Paradise Alley (2023)
You are my companion, my purpose in life, the reason I wake up. Everything is just fine.
BY KIM HENEKE GROEN
IMAGE BY CHESLEY DAVIS
I never close my curtains.
Dawn peeks over the horizon, flickering with the hope of a new day. You—hair unkempt—knock softly, enter without waiting for a response. Warmth reaches me before you crawl under the sheets. Neither of us speaks. We fall asleep. When I wake a few hours later, you are gone, the imprint of your head still visible on the pillow, your presence still palpable.
I feel somewhat settled here after being uprooted. Finding myself a friend has helped. Loneliness thaws. Now, words slip out—a sentence, even a paragraph. When we are together, you listen intently. I inhale, then exhale. I am aware that you are suffering as well. They mumble ugly words behind your back and form judgements. I give them no audience. You are my companion, my purpose in life, the reason I wake up.
Everything is just fine.
* * *
A day or so later, anguish seeps in.
Somewhere, there is an opening, and in spite of you, a chill seeps in. I place a draught excluder, a stuffed fabric snake, against the door. “In the end, is it really worth it—my fight for independence, self-determination, and dignity?” I ask you.
Shrugging, you speak about foraging for wild berries with your mother. You have a wonderful way of distracting me from my self-pity. My mind keeps returning to the past while life moves forward. Later, I have a conversation with myself. Grievances devour my time, bitterness flows out. Remember, the response to a spill is:
Communicate — Control — Contain — Clean.
Our conversation replays in my mind. I think about collecting wild berries. Prickles that protect can also pierce. A worthy reward, a sharp taste, so sweet. I am reminded to focus on the good, ignore the thorns.
* * *
This morning, you appear, pushing aside the snake. “Sad day?” you ask me, sensing my mood even though I put on my best greeting face. “Sisters are good,” you say sincerely. I told you that, when I am sad, I think about my sisters.
“Yes,” I say, with a smile. “My younger sister, Mary, she was good.” A familiar laugh surprises me with its spontaneity. “My older sister, Tissy, my goodness—she was bad.” You look at me, your head tilting sideways, waiting for an explanation. “We lived in a small seaside town. My father was the doctor, my mother, the nurse. Everyone knew who they were. When I returned for a visit, people reminisced about our family. Such fine parents with a charming son and two accomplished daughters. They didn’t remember me. I was omitted.”
You find it difficult to concentrate when I ramble. Standing at the window, you are restless. Still, my words will not be swallowed. “Both of my sisters always knew what they wanted out of life. I don’t know who I wanted to be more; I don’t know who I admired the most.” I pause, my mind still back in that small town, despondent that the villagers had forgotten me. “Just once,” I say, “I wish I had done something memorable.”
“Good or bad?”
“Something bad.”
You shuffle towards the door, awkwardly pulling on the handle, opening it enough to slide through. I resign myself to your leaving. Too much confab for you. I fall back, stretched out on the bed. Your head pokes back around. You place your foot in the jamb. “We need to go.”
“Where are we going?” I’m confused.
“We’re going to be bad.”
* * *
I see you.
Looking in the mirror, my reflection gazes back. I feel giddy. A chuckle chokes its way out, and then another escapes, creating a crescendo. I laugh until I cry. It’s not even funny. I can’t contain myself. A knock on the door silences me. “Everything okay in there?”
“Everything is just fine!” My response comes out with a snort. Get a grip. Suspicions will be raised. I take a deep breath. Wipe the tears from my face. Dot foundation around my eyes. Touch lipstick to spots on my lips and move them from side to side. Ready.
We’re not supposed to leave, although it’s not forbidden. A plan in place, we build in contingencies. We arrive minutes apart, from different directions, and slide into the taxi. It drives seamlessly away. My eyes meet yours, our hands link together. Your eyes dance with joy, and my heart beats with anticipation. It’s too easy. Never mind, I tell myself. Drama would not be welcome. The whole trip is over before it begins. I pay the taxi driver.
Back inside, I take my time, walk calmly by the other residents, praying that the bottles don’t clash against each other and shatter my cover. They’re all too busy to notice. I head unheeded down the hall to the back stairwell. No one ever goes there. I wonder if you will come. You do. You have glasses. I, two bottles. Whiskey for you and wine for me. You let out a deep sigh. “No ice,” I apologize.
“No matter,” you reply, solace in your face.
We clink. “Cheers.” Prattle and rumination are interspersed with sips.
“One more?” you ask.
Savouring each dram, you finish the second in silence. I prop the outside door open. You take a hidden smoke from your breast pocket. Sitting on the steps of the stairs, we pass the cigarette back and forth. It’s been a while since I partook. I blow rings into the air. You try to catch them with your finger. You give me your lopsided smile.
The smoke wafts back inside. The alarm shrills. We scatter. I’m slow but manage to get around the corner before they investigate. Back in bed, my head buzzes. Not from the alcohol, not from the tobacco, not from the laughter. The two bottles are concealed in my closet, behind the laundry hamper.
My eyes close. Words form on my lips. I let them free.
“I am bad!”
* * *
Today, the reflection of the sun paints patterns across the room.
“Hello,” I say as you walk in.
“Fine. Fine,” you answer. You’re always a step ahead of the conversation.
Something is hidden in your hand. “It belonged to my mother,” you tell me. Eyes aglow, you stand leaning into my shoulder, our thighs touching. Your mother sounds lovely. Mine was something else. I’m not sure how to express this.
“My mother withheld,” I reply. You move slightly away, scratch your head, and look away. “What treasure do you have?” I ask, lightly caressing your hands with my fingers. The corners of your mouth curl up slightly. I hold out my hand expectantly, encouraging you.
“Close your eyes.” I let my lids drop. You delicately place a ring on my palm. Your rough hands close my fingers over it. “Open now,” you whisper. Fingers touching, I hold your gift up in the air. Its brilliance reflects, dispersing the light.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“My mother would have loved you. She would have said, ‘You are so fine, one of the special souls.’” A tear forms in my left eye. It’s always more sensitive. It rolls down my cheek, and I catch it with my tongue. When we were growing up and my mother scolded me for crying, my brother would whisper to me that a tear is a gift from the sea when you’re sad. “So, you like it?” you ask, sliding it on my finger. “You’ll wear it?”
“Of course,” I answer. I hold my hand up, fine fingers stretched out so that the ring catches beams of light from the sun. We watch in silence as the magic dust floats around the shimmering diamond.
* * *
Patronizing.
Your father asks me to sit down. I take my time, shift the chair to face the window. Outside, the leaves on the big old oak tree sway gently back and forth. My tree is dwarfed by its sprawl. We each chose a tree in the autumn to replace the diseased elms. An attempt to make all of us living here feel involved. “Pawpaw,” I had requested. They tried to make me change my mind. Why not a beautiful maple, a linden, or a spruce? “Pawpaw.” I refused to be converted. “Asimina triloba.” The other residents don’t like it when I use Latin terms. They don’t care that I love languages. They tease me that it looks like a shrub. I talk to my tree. Wait until it shoots up. Wait until the tree bears fruit. I’ll let them smell the flowers in the spring. They’ll be expecting the scent of perfume and instead be overwhelmed by the stink of rotting meat. A deterrent. No one will touch the delicious fruit later on.
I gaze at my pawpaw. I position myself on the chair, poised, like I am ready to go, like I’ve better things to do. Your father stiffly moves his chair in front of me. He blocks my view. “You have to understand,” he says, crinkled eyes looking beyond me. He is uncomfortable.
“I don’t understand,” I reply curtly. His eyes flit around the space, searching for a place to rest. There is nothing for him to see—old couches, worn-out chairs, bleak, empty—nothing but decay. “He should not be in this place, not at his age.” I know this but refuse to acknowledge it to your father.
“You understand,” he says, taking his time. “Paul is not all with us.” He clears his throat. “He was in a car accident, and we lost him, even though he survived.” He glances at me.
I take some deep breaths before I respond, but it doesn’t help. “I know he was in an accident,” I spit out. “I didn’t know him before, but I know him now.” My voice is coming out in a sharp, high-pitched tone. “He knows me. We have a relationship. We enjoy each other’s company.” I don’t say anything more. His concern for his son is obvious, but his assessment of my reality is amiss. I want to tell him to go away, that his conversation is unwanted, that the Paul he knew is gone, and that this one is just fine.
“The doctors told us,” he babbles on, “that Paul has some memories from before but not much more.” Standing up, he wrings his hands together, rubs his temples, and shuffles from one foot to the other. He turns away as if to leave, then circles back. “He has a traumatic brain injury. There has been no improvement in years, and there won’t be any in the future.”
“There are gaps,” I say, standing up. I move right beside him. I have to look up. I am not a tall person. “But Paul is capable. You need to let him live his life.” I try to keep my voice calm, even though I am seething inside. “Stop interfering.”
He interrupts me. “You’re acting like a teenager.” I do not respond. I walk slowly back to my room. Lowering myself on the bed, my bones creak.
* * *
Unbalanced, I falter.
Lost, not in the sense of place, but in belonging. Later, I am in the dining area, drinking tea. Anger and anguish steam out. I ponder the steps that led me here. Not my choice. Forced to live in a place that is not my home. You arrive in baby blue jeans and a black T-shirt and position a chair next to me. “Thinking?”
“Yes, always thinking,” I answer.
“About?”
“How I ended up here.”
“If I turn one way or the other, when I leave somewhere, I end up somewhere else,” you say, grinning. I laugh. I look around the room. This place they call a home is filled with wrinkles, flabby skin, and shrinking bones. This is no Domus. Put out to pasture, all of us. Abandoned, unwanted, and empty, waiting for the inevitable. You are younger than the rest of us, but still a castaway .
“Your father told me I was acting like a teenager,” I tell you.
You look into my eyes, lift up my hand, and kiss it gallantly. “When I don’t know where I am or where I’m supposed to be, I find my way to you.”
Your response, your heart, your soul—envelop me.
I feel like a teenager.
Kim Heneke Groen finds inspiration for her writing in stories woven with the threads of truth. She recently completed the Graduate Certificate Program in Creative Writing at Humber College and is currently working on her first novel.
Image: Paradise Alley (Chesley Davis, 2023)
Edited for publication by Mary Hamilton as part of the Creative Book Publishing program.
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation and the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts.