Here, There and Everywhere

And then there were the winters. We went to school in a sleigh that Velvet pulled. Father gave me the reins sometimes, not my brother Ed. Losing this honour to his sister made him cross, so I learned to hide my pride so he wouldn’t hold me down and pinch me once Father was out of earshot. The farm was quiet in the winter. In the summer, the chickens were restless. I rode Velvet bareback through the fields.

The woman here now looks to be losing her patience, either with the computer or with me. She has a nice face, a kind face, but patience is a wick. Father's wick was long or short, depending on which way the wind was blowing. John, my husband, his wick is long, but when he blows he is something to behold, red-faced and sputtering curses through his teeth. I can’t always hide my laughter. He laughs too, and says he’s sorry.

“John would know,” I say. “Ask him.”

“No, Nana,” the woman says (What was her name again? Angela? Amy?). “He’s not here.”

Oh. Right. He must be out in the garage, tinkering. That’s what he calls it. Tinkering. He fancies himself an inventor of sorts, saying he “improves” things already invented, like our toaster that hasn’t worked since he took it apart. I’m not sure of the process of improving, but from the little I’ve seen, it largely involves breaking something down into its indecipherable parts and shaking your head like they offend you.

“Things make sense if I can get my hands on them,” he said when I asked him why he did what he did. “Philosophy and poetry are all just clouds and noise to me, you can keep ‘em. Math is okay, I suppose. I can knock things around, add them up and take away, see what I’m left with. But taking something apart, working it all out and putting it back together? Feels right.” He kissed me on the forehead.

He thinks I don’t know about the bottle of Wild Turkey hidden behind the jar of miscellaneous screws, bolts and washers on the second shelf out there. The only thing he really tinkers with is the radio dial to get the baseball game. It makes him happy, and it keeps him out of my hair so I can putter in the garden or watch my shows.

An infant—he’s cute beyond words, what curls he has—takes my knee and babbles something passionately. He must belong to the woman. They have the same eyes, blue as the ocean. Father, Ed and I left the farm and came out West when I was twelve, settling in the tiny, old house by the ocean. Ed was cross (do you see a pattern here?) because he was leaving all his friends behind, but I cried and cried because Father sold Velvet.

The woman places her hand on my other knee, sweetly. “Nana, it says, ‘reset your password’ to get into the accounts, but I need the keyword to do that. Do you remember what your keyword is?”

The little one looks up at me and says, “Baba.” Has she tried "Baba"?

“I’m sorry, Dear,” I say. “I don’t remember. Call John in, and he can help you.”

“I can’t do that. Grandpa, John, he’s gone.”

“Oh. Yes. I’m sorry, Dear.” John is gone. Eight years this November.

When I was very young, death was an invisible, heavy thing. My mother died giving birth to Ed, so I have no memories of her to warm or haunt me. My concept of death was confined to radio shows, so when Father brought me in to see Grandpa, dead in his bed, I said, “Who shot Grandpa?” He was buried in the town cemetery. We had a little ceremony, the three of us and a few men with shovels waiting under the shade of a big oak.

When I was eight, I found a dead fox in the back forty. The way it was being eaten away offended me, so I buried it. They did that for dead people, why should animals not get the same? I made a little cross out of sticks like Grandpa had overtop of him, because I thought that was a symbol for dead things. Imagine my confusion when Father brought Ed and I to church for the first and only time—I think Father was looking for something there, but whatever it was he didn’t find it—and there was the cross. I couldn’t understand why people would come every Sunday just to sit and celebrate death. Ed and I sat in a church just like it when Father passed away. They laid him underneath the big cross, looking more divine than the fox. Nothing had eaten any of him.

“Try Francis,” I say. Father’s name was Francis.

John and I didn’t get married in a church. We hid that away from everyone including God. John’s sister Mary was the only witness at City Hall. We went out to dinner at a fancy place that overlooked the ocean and tried to figure out what utensil to use for what dish. Our first night as a married couple was spent apart, sleeping in our own beds. Father forbade me to see John because of some business injustice done by John’s family, and I was afraid Father would whup him. We finally worked up the nerve to come clean with it all. Ed was cross, of course, that I didn’t tell him first. Father was civil, and even got to really like John.

“No,” the woman says. “That’s not it. Two more chances before it locks me out.”

The infant has lost interest in me and returns to his toy, a fire engine that lights up and makes a heck of a racket. When I was little, I just wanted to be outdoors with Velvet. I didn’t like dolls. An aunt gave me one for Christmas because that’s what girls were supposed to play with, and I took the doll by the legs and smashed its head on a rock. I liked to ride out with my father, even though it made Ed cross and he’d pull my hair when my father was feeding the sheep. Ed also beat up a boy at school, one of the McIntyre twins, when he made fun of my clothes.

“Ed,” I say. “Try Edward.”

Ed made new friends and finally settled into the house on the ocean. We went swimming together often. The shore was rocky and fraught with barnacles, so we wore old running shoes into the water and put them on the fence to dry when we were done. There’s a photo of that fence on the wall next to me. There are many pairs of shoes there, not just his and mine.

“That didn’t work either. We have one more try.”

“A try at what dear?” I say. This woman has a nice face, a kind face.

“The keyword so I can reset your password to get into the accounts. I’m taking care of things for you.”

“Have you asked John?” He’s probably out in the garage, tinkering.

“Yes,” the woman with the kind face says after a moment. “He doesn’t remember either.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” I say.

“I’m going to put on some music. Would you like that?”

“Yes, please,” I say.

The woman gets up, leaving me with an infant playing with a toy fire engine on the floor. “Guda guda gah,” he says.

“Is that right?” I say, which makes him giggle, a sweet sound. And another sweet sound. The woman has turned on music. The song is so familiar, it feels like its coming from inside me. I look in the mirror to see if I can see the name of it. Goodness, I’m old. Lots of wrinkles, but my eyes look young. Blue like the ocean.

The woman returns with a cup of tea, which she puts on the table beside my chair.

“This music is lovely,” I say.

“Your favourite,” she says. “You know, you were an accountant.”

“I was? That sounds terribly boring.”

She laughs. “I think you made it interesting.”

Our family didn’t have a lot, but we always made the best of it. John and I laughed with the children, and cried behind closed doors. The children were happy. And their children too.

“I love you,” I say, before I realize I mean it.

“I love you too, Nana,” she says, putting an arm around me.

“Have you tried your name for the keyword? Anne.”

She bursts into tears, so she must hate that name, but then she laughs. Happy tears.

“I did. And his.” The boy on the rug.

“What’s his name?”

“JJ,” Anne says.

“The first J is for John,” I say.

“Yes, it is.” She squeezes my hand.

“How lovely,” I say.

I miss John. And Ed. And Father. And Velvet. How I miss Velvet.

“Velvet,” I say. “It’s Velvet.”

Anne types it into the computer and pumps her fist. “That’s it.”

“Baba!” JJ says, pumping his little fist in a victory he doesn’t understand but wants to share in.

Velvet. She understood me better than anyone ever did. If we could have, we would have ridden to the ends of the earth together. I can feel her underneath me, the rhythm of our gallop, her muscles, and her thick white mane. There is nothing ahead of us but rolling hills of bronze grass all the way to the horizon. It’s so vivid I must be here now, on her back, my voice a whisper in the wind telling her to go faster. Everything afterwards aren’t memories, they are dreams I’ve confused with a life. I wrap my arms around Velvet’s neck, breathing in the earthen smell of her mane, and we ride on towards the sun.