Ann-Marie MacDonald - Adult Onset

Hil comes home. They hide Easter eggs for the children. She finds the costume that Mary Rose hid behind the brogues.

“Put it on.”

“I meant to return it.”

Hil pulls off the tags and tosses the confection at Mary Rose.

“Hil, no, it’s like I’d be in drag, it’s more your thing.”

“Mister? You have to remember something. I like women. Now put it on and get back in here.”

“… Can I have a back rub?”

—

The faeries cease their daylight raids and resume their dream haunts. Rage is in remission. The kitchen is clean but not too clean. A storm has passed, Kansas-sized, but Mary Rose feels the prickle of renewable force, can see it in the way leaves rustle in the absence of wind, in the livid quality of evening light, smell of electricity in the air. Glimpse of old pathways, vines parting, brambles beckoning …

The psychoanalyst is in the same building as the hypnotist. Different floor. The pneumatic drills are gone. Maybe this is who her accountant was visiting — that is more disturbing than a hypnotist; Mary Rose can accept that her accountant might grind his teeth at night, she has a harder time accepting he has a subconscious.

On one side of the room, two upholstered swivel chairs face one another. On the other side is a couch — halfway down its cushioned surface she makes out the imprint of someone’s bum. She takes a chair. The analyst sits opposite.

Mary Rose says, “I’m here because everything is fine.”

It is time to make a fresh incision through the scars; allow sections of Time to bleed afresh, then re-graft them. After seeks Before . She will be her own donor this time … She clicks on the blank document called “Book” and types …

December in Winnipeg, 1956. The sky was huge and grey. The regional bus groaned, its exhaust thick with carbon …

Daisy dies in May. It is almost as though she waited until it was safe.

“Where is she, Mumma?”

“Mumma, where is she ?”

Like a magic trick, the city is suddenly in full leaf.

The lady at the counter smiled and said, “Oh, when’re you due?”

“The baby’s dead,” she said. And the sales lady started crying .

“Don’t cry,” said Dolly. “I’m not crying, don’t you cry.”

She phoned to invite him to visit her home on his own. She was in the bedroom she shared with Renée; mauve walls, a Georgia O’Keeffe print of an iris, it was the eighties. It was around four or five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Renée was puttering in her workroom, turning something into something else. Mary Rose dialed her parents’ number. Her father answered. She knew her mother was out at choir practice.

“Mum’s out at choir practice.”

“That’s okay, Dad, I wanted to speak with you.”

“Oh yeah? What’s up?”

She asked him to visit her home. He said no. She realized she had been unclear, she tried to be more specific. “I know you can’t come with Mum because Mum won’t come here, but you could come.”

No.

“You could come on your own.”

No.

“Please come.”

No.

“Please.”

She started to feel unreal, saying things she had not planned to say, things that were bypassing her head-traffic controller, the more laconic he was, the more she unravelled. “You’re my father, you could come see me, Dad, please Dad, please see me.” She sounded to herself like a robot. “I’m begging you, Dad, please, please, please come and see me in my home, Dad please. It doesn’t matter what Mum thinks, you can do what you think is right.”

“I do think it’s right.” He spoke calmly.

Dear Mary Rose, You have chosen to go down a path that we, as your parents, cannot follow …

She heard herself moan, she hugged herself with her free hand and started to undress. She went into the bathroom because she was not safe. She needed to be in a place where she could know she existed. She ran the water.

“I’m your daughter, and I am telling you that you are doing a terrible thing, Dad, a terrible thing to me, please stop doing it.” She was saying things no one in her family said, not even people in movies said these things, people in books did not say them. She sat in the tub, hot water lapping about her hips, she hugged her knees, felt her breasts soft against them, stroked her head, her shoulder, rocked, it’s okay. Water is real, it holds you, tells you you are there, there, there, Daddy’s got you . “You’re saying you hate me!” She screamed it.

“I’m not saying that to you. That is what you are saying to me.” His tone was detached, reasonable. Your lifestyle is opposed to the values with which we raised you, and by insisting upon adhering to that lifestyle, you have turned your back on us …

“When you have had enough, perhaps you’ll come home.”

“I have, I visit your home all the time, why won’t you come to my home?”

“That’s not a home.”

“It is so!” She screamed it. “It’s my home!” She screamed it. “I have friends who would refuse to visit you and Mum because of what you’re doing, is that what you want?” She was shaking. Renée came in, Mary Rose waved her out.

“That’s up to you.”

… our door cannot be open to you in the way that it was in the past .

“So if I stopped visiting you in your home, you would not seek me out.”

“That’s up to you.”

“You could let me go.”

“You let yourself go.”

“You would let go of me, and you would never come after me.”

“You’ve turned your back on us.”

If you had a broken leg, we would take you to a doctor. In this case, it is your mind that is broken, but you kept it from us …

“My heart is breaking, Dad, it is breaking right now.”

He was implacable.

“We are prepared to come see you when you decide to take the help we are offering.”

He was glass.

“What help?!” She shrieked it, shocking herself, yet even amid the sense of unreality, another sense was emerging, a deep recognition. Naked and shrieking, she made a decision to listen to everything he had to say so she would have all the information. Get him to say it. Don’t tear up the letter this time. “I’m your daughter,” she said.

“Not this part of you.”

“No ‘part’!” Bang! on the glass. “Only one Mary Rose!” Bang bang! “I am the same one you loved and were proud of, I am the same, I am the one you carried, I am the one!” Sobbing, deciding, knowing this sorrow was already in the past.

“The Mary Rose I know does not choose to live the way you are living now.”

“You said, ‘Do it your way.’ I am brave.”

“You are sick.”

She cried into the phone. Renée returned with a glass of wine, set it on the edge of the tub and withdrew. He didn’t hang up. Was that a good thing? Or was he determined to show he was impervious? As long as she was the crazy one, he was the sane one.

“I love you, Dad, why don’t you love me?” Calm now.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But if I don’t change, you will never welcome me or come into my home.” No more banging. Just hand smears.

“You have chosen to go down a path that—”

“You don’t want me to have love.”

“What you have is not love.”

She curled over her knees. “What if someone had said that to you about Mum?”

“There’s no comparison.”

“I love Renée, she is my family.”

“She’s not my family.”

“What if you hadn’t been allowed to marry? You were considered to be different colours in those days.”

“Don’t be silly.”