Not Suitable For Family Viewing (21 page)

Saturday, 3:30 p.m.

You, You and Mimi

“Mother-Child Reunion.” Mimi and adoption-rights advocate Laura Jeha reunite seven adult children with their birth parents.

Anita would have run to me the moment she saw me. She’d have screamed and cried and kissed me all over my face.

Mom just sucks in her breath and starts walking toward me. She’s got her sandals in her hand. She’s barefoot. I can’t remember the last time I saw her barefoot.

Her hair’s a mess. There are grey circles under her eyes that she hasn’t done anything to cover up. She’s not even wearing lipstick. She didn’t need to hide out here. No one would recognize her as Mimi Schwartz.
I
barely recognize her.

“Birdie,” she says. “I’m really sorry.”

She reaches up and touches my stitches but I don’t think that’s what she means. She hugs me. I hug her back. We’re both awkward. We’ve never done a lot of hugging.

“Let’s sit down,” she says. “I’ll tell you everything and then—if you want—I’ll take you home.”

Her face sags like a balloon four days after a birthday party. It makes me sad. She’s interviewed the Queen of Jordan. She’s talked to Mafia hit men. She’s grilled big stars on-air about their alleged drug use, criminal records, impending divorces. But I can see she’s scared to talk to me. Her own daughter.

I drop my cane and lower myself against a rock. She sits with her knees up and her feet digging into the sand. I notice her toes aren’t webbed and I get this little shot of happiness. I think,
So she couldn’t be a Bister, then!
but the happiness doesn’t last long. It’s like a firecracker that flies up in the air and then just fizzles back to earth. I know she’s a Bister. I’m a Bister.

Do I care? I don’t know.

Mom picks up a handful of sand and lets it run over her feet. “Ask me whatever you want,” she says.

I’ve got so many questions but the first one is obvious. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I don’t say it in a mean way or an accusing way or anything. I just need to know.

Mom doesn’t do any of her Mimi stuff. She doesn’t nod her head or rub her chin or touch my knee. There are no reaction shots for the camera. She just looks straight ahead at the ocean and talks.

“Two reasons, I guess,” she says. “I promised Mrs. Hiltz that I’d keep my mouth shut until she died—so I did. Despite everything, I figured I owed her that much.”

She must know how crazy that sounds. “She
did
rescue me, Birdie. If it weren’t for her, I’d still be out there…” She points her chin at Bister Island. It’s sort of a tough-guy thing to do, like a gang member picking a fight or something. Does she hate the Island, or hate Mrs. Hiltz?

She shakes her head, pauses, sighs. “The other reason was that…I don’t know. I guess I was ashamed.”

“Of what?” I say. “Blackmailing her?”

“Is that what Mrs. Hiltz told you?”

There’s an edge to her voice and for a second I worry she’s going to blow up at me—but then I realize I’m not the one she’s angry at.

She says, “Please, tell me you don’t believe that. She gave me the money! She
forced
it on me! I didn’t even know what was in the envelope until I was long gone!”

Mom turns away from me. There’s a long pause. When she finally speaks, she’s calm again. “Look,” she says. “This is what happened. Mrs. Hiltz took me in. I thank her for that. I still do. She cleaned me up, dressed me, taught be how to act like a lady. She was very kind to me. She expected Percy to be too. And he was.

“Neither of us meant to fall in love. I mean, I was terrified of him at first. He was so big and, you know, jolly…I froze every time he came near me. But Mrs. Hiltz sort of pushed us together. I realize now she’d already envisioned his political career. She knew he needed to be able to deal with the underclasses.”

A little smile floats across Mom’s face. I think she’s embarrassed.

“That’s not why Percy was doing it. He was just kind. Way before there was anything between us, Percy took the time to teach me how to use the phone book, how to change the channel on the TV, how to open a milk carton, all that stuff I didn’t know. He wanted to take me to parties too—but I wouldn’t go. I was too shy. I wasn’t ready.

“Somewhere along the line—I guess I’d been there about a year—we fell in love. There was nothing bad about it but somehow we both felt uncomfortable letting other people know. Maybe we
knew some of them wouldn’t approve of the match. I didn’t even tell Rosie. We knew better than to let on to Mrs. Hiltz, of course—but mostly because if she found out, we knew we’d never be able to get any time alone. She’d be suspicious of us heading off on those long drives together…”

She squeezes her lips to one side of her face and lifts her eyebrows. I guess she’s telling me that I was conceived in the back of a car.

“Things changed when I realized I was pregnant. We were scared at first but we talked it over. We loved each other. Mrs. Hiltz had said she loved me. We were naive enough to believe she was going to be thrilled at the thought of us giving her a grandchild.”

We both laugh. I mean, it’s horrible and it’s tragic but it’s funny too. As if Mrs. Hiltz would be thrilled about a teen pregnancy, not to mention a Bister teen pregnancy.

“She looked surprised when we told her but kept that perfect smile on her face. She even congratulated us. It was all very pleasant. We talked about what we’d name the baby, where we’d live, what we’d do when Percy went off to university the next year. Then it was seven o’clock and Percy had to leave for hockey practice.

“The door had barely shut behind him before Mrs. Hiltz turned on me. She called me a tramp, a slut, a Bister! I’d betrayed her, ruined her son’s life, destroyed her family’s good name. She said she wanted me out. I said, no. I couldn’t go. I couldn’t break Percy’s heart! She laughed at that. He’d just been using me, she said. He’d come to his senses soon enough and realize he wanted nothing to do with a low-life like me.”

Mimi rubs her hands over her face. Even though she’s upset, I
notice that’s she careful to rub up, not down. Dr. Boileau said it was better for her skin.

“It was terrible. In moments, I’d gone from the happiest I’d ever been to the saddest. It was like someone had baked me a great, big birthday cake, then the candles went and exploded in my face. I ran into my room, sobbing. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. I just collapsed.

“Mrs. Hiltz knocked on my door a little while later. She handed me a big fat envelope and said, ‘Take this and get out.’ I did.”

She lifts her chin and speaks in this really slow voice. “That’s what happened. I have nothing to be ashamed of as far as that goes.”

“So then what
are
you ashamed of?”

She looks out at the water. I don’t know if it’s the glare that’s making her squint or if she’s trying not to cry.

“Myself,” she says. “You can dye my hair, give me a new nose, put me in designer fashions—but it doesn’t make any difference. I’m still a Bister. The lowest of the low. My whole life has been about trying to get over that. I kept my mouth shut all these years because I was embarrassed about who I was. I kept telling myself that one day I’d be good enough to deserve Percy—and then I could talk.”

She reaches out like she’s going to touch my hand but she doesn’t. She picks up a pebble and rubs it in her fingers. “I thought the same thing about you. One day, I was going to be so good, so perfect, that I could tell you who I was and it wouldn’t matter.”

“But, Mom!” I go. “I wouldn’t have cared! I wouldn’t have…”

I want to push up close to her, put my arm through hers, put my head on her shoulder—but I don’t. I know she doesn’t want that. I’m not sure either of us could handle it. I’ll save that type of thing for Anita.

“No. Maybe you wouldn’t,” she says, “but I couldn’t risk it. All my life people have said it didn’t matter—then acted like it did. You know, there was this big ‘outrage’ when
Canadian Geographic
did that story on us. Everyone around here made it sound like they were so shocked at the way we’d been living. But that was nonsense. Everybody here had known about us for years! Government people came by occasionally. Antique dealers rowed over to buy furniture off us for a tenth of what it was worth. Fishermen got their moonshine from us. Some minister even dragged Father and my uncles off to school for a while when they were boys. The minister’s intentions might have been honourable but the experience turned the Bisters off civilization for good. Father vowed he would never expose his children to that type of ridicule. The locals were more than happy to let him have his way.”

She gives this little “hmmph!” and shakes her head. “You can’t tell me no one around here knew there were fourteen starving kids and a couple of dying old folks on that island. I mean, come on! How come nobody ever asked about what happened to my mother? The townspeople knew about Nettie Faulkner. It was a big scandal when she took up with a Bister. Once she was on the Island, though, it was like, ‘So long, Nettie!’ Nobody ever bothered to see how she was doing—whether she was even still alive! When the cancer took her, we just filled her pockets with rocks and buried her at sea.”

Mom burying a body at sea. I’ve never even seen her make a cup of tea for herself. It’s like she’s morphing before my very eyes. She’s not Mom. She’s not Mimi. She’s someone else entirely.

“Were you glad when the people came to get you?” I say.

She rubs her hands back and forth through the sand in a big arc. “We didn’t know what to think, us kids. My little sister had died the winter before. Starvation. Something should have been done but
the adults were too proud to go for help. Now here was help. You couldn’t expect us to turn it away. It was scary to leave the only home we ever knew, but, hey—the new place had Popsicles! The new people didn’t cane us when we were bad or lock us in cellars. They fed us when we were hungry. They gave us clothes that fit and warm baths and actual shoes. Who’d want to go back to Bister Island after that—even if we could?

“It wasn’t until I went to school that I realized all this bounty came with a price. I was still just a Bister—at least as far as most people were concerned. I say ‘most people’ because it wasn’t everyone…” She turns and looks at me. “You met Rosie.”

I nod. “I thought she was my mother.”

“You might have been better off if she were.”

I try to say “No!” but she won’t let me.

“I mean it,” she says. “She’s a wonderful person. You know, I’ve done more shows than I can count on heroes. People who’ve jumped onto subway tracks to save a stranger or fought off an intruder or thrown themselves on a hand grenade. And every time I do one, I think of Rosie. We always make bravery out to be this big, flashy thing. It isn’t always. Rosie Ingram is one of the bravest people I ever met. I mean it. I’m not saying everyone at high school was out-and-out mean or that some people didn’t try to help. But Rosie was the only one brave enough to really get to know me. She didn’t care if it looked bad on her. She liked me and she didn’t try to pretend she didn’t. That’s real courage. Unfortunately, it’s just not very good TV.”

Mom smoothes down her hair but it doesn’t help much. It’s so weird to see her look such a mess that I get a sharp little pang. Did I really need to dig all this up? Who cares? Who’s it helping?

Her, maybe. She just keeps talking and talking like she wants to get it all out of her system.

“It’s funny. Mrs. Hiltz was the one who got all the glory for being brave. My cousins went and lived at the ‘Home for Delinquent Boys.’ Nobody else would have them. The really little kids were adopted into families who lived somewhere else. But me, I found a foster home with the richest person in town. People were
astounded
Mrs. Hiltz had taken in a Bister. She was a saint, a hero!”

We laugh a little at that. Some saint.

“I believed it too. Mrs. Hiltz was so kind and patient. She kept telling me how smart and pretty I was. I was in heaven. No one had ever praised me before. No one had ever proudly presented me to their friends!”

Mom’s voice gets all tight and I know she’s about to cry. I put my hand on her back but she goes stiff, so I take it away. She starts to talk again as if she’s perfectly fine.

“I think of those ladies with their Betty Crocker hairdos and their little sandwiches saying, ‘
This
is the Bister girl? Why, Opal, isn’t she lovely!’ and I realize the whole thing was about
her.
About what a good job
she
was doing. Rosie didn’t have any reason to be nice to me. She just was.”

“So why did you steal Rosie’s wallet then?” She said I could ask her anything.

Mom puts her hand over her mouth and sort of hums or moans or something. “I didn’t mean to
steal
it. I went to Rosie’s after Mrs. Hiltz kicked me out. I only wanted to say goodbye but I couldn’t get the words out. At some point, she went to the washroom. While she was gone, I took her wallet out of her jewellery box. I just wanted a picture of her so I’d have something to keep, but she came back too
soon. I put the whole thing in my pocket and told her I had to get going. I hugged her goodbye. She must have wondered why there were tears in my eyes. I always felt bad about that.”

“What did you do then, when you left Rosie’s?”

“Got on the highway and hitchhiked into the city. I hung around there for a couple of days not knowing what to do. Percy had told me about New York once. I decided to go. Lucky for me I had that wallet. I got to the airport and found out I needed ID. I had Rosie’s birth certificate and student card. That’s how I became Rosemary Miriam Ingram…That was another thing I wasn’t planning on doing.”

She pauses. “None of this was planned, Robin. I just did what I had to do. I want you to know that.”

“Okay,” I say. We’ve both been called scheming tramps. Doesn’t mean we are.

She looks at me for a while, then says, “I got to New York and put the rest of the money in a bank account. I planned to send it back to Mrs. Hiltz as soon as I got a job. I saw a notice tacked up on a bulletin board. A man needed someone to look after his sick wife. Room and board included.