Bull's Eye (2 page)

“I know you're angry and hurt, Emily. I understand. Just let me explain. Please.”

I look at her. Her hair is a mess, she has chewed off her lipstick, and her mascara has run. I'm sure I look like hell too. Part of me wants to climb into her lap and burrow my head into her shoulder like I did when I was little. Part of me wants to run out the back door. And a tiny evil part wants to nick her with the box cutter. Nothing serious. Just a little friendly bloodletting.

I settle for boosting myself up onto the counter and kicking my heels into the cupboards, which I know she hates. She gets up, fills a glass with water and sits down again, smoothing the blanket over her knees. She picks up the picture and stares at it.

“Donna was born when I was eleven. Unplanned but welcome—your grandmother's precious menopause baby. I went away to university when she was seven. I only saw her once or twice a year after that, but your nana kept me posted. She would tell me how pretty Donna was,
how cute it was that she had a boyfriend when she was twelve, how Donna sewed all the latest styles on her little pink sewing machine. When Donna was about fifteen, Nana stopped boasting about her. All she ever said was that Donna was moody. I found out later that Donna was drinking a lot and cutting classes. That she had a lot of boyfriends—mostly older guys. When she was seventeen, in her last year at Northwood, she called me. I was working in Calgary. She told me she was pregnant. She was too far along for an abortion and she wanted to get away from Mom. She had quit school, and she asked if she could come and stay with me until she had the baby. She was planning on giving it up for adoption.”

Mom stops for a moment and picks up her glass. The water slops onto the placemat as she raises the glass to her mouth.

“Shaky,” she says, almost to herself.

“So who's my dad?” I ask. No millionaire, that's for sure, I think. Probably some skuzzy dude from East Van. Tattoos, a
mullet, bad teeth. I finger my own hair, which has had better days.

“I'm getting to that,” she says. “Don't rush me.”

Even in the middle of this emotional hurricane, she paces herself.

“I flew out from Calgary to get Donna. That's when this picture was taken. We walked along the seawall, and I asked her about the baby's father. She wouldn't tell me anything. Not then, not ever. She said he knew she was pregnant and he had paid for an abortion, but he had no idea she hadn't gone through with it. She didn't want him to know and that was that. I didn't ask why. I figured she had her reasons. I told her I wanted to keep you, and she said okay—as long as I never told you that she was your mother. She didn't want you to hate her, I guess.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“It was in her suicide note. Her dying wish. ‘Tell Emily.' So I have.” A small tired smile ghosts across her face. “Funny—she didn't seem to care at all if you ended up hating me.”

For the next three days, I lock myself away in my room and read everything in the box. I prop the photograph against my alarm clock so I can refer to it as I search the annual for clues. I sleep with the pink blanket around my shoulders, and I only come out of my room when Sandra—I refuse to call her Mom anymore—is out. I listen for the sound of the back door closing, and I watch from my bedroom
window as she either gets in her car or walks down our street toward the beach. She's still going for a lot of long walks, which suits me fine. Every evening she leaves for a walk right after dinner, and I race downstairs and throw out the dinner she has prepared (and labeled) for me. I raid the freezer and devour microwavable junk. Mini-pizzas, Hot Pockets, Tater Tots. I drink a lot of Pepsi. I never clean up.

Back in my room, I try to make sense of the stuff Donna sent me. The birthday cards are all generic Hallmark garbage inscribed with lame Chicken Soup-y poems. Nothing personal. When I turned fifteen, she wrote, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Weird. It wasn't like she was expecting an answer. The letters from Sandra to Donna are full of strange details about my life. Things I've forgotten, like the time when I was two and she lost me in a department store. Apparently I was obsessed with babies, and my mom found me just as I was leaving the store,
trailing behind a woman pushing a baby in a stroller. Some things I remember, like winning the prize for the best English essay in grade seven. Some things I really don't need to know, like the color of my baby poop or how much I cried when my teeth came in.

The annual tells me other things. Donna was in the drama club, she didn't do sports, she was kind of hot (for an eighties chick) and she liked to party. I find one picture of her dressed up as Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz.
Her hair in pigtails, her boobs busting out of her gingham costume. She's clutching a black puppy and she's laughing—her mouth is wide open. You can almost see her tonsils. Or maybe she's singing. In another picture, at what looks to be a cast party, her eyes are glazed and she's laughing up at an older guy, whom I recognize as the drama teacher, Michael something or other. That's it, other than her grad photo and the brief bio that says “Donna dreams of making her mark on Broadway!” I search for myself in her face
but I can't see past her big hair and heavy eyeliner.

I give up and read the letters from K again. There aren't very many and they're full of clichés. Soul mates, red roses, sweet surrender, forbidden love. Ugh! If this K guy really is my dad, I hope his writing skills have improved. And what's the deal with the forbidden love? Maybe K is a woman and Donna was gay, but that doesn't make any sense. I sweep the letters onto the floor and flop back on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I am royally pissed off and seriously confused. So far, all I know is that my mother is my aunt. My aunt was my mother. And nobody knows who my father is. I can't do anything about the first two things, but it's time to do something about the last. I've had enough of my room, this house, my life.

The next morning I get up, have a shower and go downstairs for breakfast. The un-mom is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the paper. She
looks up and smiles when I come into the room. There are deep shadows under her eyes and her skin is blotchy. I look away from her and fill a bowl with cereal.

“Hey, sweetie,” she says. “Feeling better?”

I can't believe her. She's acting like nothing happened, like we'll just carry on the way we were. Rage rises in my throat and threatens to exit as a howl. Instead I take a bite of cereal and the howl subsides. I'm going to have to speak to her sometime. Might as well get it over with.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “I'm okay, I guess.”

“That's good.” She hesitates. “We should talk...”

“No,” I say, “we shouldn't. You did what you had to do. So did Donna. I get that. Now it's my turn.”

“What do you mean? Your turn to what?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I just wish I could get away from here. From you.”

I mean to hurt her and I can see that I have. Her mouth opens slightly and her
eyes flutter. Her breathing slows—long slow inhales, deep exhales. Then she nods and says, “I can see that.”

What she can't see is that my heart is pounding. Sweat is trickling between my shoulder blades, and my mouth feels like it's full of cotton balls.

“What's your plan for the day?” she asks, as if it's any old Saturday. Why isn't she more upset? Maybe I'm just playing into her grand plan—to get rid of me.

“Nothing much. I might go to the mall with Vanessa later.”

“Okay,” she says. “Do you need money?”

“Nope.”

“How about a ride to the mall?” Wow, she really wants me out of here.

“I'm good,” I say.

“Fine,” she says. “I'm going to run some errands. Leave me a note if you go out, okay?”

“Sure,” I mumble. As soon as she's out the door, I scribble a note that tells her I'm going to Vancouver and I'll be staying at
the Y and not to come after me. I pack as quickly as I can. An hour later I am sitting in the backseat of a cab, going to the bus station. I'm listening to Lily Allen on my iPod and trying to stop shaking. Whatever happens in Vancouver, at least I'm finally doing something with my one wild and precious life.

The bus is crowded, but I snag the last window seat and turn my back on the aisle. I hope nobody sits next to me. Wouldn't you know, right away someone plops down in the seat beside me. It's a girl, older than me, wearing a pink Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt with stains on the sleeve and frayed cuffs. Generic jeans. Cheap flip-flops. Drugstore earrings. She smiles at me as if we're old friends and says something,
but I can't hear her over my iPod. She has a wide smile and crooked, very white teeth. I turn off my iPod as she leans over me to wave to a woman and a little boy, both flaming redheads, who are standing beside the bus. The little boy is crying and jumping up at the window. She blows him kisses, and then she nudges me.

“Is that your mom?” she says, pointing to a middle-aged woman who is waving at the bus from her car.

“Nope,” I say. “My mom's dead.”

The girl shoots me a puzzled look, and then she waves at the little boy again as the bus pulls out of the station. She sits back in her seat, closes her eyes and exhales loudly, like a walrus. I pull a book out of my pack and hope that, between the book and the iPod, she'll figure out that I'm not in a chatty mood. I glance over at her and see that she still has her eyes closed, but tears are streaming down her cheeks and she is trembling. I try to ignore it, but after a few minutes I reach over and touch her arm.

“Hey, are you okay?” I say, which is pretty dumb, seeing as how she's sobbing.

To my surprise, she nods and puts her hand over mine. In a couple of minutes she stops crying and opens her eyes and smiles. “Thanks. I needed that. I'm okay now.”

I nod and turn back to my book.

“I'm Tina, by the way,” she says, sticking out her hand.

“Emily,” I reply. I don't shake her hand. I can't believe she doesn't get that I don't want to talk.

“Hi, Emily. Where you heading?”

“Vancouver. To see my dad.”

“Yeah? Cool. I'm going to college in Vancouver. Nursing school. Better late than never, right?”

“I guess,” I mutter and sneak another look at her. I wonder how old she is and who the redheads are. They don't look anything like Tina. She has long dark-brown hair and eyes the color of caramels.

As if reading my thoughts, she says, “When I was in high school I messed up
pretty bad. Drinking, partying all the time. My foster parents kicked me out. I met Janice—the woman at the bus station—at a music festival in Courtenay two summers ago. She took me in and straightened me out and made me finish high school. She really kicked my ass. In a good way. I used to look after Axel, her little boy, when she did night shifts at the bar. She's got a job in an office now and a new boyfriend. It's time for me to move on.”

“Where are your mom and dad?” I ask.

“My mom's in Port Hardy, I think. My dad took off years ago. I was in foster care by the time I was three. I lost count of my foster families—I think there were five or maybe six. Some good, some not so good. A few really bad.”

“Don't you miss your mom?” I ask.

“Not really,” Tina replies. “I never really knew her and, hey, I turned out okay.”

She winks at me and I laugh. Even though I have no idea whether I'm going to turn out okay.

“My aunt raised me,” I blurt out. “I thought she was my mother. Turns out my mother's a crazy woman who killed herself.”

“Harsh,” Tina says. Then it all spills out of me. I rant and swear and moan and cry all the way to the ferry terminal. The other bus passengers glare at me, but Tina holds my hand and gives me Kleenex from her vinyl purse. By the time we roll onto the ferry, I am exhausted. She hauls me upstairs to the lounge and brings me weak tea with lots of milk and sugar, just the way I like it. She even finds a washcloth in her pack, wets it with cool water and drapes it over my puffy red eyes.

“Go to sleep,” she says. “You'll feel better when you wake up.”

I hand her my iPod, which normally I don't lend to anybody. She nods and smiles and says, “Sleep, little sister. I'll watch your stuff.”

When I wake up, she's gone. So is my iPod. I fling the washcloth at the back of the seat in front of me. I swear loudly
enough to make a woman across the aisle hiss “Language!” at me. I flip her off. As I'm just about to find a ferry worker and demand that a search party be sent out, Tina comes out of the washroom. She plunks herself down next to me. She hands me my iPod and says, “Thanks. I ended up reading your poetry book instead. Hope that's okay. ”

I feel hot and ashamed and stupid. I nod and babble something about how much I love poetry and how I'm named after a poet and how I want to be a librarian. When the ferry docks, we get back on the bus. Tina sleeps and I stare out the window all the way into Vancouver. My mom and I go to Vancouver a couple of times a year. We always take the bus because she hates driving in “the big city,” so when we get to the bus depot I know where to go to catch a bus downtown and how to find the Y. Tina looks totally lost.

“Where are you staying?” I ask.

“With my cousin,” she replies. “He's supposed to meet me here, take me back
to his place. I'll stay there until I can find my own place near the college.”

There's no way I want to hang around the bus station, but I can't just leave her there. What if the cousin never turns up? What if I have to take her to the Y with me?

“Tom's always late,” she says. “He's a busy guy. A real estate agent.” We're exchanging cell phone numbers when her cousin arrives in a black suv.