In the Body

By Allison Baggio

ECW PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Allison Baggio
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77041-054-1
CHAPTER 1

With Daddy

He comes to get me in the night. Or is it early in the morning? I don’t know, but I think I might hear a bird singing from the tree outside my bedroom window. Just one bird. One is enough to create some music worth listening to.

He still has the key I guess, from when he lived with us, and Mom, well, she is fast asleep in her room I’m sure. He’s been away since the day Mom said “go” and “now.” It’s a surprise to open my sleepy eyes and see him standing over me in the darkness of my room. My blinds are still pulled, which makes it hard to tell if it’s time to get up or not. But I have a good sense from the clock that it isn’t quite time. It says 5:08. That’s a.m., morning, like we learned in school.

I’m not scared when I see him. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him that it feels kind of like when I finally found my Polly Pocket under the couch, or when Mom holds me when I am crying.

“Daddy, what are you —” But he puts his warm fingers over my mouth and tells me to be very quiet. He says that Mom is still sleeping and that he wants to let her rest. He stumbles around in the dark, finding shirts and shorts to dress me in. And before we leave the room, I see him reach into my closet and pull all my jeans and sweatshirts down from the hangers. In one big swoop, he sticks them all in my Tinker Bell backpack.

“Daddy, where are we going?” I say as he loads me into the front of his stinky old pickup truck.

“You’ll see,” he says in a quick, quiet way.

I let him buckle the belt around me. I smell the cigarette smoke on his breath.

“What about my booster seat, Daddy?”

“Just be quiet now, okay?”

He slams the car door, and I realize that the whole street is still asleep. All of the windows are dark and the cars are still in the driveways. It’s a lot earlier than I thought.

“I don’t think it’s time to get up yet, Daddy,” I say while he starts the truck. Sputter, sputter, and then it goes. “Does Mom know about this, or is it a surprise?”

“You could call it a surprise,” he says. Daddy’s eyes look tired and his hair is all messy on his forehead. He’s wearing a T-shirt that has a little greasy spot over his heart.

“I’m not sure I want to go anymore,” I say, because I’m not. “I might want to stay. You can come back after the sun comes up.”

“It’s going to be just fine, kiddo,” he says. “It’s like a road trip, you’ll love it.”

I try to smile and be excited, but I’m not sure at all. As his truck pulls out of the driveway in one short burst, I turn my head to look back at my house. At that second, I see the light in the front window go on. Looks like Mom is the first one up on the street today.

I never wanted Daddy to move out. Even though there were times when he and Mom shouted, and when a blue vein on his neck stood up, I liked when he was there. More than when he wasn’t. For one, it felt safer. Like if someone broke into the house, then he would be strong enough to fight the guy and make sure he never reached upstairs to my room. Also, sometimes Daddy would help me do my homework. Well, he did at the beginning of this year when I first started grade one. He was really smart at solving the questions Mrs. Clooney gave us, especially when he hadn’t had any cans to drink.

Mom said that his beer was the main reason he had to leave. That it was the biggest problem. “That’s ridiculous,” I said to her. “Beer is not a problem; it’s just a fizzy drink in a can.” Daddy’s cans just sat there on the table or piled up in the garage. They didn’t say anything and they certainly didn’t cause any problems.

“Okay, it’s the beer inside your father that is the problem,” she said. Which I still didn’t understand, but didn’t really feel like arguing anymore.

“When will I see him?” I asked Mom, and she said, “Oh, all the time, we’ll work it out.” I believed her about that, well, until it didn’t happen.

The sun starts to come up as Daddy and I drive away. We go up the Don Valley Parking Lot (as Mom calls it) until there are no more tall buildings on the sides of the roads. We reach another highway and keep driving until we are surrounded by farmers’ fields.

I must fall asleep because I wake up with my face bouncing off the door of Daddy’s truck. It’s bright sunshine out there now and feels like it’s getting hot.

“Where are we?” I ask Daddy. He swallows hard and grips his hands on the steering wheel.

“Oh, we’re just heading up north a bit. I thought you might like to visit Science North in Sudbury.” His voice sounds scratchy, like mine does when I’ve stayed up too late.

“What’s Science North?”

“Oh, it’s this really cool place with all sorts of science stuff and IMAX movies. You like that, right? It’ll be fun, just you and me … it’s been a while, right?”

I try to answer both his questions with one nod.

“We needed this, Ash. It’s about time that I get to be with you.” Daddy has one of the beer cans with him. It’s tucked between his legs and he takes a little sip of it after he talks to me. I think he notices me looking at it, because he moves it to the other side of him, near the door.

“That’s just Pepsi,” he says. “I just put a little Pepsi in there to help keep me awake for our road trip, that’s all.”

“Good, because beer is the problem,” I say, and he makes a face at me like he just caught his finger in the door or smelled something rotten.

“Just be quiet now, Ashleigh. Dad is tired and I need to concentrate. Here, I’ll put some music on.” He turns the radio dial and that song by Eminem and that girl comes out, telling each other they love the way they lie.

I think about how Mom was going to fill my kiddie pool in the backyard today, just so I could splash around and cool off. How I was planning to put one of her foldaway lawn chairs in there and lay in the sun with my feet still in the water. I wonder if Mom did it anyway. If she’s out there right now sipping on an iced tea in her big black sunglasses.

That’s when I notice I have to pee.

We stop at a gas station off the highway. It’s got an outside door that leads into a bathroom for a boy or a girl.

“I’ll just stand outside and wait for you,” Daddy says. “Do you need help or anything?”

“Um, no,” I say. It’s only been a couple of months since Daddy has been away, so I’m surprised that he doesn’t know that.

“Okay then, hurry up.”

Daddy is fidgety. He keeps looking over his shoulder and jumping a little each time someone walks by. I wonder if it is because of the surprise for Mom.

The inside of the bathroom is gross. There is wet toilet paper stuck all over the walls and the toilet seat is dirty with even some pee on the seat. I pull off two strips of paper and lay them down over the seat like Mom taught me. Then I pull down my shorts and try to go really quickly without touching the toilet paper seat cover too much. I flush and the white strips go flowing down with my pee and the rest of the dirty water.

Thump, thump, thump. There is a knock on the door. I feel a bit scared at first, but then I remember that it’s probably just Daddy. “Ashleigh, hurry up,” he says, and I wonder what the big rush is. I’m sure that Science North is going to be open until dinnertime at least. That’s when my stomach reminds me that I haven’t had breakfast or lunch yet.

“I’m coming!” There is no soap by the sink, but I run my hands under the cool water. It feels good. Daddy’s truck is hot and I don’t want to get back in.

“Here’s a sandwich,” he says when I open the door and see him there. It’s one of those sandwiches with the thin white bread and flat orange cheese that is wrapped in plastic wrap.

“Thanks,” I say, grabbing the sandwich and following him back to the truck. “A drink?”

“Shit. Wait in the truck, okay.”

He puts me in the truck and rolls down my window a bit before he runs back into the gas station. While he’s gone, I pull at the handle but he’s locked it. I’m not sure where I would go if I was able to open it — I just have the urge to do it.

I close my eyes and imagine that my body is no longer a little girl. I morph into a tiny butterfly that can fold itself to fit through the slit he’s left in the window. I am paper-thin with lovely designs on my wings — hearts and flowers in all colours. I’m gritting my teeth, willing myself into this butterfly that can fly high up in the sky where it isn’t hot anymore. There are just cool breezes and my butterfly arms are light as hairs, taking me anywhere I need to go. I can flap, flap, flap in any direction I please, floating on breezes, inhaling flowers as I pass them. I can land on someone’s shoulder — maybe a small girl like I used to be — and when I decide, I can flap myself away again. Soon, I see my house and I fall down through the air and into my kiddie pool. I wait a minute and let the water soak into my wings. When I see Mommy I fly back up, land on her hand, and stroke my tiny antenna on her skin …

I open my eyes and see that it’s still my same old body — too big to fit through any slit, too heavy to fly anywhere. That’s when Daddy opens his door.

“Here.” He hands me a can of Sprite, which I hate. I say thank you anyway, because I know that Daddy is having one of those days when he might lose his frustrations at any moment. I crack the top and take a drink, wishing that Mom were here because she would have bought me a Minute Maid Orange Juice drink box instead. She knows me that well.

Sometime after lunch I have another small nap. We’ve started passing a lot of pretty black lakes, but they make me feel a bit sad because there are lots of kids splashing around in them, and I wish I could be out of the truck and in there with them. Maybe in an inner tube that lets me float and spin without having to worry about drowning or getting my head under the water for too long.

When I wake from my nap, I feel really grumpy. Daddy looks grumpy too, so I say that maybe we shouldn’t go to Science North today. That maybe we should go back home and he can talk to Mom and set up another day. Also, that I’m a bit worried because I have a birthday party to go to tomorrow afternoon — for Jenny Paton, she was in my class this year — and that I’m not sure if we can go to Science North and still have enough time for me to get all the way home, have a good night’s sleep, and get ready for the party.

“I think you’re going to have to miss the party,” he says, almost like he doesn’t care that it’s Jenny Paton’s birthday, or that I bought her I Can Be a Rock Star Barbie as a gift.

“But I don’t want to miss the paaaarrrty,” I say, and then my face gets all scrunched up and I start to cry, loud. I let all my frustrations out with this cry and Daddy doesn’t say anything, just looks at me weird like I am annoying him, and turns the music up.

This is not the Daddy that I like. It must be because of the beer cans — it’s the only explanation. I stop crying and decide not to talk to him until we reach Science North.

We aren’t going to Science North. I know because I see the signs on the highway, “Science North 10 kilometres” and then “Turn here for Science North,” and we don’t turn.

“Where are we going really?” I say to Daddy. I notice that his face is red and sweaty, and there are also wet spots on his T-shirt.

“I told you, Ashleigh. It’s a surprise.”

“What if I have to pee again because of the Sprite?”

“Just hold it as long as you can, all right? I want to make sure we can get there in good time.”

“What’s good time?”

“In as little time as possible.”

“Why, are we in some kind of race?”

“Sure,” he says. “Like The Amazing Race.“

“Are we the father-daughter team?”

“Yeah, father-daughter, that’s it.”

“Okay then, you should go as fast as you can. We could be the first father-daughter team to win.”

“Maybe we will be.”

“Dad?”

“Yes, Ashleigh?”

“Will we get a million dollars?”

“I don’t think so, kiddo. But I wish.”

We drive for a long time after that — it seems like hours and hours — without saying anything to each other. I keep pretending that we are in The Amazing Race, and even though Daddy doesn’t believe it, that we are going to win the million dollars.

It’s in the afternoon. Daddy says that we have to stop at the Walmart in a place called North Bay because he’s realized that he forgot to bring my toothbrush and soap to have a bath and some stuff like that. I remind him about the Race but he says that we were just kidding, and why does Mom let me watch that show anyway when it’s on so late? I tell him that she uses the PVR. That I watch it when I get home from school, but he doesn’t really seem worried about my answer to his question.

We park really close to the front doors of the Walmart in the spot that says, “For Customers with Children.”

“I’m only one child,” I say. “Maybe this doesn’t count for us.”

“You count,” he says, turning the key that shuts off the truck. “Trust me.”

He makes me hold his hand as we walk in and tells me not to say anything to anyone.

“But what if—”

“Just zip it okay, Ashleigh.”

Daddy’s black running shoes clomp on the Walmart floor and I say that maybe he should get some sandals because it’s so hot outside. He just tells me again to be quiet. To pretend that I forgot how to talk.

I follow him through the toothbrush aisle and he picks up a pink Disney Princess one, even though princesses are not my favourite anymore. He tries to grab some Colgate toothpaste, white mint, but I tell him that I usually have the kids’ kind, the one with Winnie the Pooh on it. He grumbles something, but then takes the one I need and asks me if I need anything else at night.

“Just a glass of water before bed, but where are we going to sleep?”

“We’ll find someplace,” he says. “And I’m sure I’ll be able to manage a drink of water.”

While he’s checking out with my stuff (he’s also picked up some Johnson & Johnson lavender body wash “just in case”), I let go of his hand and close my eyes.

I’m a monkey, I’m a monkey, I think. A spider monkey. I’m no longer a little girl. I’m free! I use my long, hairy legs and gangly arms to climb up over all these racks of candy, and shirts, and cotton dresses and escape to the other side of the store. I’m scurrying under people’s legs, weaving myself in and out of the racks much faster than I could move on my two little girl legs. People glance down at me and make scared faces, but they leave me alone. They know I won’t hurt them. When I’m ready, I squeak up to someone, a kind-looking old lady, and tell her in my new monkey voice that I want to go home to my Mom and the kiddie pool. That my Dad said we were going to Science North, but he lied, and now I’m not sure where we are going at all. But wherever it is, there is not a million dollars waiting. A monkey. A monkey …

He’s got the Walmart bag in his one hand, and he’s waving me over with the other one. Then I’m back in the truck, we’re driving again, and the sun is starting to look tired in the sky.

For dinner, Daddy and I go through the drive-through at Wendy’s in some town that I don’t know the name of. I’m getting really hungry by this time because one sandwich isn’t enough for the whole day. Mom would have known that for sure.

When the lady hands Daddy the brown bag of food through the window, he doesn’t look at her, or say thank you. He just grabs it and throws it over to my side of the truck.

“Thank wasn’t very polite,” I say.

“Just be quiet.”

I do. But I feel crying in my eyes as we start to drive away. I try to forget about the tears as I eat my fries. But it’s hard. I’m thirsty, but Daddy has forgotten to get me a drink again. I look at him and think that he looks like he wants another beer can. So I don’t ask for anything.

I have had some good times with Daddy. There was this one time when he was home with us, and Mom wanted to go spend the day with her friends, so Daddy took me out for the entire afternoon. This was when I was really young — about four, I think — but I still remember.

We went to a little fair they were having out in the parking lot of the plaza, and Daddy let me ride one of those trains that goes around and around in a circle. You’d think it would have been boring, but I had so much fun. And after, he let me have Pepsi and cotton candy. I ate so much that I threw up in the car on the way home, but he didn’t even seem to mind back then. He just pulled over and cleaned it up and wiped my mouth with a napkin.

“Oopsy,” he said when he did it. “Too much junk.”

I wonder what Daddy would do now if I threw up in his truck as we were driving more and more. Would he stop and clean it up, just say “oopsy” like before? Or would he get really angry? You never know with Daddy these days.

(Continues…)Excerpted from In the Body by Allison Baggio. Copyright © 2012 Allison Baggio. Excerpted by permission of ECW PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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