— * —
Over a year had passed since the day that Celia heard the migrating geese, forced her mother to eat, and rode in the screaming ambulance with her husband to Toronto Western Hospital. And in that year, the woman who had flowers in her eyes could only see sadness before her.
She had chores, and she babysat her grandson, but when she wasn’t needed, she spent a good deal of time in her daughter’s den, which had been converted into a bedroom for her. Her bed was inserted where the couch used to be, and an armoire replaced a bookshelf. A TV tray was her bedside table. The imprint of her son-in-law’s computer desk still cut a rectangle in the carpet despite her efforts to smooth it down with the vacuum cleaner.
She pulled aside the drapes to stare out into the cloudy November day. It’s going to rain, look how dark it is out there. She gazed up at the tall trees on Lochrie Street, their limbs almost naked now after shaking off their desiccated leaves. She sensed their devastation, felt their loss.
Something moved in her peripheral vision. Welcoming the diversion, she turned to watch a neighbour in his front yard. The man clawed at a dead vine with a fervour that suggested hatred. He wielded his rake as though it were a weapon, coming down hard against the defenceless grass. He formed leaf piles that were almost too tidy.
She shifted her gaze to the lawn just below her window, considering its carpet of leaves. Antonio kept saying, “Yeah, yeah! I’ll get to the leaves soon!” and Lydia would retort, “When? You keep saying you’ll do it! But when?” Round and round they went in their carousel of nagging and ignoring one another. Celia thought she might rake them herself, just to break the tension. After all, she’d taken care of her own house, and garden and children for years.
She sighed and let go of the curtain. Darkness returned to her room.
Melancholy was something Celia couldn’t see, but it touched her nonetheless. Years ago, she used to walk out into her garden first thing in the morning, perhaps to pluck a ripe tomato or to admire a newly opened trumpet blossom. Along her garden’s path, she’d stumble into a freshly spun web, its silky strands coating her face, bare shoulders, elbows. She’d try to get the web off her, grasp it between her fingers, but the strands were elusive. All day, she’d feel its sly presence upon her. That’s what melancholy felt like to her. She’d been ensnared by its invisible net for over a year now.
It disoriented her, snatching at her sureness of place, befuddling her while she rode home on the Dundas streetcar. Time after time, she’d gather up her plastic grocery bags in each hand, ring the bell, and get off at the wrong stop, seven blocks east of her new home. By the time she realized that her mind had turned trickster on her, fooling her into thinking she still lived in her old house, she would be on the sidewalk, watching the streetcar jerk forward, its dirty back windows moving out of sight. She’d mutter to herself, and have to wait for the next streetcar to take her the rest of the way home.
Sometimes, the confusion would offer her daydreams far more enticing than reality. While being carried westbound by the streetcar, she’d listen to her parents’ voices swimming in her head. A young girl again, she’d hear their wistful conversations about São Miguel, the place her parents never stopped calling home, one she hardly remembered because she was still too young for nostalgia when they left.
Eventually she’d notice her streetcar approaching Roncesvalles, long past her stop. With a sense of resignation, she’d get off, cross the road and wait for a car going in the other direction. Sometimes, not wanting to use up another token, she’d trudge back along Dundas, over the bridge and railroad tracks, past auto-body garages and the burger place that was also a print shop. She’d arrive home worn down by the long walk and her confusion.
She did have her good days, times when she managed to ring the bell at Lansdowne and walk the one block to the semi-detached house on Lochrie Street without incident. She would retire to her bedroom-den, telling herself that she didn’t mind her accommodations too much. She would reconcile the fact that Lydia and Antonio didn’t want her in the upstairs guestroom, a proper bedroom, the one right next to their own.
On good days, she’d try not to long for the sounds of her old house, just a few city blocks away. She’d force herself to not listen for the drone of her mother’s snoring, to stop waiting for José’s heavy steps on creaky floorboards. On good days, she willed herself to avoid mourning a home of her own, a mother, a husband, her place in the world.
She made every effort to fit into her new home with Lydia’s family, to accept her circumstances. She appreciated that at least Antonio was Italian, and understood she was family.
Although everyone knew José played cards — lots of men did — no one suspected it had become such a problem. Now, it left everyone feeling culpable as they combed their memories for signs and symptoms they should have seen, mentioned, confronted. Celia especially fretted with: Why didn’t I know? Had his luck just run out towards the end?
Lydia and Antonio assured her that she could stay as long as she wanted, and over the year, she realized they could afford to keep her; Lydia had just been promoted at the insurance company, and Antonio’s hardware store, the one he ran with his father, was doing fairly well. Still, she knew that taking in her dependent mother wasn’t something her young daughter had envisioned for herself.
She hadn’t harboured such thoughts when it was time to look after her own mother years ago. Facts were facts; she was elderly, and didn’t seem to be able to look after herself as well after Pai died, and Celia’s brother Manuel lived too far away. Anyway, it’s what daughters did. She moved her mother into Lydia’s old room, next to her own. She left her son’s bedroom mostly as it was, for the rare visits he made with his girlfriend. There was no question that her mother would join her household, no fanfare, no drama. But when her own husband died, Lydia and Filipe had hushed conversations, her children stage-whispering about “what to do with Mãe” when they thought she wasn’t listening.
On her good days, she held her head high when Antonio mentioned finishing the basement to build a mother-in-law suite. He said she’d have more privacy. He loved that word: privacy. On good days, she wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on the fact that she didn’t want to live under the ground, in the half-dark, half-light rooms beside the washer and dryer. She wouldn’t complain that basements were for kitchens, not bedrooms, and especially not for the bedrooms of middle-aged women who had cooked and cleaned and taken care of everyone their whole lives. On good days, she would resign herself to the fact that where she lived was no longer her decision.
That grey November day was not her best day. While she looked at the overcast sky, she was remembering José’s first heart attack more than a year earlier. She arrived home from her visit with Lydia and Marco to find him sprawled out on the couch, a pained expression marking his face. She recalled the wailing of the ambulance’s sirens, her frightening wait at the hospital. He was big and sturdy one day, a workhorse of a man, and the next, weak and embarrassed in a blue hospital gown, with rubber tubes sticking into him. She didn’t like to dwell on that. She blinked her eyes hard, and the memory gradually receded.
Celia separated the curtains and once more trained her eyes on her neighbour’s stooped back. A new recollection stepped forward. She saw herself on a warm autumn day, out for a walk with Marco and Lydia. They’d met an annoying neighbour, the know-it-all with the sunburn. And him — they’d also met him, that man across the street. She couldn’t recall his name, but an image of his nervous smile flashed bright before her eyes.
— * —
It started to rain. Ismail was determined to finish his work, long overdue already. He checked his watch, saw that it was only two-fifteen — much too early to go to the Merry Pint. He picked up his pace, scooping up the last piles of moist leaves and dead plants into yard