Lost and Found, by Violet St. Clair

It was like that dream you sometimes have; the one where you’re naked and everyone is watching. Only it wasn’t a dream. I was naked, and everyone was watching. It was the late 80s and I had accepted a job as a live model for the Fine Arts students. It paid very well for doing very little; a mixed blessing I kept trying to remedy with lists and daydreams and the odd attempt at mapping out an upcoming essay. The professor wasn’t exactly welcoming, but he was zealous with the little heater, keeping me warm and favoring silence among his students, perfect invitations for Mr. Sandman.  Breaks were pitifully short and where was I going to go anyway in a bathrobe? I was hustled on and off with cool courteous efficiency and barely a nod, until I saw the wink.

I had been placed in a lying down position, legs and arms bent, with some drapery tossed here and there.  I hated the prone positions.  They did nothing to impede sleep.  With the warm lights surrounding me and the heater going, I drifted off in the middle of my introductory sentence on the Northwest Rebellion.  But only for a moment.  I quickly glanced around.  The prof was wandering, oblivious as usual, but over to my left, a distinct wink.  And a small smile around his lips.  Busted.  I quickly smiled back, but at the end of my session, I scuttled out, head down.  The cardinal rule was no contact and I wasn’t going to lose this job over a conspiratorial wink.  I had lost enough over the years.  My bearings.  My self-respect.  My good name.  My entire 20s virtually washed away with some fearsome sludge remaining.  Winks led people astray and I had been down enough rabbit holes.  The climb up and out had been bitter and frightening, and I still throbbed with a vestigial ache.  But I was walking and the ruins, still within sight, were behind me.  I needed to stay on level ground.

The need for money was paramount, so I also shelved books at the library.  That was wink number 2, on the other side of a cart of books I was pushing.  When I recognized him, my eyes did a nervous search for the “Employees Only” door.  He smiled.

“Looks like Sleeping Beauty has a day job, too.”

 Jobs, actually, and in between a young son, but all I said was, “Yah.  Um.  Well, I gotta go.”  I headed straight for the door.

“Hey, can I, at least, have your name?  Mine’s Moses.”

“Uh, I don’t know.  Sleeping Beauty’s okay, I guess.”  I rolled away quickly, chanting under my breath, “dontlookbackdontlookback”.

Later that evening, walking through a darkened apartment, my son flopped over my shoulder minutes from dreamland, I began a sing-song soliloquy, patting him softly to the beat of my lament. No-no-no-la-la-la.  I tucked my son in and laid the temptations to rest. I finished my introductory paragraph and the rest of the essay in the early morning hours. Sleep came quickly; rest was still in short supply.

My next shift was several days later.  I arrived early and got ready.  No one ever greeted me or smiled.  I was like the elephant in the room that everyone ignored until I dropped my robe and assumed my position for the session.  I walked over to my chair to wait.  There on the seat was a styrofoam cup of coffee, steam rising.  A nonchalant glance netted me my third wink.  It was him.  I couldn’t help a small smile and a quick nod.  This time the prof left me on the chair, clutching my robe.  It was a long 2-hour stint, but I never slept a wink.  Hot footing it out at the end of my session, I kept up a constant chant, “nocontactnocontact”.  Down the stairs and out the door, he appeared by my side.  Contact.

“Bus or car?”

“What?”  I switched chants, “keepwalkingkeepwalking”.

“Where are you rushing off to, the bus stop or a car?  It’s dark out, Sleeping Beauty.  That’s when the wolves come out.”

“I’ll be fine.  I walk to my car alone all the time.”  New chant.  “Goawaygoaway.”

“Not on my watch.”  He smiled down at me.

I looked straight ahead and turned my mouth down deliberately to keep it from softening into a smile.  “Violet.  My name’s Violet.”  And so, the walks began.  We would end each session with long drawn-out meanderings, skirting the fire of each other’s presence, while enjoying the warmth of our companionship.  I signed up for extra sessions.

My car was never far from the university, but somehow as the months went by, it got farther, and the walks got longer, hungry; but inescapably resistant. We never held hands.  We never kissed goodbye.  And no one suggested drinks or a movie.  But there were days when I couldn’t park my car far enough away, and there were sessions when his presence obliterated all fatigue and made it difficult to go home to bedtime stories, bath time and…silence. Me. And silence. It was like the fable of the 2 doors.  Behind door number 1, him with his 3am voice and charcoal-dusted eyes.  Behind door number 2, a son, mine, humming pieces of his father’s favourite country songs, as I patted him to sleep.  The only man he wanted at home was Dad.  I couldn’t give him what he wanted, and I couldn’t have what I wanted.  Unsolvable.  I was paralyzed with a heart that raced endlessly after itself, around and around.

During my sessions, I’d watch his face, the smiles, the winks, his steadfast gaze and the intimate ease of his hand moving on the canvas and think, I wonder.  Afterwards, I could feel the shadow of his hand hovering near my back when we crossed streets and felt his anticipation each time, I slowly dropped my robe, vicariously living behind my job description.  On warm evenings, we would linger by my car, he on one side, me on the other, and carry on over the car roof, holding onto each other for as long as possible.  And on winter evenings we would stand impossibly close, hands jammed into our pockets and talk surrounded by our breath condensation.  Mostly we were mundane; movies, profs, music; the lighter side of life, balancing heavy hearts.  But sometimes, as my robe hit the floor and I relaxed into my position he would flex his drawing hand and slowly trace the lines of my body, smudging and softening them around the curves.  I knew he had his own doors troubling him and I could feel my left breast shiver with every heartbeat.  Those sessions and afterwards the talks, in fits and starts, were the hardest.  That’s when we would struggle with memories; shamefaced and halting, our dilemmas inexorably sealing our fate even as we continued to dabble in the idea of us.

“Made a promise once.  Thought it was what I wanted.  All alone up here.  She finally agreed.” 

 So, a childhood sweetheart had left her island home for love on the continent and heartache had greeted her on the other side of the customs door.

“Knew it.”  He began to shake his head in distress.  “Knew it the moment the door slid open.  Her, too.  She didn’t belong up here.  She wasn’t the answer, anymore.  My face just went into lockdown.”

“She saw all that?”

“Mmm.  Felt sick watching that smile change one muscle at a time.  Came over like she was walking through syrup.  Slapped me.  Right in the middle of all the hugging and smiling.  Got quiet real quick.”

Me, too.  I had nothing to say and certainly no fingers to point.  Although he was inches from me, I felt that he was back in the arrivals area, heart pounding, cheek stinging.  It had not ended well.  She had taxied to the airport, stopping along the way to throw out a bag; a bag containing all his brushes.  I wanted to lean in, lay my head on his chest, but then fear would flash through my veins and my son would appear over his shoulder and smile his dad’s smile, hurtling me back to a bedroom the morning after his first birthday, staring at the vomit on my pillow, its clotted mess a humiliation; rum and cake and despair.  I cried fat drops of shame.  At 31, I had felt suddenly perishable and pointless, weighed down by my mistakes and now a diaper bag.  Stinking and dripping and shaking sick, I had stumbled to the living room scared and choking on the words that eventually ushered me out the door and onto the path of single parenthood and widespread judgement.  A heavy course load and an unrelenting schedule of playtime activities had pillared me to near completion of my first degree; all my sores beginning to heal. No detours. Now in the early evening chill, we were both quietly tracing the zig-zag pathway of the mistakes that had tailored themselves into our psyches.  Turmoil. 

And so, the walks were all we had; ultimately time sensitive, but ours for a time.   We walked together; headed for different directions.

As spring blossomed long and warm, we both became a bit distracted. Spring and summer courses were already coming out.  My head swam with choices.  Now the silences stretched as everything else dwindled.  My car appeared closer and closer to the university grounds.  I dropped the extra shift.  Although we still walked to my car, in many ways we had already reached our terminus.  There was no surprise, only sadness. I needed to plough through. There was a new taste in my mouth; resolve, not vomit. I was waking up rested. I felt situated. Clear. The dullness was leaving. I would be beginning my second degree and he would be headed to a room near the chaotic neighborhood of Kensington Market in Toronto to continue his dream of becoming an artist.  Canada would not be his final destination.

We took our last walk just before the end of August.  The geese had already begun to leave.  No one promised to keep in touch.  No one promised to visit.  No one even said goodbye.  Over the top of my car, we had looked at each other; the sunlight causing me some blurry moments.

“Wrong time; wrong place.  That’s all.”

Maybe, but I just nodded.  I was lonely, but I was not ready.  As I pulled away, he walked into the middle of the road.  No wave.  Just there.  I kept him in my rearview mirror.  A left turn at the stop sign and he was…gone.

As the years went by, I immersed myself in university life and travelling.  And being Stephen’s mom.  Each course gave me back my good name.  Each bedtime hug reinstated my self-respect.  Each new vista blessed me with confidence.  I felt centered, safe and trustworthy; like the Hemingway verse, once broken, but now strong in all the broken places.  The road was rising up to meet me.

Later, a memory found me, walking by the Fine Arts building on my way to a seminar.  It was the first of several paintings stacked against the lower-level window of the storage room.  I couldn’t say for sure it was me, but it was reminiscent, dark hair, dark eyes, a familiar position on a chair.  I just couldn’t quite recognize her.  But I thought of him.  I wondered how he was, but not where he was.  It didn’t matter.  I knew where I was.

Now, 30 years later, some opine that I might have lost the love of my life.  My response; no.  I found her.

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Violet St. Clair is a retired teacher who no longer has to read curriculum updates, but can now wallow in all manner of fiction and biography, English or French, and reruns of Bewitched.  Paris remains her favourite city and she enjoys meeting up with former students in restaurants, on planes and walking the streets of Vancouver.  Best of all, she is Stephen’s mom.

© 2023, Violet St. Clair