But I’m certainly not going to wear it, all those bright colours, cheap, of course it was in the March sales; nothing is well made anymore, imagine not even a collar. But it will have to do, that’s all there is to it.”

I am thinking: the wedding is Friday, tomorrow is Thursday and with luck I’ll be seeing Brother Adam at last. Today is Wednesday; today I am having lunch with Louis. He is coming for me at eleven. When I asked Judith if she enjoyed her lunch yesterday, she smiled somewhat mysteriously. “It was interesting,” she said.

“Did you find out anything about Louis?” I asked.

“A little,” she smiled, “and so will you.”

For a moment I pondered this, and then I asked, “Where did you go?”

“A little place in the country.”

“Where exactly?” I pressed her.

“West of Toronto. Weedham. Just a little spot.”

“Weedham? Weedham, Ontario? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she had answered, puzzled. “Weedham. Spelled WEEDHAM. Being literal-minded, I naturally expected it to be full of weeds but it turned out to be a pretty little place. You’ll like it.”

Weedham. Weedham, Ontario. Watson. I am going to Weedham, Ontario. I am going there today. An arc of anticipation, not unlike sexual desire, brightens inside me. I look at the kitchen clock. Nine-thirty. In an hour and a half I will be sitting in Louis Berceau’s little green Fiat bouncing along the road to Weedham, Ontario.

I am sick, oh, I am sick with shame, I am in hell. I want to die of it, oh God, such pain, such humiliation, to be so humiliated. Stupid, stupid, I am sick with shame, it won’t go away, it’s done, nothing will take it away, dear God.

I am lying on my mother’s bed in the middle of the morning, I am rocking from side to side, my fists in my eyes. I want to moan out loud, I want to weep, but no one must hear me, no one must know, oh, the shame of it.