Come See About Me (8 page)

If I did what
she was suggesting, it would mean Bastien was really gone, but there was never
going to be a better option. In real life this was as close as a person could
come to being rescued by a fairy godmother. I began blinking in double-time,
swallowing like there was a stubborn pill stuck in the back of my throat.
Leave
our place and move to Oakville.
Pack all of our things into cardboard boxes
and never come back to this apartment again. It was either that or let myself
be absorbed back into my parents’ house at the end of summer, or October at the
latest. Step sideways or walk headlong into the twenty-foot wall I’d been
staring at for months.

“Thank you,” I
croaked, my throat in splinters. “Are you sure?”

“Now…I don’t
know,” Abigail said in level voice, “could be that the very best thing for you
would be to get yourself back to your parents and see some kind of grief
therapist. I certainly don’t want to stand in the way of anything that would be
good for you, but last night I kept thinking to myself that if I hadn’t had
some money behind me when Alrick died, I would have been in a very similar
situation to the one you are now. And I wouldn’t like to be without options.”

My mind was
racing with thoughts of leaving, a wave of nausea gripping me, flipping my
stomach upside down.

“Leah?” she
ventured. “Have you spoken to your parents?”

“Not yet. I
will. If you’re sure…” She’d already said she wasn’t but that she’d give me the
chance anyway. “I mean, if it’s okay with you. But…I need to bring Armstrong.”
I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without him; I couldn’t give him away. He had
to stay with me, wherever I ended up.

“The hamster?
That’s fine. I’d expect that you would.”

“I can keep him
in my room,” I stammered. The worst thing in the world had already happened to
me. I had to trust in something—that living at Bastien’s aunt’s house in
Oakville, forty kilometers from our Leaside apartment, would keep me closer to
him than anything else it was within my power to do.

 “I won’t
be any trouble,” I added. “You’ll hardly know I’m there.” And with that I
staggered around the brick wall I’d been staring at for months and towards
someplace new.

During the moving process I was
numb like a robot—doing without any thought beyond the task at hand. I kept
Bastien’s laptop, most of his sketchbooks and his very favorite CDs and
clothes, but folded the rest of his things into his suitcase and gave them to
Abigail to pass on to his parents. Yunhee went to Home Depot with me to buy
storage containers for the rest of our stuff. I threw out a fair amount of my
own clothes, just so I could hold on to more of Bastien’s. It was lucky that
we’d lived in a furnished apartment, otherwise there’d have been much more to
pack—probably too much to fit into Abigail’s home.

“I can’t believe
you’re doing this,” Yunhee said numerous times as she helped me pack. “It’s
like moving to the outer reaches of the universe.”

“But it’s rent
free,” I countered. By then I’d told Yunhee that I’d been fired from work,
although I’d made it sound like something that had only happened recently. The
numbness had made my confession come easier. “The only thing I’ll need money
for is groceries.”

“Yeah, it’s rent
free and you can be a complete hermit, but, Leah”—Yunhee crouched to add my
makeup bag and hand lotion pump to the storage container she was loading—“how
is that going to make you feel any better?”

It seemed I’d
never be able to make her understand. That was part of what was so tiring about
being around other people. But at least she’d come to help me pack, despite
being frustrated with me for avoiding her for so long.

 “I’m not
trying to be a bitch about this,” Yunhee said apologetically. “I’m just worried
you’ll end up feeling even worse. I can’t believe your parents are letting you
do this.”

They weren’t
happy about the news of my move either. Probably the only thing that had
stopped my parents from planning a full-scale intervention was that I’d be
staying with Bastien’s aunt. Like with Yunhee, I’d offered my parents the
closest version of the truth that would suit my purpose, which was that I’d
only stopped working at the museum recently. That was enough information to put
them on edge, so I didn’t explain about flunking most of my classes. They
already knew that I didn’t plan to go back to school in the fall—there was no
point in upsetting them further.

For once my
father had more to say than my mother. “I don’t understand why you’d want to
stay out east, doing nothing, rather than come home to be with your family. If
you’re depressed you need to see a doctor, not become a shut-in enabled by
Bastien’s aunt.”

My first
instinct was to shout into the phone that Abigail was the only person who
remotely understood what I was going through. I caught myself just in time and
repeated, with a calm that channeled Oprah, what Abigail had said to me days
earlier: “People grieve differently. And maybe I need more time and space than
most people, but I don’t see why that automatically makes what I’m doing
wrong.”

In the end I
promised my father I would go to a doctor if my depression worsened. I wasn’t
sure if I meant to it or not. My father asked for Abigail’s phone numbers (both
in Oakville and Vancouver) and said he and my mother would continue to call me
every few days after the move. “If you need to come home—anytime—let us know
and we’ll arrange a ticket,” he said.

Meanwhile my mom
secretly wired me three hundred dollars to help with moving expenses and said
she’d try to send more the following month. I apologized to Mr. Magella, the
landlord, about the late moving notice and he said he was sorry too but he’d
have to keep our deposit. “If I find someone to rent the apartment soon I’ll
mail you a partial refund,” he said. “You were a good tenant—good
tenants
.”
He shook my hand, the sad puppy-dog look in his eyes making me look away.

Etienne borrowed
a van from a friend and he, Yunhee and I hauled what was left of mine and
Bastien’s things to Oakville. Abigail was at work when we arrived but she’d
left keys for me in the mailbox along with a note that explained, “The spare
room (yours) is the first on the left upstairs. Anything that doesn’t fit there
can be stored in the back room or the garage, where there’s plenty of space.
I’ve cleared some of the kitchen cupboards for you too. Please make yourself at
home and I’ll see you later this evening. Welcome!”

Yunhee and
Etienne stayed for about three hours, Yunhee helping me unpack in the spare
room and Etienne arranging boxes on the ground floor and in the garage. When
they were leaving Yunhee said, “Don’t be a stranger. There’s a train to Toronto
every hour. You can spend a day in the city and still be a hermit at night, you
know.”

“I wish we could
stay longer,” Etienne told me. “But I should get the van back. Anytime you’re
going to be downtown, give me a shout and we can get together.”

I thanked them
both, knowing that I hadn’t been much of a friend to either of them since
Bastien had died. I had no clue what was going on in their lives. Couldn’t
remember the last time Yunhee had mentioned fighting with her mother over the
phone or expressed an interest in the Mr. Fix-It
tool-belt-wearing-with-a-hint-of-the-bad-boy
about him type of guy that she usually lusted after. Etienne had always been much
more Bastien’s friend than mine but he’d been there for me whenever I needed
him. If I was better I’m sure there were a lot of things we could have said to
each other.

Once Yunhee and Etienne
had gone I sat in my new room surrounded by three beige walls and a single
orange accent one (which matched the top half of the two-tone drapes covering
the window) and tried to imagine Bastien there with me. I was terrified that
his presence would be missing from my midway between sleep and wakefulness
state from then on but he’d visited his aunt’s house in the past; I wasn’t
entirely disconnected from him. Bastien had attended classes in Oakville as
well as Toronto. This was the town he’d called “kinda sleepy but with some
breathing room.”
There was no reason I couldn’t feel him in this place.

We could be in
this leafy, quiet place together. I tried to tell myself I’d done the right
thing and that anyway, there was no other choice, but the gloom clung to me
like a layer of sweat that wouldn’t be cried away.

I wished Abigail
had already returned to Vancouver and that I wouldn’t have to face her that
evening. I wished I was back in Toronto with the dogs barking and all our
things hanging in the closet together, Bastien’s dirty dishes still in the
kitchen sink.

By the time
Abigail arrived home I had a hardcore headache from wishing so hard and she
fetched me the Tylenol from her private bathroom and then drove me around
Oakville, pointing out the village-like downtown area, the train and bus
station, local shopping mall and nearby supermarkets. Abigail didn’t keep a car
in Oakville anymore, instead renting a sedan whenever she was in town; she’d
warned me beforehand that one of my biggest challenges would be transportation.
Since I didn’t really plan on going anywhere that didn’t strike me as a major
problem, but Abigail had thought of everything and even had a bus schedule and
map for me. Emergency numbers too. The home alarm code (to be set at night) and
telephone number for the security company. Contact info for countless
restaurants that delivered. A current waste management guide detailing garbage
and recycle pick-up days. Phone numbers for her neighbors and the manager of
the Oakville Bulla store, should I ever need them. Abigail’s email address.

Thank you, I
told her. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. She was so good to me. And still I
couldn’t wait to be left alone in her house. Just me, Armstrong and the TV.

That was all I
could handle.

All I
can
handle.

Those things in
themselves feel like a lot. Often I don’t leave the house, and often I don’t
eat how I should, but I nibble, I sleep, I answer my parents’ calls, I clean
Armstrong’s cage and take in the flyers that pile up in Abigail’s mailbox so
her assistant won’t have to. I drink coffee. Walk in the sun (sometimes). Take
out the garbage. Do laundry. Stand at the shore of Lake Ontario and stare. And
always and forever, I’m thinking of Bastien—the boy I’m glad I finally noticed,
even though it meant he broke my heart—and how I would give anything to wake up
and hear him in the shower, running late for class.

With Abigail back in town for
eleven days starting September thirteenth, the house that I’ve had the luxury
of thinking of as mine for the past couple of months becomes a stranger.
Abigail says I shouldn’t mind her and just do what I normally do, but her
presence makes what I usually do seem like not nearly enough. On her first full
day back, while she’s at Bulla, I walk to the supermarket and buy three
shopping bags full of human food. At five o’clock I cook two chicken breasts
(slathered in a store-bought marinade) and leave one in the fridge for her with
a container of Greek salad. I only finish half of my own chicken but eat more
of the salad.

When Abigail
gets home after seven she says she ate on the run while at a work and that I
didn’t need to go to the trouble but that she appreciates it. She’s phoned from
Vancouver from time to time so we’re already caught up (not that there’s much
news on my side) but we chat further about how I’m settling into Oakville. The
topic makes me nervous, because I still don’t know what her original offer that
I could stay “awhile” means, just that I’m not ready for it to end.

I miss our old
apartment, every room crammed with Bastien memories, but I appreciate not
having to worry about money so much. Being responsible for just food costs
means my savings are draining at a dramatically slower rate, and on top of that
my mother has been sending a couple of hundred dollars every month. There’s a
certain calm that accompanies this financial freedom, even though it doesn’t
take any of the pain of Bastien’s absence away.

I do imagine him
here. Feel him here. Even though we were never in Oakville together. Maybe it
would’ve been the same in Burnaby, but for now I’m glad I didn’t stray far from
the place he lived and went to school. And the next several days aside,
Abigail’s home gives me the solitary time I need.

With her in
town, though, I feel both in need of space and like I have something to prove.
I stay home while she’s at the store but spend more time out—by the lake, the
library (where I flip through comic books but never check any out), and in
various coffee shops—when she returns in the evenings. Sometimes Julie, the
woman who manages the Oakville location of Bulla, or another friend comes over
in the evenings. I’m polite but brief and stay out of their way. Having
remembered that Bastien was in the middle of reading
The Handmaid’s Tale
for an English class when he died, I begin carrying it with me everywhere, like
a security blanket.

Sometimes I open
random pages and read a sentence or two, which is as much as I can absorb.
Tonight my eyes land on the sentence: “She said: Because they won’t want things
they can’t have.” The words mock me. I don’t know much about the Aunt Lydia
person who’s saying them, but I’ve decided she’s cruel.

With Abigail due
home soon I walk to the lake with the book tucked under my arm. It’s grown a
little colder during the past couple of weeks and I’m wearing a light cardigan
and black cargo pants, which used to fit without a belt but now require one to
prevent them from slumping down past my hips in a wardrobe malfunction. At a
glance I can see that all the nearest benches are taken, but as I wind along
the path near the lake a man happens to get up from his seat. He nods almost
imperceptibly at me as he passes and I realize it’s the Irish guy who was
looking for directions to the post office a couple of weeks ago.