Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World (25 page)

The next day at school everybody was lining up by the classroom doors like always. I sat at my desk and stared at the other
kids. Poking each other in the backs with their rulers, passing notes, sneaking bites of their lunch, sometimes smirking and
calling me ‘Jew-le-vitz’. Mark was the only one who understood.

I never knew what to expect when I came home. Mom might forget to eat, or to cook, and then I just made myself cereal. Cereal
at night.
This is what happened at the end of the world. And sometimes she’d come to my room after I’d fallen asleep, climb in beside
me and curl up close, clutch at my shoulders. Smelling like cigarettes, all her clothes on, even her shoes. She’d cry. She’d
say, ‘I don’t want to be alone.’ I’d roll over and tell her she should go to sleep. And I’d be thinking she should go to her
own bed because there really wasn’t room for the two of us in mine, but I didn’t want to sound mean. Maybe I didn’t want to
be alone either.

There were no more fights. Just the two of us, and the clock ticking.

A couple of weeks later we got a TV.

Five years went by. Summer 1984, on a plane for the first time in my life. Cranking up my Walkman over the noise of the engine,
waiting. He’d left me as a stupid little kid who couldn’t see what a bastard he was. Now I could think for myself. I could
get back at him.

I was barely able to look him in the eye.

Instead I helped Stan’s wife with the babies – washing dishes, wiping spills, getting up early every day and making myself
useful. I even changed diapers.

‘Two babies in two years!’ Sheila said, as we unpacked bags of groceries. She explained that her plan had been to have them
close together so she could get the girls in school sooner and be able to concentrate on her career. I was amazed. I’d never
thought of a life as something you planned before.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Look at me now. Some plan!’

Sheila and I went to movies, took in some of the Jazz Festival, got to be pals. ‘You’re such good company,’ she told me one
night when
we were hurtling off home on the Metro. ‘Like your father.’ And she laughed. ‘When he wants to be.’

I was there because of her, as I figured out over time. Sheila liked projects. The house was always full of workmen going
in and out, drop sheets and paint, power tools whizzing away. Stanley and his family in Toronto were an impossible mess, she’d
told me once. But maybe she thought she could fix Stanley and me.

Mom would have been so mad if she’d seen this. All the effort I was putting in at my father’s place, after slouching around
our house mumbling monosyllables at her half the time. But I needed Sheila and the girls to like me.

It was part of my revenge.

Look how great I am, I was really saying. Funny and interesting and helpful and kind. Good company. Now why would Stan Shulevitz
leave a nice kid like me?

Because he’s a shit, that’s why. And he could leave you too, the three of you. At any time, and for any reason. Don’t trust
him and don’t love him. That’s what I wanted Stan’s new family to understand.

We were descending. I’d rescued my book. Karamazov and his sons were having an argument about God over a glass of brandy.
There were empty plastic glasses crunching by my feet and my ears were popping. Here I was again. The annual visit, off to
destroy my father. This could be the last time.

Better make it count.

I was knocking around the basement of my father’s house, escaping the summer heat and watching my sister Becky as she jumped
on the fold-up couch in the TV room. Four years old. Talking away. Advice about my girlfriend.

I’d invented this person to cover a bad mood on the drive from the airport. Stanley hadn’t bothered to come with the rest
of the family to meet me. He was at a launch. For a book, not a boat. I’d stared out the passenger-seat window, drifting into
mopey silences. Sheila had asked me what was wrong and I told her I was having romantic difficulties. Well, it was true, in
a way.

‘Oh, honey,’ Sheila had said. ‘She’d have to be blind. What’s her name?’

‘Marcie. Marcie McAllister.’

The little girls had loved this. ‘Is she pretty?’ Becky piped up from her child seat in the back.

‘She’s the best person I know.’

Becky had started telling a long story I couldn’t follow, something about true love and an enchanted strawberry. Beside her
my other sister Sarah smiled and waved, a lazy parade wave. Three years old. My favourite.

Now Sarah was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, with her Ken doll and her Spiderman doll, touching their heads together
and making kissy noises. Ken’s teeth were bared in a thin white smear of a smile. Sarah was chortling to herself. She’d told
me the dolls were in love and were going to have a baby ‘any minute’.

Her sister Becky soared upwards, higher with each bounce off the couch, her hair spread out around her. ‘You should give Marcie
a lion! And the lion has a rose. And then the rose opens and there’s a ring. And when she puts on the ring, she can’t stop
dancing. She can’t even stop to go to the bathroom, so she has to poop and pee everywhere. And then …’

I hovered close by, ready to catch her. How could anybody be this bright and happy and confident? A home with two parents.
Money for anything she wanted. Living in a city, not some village full of inbred bigots. Nobody was ever going to stick this
girl’s head in a toilet.

I was jealous of this nice little child who loved me. Snap out of it. ‘Let’s go upstairs and make popsicles,’ I said.

On the floor, Sarah had thrown Ken and Spiderman in a shoe box together and was shaking it violently. ‘Carry me!’

‘Okay.’ I scooped Sarah into my arms. She wiped her nose on my shoulder.

Becky made a thudding landing off the couch. ‘Carry me too!’

‘Sorry. Can’t do that, Becky. I’m too cool.’ It was what I always said when I was pretending not to do what they wanted.

I was pretty sure I loved these girls. And I loved being in Montreal.
Even if I was in a basement with the children, I knew that just outside the door, there was a network of people and streets
and cars, a galaxy. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. You’d go walking and you’d pass a church. And then a strip club. An art
gallery. A tattoo parlour. Delis with slabs of pebbly smoked meat in the window. Kids sweating in black clothes waiting for
tickets to a heavy-metal concert. There were people everywhere you looked and everywhere you looked it wasn’t Riverside. It
wasn’t even Halifax.

Once on St Catherine Street I actually saw two guys with their arms around each other moving in for a kiss – one with a hand
on his friend’s butt, no less – and I was so stunned I just about walked into a lamppost. The blond sneered at me over his
shoulder. ‘Fuck are you looking at? Dumb hick.’ Was it the way I was dressed? I got out of there fast. But I did think it
was pretty cool.

There was just one problem with these visits to Montreal – the person I was supposed to be there to see. At night I’d lie
awake, having one-sided conversations with him in my head. In the light of day it all disappeared. The clock kept ticking,
the days drifted by, and I realised that once again I was going back to Riverside with everything unsaid.

Then it was my last night at the Shulevitz house. The heat was making me crazy. Nova Scotia had the cold Atlantic slapping
up against us, but here we were stuck in the middle of a continent, cooking in the summer sun. In July, the air turned heavy
and still. Bugs moved through it in slow motion, like they were swimming. Sleep was impossible and all food was gross.

I was in my guest room, three in the morning. Still awake, with a dry mouth and eyes that felt like they’d been rolled in
sand. I had to be up in a few hours to catch my plane, but sleep wasn’t going to come, so I was back to
The Brothers Karamazov
.

Couldn’t concentrate. This airless little room was killing me.

I stumbled downstairs and planted myself against the wall at the kitchen table, in a T-shirt and boxers, my cigarette hand
out the window just beside me. Turning on the electric light seemed wrong somehow – like I’d be pretending it was day. So
I lit a white candle in a silver holder I’d taken from the dining room instead. I leaned close to the little flame, hunched
over my book. Wanted to find out what was going to happen to Mitya.

I glanced up to take a drag off my cigarette. The table was a circle of glass. Light refracted through it onto the floor.
There was a bowl of fruit, awkward shapes resting against each other. A round-faced silver clock on the wall. Stanley. Sitting
across from me.

I jumped to my feet in a stumbling hurry, almost knocked over the candle.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Hi.’ I hid the cigarette behind my back. Should have just chucked it out the window, but my reflexes were scrambled.
He was fully dressed, jeans and a white linen shirt. I was standing there in my underwear.

Stan reached out and plucked the book off the table. ‘Hm. Dostoyevsky.
The Brothers
. I envy you.’ He flipped through the pages. ‘Reading this for the first time. And the perfect age to encounter it.’

‘I’m gonna …’ I gestured lamely at the hallway, the stairs.

‘Sit down. I know you’re smoking. It doesn’t matter to me.’

I sat, stubbed the cigarette against the edge of the fruit bowl and crunched the end into a sad little accordion.

Should have realised he’d still be up. In the summer, Stanley was nocturnal. It was part of how I’d been able to avoid him
so well on these annual visits. You’d stumble over his body in that little study just off the kitchen where he’d be tangled
in a sheet on the futon mattress, sleeping
off another late night. I’d walked in there more than once looking for a book and nearly stepped on his head.

Stan stood up abruptly and started banging around in the cupboards. He unhooked a child-proof lock on a little door over the
fridge and came out with a small squat bottle, poured a measure and set it in front of me. Then he opened
The Brothers Karamazov
to the table of contents, pointed at the title of one of the chapters. ‘Over the Brandy’.
A joke?

‘The famous chapter,’ he said. ‘Well, come on, Stephen. I’m sure you drink. And you’re legal age here, right? Eighteen.’

‘I’m seventeen.’

‘Okay, you’re seventeen.’

‘My birthday’s in …’

‘I was there.’ He sat down again and I looked at the glass he’d poured for me, candlelight reflecting off the sides. Nothing
for himself. ‘A very difficult birth. Maryna was hardly more than a child herself.’

‘You’re up late.’

He didn’t answer this. I watched him for a while. My father tipped back his head, gazed at the ceiling. In this warm light,
he looked younger. Like I remembered him.

‘Got a little home movie playing in my head about now.’ Stan’s voice was soft, distant. ‘See, I’m outside the dome house.
Back when we lived on the side of the mountain. Smoking something. Moonlight so strong you’ve got these sharp black shadows
behind you. And I see somebody walking down the dirt road. I’m scared half to death at first, cause I think it’s a ghost.
But it’s my son. My kid.’ He was smiling at me. ‘In your pyjamas and that blue sweater with the snowflake. Said you couldn’t
sleep. The moon was too bright in your window. So you were taking a walk.’

‘Yeah, I used to do that.’

He went on talking. ‘I told you to go back inside and lie down. And then I said I’d shut it off for you. The moon. And the
thing was’ – shaking his head – ‘you did. Nodded at me so seriously, went off into the house. And I thought,
My God, he believed that
. Believed me. It was … terrifying.’

‘You could have just got me some decent curtains.’

‘Not really the point.’

I pushed my chair back. ‘Anyway, I should get some sleep.’

‘Sit.’ He was running his thumb along the edge of the fruit bowl. ‘You’re angry.’

‘No.’ Not ready to start this now. The brandy was still in front of me. I hadn’t touched it. ‘Don’t you want any, Stanley?’

‘I don’t like drinking. That bottle’s for guests.’

I wasn’t going to chug this stuff alone while he sat and watched. So I got up and took a glass out of the cupboard, poured
a couple of fingers and set it in front of him. We were facing each other across the table again. He frowned to himself. I
drained my glass in one go. Made me gasp, but I could handle it.

He shifted the dark amber liquid around.

‘It was a good idea. Overall. Making contact with you again. Very good for the girls. We never wanted them to grow up not
knowing they had a brother. And they love you.’

‘Well, it’s nice to have sisters.’ I felt hypnotised, like I was staring at a cobra with its dance of a head.

‘It’s nice for Sheila too. She’s always said what good company you are. Compared to me.’ Stan gave a little shrug, drank the
brandy down. He shuddered. ‘It was her idea, you know, bringing you here in the first place. She had to work at me for a while
before I said yes. I think …’ He looked at the ceiling again. ‘I think I was actually afraid
of you. See, I left this sweet little kid. I was getting back an angry adolescent.’

‘Why do you keep saying I’m angry, Stanley?’

‘All teenagers are angry. You’ve got more cause than most.’

‘But I’m
not
—’ My voice was raised. Stop. I poured myself more brandy, filled his glass too. ‘I’m not angry.’ I poked at the candle flame.

‘Course not,’ he breathed. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t attempt this conversation till you’re twenty-five.’ My father linked his hands
behind his head. ‘But I suppose it would be better to get it over with. Okay, go on, Stephen. Stepan Vladimir Shulevitz. You’re
telling me you’re
not
angry. Fine. Why don’t you tell me why?’ Stanley tilted backwards in his chair. ‘You have the floor, Stephen. What’s on your
mind?’

I looked down at my glass, at the stupid book, stared into the candle. Unfair. It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was supposed
to surprise him – when I was ready. I tried to think of some of my favourite lines, all those imaginary conversations.

‘You …’ I choked, my voice echoing. Hopeless. It was as if the words were curling away in the candle flame and disappearing.
I had nothing to say to this man.

But at the same time, so much was crowding in. Mom crying on the stairs as he made me choose between them. Mom in a daze for
months after he left, forgetting to eat or brush her hair. Mom alone. Hanging on to me like I was the only person left in
the world. Which I was.

‘You ruined my mother’s life.’

He blinked slowly. ‘Odd. I don’t remember doing that.’

‘Why’d you drag her down there to the middle of nowhere? You could’ve stayed in Toronto. Or what’s wrong with Montreal?’

Stanley’s folded hands made shadow-puppet shapes against the wall. ‘We didn’t stay in Toronto, Stephen, because our families
hated
the thought of us together. We had friends in Nova Scotia who said there was land going cheap and it was paradise. And they
were right. Beautiful place to be young.’

‘But … that stupid little town. Why couldn’t I grow up in a city? Some place people would
get
me. I wouldn’t be treated like a freak for …’

He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘I thought this was about your mother.’

‘It is.’ I stared over his head at the kitchen counter. Boxes of cereal were lined up ready for the next day. Cornflakes and
Cheerios. Rice Krispies, little elves gazing in awe at a bowl of bloated, blond rice grains. I was losing this.

Stan ran his fingers along his moustache. It reminded me of a cat’s whiskers.

‘Ruined her life. Is that really fair, Stephen? I mean, it’s true I got Maryna pregnant, and we were very young. But she was
the one who insisted on keeping it.’

I laughed. Came out sounding brittle, cracked. ‘It.’

‘You, then. You.’

Sitting up straight. ‘Yeah, what a mistake, huh? Too bad she decided to keep
it
. Would have been better if you’d just flushed
it
. Then you wouldn’t be wasting your time talking to
it
. Like you are. Right now.’ I could see my knees through the table top, my feet with their craggy toenails looking back at
me.

He tilted his head, eyes narrowed. ‘Teenagers are so great at judgement, aren’t they? Especially if they’ve never actually
done anything except go to school. I mean, what would you do, Stephen, if you got some poor girl “in trouble”? Run out and
get married?’

‘I’d … I’d take responsibility. I think it would be nice to have kids.’

I regretted saying this right away. He was leaning forward now. ‘It
would be
nice
. To be responsible for another human being for the rest of your life. So I suppose when you and your girlfriends are having
sex, you’re hoping the result will be a child.’

‘That’s not an issue.’

‘Issue.’ The corner of his mouth twitched.

‘I wasn’t trying to make some kind of pun.’

‘No, I didn’t think you were.’

‘I mean I don’t …’ Getting closer to it. But part of me wanted to.

‘You don’t have sex. Right.’

‘Not …’ I looked him in the eye. ‘Not with girls.’ I drained my glass of brandy, tried to keep the reflexive shudder down.

Take that, asshole. Come on, disown me. Let’s go
.

It was quiet, and I listened to the noises of the night outside. Footsteps on gravel, a couple of kids walking home drunk
and talking too loud, a car whooshing past like a tired sigh.