Vanishing and Other Stories (5 page)

 

I EVEN CAUGHT THAT GIRL
sneaking into our house after Edith had gone to bed. She'd party with other friends—her boyfriends, as far as I could tell, changed with the weather. Then she'd get them to drop her off at our place so her parents didn't meet the guys she was with, didn't smell the beer on her breath. If she saw that I was still up—looking out the window, trying to find something decent on the radio—it never bothered her. She just passed me on her way to Edith's room doing an exaggerated tiptoe, her finger to her lips, as though this was our secret. Which I guess it was, since I never called her mother, though I meant to.

To teach a lesson, a couple of weeks ago, I woke both girls up one morning and forced them to watch the sun rise above the tall grass. Edith came out of her bedroom pissed off, exhausted.

The girl had slept in a pair of my daughter's old pyjamas, and the material was creased, thin as water. “Are you kidding me?” she said.

I kept a straight face, walked them out to the herd, and listened to her teenage whines about dew soaking through her socks. My daughter didn't complain the whole time, so I figured she was seriously angry, seriously humiliated. But then Edith
said, “I remember this from when I was a kid. It was my favourite part.”

She pointed out the calves who were sickly, or whose mothers wouldn't produce. Then she took the girl's hand and showed her how to lead the calves out of the field and into the loafing pens, walking backwards and letting them suck on her fingers.

One calf suckled the girl's hand and slobbered down her wrist, and another pushed its head against her thigh, looking for milk. “This is the nastiest fucking thing I've ever done,” she said when she caught her breath from laughing.

Edith looked at me then as if to say, “City girl.” I nodded and gave her a wink. It felt good to see my daughter like that, smiling.

 

 

RAE CARRIED AN INHALER
in one back pocket and a pack of cigarettes in the other. She saw the irony of this, but she didn't care. Once, when she gave me a drag off her cigarette, I thought I was dying. My eyes watered and my throat felt like it had been torn.

God, Edith, she said. You're such a baby.

She laughed and passed me her inhaler and I pumped the powder into my mouth. It made me feel the same way I did when I saw her walking up our driveway: light-headed and spinny.

 

 

ONCE, SHE SNUCK IN
so late that I was already at the kitchen table. The sun wasn't up yet and the kitchen was dim. She leaned in the doorway, then sat right down across from me. I should have said
some adult thing—got mad, got worried—but her clothes were wrinkled, her eyes tired, and I remembered that kind of morning. I got her a mug from the cupboard and took the milk out of the fridge.

“Sugar?”

“Yeah. Please.”

When we spoke, we whispered. A little agreement to keep this quiet.

“Don't your parents worry about you?” I sat across from her. “Wonder where you are?”

“No.” She stirred four heaping spoons of sugar into her cup. “Not when I tell them I'm at Edith's. They moved me out here so I'd breathe clean air and meet wholesome people like her. So I'd join 4-H.”

She poured milk into her cup, holding the jug high so it fell in a thin stream. I looked at her puffy eyes, her blotched skin.

“You look like hell,” I said.

“Well, this coffee tastes like hell.”

“It should sober you up.”

She looked at me, smiled. “Why aren't you married?”

“I am.”

She leaned toward me. “That's a story.”

“There's no story.” I passed her the sugar. “My wife wouldn't stay, and I wouldn't go. That's all.”

I sipped my coffee, still too hot, and she slurped from her spoon.

“Nina lives in Victoria now,” I said, even though I don't normally like to say her name aloud. “We don't talk much anymore.”

“No kidding.”

The girl lifted her cup to her lips and blew at the steam. I stirred my coffee, even though it was black.

“It was supposed to be temporary, her leaving,” I said. “Nina called from Calgary and said she just needed a couple days away. But then she kept driving.” I leaned back in my chair. “Edith really misses her.”

The girl nodded, folded her arms on the table, rested her chin. I didn't expect her to say much, but it was nice to sit there with someone. No matter that she was half awake, sleepy-eyed.

 

 

LAST WEEK WE MADE CINNAMON TOAST
, then tried on the clothes my mother had left behind. Neither of us could fit into the tight jeans or the small, high-wedge shoes. But Rae filled out the thin sweaters and the silky, sleeveless tops. She loved the scoop necks, and when she looked in the mirror she said, No wonder your mom left.

She wore one of the shirts—it was pale gold, a shimmery sun-on-wheat—to the dinner table. It was nearly ten at night, but since it was summer, my father had just come in and cooked steak and sweet potatoes. He'd already folded up the cuffs of his sleeves and served himself. He was sitting; Rae was standing. And when he saw the shirt, he looked in her eyes. There was nothing she or I could say. No reason we should have been in his bedroom, rifling in his closet. And no reason we should have found my mom's stuff. No reason he shouldn't have gotten rid of it years ago.

When I saw his face, I thought he might pick up his plate, his fork and knife, his beer, and quietly leave the kitchen. But he just shook his head. And Rae smiled too. It was as though they were sharing a joke. As though they were the only two in the room.

That was it, the only hint I got. Then Rae pulled out a chair and sat down. My father nodded toward the stovetop for us to grab some food, and I got myself a pop. I opened the fridge door and it breathed cold air on my face. Then my father said, just loud enough for us to hear, It fits all right, that's for sure.

 

 

I POURED MYSELF MORE COFFEE
and the girl drank the sludge in her cup. The house was chilled and she curled up in the kitchen chair, held her knees.

“When did she leave? Your wife?”

The girl was hungover and wanted entertainment, a good story. So I took a breath and told her about the storm. How it had been nearly dinnertime and I'd wanted to head home, but the cattle were acting funny. Whining and lying down, then standing up, being strange.

Once I started telling it, I couldn't stop. I talked about how hot it'd been that day, and how it'd cooled so suddenly the sweat on my shirt made me shiver. Lightning shattered the grey sky every few seconds, and clouds spooled and unspooled themselves. The rain hit hard, but I didn't move from the field. Not even when the funnel cloud dropped and skimmed my neighbour's land. Not until it blew the hip roof off his barn.

Then I climbed into my truck, pulled it over to a bluff of trees, sat and listened. That's what I remember most. The colour—that grey—and the noise. Rain and hail against a metal roof. The wind shot nails and boards past me, hail cracked the front windshield and smashed the side window. Glass landed in my lap, hailstones clattered onto the floor. And then it was over.

The quiet was as hard to take as the storm's noise. I watched the weather spin along the prairie, leaving as fast as it had come. The only sound was water that streaked into the cab, pooling around my boots. The funnel had touched down for less than two minutes. It was nothing. It wouldn't even make the news.

 

 

THE TWO OF US
like to imagine my mother's new life. Rae invents episodes that remind me of television soap operas: romantic dates and exotic travel. But from the two times I visited, I know my mother lives in an apartment and works in a college library. What I like to picture are the details. I see her with shorter hair and makeup. I imagine her coming home from work and taking off her coat. Unzipping her high-heeled boots and shaking water from an umbrella.

 

 

WHEN THE WIND CALMED
, I climbed from my truck and walked to the house. The front door had been ripped off its hinges and it lay in the front yard, near the saskatoon bushes. Edith stood in the doorway, her arms crossed against the cold. When she saw me, she
turned toward the kitchen. Even then, she used that cold tone. “He's here, Mom. He's fine.”