The Perils of Pauline Read online

  I put the kettle on and start wiping counters and loading the dishwasher. I’m sitting at the kitchen table in my dressing gown waiting for the kettle to boil. There’s a tapping at the door. It opens and in comes Donald. Just like that.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  I stand up and gesture at my dressing gown. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  Donald has a look of concern on his face. “Serenity told me you hurt your back. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s much better now.” I run my hand through my hair, still damp from the shower. The kettle starts whistling. “I’m making tea. Want some?”

  Donald shakes his head and sits at the table.

  I unplug the kettle and pour water into my mug.

  “I turned down Calgary.”

  “You did?”

  “I told them I want the directorship here. Or forget it.”

  “And?”

  “I have to meet with the CEO this afternoon. We’ll see.” Donald shrugs. “So, anyway, I’ve been thinking.”

  “About?”

  “About us. You and me. Our relationship.”

  Holy smokes. Donald said the word relationship. Without mumbling or prompting or careful steering from a couple’s counselor. He has my attention now. “Our relashunship?” Now I’m the one mumbling.

  “I guess it wasn’t much of a relationship, was it?”

  I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t. Not lately anyway. Definitely more shun than ship.”

  I stir the teabag around in my mug with a spoon. We both watch the tea seep into the water. “Well, Donald. What do you want to do?”

  Donald leans forward in his chair. “I miss us. I miss you. And I love you.”

  I am speechless.

  “Calgary was nothing to me without you there. I wasn’t being fair. I know that now. I made some huge mistakes. I am sorry. Maybe it’s too late for us but I’m more than willing to try, if you are.”

  “You got my text messages?”

  “Yes. I got them. But I already knew. Serenity told me some guy was coming over here. And I opened your suitcase. At that point I almost called a lawyer.” Donald’s face changes to a look of incredulousness. “What the hell was all that crap?”

  “What the hell was all that crap with Lindsay?”

  Donald stares at the table for a minute and then looks me directly in the eye. “I was an idiot. It’s over.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the day I got on the plane to Calgary. That’s the day I realized you were the most important person to me in the world, and that I had screwed everything up.”

  I sit and try to digest Donald’s candor. At last. Even though I knew the truth about Lindsay, the words sear. My chest is roiling and sore and some monstrous thing inside is threatening to engulf me. I don’t know whether to scream at him, throw my mug at his head, or simply accept that we’ve both been idiots. And try to mop up our mess. Why make a bigger mess? I take a gulp of hot tea, and then one gulp of air after another until my breathing slows down again. I think I will hold on to my mug, and hold on to Donald too. “We’re going to have to talk. We have to come clean with each other. It won’t be easy,” I say.

  “I know. Maybe we could get a counselor?”

  Donald lays his forearms flat on the table and dunks his head down so he can peer up into my eyes. “Do you want to start over? Do you want me to come home?”

  And now I really have to finally decide.

  And it takes about half a second: “Yes. Come home.”

  By the time Donald returns from his meeting, Shae, Serenity, and I have slam-shifted through every sticky gear in the house and brought the place from a full reverse into a nice throaty hum. We cleaned the bathrooms, folded towels, changed all the beds and passed the vacuum. Not because Donald is home, but because Serenity is nesting. It’s too bad this useful urge never kicked in before today but it’s better than nothing. Shae and I are afraid she’ll overdo so we raced around behind her, picking up baskets of laundry and making her sit down for a break every half hour.

  We’re chopping the garlic, onions and carrots for stew when Donald comes home. Olympia and Jack leap on him and then he tells them his news: “I got the promotion.”

  All through dinner, Donald keeps giving me his Scot’s taber toss face. I know what he’s thinking. I’m thinking about a taber toss too, and we work in tight accord to hustle Jack and Olympia to bed. He reads them one last story while I slip into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Forgotten on the floor are two sets of wet towels, Jack’s and Olympia’s. I scoop them up and run downstairs to add them to the last load in the washing machine. For once, I’m all caught up with the laundry and, with the whole house all shiny and ship-shape, I’m determined to try to stay caught up. As I pass through the living room, I straighten all the couch cushions and deliver Jack’s library book to his backpack. Which leads to looking over his daily report. Wow. Jack had a very good day is written across the top of his behavior sheet. Then I check Olympia’s backpack, which also lacks alarming notes. I wash out their lunchboxes and set them in the sink to drain. As I wipe a puddle from the counter, the phone rings. It’s Mom: “So Donald is home again, how nice.”

  “What? How the …? What color is the dishcloth I’m holding?”

  By the time I get back upstairs, Donald is freshly showered and shaved and wearing his favorite bathrobe. I can smell aftershave. He winks at me and whistles into the bedroom. I sashay in after him, close the door, and pull the curtains across both windows, tightly. Donald reaches for me but as he does, I spy his wet towel lying on the carpet in front of the closet door.

  “Wait a sec,” I deke away from him and, snatching up the towel, I wave it in front of his nose. “Remind me again why I love you?”

  “I’ve got that big fat director’s bank account now, remember, Dollface?”

  He flips the towel aside and grabs me, all masterfully, scooping his arms under me to throw me down, but in a gentle way, onto the bed. He leans in to kiss me and I puff up my lips in anticipation. This action is immediately interrupted by a loud rapping on the door, followed by Shae yelling, “It’s time. Her water broke. See you at the hospital.”

  As Donald and I step through the double doors of the birthing wing, we can already hear Serenity: she’s somehow yelling and swearing and moaning all at once. We hurry down the hall and three tennis balls come rolling and bouncing out through an open door. “Keep those stupid fucking balls away from me,” she screams and through the door I can see Serenity pacing up and down the room. Between tears and gasps of breath she says, “Shae, my ass hurts. A lot. Call the anesthetist now. I need drugs. I need drugs.”

  Janice is waving a blood pressure cuff. “Serenity, listen to me. You have to calm down. I need to check your vitals first before we can give you anything.”

  “No!”

  Serenity stops pacing, bends over, clutches her knees and bawls: “Here comes another one. Fuuuuck ….”

  Shae reaches out to rub her back. Serenity screams, “Don’t touch me.”

  Janice slips up beside Serenity and deftly wraps the cuff around her arm while donning her stethoscope. A nurse is adjusting the dials on a heart monitor machine; she has an IV pole and a tray of scissors and syringes and she looks like she means business. As soon as the contraction ends, while Serenity is still huffing, they hustle her over to the bed and get her to sit. She looks up, sees me and tries to get up. “Mom!”

  “Hey, baby. I’m here.”

  The business-like nurse glares at us, holds up her hand and says, “Are you family?”

  “That’s my daughter.”

  “Then you better go find the change rooms and get gowned up.”

  By the time I get back in the room, I find Serenity leaning over the back of a chair, chewing on Shae’s arm. Janice studies the screen of a handheld Doppler, which she’s pressing into the side of Serenity’s bump. As the contraction ends, Serenity pants for breath. “I want an epidura
l now,” she shrieks, wild-eyed.

  From the look of Shae’s arm, covered in bite marks, I can tell she’s in almost as much pain and may need an epidural too.

  Janice looks up from the Doppler screen, smiles at me and says, “She’s almost fully dilated. Baby is doing fine.”

  Within a minute or two, Serenity howls and bends over again. I can tell she’s having a huge contraction by the way she’s bearing down on Shae’s arm and Shae’s eyes are bulging out.

  I time the contraction on my watch. It lasts almost two minutes. When it ends, Serenity clings to Shae and closes her eyes. She’s swaying with exhaustion but refuses to sit or lie down. Shae holds her upright. I find a damp washcloth and dab gently at her forehead. Her hair is damp with sweat. Soon her face contorts again and she begins to moan, this time in a deep growl of pain. She hangs onto Shae’s neck and lets Jude rub her back this time. Jude is careful to keep his limbs away from Serenity’s teeth.

  Janice crouches between Serenity’s legs and, with two gloved hands, reaches up to massage Serenity’s perineum.

  “Those huge contractions are doing the job. Your baby’s head is almost down,” she says straightening up as the contraction ends. “Are you feeling an urge to push yet?”

  Serenity keeps her eyes closed and shakes her head. Janice reaches into her bag and pulls out a small three-legged stool saying, “This is a birthing stool. Do you want to try it?”

  Serenity opens her eyes and shouts, “No! Get that thing away from me. I don’t need it. I’m going home now.” She throws off the hospital gown and turns toward a chair where she has piled her clothes. Shae picks the gown up from the floor and says, “You can’t go now, the baby is coming.”

  “I don’t want to have a baby. I want to go to sleep.” At this she takes a step toward the bed and then stops, a look of sheer confusion upon her face. She looks at me and opens her mouth to say something but then goes ooohhhhhhh and sinks into a deep squat. Janice snatches up the birthing chair and shoves it under her while Shae slides in close to support her from behind. Within seconds, Janice is masked, gloved, and kneeling, her head bent way down to see, her cheek grazing the floor. She continues massaging the perineum and coaching: “You can push now, but go easy Serenity. Just think, out like butter, that’s it, beautiful, you’re doing great.”

  I race from the room, down to the lounge where Donald is waiting with Jack and Olympia, watching TV: “If you guys want to see the baby being born, you better come now.”

  Jack and Olympia come running, slipping masks over their mouths. They both have cans of root beer in their hands. They perch on the edge of the window-sill and look on like they’re watching an action-adventure movie. Without taking their eyes off Serenity, they occasionally push the masks up to sip from their cans of pop. All they need is a bowl of popcorn.

  I’m holding my breath with each push. Serenity’s face is screwed up into a tight ball of concentrated pain and power.

  Donald catches my hand and squeezes it. I squeeze back.

  We can see the baby’s head bulging, wet and urgent, and Serenity gives one more primitive groan, and in one long push out comes a chubby peach with vigorously waving arms and legs. Everyone pretends not to see the girly bits and holds their breath as Janice holds the baby up for Serenity to see. “It’s a girl,” Serenity announces. “See, I knew it all along.”

  And then the chubby peach opens its tiny mouth and lets out an indignant squawk. I know what she’s saying. She’s saying: “Hey ya, you don’t know nothing, nohow, anymore, know what I’m sayin’, Mommycakes? Now go buy me a pink pony.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Return to Base

  Return to Base: An order to proceed to the point indicated by the displayed information or by verbal communication.—Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

  At dawn, I wake to the sound of a baby crying. For a moment I am disoriented but then I remember. Summer is only one week old and the whole household parades around under her command already. Slipping on my robe, I make my way down the hall to Serenity’s bedroom and knock on the door.

  Entering, I find Shae and Serenity facing each other cross-legged on the bed, Summer lying between them, red-faced, kicking her legs and howling.

  “Mom, she’s been up nursing, like, every hour, all night long. Now she won’t go to sleep. We’ve changed her and held her and burped her and everything but she won’t settle down. Do you think there’s something wrong?”

  “No. She’s fine. Why not let me take her for a while? You two get some sleep.”

  They hand her over gratefully and, as I slip out of the room, I see the two of them slide deep under the covers and swiftly wriggle into spoon formation. I’ll miss them when they move to their apartment next month.

  I carry Summer downstairs. She continues screaming as I pace around the living room patting her back and murmuring to her. She squirms and writhes and finally, when I’m beginning to wonder if there’s actually something wrong with her, she lets out a healthy belch and immediately settles into a quieter pattern of fussing and wriggling.

  At last, Summer relaxes into my shoulder but I don’t want to take her back upstairs quite yet and disturb Shae and Serenity. I can smell coffee brewing so I carry her into the kitchen where I find Donald sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Like he’d never left.

  Donald looks up as I enter. “I know what’s the matter with George’s paw.”

  “Really?”

  “Look at the way he’s lying.”

  George is settled in his favorite place beside the back door, one paw tucked neatly underneath him and the other sticking straight out.

  “George, come here.” George gets up and slowly, painfully, limps over to Donald.

  He sits and holds out his sore paw and Donald rubs it for a few minutes. George looks at Donald and then at me. Donald continues to massage his paw while George thumps his tail happily on the floor. Then, Donald tosses a scrap of toast from his plate to the other side of the kitchen, and George leaps after it, nimbly and happily, without a trace of a limp.

  “See? When he lies on his paw like that, he puts it to sleep.”

  Unbelievable.

  “Plus, I saw him hanging around under the bird feeder this morning eating bird seed. The blue jays dump out all the little stuff trying to get to the sunflower seeds. That explains the grainy bits.”

  “George is eating bird seed?” I shake my head and stare out at the seed-spattered snow under the feeder and a solid scattering of paw prints. “How come I never noticed him doing this?”

  “You’ve been too busy, I guess. Want some coffee?”

  I sit at the kitchen table as Donald fills my favorite mug and adds the exact right amount of milk and sugar.

  Then, setting the mug on the table in front of me, he lifts Summer from my arms gently, expertly even, and I can see he’s remembering back when he used to perform this delicate transfer maneuver with Jack and Olympia. Summer’s eyelids flutter briefly as she burps another small burp. A little milky drool escapes from the side of her tiny lips, and is absorbed into the folds of Donald’s shirt. She sighs contentedly, her buttery form nestled warm and protected in the crook of Donald’s arm.

  Donald smiles down at her. After a moment his tender gaze passes from Summer’s face to mine. He peers into my eyes as if he’s seeing them for the first time in a long time, and I fasten my eyes to his. It has been a long time. I want to live in this beautiful moment forever. “She looks just like you,” he tells me, “when she burps like that.”

  About the Author

  COLLETTE YVONNE IS A WRITER, community volunteer, yoga teacher, and freelance journalist. Since graduating with honors from York University’s Creative Writing Program, her short stories, blog posts, reviews, articles, and interviews have appeared in numerous publications ranging from fictional anthologies to articles in national newspapers. Her words have also been produced on stage and in film. Collette lives in Ontario where she
is working on perfecting her downward dog and corpse pose, and writing her next book.

  Collette maintains her blog at www.colletteyvonne.ca

  Acknowledgements

  Many many thanks…

  … To my wonderful agent, Stephany Evans, for her incredible insight, guidance, and perseverance, I am forever grateful. Thanks, also, belong to Robert Astle and Astor+Blue for taking a chance on me. Thanks to editor Jillian Ports for her excellent skills and sharp eyes. To writing group friends Joy Barber, Ellen Case, Maria Cioni, Debi Goodwin, Janet Looker, Ffion Llwd-Jones, Netta Rondinelli, Maria Coletta McLean, Bryna Wasserman, Jamie Zeppa: your critical input has been invaluable. Maria CM: you endlessly kept my spirits up and constantly reminded me where my place was—in the chair, writing. To Evangeline Moffat, who made an early draft of the manuscript much better which is exactly what a good editor is supposed to do. To writing teachers: Bruce Powe who once upon a time said I could write, I’ve dined out on that comment for years, and to Sarah Sheard, Elisabeth Harvor, Don Coles and Susan Swan whose wonderful writing classes gave me many critical tools to think and practice the craft. To Ottawa scribes: Agnes Cadieux, Kelly Lalonde, Jeff Secker and Caroline Wissing, thanks for making Ottawa rock for me. To the members of the Writers Community of Durham Region (WCDR) and Brian Baker, Karen Cole, Kevin Craig, Sherry Hinman, Barbara Hunt, Myrna Marcelline, Susan Statham and Heather Tucker of Works in Progress Group (WIP) for being such an incredible resource of motivation and community, and to friend Shirley Tye: thanks for knocking on my doors so many moons ago. To John Butcher, James Dewar, Frances Horibe, Jessica Outram, and Sue Lynn Reynolds: thanks for your invaluable help shaping my stories over our many wonderful summer writing retreats. To Shelley Macbeth and the staff of the best independent bookstore on the planet, Blue Heron Books of Uxbridge, for fervently supporting local writers. To Chuck Cross, another fellow traveler, who sent me poems and clippings and talked shop with me. To solid gold friends: Lucy Bondarenko for saying she will wait to read the manuscript when it is published and not before, Catherine McNeill for having a “Collette File,” Jane MacIntosh who always had a encouraging word at every turn, and Linda Zernask who listened and listened and listened. To friends Deb Boyd, Ann Budway, Sherry Craighead, Loretta Harrison, Leslie Kerrivan, Helen Litt, Vera Lohse, Deborah Seager, and Mary Vincent: Thanks for wanting to know what I was writing and applauding every publishing credit along the way. Every woman needs a true blue circle like you. Special thanks go to Irene Greer for her sharp editorial eye and to Debbie Myers: Thank you for opening your cottage to us and for laughing till the tears ran down your cheeks. You have no idea how this has sustained me. To Betty Jo Hakanson who said, at a critical point in this venture, “Own the thought that you deserve to be heard.” So many others helped along the way, I would be remiss not to mention Lisa Argue, Natalie Bondarenko, Brandy Ford, Cindy Revell, and Teresa Willison for their help at critical times. To my sister, Teresa Hannigan, who is quite simply the wind beneath my wings. To my parents, Paul and Sheila Argue, for simply everything. To my aunt, Donna Procher, for the guitar and all the great art supplies when I was a kid—you knew how much these things matter. To my wonderful husband, Peter McKeracher: You never once stopped believing. And to my children: Liam, Colleen, and Alex, you keep me in the real world and show me every day what love is.