My husband says it’s fine—says we raised her to be uninhibited by her body. Whenever he says it, I wonder, why not of? Does it mean something that I think she’s uninhibited of and not by her body, as if it’s only an incidental part of the whole. But there are more important things than prepositions, for which there are no rules, only conventions, which means they can only feel wrong. I call Claire inside, say, “Daddy has to weed whack the driveway, tu le reprends plus tard, finish your art after.” But it’s that I don’t want a debate: Why can Daddy take his shirt off and I can’t?
I’m washing the potatoes for supper, new potatoes, the little ones. They seem lucky to me, luckier than the larger less regularly shaped potatoes, more likely to be chosen in the store. Although, there is something pleasing in the wartiness of yams. Claire is singing along to Hey Mr. Postman in the living room. I peek in and she’s running out of breath, singing back-up and lead—De-liver de-letter—looking into the bay window, at her reflection and past it, trying to win herself over while shaking her finger prohibitively. Wait! Wait a minute Mr. Postman. She places her hand on her hip jauntily and I notice she’s knotted her tee-shirt to reveal her midriff. Her voice thrills itself as it rises to a panic. She throws her head back. She’s a natural.
The water is boiling. I throw the potatoes in and put the green beans in the steamer. I feel like I’m getting away with something, with both side dishes cooking in one pot. The radio is playing Earth Wind & Fire now, and I bet Claire is lip syncing. In a pan yellow bubbles of oil pale and chase each other around. Because denying this rhythm is a waste of joy, my shoulders bob along to the music. I slice a trout fillet into three pieces. Claire’s little slice is first, always Claire’s first, then mine, then my husband’s. It pleases me to slide my knife along the cutting board, separating each piece from smallest to largest, making sure it’s perfect before they go in the pan. Claire isn’t lip-syncing, she’s making snow angels, enjoying the friction of her limbs against the carpet. She’s never bored. She gets that from me. And Earth Wind & Fire, the horns, they are very heady, too heady for children really, but the rhythm is easy. I take out three plates and three knives and three forks. I flip the pieces of trout and their colour has richened from the true red of flesh to the brown red of meat. I call to Claire, “À table! À table!” I am teaching her French because of Maman. Everyone knows you can only love your child properly in your mother tongue, or is that a French thing, la langue maternelle, la langue du coeur. A matter of elevating a preference to the status of a value, like frankness.
When I go into the dining room she is straddling the arm of the sofa, dragging herself forwards and back against the fabric, her hands gripping the edge, her hair a curtain. One knee is bent on the sofa, the other leg trails lazily along the floor as she masturbates. I cannot look at her. I watch the pallor of the bottom of her foot travel back and forth.
“Stop it. Stop.”
She plants her foot and looks at me with resignation. I want to slap her.
“How many times, Claire? Avec ta mine de qui, moi? T’as pas honte?”
Sam’s sweaty hand is on my shoulder, and my throat’s readiness has become a tightness. He sighs and his voice is conciliatory. “You do your exercises in your room,” he tells her. “You know better.”
She says she’s sorry, and there is trepidation in her voice. I want to send her to her room. I don’t want to feed her. He is so understanding of her. Behind me, I’m sure he’s smiling a reassuring smile, because she is at ease again, standing, waiting. It’s like he’s her mother. I give up. Go back to the kitchen. Retreat, at least, is never an over-reaction. They set the table together. She wonders what insects eat. Sam knows the answer is leaves and twigs. I put the green beans in a bowl and drain the potatoes, this oppressive moisture on my face that smells faintly of dirt, it’s a release. I exhale all this hot steam very slowly. I slide the trout onto a plate and carry the food to the table. Claire is talking about butterflies, wondering what they eat. She asks, “Is it different, because they look so different? Do they get their colours from the things they eat?”
“How do you mean?” Sam asks. He balances green beans across the width of the spoon. I should’ve brought tongs, but I’d just be fussing if I got up now. He has beautiful hands—musician’s hands. He plays viola. We live in Minneapolis. We’ve lived in Cleveland, Chicago, and Cincinnati. Chicago was my favourite, because they have jazz like Montreal has jazz, but the symphony here offered him the first chair, and here we are.
“Like in the fall,” Claire says, “a caterpillar eats yellow leaves, red leaves, purple leaves, then it goes into its cocoon, and it’s colourful; when it comes out a butterfly. But if all it eats is green leaves in summer, it’ll turn into a green butterfly, and that’s good! It’s good camouflage!” She is so smart, my daughter. She isn’t looking at us, she’s staring off at green butterflies, a green too stiff in a flutter of green leaves. It’s hard to hold a grudge against a person with no guile.
My husband still holds the serving spoon, beaming at her. “How many potatoes?”
“Four,” she says, “They’re little. They’re my favourites.”
“I know,” I say, and it feels like a reproach, but I haven’t spoken to her since I got angry, and I can’t help that it sounds like that. Only talk will make talk easy again. “I’ve seen a butterfly being born,” I say. “When they’re ready the thread of their cocoon starts to unravel, and they come down slow and steady. It looks like they’re in an elevator. An elevator in the air.”
“I bet they get dizzy being born,” she adds.
My laughter brays with the ease that is between us again. “Yes, yes, I bet.”
Sam smiles at me. “Thank your mother for supper,” he says with a nod to me and to her.
“Merci, Maman,” she says.
We don’t speak French at the table, for Sam’s sake, but we know he loves the sound of it. Claire, reminded of her dinner, smashes her potatoes with the back of her fork, and takes her knife and scrapes up some butter, and awkwardly spreads it across the potatoes she’s still smashing—striking the fork’s tines. Her hands are contorted. We don’t correct her. We watch her figure it out together.
I ask Sam about his rehearsal tonight. They’re preparing for the Pops series. Of course, the Sunday Pops series. Last month was music from the movies, Star Wars, The Godfather, etc. Before that it was Sinatra.
“What is it this month?” I ask.
“We’re doing The Beatles,” he says. “Haven’t you always wanted to hear an orchestral arrangement of Yellow Submarine?” We laugh our cultured laughter, and Claire laughs to be laughing with us, too loudly.