* Be sure to listen to the audio version as there is a cool story behind this novel. ~ D
The art gallery where I work is a small store on a tiny street in downtown Niagara Falls. The walls are the colour of bone and peppered with black and white photographs of people I’ve never met and places I’ve never been. It’s lit by track lighting so dim, that in the evening we all pretend we don’t have to squint. The wood floors are a gleaming butter bean. We’re sandwiched between a Starbucks and Miss Vicky’s House of Yoga.
I moved back to The Falls to be with my father after my mother died. She battled cancer long and hard and had been diagnosed the day after she signed the divorce papers. It was a divorce that she initiated, but that my father never wanted any part of. My brother and I stood helplessly by as our parents agreed on nothing and yet never raised their voices. Resentment was silent and woven through our daily lives until finally, it seemed to shift into something darker, something that devoured my mother’s body from the inside out.
I have no use for cancer. And as for silence, I prefer to scream into a pillow. Or take pictures. Or sing.
I remember sitting in my mother’s Chrysler minivan listening to the Top 40 Countdown and soaking it all up; humming to myself while my brother pretended to drum. We had our own quiet little band. My mother would smile at times in the rearview mirror, our first fan.
I can feel tears in my eyes and so I wipe them quickly with my sleeve. Here comes that ache again.
I look at the clock and can’t believe I still have four hours to go here. It’s March and that’s a tough month. The roads are a sea of brown slush. Summer is still a distant promise. Tourism is pretty slow, mostly just the slot junkies these days. The spray from the Falls still carries the bitter sting of winter.
And Mom’s birthday is in two days.
My chest tightens. A bundle of nerves pervades my body now and it needs somewhere to go. Somewhere to go before it takes me over, takes me down. The radio volume is low. I turn it up. It’s a blur of bossa nova. I get up and dance, moving my body in a senseless rhythm.
The door opens and three digital beeps stop me dead in my tracks.
A man, broad-shouldered and handsome with dark eyes, stifles a smile and crosses his arms about his black wool coat. “I take it I’m in the wrong place,” he says. His voice is smug and his accent is slight. Québécois maybe? His entrance brings with it the scent of citrus and smoke.
“Well, that depends on whether or not you read signs before you waltz into a place,” I say.
He smiles slightly and leans forward to catch my eyes as I am trying to avoid his. He’s intimidating and he knows it. “Understood,” he says simply and then turns to leave.
I’m left standing there feeling nervous and rude. I walk to the door, open it and watch him walk into the yoga studio.
My heart beats fast and my breath speeds up. Not again. I’m sweating. It’s all happening so fast and I can’t breathe. I’ve gotta move…gotta get out of here. The walls are too close. It’s too dark. I need air.
*from the novel-in-progress, Robena Finch
