Vanishing and Other Stories (40 page)

This is her type of mothering and you'll appreciate its familiarity.

“People want grace, Jilly. They want magic.”

You twist the phone cord around your wrist. “I'd say they want distraction.”

“Either way, they're not looking for disaster.”

 

 

WHEN THE SHOW FINISHES
, Paul walks you and Marie out of the gate. He holds your hand and jumps with you over puddles, then offers a ride home in the spool truck. The road is dark, but in the light of passing cars you see wood shavings dusted through his hair and glittery paint stuck under his nails. He lets you rest your head against him, and you feel the movement of his forearm as he changes gears. You pretend to sleep, but still, he and your mother don't talk. You smell Marie's perfume and her Revlon lipstick. You hear her breathing and sometimes Paul's whistling.

At the turnoff that leads to your trailer and garden, she says, “Here,” and he answers,
“D'ac.”
In front of your place, he leaves the truck running. Your mother opens the door while he carries you inside, lays you on your bed, and covers you to your chin with a quilt.

 

 

HE ARRIVES THE NEXT AFTERNOON
to pick you and Marie up for the second show. When you open the door, your mother comes out of the bathroom in a satin robe—a gift from a past
boyfriend—and you step behind her. She doesn't wear makeup and her long hair is wet from the shower.

If he had brought roses, she would have laughed in his face. So he stands on the flimsy porch steps with an armful of sunflowers. Sunflowers, in this rain. The stalks are nearly as tall as he is, and their heavy heads tilt ridiculously from his arms.

“Madame.” He bows, his body imitating the stems. “A token.”

Your mother stares at him. “You're a child.”

“Tell me my fortune.”

“I'm not interested in your fortune.” Meaning, of course, that anyone can see from the wear in his pants and his shirt's mismatched buttons that he doesn't have money.

He extends a flower to her. “So talk to me about now.”

She leans against the door frame and nods to the sunflowers. “What am I supposed to do with those?” From where you stand behind her, you hear a smile, however slight, in her voice.

 

 

AROUND THE TIME
you get a sessional position in Florence, your mother will meet Wallace, an engineer who works for a modest firm. She will call him Wally. One month of every winter they'll drive to Arizona. In her letters she'll include pictures of her and Wally and their terrier, Della. The three of them cuddling on a green couch, or sitting on their deck with an Arizona golf course in the background. In these photographs you'll see that Marie's hair has greyed and her arms got fat. Her eyes will look heavy but eased, and every year the skin of her face will drop a little—as though she has let it go, released her fist. On the back of these
photographs she will write things:
This is us on the Grouse Mountain gondola
or
Della in her Christmas scarf!
A language you never heard her use.

 

 

FOR THREE DAYS
, your mother is softer, kinder. She doesn't count the money in the envelopes, and she doesn't glare when you leave your jacket somewhere near the hot-dog stand. On the drives home, you sit between her body and Paul's, and you feel warmth on either side.

“I saw Mr. B. today. He was buying a stuffed animal.” You chatter to the rhythm of the windshield wipers' slap on glass. “He says the corn in his field is mouldy from the rain. People could die from eating that.” You put your hands to your throat and make a choking sound. “Couldn't they, Mom? They could die.”

Your mother lets you stay up past eleven, and when she thinks you're asleep, she sits with Paul at the square kitchen table. From your tiny room, you hear her laugh.

“Long love line, short life line,” she says. “That's always the way.”

On the third night, they go outside despite the spitting rain. You watch from your open, half-curtained window as Paul tries to teach her to dance. She is clumsy and the dance is stilted. But you see his hand on her hip and can imagine the feel of his skin against the wet cotton. You hear his voice, faint through the rain, as he counts into her ear.

 

 

THE NEXT MORNING
, you sit at the kitchen table and draw pictures of moths and grasshoppers. He comes out of her bedroom and puts a finger to his lips. While she sleeps, you show him how to feed the chickens, how to candle the eggs, where to empty the buckets from under the eaves so water won't rot out the garden. He repairs a loose porch step and offers to paint the mildewed windowsills. You wonder how his English got so good but then realize it's because he's all talk. He explains that crickets don't actually sing, just knock their wings together, and he pencils bird-migration patterns on the tabletop. He promises to teach you to do cartwheels, shoot a rifle, ride a bike. He makes a hummingbird feeder out of a scrap of plastic tubing. When Marie comes into the kitchen in her thinning robe, he is showing you how to mix the sugar water, and she doesn't say anything when you drink half of it.

 

 

THE FOURTH NIGHT
, Paul can't give you and your mother a ride home. They need him to unhook the rigging, and in a few hours the big top will be folded into the spool truck. You help your mother roll up the poster, fold her table and chairs, and pull down the velour tent. Then the two of you walk to the grandstand and watch as Paul climbs the centre pole, going up the metal spikes like a ladder.

Marie watches his graceful, practical movement without saying a word. You take her hand and she lets you hold it, lets you feel what it will be like to be adult.

“That's not real rope,” you say. “It's just firehose stuffed with cotton. Paul told me so.”

At the mention of his name, she looks at you. There's something in her face, a flicker, and you wonder if she's just seen your future. She pulls her hand away. “Come on, Jilly. If we're walking, we'd better go.”

She leaves the big top without looking behind her, but you stay and watch as Paul shimmies up the pole. He doesn't wear a harness, and there's no net. He seems to trust the pole, the rigging, his own balance. If he fell, it would be bad luck, not bad form. The elegant person you had seen on the swing has wiped the white off his face and now wears overalls. He stands on the ground, laughs, and calls out to Paul. You can't understand the words, but you can tell it's a friendly tease. Paul looks down, waves, and pretends to lose his balance. It's funny—the exaggerated arc of his arm and his comic, frightened look. And then, in the middle of this gesture, he sees you and his face changes. The second before his legs slip from the pole, his smile is wiped away. His arms reach, grasp air. You watch him fall the way you watched that cricket—you hold your breath. Until you see him grab a dangling end of rope. Until you see that this is rehearsed, maybe something the swing man taught him. Until he glides to the ground, his arms and legs wrapped around the rope, and lands lightly in front of you.

“Why are you still here, Jilly? Where's your mom?”

“How did you do that?”

“It's the tear-down now. We can't have anyone around.” He taps you on the nose. “This is the secret part. No one's allowed to see the magician after the show.”

“My mom left already. But she probably hasn't gone far.”

“You run.” He messes your hair. “Go catch up.”

“Are you leaving?”

“We hit Prince George tomorrow. There's supposed to be even more rain up there.”

“You should take us.” This is obvious, the way it should go. You can't imagine another ending.

“You don't want to come with us. You'd have to learn French.” He crinkles his nose, twists his big mouth into a grin. “And you'd always smell like an elephant.”

“My mom likes you. She hasn't counted her envelopes in days.”

He pulls the box of candy from his shirt pocket. “Here. You take this with you, okay?”