The illusion of life. I create it. Back in LA I have shiny awards proving I’m good at it. Making a broom and bucket dance, or a mouse sing Puccini is easy compared to animating Daisy out from under the table. She’s still in the clothes she wore to the funeral two days ago: green tights, a Snow White costume, Mom’s 1949 Miss Toronto tiara and rhinestone encrusted high-tops. “Daisy, you’ve got to eat. Come out, please.”
She burrows further in as my brothers, Sean and Neil, play Daisy ping pong. “You take her.”
“No, you take her.”
“I’m not taking her.”
“She’s your kid.”
I hurtle a slipper at their heads. “She’s sad, not deaf, jerks.”
Neil squeezes his temples between his palms. “We’ve got to get this thing is settled.”
This thing is custody of Sean’s eight-year-old daughter, Daisy. Mom has always taken care of her. Now one of us has to step up as guardian before the lawyer will open the will. Neil and I have decided that Sean has to do it. It’s in the best interest of…well, us. “How can I, man? I’m touring 24-7.”
Sean plays in a band, Exploding Heads. The name came from a nightmare. The one Daisy had after asking, ‘Daddy, what’s that bump in your neck?’ ‘I swallowed a grenade, kid.’ He’s a wicked drummer but the rhythm of parenting eludes him. The grenade bobbles as he chugs a beer. “You’ve got a big loft, Neil. Maybe you…”
“Kids are constipating.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t go when you need to.” Neil is an epidemiologist. Investigates outbreaks. He’s great with numbers, but you can’t count on him for much. He cracks his knuckles one by one. “I guess that leaves Diane.”
Daisy’s mom, Diane. Brilliant. Botanist. Bipolar. In one of her down spirals she planted Daisy along side some genetically altered ragweed. Once in a manic swing she misplaced her in a thousand acre test field. “Diane’s only allowed supervised visits.” Sean picks through a platter of stale sandwiches. “Hey, Jamie, you make cartoons. What’s better for a kid than that?”
“My apartment’s smaller than your brain.”
“Got a broom closet? She’s no bigger than a Hoover.”
“And yet you’re the one that sucks.” I shake my head in a definite no.
Sean suctions up cold lasagna. “Hey, you know who she likes? That Anna chick in 3B.”
“Jesus, Sean, she’s a stranger with her own kid to look after.”
Neil adds, “Not to mention she’s an astro-flake.”
My neck hairs startle-up. ‘And the three of you are anal-farts.’ Mom’s been needling me non-stop and now that she’s dead I can’t pretend I have a call on the other line.
Neil says, “Come on guys, I need to get back to work. We have to clean out this place, get the building on the market, give the tenants notice…”
Now Sean’s scarfing brownies. “A six-plex in the beaches. What do you think it’s worth?”
‘A lot less than a little Daisy. James Daniel Hamilton, I’m turning in my grave.’
Then go into the light, woman.
‘I’m sticking like gum in your hair ‘til I know Daisy’s okay. Long shower this morning, eh, James. You really need a woman.’
Jesus Christ, Mom. I lift the lace tablecloth. “Hey, kiddo. Can I join you?” I take Daisy’s shrug as a yes and crawl under. “You’re in my old hideout, you know.” She’s studying the universe I created on the underside of the table when I was her age. Redrum, an ostrich wizard, soaring on a winged iguana. The fusty smell of old bread, just before mould blossoms blue, clings to her. “I really dig your shoes, Daisy.”
Her voice wobbles like a fawn on new legs. “Me and Nana bedazzled them with my money-back-if-not-fully-satisfied BeDazzler. Want me to dazzle yours?”
“Might stop me from getting through airport security.” As she searches my face I struggle to create the illusion of hope. “Don’t be scared.”
Scared-sacred-sacred-scared turns on her tongue. “Nana made a triple promise on the Sacred Sock.”
As a child, the ritual of the Sacred Sock seldom failed me. If only this could be resolved by etching wishes on birch bark, placing it in a sock, adding thyme, one bay leaf, five smooth gray stones and hurling it into the lake. “I know you want to stay here, but…”
A small pale finger seals my lips. “Anan desimorp.”
“She may have promised, but…”
She turns to the wall and draws invisible prayers until she hears a knock. “Anna.” She scrambles out. I hurry too so I can catch a glimpse of the celestial being that lives in the apartment one floor up.
Anna lights the doorway. “Hi, I thought Daisy might like a sleepover.”
Daisy lifts her stained face to me. Her raven hair looks terrified. Blue eyes have faded gray. Her freckles might really be a dusting of cookie crumbs. “Esaelp, peek em.”
“We’ll figure out what’s best. No one’s leaving till we do.”
She whispers, “D’i eb on elbuort.”
“You’re never any trouble, kiddo.” Anna gentles her away. The harmony of their voices pulls me along the hall with them.
Neil calling Daisy, “Freak,” snaps me back. “That kid’s wacko like her mother. And she stinks.”
I nose up close. “You stupid shit. You know any other kid that sees things backwards and forwards?”
‘Yeah, Jamie, you.’
Dead mothers give me the heebie-jeebies. “I need some air.” I grab my coat and walk Queen Street, sock-footed because I can’t find my shoes.
‘You draw superheroes. I remember when you wanted to be one.’
I bury my ears under my collar. We should’ve cremated you.
‘Your own stories are here.’
Lay off. I have an important job.
‘An important life is better. You know, Anna talks to the dead. Let me set the two of you up.’
The walk back is haunted with the secret worlds I discovered long ago in the spidery cracks on stairs, mailboxes that were really portals to new galaxies … The Hamilton Arms, magic universe of Notlimah Smra. Anna lives in 3B. I knock. She invites me into a life lived in technicolour. The walls are fuchsia, sapphire, lime and tangerine.
Daisy’s hair cascades over a Green Day T-shirt like a shimmery super-hero cape. She’s colouring on a purple sofa with a strawberry-headed toddler. “Hola-aloha, Uncle Jamie.” She extends her jumbo writing tablet. “Draw us a story?”
Settling in-between bath fresh kids, I uncap my pen. “What should it be about?”
Daisy says, “Flowers.”
“Okay. Let’s see… Lily and Violet are lost in Eggplant Valley.”
Daisy points to a muscled vegetable. “Who’s that?”
“Arnold Scramblinegger, he’s a good eggplant that helps them escape the treacherous Dekciw Rewolf.” Snapdragons come out of the pen very toothy.
“Flowers can’t be mean, Uncle J.”
“We all have a little meanness inside.”
Daisy studies my face. “Will Lily and Violet find their Poppy?”
“Wait and see.” Warrior beets are beaten. Ninja turnips and mutant squash are souped and pied. They navigate Banana Peel Mountain and swim Watermelon Lake before reaching home. “Their Mum and Poppy tuck them into little flower beds and plant sweet dreams inside their heads.”
Anna smiles. “Your mom was right, you are a story wizard.” There’s music in the way she pours tea. Honey slow dances from her spoon into the hot liquid. “You should put that one in a book.”
‘Make the back room overlooking the lake your studio.’
I’m not staying.
Anna licks the spoon. “Your mom told me animating a few seconds on film might take you a hundred hours to create.”
Like a flower closing, Daisy lays her head on my knee. “Where do they all go?”
“What, kiddo?” “The hours that turn into seconds.”
I exhale. “They disappear.”
She peers over the sofa edge at my dirty socks. “No, they stick on your feet like pollen does on bees.”
‘Imagine what a hundred hours animating Daisy would create.’
Stop meddling, woman. I can’t take care of a kid. I drain my cup and make for the door. “I gotta go.” I stumble over my $200 butter-soft loafers sitting heel to heel with Daisy’s high-tops on the welcome mat, heavily bedazzled with red rhinestones.
‘S’ereht on ecalp ekil emoh, eh Jamie.’ Mom’s laughing. ‘Seems Daisy’s hoping you won’t pass airport security.’ She chases me along the hall. ‘Guess what. Anna’s thinking about what it’d be like to animate you. Bet you’d find a couple of super-heros in her bra.’
Neil and Sean look up as I burst through the door. Sean says, “You see a ghost bro?”
I receive a back blow from the netherworld and, “I’ll take her,” hurtles from my mouth like beef dislodged from my windpipe.
The lawyer is distracted by my glittery shoes as he divides, multiplies too I guess, Mom’s spirited life. “…and to my granddaughter Daisy I bequeath the Hamilton Arms and to her guardian I leave a life, fully animated.”
Published in Wicked Words Anthology, 2009