The waiter arrives with a dish of spiced olives, garlic bread, and a steaming plate of Alfredo pasta. He uncorks another bottle of wine, pours a glass, and offers it to me. I take a sip.
—We used to have beautiful hair. We.
So it begins. I panic about the food: three olives, almost a hundred calories, if you round up. Sol starts to pile the pasta on my plate and a sweat breaks out on my forehead.
"I didn't order this! I can't eat it."
"I ordered i t . . . relax," Sol says, giving me a sharp look.
—He's upsetting, upsetting the balance of everything. Everything been calculated, planned out, and then he comes in and—
I pop two more olives into my mouth and try not to think too much about it, what the hell, it's a special occasion. It's a date, for God's sake, and, in some ways, my first proper one. But at the back of my spine I feel a humming, and as he continues to load pasta on my plate I practically yell, "That's enough!"
Sol looks around at the people at the tables next to us who smile nervously back at him, twirling their pasta on their forks. The waiter asks us if everything is all right and Sol nods and refills our glasses with wine. After the waiter leaves, Sol leans towards me. "You wanna tell me why you're so on edge?"
"Not really, I want to eat, let's just eat, OK?" I say, my mouth half-full of pasta and two salty olive pits lodged under my tongue.
"Don't you like this place?" he asks, picking up his fork and letting his dark eyes fall on my naked shoulders. "I thought you were always hungry."
"I am. Love pasta," I say, shovelling a forkful into my mouth, wondering how many I can manage before pushing the plate away and excusing myself to the washroom.
Etiology: 1) the study of origin, specifically termed in medicine as the science of disease; 2) used, in a more general, non-medical sense, to term assigning of cause.
Holly's coming back today, so Mom and I are trying to do some kind of spring cleaning, though it's already the beginning of June. She's mopping the floors and I'm standing on a chair trying to unhook the curtains from the rod so we can wash them.
When Mom and I are alone in the house, with hours spread before us without having to go shopping, or pick Holly up from some practice, or drive me to some appointment, I like to ask her about her past, about Thomas, and about her boyfriend, her fiance, I should say, before Dad. I know some pieces of the story. I know that the fiance's name was Misha. That she was supposed to marry Misha, but he died four months before the date. The part about Dad—how they met and fell in love—is vague. Will learning about the past help me understand what happened to Thomas and me? Why we failed?
Perhaps the scientist in me is desperate to locate the source of our unhappiness with each other. Maybe I need a fairy tale about my parents' courtship to believe in. For whatever reason, I'm curious, I'm compelled to ask questions, to gather evidence about my unfinished business with my father before my case is complete. This never-ending dossier I add to, subtract from, invent invisible paperwork for, this dossier labelled Love—I carry it with me everywhere.
Although I've heard the story too many times to count, I need to hear it again. Each time I feel that I miss something. Mom's storytelling is like watching an old movie. Maybe it's her accent, or the fact that she's translating and I have to pay more attention to the colloquial, because, in all the ephemera—the wit and flirting and costume changes—I've somehow lost track of what's really going on. It's a game Mom and I play: she warms up to it slowly, she pretends she is revealing cabal information and I prompt her, faking ignorance though I can anticipate every part of the story. She looks up from the floor and leans the mop against the counter when I speak.
"So, tell me again about the sanatorium, but tell me about before too, when you were a nurse in Hungary."
She shrugs, then goes to the sink and pours herself a small tumbler of clear apricot liquor, takes a sip and pours me one, too. We clink glasses and then she tilts her head.
I cringe as the sweet alcohol, the taste of my mother's courage, burns down my throat.
"What do you want to know?"
"Why. Why you went to the sanatorium."
She holds the bottle up to the light, checking to see, maybe, if there is enough liquid to finish her story.
"I met your father at one of Misha's parties, in Hungary. He was drunk, your father, not Misha, and was slurring his words. He was tall and had the most amazing blue eyes, and wore poor clothes and all the women laughed when he told his crazy stories. Anyway, it was a dinner party and, after dessert, I was in the dining room, arranging the flowers I'd ordered for the party.
"He came up behind me. I could see him coming because there was a mirror and I should have turned away but I didn't. I stayed there, smelling the lilies, waiting to see what he would do. He stood behind me for a good couple of minutes. No one even noticed us, standing there, looking at our reflection. He was standing there, inhaling me like I was the flowers. And I could smell the liquor on him, I could smell the sweat on his clothes and the cigars Misha fosted on him."
"It's foisted, Mom, foisted . . . Anyway, did he say something? What did he want?" It never fails, I'm always outraged and thrilled by Thomas's indiscretion. I open the fridge and get us two beers, pour them into glasses and squeeze lemon in, the way Mom likes it. We move out onto the front porch where the sun is shining. The floor is drying and the curtains are in the wash on delicate, so we have time. She sits in the swinging chair at the edge of the porch and I sit next to her. She puts her arm around me.
"Cheers," I say, smiling. Mom smiles back, licking the beer sweat off the edge of her glass.
"So, what happened?"
"Your father said, 'What are you doing here? You don't belong here, and you can't convince anyone, not even him.' So I turned around and slapped him."
"What did he mean you didn't belong there? You were going to marry Misha."
Mom slides her eyes over to me as if I've caught her on something but she gathers herself quickly.
"I guess he meant, politically, socially."
"So what does that mean? That you weren't a Communist? That he was out of your league?"
"Something like that. Let's just say I wasn't the ideal wife for Misha."
"But—"
"You can't understand it, I know. I was a nurse, Giselle, just a nurse."
I laugh. "What do you mean, 'just a nurse'? Isn't that the point of socialism, that everyone's equal?"
"Yes, Giselle, in theory, in a perfect world, as they say, but not in practice."
"I don't understand."
"Look, it wasn't just that, as a student I was involved in a couple of anti-regime protests, clubs . . ."
"And you gave all that up when you met Misha?"
Mom gives me a cutting look and leans towards me, speaking slowly.
"I can't explain it to you. I can't justify it. Things were not like they are now. I met a man, a good one, despite his politics, then I met your father. So, do you want to hear the end of the story or not?"
Suddenly I understand that the more questions I ask Mom, the less she'll talk. That although I've grown up to the hum of her voice explaining the old world to me, the context of the forces that guided her will always remain mysterious.
"You, Giselle, are my daughter. You can listen to my stories, but you cannot judge."
I nod. "OK."
"Misha came running over," she continues. "He tried to smooth over the situation. He said he thought Thomas had had too much to drink. Misha hugged me, in front of everyone. I'd caused a minor scandal in the presence of his colleagues, but he was kind." She turns to me and studies my eyes, as if she sees something in my face she wants to describe, needs to talk about.
"Your father wasn't a bad man, Giselle."
I take the glass hanging loosely from my mother's hand and meet her gaze.
"I know, Ma, so what happened?"
"They kicked your father out on the street, like in cartoons, on his ass."
&n
bsp; "God!"
"Yes. But there was a letter in the flowers with an address on it. He was going to work in a sanatorium, he'd come there to tell Misha that he was going away"
"But then he got distracted? By you?"
My mother flushes and talks into her hands.
"There's something I've not told you before. I knew Thomas before I met Misha. We went to high school together, only he was just graduating when I began school. He knew I had started nursing school, he knew my father, my mother. . ."
"Whoa. What do you mean you knew him? You knew Dad before you even met Misha?"
She ignores my question and rests her head on the top of my head as we sway into the last part of the afternoon. "Your father never got invited back. Thomas was Misha's personal doctor, but Misha died not long after that big scene, their goodbye, I guess. That's why I followed your father to the sanatorium, to get away from everyone, and everything," she says, as if it's all clear, as if it's all completely logical.
My mother picks up her head and sniffs the air, turning away so that I can't see her eyes: story's over. She rocks the chair with her heels. 1 think about how she says his name over and over, pushing out the edges of her lips and shifting her eyes away. Misha. Quickly, so fast, I could almost pretend I didn't hear the rapture catching in her throat like a sob.
Generation time for TB is relatively normal for a highly contagious disease under unsanitary conditions. Transmission is via airborne droplet infection: coughing, sneezing, and singing can transmit it.
Sol arrives in a beat-up old Chevy just as Mom is pulling out to go pick Holly up from the hospital. Sol goes over to the car and introduces himself through the window. Mom gives him a big smile and then I can see her winking at me and giving me the thumbs-up all the way down the street. I have a feeling I know what she will say later: "Gizella, you did not tell me he was so warm. He's warm!"
"You mean hot, Mom . . . Yes, he's handsome."
I take my feet out of Holly's sneakers and snake them through the grass as Sol flops down next to me and kisses my cheek.
"That was relatively painless."
"I think my mother thinks you're good-looking."
"Well, can't say I blame her." Sol plucks the beer bottle out of my hand and takes a swig, then he tries to smell my armpit.
"Hey!"
"You smell good, like bleach and grass and sweat. Like tennis shoes and beer and lemon." He steals another kiss—a long one. My head gets dizzy when he does that. I haven't eaten anything all day except an old lead-heavy zucchini muffin Holly brought home from her home ec class, leaving the French toast Mom made me in the oven to dry out.
"What's on your mind, G.? You seem distracted."
I look at Sol's eyes, sombre and full of longing. I notice how when the light hits them they aren't black at all, but almost hazel, warm, trusting. Suddenly, I'm filled with dread. The thought of going on with the rest of the afternoon, let alone the rest of my life, is overwhelming.
"I don't know, I think I need another drink. I think you need one, too."
Sol jumps up. "I'll get them, just one though. There's a police press conference I gotta go to soon."
When he comes back with two beers, we clink bottles and I grab his hand and he kisses me again, filling up my delicate confusion with his sunshine mouth until the dog next door starts barking ferociously.
"Sol?"
"Yeah?"
"I think my mother had an affair," I say, staring straight ahead at the dead-end cracked grey concrete of our quiet little street, willing the dog to stop.
"What? With who?" Sol gets down on one knee and bends his head, listening, ever listening.
"With our dad."
chapter 14
I'm standing at the window of the hospital room, waiting for our car to come into the parking lot. It's a beautiful day. I picture Jen and everybody kicking a soccer ball around and wonder if Marco has even noticed that I'm gone. The pain's not so bad today and I'm feeling less groggy. I put on my uniform—the only clothes that I can see are around—there's still blood on my collar and shirt front. I can't find my socks so I put on a pair of paper hospital socks and then my shoes. When I finally see Mom, a nurse comes in with a wheelchair and my file.
"Do I really have to?"
She nods and smiles and then places my knapsack, full of books and sneakers and damp clothes, in my lap. She wheels me out to the entrance, where Mom's waiting, looking a little red. Her hair's all messed up and when she kisses me she smells grainy, like Dad used to smell after coming home late at night after staff parties.
"Are you all right?" I ask her. "You seem weird."
"I'm not, I'm fine."
I walk to the car, slowly 'cos it hurts to move too fast, to breathe too deep. Mom holds my arm and looks down at the ground.
She starts the engine and takes the first turn a little wide.
"Am I in trouble?"
Mom slants her eyes at me.
"For what?"
"For this, the hospital, the fight."
Mom looks at the road as she speeds up to stop at a red.
"No, Holly, you're not in trouble."
"Because you can ask Mr. Saleri, you can ask Jen, Ma . .. Look, those girls just jumped on us."
Mom nods and glances down at her hands, which are red and raw.
"I know, honey, I'm believing you."
"You do?"
"Yeah."
We stop at a dessert shop and Mom has coffee and a glazed nut cake and I order cheesecake and a Coke. Mom stares at me as I gulp it down.
"Do you feel all right? Do you have any pain?"
I nod and continue eating the cake.
"Yours is better, your cheesecake. This thing tastes like a box."
Mom looks so worried and messy, like she needs to be comforted, so I reach out my hand and she takes it, open-palmed.
"I need you to promise me one thing though, Holly."
I throw my fork down. "I told you! It was messed up, we were the losers, they'd already beaten us, why would we—"
"It's not about that. I need you to finish high school. I know you don't like it, but you have to try."
I pick up my fork. "They have a hockey team in high school."
Mom laughs, "No hockey. Pick two sports, just two."
"Can't I pick hockey?"
But Mom doesn't hear my question. She's staring into the grains of her espresso cup, and then, without looking at me, she says, "We're a family. Aren't we?"
I don't say anything, mushing the crumbs of my cake onto my fork. Then a group of university students comes in. The girls are Giselle's age. They're wearing cool black and beige clothes and their crisp, citrusy smell fills the warm shop instantly. They all have long, silky blond hair, and their faces are round and pink. Everything about them seems soft to touch. They open their schoolbooks while the boys with them go to the counter. I can't stop staring at the girls. They all seem to have big eyes that roll around a lot as they talk to each other. They seem so constructed, so put-together; their looks and clothes are so alien compared to Giselle's angles, the holes in her socks and jeans. I think about Giselle's big, raw-boned gestures, how mannish she is.
I think about how, sometimes at night, I remember a stupid joke I heard at school that I forgot to tell Mom and Giselle, and then I start thinking about all the trips we still need to take, all the living left for us in the same house, how time might be running out. I want to tell Mom about those floating night thoughts and jokes and plans and worries but somehow I can't assemble it. And I can't tell her about his ghost. Although he has no fear of endings, and watches us from a dark corner of the sky.
chapter 15
Students of medicine will learn to respect boundaries (i.e., learn the appreciation of differences between personal and professional roles) in the doctor-patient relationship.
I wake up to Holly kicking my bare feet with her tennis shoe. Sol is nowhere to be seen. She pushes her kilt down between her knees as she sits and I r
emember then that we forgot to bring Holly any other clothes while she was in the hospital.
"What you guys been doing?" She pulls a dried piece of grass and puts it in her mouth.
"Sleeping."
She nods and squints into the fading sun. "Mama been telling you her stories?"
I nod, then reach over to grip the long blades of grass to get myself up.
"We gotta mow this crazy lawn."
Holly nods, spitting pieces of grass out of her mouth. "Don't worry, your new boyfriend already said he'd do it. Geez, how much did you guys drink?"
"Not much," I say, kicking the bottles as I raise myself up on my arms.
"I gotta go," Sol says, coming out of the house, smiling. "But I'll be back later to check up on our patient." He winks at Holly. "How are you doing?"
"Still hurts, no long jump for a while, that's for sure."
We go in and Mom's making dinner, Holly's favourite: potato salad and tofu dogs with macaroni and cheese. I eat a couple of bites, but feel too upset to eat much, so I finish the floor, iron the curtains, and Mom falls asleep on the couch, in front of the eleven o'clock news.
Later that night, Holly comes into my room, where I am staring at old X-rays from school and still trying to process the fact that Mom knew Thomas before Misha. I don't know where to put this information, where and how to file it in my case against him. The implications are tremendous.
Holly stands in my doorway, freshly showered. Her hair has grown out from her severe crew cut and she's got it slicked back. She's in her favourite outfit: a sports bra and Dad's pyjama bottoms. Her foot's hooked against her ankle, her chest is bruised, purple-blue butterflies bloom beneath the white cotton of her bra, the lowest part of the wing reaching out to her taut belly button. She stands there sniffing her armpits. Holly's bigger than me, wider hips and shoulders. She also probably weighs about ten or fifteen pounds more than me, all lean muscle. She's nicely proportioned, her breasts look full and perky at the same time, everything about Holly is strong. Seeing her, I wonder how it is that I can look at her and see skinny but when I look at myself I see a bloated mess.