After (10 page)

There. I said it. Now everyone knew not only that my father committed suicide, but how he did it. I wanted to get it out before they asked me. People always want the juicy details. It’s like:

“Oh! I’m so sorry about your father.”

“It’s okay.”

They wait a second or two, and then:

“How did he do it? Pills, a gun, a screwdriver?”

Stupid idiots. If they were really sorry, how could they possibly ask me that?

The discussion moved on to something else, but I felt like I had taken a giant step. At the end of the evening, as we were folding up the chairs, I actually found the nerve to speak to Julia. This was a big deal for me, let me tell you.

“My name is Francis, but you can call me Frank if you want.” Nobody has ever called me Frank, but I thought it sounded cool.

“That goes for me, too.” There it was again–the delicate scent of lily of the valley.

“What? You want me to call you Frank?” Ha, ha! Was I hilarious! It’s a wonder she didn’t run screaming for the door.

Instead she said, “No, sorry. Call me Jul. Actually I hate to be called Julia–and tomatoes.”

“Sorry?”

“I hate tomatoes They’re squishy and they have those little seeds. I think they’re gross.”

“Me, too! There’s nothing on earth that I hate more than tomatoes!” This was not precisely true. I actually had never taken a stand on the tomato issue, but apparently there’s a Talking to Girls Monster that’s as independent of rational thought as the Grief Sea Monster. I seemed to have lost all control of my brain.

“But I love Dijon mustard!” I couldn’t believe I said that. But anyway, we both laughed. She had warm hazel eyes, brown hair, and best of all, she was shorter than I am. I like girls who are shorter than I, though there aren’t many of them. She was also younger. I was born in April, and she was born in October. I liked the way she was handling her soda. So sexy! She had a nice, white toothy smile. Teeth are always the first thing I notice in girls. Well, the second thing. She must have noticed my fixation.

“I had braces for at least five years. My teeth were terrible! I could have given Dracula a scare!” This brilliant conversation went on until the other kids had left and Mr. Bergeron was clearing his throat loudly at the door.

On meeting nights, I spent hours in my bedroom picking through what you might generously call my wardrobe for my least dorky clothes, and–very important–shaving. I tried to comb my hair like Tom Cruise, and I patted eau
de cologne on my face. That was something I’d never done before. I used Papa’s because I didn’t have money to buy a new bottle. I could never figure out the point of cologne before, but it seemed like a good idea.

The highlight of my week was talking to Jul after Group. We’d take our plate of cookies and our cans of pop and perch on the edge of the dusty stage that ran across one end of the basement. We talked about her mother and my father. What she went through was different from me. I guess every death is different. Her mother died from breast cancer when Jul was eleven. Last year her father sold his construction company in Barrie. Jul went to Paris on a school exchange while her sister and dad moved to Montréal. After that first conversation about tomatoes, no matter where we started we always ended up talking about death. She told me that she had had time to prepare herself for her mother’s death, but when it came, it was still a shock. Jul told me that since her mother had died she had more or less stopped eating. I noticed that she hadn’t touched the cookies.

You’d think that after that kind of heart-to-heart, talking to Jul at school would be no problem. Wrong. Outside the church basement, Mr. Cool, here, was tongue-tied. It took me ages to psyche myself up, but finally, on a Friday afternoon when classes were over, I asked her to go to Deli Delight with me. The owner’s an old potbellied man who wears a skullcap and speaks French with a strong Yiddish accent. He is one of those
people that you can know forever, without ever knowing his name. Even Papa, who had known him for years, called him
Mister Deli.
Mr. Deli had been at the funeral.

We slid into a booth and I ordered sodas, tuna salad on bagels, and fries. We picked up the familiar Theme of Death conversation before the food came. Jul began.

“She suffered a lot. I’ll never forget every minute of the last day. The nurse came to her room and gave her a shot. An hour later, she was dead. She held my hand till the end. I didn’t want to cry in front of her. I didn’t cry for the whole two years she was sick.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wanted to show her that I was strong and that she wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen to me after she was gone. I wanted her to be able to go in peace.”

“In a way, you’re lucky. You knew your mother was going to die. You could tell her that you loved her. I never got the chance.”

“I did say it a lot to her, but I also said stuff I can’t believe now. Once, about six months before she died I was mad at her for something. I don’t remember what–maybe because I had turned the radio up too loud and she yelled at me. I yelled back that I wished she were dead. I kept thinking about that during the last days when she actually was dying. I’d give anything to take those words back. Then, at the end it was so awful that I wanted my mother to hurry up and get it over with. I really did wish
she was dead. It’s horrible to say that, isn’t it?” Jul studied my face.

I reached across the table for her hand. This incredibly sicko thought formed in my mind. I wanted to become the tears that rolled down her cheek just so that I could touch her skin. I must be a pervert.

“I felt two emotions at the same time,” Jul continued. “I wanted my mother to die so that she wouldn’t suffer anymore, but at the same time, I wanted her to live, because I loved her and couldn’t bear to lose her. Nobody seems to get it.”

I didn’t say anything. I was beginning to figure out that sometimes listening is the best way to communicate. Some people (like Aunt Sophie) are afraid of silence, so they fill it with sounds.
Don’t cry. Cry. You’re the Man of the House now. How do you feel? It was all for the best.
Let me tell you, when it’s your turn to be a good friend to somebody who is in bad shape, just listen. Forget words. They can be worse than useless.

Mr. Deli brought us our sodas, humming I don’t know what–it sounded like “All That She Wants” from Ace of Base. I watched Jul pull the paper wrapper off her straw and take a sip.

“I don’t know if it’s like this for you,” she said, “but I’m jealous of people who have both their parents. You know Reine?”

“Reine Green?”

“Yes. We walk to school together sometimes, and she’s always talking about going to buy a dress for her graduation with her mother, and how her mother likes white dresses and what stores she likes and on and on and on. It makes me want to scream. When it’s my turn to graduate, I won’t be shopping with my mother. My mother’s never going to see me graduate or get married, or have kids, or anything.”

I thought about my fury at Houston’s ongoing saga of
Father Knows Best.
“Yes, but your father and your sister will be there.” I don’t know why I said that. I had my mother and brother, and that didn’t make the pain any less.

“It’s not the same at all. I love my father, I really do, but there are things that a girl wants to talk about with her mother.”

“I know. It’s the same for me.”

“Besides, my father never shows his emotions. He’s about as warm as the St. Lawrence in January!”

Oh, my God! She said
as warm as the St. Lawrence in January!
I thought I’d made that expression up. We use the same expressions! We were obviously meant for each other.

Mr. Deli arrived with our tuna bagels. Jul picked the sliced tomato off hers, took one or two rabbity bites, and pushed her plate away. When she ran her hand through her hair–even though there was a spot of mayonnaise on her fingertips–I could have melted right then and there.

It won’t come as a surprise to you that I asked her my inevitable God question.

“I don’t know if I believe in God,” she said. “When you die, what do you think happens after?”

“I guess there are two possibilities. Either your body decomposes, becomes fertilizer to feed plants and animals, and that’s the end. Or, there’s a soul that quits your body and flies into the universe. That’s what Maman thinks.”

She sat silently. Her face was still.

“What are you thinking?” I said.

“I never thought about death before my mother died. I thought death had to do with other people. I really thought, even if it sounds stupid, that I was immortal.”

“It’s not stupid, Jul.”

“I thought I would never die. The fact that my mother died forces me to accept that I will too.”

“Death is a thief. We never know when he will come.” Mr. Deli put a plate of french fries in the middle of the table. “Don’t let him steal your youth.”

Something about the way he said it struck me as comforting. We both looked at him as if he had solved the mystery.

The days had been growing longer. When I got home, grinning like a demented ad for toothpaste, it was still light. I could hear Sputnik’s anxious yips as he waited for Luc to throw his ball in the backyard. Maman was sitting
on the front porch sewing a button back on my pants. She had Papa’s jacket draped over her shoulders.

“Well, that’s done. Here are your pants.” She snapped the thread off with her teeth.

“Thanks.” I leaned my bike against the railing and sat down beside her.

“Where were you?”

“I was with Jul at the deli.”

“I would really like to meet her someday, this Jul. You spend a lot of time with her.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled at me expectantly. When I didn’t answer she shrugged, closed her sewing box and got to her feet. “We’re having fish for dinner.”

A moment later I could hear her in the kitchen pulling pans out of the cupboard. She must have turned on the radio because I could hear the low sweet sounds of Fats Domino singing
Blueberry Hill.
She called to Luc through the open window, “Come in and wash up. It’s time to eat.”

Out of nowhere, I felt the stab of a memory that brought me such a rush of joy I could hardly stand it. It brought back an evening just like this one. Papa had taken me to the park, and we could hear Maman calling from down the street:

“Francis, Ben, it’s time for dinner!” When we came in, Maman pretended to be angry. “Ben, for heaven’s sake, why did you take Francis to play in the park when you knew dinner was almost ready? Both of you are filthy!”

“Don’t worry,
mon amour
, I’ll take care of Francis.” He tugged her ponytail.

“Your
amour
wants you to change your clothes first. I just finished cleaning the kitchen, and I don’t want to have to do it again. Make sure you don’t wake up Luc. I just settled him.”

“We have our marching orders,
mon amour
” He give her a quick kiss and scooped me up.

Mon amour.
That was what my father used to call her. During the long last year, I don’t even remember him saying her name.

Papa and I changed our clothes as ordered, because on matters of cleanliness, there was no arguing. Maman kept everything spotless, including me and Luc. When Aunt Sophie said, “You can eat off her floor,” which was something she said about one thousand times, Papa would wink at me and say, “Finally, a plate big enough for Sophie!”