Eve's Rib, page 12
Abbey didn’t answer him. He wondered if this was some sort of hormonal thing with teenage girls he wasn’t aware of. Something to do with periods or boys. Or maybe she was having a seizure. Richard had been a lifeguard as a young man and had enough first aid training to know they didn’t always fall to ground or jerk about. But Abbey was completely controlled when she finally spoke, and the only jerk appeared to be him.
“I met that lady — Julia,” she spat at him from across the kitchen. “At your work.”
Now it was Richard’s turn not to breathe. He thought about the unlocked drawer in his office. The booty phone in plain sight with no password on it, because who wanted to take the time to enter a fucking password when a woman was texting you a picture of her panties.
Abbey sidestepped the mess on the floor, squashing the grape into the granite tile. She stood beside her father, facing the opposite way. Fat hot tears threatened to squeeze out the corners of her cool grey eyes.
What had he done? To Eve. To Abbey. To his family. Were a few sweaty grunts on top of a woman who was not his wife worth all of this? He’d been weak, seeking refuge from the pain Eve and he shared in what he’d believed to be pleasure. Now he knew it was just a mistake he got used to making. But that was all over now. He’d rectified that mistake on Friday night, for good this time. Now, all he needed to do was make it up to his family.
“Abbey,” he began, reaching to wipe the tears away, like when she was little and skinned a knee. But she stepped away to face him, an angry woman betrayed, not a hurt little girl at all.
“I met her,” Abbey said, allowing one furious tear to fall, before she donned a forced and inappropriate smile. It chilled Richard worse than the cold pavement had on the front porch with Sanjay.
“Oh, Abbey …”
“She was a fraud, just like you.” Abbey enunciated each word with that tight-mouthed grin. Then her face fell, the mirthless smile gone, and she was a little girl again, running back up the stairs to her bedroom, her ponytail swishing behind her like a metronome.
* * *
ABBEY DIDN’T COME DOWNSTAIRS UNTIL dinnertime, and then she only picked up her meal and returned to her room. She’d given the excuse of a Netflix binge, the new season of 13 Reasons Why was out. But Richard knew better. By then he had cleaned up the fruit and dumped it in the green bin. Eve was home from visiting her mother, but Janet was still missing. Richard had never gotten to see the end of the rugby game.
“Abbey has a basketball game tomorrow at four. She’s playing forward for the first time,” Eve said, as she cleared the dishes from the table set for two. “You remembered, didn’t you?”
Richard stood and took the plates from her cautiously, mindful of her rib.
“Of course,” he said. Even though both of them knew he hadn’t. He started to scrape the leftover food from the dishes into the garbage under the sink by mistake.
“That should probably go in the green bin,” Eve reminded him.
Richard paused mid-scrape, looking into the plastic kitchen bag hung on the back of the cupboard door. Within it, the black-and-white poster of Cuchulain lay in jagged torn shreds among shards of broken glass. He hesitated a moment, considering, then dumped the rest of the food scraps in on top. Then he loaded the plates in the dishwasher next to the metal bowl that had held the spilled fruit. Sometimes it was too late to change a mistake.
But when it came to his family, Richard decided he was ready to try.
Sixteen
The buzzer blasted from the big clock on the wall, making Eve jump even though she knew it was coming. It was half-time. The team mascot danced onto the court with his oversized head and stuffed bodysuit. He was supposed to be a gladiator and wore a bronze helmet and a short pleated centurion battle skirt. There was something obscene about a warrior with bare hairy legs bumping and grinding at a girls’ basketball game, even if he was made out of rubber. Eve and Richard sat high up in the gymnasium bleachers, directly under the electronic scoreboard. So close that whenever the timer went off it felt like a personal assault.
Eve closed her eyes and breathed out the anxiety heightened by the buzzer. She’d enjoyed the first half of the game, but it had been a stressful trip to get there. Abbey had insisted they stop to pick up a supply of her favourite kombucha drink from the health food store. It made them late. They only just managed to drop the girls off in time, arriving at the entrance five minutes before game time. The two friends had clambered out of the SUV in their high-top basketball shoes, clutching the bottles of overpriced green tea as they ran for the door. Eve hoped the coach hadn’t bawled them out.
“Do you want anything?” Richard stood up from the hard bench and stretched. He had been trying very hard to be nice to her these last couple of days, and it made her slightly uncomfortable. Like there was another shoe left to drop, and he was softening her up for the impact.
“No, that’s okay.”
Richard stepped up to the top bleacher, walking along it like a balance beam to the aisle before jumping down to the floor to make his way to the washrooms. He was in good shape, despite never going to the gym or otherwise fighting to maintain his physique. Men his age could be like that, while women had to sweat in core strengthening classes just to keep their middle-aged muffin tops at bay.
Mark went to the gym regularly. He was the type of man who seemed to do everything right. Had his snow tires on in September. Replaced the batteries in his smoke alarms each spring. His habits were like the well-worn words of a spell, repeated over and over to conjure a perfect life. It had attracted Eve at first, until she realized his magic was a superficial one, like that of most people who tried to find salvation in the strength of a to-do list.
Eve turned her attention to the home team players’ bench. Abbey was readjusting her ponytail, trying to put back a few errant strands that had come loose during play. She wound the elasticized band around her hair so many times Eve was afraid it would snap. The team mascot took his gladiator head off to drink from a water bottle. She noticed his real face was blotchy and had pimples.
Abbey had kept up a brave front, congratulating her friend on her scholarship with hugs and warm smiles when Selena came to the house before the game. But Eve was privy to the hitched sobs in her daughter’s bedroom the night before. When she’d knocked, Abbey told her to go away. Eve didn’t understand then what she’d been upset about, but she knew enough to back off when her daughter adopted a certain tone. Sharing pain with your mother could sometimes open the floodgates too wide. Many young girls, as well as full-grown women, preferred to handle their hurt outside a mother’s long reach, where the dam of emotion could be better maintained.
Had Eve known about the scholarship, she might have made excuses to Sharon Patel when she called this morning looking for a ride to the game for her daughter. She wouldn’t ask, Sharon had said, but there was an emergency rehearsal Sanjay had scheduled. They were a mess for their upcoming performance of The Firebird at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. But Eve liked Selena, even liked Sharon on a good day, so she’d agreed. It was only then that Sharon told her about the Thompson scholarship. How proud they were of Selena. What a close race it had been between the girls. Sharon really hoped Abbey wasn’t taking it too hard. Eve had looked through the door to the kitchen and seen Abbey sitting alone at the breakfast table, a bowl of untouched Honey Nut Cheerios in front of her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and demoralized. For once, her daughter looked like all the fight had gone out of her. Eve had retreated back to the hall with her hand cupped over the receiver so Abbey wouldn’t hear her congratulations.
Eve adjusted herself on the unforgiving wood of the bleacher. There was no back support for her rib, so she placed her purse behind her as a makeshift cushion and tried to lean against the side railing. She kept the cellphone inside the bag pressed against her lower back. It was set to vibrate, so as not to disturb the play. Usually, she would just turn the damn thing off, but Janet still hadn’t shown, and she didn’t want to miss it if she called. She’d sent a text Friday night, asking where Eve had gone after leaving her with the bill. But Eve hadn’t responded until much later, which had probably pissed her off. Her friend could have discovered where Eve was through other means, but she respected her privacy and did not invoke that talent unless it was absolutely necessary. Eve no longer had the ability to divine Janet’s whereabouts, but she could sense she was okay. They retained that much of a psychic bond. It wasn’t unlike her to go missing like this, to be drawn in by a shiny thing or person and then disappear for a few days. This was a characteristic of those with an artistic temperament, the tendency toward distraction. Still, Eve hoped Janet would call soon. She needed to hear her voice. Although Eve wasn’t sure she was prepared to share what happened after she rushed out of the Delta after Julia. A decision that had led to other much worse ones.
Play resumed, and Eve concentrated on the game again. Richard returned to cheer loudly beside her. His booming voice competed with the air horn that blasted from the opposing team’s block of fans. Across the aisle, a mother waved a gigantic foam fist with the pointer finger in a permanent Number 1 position. Another woman consulted a laminated list of team players’ names with corresponding jersey numbers. The coach had distributed them so each girl could receive personalized encouragement even if you didn’t know who they were. Go Ashley! Good pass, Shannon! Better luck next time, Cassie! A man in the front row rang a cow bell held tightly in his fist. It was all part of the carnival madness of parents who cheered their children on to vanquish someone else’s progeny. The Gladiator mascot replaced his head. He raised a rubber shield and sword from the sidelines in military support.
The girls ran up and down the shiny wood floor of the high-school gym, sweat glistening on their foreheads. Abbey’s eyes were no longer red from crying, but focused and defiant as she guarded a girl much bigger than her. Abbey had never been one of the taller ones, having had her major growth spurt only just this year. But what she lacked in reach, she made up for with tenacity. In every game, she had to keep a delicate balance between the number of personal fouls she racked up and the points that playing rough could net her. The one time Eve’s mother had come to watch Abbey play, she’d been shocked to see what looked like her granddaughter tripping another player to get control of the ball.
“There’s always been something wrong with that girl,” her mother had said.
Eve had wanted to talk to her mother about that comment when she visited her yesterday. About what kind of wrongness she might have seen in Abbey. Or about the horrible run-in with Julia. Or even about her affair with Mark. But instead, she’d kept busy tidying and dusting her childhood home as she usually did, avoiding such conversations.
“Don’t move anything,” her mother had warned from her chair in the living room.
“I won’t, Mom.” Her mother didn’t want her to touch any of the yellowed pieces of paper, curled at the edges, that were left all around the house. Each held the same fading shaky blue script. They were notes written by Eve’s father, who’d been gone for years, but her mother refused to throw them out. Instead, they were left in situ throughout her home. Buy cat litter, read the one on the dining room table. Oil change for car, reminded another resting on the toilet tank. Eve had picked up each one carefully and cleaned underneath, before placing them back down exactly as she’d found them. Eve’s father had suffered a massive stroke that rendered him speechless shortly before he died. They’d stood at his death bed, as he smacked his lips together discordantly, unable to communicate the things he may have needed to say. Eve’s mother had always felt cheated of the possible profoundness of her husband’s last words, so she refused to let go of the mundane ones he’d inadvertently left behind.
Eve wished she could have talked to her mother about her granddaughter. But those words seemed to curl up inside of her like the yellowed papers. She didn’t want to worry her mother, or disappoint her, she wasn’t sure which. Perhaps she should write down the truth in a note and leave it among her father’s, to be swallowed up in banal requests, where it wouldn’t hurt either of them to hear it.
Her mother might have agreed with Janet and told her all girls were like Abbey when they were young. But Eve still found this hard to believe. She remembered her and Janet playing Slapjack behind Nanny’s farmhouse as teenagers, long summer afternoons spent laughing with the smell of hay and manure in the air. Abbey didn’t seem to possess that amount of carefree joy in her day-to-day life. Her daughter had a more regimented approach when it came to happiness, convinced it came from following the rules. When Michael sat on the railing that day, he was breaking them. Eve had been busy on the phone. She hadn’t seen Abbey walk out of her bedroom, her pink fleece blanket with the red hearts on it drawn around her, a discarded book on the floor. She hadn’t seen until it was too late. Eve had dropped the phone reaching out to try and pull her back, but only managed to grasp the soft nap of the pink blanket, pulling it off in her hands, as Abbey pushed Michael over the edge.
“Look at me.” Michael had smiled gleefully from the railing in his pyjamas. And Abbey had stepped toward him.
“You shouldn’t be doing that.”
And then he was gone.
Only Janet knew. And she insisted it was an accident. That Abbey was only a child herself. That it wasn’t the Ragman forcing her daughter’s hand, speaking those cold warning words. Just a kid who didn’t know any better, who’d wanted to stop her brother from doing something dangerous. But Eve had been there. Eve had seen the truth.
There was always something wrong with that girl.
The sound of the crowd in the bleachers roared up, surrounding Eve in a wave of the present. Richard was up on his feet, cheering. The only daughter he could see was the one who’d made a perfect shot on a rebound to tie up the score with seconds left in the third quarter. The shock of the buzzer sounded again, knocking Eve out of the memory she tried every day to forget.
“Did you see that?” Richard said. “That was fucking amazing!”
Abbey glowed as her teammates held her up, carrying her to the sidelines. They grabbed drinks from the cooler the coach kept behind the bench and Abbey popped the top off one of her kombuchas. She leaned her head back so far to drink it that her ponytail touched her spine. Then she whipped her head back up and wiped at the sweat and the drink that clung to her lips, breaking into a bright laugh. She fell in with rest of the girls in black-and-yellow Gladiator jerseys, a part of them. At home there was a picture on the fridge of Abbey and Selena in their uniforms, arms around one another, grinning. Underneath, Richard had written in block letters Glad Girls! with a thick black Sharpie.
Eve understood she needed to see Abbey like this. As Richard saw her. As the world saw her. Not as that twelve-year-old in a pink blanket who’d made a horrible mistake. For surely it hadn’t been intentional. Janet was right. Only Eve could be made to pay the price for the sins of Abbey’s conception. Her daughter was just a normal teenage girl, full of all the venom and vigour that supported that precarious bundle of budding hormones. She was no different from her peers, angry outbursts and all. Eve dealt with the horror of what happened to Michael with a sadness that insulated her from the world, but maybe Abbey used fury as her protective armour. A far healthier approach when Eve thought about it. However Abbey managed, Eve hoped her daughter didn’t remember the role she’d played in her brother’s death. She had been young, and youth had a way of forgetting. Abbey never said anything about it. And with the exception of Janet, neither had Eve.
“I’m sorry,” Richard said. He was sitting down in his seat again, so close to Eve that their knees touched together. Eve turned to look at the man who have given her daughter the colour of her eyes.
“For what,” she said. There was so much to be sorry about, for both of them.
“I’m sorry about what’s happened,” he said. “To us.” He could be talking about the affair. He could be talking about Michael. He could be talking about the falling away that any two people could experience over time in a marriage, where life’s rough edges eroded the shaky foundations two people who fall in love always stand on.
“I want to make things better.” Richard fidgeted with the laminated card of team players’ names and numbers in his hands. Eve didn’t know he had one. Maybe he got it from the lady with the Number 1 finger.
The players returned to the court, and the clock behind Richard and Eve started up again as the final quarter began. Richard dropped the laminated card on the bench next to him and took Eve’s hand in both of his. His touch felt warm and familiar, and she relaxed a little.
The referee’s whistle sounded and both of them looked up. The opposing team had gone for a basket and the ball was stuck between the backboard and the hoop. It happened sometimes. The coach went to get a broom to knock the ball down. Eve’s phone vibrated at the small of her back. Apologizing, she released Richard’s hands and went to grab it out of her purse, not bothering to look at the call display.
“Hello?” She couldn’t hear in the noisy gym. “Is that you, Janet?” Eve took the same route as Richard had at half-time to get down out of the stands. By the time she reached the floor, the referee had the ball down and Abbey was in position to take a rare jump ball. Abbey glanced quickly at her mother before turning her attention back to the ref and her opponent. Eve stood just outside the open gym doors so Abbey could see she was still watching. The referee blew his whistle and threw up the ball as Eve dug her finger into one ear so she could listen better with the other. Abbey missed the ball and the girl from the other team dribbled it swiftly down the court.
“Janet?” she whispered into the phone. “Janet, is that you?”
“Eve?” It was her mother. “Are you out?”
“Yes, Mom.” Eve tried to keep her eye on Abbey as she moved to block one of the forwards from taking a shot. The other girl moved frantically left and right looking for someone to throw the ball to. But Abbey bobbed and weaved and met her every move, like a black-and-yellow hornet. “I’m at Abbey’s basketball game.”
