Nicolai's Daughters

Chapter: 1

1986

Each day was the same as the one before. He’d wake up and stretch out his arm to pull Sara close, snuggle into her. His hand would feel the empty place beside him. Then he’d remember that she was gone and the ache would begin again, starting at his temples, stabbing him in the eyes, wrapping itself around his jaw. Every muscle hurt. His strength had been sucked away. Each breath made the room spin, his stomach twist. How could he still be breathing? It wasn’t right.

When he could manage to get himself out of bed, he couldn’t be bothered to get dressed. He stayed in his underwear all day, walking back and forth from the kitchen to the living room to the dining room, unsure what he was supposed to do with himself.

Most days, he flopped onto the recliner and stared at the pictures Sara had hung on the wall above the couch, as if they could somehow show him how to move forward without her. Even with his eyes closed, he could see the framed pictures—their wedding day, their camping trips, the baby pictures. He’d never asked for this house, this kind of life. He’d always known that good things couldn’t last for people like him. How could he have thought that God would allow him this bit of happiness?

When he’d first arrived in Canada — far from Greece, far from his father — he’d taken language lessons, and then enrolled in university. He washed dishes to support himself and lived in a room the size of a closet. After university he’d talked his way into a great job at one of the city’s top publicity firms, then left it to strike out on his own. The first few years were lean, but business gradually picked up. His clients were loyal, and became almost like family; they knew there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for them. And things just got better after he met Sara. When he lost the occasional contract, he’d be sure it was the beginning of the end, but she’d say, “More work will come. Wait and see.” She never once stopped believing in him. He even began to believe he was the man he saw reflected in her eyes.

It had been Sara’s idea to buy this old house in the suburbs. “Who wants to live in a condominium?” she asked when they finally had enough money for a down payment. “We’ll fix it up. It’ll be great. Wait and see.”

“In a condo, someone else takes care of everything,” he’d said. “We wouldn’t worry about a thing.”

“You appreciate it more if you do it yourself.” She kissed him. “And besides, I want a yard where our child can play, where our dog can run around, a garden I can grow things in.”

“And a white picket fence?” He shook his head dubiously. “We don’t even have a child.”

But then they did have the child, and the yard, and the garden, although Nicolai drew the line at a dog. It was a charmed life.

He remembered the day they moved into the house. Their furniture hadn’t arrived yet, and they slept on the floor that first night under their light jackets. They lay in each other’s arms and talked about how the old chair would go in their bedroom and be ready when the baby came. He couldn’t imagine being happier. And then Alexia was born and his chest ached with a joy he didn’t think was possible. Did he deserve this happiness? It had scared him to think about the answer to this question, but he didn’t talk to Sara about it. He went to work, ignored his worries and prayed every morning for God to watch over them. At night, after Sara fell asleep, he whispered his thanks.

None of it had meant a thing. Even God had abandoned him. How could he believe in a God that would do that? Maybe He knew what Nicolai had always known: he never deserved any of this. Wasn’t that what his father always told him?

And now he needed to start over again. He’d done it before, he told himself. He could do it again. But not just yet. He wasn’t ready to think about all this. Sara had been gone only a few weeks. Or was it just a few days? He needed more time.

“We’ll get another opinion,” Sara had said in the doctor’s office. Later, lying in bed, his head on her chest, she gently tugged his hair through her fingers as if braiding a doll’s curls. “The chemo will help. You’ll see.”

He listened to her heart beating, breathed in the scent of her just-out-of-the-shower skin. How could he manage without this? Everything he’d accomplished was better because of her. All he had to do was make her happy, protect her.

He couldn’t even do that.

The chemo didn’t help and Sara insisted on getting her affairs in order. Nicolai was reluctant, but when she forced the issue, he went with her to Stuart’s office. She wanted the details—a trust fund for Alexia, a plan for the house, donations of her eyes, heart, lungs—all of it written down. She gave herself away to strangers. What would be left for him?

When the envelope from the law firm arrived, he hid it in the cupboard above the fridge. She asked him if it had come. He shrugged, said he hadn’t seen anything.

“I’ll call Stuart tomorrow,” she said. “I have to get this done.” She leaned against the counter, put her head down. He rubbed her back. Her T-shirt bunched. She sighed. “There’s so much to do.”

“I have it.”

She turned and met his gaze; her face was so small and pale. Why had he put her through this charade? He was scared. He couldn’t help it.

He pulled the will from its hiding spot.

“I’m handling it,” he said. “You just get better.”

“This is important to me.”

“No. Getting better is more.”

She shook her head. Hugging the envelope to her chest, she’d reached for him.

Nicolai woke to the sound of knocking on the bedroom door. His mouth felt like he’d chewed sawdust. He wrung out a ball of spit and swallowed, ran his heavy tongue over his lips, gnawed at a piece of dry skin with his teeth and peeled it back until he tasted blood.

Alexia knocked at his bedroom door. “Are you okay, Daddy?” Alexia called.

“Why aren’t you at school, Alexia?” he yelled through the door, his fists balled on his lap. He heard her footsteps moving away down the hallway and immediately regretted yelling at her. It wasn’t her fault. Why was he such a shit? He was becoming more like his father every day. Sara wouldn’t have allowed him to talk to Alexia that way. But Sara wasn’t here, was she? She’d left him to deal with life without her. He punched the mattress.

The door opened and the light in the room flicked on, bit at his eyes.

“I made you breakfast, Daddy.” Alexia was silhouetted in the doorway, holding her mother’s breakfast tray, her arms straining with the weight. He tightened his fists, released his fingers slowly and concentrated on the comforting ache. He sat up, and was overcome by a wave of nausea. He fell back against the headboard until the nausea passed.

She advanced gingerly with the tray, as if afraid the floor might collapse underneath her. Her smile stayed fixed. She set the tray down beside him and nodded for him to move over.

Her long, ash-coloured hair dripped water onto her nightie, onto the sheets. “I had a shower all by myself,” she said.

“Good for you,” he said.

Her hair glistened with leftover shampoo and her nightie was soiled with peanut butter, smears of jam and splatters of yellowed milk. “I can take care of us, Daddy.” Her hazel eyes burrowed into him.

He looked away. “Daddy doesn’t deserve you.”

She poured milk into a cup for him, spilling some drops. “Damn,” she said, just like her mother used to whenever she stubbed her toe, accidentally dropped a plate or burned the bread she’d forgotten in the oven.

Alexia held up one piece of the toasted peanut butter and jam sandwich she’d hacked into awkward triangles. Strawberry jam oozed onto the white antique plate, Sara’s favourite, the one she brought out at Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving. Alexia put the first bit of sandwich up to his mouth as if feeding one of her dolls. “Okay?” She opened her mouth to show him how it should be done.

He took the piece from her and wondered how she’d become such a serious little girl. He bit down and acid welled in his stomach, scaled up his throat. He gulped hard to keep himself from throwing up. When he finally spoke, he said, “You’re strong like your mother, paidi mou.”

Alexia shrugged, kept her eyes on the tray. She moved the creamer, the sugar bowl and the plate from one side of the tray to the other, wiped the spilled milk and moved them back. She did this once, then a second time and a third, as if unaware of what she was doing.

When she was done, she looked around his room. Sara’s chair, a beat-up leather discard she’d rescued from the flea market dumpster, was buried under a heap of dirty clothes. In that chair, Sara had breastfed Alexia and rocked her to sleep, read to her, the two of them snuggled under the plaid throw she’d bought when she got pregnant. The throw lay twisted on the floor along with Nicolai’s old work shirt, a dress shirt, khakis and his funeral suit.

Alexia walked over to the piles of clothes and picked up everything, including his suit, and dumped it all into the hamper. Bending into the hamper and shoving all her weight on top, she squished the pile down. He should have said something about things needing to go to the cleaner, but just then she picked up the throw in front of her mother’s chair, sniffed it, rubbed it against her cheek and hugged it into her chest. He held his breath.

She turned, caught his eye and began to fold the throw. “It’s pretty old. I guess we should get rid of it. Okay, Daddy?” She dropped it on the chair and came back to sit beside him, stroked his hand, and then picked up another piece of the sandwich, ready to pass it to him.

He was trying, but he could barely take care of himself, let alone an eight-year-old. If he managed to cook something for them, he didn’t have the energy to eat. He’d make macaroni and cheese or a tuna casserole and leave it on the counter with a note: “Daddy’s not feeling well. Warm this up in the microwave. Make sure to do your homework.” Then he’d fall into bed, exhausted, away from the constant worry in his daughter’s eyes. He knew they couldn’t go on like this.

He had to get away, even if it was just for a little while. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he knew in his bones it was true. He felt his shoulders relax and the throbbing behind his eyes ease. He needed to put his life back together before he could take care of someone else. But where? The question rolled around in his head.

A week later it came to him.

He called a company to clean the house. Four Merry Maids with buckets full of cleaning supplies swept, emptied, sprayed, vacuumed and washed every surface. As he drifted around the house, he found Alexia talking to the women, asking questions about the supplies they brought, what cleaning products they used on the counters and the floors, how often the fridge needed to be cleaned, how to use the washer and dryer. She scribbled notes or asked them to write things down for her.

He heard one of the Merry Maids say to her, “Sweetie, you’re not big enough to do all these things by yourself.”

“I am so big enough,” Alexia said. “I have to take care of my daddy.” She continued to write the names of the products they spelled out for her. They stroked her hair and shook their heads.

“Stay out of their way and let them do their work, Alexia.” Everything was backwards. He was supposed to take care of her. Why couldn’t he? He gripped the coffee cup in his hand and brought it to his mouth, swallowed too quickly and burned his tongue. He just couldn’t.

Later Nicolai brought home a box of bougatsa and baklava and put it down on the kitchen table. “Let’s have something sweet.”

“Okay Daddy, now that the cleaning ladies showed me how, I’ll be able to do it after school,” she said.

“Daddy’s going to sell the house.”

She was reaching for a slice of bougatsa. She pulled back her hand, stuck it behind her back. Her bright hazel eyes were questioning. Her T-shirt sat askew over one shoulder as if too big for her. She fixed a smile in place and yanked at her shirt. “Something new would be good.”

“Go on, have a piece of bougatsa, paidi mou. It’s your favourite.”

“Will I go to the same school?”

“You could go anywhere.”

“I can do it, Daddy.” She put her hand over his.

She was such a good little girl. Maybe there was another way. He should try for her, for Sara. He shouldn’t put Alexia through this. He knew that Sara wouldn’t want him to give up. But he wasn’t giving up. He was trying to do his best. He couldn’t take care of anything. That was bloody obvious. Maybe he could try. Life might get better. But if he got away even for a little while, maybe he’d come back a better person, more ready to be what she needed, less angry. He’d already made up his mind.

He moved his hand away, picked up the box, passed Alexia a slice of bougatsa and took one for himself. They sat across from each other. She talked about the new house they’d buy, the bigger yard they might get, where she’d go to school, and how it was time they got a dog. Warm custard dripped onto their chins, through their fingers and onto the table. She giggled.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her laugh. “Talking with your mouth full,” he said. “You’re Greek.”

She nodded, swiping one dollop of custard after the other from the table.

He had practised what he would say, but now as she sat in front of him licking custard from her fingers, he couldn’t find the words. He bit at his lip. He wasn’t sure when he’d tell her, but he had a ticket for a flight leaving Vancouver for Toronto and then on to Athens a week Thursday. Why Greece? He wasn’t sure. He’d left it before to start something new, but nothing had worked out as planned. It was the only place he could think of. And besides, he’d be with his mother and sisters. If nothing else, they’d take care of him. He could use that. And if his father hadn’t changed, they’d buffer him from the old man. There was lots of time to tell Alexia.

“What kind of house do you think we should get, Daddy?”

She did deserve better than him. He shrugged. “Let’s see what happens.”

He told his clients he was taking a break, reassigned his files, took Alexia to school each morning, put the house up for sale, got rid of what he could and called the Salvation Army to pick up the rest. He told Alexia she could keep anything she wanted.

“I don’t need a lot of stuff,” she said, then picked her mother’s antique serving plate, a framed picture of Sara and some books—Moby Dick, Hansel and Gretel and the entire Dr. Seuss series—her mother had bought her. She pasted a picture of the whole family, all three of them, taken when she was four, into her notebook. She told him she liked this picture best of all because they were together for a weekend away so he wasn’t worried about work and could spend all his time with them, like a family.

Her mother’s special reading throw went to the Salvation Army. She put it into the garbage bag herself, turned and looked around. She quickly grabbed some towels beside her and covered the throw. Later she piled a few tea towels and a set of sheets on top. “I’m not little anymore,” she said.

Throughout the week, she was helpful and chatty. “I don’t think we need this in our new house, Daddy. What do you think?”

“I’m trying not to.”

“Can I help pick the new house?”

“We’re not going to look for a house right away,” he said. “We’re going to stay with Uncle Stuart and Auntie Mavis for a while.”

“Oh, good. Then we can take our time, right, Daddy? I know we’ll find just the most perfect house.” She patted his hand.

He couldn’t meet her eye. “Why don’t you go finish up with those toys?” he said, letting go of her hand. He walked over to the window. She went to her toy box, fishing for pieces of her Lego set, the one she planned to give away.

He leaned against the windowsill, heard a lone bird screech outside, but couldn’t find where it was perched.

His flight was at three o’clock. That would give him just enough time to pack the rest of the boxes, close up the house, take the keys to the real estate office and have a quick lunch with Alexia before dropping her off at Stuart and Mavis’s. He still hadn’t told her that he was going away, hadn’t been able to find the right time to do it. He hoped she’d understand. If he kept moving, focused on the list of things he had to do, he’d get through it. For now, all she needed to know was that she wasn’t going to school today.

“You won’t need a lunch today,” he said.

“How come?” She was standing at the kitchen counter dressed as usual in her school uniform, the navy-blue skirt and the regulation white blouse making her look more grown-up than she was. She pushed the jar of peanut butter away and put the knife down, left her sandwich only partially spread.

“I called the school and told them we’re spending the day together. We have to say good-bye to the old house and move to Uncle Stuart’s place and…”

Her head was cocked, her forehead furrowed. He was sure she’d caught the hesitation in his voice. He couldn’t meet her questioning eyes. He put the peanut butter into one of the boxes, rinsed off her plate and knife, added them to the box.

“Well, looks like this is the last of it. We’d better get going.” he said.

She followed him out to the car.

After he dropped the keys at the real estate office he took Alexia to a nearby Greek diner, where they split an order of calamari and a Greek salad.

He couldn’t delay it any longer. “Daddy has to go away on a business trip.” He turned his chair towards her and moved hers so that his legs hugged her chair and she faced him. She sat like a caged bird, picking at her thumbnail. He put his hand over hers.

“When?”

She stared at him with those eyes that made him feel worthless. He reached over to wipe off a drop of olive oil on her chin with his napkin. Alexia took it from him and wiped her mouth, then sat on her hands.

“When, Daddy?”

He bit at the inside of his mouth, stared at the closed door just beyond where she sat. His voice cracked, he cleared his throat, then ploughed forward. “This afternoon,” he said and cleared his throat again.

“Where are you going, Daddy?”

“Greece. I have to go do some work there, so you’re going to stay with Stuart and Mavis for a little while. They’re your godparents. So they’re just like your real parents except they’ll probably let you get away with more stuff.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I have to go find out how hard it’s going to be.”

“I could go with you, Daddy. I could ask for homework and do my school work while we’re away. Honest. We could call my teacher now. I know she’d let me do it.” She jumped off her chair, pushed it back out of his reach, wiped her mouth with the napkin again and threw it on the table.

“Paidi mou, I’ll be busy working. And besides, you like school, your friends. I promise you, next time we’ll go together and then you can meet all your aunts. They’re crazy but really, really nice. You remember when Aunt Christina was here?”

Alexia nodded. She opened her mouth to say something, choked and coughed. He stroked her back. A single tear ran down her cheek. He wiped it away with his napkin.

“You shouldn’t talk and eat at the same time,” he said. “You’re just like them.”

“Why don’t we go this summer then?” she said. “School will be out in a month. We could go together then.”

“I have to go now, Alexia. I’m sorry.”

“Mommy would want us to stick together,” she said, her voice breaking. She grabbed her glass and gulped water just like Sara used to whenever she was about to cry and wanted to control the impulse.

He reached for her. If he could explain that he was having a bad time without Sara, that he felt angry and helpless all the time, that this would be better for both of them at least for a little while, he was sure she’d understand. But then she might think it was her fault and he didn’t want that either. He’d said what he had to say. There was nothing else.

She put the glass down, excused herself to go to the bathroom. Nicolai held on to the back of her empty chair.