Kalila by Rosemary Nixon

you know what the doctor told me? my mother said, exasperation in her voice. If you stare sideways long enough, things may grow clear.

I want to report a missing child.
    I sit on the front step, seven-forty in the morning, and watch the sharp lights of Jupiter and Venus, brilliant and singular against the darkness. Joyce and Larry arrived last night on the way through to Kelowna. Second time in six weeks. Brodie disappears inside himself when his parents come. Joyce is in the kitchen, scraping up the last of her eggs and ketchup. The air so chilly, minus twelve degrees. I open the porch door and Skipper wriggles through, tears once around the yard, poops, and rips back in.
    Where’s the mustard? Joyce’s head is in the fridge. Don’t you guys keep mustard? Rice crackers, lettuce, mayonnaise, pickle jars strew the table.
    It’s too damn cold to go, Larry says, splashing skim milk on his porridge.
    Well, Larry, Joyce says. In case you didn’t notice, what this house needs is a little cheer.
    Cripes, she says to the dog. Stand on your own feet, will you?
    It’s too damn cold, Larry says. Who wants to tramp around the mountains in the cold?
    Joyce has been mad all morning. The doctor said her neighbour Grace Proproski died of lung cancer. She didn’t die of lung cancer! She died of pneumonia. Caught it in the hospital too! Cripes! Joyce could’ve told them that! And now she’s livid at the refrigerator delivery man who chipped a nick out of the wall when he wheeled their new fridge in six years ago. Don’t they give these guys some kind of training? That’s what I’d like to know! Can somebody give these lunkheads driving lessons?
    I stand in my kitchen, reciting to myself the unread books that have found their way onto my shelves: Motherhood and Mourning; The First Year of Life; The True Story of the Three Little Pigs; A Farewell to Childhood; Transformation through Birth; A Complete Guide to Achieving a Rewarding Birth; How Shall We Tell the Children?
    So I told him. I said, You want I should call up the manager? Is that what you want, fella? I tell you, that lit a fire under him.
    I’m going to the hospital, I say. I swing on my coat and reach for the doorknob.
    Now? Joyce whirls. Good God Almighty, it’s seven-thirty in the bloody morning! Breakfast hasn’t even settled. What’s a few hours? She’s not going to run away.

    At the hospital, a mother exits the gown room, crying. She isn’t coming back! She’s had it. Blessed are they who mourn . I won’t become attached! she sobs. A child herself, no more than eighteen, her yellow hair spills down her back, her lipstick fierce.
    You look after him, she hiccups to the startled nurses who stand in the open doorway. I’m not allowed to touch him anyway. I won’t have my heart broken. I won’t! This unit’s like living inside a ventilator! the girl-child cries. You breathe for us. You do it all!
    A crowd has congregated at the far end of the room. A redhead is standing, hand on a careless hip, surrounded by nurses, chatting excitedly.
    She’s keeping her food down?
    She’s gaining weight?
    Her hair’s grown back?
    I lift my head, strain to hear above the machines.
    You have to bring her in!
    We’ll see you at the Christmas party!
    The woman stands regal among them, accepting their words as if praise is her due.
    When at last she turns to go, nurses trail her to the door. The woman steps through the doorway with a final wave.
    I follow. Excuse me.
    The woman looks down at me.
    I was just wondering — it sounded as if —
    I took my kid home? The woman pops a Dentyne stick into her mouth, Well. I did. She eyes her teeth, her eyebrows in a tiny mirror extracted from a messy purse.
    I’ve never met one. A mom who got her papers, passport, and checked out of this place. I can’t imagine. Our eyes collide.
    Can we have lunch? I say.

Fact is, I only have hours, I