Algoma (19 page)

“I was out,” she said, though there was no real place nearby to go.

She would immediately point out a failing on their part to distract them. An untucked shirt, messy bun, or eyeliner smudge. “Don’t you care about yourself?” She was a master at shifting focus, deflection.

The postcard.

How many CN Towers did this make? Ten? Twenty? She went into her study, which was always locked when she wasn’t at home, and sometimes even when she was if her twin, Port, was visiting.

“It’s just storage space, a mess,” Bay had told Port.

Port had jiggled the loose handle. “I could help clean it,” she said. And she meant it. She’d always relished any opportunity to organize someone else’s mess, especially her twin’s.

Bay picked up a blue push pin from her desk, pinned the postcard to the wall, and stood back. The effect was astounding. The walls of her office were covered in row after row of Toronto landmarks. A concrete, brick, and neon rainbow of tourist attractions.

• A row of Casa Lomas.
  
• CNE shots.
  
• Royal Ontario Museums.
  
• CN Towers.
  
• Parliament Buildings.
  
• City Halls.
  
• Old City Halls.
  
• Ontario Art Galleries.
  
• Toronto Islands.
  
• And her favourite: Royal York Hotels.
  

Bay removed one of the dozen Royal York Hotel postcards from the wall and flipped it over: 2:15 p.m. 3°C. Strong N wind. The doorman’s red mustache like a train’s cowcatcher.

She cared little for the weather. She wanted details: the thread count of the sheets, how plush the towels, the precise perfume of the palm-sized soaps, what coffee was served in the morning. She sniffed the postcard. Nothing.

Bay knew it was wrong to accept the postcards, to display them like she did, but she couldn’t stop. Quite simply, she liked them and the attention. She was careful to keep her collection from her twin, her friends, and her family—especially Algoma.

What difference would it make, she rationalized, if Algoma knew? The knowledge would not make Gaetan come home any faster, if he ever planned to. And besides, what would she tell her sister? She didn’t even know where he was living, only the city—the largest in the country. He would remain lost as long as he wanted to.

Bay had studied the faint postmark tattoos on each card for a clue to his whereabouts, but they offered little information. She would tell Algoma if she had to, but she could not think of one reason that would make it necessary to do so. Most importantly, she didn’t want the postcards to stop coming. She was already eager for another to fill in the gaps on her wall that stood out like missing teeth.

JULY - AUGUST

9:09 p.m. 17°C. No wind.
Fridge motor ticking in time with the clock.

With Ferd already passed out on the living room couch, Algoma went into the boys’ old room and turned on her ancient radio. She adjusted the dial to the second lowest volume notch, so the music was hers alone. The radio was preset to a station that catered to the miniscule German community in the area. Algoma was sure they couldn’t have more than five listeners a day, yet they carried on as if they were broadcasting to all of Germany. She did not understand a word and that was the appeal. It was as close as she could get to instrumental music in Le Pin.

During the past year, Algoma had found it difficult to fall asleep. She often lay awake thinking about several worries in great detail until early morning, a focus exercise gone horribly wrong. She recalled a television show that said humans tended to obsess over three things at any given time, that the thoughts were cyclical and unending until new obsessions replaced the old ones. Algoma was able to see the perfect geometry of her obsessions. All three corners. It did not make a difference if her eyes were open or closed. Her obsessions were accommodating, patient, always waiting for her. She wondered if Gaetan was actually sleeping wherever he was, or if he, like her, was just performing sleep, a twisting, turning, slack-jawed night dance. Before Gaetan had left, Algoma used him as she did the radio. As a distraction.

“Tell me a story.”

“I don’t know any stories.”

“Tell me a story anyway. Anything.”

“Once, long, long ago, there was a bar in a forest…”

Gaetan’s stories were often a mix of fairy tale and what happened at the bar the night before. Drunks were cast in the roles of child-devouring witches who didn’t pay their tabs and trolls who asked you to solve their relationship riddles before they would let you pass. There were evil step sisters who wore too-short skirts to get free drinks from innocent townsfolk and an evil king who watered down the vodka.

“Another,” Algoma asked.

“There was a rich bar owner who had a good-looking daughter who made fun of all the logger suitors—”

“Wait, you told me this one last night.”

“It has a different ending this time.”

“Oh.”

“This time the fiddler is only a fiddler.”

And sometimes people just left to leave and you had to let them because there was no alternative. That Gaetan was deliberately staying away baffled her, tore her insides apart, but she had no choice but to accept it. She didn’t know where he was, and even if she did, she wouldn’t drag him back. For what?

Growing up, several of Algoma’s friends hadn’t seen their fathers in years. They had blurry memories of what their fathers looked like and received the occasional birthday card postmarked from other provinces. She recalled oldest daughters forced into co-parenting with their overworked and overtired mothers. All-female households with unique hierarchies. The town, for reasons unknown, did not produce many males, and those who were born typically left for work or school and never returned. Gaetan used to joke that the town needed to introduce new bloodlines to make things interesting again, worth staying for.

In five or ten years, what memory of Gaetan would Ferd have? A strong nose. Sunken cheeks. Sweet rye breath. Already, Algoma was forgetting details, while other things became more clearly defined. Crystalline. While she had forgotten his blood type—what ran through him now a mystery—she remembered what glass was his: a simple tumbler with the Olympic rings etched into it. Something he had purchased from a gas station years before and used for everything from gin to milk.

Algoma heard the television turned on in the living room, the volume quickly muted. Ferd was up. Even with the sound off, she could hear the low whine the television emitted, a sound she’d once tried to explain to Bay—a hornet, a dog whistle, a laser—but her sister had never understood.

She got up and walked into the living room. When Ferd saw her, he scrambled to switch off the television. “I was just thirsty,” he said guiltily. He pointed at the half-empty glass of water on the coffee table.

Algoma made a mental note to remember to check the kitchen sink drain before she went to bed, knowing there would be a note stuffed down the pipe. “You forgot a coaster,” she said. She picked up the remote and switched the television back on. “What’s on?”

Into the early hours, they watched a cycling race. The brightly coloured peloton cycled through foreign countryside, repeatedly pulling apart and joining back together again like mercury.

“Ferd, call the police. Someone’s trying to break in.”

Ferd woke with a start from where he’d fallen asleep on the living room floor. The television flickered in the background. “What’s going on?” he asked, voice sleep-slurred.

“Call the police,” Algoma whispered. She crouched down as far as she could on the couch. “Someone walked by the window twice. I think he went around back.”

Ferd scrambled for the phone in the hallway. Just as he was about to dial, there was a knock at the door. He and Algoma looked at one another.

Algoma grabbed her sewing scissors from the coffee table. “Go into the bedroom, shut the door, and keep the phone with you,” she said.

There was another knock at the door, this one louder than the last. Ferd went into his old room, but didn’t shut the door. He watched his mother slowly approach the door, holding her sewing scissors as a makeshift weapon.

“Hello?” she called out.

She almost jumped at the sound of the furnace firing up.

“It’s me,” said the man on the other side of the door. His voice was deep and familiar.

For a split second Algoma’s heart leapt at the thought that it was Gaetan, but he wouldn’t knock and the silhouette was taller and leaner than her husband’s.

“Come on and let me in,” the man said, now impatient. “I can see you standing there.”

Ferd was standing beside Algoma now. “Do we let him in?” he asked, holding the phone to his chest. “Maybe he knows where Dad is.”

Algoma turned off the hall light, hoping it would allow her to see who was at the door, but she couldn’t make out the man’s face. She desperately tried to place the voice. A family member? A neighbour? A customer at The Shop?

“Who is it?” she asked. “The cops are on their way.”

“It’s Simon,” the man said.

Algoma opened the door to see her brother-in-law standing there. “Simon?”

While no one had ever called Simon handsome, he was interesting to look at, almost regal in his ugliness—a turkey vulture. He stood in the doorway, head cocked to one side. “Hi Allie, it’s been a while.”

“Come in, come in,” Algoma stuttered.

Ferd stepped back into the kitchen.

“What’s going on? Everything okay?” Algoma asked.

Looking around the house, Simon asked where Gaetan was. “He owes me a hundred bucks.”

Algoma laughed, tears springing to her eyes. “Is that all? You may have wanted to wait until morning to tell me that.”

“What’s so funny? He owes me money.”

Algoma kept laughing until her brother-in-law began to look uncomfortable.

Simon tried to regain control of the situation. “Is he at work, because I can go there, too.”

Algoma choked out a response in between gusts of buckling laughter. “He left months ago. And why didn’t you ask for it last time you saw him?” she asked. “Hoping to collect interest?”

Simon looked at Ferd. “What the fuck is going on here? Is everyone crazy? Where’s your father? Is he at work?”

Ferd nervously picked at a ragged fingernail. “Dad’s gone, Mom’s pregnant, and we’re broke.”

Simon smiled involuntarily. “That asshole.”

“Hey,” Ferd said, ready to defend his father.

Algoma wiped the tears from her eyes. “Do you want something to drink? I can explain everything, at least the parts I know.”

“I want my hundred bucks,” Simon said.

“Well, how about you accept a cup of coffee and a sandwich as a down payment?”

Seated in Gaetan’s place at the kitchen table, Simon took a bite of the sandwich Algoma had made for him.

Algoma had never seen Simon look so thin. He didn’t look healthy, his eyes red-rimmed, his skin sallow.

Ferd climbed onto the chair beside his uncle. “Are you my godfather?”

Algoma set a glass of water beside Simon’s plate and shot him a look.

“I can be if you want,” he said.

Algoma took the seat on the other side of Simon. “Why do you need money so badly? When did you get into town?”

Simon told her that he’d hitched a ride. “A friend,” he said. His girlfriend had broken up with him and kicked him out of the apartment. “Her dad owns the building, so what could I do? And she was letting me borrow her truck for work, so—”

“So,” Algoma continued, “you have no job.”

Simon took a sip of his water.

Algoma picked up Simon’s sandwich and took a bite. “A hundred bucks, which I don’t have in the first place, isn’t going to help you. Why don’t you stay here until you’re back on your feet?” She looked at Ferd. “We could use the company, right? There’s room at the inn.”

______________

10:37 a.m. 21°C. Light breeze.
Paint-speckled floor.

Piles of clothes were shored up against the wall like snowdrifts. It felt strange to be inside a new building that held old things—a museum of the ordinary and discarded. Josie had somehow found the means to finish the building, and The Shop had reopened the minute the paint had dried. It was smaller and no longer part of a larger structure, but it was open for business. Algoma found the sharp corners and the smell of new drywall unsettling. She immediately sought out the warm and musty comfort of the boxes of used clothes that needed sorting. She had no idea how one small town accumulated so many things they didn’t want when it was so hard to find them in the first place. At what point did something once prized become worthless to its owner? Loved one year, bagged and dumped the next.

Although she was in the business of repurposing things, it always pained her to come across the same piece of clothing two or three times. Like a Christmas kitten returned to the pound by Easter, some things were not meant to have a home. Simon was like that. He bounced around from town to town, taking on odd jobs when they came his way. The only constant in his life was instability. The only reason she’d invited him to stay was that she knew there was an expiry date on his visit. He never stayed anywhere long.

She already doubted the details of his story. Maybe there had been a girlfriend, maybe not. Whatever had happened, he needed money and a place to stay, and she’d offered. And whatever the consequence, she would deal with it.

Algoma opened a box and pulled out a fistful of material and dropped it onto the table. While she no longer had to sit on the hard floor to sort clothes, she resented the long steel sorting table Josie had installed in the back room. Rayon blouses fell off the slick surface; belt buckles sounded like ceremonial gongs when they hit the cold metal.

Although the burnt-out remains of the old shop had been demolished, removed, and a new building erected, Algoma swore she could still smell fire. She worried that there was fire in the walls burning up the building from the inside out. A slow burn. She looked up at the smoke detector. Were there batteries inside? Did it work at all? She put a chair under the detector and awkwardly climbed onto the rattan seat. Her pregnant belly threw her off balance, she struggled to remain upright. A tightrope walker with only the platform and no rope. Once steady, she reached up to the detector and pressed the test button. A shrill beep pierced the air.

“Shut it off,” Josie yelled from the front. “You do that one more time, you’re fired. I mean it this time.”

Algoma got off the chair and looked up. Was it really working? Maybe the test had been a fluke. I should test it again, she thought.

“Don’t do it, Al,” Josie called out knowing the extent of Algoma’s self-doubt.

Boxes and black garbage bags of unsorted clothing were piled into a heap at the end of the sorting table. She could never be sure why any of it had been donated, where it had all come from, or how it all ended up in the back room, but she was grateful because it meant she had a job. She pulled a tangerine skirt out of one of the bags. Maybe the previous owner had outgrown the style, or size, or wanted to be rid of the history the piece was a part of. Reminders of who she was at one time now passed. So easy to stuff all that anxiety into a black garbage bag and toss it into the open mouth of the collection bin and never have to look at it again.

Sundays were the highest drop-off days. Josie and Algoma would unlock the back of the bin and a tidal wave of bags and loose clothing and would spill out into the parking lot. And sometimes, empty beer bottles. Saturday nights were long and lonely times. Josie called the Sunday morning take “the great wine-purge.”

Last Sunday, Josie had ripped open one of the smaller bags to find a man’s outfit inside complete with button-up shirt, undershirt, jeans, socks, and black leather boots. She’d held the shirt up to her face and sniffed. “Good cologne.” In the back pocket of the jeans, she found a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter. She and Algoma had sat quietly in the parking lot while Josie smoked one of the cigarettes. It was impossible to know people’s motivations. They could only work with what they were given.

Algoma left her sorting and walked into Josie’s office. The outfit they’d found was folded on top of the filing cabinet, the boots neatly placed on top of the pile. Simon had not arrived with a bag, only had the clothes he’d been wearing. She picked up the bundle and carried it back to her station. She carefully refolded each piece and tucked them into her cotton tote bag. If anything would make Simon feel comfortable, it would be not having to wear his brother’s clothing.

______________

7:12 p.m. 18°C. Wind NW, breezy. Rusting pick-ups and hatchbacks lined up like dominoes.

Josie’s cousin Kristin said that Josie would barter her own mother’s bones if she thought she’d come out on top in the deal. If there was ever a war, apocalypse, or epidemic, Josie would be king. But even so, she prided herself on never taking advantage of others’ needs, especially immediate ones. That her bartering provided for her, she did not deny or take for granted. She’d traded virtually everything she had stored in her barn to rebuild The Shop, and now it was time to rebuild her supply, her savings account of furniture and household items that would always be needed by someone.