reddening her pale complexion. She must have been very pleased with Ismail, because she invited him over that night. So relieved was he to be asked back to her apartment, that Ismail didn’t raise the obvious contradiction of her being turned on by gay-positive self-help books. He worked extra hard to please her and perhaps he was successful, but he couldn’t be sure. He wished her good night at eleven-fifteen and prayed that things were back to normal.
When Daphne didn’t invite him to her bed after coffee later on that week, or the week after, Ismail borrowed Lesbian Lives, Lesbian Loves from the Parkdale Library, avoiding eye contact with the librarian as he checked out. He sheepishly displayed it on the laminate table while he and Daphne chatted over coffee, hoping it would serve as a paperback aphrodisiac. Finally, after two hot chocolates and a lengthy debriefing on Wednesday night’s Hope for Today membership, she acknowledged the book. She dispassionately read its back cover and then thanked Ismail for being a good friend.
On his way home, he tossed it into the library’s overnight drop-box, even though he’d only scanned its first chapter. He turned away from the library and glumly stared at a globelike metal sculpture that had been installed just outside the library’s doors. A fountain spurted up water from its centre, splashing its rusted beams and leaking rivulets onto the sidewalk. He fished in his pocket and threw a linty nickel into the pool, not bothering to make a wish.
Ismail could tell that Daphne was growing less interested in his company. She had already substituted some of their meetings for ones downtown where she was meeting other gay women in recovery. He imagined her attending gatherings with Birkenstock-shod women flirtatiously carrying on twelve-step banter.
Weeks later, Daphne admitted that she’d been dating someone from one of those meetings. Ismail warned her about starting a relationship with someone new in recovery, reminding her of the Program doctrine not to date during the first year. She didn’t listen to his counsel, and soon Ismail was twelve-stepping without her. He rarely saw her at their Hope for Today meetings.
In total, Ismail stayed in AA for 197 sobering days. After Daphne stopped being his comrade in abstinence, he got down to business and earnestly worked through steps one to eight, hoping to find the Cure for Bad Memories. He got hopelessly stuck at Step Nine, Making Amends. He couldn’t fathom what sorts of amends were possible in a situation like his; what could he offer his ex-wife, his baby child, or God, to make up for his sins?
If Ismail was truly honest with himself, he might have admitted that by Step Four, when he compiled his moral inventory, he was missing Daphne, The Merry Pint, and growing cynical with the self-help doctrine. He never fully believed he qualified as a true alcoholic, anyway. At meetings, while others rolled their eyes, he used words like “coping tactic” or “survival strategy” instead of “addiction” or “disease.” He supposed he was not a good follower.
He retreated to the bar, dejectedly dropping in for soda water and conversation, hoping that Daphne would show up. The old regulars welcomed him like a prodigal son returned, forgiving him his absence. Ismail was grateful to still belong. At first, he managed to pass his evenings there with soft drinks, but later, he’d have the odd beer. Once in a while a woman with smoke in her hair kept him company. But going to the Merry Pint never felt quite the same without Daphne.
How he longed for her! After Daphne abandoned him, the old memories rushed forward again. A new set of dreams plagued Ismail, always with him looking through the rearview mirror at Zubi in the back of the car. She’d sleep peacefully, her small body nestled in the baby seat. He’d look away for a moment, and when his eyes roved the mirror again, her seat would be empty.
He didn’t know how to cope without his old friend. He considered becoming a drunk again, regrouting his bathtub, having more meaningless sex. But he knew none of that would work. And so he gave in, gave up. They lived on, the memories and Ismail, cohabitating sometimes fitfully, sometimes peacefully, at his little house on Lochrie Street. The irony was that his mistake, the biggest of his life, was one of forgetting.
— 6 —
Fall 2009
On a Saturday in November, Ismail was in his front garden doing a late season clean-up. He energetically pulled up limp marigolds and browned geraniums. He almost enjoyed wrestling with a particularly persistent morning glory vine that had colonized a good part of the yard, nearly strangling an adjacent rosebush. Ismail needed the work; he hadn’t been back to AA for many months and was distracting himself from drinking too early in the day.
After all his exertion, he stood up, un-kinked his back, and rested a moment, gazing across the street. A curtain in the neighbours’ front window fluttered, and Ismail realized that he was being watched. He continued with his work, bagging up dead plants, raking leaves, discarding garbage, but vigilance rippled through him, his mind troubling over the identity of his neighbour-spy; he guessed it could be the little boy playing at the front window, or his mother being nosy. Then he recalled a lady he’d seen going in and out of the house from time to time, a widow he mistakenly assumed to be Lydia’s visiting grandmother.
— * —
Over a year had passed since the day that Celia heard the migrating geese, forced her mother to eat, and rode in the screaming ambulance with her husband to Toronto Western Hospital. And in that year, the woman who had flowers in her eyes could only see sadness before her.
She had chores, and she babysat her grandson, but when she wasn’t needed, she spent a good deal of time in her daughter’s den, which had been converted into a bedroom for her. Her bed was inserted where the couch used to be, and an armoire replaced a bookshelf. A TV tray was her bedside table. The imprint of her son-in-law’s computer desk still cut a rectangle in the carpet despite her efforts to smooth it down with the vacuum cleaner.
She pulled aside the drapes to stare out into the cloudy November day. It’s going to rain, look how dark it is out there. She gazed up at the tall trees on Lochrie Street, their limbs almost naked now after shaking off their desiccated leaves. She sensed their devastation, felt their loss.
Something moved in her peripheral vision. Welcoming the diversion, she turned to watch a neighbour in his front yard. The man clawed at a dead vine with a fervour that suggested hatred. He wielded his rake as though it were a weapon, coming down hard against the defenceless grass. He formed leaf piles that were almost too tidy.
She shifted her gaze to the lawn just below her window, considering its carpet of leaves. Antonio kept saying, “Yeah, yeah! I’ll get to the leaves soon!” and Lydia would retort, “When? You keep saying you’ll do it! But when?” Round and round they went in their carousel of nagging and ignoring one another. Celia thought she might rake them herself, just to break the tension. After all, she’d taken care of her own house, and garden and children for years.
She sighed and let go of the curtain. Darkness returned to her room.
Melancholy was something Celia couldn’t see, but it touched her nonetheless. Years ago, she used to walk out into her garden first thing in the morning, perhaps to pluck a ripe tomato or to admire a newly opened trumpet blossom. Along her garden’s path, she’d stumble into a freshly spun web, its silky strands coating her face, bare shoulders, elbows. She’d try to get the web off her, grasp it between her fingers, but the strands were elusive. All day, she’d feel its sly presence upon her. That’s what melancholy felt like to her. She’d been ensnared by its invisible net for over a year now.
It disoriented her, snatching at her sureness of place, befuddling her while she rode home on the Dundas streetcar. Time after time, she’d gather up her plastic grocery bags in each hand, ring the bell, and get off at the wrong stop, seven blocks east of her new home. By the time she realized that her mind had turned trickster on her, fooling
