I was so tired of hiding the ugliness. It lived inside of me now. It was impossible to ignore its presence in everyday life.
Worst of all, I couldn’t tell Zeus about it.
I’d gotten through my first bout of cancer because of him and now that I was sick again, I couldn’t imagine doing it without him. Each letter I’d received written in his surprisingly cool graphic script had been a balm to my ragged soul. A little girl needed a champion, someone to believe in and someone to believe in her. He’d been right in saying that I’d grown up but he’d been wrong to assume that I no longer needed him. I’d learned that women needed a champion maybe even more than little girls did. Men forget to treat women with tender affection and platonic encouragement. Lust was no worthy substitute for pure care.
I wanted to send him a letter anyway because a part of me knew that he would come back if only he knew I was sick again. It was that exact reason that I left well enough alone. Did I really want a pity pen pal?
My mother reached over to quell my fidgeting hands. We were in the first right pew, front and center for everyone to look at. She didn’t want me to look bored or inelegant. So, I stopped twisting my fingers even though my body ached all over and it felt good to distract myself by tracing each digit. I smoothed my sweaty palms over the demure length of my pastel pink skirt and tucked my modestly heeled feet under the bench.
Mum patted my thigh.
Good girl, it meant.
I gritted my teeth.
Thankfully, the service wrapped up soon enough. Unhappily, the next half an hour would be dedicated to mingling, my least favourite part of the entire ordeal.
“Benjamin,” Tim Buckley boomed out in his loud, sport’s announcer voice as he ambled up to my father and did that shake all men did, the one with a hard clap on the back. “How is our mayor doing this fine Sunday morning? It was an excellent service, as per usual.”
“Thanks Tim, I’ll be sure to pass that along to Dad. Life is good, can’t complain about a thing,” my father said.
It wasn’t surprising that he didn’t complain about my illness. My parents may have informed everyone about what they liked to call “my condition” but they felt it was tacky to talk about it, to draw attention to the poor little sick girl.
My younger sister, Beatrice, gently bumped her shoulder into me before her hand found mine and held it fast. We were used to the song and dance of Sunday service but neither of us liked it. The pageantry that was our lives had fused us together from an early age and even though Bea was three years younger and at an age when girls are pretty screwed up by hormones, boys and insecurity, we were still thick as thieves. The only time we argued was about who had it worse, her or me. Bea liked to argue that our parents didn’t care what she did. She was right, at least to a certain extent. As long as she performed well in school and kept her nose out of trouble, Mum and Dad were pretty oblivious to her as a human being.
I argued that being their super-star was harder. There wasn’t a moment of my day they didn’t want to plan, a nuance of my person that they didn’t want a hand in forming. Mum liked me because I was pretty, just like she felt she was. Dad liked me because I was brainy in a bookish kind of way but also charming, just like he felt he was. Their interest in me was relatively recent, as of puberty when my good looks descended and my intellect was noticed. They liked me because I was a useful tool to them.
Poor Bea had pretty bones but she hadn’t grown into them yet and she was smart but not in a showy way. She worked hard and was driven to succeed, which in my mind was even better than being naturally gifted. Plus, she was sweet as sugar pie and funny as all get out.
She was the only one who cared for me when I woke up from nightmares about death or when I was too run-down to get out of bed in the morning. Even then, she didn’t like to talk about why that was but she was there and that was good enough for me.
“I heard tell that your girl got into UBC, U of T and McGill. You must be proud of her,” Tim continued, his attention now on me.
His gaze was appreciative but in a way that wasn’t strictly about praising the intelligence of his good friend’s daughter. He liked my curves even though they were dressed down in the conservative shift and sweater set my mother made me wear.
“I never doubted her. She’s her father’s daughter,” my dad crowed, tugging me closer so that he could beam down at me, pretty as a picture.
I wanted to let Tim know that it was all for show, that at home neither he nor my mother had time for us, but I knew Tim wouldn’t really care so I kept my mouth shut.
My bones ached. I was tired of standing for two hours singing dumb hymns that didn’t mean anything because I didn’t think I believed in God anymore and I just wanted to go home.
“Of course, of course. Now, do you have a minute to come talk to James and me about the strip mall proposal?” Tim asked.
“All the time in the world for you, buddy,” he replied with a super charming smile.
I rolled my eyes at Bea who giggled behind her hand.
“Dad, you have to drive Bea to her dance lesson, remember?” I reminded him with a smile so that he wouldn’t see how frustrated I was with him for forgetting.
Normally, I would have just taken her myself but I was going to a youth cancer support group after service and, as much as I wanted to skip it, my oncologist had insisted to my parents that I attend. Something about how two bouts of cancer in ten years could lead to depression or something. I didn’t know about depression but I was sure as hell angry, and growing angrier by the day.
Dad frowned but extended his hand to Bea, flicking his fingers for her to follow behind him.
“You good?” Tim asked, having already started to move away.
“I’ve got to take Beatrice to ballet but she can be a bit late,” he said before following Tim to the other side of the church, already talking about his ideas for the project, Bea trailing behind dutifully like his shadow.
Benjamin Lafayette had been mayor of Entrance since I was eleven years old and he hadn’t lost his love of it. I was actually proud of him for the work he did for Entrance. I just wished he worked half as hard at being a good dad.
“Louise, darling, you look so well today,” Mamie Ross crowed as she swept up to my mother and me.
She pinched my chin to give me two smacking kisses on each cheek. I knew she left red lipstick on my skin but before I could wipe it off myself, she licked her thumb and rubbed it against the marks with a little giggle.
The woman wasn’t a day under fifty-five. She should not have been giggling.
A year ago, having such a spiteful thought would have made me sick to the pit of my stomach. Now, I was always sick to my stomach so I didn’t have as hard a time with the evil thinking.
“She does, doesn’t she?” Mum demurred, smoothing a hand down my hair. “A little too brown though, maybe.”
There was no maybe about it. She had almost blown a gasket when I’d come in from sun tanning the other day. Peasant brown, she’d called me. I had inherited her platinum hair but I had my dad’s golden skin. She didn’t mind when his tanned, which it did because he loved to golf and he loved to fish. She minded with me because I was supposed to be a little lady.
What my skin tone had to do with that, I’d never know except that her family had come from England and parts of British Columbia were still behind the Tweed Curtain.