A Second Chance Read online

  A Second Chance

  A Second Chance

  a novel

  Felicia Mihali

  .ll.

  Copyright © 2014, Felicia Mihali

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, without the permission of the publisher.

  Cover design: Debbie Geltner

  Cover image: Hans Hoffmann (German, about 1530 - 1591/1592), Flowers and Beetles, 1582, Gouache with white chalk over black chalk on vellum, 32.1 x 38.7 cm (12 5/8 x 15 1/4 in.), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

  Book design and typesetting: WildElement.ca

  Author photo: Martine Doyon

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Mihali, Felicia, 1967-, author

  A second chance / Felicia Mihali.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-927535-41-7 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-927535-44-8 (epub).--

  ISBN 978-1-927535-45-5 (mobi).--ISBN 978-1-927535-46-2 (pdf)

  I. Title.

  PS8576.I295343S42 2014 C813’.6 C2013-907839-8

  C2013-907840-1

  Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printing.

  Legal Deposit, National Library and Archives Canada et Dépôt légal, Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec.

  Linda Leith Publishing acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and of SODEC.

  .ll.

  Linda Leith Publishing

  P.O. Box 322, Station Victoria

  Westmount, Quebec H3Z 2V8 Canada

  www.lindaleith.com

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  At seven o’clock, I get out of bed and dress warmly. The forecast is twenty below. I would like to stay in bed a bit longer, but I’ve managed to spoil Ana’s dog Billy, in spite of all Ana’s warnings. As soon as he wakes up, Billy starts racing between the stairs and the door of our bedroom. Ana has told me he can hold on until nine o’clock, but this is never the case when he stays with us. At seven, I have to take him out.

  Adam stares at me, waiting for some explanation, but I’m in no mood to talk. I often get up early, but not to go outside. On weekends I like to read in bed, and it irks me to have to pull on snow pants and mittens at such an early hour. There are six more days until Ana gets back on Christmas Eve.

  I let Adam guess my state of mind. Billy gets up on his hind legs at the side of the bed and licks his hand.

  Adam’s questioning eyes follow me as I leave the bedroom: what should he do? Should he get up, too?

  Yet I continue the torture. I leave the house without saying anything.

  It’s so difficult to walk a male dog, especially a schnauzer that sweeps up so much trash in its long beard. Billy susses out the social scene through the urine spots he sniffs intensely and at length. He’s looking for female scents. In the summer, when I look after my friend Carmen’s dog, Sake, things are a lot easier. Over the years I have gotten used to the unruly little Shi Tzu who jumps on everything that moves – children, cars, cyclists. Billy is as serious as an old sage. He pays no attention to pedestrians; he’s too busy dashing from one sidewalk to the other but, unlike Sake, he never goes up driveways.

  Billy has a crush on winter car shelters. He lives in Roxboro, which doesn’t allow its citizens to set up those huge white tents over their driveways. Perhaps it’s because they’re new to him that the shelters excite him. He pees a few drops at almost every one we pass. Fine by me; at this time of the day there’s no one at the window to glare at us.

  When we’re back home, Billy keeps still as I towel down his paws. His fur and beard are sodden, and it takes a while to dry them. Because of his bushy eyebrows, I can never make eye contact with him and can only guess his feelings when he realizes I’m getting ready to walk him. That’s the only time he has the sparkle of youth: he jumps, he barks, he rolls on the rug. The rest of the time, he’s as still as a sphinx. Unlike Sake, he sleeps all day long when he stays here. I imagine he’s a bit depressed until he gets used to us.

  Ever since my daughter Sara moved in with Ana’s son, Michael, Billy has spent some part of the holidays at our place. We’re the only ones who stay in town. We always have Sara and Michael over on Christmas Eve, but on New Year’s Eve, we watch TV, just the two of us.

  This used to make us feel guilty. While everyone else we know is eating, drinking, kissing, and wishing one another Happy New Year, we were lolling around in our pyjamas. Now, I’m finally OK with spending the holidays at home. My excuse for not joining our friends in the country is Adam’s condition.

  He’s still in bed when I get home. He figured it was too early to get dressed. His instinct told him to wait a bit longer, at least long enough for the living room to warm up, for we turn the thermostat down overnight. Does he know it’s Saturday morning and I’m on vacation?

  “You should have put the kettle on,” I tell him when I’ve finished drying Billy.

  He gets out of bed as fast as possible, puts on his slippers, and goes straight to the kitchen.

  “Get dressed first.” I yell to him from downstairs where I’m hanging up my coat. “There’s no rush.”

  He goes back into the bedroom without saying a word and turns his face to the wall to take off his pyjama pants and put on his underwear. Adam has learned not to keep his underwear on in bed, as it’s too warm under the duvet.

  The house smells good because of the fir tree. This year the kids insisted we have a real one, as tall as the ceiling, and they came over to help me decorate it. They asked me to open boxes in the garage with stuff I hadn’t touched in years. They probably thought their dad would notice it. The fact that he was playing with a finger-sized plastic Indian gave them some hope. Sara encouraged him to hang it up on the tree. She even showed him a spot on a lower branch to make it easier for him. Adam hung the ornament shyly, then refused to touch any other decoration.

  He helped half-heartedly until the moment Sara asked for his good hand. It’s a tradition in our family for us to hold hands when we put the golden star on top of the tree. Adam smiled politely and tried to get out of it. I’ve avoided telling the kids that he dislikes being touched on either the good arm or the bad one. That evening, for the children, he was trying to do what was asked of him, but his eyes were looking at me desperately. He was begging to be rescued, but I hesitated to do so in front of the kids.

  Adam keeps his body to himself, revealing it only in the privacy of the bedroom. He has almost never touched me in public in all the years we’ve been together. When he feels like stroking my hand during some boring dinner party, he just passes me the salt or the pepper as a way of showing that he loves me.

  Physical contact with anyone other than me fills him with terror. His doctor is a woman, and an appointment with her almost makes him cry. During his monthly hospital check-ups, I chat with her in French, and Adam stalls for time behind the screen where he is undressing. He delays as long as he can before telling me, in Romanian, that he’s ready. Then I leave the doctor’s office quickly to avoid the painful moment when his eyes fill with tears and he has to surrender himself to her touching, pinching, listening.

  I’m the only one with the right to breach the fortress of his intimacy. He shows no revulsion when I help him dress or undress. He allows me
to use the comb, the scissors, the razor blade. After many months of practice, he can now use the toothbrush with his left hand once I squeeze toothpaste onto it. He knows he has to recover some autonomy, as I’m not always around to help him out. It’s time he started to grow up.

  Billy is running around the Christmas tree, but he isn’t touching the presents. He has a good personality, quite restrained. Sake would have messed up the gifts completely by this time. Billy is wise enough to mind his own business. Like Adam, he needs encouragement to perform new tricks.

  We eat our breakfast at the living room table. Usually we sit at the kitchen counter, but today I feel like a little formality. I cut two slices of bread, spread one with pâté, the other with honey, and put them on Adam’s plate, next to his cup of tea.

  A few months ago, I reduced his coffee intake. Does he remember that he used to drink a whole pot of coffee? He has never complained about the tea he now drinks morning and evening.

  I ask him, “Do you like tea, Adam?”

  I have asked him this many times before.

  “Yes,” he says without looking at me.

  “Do you know what I put in it today?”

  “No.”

  “It’s easy, though. Try again.”

  He takes a sip to please me, but he’s uncomfortable. He knows this is a test.

  Will he pass?

  Not this time. It’s so easy, though. It’s mint. What could be easier than recognizing mint in a cup of tea?

  “It’s mint, Adam. From our garden.”

  He understands he flunked the test, and he’s devastated. My voice leaves him feeling it was stupid of him not to guess the right answer. He searches for some excuse to look at the garden through the living room doors. Then he looks at me. Is he checking to see if I’m making fun of him? Should I say I picked the mint this morning, just to tease him?

  I decide to come clean; I have a long day ahead of me.

  “I kept it in the freezer, Adam.”

  Now he understands and is happy. He calmly takes a mouthful from his cup, then another and another. He’s using a technique he learned at the Geriatric Centre, repeating again and again things he particularly wants to keep in mind. From now on, he absolutely wants to remember that I can trap him with tea made with mint picked in summer and kept in the freezer over the winter.

  Billy settles at our feet hoping for some crumbs – another bad habit he learned from us. Ana told me never to feed him while we’re eating, as he’ll get bolder and bolder, standing up on his hind legs and staring at our plates.

  I no longer care what Ana says. Billy is our guest, and I want him to feel welcome. I feed him whatever I’m eating – bread, pâté, cheese. Adam pats him.

  “Who would have thought?” I ask myself: Adam patting a dog and still eating.

  He was always revolted by filth, bad smells, and animals. He could walk a dog but would never touch it. When he got home with Sake or Billy, I always had to be the one who cleaned their paws. Today, he spoils Billy with bits of bread that he puts directly in his mouth, which means touching Billy’s lips. Before his stroke, this would have been unthinkable, but now I let him do it. I’ve had enough of Adam’s physical fastidiousness, which dates back to when he was diagnosed with hepatitis.

  I stack the dishes, wash them, and set them on the rack to dry.

  I’m going to finish up the shopping today. This year, I’ve had trouble deciding what to buy the kids. It’s been as difficult as choosing Adam’s gift. What’s toughest of all, though, is advising the kids what to get him. They know they can no longer give him the same kinds of things they used to buy, but then what? Pencils? Drawing pads? A cartoon book?

  Sara suggested a new video game. She said it would keep him busy when I’m out. I hesitated to tell her that, although her father may well have the intelligence of a ten-year-old boy, he doesn’t have the same interests. If he has lost the abilities he once had, surely he must have retained some trace of the man he used to be? His brain is marked forever by so much of what he experienced in the past: I just can’t believe the man he was is completely gone.

  This is what I hope, anyway. I’m still waiting for the day when Adam wakes in the morning, making the gestures he used to make, saying the words he used to say. I want to forget the day I called Sara to let her know her father was lying in bed, empty-eyed. More than anything, I would like to erase the memory of the ride in the ambulance, the sound of the siren, and the hours spent waiting for the doctor to tell me the news. I want to forget how many days I kept the lunchbox I had prepared for him the night before he had his stroke.

  I ask Adam if he wants to come shopping with me. I’m sure he’ll say yes; he doesn’t like being alone in the house.

  I get him dressed and wait for the car to warm up. Billy starts rolling around on the rug. He thinks we’re going out again. I watch him compassionately. Poor thing. Not wise enough in spite of his bushy white eyebrows.

  At the mall, I leave Adam on a bench under a huge plastic palm tree; I have to go from shop to shop, and he would slow me down. I remind him of the small plastic card hanging around his neck. If he were ever to get lost, the card would tell whoever finds him about his condition and provide contact details for Sara and me.

  From time to time, I stop to look at him from behind the racks of merchandise outside the stores. From a distance, he looks just as bored as the other men waiting for their wives to finish their shopping. I try to read the way he moves, the ways he looks. I still think he’s making fun of me. I still hope he’ll turn to me and say some silly thing, the way he always used to. I follow the direction of his eyes, to see if he’s looking at the women parading past him with their gaudy shopping bags. And yes, he does look at them. Half-paralyzed though he is, he’s still just like other men who check out young women’s breasts and buttocks – never at their faces.

  The shopping takes me two hours. When I’m done, I collapse on the bench next to Adam. He’s happy to have me back. He doesn’t need to tell me how worried he was. I can read the fear on his face.

  Is he able to imagine the worst? That I leave and never return? Or, less dreadfully, that I leave and strangers ask questions in a language he no longer understands, search his pockets, find the plastic card with his information, and call me to rescue him. He has reason to be afraid.

  I lead him to the café in the middle of the mall, a counter with a few tables and potted cypresses, and order a coffee and a slice of date cake for me, a cup of tea and chocolate cake for him. I could have chosen date cake for him too, that would be a lot healthier than the greasy chocolate cake he likes. But, what the hell, it’s Christmas.

  I show him what I’ve bought. A silk scarf for Ana and a pair of moccasins for her husband George. For Sara I decided on ruby earrings. She’s a dentist, and earrings are the only jewelry she can wear, so she likes to have lots to choose from. I explain to Adam why this is the best present for her. He agrees. I bought leather gloves for Michael; Sara had told me he’d lost his old ones. I got cozy black and grey pyjamas for Adam. I urge him to touch the fabric and check its softness. He smiles at me happily.

  Outside it feels colder, the sun glinting off the ice, the wind stronger than it was. Adam can’t keep up with me as I walk over to the car on the far side of the parking lot, so I tell him to wait inside. He says he prefers to stay outdoors. I wonder if it’s here that he fears being abandoned – fears I’ll take the car and drive off, and he’ll just wait and wait until he turns to ice.

  At home, it’s nice and warm. I turned up the heat up before we went out; I want to do some cooking and baking in comfort. The windows are still frosted over, though, except for the ones in our bedroom, which face southwest. This side of the house gets the sun once the trees lose their leaves in the fall.

  I chop. I grind. I mince. I fry. I boil. Adam sits at the big table in the living room and draws.

/>   The kitchen has always been my domain. Adam never much enjoyed everyday cooking, not for lack of interest but because he thinks preparing food is women’s work. Back home in Romania, his mother, who’s now seventy-seven, is still in charge of feeding the whole family. It was rare that Adam took over in the kitchen. He only did so when I was sick or, very rarely, when I was just fed up.

  He used to have an uncanny knack of knowing when the sight of the sink, the tea-towels, the stove, the drawers, the kitchen utensils, the bags of vegetables, and the cans of beans and tomatoes would make me sick. When that happened, he knew he had to put on an apron and open up the old cookbook we brought over with us. The name on the cover is a woman’s, but the book was written by a man. It was thought that no publisher would stand for a man writing a book of recipes.

  I just use it to check the ingredients for some traditional dishes. When Adam did cook, he used to go through the old recipes calmly, following outdated instructions for beating eggs with a fork and kneading dough by hand, the book having been written before there were appliances for those kinds of things.

  The meals he came up with were always good, though. He put a lot of effort into making them, and he never took his eyes off the pan – not even for a second. He hovered beside the stove until the meal was ready, tasting the food every few minutes to check if the seasoning was right. The length of time it took him to put together a stew was enough to guarantee he would not be cooking often. And after a day or two I always got over my neurosis and got back to work. The women in my family had never complained about spending too long in the kitchen, and I wasn’t one to break with tradition.

  When it came to the holidays, though, Adam had always been happy to get involved in the preparations. Christmas was a nostalgic part of our childhood and our shared past. He liked to breathe in the smell of fat sausages, boiled sauerkraut, cakes baking in the oven. There were too many vegetables for one person to chop anyway, so he used to cut up the onions, the carrots, and the cabbage, leaving me the task of rolling the cabbage rolls – sarmale – and kneading the dough. Now, with his right arm paralyzed, he can no longer handle food preparation.