Miriam Toews - All My Puny Sorrows

I heard the trumpets sound the end of my mom’s game with Mankiller and the slap of her laptop computer closing. Then she was there, standing in the doorway. How are you, sweetheart? she asked. What have you been up to? Having unprotected sex with your mechanic and researching ways to kill your daughter. Not much, I said, got the stuff from the car. Doing some work.

My mother talked to me about Canadian mines in Honduras, the travesty of it all, her rage against the world having found this particular nook to make itself at home in tonight. Tomorrow it would be something else, Muslim gardeners from Oshawa being held without trial in Guantanamo and languishing in solitary confinement, or any situation that was either randomly awful or awful but entirely outside the ability of an ordinary mortal to stop it from happening. The mines are destroying these villages, she said. Destroying these communities. And stripping the land of all its resources. Prime Minister Harper condones it and the wealthy owners of the mines just fly over from time to time in their helicopters laughing. I know, I said, it’s unbelievable. It’s horrible.

It is! she said. Our tax dollars are being spent on a sanctioned and systematic destruction of the Honduran people and nobody—

I know, I said. It’s really … it’s so awful. I could feel my right eyelid twitching. I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. I ran through the symptoms of depression I’d read on a sign attached to the back of a city bus, part of some campaign to educate the public on mental illness. A sense of unreality, I thought. Yes.

Sorry, honey, you’re tired, I know.

You are too, aren’t you?

I guess I am.

I picked up the book lying next to me on the bed and flipped through it. Hey, listen to this, I said. Have you heard of this Portuguese guy called Fernando Pessoa?

Is he with the Jays?

No, he’s a poet, this is his book, but he’s dead now. He killed himself.

Oh brother, she said. Who hasn’t.

But listen to this: “In the plausible intimacy of approaching evening, as I stand waiting for the stars to begin at the window of this fourth floor room that looks out on the infinite, my dreams move to the rhythm required by long journeys to countries as yet unknown, or to countries that are simply hypothetical or impossible.”

My mother said yup, that’s about the long and short of it, isn’t it?

She changed the subject. She told me that Elf’s smile was like my father’s. It’s so surprising. I forget about it sometimes and then whoah!

I know, I said. She has an amazing smile.

Yoli, said my mother.

Yeah? I answered. I put my arms around her. She was sobbing, suddenly, shaking. A keening wail I’d never heard from her before. I held her as tightly as I could and kissed her soft, white hair.

She’s a human being, my mother whispered.

We held our embrace in the doorway for a long time. I agreed with her. I said yes. Finally my mother was able to catch her breath and speak. She couldn’t bear to see Elf in the psych ward. That prison, she said. They do nothing. If she doesn’t take the pills they won’t talk to her. They wait and they badger and they badger and they wait and they badger. She began to cry again, this time quietly. She’s a human being, she said again. Oh, Elfrieda, my Elfrieda.

We walked to the couch and sat down. I held her hand and struggled to come up with words of consolation. I got up and told her I was going to make us each a cup of tea. When it was finished brewing I brought two cups of camomile tea to the living room. My mom was lying on the couch with a whodunit on her chest. Mom, I whispered, you should sleep now. The hospital again bright and early tomorrow. Isn’t Auntie Tina being released? My mother opened her eyes.

It’s called discharged. Yeah, she is.

I’d rather be released than discharged, I said.

True, she said, it sounds more agreeable.

I went to bed and lay there awake and thinking. I returned Nora’s text about the lawyer: He’s my friend. His name is Finbar. Just checking up on you. I’m not JW . I returned the text from my ex-husband: Yeah, I can sign them tomorrow sometime when I’m not at the hospital. Your timing, man . Then I texted Nora again: And keep crumbs off the counters . I texted Will: If the Swede wants to spend the night, fine. The heart wants what the heart wants . He texted back: Are you drunk? Eventually I heard the shower begin to spray water all over the bathroom, a shower curtain I said to myself, a shower curtain, get one, and I drifted off.

That night I had a dream that I was in a small village called Tough and I was somehow responsible for writing the soundtrack to the town. I was summoned to the home of an older couple who lived in Tough and they sat me down at their old Heintzman piano and said well, get started. I told them no, this shouldn’t be me, this should be my sister. They patted my back and smiled. They brought me a jug of ice water and a glass. Hay bales surrounded the town and they were supposed to be some kind of wall or barrier. They were supposed to keep the citizens of Tough safe. When I said but they’re only hay bales, the older couple, kind people who shuffled around their house purposefully, told me not to worry about it but just to focus on the score. I asked them where we were, in which country, and they pointed at the piano and reminded me of my task. There was no time for small talk.

Early, early in the morning Nic called me and asked if I could drive him to the airport and then just take his car back to my mom’s for her to use. Normally he’d take the bus he said, but he was running late and still not even sure he should go and if I didn’t come to take him he’d probably just go back to bed with a bag of weed and cry himself to sleep.

I picked him up and he told me that the driver’s door wasn’t working properly and had to remain closed all the time. To get into the driver’s seat you had to slide over from the passenger side, over the gearshift and all that jazz. I told Nic I’d have it fixed because I didn’t think my mom would be able to do all that manoeuvring every time. On the way to the airport he rubbed his face and asked himself out loud what he was doing. He put his leg up on the dash and rested his elbow on his knee and his head on his hand and closed his eyes.

You’ll have fun, I said. It’ll be good to see your dad. Are you meeting him in Montreal?

I won’t have fun, he said. But it’ll be a break. No, I’m meeting him in Madrid. I wish I was going with Elf.

Exactly, I said. You need a break. You’ll check e-mail, right?

Every moment, so if there’s any change …

Yeah, I’ll let you know, don’t worry. What did the nurse say yesterday?

Not much, just that Elf would be there for a while. We were silent, driving, staring.

You know, I said, does she ever talk to you about Switzerland?

What do you mean? he said. No, I don’t think so. Why?

Just that she’d like to go or anything like that?

No, he said. Never. She wants to go to Paris.

You mean like live there with you? I asked.

I could get work there, he said. And we both speak French …

I said that would be amazing. So she talks about that? About wanting to go when she’s better?

Often, said Nic. I mean, I don’t know when it’ll happen, but we like to think about it. She just has to get through this thing. She has to get the right meds. It can take months to determine the correct dosage and combination.

Or years, I said. And providing she’s even willing to take them.

Which usually she isn’t, he said.

Which usually she isn’t, I agreed.

He took a book out of his bag and wrote something on one of the pages.