A Brief View from the Coastal Suite Read online

  Her sister Cleo had come by every day for the first couple of weeks, had thrown the high-smelling cloth diapers in the trash, brought in cartons of disposables. Had brought groceries, made meals, cleaned up, done laundry, held whichever twin was crying at any given time, so that Mandalay could have a shower or eat a bowl of soup. But Cleo lived an hour out, in Coquitlam, and had her job and two small children.

  Cleo had arranged for their mother, Crystal, to come and stay for a week, but that had been a disaster. Crystal had wanted only to watch T V. She’d been afraid to take a taxi to the grocery store, unable to figure out the washing machine or to put together an edible meal.

  Then Cleo had sent over their brother Cliff, and that had been a little — a lot — more useful.

  She’d only survived because Cliff had been recovering from an accident and had moved in with her for a few months.

  When the boys were two months old, Duane had showed up. Cleo had talked to him, she knew. Duane had asked to see Mandalay, not the twins, his sons, and that had undermined her resolve to stay independent. She’d said he could. She’d asked Cleo to come by, so as not to be alone.

  Duane had made a point of not even looking at the cribs, which were visible through the open bedroom door of her small apartment. That should have told her. He’d sat on her sofa and chatted like they were old neighbours or something. Then both the babies had started to whimper, and she’d gone to feed Owen — it was his turn at the trough — and Cleo had scooped up Aidan, and when Mandalay had come back into the living room holding Owen, Duane had been in possession of Aidan — holding him along the flat of his forearm, Aidan’s head cupped in his hand. Duane had been completely expressionless, his gaze completely focussed on Aidan’s face. She remembers that, and the way something inside her had clenched.

  She’d looked around helplessly for Cleo, but Cleo had disappeared, in the bathroom, maybe, and she’d felt weak in the knees, had sat down, unable to say anything. It had felt that she was balanced on the edge of something momentous and precarious, but she had no idea what it was that lay ahead of her. A one-thousand-foot cliff, maybe. There was a decision to make, an action to take or avoid, but she was completely blind to either her choices or their consequences.

  She hadn’t been able to speak, overwhelmed by her emotions.

  And Duane hadn’t said anything either — given her nothing to go on.

  Then Cleo had returned, they’d switched babies around, and Duane had ended up with Owen, who had gazed at him in apparent fear, then begun to cry. Duane hadn’t been fazed — he’d simply turned Owen over onto his stomach, neatly tucked Owen’s legs under him, the way Owen liked, and put his hand firmly on Owen’s back.

  She can’t remember now how long he’d stayed — not very long, she thinks. Only those few minutes she’d thought, he wants us. He wants this.

  What had she imagined might happen? What had she expected Duane would do?

  Then the phone call, from Duane’s lawyer, and the offer: bi-weekly access and shared holidays in return for monthly support. A sum that was not enough to actually live on, but too large to turn down.

  She hadn’t been able to imagine the twins, at two months and basically mainlining her milk, ever spending a weekend away from her, at Duane’s house. It hadn’t been something she wanted: it had seemed highly theoretical. On the other hand, going back to work full-time in a few months, having the babies in daycare for eight hours a day, had seemed all too imaginable — and terrifying.

  Cleo had stepped in again — suggested that she counter-offer with a request that Duane buy her an apartment instead of giving her a monthly allowance. And he had bought a house, and given her half the title. In this way she had acquired a business partner, and the boys had acquired a dad who took them sailing on alternate weekends.

  And they had acquired their names. At that point, she had been so sleep-deprived and disoriented, she hadn’t been able to come up with any. She’d actually missed the deadline for registering the births, though, as she had said to Cleo, What were they going to do — repossess? She’d had silly, affectionate names for them that she had used to try to express the slightly different personalities that they had. Owl and Rabbit. She’d considered having those names registered, but everyone had said it was a bad idea. Cleo had called them Thing One and Thing Two, after Dr. Seuss. Cliff had claimed not to be able to tell them apart, though they were not identical.

  Duane had suggested their first names. Cleo had approved of them: they matched tidily, both being two-syllable and Celtic. And Mandalay herself had really loved them. They were right; they were just what she was looking for. Similar, but different, holding a balance of soft and harder sounds. Not too ordinary, but containing some history. They were euphonious, their associations both strong and gentle.

  Only months later — when it was too late, when they had already been using them and had officially registered them — had Mandalay actually heard the names in her mind as meanings. Aidan and Owen. Aiding and owing. And there was never any question which one of these states Duane felt a more proprietary interest in, and which he relegated to her.

  She has already lost those newborns, the babies and toddlers that had superseded them. They will change, inevitably: one day they will be men, separate, independent. But for now, they are still hers.

  CLEO’S JUST INSIDE THE DOOR, divesting herself of raincoat and boots, and Trent’s already at the top of the stairs addressing her: Have you called the school yet?

  She is bent over, unzipping one of her boots, and can’t see his expression, but his voice sounds hectoring. She steps down from the stacked heel of her boot, her left leg suddenly three inches shorter than her right, so she’s hobbled, and bends again to unzip the right boot.

  No, she says, very patiently. I’ve been at work all day.

  You said you’d take care of it, Trent says.

  I’ll do it tomorrow, she says, straightening. Her lower back sends a message of discomfort — well, pain, really — as she adjusts to her new posture, but she disregards it, breathes through it, once, twice. She exerts herself to keep her voice light, even. It’s just over eleven hours since she left the house, and she hasn’t really stopped moving all day.

  You need to follow up on that call, Trent persists. I just want to know that you’re going to do it.

  Breathe, breathe. She stands in the entryway, at the bottom of the stairs, the effort of climbing up and entering the rest of the house seeming all at once more than she can take on. Trent is standing at the top of the stairs, feet apart, hands on his hips, barring the light from the kitchen behind him.

  I haven’t had time, she says. I was going full-on all day.

  The euphoria of her day’s work is diminishing, tiredness seeping into its place. But she’s home now, and she has tomorrow to take care of personal chores. It’s just about meeting with Sam’s teacher, anyway. She starts up the stairs.

  You could have found five minutes to make a phone call.

  Breathe. Ground. This is just Trent being a bit obsessive, the way he can be. She can do this.

  Should we talk about our system? she asks. Weren’t we going to leave messages on the answering machine for me to listen to, or write them down and leave them on my desk?

  He actually doesn’t move as she gets to the top stair.

  You said you’d take care of it. His voice aggrieved, now — accusatory.

  Look, she says. I take care of this stuff all the time. Now she has to literally push by him to move up to the last step. She feels her hip bone knock his thigh.

  Oh, for goodness sake.

  Can she smell food? She had been hungry, a couple of hours ago, but has now passed through hunger into that other place, that high octane place, where she doesn’t seem to need food. She thinks she can smell pork fat, fried potatoes. It is not appealing.

  Suddenly, the house is unfamiliar, its layout and smells strange, not welcoming, not hers.

  What the fuck, she thinks at Trent.
What the fuck? Do you actually do any fucking work around here at all? But she doesn’t say it.

  She heads into the main floor powder room, shuts and locks the door. Sits on the toilet seat, counts to ten. This is untenable, she hears a voice say inside her head.

  It’s okay, another voice answers. It is a calm voice, a reasonable voice, one that might be addressing a child or colleague who is upset.

  She is so good at this technique.

  It’s okay. It’s just Trent having a bit of anxiety.

  After a moment or two she hears Trent move away, muttering, then hears him treading heavily up the stairs from the main floor. She waits another moment, flushes, washes her hands thoroughly and deliberately.

  She heads for the kitchen but Olivia calls down the stairs to her, and she knows to take the opportunity to talk. You always have to be available to teens or they’ll shut down, and then you’ll lose them.

  Olivia needs forms signed, a cheque, a pair of gym shorts. Cleo sits on Olivia’s unmade bed, doesn’t mention the bed or the piles of dirty — and clean, unworn — clothing on the floor, though that requires an effort. She’s sure she sees several things she washed on the weekend, some still with their folds, mixed in with the inside-out and rumpled jeans and hoodies. She sits, because she knows that it’s good just to sit sometimes and be available.

  What are you working on in French right now? she asks. It should be safe. Olivia likes French class, is good at it, likes her teacher.

  It is a good call. Olivia lights up, shows her a comic strip she’s making about a family of mice. It’s beautifully drawn, the French captions neatly, and as far as she can tell, grammatically printed. There’s a bit of whimsy, there, a bit of tender humour in the story of the mice. The little girl mouse is having a tantrum because she has asked for a blue birthday candle, and her father has brought her a red one. Olivia has drawn the sweet funny mice, the birthday-cake candles that the mice hold up like torches. She’s talented, Cleo thinks. The father makes a perilous second trip to find the blue candle, and encounters many dangers. In the meantime, the little girl mouse and her mother make a cake and pick some flowers, oblivious or just protected. In the end the father mouse returns safely, and all three dance.

  It looks very good, she says. It’s delightful. She reads it over again. You are so creative and funny, Cleo says. Tears come to her eyes. That Olivia is this beautiful, original young woman — that she is a whole person, that she has grown out of that infant Cleo produced! And in such a short time.

  All of those hours she’d spent with Olivia, when she was small — reading to her, doing craft projects, teaching her to draw. Even after Cleo had gone back to work part-time, she’d still made sure she put in the hours at home, with the kids.

  Olivia sighs.

  Is everything alright? Cleo asks. She knows she’s not supposed to phrase it that way; she’s supposed to make open-ended questions, but she can’t get her mind around one right now.

  Everything’s fine, Mom, Olivia says. I need to finish my homework now.

  She should check on Sam, before she goes back downstairs. Sam’s not in his bedroom. She really wants to change into more comfortable clothes, but she should check in with Sam first. And also she needs to let Trent decompress for a few more minutes. That’s the routine. And it works!

  Sam’s in the basement rec room, which they still haven’t finished renovating. She needs to call the drywall guy again about the ceiling, which now has a magical porthole into a space of joists and plumbing and wiring since their old dishwasher sprang a leak six months ago. Sam’s playing on the game console that’s hooked up to the television. When he sees her, he calls Mom! and pauses the game, drops the controller. He flings his arms around her. He’s sticky, greasy, and she’s suddenly conscious of her dry-clean-only shirt, but she makes herself not flinch, holds him snugly. His head up to her collarbone. He’s warm against her, his arms wrapping her waist. The familiar smell of his head, his still-fine hair. She feels her heartbeat soften and some pressure ease off over her entire body.

  Have you eaten? she asks. What did you have for supper? She nuzzles him, feels her blood pressure drop, releases him back to his game.

  WHEN SHE GOES BACK UPSTAIRS, she’s hungry — desperately hungry, now, as if she’s been possessed by an emaciated bear. Trent’s supposed to make dinner on her late nights, but sometimes what he feeds himself and the kids. . . . She finds the end of someone’s dinner — one cold wiener and a half-eaten one, and some French fries — on a plate in the fridge, puts the plate in the microwave, pours ketchup over the food and eats it standing up. Disgust rises in her briefly, but hunger beats the disgust down.

  When she’s finished, she rinses the plate and silverware and pops them into the dishwasher, and then opens the fridge again, driven now by some compulsion that isn’t connected to logic or reason anymore, just blindly searching. What. The contents of the crisper — green, cold, raw — repulse her. Bottles of condiments. Processed cheese slices in the fridge door. She peels off three, rips one after the other from their wrappings, rolls them into cylinders, and pops them into her mouth. Chew, chew, gone. The plastic texture, the quick hit of fat and salt and umami. What else? A box of crayon-orange fish-shaped crackers on the pantry shelf, likely opened a year ago.

  A handful into her mouth. Salt, again; the quick pasty dissolve of starch. What else?

  But finally something in her says enough. A glass of water, then. The heavy food in her belly like cement. Beginnings of heartburn. A burp. But also, finally, the warmth and comfort of her blood sugar rising.

  She runs again up the stairs to Sam’s room, to read to him, as she always does, for half an hour before his bedtime.

  MOST NIGHTS NOW she sits up late reading articles in industry journals and trade magazines, addenda to code books. She reads articles online on parenting and on childhood behavioural issues: on autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. She reads recipes and looks at online clothing catalogues. She looks at real estate in neighbourhoods closer to the city (and more expensive) than hers. She looks through home decorating magazines: she has several subscriptions.

  She does not read novels anymore. She used to love reading literary fiction, especially, but now she doesn’t have the time; they take too long to get where they’re going, maybe. Or she needs to learn more practical things. Fiction never seems to be about anyone with a life like hers, and she is not interested in escape.

  Long after Trent has fallen asleep, she puts away her magazines and laptop, changes, in the bathroom, into her pajamas. She removes her makeup, and examines her facial features, her skin, in the mirror. She’s tired, but not at all sleepy.

  She climbs into the king-sized bed, keeping her distance. It’s a good bed. It cost as much as her first car. It doesn’t matter how Trent flails and flings himself around in whatever violent accounting dreams he’s having, her side of the bed doesn’t move. She doesn’t feel it at all.

  VERONIKA IS WATCHING TV when Cliff gets home, but she gets up right away to warm up his meal. She leaves the TV on. He picks up the remote, asks if he can lower the volume.

  But I’m following the show, Veronika says.

  I can’t hear you talk, though, he says. He understands why she likes to have the TV on when she’s alone at home, but he doesn’t understand why she likes it so loud, and why she has to have it on when they’re eating or talking.

  He stands at the counter of the open kitchen, watching her, and when she turns around and sees him, she puts down the dish she’s holding and runs over to embrace him. You smell delicious, he says. He thinks: New perfume. Her perfumes are subtle and he can’t name what they smell like, but this one is new.

  In his arms, she’s warm, soft, her flesh comfortable, comforting. He holds onto her longer than she holds onto him, but this is his favourite part of the day. When she lets go, she gives herself a little shake and goes back to her cooking; he sits at the small high dining ta
ble, which is made of wood finished in a colour called “Espresso,” matched with high upholstered chairs, and watches her.

  Her hair, which falls in blonde spirals down her back, bounces a little as she moves. He could watch her all day. She thinks she is fat, but he could look at her rounded chin, her rounded breasts and bottom, all day.

  Sometimes he is struck with such surprise that he lives in this pleasant townhouse with its glossy dark furniture and white cabinets, its velvety carpeting, its plush sofa set. He feels such surprise and pleasure that he’s almost dizzy.

  Veronika puts a placemat on front of him. She’s fond of things like placemats and coasters, and what he thinks must be called doilies, things that are layered on furniture, to protect it. She likes to go shopping, and to buy things for the house. She buys a lot of them. Things for the bedroom, things for the dog, useful or not really useful things. She likes cut glass and gilt edges, metallic embroidery. Picture frames with insets of fake tortoise shell or that shell-like material called mother-of-pearl. Furniture upholstered in flowery patterns, and side tables with inlays of brassy metal and marble. She has filled the house with these things.

  The things she buys are not expensive: he sees that. Except perhaps for the sofa set and tables. He can see that what Cleo calls her taste is not really expensive. He has seen expensive things — in Ben’s house, and especially through the windows of some of the houses where he has landscaping contracts. He has seen a different kind of expensive, anyway. Maybe it’s quieter. But he likes the way Veronika has built up the layers of comfort in their condo. Everything is soft or shiny, reflecting light. Everything says: This is our house and it exists for our comfort and pleasure.