Missed call

     In the end, the bad news wasn't anywhere as bad as expected. When my mom called me and declared those words I held my breath and braced for the worst. I could feel my head slowly dissociating in anticipation. Because bad things always seem to happen in succession. Never one without two, two without three, three without four. And how many bad pieces of news were we at now, anyhow? Between the two oceans, I had lost count.
     But in the end it was just property damage - a tempo collapsed under the weight of snow and neglect.  It was only dented steel. A broken windshield. Competing insurance claims in the making.
     The biggest tragedy was that we made such a big deal of it in the first place. That we had to go there again. We can be such small people sometimes. Small people with our small problems. The only thing that should have mattered was that you were lucky enough not to have been sitting in that car. Life was kind enough to spare us that scenario. Kind enough to spare me that phone call.
     And so I spend the rest of the day trying to remember just that. Through all the conversations and the semi-awkward chance meetings, that's what I whispered to the back of my own head.
     Thank you, life, for sparing me that phone call.
       

In the cards

Our weekly game of Scopa has become the best way to pass the time.

When you and I go at it, nothing else matters. Not the pain in your side. Not the latest claim to your living inheritance. Not even the divorce and all the nasty words you heard but maybe don't remember. All your attention is on those old Napolitan cards I picked up in that perfect little Square in Rome. And all my attention turns to you. And every week I pray that you won't forget how to play. That you won't forget how valuable that sette bello is. I can sense how tightly you hold on to these few simple calculations. So I make you deal even if I mix the cards before you do. I love how you always cut the deck in half. How you count the cards to yourself regardless of the outcome. And I breathe a tiny sigh of relief every time the numbers add up.

And whenever Mommy makes a trip downstairs there's always a moment where you draw me close and whisper some obtuse Italian proverb in my ear. Something your mother told you when you were too young to even understand. Forcing it out before mine has a chance to come back into the kitchen. Not because you don't want her to hear. Just because you've been saving it for the right occasion.

I don't always get it. But I smile anyway. I smile with my tired eyes and you smile back with yours. Because you're still by far the wisest person in the room. 

the nod

     We reached a deal but there were no handshakes. No champagne and no congratulations. There would be no smiles to this settlement.
     At least it was a less stressful meeting. Last Saturday I had been so nervous I had barely eaten anything all day. I blamed whatever anxiety I had been feeling up until that moment to that particular meeting. The one that was apparently doomed to fail before it ever got started. The culmination of all the nasty phone calls. All the brutal honesty and all the bullshit. And all the things no son should ever have to hear. But that was last week. This time my mother and I sat down for some liver with fried onions. We even managed to slip in some leftover cold Espresso before she looked at me and wondered aloud if we should get this show on the road. I nodded and went to go get my father downstairs. I walked back upstairs on my own. Just to show how impartial I was. We all sat there in awkward silence. I felt bad. But only because I hadn't offered to make him a coffee as well. There were some last-ditch questions about the house evaluation. Some last-minute explanations that would be repeated and only partially understood. Some last-minute bad blood. But it didn't change much in the end.
     Column A, B and C awaited patiently.
     When there was nothing left to say my father asked his soon-to-be ex-wife if she was okay with everything. And then she looked at me and said that she was okay with it if I was okay with it. She trusted me like that. On any other day it would have made me uncomfortable. But I wanted out. We all wanted out. So I agreed and she agreed. My father rose from the table and sank silently down the stairs and into the basement, his days suddenly numbered. I kept the reality of it at bay.
     I looked at my mother then, nodded and fought back some tears. The nod said that she had done the right thing. The nod understood that she had done this for us, her two sons.
     But the nod also acknowledged my role in this entire thing. I had just rubber-stamped my parent's divorce. Had given it my cold and indifferent blessing. But that wasn't all. Because I had stirred the pot. Maybe I had even inspired my mother to action. Most probably. And now we were all entering unchartered territory. Together. Alone.
      

a little more lightweight

     Today on the drive back from Subaru I didn't take that side street off the service road. The one I had taken just the other night. The one with the tiny magical church at the end of it. With the front-lit Jesus statue (or is it Mary? Jesus) just standing there, inviting and creepy. The most unassuming Heaven's Door you could ever imagine. Just sitting there. Before that final right back onto Saint-Laurent.
     Turns out it wouldn't have been the right way anyway. A large tree had cracked in half just above the trunk and crashed right into the cab of a parked truck. The truck was not spared and the street was completely blocked by a damn of thick branches. My brain registered the shape of the disaster out the corner of my eye but it took me a solid twenty five seconds and one reluctant u-turn to realize this was not the kind of thing you see everyday. So I photographed and reported back. Even though I had vaguely heard about the power outages on the way back. Even if I vaguely heard the wind howling all day. The nondescript knocking around of plastic garbage bin on asphalt as I played phone in for a bargain! with at  least three different dealers, just to see who would throw in something (anything) more than just the winter carpets that would compliment the shiny hunk of metal awaiting me at the end of the exercise. And this was a good day to be investing in metal. An auspicious day to buy a car - the start of Diwali and all.
     But today was something else. Today was so many things for so many different reasons.
     A missed birthday with no phone call. Some last-minute goodbye wishes. A day to reach out. To rebuild. To nurture. Not from the ground up. Never again from the ground up.
     Everything I set out to do today I did. The car. The hot water tanks. The re-connect and the background check. Whatever had been lingering around since I got back, really. Whatever I couldn't get away with blaming on jet lag any longer. The afterglow had dimmed a little. I had been beaten back down into reality. As if. As if I had expected anything less from life. Everything except the evil eye. And maybe the old tightening of the chest, first thing in the morning. So I had to let a little more of that weight go today. For myself and my well being. More promises followed. Tomorrow I would even start to run. And when the wind finally started to die down a little we watched the Muppets. Because it was still in the DVR. And we were all so much older than we might have been our first time watching. But there was still so much magic in those puppets. And everything seemed to come alive when I saw all those smiling faces go up on my wall. Those rows and rows of beautiful and colourful smiles. You would find no inner struggle in any of those rows of smiles. There would only always be life.
   

beating a dead horse dead.

i was hanging with this group of guys who were already technically dead. they looked like your token group of neighbourhood toughs from the late 80s, but there was something strangely familiar about them. like they were character composites from my own childhood. i say we were dead because the only point of our existence seemed to be to smash each other over the heads until we lost consciousness. and i seemed to constantly have the upper hand, fed by a desperate wave of self-preservation. but then at some point my zombie crew lost hope and wanted nothing more to do with me. seems i was too good at killing them. no fair, they whined. so they left me stranded by my parent's door, laughing at the thought that i would spend the rest of eternity stranded in some kind of purgatorial limbo. because you could never really tell for sure that you had truly expired if there wasn't anyone around to tell you.