After You've Gone Page 12

  Eighteen

  Lita

  September 1937

  CLOSE TO 5:30 ON A COOL September morning I checked into the Grey Nuns Hospital. When I gave the admitting clerk my name, she looked at me. “MacInnes, huh? Must be a black Scot.” I just smiled. It reminded me of something Bill had said a couple of years before. As we waited for the rest of the band to show up for a rehearsal, he’d said, “You ought to drop the ‘o’ in your name.”

  “What?”

  “You should drop the ‘o’. Spell it K-u-d-e-l-k-a.”

  “Maybe I should just spell it K-n-i-g-h-t like my brother does. I mean, what’s the difference if I spell it with an ‘o’ or without?”

  “Hey, it’s just a suggestion.”

  “Well, maybe you should drop the ‘a’ in your name. MacInnes, McInnes, what’s the difference?”

  “That’s not the same at all.”

  I was in labour almost eighteen hours, then ended up having a Cesarean section. Failure to progress, they told me. It sounded like a diagnosis of my whole life, not just my obstetrical problems. The worst part wasn’t the pain, although that was no picnic. The worst part was Bill. Was it pure agony, was it guilt, was it lack of sleep? It couldn’t have been the drugs, because they didn’t give me much until the very end, close to when they put me out for the operation. But Bill, I could have sworn, was there, not holding my hand, as you might expect a good husband to do nowadays, but there in my peripheral vision. Husbands now are expected to be there and do everything they possibly can for the wife. It’s a nice idea, a nice gesture, but really — how much can they do for you, when it comes right down to it, except maybe chase down the doctor or nurse? Anyway, Bill was there at the edge of things, and when I’d turn to look at him, he’d be gone. I was tired, tired like I could never remember being before. I wanted to sleep, couldn’t. A couple of times I did nod off between contractions and I’d hear Bill’s voice. When I woke up and answered him, there’d be no one there, or maybe a nurse patting my hand. Once in that twilight between sleep and waking, I heard him say, “Whose baby is it, Lita? C’mon, you can tell me now. Whose is it?”

  I jolted fully awake then, and screamed, the scream coinciding with a contraction. Sister Helen shook her head. “We’ll get Dr. Schaumleffel in here to see you right away, poor thing. I think you’ve been at this long enough.”

  I nodded, thanked her weakly. Sister Helen didn’t know the half of it.

  When I came to they brought me the baby. And much to my relief, I had no doubt from the second I laid eyes on her who Sarah Kali’s father was. She was a MacInnes, all right: sandy hair, white eyelashes and, even as a tiny babe, her father’s great grey eyes. If there was any Gypsy blood in my girl it wasn’t apparent to the eye. Years earlier, I might have been happy about that, proud even. Now I wasn’t so sure. I knew I wouldn’t keep my daughter’s background from her. All the same, I wept with joy, then with sorrow, when I saw her, the spit of her father. Even as this tiny thing, curled tightly still in the shape of my womb, she looked so much like him. She clutched my finger with that iron grip newborns have and I knew Bill would never leave me now. Whether that was good or bad, I wasn’t sure. Now I can say it was good.

  My baby was a girl, though, not a boy like in the dream I had. And her hair didn’t look like his hair. Still, I thought, maybe that child was a son I’d have later.

  Darlene stood in the doorway of my hospital room and smiled shyly. She should be shy after what she did to me, I thought. She should die of shyness. I was gathering up my things, getting ready to leave the hospital. Steve would be there any minute to pick us up and take us home. I didn’t want to talk to Darlene at all, but guessed I had to say something.

  “I was just going home.”

  “I know. The nuns told me. Can I see the baby?”

  “There she is.” I nodded at the bassinet where Sarah lay curled in the warmth of the afternoon sun through the window. Angry as I was with Darlene, I didn’t have the strength to turn her away, or to start a battle of any kind. In those days a C-section entitled you to a ten-day hospital stay. The nurses would wheel the babies in for feeding and wheel them back out to let you rest; not like the three or four days of what amounts to camping in a hospital room, baby beside you at all times, that C-section moms get now. Despite the rest I got, though, it was only for two to three hours at a stretch. A few days of that can start doing things to your brain. The path of least resistance was the only path I could follow at that moment.

  “She’s beautiful. She looks a lot like her daddy. What’s her name?”

  “Sarah. Sarah Kali MacInnes.”

  “Sarah Callie,” she repeated. “Pretty. Must be Scots, huh?”

  “No. Gypsy, actually. St. Sarah Kali is the patron saint of Gypsies.”

  “Oh.” Then Steve came into the room. One look at Darlene, and he whipped off his hat, flashed her a wide smile. He’d never take off his hat for me, I knew that.

  “How do you do?” he asked Darlene. Oh, God, not my brother, too. This is her, I wanted to say, the gaji who stole my husband. Don’t flirt with her, for Christ’s sake.

  “Darlene, this is my brother, Steve. Steve, this is Darlene Klein. Steve’s come to pick me up. But it was nice of you to come by, Darlene.”

  “Well, listen. I don’t expect you to forgive me just yet. I don’t blame you if you hate me, Lita, and maybe you never will forgive me. But you’ll need help with that baby, and I think it’s the least I can do to help you out as much as I can.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I figured she had come to check out the baby, see if she looked like Bill or Jake. “You don’t have to do that. We’ll be fine.”

  Steve put in his two cents. “You’ve got to be kidding. This lady’s kind enough to offer help. How could you say no to her?” How could I say no to her? If he had any clue. And here she is giving him the idea she’s some kind of angel of mercy.

  Darlene picked up her purse and gloves. “I’ll leave you alone for now. But I’ll drop by your place tomorrow and see how you are, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Darlene arrived the next morning at 9:30, said she was ready to put in a full day’s work. She washed and wrung and hung out the considerable pile of diapers Sarah had already gone through, kept me fed and watered, and let me sleep when Sarah wasn’t demanding to be nursed, which was about every three hours. She stayed all day, every day for a full week, while Gus ran the hotel by himself. He was no doubt used to that. While Sarah and I napped, she cooked, baked, stocked the larder and icebox with things to eat. I’d never seen her work this hard at the hotel, had no idea she even had it in her.

  Make no mistake, I was still murderously mad. But seeing her work like that, I had to respect her. She obviously felt bad about everything, I reflected while giving Sarah her four AM feeding, munching on some of the oatmeal cookies Darlene had baked that afternoon. And Bill knew what he was doing, too. He’d always been a terrible flirt. If it hadn’t been Darlene, it would have been some other woman. Undoubtedly there was more than one other woman. And could I really hold Darlene responsible for Bill’s death? He hadn’t even been with her that night. Wasn’t it just as likely he would have wandered home from the bar and frozen whether he’d left me or not? Wouldn’t it be fairer to blame myself, since I’d changed the locks? If I hadn’t, he’d be here right now, stroking his baby daughter’s downy head as she suckled dreamily — for surely, once he found out I was with child, he would have come back to me, wouldn’t he? In fact, he may well have been trying to do that very thing, the thing I’d been hoping and praying for, that night. And I’d been with Jake — but only to break it off with him. Why couldn’t I have seen Jake another night? Why did Bill have that last drink?

  The kitchen clock said almost five. Sarah slept. Tears of guilt and anguish streamed down my face, my state no doubt made worse by hormones, by lack of sleep. I didn’t see how they could ever end. I took Sarah into bed with me, warm baby smell of her the best and only
medicine I could think of for the ache I felt. After a time I slept, too.

  Darlene couldn’t always come and work all day like she did in the beginning, but for a long time she came every couple of days to help out with the laundry and cleaning and do some cooking. Looking back, I have no idea how I would have functioned without her. I should have been grateful. Yet, as much as I wanted to forgive Darlene, I wanted to hang on to the hurt, hang onto it like a bone.

  Sometimes I remember what it was like when Darlene and I were friends, before Bill, before things got all ugly. I liked her sense of humour, her smarts, her independence, her shrewdness. Funny I came to hate those same things about her. And then it seemed to me that she probably was the way she was in large part because of her father. I’d feel sorry for her, and then I’d feel guilty about her working so hard, but something inside would say Darlene owed me, owed me big. She destroyed my band, destroyed my husband, left my baby fatherless. I hated to feel beholden to my anger. I would rather forgive and forget. But I wasn’t ready to forgive her yet, didn’t know if I ever would be.

  There were times when she suggested I take an hour off, go for a walk, go out and get a coffee or something. She and Sarah’d be fine, she always said. The way she clucked and cooed and fussed over the baby was, I thought, meant to demonstrate what a good caretaker she would be. But it only reminded me of the way she’d fussed and cooed and clucked over my husband. It took me a long time to understand that all her noise meant nothing. It made me feel like there was something wrong with me, that I couldn’t be like that, too. But then I thought: the love I have inside me — I know it’s there, I can feel it. Is it any less real if I don’t make a big noise about it?

  On a Saturday morning as Darlene hung out laundry I heard her talking to someone. I was nursing and didn’t want to get up to see who it was. So I sat there with my mouth open when Ma walked in with a bunch of pink roses and a basket of food and presents for the baby. I grasped Sarah to my chest and started to get up, but Ma motioned me back down again. She came and put her arms around the two of us, Sarah completely oblivious at this stage to anything but food.

  “She’s beautiful,” Ma whispered, and smiled. “And look, hair like her papa’s. Sarah Kali. It’s a pretty name, but you know it’s just superstition.”

  How did she know about Bill’s hair? She’d never met him. Of course, I realized, Steve would have told her about him. “I want her to know about her heritage. I think she should be proud of her background.”

  Ma shrugged. “I guess it’s a good idea. Europe’s a long time ago, now, though. She’s a second generation Canadian. You know, that’s why we came over here, so we could forget about being Gypsies, which brought us nothing but trouble, and be something else. Be Canadian.”

  “I suppose you have a point.” I couldn’t imagine the other side of Sarah’s family wanting to forget their roots. It didn’t seem fair.

  Sarah finished nursing, and I gave her to Ma. It was strange to see her again, but I was glad my daughter would get to know her, after all. “How are you?” Ma asked. “I wanted to come to Bill’s funeral, but it seemed funny going when I’d never met him.”

  I guessed it was the pull of the grandchild that brought her back, although Lena had given Ma several grandchildren already. Still, from then on Ma was back in my life, acting like nothing had ever happened, like all those years hadn’t gone by. I knew I could never mention the rift between us. And I came to accept that was just the way Ma was. She turned out to be a great help with Sarah, and I was very grateful.

  Nineteen

  Lita

  March 1940

  IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE DARLENE’S VISITS tapered off, then stopped altogether. But Sarah and I settled into a routine with Ma, who usually came by for a few hours midday to help out. And then, since she was around to look after Sarah, I was able to go back to work after a while, and found a job at the Temple Music Store downtown, selling all kinds of small instruments — guitars, banjos, ukuleles, harmonicas, wind instruments — and sheet music. It was a busy time of life, and although I was around instruments all day and played bits of music for customers, I didn’t really play music. I would get up in the morning, feed Sarah, take her to Ma’s, and then catch the bus to the store. After work I’d pick her up, we’d have dinner, have baths, listen to the radio for a while, read some stories, and we’d both be asleep before too long. The days went by in a blur.

  But if I thought Darlene was no longer a part of my life, I soon found out that I was very wrong. Part of the reason was her being busy with Steve. Oh, God, how the idea sickened me, only slightly less than the idea of her being with Bill. How could my brother stand her? True, she was beautiful, but she had the personality of a viper. You’d think that telling Steve about my experience with her would have shown him what she was like. But men and Darlene were a lethal combination, as far as I could see. Lethal and inevitable.

  After seeing her for a couple of years, Steve began to confide in me. Despite Darlene’s assurances that she was true to him, he constantly saw her talking to other men, flirting with them. It reminded me of my old suspicions, the way they would build and build until I couldn’t stand it any longer and confronted Bill, usually in an explosive manner. Bill would act shocked and hurt by my lack of faith in him, and he’d spend the next little while being super-sweet, apologizing for neglecting me, proving that he was indeed a faithful and wonderful husband. Then those attentions and gestures would taper off and soon I was back to my suspicions again. Every time we went through the cycle, it got shorter and shorter, until it all finally blew up in our faces. And now my brother, of all people, was caught up with Darlene. It was all too familiar.

  No kidding, I wanted to ask him, you really think a girl like Darlene could be unfaithful? I didn’t really know what to say, only that I didn’t feel she was a girl to be trusted. As the months went by he became more and more upset. “How could she do this to me?” he asked one night, close to tears.

  I had no answer, could only shake my head. How, indeed? I cursed my weakness, wished I could find the strength to overcome my own pain, in which Darlene had had such a large part, and help Steve. She was making a fool of my handsome brother. I hated to let him down but I didn’t know what to do. If only I could have forgotten it was Darlene breaking his heart. I wanted to tell him to forget her, to stay away from her, but he was too far gone. Nothing I could say could make any difference.

  He brought me books sent by his friend Jack Lee from the British Gypsy Lore Society. I skimmed through them a bit at a time while Sarah slept and got some ideas. I’d had enough of Darlene Klein. Not only had she ruined my marriage, I still blamed her for Bill’s death, and now she was messing around with my poor brother. On the third anniversary of Bill’s death, in March, I got a piece of fruit, an apple, like it said in The Gipsy Magick. I cut it in two with a silver knife and concentrated with all that was in me on Darlene and what she deserved.

  The next day I felt oddly relieved by the little ritual. This was no doubt what it was meant to do. After that, when I thought of Darlene it was with a mild contempt, not a murderous hatred.

  Steve came by one bitterly cold night a week later, after Sarah was asleep. The next morning he was going to board a train for Newmarket, Ontario, for basic training before going overseas. He’d signed up for service, thinking at least that way he’d get to see a little bit of the world. He didn’t say so, but I suspected he may have also felt an instinct to save himself from being destroyed by Darlene. He seemed excited about going to Europe, although he wasn’t exactly excited about fighting. I wasn’t sure which was worse, having him fight over there, or stay over here stewing about Darlene. He sat down at the kitchen table and asked if there was anything to drink in the house. I got him some wine, the only thing I had. I hoped he was perhaps nervous about the army, but I had a feeling that wasn’t it at all.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I went to say goodbye to Ma this afternoon. Th
en I went to say goodbye to Darlene just now. I went into the hotel, and she was right there at the front desk, kissing a man. They were all over each other. And when she finally looked up and saw me, she didn’t even act embarrassed or anything. She just smiled.”

  I could just picture her. “Steve, I’m so sorry. She really is heartless.”

  “I couldn’t stop myself. When I saw them together like that, something snapped, and I went right over to them. I was going to knock him down. He ran out the front door. And she stood there. She said I didn’t understand, that it wasn’t the way it looked, the same stuff she always says. I lost my mind. I started to yell. She told me to leave, said I must be crazy. I said I wouldn’t leave until I was done with her. All I meant was I wasn’t done yelling at her, but I guess she thought I meant I’d hurt her. She ran into the office and yelled she’d call the police. So I left.”

  “Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better to find this out now than to be sent overseas not knowing the truth.”

  “But I might never see her again, Lita. I have to talk to her once more. I can’t leave it like this.”

  Yes, you can, you can, dammit, I thought. “You could call her,” I suggested.

  “I can’t talk about this over the phone. I have to see her.”

  “But she’ll call the police if you go back.”

  “I know. That’s why I thought if I could get that key to the hotel from you, I could get in the back way, catch her by surprise. I could explain myself, then, and maybe she wouldn’t be so mad. Maybe she’s even cooled off by now.” He was starting to sound irrational.