Christine Higdon
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]T[/mks_dropcap]omorrow, I’ll be the same age he was when he died.
He was ten days short of seeing the first man on the moon. We six were abruptly short a father. Town was short a good neighbour, and the world was short a man whoâtrue Salvation Army styleâregularly brought street kids home from the city for a meal and a shower.
It was raining. July. School was finally out. And there was Uncle Hal, occupying our fatherâs armchair, oblivious, and smoking filterless Playerâs Plains in his pink shirt and gray and burgundy ascot, his legs crossed dainty-like, the way no man weâd known ever would. Queer as a three-dollar bill, Great-Aunt Reenie said. A three-dollar bill! We were thrilled.
Dad stood in the kitchen doorway, a wooden spoon swinging gallows-like between two fingers of his right hand. He had on Momâs pink apronâsurely no irony intendedâand was watching us bask in the glory of another Uncle Hal story.
Breakfast is ready, Dad said, only a tiny bit sour.
None of us moved. Uncle Hal had been stringing us along, not yet telling us which famous artist had sketched his portrait on a cocktail napkin in a spiffy New York hotel. Not that any one of us kids from the sticks would have known the artist anyway. But we were ready to nod approvingly, pretending we did. You had to give back to Uncle Hal.
Kids, Dad said. Table.
Uncle Hal uncrossed his long legs and shooed us into the kitchen, clucking at us like he was doing Dad a favour. We stood around the table like runners in their starting blocksâon your marksâwaiting to see which chair our uncle would choose. Our semiannual brawl came next as we each fought to sit next to him, ignoring our usual spots at the table. Mostly, the boys won those battles, but that day I crawled under the table, found Uncle Halâs legs, climbed onto his lap, and pressed my face into his silky ascot. When I turned, triumphant as a cream-stealing cat, everyone was silent: Uncle Hal had taken Dadâs spot at the head of the table.
Dad put the pan of scrambled eggs down in front of Uncle Hal and me and handed him a serving spoon. Do your best, brother-in-law, he said with a smile, Dish âem out, and my two-hundred-pound father sat down in the only empty chair, mine, the one with the pussycat decals.
Uncle Halâs heart was thumping against my back as he spooned the eggs onto pieces of toast and passed the plates down. He worked around me, resting his chin on my shoulder. Dad said grace and we all said amen, peering over our folded hands at him, wary. We never said grace at breakfast, especially in the middle of the week.
Dad tolerated our idolization of Uncle Hal, but even we knew that he tested Dadâs old-school sensibilities to the core. So when Uncle Hal started telling the story about the time he shook hands with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeauâsaying his name with a French accentâI figured I knew why Great-Aunt Reenie had called him queer. Dad hated the Liberals. He was still hoping for a Diefenbaker comeback. Heâd trained us puppies to hope so too.
Their kitchen-table argument started as a slow growl and escalated in minutes to a ripsnorter. Dad leapt from our scurrilous prime minister to the Easternersâ imposition of French on our cereal boxes. Uncle Hal accused Dad of religious hypocrisy for not opposing the shameful Vietnam War. Dad called Uncle Hal a bleeding-heart liberal who wouldnât know a real underprivileged person if he sat on one. They tussled on then landed, as they always did, on us kids. Uncle Hal had a bee in his bonnet about every one of us getting an education; Dad figured weâd do just dandy as shop girls or working at the Beaver Lumber store. Heâd heard about Icarus.
These arenât your big city kids, Dad said, as angry as Iâd ever seen him. He waved his eggy fork over my siblings and me. Donât fill their heads with your nonsense, Hal.
Mitch, Uncle Hal said, they can be anything they want to be. Sherman can be an architect, Charlie and Tom engineers, Mavis here a doctor, Uncle Hal said, squeezing me. Amy, he said, pointing at my little sister on her high stool, is obviously going to be an artist. And Sharon⊠why not an astronaut?
We all laughed imagining something as impossible as Sharon flying to the moon.
I made it out, Uncle Hal said. Thereâs no reason they shouldnât.
Out! Well you are special, Hal. Shermanâs eleven. He doesnât even know what an architect is.
Yes I do, piped Sherman. His eyes glistened with hope.
Dad turned the glare that had silenced Sherman on Uncle Hal. You come âround here twice a year, Mr. Toronto, and after ten minutes with my kids you think you know all about childrearing. Youâre no father, Hal.
Apart from the boysâ peculiar soccer coach, weâd never met a grown man other than Uncle Hal who didnât have kids, let alone one who wasnât married. My siblings turned from Dad to look at Uncle Hal and me. Pity for the underdog wavered in their eyes. Dad had scored a crucial point in the argument and had surged ahead.
But Uncle Hal came back with a promising retort, though one that left me with a little hollow in my chest: He told Dad that you didnât have to have your own kids to know how it feels to be one growing up in a backwater.
You couldâve had your own kids if youâd made a better choice in life, Hal, Dad said. He looked down at his toast. Pass the jam, Charlie, he said.
Uncle Hal stiffened. He put his fork down and lay his elegant hands, so unlike my fatherâs, flat on the table. And what better choice would that be, Mitch?
I thought that the mystery of why Uncle Hal never turned up with a woman whoâd one day be our aunt and give us cousins was about to be revealed. But Dad sat there on my little chair, still as a tree in a hot Okanagan summer, the red glop of jam bleeding into his toast. He didnât look up.
I am going to be an architect, Sherman said, defiant.
Iâm going to be an architect, I shouted, hijacking the career Uncle Hal had bestowed upon Sherman. Or a doctor? I said more quietly, looking at Dad.
Once Iâm promoted to glory you can be anything you darn well please, Dad said. But while Iâm still tramping this earth youâll keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds.
The back door opened and Mom came in, home from her night shift. Whoâs being promoted to glory? she asked, shaking the rain off her kerchief.
Dad! I shouted. I wriggled off Uncle Halâs lap.
Our mother was the one thing Dad and my uncle agreed on. They loved her to death. They stood and Mom kissed Dad on the cheek then she punched Uncle Hal affectionately on the shoulder. Uncle Hal clasped a hand around his arm, feigning excruciating pain, and wobbled around the table as though his legs were about to buckle. We shrieked with laughter as he fell, dying a romantic death, across the laps of Sherman and Sharon.
All Iâm saying, Mitch, he said, gasping for breath, is youâve got to let them let their little lights shine. Grant me this one wish before your Lord takes me. Uncle Hal hummed the familiar old song feebly, taking advantage of his sisterâs presence to get in one last shot, and then his arm fell limp to the ground. We squealed and shook Uncle Hal alive. He rose, laughing, and leaned against the kitchen counter, our hero again. He lit a cigarette and Sherman snuggled up to his side, imitating Uncle Halâs stylish pose.
Mom shot Uncle Hal an indulgent look. My brotherâs a rogue, she said, stretching her arm out to Dad. Ignore him, Mitch.
Dad leaned and briefly touched his lips to Momâs forehead. Iâll be in the garden, he said.
Itâs raining, Mitch. Sheâd already turned and was pouring a cup of coffee from the percolator.
Dad glanced toward the big kitchen window. So it is, he said, and out he went.
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We landed somewhere in between the dreams they had for usâDadâs limited and Uncle Halâs lofty. Sherman and Tom are firefighters. Charlieâs a ship mechanic. Amyâs a hairdresser and Sharonâs an accountant. I went to college and became a photographer. Who knows if Dad would have been pleased with us, flying so close to the sun. He was some stubborn, our father. What I do know is that he would have been none too pleased with the life partner I chose. Nor she with him.
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After breakfast that morning Mom put us on kitchen duty. Let me have just one quiet cup of coffee with your Uncle Hal in the living room, she said.
Charlie snuck off to the bathroom; weâd all used that trick, spending long minutes behind its locked door to avoid our share of the chores. But there was Charlie, back too soon.
Dadâs lying down in the garden, he said, more a question than a statement.
What? Mom shouted from the living room.
Uncle Hal was the first out the door. I remember it like this: he is a huge birdâan owl or an eagleâflying over the porch railing, soaring down the stairs, and landing next to Dadâs still body. Then, there is Mom on her knees, crushing the onions and cabbages, shouting and shouting his name. The rain is guttering on Dadâs glasses making him a blind man. A strawberry leaf is glued to his forehead. Until Uncle Hal puts his lips to our fatherâs I can see Dadâs been eating blackberries, theyâre so purple.
Uncle Halâs saying ambulance between the breaths heâs blowing into Dadâs mouth. He shoves Mom and she falls back in the dirt. She gets up and starts running, but she grabs Sherman by the front of his Tâshirt and lifts him like sheâs Superman or something. For a few seconds heâs airborne and his feet are peddling. I know itâs because Mom needs someone to come with her to the telephone. But Shermanâs too heavy. She drops him at the foot of the stairs. Iâm thinking she should have taken Amy. Or me. She should have taken me because I donât want to watch Uncle Hal trying to kiss Dad back to life anymore.
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We donât understand.
After they leave us. After the ambulance backs too slowly out the driveway with Dad, and Mom too. After Tom picks Amy up and says shush, sh-sh-shush and a robin flies down and plucks a worm out of the puddle in the garden, just where Dad has been lying, I look at Uncle Hal. He has mud everywhere and his hair is crazy askew, like a porcupine is sitting there on top of his head. He is trying to light a cigarette but his hands are shaking and Shermanâof course Sherman, Shermanâs the eldestâhas to take the matchbook from Uncle Hal.
I touch Uncle Halâs hand and I ask: So who was that artist in New York?
Uncle Hal drops to his knees and now the porcupine is lying on the grass. Sherman kneels down beside him and pats Uncle Halâs shoulder for a while. Then we all lie down. We bury Uncle Hal under us and he takes us for a ride on his heaving back.
Christine Higdon is a graphic designer, editor, and writer. She grew up in British Columbia, and has lived in Toronto, Ottawa, and rural Nova Scotia. She was on the editorial collective of Fireweed, A Feminist Quarterly for a decade. When she is not designing, editing, reading, or writing at her home in Toronto, Christine hooks rugs, worries about the bees, and longs for either ocean. She is represented by Hilary McMahon at Westwood Creative Artists. Her first novel, Luluâs Island, is currently being read by publishers.