‘Serve up the grub,’ Drew says. As usual, Vaughn overloads our plates.
‘Are you leaving?’ I ask. He finishes serving then gives me the tree-frog stare.
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m not doing anything here.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Sherwood Forest.’
‘You’re going to be Robin Hood?’
‘I’m going to save some trees.’
‘I can’t believe you’re still doing that.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’re going to die anyway. Everything’s going to die.’
‘We don’t know exactly when, though, do we? Might as well do what we can while we can, don’t you think?’
‘It’s pointless.’
‘Who says there has to be a point?’
‘That’s a point,’ Drew says. ‘Who says there has to be a point?’
I dig around in the pasta. I don’t need him anyway, don’t need anybody. All they do is let you down, over and over and over again. Or die.
‘The thing is,’ Drew says with tomato sauce on her chin, ‘he wants you to go with him.’
I stare at them, trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t.
‘You need to get away from here, Lemon,’ she says. ‘You need to see something different.’
‘I can’t leave you,’ I blurt, stunning even myself. Since when do I care?
‘I’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘I’m going to work in the garden this summer, tend my veggies, and go back to school in the fall. I have to get back to work, earn some cash. I’m looking for a smaller school.’
She’s moving on, they’re both moving on while I just want to sit on benches between them. I didn’t even know I wanted this.
You never know what you want until you can’t have it anymore.
‘I’m not a tree sitter,’ I say.
‘Who says you have to be a tree sitter?’
‘Isn’t that what you’ll be doing?’
‘Nope. There’s plenty of work on terra firma. You can get people to sign petitions, can’t you?’
‘I’m buying you an open ticket,’ she says. ‘So you can always come back.’
‘You might not want to come back,’ he says. ‘Youmight meet an English lord and find romance.’
‘Vaughn’s got rich relatives over there with spare rooms.’
‘They go to the south of France in the summer. Leave me the dogs.’ He keeps eating like we’re discussing a spin to Buffalo. ‘Makes a good base camp.’
‘I’ll give you some cash,’ she says. ‘But Vaughn’s the king of thrift. He can live off twenty bucks a week. He’s been a world traveller since he was twelve.’
I pull up weeds as instructed. At least I hope they’re weeds. ‘How did you recover from your friend dying?’
‘Who says I’ve recovered?’ He’s digging another bed for Drew.
‘You seem to have accepted it and all that,’ I say. ‘You’re supposed to accept it and move on.’
‘Who says?’
‘I don’t know. Everybody. The stages of grief.’
‘It’s in stages?’
‘You start with denial and anger and all that, then move to acceptance.’
‘Well, I can’t deny he’s dead, have to accept that.’
‘Are you still angry?’
‘Of course.’ He jabs at more turf. ‘But I don’t think he’d want me sitting around with my thumb up my ass.’
‘Would he want you to sit in trees?’
‘Doubt it. Even said he was getting too old for it. It was supposed to be his last sit.’
Out she bustles in her straw gardening hat offering popsicles.
She has an interview tomorrow. She’s going alone in her car. We wanted to go with her but we’re getting on a plane.
‘I’m worried about you,’ I say.
‘Don’t worry about me.’
‘Worry about me,’ Vaughn says.
‘We never worry about you,’ Drew says.
Beside us a sagging woman announces that she has lost eighty pounds and asks her scrawny companion’s advice regarding what hats to wear now that her face is thinner. ‘I like that sixties look,’ she says. ‘You know those little peaked hats? Those are cute. Would I look good in one of them?’
Vaughn holds both our hands. ‘Time to go or you’ll be late for your interview.’
‘Yes.’ She stands, unfamiliar in her still loosely fitting principal clothes. Gone are the pink polka dots and the straw gardening hat. ‘Take care of each other,’ she says, hugging him and then me. She feels thin but alive, an animal strengthened by her injury. I don’t let her go because I’m afraid she’ll disappear, or die on me. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she whispers in my ear. She pulls away without asking me to promise to write. She digs in her purse for her car keys and I can tell this is hard for her, that pushing us away is another act of courage.
‘You’re allowed to cry,’ he tells her.
‘Oh, stop it,’ she says. ‘I’m gone.’ And she is, sharply in her pumps, soon to be swallowed by the crowds and sliding doors. It is only when she is out of sight that I realize she is my mother.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cordelia Strube is an accomplished playwright and the author of seven novels. Her first novel, Alex and Zee, was shortlisted for the W. H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and Teaching Pigs to Sing was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and a recipient of a Toronto Arts Protégé Award. Her novels Blind Night, The Barking Dog and Planet Reese were shortlisted for the Relit Award. Her play Mortal won the CBC Literary Competition and was nominated for the Prix Italia. She lives with her family in Toronto, where she teaches at Ryerson University.
ALSO BY CORDELIA STRUBE
NOVELS
Alex and Zee
Milton’s Elements
Teaching Pigs to Sing
Dr. Kalbfleish & the Chicken Restaurant
The Barking Dog
Blind Night
Planet Reese
STAGE AND RADIO PLAYS
Fine
Mortal
Shape
Scar Tissue
Attached
Caught in the Intersection
Marshmallow
Mid-Air
Absconder
On the Beach
Past Due
Edited and designed by Alana Wilcox
Cover art and design by Jason Logan and Una Janicijevic
Author photo by Peter Bregg
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