Annabel - Kathleen Winter [63]
“How do you know Dr. Lioukras? Did you see him in Greece?”
“I saw him before I went to Greece. I went to see him and asked him to give me a local’s itinerary. I didn’t want to take a bus tour. He’s the one who told me how to get a pass to run the original Olympic track. He told me his favourite lunch counter in Athens and said to order the vine leaves stuffed with rice and mint, and some tiny lamb meatballs. He told me what kind of coffee to drink at what time of day, and he gave me the name of his daughter’s bookstore. That’s where I got the Greek bracelets and the music for our dance.”
“I don’t like lamb.”
“I never met a child who did. I guess eating it seems like one of the more barbaric adult practices.”
“It’s sad.”
“I guess it is, in a way.”
Wayne liked that Thomasina could admit this. His father would not have done so, nor would his mother. They did not admit that it was sad to eat rabbits either. He wouldn’t mind their eating these animals if part of them could admit, as Thomasina did now, that it was sad in some way. He didn’t like that they pushed all sadness away.
“Why do you eat it, then?”
“There’s something ancient about the flavour of lamb. People have been eating it for centuries. Grown-ups put the sadness out of their minds because to them, appetite is stronger.”
“Being hungry makes you forget it’s a lamb?”
“Appetite is king.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
Wayne did not know any other grown-ups who would admit they needed to think about something. They all came up with some kind of answer, even if it didn’t make sense.
They were on the wildest part of the road now. Wayne knew there were animals in the woods, and birds. Treadway would have found a story in the land that bordered this long, lonely road, and it might even be a story about meat, appetite, hunger. But daily meat, daily appetite, daily hunger. Not the kind Thomasina meant.
When Goose Bay appeared through the trees, there was nothing thrilling about it. The buildings were low and square, with no architecture. They were utilitarian and sat inert against the sky. The hospital had some feeling in it because it stood taller. It had many windows and a sense of mystery, but not an inviting mystery. Every time he had come with his mother, Wayne had sensed that something frightened her. He was not afraid of the hospital but he was afraid of what it did to his mother. It made her retreat from him in the days around his appointments. Thomasina was different.
The closer her truck got to the main gate, the more he felt she wanted to talk. Thomasina believed he was as sensible as she was herself. He could feel that. You can feel the degree to which anyone thinks she knows more than you do. Thomasina might know more facts than Wayne did, but her face told him she believed he was capable of understanding anything she understood. He felt something pop like ginger ale bubbles in his hands. Other parts of his body fizzed too: his scalp, and his cheekbones. His body fizzed like a wave. With Thomasina that was how you felt. You were riding somewhere, and it was exciting.
They parked under the pole with an M on it and walked across the lot.
“Everyone is a snake shedding its skin,” she said. “We are different people all through our lives. You even more so. No one has told you this thing, and I’m going to ask you, do you want to know?”
A woman helped a child out of a van into a wheelchair. There were puddles, and Wayne smacked his sneaker sole into their edges. The hospital hummed and there was a smell of French fries and canned gravy.
“What?”
“If you had a choice between knowing a scary truth and a comforting lie, which would you choose?”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You’d want to know?”
“I’d want to know what?”
“I wish we weren’t in a parking lot.” Nurses and cashiers and candystripers smoked at the entrance, jiggling their feet and rubbing their bare arms. “I wish that inside there weren’t puke