Mitch stood up, not sure what to do now. From the back of the apartment, Martine was yelling about cold air coming in and she came down the hall to investigate, smelling of perfume and cigarettes, her hair in a bun at the base of her neck. When she saw Mitch, she stopped short.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you were the pizza man. That was probably confusing for Mathieu.” It was impossible to miss the tone of reproach.
“I apologize,” Mitch said. “I didn’t know you had a son.” He wondered where the child had been the other night.
She looked at him blankly, her hands twisting in whatever task she’d just been performing — folding clothes, maybe, or washing dishes. Her glasses were slipping down her nose.
“I brought you some dinner,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I guess you have pizza coming, but … well, I brought a roasted lamb shank, new potatoes, and salad. And a bottle of wine.” He gestured at the cooler at his feet. “I thought, it’s Friday night, and you might not feel like cooking … ”
It seemed she wasn’t going to say anything. No wonder her kid didn’t talk. She was even biting her lip just as he had.
From some back corner of the apartment came an unholy shriek and the angry tumble of furniture falling over. Martine turned and ran back down the hall, and after a moment he could hear her murmuring and her son’s outbursts calming, finally quieting, like waves diminishing as they lapped against the shore.
He stood in the hallway, winter’s cold hands grabbing his back, feeling like more of a jackass than he had in his entire life. After a few minutes he wrote his phone number on a piece of paper, wedged it under the lid of the cooler, and called out, “Well, I’ll be going now. Good-bye!”
There was no answer.
When he woke up, in Iqaluit, he called home, but there was no answer. It was Saturday, and Martine was probably out with Mathieu at the zoo or the museum. She had a mania for activities. She wanted Mathieu to be well rounded and hoped that if she constantly exposed him to a variety of events he might pick up something new instead of remaining the lightly autistic, science-obsessed boy he was. No advice on this matter would be tolerated. He left a message, and went to find the clinic. It was cool and windy, the sky a range of grays from charcoal to steel to pearl. But it was also summer, and on the hard-scrabble soil were the miniature blooms of dwarf daisies and Arctic poppies, with light-green lichen spreading delicately over the rocks. He felt the gorgeous pleasure of being away. No matter what happened here, for good or bad, it wasn’t home, and there was a luxurious freedom in that.
At the clinic, after introducing himself to the nurse on duty, he was shown to his desk and given a roster of appointments that began immediately. People had been backed up for weeks while they waited for his rotation to start — the last person, apparently, had had some kind of meltdown and returned to Toronto with a full month on the clock — and they were scheduled thickly, one every twenty minutes. In the nurse’s brief description of this last counselor, Mitch heard a clear contempt for fragile southerners, but as she spoke he only nodded, feeling confident and ready to get to work and prove himself. He knew from experience that at least half of these patients wouldn’t show up. They’d forget, or change their minds, or had never intended to come in the first place; they’d gone along with the idea to be polite, because a judge or doctor had recommended it, but that didn’t mean they truly consented. They just didn’t want to be rude and say no.
So he had some free time. He looked out his office window at the parking lot, where a few birds were pecking at trash that had spilled from a garbage can’s overflow, and at something that looked suspiciously like a pool of vomit. Behind him there was a knock, and he turned around to see a young man, seventeen or so, standing in the doorway. He was very skinny, with dark eyes, floppy black hair, and lips so dark they looked painted. His red windbreaker was streaked with dirt.
“Hey,” Mitch said. “Can I help you?”
The kid licked his chapped lips. “They sent me here,” he said.
“Who sent you?”
“The people down the hall,” the kid said.
“Which people?”
The boy’s answer to this was an inconclusive shrug. Mitch gestured toward a chair and asked what his name was.
“Thomasie.”
The boy sat down. With his round face and high cheekbones he was handsome, the hair falling over his eyes giving him a movie-idol look.
“Thomasie what?”
“Reeves. That was my dad’s name. He’s down in Sarnia. That’s where he’s at.”
“And your mom?”
“Yeah,” the kid said, giving him a weird, furtive look.
While they were talking, Mitch flipped through his files and his calendar, but there was nothing under “Reeves.” The boy sat opposite him, balancing his elbows on his knees, his expression either hooded or blank. Glancing out the window at the parking lot, he began gnawing on a fingernail, pulling it off gently, bit by bit, then examining it and flicking it to the floor.
“So tell me what brings you here,” Mitch said.
Thomasie smiled without humor or gratitude; he seemed shrunk beneath the protective hull of his jacket. Mitch had the feeling he was being judged, that if he said the wrong thing the kid might jump up and sprint out of there. So he waited. The silence between them grew thick, and neither appeared willing to break it.
Thomasie shook a cigarette out of a pack in his pocket, tapped it against the palm of his hand, stuck it behind his ear, then cleared his throat. When he finally looked at Mitch, his expression was strangely sincere and earnest, guileless. “You’re new,” he said.
“That’s right. I just got here. Although I was here once before.”
Thomasie nodded. “Yeah, my dad remembered you from when you were here before. He played in the basketball thing you did. We don’t have basketball right now. We got a guy doing like an adventure club or something? But mostly kids stay home and play video games.”
Another silence. Mitch tried to remember a kid named Reeves, but he hadn’t known most of their last names — they were a mass of adolescent energy and short attention spans, and he’d spent each session trying to incite enough enthusiasm that they’d care about the game but not so much they’d get into fights. He was dismayed to realize, now, that he probably didn’t remember many first names, either.
“So what can I do for you?” he finally said.
Thomasie smiled again, and the bland, empty secrecy of those smiles was starting to get on Mitch’s nerves. He rubbed his temples, telling himself to be patient. He was feeling last night’s whiskey a bit.
“Everybody around here knows about it,” the kid said. “I thought maybe you did too.”
He paused expectantly, but Mitch had no file and hadn’t been following the news from up here. He shook his head slightly, and Thomasie looked down at the floor. Clearly he’d hoped to be spared having to tell the whole story.
“My mom, she’s in the hospital,” he said. “Been there a while now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mitch said. When the kid didn’t go on, he added, “What happened?”
“She was out partying one night and she was walking home from her friend’s house with my little sister. Anyway, there was a storm, and she didn’t make it home.”