Interference Read online

  They all look at Trish as if she’s crazy. Her daughter, Rachel, rolls her eyes. Her husband, Frank, ducks out of the house quickly, desperate to go to work. Charlie, her youngest, ignores her. They rush around, creating chaos, and then they leave to school, to work. And they create chaos at work and school. Charlie with the hermit crabs last year. Rachel knocking the boy flat on the playground: “I learned how to punch from my father,” she said. Trish was beside herself. Looking at everything from beside herself. A siamese twin. One Trish loud and confident and in control, the other squirming and terrified, huddled up like the crabs Charlie released that got into the electrical system. Who knew hermit crabs could move so fast? Who knew it was ice cream day? Who knew one hundred boxes of the stuff had been delivered to the school, put in the freezers, waiting for recess? Who knew soggy ice cream could go bad that quickly? And most of all, who could possibly have known the kids would eat it? Trish separates herself most days and is left to clean it all up, to try to get her life, her house, back together. Trish needs order to get any work done. And she can’t have order when everyone is home. That’s the thing about her, she has to touch everything, even it all out, move it around, in order to make it hers again. This, Trish knows, takes about an hour. An hour to feel that her family are truly gone and she is safe from their wildness, so silent she can hear the house creak, and alone. It’s not the house that’s hers, she tries to tell Frank, it’s the freedom to hear that quiet creak in the stair, the feeling that once again she is something besides mother and wife and problem-solver. She is herself again.

  Frank always sighs when she complains. She knows he doesn’t understand, she knows he doesn’t care. It’s not that he doesn’t love her and treat her well and respect her — although sometimes Trish wonders if it’s more like he puts up with her — but she knows that deep inside he thinks, Women. Just that. Women. With a little internal phew, or even pfft, attached to it. That says it all for Frank, Trish is sure of it. “Women.” Deep inside he’s a bit sexist. He got it from his dad, nothing he could do about it. Trish’s father-in-law is all blistering machoness. Even at age eighty-two. “Get me my cane, girl,” he shouts. “What’s for dinner?”

  So this morning, when the knock on the front door comes, Trish does the only thing she knows how to do, she ignores it and hides. There is no other option. Her hour of getting herself together is already up. She has done her straightening, she has re-wiped the kitchen counters, she has put the hair clips on the hall table, ready to be carried upstairs — by her, of course, who else? Trish has opened the curtains and wiped the dog’s nose prints off the back glass door. The morning is hers again — the world is hers — and she’s not letting anyone destroy this peace she has made. Trish refuses even to answer the phone during the day. Instead, she listens to the answering machine and picks up only if she feels the need.

  The neighbours often call. Maria, across the street, panicking about whose turn it is to drive the girls to band Tuesday mornings, or Tom, Maria’s husband, wanting Frank to help him carry something from his car into the house, something heavy that Maria can’t help him with because of her back problems. Their daughter, Becky, comes over every morning to pick Rachel up for school or to drop off the eggs her mother borrowed or to give back the sweater Rachel lent her. In fact, this neighbourhood is a constant flow of back and forth, everyone walking across the street many times a day, dogs rambling around together in back or front yards, phones ringing, people calling out for their kids to come home, get ready for bed, get in the bath now. Now. Get. In. The. Bath. The cats fight in the dead of night and howl in the spring. The man in the house beside Tom and Maria hammers, working on his attic, until midnight. Even the new woman, Dayton, has recently begun knocking on Trish’s door, ever since they have started playing hockey together. She taps lightly, as if afraid Trish’s glass door will break, and she is quiet and nervous, as if she doesn’t want to bother Trish. It’s nice, this neighbourhood. Trish is the last person to complain about the friendliness between neighbours. But not in the morning. Not when she needs time to decompress.

  Last night Charlie, who is only eight, pulled Trish’s face down close to his mouth while she was kissing him goodnight and said, “Will I ever be as old as you and Dad?” Trish suppressed the urge to hit him, to laugh, to cry. Instead she said, “I hope so, honey,” and he looked disappointed and miserable. For a brief second Trish hoped she had given him nightmares.

  Except that he always climbs into their bed when he has nightmares.

  She’s forty-eight years old. How did that happen?

  The knock again. Trish is hiding behind the sofa in the living room. If she wants to get up the stairs to her sewing room she has to pass the window in the front door and whoever is knocking will see her. Maybe she shouldn’t have opened the curtains? Trish could always wave and continue on up the stairs. She could hold up a small sign, created just for this purpose, that says, “I’m working, go away.” She could give the person the middle finger or just walk past as if she’s blind and deaf. The last idea is the most tempting, and Trish would probably do that if she had a white cane for support. In high school Trish played the part of Helen Keller in the end-of-year play. She kept her eyes open and unfocused every night for three shows. Tapping with a white cane. She rarely stumbled. An impressive performance. One of the highlights of Trish’s life.

  Behind the sofa, down here, Trish begins to notice the lint on the rug, the crumbs from where Rachel was eating her cereal and her stale muffin, feeding chunks of it to the dog. The dog will eat large things — muffin chunks — but not crumbs. He won’t touch a crumb. As if it’s not worth his time. He won’t vacuum the carpet for Trish and that is why she got him in the first place. In fact, other than making her feel guilty for not taking him for a walk, her dog does very little but get in the way. And the cats. The goldfish. Don’t get her started.

  When Trish was small all she wanted was to be an actress. She wanted to take Broadway by storm. She wanted to be admired. What kid doesn’t? The high school drama teacher actually told Trish that she had potential. Sure, some years she just sewed costumes, but sometimes she got a good role, like Helen Keller. Or she was a background actor and would walk across the stage in a crowd scene for West Side Story or caw as a crow in The Wizard of Oz. And Trish has used what she learned sewing costumes for her business, so joining the drama club wasn’t a waste of time, no matter what her mother said. Now Trish owns a small (she’s the only employee) business making bears. The Bear Company. Specialty bears. In her sewing room. Upstairs. Past the glass front door. Past the person still hovering on her porch. She’s not an actress. And, according to her eight-year-old son, she’s very old. Plus, she may be sued by Build-Your-Bear™.

  “Knock knock.”

  Trish can’t believe the person at the door actually says that. “Knock knock.” As if the physical knock on the door isn’t enough. She wonders if she should say, “Ding dong,” when she goes over to Dayton’s house and rings her doorbell, or shout, “Tinkle tinkle,” when she enters the corner store and the bell goes off. Or “tinkle tinkle” when she pees, which is more appropriate, “growl growl,” when she’s hungry. “Moan” in bed with Frank. Trish grimaces. Tries to snicker. It’s too early in the morning to make herself laugh. She just can’t do it.

  Here she is, on the floor, crouching, feeling sorry for herself. Surrounded by her family’s mess and her pets, wanting only to

  get to work, knowing her time is limited, and her business may soon be limited, and the kids will be home by 3:15 p.m. She is stressing about it. While next door Dayton and Carrie have nothing but each other. And a cat. They left everyone they knew in California and came here to start afresh. Trish feels for her sometimes. Even though she has lovely blond hair and a slim figure. Sometimes Trish envies her. Dayton only has to pick up after one person, a baby. How hard is that? Plus she left everyone behind. Sometimes the idea of that appeals to Trish more than it s
hould. Sometimes her daydreams consist of seeing herself gone, away from home, watching everything collapse without her there, watching her family say, “Wow, Mom did do a lot around here. We miss her.” Sometimes she conjures this kind of dream when she’s having sex with Frank. Lying there, helping him a bit, he’s working hard above her, she sees herself turn at the front door, wave, and disappear. Gone.

  “I can see you in there,” the voice says.

  Is it start fresh, or start afresh? Trish wonders. What is afresh? More than fresh? Fresh again, she supposes.

  “Damn.” She begins to stand. What more can she do? Trish puts her hands on her large hips. Isn’t the fact that she’s hiding enough? Can’t he get the hint?

  “Just a minute of your time?”

  Trish sees his shape at the door but can’t see his features. The light is dim, the shadows fall around him. Maybe he’s delivering bear parts: button eyes; little bow ties; shiny, sparkling shoes and dresses? But no. Trish filled out her newest order online only yesterday. It takes at least a week for delivery. Maybe he’s serving her with those cease and desist orders from Build-Your-Bear™?

  “It’s about your children,” the man says, and Trish pulls herself straight into standing. Her legs have fallen asleep. No matter how much they drive her crazy, no matter how much she sometimes wishes they would just grow up and leave home, no matter how much she often wishes she could leave everyone behind, her children are her blood, her soul, her heart. Anyone mentions them and Trish melts a little into her shoes. Her legs give out. She limps to the door and flings it open.

  “Yes? What?”

  He is a little man. Bald at the top of his head, hair in a ring, as if he’s one of those monks from the old days. He reminds Trish of someone. She feels she should know him, that she does know him, but she can’t place it. His brown suit aids that monkish look. If he had a rope belt Trish wouldn’t be surprised. She thinks about creating a Monk Bear. That might be fun. Build-Your-Bear™ couldn’t claim she stole that idea from them. Could they?

  And then she remembers that man Tom told her about, the one with a scar down the middle of his face, and she is glad that this man is small and brown-suited and monkish. Not large and split in half. She still shivers when she thinks about what Tom said, about how he didn’t take money for his work, about how he watched the children play basketball.

  “What about my children? What’s wrong?”

  “Why were you hiding?”

  “Excuse me,” Trish says, “what about my children?”

  “Not your children in particular,” the man says. He clears his throat as Trish stares straight at him. She’s a big woman, not fine-boned in any way, and he’s a small, bald man. He pushes his glasses up on his nose with his middle finger. One push right between the eyebrows. He squinches his eyes and purses his lips. Trish notes his lips are dry, cracked, scaly. White spittle stuck in the corners. She recoils slightly.

  “You don’t have to be rude.”

  “Me?” Trish shouts this a little. She can’t help herself. “I’m obviously busy —”

  “Busy hiding?”

  “I am obviously not wanting to be disturbed —”

  “Yes, but —”

  “And you come pounding at my door —”

  “I knocked politely. I even said, ‘Knock knock.’”

  “Talking about my children —”

  “Not your children, just children in general. You see, they aren’t safe —”

  “Excuse me? Excuse me?” Trish is shrill. But this is what you get when you disturb someone after she has finally had her hour, put her mind back together, formed herself afresh. Frank often says not to mess with her before she’s had her coffee, but this, this is even worse. Trish tries to shut the door but the little man has his shiny shoe stuck in the doorway and no matter how many times she jams it with the door, he doesn’t move. In fact, he shouts, “Ouch, ouch,” but doesn’t pull his foot back. He’s a sucker for punishment.

  “Get your foot out of my door.”

  “But I have to tell you about the children.” The little man looks down at his foot as if he’s checking to see if it’s still there. “I don’t like Mondays,” he says, as an aside.

  “But it’s Tuesday.” Trish pushes a little more at the door, at his foot, but it’s wedged inside tight. He’s not moving it.

  “Here, just take this.” A pamphlet comes towards her. She takes it. A natural thing, she thinks later, when going over this scene in her mind. Her hand reaches out automatically. Trish figures she can take the pamphlet and shut the door and go upstairs to her sewing room and make her bears. But first she will need to give herself another hour — perhaps drink another coffee, fiddle with the curtains, maybe have some dark chocolate — in order to put her world back in order. The man looks sad, crestfallen. He looks like he’s going to cry. Trish is a sucker for criers, but this man is not melting her heart.

  “What?” Trish says. “I took your pamphlet.” She shakes it at him. “I’m not into this religious stuff. What more do you want?”

  And then he does cry. He starts to sob. His foot stuck in her door, his brown suit dull, his sad, bald little head. He sniffs loudly. “But think of the children.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake.” And, against her better judgment, Trish opens the door a little wider.

  The man stops crying immediately and steps in, one shiny foot in front of the other.

  Sitting in the living room Trish and the little man stare each other down. Trish still has the pamphlet in her hand but she hasn’t looked at it. The whole situation is absurd. Trish has four bears to do this week and that includes delivery. One of the bear owners lives an hour’s drive away. Where will she find the time? She’s being harassed by Build-Your-Bear™ and she needs to get things done in case they come at her. She needs to get her bills settled, deliver her goods. Even before they started threatening her, there was always the worry that Build-Your-Bear™ would take her business away from her. With their fancy bear-stuffing machines and their mall location and their fake bear doctors, who are really just teenage kids wearing medical garb, pretending to fix your bear’s boo-boos. How can Trish compete against this bear extravaganza? And it might seem silly to someone on the outside looking in but, to Trish, it’s her work. It’s her sanity. It’s the only thing she has for herself.

  Trish looks at where she was hiding behind the sofa and now that she’s been up close to it, she knows exactly where the cereal/muffin crumbs are and it is as if she can see them from across the room. Why does Rachel eat the muffin with her fingers, tearing it apart over her lap? “What? Do you want me to use a fork?” she says, when Trish asks her. Saucily. She’s become saucy and sarcastic. Trish is a little proud of that, but also annoyed. After all, Rachel’s only twelve. It will get worse. Actually, why does Trish’s daughter eat in the living room anyway? What’s wrong with the kitchen table? Trish makes a mental note to have it out with Rachel tonight. Tell her to clean her room too. And take the dog for a walk for once. Do something besides make a mess.

  As if summoned by her thoughts, the dog enters the room, bored. He sniffs at the little man. Then he lies down and goes to sleep. Some guard dog. Some watchdog, Trish sighs. The only things he barks at are the squirrels. Or Tom and Maria’s dog. They bark at each other as if they’re debating or chatting or passing on messages. Charlie loves it. Shouts, “Calling every pup and hound, the Dalmatian puppies have been found!” But nothing else gets the dog excited in the least. Trish guesses she should be grateful. There are some dogs that bark all the time. She can hear them at night, across the neighbourhood. Maybe Charlie is on to something, maybe they are communicating with each other. Their owners never seem to notice, either. No one tells their dog to shut up. No one brings their dog inside on hot summer nights when the rest of the people on the street are trying to sleep with their windows open for the breeze. Just because they h
ave air conditioning and can’t hear their dog doesn’t mean the rest of the neighbours can’t. Trish’s mind is a whirling mess. Maybe she’s lucky she isn’t working on her bears right now. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to concentrate. Ever since the letter from the Build-Your-Bear™ Head Bear, well, she’s been distracted.

  Trish supposes that her neighbours let their dogs bark because no effort to be polite is made when you get comfortable with people. That’s why new relationships are so compelling. Take, for example, Dayton. She’s new. That’s why Trish invited her to sign up for hockey. And Trish doesn’t regret it in the least. It’s a blast. Dayton has really improved in the last couple of weeks. So has Trish. But Trish knows that Dayton will take her for granted soon. She’ll get comfy with Trish and soon Trish will be over taking care of Carrie while Dayton goes on dates.

  The man is looking around her living room as if he is the queen come for tea.

  “What can I help you with?” Trish attempts to be patient, she tries to take the edge out of her voice, but she finds it hard. Her voice is hard.

  “You don’t have to get snippy,” he says, pouting. “This thing I do, it’s daunting.”

  “Daunting?” Hold it in, Trish. Hold it in. Trish imagines pounding him on the top of his little bald head with the dictionary Charlie has left out on the coffee table. She imagines picking him up by the back of his muddy brown suit and kicking him out the front door. She imagines cutting him up and feeding him to the dog. And somehow, even though that’s a violent image, there is no blood involved.