It was a chilly mid-December morning in Brantford. Braxton Fletcher had just come down the driveway. Nora, his sister, was standing on the porch, propping the door open with her foot. Both were in their fifties. Braxton was on his way to work.
“I can’t take you to the grocery store this Thursday. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?” asked Nora.
“Because Thursday’s Barnacle Day.” Braxton’s book club met every Thursday at the Army & Navy club on Mohawk Plaza.
Nora’s eyes narrowed. “Barnacle Day?”
Braxton smiled. “It’s really a Christmas party. But my book club is reading Dubliners so we decided to celebrate Nora Barnacle. That’s why I can’t take you grocery shopping.
The screen door slammed shut.
“I’ll take you Wednesday!” shouted Braxton, before turning and huffing his way back down the driveway. Braxton walked with a conspicuous limp.
Sylvester was almost nineteen. He’d always been a spritely cat, always ready to play. He was such great company. Nora always said they’d grown old together.
Nora opened a tin of tuna and poured some of the juice into a saucer. She slid it under his nose. Sylvester’s nose twitched. He got up and started in on the tuna juice.
“There’s my good boy” she said, running her fingers along his bony back. There was hardly anything left of him.
Braxton gripped the silver pole as the bus came to a stop in front of Bob’s Smoke Shop. Carefully, he stepped down onto the sidewalk. She was walking toward him.
“Brenda?” he asked.
The young woman stopped. “Pardon?”
He saw she was far too young to be Brenda Hutchinson. He apologized for his mistake.
The young woman smiled. “I’m Brenda’s daughter.”
Braxton was stunned by the likeness. “You look just like your mother did when I knew her. Please, tell Brenda that Braxton Fletcher says hello.” Braxton turned to leave.
“You must not have heard.”
“I beg your pardon?” Braxton turned his good ear toward the young woman.
“Mom passed away last year …on Christmas Eve.”
“Oh, my. I’m so sorry,” said Braxton. The news had shaken him.
“It was very sudden. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t seem real to me. And now with Christmas coming—.”
“I’m so sorry” Braxton repeated.
The young woman held out her hand. “I’m Lauren, by the way. I shouldn’t be going on like this.”
They stood in front of White’s Bakery, talking. Braxton had known Brenda Hutchison in high school. They were part of the same circle of friends, he said. After they parted, Braxton stood in place for a moment, tugging at his gloves. He waited until she was almost at Market Street, then turned and started off himself.
An hour later, Braxton sat at his desk in the City Hall licensing department, thinking about his encounter with the young woman. She seemed to like him. Or was he being foolish? He imagined talking it over with his sister.
“You’re old. You have hair coming out of your nose.”
Braxton sighed. Nora was right. He was fifty-seven years old. He’d never made a family of his own. And here he was, chasing after the daughter of his late friend. What would people say?
By the time work finished, Lauren was all he could think about. To hell with what Nora or anybody else thought. It was his life.
The following week, Braxton saw Lauren coming out of the public library. She was carrying a stack of books. He noticed one was a biography of James Joyce.
“Have you read Ulyssess?” he asked.
“No. I haven’t read anything he wrote. But he keeps coming up.”
Across the street, a group of city workers were fixing Christmas lights to the trees in Victoria Park.
“I tried to read Ulyssess a few years ago,” said Braxton.“But I gave up after ten pages.”
There was an awkward pause. Lauren looked up and smiled.
“Please, don’t hate me for saying this. My brother Frank told me you had a wild crush on mom back in high school.”
Braxton was speechless.
Lauren laughed. “Mom must have told him because he remembered your name. You followed her around for three years. Why didn’t you just ask her out?”
Braxton averted his eyes. “I am of the view” he said, “that James Joyce’s genius was established with Dubliners.”
Lauren shifted the books to her other arm. She pulled the Joyce biography out of the pile and looked at it. “Well,” she said, fixing him with her mother’s blue eyes. “Maybe we can have coffee after I read this.”
Nora was adamant. “I have perishables. Can’t we do this another day?”
Braxton had just pulled into the Christmas tree lot beside the old glue factory on Mohawk Road. They’d just come from the grocery store. Nora was worried about Sylvester.
“Perishables? It’s minus ten. I’ll buy the tree. Then I’ll take you straight home.” Braxton had little time for Christmas, but he knew his sister had to have a tree.
Nora acquiesced. “Alright. A small tree.”
Nora was two years older than Braxton. Like Braxton, she’d never married. The siblings were raised by their grandfather, after their mother and father died in a car crash on Powerline Road. The two had been inseparable ever since. Braxton nailed the tree to the stand after they brought in the groceries.
Big beautiful snowflakes were swirling and drifting across the sky above Market Square. Braxton was waiting for his bus when he saw Lauren come out of Woolworth’s.
“Merry Christmas!” she called, when she saw him. “I was just thinking about you. I finished the biography.”
“How did you find it?” asked Braxton, his heart thumping through his shirt.
“There’s no doubt he was mad. He said so himself. I’m halfway through Dubliners. I can’t put it down.”
Lauren brought up the story Clay. “Were we to infer that Maria was a prostitute when she was younger?”
The Echo Place bus came in. Braxton pretended not to see it.
Twenty minutes later, a beaming middle-aged man stood by the side of Colborne Street, waiting for his bus. A light rain was falling but he didn’t mind. Lauren had invited him to her house on Christmas eve.
It was Thursday and the Barnacle Day party had run into a snag. The bartender at the Army & Navy club told Braxton he wasn’t allowed to hang his Barnacle Day banner. “Not with all the Christmas decorations” he said. “It looks dumb.”
Braxton limped back to the table.
“He won’t let us hang it.”
Simon nudged Gregor and the two shared a laugh. No one else had shown for the Barnacle Day party. Emily Kittridge was sick. George Dillman’s aunt was flying in from Newfoundland.
Braxton took out his copy of Dubliners. “I’m guessing neither of you read this” he said.
Simon snorted. “Hell of an accusation, that.”
“Sorry, Simon. I take it back. Was there a story you liked in particular?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did you have a favourite story? In the book, I mean?”
“No.”
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Braxton stopped at Nora’s to tell her he would be late coming over tonight. He still hadn’t told her about Lauren.
Nora was blindsided. They had always spent Christmas Eve together. She turned off the oven and sat down at the kitchen table. When Braxton asked if everything was okay, she told him Sylvester had died that morning.
“You can always get another cat” he said.
“I won’t.”
Braxton looked at his watch. He knew the flower shop on Mohawk Plaza was closing early.
The bus dropped him on St. Paul Avenue. Lauren lived on Frederick Street, on the other side of Dufferin.
He passed a house under construction. A metal dumpster filled with wood and drywall sat next to the sidewalk. He heard a noise and looked down. A small grey cat was peering out at him from a cardboard box. Someone had left a bowl of kibble. A few minutes later, he crossed Dufferin then turned right.
The temperature was falling. He pulled his hat tighter around his ears. Finally, he reached Lauren’s house. He noticed an empty taxi parked out front. Flowers in hand, he limped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. A very much alive Brenda Hutchison answered the door.
“Braxton Fletcher! I haven’t seen you in forty years!”
“Brenda?” he stammered. “I thought …oh, no.”
A voice called from upstairs. “Who is it, mom?” It was Lauren’s voice.
Braxton mumbled something about having the wrong address. Lauren joined her mother at the door. Their faces were ridiculously alike.
“Braxton! I’m so happy you could make it. Please, come in.” Lauren quickly closed the door behind him.
A young man came down the hall.
“Hey mom, who’s the old guy?”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Braxton, this is my brother Frank.”
Frank put out his hand. “Hi, Braxton. That’s my taxi out there. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”
Just then, a car pulled into the driveway. The driver honked. It was Brenda’s boyfriend. Brenda took her heavy coat out of the closet. She turned to Braxton.
“It’s nice to see you after all these years, Braxton …although I have to say, I’m a little surprised.” Her eyes trailed from Braxton to Lauren.
Braxton managed a weak smile. After he took off his boots, Lauren led him into a modestly decorated living room.
“What a beautiful tree” he said.
Lauren ushered him to a chair beside the fireplace. Frank came in and sat down beside his sister.
“I have questions.”
Braxton shrugged his shoulders. “Fine.”
Frank cleared his throat. “You walk like a penguin. What’s with that?”
Lauren slapped Frank.
“I broke my hip getting off the bus.”
“Drunk?”
“No. I was coming home from work.”
“You were drunk at work?”
“Of course not.”
“Interesting. Anything else?”
“I broke my wrist in grade nine playing soccer. What about you, Frank?”
“Urinary blockage in grade seven.”
“Can I offer you a drink, Braxton?” asked Lauren.
“Yes, thank you. Whatever you’re having will be fine.”
Lauren disappeared into the kitchen.
Frank eyeballed Braxton.
“You don’t know?” he whispered.
“Know what?”
Frank tilted his head toward the kitchen.
“She’s bats.”
“Who?”
“Lauren!”
“No!”
“Yes! She spent half of last year in the bin.”
“No!”
Lauren came back in and set a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. She glared at Frank. “I thought you were driving taxi tonight?”
“Not until seven,” said Frank. Seconds later, Frank stood up. “But I get the hint.”
A few minutes later, Braxton heard the taxi out front start up, then pull away.
“Sorry about that, Braxton,” said Lauren. “Frank hasn’t been the same since mom died.”
An hour later, Braxton stood in front of Mohawk Plaza, watching the Echo Place bus lumber away toward Cainsville. How could he face Nora after what he had done? He hadn’t even bought her a Christmas present.
The plaza was empty except for a huddle of cars parked outside the Army & Navy club for the Christmas party. He crossed at the light then walked another half block to Nora’s house. As he approached, he saw that the lights were out. An elderly man came out of the house next door.
“Are you Braxton Fletcher?” he asked.
“Yes. Is everything alright?”
“I’ve got some bad news, son. The ambulance came for Nora just before noon.”
Braxton felt dizzy.
“It was a terrible scene. Apparently, she’d been abandoned. On Christmas Eve, no less.”
Two bus rides later, Braxton limped into the Brantford General Hospital. Nora’s room was on the seventh floor.
“You pulled the plug?” he cried, when the nurse told him they’d just taken out Nora’s intravenous tube. He could hear the other nurses laughing at him.
Nora was lying still when he came in. Soundlessly, he crept to her bedside. He’d never once imagined being without her.
Nora stirred. “Braxton? Is that you?”
“Yes” he whispered.
Children were singing Christmas carols in the room across the hall.
“It was a woman, wasn’t it?”
“Yes” he said.
“You’re a selfish bastard.”
Nora reached over and rang the bell. “Make him go away” she said, when the nurse came in.
It was raining when Braxton came out of the hospital. A taxi pulled up. It was Frank’s taxi. Braxton quickly got in. There was no taking the bus after the day he’d had. Frank started the meter then pulled out onto Terrasse Hill Street.
The city was shuttered tonight. Braxton stared impassively out the window, watching the rain splash and pool along the roadway. He thought about what his sister had said in the hospital, about him being a selfish bastard. She was right. He was a selfish bastard. It’s why he felt nothing at Christmas.