Mud Girl (25 page)

“Why don't you?” Abi asks.

Ernestine just shakes her head.

It's not a good feeling, the feeling that is closing in around Abi: it's the same feeling she has around Dad. As if she's in a room with high walls, no windows, and no door. She doesn't want to be in there with Ernestine.

Ernestine reaches into a wide pocket on her skirt. “Here,” she says, “you have this. I don't need it anymore.” She hands an envelope with soft edges –
does she hesitate just a bit?
 – to Abi, who opens it to find an old photograph. It takes her a full minute to recognize the man in it: Dad.

He's standing, laughing, he has on that white shirt – the shirt in the one honeymoon picture – and the sleeves are rolled up. His whole body is laughing, Abi can see.

Horace rounds the corner then, a train car nestled along his forearm and a tiny screwdriver in his hand. Abi stands and slips the photo into her own pocket.

“I think I'd like to go and see Lily and Dyl.” She stops. “Well, it's not so much that I'd
like
to, but I think I should.”
And I really want to get out of here…

“Will Jude be there?” Horace asks. He sits on the steps again and puts the screwdriver to the train car and begins to fiddle.

“I don't think so. He usually works on Saturday.”

“I could phone the paint store for you, and find out.”

“You would do that?” Abi asks. She's surprised he even thought of such a thing. “No,” she says slowly, “I'll go, and if I see his truck in front, I might be back soon…”

“I have an old bike in the shed. You can borrow it if you like,” Horace offers. “Keep it for a while, even.” He puts the train car and the tool down and leads the way to the shed.

He has to clean a few cobwebs from the bicycle. Ernestine makes a small bundle of cookies, and puts it in the large square basket on the front. Horace gathers an armful of gladiolas, wraps them in a moistened paper towel, and points out the quickest way. The house is about eight blocks away.

Abi leaves Horace at the end of his driveway. Ernestine has wandered out from the backyard, but she keeps her distance, her wave is feeble. As Abi pedals away, she suddenly remembers a strange sensation she had earlier in the day, in the early morning, just after her bath, when she'd bundled up in that thick old robe and stepped out onto the wharf behind the house, wet hair dripping over her shoulders. Was it a certain smell? The queer and momentary motionlessness? What was it? Fall coming? Or something else? It had been something that had pushed at her throat, made her want to do what her mother had done. Something that made her know –
know
 – she couldn't. Ever. August was too early to feel fall, wasn't it? Even in the early morning? At this time of day – mid-afternoon – it felt as if summer would never end.

How had summer begun? With wanting to find a job. Get a bank account. Plot to leave. That plot hadn't had an Ernestine in it, let alone an unhappy, unforgiving Ernestine.
That plot hadn't had
My Boy In Person
either.
My Boy
was supposed to stay in the blackberry field where she could gaze at him and make dreams. That plot hadn't had a Dyl or a Lily. Or a father who was stressing out a food bank worker.

She's almost there now, and she slows as she approaches the bright house. Good – Jude's truck is not out front. The door is open in the August heat. She leans the bike against the garage, takes out the cookies and the brilliant red flowers, and knocks softly on the open door. Lily is on the couch in almost exactly the same position as the week before, except paler, if that's possible.

“Oh, Abi,” she says. “You're not here for Jude, are you?”

“No. I came to see how you are, and how Dyl is.”

Lily looks pleased. “Thank you,” she says, her voice even weaker than the week before.

“Abi.” Dyl comes down the hallway from the kitchen, and he stops in the doorway, tucks himself in beside the wall and peeks around the corner. His eyes are round again. He's always so in a knot, this kid.

“Hi Dyl,” says Abi softly.

He raises his hand, makes a quarter-wave motion, then drops it to his side. He doesn't come close. For a moment, Abi wonders what she's doing here.

Has he forgotten their time with the buttons? By the end of that day he'd been so comfortable, and now…

They make a triangle there in that room, the young woman, the older, and the boy, in two doorways and the farthest corner.

“How about if I take Dyl for a walk?” Abi asks.

He backs farther around the corner, and looks over to his grandmother.

“Okay,” says Abi. “How about we stay here and make some tea and soup again?”

He moves slowly around the corner out into the living room. He points to the small pile of buttons, still on the coffee table.

“He's spent so many hours with those buttons,” whispers Lily.

Slowly, with his head lowered, Dyl crosses the room and kneels next to the table, disassembles the pile of bright buttons, moves them around, looks up to Abi, who feels rewarded. She goes into the kitchen and finds the teapot. This time she finds a small bowl for the soup, and a matching spoon.

When she goes back into the living room, Lily asks her to please turn the radio off. “Jude left it on this morning before he left for work.”

Abi turns it off, a newscast of something or other.

“I don't need to know what's going on anymore, out there,” says Lily. “I have enough in here to deal with.” She
nods, and Abi assumes she means “here” in her house: her illness, her grandson.

Dyl leaves the room, announcing that he can pee in the pot.

“You're a big boy, Dyl,” says Lily, as he leaves the room. And after he's left, in a low voice, she says, “I worry about him. He's lived with a sick woman for so long. He doesn't know how to go around a corner without checking me. He needs to go play in a park, climb things, be pushed on a swing, but you come and offer to take him for a walk, and his answer is no.” Her voice trails off.

“He just needs to warm up to me. I'll ask him again later. Or next time.”

Lily looks sadly at Abi then. Abi wonders how she feels about the words “next time.”

“Should you be in the hospital?” Abi asks her in a hushed voice.

Lily's voice sounds surprisingly strong when she answers. “I need to be here,” she says.

Dyl comes back into the room, hoisting up his elasticized pants,
T
-shirt half in, half out. Abi can see a small wet spot in front, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's back to the buttons, and very happy to see a mug of milky tea.

They play a sort of checkers game, without a board. After, Dyl still doesn't want to go out. He looks at his grandmother and shakes his head.

Abi stays longer than she'd expected to. She washes some laundry that's sitting in a pile – small pants and shirts that are Dyl's, a funky-smelling sheet, probably from Lily's bed. She leaves Jude's clothes in their own pile, and cleans the kitchen, the bathroom – she's good at this! – and when the laundry is dry, she makes up Lily's bed fresh, with the sheets as smooth as she can, and the pillows plumped. While she works, Lily sleeps. Dyl helps by arranging every pair of shoes and boots and slippers in the house. This must be a favourite thing to do, Abi thinks. The toes of the pairs are perfectly lined up – just as he'd done with the boats – and in the narrow entry closet, he's lined them, pair to pair, exactly. The task keeps him busy for a long time.

More tea, and Abi's on her way.

Horace had said she can keep the bike for a while, so she rides it home. It's almost five and the sun is cooling, and it's wonderful to fly down the river road with the wind with the freedom of a bicycle. She slows as she nears Hood's. She doesn't want to bump into Jude coming out at the end of his day. She passes and sees the sign in the window.
HELP WANTED
. Another word has been added by hand.
IMMEDIATELY
. She pedals harder.

So that's what they were still looking for. What they'd always been looking for, she guesses. The position never had been filled. Another lie! On the beach, Jude had said that it
would have been hard to work with her right next to him all day, and he'd made it sound like a compliment. But what was it really about? He didn't want anyone too close? He didn't want to be “tied up?” Was this what he'd meant about his little bit of freedom?

She's glad for the wings of the bike under her.

Regular People

S
he's glad, too, for the work week to begin again. Weekends are long.

“We're at Mr. S's first today,” says Amanda as Abi climbs into the van. She hands Abi a thick slice of water-melon from the bowl that's between the seats of the van. “More breakfast?” she says.

The watermelon is good. The day is hot already. No fall warning chill today.

Mr. S has great bunches of strawflowers hanging upside down. “Drying nicely,” Amanda says, approving. She finds a sticky note and writes
good work
on it and posts it next to the flowers.

There are more socks than usual left lying around. “You'd think he'd have none left in his drawer,” says Abi.

“Or to put on his feet!” adds Amanda. “Good thing it's summer! He's probably living in sandals.”

“Isn't he a lawyer?”

“He is, but something tells me that doesn't stop him from doing what he wants to.”

“Wow!” Abi has just walked into his workroom.

Amanda peeks in. “He must have been trying to look something up.”

There are books everywhere. Stacks on the desk, the two small tables, on every chair – he can't have sat down at all to do his “looking” – and even on the floor. One stack was so tall that it has slithered down, and the books look like downed dominos across the floor. Three of the bookshelves are empty. Amanda begins to pick them up and replace them.

So it goes at his house: lots of pickup before cleanup. “Regular cleaning people don't do this, you know,” says Amanda. “People have to pick up everything before they come over.”

“Like the Ralphs' house.”

“That's right.” Amanda nods.

“But we're not regular?” asks Abi with a grin.

“You want to be regular?” Amanda has a hand on her hip. Abi thinks for a minute. “Don't think I've ever seen myself as ‘regular,' nope.”

“Besides,” Amanda adds, and she pulls herself up tall, “we can charge a little more for our impeccable service.”

Funny, this business side of Amanda. How she fits it in with the part of her that reads worn-out books on the beach, and snuggles her puppy, and jokes around with her brother and his friends. She seems so much a carefree teenager, yet at work, well, she's Amanda-at-Work.

Mr. Grinstead has left them a treat, as always. More of that wonderful dessert called “trifle.” Abi's been hoping he'd make it again.

S
he's wondering if Colm is going to be waiting for her again this Wednesday. But he's not. And Dad's not home either. Now that's a little disorienting – Dad not there,
TV
off. She feels panicked for a moment, before she sees the note on the counter.

Found a boat! I'm taking your Da for a cruise!

Colm

She wonders how he ever convinced Dad to leave the house, and feels a wave of gratefulness toward Colm. She holds the note between her two palms as if in prayer.
Thank you.

Another thank you when she opens the fridge to discover that Colm left her a juice container full of the best lemonade on the face of the earth. She pours a tumbler full, and slowly drinks
it, sitting out back. The weather has been muggy now for three days and the wind off the river feels good. She does like this: this feeling of working hard, having the now accustomed weary muscles, and the feeling of absolutely deserving this glass of juice, this feeling of knowing there's no other place she should be than right here, feet in the water, listening to the river. All the times she's been angry with this old mud river, and right now, this moment, it's perfect. She closes her eyes.

And opens them as a boat engine roars by. Colm is at the helm, his arm in a high wave. Dad sits beside him and there is a smile on his face. A tired smile, but a smile.

A slow smile spreads over Abi's face, and she leaps to her feet, jumps up and down. The boat fights with the wind-driven whitecaps, roaring forward and then away, and Dad turns so he's still looking at her as she jumps and waves. The water washes over the dock in waves, both from her jumping and from the wake of the boat. Dad finally waves as they pass out of sight and she stands still, a wonderfully throbbing ache in her legs. What an odd thing, that: to see her father out there, away from her, yet feeling closer than he has in a long time.

She sits down on the wharf again, but doesn't close her eyes this time. She doesn't want to miss anything in the world around her.