dirty back windows moving out of sight. She’d mutter to herself, and have to wait for the next streetcar to take her the rest of the way home.
Sometimes, the confusion would offer her daydreams far more enticing than reality. While being carried westbound by the streetcar, she’d listen to her parents’ voices swimming in her head. A young girl again, she’d hear their wistful conversations about São Miguel, the place her parents never stopped calling home, one she hardly remembered because she was still too young for nostalgia when they left.
Eventually she’d notice her streetcar approaching Roncesvalles, long past her stop. With a sense of resignation, she’d get off, cross the road and wait for a car going in the other direction. Sometimes, not wanting to use up another token, she’d trudge back along Dundas, over the bridge and railroad tracks, past auto-body garages and the burger place that was also a print shop. She’d arrive home worn down by the long walk and her confusion.
She did have her good days, times when she managed to ring the bell at Lansdowne and walk the one block to the semi-detached house on Lochrie Street without incident. She would retire to her bedroom-den, telling herself that she didn’t mind her accommodations too much. She would reconcile the fact that Lydia and Antonio didn’t want her in the upstairs guestroom, a proper bedroom, the one right next to their own.
On good days, she’d try not to long for the sounds of her old house, just a few city blocks away. She’d force herself to not listen for the drone of her mother’s snoring, to stop waiting for José’s heavy steps on creaky floorboards. On good days, she willed herself to avoid mourning a home of her own, a mother, a husband, her place in the world.
She made every effort to fit into her new home with Lydia’s family, to accept her circumstances. She appreciated that at least Antonio was Italian, and understood she was family.
Although everyone knew José played cards — lots of men did — no one suspected it had become such a problem. Now, it left everyone feeling culpable as they combed their memories for signs and symptoms they should have seen, mentioned, confronted. Celia especially fretted with: Why didn’t I know? Had his luck just run out towards the end?
Lydia and Antonio assured her that she could stay as long as she wanted, and over the year, she realized they could afford to keep her; Lydia had just been promoted at the insurance company, and Antonio’s hardware store, the one he ran with his father, was doing fairly well. Still, she knew that taking in her dependent mother wasn’t something her young daughter had envisioned for herself.
She hadn’t harboured such thoughts when it was time to look after her own mother years ago. Facts were facts; she was elderly, and didn’t seem to be able to look after herself as well after Pai died, and Celia’s brother Manuel lived too far away. Anyway, it’s what daughters did. She moved her mother into Lydia’s old room, next to her own. She left her son’s bedroom mostly as it was, for the rare visits he made with his girlfriend. There was no question that her mother would join her household, no fanfare, no drama. But when her own husband died, Lydia and Filipe had hushed conversations, her children stage-whispering about “what to do with Mãe” when they thought she wasn’t listening.
On her good days, she held her head high when Antonio mentioned finishing the basement to build a mother-in-law suite. He said she’d have more privacy. He loved that word: privacy. On good days, she wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on the fact that she didn’t want to live under the ground, in the half-dark, half-light rooms beside the washer and dryer. She wouldn’t complain that basements were for kitchens, not bedrooms, and especially not for the bedrooms of middle-aged women who had cooked and cleaned and taken care of everyone their whole lives. On good days, she would resign herself to the fact that where she lived was no longer her decision.
That grey November day was not her best day. While she looked at the overcast sky, she was remembering José’s first heart attack more than a year earlier. She arrived home from her visit with Lydia and Marco to find him sprawled out on the couch, a pained expression marking his face. She recalled the wailing of the ambulance’s sirens, her frightening wait at the hospital. He was big and sturdy one day, a workhorse of a man, and the next, weak and embarrassed in a blue hospital gown, with rubber tubes sticking into him. She didn’t like to dwell on that. She blinked her eyes hard, and the memory gradually receded.
Celia separated the curtains and once more trained her eyes on her neighbour’s stooped back. A new recollection stepped forward. She saw herself on a warm autumn day, out for a walk with Marco and Lydia. They’d met an annoying neighbour, the know-it-all with the sunburn. And him — they’d also met him, that man across the street. She couldn’t recall his name, but an image of his nervous smile flashed bright before her eyes.
— * —
It started to rain. Ismail was determined to finish his work, long overdue already. He checked his watch, saw that it was only two-fifteen — much too early to go to the Merry Pint. He picked up his pace, scooping up the last piles of moist leaves and dead plants into yard waste bags. He cinched the heavy paper bags closed, and lined them up on the grass, ready for the truck that would come for them in a few days. Ismail went inside, looking forward to warming up with a cup of hot tea. As he shut his door, he peered out its half-moon pane, focusing on the window from which he’d been watched earlier. The drapes were closed, and then suddenly, they opened again, and there she was, the older woman he’d seen around the neighbour’s house the last few months. This time she stayed in the window, not hiding, allowing herself to be visible. Ismail’s vigilance turned into a paranoid thread that wove itself through his addled brain.
— * —
Celia saw the first fat raindrops marking the sidewalk. She watched her neighbour work faster, hurrying to clear the leaves. As he turned toward her to collect his tools, she narrowed the curtain, not wanting to be seen. She wasn’t a nosy person and didn’t want him to think she was peeping at him. Once he was indoors, she pulled aside the curtains again. But he was still there, looking back, through the little window in his front door. This time, she was the one being spied on. She froze.
After a shared moment of mutual gawking, he turned away first. Now that he was gone, she relaxed, and gazed at his house, the tidied garden, the small front porch. Does he live with anyone? A wife? Does he go to sleep alone like I do?
She watched the drizzle become a downpour.
—
José was sent home to recover with a rainbow of pills that Celia arranged for him in a clear plastic box, each compartment marked with a day of the week. He was more anxious that usual, but Celia expected that; he was still too weak to work. They were waiting for a surgery date that would come and go without him.
He was not the only one she worried about; Celia’s mother was also unwell. While José rested, she took her mother out for one of a series of specialists’ appointments, during which her mother was questioned about her mysterious lack of appetite. This time, it was a gastroenterologist named Dr. Chin who patiently waited for Celia to translate her mother’s perfunctory responses. He frowned and listened while her mother made vague complaints about this-and-that ache, provided ambiguous answers about bowel movements, and offered fuzzy reports of fatigue. Like the other doctors, Dr. Chin poked at her intestines, inspected her chart, and requisitioned a new round of blood tests.
After the appointment, they stopped for coffee and cake at Nova Era: the sugar and icing a temptation for her fussy-eating mother. She ordered her a slice of lemon meringue pie, her mother’s eyes lighting up at the sight of a white sugar cloud floating over glossy yellow filling. Celia wasn’t going to have a dessert — it was only an hour until dinner — but the sweet smells of the bakery were intoxicating.
She
