Page contents:
"Codes" (short story in full)
"The Gazebo" (short story in full)
"Distance" (short story in full)
Codes
A short story by Kate Sheckler
Honorable Mention in QWF/CBC short story contest, published in Minority Report, Vehicule Press
My mother, who gardened her way through the world trailing flower beds in her wake like a brides train, schooled me in the catechism of verdant life. For her, each leaf was a dialogue, each blossom a tale, and upon these scrolls were cross written in Victorian splendor all the secrets of the earth. I did not value this knowledge. So, while my mother taught me that delphiniums were far reaching yet delicate, and must be supported; that mundane dishwater and elitist roses were the perfect match; that daffodils, although brave, were importunate and would take a mile when offered an inch; I longed for other secrets. And although I was practiced in the correct mode of behavior for interacting with a peony, the information that I needed was in the codes and rules of engagement by which humans relate to one another. For me, the ciphers that mattered were those of synapse and desire, electrical epiphanies that motivated human aspiration, the impulses that powered the heart and mind of a human being. I needed to know why we love and hate, why a mother stays with her child, or leaves it behind, why one man dives into icy water to save a stranger and another refuses to care for his father in illness. It was all well and good to know that a willow will choose a reed for a companion, but useless when what I wanted to know was who would choose me.
So when I left home at 21 - left the garden and by default my mother - I considered myself as an orphan in the storm, a wild child who'd had no one to teach her the language. Caught up in the need to understand the rules of the land that were innate to the most foolish passerby, I rushed forward, lapping up the words, involving myself in everyone - except my mother. In her I perceived no mysteries, and tossed into a drawer the packages of seeds and pressed flowers that arrived between the blank pages of cards without even a "Love Mother" scrawled across the bottom. Insatiable, but learning fast, I chose to spend my life in a sea of words and people, messy and inaccurate, clinging to a firm belief that if the correct words were chosen and offered all secrets would become clear, communication would occur.
I live with a man who, like me, feels that if enough words are employed. . . tossed. . . battered against one another, progress will be made. Our fights, discussions, wars all occur through words, as does our intimacy. Even when most physically entwined, it is my name breathed soft that thrills me, brings me home to my husband whose body presses me into the images of flowers in which our bed is dressed, our home is swathed. For, although I have left my mother behind, the flowers haunt me still, and despite my flight from that wordless garden, some part of my self rebels. It must be so, for even now, with purposeful years and miles between me and my mother's overeager greenery, each choice I make, each room I dress is filled, not with flowers themselves, but with their images, their ghosts. When asked, I respond that I do not like flowers, that I find them obvious, too gaudy and unsubtle. I do not like flowers - yet each time I choose them. Perhaps I have been preparing for Harriet.
Harriet has no words. No. I exaggerate - as those who love words more than accuracy often do - but Harriet has taught me accuracy. My daughter does have words, but the words she possesses are utilitarian, functional, flat. She is, however, like everyone else, surrounded by them, her world defined and colored by their syllables, barricaded by a fence constructed of such disquieting words as: developmental disorder - syndrome - autism. And although an unexpected touch to her body will cause her to leap away with a scream, lashing out, her hand striking hard at the face or chest of the offender, the words with which we try to reach her glance off that towering construction to leave her untouched and without contact. While we attempt to build bridges of meaning, Harriet turns away, uninterested in making the voyage across. Only the flowers connect.
Harriet has always loved the flowers, spent hours stroking and rubbing their images on couch and bed, kissing the painting that hangs in her bedroom, rolling on the bouquet at the center of the carpet. By the time she was three we no longer went to the park, knowing that any bed of blossoms would be uprooted by soil encrusted hands and ardor. Nothing so delicate as a bud could survive my child's passion, and because the need was so large we were told to remove the source, told that her frenzy was incorrect, that it did damage. So, we offered her pale phantoms and grieved as she flailed. At 10 Harriet had not advanced.
When it happened, it was heralded by our own anger bursting forth on a day when we had been unkind - not cruel, but stupid - a day when we had insisted (as we had been taught) that our daughter use our methods, our language, our means. We had been furious when, one more time, compliance was not achieved. She had run from us then, her shriek high-pitched, lacking in definition but filled - overflowing - with content. When I found her, she was hidden, shut away in the dark, dry-eyed and breathless as she rocked; my lovely words were futile. The coaxing, the pleading, the whining: all to no avail, so in the end I crawled inside to sit next to my daughter in her closed, black space. It was only then - there in that wordless cupboard - that I noticed the flowers, the packets and dried petals I had discarded. All those envelopes mailed - sent out into the empty universe in hopes that they would reach me. All those love notes that I could not interpret between the fingers and spread across the lap of my child. I was careful not to wet them when I cried.
Harriet lives with my mother. Together they work the garden, side by side, with the correct number of inches between them. And I, who could not leave this place too quickly, have had to learn to school myself to moderation in my returns - must be careful to remember not to come too often. When I do visit, I have learned to sit at a distance, calm, not unhappy, as I watch them weed and dig and plant, leaving space between the seedlings, room for each to be what it must.
The Gazebo
A short story by Kate Sheckler
Published in The Canadian Authors' Asscociation Anthology
"Marie Josee Gagnon? Ou est la maison de Marie Josee Gagnon?"
The man behind the counter gazes at Harriet with an uncomprehending stare - not hostile, but blank. Either he doesn't know, or Harriet's French is worse than she thinks. Shifting Lily so that she rests more fully in the crook of her arm, Harriet looks around the depanneur. Typical, it offers the usual variety of instant coffee (mini jars, neatly stacked), canned soups (3cans of each, red labels, yellow labels turned out for display), beer and junk food. There hasn't seen a grocery store since St Agathe, 40 minutes back. Where do these people shop? Surely they need something other than beer and canned soup?
A chortle and coo, and Harriet glances down to collect a smile from the tiny girl in her arms. She's been a surprise, this good-tempered baby, all patience and smiles, with her huge, brown eyes full of intimate affection and complicity. Laura had been a lovely baby too, but more difficult, demanding attention, whereas Lily simply collects the attention she requires - there is no need for demands. Lily is impossible to resist, and so Harriet must smile back despite the knot of worry that sits in her stomach - a lump of undigested business, a tangle of syllables that have been left unsaid. Lily is one of the reasons that Harriet is here. The nonnegotiable necessity that had leant power to Marie Josee's request, her voice thin and breathless - "Mais petite soeur, I haven't seen the baby. It would be wonderful if you could come."
Petite soeur - it's what Marie Josee has called her from the beginning, as if their relationship has not been based on business - as if from the start they shared something different than the simple passage of money and goods. And there is something different, something more between them - Harriet just doesn't know what that something is, doesn't understand why Marie Josee has loved her so. They are so very far apart. Harriet, well educated and from a stuffy English background, had chosen her career - her business - despite a family who disapproves, but Marie Josee had fallen into it. Divorce, young children, abusive men, little education - all of these had made it necessary for Marie Josee to find her own way - some way - to make money. And so she has plied her needles to support those boys whose appetites grew with their bodies and still return home to "borrow" some desperately needed cash. Harriet can always tell when the boys have been in touch.
"May I do a little extra this week, ma petite soeur?" The words had always been a sure sign there had been a call from one of the "garcons."
"A phone - c'est possible? - vous avez un telephone?" The man behind the counter sighs. This he understands, and - not unkind, he nods and swings the phone around, holding it still so that Harriet can dial the old rotary model without disturbing the baby.
"Marie Josee?"
The voice on the other end of the line is thinner yet. "Petite soeur! Ou est tu?"
"I'm in a depanneur in St Calumet. But how do I get to you?"
The instructions had been sketchy at best. Come to St Calumet, Claude would come and get them, bring them to Marie Josee.
This situation - isolated and bizarre - is new. Up until a year ago Marie Josee had lived like everyone else, in an apartment, in a building, on a street where, when necessary, Harriet could find her. It was only after Claude had appeared that things had changed. Only after Claude, that miracle, that late true love had arrived - Claude, who had seemed so different from the other boyfriends, those men who drove taxis and slept in and left bruises - had Marie Josee started talking of moving back, moving north, owning horses, land, something. Her eyes had lit each time she had spoken of the possibility, had glowed with the final decision. And after the move she had been so happy, the lines of her face smoothed away each time Harriet had seen her on those the trips into town to deliver work, trips that had slowed to once a month by the end of those first six months. They had stopped entirely with the news of the cancer.
"Mais petite soeur, Claude is not back. I'm here alone."
Her voice is soft, raspy, breathless, and Harriet says hurriedly in an attempt to ease that painful wisp, "Maybe I can get there on my own."
There is a pause before the voice comes again. "There are no signs petit soeur, just a track; left off the main road and then through the gap in the trees." Down a track, through a gap, into a hidden valley - who lives like this? - ridiculous. But what option is there. Another glance around the store. Linoleum and shelving, there is nowhere to be.
"I'll find you." She says goodbye, thanks the man behind the counter and exits into the bright autumnal sunshine.
The light through the red and orange leaves is so bright she must pause, adjusting her vision before turning the car out onto the street. It is one of those falls in which the colors are like wet paint splashed - finger-painted onto the landscape, yet Harriet barely notices, cannot forget the strangeness of the situation, cannot fail to notice the knot in her stomach, the sense of removal from all that is familiar. She is not good at this.
If only it were the same as before. If only Marie Josee lived on Dupont Street still. If there was no Claude, no valley, no horses. . . no cancer. Dashing beneath a row of trees, the dappled and bright golden light brings tears to Harriet's eyes. It had been on an October day too when Marie Josee had announced the move, stood smiling with Claude behind her, big, dark, impassive, and Harriet had (after a moment) felt she must smile back, congratulate the two of them on the choice, despite the foreboding, the worry.
There is a track to the left - Maybe? Harriet hesitates; turns the car. She can always back out.
She is not good at these things. Illness makes her uncomfortable, has caused her to fail more than one friend, disappoint more than one relative. It's not death that she fears, but the intimate, unspoken knowledge that comes with it. What is there to say? And how do you leave? End it? Walk away when likely there will be no next conversation? No next chat about the boys, the baby. No boxes of baking exchanged. No hand against her cheek. No Marie Josee. . . Harriet grips the steering wheel, the knuckles of her hand white. The track bumps and winds over the uneven ground, and the landscape - the colors - close in as she wends through a gap in a hedgerow.
On the other side and slightly below is a perfect bowl of a valley, tiny, suspended, as if a hammock slung from the tops of the three miniature mountains that surround it. Each is alight with festoons of color that seem closer yet, no distant landscape now - no mere photo op that presses at the sides of Harriet's peripheral vision - the tiny mountains strut their party clothes, cavorting with the breeze. The gold and red swirl, enclose, encircle, color the very air. With her involuntary intake of breath, Harriet can almost taste the rich soup that is autumn in this place. Pulling away from the row of trees that make up the hedgerow, the gap closes behind, shutting her in, and before her there is an old and very small trailer next to a newly built barn. Opening the door of the car, the only sound is the distant honk of geese, the snort and thump of a grazing horse.
Lily has fallen asleep, but still Harriet feels the baby must not be left in the car . . . not even here - especially not here. She doesn't stir as Harriet lifts her, adjusting the soft head against shoulder. The trailer sits, bleak and rusted, nearly dismantled. "Hello?" The door swings outward, and the interior is worse than she could have imagined. Appalling - the thought of Marie Josee, sick and dying, here in this dark and cluttered room. But she isn't here. At second glance it is clear that if anyone ever lived here, it's been many months abandoned and now is more of a storage shed than a home. Broken chairs, cheap furniture, boxes filled with detritus - no one. Stepping back out into the brilliance, Harriet must squint and consequently, it takes a moment before she notices the structure behind and set off from this little cluster.
A gazebo.
It's what Marie Josee had said she always wanted. "Un belvedere - a gazebo, like ma mere. We would sit and sew and sometimes eat there. That is what I want again, mon petite soeur, a gazebo, where you and I will work together in the sunshine. That is why I'm moving."
Unlike the other buildings, the gazebo is finished. Beautiful. Ornately carved vines, climb the posts at each of the eight corners. The paint, a soft combination of greens and golds, is so fresh it still exudes a faint scent. But it is not a gazebo - not a true gazebo - for the arches between those lovingly crafted shafts are glassed in - secured, out of reach of the winds.
With carefully placed feet, so as not to wake Lily who still sleeps against her shoulder, Harriet walks through the golden grass of the pasture, spotted with the fallen confetti of autumn.
"Marie Josee?"
She hasn't knocked for fear of disturbing, and so the face from the bed looks up with surprise - and joy - without which Harriet would not recognize the wasted features and pale skin. Marie Josee had never been hale, but her rangy body had been somehow permanent, not like this ethereal frame that barely lifts the covers of the bed set in the center of the room. If one would call it a room, for it is indeed a gazebo. Enclosed, and warmed by a small stove set to the side, the walls of glass, so clean as to be almost invisible, seem no barrier at all, the railing that forms the bottom section reminiscent of bandstands and clandestine meetings of lovers. This is not a "room"; rather, it is a protected portion of the valley - a place of fair sunshine and liquid color - an enchanted bed placed in the center of a magic meadow. The stuff of fairytales.
"Petite soeur." Marie Josee's face, shards of bone under a covering shroud, is the stuff of nightmares.
"Oh Marie Josee!" Harriet is terrible at this, is frozen with horror, is sure that her face displays all those things she must not say. She needs to cry out, to run from this remnant of her friend, but Lily stops her. For it is Lily who wakes with a rumble and stir; Lily who makes her noises that mimic the sounds always claimed for but never realized by other babies, the "goo goo, ga ga" Harriet has never heard from any child but this new being she is still getting to know - who keeps Harriet from running away.
"Oh petite soeur - the baby!" and Marie Josee - for it is Marie Josee - holds out arms that she can barely lift from the bed. Lily smiles, first at her mother and then at this stranger with the wasted face - but not a stranger - another person who will love her.
Laying the baby carefully in the crook of her friends arm, pillows carefully piled to support the weight, Harriet sits back to watch the two before her - so different. Plump and fresh, pale and used the faces interact, conspire at love and seem to share some knowledge Harriet has no access to. As the two in the bed murmur, the colors flow in through those glass walls, reflect off white painted ceiling and floors, fill the space with joy so tangible she could put out a hand, press against it, rub it between her fingers. Harriet can feel it against the skin of her face, soft against her eyelids as she sits, finally finished with the worry of the day. When Marie Josee and Lily have done with their meeting it is alright - it is just Marie Josee who Harriet loves and can sink into conversation with, can lean back in this room of leaves and sunshine and exchange stories and affection as the minutes slide by, the baby sleeps, the light deepens.
"Ah ma belle - she found you - the petite soeur."
The deep voice surprises the two of them, but doesn't wake Lily. Claude stands in the doorway, smelling of woods and cold. He wipes his feet on the mat that Harriet hadn't noticed and steps to the other side of the bed to lay a hand against Marie Josee's sunken cheek. When Marie Josee reaches up to press that huge hand closer still, Harriet must look away, must pretend the baby needs her attention, must not intrude.
Claude's chat is light, engaging: it is the day for the nurse who will be here soon; Jako, the horse, misses Marie Josee, and Claude will lead him over later in the day; today is the day when Marie Josee must eat an omelet - just a small one with fresh herbs that are a gift from Madame Roy from down the road. His voice fills the air - an accompaniment to the sunshine. And Harriet is surprised that it seems so familiar. Never before had the this man seemed anything but a threat - before, that voice had seemed dark, full of the unknown and endings. Not like now when it lights the room. Effortlessly, the voice lifts their spirits and carries the minutes along until it is time to go.
So the tears are a surprise. They glitter in the fading light as Claude stands by the car - slide down his cheeks to disappear in the dark, thick beard, and Harriet, who is so very bad at this, is amazed when she finds her fingers reaching up to take his hand, press it in her own, leave a kiss on his bearded face before passing out through that hedgerow into the common colors of the world.
Distance
A short story by Kate Sheckler
Published in Cahoots Magazine
It's here in this restaurant that I think of her the most. That surprised me a bit. I've worked in a lot of restaurants over the years and, although she's always with me, it's never been like this before, what with me seeing her just as if she was really here - right there in front of me every time I turn around. Of course, seeing her here - she doesn't look the way I saw her last. In this place I see her like she must be now; she's tall, I think, and blond for sure, what with his hair and mine. She's pretty too, at least she comes to me now looking real pretty, but I guess that might be wishful thinking. Well, wishful thinking or not, for me she's pretty as any picture I've ever seen, with none of my sharp bones, but maybe my blue eyes.
"That's two enchiladas Verde, Rico, and could I please get a side of rice with that?"
It's funny that now I'm up north I'm working in a Mexican place. I never did before - even with all those southern towns I've lived in - but, now that I've left Texas and New Mexico behind, here I am smack dab in the middle of enchiladas and tacos. Maybe that's why I'm thinking of her now. Maybe because of all these damn sombreros all over the walls. Makes me think of Texas. But probably not. It's probably just because of the girls.
"Bobby, honey, I need a couple of Marguerites, both frozen, one with salt."
The manager of this place tends to hire only young girls - God knows why he hired me - and used as I am to working with a lot of females, most times there's at least a few my age. Not these girls - they're as fluffy as chicks. It makes me feel like some kind of mother hen. The oldest ones are a good 10 years younger than me, and the youngest are the same age she would be now, and - come to think of it - there's not so many years between 'em.
There's this one - Lucy, who looks just the way I picture her looking - just the way I see her. But I would have named her Carrie. They didn't want me to name her, though - said it would do me no good, said that I would get attached and muddy the water in some sort of emotional way. Well, I could have told them, I was attached the moment I looked into her eyes and, in a way, not getting to name her hurt most of all - felt like I couldn't give her anything. I guess it's only fair, when after all, I couldn't give her a home. If I had raised her, she would have been 'Carrie.'
"Are you folks ready? Now before we get started I've just got to tell ya'll about how good the Chili Rellenos are today. You might want to consider them while you're doing your choosing."
I thought about it. I thought about raising her on my own - cause of course, he was long gone by the time I delivered - but I was a baby myself and even then I knew I wasn't about to stay put. But I thought about it - thought about packing her into some kind of backpack and taking her with me. Maybe if I had, she would have grown up special, as it would have been a special sort of life, free and free thinking. Maybe it would have been a good thing - me as a mother. Maybe. . .
"Watch that tray, Lucy, honey. You got it okay now? You better keep your other hand on it, baby, 'til you got the hang of it."
Well. . .probably not. My life's been fine for me and all, but it was no kind of life for a baby. I must have lived in nearly 20 towns in these 20 years and, for sure, that's not a life for a little girl.
I used to imagine her being raised by some perfect mom and dad in some perfect house somewhere; at first it made me feel good, like I had done the right thing. Now when I think of her coming from that kind of place, all I can think of is that I would have nothing to say to her, nor her to me, and that's just plain sad. After all, say what you like, she's part of me. I know that it's loving and caring that binds people together, but maybe other things do too. You're always hearing about how some set of twins that got separated meet and are just alike: married to the same kind of guy, doing the same job, living lives that are too much alike to be any kind of coincidence. Well if that could be true then couldn't she and I be bound up in some way?
"Lucy, sweetie, let me help you with that. You're about to drop it all over the floor, girl. There now, that's better."
You know, Lucy could be my daughter. . .she could. When I look at her lately she's been reminding me of someone, and just yesterday I realized that it's him. She looks sort of like him around the chin and through the eyes, so it's possible. Really - it could be.
I've been feeling lately like I might be getting ready to leave (it comes on real sudden sometimes) and what I'll miss about this place is Lucy and seeing her - my girl - everywhere I turn. And I've been thinking that maybe I'll just pretend that Lucy is mine. Not that she should know any such thing - it's better not - but it might be sort of comforting to think of her - pretty and happy and moving out into her own life and here in this restaurant where I'll know what she's doing - know how her days are spent. It would be a comfort, like having this notebook in my pocket to write things down in. Yes. . . I might just do that.
You know, I had a thought about love just the other day, 'cause despite not getting much of it in my life - despite those ugly days when I'd swear the world has no spot in it for me - I think that I am sort of okay. It doesn't make sense that I would be okay - not with the things I've seen - but there it is - or - there I am. . . okay. So I was thinking about just why that might be, and here's what I came up with: all my life, even though I've never been with her, I have loved that baby girl of mine; I have thought about her; I have carried her with me in my heart and in my brain, and, even though I handed her away a minute or so after she was born, she is the biggest thing that ever happened to me. So here's the thing - maybe you can replace getting love with giving it. Maybe loving somebody - even somebody who isn't there - can act like some kind of anchor in a life. Maybe giving love makes you just as fine a person as anything else might.
