Ann-Marie MacDonald - Adult Onset

“He’s fine, Mum, he’s alive, he’s busy.”

She follows Maggie into the kitchen — the child needs a diaper change. The mid-morning sun intensifies, flooding the kitchen with light. Soon the windows will be framed with ivy and it will be like looking through an enchantment … maybe they should skip the morning nap and go to the park.

Dolly speaks in a stage whisper, suddenly coy. “Do you think he and Shereen will have a baby?”

“I hope not.”

“Why not? He’s the last of the MacKinnon line.”

What are we, kings? “Mum, there’s loads of MacKinnons in the world.”

Her mother is a Mahmoud, an ethnic Arab —not Arab, Lebanese! — and yet the self-appointed keeper of the MacKinnon clan. Like the Jews in Hollywood who made White Christmas . Like the gays who made … everything else.

“He’s the last of your father’s line”—adamant now, a warning in Dolly’s tone.

“Maybe they will, Mum.” It is nothing against her brother’s fiancée, there’s nothing wrong with Shereen — which is actually the only thing wrong with her.

Dolly is coy again. “Maybe they’ll have a boy.”

It is that Andy-Patrick already has two children: grown daughters from his first marriage who, though beloved, do not count in Dolly’s eyes when it comes to “your father’s line,” any more than Mary Rose and her sister did — although it has never seemed to bug Mo; she married a nice Pole, took his name and became safely fenced round with zs and vs . “Maybe they will, Mum.” Maybe the much younger Shereen will demand fifty-fifty on the domestic front. “It could be wonderful for him.”

Dolly is suddenly solemn. “I wasn’t good at having babies.”

Here we go … “Yes you were, Mum, you were great.”

“How old were you when your brother was born?”

“Five.”

“Were you that old in Germany?”

“What? No, I was going on four when we moved back to Canada—”

“I mean Alexander-Who-Died.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mum, one or two, I guess. Three?”

“Was that before or after my mother died?”

“I wouldn’t know, Mum. Maybe Dad can—”

“Do you remember what you said when I was pregnant with Andy-Patrick and I told you we were going to call him Alexander if it was a boy—”

“Yes, Mum, I remember.”

“You were just five years old and you said”—Dolly imitates Mary Rose’s toddler voice—“ ‘Don’t call him Alexander, if you call him Alexander you’ll have to put him in de gwound!’ ” Dolly laughs.

Mary Rose wonders if she really sounded that much like Tweety Bird but asks, “Mum, what’s in the package?” Maybe she can get her mother off one loop by nudging her onto another.

“I’ve sent you a packeege.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“You told me.”

“Did you get it yet?”

She winces. When did her mother start using such execrable grammar? “No, I have not yet received it. When did you mail it?”

“Right before Christmas, wait now, right after Christmas, right before we saw you right after Christmas.”

“Before your after-Christmas visit here after Christmas?”

“That’s right, Sadie, Flo, Mo—”

“That’s almost three months ago, mum.”

“It is? Well what in the name of time is going on, dammit?”

“It’s okay, Mum, it’ll turn up.”

“Turnip? You cooking turnip? I love turnip!”

“TURN UP. THE PACKAGE. IT WILL TURN UP.”

“You don’t have to shout.”

“Sorry, Mum, I better go, Maggie needs her nap.”

“She still has a nap in the morning?”

Sigh .

“Where’s Hilary?”

“She’s in—”

“What’s she doing in Winnipeg?”

“ The Importance of —”

“We’re coming on the seventh.”

“Oh okay, what time?” Mary Rose opens the telephone drawer in search of a pen.

“At seven.”

“At seven on the seventh? Seven in the morning?” No pen. Broken pencil—

“Eleven.”

“At eleven on the seventh?” That will be easy to remember.

“Did I say that?”

“I … don’t know, Mum, did you?” Where are all the pens? “What day of the week is that?”

“You’ve got me all confused now. Where’s the calendar I gave you?”

“Sorry, Mum, is Dad there, do you want to put him on and—” She excavates the calendar from the corkboard where it’s been pinned since her parents’ visit in January.

“Wait’ll I get my purse—”

“No! Mum, don’t get your purse, it’s okay, call me when you know when—”

“Call someone in to help you with the kids, you’ve earned it, dear.”

“Mum, I have Candace.”

“Get her full time!”

“I don’t need help.”

“Live a little, Mary Rose!”

Whenever her mother does say her name right off, Mary Rose sees quotation marks around it, as if Dolly were saying a line from a play.

“Thanks, Mum.”

She hangs up and looks at the calendar pinned to the corkboard — an island of clutter in her otherwise streamlined kitchen. It features a series of watercolour flowers painted by an artist who is limited to the use of his foot. There is nothing to say about the pictures except that they are foot-painted. A caption in the bottom left-hand corner thanks her for supporting the Catholic Women’s League. Are her parents coming on the seventh at eleven? Or on the eleventh at seven? Mo will know.

She eyes the dead chicken on the counter, suddenly out of love with it. “The thrill is gone,” she says, avoiding the wing, picking it up from underneath so it rests in her hand — disquieting in another way, resembling as it does a baby. Maybe she ought to take another stab at being vegetarian. She drops it into a zip-lock bag, and a penny drops too — the Fort Garry Hotel is in Winnipeg, not Calgary. It was in Winnipeg that she bought the knives that will stay sharp longer than you will! Prairies versus mountains. Vertigo versus claustrophobia …

She bends to the freezer drawer and tucks the chicken between a package of organic frozen peas and an ice cube tray of puréed sweet potato. She admires once again her icemaker bin full of freshly laid cubes, and congratulates herself on not having colonized it for food the way some people do. How can they live like that? There is a mysterious object toward the back; she reaches for it, then steps away — investigate one frost-bearded lump in your freezer and before you know it you’re cleaning the whole fridge. She has a list of things to do today and “clean fridge” is not on it. Is her brother really thinking of starting a second family with Shereen? It isn’t that she does not wish happiness for him — if he wants another baby at his stage of advanced boyhood, then good luck to him, it’s just … it is annoying to hear her mother flaunting an old-world pride in her son’s reproductive prowess. And Shereen is not good enough for her brother. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself .

She closes the freezer and registers a fresh twinge at the dents in its drawer front. The fridge was the stainless steel jewel in the crown of their kitchen renovation, and she has allowed Hilary to believe that Maggie made the dents with her doll stroller. She would spend the money to replace it if she didn’t know how logistically challenging it will be to orchestrate the necessary service call.

“Maggie, no, poo stays in your diaper!” Summoning her core strength, Mary Rose grips her daughter and carries her at arms’ length up the stairs like hazardous waste.

She does not usually damage things anymore, the fridge was an anomaly. At worst she might punch her own head or slam it into a wall. Back in the day, before she got together with Hil, she used to go into the kitchen, open the drawer, take hold of the biggest knife by the blade and squeeze it just shy of the point where her skin would break. But she never crossed the line into pathology — out-and-out “cutting.” And there is no chance of any knife tricks for her these days, she is far more self-aware. Besides, she would not dream of keeping her good knives in a drawer.