Miriam Toews - Irma Voth

Are you thinking about Mom? I said.

Yeah, said Aggie.

Well, that was all we said. So much for words. And driving wasn’t the same as skipping. So the bad stuff stayed in our minds and we both stared straight ahead through the dirty windshield. Ximena made odd noises like she was trying hard to fill the void but didn’t yet know exactly how to articulate loss or, like Wilson had said, how to communicate loneliness.

We had Ximena and her sunset beach towel and diapers and bottles and stuff and the woman behind the counter asked us where our bags were and I told her we didn’t have any. Well, we have a bag of oranges, said Aggie. The woman looked at the bag of oranges and frowned and looked at Ximena and frowned more. I told her I wanted to buy three tickets to Vancouver, Canada, or two if my baby could sit on my lap. She said we’d have to fly to Houston first, or Los Angeles, and then to Vancouver. She asked us when we wanted to fly.

Now, I said.

Do you have passports? she said.

We were sitting on the curb in front of the airport. I was nervous, worrying that my father would drive up any second. We had half an hour to kill before our flight to Acapulco. We didn’t have passports. Aggie was eating an orange and leaning way over so the juice didn’t dribble onto her dress. Some of it fell onto the asphalt and a bee spotted it just like that. And then a bunch of them. The baby was awake again and waving her arms around like a shipwreck survivor.

We’ve learned something today, haven’t we? I said.

Is this my new school? said Aggie.

We’ll go to the beach, I said.

We don’t have bathing costumes, said Aggie.

Bathing costumes? I said. They’re not called that.

That’s what they’re called at school, said Aggie.

Are those books from the eighteen hundreds? I said. They’re called bathing suits now.

Bathing suits ? said Aggie. That’s worse.

Men call them trunks, I said.

Trunks? said Aggie. Why?

I guess you can figure that out yourself, I said.

We’ll teach Ximena how to swim, said Aggie. Just throw her in like those hippies.

What hippies? I said.

I don’t know, said Aggie. Hippies. They throw their babies into water right after they’re born.

They don’t throw them into oceans, I said. Here, hold her for a second so I can eat my orange.

A Mennonite family walked past us and we all stared at each other. The father nodded and the kids trailing behind him all dominoed into each other because they were staring so hard and that made us smile.

Aggie, I said, if anyone asks you if you’re Aggie Voth, say no.

I told Aggie we should go inside and wait. I told her to hold Ximena while I went into the washroom to make her a bottle and she said she’d think about fake names for us while she waited. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. Sweat was pouring out of me. It was so sudden. My hands were shaking. I tried to make the bottle but formula was spilling everywhere and I was gasping for air. An older woman came out of a stall and stood next to me washing her hands. We smiled at each other. Está enferma? she said. No, no, estoy, I said. I washed my face with cold water and dried it with toilet paper that stuck to my skin in small chunks like porridge. I took deep breaths and tried again to make Ximena’s bottle and this time I did it without spilling any. I remembered my father using the words confronted by freedom when he described the perverted temptations of the world and then I heard a loud voice reminding those of us flying to Acapulco that it was time to go.

I’m Fiorella, she’s Button and you’re Ham Hock, said Aggie. We were walking to our gate. We’d only be in Acapulco for two hours and forty-five minutes before we had to catch another flight to Mexico City, heaven and hell, according to Diego, but his world was defined by extremes. I was hoping we’d find some little street to live on that straddled eternities. If life was always going to be like this there was no way I’d be able to do it forever.

I’ll skip all the flying stuff (because recounting it exhausts me almost as much as living it did) and keep this story about the things that happened to us on earth. Basically, it was a nightmare with Ximena Molina (Button) Miep. Vomit. Wailing. Flailing. Streams of shit. Screams of anguish. Aggie and I were both covered in puke and a little crazy with mortification. Eventually I gave up trying to comfort Ximena and focused on comforting myself with the knowledge that X., my newest baby sister, even with her unfinished features and ruinous needs, was a very honest person at least. So far. And that I had been given the task of keeping her that way. And so, if she needed to do these unholy things, then so be it. She was an ambassador-at-large, not appointed to any one country, but on a mission to represent babies, and I was her servant and facilitator.

We got off the plane in Acapulco and went outside and got into a taxicab and I asked the driver to take us to a beach. We smelled bad. We looked awful. Ximena had fallen asleep all wrapped up in the towel, soaked in sweat and with a sweet expression on her face that underneath it seemed to say fuck you all, I possess vital intangibles and when I learn to talk the world will know its shame. She was growing on me.

Aggie and I stared out the windows of the cab and tried as best we could to act like this was all just another typical day. The driver asked me if we had bags and I said no, not really, just this plastic farmacia bag with diapers and stuff in it, and he said okay, no bags, and shrugged. He smiled at us through the rear-view mirror the way Wilson used to when he was driving the truck and I was sitting in the back. He asked us in Spanish where we were from and I said Canada. He asked us if we were here in Acapulco for a holiday and I said yes.

Just the two of you? he said.

Three, I said. I pointed at Ximena.

No husband? he said.

Well, yes, I said. There is. But he’s … I’m a widow.

The cab driver said he was sorry. He said he was raised by a single mother and it was always hard for her. She had cried secretly at night. It’s not impossible, though, he said. He told me I’d be all right. It was a different world now, he said.

Which resort are you going to? he asked me.

Oh, I said. It doesn’t matter. Just any one with a beach.

They’re all on the beach, he said. Do you have the name of your hotel? Aggie cleared her throat and Ximena sighed in her sleep. Everybody started honking their horns at once, it seemed, and music was playing in every car and I was sure I smelled salt water, like we were all in some kind of parade.

Can I just tell you something? I said to the driver.

Of course, he said. You can tell me anything. He turned his music down and glanced at me through the rear-view mirror.

I don’t know the name of the hotel, I said. We don’t actually have a hotel. We’re only here for two hours and forty-five minutes and then we have to go back to the airport to catch another plane. I promised my sister I’d take her to a beach. She’s never been to one before.

The cab driver said he’d take us to a quiet beach that real people from Acapulco went to and we could eat fish tacos and drink mango juice and splash in the waves and lie in the sun to dry off and then he’d take us back to the airport, no charge. He was feeling generous, he said, and that he could use some time off because he’d been working for something like eighteen hours straight and he couldn’t feel his ass.

Okay, I said. That sounds like a good idea. Gracias .

For real? said Aggie. I hadn’t seen her smile like that in ages.