SMALL PEOPLE

On humid summer nights, we slept outside. My father dragged our mattresses into the yard. My mother carried a bulging pile of blankets. We three children gamboled around them like puppies. Mother would always declare she felt a breeze, though the air clung like cobwebs to our skin.

I remember the sour smell of my mother’s sweat mingled with the sweetness of her

perfume, Le Galion, sent to her from France by a childhood friend. The dark gold liquid in a heavy bottle stood on a doily in the center of her dresser. My father smelled of endless cigarettes. A fine veil of smoke wreathed his head as he recklessly flicked ash onto the lawn.

In August, my family fled to a resort. Belleview Manor. A fancy name for a cluster

of peeling cottages set in a clearing surrounded by dusty woods. We’re standing in a room with just two beds, one double and one cot. My father’s arguing with someone, a plump gnome, the manager of the place. I don’t understand their words, meaningless sounds, the first language I spoke but quickly forgot, eager to be accepted, to fit in. I sense my father’s anger and helplessness. His sallow face looks flushed. He’s holding out a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of wine. We have no money, I know we have no money.

Whenever he could, the gnome would ambush me beside our cabin and press me up against the wooden walls. He’d smile and stroke my cheek and give me chocolate. I’d smile back as I plotted my escape. When footsteps came too close, he quickly hoisted his bulk away and I squirmed past. I never told. Even when I was ten, I understood power, who could safely make waves, and who could not.

Now it’s November, gray and drizzling rain. Four of us are huddled on a corner.

There’s a transit strike, it’s paralyzed the city. My father needs to thumb a lift to work. We wait, patient and silent. I hold his hand. He’s wearing a thick wool coat, a scarf and hat. My mother’s in brown mouton, cheap and warm. My younger brother presses close against her. His nose is bright with cold, his lips are chapped. This sentimental tableau will hopefully snag a driver, a spacious car. Finally, someone stops, a door opens. My father murmurs something, his eyes cast down. The car sweeps him away. My mother turns, forgetting to take our hands. We hurry after her.

With my parents, it’s always the same story. My mother weeps. “That’s all in the

past,” says my father angrily. He’s dreaming of the life that he will make, a good,

prosperous future for all of us. Stubbornly, my mother shakes her head. They’re too

separate to argue, they rarely fight. Life isn’t a journey they can take together.

Then, one spring day, my father has a car, a blue leviathan with gleaming chrome.

Triumphantly, he takes us for a drive, a small man in an enormous automobile. He’s

honking the horn and waving at the neighbours. My mother’s hunched in the seat, her eyes squeezed shut.

“Small People” was published in Horizon Review.