— * —
Celia saw the first fat raindrops marking the sidewalk. She watched her neighbour work faster, hurrying to clear the leaves. As he turned toward her to collect his tools, she narrowed the curtain, not wanting to be seen. She wasn’t a nosy person and didn’t want him to think she was peeping at him. Once he was indoors, she pulled aside the curtains again. But he was still there, looking back, through the little window in his front door. This time, she was the one being spied on. She froze.
After a shared moment of mutual gawking, he turned away first. Now that he was gone, she relaxed, and gazed at his house, the tidied garden, the small front porch. Does he live with anyone? A wife? Does he go to sleep alone like I do?
She watched the drizzle become a downpour.
—
José was sent home to recover with a rainbow of pills that Celia arranged for him in a clear plastic box, each compartment marked with a day of the week. He was more anxious that usual, but Celia expected that; he was still too weak to work. They were waiting for a surgery date that would come and go without him.
He was not the only one she worried about; Celia’s mother was also unwell. While José rested, she took her mother out for one of a series of specialists’ appointments, during which her mother was questioned about her mysterious lack of appetite. This time, it was a gastroenterologist named Dr. Chin who patiently waited for Celia to translate her mother’s perfunctory responses. He frowned and listened while her mother made vague complaints about this-and-that ache, provided ambiguous answers about bowel movements, and offered fuzzy reports of fatigue. Like the other doctors, Dr. Chin poked at her intestines, inspected her chart, and requisitioned a new round of blood tests.
After the appointment, they stopped for coffee and cake at Nova Era: the sugar and icing a temptation for her fussy-eating mother. She ordered her a slice of lemon meringue pie, her mother’s eyes lighting up at the sight of a white sugar cloud floating over glossy yellow filling. Celia wasn’t going to have a dessert — it was only an hour until dinner — but the sweet smells of the bakery were intoxicating.
She estimated that it happened the very moment she took her first bite of chocolate cream cake. As her tongue tasted velvety pudding, the first pains pierced José’s chest. While she scraped the last of the sweet icing from her plate he lost his balance and fell, his heavy body crashing down to the floor. His heart finally gave up as she gulped back strong, aromatic coffee.
They found him lying on the kitchen floor, his right hand over his heart, like a man pledging allegiance to some great cause. Only, there was no pride in his expression, his mouth shaped into an unfinished sentence, his wide-open eyes forgetting to shut. While she bent down and mimicked the CPR she’d seen on television, her hands pushing down against his unwilling chest, her mother pressed her fingers against José’s eyelids, uttering a barely audible prayer.
— * —
Ismail entertained the paranoia for few minutes:
Why’s she watching me?
She must know about Zubi.
Maybe the neighbours have been talking again. I was a fool to think they’d stopped.
I am so stupid and naive.
But maybe I’m just being paranoid? Why would she watch me, then?
And on and on.
Eventually, he resolved to put the old woman out of mind. He made a cup of Orange Pekoe, and placed three chocolate chip cookies on a plate. While he enjoyed the sensation of mushy cookies mingling with hot tea against the roof of his mouth, it came to him. He realized he had met the old woman before. She wasn’t Lydia’s grandmother, she was her mother! And then he recalled that day, over a year ago, when he was on his way to the pub and Rob Gallagher had been oddly and unexpectedly cordial with him.
Only back then, the old lady had not looked so old. She hadn’t been wearing head-to-toe black; rather, she had seemed sophisticated, even attractive. He considered that the stylish woman he’d met over a year ago had likely lost her husband, and entered widowhood.
He finished the three cookies and returned to the cupboard for more but they didn’t satisfy. He grabbed a light beer from the fridge, and after a few sips, felt a little better. He looked out his back window at the rainy, November day. The clouds were darker now, casting a grey pall over the kitchen.
— 7 —
Agonias
Ismail was still contemplating the widow the next day, his mind troubling over the changes he’d seen in her. He wondered whether it really could be true that the woman sneaking looks out her window was the same one he’d met a year earlier. But then, he knew grief had a way of altering things, leaving indelible marks on people.
Many people — Ismail’s brother, the therapist, Daphne — urged him to let go of the past, and move on with his life, as though letting go was some sort of simple procedure that would yield a positive outcome, if only he’d just applied himself more.
Just do A, B, and C thrice daily for result D. Hah!
On his last morning with Zubi, almost nineteen years ago, Ismail had risen early. It was August, and the wind wafting in through the bedroom window was already humid. He gingerly untangled himself from the sheets, trying to avoid waking Rehana. My wife, he sometimes said aloud to himself, for he liked the domesticity of the word.
He watched Rehana’s rhythmic breathing and hoped she wouldn’t stir; he didn’t want to interrupt her last fifteen minutes before the alarm clock buzzed her awake. Since Zubi’s birth, sleep deprivation had made her irritable, her frown lines deepening until she almost always looked cross.
Being a father was something he was still getting used to, although Zubi was already eighteen months old by then. He figured it was like that for most fathers, their children constantly changing and growing novelties. He tried to keep up with it all.
He looked in on Zubi before taking his shower. She was sleeping soundly on her stomach, her little face squished against the crib mattress, her blanket balled up around her right arm. He gushed inwardly at the beauty and serenity in her face. In moments like those, it was easy to for him to forget that she’d woken twice during the night, one of her crying spells lasting almost an hour. As Ismail gazed at her from the nursery’s door, he foresaw that his lovely Zubeida would grow into a pretty girl, an attractive woman. He envisioned her having a wonderful life, a life full of every privilege and happiness she deserved.
He used the toilet, shaved, and while he was in the shower, Rehana awoke and stumbled, like a somnambulist, into the bathroom. She emptied her bladder and then brushed her teeth furiously with a firm-bristled toothbrush. While Ismail dried off, Rehana stepped past him, taking his place in the tub. She sang while she washed her hair, belting off a few off-key verses of Whitney Houston’s One Moment in Time.
Ismail dressed, made tea for then both: strong and bitter with just a drop of milk and no sugar for Rehana and three sugars and a long pour of condensed milk for him. While Ismail sipped tea, Rehana dressed herself, then Zubi, then shoved a bottle and Zubi into his arms.
He walked across the slanting living room floor, stepping carefully to balance Zubi, the warm bottle, and the municipal section of the Toronto Star. As he lowered himself to the couch, cradling Zubi in the crook of his arm, he tilted the bottle up for her to drink. He’d become quite expert at maneuvering her with his left arm so that he could hold up the newspaper with his right. Speed-reading as much of the paper as he could, he paid little attention to Zubi, who drank