The guy had actually thrown them out of the car at her. Why? Did he think it was the right thing to do? Was it some crazy notion of his of respecting her last wishes? He hadn’t been thinking of the right thing to do when he slammed his gun over my mom’s head and threw her in the ditch to die. Why did he give her the files? The files of all those women trying to escape their lives, trying to find something better, trying to find happiness. ’Course they wouldn’t have all the details, like whether or not they played in squares of sunlight on their walls, if they wore spiders on their hats, if they ate hamburger every other day, if they had ever made love in a yellow canola field tenderly or passionately or awkwardly. If they preferred dresses or pants, if they shaved their legs or didn’t, or if they preferred red peppers to green. Stuff was happening. Even in Half-a-Life. Little things, but it all added up to something big. To our lives. It was happening all along. These were our lives. This was it. My mom was hanging on to the lives, the recorded lives, of these women. We might escape, but what if we didn’t? What if we lived in Half-a-Life all our lives, poor, lonely, proud, happy? If we did, we did. These were our lives. If we couldn’t escape them, we’d have to live them.
When my mom died I wanted to know every detail of her life. When did she have her first perm? Had she suffered from post-partum depression? Did she have a lot of friends when she was a little kid? Why did she want to be a therapist? Didn’t she sometimes just hate her clients? Was she in love with my dad? Had she ever had an affair? With a woman? Did she enjoy sex? Did she have any recurring nightmares? How did she get that scar on the back of her leg? Who could tell me? Why hadn’t I found out all these things when I’d had the chance? And suddenly it occurred to me that Dill and Lish’s kids and all the kids of Half-a-Life might want to know the details of our lives, too, right down to the last squalid detail.
Sometimes you can keep someone almost alive, still alive, by remembering the details, by always remembering. I could hear the girls laughing at each other as they squatted by the side of the road, peeing. Lish was giving them instructions. Dill was still sleeping. Good ol’ Dill. He had no idea who my mom was, who his dad was, who the twins’ dad was, where we were going, when we’d be back. All he knew was that he was with me right now and right here. I thought of my dad, scared stiff in the car while my mom sped around enjoying herself, unafraid. Sometimes the memory of the living hurts worse than the memory of the dead.
It came to me suddenly that while I was spending so much time remembering my dead mother, I was forgetting to remember my father, who was alive. My mother may have been what I needed, but my father was what I had.
“Lish,” I called over to where the others were. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“What?” Cars were swooshing past us, their occupants staring at us curiously. A VW van drove past us slowly and two guys in it gave us a peace sign and honked their horn. Lish and I rolled our eyes at each other.
“At the border. I have to make a call.”
“Who’re you calling?”
“My dad.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Okey doke.”
We were still kind of hollering at each other because of the wind and the cars and everything. The girls were just finishing up. Letitia was crying a bit because she’d peed on her dress, her favourite dress. Alba, in her bossiest voice, was telling her, “Well, you should have spread your legs farther apart and lifted your dress high, right Mom? Right Mom? RIGHT MOM? MOM,MOM,LETITIA SHOULD HAVE SPREAD HER—”
“YES ALBA! She should have. Drop it already. She’s already forgotten about it. Good grief. Lucy, Lucy, I’m sorry this has all gotten so … GET IN THE VAN,” she yelled, “YOU’LL FALL IN THAT DITCH LEAVE THAT GARBAGE ALONE. Geez Hope, Maya, haul Alba and Letitia into the van,” Lish said.
“Ugh, she’s covered in pee, I’m not touching her,” said Hope.
“ALBE HELP YOUR SISTER RIGHT NOW FOR GOD’S SAKE HER DRESS IS ALREADY DRY.”
“I always have to do everything, why can’t Maya …”
“Oh no, Dill’s awake now, Luce,” said Lish. “He looks pissed off. Maybe you should nurse him here. It’s okay, Dilly, your mama’s coming. Can you guys entertain Dill for a sec? Luce, I’m sorry this has all got so, you know, emotional.” She quieted down a bit as we got closer to each other. Lish dragged out the word emotional to make it sound ironic and comical. She knew it was one of those words that didn’t mean a hell of a lot and sounds cold when you just say it. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m just fine. But now I’m leaking all over the place. My right breast feels like it’s going to explode. I better nurse him.”
“Well, so far in one short stop we’ve got you crying and leaking milk, we’ve got the girls peeing on themselves, we’ve got some more rain coming right now, we’ve got fresh honey, we’ve got Dill screaming, we’ve got the girls bickering, I could use another cold root beer, or better a shot of tequila, and hey hey hey we’ve been on the road for all of ninety minutes. Isn’t travel relaxing? I told you we needed a holiday.”
“Okay. Well let’s just drive to the border and then we’ll give the kids a chance to run around for a bit and I’ll nurse Dill and call my dad and you can just sit … and like that.”
“Think he’ll be home?”
“My dad?”
“Yeah.”
“Definitely.”
“Lucy?”
“What.”
“I’m, you know, sorry about your mom. ALBA,” she said over her shoulder, “STOP TALKING ABOUT THE DRESS.”
“I know. Thanks.”
We both took big cartoon breaths with our mouths clamped shut, and looked at each other for a second or two. Then I said urgently, “Lish, watch what you’re doing or we’ll hit the ditch. I can’t swim.”
“Right.”
twelve
In the fifteen minutes it took us to reach the border Letitia had removed her dress and panties and shoes and sat stoically, completely naked, in the back of the van. Alba was waving Letitia’s panties out of the window, threatening to show them to passersby. Letitia refused even to look at her, let alone take the bait and lunge for her panties. Hope and Maya were arguing about how many planets there are, nine or ten or thirteen or twenty-three, and Dill was back in his car seat chewing on an uncapped Crayola marker. A glorious fuchsia dye stained his lips, his teeth, his tongue, his cheeks, his hands, and his saliva, mixed with breast milk, was drooling out of the side of his mouth in fuchsia.
The guy at the border pointed at Dill behind us and said, “I think the baby has a problem.” As Lish had insisted, she did the talking. I think the border guys were a little confused, not sure exactly what to do with us, but it gave me time to wander off to a pay phone. Lish started filling out some forms and I took Dill with me to the phone. The girls romped around in the patch of grass behind the Customs building.
I dialed and listened to a few rings. The answering machine came on. My dad’s voice sounded far away and serious, very professionaclass="underline" “I’m sorry I am unable to answer the phone at this time. Please leave a message with your name and number and I will call you as soon as I am able. Thank you.”
“Uh. Dad. Dad? It’s Luce. I’m calling you from the—”
“Lucy?” My dad had picked up the phone.
“Hey Dad. Screening your calls?”
“I’m just trying to avoid Mrs. Sawatsky. Do you remember her, from down the street?”
“Yeah. So what, do you owe her money or something?”