Black Forest                       

JULIE PAUL

Jenny didn't want to go to the market. "They have too many weird vegetables there," she said to Lawrence. Jenny was a sensitive kid. Many things were weird to her, and Lawrence and Vicki made numerous concessions. Such as taking the toothpaste out of the tube when they brought it home from the store. They squeezed it all out into a jar, with a tight-fitting lid, a tiny spoon on the side, and each time they needed toothpaste they scooped it out and spread it on the brush. This was just one example of hundreds.

            Lawrence really needed to shop, but didn't want to leave her at home alone. "If you come, I'll buy you a gelato," he told her. "The best in Montreal."

           "It has to be lemon, Daddy," she said.

            "I'm sure they have lemon."

            "Call ahead," she said.

            Lawrence knew the tiny stand in the middle of Jean-Talon Market had no phone, but he said he would try. He pretended to call from his bedroom while Jenny got dressed. "Merci," he said to the dial tone. "A bientôt."

            Jenny came out of her room wearing long johns, a pink net skirt and a giant sweatshirt announcing "California!" across her chest. She wore her tiny backpack purse, and around her neck hung the blue and pink silk scarf she had cut holes into, to wear as a mask in case she spotted anyone she knew, or if she wanted to be invisible: when the world outside of her body was not where she wanted to be. She was old enough to realize that nothing could prevent people from seeing her, especially in her get-up. But she told Lawrence she didn't have any other options.

            Lawrence had to do his pec stretches in the doorframe before they left. Jenny asked him to dictate his list to her, so there wouldn't be any wasted time once they got there.

            "Japanese eggplants," he said. Jenny wouldn't eat the big ones---they were too fat.

            "Raspberries."

            She stuck out her tongue and blew him one. "What else?" she asked, tapping her purple pen on her dog stationery.

            "Potatoes," Lawrence said. "And peppers." They sold beautiful peppers at the market, a rainbow in a basket, and he could never resist their solid primary colours. He was planning brunch-roasted vegetable frittata---for the following day, Sunday, when Vicki was coming over. They were trying to bring themselves back into working order, back into the land of functioning people who live together and don't throw tantrums or plants or video games. It had been three months since the Wii had sailed down the back steps into the garden, and then, shortly after, Vicki had sailed down the front steps and into the car---the family's only car-and away from them. They hadn't seen her since then, but they had talked on the phone. Phone calls were allowed every so often from her refuge at a monastery, somewhere in Eastern Ontario, where she was gathering herself. Healing in the quietude, according to the catalogue of benefits on the website. Becoming mindful and learning to be at peace in each soulful moment.

          Lawrence was not optimistic about the meeting. He and Jenny hadn't changed. If Vicki was different, or even if she was the same, how would anything get better? Every time they'd talked on the phone from the Centre, after they were done chit-chatting about Jenny's latest passions and aversions, he'd asked her: so, when are you coming home? And every time, she'd said she didn't know, until last weekend, when she'd said she would be returning to Montreal in a few days. Montreal? he said. Where, exactly? A friend's house. Do I know this friend? He did. It was a girlfriend, all okay.

           Okay, if that meant that his wife didn't want to come back to him, didn't know if she could parent with him anymore.

           The thing was, nothing new had happened to make her hate him. He was the same old Lawrence, just trying to keep everyone happy without going crazy himself. If that included the odd videogame, then was that so wrong? He still spent a lot of time making music. He still read books. He still knew how to do downward dog.

           Could the rift in their relationship ever mend, when those traits Vicki had once accepted as being a part of him, so endearingly opposite to hers, were suddenly what had made her leave? It felt like the hole in the ozone.

            He was, admittedly, desperate for a break from Jenny, who had become an appendage since Vicki left. She was like a baby, needing to be close to someone at all times, even while she slept. He could understand that, intellectually. But moment to moment, he just needed a bit of space. Not three months. Just a day, here and there. Even an hour. He still wanted his family to work.

           They had been the family who walked their baby to sleep in a sling, around and around the blocks, even in sub-zero temperatures, because that was the only sure way of getting her down. It got to be a joke in the neighbourhood, Lawrence doing this crazy walk at all hours, dressed like a dogsledder with a hot pink sling across his chest, a hidden swaddled child inside. Then she stopped being an infant and they still did it, or rather, Lawrence did it; Jenny became a heavy baby, then a squirmy toddler, and still, she would only sleep while being strapped to a moving body. People talked. Even he knew it wasn't normal. His joints ached with the effort. His back would never be the same. But Jenny needed her sleep, and Vicki was convinced that she would cry all night if left in a crib like any other child, and Vicki could not stand to hear her cry.

             Not because she thought it was bad for Jenny. She was just so sensitive to noise. Hypersensitive. During the three months without her, Lawrence had been able to pee standing up. Would he remember to sit down again tomorrow, when everything was riding on his behaviour? He hoped his inner rebel wouldn't instruct his knees not to bend.

           "Eggs," he told Jenny. "And a bottle of white wine." 

            "I'm not writing that down," she told him. "You're going to corrupt me. Do you want me to end up on the street?"

            Lawrence winced and went deeper into the stretch so she would think it was muscle pain.

            "When Mom gets here tomorrow," Jenny told Lawrence, "I'm going to do my new routine."

             She had sock puppets and she liked to make them act out fairy tales, usually the ones that involved waking up a sleeping princess with a kiss. They were abridged versions, but not by much. Lawrence had to sit on his hands when he watched her shows, so he wouldn't make that hurry-up motion, brushing the air towards him.

              "I'm sure she'd like that," he said. "But I don't know how much time she'll have." He wanted to prepare her, to make sure she knew that Vicki might not be staying, but he didn't want to freak her out, either. Her mother was coming home.

              Jenny nodded. "I'll keep my expectations low."

              How can an eleven-year-old know enough to say a thing like this and yet not be able to be alone in a room?

             "Plus," Jenny added, "you'll want some time to yourselves." She wiggled her eyebrows.

             "Okay," said Lawrence, coming out of his stretch. "Let's jet." He was not in the head space to answer questions about sex, on top of everything else. Jenny had the books, and Vicki had been good about giving her the facts, years ago, but last week Jenny had asked, over breakfast, how exactly the penis got into the vagina, and if you had to use your hands to stick it in. He added the conversation to his mental list of things to tell Vicki tomorrow, if the mood was right. Well, timing and mood. He knew the equation. Jenny would have to be out of the room.

             "Do you have the cloth bags?" Jenny asked, once they were outside.

              "Oops," Lawrence said. "Could you get them?"

              She bounded back into the apartment, singing "O Mio Babbino Caro." He walked down the stairs to the sidewalk and sat on the bottom step.

              "Bonjour!" the woman, Mia, across the street called out. Lawrence could see, even from his distance, that she was wearing a ruby camisole under her black t-shirt. It peeked out from above the deep V of her neckline.

              "Allo," he called back to Mia, and waved lightly.

              "Ça va bien?" she asked.

              "Oui, oui," he said. "Et vous?"

              Jenny slammed the door and scowled at Lawrence. "Hey!" she yelled at Mia. "He's a married man!"

              Lawrence sighed. "We were just saying hello."

              "Uh huh. Right."

              Had Mia understood? They had only spoken French to one another, on recycling days, and once, when hers had broken, he had loaned her his shovel to dig out her car. Now she was still smiling as she watered her planters. Either she didn't understand Jenny, or else she just thought she was fou braque. Not just crazy, completely nuts. Some days Lawrence wasn't sure.

            "Come on, old man," Jenny said. "Jean Talon is waiting." She said it in English, no French accent, like blue jeans, like a raptor's claw.

 

***

Jean-Talon market was its usual Saturday self, and the gelato stand had a line-up at least a dozen people long.

            "I could go get started," Lawrence told Jenny. "This might take you fifteen minutes." He figured she would say no, since she couldn't imagine him out of sight in a public place. She would probably say, What kind of parent are you? Her tendencies were a direct inheritance from Vicki, though Jenny's centred more on survival. Vicki might disagree, might say the sound of the fridge really was life-threatening to her.

            To his surprise, Jenny consulted her list. "I can see the egg man from here," she said. "Start on that and report back."

            His face made a smile, a real one, and it felt foreign, and very good. "Yes, ma'am."

            He did an about-face and started marching away, until he heard Jenny call out, "Wait!"

            He stopped and turned around, his shoulders sagging.   

            "What flavour do you want?"

            Lawrence grinned. He opened his arms wide, hands open. "You choose. I like them all."

            He was free.

            The egg man carefully wrapped his dozen eggs in brown paper and string, because he used the egg trays without built-on lids. This was a beautiful thing, this little oddity, a marvel you could still get a man to do this.

            Beside the egg stand was a small flower booth, selling the first of the sunflowers and dahlias. They weren't on the list, and Vicki didn't believe in cut flowers, but Lawrence was feeling free and good and brave, and he pointed at a bunch and the woman said, Tres bien, Monsieur, and Bonne fin de semaine, and it felt like she really meant it all.

            He had been checking back every minute, visually, on Jenny, in her line-up, because she would be owling around, keeping her eyes on him. The line moved very slowly, which was natural; it was a difficult decision, choosing a flavour, and you couldn't go on colour. The mothy one, for example, was Lawrence's favourite. Noisette.

            Now with his flowers and eggs both wrapped like birthday gifts, he made his way back to Jenny. He couldn't see her right now, but he would, once he was around the throng of people at the maple syrup stand. But when he made it through, he still couldn't see her. He looked at the line-up. She wasn't there.

            Lawrence ran the fifty metres between the flower stand and the gelato stand as best he could through the meandering, post-latte, post-coital crowd.

            "Jenny!" he cried, as he pushed his way through. He made their special whistle, a dash-dash-soar, once, twice, and when he was standing where she had been, where she should have been crouching down, fixing her sandal, scratching an itch, picking up a dropped quarter, he whistled again, shouted again. Nothing.

            "Have you seen my daughter?" he asked the people in line. "About this tall, wearing a puffy skirt, and um, a scarf, short blondish hair, sticking up---"

            The man behind where Jenny had been said, yes, that she had been right there. "She asked me to save her place," he said, "if I could."

            "Where did she go? Where is she? Did she tell you anything?"

            "No," he said. "She just walked that way." He pointed towards the take-out food area, the picnic tables full of families.

            "Thank you." Lawrence pushed his way through the people waiting in line for crêpes and smoothies and scanned ahead for Jenny. He hadn't asked the man if anyone had been with her, or if she had followed someone, or if she looked scared. He couldn't go there.

             Maybe she was sick. Otherwise she would still be in the line-up, singing to herself, watching Lawrence's every shopping move. Sick... the bathroom. And there it was, the women's washroom, in front of him. But he was a man. He would have to wait. He couldn't wait.

             He started calling into the bathroom for her. "Jenny! Are you in there? Jenny?"

             An older woman with burgundy hair and leather pants, a common francophone ensemble, asked him in perfect English if he was alright.

             "No, I'm not alright! I've lost my daughter."

             "Oh, dear," she said. "What does she look like?"

             Lawrence described her again, and the woman's eyebrows went up when he mentioned the scarf with the holes in it she might be wearing over her face, but she said she would go back in and search.

             "Thank you." Lawrence tried to keep his eyes on the gelato line, but the crowd was thickening. What was taking her so long? Lawrence was just about to call in again when the woman reappeared. She looked happy.

              "She's in there."

              "Oh, thank God." Lawrence collapsed against the wall. "Is she okay?"

              "Well," said the woman. "She's in a... delicate position." She leaned in closer. He smelled garlic and coffee. "She's got her monthly visitor."

              Oh my God. He felt punched. "What do I do?"

              The woman laughed. "Don't worry, I got her what she needed, for the moment."

              "But---"

              "Give her these," the woman said, pointing at his bouquet. "And be gentle with her. Treat her sweetly. La tendresse."

              Lawrence tried to smile and he thanked the leather lady again. Gentle? He could be gentle with Jenny. He was always gentle with her. But Vicki? He was having trouble being gentle with her, in his head. He was confused. Relieved. Angry. She should have warned him that this could happen, this, this sudden onset of menstruation. She should have given him a heads up. He scrolled through his numbers to find her cell and punched the send button.

              The words coming out of his mouth when Vicki answered his call would not be gentle. They would not be coming from a place of equanimity. And if she asked him in her newly-modulated voice if he knew that anger was just a mask for fear? He did. He would still be angry.

             As Lawrence waited for Vicki to answer, Jenny came out of the bathroom. She looked paler than normal, and she was no longer wearing her long johns or her scarf.

            "Hi honey," he said, and flipped his phone shut. It had gone to Jenny's voice mail, whose message was simply a meditation gong. "How are you feeling?"

            Jenny didn't say anything; she looked at him like she didn't know him and walked towards the gelato vendor.

           "You still want ice cream?" he asked. "I mean, don't you?"              

           "Yes, I do," she said.

            "Okay," he said. He stood behind her, hoping she'd lean back into him like she usually did, her sweet blonde hair smelling like the eucalyptus and lavender spray she'd created to ward off head lice. They're everywhere, she'd told him. I'm protecting myself from the plague. But she didn't lean back.

            "I can wait by myself," she said.

            "No, no," Lawrence said. "I'll stay with you. I should have, before."

            Jenny turned around and looked at him, seriously. "Daddy, it's okay." She lowered her voice. "I'm a woman now."

            Lawrence blushed. "Okay." He remembered the flowers. "These are for you," he said, and held out the bouquet. "Um, congratulations?"

            Jenny's face opened up, a sunrise entering a grey morning sky. "Oh, my God! Thank you, Daddy!" She clutched him into a fierce hug.

            The leather lady had been right on the money. "Are you sure you'll be okay here?" Lawrence asked. "I'll keep checking back-I mean-if you..." He shrugged. "You gave me quite a scare there."

         "I'm sorry," Jenny said. "I just felt---I just had to go, right then."         

          Lawrence nodded. "We'll get you home soon. And get you whatever you need."

          Jenny's sunny face turned dark, and within five seconds she was crying.

          "What is it? A cramp? Do you want to sit down?"

         She shook her head, trying to calm her sobbing. "I just, I just think I need her. I need Mom. I miss her. She's supposed to be here for this kind of thing."

         Lawrence pulled her back in for another hug. "I know. I know. You're totally right." He pressed his cell phone into her hand. "Call her and tell her that. And tell her brunch is now dinner, tonight. No excuses." Vicki had wanted a couple of days to decompress before coming to visit. Well, she wasn't going to get them.

          "Okay," Jenny said, wiping her face on her sweatshirt sleeve. "Go get the stuff."

          He did what he was told, rushing through as fast as possible, taking all the plastic bags the vendors offered just to speed things up. When he stepped on a woman's toe and heard her gasp, he pretended not to notice. He had another woman to look after.

           Lawrence made it back to Jenny in less than ten minutes. She was standing beside a garbage can, holding-and licking methodically, back and forth-two cones of gelato.

            "I got you lemon, too," she said. "Since I had to keep up with the drips."

            "Thank you." He lifted up his bags. "All done." He waited for her plastic bag lecture, but it didn't come. "Let's sit and enjoy it, before we head back home."

             At one of the picnic tables, covered in maple syrup spills and empty sugar packets, Lawrence parked the groceries and patted the seat beside him. "We'll face out," he said, "so we don't have to look at this mess."

             Jenny checked the back of her skirt before she sat down beside him. She smiled. "Okay."

             "So," he said.

             "She's coming. Tonight."

             "Ahhhh," Lawrence said. "Good news. Did you, um, tell her?"

             Jenny nodded. "She's bringing me everything I need."

             "Good," he said. "Great." What did the everything include? What did she need? How complicated was menstruation, anyway? And why did he not really know? He remembered brown paper bags in the bathroom cupboards, when he was a boy, and asking his sister what pads were for. She'd told him they were for lining women's shoes, to keep them smelling fresh. He'd believed her for far too long.

            "She's coming over soon, too," Jenny said. "Like in an hour or so. She might even beat us home."

             He wasn't ready. They had two metro lines to catch, and then a ten-minute walk. Small wings of panic opened in his gut. The house was a mess. He hadn't washed the baking dishes from last night, and there was cookie dough flattened into the kitchen floor, because he was the one who had stepped on it, and left it there.

            "She cried," Jenny said. "I think that's a good sign, don't you?"

            Lawrence nodded. But would serenity, or joy, or forgiveness-whatever she was feeling---would it be enough to make her blind or deaf? He hadn't admitted it until recently, but he had enjoyed his months off from her hyper-vigilance. Not having to line the silverware up with the pattern on the tablecloth. Not keeping his voice down to a whisper when she was reading in the next room. Not needing to rinse the rice five times, or measure it up to the exact top of the cup. He wasn't sure he would ever measure up.

 

***

Vickie wasn't there when they got home. But there was a bouquet of flowers on the doorstep, cosmos and daisies and a rose in the middle, all snug in a tall Nutella jar.

            "Ooh!" Jenny said. "More flowers!"

            "Strange," Lawrence said.

            "Mom probably dropped these off and then forgot something and had to go back to her... to... to wherever she's staying."

            He let her think that. But they weren't for Jenny, or from Vicki. He unlocked the door as quickly as he could and hustled Jenny inside. He didn't want her to see him scanning Mia's yard or windows, even if it was just to check on her flower varieties. There was no use in checking, anyway. Lawrence already knew.

            "Two bouquets in one day!" she exclaimed. "This whole menses thing is alllllllright." She started rummaging for vases under the sink.

            "Why don't I do that, while you go get ready for dinner? Maybe a bath?"

            Jenny looked at him, a shocked face. "I can't," she whispered. She pointed at her abdomen.

            "Oh. Well." Lawrence blushed. "Really? You can't? Not supposed to?"

            She shook her head. "No heat allowed."

            He racked his brain trying to remember if Vicki had followed this rule. He didn't know. "Okay," he said. "How about your room?"

            She had spilled sequins and beads on her floor about a week ago, searching for a glass bead in the shape of a fish, and she hadn't cleaned up yet.

            She sighed. "I guess." But it was a happier response than normal, and she robot-walked down the hallway.

            Lawrence found the vases and arranged the flowers, then wondered where to put them. Then he looked around the kitchen. Flowers on the table were the least of his concerns. On top of a monstrous mess, he had a daughter who was bleeding. He had a wife who didn't want him. All of it gave him a gut-ache.

            He had managed to scrape the dough off the floor, wash the dishes, and wipe the table by the time the doorbell rang.

            "I'll get it!" Jenny called and came running down the hall. Lawrence stayed behind her as she flung the door open and called, "Mama! Bienvenue!" Then she started crying again.

            His wife was standing there, holding a cake box. "Take this, Lawrence," she pleaded. "It's so heavy I nearly dropped it."

            He took the cake and brought it into the kitchen. He opened the box. It was a black forest cake, white fluff on top, a circle of goopy cherries around the perimeter.

            Vicki and Jenny were locked in a silent embrace, rocking slightly from side to side. Jenny would be her height within two years.

            His wife was home.

            Lawrence felt winded. He sat down at the table and looked at what it held. Flowers and cake: signs of celebration. He wasn't feeling it. He'd have thought Jenny, of all people, would have been mortified at this strange holiday in honour of blood. Usually, she pretended to faint when she cut herself. Or were they celebrating something else, too? A homecoming? Then he looked at the cake again, its shining red garnish.

            "Cherries?" he said. "Cherries, Vicki?"

            "What do you mean?" she asked him. Then she got the obvious reference to what he was most afraid of in the world: his daughter was now fertile. "Oops," she said.

            "What's wrong with cherries, Daddy?" Jenny, red-eyed and sniffly, went over to the table and swiped a fingerful of whipped cream and a couple of glazed cherries, then stuck it in her mouth. "It's delicious."

            "Nothing's wrong, sweetie," Vicki said. "Now let's go into your room and see what I brought for you."

            Jenny's eyes widened when Vicki held up the bag, bulky with packages, looking like a bag of gifts. Then her eyes closed. "Great," she said, in a monotone. "How exciting."

            "Come on. It's not so bad." Vicki looped her arm into Jenny's and pulled her down the hallway.

             Since when was Vicki like a buddy to Jenny? Since when did she smile like that?

             Oh, that's right. Ever since she walked out and became a free agent, in search of nirvana. How she got to be the good guy in all of this was beyond him, and it made him angry, again. Surrender was all well and good, if you had the time, but it wasn't what you wanted in a parent. You wanted tenacity. You wanted strength. Who, out of the two of them, would pick up a car pinning Jenny to the ground?

             He remembered the sound the Wii console made as it hit the concrete at the bottom of the stairs. A Christmas gift to Jenny from both of them. An innocent white box, no bigger than whatever Vicki had in her bag of tricks in the bedroom right now.

             He wanted to remind Jenny that it hadn't worked, what she'd done to the game system. That even though Vicki had said she would leave if that "stupid time-waster" was on for one more minute, and Jenny was trying to prevent that by actually breaking her own new toy, she had still gone out the door, even when the Wii was cracked, beyond repair.

             He could smell something, a sweetness, above the high notes of the cake's sugar and cream and red glaze. It didn't take him long to find it: the pink rose in the centre of the bouquet left at the door. He took his nose in for a closer sniff.

            Jenny came out dressed like a regular person. A blue dress he hadn't seen before, little white flowers all over it, her hair brushed and pinned back with clips.

            He waited to see her face before commenting.

            "Looking good," he said, once he'd judged her expression.

            She did a spin to make her skirt swirl. "Mom wants to know if you could go into my room for a second. Plus, if you haven't started cooking, she wants to take us out for dinner."

            What the hell? "Well, I don't know," he said, and stood up. He had to concentrate on keeping his fingers from becoming fists. "We just bought all this stuff."

            "We could make it tomorrow, like we had planned. Or we could give her some to take with her. I mean, if she isn't-staying..." She was going to cry again.

            "I'll talk to her," Lawrence said, squeezing her shoulders. "Everything is going to work out." That was what normal people said to each other. Did they believe it? Even though Vicki was here, being a mother in a moment when a mother was what Jenny needed, asking him to talk in private---smiling---he was having trouble believing it. He kissed the top of Jenny's head. But kisses on the head, over hair, never feel like kisses should.

            Jenny had cleaned up most of her beads, but a few of them pressed dents into Lawrence's bare feet as he walked across her room to the bed, by the window. Jenny had the best view in the apartment: a huge maple tree, leaves wide and open as faces, looking back in. He could see Jenny's long johns and scarf, drying on the clothesline. Who had done that?

            Vicki patted the bedspread. "Sit," she said.

            Lawrence pulled Jenny's swivel desk chair out from the desk and sat on that instead.

            She was still smiling. A tattoo of a smile.

            "Why a restaurant?" he asked.

            "I thought it would save us all the trouble of cooking. And you know, to celebrate..."

            "We have a cherry-covered cake to help with that," he said.

            "And lots of beautiful flowers, I noticed," Vicki said.

            Lawrence looked at the tree. "We were at the market."

            "Lawrence," she said. "This is a big day for her. For us."

            He looked at her. "Why didn't I know? To, expect it?"

            She laughed. "Welcome to the life of a woman. You never know what you'll get thrown."

            He ran his hands over his face, trying to rub in some calm, some patience. "But there had to have been signs?"

            "Yes, Lawrence. She's been developing for years, in case you didn't notice. Sure, she's gotten it earlier than some, but it's within common range."

            "Well, what do we do?"

            "We don't do anything. I brought her enough supplies to last a few months, and showed her how to use them."

            "But... I mean... what about what this all means? Miss Cherry Cake?"

            "She knows all about sex, if that's what you're getting at," Vicki said, mildly. "And she's still years away."

            He thought about bringing up the penis question, but decided against it. "And then what? Where will you be then, when things get really interesting?"

            She sighed. "I don't know."

            Lawrence looked at her. "You don't know?"

            "I'm not ready yet. To make a decision. About us."

            "Three months wasn't long enough?"

            She closed her eyes. "I'm in a better state now. Happier. But I don't know how long that would last, if..."

            "If you had to live with us."

            She opened her eyes and looked at him. "I'm sorry, Lawrence. I just don't know right now."

            He nodded and looked away. He felt cavernous, an empty warehouse. "Well then, we need to make some plans. Visitation, all of that."

            "Okay," she said. She paused and took a big breath in through her nose. Her hands were palms up, the tips of her middle fingers and thumbs, touching. "I thought she could come and live with me now. You've had her for three months, and believe me, I wish that could have been different. But there were no kids allowed at the Centre."

            He looked at her face, her completely calm and serene expression as she said this, like she was saying she might go take a shower. No kids at the centre. No kidding. He'd never felt as off-centre as he did right then. He said, "No. She can't."

            She breathed again, eyes closed. "I've already asked her," she said. "She's thinking about it."

            He felt like throwing up. All he'd been asking for, in his head, was a little break from Jenny, just a day or two a month. He couldn't lose her. Vicki couldn't have her. It wasn't going to be a battle about the kid.

            "We could do some sort of rotation. It would give you more time alone, for your music."

            "What are you talking about? Since when has Jenny been a problem for my music?"

            "I know it's not easy, always having a child around." She paused. "You look tired."

            "I'm fine." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm fine."

            "Are you sure?"

            He looked for Vicki's ring. Not there. "What about you? Won't she get in the way of becoming transcendent, or whatever you call it?"

            "Oh, Lawrence," she said. "I'm just trying to figure out my path, honey. My greater purpose."

            "Well, is parenting on the list? Honey?"

            Another smile.

            The conversation might have continued like this for hours, but Jenny came into her room. She handed each of them a piece of her puppy-edged paper. In her nearly-illegible script, like doctor's writing, only in purple ink, she'd written three names: Doctor Goldstein, Doctor Bergeron, Doctor Reed. Phone numbers beside each of them.

            "They're shrinks," she said. "Call them, and work it out." She looked like she'd been crying again. "Please. But not right now. I'm starving."

            Vicki laughed as if nothing had just happened. "I always get that way when Aunt Flo comes a-calling."

            "Mom!" Jenny said. "Don't say things like that. God, you're so bourgeois."

            "Jenny, go slice the cake," Lawrence said. "We'll start with that."

            "Really? Really?" She reached to the sky, asking for a high-five, and he gave her one before she bounded out to the kitchen.

            "Dessert before dinner?" Vicki said.

            "You're the one who wanted a party, remember?"

            Vicki wiped at the dust on the headboard. 

            "I can't talk about this now," Lawrence told Vicki.

            "Fine," she said, then looked down at the list. "Where on earth did she get these names?"

            "Google," he said. "She's no dummy."

            "Le gateau!" Jenny called from the kitchen.

            "Should we order in?" Vicki asked.

            "No," Lawrence said. "I'm cooking what I bought today."

            "Okay, but you don't seem to be in the best, um, state, to create a meal."

            He glared at her. "I better go meditate, then."

            Vicki just smiled and shrugged. "It wouldn't hurt."

            When they got to the kitchen, ABBA was wailing from the radio on top of the fridge. Vicki didn't move to turn it down; instead she and Lawrence stopped and stared at the table. Jenny had sliced the cake in three pieces, but not from the top down. Instead, she had divided it in layers, onto dinner plates. Separated it back into its original single layers. Her new blue dress had flecks of cherry and cream and chocolate all over it and she didn't seem to care.           

           "The top is mine," Jenny said. "I stuck my finger into every bit of it. And neither of you want my germs." 

           Lawrence watched Jenny watching Vicki for a reaction. Jenny wanted to know how far she could take things, how long the calm around Vicki might last, and so did he. It was a good test, what Jenny had set up. It might show them whether they were stuck with a modified version of a mother, or whether the truer self still lived beneath.

          They both looked at her, at the smiling new goddess of wisdom and compassion, and waited for the plaster to crack.

 

Julie Paul's work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Coming Attractions 07, The Fiddlehead, and Vallum, and on the Authors Aloud website. Her short fiction collection, The Jealousy Bone, was released in 2008. After an 18-month adventure which included living in both Montreal and Lanark, Ontario, she and her family have returned to Victoria, BC. She is currently completing her first novel.