Ann-Marie MacDonald - Adult Onset

“Who’s Amber?”

“The marriage counsellor — Mary Lou and I saw her together, then I kept going for my own, you know, issues.”

“Wow, Andy-Pat. Good. Really good.”

Her brother has actually had psychotherapy. The RCMP will have paid for it, of course, courtesy of the Government of Canada … which bugs her a bit, her commitment to social democracy notwithstanding, because if she needed psychotherapy, she would have to pay for it herself. It wouldn’t even be tax-deductible. She cannot deduct so much as a Pilates class from her income, even though her core strength is keeping her off the public tit to the tune of a future double hip replacement. She has literally outrun the family curse of high cholesterol at the expense of her knee, for which she is on an arthroscopic waiting list behind a bunch of fat slobs who never get up off the couch, and should she seek therapy so as not to beat her children or chase them screaming through the house with a wooden spoon, the cost-saving ripple effect of her sparing society two more screwed-up people will merit not a penny’s deduction come tax time.

“Right, so based on all that,” she says, “why do you think you go from conquest to conquest, seeking your reflection in the adoring eyes of younger and younger women whom you do not allow to stick around long enough to find out what a worthless person you are so they can’t shame you for it all over again?”

He furrows his brow.

She continues, “You have a deep sense of inadequacy that was engendered by Mum’s rage and reinforced by Dad’s blind eye — except for when he gave you the belt, of course — but the point is: it cost you two marriages, an engagement, it’s put your relationship with your daughters at risk, and it’s preventing you from being happy in your own skin.”

“As opposed to someone else’s,” he says with rakish good cheer.

“Ideally both.”

“I know you’re right, Mary Rose? And I totally appreciate it, but …” The gleam re-enters his eye. “I’m actually having a pretty good time at the moment.”

“I’m just a jealous housewife, you look great.”

“No, you’re right, I’m a shit—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Dad always said that, I mean, he’s the gold standard, right? Dad’s a gentleman.”

“You’re a gentleman.” She wishes she sounded more convincing.

“Not like Dad.”

How to support him while not enabling his sexism? “You’re a nice uncle,” she says feebly. On the other hand, why rain on his parade? If it doesn’t matter to him, why should it matter to her that Andy-Patrick has baggage? Steamer trunks and duffle bags and fanny packs …

“And now he has a stolen car,” says Hil on the phone later that night.

“No he hasn’t. He’s a cop, he would know.”

“I’m sure he does.” Hil has a light touch and it goes for her voice too; satiny, a slight breathy quality. Mary Rose found it sexy at first — still does, of course, but after several years of marriage she has become attuned as well to the undertone of steely authority. Which is also, of course, sexy.

“Oh my God, are you saying he knows?” Mary Rose is leaning against the kitchen counter in front of the big black windows.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to know that he knows, which is why he’s telling you in such loving detail about Boris …”

“Slavko.”

“Slavko, whom he talks about with the same warm … zeal that people who’ve just met your mother talk about her.”

“You’re comparing my mother to a car mechanic with ties to the Russian mob?”

Silence.

“Hil, that was a joke.” Hil is adept at using silence — tweezery bits of it — to advantage. Another skill that eludes Mary Rose. “Why do you have to cut through everything with your brain-diamond, why can’t you just laugh along with the absurdity of things?”

“Why would I laugh? Your brother’s in crisis.” Steel creeping in …

“He’s not, he’s just — he’s an overly entitled, overly charming, middle-aged, middle-class white guy, he’s right in the demographic sweet spot.”

“You’re in one too.”

“Oh, you mean the middle-aged lesbian single-mother housewife sweet spot?”

Mary Rose is uncertain whether she has pitched it with jam or vinegar until Hilary laughs. “That’s the one!” Jam. Phone-fight averted.

She tells her about Rochelle and the car alarm — but not the scissors — and Hil laughs again. She moves from counter to table and relaxes, stroking Daisy’s broad head as the old girl lumbers past, en route from her basement bed to her upstairs bed. “Then my mother called back just as Maggie started changing her own diaper.”

“I think she may be ready to start toilet training,” says Hil.

Mary Rose suppresses a sigh. The prospect of the painstaking attention required, the random trips to the potty for long unproductive stints followed immediately by accidents, strikes Sisyphean ennui into her heart. Surely it can wait until Hil gets home next week.

“I don’t want to rush her into anything. How’s it going?” she asks, steering into safer waters. “Have you done a run-through yet?”

“We had our first dress rehearsal today. Maury had to do the second act without a wig.”

“Oh my God.”

Maury’s playing Lady Bracknell.

“Yeah.”

“How many previews does Alberta Theatre Projects give you?”

“Eight.”

Eight chances to get it right in front of a paying audience before opening night. “Excellent.” Hil normally pulls rabbits out of her hat with far less.

Hil brings Mary Rose up to date on the crew guys and the flies — the ones that haul sets through the air, not the ones you swat — relishing technical challenges as much as aesthetic ones, loving how they are linked. “He keeps them lubricated, but no one has actually used them in years.”

“Who does?”

“The Tech Director. Paul.”

“Great. It’ll be amazing if you can just fly in the hedge maze.”

“I know, plus funny.”

The Importance of Being Earnest features one of Mary Rose’s all-time favourite lines, and she speaks it now for Hil in Lady Bracknell’s craggy voice: “ ‘To lose one child may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness.’ ”

She tells Hil about the lost “packeege!” and her father’s lovely e-mail. “Some things really do get batter.’ ” She tells her about Daisy almost biting the mailman, about the Christmas tree stand—

“I thought we already had one.”

“Not one like this.”

“Are we getting rid of the old one?”

“We’ll keep it as a backup.”

“Why do we need a backup if the new one’s perfect?”

“Okay, we’ll get rid of it, I don’t care.”

“What are you going to do tomorrow when Candace comes?” The question rankles Mary Rose. What does she think I’m going to do with my nanny time? Get together with “the girls” for lunch? Buy a new hat? “I have a doctor’s appointment,” she replies grimly. Long-sufferingly.

“Is it your arm?”

“My arm? No.”

“It was bothering you.”

“Yeah, and I dealt with it, it’s basically demon.”

“Demon?”

“Phantom, it’s nothing, I’ll google it.”

“Don’t google it! Go to the doctor.”

“I went to the doctor, it’s nothing.” She coughs.

“Are you coming down with something?”

“No, I just did too much laundry tonight and now I’m a bit tired.”

“Don’t let yourself get rundown.”

“I can be tired, Hil, I’m single-handed here—”

“You’re doing a wonderful job.”

“They’re alive, anyway.”

“I love you. I’ve been thinking about you.”