The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [78]
Outside a crow cawed, and Karen shuddered. Why does death always have to make its presence felt? Can’t we take a holiday from death, if only for a day?
She looked at the rising dough—her babies to be—and was shot with a pang of almost Zen energy, an awareness that death and life were folded together in a complex origami of existence. But what shape would the origami take? A tree, perhaps . . . or a goose! Karen had seen documentaries on TV of geese in municipal lagoons greedily inhaling entire bread loaves in genocidal frenzies; swans were even worse. No, the complex origami of life would have to be shaped like . . . an oven. Without ovens there would be no life. She went to the bowls to test her unborns for firmness. She felt like . . . like . . . like a wheel within a wheel within a wheel.
Karen realized she needed a buttering. Getting old is so difficult. The staleness; the lost elasticity of youth. One blinks, and before one knows it, it’s onions, sage, perhaps a bit of sausage and a turkey’s greasy carcass.
She caught sight of herself in the microwave’s black glass. Karen Slice, there’s still a bit of vim left in you. And don’t forget you’ve got two children, a husband who cares for you and, shortly, some buns in the oven. Count your blessings.
She heard the crows cawing outside. They’d seen her through the window and were gathering in the trees and shrubs in an act of menace, but Karen had long ago learned to meet their taunts with indifference.
She was about to brew some tea when she
heard a noise that made her crust freeze—the sound of baby Crouton scampering down the rear hallway, followed by the back screen door’s gentle thwack ing sound.
He’d gone outside. Crouton!
She ran to the door to see Crouton in the backyard, the crows above in a frenzy, swarming in from the east.
“Crouton! Come in!”
“No!”
Karen ran into the yard, screaming, “Crouton, hurry, the crows will eat you! You must go back into the house!”
Crouton ran farther away, into the base of a forsythia shrub in full bloom, a place where the crows wouldn’t go.
Karen followed him a moment later, and they stood there together, catching their breath.
“Crouton, what were you thinking? You can’t stay out here in the yard.”
“But Mother, I can’t stay inside the house forever.”
“But you have to, Crouton, or else the crows will eat you. You’ll die.”
“But Mother, staying inside the house forever— that’s not really life, is it?”
Karen had no choice but to say the following words: “No. You’re right—it isn’t.”
They both shivered. It was cold out.
“Come inside, Crouton. I’ll butter you.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Roger
Bethany, Bethany, Bethany . . .
You know what I was doing when I found out what you’d done to yourself? I was sitting in a chair in my place. Wayne was in the kitchen, and I was looking out the back window, at a patch of sky in between the front of my landlord’s snowmobile and the remains of his above-ground swimming pool. It was almost dark out, but not quite— we’re so close to the shortest day of the year—and I was watching that last little bit of blue turn colourless. And then I heard footsteps coming down the driveway towards my door. It was your mother—yes, your mother. Lately she’s been bringing me food, and I’ve been her sounding board for her worries about, well, you. Until tonight I’ve been hiding from the door’s knock and we’ve been swapping notes, but tonight something inside me changed, as if some frozen lake inside me had thawed—I felt life returning to me—and so instead of heading into my room to avoid the door, I went to answer it. Yes, it was indeed your mother, and in her left hand she was holding a clear plastic produce bag containing a twelve-pack of Juicy Fruit gum and several airline-sized mini Scotch bottles. In her right hand she was holding a cellphone on which she’d just heard news from the hospital about you. I didn’t know this. But there was your mother, and she was