The Better Mother

THE SUBURBS

1982


They drive east down the highway, toward the sprawl of the suburbs. Danny holds his left hand out the open window, and the warm air brushes his forehead. To his right, Val sits with her eyes closed. Danny can see the layers of her eye makeup: the liquid liner, the champagne powder near the tear ducts, the gold-flecked violet on the upper lid. Impeccable, with the ghost of her real skin showing through.

After twenty minutes of driving, he pulls up to a house with a familiar wall of dahlias. The garden where he saw Val for the second time.

Val opens her eyes and sits up straight, grasping her green, patent-leather handbag. “Here already?”

“You still haven’t told me why we’ve come,” he says, unbuckling his seat belt.

“Well, come in with me and you’ll find out.” She steps out of the car and saunters to the front door.

Val’s sister opens the door. Joan is dressed in pink slacks and a white sleeveless blouse. Her blond hair is pushed back from her smooth forehead with a plastic headband, also pink. Danny wonders if this is how Val would look if she had married an unremarkable man and lived in a big house away from downtown—calm, coordinated, with a face that betrays nothing, not even her age.

When she sees Val, Joan frowns. “Val, you could have called. I’m in the middle of cleaning out Kelly’s room.” She looks up and sees Danny hovering behind Val, trying to blend in with the lilac bush at the side of the door. “Oh. Hello. Do you need something? Has Kelly not put in our order for the prints yet? I have to apologize. She’s sometimes a very thoughtless girl.”

“Let us in, Joanie. He’s with me.”

Joan tilts her head to the side and narrows her eyes before walking down the hall toward the kitchen, leaving the front door ajar. Danny follows Val into the sunken living room and sits beside her on a tan leather sectional. As Val straightens her tucked-in blouse, she whispers in his ear, “Can you believe this place? Everything’s so meticulous it gives me the willies.”

Danny looks at the thick pile of the carpet, at his feet flattening and soiling this collection of fibres. He decides to sit as motionless as possible. Val is unusually silent, and Danny watches as she twists her hands together, over and over again.

Joan walks in with a tray of glasses. As she passes them to Val and Danny, she says, “Grapefruit juice and soda.” She eyes Val suspiciously. “I think it’s a bit early for anything stronger.”

“Joan, you’re a miserable bitch.”

Danny squirms in his seat.

“Did you come here to pick a fight, Val? Or is there something else?” Joan stands in the middle of the room and sips her drink, staring out the large picture window. The back deck is bordered by potted plants. A finch stands in the middle of a faux-marble bird bath.

Val leaves her drink untouched and looks at her sister. “I came to pick up those boxes I left here.”

“Boxes?” Joan’s voice is light and noncommittal. “What boxes?”

“You remember. Before Kelly was born I brought all my old costumes and things here. I never did find an apartment that could fit it all.”

“Ah, those boxes. I hate to tell you this, Val, but we had a flood in the basement some years ago, and I had to throw them out.”

Val’s face grows pale under her makeup. “You didn’t.”

“Well, I had to. They were going to get mouldy.”

Danny swears he sees a fragment of a smile on Joan’s lips, but her face soon resettles into its powdered serenity.

“Joan! You could have told me!” Val clenches her fists.

“I don’t remember exactly, but it’s possible the flood happened when you were off somewhere, and I couldn’t reach you. I haven’t always known where you were, Val, and that was entirely your choice.”

“I haven’t left Vancouver in years. You’re lying.”

Joan laughs. “Now, why would I do that?” Her eyes travel slowly over Val’s painted-on eyebrows, the gloss on her lips.

Val stands and turns into the hall. “I’m going to look for myself. It would be just like you to hide my things and then lie about it.”

Danny hears a door slam and the sound of high heels hurrying down a set of stairs. He wipes his hands on his pants, reaches for his drink, but then retracts his hand, remembering the white carpet between him and the coffee table. Joan sits still, one leg crossed over the other. He stares at her trim body, the clear skin of her cheeks, and thinks, A woman with a face like that either never worries or she buries the worry so deep inside that she’s forgotten it even exists. He wonders how long they can sit like this, each pretending that the silence is comfortable.

“Have you known Val long?”

“No. I met her at the wedding,” he mutters. “Well, actually, I first met her when I was a little boy, in Chinatown.”

Joan’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? I never spent much time there. Not like Val.”

Silence.

Val storms into the living room, a small purple suitcase in her hand. “I found this, at least,” she snaps, waving the suitcase in Joan’s face.

“I guess that’s one of the things that didn’t get wet.”

“Or you missed it when you threw everything else out. I found it wedged behind the hot-water heater.” Val winks at Danny. “I think we all know that she got rid of the boxes on purpose.”

Joan stands up and collects the almost untouched glasses. “I really do have to get back to work. Kelly and Derek will be here tonight to pick up the rest of her clothes.”

Val grasps Joan’s elbow with her hand. “Why don’t you ever say what you mean?”

Joan tries to pull her arm away, but Val tightens her grip until Joan’s skin grows white between Val’s fingers. “I don’t choose to broadcast every thought I’ve ever had to the entire world, that’s all.”

“Tell me the truth, Joan. Did you purposely throw out my boxes?” Val stares at Joan’s now watery eyes.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Joan wrenches free and says quietly, “I don’t want to talk about this now, with him here.”

“Loosen up, for Christ’s sake. He knows I was a dancer. He’s hardly a wide-eyed innocent.”

“Fine. If you want to air our dirty laundry in front of strangers, then that’s what I’ll do.” Joan picks up the tray, holding it between them like a shield. “I didn’t want Kelly to know. She grew up thinking you were a real dancer, Val, the kind who dances in musicals and at Radio City Music Hall, the kind you and I once wanted to be, remember? We agreed, years ago, that only you and I would know about the clubs and the circuit. We kept it from everyone, from Mum and Daddy. Everyone. What would happen if Kelly came across those disgusting costumes? How would I explain them, Val?” She starts to walk into the kitchen. “Now, you have to leave. When I come back from washing these glasses, I expect to see an empty house.”

Danny picks up the suitcase and takes Val’s hand before she can say anything. They hurry to the front door and out. Thank Christ, he thinks. I could barely breathe in there.

He starts the car and looks over at Val, who sits with her hands in her lap, her purse thrown haphazardly by her feet. “Where to now?” he asks.

“Any place,” she says, “where I can see the water.”


He drives north toward the eastern edge of Burrard Inlet, where it meets the narrow waters of Indian Arm. In the distance, he sees a tree-covered mountain. Even here, the wild landscape is dotted with electrical wires strung from tall steel towers.

He turns onto an unpaved road and follows it until they reach a small parking lot. They walk across grass, past picnic tables and groups of children playing on blankets, until they come to a narrow, rocky beach. Val walks straight to the water’s edge and stops, squinting at the ocean. It winks in the light, churns around rocks. To the right, trees have rooted precariously on tall stone cliffs.

“I’ve never been here,” she says, bending down to dangle her fingers in the water.

“I took some wedding pictures here once. Whenever I’m out this way, I try to stop here.”

“I don’t get out to the suburbs much, you know. I mostly stay in the city, any city, really.” She looks around and begins to walk back up to the grassy area. “We should find a place to sit.”

She settles herself on the grass under a tree and smoothes out the wrinkles in her cotton pants. Her toenails, visible in her black sandals, are painted coral. Patting her hair, she leans her head against the trunk and folds her hands on her stomach.

Danny is grateful for the absence of city noise—the screeching brakes, the hum of air conditioners, the chimes from doorbells, the buzzing crowds.

Until now, he wouldn’t have cared about anything other than the spinning spotlights, the hiding and revealing of fabric and skin, the way a dancer captures the attention of an entire room of men and plays it like a violin. But he thinks of the photographs he has left drying in the studio, of dancers looking simultaneously like the children they once were and the women they have become. He wants to know how the feisty little girl who lived on River Road transformed herself into the Siamese Kitten and then became a woman who rummages through basements for scraps from her past.

Val tugs on her earlobe and frowns. “I haven’t said much to anyone about the circuit in a very long time. When I die, Joan will keep it to herself. And when she dies, there won’t be anybody left to remember. Except for that suitcase, everything I had is gone.” She turns to Danny, her eyes round like a trapped child’s. “It never bothered me before—being forgotten.”

“What changed?”

She wraps her arms around her body. “I don’t know. Maybe I had to meet the right person. It’s like you’ve been a part of my life since the very beginning, even before I met you in that alley.” Val’s laugh subsides. “Maybe you’re the one who deserves to know.”