I smile meekly, polite as always, as if I’d been caught in some sinful pleasure of youth, some foolish pleasure of old age. The way it really is is there’s a pack of dingoes inside me, teeth tearing like mad, craving red meat, red beets, red blooded life.

My red trail marked my lovers, my babies, my fingerprints in blood, I have lived other lives when life grew inside me, but I die prematurely when bloodless menopause comes in the pale afternoon as I recline like a ghost, drained of colour, barren as a dessert; seeking respite. Please pass the beets.

Nostalgia, yes; denial, yes; grieving, yes, yes, yes. Pour red wine where blood once flowed. Quicken my heart with red memories: sweet cherries, raspberries, red beets, a red tongue singing old time songs of yesterdays when the moon beat the rhythm of life. Pass the beets, now, I howl.

When blood pulsed through plump veins, the flush of excitement that was my life thrilled me. Now, in retreat, my blood hides from me, my skin shrivels in the sunshine. Where once I was a gathering place for women, men, and children, I am alone. Don’t talk to me about the wisdom of crones. Don’t talk about the phases of the moon. Spare me the lecture on the righteousness of the cycle of life. Leave me my beets and memories, my blood-red, howling-red beets.

This is the rage of my present life: life is maddeningly calm. The maniacal hormonal surges have subsided. Where has passion slipped off to? Where the danger of bleeding in public? Where has the possibility of being pregnant after every coupling gone?

Feed me beets and make me bleed again so I might throb with the possibilities of life and death and know the luxury of my voice singing in triumph. Who can stand this calm? No wonder old ladies dye their hair blue! No wonder we strike out with our umbrellas! We are mad as corpses with the calm of a bloodless life.

Cover me with rose petals, red and fragrant; feed me beets and red red berries; tell me how I blush and flush and gush in gorgeous rednesses. Don’t feed me watercress sandwiches and tea in the afternoon parlour; look at me! All my life I’ve been a warrior, fearless in the face of bleeding, a priestess on the sacred altars. I cannot stop!

Focus on her face. Note that her eyes are scared, her skin pale, as she says, “She was in the bathroom stall for a long time and wouldn’t come out. I heard her doing something. She had all of Marty’s leftover medicine, his Percodans. I think she swallowed them all.”

Stare at her as you try to figure out what to say. All you can manage is, “Holy shit.”

Continue to stand there stupidly as she looks toward her room at the end of the hall and then turns back to you, saying, “Will you help me?”

Even though your heart thunks, say, “Yeah, okay, sure.” Try to walk straight as you follow her.

In Lynn’s room, observe her 17-year-old sister lying in her makeshift bed on the floor, dressed in her pajamas, the blankets pulled up to her chin, looking as peaceful as a five-year-old who’s been tucked in for the night. Think back to when she arrived for her weekend visit yesterday, how normal she seemed for someone whose boyfriend died of cancer two weeks ago. Watch Lynn kneel next to her now and say, “Cindy.” This is your name too, a coincidence that’s no longer amusing. “Cindy,” Lynn says again, louder this time, her voice panicky. Wait forever before Cindy lets out a long breath and, without opening her eyes, mutters, “I’m going to be with Marty now.”

Go cold all over. Lock your eyes onto Lynn’s as she looks up at you, her head right next to her sister’s. Notice that they have the same ash-blond hair and thin lips, the same heart-shaped face. Feel them sinking together. Although the room is spinning and you can’t think, understand that you have to act. Focus on Lynn’s helpless eyes and tell her, “We should call an ambulance.”

When she says “Okay” in a voice that quavers like a child’s, accept the responsibility she has given you and hope you don’t fuck it up.

Lift the receiver off the wall phone and will the numbers to hold still as you dial 9-1-1. Count the rings while at the same time noticing that you seem to have left your body, that you’re hovering above the action and watching from a safe distance. When the operator’s voice jolts you back to yourself, regret the loss of this brief bodily escape; immediately feel guilty for wanting anything right now. “What is the emergency?” the operator asks. Hear yourself slur about a possible OD, and silently curse your numb lips and heavy tongue. As you hang up the phone, pray that the operator doesn’t send the police.

While you wait for the ambulance, help Lynn try to keep her sister awake. Get down there on the floor, put your hands on Cindy’s shoulder, her arm, and say, “Don’t go to sleep” over and over. Notice how limp she is, how unresponsive, and wonder if she has crossed some threshold. In the distance you can hear the siren. As it gets closer, feel relief flood you, even though you’re not entitled to it yet.

Hurry down the hall—palm the cinderblock wall for balance—and then down the dorm’s stairs. Chant to yourself, Don’t fall. Arrive at the front door as two paramedics burst through it with their stretcher, a walkie-talkie squawking. When you tell them to follow you, try to leave some space between yourself and them so they can’t smell what you’ve been up to. Calmly but quickly lead them up the two flights to where the girl might be dying. Your friends and fellow partiers have formed a small crowd outside Lynn’s room; glance at their fear-filled faces and ask them to clear the way.

Stand back as the paramedics squat down and loudly call Cindy’s name. When she mumbles something, be relieved that you can hear her voice but then horrified at how it fades. Listen to Lynn answer questions about exactly what has been swallowed. In the next moment, as the men strap Cindy into the stretcher and Lynn searches for her coat, notice that time is bending in strange ways.

Since you don’t know what to do now, whether to stay or leave, whether you’re still a help or you’ve become an obstacle, linger uselessly by the door. Catch Lynn’s eye as she looks up; when she asks, “Will you come with me?” feel weirdly grateful.

Dash down the hall to find your own coat, your shoes. Sense the eyes of onlookers on your back as you step deeper into this bad dream. Tell yourself you’re sober enough to handle it, or at least that you can pretend to be sober, and then flatter yourself with the idea that you must be exceedingly competent if Lynn has chosen you to help her through this crisis. Don’t stop to consider that perhaps you were simply in the right place at the right time.

Outside, the night is freezing. Climb into the warm ambulance; squeeze in next to Lynn and this stranger with a life in his hands. Watch him place first an oxygen mask over Cindy’s fine features and then his ruddy fingers on her pale wrist. As Lynn leans in close, be struck once again by how strongly these two resemble each other, and think about your own younger sister—how fiercely you hate her and love her. Years from now she’ll have her own journeys to hospitals in ambulances on too many nights like this one, but you don’t know this yet; you don’t know what good practice this is. For now, simply watch Lynn hold her sister’s hand as she pleads with her to hang on.

When you arrive at the hospital in what seems like seconds, recognize that your sense of time is completely shot. Squint in the glare of white lights and white coats as you once again try to walk straight. It’s so bright here, so electric. Step aside as Cindy is wheeled through swinging double doors, Lynn disappearing with her, and wonder what the doctors will do to her back there. When the doors flap shut, stand like a lost child on the turquoise linoleum and puzzle over what to do now.

The waiting room is empty, the luckiest thing that’s happened to you tonight. Slowly, carefully, walk to a far corner and lower yourself into a hard bucket of a chair. Reach for a Time magazine and pretend to read it, even though the words are swimming, so that the nurses at the desk won’t catch on to your true condition. Keep flipping through the pages but see only the pictures in your own head—doctors hovering, a tube through the nose pumping out poison, Lynn standing by and watching it all. Understand that whatever happens, she’ll have this burden to carry. Ask yourself: How does a person do that when she’s 20 years old? How does anyone? You’re only a witness tonight, and yet it feels as though you’ve been catapulted out of college and into a world you’ll never be ready for.

A pain starts behind your eyes; dread what you know it will become, a head-crushing, stomach-flipping hangover. Scan the room for a water fountain but fail to find one. Think about getting up to search, and even asking the nurses for aspirin, but then realize that you’ve used up all your nerve.

Abandon the magazine and try to get comfortable in this awful chair. Close your eyes and wait to go on living in the brutal world.

“All meals should be breakfast,” the Dark See proclaimed, squirting an avalanche of ketchup across her Devil With a Blue Dress omelette. She cut a violent swath through her meal. Chewing, the Dark See pointed out the window with her fork. “You see that guy across the street?” she said through a mouthful of egg, “The one dressed like a rockabilly Roy Orbison? He used to be a trick.”

I looked up from my Breakfast of Broken Dreams in the direction of her stabbing utensil. Main Street was busy, the sidewalks packed with people out enjoying the warm Vancouver spring. Venturing into the world with the Dark See was like being on a street safari of johns. Ever the consummate guide, she narrated the tour, recounting anatomical details and behavioral oddities committed to memory.

I turned to get a better look at today’s sighting. My bare thighs peeled off the vinyl seat with a wet smack. I narrowly avoided dislodging a framed picture of Merle Haggard with my elbow as I craned my body in the direction of the escaping specimen.

It was clear whom she was talking about.

A long-legged figure lurched awkwardly around groups of coffee sippers and cigarette smokers.

He was sheathed head to toe in a black suit and crisp white shirt, completely unsuited to the weather. His hair was teased pompadour-style and his eyes were shielded by a pair of blacked-out Ray Bans. His gait reminded me of a heron, long spindly legs maladapted to terrestrial life. I half expected him to unfurl a vast expanse of wings and flap off into the sky, graceful at last.

As he rounded the corner, a noise in the street caught his attention and he turned to face the Chat ‘N’ Chew’s bay windows. My pulse quickened, the smallest rev of my internal engine, as recognition set in.

“Get out. I totally know him,” I exclaimed. The Dark See glanced at me in bemusement. “Well, not know him, know him. But I’ve seen him around.”

This was the first of the Dark See’s clients I had ever recognized. My initial shock quickly morphed into morbid fascination. It’s one thing to overhear the secrets of strangers but another entirely to catch an illicit glimpse into the private life of someone you know, even the most casual of acquaintances. I was especially curious because of where I recognized him from.

We both belonged to a secret fraternity: the place ex-drinkers go to patch together or reinvent their lives, as the case may be. I’d seen thousands of faces in the rooms, most of them swirling past like stir sticks on a sea of bad coffee. But he was different.

The meeting was called Happy Hour. Wearing a black trench, he stood apart from the crowd of spit-polished Yaletown ex-drunks gathered for their version of the hallowed hour of conviviality.

As I sat listening to the same old testimonies, I stared. He wasn’t conventionally attractive; there was something strange about the way he looked, as if parts of his face were slightly off kilter. Yet he struck me hard.

And so it began then, in my usual way: a violent first impression lodged in my memory, like stepping on a tack buried deep in the shag.

The Dark See’s voyeuristic revelation drew the dormant memory to the surface of my consciousness. I leaned towards her, fiddling with the remnants of my Broken Dreams, waiting to hear more.

“Ten years ago or so, when I first moved to Vancouver, I used to see him with my friend—it was her he was really into.” She took a sip of her seventh coffee refill and continued, “This was when I was still training, you see, so I was to be seen and not heard. Extra eyes, added humiliation, that sort of thing. He probably wouldn’t even remember me. But her? He was obsessed. Paid her and paid her and paid her.”

He turned the corner, and the Dark See and I moved on to other subjects.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

August melted into September in a steady stream of beach days and warm nights. The last place I wanted to be was in a church basement.

I pulled into the parking lot, empty save for a handful of cars. Peeling my dress away from the patch of condensed sweat at the small of my back, I got out of my car and headed inside.

I was an hour early. September was my month on setup; the duty a moral hedge against years of generally sociopathic behavior. Redemption via coffee creamer and folding chairs. There was no sign of my setup partner. I got to work throwing out rows of chairs and cursing unreliable alcoholics.

As I was laying out the Costco cookies and napkins, I heard someone coming through the doors. Nice of her to arrive just as I’m finished, I thought. Perfect timing as always. I looked up, ready to throw my wayward partner a snide comment.

It was him.

My stomach did a flip—small, but noticeable.

Alone in a church basement, social protocol suggested a greeting, yet neither of us said a word. The industrial coffee maker gurgled.

He took a seat in the front row. Silence. He fiddled with his phone. Opportunistic text messaging to avoid a socially awkward situation? That’s what I would have done in his place.

In solidarity, I lurked in the kitchen, redoing tasks that were long since finished. I had a good view of him from the pass through. He was more handsome than I remembered. The facial misalignments were still there, but they now seemed to work as a whole.

I started to feel annoyed with myself for hiding. There was no reason to be shy—after all, this was my home group. And who was he anyways? Treat him like any old person in off the street. I left the safety of the kitchen and grabbed two paper cups from the stack next to the percolator.

“Coffee’s ready. You want some?” I spoke loudly, not wanting to have to repeat myself. My voice sounded strange ringing across the empty space.

He looked up from his phone. “Sure,” he said and headed my way.

We introduced ourselves and concentrated on caffeine preparations. Cream, sugar, and stir. I noticed that he reached for the Splenda. To head off an awkward silence, I grabbed the dessert tray and shoved it towards him.

“Would you like a cookie?” I asked, “I bought them myself,” I waved a rock hard oatmeal circle in the air.

“I’ll pass.”

His voice was different than I thought it would be. He had the reedy, hoarse resonance characteristic of heavy smokers and lounge singers. I wondered which one of them he was. Maybe both.

I wanted to hear more of that voice. I drew him into conversation, sticking to safe topics such as work. Here, as it turned out, we had common ground. I talked about my job as a clothing buyer. He was also in retail, the owner of a vintage store. As our conversation began to flow more smoothly, we discovered a mutual fascination with Nancy Grace, CNN, and Obama for President. It was an exciting time to be a cable news addict, even one living north of the 49th parallel.

I could hear people trickling in around us as the meeting got ready to start.

“Well,” I said reluctantly, “I’m going to head to my seat.”

I turned to leave, but he stopped me with an invitation. “I’m having a party at my place for election night. You should stop by.”

I didn’t hear a single word that was said for the next hour. The hook was set, whether I liked it or not. Thoughts of him started to colonize my mental territory, expanding like the British Empire.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the time I arrived at his house on election night, the party was well under way. The air was charged with the spirit of hope and the smell of spanakopita burning in the oven. On the television, John King was charting election results by state with the help of his Magic Wall. I said hello to a few familiar faces and wandered in search of the evening’s host.

I found him pouring drinks from behind a quilted leather bar.

“Hi,” he said smiling, “Glad you could make it. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Do you have any Pellegrino?”

“Absolutely. Double or single?”

“I’ll take a triple. On the rocks, with a twist of lime.”

He handed me my drink with a little bow. “Go take a look around. I’m going to finish pouring for the heathens and then I’ll come find you.”

Outside his house wasn’t much to look at, but the interior was eye-shatteringly bold. Blood red carpets, white walls, and floor to ceiling black velvet curtains formed the backdrop for a dazzling assortment of objects.

I wandered through the house, taking it all in. A golden bust of Mao sat atop a scratched baby grand piano. I walked over tiger skin rugs and stared at a series of weathered black and white photographs. The women in the pictures lounged in vintage brassieres, smoking from long cigarette holders and drinking wine. In the last shot they were running naked down a hallway, laughing and chasing one another. Ted Kennedy, staring out from an Andy Warhol print, seemed amused at their antics.

Roaming about a person’s home is like catching a quick glimpse inside their mind. Not quite full access behind the Wizard’s curtain, but close. My host was undoubtedly a lover of oddities, a salvager of precious things old and discarded.

I made my way back towards the kitchen and the hors d’oeuvres assortment. Alongside the charred spanakopita I found some more edible offerings. I grabbed a plate from a stack of mismatched china emblazoned with various members of the Royal family and loaded up.

As I ate, I realized I had made a new friend. At my feet sat a rheumy-eyed black beagle. He stared up at me with a look designed to break hearts and wrest food from the hands of humans.

“I see you’ve met The Fiend,” he said, coming up alongside me. “I’m not taking responsibility for his food addiction though. I adopted him from the SPCA last year and he was hitting it pretty hard even back then.” The beagle looked morose at this character assassination.

“I love your house,” I said, discretely shifting the focus away from The Fiend’s personal struggles.

“Really?” he looked around appraisingly, “You don’t think it looks like an idiot lives here, do you?”

A cheer went up behind us. According to the Magic Wall and Wolf Blitzer, Barack Obama was the 44th President of the United States.

Coverage continued and he drifted away. I settled in to wait for the victory speech to commence.

As I searched for an empty patch of wall to lean against, a glass case caught my attention. I moved closer. As I realized what was inside the case, the hairs on my arm stood up as if they too were trying to get a better look. I stood, staring.

“Do you like that?” he asked, reappearing beside me.

“It’s different,” I said cautiously, “Where is it from?”

“I made it myself.”

Silence fell between us.

I didn’t know what to say. Luckily, I was saved from the necessity of a reply by the President-Elect’s appearance on stage.

We turned to the television, simultaneously sucked in by the tide of history. As Obama’s voice rang out across the crisp Chicago night, I could feel the stare of masked eyes penetrating through my back and lodging deep between my ribs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“So…the mask on your wall.” Pause. “Are you into that sort of thing?” I strained to keep my voice level, unwilling to betray emotion of any sort. The din of the restaurant, loud a moment ago, had become suddenly quiet. Crowd noise has an uncanny ability to die off the instant a sensitive subject is brought up in its midst. Sonic telepathy.

“What kind of thing?” He pushed the food around on his plate like a small child pretending to eat.

“Don’t you like the food?” I asked, changing the subject. I prayed for a return to the previous decibel level. Ever since I laid eyes on the Mask, I had obsessed over its possible meanings. Was he still in the fetish scene, and if so, was that the reason our relationship had stalled? Or was it just another objet d’art, strategically placed to trumpet his non-conformity?

Over the past months, we had moved through a series of dates and late night phone calls to arrive at nothing. He was attracted to me, and yet there was something missing, some mysterious element whose absence rendered the potion inert.

Curiosity was killing me, yet at the same time I didn’t want to know. The subject left me with the same feeling I got when I thought about blood vessels. I stared at his left carotid artery, throbbing beneath his jaw, and felt the familiar mix of fascination, revulsion, intrigue and apprehension wash over me.

“The food? Ah ya…the food’s great.”

More pushing.

“Are you going to have dessert?” I countered.

He snorted and shook his head. But I already knew the answer to that question. That very night he had asked me if he looked fat. He was preoccupied with his weight, constantly shifting from one irritating diet to another.

“You could always try exercise,” I suggested, anything but helpful. “Or bulimia if you’re feeling lazy.” His weirdness about weight didn’t end with food. Despite standing six feet, he wore lifts in his shoes to give the illusion of an even taller, thinner silhouette. I had a suspicion that’s what the black suits were all about.

The subject of food stressed him out. His fingers started bouncing off the edge of the table. Tap tap tap, tap tap tap, three times with each digit from the thumb down to the pinky, one finger at a time. Repeat three times on each hand. I usually ignored his tapping routine. Tonight, though, it annoyed me. I was on edge. I was almost certain I was about to identify the block in our relationship. I used that irritation to sharpen my nerve, grinding and scraping until I felt emboldened enough to press on.

“S&M. Bondage. Leather. Humiliation.”

He stopped tapping and looked at me.

“That kind of thing,” I continued, “Are you into that?”

Again, the chatter around us seemed to fade off into silence.

“What would make you think that?” he asked.

I laughed, incredulous. “Oh my god, I don’t know,” I said, “Maybe the custom fetish mask hanging in the middle of your living room? Hand-stitched by you. Lovingly made from pieces of old Louis Vuitton bags and displayed like Napolean’s death mask. Are you fucking serious?”

He appeared startled, then a look of terror passed over his features. “Oh shit. No! No, I’m not into that at all,” He leaned towards me, his elbows resting on the edge of the table. “Do you think my mother thinks that too?”

“Um ya,” I said, “I think your mother thinks that too.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Dark See’s number flashed on my call display. “Are you busy tonight love? I need some pretty bodies. Compensation is offered.”

I arrived at her door later that evening compliant with the Ready-For-Action dress code: painted-on fuchsia dress, five inch patent leather heels so shiny I could fix my lipstick in the reflection, and a floor-length black overcoat.

The Dark See opened the door and gave me a squeeze. “You look great honey, come on in and I’ll get you something to drink.”

In the kitchen she poured out a tall Pellegrino, iced up with a twist of lime, and handed it to me.

“How’s life?” she asked, “Any men?”

“It’s still him,” I replied, sighing into my cup. “I can’t get him out of my system. He’s like a bad case of malaria. Every time I think he’s gone for good, we talk or see each other, and then I’m right back in it. Fever, delirium, the works.” I took a sip and felt the carbonation fizzle down my throat. “But something is messed up. We can never move past a certain point. There’s an invisible wall.”

“He’s too weird for words. But I know you like that kind of thing. Anyways, come on in, our guest of honor is here.”

We moved into the next room where four of our girlfriends were playing a party game.

The object of the game was next to the fireplace. The man stood erect, hands tied behind his back, naked save for the mask covering his eyes. One by one each woman brushed against his body. To win, you had to give him a hard-on the fastest. The sole rule was that his genitals were off limits.

Music blared, skin prickled. The room smelled of perfumes mingling with male sweat.

I crossed the room and slid into line behind Sarah. I wrapped my arms around her waist and bit her earlobe in one quick motion.

“Hi,” she squealed, trying to escape my teeth. She twisted around to face me. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been meaning to call you.”

“What’s up?” I brushed an errant strand of hair away from her face.

“You know that guy you’re into? The one with the store?” Her eyes blazed with excitement. Gossip was Sarah’s ultimate turn on.

“What about him?” I asked cautiously.

Time slowed – I knew what was coming.

“He’s been emailing me. I was going to jack him, but then I recognized the name.”

“Get out. Wait a minute,” I said, quickly realizing the possible implications of her information. “What kind of ad was he replying to?” Ahead of me, I could hear the sightless man groaning with pleasure as he writhed his body towards the unseen female.

Sarah looked like she was going to pee herself. She licked her lips and answered.

“Amateur Dom.”

“I fucking knew it.” I said and threw back a mouthful of sparkling water.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The drive to his house sped by. As the blocks whirred past I listened to music full-blast, firing myself up for the task ahead. I replayed our conversation over again in my head.

“Wake up,” There was no question in my voice, only command.

“What’s going on?” His voice was groggy and he sounded confused. My call had jarred him awake from a Robax-induced slumber.

“I’m coming over.”

“What for?”

“You’re a big boy,” Long pause. “Figure it out,” and I hung up without another word.

His house looked like a crypt. All of the windows were dark as I made my way up the front steps and rang the bell.

He opened the door. His hair was disheveled and his dress shirt was askew, the buttons hastily mismatched. I took a deep breath and pounced. I reached forward and grabbed hold of his shirt collar with my right hand. Stepping forward into the hallway I pushed his body back into the wall. I drew myself close to him; I could feel his breath on my face. Our eyes locked.

With no trace of hesitation in my voice I plunged ahead. “You and I are done fucking around. I know what you like, and it’s okay.”

His expression was unreadable. It looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. His body wriggled in my grasp like a fish flopping on the end of a hook. Down the hallway, The Fiend stared at our awkward tableau, doggy mouth hung open in amazement.

In an instant, I knew that something had gone horribly, irrevocably wrong.

“What the hell are you doing?” he finally managed to sputter, “Let me go!”

We stood in the hallway facing one another, both of us desperate to escape.

Drowned in mortification, the truth of the moment floated upwards like a water-logged corpse unwillingly drawn to the surface by the gases of decomposition: the magic spell cast by our own private obsessions, unless shared willingly, shatters under the gaze of another.

I turned and ran back into the night.

All three of us know that time is running out. In two days’ time I fly home across the Atlantic, and I shan’t see my parents again until the next visit in September—if I do so: they’ve reached that age. What we want is simple enough: the afternoon spent in some kind of harmony, enjoying each other’s company and sharing the casual pleasures of existence. This must be possible, I told myself, as my mother and I climbed the stairs. And I think I yearn, as well, for something to hold onto—a memory or a talisman, proof of some kind.

Dad’s room bristles with furniture: the bed, two large armchairs, one smaller chair, TV, side tables, bookcases, walker. Almost ninety, he only recently moved here. He needs a lot of help with practical things, forgets the day of the week, but remembers swathes of nineteenth-century verse. He has abandoned brilliantine and allows what is left of his hair—bright white and very sparse—to stick straight up, the pink scalp gleaming through. Imagine also some lop-sided bifocals, slipped halfway down his nose. It’s an owlish style that I somehow like, though it’s disconcerting that our eyes now meet dead level, instead of me having to look up.

My mother is the same age but forgets nothing at all, still lives independently, and even rides a bicycle now and then. Once beautiful, still proud of her appearance and very well-presented, Mum has always been a fighter. She is tiny, sharp-eyed, vigorous and fitter than many people my age, but she’s never been strong on sympathy or patience. I can tell from the set of her jaw as she watches my father prepare for the drive—the slow lifting of each swollen foot, its painstaking insertion into a shoe positioned just so, the push downwards, the grind against the shoe horn—that she is both bored and appalled.

To rise from his high-seated chair, Dad leans forwards, gripping its arms, then pushes down with his entire strength. Someone has to be waiting with the sticks, and then there’s that last, precautionary visit to the toilet: pants dropped to the floor (at this point, he curses) then hauled up with the grabber and somehow fastened again. Breath hisses between his teeth and Mum grips the arms of her chair, her foot tap-tapping on the floor.

“Let me put on my own hat!” he snaps when she plonks it on his head. Still, she lets that pass, and he keeps the hat on, prepared to go through with all this. He’s not given up. He wants to get out and his face is rapt as we drive through the lush, tree-lined streets and on into the Cotswold hills.

“What’s that?” he asks. “Lilac? Ceanothus! This view—” he says, “I’d forgotten!”

The foliage is fresh and delicate, paler than it will soon become. Horse chestnuts thrust up, pink and white candles of bloom. May trees explode pink in all directions, like bubblegum fireworks, banks are rampant with cow parsley and comfrey, foxglove and buttercup. In every village, the famous Cotswold stone glows gold behind gardens quivering with colour. “Marvellous,” Dad says, “The journey is as good as the destination. Where did you say we’re going?”

“I told you!” Mum says, “Snowshill!”

We overtake horses, pass fields of ewes and lambs and quite soon find ourselves taking the final turn into the manor grounds. According to the book, this is a five star attraction, accessible, with a good café.

Dad struggles out of the car by pulling hard on the door while I hold it firm. Bent double, wielding the two sticks, he crunches slowly over the gravel towards the entrance.

It’s when we reach the ticket desk that Mum grabs my arm, hisses:

“It’s a waste buying your father a ticket! He’ll hardly see any of it!” I pull air into my lungs, release it slowly.

“Never mind, we’ve come all this way,” I point out, “I’ll get one, anyhow.” At this, Mum scowls. “Made of money, are you?” she says, then strides away, turns her back on me and glares out of the window and I realize, too late, that she was trying to persuade the receptionist to allow Dad in for free, and that now she will be angry with me for being so dense. Nonetheless, I intend to keep smiling and move on through the kind of day I want us all to have. I purchase the tickets, my father propped on his sticks, frozen and silent beside me.

There’s a sweaty uphill hike pushing a borrowed wheelchair, then a ten minute level stroll through more wildflowers and blossoms. The formal gardens at Snowshill are terraced down the hillside and impossible for my father to venture into. Still, the view across the valley is soft and intricate.

He studies the leaflet and reads us the high points: derelict sixteenth farmhouse bought by Charles Wade in 1921. Architect and collector. Arts and Crafts movement… He reads perfectly, but very carefully, as does a child who has not quite mastered the art of anticipation.

A few moments later, I heave Dad out of the wheel chair: more gravel, four steps, a metal bar at the threshold, uneven flagstones… We step into a musty smell, dark rooms with muslin blinds and wormy beams. Another step. Dad’s swollen hands clutch the two sticks as his eyes search the gloom.

What is all this stuff? Will he like it?

We examine carvings and several large, intricate model ships… A plump woman in a pleated skirt steps forwards to tell us more about the eccentric and impassioned Mr Wade, who had no shortage of funds and loved a well-made object of any kind. The entire house, she says, is filled with the fruits of his obsessive collecting, all of it, as he instructed in his will, unlabelled. Dad’s eyes flick between the woman, Sara, and a large iron chest. The curlicues of metal we see in the lid are just to protect the mechanisms, she explains, to prevent things from getting caught in the levers. It’s an Armada Chest, an iron box with locks that shoot under a ridge on each side, which makes it impregnable. Half of every sailor’s wage used to be saved for him or for his widow, and stored by the Admiralty in boxes like these…

“Remarkable!” Dad pronounces. “To think they were making pension contributions back then!” He’d be appalled to know that these days his own workplace pension just about covers his care at the home.

We inch into the Dragon Room, so named because it’s the kitchen, and the fireplace used to smoke. The docent here is Graham, a smiling man with iron grey hair who announces that it’s his eightieth birthday today. A display of door locks covers the wall behind him and suits of armour stand either side of a gallery to the left.

Everything and everyone has a story. You could spend half a day in this one room, Dad points out—and there are sixteen more to explore, but he’s beginning to wonder about lunch… Working against the flow of visitors, we emerge over the metal strip, down the steps, and this time catch a buggy that runs us over to the restaurant.

Dad spreads a napkin in his lap, leans forwards and begins to eat. He’s never been shy of food, but his appreciation of it has grown of late, and this is a good solid meal, meat, gravy, potatoes, after which he wants to linger over coffee and dessert, whereas Mum prefers to see the rest of the house. “After all,” she says, “we’ve paid for it” and there are sixteen more rooms to see. Less could be more, I feel.

“You best stay with him,” she says, striding off.

~~~

“Look—“ Dad tells me when I bring him his cake. He gestures through the lobelia-fringed window at a young woman in a red cardigan, sitting amongst a large group at one of the outside tables. “She’s cold, don’t you think?” Dad’s voice is low, though no one is close by. “Look at her shoulders and her husband next to her: that sweater goes up to his ears, but he doesn’t think to offer it to her. Rather selfish… I don’t like him. She could be—you know—expecting, don’t you think? And that’s her mother to the other side, you see? Same nose…” Dad slides the fork through his chocolate cake, slips a glistening morsel into his mouth. He reaches for his coffee, looks over at me, his blue grey eyes meeting mine over the top of his lopsided glasses. “People-watching. One of the best things,” he says, and then his gaze returns to the unknown girl in the red cardigan, and his eyes drink her up.

I’d like to do leave this now, while it is consoling. My father is close to the end of his life. These are his last years and every movement is conscious and often painful work, and yet, as we sit together in the cafe watching the woman in the red cardigan, there’s no doubting the keenness of his pleasures or the strength of his attachment to the world. His enjoyments have been distilled, what was perhaps once diffused across his entire life into a vague sense of well-being is now concentrated in an intense appreciation of a few good things: fresh coffee, chocolate, flowers, sports on TV and people-watching on a summer afternoon.

Though, it does grow cooler by the time Mum returns, full of what she has seen: an entire floor full of antique bicycles! Incredible pottery! So many chairs! Dad is complaining that he’s cold.

“He doesn’t like a breath of wind to blow on him!” Mum tells me, rolling her eyes. I produce the beige sweater she chided me for bringing along on a day like this. “He’ll soon warm up in the car,” she says.

“What would you like?” I ask Dad.

“I’m cold,” he tells us again, and removes his glasses. One each side of him, we tug the sweater over his head, feed his arms in. It’s as his hands begin to emerge that things become difficult. Try as I might, I can’t get my side on, though Mum succeeds.

“It’s too tight!” Dad says, lifting his hand.

“You asked for it!”

“But it’s too tight,” he repeats. She turns to me, livid. Things—the dropped plate or missing glove, the stained carpet, the burnt pan, have always had a terrible power over her.

“That care-home laundry has shrunk a perfectly good sweater! I’ll have words with them,” she says. I think, but don’t say, that it’s just as likely that Dad’s wrists, like his feet, ankles and fingers, have swollen. In any case, his left hand is definitely bigger than it was a minute ago and he sits there, half-in, half out while we argue.

“Leave it!” Mum tells me. “He said he was cold!” My father, eyes wide, says nothing, and this—his abdication at crucial moments of the struggle—has always been an issue. He’s not innocent, my sister always points out. He has a role.

“What do you want, Dad?” I ask, playing mine.

“He’ll say he wants it off, then he’ll say he’s cold again!” Mum tells me. I, who have always taken his side, ignore her.

“It hurts!” Dad says again. I begin the removal process, starting with the easy arm. When I get to Mum’s side, she doesn’t move.

“Excuse me,” I say. Jaw clenched, she stares straight ahead, blocks my way. I crouch down, face her.

“Excuse me,” I repeat. Somehow it helps to be in a public place. “Excuse me, but I am not going to make my elderly father sit in the car for an hour with the circulation to his hands cut off. If that drives you wild, you’re just going to have to put up with it.” Mum springs up and strides over to the ice cream cabinet. Out of the corner of my eyes, as I tug the sweater arm free, find the glasses and help Dad up, I see her carry a choc-ice over to the desk, exclaim at the price, then return her choice to the cabinet. Silently, slowly, we three make our way back to the car.

Why are we like this? Why can’t we all see how little time there is left? It seems impossible to do other than we have always done… Though after all, I console myself, today could have been far worse. I turn up the heat, start the engine and leave Snowshill behind.

Next to me, Dad is already asleep. Mum, sitting in the back, gazes out at the country for some time, before she sighs, leans forwards and says, loudly, right in my ear, “That, dear, was a perfect day.”

Nip, tuck. Omit, forget… I should do the same, but have never had the gift. Birds dart in front of the car. Drifts of blossom carpet the road. And knowing that Mum, too, wants to improve upon our shared reality is no small thing; the May colours brighten, waver, spill over, as I tell her yes, it was.

“Oh. Great.”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

He just shakes his head. I can see this even in the dimness.

“It started with Spock,” I say. And it did.

1967. In fifth grade my sister Nancy and our neighbour Hannelore play Star Trek. The original TV series is on every Friday night, and we are—before the term was coined—true Trekkies. Nancy plays McCoy or the Nurse, depending on her mood and the needs of our plot. Hannelore plays Captain Kirk. I play Spock. I only play Spock.

We live in an apartment complex in El Monte, California with huge carports dividing throw rug-sized plots of lawn. Behind Hannelore’s apartment, a rectangle of stiff grass and a picnic table serve as the deck of the USS Enterprise. I don’t remember why, but we turn the picnic table on its side to help it function as our control station. To speak, we flip open invisible communicators. Our elaborate plots require lots of arguing and running. When we get tired of make-believe or run out of ideas, we stop for the afternoon and colour in our colouring books. I yearn for a Star Trek colouring book and am truly puzzled that none existed. There are as yet no Star Trek novels, figurines, stickers, or conventions. We point our index fingers at each other and know they are the barrels of laser guns. I wear matching seersucker shorts and tops and pretend it is regulation Starfleet attire. I hold my body still, my face immobile. I am Spock, the Vulcan. I make believe I have no emotions.

1968. We move that year, one town away, to Rosemead. We have changed houses and schools nearly every year since I can remember. I am a sixth-grader: Mom packs a baloney sandwich and a Ding Dong for my lunch which I carry in a saggy brown sack or in my Lost in Space lunch box. There are no Star Trek lunchboxes. The series is, in fact, cancelled and off the air. It’s not even in reruns yet. Nancy and I play Star Trek with Pam, the adopted Korean girl across the street. She is sometimes on crutches because she has polio. Pam is Captain Kirk; Nancy is McCoy or the Nurse or Kirk when Pam is at Shriners’ Hospital having another operation on her hip. I am Spock. I have the cover of a back-issue TV Guide with Spock’s photo (laser pointed toward camera, that quintessential quizzical look of logic baffled by humans’ irrationality in his eyes) on the back of my bedroom door. I tell Sandy, the lady next door whose house we hang out in, that I am Vulcan.

“How do you know?” she asks with the real seriousness that children respect.

“I have green blood.”

“But you have emotions,” she says, looking me straight in the eyes.

“No. I don’t.”

Sandy smiles. She weighs over 200 pounds and can only fit into what we then called “muumuus.” Her house is messy, and she lets the kids in the neighbourhood come over and play in her front yard. She and her husband want children of their own very much, but that has not worked out.

One day, my mom asks if we’re still playing Star Track. I correct her, but she still doesn’t get it right. And she says Dr. Spock, thinking, I guess, of the famous baby doctor of the fifties.

I don’t tell her I’m Vulcan.

1975. For the first time, I hear of “Trekkies.” The TV show is now in reruns. I am eighteen. I meet an older man named Dave. Then, in an unclear order of events, I lose my virginity to him and fall in love with him. On our one and only real date, he takes me to a matinee of the first Star Trek movie. I am so tired from having sex with him the night before, I fall asleep half an hour into the film.

But do you remember how dull that movie was? It took forever for Spock to go into the nebulous V’Ger.

Later that same year I meet and marry Bob. He loves Star Trek, too. We watch the reruns on TV. Now there are Star Trek comic books and paperbacks, but I don’t read them. I’m not a fanatic. I’m not Vulcan anymore.

1981. I am married to Rodney. We have seen Star Trek II and III. We liked The Wrath of Khan. The best Star Trek movie, however, is The Voyage Home in which the Enterprise crew returns to Earth. It’s actually a comedy. Spock turns out to be the perfect straight man.

The sixties’ reruns are starting to look cheesy, but we watch them anyway. I watch a lot of TV in the eighties. William Shatner is on TJ Hooker now. Shatner is putting on weight, and so am I. I almost never see Leonard Nimoy on TV, but on the rare chance that I do, he looks the same to me. Still slim, pale, and serious looking. Still vaguely Vulcan.

I married Rodney thinking he looked somewhat like Nimoy. Rodney is tall, thin, and has brown, almond-shaped eyes. He is also, however, an alcoholic and a drug user. He has a problem holding onto money. I work as a waitress, watch daytime TV, and read novels.

Nine years later, I am with Jack, a recovering alcoholic, whom I will—of course—eventually marry. He suggests I learn Transcendental Meditation, and we move to Iowa to study at Maharishi International University. The university is still there, in Fairfield, Iowa. I am told by the teachers there that meditation calms the emotions and clarifies the mind. That is exactly what I need.

There are no TVs in the dorms. However, on Friday nights someone has gotten permission for a group of us to use a classroom TV to watch Star Trek: Next Generation. That is the highlight of the week. About thirty or so students show up regularly; some bring popcorn and soda and put their feet up on the seat backs.

The fields turn to puddles and straw, the pathways around campus are ruts of viscous mud, and there are buckets scattered about inside the buildings to catch the multitude of leaks that develop every rainstorm. I am studying hard, and I enjoy college. And I immediately love Next Generation, especially Captain Picard. He does not replace Spock in my heart, but he is admirable and intelligent and has a palpable integrity. I love Thoreau and Emerson and Picard and Spock.

Jack and I agree: some of the characters on Next Generation are awful: Wesley, a sort of boy wonder, and Lieutenant Riker, also known as Number One. Children do not belong on a Starfleet vessel, and Riker is an obvious knock-off of a Kirk-type adventurer without Kirk’s chutzpah. But we both like Data. He’s a quasi-robot built with the capacity for some human characteristics. He actually wants to be more human—the antithesis of Spock. In many shows, Data suffers some ordeal and is thankful for accessing emotion from it. In an emergency, however, he can rummage around among his neural impulses and disconnect his nascent feelings.

2006. All the Star Trek series are available on DVD. I watch Star Trek: Voyager because I like the Borg woman, Seven of Nine. She also shows no emotion. (I have learned to make a distinction recently between has no emotion and shows no emotion.) Captain Janeway is irritating and shrill. I do like the Vulcan on Star Trek: Voyager, but he doesn’t get many scenes. His voice reminds me of Spock’s.

Meanwhile, Shatner’s Captain Kirk has become a parody of himself.

I now teach at a small community college in Lake Tahoe. I have heard that Leonard Nimoy has a house on the other side of the lake.

I have even worked with a man who attends Trek conventions with his two cats dressed in Starfleet uniforms, which he wheels about in a modified baby carriage. His license plate reads: TREKCAT.

I thought I loved Spock because he had no emotions. I had always been a gluey soup of moods, over-reactions, and a hyper-sensitivity that had me crying when I was sad and happy. My parents’ nickname for me was Sarah Bernhardt.

My sister, however, has a different theory. “You loved Spock because he didn’t attach to other peoples’ emotions. He was true to himself no matter what people around him were feeling. You let yourself get dragged into everyone else’s emotions. And that’s hard for you.”

“Yes, of course.” It made me angry with myself, but I couldn’t deny it.

I am married now to Steve. If you have been keeping track, this is marriage number four. Of course, Steve loves Star Trek. When I mention my childhood admiration for Spock, he smiles and says nothing. I want him to know who I am. I want him to see the girl who ran around with her finger pointing a phaser beam set on stun, zapping dangerous unseen creatures. He thinks I am too reactive, that my moods swing too high and too low, too quickly. In spite of my crying jags and my slamming of doors, I want him to see my love of the logical, the non-emotional, the unseen green corpuscles.

Diehard Trekkies don’t approve of the latest movie instalment, Star Trek: A New Beginning.

“It’s not true to Roddenberry protocol,” my Trekkie co-worker proclaims, citing the originator of the first TV series. I am not a Trekkie. I don’t know what Roddenberry protocol is. I loved the movie. I loved Zachary Quinto as young Spock. He’s hot in the way only a Vulcan (okay, half-Vulcan) can be.

Leonard Nimoy is in the new movie too. His old Spock reminds me that I am now fifty-three and have the requisite wrinkles of anyone that age who has not had her face lifted. But internally, of course, neither of us has changed.

Leonard Nimoy as Spock is still true to his Vulcan half. It has worked for him. He has his logic, his Vulcan pinch, and the mind-meld technique to keep him sane and safe. I remember wanting all those tricks for myself. My sister and I were talking about how girls now prefer romances with a fantasy angle—she cited the Twilight series. “They want stories in which they are saved or have a supernatural power to save themselves.”

I understand.

A therapist might surmise that all these years I was looking to marry my own Mr. Spock as a way to gain access to his unique qualities. The men I chose, however, were predictably all too human. Do I want to be Vulcan-like? No, I just want to be safe.

Or maybe I do have a Vulcan half. I can be logical. I teach college courses which require critical thinking. I can save myself from difficult situations by thinking them through. I have been learning—very slowly—to steady my emotions or keep them at bay. I sometimes recognize when my emotions—which I see now were never the enemy—are needed and also when the hard blade of reason must be applied.

Spock is an idea as much as a character. But it is the character that I love. I’m so glad I got to be Spock for those few quick years of growing up.

My blood was green. I was from another world. I didn’t have to feel everything.

It was romantic. It was logical.