Few Kinds of Wrong Read online

  a few kinds of wrongn

  a few kinds of

  wrongn

  a novel

  TINA CHAULK

  BREAKWATER

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Chaulk, Tina, 1966-

  A few kinds of wrong / Tina Chaulk.

  ISBN 978-1-55081-268-8

  I. Title.

  PS8605.H394F48 2009 C813'.6 C2009-902810-7

  ©2009 Tina Chaulk

  Cover photo: Pete Leonard/CORBIS

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  BREAKWATER BOOKS LTD. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

  Printed in Canada

  FOR BEN

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  1

  MAYBE EVERYONE SHOULD have a time machine, a way to go back to where the bad memories haven’t happened yet. Mine was created five years ago, slowly becoming exactly what I needed just when I needed it. At first I feared it, avoided it, but now I look forward to the time machine. I know that her small, beige room is the only place I have almost been happy in months. I know that when I’m with her, sometimes I can curve my mouth into a shape resembling a smile and she, if I’m lucky, will believe there is cheerfulness behind the move.

  The hall leading to my time machine, in the Hoyles-Escasoni Senior Citizens’ Complex, smells like medical disinfectant, urine, bleach, mothballs, and pine trees. Walking along there, I wave at Mrs. Turnbull, who lives in the room next to my grandmother’s. She waves back.

  “Who’s that?” she shouts to her roommate.

  “Don’t know,” replies Mrs. Crane, even though I often drop by to say hello to them on the way to visit Nan. “She’s a pretty little thing though.”

  I stop outside Nan’s room and take a deep breath. Some days she doesn’t know who I am. I have to prepare for that possibility every time I see her now, even as I hope she doesn’t remember too much more than my name.

  I peek in without a word and see her sitting in a wooden glider chair in the corner. Her eyes, finding my face, light up.

  “Hi, Nan.”

  “Hello, Jennifer, my lover, how are you?” Her sweatshirt, part of a navy two-piece sweat suit, is on backwards. The left half of her white hair looks groomed and I wonder if she forgot to do the other half or just gave up, her arthritic joints unable to do any more.

  Her face is etched deeply with years of worry, pain, and pleasure. I find myself, from time to time, thinking of tracing the lines to make a map of her life: her brother drowning at eight years old; the January morning she lost a child during birth, his body perfect except for the blue tinge that turned her joy to grief; the creases from years of laughter, of being the life of the party, the deep ones made from over sixty years of smoking, only stopped when she forgot she did it.

  I bend down to kiss her cheek. She turns and I get her lips instead. They are wet and turn into a smile when I stand up to take off my coat. I feel the moistness on my mouth, want to wipe it off, but can’t.

  “How was school, my dear?” she asks and I know the time machine has brought us back at least fifteen years to when I was still in high school.

  “It was okay,” I play along. “I did good in my math test.”

  “Yes, I dare say you did. You was always good in math.”

  I smile, reflecting her proud grin.

  “Did you get your hair cut?” she asks and makes me wonder when my dirty-blond hair was longer than it is now. A little longer than shoulder length and in its usual ponytail, it’s been like this as long as I can remember.

  “No.”

  “Where’s your mom and dad?” she asks, at once making my heart beat a little faster and my stomach tighten, making the trip to our past worthwhile.

  “Mom’s home. Dad’s at work,” I say. “It’s busy at the garage.”

  “You’re not at it, though, are you? You’re not a real lady if you goes at that old dirt.” Her face puckers up.

  “Not lately, Nan. Too busy at school.”

  “You should get a man, have some youngsters, and keep a nice house. Never mind doing that man’s work. Your father can fix them cars. He don’t need you to help.”

  I nod. It’s just as well for Nan to tell me not to breathe. Fixing cars is my passion. I have worked at my dad’s garage since I was six. When other fathers were calling their little girls “princess,” mine called me his little grease monkey. I’d be sixteen before getting my first paycheque, but I could change a spark plug at eight and change the oil at ten.

  It was in my blood, my mom always said. I’d toss my Barbie aside to play with her pink, plastic car, and soon my parents started buying me dinkies instead of dolls. My Princess Magic Wand was a pretend screwdriver when I’d flip the dinkies over to fix them, so plastic tools soon followed. I begged Dad until I nearly drove him cracked and he had little choice but to take me to the garage.

  “Did you know Brady was pregnant?” Nan asks me. “And with her brother’s baby. The like of it. My God, I’ll never understand it all.” My mind goes through everyone I know and I reach back into the family history to try to remember a Brady. I realize she is referring to a character on a soap opera. I’m not sure if today she thinks the people on the soap are real or if she is just sharing the details of the show with me. Not much different from most people that way.

  “That’s going to cause a big problem with Deirdre,” I say.

  Nan tuts.

  “Want me to brush your hair?” I ask.

  “No, my lover, I can do that myself.” She touches her hair and says, “There,” as if the task is now complete with the gesture.

  Nan turns on the tiny TV in her small bookcase and sits back to watch the story. On the screen, a woman stands between two men, waving her arms and crying. I sit on Nan’s bed. We watch for a few minutes. I’m wrapped up in some lover’s triangle on the screen when a knock wakes me out of this pleasant illusion.

  “Hello,” I hear and instantly recognize the voice as my aunt, Henrietta.

  “Oh Mom, good, you already got a visitor,” Henrietta says. She stops and looks at me, her face turning sad. “Hello, Jennifer. You okay?My dear God, I can’t believe it. Can you?”

  I shrug an answer. Henrietta shakes her head. She peels the coat off her broad body, revealing a tight, lime-green t-shirt that accentuates rolls around her stomach and cuts into her sausage arms.

  “Dear heavenly father. You’re like a bear,” Nan says.

  Henrietta rolls her eyes. “Where and when are you today, Mom? Sure, do you even know it’s 2008? I’ve been big as a bear since I had Sarah.”

  Confusion fills Nan’s face. Her eyes look from me t
o Henrietta to the TV, at pictures on the wall. She seems to be searching for some compass to guide her in time.

  “I knows,” she says with a slight nod. “We was just talking.” She points to me. “Me and her there.”

  “Jennifer.” Henrietta raises her voice, as if Nan’s disappearing memory is affecting her ears.

  “I knows. Jack’s girl. He’s busy at the garage or he’d be here too. We was just talking about him.”

  “Mom,” Henrietta says, shaking her head. She looks to me and frowns.

  “How is Sarah doing in school?” I ask, sure that Henrietta will change the subject if I bring up her precious daughter.

  “Oh, she’s good. She loves French Immersion. I knew she’d do good at it. She got that knock for language.”

  I open my mouth to correct her but stop. Nan’s eyes have changed from confused to terrified, and I suddenly don’t have the energy to argue with Aunt Henrietta about “knock” versus “knack.”

  “She’s a smart girl,” I say.

  Nan is picking at the back of her hand, studying it like an infant stares at her fingers when she first finds them. I want to reassure her, to help her understand, but I’m not ready.

  “Does she use French at home much?”

  “Oh, yes,” Henrietta says before she follows my gaze and turns to Nan.

  “Mom, what’s wrong with your hand?”

  Nan shakes her head. “It’s not my hand. I don’t have that big spot there and—”

  “Mom, that’s your hand. ”She grunts as she crouches down before Nan. “You knows that.” Henrietta takes Nan’s hand in hers. “You knows that hand and Jennifer and me. And you knows Jack’s not at the garage working. You remembers, don’t you?”

  Henrietta stares at Nan’s face, and I know she is looking for recognition, searching for a sign that her mother hasn’t forgotten.

  More than anything, I want what Henrietta fears.

  “You knows Jack’s dead, Mom. Don’t you? He’s dead a year today.” Henrietta looks down and whispers, “Poor Jack.”

  Nan turns to me. She looks confused, struggling to find some way to understand. I watch her shatter as a realization enters the room, and she lets out a tiny gasp. I’m not sure if she remembers or if the pain in my face lets her know the truth, but Nan and I are back in the present.

  Tears are streaming down Nan’s face, running the path of deep lines down to her chin. I sit still in my chair, afraid that if I move or speak, the tears I’m managing to keep back will betray me and escape.

  Henrietta looks at me and shows me a smile filled with sadness. “See, she’s not that bad. She remembers.”

  As angry as I feel toward Henrietta, as much as I despise her for making Nan see the truth, I hate myself as much for assisting in the deceit of the disease.

  Maybe everyone should have a time machine. But she shouldn’t be able to cry.

  On a cool fall day when I was eleven years old, my mother curled my hair with a thin curling iron covered in dried hairspray. I squirmed in my chair, complaining that I didn’t need curly hair to go to Linda Mouland’s birthday party.

  “You’re such a pretty girl,” Mom said.

  She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “One day you will meet a wonderful man. I hope you’ll feel safer with him than anywhere else and you’ll love him with all your heart. But most of all, I hope he’ll love you back. You deserve that, my darling.”

  I laughed. “I already have that, Mom.”

  Mom sighed and went back to curling my hair.

  At that pre-teen age, I was positive I couldn’t love anyone as much as the man who lived down the hall from me. I knew the man I adored smelled like gasoline and orange-scented hand-cleaner. My dream man had calloused hands, full of cuts, with dirt engraved in his pores and staining his nails. He was patient and kind, taking time to show me new things over and over until I understood. No one could ever be as important to me as my father.

  That was, until thirteen years later, at a bar on George Street, when Jamie Flynn sauntered into my life. When he walked up to me and asked me to dance, tingles travelled my spine at the sound of his voice. He wore a faded blue-jean jacket, black t-shirt, skin-tight jeans, and cowboy boots. His dirty-blond hair came down to just above his shoulders, and he peered at me through bangs so long only the sparkle in his eyes could be seen. No discernible colour peeked out from the tangle of hair. Waiting for me to answer, he reached his hand out while he used his other hand to pull back his hair and expose eyes the colour of the sky after a rainstorm, a kind of grey-blue that Crayola has never managed to reproduce.

  His smooth hand grasped mine and held it there as he stared at my face and grinned.

  Soon, there was another man who tucked me in at night.

  So, I have loved two men in my life. The first was lost to me with a thud to the garage floor, seconds after he grabbed his left arm and gasped loud enough to get someone’s attention. The second is supposed to be out of my life. But Jamie decided differently.

  There’s a sweet spot in St. John’s, a time in the morning when it’s not too early to go to work and just before everyone seems to descend on the coffee shops and roadways. Five minutes too late can mean long line-ups at lights, drive-thrus and coffee counters. If I leave my house at 7:35, I can hit that sweet spot, but this morning I lose a button on my one remaining clean uniform shirt and can’t justify taking a dirty one from the laundry. There’s no such thing as a little dirty once you’ve worn a shirt to the garage.

  The time it takes to find a safety pin puts me behind. Maybe I could do without the button, but without it, I feel like I’d be verging on looking like I’m on one of the calendars the guys insist on putting up in the bathroom at work.

  Drive-thru at Tim Hortons is too long and people are lined up back to the doorway for counter service, so I decide I’ll settle for instant in the garage, at least until the coffee run during break time.

  I try to be the first at the garage, Collins Motors, every morning but rarely succeed. I usually end up parking next to Bryce McNamara’s car in the parking lot, and this morning there’s a couple of other employee cars ahead of me too.

  There are two huge garage doors in the side of the building and they’re both already open. When I walk in, Alan Pittman is leaning against a Ford Explorer, talking to Rick Sutton, both of them with extra-large coffees in their hands.

  “Got an extra coffee?” I ask.

  “Nope. I’ll run up and get you one if you want,” Rick says.

  “Nah, that’s okay. I’ll get one later on.”

  “Take some of Rick’s,” Alan volunteers with a grin.

  “Ha, six sugars,” I say, walking on to the office. “I like my teeth too much.”

  The garage office is at the back of the six-bay garage, far away from the front desk in the corner where Gerry Saunders deals with the customers and parts. Most of one office wall is a large window that overlooks the garage, but it works both ways and there’s no privacy in the 10 x 15 office.

  Bryce is already in the office, sipping a cup of tea from his big mug with Santa Claus on the side, a birthday gift from me a few years ago. A private joke that made us laugh at the time.

  Bryce is my right-hand man, just like he was my father’s. He is as much a part of Collins Motors as any Collins.

  “Another sucky day today,” I say.

  “Good morning to you.”

  “Sorry. Morning.”

  “How’d you get on after, yesterday?” Bryce asks.

  I had left early to pick up Mom and go to Dad’s grave with her.

  “I didn’t pick up Mom. I went to see Nan,” I say.

  “Oh. How is she?”

  “The same. Maybe a little worse. According to the nurses. How about you? It was a hard day for you too.”

  He nods. He doesn’t look at me with those blue, steely eyes I almost never see. Tall and muscular, with an almost bald head, Bryce would be imposing if he had the voice to back it up or could look someo
ne in the eyes. He was my father’s best friend since before I was born. I’ve seen him laugh and cry, was there when his wife died of ovarian cancer eight years ago, and learned as much about cars from him as from Dad. I even learned how to drive from him. Dad wouldn’t even try, saying Bryce would have ten times the patience he ever could. I adore him, and losing Dad has been a little easier because I know Bryce is still around. But, he also reminds me of my father — in the way they cared for each other, depended on each other, but mostly in the pain I see whenever I do get a glance at Bryce’s eyes. I know I remind him of Dad too, and the memory sears him as it does me.

  He reaches over and touches my hand. His skin is rough. An ache rises in me so profound I want to tear my hand away.

  “I’m sorry,” he says and I try to keep back the tears my mother’s side of the family has cursed me with.

  “I know.”

  Bryce takes my jacket off the chair where I laid it and hangs it on a hook on the back of the door. A crease runs down the sleeve of his shirt, exactly like the one on his black pants. I’ve never known why he made sure the uniforms we picked for the garage — dark-grey button-down shirts with Collins Motors embroidered in red on the front left and a light grey nametag on the right, along with black pants — were made of wrinkle-free material.

  He frowns at the safety pin in my shirt. “Couldn’t find a sewing needle?”

  “Because I don’t have one.” I look down at the shirt. “It’s not that bad. I was going to staple it.”

  Bryce shakes his head. He is the only person I know who polishes his workboots, even if they never seem clean enough for him. A weird line of work for a neat freak, but Bryce is one of the best mechanics I know. He’s just slower than everyone else.

  “So, he starts today?” Bryce asks, talking about my soon-to-be ex-husband, Jamie. He picks up a couple of work orders and shuffles through them.

  “Yup. I can’t believe I have to put up with him working here.”