Miriam Toews - A Boy of Good Breeding

“No. No, I can’t,” said Hosea.

“Who could?” muttered Jeannie, still staring at the ground and shaking her head. Hosea was about to say Well, can’t be easy or something like that and go inside but Jeannie wasn’t finished. “They were going to rush her to the city, but, you know, they didn’t. No time.”

“Ah,” said Hosea. “Well.”

“So Veronica says seeing as how she went to so much work to have these three babies, she should at least be able to name one of them. Makes sense to me, right, but you know Gord her husband always does the naming, he’s that kind of a guy. And he likes names like Ed and Chuck and Dirk and Todd, you know, names that sound like farts. So Gord says, Well, maybe one of them. I heard all this from Rita, you know Rita from the labour pool, she works with Dory, Tom’s wife?”

“Hmmmm,” said Hosea.

“So he says, Well, maybe one of them, right? And she says, Then again, maybe I should name them all, seeing as I’m the one who says their names the most, like all day every day and I like to say names I like, if I’m going to say them over and over again, she says to Gord, right, according to Rita. And Gord says, No way, you can name one, the one with the slow start because he’ll probably turn out to be a mama’s boy, anyway. Okay, so this makes Veronica really mad, right, and she says What do you mean by that? And he says Well, you know, kids with lung problems, wheezing and clinging and skinny, the slow starter had some lung problems, the doctor says. But that’s all taken care of, she says, and she’s really mad, right, and tells Gord to leave the hospital.”

“Right,” said Hosea.

“In the meantime, she names all three of the boys, fills out the forms for vital stats and gives them to the nurse to mail to the city and get this, Hosea, their names are … are you ready?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Hosea.

“Their names are, now let’s see if I remember, their names are Finbar, you know after that saint of lost souls or whatever he is, Callemachus, after I don’t know who, somebody Greek, and Indigo. Like the colour, you know, of jeans?”

Hosea was quiet for a moment. Jeannie was staring at him with her mouth open in one of those frozen poses of suspended laughter and shock where the one suspended waits for the other to twig and then they both collapse in hysterics. Hosea didn’t understand this type of gesture, however, and said, “Um, is there more?” His hand moved to his chest and he managed to tug at his jacket with his Thinsulate gloves.

“No, Hosea, that’s it. I thought it was funny. You know, Gord will freak when he hears their names, of course he’ll probably illegally rename them or something or refuse to call them by name at all, but Rita told me—”

“Wait,” said Hosea. “It is, you know? Now that I think of it, it’s very funny. Very funny.” Hosea tried to laugh. “Ih, ih. Boy, thanks for telling me, Jeannie, that’s rich, Finbar, Callesomething, and, uh … well, good-bye.”

“Say,” said Jeannie, “hold on, where’d you get that hat? Isn’t that whatsisname’s, the—”

Hosea let the door slam behind him.

Hosea hung up his jacket and laid his gloves and Leander’s old hat on the bench in the hallway. He heard the fridge heave and shudder. The kitchen lights flickered for a second while the fridge sucked every available bit of energy in the house. Hosea looked inside his fridge. Half an onion, dry and curled at the edges, a tub of expired sour cream, and the leftovers of the last meal he had shared with Lorna. There’s something wrong with my fridge, he thought. All this energy for a rotting onion and love’s leftovers. The phone rang. Lorna, thought Hosea. He picked up the phone and said hello.

“Jeannie here,” said Jeannie. “One more thing. Apparently the Epps aren’t thrilled with Dr. François. They say Veronica should have been transferred to the city and they’re just lucky all three boys survived. So, are you there?”

“Yes,” said Hosea.

“So anyway, Rita told me they might sue and Dr. François is getting riled by the whole thing, because the point is, of course, that the boys are all okay. He says even if he had transferred her, the problems she was having would have occurred in the city, too, and the procedure would have been exactly the same. So … anyway.”

“Okay, then, thanks,” said Hosea.

“Hey, by the way,” said Jeannie, “when do you find out about Baert’s visit? Is he coming?”

“Yes,” said Hosea, giving his middle finger to the receiver. “Well, maybe. I don’t know at this point. Good-bye.” And he hung up the phone. Well, he thought to himself. Hmmm … if Dr. François is getting riled he just might leave Algren. He’s always hated it here, after all. That would be one less, let’s see, that might work … and Hosea went through the numbers dance in his head. But how could the hospital function without a doctor? Well maybe it could, just until after the Prime Minister’s visit, thought Hosea. Obviously he had work to do. Tomorrow he would have to drive out to Johnny Dranger’s farm and tell him he was outside the town limits, again. He would call Lorna and beg her to forgive him for his stupid remarks and maybe he could even explain what it was he was trying to do. That he had a good reason for not asking her to move in with him, and that very soon, in the fall, after the Prime Minister’s visit, it would all be different. And he’d have to ask Knute to do something about that black dog. And check into renovating that old feed mill, and painting the water tower. And he’d have to ask her if she’d heard from Max. Fair enough. He could relax. He poured himself a glass of wine and put on his new Emmylou Harris tape. He sat down on the couch and looked around his house. He looked at his tapered fingers and then touched the faint scar tissue on his right palm, but this time he didn’t feel a thing. No tingling, no pain. He rubbed it harder and felt a small ping. Good. Hosea raised his glass and thought, To the babies, Indigo and whatever their names are. And he had a sip of the wine. He remembered his exercise bike, hidden behind the furnace. What was it that mattered most in a man’s life? He just didn’t know. And he didn’t know how to find out and he didn’t know if ever he did find out he would know what it was he was finding out. Hosea had another sip of wine from his glass. Now his hand was on his forehead. Okay, Hosea, he thought, time to pull your wagons in a circle, time to cut bait, time to, whatever, something, for Christ’s sake, the tears were streaming down his face now as Emmylou’s voice, pure and high, settled in around him, sweet as mother’s milk.

The TV in Tom and Dory’s room droned on, accompanying Tom and Dory’s prodigious snoring routine. Summer Feelin’ creaked in her bed and sighed, dreaming of who knew what, and the moon outside was portentous. Knute opened her window for the first time that spring. The screens were still stored for the winter so she could stick her head right out into the darkness. Everything was wet and shiny. The snow fell like chunks of warm cake. She lay down on her narrow bed and fell asleep.

“Hey,” Max whispered, “hey, Knute? Knutie? Are you there? It’s me.”

He had his head in her room, sticking through the open window like a bear trying to get his face into somebody’s tent. But Knute couldn’t see him in the dark, she could only hear him. Then she felt his hand kind of batting at her blanket down around her feet and he was saying quietly, “Oh God, I hope it’s you, Knutie, and not Tom. Knute. Knute. I am an asshole, I know it. Talk to me, please? Knutie, my ribs are breaking on this windowsill, say something to me. C’mon, Knutie, just say hello or something, or fuck off, Max, whatever you feel like. C’mon, Knutie. My ass is getting soaked out here, you know it’s raining, Knute? Spring is here. I’m here. What are you, dead? Talk to me …”