Miriam Toews - Summer of My Amazing Luck

“Oh yes? Very good. Do you have a reliable vehicle?”

“Yeah. Very.”

“Good. Good.”

“Dad. You know we drove past the honey sign.”

“Oh yes.”

“So. Dad.”

“Yes, Lucy?”

“Why don’t we get together some time?”

“That’s a good idea. Very good. I’d enjoy that very much. When will you be back?”

“Oh. A few days. I’ll give you my number and you can call or I’ll call you back when I’m home.”

“Very good. Just one moment while I get my ballpoint pen. There we go.”

I gave him my address and phone number, and then said, “Well okay. I guess I better get back to the van.”

“So uh … the honey sign. It’s still there, is it?”

“Yup. It’s still there.”

“’Well. I imagine there’s a lot of water in the country?”

“Oh yeah, tons. Everywhere.”

“Very good then. I uh … I appreciate your calling me, Lucy.”

“Okay. Sure. So I’ll see you soon?”

“You bet. Very good.”

“Bye.”

“Goodbye. Uh … Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“Drive carefully. No speeding, hey hey.”

I laughed. “Okay, Dad. See ya.”

This was one of the longest conversations we’d ever had. I wondered if my dad was trying to slow his life down to somehow make up for the fast and furious pace my mom lived life at. She sped through her life while he tried his hardest to cling to the rigging. Just to stay afloat. My mom didn’t care about sinking because she was always moving, like a waterskier skimming along the top of the water. If you slow down, you sink, seemed to be her motto; if you sink, you drown. Maybe it was best if my dad and I talked to each other over the phone, on our way somewhere. Phones and imminent departure force a person to speak. Hey, he even cracked a joke — about the speeding. My mom used to measure everything in terms of driving time. I’d ask, “How long is the average labour, mom?” “Six hours,” she’d reply, “the time it takes to drive to Regina.” But my mom drove too fast everywhere and my dad would say, “No, no, it takes at least seven hours to drive to Regina. And that’s with only one coffee stop.” “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” my mom would say, “you can easily do it in six.” Anyway, my labour with Dill wasn’t six or seven hours or the time it takes to drive to Regina. It was exactly three-and-a-half hours.

Even my mom couldn’t have driven to Regina in that amount of time. Everyone said Oooh, that’s short for the first baby. And I was thinking Yeah, about the time it takes to drive to Grand Forks. I mean, you can’t just sit in the back seat of a moving car all the way to Grand Forks from Winnipeg and imagine you’re in acute pain and your insides are lurching around wildly the whole time. That would seem unbearable. When you’re in labour all sorts of odd and mundane things happen and the time goes by. A road trip to Regina or Grand Forks is far less exciting than being in labour. That is, if you’ve ever been in labour.

I had to pry the phone out of Dill’s hand and he started to cry. I wandered into the waiting area so I could sit down and change his diaper and nurse him. When I got there the girls were walking around and around on top of the plastic orange chairs singing to themselves and Lish was arguing, mildly, with the Customs guy. It seemed he was suspicious of us. Why did we want to go to Colorado? To see a friend. Where does this friend live? In Denver. All these children are yours? Yes. And hers. How much money do you have? When do you plan to return? Do you have any communicable diseases, open sores, fruit, pets, firearms, telephones, or otherwise deadly weapons? Finally he asked, “What do you do in Winnipeg?”

“I raise my children.”

“I mean for a job? Your line of work?”

“Like I said—”

“Yeah, yeah, every mother’s a working mother, but what is your source of income? Do you understand that question?”

“Yes, at night I perform delicate bowel surgery on uninsured American geriatrics. That is my reason for wanting to enter the United States.” She raised her voice. “I’m on SOCIAL ASSISTANCE. ISN’T THAT BLOODY OBVIOUS?”

“You’re going to have to calm down, ma’am, if you want this application processed.”

I tried not to stare at both of them. The girls didn’t seem bothered by this exchange. But I was worried that we wouldn’t be allowed into the States if they knew we were on the dole. We weren’t supposed to leave the province, let alone the country. Did they know that?

The big guy behind the counter and a couple of smaller older ones who seemed more relaxed all huddled back behind a desk. Then they started talking about us and looking at us and finally went into a little room. They closed the curtains on the window separating us from them.

Lish was mad. “What the hell is this? Albania? I wouldn’t even want to get to their stupid country if it weren’t for Gotcha. I can’t do a damn thing without some government asshole stepping in to okay it, to fucking monitor my entire life. Why don’t they just fucking put me into a zoo and watch me on those little video cameras?”

“Shhhh. Lish. We have nothing to hide. They’re just bored. The big young guy probably has a lot to prove. They have to go through the motions. Just sit here and relax. You want a jawbreaker?”

“No.”

“I do.”

“I do.”

“I do.”

“Me too.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

I bought four jawbreakers for the girls and told them to keep them hidden from Dill because I was afraid he’d choke on one. All the girls sat in silence then, their jaws moving like crazy around the big bulges in their cheeks. Slowly black jawbreaker juice trickled out of the corners of their mouths. Dill was pulling himself up to all the girls, one by one and saying something like Wha Da Wha Da and pointing to their mouths and to me and Lish Wha Da Wha Da. The girls, caught up in the excitement of the conspiracy against Dill, remained silent and opened their eyes wide and shrugged their shoulders, black juice trickling down their chins and their bulging cheeks. Finally, the Customs guy called us over, very seriously, as though he were going to tell us we had inoperable tumours all over our bodies.

Lish said, “Oh. Coffee break’s over, eh?” to the guy, who didn’t smile or even look at her.

All he did was barely move his head quickly down and back up and say, “Enjoy your stay.”

“Gee thanks,” said Lish. “Can you guarantee—”

“Lish!” I said, “we should get going.” I didn’t want her to start crusading again. If she started lecturing this guy we’d never get across the border.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s go.” I couldn’t believe it. She was agreeing with me! And then she looked at the guy and said, “Thank you,” and she smiled at him!

We picked up all our stuff and herded the kids toward the van.

“Proud of me?” she asked. I nodded. “I just get so fucking pissed off sometimes …”

“Apparently,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“You know,” she said, “I feel like that puppet in Mr. Dressup, what’s her name? Casey?”

“I think it’s a he,” I said.

“Whatever — have you ever noticed how bitchy she is?”

“He,” I said. “Yeah, he’s got a short fuse. I would too if all I had for company week after week was an old man and a dog.”

“And if you were a puppet,” added Lish.

“Right,” I said. I nodded.

“And Lucy! You’re Finnegan! You’re the dog! You keep nodding and not saying much.” Lish loved this idea, she was laughing. She put her head next to mine. “What’s that, Finnegan?” she said in a high voice. “You want to get going?”