Threads of Life

Chapter 4-1

After my parents were married, they lived in a small two-bedroom apartment on Lansdowne Avenue near my mother’s school. My father went to work for one of the larger firms in the city, Parr, Athole & Athole, which he referred to on bad days as Sub-Parr, Asshole and Bigger Asshole. My mother returned with a new last name to her grade nine class at Forest Hill Collegiate, where the male teachers had gone underground with their attraction to her.

By mid-February she was pregnant. Her doctor, Al Green, a very young-looking recent graduate who shared his name with a famous black gospel singer, and who always had a lit cigarette in his hand and at least two or three others burning in ashtrays in his office and the examination room, broke the news to my parents following my mother’s first check-up.

“Twins? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your evidence?”

My father, the lawyer, was cross-examining the doctor.

“There are two heartbeats.”

“How did this happen?”

My mother and the doctor started laughing.

“I don’t mean the getting pregnant part, which was great. I mean the twins part.”

The doctor’s office was a converted storage closet. There were no windows. The room reeked of cigarette smoke. The sides of Dr. Green’s desk almost touched both walls, leaving my father wondering how the doctor managed to get around it and into his chair. The two chairs on which my parents were sitting were so close to the desk that, underneath it, their legs kept inadvertently touching the doctor’s legs.

Dr. Green took a package of cigarettes out of his lab coat and placed it on the desk.

“The egg either split in two or there were multiple eggs and more than one ovulation and fertilization.”

My father must have looked unsatisfied with the doctor’s answer.

“Twins run in your wife’s family. There’s always a hereditary risk.”

“Forgive me for being so blunt, but my wife’s sister –”

“Marlene told me all about her. In the last twenty-two years, there’ve been more than a few advances in obstetrics.” He removed a cigarette from the package, lit it, took a long drag, and exhaled. A swirling cloud of dark grey smoke passed over my parents’ heads. “Your job will be to make sure she gets plenty of rest and follows a healthy diet. Everything else will take care of itself.”

* * *

Two months after her first examination, my mother began suffering complications related to my underdevelopment. It was doubtful that her health would allow her to continue teaching until the end of the school year. During her sixth month, my parents visited the doctor for what seemed like the twentieth time. My mother was placed on bed rest, had to take a leave of absence from work, and faced the prospect of spending the final three months of her pregnancy living like a shut-in, confined to the bedroom, washroom, and kitchen.

* * *

With the welfare of two heirs hanging in the balance, the corporation Brandes called an emergency meeting of its elder stateswomen. And like all efficient corporations facing a crisis, the problem was quickly diagnosed and, to deal with it, sufficient resources were allocated. My parents’ small apartment, which had seen very few visitors since my mother became pregnant, was about to be inundated with older women.

Unbeknownst to my father, a schedule had been developed. Bee Brandes was assigned the early shift: six a.m. to noon. Ray Brandes was assigned the afternoon shift: noon to six p.m. Bookie Brandes, the largest and most formidable of all the Brandes women, was assigned the evening shift: six p.m. to midnight. If overnight support was required, supplementary Brandes ladies—Shirley, Zadie and Minnie (she wasn’t)—were available on short notice.

The first Brandes to arrive at the small apartment was Bee. My mother had left a spare key for her under a plastic plant in the lobby, and she had let herself in at six in the morning. Like her sisters, Bee was large and tall, with straight grey hair, grey eyes, and a demeanour capable of draining every trace of frivolity from any room she happened to occupy.

Bee’s first job was to post the schedule on the fridge door. Her second job was to survey the rations in the kitchen and pantry for deficiencies, compile a list of appropriate foods and beverages that needed to be purchased, and relay the information to Ray, who would stop at the supermarket before commencing her shift.

When my father entered the kitchen that morning, Bee had already compiled her list, telephoned Ray, and had prepared a breakfast of toast, scrambled eggs, cottage cheese, cream cheese, fruit salad, freshly squeezed orange juice, tea, and milk. It was all arranged on the small kitchen table, along with three place settings.

As a young lawyer at a large firm, my father was in need of more billable hours than there were hours in the day. And since he didn’t like to leave my mother alone at night, he tried to get to work as early as possible. His breakfast usually consisted of a cinnamon Pop-Tart, which he grabbed on his way out the door. This changed with Bee’s arrival.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Good morning to you too, Bee.”

“Sit down.”

“I need to get to work.”

“What you need is a proper breakfast. How do you expect to stay sharp all day when you don’t eat properly? You’re going to fall asleep by eleven. Your wife is six months pregnant with twins. What would happen if you lost your job because you couldn’t stay awake? Do you expect her to go out and find a job in her condition?”

My father put the Pop-Tart back in the cupboard and sat down at the table. Bee filled his plate with eggs, toast, and a scoop of cottage cheese, and put it in front of him.

“Eat.”

My mother came into the kitchen a few minutes later. She was wearing a dark red bathrobe. Bee’s hand was on my mother’s forehead when she sat down across from my father, who was eating as quickly as possible.

“You feel warm.”

“I just got out of bed. I was cold last night, and Sid put an extra blanket on me.”

“I’m getting the thermometer. Nothing’s going to go wrong on my watch.”

myShe left to fetch the thermometer from the washroom.

“She’s insane,” my father whispered.

“She means well.”

“Our apartment suddenly feels much smaller. If two of them come over at the same time, we’re going to feel like we’re living in a phone booth.”

“It’s only for a few months.”

“Do you know that she came into our room this morning and moved my hand? I must have been sleeping with it on you.”

My mother laughed.

Bee came back into the room, shaking the thermometer.

“Put this under your tongue.” She put the thermometer in my mother’s mouth. “Did you drink anything? If you did, we’ll have to wait fifteen minutes before we take your temperature.”

My mother shook her head, indicating she hadn’t. “I was talking to Sid,” she said with the thermometer bouncing up and down in her mouth.

“Stop talking. We won’t get an accurate reading.”

My father got up and handed his mostly empty plate to Bee for examination.

“Not bad.”

He kissed my mother on the forehead, picked up his briefcase, and left the apartment. For the first time in months, he wasn’t anxious about leaving his pregnant wife at home.

* * *

My father liked the nights better than the mornings, when he was alone with my mother in the bedroom with the door closed.

“They’re everywhere. It’s like a Shriner’s convention and we’re the convention hotel. I should get them little red hats to wear and little cars to drive around in.”

My mother started laughing. “I don’t think they’d fit in little cars. Or even in medium-sized cars, for that matter.”

My parents were lying on the bed. Down the hall, in the den, Bookie was watching television.

“I can hear you!” she shouted.

My parents looked at each other and started laughing.

“If you can hear us,” my father said, only slightly raising his voice, “what did we say?”

Bookie repeated their conversation verbatim.

“Holy s**t,” my father said, amazed.

“I heard that too!” Bookie shouted.

My mother took my father’s hand and when she put it on her stomach, Bookie started shouting again from the other room.

“Sidney! Sidney!”

“What is it now?” my father shouted back.

“Don’t push too hard! You’ll hurt the babies!”

* * *

After we were born, the Brandeses sat vigil at the hospital with me until it was clear I was going to survive my meagre birth weight. When I arrived home, their presence in our lives shrunk to daily, then weekly, then monthly visits … and then to phone calls as they moved on to another pressing family matter, involving a younger Brandes, Joe’s son David, who had a gambling problem and had stolen his parents’ silverware to repay a debt and required the intervention of every available Brandes woman to get him to agree to treatment for his addiction. My father’s parents, who had been making brief appearances at the apartment since we were born but felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the Brandeses, picked up the slack and, before they returned to Florida, visited often.

* * *

By his own admission, my father probably would have left Parr, Athole & Athole after his second year of practice to join one of his friends from law school, who had struck out on his own and was making a decent living. There were simply too many young associates at the firm, all of them vying for the attention of the humourless consortium of senior lawyers who made partnership decisions based almost entirely on the number of billable hours each candidate racked up. My father might have worked hard, but the other young lawyers worked harder. And longer. Often as many as fourteen hours a day. Largely because none of them were burdened with the demands of an exhausted wife and newborn twins at home.

But then something happened that changed the course of his career. And I guess you could also say the course of my family’s history. During an office party at Bigger Asshole’s house, my father walked into the study to make a phone call and instead of finding an empty room, found Sub-Parr kissing Asshole’s wife with his hand under her dress.

And in a matter of seconds, my father’s dark and uncertain career path turned into a well-lit highway.

“I’m sorry,” my father said, looking in every direction except at the couple.

He was retreating out the door when Sub-Parr said, “Just one second, young man.”

My father thought he was going to be fired on the spot. Instead, the old man let go of Asshole’s wife, stood up, walked across the room, reached out to shake my father’s hand, and put his other hand on my father’s shoulder

“Mr.—”

“Triller,” my father said.

“Mr. Triller. I trust we have an understanding.” He had a tight grip on my father’s hand and shoulder.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to upset the firm’s equilibrium. Business is excellent.”

“I wouldn’t want to either.”