Flannery (19 page)

So in that moment, yeah — I understand the extent of Miranda's fear, though she tries with all her might to keep it hidden. Miranda is afraid of whether or not there will be enough nutrition in our diets, and she's afraid she's going to accidentally kill Spiky and/or Smooth and that I'll never speak to her again, and she's afraid that her art isn't any damn good at all, because she really believes in that stuff, and it means a lot to her, and she's sacrificing a lot to keep making art, but she's thinking maybe she doesn't have the right to sacrifice so much when she is a mother with two kids to feed.

She's afraid that Felix and I will be made to feel ashamed because we don't have much money and it will affect the way we think about ourselves and the way others think about us. She's afraid people will be prejudiced against us, and she's afraid for our hearts, that we'll end up hurt. She's afraid I'll get killed in a freak motorcycle accident. And she's afraid she'll be alone and nobody will fall in love with her because she has two kids to take care of and can't take off to Hawaii on a whim, and the truth is I am very much afraid for her too.

She leaps into the pool in her blue Lycra suit and running shoes with the neon orange stripes and somehow swims down to grab the arm of her thrashing son.

Her baby.

Lifeguards take over and get Felix onto the pool deck. He is spewing pool water and crying and very weak.

I think of those hours when I used to play with him, making up stories, acting them out as we went along.
Troll, bring me some wood for the fire.
Yes, Master!
Not that wood, you stupid troll, the golden boughs! Yes, Master, right away, Master. And,
Troll? Yes, Master? Tonight we will visit the lair of the silver dragon and steal the magic fang. Oh goody, Master!

It's funny how you can know a person your whole life and forget certain key important points about who they really are. For instance, in that moment, when I witness Miranda's fiercely blue Lycra-swathed body flying through the air like a flame from a blowtorch, I completely forget something about her that I have always known.

Miranda can't swim.

It takes everyone a minute to realize that Miranda is also drowning and then the lifeguards, including Kyle, leap in. Kyle gets to Miranda first and, in flailing around, she punches him in the face, giving him a black eye — totally by accident, she later insists.

And right about now you may be wondering what I've been doing throughout all this.

I don't move. It's as though I'm not there.

Afterwards, when we get home, Miranda promises Felix she will never, ever, ever leave him alone in the pool with me again and that yes, he can go to the men's change room next week, and that yes, she will read to him before bed tonight. She will read to him all night long if he wants, until dawn breaks and she will love him forever.

And she says that if I had been paying attention as she expected me to, none of this would have happened, and she would probably love me forever too. But taking into account my recent behavior, she's considering a little vacation from the hard work of loving me, she says. She says she will have to think about a punishment.

Your brother might have died, she says. She smacks the metal spoon against the casserole dish and touches the corner of her eye with her wrist, trying to make sure her tears don't smudge her mascara. And when she puts my plate of macaroni in front of me, the dish clatters on the table. It all seems to me to be punishment enough.

I creep into bed with Felix in the middle of the night so I can hold him. I'm holding him very tightly, because I realize how close I just came to losing him.

I'm still awake when Felix's door creaks open and Miranda comes in and gets in bed behind me, three of us in Felix's single bed with the dip in the middle of the mattress and a spring poking through.

The lit-up red S on the Scotiabank building downtown shines through the window and the trees thrash in the wind and I can hear the ice on their branches clinking.

Miranda whispers that if they do cut off the heat we might do some winter camping and she would get a very good parenting blog out of it.

I don't want to winter-camp. Miranda puts her arm around both of us. I am very squished.

Flannery, there's something I have to tell you, she says.

You have to tell me something
now
? I ask. I don't like it when Miranda
has
to tell me things. There goes my heart again, like a school of tiny fish scattering every which way in the deep dark fathoms of the North Atlantic when a shark zips past.

Do they have sharks this far north? Anyway, my heart is beating.

Miranda presses her forehead against the back of my head and pauses. Then she sits up on the edge of the bed with her back to me, her fists pressed into the mattress.

She speaks in a long single breath.

Hank and his wife have split up and he's back in town for the Christmas holidays and he's asked me out, she says.

You saw him?

Ran into him by accident.

Did you tell him? I ask.

Tell him what?

You
know
what, Miranda. Did you tell him about Felix? Did you tell Hank he has a son?

I will, she says.

And as I am drifting off to sleep another faraway but some might say pertinent thought occurs to me.

Kyle Keating asked me out on a date.

And I didn't even have to use a potion.

27

They'd been drinking martinis, which Miranda had never tried before.

They said you had to toss them back, Miranda says.

She speaks from her bed with her eyes squeezed shut and the back of her hand pressed to her forehead.

Orange juice, she whispers.

Orange juice? I whisper back.

Shhhhh, she says. I mix her some orange crystals. It's all we have.

Get this thing off me, she says. I take off the tiara and lay it on the red velvet pillow on her bureau where she keeps it.

I go to open the curtain and she yells, Not the light! She asks me to get her the little hand mirror on the dresser. She lifts it to her eyes, very close. First one eye, then the other. She touches the non-existent wrinkles in the corners of her eyes.

I'm old, she sobs. She slams the mirror face down on the bed.

What are you talking about, Miranda? I say.

This guy, Hank's new friend, the guy who's a plastic surgeon . . . he said I need work, she moans. She picks up the mirror again and pulls her skin near her temples very tight so she can hardly open her eyes. The hand mirror falls against her nose. She's faking a smile, but she's puffed her lips out for the bee-sting look.

Do I look younger now? she asks.

At four this morning I heard several sharp bangs on the front door. Naturally, I thought we'd been invaded by aliens and they'd probably take Felix away, and I was just wondering if there was anything I should pack for him. Would he use his toothbrush in another galaxy? It was hard enough to get him to use it in this one.

It was either aliens or Miranda had forgotten her key.

I pulled on my housecoat and went running down the stairs. The hallway was awash in red and blue light and there were a few whoops of a police siren.

This gave me a bit of a fright.

There was a police officer at the door and then I thought Miranda was dead and I would have to raise Felix by myself. She had died without cleaning the bathroom as she had promised or paying this month's rent.

But she was not dead.

She was on her knees in the snow bank, and an officer had her by the elbow, trying to get her up the front steps.

Your father home? the officer asked. I did not bother to explain about my father and/or lack thereof to the police officer. He tried to look behind me.

We found your mother on the corner of Prescott and Duckworth Street directing traffic with a salad fork, the police officer says.

I was not directing traffic, Miranda yells. I was conducting the Aeolian harp.

(Miranda believes that there are rocks on Signal Hill that make a natural harp. When the wind blows through a crack in the rocks, and when it's coming from the northeast, you can hear a gentle moaning that sounds like a woman's voice. Miranda claims when you hear it good things will happen. It's an omen, but a happy one. It means fortune, true love and creativity.)

I guessed that maybe helping me write the incantations for the love-potion labels had given her a taste for the occult.

Miranda grabbed the doorframe with both hands, shaking the cop off her elbow.

She eyed the staircase like it was a writhing serpent she was going to have to tame. Then she flung herself forward and landed face down on the stairs. She began to climb the steps on her hands and knees. Her tiara fell off and rolled on its side down a few steps and she caught it with her foot and jammed it back on her head.

That's her thinking cap, I said to the cop.

So, no dad? the cop asked. Just you?

And me, Felix said. He had just shown up at the top of the stairs in his Batman pajamas, his hair mussed to one side. He was clinging to the newel post.

And my little brother, I confirm.

Is he armed and dangerous? the cop asked. I glanced back at Felix.

That's just a Super Soaker. I don't think it's loaded.

One thing that's not loaded, the cop said. Better get her to drink some water. She talked about you in the car. Kept saying something about a magic potion? Said she's really proud of you?

After the cop left I got Miranda a glass of water but she was already snoring. Felix was asleep again, his arms and legs wrapped around his water gun which I gently pried from his grip.

As I was falling asleep I heard the engine of a motorcycle ripping up Long's Hill. Tyrone? That would mean that the Snow Queen finally had her other nostril.

Who knew what would happen, now that she could breathe properly.

I let the morning light in despite Miranda's protests. She is going to have to wake up. She has a blog post to write about when to tell your kids there is no Santa. Because, unfortunately, there is no Santa. And there won't be any presents for Felix if she doesn't find a way to “monetize” that website of hers soon.

I sit down on the edge of Miranda's bed and pry the hand mirror out of her grip.

So, how was the date? I ask. I mean, before the martinis kicked in. How was ol' Hank now that he's divorced the surfing lawyer? Did he recognize the error of his ways? Was he down on bended knee begging forgiveness?

Hank
, my mother spat. Oh, Flan, they were awful. Hank was awful. His friends were awful. All they talked about was money. I mean
all
they talked about was money. It was all they talked about. There was that plastic surgeon, two doctors, a dentist, two lawyers, and the wives. Some of whom were CEOs of this or that.

So, you mean conceptual art didn't come up?

They talked about real estate. They talked about flipping houses like they were pancakes. Flipping houses and mega-barbecues and lawnmowers you sit on. What has happened to Hank? Oh, and get this. They don't call him Hank. They call him
Henry
. Before we went into the restaurant he actually warned me, “By the way, I'm Henry now.” I still didn't even know who they were talking about for the first half of the evening. Apparently he's going to be making a fortune, had offers from three firms in town. He wanted me to know how successful he'd become.

But after the restaurant? Did you and Hank talk?

Did we talk?
Henry
and I did not talk, Flannery. I found a back door to the restaurant and wandered out into an alley. I had to escape. I was so drunk I could barely see. I mean, it seemed like there were three roads instead of one. Every person who passed me in the street was staggering all over the sidewalk, and they had three heads. It was alarming. Thank God I heard the Aeolian harp. It sang me home.

Actually, a police officer brought you home, Miranda, I say.

Really? says Miranda. She sits up on one elbow, and gives her long curly hair a toss.

Was he cute?

A few days later I'm in the school library after classes and I happen upon a computer screen that someone's left open and I do a double take. I see it's Miranda's blog. I want to throw my coat over the monitor until I can get the page shut down.

Someone is reading Miranda's blog? I look over my shoulder and then I slide into the chair and start reading. I haven't really been paying much attention to Miranda's blog lately.

When I'm done I'm flushed with rage.

Magnificent Mothering with Miranda

A sixteen-year-old girl with a broken heart is reckless. Those of you who have daughters in love, listen up! How vulnerable our young women are, with their too-long limbs, their new curvy bodies, and their too-big hearts.

Don't let those tulip-tender faces and those beautiful hazel-green eyes so full of trust fool you into thinking they are gentle girls. Our daughters feel desire as big as the universe and they are willing to do what it takes to get what they want.

They are changelings now, and they are growing away from us and they have to do that. They must.

They have to rebel and they have to love and they will probably get on the backs of motorcycles and smoke pot and drink too much and generally put themselves in danger, just as we did when we were sixteen, just as some of us are still doing, and we have to be vigilant and we have to watch out and we have to know what's going on and we have to hold our daughters close. But we also have to let them make mistakes. We have to let them put their hearts of glass out there on the sidewalk. Little glass hearts just waiting to be smashed. We have to trust that they will be okay. They are out there making magic, every single day, and they will find love
.