Interference Page 24

  Love,

  Tom

  Dear Parents and Guardians,

  As you might have heard, Rebecca Shutter has, thankfully, been found. After a harrowing almost forty hours, her parents found her unharmed, although a little tired and dirty. We, at Oak Park Elementary, encourage you to talk to your children about this fantastic outcome, as it may help dissuade a few fears. We all know that our children are very susceptible to fear — a prime example is what we learned this fall from the Stranger Danger Week. And remember what happened to the kindergarteners after we did those fire drills? Dozens of them couldn’t sleep for weeks according to their parents. We all know our children see the things that are going on around them, but we also need to know that their minds might not process the information the same way we adults do. Rebecca’s disappearance and then reappearance probably wreaked havoc on a few sleep schedules, believe me. So, share! Talk! Discuss! Explain! Your child needs your counsel right now.

  On another note — it’s spring. Almost officially. I saw a few plants pushing through my mulch just yesterday. This means: stay off the area around the shade structure! We want to win the Best School Garden prize again this year, don’t we? If we trample the flowers, we won’t win. The garden is to be admired, not picked, so please discourage your children from bringing home the flowers. Also, if you notice any funny business in the shade structure — especially on weekend evenings — please don’t hesitate to report it. A few broken beer bottles last weekend led to stitches on Monday morning for one of our Grade 2 children. Think also of what one stray lit cigarette may do to the wooden structure! It stops my heart cold. Of course we know that it isn’t our children who are doing the damage. We teach our children responsibility and respect, don’t we?

  Keep up the great work, parents. Happy spring.

  Marge Tanner

  Principal, Oak Park Elementary School

  P.S. The high school counsellor, Mr. Davies, has made himself available to any parents or children who need to speak to him about anything. Please call the high school for more information.

  To: mariashutter@victory.com

  From: puckbunnybrady@pik.com

  Subject: Hockey registration

  Hey Maria,

  Great to hear from you about registering for hockey! We open the registration in early July so head on into the site and sign up then. Make sure you mention which team you’d like to be on if you have some friends you’d like to play with, and also what position you play. Don’t worry if you’ve never played hockey before, though. We’re mostly a laid-back bunch of ladies and we have many new players every year. Make your cheque out to The Parkville Ice Kats. Thanks.

  Looking forward to meeting you in October.

  Tina Brady

  Parkville Ice Kats

  Co-ordinator Extraordinaire

  18

  Jude has brought his mother to the arena on the last Wednesday night of the season.

  “See, look.” Jude takes his mother’s arm and leads her towards a seat.

  She squints out onto the ice, wishing she had her glasses on. “All women? My age?”

  “Yep. And they aren’t too bad either.”

  Jude sits down. Claire sits beside him. She looks up to where she can feel heat coming down on her — small metal heaters suspended from the ceiling directed at the seats. “Nice,” Claire says, pointing.

  “Sometimes they don’t have them on, though,” Jude says. “Then it gets pretty cold.”

  Claire adjusts her furry hat. Yesterday she got her first haircut since last spring. One year without visiting the hairdresser. Ralph said that at least they are saving on haircuts.

  “And shampoo and conditioner,” Claire had said. But now her hair is growing in nicely. It’s a different colour than what Claire remembers, lighter almost, or less shiny, more dull. But then Claire hasn’t had shiny hair since Caroline was born. That’s the thing about women — they give birth and transfer all their youth, their soft skin, their shiny hair, to their kids. Caroline’s hair glows in the light sometimes.

  “See, what I’m thinking is that next year you sign up to play.”

  “Me?” Claire looks at Jude. “Me?”

  Jude smiles. He nods. “Yes, you. Why not?”

  “Where do I start?” Claire asks. She laughs. “ I can’t even skate.”

  “You can learn.”

  “But I don’t even know how hockey works.”

  Jude is silent.

  “Don’t be disappointed. It’s just that I’ve never thought about playing hockey. It’s never occurred to me.”

  “Well, you should think about it.”

  Claire watches the women on the ice. She knows that Dayton and Trish are playing but, for the life of her, she can’t tell who is who.

  For the life of her.

  You kill me.

  I just died.

  Claire has spent a year siphoning phrases like this out of her speech. Bit by bit. Getting rid of “he was so funny we all died laughing” or “that jog was so long it killed me.”

  It’s amazing what disease does to language, Claire thinks. To thought.

  “I’m just saying,” Jude says. “What would it hurt to try?”

  “Why do you care, Jude? Why do you want me to play hockey? What if I hurt myself? What about concussions? You hear about concussions in the news all the time. Long-term effects. You don’t even play hockey, Jude. You don’t. Why should I?”

  Jude looks at Claire. “Mom.”

  “Sorry.”

  Claire doesn’t know why she’s angry all the time. No, that’s not true. She knows why she’s angry all the time. But she doesn’t know why she would take it out on her son. Or how to stop it. How to stop being angry all the time.

  “It’s okay,” Jude says. He leans forward in the seat, elbows on his knees, and studies the players. White vs. Blue.

  “Do the teams have names?” Claire asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  Claire nods her head. A white player looks up into the seats, sees Claire and Jude, and waves.

  “That must be Trish.”

  “Yeah,” Jude says. “Must be.”

  There is nothing on the ice that interests Claire. She can’t even see the puck without her glasses on. So she looks around the arena. They are the only two in the seats. There are some men and kids standing by the boards. A few people look out over the arena from the windows near the snack stand. They shovel fries into their mouths as they watch. The smell was overpowering when Claire came in — grease, fried meat. Other than that, the place is empty and boring. Claire would rather be in front of the television right now. Or with a good book. She should have brought her book. She doesn’t know why Jude asked her to come tonight. What was the point of it? Claire is cold. She wiggles her toes in her boots.

  “It’s just that —” Jude stops talking, looks down at Claire’s boots.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  They watch the game. Claire can’t figure it out. It makes no sense to her. Especially when sometimes the referees blow the whistle and everyone stops for what seems like no reason. She wants to ask Jude to explain it to her but she feels bashful and shy around him. Is he in love with one of the players? Why else would he watch women’s house league hockey on Wednesday nights? And where was she when he was here each Wednesday? Why didn’t she notice he wasn’t home? How did he get here? Walk? In the winter? In the snow?

  “Every Wednesday you come here?” she asks.

  “Uh huh.”

  Claire has spent the entire year focusing on herself, her body. She thinks it may be time to focus on something else. Although she doesn’t know how to do that. Yet. She doesn’t know how to think about something other than life and death. Her life and death.

  “You could always sign up for hockey,
try it, and then quit if you didn’t like it. I’m sure you’d get your money back.”

  “It’s not about the money, Jude. It’s the fact that I don’t play hockey.” Claire can’t figure him out. What does she have to do to make him understand that hockey doesn’t interest her?

  “Fuck,” Jude whispers.

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t know why you’re being like this.” Claire wraps her arms around her torso. She’s so cold. She holds on tight.

  “I don’t know why you’re being like this,” Jude says. At first Claire thinks he’s mocking her, but then she gets it. He’s upset with her behaviour.

  “Because I don’t want to try to play hockey? What gives you the right —”

  “I just want you to sign up for it. I want you to try. What’s wrong with trying?”

  Jude stands up. He walks up the stairs towards the door that leads into the seating area.

  “Come back, Jude,” Claire sighs. “Come here.”

  “I’m getting a hot chocolate. Do you want one?”

  Blowing on her hot chocolate, Claire watches the game. Jude is standing at the back. He says his back hurts sitting. He is slurping his hot chocolate and watching the back of Claire’s head. She can feel it. It’s as if his eyes are burning a hole in her scalp. She wishes she had more hair to protect herself from his fire. Suddenly he comes down and sits beside her.

  “This is the last game of the season,” Jude says. “It starts in October and goes until mid-March. That’s pretty good.”

  “Long season,” Claire says. “Listen, Jude. Why are you mad that I won’t play hockey? What does it matter? Look, that woman just got hurt. Look at her. What if that happened to me?”

  Jude watches the woman pick herself up from the ice.

  “She’s not hurt, she has lots of protection. You won’t get hurt.”

  “But do you want me to take that chance?”

  Jude stands again. He looks down at his mother. “Yes,” he says, quietly. “Yes.”

  Sometimes Claire wishes that she would die. Now. Right now. This whole waiting for it, this whole suffering, there’s nothing good about it. She has spent a year fighting. As far as she knows, as far as she feels right now, as far as her body and her doctor are telling her, she’s doing okay. So far so good. So far. Like a ticking bomb. Inside her. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Any minute she could explode. Any second a doctor will call her in, settle her into a seat, perch on his desk and tell her the news.

  So what Jude’s trying to tell her, if Claire thinks hard, what he’s trying to say is “next year.” There will be a next year. And she should jump right back into life. That any sort of delay she had last year, any sort of interference — because cancer is an interference — should be put aside. Claire should just march on up to the hockey arena in her skates and equipment and start playing hockey. Sure. Why not?

  Fuck him, Claire thinks. And then her eyes tear up and she can’t see the game. She can’t see her hot chocolate. She can’t see her son.

  Jude puts his arm around Claire and they sit together in the stands, under the little heater, watching the game. The white team scores. Neither of them move. Trish waves up from the ice again. She shouts, “Woo hoo.”

  “That’s what I like the best,” Jude says. “The woo-hoo’s. The cheers they have. The laughter. They are always laughing and shouting ‘woo hoo.’”

  “Woo hoo,” says Claire. “Kind of like Ellen.”

  “Woo hoo.”

  They laugh.

  “Listen,” Claire says.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Jude says.

  “No, listen. I don’t know. Maybe I could think about it. Playing hockey. Would you come watch me if I played?”

  “Every game,” Jude says. He grins. He doesn’t tell her about the concussion he saw when that woman slammed into the boards with her head, or about the strange kid in the stands who plays with his iPad and talks to himself. Jude doesn’t tell her about everything he’s seen on and off the ice this year. He doesn’t tell her about how he used to skip school and stare at kids in the playground of his elementary school. He doesn’t tell her about seeing his dad wearing slippers in the snow. Or about that guy in the brown suit who gave him a pamphlet with pictures of naked kids in it, the one who was eventually arrested. Jude saw him on the news. He wants to protect his mom from all of this stuff. Protect her from the world, but open her up to new things. Jude doesn’t want her to be scared anymore. About anything.

  After the game — white won, this pleases Jude — they stand in the lobby of the arena waiting for Trish to come out. Claire wants to congratulate her and to apologize for not keeping in touch, for having let their relationship — whatever kind it was — slide. Just because someone drives you crazy, just because someone can’t finish a sentence without rambling and giving so much detail you want to pull your hair out — if you had hair, Claire thinks — that doesn’t mean you still can’t be friends. When Claire first got diagnosed with cancer she let go of all the friends who bothered her. But now Claire realizes that real relationships are about the give and take, real relationships and friendships and family come with a price. Often a steep one. Trish is not easy. But it’s worth paying that price. Sometimes. Most of the time.

  “Hey,” Trish says.

  “Hey.”

  Dayton is there too. The women came together in one car. They both smile openly at Claire. They are sweating and Trish’s face is an unhealthy purple. Dayton’s eyes shine.

  “Caroline’s at your house?” Claire asks.

  “Yes. She’s wonderful with Carrie,” Dayton says.

  “I can follow you home and pick her up on the way,” Claire says.

  “Sure.”

  “How are you doing, Claire?” Trish shuffles her huge hockey bag from one shoulder to the other.

  Claire shrugs. What can she say to that question? Her medications have stopped. She’s done it all, doped up on chemo, burned with radiation, operated on. What can she say?

  “Fine, great, thanks. How are you?”

  “You played a great game,” Jude says to Trish. “I really like watching you guys out there. You’re good.”

  Dayton and Trish laugh delightedly.

  “In fact,” Jude says, “I was just saying to my mom that she should join hockey. She should play with you next year.”

  “Yes,” Trish says. “Yes, definitely. Yes. We’d love it if you played.”

  The women laugh.

  “I can’t even skate.”

  “You’ll learn,” Dayton says. “You can learn. I learned how to play hockey.”

  There is a lull in the conversation. Claire is surprised that Trish isn’t filling every second of silence with blather.

  “I’ll give you lessons,” Trish says. “I’ll teach you over the summer. I think the arena still operates over the summer? I need to teach my neighbour, Maria, too. I can give classes.” Trish squeals a bit with delight. “This will be such fun.”

  “And I’ll teach you how to put on your equipment,” Dayton says. She laughs. “That’s the hardest part of playing hockey. It took me ages to figure it out.”

  Jude stands tall. He watches his mother talk to these women. He looks outside and sees the cool, crisp night, the darkness, the lights from cars and buildings, the dry parking lot, every inch of snow gone now. Every Wednesday night he was here. Now it’s over. Spring is just around the corner.

  “We sign up in July,” Trish is telling Claire. “Make sure you request the white team on your form.”

  “July? Okay. Sure,” Claire says. “I just might.”

  “Bye, Leah,” Trish says to another woman who appears in the lobby, lugging her hockey bag and stick. “See you next year.” The woman passes by them, smiles shyly, waves with her stick. Leaves. When she gets outs
ide she pauses to light a cigarette.

  Trish turns back to Claire and Jude and Dayton and she says, “It’s good to have something to look forward to.”

  This thing she says, this small sentence, “it’s good to have something to look forward to,” sums it up for Claire. The sentence reveals quickly to her that this is what cancer does to you, that this is what growing older does to you, that this is what life does to you — it slowly robs you of something to look forward to. There is no “next year,” or even “tomorrow.” Only now. In the moment.

  This could be bad. Or this could be good. Depending on how you look at it. Sometimes it’s good to live right in the moment, to live second to second, without any plans. Then again, Claire thinks as she leaves the arena with Jude, then again it might be good to have something to look forward to. Like hockey.

  “So?” Jude says to Claire.

  “Why not?” Claire says. “As long as there’s nothing else on my schedule that it interferes with.”

  Jude laughs.

  Claire punches him lightly on the shoulder.

  As they get into the car Claire sees a man with a horrible scar on his face pass through the parking lot on his way to somewhere. The glow from the parking lot lights him up. He is walking purposefully. His head held high. His face there for all to see.

  Claire puts on her seatbelt, starts the car, turns on her headlights and drives away from the arena, into the night.

  Notes

  A version of “1.” was originally published as “Leaf Day” in The Winnipeg Review, June 2011.

  A version of “2.” was originally published as “Knock, Knock” in The New Quarterly, Winter 2012.

  A version of “9.” was originally published as “Cracks,” in The Toronto Quarterly (TTQ8), Fall 2011.

  A version of “14.” was originally published as “Backbreak,” in Joyland Magazine, July 2011.