Come, Thou Tortoise

  Dr. O’Leery admires Wedge’s shiny coat. What are you feeding him.

  Licorice Allsorts.

  Much laughter.

  Seriously.

  Byrne Doyle asks whatever happened to that ball Wedge used to run around in. Remember when he ran into the street in his ball and Byrne had to rescue him because Jim Ryan was pulling (frontwards, yes) out of his driveway at great speed.

  It’s still around, I think. We used to call it Wedge’s crystal ball.

  They don’t make Ladas anymore, of course, Verlaine is saying. And the Americans don’t know they ever existed. An American will tell you there is no such car.

  Dr. O’Leery says he is working with mice now. Which does not give me a warm feeling. He sticks a finger through the grid roof of Wedge’s terrarium.

  Um. Don’t do that.

  My dad was not a fan of Dr. O’Leery. In fact, my dad was partly responsible for Dr. O’Leery’s “long sabbatical.” So what is he doing here.

  Working with mice and, what, rhombuses, I say.

  He gives me a blank look.

  Because, as I recall, one of Dr. O’Leery’s experiments involved electrocuting cats in the presence of circles (ostensibly to prove something about psychology, not geometry), and my dad had filed a complaint.

  Like I said, I am not getting a warm feeling.

  The stranger says, And this mouse was your father’s pet.

  He has an accent—German maybe, or Dutch—and a lion’s large face. He is drinking out of a goblet I don’t recognize. There are a lot of dishes around that I don’t recognize.

  Ours, I say. We’ve had him since I was a kid.

  Apparently this is amusing. He winks at Dr. O’Leery.

  What, I say.

  The Lada conversation has petered out and Verlaine says, Well, Audray, where is the wine.

  You must be much younger than you look, says the lion, sipping slowly. His eyes are dead serious over the rim of the goblet.

  I glance at Wedge. Why.

  Verlaine interjects. The rest of us age four years for Audray’s every one. She is like a horse that way. Where is the wine.

  She grabs my elbow.

  I’ve had six birthdays, I tell the lion. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

  Sorry.

  Figure that out.

  Verlaine is leading me towards the kitchen.

  He tilts his big head, scratches his ear. Ah. You are a leapling.

  A what. Do you know that man.

  Verlaine prowls along the counter. Reading bottles. Shakes her head. But I think he is Belgian. I have a sixth sense about Belgians.

  I nod. A leapling sounds like something you might have for dinner in Belgium.

  I sit down. Rub my eyes. The day feels so crowded. Every interaction is a blow. Sudden, fast, and over. And holy hell. Look at all the students smoking on the porch.

  And look, there is Toff.

  So that’s where he is. Hanging out with the students, smoking. Actually no, he is not hanging out. He has a corner to himself. He’s got his collar turned up. Purple cravat flapping. An outfit loses flamboyancy after a couple of days. Then it becomes merely sad.

  He brought one outfit.

  Don’t look at him.

  Verlaine pours me some wine in a goblet I don’t recognize. I slide it away. She slides it back.

  You look unslept, she says again.

  I’ve been sleeping here.

  Where.

  At the table.

  Why.

  I have my reasons.

  But maybe tonight I will sleep in my own room. Under my tree. This suddenly feels possible. Maybe I am acclimatizing to this house that doesn’t have my dad alive in it. All these strangers are helping. They will strip the house clean of associations and then debark.

  Don’t think about where my dad is right now.

  My aunt called this morning, says Verlaine. She wanted me to tell you how sorry she is.

  This requires a shift of gears. I prop myself up. Madame Mourou called.

  She asked about the American. I told her I thought it was over with the American and you would not be going back. Am I right.

  I stare at her white shirt. It’s weird how Ralph Lauren’s horses always look like they’re tipping over. And for a moment the only American I can think of is the tiny one galloping out of her chest, wielding a mallet.

  The doorbell rings. I am supposed to be on door duty, but Verlaine says no, she will go. So I am left alone in the kitchen. With Toff on the other side of the glass. The students have dispersed and he is standing with his pointy shoulders up near his cravat. Why isn’t he wearing a coat. I press my lips together. He does the same. Everyone has a special smile of pure unhappiness. This is mine. What’s odd is that mine is the same as Toff’s. We purse our lips and lift our eyebrows. What’s next, our eyebrows say. What can possibly be next after this.

  I forgive you for the obituary, say the eyebrows. I forgive you for throwing your father’s will in the Fairfont fountain. I forgive you for forcing me to smoke outdoors in this Weather of Mass Destruction. I am just as miserable as you.

  But why are you, Toff. And why did you have to accuse me of making a mockery of my dad’s name. Of making him a Medulla Oblongata on the sidewalk.

  Okay. I apologize. But why did you have to disrupt the burial by flinging yourself at the prison wall like a lunatic.

  Okay. But why do you care so much, Toff.

  Okay. But why do you hate me.

  Okay. But why did you have to bring up the Civil Manor at lunch the other day like it was something fun to reminisce over. Like all that turmoil and worry I put my dad and Uncle Thoby through that night was something fun to reminisce over.

  Okay. But why did you do it.

  Because I hated you and Grandmother. And because I love Uncle Thoby.

  Okay. Hang on a sec while I light my four hundredth cigarette of the day. Why did you hate us.

  Okay. Let’s go down that memory parking lot since Uncle Thoby is safely out of the room. There were many reasons why I hated you. Many many reasons. Only some of which I know. But it was because of you that Uncle Thoby checked into a hotel. You and Grandmother, with your disapproving eyebrows. And that was what led me to follow suit. So that I could protect him from you. Who wanted to disappear him back to England. And the unfortunate consequence of that action was to cause my dad to be frantic and to subsequently blame Uncle Thoby for losing me. Even though I wasn’t lost. Or drowned. Or run over. But they didn’t know that.

  I’d fallen asleep in room 205 of the Civil Manor and woken to the sound of the phone ringing next door in room 203. And guess who that was. My dad. Phoning Uncle Thoby to ask, Where is Audrey. But Uncle Thoby was still at Bebe’s, so no one was answering. I knew it was my dad calling. I could tell by the worry in the ring. I sat up in the dark. It was horrible. The phone kept ringing and ringing. And I sent feelers out into a world that had my dad worried in it. My dad was calling me from the other side of a wall, and I couldn’t answer.

  So I got up and stood by the wall.

  Finally it stopped. Dad, I said into the heat vent. I didn’t mean to not come home.

  Then I got smart and realized I had a phone in my room. Hey! I could call him.

  But you answered.

  Where are you, you said.

  At the Civil Manor, I said.

  Your father’s frantic.

  Well, put him on.

  He just left.

  Uh-oh.

  I hung up. I sat on the bed. Now I was in trouble. Would he come here. Yes. He would come here first. He would talk to Doreen. Oh yes, your little girl was here in her raincoat when the dinosaur show was on.

  And my dad would try very hard not to yell, When was the dinosaur show on.

  Then he would glance at the board and notice that the key to room 205 was missing. Ah. And he would nod to himself and say, Thank you, Doreen.

  Or he would check the pond first. Because what if I’d fallen in. Yes,
he is walking around Wednesday Pond right now, calling my name. And when I don’t answer, he jumps in. The police come to dredge the pond, but lo and behold, there is no bottom to dredge. And my dad is gone, never to return. But where. Where does the pond with no bottom go. Will he splash up somewhere else.

  All because he expected me to come home and I never did.

  But this was not what happened. What happened was that my dad, not getting an answer in Uncle Thoby’s room, went directly to Bebe’s.

  This must have been a bad moment. Don’t picture it.

  I brought her home.

  No you didn’t. She never came home.

  Uncle Thoby drops his pool queue. Sorry, cue. In slow motion. Also his pirate sherry.

  Poor Uncle Thoby.

  I can picture them, wobbly, thinking where oh where is she. They search the streets around Wednesday Pond. Calling Oddly.

  I waited for a long time to be found. I watched a whole episode of The Love Boat. Which is a show you don’t need to watch because it is clear from the moment the faces appear in the ship’s steering wheel who is going to fall in love. I watched and imagined my dad and Uncle Thoby looking for me. I cried a little. Then the news came on and I turned it off, because what if I was on it.

  I dragged a chair to the window. The PIETY sign said PITY because the E was out.

  Finally the LeBaron pulled up. My dad and Uncle Thoby got out of the car.

  Dad!

  He froze in his tracks. Looked up.

  Uncle Thoby put a hand on his shoulder. My dad closed his eyes. In two seconds they were in the hallway. I stepped out of 205. Hi.

  My dad swept me up.

  When we got home, you and Grandmother were playing cards. Remember. And I clumped upstairs to my room. My bed smelled like smoke, so I got the Lysol spray from the bathroom and disinfected the entire room (and some of myself by mistake). Then, on my way back to the bathroom, I heard Grandmother’s voice downstairs. She was leaning on her words again. I stopped.

  I heard her say, Do you know what you’re doing with that child.

  And my dad said, Of course not.

  I had a very bad taste in my mouth (Lysol). I went into my room and closed the door. I got into bed. My eyes smarted.

  Do you know what you’re doing with that child.

  I knew what she was getting at. The other parent. Where is the other parent. And clearly you do not know what you’re doing with that child, Walter. Families are supposed to have a king and a queen and a jack. Not a dad and a pirate and a child who doesn’t know her own age.

  But my dad had explained this to me. That sometimes there is only one parent. Sometimes there are two. Sometimes there are three. But what it comes down to is who wants to be. And if someone doesn’t want to be, they shouldn’t have to be. And if someone does want to be, like my dad, who really really wanted to be (and hopefully still wanted to be, despite my running away to the Civil Manor and putting him through torture), or like Uncle Thoby, then that person should be allowed to be. Was I on board with that.

  I was wholeheartedly on board with that.

  But what I now saw through my Lysol tears was that not everyone was on board with that. Our guests from England were not on board with that. They would make us like a deck of cards. They would shuffle us apart. And so it was more important than ever that I protect us.

  England had kings, queens, and jacks. But we had the jokers. We were the jokers. Outside the deck, across the ocean, dancing our little jigs of happiness.

  Verlaine puts a hand on my shoulder. There’s a young man at the door looking for your father.

  What.

  I told him to wait.

  It is a bit like hearing Uncle Thoby’s voice on the Hear Ye 3000. You persuade yourself it’s really him calling. And you answer with hope. Just like you want to believe the person on the porch who thinks your dad is alive might really have a ticket to a world that does not have your dad dead in it. Maybe he knows something you don’t.

  And so I walk down the hall, slowly, to prolong the moment. My fingers touching the wall. Steady. He’s standing at the edge of the steps, his back to the house. I open the screen door. He turns. Dark red hair. Wool sweater. Boots like castles. In the street there’s a red van with the hazards flashing.

  I step onto the porch in my socks.

  I’m looking for Walter Flowers, he says.

  He’s big. His sweater has that braid pattern down the front, five ropes of it. His stomach pushes out the sweater.

  I’m his daughter.

  He extends a hand. Judge Julian Brown. He is impossibly young to be a judge. Judge of what. A skateboarding competition.

  He corrects me. Judd.

  Oh. Judd, period.

  Yes.

  Julian Brown.

  Hyphenated.

  Of the Julian-Brown furniture dynasty!

  It’s not a dynasty, but sort of.

  Okay. Got it. How can I help you.

  Your father purchased some Christmas lights. Which have since been recalled. We’re here to collect those lights.

  Behind him the flashing van says Christmatech. You’re that guy.

  We’ve sent you several recall notices.

  Yeah, we noticed. This is beyond customer service, isn’t it. This is intrusive.

  We prefer conscientious.

  We.

  We would very much like to exchange your father’s D-434 model for the D-534 model.

  Clearly.

  Those lights would not be in use, would they, he says, peering over my shoulder into the house.

  No. What’s in those lights, Judd. Plutonium.

  We make a deal that Judd will give me the new model now, and I will inform my dad about the inadvisability of using the old one. I will have my dad bring the old model to Judd’s place of business. Tomorrow. But now is not a good time, since we’re having a party, as Judd can see from all the cars, and I don’t want to disturb him with this untimely, albeit urgent, recall. But we are not in any danger because we are not using the lights at this time. And surely the lights are not dangerous if they are not plugged in, are they.

  They are not entirely undangerous if they are not plugged in.

  We look at each other. He has twinkly eyes.

  I laugh.

  How did my dad meet this guy. Okay. Well. We’ll take our chances for another day.

  Judd says he’s got the new model in the van.

  Okay. Off you go then.

  As he negotiates the driveway I call after him, Who is the we.

  He turns, walks backwards. Points at his chest. Me. Bangs into a car’s side mirror. Ouch.

  His hair is unbelievably, solidly red against the blue background of snow. The van blinks a syncopated rhythm.

  I hug myself. I do a little dance in time with the van. Cold.

  The porch bounces with other footsteps. Toff comes around the corner. Collar up. Lips the colour of his cravat. Judging from his expression, he has overheard all or part of my conversation with the Christmatech representative. Whom I have not disabused of the belief that my dad is alive.

  I try to smile a smile of pure unhappiness. Only it is not pure.

  Toff walks past me into the house.

  My dad always was courageous in the Christmas light department. Capitalize Christmas Light Department. Certain rules must be followed in the CLD:

  The house must be dark—no ambient light—before the switch is flipped. Two Flowers (Oddly and Thoby) must walk to the other side of the pond and watch the switch-flipping from there. So that the lights of number 3 Wednesday Place are reflected in the pond’s surface. More bang for the buck. Double the wattage. Etcetera.

  Oddly and Thoby stamp their feet, dance a little jig, while they wait. Come on, Walter, says Uncle Thoby. Come on. Then bam. They’re on. And holy wattage. We gasp every time. Because they are even better than last year. There is always some new technology in the CLD. Remember when Christmas lights were hot and bulbous. Remember that. So hot they
melted nearby ornaments. Then they got smaller. Brighter and braver. If one went out, the others kept going. They deepened to jewel tones. They were stained glass. They were a church in your hand. They didn’t burn. You could put them in your mouth and make your cheeks glow. (Don’t do that, Audrey. Why. What’s Rule Number One of Things That Are Plugged In. Oh right.)

  The two Flowers now wait for the third to join them. Uncle Thoby hums the “Hallelujah Chorus.” The all-year-round swans glide through the dazzling reflection. Finally we hear the sound of footsteps and Walter arrives with one hand cupped over an eye so he can’t see the house and says, Well.

  Oh Walt.

  Yes. Say it. Go on.

  You’ve outdone yourself.

  Have I. And he unblinkers himself and turns around to take in the full view. And if he were prone to doing jigs, he would do one now. Yes, he has outdone himself. I won’t tell you the wattage, he says.

  Why.

  Shocking.

  Ha.

  And the swans put their heads underwater and say, Can you see the bottom. No. Can you. No.

  And Oddly says, Somebody somewhere is looking into their pond-with-no-bottom and seeing our lights!

  What a nice thought, says Uncle Thoby. Orange glove on Oddly’s head.

  Except that the pond has a bloody bottom, says Walter.

  But how do you explain that it never freezes.

  It did freeze once.

  When, says Uncle Thoby.

  Before you came.

  That’s sweet of you to say, but—

  What are you talking about. Sweet of me to say.

  Judd’s van crawls away. I imagine it from above, a red rectangle in a white maze of streets. I feel not terrible. I sit on the porch steps with my box of D-534-model Christmas lights. The box might be a recycled pizza box. When Judd handed it to me, he remarked how odd it was that no one on our street had Christmas lights up.

  Promise me you won’t turn on the old model, he said.

  I hugged the box. I promise.

  Imagine being a Christmas light inventor. I lift the lid. Inside is a coiled vine of green wire with dark promising buds.

  A heavy coat drops over my shoulders. I look up. Toff. He goes back inside. Yeah. I’m not ready to go back inside.