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Authors: Laisha Rosnau
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interest in Barbie’s dramas. I spent a lot of time alone, sitting on the floor in various parts of the house, sketching floor plans, windows, pieces of furniture, following lines with my eyes and then improving on the design once it was on the page.
Sometimes, mothers pick up on these things, and Vera did. She started taking me along to garage sales where she would ask me what I thought of a desk, an end table, a chair. With chipped paint and mouse turd in the drawers, I didn’t see much but Vera told me, “It’s surprising how much you can do with a good sander and some varnish.” She wasn’t wrong, but after a couple of afternoons with her and a piece of furniture set on old newspapers in the basement, I grew bored of the number of times we would have to sand the paint away to bring out the grain. I flinched at the pressure of her hand on mine, showing me how. The projects we could have completed together started cluttering the basement, banks of half-finished furniture blocking our passage to the cold room. I lost interest in refinishing furniture, grew my hair out. I only had it trimmed a couple times a year after that initial cut, grew it till it reached the strap of the bra that I eventually wore, then beyond.
I was grounded for two weeks and decided not to push it. By the end of the second week, I could smell the snow that was about to fall. A hollow, metallic tang, the sharp edges of things. Each blade of grass was a small green knife. The scentof the mill was intoxicating when it was warm, sawdust and stripped wood hinting at the smell of entire forests – not only wood but dirt, composting leaves, bark. When it was cold, the mill gave off a smell like fermenting apples. It was the whiff of metal and rotting apples that brought with it the awareness it would snow.
Vera couldn’t seem to meet my eyes and constantly lowered her own in both anger and a denial that she was angry. I had learned in Psych 11 that this behaviour was called passive-aggressive. Psychology was new to Sawmill Creek Secondary School. The introduction to the curriculum as an elective caused concern in a town that thought psychology was for shrinks and shrinks were for softies from the city. The class had been in some sort of assessment stage for a couple of years and would likely be until people forgot about it and found something else to oppose.
On one of the afternoons of my term at home, Vera asked me to help her bring up preserves from the cold room. We filled our arms with jars of pears, peaches, jams, pickles; we balanced up the stairs to the kitchen and lined the bottles up in the pantry. Each summer and fall, Vera would devote days to preserving, finishing one batch just as the next fruit was bursting into season. Water in huge stainless steel pots would boil over on the stove, the jars inside knocking a rhythm in their submersion. The thick liquid, a combination of water and seeping juices, pooled on the linoleum and coated the floor with a gluelike membrane. This mimicked the feeling of my own skin in the summer, sticky with a combination of sweat and sugar from Popsicles or Kool-Aid.
On the way up the stairs, I said, “I don’t know why you bother. You can just go to the store and buy these things, you know.”
Vera turned to me once she had placed an armload of jars on the shelf. “And I don’t know why you would complain, Sylvia. Someday, you’re going to be buying preserves like this at some over-priced market and wondering why you never appreciated them now.”
“Harper.”
“Yes. Harper. You just let me know when you want to start buying the groceries. Maybe you can call up your father and see if he can chip in for some of ‘these things,’ Harper.”
“Oh, is someone touchy?” I asked
“Does someone not think before she talks?” she responded and turned back into the pantry.
My father had made several attempts to get Vera to come back to Alberta in the first couple of years after we moved to
Sometimes, mothers pick up on these things, and Vera did. She started taking me along to garage sales where she would ask me what I thought of a desk, an end table, a chair. With chipped paint and mouse turd in the drawers, I didn’t see much but Vera told me, “It’s surprising how much you can do with a good sander and some varnish.” She wasn’t wrong, but after a couple of afternoons with her and a piece of furniture set on old newspapers in the basement, I grew bored of the number of times we would have to sand the paint away to bring out the grain. I flinched at the pressure of her hand on mine, showing me how. The projects we could have completed together started cluttering the basement, banks of half-finished furniture blocking our passage to the cold room. I lost interest in refinishing furniture, grew my hair out. I only had it trimmed a couple times a year after that initial cut, grew it till it reached the strap of the bra that I eventually wore, then beyond.
I was grounded for two weeks and decided not to push it. By the end of the second week, I could smell the snow that was about to fall. A hollow, metallic tang, the sharp edges of things. Each blade of grass was a small green knife. The scentof the mill was intoxicating when it was warm, sawdust and stripped wood hinting at the smell of entire forests – not only wood but dirt, composting leaves, bark. When it was cold, the mill gave off a smell like fermenting apples. It was the whiff of metal and rotting apples that brought with it the awareness it would snow.
Vera couldn’t seem to meet my eyes and constantly lowered her own in both anger and a denial that she was angry. I had learned in Psych 11 that this behaviour was called passive-aggressive. Psychology was new to Sawmill Creek Secondary School. The introduction to the curriculum as an elective caused concern in a town that thought psychology was for shrinks and shrinks were for softies from the city. The class had been in some sort of assessment stage for a couple of years and would likely be until people forgot about it and found something else to oppose.
On one of the afternoons of my term at home, Vera asked me to help her bring up preserves from the cold room. We filled our arms with jars of pears, peaches, jams, pickles; we balanced up the stairs to the kitchen and lined the bottles up in the pantry. Each summer and fall, Vera would devote days to preserving, finishing one batch just as the next fruit was bursting into season. Water in huge stainless steel pots would boil over on the stove, the jars inside knocking a rhythm in their submersion. The thick liquid, a combination of water and seeping juices, pooled on the linoleum and coated the floor with a gluelike membrane. This mimicked the feeling of my own skin in the summer, sticky with a combination of sweat and sugar from Popsicles or Kool-Aid.
On the way up the stairs, I said, “I don’t know why you bother. You can just go to the store and buy these things, you know.”
Vera turned to me once she had placed an armload of jars on the shelf. “And I don’t know why you would complain, Sylvia. Someday, you’re going to be buying preserves like this at some over-priced market and wondering why you never appreciated them now.”
“Harper.”
“Yes. Harper. You just let me know when you want to start buying the groceries. Maybe you can call up your father and see if he can chip in for some of ‘these things,’ Harper.”
“Oh, is someone touchy?” I asked
“Does someone not think before she talks?” she responded and turned back into the pantry.
My father had made several attempts to get Vera to come back to Alberta in the first couple of years after we moved to
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