Stepmother
Honourable mention for the Cuffer Prize 2014
Although only in her early 70s, Stepmother lost her glasses, both car keys, forgot to go to her bridge club she had been part of for years, and began to have trouble with her balance. When she picked up her wand and said, “What’s this used for?” I became alarmed, and made an appointment for her to see a doctor who specialized in dementia.
We arrived early, so we went in the coffee shop on the main floor of the medical centre. Stepmother leaned her cane against the table before sitting down. No longer the beauty she once was, her features were soft and elegant. Anything she tossed on looked stylish. Wordlessly, she criticized my lumpy, oversized sweater paired with an unseasonably lightweight skirt, while twisting her wedding band.
My father, a widower, had remarried when my brother was six and I was five. Our new stepmother immediately went to work fixing us. She waved her wand and our father stopped drinking at night and falling asleep in his work clothes. She declared, “You two may no longer behave like motherless children,” and made us wash every night and gave us chores. She didn’t help us by waving her wand. After a month of this, my brother threw down the scrub brush and said, “Enough!” In our pyjamas, we ran away to nearby Bowring Park.
In the black, velvety pond, made ocean with our salty tears, two swans glided. We said, “White birds, white birds, carry us on your backs and fly us to our real mother.” They ignored us, continuing to swim in fluid arcs around each other.
Cold and tired, my brother and I clung to each other and told stories of our real mother whom neither of us remembered. A reflection of a tall figure rose in the dark ripples. We turned around and saw Stepmother there, holding our coats. How did she find us?
As we grew older, she made sure we did our homework and kept us occupied with sports and music lessons after school. She came to our games and recitals, but my brother and I were not talented in anything and we knew that she was not proud of us.
At those events, people stared at her, spellbound by her beauty. A parent said, out of politeness, and not knowing we weren’t blood related, “You and your daughter look so much alike.” Stepmother forced a tight smile that made her lips white. I was a homely child, and I knew I’d grow up to be a homely adult. I didn’t feel cheated or sad about it. But I wished to excel at something.
My father passed away in a hunting accident. He was chasing a snow hare when he fell down a deep crevasse and broke his neck. Stepmother’s wand couldn’t fix him that time. My brother and I thought she’d leave us, for we were teenagers, and we talked back at her using cruel words. But she didn’t leave us.
In his grief, my brother fell into a dark hole of his own. When Stepmother found drugs in his room, she said, “It’s hard for a fatherless boy in his adolescent years.” She took her wand and reshaped it into a long and sturdy switch. Then she beat him, raising the switch higher each time, until he swore he wouldn’t miss any more classes and never touch drugs again. A raw and red scar on his temple refused to heal; it remained there as a reminder of the ordeal and his promise.
Driven to find his own path, my brother finished high school a year early and chose a university on the mainland. In those four years, he never came home. He found a job and settled in Ontario. Once married, he brought his wife, and later their children, for a visit with us every year. I noticed on their last trip that his scar had faded almost completely.
My two nieces, lovely like my brother’s wife, woke up early in the morning and said, “Granny, Granny, we’re hungry.” She made them gingerbread pancakes. “Remember, call me Stepmother.”
I stayed home and went to Memorial University because I thought that was what she wanted. After graduation, I got a good office job. Every winter, I took her on a vacation to an exotic location. She thanked me each time, but she never bragged about me to her friends when her friends told each other about every little thing their kids did for them.
About a year ago, I, in my mid-40s, realized my office work had become mechanical and tedious as sitting at a spinning wheel. I enrolled in evening drawing and painting classes I had been interested in for quite a while. After just a few classes my inner compass needle pointed so sharply, it hurt. I had found my way out of the forest of unremarkable to an authentic calling.
Last month, one of my paintings was chosen to be part of a curated gallery show. Stepmother came on opening night and scrutinized all the hanging art, one by one. I handed her a cocktail and said, “What do you think?” She just smiled her tight smile and didn’t say anything. A local art collector purchased my painting.
Now, in the coffee shop, we sipped our tea. A man with a red beard and a preschool-aged Asian girl sat at the next table. He handed her an iced, pumpkin-shaped cookie. The girl said, “Thank you, Daddy.”
“Is it yummy?” I said. The girl turned to us.
Stepmother pulled a face and pointed to her own upper lip. “Why does she have a mouth like that?”
“She has a cleft palate,” the man said in a voice that had repeated the same answer many times. There must be a cosmetic surgeon in the building and they were here for a consultation.
“That can be fixed?” she continued. It was as if she had no social filter. Every word that had been guarded behind her pressed lips now flowed out, unchecked. I touched her arm to tell her to stop.
He said, “yep,” in a not so polite tone.
Stepmother leaned back in her chair. “Well, her other features are pretty. She’ll be perfect once she’s fixed up. If there’s no scar.”
The man stood up. “She’s perfect now.” He took his daughter by the hand and moved to a table at the other end of the coffee shop.
She went back to sipping her tea unaware of how much she had offended him.
I told her it was time for her appointment. She grabbed her cane, which had its beginning as a wand. It had made its last transformation; it would never be anything else but a cane.
I pushed the elevator button and we waited.
Stepmother sighed and she looked much older. “I don’t think the doctor can help me. Everything fades. That’s how life is.” I squeezed her hand. “I just hope I will never forget your painting from the art show.” “Why?” I said, surprised. “Because it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
The elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. Jiin Kim is a writer and artist who lives in St. John’s with her husband, two sons and one grumpy bunny. Jiin is terrified of high winds. She can tell you exactly how fast the wind is blowing by listening to the creaks and whistles her house makes. Next week: “Versus” by Gavin Simms