One Bird's Choice (14 page)

The shape of my seat is hardening into the snowbank. I can feel it forming like drying cement underneath me. If it snows again, as they’re calling for tonight, my imprint will be gone by morning. I’m not going to stay out here for long. I’ll go back in and join my team. There’s plenty of time, though. The games are just getting started.

Nine

Calendar Days

S
INCE EARLY JANUARY I'VE BEEN
wearing a lime green shawl over my shoulders whenever standing, lying, or sitting. It’s my own dainty little way of preventing hypothermia. I swear, on the really cold days I can see my breath in the house. Mom and Dad tell me I’m being dramatic. They tell me to just wear more layers. Dramatic? I’m inside and that light fog floating around my face is my frozen breath.

Today I’m also wearing headphones. The music is too loud. It’s distracting. The reason why I’m wearing them is to thwart the greater disturbance that’s keeping me from writing. The sound is coming from the storage room, and it’s been tormenting me since just after breakfast. Every few minutes the sound stops, and just as the tranquility settles in, it starts up again — on and off, all morning. I testily rip off the shawl, remove the headphones, and get up to investigate the noise.

I’ve been doing most things testily lately. My mood has soured along with the half-carton of eggnog lingering in the back of the fridge. It seems that slamming doors and yelling at the cats are my New Year’s resolutions. I’ve also started growing an unkempt beard in the new year, for the hope of added warmth and because of my lack of disposable razor cartridges. Really, though, there’s just no point shaving.

Do I even have to tell you how I spent my New Year’s Eve? Seriously, just take a guess. Correct. I was at Lilac Hill with my parents. After our fondue supper we nursed weak gin-and-tonics while they sang several verses of “Auld Lang Syne.” I tried twice, but Mom wouldn’t let me go to bed until after midnight.

Since everyone left after Christmas, Mom, Dad, and I have been spending more time around each other. Mom’s at the farm most days, and so is Dad. He’s lecturing at the university only one day a week this term. He spends the majority of his time in his study. Mom is much less predictable, floating from room to room.

There’s no holiday to look forward to anymore, just weeks of cold and snow. We have to shovel every couple of days and carry hay and buckets of water to the sheep, chickens, and ducks twice a day. The automatic watering system doesn’t work in the winter, not at this farm anyway. When we’re not bundled up, plodding through these daily outdoor tasks, we’re all spending more time inside, around one another . . . bundled up.

I’ve probably set foot off our land only three or four times since Christmas. There’s nowhere else for me to go, and I have little money to spend. Some days I feel that I should call CBC, hound them, plead for some more shifts. I haven’t. Mostly I’ve been using my time to read, and I’ve been sleeping more, hibernating. In the afternoons, if I get some quiet, I write. So far the results have been mixed at best. I’ve produced some okay stuff and some horrible stuff.

I enter the storage room, muttering under my breath, and see Dad sitting with his back to the door. The room is a mess. He’s surrounded by a moat of paper and is fiddling with something on the floor.

“Dad,” I call over the grinding noise. “
Dad!
”

He flicks the switch on the machine and the room is suddenly quiet. He slowly turns his head. “You say something?”

“What’s going on in here?” I’m holding my hands under each armpit, trying to keep them warm.

“Nothing,” he says, removing a squished foam earplug from his right ear. “Just doing a bit of shredding.”

I move closer to get a better view of Dad’s equipment — a large grey shredding machine that looks worn and damaged. Beside it are several banker’s boxes full of papers. He’s seated on a footstool and his glasses are resting on top of his head. He places his hands on his hips and stretches his back.

“Since when do we have a shredder?”

“Since my mom died. I inherited it. I’ve been meaning to get it out for a while.”

The protective plastic on the top of the shredder is dusty and cracked. Its black cord is flecked with white paint.

“How long did Grandma Reid have it for? I can’t believe it still works.”

“It’s not that old; it works fine.”

“Is it made to be so loud, though?”

“Meant.”

“Pardon?”

“Is it
meant
to be so loud, and yes, you can’t shred quietly. That would be an oxymoron.”

I reach into the box and pull out a handful of papers.

“What are you shredding?”

“I’m cleaning out the filing cabinets.”

I flip through the papers: old receipts, income tax forms, university newsletters.

“Dad, you’re shredding old newsletters?”

“Among other things,” he says.

The thin strips of red construction paper at the bottom of the shredder catch my eye.

“What other things?” I ask.

“Just documents and such. And there may have been some old valentines in there too.”

“You’re shredding our old valentines?”

“No, no. Just yours. There weren’t very many of them. You can always pick them out and tape them back together if you really want to. I didn’t put them in the fire.”

The idea of taping those old paper hearts back together is deeply depressing, but for a moment I consider it. I pick out a few of the red strips. My name’s spelled incorrectly on one of them, and it’s signed by someone named Sam. I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I think Sam was the boy in my grade three class who was constantly being reprimanded for blowing his nose directly into the palm of his hand and rubbing the mucusy harvest onto his pants.

“No, no, it doesn’t matter. Here, let me give you a hand.”

Dad flips the switch back on and the shredder growls. I pick up the box, handing him one paper at a time. I watch him carefully feed each one through the sharp teeth of the machine. Our little assembly line continues to work in silence.

I’ve been noticing that Dad’s arms and back are looking stronger, and the way he sits now, leaning in over the shredder, holding the paper out in front of him, accentuates his improved physique. Since cutting back on teaching he’s had time to start going to the gym. I’ve never said anything but decide, now that we’re alone, I should pass along some encouragement. It can’t be easy going to the gym regularly, sitting in a cold car, driving through all that snow. I can’t be bothered to do it and I’m not in my sixties. I’m not even thirty.

“You know, Dad, you’re starting to look stronger; I can tell you’ve been lifting weights,” I shout over the buzz.

He flicks off the machine. “I’ve been going for almost a year now. You know,” he says, “you should think about coming with me. You could use a little exercise.”

It’s true. I could. My physical condition is nothing to be proud of. Like my disposition, it’s taken a turn for the worse. While living in Toronto I walked every day, sometimes late at night. There are no streetlights here. Unlike me, the sun has better places to be these days, and it leaves each afternoon in a hurry. In Toronto they remove the snow from the sidewalks. Here the fields hoard the snow greedily and give it up only when the temperatures warm. Outside there’s snow as far as the eye can see. I feel like I’m in the middle of an ocean — a white, frozen, boundless ocean.

It’s the time of year when the charms of warm, meaty suppers and rocking chairs outweigh any benefits of working up a sweat or getting your heart rate going. Instead of going to the gym I’ve been meeting the roaring woodstove every morning and each night after supper; it’s become pathological.

My last trip to the gym, a month or so prior, was with Mom. She convinced me that her yoga class would open up a whole new world to me. She claimed it would not only improve my limited flexibility and help me sleep better but also do wonders for my mood. She thought I seemed a little down in the dumps. When I insisted I’d never done yoga and had no intention of starting, she told me not to worry, that most of the women in the class were beginners too.

A week later I was removing my socks and unrolling a borrowed yoga mat in front of four retired women, three of whom were grandmothers. My mat was tattered and smelled of sweat. Everyone else seemed to have a new, clean mat. Mom’s yoga for beginners didn’t make me more nimble or elastic. Instead, from the first stretch I felt wooden and tense. After a brief warm-up we started with the basics. We were instructed to keep our legs straight, reach down, and touch our toes. I bent down as far as I could with unhinged knees, yet my toes remained far away. The backs of my legs ached. Our eyes were supposed to be closed, but I cheated, peering around the room with one eye. Everyone else was bent at the waist effortlessly, the tips of their fingers curled under their toes, inhaling and exhaling deeply. That was the first five minutes of class. It was a ninety-minute class.

In his quest for better health, Dad has turned to a rowing machine and free weights. But with my yoga experience still fresh in mind, I’m reluctant to rush back to the gym. The time Dad works out isn’t encouraging either. At least yoga class was at night. When Dad departs for the gym, I’m usually sound asleep under a dune of blankets.

“Well,” I say, grabbing my elbow and stretching it across my chest, “I’d really like to, Dad, really, but I’m kinda busy the next few weeks with —”

“You’re not busy,” Dad’s quick to say. “I was just checking the calendar this morning.”

He’s played his trump card. The calendar Dad refers to is a massive whiteboard mounted on the kitchen wall that displays a one-month period. At the end of each month the calendar is erased and the next month is created. Fresh-calendar day is always a big deal around the farm. The calendar is Dad’s baby. He looks after it, keeps it clean. I notice him checking in on it several times a day, sometimes just standing a few feet away, sipping tea, looking at it affectionately. It’s colour-coordinated, so all of Dad’s engagements are marked in blue and Mom’s schedule is in red. One evening I even found Mom adding to the calendar retroactively.

“That was last week; it doesn’t need to go up there now,” I pointed out.

“It’s best just to put it up there.” Her entry was a lunch date with three friends.

One night at supper, several weeks after I moved back home Dad presented me with my own dry-erase marker at an unofficial ceremony. “It’s green,” he said. “You’re going to be green.”

From then on I was constantly being reminded to add my plans, no matter how trivial, to the calendar. On the few occasions I actually had plans and remembered to mark them down, I forgot about my colour and would scribble my engagements in black. This would cause a flurry of confusion, and I would inevitably find my blunder corrected, switched to the proper green in Dad’s hand.

So when Dad suggested I accompany him to the gym because I didn’t have any plans, he wasn’t assuming or guessing. He was relying on cold, hard fact. If the calendar says I’m free, I’m free.

“Do you think I can get in without a membership though?” I ask desperately. “I wouldn’t want to ruffle any feathers.”

“I’ve been saving up my guest passes. I could probably get you in for a year.”

“Right,” I say. “I guess it’s a date then.”

“I’ll knock on your door tomorrow morning. But get your stuff ready tonight. I like to get there early.”

And with that, Dad flips on the shredder, ending any further discussion. I retreat to my desk, slipping my shawl back onto my shoulders and wondering how I’ve just agreed to spend tomorrow morning doing sit-ups with Dad.

True to his word, Dad rips me from a deep sleep with a series of tenacious knocks on my door.

“You awake in there, bud? Time to go.”

“Yup, just reading in here,” I lie, squinting hatefully at the glowing display on my clock radio — 7:02 a.m. “I’ll be right down.”

Why didn’t I go to bed earlier? I almost step on the empty beer glass and popcorn bowl sitting by my bed. Sometime around 1 a.m. I licked my finger and ran it around the bottom of the bowl and drained the last sip of beer. Now the bowl and glass get to stay in my warm room while I trudge down the hall to the bathroom. I feel betrayed.

Once downstairs, the scramble for my neglected gym clothes begins. I hadn’t prepared the night before as instructed. As I frantically search for a clean shirt in the laundry basket by the door, I jump when I notice Mom sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown. I thought she was still sleeping. Her computer is on in front of her.

“What the hell’s on your eye?” I ask.

Mom’s wearing her usual morning attire for this time of year: several layers consisting of a sweater, sheepskin moccasins, and a housecoat with a fleece vest over top. All is status quo except for a damp brown lump she’s wearing like an eye patch. Her head is tilted back slightly to keep the wad in place.

“Just a used teabag,” she says, turning carefully. “Looks like another chilly morning out there. I should get the fire going.”

“What’s it doing on your eye?”

“Pumpkin got a little up close and personal last night.” Mom’s allergy to cats has dwindled over the years, but from time to time she still shows symptoms. Of all the cats, Pumpkin seems to bring out the worst of Mom’s allergy. “Teabags are great for reducing swelling and soreness. It’s the tannic acid.”

“Noted,” I say, hurriedly packing my old gym bag.

“Come and see this email I got this morning.”