As we drove through the bleak snow-covered flat countryside, passing so many silos with French names written on them, moving farther and farther up into our northern neighbor, it looked like the world wasn’t really round, but an enormous tabletop that some giant had made into a diorama called Canada, and I kept thinking about the questions the border patrolman had asked.
Are those types of questions able to define us as people—measure our worth, our goodness, and whether or not we are safe visitors?
Where are you going?
What do you do for a living?
Business or pleasure?
Do the answers prove whether our lives matter, and whether we’re worthy of being admitted into Canada?
If we’re dangerous?
What was the point of asking any questions whatsoever, especially considering the fact that we could have easily lied and said anything that came to mind?
Any criminal worth his or her salt would be a proficient liar and could easily get through the border patrol stop, but—left to our own devices—people like me will fail every time.
I wish we had said we were doctors trying to cure brain cancer and were off to a secret underground laboratory in the northern territories—that we were on official world-saving business and didn’t have time to answer petty and asinine questions.
Stand aside, Border Patrol, for we are off to do great things that will amaze you,” Father McNamee might have said, and we would have felt so proud. “Dare not stop us, for you do not want to block progress for all humankind!”
You, Richard Gere, would certainly have been able to act your way through that situation with ease and grace. You, Richard Gere, would have charmed the border patrol and had a much easier time. But the truth is this: you wouldn’t have had to do any acting at all, because the border patrol would have instantly recognized you as a famous movie star—he would have welcomed you into Canada without asking a single question, except maybe a request for your autograph or for you to appear in a photograph with him, arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling like you had been friends for decades.
Why is it that the people who are very good at answering difficult questions never get asked difficult questions, while people like me are always being forced to do things that are seemingly impossible?
The worst part was knowing this to be true: if Father McNamee wasn’t with us, the border patrolman wouldn’t have let us into Canada—he probably would have arrested us and thrown us into jail, because Max, Elizabeth, and I would have choked and freaked out during the question-asking part of the border-crossing experience, and the border patrolman would have not been able to understand why we were acting so—what he would call—strangely.
Idiot! the tiny man yelled, and I believed him this time.
Nothing else really happened until we arrived in Montreal.
Father McNamee had booked us into a fancy hotel where we parked underground and could swim on the roof, because there was a heated pool that was half outdoors and half indoors. Max and I scouted it out, but we didn’t swim because I don’t know how to swim—I’m actually terrified of water—and neither Max nor I had a bathing suit.
Standing on the roof deck, watching the heat rise up out of the pool and into the winter air, Max said, “How the fuck are we going to pay for this? Elizabeth and I are broke! This hotel has to cost a lot of fucking money! What the fuck, hey?”
Father McNamee said God will provide,” I said.
You really fucking believe in God?” Max asked.
Yes,” I said. “Do you really believe in aliens?”
Fuck, yes,” Max said.
What will you do after we visit Cat Parliament?”
Don’t fucking know,” Max said. “We brought all our clothes. Left our fucking keys in the apartment. Skipped out on the last month’s rent. We’re fucking homeless.”
Aren’t you worried?”
Fuck,” Max said, nodding and lifting his eyebrows.
I’m worried too.”
Why are you fucking worried?”
Because I don’t know what to do without Mom. I’m not even sure how my bills are getting paid. Like electricity and water and cable and all of the other bills Mom used to take care of.”
You don’t pay those fuckers?”
No.”
Someone’s paying those fuckers. Or they would have shut you down by now. Fucking nothing is free.”
Who would be paying?”
How would I fucking know that?”
Every time I had thought about this in the past, my head started to hurt.
Just as soon as I knew who was paying my bills, I’d owe a real person money. Since I had no money, I wasn’t exactly eager to end that mystery, truth be told.
I turned around and gazed out over the city of Montreal.
It’s pretty remarkable, our being here together. You have to admit,” I said. “Extraordinary, even.”
Max nodded.
I never thought I’d see Canada.”
Me fucking neither.”
We were standing on a shoveled concrete deck of sorts with our backs to the pool, looking over a five-foot wall.
I guess for many normal, regular-type people, this wouldn’t be any big deal,” I said.
Max nodded again, and then he said, “Why the fuck do you think we ended up being so fucking different from everyone else? Do you ever fucking think about shit like that? People like you and me and Elizabeth—why do we even fucking exist?”
I thought about it and then—after searching my entire brain for the answer to Max’s first question and finding none—I answered the second by saying, “All the time.” After a minute or so I had a thought, and so I said, “Maybe the world needs people like us?”
What the fuck for? We don’t fucking do anything! I just rip tickets at the fucking movies! Anyone could do that!”
Well, if there weren’t weird, strange, and unusual people who did weird things or nothing at all, there couldn’t be normal people who do normal, useful things, right?”
What the fuck, hey?” Max squinted at me.
The word normal would lose all of its meaning if it didn’t have an opposite. And if there were no normal people, the world would probably fall apart—because it’s normal people who take care of all the normal things like making sure there is food at the grocery store and delivering the mail and putting up traffic lights and making sure our toilets work properly and growing food on farms and flying airplanes safely and making sure the president of the United States has clean suits to wear and—”
Little help?” a voice said. “It’s too cold for me to hop out!”
When we turned around there was a beach ball at our feet.
A family must have swum out from under the glass divide and into the outdoor open-air water behind us.
What the fuck, hey?” Max sort of whispered as he kicked the brightly colored ball toward the man.
The man caught the large ball between his two hands, lowered it so we could see his face, and said, “Thanks!”
He looked like a younger version of you, Richard Gere. Handsome, confident, many muscles in his stomach and chest and arms. Shaggy hair that—even though it was wet—looked like it cost a lot of money and effort to style and maintain. He also reminded me of those underwear models you see in the ads that fall out of the Sunday newspaper. His wife was wearing a green bikini, and while she was no Cindy Crawford, she was just as beautiful as Carey Lowell, which is pretty lovely, as you well know. They had a boy and a girl between them—maybe five and seven years old, both blond with pearly white teeth, the type of kids you see smiling a lot on TV while eating breakfast cereals—and they were all throwing the beach ball around, laughing and trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues, which was when I realized it was indeed snowing.
The steam that rose off their bare skin looked like their souls rising up and mingling above their heads in a playful harmonious dance that made my chest ache.
What the fuck, hey?” Max whispered again as his index finger pushed his huge glasses to the top of his nose, and it was like he was saying what I have thought many, many times: What is wrong with us? Why are we so strange? Why does that—the normal family in the pool—seem so right, and what we have and are seem so wrong in comparison?
Even though my mom and I had never gone swimming outside in the winter on a hotel roof that overlooked a foreign city, the scene made me miss Mom, and I said a quick prayer, asking God to let Mom appear to me in my dreams at least once more.
The man who looked like a younger version of you, Richard Gere—he kept glancing over at us, and it took me a few looks to realize that our staring was starting to make them feel uncomfortable.
Two misshapen, ugly, strange men in out-of-style boots and coats staring at anyone is a recipe for misinterpretation, right?
Let’s go,” I said.
Max nodded and followed.
He didn’t need an explanation.
Max knew what I knew—probably because he has lived the same sort of life as I have, even if his personal details were and are completely different.
Metaphorically, we—and our stories—are the same.
We went to our respective rooms, showered, and dressed for dinner.
Father McNamee took us to Old Montreal and we dined at a small fancy restaurant. Father asked if he could order for all of us, and when we agreed, he surprised me by ordering in French.
What the fuck, eh, Frenchy?” Max said, eyes wide, nodding, impressed—like Father had done a magic trick—when the waiter left.
I hope you will indulge me,” Father McNamee said. “This is a last supper of sorts for us.”
What do you mean?” I asked.
Everything will change when you meet your dad tomorrow,” Father said, looking really uncomfortable. “Nothing will be the same afterward.”
I nodded, just to be easy.
It was snowing outside, and we watched the flakes fall through the steamy window.
The waiter arrived with red wine and glasses. Father tasted, approved, and then the waiter poured glasses for all of us.
To new beginnings, however strange they may be,” Father McNamee said and then raised his glass.
We all clinked and drank.
Baguettes and French onion soup—small round brown bowls covered with bubbling cheese—came next.
Father broke a baguette into four pieces, handed one to each of us, and said, “We four are at pivotal points in our lives. To the miracle of our finding each other and being right here, right now together, which is indeed remarkable.”
Elizabeth and Max didn’t say anything, but bit their bread and began to chew.
It’s best when dipped into the soup,” Father said and then poked the baguette through the cheese in his bowl until the bread turned brown and began to fall apart.
We all did the same.