Bow Grip (16 page)

We sat there in the truck for another second or two, just staring through the windshield at the empty swimming pool.

“I should be off,” Hector said finally. “I’ve got a few errands to do.”

“Me too. Take care of yourself, Hector. I’ll talk to you later.”

I stood outside my door, watching Hector back his truck out and leave. He raised four fingers at me to wave goodbye, keeping his thumb and the palm of his hand on the steering wheel. My dad used to do the very same thing.

I
sat down on the edge of my bed, my journal open in front of me.

Seeing Allyson again stresses me out. She seems like she’s morphed into some whole new person, but I’m still here, just being who I’ve always been. Treading water, with all these questions I need answers to. Except the person I want to ask isn’t around anymore
.

I closed the book and picked up the phone.

Just when I thought I was going to get her machine again, Allyson picked up on the third ring.

“Joseph! How come you didn’t call me yesterday? Have you checked in with your mother?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m doing?”

“I was just getting to that. Did you call that doctor yet?”

“I already had my first session. I’m all over it.”

“Your first session? Is this going to be a regular thing? Like Tony Soprano?”

“Who?”

“He’s a television character, Joey. A mafia crime boss.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“He goes to a shrink, Joseph, pay attention. He goes
every week. Is that what you’re going to have to do? That’s going to be a lot of driving, isn’t it? There must be a shrink in Drumheller, the place is full of nut cases.”

“I like this doctor. Besides, if there’s a shrink in Drumheller, chances are I play hockey with him, or I went to school with his wife or some fucking thing. The drive is worth it. Plus, I’m lining up a cello teacher in Calgary. I’m going to take some lessons. Did I tell you I got myself a cello?”

“Your mom told me. But I think she thinks it’s a viola. A cello makes more sense.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I can barely imagine you playing the cello, much less a viola, Joey. That’s what it means. You listen to classic rock, is all. I would have thought maybe the electric guitar, or something.”

“Rick Davis says any dumbfuck can learn to play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on the electric guitar. He says the cello is classy. That chicks will dig it.”

“Rick might just be right. I’d like to hear you play the cello sometime.”

“Not any time soon. All I can play is the first bit of ‘I Found My Thrill on Blueberry Hill.’”

“Your dad used to love that song, remember?”

“I think that’s why I picked that song to learn. So what are you up to this morning? Can I come by and drop off these boxes?”

“Only if you let me take you out for breakfast.”

“I just finished breakfast with my buddy from next door.”

“Coffee, then.”

“I’m supposed to be avoiding stimulants.”

“Then I’ll buy you a juice. You know what I mean, Joey. Don’t you think we should maybe … hang out, just you and me? Kathleen is at yoga, and then she’s working all afternoon.”

“What’s she do?”

“She works in a group home for high-risk kids. She takes them on field trips, does workshops, counselling, stuff like that.”

“I like her, she seems nice.”

Allyson was silent for a minute.

“Come on over, Joey. We can talk face to face, just you and me. I’d really like that.”

“You want me to bring anything?”

“Just you.”

I hung up. Opened up my journal again.

Before I left, I kind of uncharacteristically took a swig out of the bottle of scotch Hector had left on the desk, then brushed my teeth, so it would just be my little secret. Didn’t want Ally leaking it to my mom that I was hitting the sauce.

When I arrived, Ally was wearing a pair of blue yoga pants and one of my old shirts, still in her bare feet. I had forgot all about that old shirt. It was corduroy, kind of a suede colour, with pearly snaps. I loved that shirt. I was trying to feel pissed off that Ally had boosted it from me,
but the truth was I had forgotten to miss it. Then I got to thinking for a second about Ally wearing my shirt to bed with someone else pressed up against her, and I chased the topic from my mind, because I could feel it starting to make my heart race a little. It occurred to me that hanging out in their love nest might be negatively affecting my mental health. Probably got blood on their hardwood floors the last time I visited.

“Why are you shaking your head, Joey? You want to go unload my stuff or not? I’d love to help, but you’re standing on my shoes.”

I was standing like a dumbfuck, parked like a deep freeze in the middle of her doorway, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I swallowed and looked down. She was right. I passed Ally her runners, the sweat socks balled up inside of them.

“I parked right out back, close to the elevator. We can drag them that far. They’re pretty heavy, like I said.”

“Thanks again for bringing my stuff.”

“I wasn’t fishing for thank you’s, Ally. Be careful of your back when you start lifting the boxes.”

“I’m thanking you because I mean it, really. I’m sorry I didn’t come and get it all sooner. Besides, you’re the one whose back is shot.”

“It doesn’t bug me so much as it used to. All that yoga you forced on me helped, after all.”

“I told you so.”

“You did so. Mostly I didn’t like going because Franco kept giving me a hard time. Nine thousand jokes about me wearing tights. It got a little tired. I tried telling him how yoga class was just me and twenty really flexible women, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“You care too much what people think.”

“Let’s go move some boxes.”

“I’m serious, Joey. It’s bad for your health.”

“Don’t you have a new wife to nag?”

Allyson stopped short. “Are you trying to be an asshole?”

“It just comes to me naturally.”

“You’re starting to sound like your father.”

“Thank you.”

Ally slapped my arm, right where my shirtsleeve was rolled up to. “Smartass.”

“You’re not allowed to beat me anymore.”

“Don’t let Kathleen hear you talk like that. She volunteers for a shelter hotline.”

“Kidding. Besides, you started it.”

We went on like that while we got her stuff out of my truck into the elevator, dragged it down the hallway, and stashed it in the little office space under the loft. About nothing and everything.

“Have a seat, I’ll put the kettle on for us,” Ally said when we were done. “Take off your coat. I want to talk to you about something.”

Sit down, I want to talk to you about something
. What happened the last time she said something like that to me? I mentally reached for my stress journal, remembered it was sitting on the front seat of my truck, the pen clipped to its front cover.

I sat down in the armchair but kept my jacket on.

Ally brought us some tea. Chamomile. Thank Christ, I thought. Anything but peppermint. At least this time if I passed out I was already sitting in an armchair, and wouldn’t knock myself out.

Ally sat on the couch, her feet tucked underneath her.

“So tell me how your life is these days. I mean, I get the bare facts from your mom, but I want details.”

“I’ve been all right. Fair to middling, I’d say. Better lately. Aside from a panic attack and the stitches in my head, I’d say this little vacation’s been real good to me. I’m looking forward to my cello lesson. I like playing the thing, a lot more than I thought. Gives me something to do.”

“We should jam sometime. Give me an excuse to dust off my oboe. Haven’t touched it since we got this place. I’m mostly into taking pictures now, and stuff for school. I’m taking a textile course, a darkroom class, some computer stuff. I love going to school. I need the discipline. I never seem to get much done without a deadline.”

This would have been the ideal opportunity for me to ask her about her Master’s degree, and if it was anything I did that made her feel like she couldn’t tell me she wanted to go back to school, but I rolled all my questions around in the back of my mouth, then swallowed them. Washed them down with herbal tea. We were getting along so well. The past was done. I missed her, and just wanted to talk, didn’t want to get all heavy. I looked at my watch.

I wrote it down in my head, for later.

“You need to be somewhere? That’s the third time you’ve looked at your watch in the last twenty minutes.”

“Sorry, Al. Force of habit. I bill out by the hour. This is only my fifth day off, and I don’t know what to do with my hands. I think maybe I’m a workaholic.”

“You’re just figuring that out now?”

“Better late than never, right?”

Allyson shifted around on the couch. I could tell she was about to change the subject.

“Speaking of which, I have something I need to tell you. Kathleen and I … we’re having a baby.”

“Both of you?”

“We’re a couple.”

“I know that, Allyson. I mean, which one of you is pregnant?”

“Kathleen is. I couldn’t face all that again, the pee tests, the ovulating calendar. She’s thirty-six, and she really misses Mitch’s kids. She’s always wanted kids of her own.”

10:35 a.m. My wife is having a lesbian love child
.
And for some reason this also stresses me out.

“Can I ask who the daddy is?” I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to know, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t know.

“The donor. We did it by artificial insemination. He’s married, an old friend of Kathleen’s. Nice guy.”

“How do they do that exactly? Did she have to go to the hospital to get it done?”

“Do you really want to know the how and where?”

“Probably not, actually.”

“I didn’t think so.”

We sat there for a minute, staring into our teacups. “So how do you feel about this, Joseph?”

She hardly ever called me Joseph.

“How am I supposed to feel? You just told me five seconds ago. It wasn’t exactly on my list of things I thought were gonna happen. No offense, but it’s like me taking up
the cello. Who would have seen that one coming? I guess the first thing it makes me feel is like I have a low sperm count. Like I’m a lemon. A recallable model.”

“Well, that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. What Kathleen and I were going to talk to you about the other day. We want to ask you if you would consider being a part of our child’s life. You’re my family, Joey, and so is Ruth. Even Sarah. You always will be. I was an only child, a lonely one, you know that. I want something different for my kid. I want him or her to have a real family. A grandma. I don’t even remember what my mom looked like, except from pictures. And I know how much you want to be a father. I’ve thought about it a lot. I want you to be our baby’s co-parent.”

“What about Kathleen? What does she think about all this?”

“She feels the same way. We’ve talked about it quite a bit. Ruth is all for it, too. She’s already making a quilt.”

“My mom knows about all this? Jesus fuck me, why am I always the last one to get told about everything? I had a heart to heart with her just the other day, and she didn’t breathe a word about any of this.”

“I asked her to let me tell you when you came to town. Face to face.”

“What does being a co-parent mean, exactly?”

“It means we want the baby to have a father, and we want it to be you.”

I took a deep breath and sunk deeper into the armchair. There was a time when the thing I wanted most in the world was to raise up a baby with Allyson. I just never imagined this was what it would look like.

“What about the … sperm guy? How does he feel about having me around his kid?”

“It won’t be his kid. He already has a family. He agreed to be our donor, not a father. We’re asking you. I always said you would make a great daddy, and I still think that.”

“Can I think about it?”

“You can take the next seven months to think about it. It’s not like we have anyone else lined up. It’s not like that.”

“I’m really flattered, Ally. Kind of blown away, to be honest. I need to think about it, though. I was just trying to get over the fact I wasn’t ever going to be anyone’s dad. It’s a bit much for me to wrap my head around, all at once.”

“Take your time. Whatever time you need.”

I shook my head, trying to bend it around all of what she was really asking me. “So say I was the kid’s father, and obviously Kathleen would be the mother, then what is it going to call you?”

“Allyson? Maybe mom, too. We’ll figure that out when we need to. We’ll let the kid decide.” She was leaning forward now, her eyes bright.

“I wonder what my dad would have to say about all this.”

“He would have loved being a grandpa, and you know it. But I’m not asking your dad, I’m asking you. I only ever really had the one parent, Joey, and he was never much of a father. I would have given everything to have a mother, and this baby will have two. Three parents would be even better.”