Annabel - Kathleen Winter [108]
Wayne looked at the government letter. It contained forms and columns, and it asked Treadway to fill out the forms and the government would arrive at a decision about the amount Treadway would have to pay for Wayne’s medications between now and the time he turned twenty-one; then there was another form concerning the years beyond that date. They seemed to want to know whether Wayne was going to a university, and there were so many numbered lists he could not figure out the form any better than his father had done. But there was one thing he could discern, and it was that his hormone medication cost a lot more than he had imagined. There was a figure for the MCP contribution over the past year and another one for parental contribution.
The only time to get his father on the phone, Wayne knew, was at five in the morning. That was when Treadway ate breakfast, and it was the only time he could be relied on to be inside the house. Wayne was awake half the night thinking of what he would say to his father.
“Dad?”
Treadway was a man who did not like talking on the phone. The phone was for getting information across that could not be exchanged in any other way. It was the new form of telegrams.
“Did you figure it out, son? Were you able to see exactly what MCP was getting at?”
“I’m calling to say you might as well save yourself some money.”
“What’s that now, Wayne?”
“I’ve been thinking for a while about being on all these drugs, and not liking it.”
Wayne had been watching people. He watched men and women who passed him on their way to get pea soup at Shelley’s at lunchtime or croissants at the new bakery across from the Bank of Montreal. The street smelled of cigarettes, perfume, and coffee, and Wayne saw that the faces, bodies, clothes, and shoes of the men and women who passed him had been divided and thinned. The male or female in them had been both diluted and exaggerated. They were one, extremely so, or they were the other. The women trailed tapered gloves behind them and walked in ludicrous heels, while the men, with their fuzzy sideburns and brown briefcases, looked boring as little beagles out for the same rabbit. You define a tree and you do not see what it is; it becomes its name. It is the same with woman and man. Everywhere Wayne looked there was one or the other, male or female, abandoned by the other. The loneliness of this cracked the street in half. Could the two halves of the street bear to see Wayne walk the fissure and not name him a beast?
His father did not know Thomasina Baikie had told Wayne about the fetus, and Wayne did not want to talk about that now. He did not want to explain himself to his father at all. He did not want to talk about the beast, or the fissure, or anything that he felt. His father had known things and had not told him. His father had kept secrets he had no business keeping, secrets that were not Treadway’s own.
“What are you saying, son?”
“I’m saying I’ve been thinking about letting the drugs go gradually. I was thinking about it anyway, before they sent you the forms.”
“Going off them?”
“Yes. And now I see how much they cost —”
“You don’t want to stop taking those, son, regardless of the cost.” Treadway was definite, as if he had some kind of authority over this subject that Wayne did not have.
“I didn’t call to have a debate about it, Dad. I’m only telling you because I’ve decided already.” He had not decided, not for sure. He was scared of the decision. But he needed to be definite with Treadway.