Madeline's Kids

Calgary hadn’t changed a bit. The mountains and lakes frightened me now just as they had done when I was a little girl. It seemed like I hadn’t seen this place in a lifetime. That was true enough, I thought. driving through Banff. It was a lifetime ago. We all had different lives then.

She had moved out not long after it happened, I heard, settling down in Panorama. I could understand why she would choose that place. Not because of the beautiful scenery, the peaceful atmosphere and all the other crap they printed on tourist brochures. Because you could get lost up here. Really lost. You could forget about people. And people, they could forget about you.

The frosty road wound further up the hill. I remembered sitting in the back seat of Dad’s Buick the weekend before we left, and we drove up this same road. Looking back, I don’t know why he did it. If he wanted to make a point about what she was making him leave, or he just wanted to say goodbye. He never said a word to any of us. Of course, now Lisa and me understand why he wouldn’t say a word to her. I used to think the road would just get swallowed up by the mountains. I couldn’t shake that thought as I pulled into her drive. The Rockies looked like black teeth, ready to snap down on me any minute. Her flaky red door was like a flaky red tongue. Full of lies. I still don’t know why I went there. Three weddings and five births between me and Lisa and we hadn’t invited her to one of them. Dad was there, but there was never a question of that. Lisa tells her three kids that their grandma died before they were born. I think she told both of her husbands the same story. I tapped the door gently, so gently that I was half wishing she hadn’t heard it. The door swung open automatically, as if she had been waiting, or she had seen me coming. She was nothing like what I’d pictured. Dad had told us she had set up with some hoi polloi, and I expected a fur stole or a string of pearls at the very least. She looked tiny, an Oilers T Shirt hung from her paper shoulders, and she wore no socks or shoes. I had recalled the hair as deep red; my own little girl has that same shade, so much so that at times Dad couldn’t bear to look at her. There were still strands of auburn hair in the long braid that hung to her hips, but her whole being had a general tone of greyness. Grey lips and eyes. Grey skin. The only colour was her stark yellow fingertips. I thought, she must still smoke “those damn rolled up smokes” that Dad hated so much.

“Hi Suzi-Q.” It sounded as though it hurt her to speak. I wondered how long it had been since she’s spoken to another human being.

“Hello…hi”, I said. I panicked. I didn’t want to call her “mom”. I’d only just got used to calling Tom’s mother “mom”. But then, I couldn’t remember her name, her real, first name. I had not seen this woman in twenty six years, but it never occurred to me that I had forgotten my own mother’s name. I suppose the last time I saw her she was “Mommy”. I never had to introduce Tom to her. I could see that she had noticed. She took a breath and ushered me in. The room was empty apart from one chair, a portable fire and a camp bed in the corner. She offered me the chair and crossed her legs on the floor in front of me. She seemed very limber, considering how old she was. How old was she? I was sure Dad was older. She must have been at least fifty.

“So what’s new, Suzi-Q? Do I have any grandkids?” She lit a cigarette and smiled as she said it. I’m sure it was supposed to sound droll and nonchalant, but there was bitterness. Her hands shook as I told her about Tom, Linda’s men, the names of my daughters.

“I had two daughters once.” The tip of her cigarette lit up her hollow face. She looked hurt. She was trying to hurt me back.

“Look, you invited me here, you were the one writing me for months. I’m here, aren’t I?” I wouldn’t, couldn’t look at her. Her smirking face made me hate her.

“Oh yes, here you are. It only took you thirty years, Suzanna.” I wished I hadn’t came to this place. She wanted to talk about it. She stuck her pointed chin up at me, and narrowed her eyes. She wanted to yell at me, and then hold me, and brush my hair and make me her eight year old daughter again. I would not make it easy for her. I would hear her side but I wouldn’t make it easy. I stood up and began pacing the big, empty room.

“Is this you being angry, Suzi? You’re not very good at it. You look like your Dad, just now.” I stopped at the window, staring at the mountains swallowing the door. I pictured the gaping whole sucking the place in, burying her alive.

“He’s told you a lot hasn’t he. Your Aunt Nic told me. Told you a lot about me. Did he sit you and Lisa down? When you were ‘old enough’? Did he tell you why you didn’t have a Mommy anymore? Can you remember my fucking name?” I opened and shut my eyes, making the jaws of the Rockies clamp down again. I tried not to listen. I tried not to want to listen.

“I don’t have to listen to this.”

“No, I suppose not. You’ll drive away again. Do you remember when he took you? You cried. You begged him not to, you know.” She stubbed the cigarette out on the wooden floor. I watched the smoke curl around her crossed legs.

“Please look at me, Suzanna. I didn’t ask you to come to fight. I just wanted you to know that I would have done anything, anything, to keep you. I didn’t think it would all play out like that.”
“Well, it did. You broke his heart, Ma.” My lips trembled around the words. I thought back to the day we left, and the way he drove so fast, and yelled at Lisa for crying. I remembered arriving in Vancouver and Aunt Nic trying to hug him. They talked all night when me and Lisa were sent to sleep in the den. I remembered Nic asking if perhaps he had been too hard on her, and hearing him drop a glass to the floor and storming out. He didn’t come back for two days, and when he did we moved to London. I was shocked when I realised that I hadn’t seen my Aunt Nic since that day either. I realised we had never spoken about my mother again, and I had never asked.

“He broke mine first, Suze. I know you don’t want to hear that, but he did. I couldn’t have explained to you and Lisa when you were so young. But I want to now. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I just need to know that I told someone.” Her face twitched and crumpled, and she flicked the tears away angrily.

“Well, talk.”

I told him the day after Lisa’s sixth birthday, that I had been to the doctor. He knew right away that it wasn’t his. Michael had never been a stupid man, and he knew that I hadn’t let him touch me since New Year. I don’t claim that I had an excuse for sleeping with another man, but we both knew things wouldn’t be the same between us anymore. He was different now, he looked at me differently. He couldn’t see me as strong and bold or even pretty anymore, not since he held me down and hurt me like that. It would have ended soon. I like to think I would have left him soon anyway. I only wish I had done it sooner. I met Dean in the library, if you can believe that. We were only together three times, and it never really meant anything to either of us. We were both looking for a way out, or a friendly face. I didn’t try to explain it to Michael, I knew he couldn’t understand that. I just told him that I wanted to keep the baby. No one knew the guy, he had moved on, just a drifter. He was a lot younger. I said he wouldn’t come calling, looking for the kid. He didn’t even know. Michael listened, angry and hurt, but still listening. When I had finished, he slapped me once. Just once. It didn’t even hurt. We didn’t speak for a few days, and then he came round, and he held me like he did at our wedding. I was so happy I cried, because I thought things would be okay now. He took me and the girls a drive one afternoon. Lisa and Suzie were playing car games in the back, and he was singing along to the Beach Boys. I remember how peaceful he looked. God only knows what I’d be without you. I sang along with him. We dropped the girls off at his mother’s. I kissed her cheek when I saw her, and I knew he had told her. Nic knew too, but she hugged me back. She was young, more willing to understand. When we got back in the car, he didn’t speak much, and he kept his eyes on the road, but I didn’t think anything of it. He was tired, and things were still shaky so I let it go. We drove for miles that day, and after an hour or so I didn’t even know where we were. He stopped the car outside an ugly little grey building, that had a few young girls smoking joints and crying outside the front door. Their faces were white and they stared at us as we walked through the door. A bored and chubby old woman was sitting behind a desk in the little room. He kissed my cheek and told me to sit down. The seats were cold and sticky, and more frightened teenagers were sitting on them. He came back over after a while, and sat opposite me, taking one of my hands. He sighed, and asked for one of my cigarettes. I knew something must be wrong, he hated me smoking. He told me that I needed to think about our kids, and what people would say. He said I had no right to make those kind of decisions for all of us. I realised that things weren’t fine. I told him I wouldn’t do it, that it was against the law and I would take him to court. I tried to cause a scene, and scream and cry, and do all the things that usually meant I would get my way, but he held my wrists and told me it was happening. I don’t remember much about the next few hours. He helped me into the baggy T shirt they used for a gown, and tied my hair back away from my face, and said it would be over soon. I have never hated anyone so much. When I woke up he lifted me up and carried me to the car. I was still wearing the shirt, with his overcoat wrapped around my stomach. There was dried blood on my legs. He told me that the nurse had said it might hurt for the next week or so.

He took me home and put me to bed before going for the girls. They brought flowers to my bed, and said Daddy had told them I had been sick but I was better now. I cried myself to sleep for a few nights and he brought me food and coffee every few hours. He slept in the den at night. After a week I got out of bed, and tried to remember that my girls were still there. I tried to remember that I was still a mother. Suzie looked at me strangely, and kissed my stomach. When I asked her why she said that Grandma had said I had had a sore tummy. I ran up the stairs, and he was in our room. He was packing his clothes. I went back into the hall and saw the little pink cases that we had bought Lisa and Suzanna for our trip to New York the year before. I opened them and saw all their little shoes and dresses. I ran at him, I tried begging him, hitting him, I dug my nails into his cheeks until they bled but he kept going. He went straight through me. He was back in the lounge after just half an hour. He told the girls to say goodbye. Suzie asked us why, asked why Mommy was crying. She said she wasn’t going, and I held her to my chest. Lisa was already in the car, crying. Michael had to drag Suzanna off of me. I tried to pull him back, screaming and swearing on out front lawn. The neighbours were peering out of their windows. Some even came out onto their porches, and pointed and shook their heads at me. No one seemed to understand that I wasn’t the one leaving my children. I was being punished for loving my children and not loving their father. I waited for two weeks in that house. Waiting for him to come back, or a call or a letter. After a month or so, Nic came to visit, telling me that he had gone and she didn’t know where. She said we could fight them together, she’d speak to her law professor and we could get them back. Turned out Michael had played lacrosse with most of the faculty. The next year, Nic was expelled for plagiarism. It was never proved. I never saw or heard from any of them again. Nic even stopped calling after a while. Everyone did.

I drove home after she had finished. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. It was too late for sorry, and what did I have to be sorry for. She knew that I believed her, but we both knew I would never see her again. I drove away, and phoned Tom as I did, telling him I’d be at the airport in half an hour. He told me he loved me, and I thought back to all the times I had heard Dad to say that to her. She told me her name was Madeline. I told her that I was three months pregnant. Tom doesn’t know yet. If it’s a girl, I’ll call her Madeline. I looked back when I hit the highway. The mountains had closed their jaws around her forever.