Ann-Marie MacDonald - Adult Onset

“Who gave you the candy?”

“His pockets were always full of candy.”

“Whose?”

Dolly’s brow furrowed. Mary Rose waited. Her arm throbbed. “Let me see till I get hold of it …” Dolly blinked a few times in quick succession. Then her face cleared and she turned back to Mary Rose. “I guess it’s gone. What’ll we do now, you want to play Scrabble?” Dolly went down to the rec room and came back with the German edition of Scrabble that Mary Rose had given her one Christmas, having lugged it all the way from a book festival in Munich. It was still in plastic — Dolly unwrapped it and they played with ü ’s and too many z ’s.

Dolly won.

Her datebook is in the dishwasher. Mercifully unwashed. She opens it to the current week on two pages, then refers back to the foot calendar and is about to transcribe her parents’ arrival information when she stalls. It takes her Executive Function a moment to process what she sees on the foot calendar: April seventh does not fall on a Sunday. She looks back at her datebook: yes it does. What is happening? Her vision begins to constrict. Today is Thursday, you know this to be true. Hi there, and happy Thursday . Her heart levitates, sheds weight within her chest and begins to flutter. Breathe . You have not entered a parallel world, you are not dead behind a soundproof time-plate, you are not suffering amnesia pursuant to a psychotic break; the foot calendar is a year out of date. April is the foolest month …

“All aboard, Teletubbies!” Woo-woo!

Chicken, broccoli and quinoa. Successful bath time. Successful bedtime. She successfully downloads the form from the Canada Post website. Prints it. Signs it. Hears Maggie. Heads upstairs, stepping over Daisy flaked out on the landing. Matthew’s beloved unicorn is still playing its tune — he must have rewound it — she can see the sound spiralling, a crystal crown of thorns. Before she reaches the end of the hall, however, she realizes the music is coming from Maggie’s room. Anger fizzes even as she understands it to be unfounded; impossible for Maggie to have climbed from her crib, seized the unicorn, then scaled the bars upon her return. Matthew must have placed it there — such a sweetheart.

She enters Maggie’s room to see the unicorn revolving on the windowsill, and Maggie asleep. Her face is like a flower — as though in answer to the question posed by the first line of the unicorn’s song. Mary Rose is surprised by an ache in her upper respiratory tract. She reaches down and strokes the baby brow. How can someone so small wield such power? The discomfort in her chest abates just as Mary Rose identifies it as love.

•

She got very hungry the night of the surgery. Next to her on the bed lay a button on an electrical cord. It was a bell. She waited a long time before pressing it. When she did, nothing happened at first. After a while the night nurse came and Mary Rose asked her for some food. The night nurse said it couldn’t be done. Mary Rose asked her for some toast — she had never felt such hunger, it may have been the painkillers. The nurse said no. Something took over, and Mary Rose insisted, offering to make it herself. The nurse may have thought she was being sarcastic, because Mary Rose could not get out of bed on her own. The nurse left, exasperated.

After a while, she returned with a plastic plate of buttered toast and a cup of apple juice. Mary Rose thanked her, intensely grateful. The nurse left and she devoured the toast and drank the juice, then immediately vomited it back onto the plate and covered it with the napkin. She pressed the button. The nurse came and saw what had happened. Mary Rose apologized. The nurse cleared away the plate and left without a word. Mary Rose did not know if she rang the bell again, but she needed more drugs. The nurse did not return.

She was in her red flannel nightgown with the zillion tiny yellow flowers. Pain came on. Shocking, no time to put up a hand. Pain claimed her. Obliterated her. She was no one.

Suddenly the ceiling was gone. High above and all around was the night, black prairie overarching and stubbled with stars. She felt suspended, and yet so Held. The pain was far below and she knew everything would always be all right. The universe loved her.

•

Just after 1:00 a.m. she gives in and gets out of bed, tired but not sleepy. It is an hour earlier in Winnipeg, Hil’s final dress rehearsal will have just wrapped up — now is an ideal time to call. She gets voice mail and leaves a message. “Hi darling, just phoning to say hi, hope you had a great final dress tonight.”

She should start working — Alice Munro did some of her best work while her kids were sleeping. She sets her laptop on the kitchen table, creates a new document and, after some considerable thought, entitles it “Book.” The cursor blinks.

She calls again in case Hil hasn’t heard her phone. “Hi, you’ve reached Hilary. Go ahead and leave a message.” Hil’s musical voice, something caressing in it yet forthright.

“Hi, sweetheart, it’s me again, everything’s fine here just maybe give me a call when you get in.” It’s after midnight out there, where is she?

She calls a third time. “Hi Hil, I’m just getting a tad — I’m wondering—” She presses 3 and re-records her message, “Hi babe, just to let you know, I’m up working so any time you want to call is fine, I love you.”

She starts decalcifying the espresso machine. For that matter, the dishwasher could use a good sluicing too. It’s late, she can run both machines economically. She watches the brownish water gush from the espresso head into the waiting glass bowl.

Hil is probably out for drinks with the cast and can’t hear her phone in the noisy bar. If Mary Rose weren’t married to Hil she would probably be living alone. She wouldn’t be a mother. She would likely have finished the trilogy by now and have started a new series. Maybe she’d be a single mother with a full-time nanny. And a hot girlfriend. She has unscrewed the fridge filter, but stops with it in her hand; Hil never goes for drinks with a cast until after the first public preview, and that is not till tomorrow night. She checks her datebook to make sure, yes, there it is in the box marked Friday: Hil 1st public preview . She could be out for drinks with someone else … what was that guy’s name? The fly guy. Unless she has met with an accident … the shot of worry works instantly on her GI tract and, like her mother heeding the call of a “suppository,” she hurries to the bathroom. No sooner is she seated than she hears the phone ring — Hil, thank God.

She returns to the kitchen and the welcome blinking of the message light. “Hi Sadie, Daisy, Maureen, Mary Rose! I’m callin’ from the train, do you believe it?!” Her parents are on the move, a toy train seen from the sky, inching across the map, woo-woo! … “We’ll look for you on the seventh, the eleventh … What?” Muffled gregarious sounds. “Aren’t ya nice! Not you, Mary Rose, the little gal who just handed me a cuppa — not that you’re not nice too! You’re the nicest, Mary Rosest! See you Sunday muffle rustle click.” The skipped messages start to play, “Hi, Mister, it’s Gigi—”

She redials. “Hi, you’ve reached Hilary—” No, I have not reached Hilary . “Go ahead and leave a message.” Hil’s beautiful voice … Where is the rest of her? In someone’s arms? Or dead in a ditch? Fucking Winnipeg. Does she have ID with her? Fucking wheat fields and whiteouts.

“Hil, please call me when you get in, I’m just a teensy bit concerned, no problem, just, hope your day was great.”

She grinds her left hip into the edge of the counter, seeking to zap fear with a shock of pain. Please let Hil be having an affair, please let her not be dead . Does she have Mary Rose down as next of kin? Of course she does, they are married. As long as Hil is killed in Canada, Mary Rose will be the first to hear — although she might hear if Hil were killed in Vermont too. How long will it take the authorities to call with the news? She is freezing cold. She cannot get on a night flight because she cannot leave the children. She could phone Gigi to come over, then fly to Winnipeg — but that would prove Hil is dead. Or it would prove that Mary Rose is in the grips of a panic attack.