Red

 

Mother summons me to her office on Monday morning to scold me and I’m transported back in time. I’m five years old. Her red pinched lips are shouting and her red-tipped finger is wagging at me. You horrible bad girl, where is Mother’s sweater? What did you do with it?  I’d taken it to bed with me, to feel something soft that smelled like her mix of menthol cigarettes and Chanel Number Five.  While she and the rest of the family were skiing in Mount Tremblant, I’d explored our big empty house, including Mother’s walk-in closet. The sweater, cashmere, lay crumpled on the floor. I hid there, amongst her clothes, shoes, purses and scarves, missing my family – my father who was rarely home but smiled and sometimes told me stories; my boisterous teenage brothers, who were rarely home but sometimes played games with me; and my mother who was always home and whom I tried so very hard to emulate and please. I hid the sweater under a pillow in my frilly pink bedroom. Rosita made my bed every morning but didn’t say a word about it. Perhaps she understood my need to sniff myself to sleep, or to feel softness. Upon her return, Mother was furious that I’d touched her things.

She’s using that same tone and expression now, 20 years later, trying to make me feel small and contrite. I’m wearing a new outfit, a suit dress that I bought at Holts. It’s a shimmering knit fabric of mottled pink and turquoise that lights up my eyes, or so the salesperson claimed. The subtle shoulder pads correct years of cowed posture and make me feel less rounded and lumpy. Like a professional woman. An adult.

“I had an engagement out of town, Mother.” I speak with a tone befitting the dress.

“You missed Thanksgiving dinner.”

I’m startled. Our family celebrates thanksgiving twice. Once in October with the rest of Canada and again in late November when Uncle Russell visits from Chicago. How had I forgotten this? Could it be because I don’t have much to do in either of the thanksgiving extravaganzas, cooked by Rosita and hosted with much ado and cigarette waving by Mother?  

“How are Uncle Russell and Aunt Carole?” I ask, trying to cover my own mistake.

“You would know if you had been home.” Her eyes narrow.

“I have a home, Mother. It’s on Heath Street.” Again, the dress speaks. I listen in wonder to the strong and confident words that come out of my mouth, while my brain, belittled and befuddled, wonders how I could’ve forgotten about Turkey Number Two.

“You are a member of this family and you will behave as one,” she spits, enunciating with crisp patrician syllables. “You will honour our traditions no matter where you live or what out-of-town engagement captures your fancy. Do you understand?”

The dress has no reply. I nod mutely. Childhood’s salty tears, replaced by adult bile.