Ann-Marie MacDonald - Adult Onset

They ate at a long low table, seated on child-size wooden chairs. On the first night, the leader girl in the blue robe suddenly peed, right at the table. Then she rose and cleaned it up efficiently, without the slightest embarrassment. None of the other children took much notice. She explained genially to Mary Rose, “I was born with syphilis.”

Mary Rose politely ignored the pee the next night. She could have got used to it, but she was discharged soon after.

She had a checkup a month later, and an X-ray twice a year after that, in case the cysts came back. There was a chance they would if the bone from the donor didn’t grow with her.

•

Youssef and Matthew have built a jungle-farm-airport in the living room which is being threatened by a snake that eats airplanes while Maggie is down for her blessed afternoon nap. Mary Rose has had time to reflect on the debacle with the boots this morning; clearly, she displaced her old anger at her mother onto her child, the ladybug boots having acted as a trigger owing to their association with Dolly — not to mention the ringing of the goddam phone. Armed thus with self-analysis, she speaks the words aloud, “Never touch your child in anger,” as she applies a fresh bandage to her pierced finger and wonders how people who are less aware and educated than she is manage to avoid murdering their offspring. She frightened Maggie, but didn’t actually hurt her — not to the point of physical harm. If the bar for child abuse were that low, nine out of ten parents would be behind actual bars. She gets the Krazy Glue out of the “it” drawer and glues her thumb to her index finger. Then she glues the unicorn head to her thumb. Then she glues the head to the body.

She calls Kate and cancels tonight’s movie date —Water is supposed to be amazing, but she is simply too tired for child brides and adult conversation. She unglues her hand from the phone. The doorbell rings, Daisy goes crazy, and Mary Rose lets Saleema in. Today’s hijab is a dazzling emerald, and she says in her hurried, worried way, “I have to pray, where can I go?”

Mary Rose shows her upstairs to the small sitting room off her bedroom. “Use the Pilates mat if you like.”

Downstairs, she puts the kettle on in anticipation of Saleema’s grateful acceptance of a cup of tea for which she has no time, and reflects that her Muslim friend is praying to Allah a few feet from the bedroom of a lawfully married lesbian couple, and for a moment Mary Rose cannot think of a single way in which life could possibly get better.

“I’m done, thanks,” says Saleema, hurrying back down the hall, hijab billowing about her like a nun’s habit of old — if nuns’ habits had been electric green — and takes the steaming mug, “I’ll just sit for a second.” She talks happily of her parents and sisters in the UAE, of a life on the move from Somalia to Vancouver, Saskatoon then Toronto. She is pretty and bespectacled and dark brown, her hands never still, her brow slightly furrowed even when she laughs, which is often. There is an ease between them and it strikes Mary Rose that she never imagined she would have a friend who was an engineer.

A battle cry from upstairs — Maggie is awake and ready to vault from her crib. Saleema is leaving with Youssef and she says something in Arabic that sounds familiar.

“What did you say?” asks Mary Rose.

“Ysallem ideyki, it means—”

“Bless your hands.”

“That’s right.”

“My mum used to say that. Why did you say it just now?”

Saleema laughs. “Because I know you’ve got them full!”

Mary Rose watches them leave down the flagstone path and registers a sadness. Perhaps even envy … Although why does she assume that Saleema’s mother never needed to hate her? She remembers to call Candace and cancel tonight’s child-care. Thirty bucks kill-fee down the drain.

That night on the phone, Hil says, “I thought you were going to a movie with Kate and Bridget.”

“I’m too tired to go out. How did you even know about the movie plan?”

“Didn’t you mention it?”

Hil put them up to it.

“I’m just going to have a quiet evening and watch Transporter 2.”

“Why don’t you call Sue and get her to come over with her boys for supper tomorrow.”

“It’s too much of a production.”

“Get her to bring food.”

“I don’t mind cooking.”

“Order a pizza.”

“It means the kids’ll go to bed late.”

“Get Candace over while you and Sue go to a movie.”

“Why Sue? Why always Sue? Sue is just so J. Crew, I can’t stand it, okay?”

“What about Hank—?”

“He’s in Mexico.”

“Andrea—”

“She’s started chemo.”

“Oh my God, that’s right. How is she?”

“She’s fine, I mean she feels terrible, but it’s going to be, they think it’s fine.”

“Tell Gigi to bring over a pot of spaghetti—”

“You don’t have to solve my life, Hil, please just understand I need some quiet time.”

“Pay Candace to do bedtime so you can watch a movie at home on your own.”

Why didn’t she think of that for tonight? Instead, she is paying Candace to stay away when she could have used the break.

“You could use the break.”

“I don’t need ‘a break,’ this is what I do, I look after the children and the house and I complain about it sometimes, can’t I even complain without you dialing 911? I’m sorry, I’m not serene Susie Homemaker, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not, Mister, you’re the one who’s …” Sigh . “I have to go.”

“Don’t go to bed angry.”

“I’m not going to bed, I’m on a supper break.”

“You’re rehearsing tonight?”

“Mister, it’s our third dress.”

Mary Rose hears a voice in the background. Male? “Is that the stage manager?”

“No, it’s Paul. Wait—” Hil covers the phone, says something, laughs, then, “Have a good night, love.”

“What? Wait.”

“What is it?”

“I love you, sleep well. I mean—”

“Good night.”

She takes an Advil.

Jason Statham successfully delivers the package in his black BMW, vanquishes a horde of martial arts villains in a warehouse with an oil-slicked floor and returns to his Mediterranean villa with its modest shoebox of memories and sleek Tuscan tiles. He obviously has a great cleaning lady. She switches it off, already craving Transporter 3 .

Journey to Otherwhere

Kitty’s bags were packed, she had pretended to eat enough breakfast to stop Ravi fussing, and she had stolen upstairs for one last look at the study. The next time she entered this room, she would be a different girl. A St. Gilda’s girl. If that Other Kitty thought of This Kitty at all, it would be with a sigh of relief that she had left that weird kid behind. “Let the brainwashing begin,” she whispered. Bitter tears stung her eyes. She heard her father calling from downstairs. “Kitty, are you ready?”

She looked at her mother in the silver frame — as though she could intervene and stop the execution. But her mother remained static, her smile captured long ago and put behind glass.

Would her father be sending her away now if her mother were alive? Or would she already have been saddled with a “normal” life, staying home with her mom and waving goodbye to her dad all those years? She stared hard at the picture, hoping to make it shimmer for a change, willing a vision, a movement of her mother’s face.

From downstairs came the whoompf of the front door opening, followed by the dulcet tones of Aunt Fiona — she wasn’t a monster, she was far worse: she was nice. Kitty had a sinking feeling that Aunt Fiona would succeed this time in convincing her to join the so-called real world. “It’s not such a bad place, Kitty.”