Miriam Toews - Summer of My Amazing Luck

I wandered over to the buffet table and lay the sleeping Dill on the floor underneath it. He was getting very heavy. I stood and looked over the trays of food and kept my eye on Dill while Lish went over to talk to her parents.

“GRANDMA GRANDPA GRANDMA GRANDPA!” The twins sprinted to their grandparents. The look on Lish’s mom’s face was one of pure surprise and delight. The look on John’s face, one of pure horror.

“Girls, oh how wonderful , I’m so glad! I was going to call you to see if we—”

“How the hell did you get in here, Alicia?” John still had a big smile on his face but the words were forced through the spaces between his teeth.

Lish stood there and smiled. She straightened her hat and readjusted her bracelets. Alba leapt at her grandfather and smeared yellow face paint all over his dark suit jacket. People were beginning to stare and raise their eyebrows.

“Hi Dad, hi Mom.”

“Alicia, collect your uh … children … and come with me. Mary, did you invite them here?”

“Dad,” said Lish, “there’s something I need to ask you.”

“Alicia, dear, I’m so glad you’re here,” said Lish’s mom. “And the kids, oh you precious girls, come here and let me hold you. Oh John, isn’t this wonderful?”

One of John’s friends strolled by. He was holding two drinks in his hand and had loosened his tie. He smiled at Lish and said, “Well, well, who have we here?”

“Hello, I’m Lish, this is Alba and Hope and Letitia over there and Maya.”

“How do ya doo. My name’s Howard Bloethal, I’m very happy to beat you and your famlay. Whaddaya do uh … uh …”

“Lish. Nothing. I’m on social assistance.”

“Well, isn’t that great, you must be very happy and whadbeeyoodivul girls I gotta go now ggg goodbye.”

John said, “Thank god he’s too drunk to notice anything. My god, is that a spider Alicia?”

“It is,” said Lish, “but Daddy, can I talk to you for a sec—”

“Look,” he interrupted her, “come with me, all of you. We’ll sort this out.” He spoke in a loud whisper, “Why are you doing this to me, Alicia? It’s not fair, showing up like this out of the blue. Everything I do I do for you and your mother. I’m trying to do my work here. I don’t deserve this kind of treatment.”

Just then two more suits walked up and slapped John on his back. One asked, “Who’s the pretty lady, John?”

“My name is Lish. I’m John’s daughter and these are his granddaughters. That’s my friend Lucy over there, and her son Dill.” She turned and waved and I forced a weak smile. I glanced at John and he appeared to be tearing the skin off one of his thumbs. He looked up at the ceiling and for one second I felt I knew what he was going through. Help, his look said, and I thought, fellow refugee.

Mary was hauling treats from her purse and passing them out to the girls, hugging and kissing them. They were all talking at once. Mary asked them if they’d like to visit the buffet and have a snack. They wanted to show her their wagon stuck in the door and perform a play for her. They wanted to know why was Grandpa mad? He wasn’t, Mary told them, he’s just busy and doesn’t handle surprises well. Would they come over? Well …

Lish tried to move closer to her father, but one of the men standing around decided to strike up a conversation with her. He asked, “So your father tells me you’re in business for yourself? Working out of your home?”

“Ha ha ha, yeah, you might say that.” Lish looked at her father.

“Mmmm, what’s that smell?”

“Oh, my patchouli, or it could be this lemon loaf.” Lish swung the Safeway bag around. The men nodded, clued out.

The conversation between Lish and John’s buddies was picking up. John stood to one side, smiling, tearing at his thumb.

“What does your husband do, Lish?”

“Oh, well, I don’t have one, thankfully, I already have four children ha ha ha.”

She looked over at me for confirmation, but I snapped my head away from her glance, toward the buffet table, and crossed my fingers. Dill was making noises under the table and I could smell his diaper.

“Oh, well, is their father helping you out uh … financially, or …”

“Not really. The father of the older two lives in his van or at his mother’s and is a poet. The father of the twins doesn’t know he is, and can’t come to Canada because of a drug charge, although I’m planning to go to Colorado to find him and show him the girls, you know, have a little fun … he’s a fire-eater …”

“That’s it. Alicia, come with me now.” John steered Lish towards the giant doors of the ballroom. Lish tossed the Safeway bag with the lemon loaf at John’s friends and said, “Here, just for you.” Outside in the hall, John practically slammed Lish into the wall. His face was a deep shade of red and looked like dried fruit. Before he could bring himself to speak, Lish said calmly, “Give me a thousand bucks and I’ll leave.”

I could hear John yelling. “COMING IN HERE LIKE THIS WITH YOUR RAGTAG HER OF KIDS DRESSED UP LIKE TARTS ASKING FOR MONEY WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE—”

“I’m your daughter, John.”

So that was it, John wrote Lish a cheque for a thousand bucks. Then he got his dark suit and his dried fruit face back into that ballroom, in a hurry to explain all to the boys. Mary walked Lish and the kids to the lobby and they had some of the free coffee and doughnuts and talked. Mary wanted to get a cab for Lish, but Mary never really had money of her own. Mary said she would try to make it out to Winnipeg soon to visit Lish and the kids, but she had a sad look on her face when she laughed. In any case, they were coming out for a niece’s wedding in the fall and they’d see each other then. She did like Lish’s outfit. “Leave it to Lish,” she said, and she said the girls were gems. Lish told Mary that she intended to use the money to go to Colorado to find the twins’ father, and Mary wished her well. She apologized for John and gave each of the girls another candy and a big wet kiss and a hug. She agreedwith the girls that the wagon must certainly have been stuck but now it sat outside the hotel on the sidewalk tucked behind one of the fat pillars. The front desk clerk looked anxious to see it go.

On the way home I asked Lish if she was okay. She said, “What do you think, Lucy? Do you think I’m okay?”

I said, “I think you might not be.” She looked at me. She was crying. I took her hand and we walked home in the rain.

So we had the cash, the van (just about fixed) and the destination. All we needed was to fix welfare, make sure we wouldn’t get caught leaving the province, let alone the country, and wait until Hope and Maya got out of school.

Lish had decided not to tell the girls about the busker actually being their father unless we found him. Until then he’d just be a friend we were trying to locate. I felt like my life had just lurched involuntarily into fourth gear. Maybe chasing after the busker wasn’t the best thing for Lish to be doing and for me to be encouraging. But I just wanted what was best for her and the kids. I wanted her to be happy. And at least we’d be getting away from Half-a-Life for a while. That could only be a good thing, regardless of where we went or what we found. Or didn’t find.

My dole appointment was coming up again. I needed to postpone it a bit, otherwise my next one would fall somewhere in the time when Lish and I had planned to be in Colorado. I decided to phone Podborczintski and lie. It was something I was getting pretty good at. I made the call at 9:10 in the morning and was on hold until 9:55. The whole time their muzak played Billy Joel’s “Honesty.” Not too subtle.