Read Online The Devil You Know: A Novel by Elisabeth de Mariaffi - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elisabeth de Mariaffi
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that really shine in a person’s memory.
I used to go and ride out the birthday dinner with David, to keep him company. His mother spends three days planning some elaborate meal: duck à l’orange or nasi goreng, sheer white Pavlova with a candle stuck fast in the heart-shaped meringue. By the time dinner rolls around, she’s so worked up about calories and fat grams and whether or not this will be David’s favorite day on Earth ever, she can’t even swallow. She sits through the entire meal, watching David try to eat and apologizing.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, is it good? I made this for you. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. You eat, just eat. Is it good?
Like that. With more wine and crying.
The last time I was at the table was a couple of years ago. David tried to give her an out: You don’t have to go to all this trouble. If it upsets you. Why bother?
He meant this in the best possible way. He meant, Why do this to yourself? But also, Why do this in my name?
The Why bother? put her over the edge.
You’re right, she said. You’re right why bother. Why bother?
The next moment her plate was flying against the kitchen wall. This was so sudden. I’d never seen her throw anything. I’d never seen her throw a ball in the park. The plate bounced and smashed on the tile floor. She grabbed David’s plate and then mine, one after another. David jumped up and tried to hold her down, hold her shoulders. Every wood spindle of the back of my chair pressed hard into my spine. Duck skin and sticky sauce everywhere, andhis mother in disaster mode, wailing. You do a thing that can’t be undone and it’s devastating.
After that, he asked me to skip the dinner. He comes over later, or else I show up there, once his mother is sleeping. Nothing special. What David actually wants is a quiet, pleasant marker of his aging process. He probably actually wants nothing but I can’t bear it. Enter Evie and her fluff cupcake.
David has a way with his mother, where he can get her calmed down if they’re alone.
No one’s angry, no one’s mad. You’re okay. It’s okay. His hand against her forehead, smoothing back her hair. You can see why he wants to disappear, to go off and fight fires in the Labrador woods. I’ve seen him feed her, one bite at a time, off his own plate.
I crossed College and walked up Brunswick Avenue—the street my own mother lived on when she first came to the city and met my dad. As far as the local zoo is concerned, Brunswick is pretty centrally located. I’ve heard a lot of stories about that time, and now that we were neighbors, in a time-warp kind of way, I was surprised at how often I found myself on her street. I walked by the house all the time, heading to the market or work or up to Bloor Street or whatever. Her third house in the city, technically, but the first two were hostels and didn’t last. There was an industrial building on the corner and her house, number 102, was the next place beyond that, attached on one side to the house next door.
There’s a parkette there, too, on the corner at Ulster, rimmed on two sides with that old-style, black-painted iron fencing. Waist-high. It’s got a playground at one end and a cement wading pool at the other—the same kind we had at my public school when I was a kid. The water pours out a giant tap in the middle of the pool, and the cement slopes down on all sides into the center. This makes entering the water nice and gradual, like a concrete beach, or a giantversion of those European shower stalls that have no doors. It’s like a massive foot bath. I found a free bench down closer to the playground. The bench was cold enough to make my kidneys feel prematurely troubled.
Brunswick isn’t a bad street these days, but I could still see two condoms in the gutter from where I was sitting, and I wouldn’t recommend walking through the sandpit in your bare feet unless you’re looking for an easy path to communicable
I used to go and ride out the birthday dinner with David, to keep him company. His mother spends three days planning some elaborate meal: duck à l’orange or nasi goreng, sheer white Pavlova with a candle stuck fast in the heart-shaped meringue. By the time dinner rolls around, she’s so worked up about calories and fat grams and whether or not this will be David’s favorite day on Earth ever, she can’t even swallow. She sits through the entire meal, watching David try to eat and apologizing.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, is it good? I made this for you. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. You eat, just eat. Is it good?
Like that. With more wine and crying.
The last time I was at the table was a couple of years ago. David tried to give her an out: You don’t have to go to all this trouble. If it upsets you. Why bother?
He meant this in the best possible way. He meant, Why do this to yourself? But also, Why do this in my name?
The Why bother? put her over the edge.
You’re right, she said. You’re right why bother. Why bother?
The next moment her plate was flying against the kitchen wall. This was so sudden. I’d never seen her throw anything. I’d never seen her throw a ball in the park. The plate bounced and smashed on the tile floor. She grabbed David’s plate and then mine, one after another. David jumped up and tried to hold her down, hold her shoulders. Every wood spindle of the back of my chair pressed hard into my spine. Duck skin and sticky sauce everywhere, andhis mother in disaster mode, wailing. You do a thing that can’t be undone and it’s devastating.
After that, he asked me to skip the dinner. He comes over later, or else I show up there, once his mother is sleeping. Nothing special. What David actually wants is a quiet, pleasant marker of his aging process. He probably actually wants nothing but I can’t bear it. Enter Evie and her fluff cupcake.
David has a way with his mother, where he can get her calmed down if they’re alone.
No one’s angry, no one’s mad. You’re okay. It’s okay. His hand against her forehead, smoothing back her hair. You can see why he wants to disappear, to go off and fight fires in the Labrador woods. I’ve seen him feed her, one bite at a time, off his own plate.
I crossed College and walked up Brunswick Avenue—the street my own mother lived on when she first came to the city and met my dad. As far as the local zoo is concerned, Brunswick is pretty centrally located. I’ve heard a lot of stories about that time, and now that we were neighbors, in a time-warp kind of way, I was surprised at how often I found myself on her street. I walked by the house all the time, heading to the market or work or up to Bloor Street or whatever. Her third house in the city, technically, but the first two were hostels and didn’t last. There was an industrial building on the corner and her house, number 102, was the next place beyond that, attached on one side to the house next door.
There’s a parkette there, too, on the corner at Ulster, rimmed on two sides with that old-style, black-painted iron fencing. Waist-high. It’s got a playground at one end and a cement wading pool at the other—the same kind we had at my public school when I was a kid. The water pours out a giant tap in the middle of the pool, and the cement slopes down on all sides into the center. This makes entering the water nice and gradual, like a concrete beach, or a giantversion of those European shower stalls that have no doors. It’s like a massive foot bath. I found a free bench down closer to the playground. The bench was cold enough to make my kidneys feel prematurely troubled.
Brunswick isn’t a bad street these days, but I could still see two condoms in the gutter from where I was sitting, and I wouldn’t recommend walking through the sandpit in your bare feet unless you’re looking for an easy path to communicable
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