The Listeners Read online

  Quite apart from the sense of community, one of the key things the meetings gave me was a pride of purpose. They restored an element of dignity to my life. I was done with being fucked up. I was done with being wrong. I was done with being a patient. I actually started keeping a journal during this period, which I will spare you the details of—it’s all rather solipsistic and quotidian—but what I was struck by, when re-reading it for the purposes of this book, was how lucid my writing was at the time. It was not the chaotic rambling I expected it to be. It was methodical, considered, and measured. I didn’t hurl myself into the embrace of the group in some unthinking, unguarded way; I retained all my usual cynicism and skepticism, and really wrestled with how vulnerable to make myself, how much to expose, how much to let in. It was incremental. Contrary to how Paul may have seen or thought of me I was, recognizably, myself through it all. As I read the diary, I took comfort in that.

  Then one evening I came home, and Paul was gone. His Ford Escape wasn’t in the driveway. Ashley was staying over at her friend Julie’s again. It took me a good two hours to realize Paul had moved out. It wasn’t until I opened our closet that I realized something was amiss. I then wandered into the ensuite and noticed his toothbrush, razor, and shaving cream were gone. He had taken just the bare essentials. A single carload. He texted me later that night to say he would be staying with his friend Nathan for a few nights while we figured out what would happen next. I liked that ‘we’ in his text message, as if it was going to be some kind of conversation or negotiation between us.

  Apparently, he and Ashley had already discussed all of it, which frankly just felt cruel, but I suppose from Paul’s perspective I was acting unilaterally without consultation, so he felt at liberty to do the same. He later told me that he hadn’t wanted to have some big showdown with me and felt that this was the gentlest way for everyone. Ashley had refused to move out; she liked her room, and there was too much on her plate with school and soccer to contemplate uprooting. A part of me couldn’t help but wonder whether Paul actually asked her to stay, to keep an eye on me. In the end, Paul lived with Nathan’s family for two weeks before finding a small studio apartment by the Home Depot, in a generic new-build with views of parking lot all around. I told myself it was a temporary solution. After nearly two decades of marriage, you don’t throw in the towel after a few bad months, or even a bad year. That wasn’t Paul’s nature. But then what did I know about nature? Was anything I had been doing in my nature?

  Nature in Revolt. Those were the words on the news chyron one night, regarding the historically high temperatures that spring, and how it was affecting mating seasons, and migrations, and aquifer levels, and forest fires. Perhaps my nature was in revolt. Or perhaps my nature had always been revolt.

  I couldn’t help but feel, around this time, that the news chyron spoke of a larger disquiet that was settling over the neighbourhood; a sense of unrest that made itself known in small and innocuous ways. Shopping carts tipped over in empty parking lots. A burned-out couch just off the bike path. Foxes copulating in driveways. As I jogged past neighbours’ homes in the early morning, and glimpsed them in their bedrooms getting dressed, or in their kitchens eating breakfast, it occurred to me that The Hum was working on people’s minds and bodies whether they realized it or not. It was affecting their moods, their digestion, their sex life, the way they felt about their husbands and wives and kids. One night, from my bedroom window, I watched our backyard neighbour swimming laps back and forth underneath his pool cover. He must have been at it for an hour. I kept wondering—what happens if he got caught under there? Who would save him? It would take me at least five minutes to run downstairs, pull on some shoes, and dash around the block to his front door, and then who would open the door for me, I wasn’t even sure anyone else was home. People probably had no idea why they were doing half of what they did.

  I never looked for omens or placed much stock in coincidences. But there was something about my thinking around that time that made me begin seeing them everywhere. Perhaps the meetings were honing my perceptivity, or conditioning my brain not to disregard the sights and sounds that felt incongruous. When these moments appeared, I did not discount them as I once had, but tried to make space for them to reveal to me whatever it was they held. For instance, on my jog one morning, just as the mist was burning off, a coyote darted out into the middle of the road. I stopped, and I stared at him and I realized, to my delight, that he was the same coyote I saw the night I first noticed The Hum. The same white tips on his ears, the same white triangle patch on his neck. He was much larger now, almost an adult. His coat was shiny and thick. His large, bat-like ears stood upright, flicking back and forth, perceiving sounds I could only imagine. I stood there admiring him, and he looked back at me, letting me admire him. And I talked to him. Look at you, I said. You’re the most perfect thing in the universe.

  I took a cautious step towards him. I didn’t know whether I should look him in the eyes or not. I didn’t want him to think I was menacing him, so I fixed my gaze somewhere just below his, like Kyle had done to me when I entered Howard and Jo’s living room for the first time. I crouched down and slowly stretched out my hand. It was trembling. What was it to touch something so wild? Had I ever touched a truly wild animal before? No, I didn’t think I had, which struck me as remarkable, in four decades. Maybe once, when I held an injured sparrow as it died, after smacking into our patio door. But an injured wildness, a compromised wildness, didn’t count. I looked up and met the coyote’s eyes again. Only four or five metres separated us. He held my gaze, unblinking. He lowered and extended his head ever so slightly towards me, as if bowing, flattening his ears as he did. Did this signal a greeting, or a pending attack? With knees bent, I made to take another step forward, but he startled and darted off into a nearby yard. I stayed crouched in the street, heart beating, until a car beeped its horn behind me.

  The other wildness I attempted to reach out and touch during that time was Ashley. I gradually got closer, day by day. A text message returned here. A thirty-second conversation in the kitchen there. I started calling her Boo Radley, for her spectral presence in the house, or sometimes the more hip-hop-inflected My Boo, or even Boo-urns, a reference from The Simpsons that cracked a smile on her face. There was still a strict moratorium on my attending her games, not that I could bear being seen by former colleagues and students and their parents anyway. The unspoken reason why I would never again be invited was that she blamed me for her fall from grace. She had been one of the strongest on her team at the start of the season, but by May her coach more or less had her benched.

  A strange thing happened during this time, and the best way I can describe it is that I think my body began to mourn the absence of Ashley in my life, even though we were still living together. It mourned the loss of our emotional intimacy, and it did so physically. I would be going about my day and suddenly feel the sticky warmth of her nine-year-old hand in mine. Or while looking in the bathroom mirror, my arms, my chest, would suddenly remember the total surrender of her weight as I picked up her five-year-old body. One night, when she was staying over at Julie’s house, I’m not sure what possessed me but I walked into her bedroom and sat down on the edge of her bed. I suddenly felt her hair in my hands, when it was long, and she was twelve and in bed with the flu, when even her hair felt hot to the touch. I ran my fingers slowly through it, which seemed to be the only thing that gave her any comfort. It was our way of talking, when we had exhausted all of our words.

  Then, on an evening in May, Ashley found out that she hadn’t gotten into her top two schools for soccer. I was having a bath when she walked in without knocking, sat down on the edge of the tub. She pulled off her socks, and stuck her feet in the water, and I held her calf and her thigh as she cried.

  I should drop a radio in there, she eventually muttered. She tried to turn her grin into a frown, but it became a tiny laugh instead.

  We then talked for the better part of an
hour, our first real conversation in months, as the soap suds dissolved and the water grew tepid, and it was in that chilled and guilt-ridden state that I agreed to the absolutely insane proposal of hosting the prom after-party at the house, on the condition that I would stay over at a friend’s house that night. There was a plunging sensation in my stomach the moment the words came out of my mouth, though how could I have said no? I knew that conversation was as much an olive branch from Ashley as the party would have to be from me. I also knew Ashley had probably suffered some loss of social capital at the school which this would go a ways to rectifying, and I think somewhere in the back of my mind it felt triumphant in its sheer unlikeliness that I, of all people, should be the parent to host the prom after-party, and that maybe it would signal to Paul, and my former students and colleagues, and anyone else who cared to notice, that I was in a different and much better headspace than they had ever imagined.

  So that is how I found myself, three weeks later, standing on a chair, taping up blue and gold streamers in the dining room. Ashley was blowing up balloons in her bra and underwear, with her face and hair fully done to the nines. I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen her in makeup before. The dining table was laden with plastic-wrapped veggie and cheese trays, bags of chips, two-litre bottles of soft drinks, paper plates, plastic cutlery, stacks of napkins, and a wide array of wine and liquor. Old Town Road blasted through the Bluetooth speaker.

  Oh I have to show you my banner, Ashley shouted at me.

  What?

  I made a banner to hang on the wall.

  I can’t—Hey Google turn down by five.

  The music quietened, as Ashley picked up a paper banner and handed me one end.

  I wanna tape it over the door.

  She climbed onto another chair, and we taped it to the wall. Once unfurled, the banner read It’s All Downhill From Here. I told her that Congratulations would’ve taken fewer letters.

  She shrugged—Yeah, well I’m a realist.

  Speaking of which, I put two condoms in your purse.

  She shot me a look—Mom.

  I asked her if Liam was coming.

  Do you think I care?

  I laughed.

  What?

  You’re such a terrible liar.

  I honestly don’t, I don’t care.

  Okay, I said, my eyebrows disappearing behind my hairline.

  The next track on her playlist began and she ordered Google to turn it up by eight, and we danced as we continued decorating. When Ashley was little, I used to draw the blinds, and play eighties club hits on full volume until we were sweaty and exhausted, and collapsed on the floor in a giggling heap. I used to love how into it she would get; the look of deep concentration on her face, her little arms pumping, her hips jutting back and forth.

  I checked my phone, and then shouted to her that it was a quarter to six. She left the living room and returned holding her metallic rose-gold prom dress.

  I hate it, she said, without affect. It looks like an iPhone.

  I began helping her into the dress and reminded her that she had picked it out.

  I know, I hated them all.

  I told you, you should have gone with the tux.

  Just then, the doorbell rang. Shit, shit, she said.

  It’s fine.

  It’s not fine, I’m not ready!

  I helped her into the dress, one leg at a time, and zipped up the back, before she dashed to the door to answer it—to find Tom and Seema standing there.

  Hi, Tom said, holding a large reusable grocery bag. Sorry to bother you, but is your—

  Mom! Ashley called.

  I walked to the front door and greeted Tom and Seema, with a little laugh of surprise and confusion. I hadn’t seen either of them since the first meeting, nearly four months earlier. Neither of them had come to the second one. I had taken Seema’s number, though, and we’d been messaging on and off since.

  Come in, I said. Hey Google, turn off.

  The music stopped and, in the ensuing quiet, The Hum retook its place as the dominant noise in my awareness. Seema told Ashley she looked gorgeous. Ashley gave her a polite smile, and I explained that it was prom night.

  Oh god, of course. We can come back later, Seema offered, but I waved away the suggestion.

  No, no it’s fine, her friends are coming by to pick her up any minute. We’re hosting the after-party.

  Without saying a word, Ashley turned, and bolted up to her bedroom, stumbling on her dress halfway up the stairs. She had no idea who these visitors were, but she must have assumed they were two Hummers, as she called us. Ashley had never met another Hummer before, and I wondered if Seema’s nose piercing and tattoos and other signifiers of countercultural alignment, even her age and ethnicity, were making Ashley re-evaluate who a Hummer might be.

  Seema apologized for dropping by unannounced, no doubt sensing the tension their arrival had caused.

  I’m not sure if you saw my last message, she asked, walking past me into the dining room, and taking in the decorations.

  Yes I did, I said. I’m sorry, I kept meaning to reply.

  There’s been a subsequent development, Tom said.

  Oh okay. Well here—I pulled out chairs for them at the table and motioned to the mounds of junk food and liquor laid out. If anything strikes your fancy—

  I wouldn’t mind a Johnnie Walker, Tom replied. If you’re offering.

  I cracked the bottle, and poured him a shot into a plastic cup, before deciding to pour myself one as well.

  Are these kids of age? he asked.

  Well. You know how it is.

  Seema asked if I was worried about them trashing the place, and I laughed. I’m serious! she said.

  No, I know! All the valuables have been locked away.

  God, I’d be so anal, she said, shaking her head and looking around.

  Tom took a sip of whisky—I guess you’ll be around to keep an eye on things.

  Oh no, I’m out of here. They don’t want Mom hanging around.

  Seema was amazed. You’re a saint, she said.

  I told her I was seventeen once too; I got it.

  And where will you go? she asked.

  I’m staying with Leslie, actually, I said. From the group, I clarified, in case they had forgotten.

  Oh, that’s nice, Seema replied, somewhat muted.

  Tom looked into his drink and seemed to stew on something for a moment. I wanted to say—I’m very sorry about you and Paul separating. Emily told me.

  I nodded and thanked him.

  This has taken an incredible toll on all of us, he said.

  I glanced over at the cardboard boxes still stacked in the hallway beside the door to the garage.

  You see those boxes over there, down the hall? Those are all his, I said.

  When Paul first left, it sometimes felt like he was just away on a business trip, and then I would see those boxes and it would become real again. He had planned to swing by a couple of weeks earlier to grab them, but something came up. Then he was supposed to come by the day before the party, but he never showed. I texted him three, maybe four times, to remind him. I was sure, then, that he was just doing it to annoy me. But they were his things, not mine, that were going to be sitting out in the hallway when forty teenagers descended on the place. If I had felt magnanimous I would have carried the boxes into the garage for safekeeping, but I didn’t.

  Tom cleared his throat, and I turned back to look at him. Well, we uh—we don’t want to take up too much of your time, he said.

  No, especially not on a night like this, Seema said.

  Then, without another word, Tom pulled out a charred hunk of metal from his reusable shopping bag and clunked it down on the dining table.

  What on earth is that? I asked.

  This, Claire, is my mailbox. Someone set it on fire last night.

  What?

  They’re trying to intimidate us, Seema said.

  Tom leaned back in his
chair. We’ve been lobbying the city, the governor, our congressman, he said. And nothing. The city didn’t even write us back. So we went to the media with it.

  I know, I said, I watched you on TV.

  He gestured to the mailbox emphatically, as if to suggest his television appearance precipitated the vandalism.

  Just because of one little interview? I asked.

  And the articles in the papers, Seema said.

  But who would’ve done it?

  Tom started counting off on his fingers—Someone from Grenadier, someone from the city, angry neighbours who think I’m wrecking their property value—

  Neighbours?

  Oh yeah. I’ve had some nasty arguments.

  Seema said there were hundreds of people who had a vested stake in The Hum not being investigated. They know how much it could cost them, she said. So they’re trying to shut us up.

  I asked her how they would even know where Tom lived, and she shrugged—Anyone can find out where anyone lives.

  You got to be careful, I said.

  She shook her head. No, we’ve got to go bigger, she said. That’s how we stay safe.

  Unless they really go after you.

  Tom rapped the tabletop with his finger—If those fuckers think they can scare us, they picked the wrong fight.

  We’ve got to keep this in the public eye, Seema said. Which is why we need you. We need critical mass. We need as many others as possible to speak to the media to back us up.