Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

And that's it. Pico abandons me in the kitchen. The front door wheezes open and a cool breeze floods into the kitchen, briefly, before the door slams closed. The house is silent. I look out through the kitchen window at the dining table sitting half refinished in the backyard.

I head back there intending to do some work, but I can't figure out where to start. After hovering around the table for a while, I rearrange my tools, then head inside my cabin, and, leaving the light off, lie down on the bed. I look over at the fish, their aquarium glowing blue in the darkened room. Five seconds of memory. A lifetime composed of these five-second instalments, just flashes of existence, only to have them vanish, recede mercifully from you like an accident you'd drive by at night on a highway.

TWO WEEKS LATER, autumn is in full swing. Every morning I wake up to a backyard buried in leaves, which I dutifully clear away before starting my day's work. By the end of the afternoon the grass is already disappearing again, the lawn just green scraps under a patchy brown cover. I've finished the dining table with one last coat of mahogany stain; I'm keeping it under a tarp out back until I find a buyer. It looks about a hundred years older than it actually is.

Judy has convinced me to go to this thing with her this afternoon — that weird hippie couple intent on burying their baby's placenta. Judy, the deliverer of the baby, is the honorary guest. Last weekend we were down at the creek with the dogs and she told me all about it.

"I'd really like you to be there," Judy said. She sat down on an old mossy log and looked up at me. Nearby, the dogs were chasing each other through the trees, the patter of paws on fallen leaves fading as they ran farther and farther away.

"Who are these people?"

"Les, come on. You used to deal with parents like this all the time — you know, the kind that think they're bringing up their kids creatively but are just breeding weirdos? They're fun."

"Jude, I don't know."

"Think about it," she said.

When we got home I went right out into the backyard and sat down at the head of the dining table, the tarp ruffling in the wind. Judy stood at the kitchen window watching me. For a moment we locked eyes, and then she pulled away.

I'VE DECIDED TO wear a suit, a starchy navy thing I used to pull out for meetings or home visits back in my days of social work. In the cabin, I struggle to knot my tie, then head out to the front of the house to wait for my sister. A chill in the air hints at winter; the street is quiet, and still. The neighbours have their Halloween decorations up: front porches are framed with orange and black streamers, cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts perch on lawns. Daylight is just starting to drain from the sky.

Some kid is weaving down the street on a bicycle, tracing these slow, arching parabolas from one curb to the other. The kid comes closer, closer — and then I recognize the bike, that retro frame, those tasselled handlebars, the banana seat. The pink jacket. And a gorilla mask.

"Hey!" I yell.

The kid slams on the brakes and looks over at me. The mask comes off, and underneath is the face of a girl. She's probably twelve, and Asian — maybe Vietnamese, maybe Cambodian.

"Hi," she says.

I walk over to her. My tie is choking me.

"Cool bike."

"It's from the centre," says the girl. "It's old. It's only a onespeed."

"The centre? You mean the Laughlin Centre?"

"It's the only bike they have."

"They got a bike."

"Yeah."

I point up to the sign in the window of Judy's house. "We're Block Parents, so if you ever get into any trouble…"

The girl is giving me a look that says, Can I go now?

I tell her to ride safe.

IN JUDY'S CAR we listen to one of her French-language tapes. She practises her verbs along with the voice on the tape while she drives.

"J'ai eu, to as eu, it a eu, elle a eu," says Judy, and so forth. I sit staring out the window, playing absently with the power lock. "Try it, Les," Judy encourages me.

"J'ai! Eu!"

Judy grins. "Bravo, monsieur."

The woman on the tape continues to chatter away, but Judy seems to have lost interest. We pull up to a red light and sit idling while cars stream by in front of us. Out of nowhere, Judy does one of her snort-laughs. She covers her mouth with her hand, eyes twinkling.

"What's up?"

"I just remembered how when you were a kid, you used to tell Mom's friends that you could remember being born."

"What? Never."

"Yeah, always. You'd describe it to them and everything."

"Shut up." I'm laughing now too.

"Christ, Les. You were such an odd little guy."

We drive for a while in silence, then pull up in front of a grand old house, the front yard full of people. Judy cuts the engine and pats my knee. "Ready to bury some placenta?"

"Yep," I say, and we high-five.

Judy straightens her skirt. "Seriously, though — make me laugh and I'll kill you."

Not only am I the only guest wearing a suit, but there is a couple in matching muumuus and a woman with an owl perched on her shoulder. Music starts up, and everyone shuffles around until they've formed a delta with an open space in the middle. Judy and I retreat behind a tree. I look up through branches scrawling black and empty into the grey October sky.

The mother and father appear from somewhere, the mother carrying her newborn, the father toting a platter with what looks like a lump of meat heaped onto it. The placenta.

"Holy shit," I whisper, nudging my sister. "That thing's enormous."

Judy, the corners of her mouth twitching, does her best to ignore me.

The parents move into the empty space in the middle of everyone, where a sort of grave has been dug in the garden. Dirt lies heaped up around the hole in brown piles.

The mother steps forward and begins talking. I don't hear what she says. I am thinking, suddenly, of Pico, and considering what the three of us — me, Judy, and Pico — would look like together in this context. Maybe people would mistake us for a family. Sure: a father and mother, friends of the happy couple, and little Pico, who we might have brought on the way to his soccer game. We'd drive him there in our minivan, go sit with the other happy, proud parents along the sideline. Afterwards everyone would go out for ice cream; plans would be made for sleepovers and birthday parties and summer camps.

I look over at my sister and her expression has changed. She seems focused, solemn. There is applause, and Judy steps forward. She waves, then reaches back and, grabbing my hand, drags me up with her. The parents take turns embracing us. When the mother wraps her free arm around me, the baby, resting its head on her shoulder, regards me across her back: it's like we're sharing a secret.

The father lowers the platter into the hollow and hands Judy a small shovel. She casts me a quick glance over her shoulder, then steps forward and stabs the blade into the earth with a crisp, dry sound. Everyone is silent. Judy lifts a shovelful of dirt and sprinkles it over the placenta, the pattering sound of it landing below like the footsteps of a hundred tiny feet.

WHEN THE CEREMONY is over, after the placenta is buried and the last spade of earth patted down, we are all invited inside for a reception. Judy seems to know everyone. She introduces me to countless midwives and clients and former teachers, all of them wanting to know what I do for a living. At one point, I corner my sister and tell her I've had enough.

"Christ, I can't leave now," she whispers. "Can you stick it out for another half-hour?"

"I'll walk — it's nice today."

She looks at me with this weird, sad smile. "Thanks for coming, Les."

"Sure."

With that I leave my sister, I leave the party, I leave them all behind and make my way outside. An earthy smell hangs in the air and, beyond it, something cold and sharp and distant. On the front steps of the house, I survey the empty front yard. A squirrel sits in the branches of one of the trees; just as I notice it, the animal springs to life. It scrabbles down the trunk, lunges, and lands silently on the grass. An acorn appears from its mouth. The tiny paws claw at the earth, then stuff the nut into the ground. The squirrel straightens up. It turns, staring in my direction from two black buttons in its face.