Falling From Grace (20 page)

“I have to tell Paul he's forgiven,” Rainbow told the nurse who came to the door.

“No visitors except family.”

“I am family. I'm his friend. I have to give him one of my dolls to sleep with.”

The nurse held out her hand and smiled. “I'll give it to him if you like.”

Rainbow frowned and snatched the doll back. “No. Not without me.”

“Tell her I'll see her soon,” I said to Grace and switched off the phone. I ticked a box on the data sheet labelled
C. lindoae
. Identification of specimens to species level was a precarious science. Taxonomists differentiated species by characteristics as simple as the curve of a hair beside another hair on the third section of a back leg. I tried to imagine an alien scientist from space attempting to categorize humans into species on the basis of our physical features: hair length, skin colour, the shape of the nose.

Height.

C. lindoae
was one of three million specimens my colleagues and I had collected in ancient forests on Vancouver Island in the last ten years, most unnamed. The specimen might not be
Cyrtozetes lindoae
at all. An imposter. Mistaken identity.

I unclipped the slide and stacked it in a slide case, pondering the ability of female mites to reproduce without a mate. No suitable partner and
C. lindoae
might simply, like ten per cent of known mite species, forge ahead and make babies on her own.

18

Mary disappeared.
She took Cedar and skipped town with Cougar. Grace called me to say that Mary hadn't returned from a planned meeting with Cougar to discuss their strategy for their upcoming trial.

“She left yesterday morning,” Grace explained. “No phone call. No note.”

“Where's Rainbow?” My stomach lurched at the idea of losing her.

“She's here,” Grace assured me. “The poor thing's frantic.”

“Damn woman,” I cursed. “Have you told anyone yet?”

“No,” Grace answered. “But she's asking for you.”

I once found a newborn fawn in a patch of moss and twinflower while searching for big trees north of Port Renfrew. The hair was still matted from birth, the scatter of spots on the coat faint. Abandoned offspring in the wild most often starve to death or are killed by predators. If old enough to forage the young fawn might survive through its own ingenuity. In rare cases, I'd heard of does taking orphans into their care, nursing them along with their own. I left the fawn where I found it, hoping the mother would come back. When I returned to the spot the next day, the fawn was dead. I remembered the feel of Rainbow's warm body asleep beside me in the tent. Humans have the capacity to embrace another's young and care for them as if they are our own. Humans also have the capacity to abandon.

“Bring her here,” I said.

Grace and Rainbow arrived at my door before dark. Rainbow threw her arms around my waist, her cheeks flushed and tear-stained. Marcel urged us all inside and made Rainbow a hot chocolate, the rest of us tea. I read her a story and put her to bed on the couch in my study, then waited until her breath slowed and deepened into sleep before I slipped out to the kitchen. Grace and Marcel sipped tea at the table, leaning in toward each other like a pair of old cronies.

“It's outrageous,” Grace was saying.

I yanked out a chair and sat. “You're telling me, that woman is more than outrageous,” I snapped.

“No, dear, I'm not talking about Mary,” Grace explained. “I was telling Marcel about Esther's despicable treatment.”

“What do you mean?”

“She refused to sign the form saying she wouldn't go back to the blockade and they put her in the drunk tank until her trial. I had to fight to get her permission to have even a pen and some paper. They give her no privacy.”

“I'm sorry, Grace,” I pleaded. “That's awful, but can we talk about Rainbow? What do we do?”

“For sure we don't tell the cops or social workers.” Marcel set his mug of tea onto the table. “They will put her in foster care and we don't want that.”

“Marcel's right,” Grace agreed. “The child's had a hard enough time.”

“You mean, let them think she's gone off with Mary?”

The two bobbed their heads in unison, as if they'd already discussed the possibility at length.

“Wouldn't the police need to know? Social services?”

“No, dear,” Grace said. Marcel shook his head in agreement. They seemed to have it all worked out between them.

“But where will she live?”

Grace poured a third cup of tea. Marcel added milk and sugar and pushed it across the table. “Here, with you.”

“Me?” My hand knocked against the cup and tea sloshed over the lip, forming a milky pool on the polished wood.

Grace went to the sink for a cloth.

“But I'm single, I work, I might go to jail soon, how can I babysit a child?”

Grace wiped up the spill and levelled her famous gaze at me. “Not babysit. Parent. You make it work, because you love them.”

“But . . .” I didn't have any response to the statement. I had grown fond of Rainbow. But love?

“If you go to jail—a big if, you might get house arrest—I'll help.” Grace tossed the cloth into the sink. “But she wants to live with you.”

“Rainbow, she love you,” Marcel said. “And I do what I can too.”

I stared at the wet stain on the table. “She'll have to go to school.”

Grace leaned on her elbows. “I'd love for her to go to school, but she can't. They'll want documentation, ask too many questions.”

“You mean I'll have to home-school her too?” I stammered. “Don't home-schoolers have to register with a school?”

“If we tell them. We'll manage.” Grace sat back and folded her arms. “You never know, Mary might come back soon.” We all contemplated that possibility in silence.

Grace left the house and returned with Rainbow's belongings: a plastic bag containing a few pieces of ragged clothing, a toothbrush, and the two tiny dolls. “Not even a hairbrush,” she muttered, handing me the bag. She hugged me and left for home.

Marcel washed up the dishes, stooping over the low sink I had installed when I bought the house. “You want to talk?” he asked.

“Tomorrow,” I answered, my body drained of energy. “I need to sleep.”

On my way to my bedroom I paused outside the study and pushed open the door a crack. The light from the hallway spilled across Rainbow's sleeping form. I tiptoed inside and sat on a chair, gathered her pathetic pile of clothes into my lap, and wondered how to explain abandonment to a six-year-old.

Discrete inquiries revealed Rainbow Cassidy did not exist; no certificate on record. The grandfather as tangible as Santa Claus. Grace bought her a wardrobe. “I never had new clothes before,” Rainbow said, admiring a pair of brand new overalls in the mirror. We fixed up the study into a make-shift bedroom. Marcel, Rainbow, and I became an odd unit, drawing more stares than usual when we walked along the waterfront near my home. Rainbow delighted in my miniaturized kitchen and the preponderance of stools arranged about the rooms for reaching high shelves.

“It's like playing house.” She giggled at Marcel, who was perched on a small chair at the kitchen table. “Marcel's like the giant with the little Putians.” We went out the next day and bought him an extra-big chair at a thrift store.

On the third morning at breakfast she asked me point-blank, “Am I going to live with you until Mary comes back?”

I stopped spreading butter on my toast. “Yes,” I answered cautiously.

“Is she going to come back?”

“Of course she is,” I said, guilty for the lie, but unprepared for the conversation I had intended to broach at the opportune time.

Rainbow broached it for me. She swirled her spoon through her milky porridge. “What if she doesn't?” she said quietly.

I pulled Rainbow's chair toward me across the floor.
Precocious child
. I tipped her chin up with a finger. She deserved the truth. I breathed deeply. Could I keep the commitment I was about to make? “I don't know where your mother's gone. I don't know if she's coming back. But you can stay here as long as you want.”

Rainbow slipped from her chair, threw her arms around my neck, and burst into tears. “Can I go to school?” she wailed.

“Yes, but—”

“With books and pencils and a lunch box?”

“Books and pencils and paints and a ruler too,” I said, feeling Marcel's attention on me. “But no lunch box. You'll have to home-school, like you did with Mary.”

Rainbow pushed away. “But why?” She rubbed her wet cheek on her shoulder. “Home-schooling was boring. Mary never taught me how to do anything.”

“Marcel and Grace and I will try to do it better,” I said. “You can learn whatever you like. But, honey, to stay with us, you have to home-school.”

She scowled, but indicated her agreement with a dip of her head.

“And you must not tell anyone your mother has gone away.”

Rainbow didn't ask why, didn't protest; she fixed her gaze on me and dipped her head once more. She didn't mention Mary again.

Marcel and I took Rainbow out and bought her a secondhand desk and two bags of school supplies. She spent the rest of the day organizing her school room, singing while she worked.

19

I listened
to the doctor's blunt announcement with disbelief.

“No nasty viruses, no
STD
s”—she checked the clipboard in her hands—“but it appears you're pregnant.”

“I'm what?” I managed to choke out the few words I could muster at the news. I gaped at the doctor, then at my abdomen, which was draped in a flowered print gown. What did I expect? A hand-shaped bulge, my belly inflating like a balloon as I watched. “How?”

“I expect the usual way,” she said wryly. “Are you in a new relationship?”—she examined the chart in her hand—“Is that why you asked for these
STD
tests?”

I was unable to tear my attention away from my flatter-than-flat stomach. “Are you sure?”

“We found traces of hormone in your urine. If you want, you can confirm it with a home test. Come in next week and I'll do a prenatal physical. Any questions?”

Of course I knew how babies were made, for people, for trees, for mites. The union of a sperm and an egg; in plants: pollen and ovule. The process similar no matter how big or how small the species. The sperm of a blue whale and the sperm of a human were both invisible without the aid of a microscope. An African elephant started life the same way as a deer mouse. The largest species of trees on earth, the sequoia and the redwood, both developed from gametes that could sit undetected by the naked eye on the tip of a human finger. A male mite deposited a small packet of sperm, the spermatophore, which the female collected at her leisure. Fertilization in an old-growth conifer happened high up in the canopy. Windblown pollen from the male cone settled on the female seed cone, and over an entire year's span of time, the sperm moved in through the pollen tube to the ovule where it met with the egg. When released, the fertilized seed drifted to earth where it landed on a rock and dried up, or fell into a swamp to rot, or, if lucky, settled on a decomposing log, a patch of soil, or a gravel bank and when the time was right, the temperature warm enough, the humidity high enough, the ground fertile enough, the embryo opened and a seedling emerged.

The doctor rose and opened the door. “And once we're sure, let's set up an appointment to discuss your options.”

My brain felt like mush.

“You might want to consider genetic testing.”

“Testing?”

“You must know it's possible to test the fetus for achondroplasia. And”—she consulted the chart again—“if you are considering an abortion, you'll want to make a decision soon.”