Illustration by Dushan Milic

The hockey world was shocked this summer when three tough guys (one just retired) died unexpectedly, one from an overdose of alcohol and pills and two others by suicide. When Wade Belak, a popular, seemingly happy former Toronto Maple Leaf hanged himself while in Toronto for the taping of CBC’s The Battle of the Blades, it affected many in the hockey world very deeply. This talked to sports psychologist Paul Dennis, who worked for the Leafs for 20 years as what he calls “a mental skills coach,” and who once coached the Toronto Marlies of the OHL, about depression and hockey.

THIS: In general terms, how do hockey players deal with depression or mental illness?

DENNIS: It’s a taboo. The evidence seems to be that for athletes in general, between nine and 15 percent will report symptoms of depression. It’s almost double that for the general population.

THIS: Is it also a taboo topic with management?

DENNIS: No. That’s the irony of the whole thing. Because the people I’ve worked with, whether it’s Brian Burke or Pat Quinn or Ken Dryden, those three in particular, they would want people to come forward. They would be there for them and make sure they would get the social support to deal effectively with this. But the athletes themselves wouldn’t take advantage of it.

THIS:: What’s their fear?

DENNIS: For the most part, they fear it’s a sign of weakness. Professional athletes are all supposed to be tough-minded and not be vulnerable. Not have any demonstration of mental weaknesses even though we know that depression, for example, is not a sign of being mentally weak. They’re not well-educated in that regard.

THIS: Does the league educate them?

DENNIS: They do. There’s a program they have. At the beginning of each year the player’s association sends around a team of experts. One psychologist and one or two people in the substance abuse area. They talk about anxiety disorders. They talk about depression. And here’s the confidential number they can call if they need help. What was disappointing during the summer when these three tragedies occurred, the NHL and the PA were criticized quite heavily for not having a program. But they do have one. It’s just not publicized.

THIS: What can you say specifically about Wade Belak?

DENNIS: I knew him very well for seven years when he was with the Leafs. I’m not sure anyone in our organization was aware [of his mental issues].

THIS: I think his suicide is particularly hard for people in the sports world to accept because no one saw it coming. And they’re saying, if Belak can do this, anyone can do this.

DENNIS: That comment has been expressed to me by players, almost word for word.

THIS: Are they rattled by his death?

DENNIS: Incredibly rattled by it, for that reason: happy guy, great family, financially secure, a lot to look forward to.

THIS: What does his suicide tell us about depression?

DENNIS: It’s similar to the concussion in that it’s the invisible injury, an invisible disorder. There are signs and symptoms we can look for, but if they aren’t there we automatically assume everything is okay. We don’t even make that assumption. It means people can mask it very well.

THIS: Will his death have any positive impact on how the NHL in particular, and maybe sports in general, deals with depression?

DENNIS: I hope it does. We used to think that because an athlete is depressed after he retires and he withdraws socially it’s because he misses the game so much and therefore he becomes depressed. Now it seems research is telling us that the blows to the head…there’s something organic going on in the brain that’s causing this depression.

THIS: I’ve interviewed several enforcers and they all said they hated fighting.

DENNIS: I recall having conversations with Wade about how difficult his role was. Who likes to get hit? Who likes to fight and take blows to the head? They do it because they have to. It’s their livelihood. I think players today fight because it’s a strategy, a tactic. It energizes their teammates. It energizes the crowd. It’s for all the wrong reasons.

THIS: Hockey might be the only place that bare-knuckle fighting is allowed. You can’t do it in a boxing ring or in mixed martial arts.

DENNIS: Remember Don Sanderson [the 21-year-old who played for the Whitby Dunlops in a senior league and who died after hitting his head on the ice during a fight a couple of years ago]? I thought fighting would be banned after that.

THIS: But it wasn’t.

DENNIS: Just last night I said to my wife that if Sidney Crosby plays in a game [on a Thursday] and he gets punched in the head and falls to the ice and dies, by Saturday fighting would be banned in hockey. But that’s the total disregard for human life they have. What difference does it make whether it’s a Sidney Crosby or a name we’ve never heard of before? It’s a human life.

THIS: What’s a bigger taboo in the NHL? Admitting you’re gay or admitting you’re severely depressed?

DENNIS: Geez, that’s a great question. I think they’re on the same plane.

Illustration by Dave Donald

The Claim

Companies that produce “all natural” deodorants often sell consumers on three things: environmental sustainability, no animal testing, and no artificial colors. But is that the whole story? Often you’ll also find allergens, petrochemicals, lung irritants and hormone disruptors on the product ingredient list—all chemicals that have been linked to cancers.

The Investigation

Propylene glycol, a petrochemical, is often a top ingredient in natural deodorants, and many believe it has no business being there. Even the chemical’s safety information is scary, with this warning: “In case of contact, immediately flush skin with plenty of water. Cover the irritated skin with an emollient. Remove contaminated clothing and shoes … Wash clothing before reuse. Thoroughly clean shoes before reuse. Get medical attention.”

Rosanne Cohen, executive director of non-profit Breast Cancer Action Montreal, has made it a mission to educate herself and others on the many potentially harmful ingredients in our everyday cosmetic products. “Propylene glycol is harmful,” she says. “It’s an ingredient you should definitely stay away from. It absorbs easily into the skin and can damage the heart, liver and nervous system.”

Even so, Cohen says that it’s a personal decision whether or not to toss products. “We believe in the precautionary principle,” she adds, “We know there are ingredients in these products that haven’t been tested for safety. We also don’t know what the effects are of low doses over the long term.”

Other known dangerous chemicals that wind up in deodorants are parabens, aluminum, and perfume. Cohen particularly advises staying away from anything with the ingredient listing “perfume.” She explains that perfumes are considered a trade secret and not regulated. “Make sure the products are fragrance free,” she says which is not the same as simply “unscented.”

The verdict

Studies on the dangers of particular chemicals are ubiquitous. Potential links to anything from Alzheimer’s, to cancer, to autism are repeatedly alleged and disputed, with no consensus in sight. So if you’re going to use cosmetics with questionable ingredients (most products!) use them in moderation.

Until advocates like Cohen succeed in convincing the Canadian government to force manufacturers to properly label products like deodorants (such as a symbol showing the product contains known or suspected carcinogens) the onus will continue to fall to the consumer to determine what is safe and what isn’t. If not using deodorant isn’t an option you’ll consider, then check that labels contain ingredients you know are safe.

Note: Websites like the Cosmetics Database and Breast Cancer Action Montreal  can help you figure out what’s in your products.

A bowhead whale caught by Igloolik, Nunavut, hunters. Photo by Ansgar Walk.

Whale hunting is a fundamental practice in the North and should be celebrated, not restricted…

Gabriel Nirlungayuk can’t pinpoint when Inuit first began hunting bowheads. “Whaling, from an Inuit perspective, has been ongoing since time immemorial,” says the director of wildlife and environment for the land-claims group Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. But he knows one thing: It wasn’t always so heavily regulated.

Currently, Nunavummiut are permitted to harvest three bowhead whales per year. The territory’s 25 communities and two outpost camps compete each year—and the stakes are high. Whaling is an indispensable way of life for Nunavut’s predominantly coastal communities. In August, thanks to healthier bowhead whale numbers and favourable conditions, hunters in Iqaluit caught their first bowhead whale in more than a century.

Nothing on the 14-metre mammal was wasted. Everything—bones, blubber, skin, and meat—is used, and distributed throughout the community and beyond. “Within Inuit culture, the celebration of sharing the meat is one that is special to individuals who are harvesting,” says Nirlungayuk, “They’re not just hunting for themselves; they’re hunting for their family and extended family.” Inuit are working with government and the scientific community to establish a new quota that won’t threaten the whale population, he adds. “We know we could hunt more,” says Nirlungayuk. “We’re taking it slow.”

…But conservation methods must ensure the health of the Arctic whale population.

Whale hunting in the North has long been controversial. Governments and biologists carefully monitor whale numbers, with conservation officers enforcing quotas, licences, and inspections before and after hunts. Some conservation groups, such as Sea Shepherd, say it’s still not enough. “I do not believe in cultural justifications for slaughtering wildlife if other redress is available for survival,” says Sea Shepherd’s Capt. Paul Watson.

More moderate groups, such as the World Society for the Protection of Animals, believe subsistence hunts should become more humane, cautioning any form of whaling has the potential for severe negative impacts for animal welfare. “WSPA urges all whalers, including aboriginal subsistence whalers, to consider the increasing and irrefutable scientific evidence that all whaling causes immense and prolonged suffering,” says Joanna Toole, the oceans campaign coordinator for WSPA.

Bowheads have been precariously close to extinction: the zealous commercial whaling that ended decades before put the bowhead whale on the endangered species list in the 1980s, and they were only downgraded to “special concern” in 2009. However, numbers are on the incline off the coast of Nunavut and in the Hudson Bay. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans revised its estimates from hundreds to thousands in 2008 and continues to survey the population. As the whale population strengthens, so too does the Inuit argument for putting conservation and culture on equal footing.

Engineers Without Borders Canada

Publicizing failures may seem risky, but EWB believes it’s a necessary part of building better aid. “Of course there were concerns about widely publishing our failures,” says EWB’s Ashley Good, who heads AdmittingFailure.com, but EWB decided the benefits of disclosure outweighed the risks.

Calling it failure gets attention, explains Good, but it’s not what’s important. “We’re really talking about learning,” she says. Most endeavours involve success and failure; the point is to adjust when something’s not working. When organizations share their failures openly, everyone learns. Unfortunately, organizations aren’t used to showcasing what’s gone wrong.

While the development community has been talking enthusiastically about this fledgling “failure movement,” only a handful of organizations have submitted their own failures to AdmittingFailure. com. Aid workers and recipients are all too familiar with problematic projects, but organizations (possibly concerned about negative reactions from funders and the public) aren’t exactly rushing to fess up. At least not yet.

Good believes that as more organizations talk about their mistakes, they’ll make acknowledging failure more acceptable. After all, EWB didn’t lose donor support after publishing its Failure Report. “There’s a growing skepticism already, whether we’re talking about failure or not, that the aid sector is not working as effectively as it could,” she says, “Talking about [failures] only shows your donors that you’re honest and transparent.” The public, she adds, is also ready to accept that development is a complex undertaking with no easy solutions.

“I take failure quite seriously—failure has big implications on people’s livelihoods,” says Good. Still, she insists, “it’s time to change the conversation.” Solving the world’s problems, after all, is likely to require creative approaches that include trying new things, adapting to local circumstances, and adjusting based on what’s working and what’s not. “Having that conversation across organizations all of a sudden puts failure in a different light. There’s no blame; it’s about recognizing how complex the problem is and that we have to continuously be trying to improve and that means recognizing where we’re failing and improving on that.”

Illustration by Dave Donald.

Of all the arts, dance is arguably the most physically and emotionally exhausting, and with an average annual income of a professional dancer sitting at $18,000, the real-life Natalie Portmans live way under Canada’s poverty line. And the crippling anxiety that might overtake an almost-30 dancer who fears his or her career is ending is very real, because more than likely it is. Dance is such a physical art that while some can go on for decades, many work injured until they’re forced to stop.

“The thing about dance is that for most people, it’s not a job; it’s who they are,” says Amanda Hancox, executive director of the Dancer Transition Resource Centre. “And when the job ends, by choice or by necessity, there’s a lot of emotional trauma that comes along with that loss.”

The DTRC was started in 1983 by Joysanne Sidimus, who had recently returned to Canada from travelling throughout the U.S. with the National Ballet of Canada. She looked up some of her old dance colleagues and, according to Hancox, found them “just looking at blank walls” with no support, no money, and no idea what to do next. She partnered with the Dance in Canada Association and the Canadian Association of Professional Dance Organizations to research and understand the issues facing dancers in Canada, and the DTRC officially opened its doors in September 1985.

Since then, the DTRC has helped more than 10,000 dancers at all stages of their careers, and offers professional counselling, mentoring, workshops, and conferences. The DTRC has offices in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal and regional representatives in Calgary, Winnipeg, and Atlantic Canada.

One of the main functions of the DTRC is to offer scholarships and career counseling for current and former dancers trying to figure out what their next moves should be and assistance in training for a “parallel career,” as Hancox calls it. This often comes in the form of a part-time job to pay the bills, since there are few full-time jobs in the industry. Dancers, like actors, need more flexible schedules to allow for classes and rehearsals, which means they often end up in minimum-wage service jobs (while it’s not uncommon for writers, visual artists, or musicians to hold down nine-to-five jobs, and practise their craft outside of business hours).

Career changes are not uncommon for young Canadians, but what makes an organization like the DTRC so crucial to Canadian dancers is the young age at which many start, says Hancox. They start training at the age of eight or nine, sometimes five days a week or more, become a hired performer by 19 or 20, and then by the time they retire at 35 or 40—often due to chronic injury—they have made so little money that they have to start all over from nothing, and many don’t even know what their interests and passions are outside the world of dance, says Hancox. “It’s not like they went to university and chose a career.”

Sign for the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Task Force protesting the Melancthon Quarry. Photo courtesy NDACT.

Carl Cosack wonders who is standing on guard for his piece of Ontario. The 52-year-old rancher manages a herd of black angus cows and 30 horses, making him one of Ontario’s last traditional trail hands and proud owner of one of the province’s few remaining amateur ranches (don’t call it a “dude ranch”). Thanks to a bid to build one of the world’s largest limestone quarries in his backyard, Cosack can also add “activist” and “lobbyist” to the mix.

Cosack is vice-chair of the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Task Force, whose main goal—along with trying to effect larger policy change—is to oppose the Highland Companies’ application for a 2,316 acre quarry in Melancthon Township, about 60 km north of Brampton. Many in the area never saw it coming. Highland, a group of investors backed by the US$23-billion Boston-based hedge fund Baupost, bought the first farms in Melancthon Township in 2006, under the name Headwater Farms. Starting out as potato farmers, the company soon accumulated 8,500 acres—then came the quarry application. “People in the area just started asking questions,” Cosack says. Mostly: Who’s going to stop it?

Highland’s land includes parcels of farmland classified as Honeywood Silt Loam—some of the finest agricultural soil in Canada. That’s a key point for Leo Blydorp, director and policy advisor of the Dufferin Federation of Agriculture. The idea that Canada is a vast and underdeveloped land mass is wrong, he adds. In fact, 89 percent of Canada’s land mass is unsuitable for agricultural use, he says, and only 0.5 percent of Canada’s agricultural land is in the top class. More than half of that is in Ontario. “We continue to lose prime agriculture land at an alarming rate in Canada,” says Blydorp, “and in Ontario specifically.”

Then there’s the water. The proposed quarry is at the headwater of several major rivers that run in different directions into the remainder of the urbanized south. “They’re talking about managing 600 million litres of water a day,” says Cosack—the daily usage equivalent to 2.7 million Ontarians. Likely, it’s these concerns, and others, that prompted the Ontario government to call for a full environmental assessment of the project in September (although some feel it had more to do with election timing).

Kate Jordan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment, says the EA process will give concerned residents like Cosack a more formal opportunity to get educated, and involved. “There will be much more complex studies and more information,” she adds. The process also encourages every concerned Ontarian to speak up. Which would be nice, says Cosack. After all, he’s got a ranch to run.

Sunlight, on one leg, limps out to the meadow and settles in.
Insects fall back inside their voices,
Little fanfares and muted repeats,
Inadequate language of sorrow
— (Charles Wright “Nine-Panel Yaak River Screen”)

Cocoon of dry throated days (hospital vigil, machines
stilled, packing up, singularities knit tight with details
then the silent drive, watching out for deer)
opens up: a house beside train tracks
set among fields. Jostling embraces
by oldest friends, my children, my man steadying.
Brilliant fall weather unblinking
stares me down; all this activity is background
sound, the love proffered is meddling.
Sunlight, on one leg, limps out to the meadow and settles in.

In slanted light, snow geese rise
in their hundreds above the stubble. We walk
the grid road alongside furrows. I’m numb
to my friend’s talk of her car ride from the coast,
time she took to ponder – should she leave
her daughter’s father? I can’t care now about her choices,
I’m just grateful that she’s here. And our other friend
who’s rooted in this land, though she says
she never walks it. Our talk breaks down to noises.
Insects fall back inside their voices.

Next day a wake. Mouths affirm life not grief.
Ranged in chairs, we know the celebration’s hollow,
that current may capsize us easy as it rocks us.
So I stammer my few words, listen
to the clear eyed keening of children
too young to know grief, that cheat
of promise. Friends play songs my brother loved,
some he’d written: plunges in mad river, a new year’s kiss.
Again and again the same regrets, stories we relate,
little fanfares and muted repeats.

Give me a scotch I’d said. Now his boss
has sent round trays of whiskey. Bar open
I weave myself into knots of his people,
drink deep of their memories, and that beer he liked
not for craft’s sake but because it’s cheap. I down glasses
for numbness now, redemptive pain tomorrow,
then return to warp and weft of spouse, sister, his close friends,
these two women mine. We spin words harder to think
than say, all trying on phrases, sentences we borrow,
completely inadequate language of sorrow.

Pictures of Sam. Illustration by Ben Clarkson.

Now

The power went out. The television emitted an electric squelch before the picture vanished into darkness. In that moment Sam saw his reflection seated neat to his sister in the TV glass. Their image was bathed in the blackness of the blank screen, obscuring their features and the fine details of the room around them. She wasn’t more than a head shorter than him these days. Sam ran his tongue along the outline of his missing tooth and rolled his neck back until he was facing the ceiling. He could hear the sound of light rain outside. Clara broke the silence,

“Maybe an electric converter exploded.”

“That sounds about right. Must be pouring somewhere.”

Sam turned to look at her, reaching out and mussing her hair. Between his fingers and her ruffled bangs he could see that static expression on her face, and then suddenly the power was back on. The TV sputtered back to life in the middle of a commercial break. Clara emitted a “phew” with so much enunciation Sam could see the speech bubble above her head. Sam smiled and then relaxed his mouth without looking away from her.

“Have you seen any movies lately? That you liked?”

“No,” Clara’s responded curtly but her eyes were soon staring actively up at the ceiling. “Yeah I did. I saw one with Ola.”

“What was it called?”

“He’s wearing a different tie.”

“What?”

“The man in the show. Before they left the police station he was wearing a blue tie. Now he’s wearing a brown tie.” Clara was laughing quietly and picking at her dress. “I wonder why?”

Sam ended up making some spaghetti in the kitchen while Clara sat and watched Looney Toons. He’d been back home now for about a month and a half. The whole experience was far less claustrophobic than he had imagined once, but every single bit as strange. A year ago he had put his mom’s blue clay ash tray through one of the big living room windows. The summer before that he had set fire to the garage by accident, passed out on painkillers with a cigarette in his mouth. Every room had a ghost of some kind or another hidden amongst the clutter. A game of I Spy. And yet, being home was good. A comforting oasis.

Then Sam was in the kitchen making dinner, thinking it was nice to be around Clara. She’d grown a whole lot since he last felt like himself. He stood there, lost in thought, spooning spaghetti and meat sauce onto plates like gobs of brain lobe. Clara was diagnosed with Aspergers when she was nine and Sam was eighteen. She was a little puzzle he wasn’t much good at, maybe even he had gotten worse these eight years later. And not that little anymore. She looked more like their mom than ever before, which was unsettling. Dressing like a teenage girl, too. It seemed somewhat obscene, but of course Sam didn’t know how he’d like her to dress like instead. Old overalls.

“Dinner’s ready, geek.”

“You’re a dickhead Sam… Thank you for making spaghetti. It looks nutritious.”

Flashes of attitude and humour that bubbled up occasionally from underneath Clara’s unstirring surface bewildered Sam. Difficult to decipher or reconcile or simply ignore. Whenever she made him laugh, really laugh, he’d start to get overwhelmed. She once described her mom’s friend Don as a Korean David Caruso, another time she dropped a book she was carrying and said ‘fuck a duck!’ Both times Sam had been a lot closer to laughing and then crying than laughing until he cried.

And yet, a question was still hanging in the space between them, bound and gagged. How normal are you these days? Where do you fit on that spectrum? What do people see when they take you in? Of course, that question was there for him, too. More so. Inescapable. Are you normal now?

Then

It was along time ago. So far back Sam could hardly recall it. It was back before he got his tooth knocked out. He was having an episode and ended up driving all the way back to his mom’s house. He was drunk and hadn’t changed his clothes in a couple days. It was 1:23 a.m. and he was feeling like he was in some kind of zone. Each traffic light he hit turned yellow just as he crossed the threshold. The breeze from out the window felt like a cool hand across his face. A couple times he closed his eyes tight and let his right foot get heavy on the gas. Good energy. Tapped in. Sam listened carefully to the music snaking out of his car stereo. In his mind’s eye he could see the CD spinning furiously under the scraping gaze of the disc player’s laser. Faster and faster until it began to wobble off its axis. He passed by the spot Vera Variety used to be before it closed down some years ago and discovered a few mysterious tears crawling down his face. He felt on fire.

As he pulled into the driveway, Sam noticed the absence of his mother’s car. It was entirely possible Clara was gone, too. Maybe they’d gone up to Uncle Stephen’s cottage for the weekend. If that was the case he’d drive up there next. Sam got out of the car and went around to the back, but the door was locked. Rage built up in his jaw. He was wasting too much time. He was missing his window. He managed to track down a spare key inside a false rock by the old swing set. Another good omen. He let himself in. He was still crying.

“Clara! Clara wake up! Clara where are you? I know you’re here! Clara where the fuck are you? Come down! I need you to come out right now!” Sam didn’t wait for a response, he ran down the hallway to Clara’s room. He forced the door open so hard it probably would have concussed her had she been on her way out. It gave a sharp smack against the wall and knocked something off of her dresser. Clara was sitting upright under her sheets in the dark. Sam dragged her out by the wrist in her pajamas to the kitchen table and sat her down. They stared at each other for a long moment while he caught his breath.

Sam arranged the water pitcher, the box of salt and the pint glass in a line in between himself and his sister. It was very important that the salt went in the glass first. Sam told her so. He poured it carefully out from the box and then examined his work. Not enough, needs more. When he was satisfied he filled the rest of the glass with water up until it teetered on the brim before stirring it around with his index finger.

“You have to drink this.” She didn’t respond. Clara had wet pajama bottoms. “You have to drink this Clara. They’re poisoning you and I’m going to fix it. You have to trust me, you have to drink this.”

Still nothing.

Sam slammed his firsts down on the kitchen table, spilling more salt water. She drank. She drank glass after glass after glass until she threw up bile from her parched throat onto the floor, and then he made her drink more. Later, a nurse at the hospital would explain to their mother what salt poisoning was. She would be there for three days.

Pictures of Sam

Clara drew this one when she was visiting Sam at the CAMH facility. Clara had trouble with perspective and straight lines, but her drawings were vibrant and astonishingly true to life. This one is no different. The room around Sam is captured in perfect detail. The messy sheets on the bed, the geometric pattern of the tiled floor and two beams of dusty light shooting in from the window on the left. In the picture Sam is sitting restlessly, his weight shifted to one side. He is captured in the midst of a conversation, mouth open, palms outstretched. His mouth is puffy and the gap in his teeth is rendered in thick pencil. His tattoo sleeve is visible, peeking out under his shirt at his wrist and neck. His shoes are untied and his hair is a mess.

In another one, Sam is playing guitar barefoot and cross-legged in the backyard. His hair is buzz cut. There is a coffee mug on the ground beside him. He’s wearing his glasses and there’s an open song book in front of him. He looks heavier than the picture from CAMH. The guitar has a Black Flag sticker on its worn body, left over from long ago. Sam is smiling in this picture, his eyes downcast at the song book at his feet. Behind him looms the decrepit swing set from Clara’s youth.

There is another picture that does not live in the same stack. It is hidden elsewhere. Sam is staring out of it, across a kitchen table. He looks thin and his posture is slumped. Sam bares an empty expression and a tongue lolling out of his mouth. In it, he is shirtless and his tattoo is in full view. A zen garden. His hands are placed in front of him symmetrically. On his left and right, stacked on the table almost to the top of the page, are glasses of water. Water glass pyramids. Inside each glass is the texture of a snowstorm. No two are completely alike.

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt of Robin Evans’s story — the full version will appear in the Spring 2012 issue of The Fiddlehead. We’re happy to be partnering with both of them to present you with this sample of Robin’s work.

I take the bus to Doctor Patel’s. Usually, I get off a few stops early and walk the rest of the way. I use the time to figure out something to talk about. She’s supposed to be helping me get my life together but the more we see each other, the harder it is to come up with anything decent.

Patel’s not a real doctor, she’s a PhD. She sits in a basement office on West 6th and talks to people like me while hugging Peruvian-style pillows to her chest.

She says, let’s talk about you.

Mom drops off groceries at my new apartment. Two bottles of red wine, canned snails and other pantry leftovers. Dented cans of soup, dryer sheets. The essentials. “This whole situation with Ryan is like a crazy flashback.” Mom talks for a long time.

She eases into it with long silences, then finishes with a rush of words that scatter like confetti. Our age-old family saga, the day Dad left her. A defining moment, a story told so often, she knows exactly where to pause for effect and when to laugh at herself.

But she still can’t say his name. “Your father.” “That man.” Nothing more than that in thirty years. He’s become a faceless ghost-man with an afro and a polyester suit. How did he ever manage to move away, get married and have another kid, when she has him so frozen in place? The last card he sent had a picture of him with his car. A Taurus. He was bald and kind of small-town mall fat with saggy eye pouches. Nothing special, no great loss.

I have no problem saying Ryan’s name. And because he’s the only Ryan I know, when I say it, I’m not fooling anyone, it’s all about him.

I let Patel know, despite what she may have heard, Ryan is a good guy.

“I’ve not heard anything, Lily” she says. “From what you say it sounds like you were very happy.”

Her monotone takes some getting used to. It’s like she’s heard everything a thousand times before. But then she looks at you and it’s a different story. She’ll eat you up when she looks at you, bad news and all.

That’s the trouble with talking about it. People love every minute but act like they’re doing you a favour. Like listening takes so much out of them. Frown, nod, here have a Kleenex, maybe that’ll get you bawling. The worse off you are, the better. Lost jobs, dead relatives, cancer, all of it works. But heartbreak creates a special kind of feeding frenzy. Better just to keep your mouth shut.

“A person shouldn’t have to buy more than three spatulas in one lifetime.” It’s not one of my most inspired openers but Patel takes the bait and leads me in a safe, familiar direction. New life, self determination, reinvention, assimilation.

“How are you settling in to your new apartment?”

“Love it.”

“And the neighbourhood, you feel safe?”

“Funny story, I walked up to Hastings yesterday and on the way back this guy’s sitting in his truck getting a blow job. Parked right in front of my building. I had to walk past them doing it. And there was this stupid tricycle on the sidewalk right there, like they used it as a stepladder to get into the truck.”

Patel’s eyes light up whenever I mention sex. She compensates by making her voice go even flatter.

“Did you tell Ryan?”

Sneaky Patel. I’m not supposed to be talking to Ryan. I agreed to stop leaving messages.

“I just went home and got drunk.”

Patel senses I’m holding back. Her nose scrunches up a little as she thinks this. It’s the most unattractive she can make herself look and she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. I throw her a crumb.

“I realized something. I don’t look in the mirror. Can’t even tell you what my hair looks like. What does my hair look like?” I pull on a tight curl, stretch it out until it’s almost straight, then let it bounce back.

“You look fine.”

“Yeah, well, I sat next to this woman on the bus, she was at least eighty. Her hair was just a big cotton puff. And her make up was nuts.” I shake my hands in the air on either side of my head in the universal hand sign for crazy. “How’s my make up anyway? Can you see it in this light?”

“You look fine. About the woman on the bus?”

“Yeah. I don’t think she’s looked in the mirror for twenty years, maybe fifty. I thought, okay, I can do that.”

“The mirror isn’t so hard. It’s looking yourself in the eye that’s the big test. What so awful about you that you can’t look yourself in the eye?”

I know the answer. The egg timer on the back shelf goes off. Time’s up.

“Oh, you know, bad hair day,” I say finally, breaking through Patel’s silence.

I stand up and when I stretch, my fingers push at the low ceiling. The tile wobbles like it might fall on top of me.

“One day, when you’re ready.” Patel extends her hand.

Today is a bad session. We have not made progress. When I give her what she wants, I get a mama-bear hug, a squeeze, a “chin up” tilt of the head that says she knows best and I’m right to trust her. On days when I fend for myself I get a handshake before she settles herself back on the couch to wait for the next fixer-upper.

Read the Spring 2012 issue of The Fiddlehead for the rest of Robin’s prizewinning story!