Free SSC (2012) Adult Onset by Ann-marie MacDonald

line from a play.
    “Thanks, Mum.”
    She hangs up and looks at the calendar pinned to the corkboard—an island of clutter in her otherwise streamlined kitchen. It features a series of watercolour flowers painted by an artist who is limited to the use of his foot. There is nothing to say about the pictures except that they are foot-painted. A caption in the bottom left-handcorner thanks her for supporting the Catholic Women’s League. Are her parents coming on the seventh at eleven? Or on the eleventh at seven? Mo will know.
    She eyes the dead chicken on the counter, suddenly out of love with it. “The thrill is gone,” she says, avoiding the wing, picking it up from underneath so it rests in her hand—disquieting in another way, resembling as it does a baby. Maybe she ought to take another stab at being vegetarian. She drops it into a zip-lock bag, and a penny drops too—the Fort Garry Hotel is in Winnipeg, not Calgary. It was in Winnipeg that she bought
the knives that will stay sharp longer than you will!
Prairies versus mountains. Vertigo versus claustrophobia …
    She bends to the freezer drawer and tucks the chicken between a package of organic frozen peas and an ice cube tray of puréed sweet potato. She admires once again her icemaker bin full of freshly laid cubes, and congratulates herself on not having colonized it for food the way some people do. How can they live like that? There is a mysterious object toward the back; she reaches for it, then steps away—investigate one frost-bearded lump in your freezer and before you know it you’re cleaning the whole fridge. She has a list of things to do today and “clean fridge” is not on it. Is her brother really thinking of starting a second family with Shereen? It isn’t that she does not wish happiness for him—if he wants another baby at his stage of advanced boyhood, then good luck to him, it’s just … it is annoying to hear her mother flaunting an old-world pride in her son’s reproductive prowess. And Shereen is not good enough for her brother.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself
.
    She closes the freezer and registers a fresh twinge at the dents in its drawer front. The fridge was the stainless steel jewel in the crown of their kitchen renovation, and she has allowed Hilary to believe that Maggie made the dents with her doll stroller. She would spend the money to replace it if she didn’t know how logistically challenging it will be to orchestrate the necessary service call.
    “Maggie, no, poo stays in your diaper!” Summoning her core strength, Mary Rose grips her daughter and carries her at arms’ length up the stairs like hazardous waste.
    She does not usually damage things anymore, the fridge was an anomaly. At worst she might punch her own head or slam it into a wall. Back in the day, before she got together with Hil, she used to go into the kitchen, open the drawer, take hold of the biggest knife by the blade and squeeze it just shy of the point where her skin would break. But she never crossed the line into pathology—out-and-out “cutting.” And there is no chance of any knife tricks for her these days, she is far more self-aware. Besides, she would not dream of keeping her good knives in a drawer.
    •
    She wakes up. They have kept her in. Moved her to a different floor—a quieter ward. Something is in the room and taking up space, a presence … it knows something about her … She falls back asleep.
    She wakes up. Through her half-open door she sees tinsel decking the corridor … It was a boy. He is dead.
    •
    It is downright balmy as she pushes Maggie in the stroller with Daisy trotting alongside, off to pick up Matthew in time for lunch. The last crusts of brown ice are trickling into storm sewers, while overhead, trees are tight with buds; every year she promises herself she will catch the moment when they open and every year she is taken by surprise when the city is suddenly in full leaf.