The Unfinished Child (41 page)

It was a risk speaking to him, she knew, because if he got mad he might leave forever. But it was almost as if his wife, by talking about Carolyn, had given him permission to ask all the questions he’d never asked before.

“I could ask him about Carolyn and see what he says. Is that okay?”

Mr. Harrington had nodded wordlessly. Week by week she would feed him information. Dr. Maclean was waiting in the wings until he received his cue.

A soft breeze
blew through her backyard. It combed the blades of grass and flicked through the weeds before swirling around Elizabeth’s compact, bent figure. She caught the scent of creek water and fermenting leaves and mud and freckles and scraped knees and the undercurrent of childhood summers.

A cloud passed before the sun. The sweat cooled on Elizabeth’s skin. The neighbour children squealed and laughed.

I would have loved that baby, she thought. I could have given her all the love my mother never received.

The three-storey red brick building
at the end of the winding drive retained its imposing presence. Elizabeth nervously took in the surroundings as Ron navigated the car up the paved driveway and parked beside a path with a sign that pointed to the gardens. Goosebumps sprang to life on her arms and she experienced a sense of vertigo. Dozens of small windows looked out like eyes onto the world. In the centre of the building a tall brick chimney reached for the sky like the arm of an eager child, desperate to ask a question.

Elizabeth hadn’t expected the building to be so big. In her mind she’d imagined that her mother’s case was somewhat isolated, but seeing the size of the building made her understand that there were many people like her mother who had also been locked away.

Each red brick represented one word in the sad narrative of her mother’s life: one brick for birth, another for farewell. But those bricks, strong though they were, couldn’t contain her story. Finally someone listened, and wrote the story into a black notebook, and held it for almost forty years before it was, at last, delivered to her, the perfect reader for an imperfect tale.

“Are you ready?” Ron asked.

She nodded. They left the car and walked hand in hand down the gravel path to the trailhead where a small commemorative plaque gave a brief history of Poplar Grove. At the trailhead there were two signs: one pointed to the gardens on the left and another pointed to the cemetery on the right.

Elizabeth squeezed Ron’s hand and scanned the cemetery and the grounds. Sparrow song filled the air. A magpie made its presence known. Elizabeth took it all in. She closed her eyes and imagined a young Mrs. Harrington, her hair freshly done and her nails impeccably filed, sitting on a sunny bench, holding her daughter’s hand, not able to entirely let go of her first-born child. And she imagined the child, Elizabeth’s own mother, gratefully turning her dished face to the sun and drawing the heat into her pale, hungry skin.

Some stories are just too heavy to carry alone, she thought, and she was grateful for Ron’s solid presence beside her.

They found her grave marker in a modest patch of spindly prairie grass that somehow stretched to cover similar plots, and they stood motionless before the humble grave of Carolyn J. Harrington. June 15, 1947–March 12, 1967.

Elizabeth bent down to rest her vase of red roses against the white headstone.

The sun shone brilliantly in the cloudless sky. Elizabeth tried to picture the woman she’d never met before, but she only managed to envision blunt brown bangs framing a round face with eyes that, she hoped, had at times flashed with laughter.

She raised her face to the sun and closed her eyes. This was the kind of day that Carolyn would have loved. It contained the three key ingredients that brought her joy: sun, flowers, and birds. Oh, yes, and a fourth ingredient—family, for Elizabeth didn’t doubt that Margaret’s visits had brought Carolyn great joy.

Elizabeth felt the sun on her face. The wind blew across the open field in the distance that would be beautiful when the canola bloomed. Birds sang in the trees around her. She squeezed Ron’s hand and smiled as she realized that these four ingredients—sun, flowers, birds, and family—were enough to bring anyone happiness.

It was after nine, but
nightfall was still almost an hour away. The long nights of summer were just around the corner. Marie looked forward to eating ice cream cones and walking in the park, to wearing sandals and shorts, and to spending time with her kids once school was out. Especially now. The girls had seemed a little nervous lately, unsure of how to behave at home. They didn’t quite understand what had happened, but they were intuitive, and without knowing why, they wanted to spend more time with their mother. They understood that an urn filled with ashes was all that was left of their younger sibling, and they knew that a family discussion would soon determine the resting place for those ashes.

Marie’s bare feet padded soundlessly on the thick hall carpet. She closed the door to her room and perched on the edge of her bed. The cordless phone sat on her bedside table. She picked it up; it was a dead weight in her palm.

Long shadows covered the floor. A slit of white light poured beneath the bedroom door from the hallway. She closed her eyes and listened to her heart beating. It was no longer the drum against which her baby grew.

When she opened her eyes again, they had become accustomed to the semi-dark. The room was bathed in a soft grey light. She could make out the silhouette of the old mahogany dresser, the cedar hope chest pushed beside the dresser, the shuttered closet doors, the antique chair where Barry threw all of his clothes, the white wicker laundry basket overflowing, the full-length mirror next to the window. Shadows danced along the wall from the branches of the mountain ash outside. It swayed as if a child were swinging up into its branches, or as if a flock of waxwings had descended to strip it of its berries.

She stared down at her hands, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes again.

Marie filled her lungs with air and exhaled slowly. Courage. Her heart hammered and her hand shook as she dialled Elizabeth’s number. The familiar tune sang from the touch-tone pad.

What if Elizabeth refused to talk with her?

What if she hung up?

What if she yelled at her or even cried and called her names?

Marie gripped the phone and bit her lip. Her insides felt all watery. From far off, she heard the phone begin to ring.

Elizabeth unpacked the
grocery bags that lined the floor in front of the sink. To gain access to a cupboard, she shifted one of the bags with her foot, and cursed as oranges spilled out and rolled under the table. It had been a long day and she was tired. She’d sat with Mrs. Harrington for an hour and hadn’t wanted to come right home afterwards, so she’d grabbed a quick bite to eat and decided to get some groceries too. What she really wanted now was to curl up beside Ron on the couch and watch a movie. She bent quickly to reach for the oranges, tucked three under her arm, and dumped the rest of the bag into the glass fruit bowl on the counter.

Somehow, the days were passing. She could move forward now. She had read the entire notebook more than once. Nothing was shocking anymore. She had thrown away the last baby sleeper that she’d kept hidden in a hatbox on her closet shelf. She’d hardened off, and she’d planted her garden. Now she would tend it and watch it grow, weeding around the small green shoots that would soon press their way through the dark soil. In the coming months she would focus more on work. Business was good. In fact, spring sales had been the best yet. And she would spend more time with Ron. Maybe they’d go to the mountains, do some more hiking.

Marie’s face surfaced unbidden in her mind and she pushed the image away. It disappeared immediately. There, she thought. That wasn’t so bad. She could train her mind to erase Marie’s face whenever it infiltrated her brain. All good things came to an end, she reminded herself. Friendships too. She had to accept that. She’d try harder to meet new people. Maybe she’d join a club or something. Start playing squash again. Join a league. She turned back to the sink and began to wash some grapes. The kettle announced its boil on the countertop. She reached to unplug it. The phone rang.

Marie held her
breath. One ring. Two rings. Her hand shook. She could hang up. It wasn’t too late.

No. There had to be a way to get through this. She nestled the phone against her shoulder to steady her hand. Maybe she should have sent flowers first, or a letter. Something to prepare her. Maybe it wasn’t right to surprise her with a call.

Three rings. One for each decade of friendship.

Come on, Elizabeth. Please pick up the phone.

Elizabeth answered the
phone.

“Hello?”

Oh, God
. Marie’s stomach heaved at the sound of her friend’s voice. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Her mouth opened silently. No words came out. She fought the impulse to hang up.

“Hello?” Elizabeth’s voice again, irritated now. She didn’t have all night. “Hello?”

“Elizabeth?” Marie said softly, her voice a small cry.

Silence.

Marie squeezed her eyes to slow the tears that were falling. What if Elizabeth had the strength to go on without her?

“Elizabeth?” she repeated, her voice gaining strength. “It’s me.”

Silence.

Marie licked her lips and stood up, needing to move. She walked instinctively toward the light spilling from beneath her bedroom door. Her hand rested on the doorknob. She turned it and the door swung open. She winced with a momentary blindness.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” she whispered and walked into the empty hallway.

She saw herself as if from above, one arm folded protectively over her tender breasts, her still-puffy figure standing alone in a bare hallway that looked like a road stretching out forever and ever before her.

Elizabeth heard the
whisper come through the phone line, soft as a breeze.

Marie.

She sat down abruptly at the kitchen table. The water continued to run in the sink, trickling softly down the drain. She had imagined this moment many times and thought that, by so doing, she’d be prepared, but now that she was in it, she didn’t know what to do. Marie’s apology echoed in her ears. Elizabeth didn’t know if she could forgive or if she even wanted to. Was she supposed to say,
It’s okay
, and give Marie the freedom to carry on?

“Elizabeth?” Marie closed
her eyes as if in prayer.
Please, please
. “Are you there?”

A hundred years passed. Marie’s stomach hovered, ready to drop as she waited.

She leaned her back against the wall and slid slowly to the floor.

The phone pressed hotly against her ear. She cradled it with her shoulder to hold it in place.
Please, please
. Then she wrapped her arms around her bent knees and rocked herself from side to side.

“Can we talk?”

Elizabeth moved to
the sink and turned the tap off, then stared out the kitchen window. The clouds in the night sky glowed eerily, backlit by a sliver of moon. No matter the outcome of the call, the sun would rise the following morning. So many things could be counted on. The sweet peas would bloom fragrantly in summer. The tomato plants would bear fruit. The carrots would burrow deep into the earth to grow. Fall was just four months away. What use was suffering?
Are you there? Can we talk?

“You didn’t even call,” she said softly. “You didn’t even call.”

Marie opened her
eyes. Above her, the hall light shone like a distant star.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”

Elizabeth was tired of apologies. Her voice shook with restraint. She measured each word carefully before she spoke. “I want you to know what it’s been like for me. Every day I waited for you to call. I stood in my shop like an idiot, expecting every customer who walked through the door to be you. But you never showed up. I got the news from Frances instead, and only because
I
called. You didn’t even have the guts to tell me yourself.”

Marie received each word like a blow. She pressed her spine into the wall and braced herself against the hard truth. Elizabeth was right. How many times could she say she was sorry? “I’m sorry.”

Elizabeth felt the anger leave her body as if each word carried its own cargo of rage and resentment. Her shoulders dropped to their usual place and she realized she’d been walking around for weeks with them tucked close to her ears. She heard Marie apologize again and imagined the tears running down her face. Now Marie was the one who was waiting, the one who didn’t know if she’d be forgiven or not. Elizabeth had an entirely new history that Marie knew nothing about. And maybe she never would. Maybe Elizabeth would keep her own secret, holding the memory of the girl tight to her chest, the little girl born with Down syndrome in 1947 who’d been locked away.

Nobody spoke. Neither woman hung up.

Elizabeth heard the
television in the other room and knew that Ron was waiting for her to join him. Steady Ron. Her real foundation.

She heard Marie’s soft breath as if a seashell was pressed firmly against her own ear.

Her childhood echoed back to her. The railway bridge and the dolls staring blankly as the current pulled them north. The hours spent aloft in trees, silently watching.

“Are you still there?” Marie asked.

Elizabeth nodded.

The grapes glistened on the counter like dozens of individual planets. She understood now that no matter where she went in life, Marie would always orbit around her. There was no way clear of it.

“Yes,” she sighed.

And again, after a moment, “Yes,” she repeated.

Her voice was firmer now. She had stepped into another part of her life, the after part, and now she meant what she said.

“I’m still here.”

Many people helped me to write this novel. In no particular order, I wish to thank for their incisive comments and unfaltering enthusiasm: Gloria Sawai, Ruth Krahn, Norm Sacuta, Cathy Condon, Kate Kidd, Hanae Kiyooka, Renie Gross, and Shelagh Wildsmith. Thanks, also, to Tim Bowling for always supporting my need to write, and to my wonderful Mill Creek community.