A Complicated Kindness Read Online Free PDF Page B

she graciously thanked people for coming around with their casseroles and condolences. Then, one day, she went to the post office to buy some stamps to send thank-you cards and the guy behind the counter told her she was short two cents and she didn’t have any more money on her, and the guy said oh well, too bad, no stamps then, and she said she’d been coming there for seventy-five years, he knew who she was, where she lived, who her children were, who her grandchildren were, whom she sentletters to, everything, couldn’t she give him the extra two pennies the next time she came in? No, sorry, he said. If he did it for her he’d have to do it for everyone. But not everyone is short two pennies, said my grandma. Nope, he said. No can do. He didn’t want to get into trouble. And my grandma went ballistic on him. She swore. She threw the spongy stamp licker thing at him, she drooled, she snarled, she screamed, she hit him with her purse, and then she left, scattering a stack of Eaton’s catalogues on her way out, walked home, felt good, surprisingly good, and sat on her back steps staring at her sugar beet field for the rest of the day. Said her pulse must have been around fifty, some all-time low.
    Ray and I never really succumbed to that type of extreme. He built his hutch and I listened to Zeppelin. Inside, probably, our internal organs were chipping off and turning grey. But we never screamed. The big day finally came when Ray unveiled his hutch and dragged it down to the curb on my old Radio Flyer wagon. The next morning we got up really early to watch the garbagemen remove the cans from the hutch. We knew they’d marvel at it. Ray had painted it a kind of mauvey purple and had even laid a piece of Astroturf on the bottom. It had a board across it that kept the cans securely tucked in, and the board was painted a deep red, left over from some school project of his. Right on, Dad, I told him. That’s a stellar hutch. He told me that Trudie had always wanted him to make a hutch to keep the dogs and cats from tearing open the bags and spreading crap all over our yard. It would be nice, he’d quoted her as saying, to become the owner of a solid, simple hutch sometime before my throat wattles. We laughed. I’d told him it was a deluxe hutch, state-of-the-art. I knew he was trying really hard not to cry. Turns out the garbagemen thought the hutch was garbage, a colourful mess of boards and nails and outdoor carpeting, and threw the whole thing into the back of theirtruck. Ray wouldn’t let me run outside to tell them they were making a big mistake. He put his hand on my shoulder and said no, no. Don’t. He smiled and shook his head. And then he went into his bedroom and quietly shut the door. And I put on “All My Love” and watched the sun rise yet again and thought thank you Robert Plant for all of your love but do you have any more?
     
    I’ve been experimenting with some vegetarian meals, something called Survival Casserole. A couple of days ago Ray came in and stood in the kitchen and assessed the stuff I had simmering in a pan on the stove. We’ve been eating an awful lot of vegetables lately, he said. I shrugged. Do you mean horribly many, I asked. Yes, he said, that’s what I mean. I found a streak of blood in an egg yesterday, I said. They’re very good, though, vegetables, he added. In what way, I asked. Well, he said. Well was his trademark answer to all of life’s questions. They’ll make you live longer, anyway, I told him. He tilted his head and frowned. Or does it just seem that way, he said. That’s quite funny, Dad. He resented vegetables for prolonging his life. I told him we could have pear nectar for supper. It was thick, like a meal. Cooking’s not your forte, is it, he asked. I put my wooden spoon on the counter. Do you want meat, I asked. I can’t make meat. That’s fine, he said. That’s A-OK. He likes saying things like A-OK. Things like legal beagle and bean counter and