“Holy Dinah,” chuckled Jack, “what’d you do, fly?”
He was sitting up in bed reading Time—she was immediately reassured. Electrodes led from his chest beneath the blue hospital gown to a heart monitor, intravenous tubes ran from his wrist and an oxygen mask was slung casually around his neck. He winked and gave her the thumbs-up, past two young nurses who were joking and making a fuss over him as they changed the IV bags — one of fluids, one of blood thinners. Madeleine smiled, worried her face would shatter and fall, proud for one unreal moment of having the handsomest, youngest-looking dying father on the ward.
The nurses introduced themselves, told her not to make her father laugh too hard, said they loved her show and “your dad is so proud of you.”
They left, and Jack continued smiling so broadly she could see his gold tooth.
“How are you doin’, Dad?”
“Oh I’m fine, they’re turnin’ me loose tomorrow.”
“What about—? You’re having surgery—”
“Naw.” He waved his hand. “Don’t need it. Witch doctor shook some rattles over me and said, go on, get out of here.”
“How come they’re not operating?” Her voice dull and metallic like flatware.
“’Cause I’m better off without it,” he said, jaunty.
“Is that true?”
He chuckled, incredulous. “’Course it’s true.” What snake under the bed?
Mimi was down the hall in the washroom. Madeleine took a slow walk along the corridor with her father and his IV stand. His blue gown gaped in the back, exposing his white Stanfields. He lowered his voice discreetly — it didn’t need lowering, it had thinned along with his blood — saying, “These people are really sick.” Patients who looked much older, cadaverously thin or mountainously fragile, moving gingerly as though lodged deep within their bulk was a bomb.
She told him about the option on her one-woman special. He laughed at the title — carefully. There was a bomb in his chest too. But apparently it was getting better. They returned to his room. She sat on the edge of the high hospital bed and he sat in the armchair, one hand relaxed around the IV stand as though it were a fixture of long standing, no big deal. As usual, he asked her how she was fixed for cash, and she consulted him on whether she ought to move to the States. He reached for the napkin under his plastic juice cup and drew two columns, Pro and Con. As they made the list, she said, “Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing any good in the world.”
He motioned with his head toward the door. “That cardiologist, he can tell me what’s going in here”—he pointed with his thumb to his chest—“they could even give me a new heart if they had to, and that’s no mean feat. But a fair number of people could study and learn to do that. Try as they might, though, very few people can open their mouths and make a roomful of total strangers laugh. And that’s the best medicine in the world. Just keep doing it your way.”
She smiled and looked down at her feet dangling over the floor.
They finished the list. Pro: world’s biggest English-speaking market/close cultural-political affinity/job satisfaction/fame/more money. Con: your Canadian identity/Maman.
“Maman?”
“I think she might miss you something terrible.”
Madeleine raised her eyebrows but forcibly drained the irony from her voice. “Really?”
He nodded — stoic, complicit — then sipped his juice through the jointed straw. His blue eyes widened and his mouth worked carefully, drawing in the liquid. He looked so innocent — like a child. She held her face immobile, weathering the rise of sorrow in her throat. She knew what the biggest Con of all was — that she would miss him something terrible: what if Dad died while I was far from home?
He asked about Christine, and she set to rubbing his head the way he liked it. “She’s great, Dad, thanks. We’re thinking of buying a house—”
She caught his warning look, and turned to see her mother entering the room. They hugged and Madeleine smelled the familiar mingle of tobacco and Chanel, feeling comforted in spite of herself.
His voice took on a boyish quality. “Hey Maman, I told Madeleine I’ve been sprung out of here. No need for surgery.”
Madeleine gauged her mother’s expression. Sour. She must have overheard them referring to Christine. She told herself to be nice. “Maman, did you bring the Scrabble game?”
Mimi smiled brightly, and reached for the shelf under Jack’s bedside table. Madeleine saw her shoot him a “significant” look and wondered what was up, but he pulled the portable black-and-white TV down on its hinge and turned on the news: the great escape.
Madeleine pulled a handful of letters from the old flannel Crown Royal bag. Mimi pulled out hers and said, “Voilà, I pulled out seven without counting.”
“Me too, weird eh? Do you think the tiles have soaked up the energy of the game after all these years?”
“Ask your father.”
But he had his taut news face on. The picture of a certain species of masculine contentment.
Madeleine looked down at her tray and saw the inevitable. Amid the other innocuous letters, the word, scrambled but unmistakeable, popped out at her: CUNT. She sighed and made CUTE.
The sound of a countdown … we have liftoff.
“Holy Dinah,” breathed Jack.
“What is it?” said Mimi.
“Wait now,” he said, “they’re going to replay it.”
They huddled around the tiny screen and watched the Challenger explode.
“Your mother hasn’t come to terms with your sexuality?”
“You might say dat, doc.”
“Are you an only child?”
“No.” Madeleine has heard the truculent note in her own voice. Nina waits. “I have a brother.” Nina waits.
Madeleine says, “He went away.”
“When?”
“Nineteen sixty-nine.” Madeleine feels her face simmering as she stares at Nina. Go ahead, ask. Make my day.
But Nina asks a different question. “What’s the anger about, Madeleine?”
Madeleine changes the expression on her face. Friendly. “Remember moon rocks?”
Nina waits.
Two can play this game. Madeleine smiles, unblinking, blank as a coin-operated dummy waiting to receive a dime through the slot in the palm of its hand.
Nina says, “We have to stop now, Madeleine.”
“Had enough, eh? Wimp.”
“No, our time is up for today. Would you like to come back next week?”
“Would you like to sit on my face?” Nina’s expression doesn’t change. “I can’t believe I said that.”
Nina nods.
“Clearly I need therapy.”
Nina waits.
“Yes, please may I come back next week?”
In the summer of ’69, the three of them gathered in the rec room in front of the television. Mimi sat perfectly still, not ironing, not smoking, Madeleine sat next to her on the couch. Jack was in his leather La-Z-Boy and Mike was long gone. But he would be watching too, wherever he was. The whole world was watching. Walter Cronkite, “the voice of space,” was standing by to bring them live footage from the moon. “History in the making,” Madeleine expected her father to say, but he just watched, tight-lipped. His grim profile trained on the screen reminded her of something but she couldn’t place it. Another broadcast, years ago…. The late John F. Kennedy’s voice came up under photographs of the smiling astronauts, “… this nation should pledge itself, before this decade is out, to landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to….” And she remembered: crouching on the landing in her pajamas, listening to the sound of the television, hollow and mushrooming up the stairs to reach her where she sat hugging her knees. Anyone who thinks the Russian missiles can’t reach Centralia from Cuba is sorely mistaken. Her memory wants to attribute this to Kennedy, she can hear it in his Boston tones, but she knows Mr. March said it. Mr. March explaining the domino effect: For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe, the horse was lost….