The Courage of Living
Prologue: Ritual Union
Toronto, Ontario 1995
The day is wearing on my bones, though the sun has just risen. I see only glimpses of it from my open window but its rays are soft with the morning's cloud cover and the air is cool.
I lay in bed, the insistent sounds of my alarm clock muffled by the pillow pressed against my face.
I slam my hand against the snooze button but I know that I am only putting off the events of the day and not preventing them from happening altogether. I realize that it is futile to do so. The day will come whether I participate in it or not. Yet that little action makes me feel as if I have some semblance of control when everything else is chaotic.
Thinking about the upcoming day I curl my legs up against my chest, reaching across the bed to the cool, unoccupied side and plucking the pillow there from its usual place beside mine.
Pulling the pillow into my chest, I close my eyes and bury my face in it, breathing in the familiar smell of musk and spice and ink. It has not faded though its user has been gone for quite a while.
He always was an early riser, I recall, even when we were young. He was the first one at school in the morning, books in hand and ink smeared on his fingers.
His smell has always reminded me of the sweetness of old books, and I see how fitting it is that he would smell like what he loved most in the world but for his family.
It's no coincidence he smells like books, Clare, I chide myself. He's spent his whole life with a book never leaving his side for more than the time it takes to bathe.
Bathe and make love, I amend myself, blushing to my hairline, but even then the book is on his bedside table just waiting to be picked up again.
Casting my eyes to the end of the bed, I notice that very thing on the cherry wood nightstand. This time it is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of his personal favourites and a staple in his collection.
I still remember the very day it came out, almost thirty five years ago to the day. He had been thirty four and I thirty three, and we had been married for almost twelve years. I had been seven months pregnant with our fourth child, and the baby had been causing my back to ache all day.
I was at the counter chopping vegetables when his car pulled into the driveway. Seeing the car, I dropped the knife I had been using and placed it on the counter top, walked towards the door to greet him with a heated argument as to why I should have more help with things around the house when I was in a condition such as mine, and I was certainly more than ready to let it loose on him. My feet were swollen and my head was pounding, and I wanted to unleash my anger on my husband who had helped make the baby.
However, my rapidly growing ball of fury evaporated entirely when I saw the radiant smile on his face as he ran up the front walk and through the front door.
He's just so beautiful, I thought. No matter what mood I'm in or how bad things have been going that day, my day is always better with him than without him.
He hadn't even taken his coat off before he was striding across the room, taking me into his arms and kissing me senseless.
He pulled away so that we could catch our breath, resting his forehead against mine, and I raised my hand to the day's worth of stubble that had arisen on his jaw. The black numbers inked there taunted me, reminding me of a past that I tried so hard to forget. I knew that if I looked on my husband's wrist I would find a similar tattoo with a number only one digit apart.
"I was so mad at you all day and now I can't even muster up annoyance. You make it so difficult to be angry at you. Did you know that?" I murmured as I clutched him close, my face buried in his chest.
"No, but I will keep that in mind. I started the most amazing book today and I just had to rush home and finish it. That's why I'm home earlier than usual."
I laughed, squeezed his waist. "Do you teach at all during the day? It seems like you spend most of your time reading and not working."
"My classes are only an hour and fifteen minutes long and I have only three of them. Once I teach the lesson and assign work the students have time to work on their homework or get caught up on class work. That gives me a lot of time to read."
I pull away from him and walk into the family room, drop onto the nearest couch. "You can tell me about it while you rub my back. It's killing me."
I heard the closet door open and close, the screech of hangers moving on metal before I felt his weight depress the cushion beneath me as he sat down.
As he gave me the best massage I had ever had, he told me the synopsis of the book in a soft tone, and I had to admit it sounded impressive.
"Clare, I was wondering. How do you feel about naming our baby Atticus, if they are a boy?"
I laugh at the memory, and looking back I had actually had to give in and use Atticus as our youngest son's middle name.
Letting go of the pillow that I hold in a death grip, I roll out of bed and get dressed.
The dress is simple; a dove grey shift dress with a Peter Pan collar and short, capped sleeves. Its hem sits just above my knees, conservative through and through.
Standing in front of my bathroom mirror, I run a brush through my caramel coloured curls that are weaved with grey. At sixty eight years old, I think I am entitled to look my age so the admittance of getting older doesn't bother me and I haven't the energy to dye it.
My face is weathered with time and with life, but I think that a face without lines is like a life without memories; how do you know you've lived without them?
My eyes stay unchanged in their cerulean depths, though they don't see quite as well as they used to. Distances are blurrier, details are lost to the hands of time.
I think of his eyes; green as sage, framed by thick black lashes. They are eyes that do not miss a detail yet reveal nothing unless he wants them to. How I had wished for those eyes to catch mine when we first met! I was envious of anyone who caught his attention for even a moment.
Bringing myself back to the present, I apply a coat of soft pink lipstick to my puckered lips and leave the bedroom, heading down to the kitchen to use our home phone and call my eldest daughter.
"Hi Mama. When do you think you want to leave this morning?" Julia asks, her voice soothing in a way that is just like her father's. I can just make out the shouting voices of her twin boys, Jamie and Lucas, in the background and I laugh at their rambunctiousness.
I sigh, run a hand through my hair. "There's only one more thing that I need to grab from the attic and then I'll be ready to go. Say in about an hour?"
"Okay. Just call and I'll come get you. The rest of the family will meet us there."
I nod though I know she can't see me."I'll talk to you soon, sweetheart."
I hang up, make my way up the staircase to the attic. At my age, I have to hold onto the railing a little bit more than when I was young but I am independent enough.
The attic is musky and overly warm when I get up there as well as cluttered with overflowing boxes, but I know what I'm looking for and where to find it.
Kneeling on the dusty wood floor, I pull off the lid of a large leather suitcase. Inside is a myriad of pieces of my life; clothing that no longer fits, jewelry that is broken or outdated, old photos that have faded with time.
Finally, I find what I'm looking for. It is a butter smooth leather notebook with a cover the colour of toffee. On the cover are the years 1943--1945 in black pen. The writing is messy, rushed, but I recognize it immediately as my husband's.
Tears fill my eyes as I think back to those years, the struggles we faced and overcame.
I smooth my thumb over the letters, the digits on my arm catching my eye again.
What a time that was, I think. The best of times but the absolute worst as well; the time when I was still innocent, blissfully unaware that even the people you love can be crueler than your wildest imaginings.
I open the journal, see pages upon pages of black scrawl that contain the beginnings of our story, the only story that I knew word for word.
I had never read the journal before, had never seen the story solely from his point of view. I had always been curiously tempted to indulge myself in his words, his phrases. Yet who I am to disrupt the fragile secrecy of his thoughts, the inner workings of his mind?
"Oh Eli, my love," I murmur, closing the journal gently, "you always were an enigma, weren't you? Forty seven years of marriage and you still are."
I lift my head from the book in my hands when I hear the rattling of the front door, the click of high heels against tile.
"Mama? Wo bist du?" Julia calls out from down the stairs, using the tongue she had learned as a child when her father and I could speak little English, and it had been poor English at that.
"In the attic! I guess I just got...caught up." My voice trails off at the end of my sentence, fading to a whisper as I clutch the journal to my chest.
Julia makes her way up to the attic, and I can hear her before I see her.
Her feet come into my line of vision first; sensible black kitten-heel pumps that hide the circular scar that she received from dropping a sparkler on her foot when she was nine.
Her legs are next as she crouches to my level. They are almost coltish in their length.
She is wearing a black pantsuit that screams "corporate tycoon" but her black hair falls in soft curls to her elbows like something out of a fairytale.
I almost protest as she sits next to me on the grimy hardwood, wanting to save her suit from being dirty, but she would hear none of it anyways.
Stubborn as a mule, I muse. I guess she didn't get only her looks from us.
With eyes like a grass sea in summer and a mouth that could cut a man to the bone, Julia certainly isn't lacking qualities from either of her parents, and I have always been proud that she's never needed anyone to depend on but the force of her own will.
"You didn't call and I got worried. I thought you might be up here." Julia says, drawing her knees up to her chest. "So many memories. It's easy to get lost in them."
I nod, looking around the room. "I was looking for one in particular and it didn't take me long to find it. It's just reliving what happened that takes time."
Julia contemplates that for a moment, trying to find her words. She runs a hand through her hair, her wedding ring glinting in the muted sunlight. I always forget to ask her why she wears the ring when she left her husband eight months ago and is much happier without the toxicity of their relationship. I often wonder if it's to remind herself that she made it through, that she was her own life raft when life was dragging her under its waves.
"You know, you've never told me the whole story of how you and Papa winded up here in Toronto. Bits and pieces of course, and the occasional journal entry that Papa read to us when we were younger but never the whole thing. Why haven't you told us? Surely we're old enough to understand, Mama." Julia asks, placing her hand on my knee and squeezing it compassionately.
My eyes drift and I see them again; those five-digit codes that labelled us as cattle to be dealt with accordingly. Except this time it's inked into young skin with pride, two rows of five numbers that signify that humanity had prevailed against all odds.
I shake my head, laying the journal on her knees. "It's not that I thought you weren't ready. It was me who wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared to have you carry the burdens of my life. Your father and I came here to get away from the horrors of what we experienced and we didn't want that to influence your lives as you grew up. I wanted you kids to be who you were and have anything you wanted without our prejudices holding you back."
Julia moves closer to me while hugging the journal close, resting her head on my shoulder. "We've grown up now, Mama. Tell me. Please."
I turn my face into her hair, breathe in the soft floral scent, and gather up my courage.
Taking a deep breath, I begin.