Chapter 3

Margo Stolars rocked rigidly in an imbalanced dining chair, blankly staring out the small kitchen window.

Margo was of Ukrainian and Polish descent. She stood five foot six when fully erect, though she spent most of her time moving with a slight hunch. Her hair was deep black, set in a coded wave that curled inward at her shoulders, giving the strange impression that she was always wearing a hairnet. Her complexion was the colour of wet sand, marked by several moles scattered across her cheeks, chin, and neck.

Her nose was long and ended in a comically pronounced bulb, perpetually burdened by heavy-framed glasses fitted with thick, strongly prescribed lenses. The curvature of the glass magnified her burnt-brown eyes just enough to give her a constant look of mild surprise. She was slender, with narrow shoulders and hips, and her voice—nasal and high-pitched—carried farther than her frame suggested.

Margo leaned back in the dining chair with her shoulders pressed hard into the curved piece of scalloped wood used to form the backrest of the chair that was held together with a teal-dyed ethylene and chlorine mixture. The solid teal was overlaid with a silver pattern of slender diamonds, separated at equal parts above and below each row and column. The chair was held aloft with four lustrous chrome legs that curved outwards like an elegant bird cage. Each of the legs was accented by a black stubby cap made of rubber. Ripples in the linoleum creaked in chorus with the diamond pattern whenever she shifted her weight.

With her head tilted back, she smoothly gulped the cold can of beer that she had just opened for herself. The foam gathered around her lips and left a wet rim around the fine hairs that lined the skin beneath her olive nose. Margo started her second beer only minutes later. She needed a bitter drink to help calm her mood.

The peace was broken by a passing stroller squeaking in rhythmic couplets with the seams in the concrete as a mother pushed her child in the hooded carriage. Margo glanced out towards the young mother, who had bent over to fix her fallen stocking while her baby sucked at and chewed a dried carob pod.

Margo was a mother herself. Two boys, three years apart. Her oldest, Daniel, had just turned 20, and his brother, Walter, was 17. Danny and Wally.

Danny stood five foot eight and carried a slight pudge in his cheeks, neck, and belly. His face was almost always flushed pink, which—paired with his puffed cheeks—gave him the look of someone a cartoonist might easily render as a lopsided squirrel or chipmunk. His chin had a deep dimple that looked like a pillow stabbed with a pin in the centre. His legs were skinny and bony, and his hair bloomed outward in wide, caramel-colored curls that swooped over his forehead. Spongy sideburns crept into the sides of his ears, and when he smiled, his wide oval glasses were pushed upward by the rise of his cheeks.

Three years younger than Danny, Wally was already six inches taller. He wore glasses as well, though his hair was less tightly curled. His frame was slender and narrow, its proportions more naturally aligned than Danny’s, as though his body had assembled itself with greater care. A slim, pointed nose ran straight down the center of his face, ending neatly above thin, pink lips.

Danny was out back in the carport with his father, also named Daniel. Daniel stood five foot nine and wore his onyx-colored hair slightly long, kept in place with Brylcreem that gave it a persistent shine. His skin held the look of someone freshly returned from riding the prairie in open sun, permanently tanned to a golden-syrup hue.

He had deep-set blue eyes and large, white teeth that showed easily between thin lips whenever he smiled. His eyebrows angled inward like arrows pointing toward his forehead, growing bushy if left untrimmed.

Daniel and Danny were in the rear of their house digging a trench to divert the rainwater. For the past two years the roof over the carport had mazed its way through the uneven tiles to the marshy grass below. Eventually, the grass turned to mud, and the mud formed a paste on the bottom of everyone's shoes as they trudged from the car to their back stoop.

Margo hated dirt. If she caught either of the boys coming into the house without first taking off their shoes she would immediately charge Daniel with belting them. She had learned to run a home with strict rules from her mother in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She had lived in the cold brown climate for all of her childhood and only moved to Vancouver after marrying Daniel in 1952.

Daniel got a job building roads with the City of Vancouver after his supervisor in Winnipeg at the canning factory was transferred to the head manufacturing plant in Richmond, BC, and recommended Daniel to his boss.

Daniel decided it would help his young wife get over her drinking if they moved away from her enabling friends. Margo agreed that a change would do her good, but she insisted that her drinking had only increased because of the rift in their marriage. She accused Daniel of cheating on her with Irene, one of the assembly workers at the factory. Daniel vehemently denied it, but also asked that he be transferred to a different department than Irene. Thus, the move was intended to be a mutual rebirth.

Once they arrived in Vancouver, they found themselves a suitable place to live, and tried to settle into their newly determined routine. At first, things seemed to be unfolding as they had envisioned. Margo would tend to their home and the shopping, while Daniel built a good reputation for himself at the City. He worked long hours and built up some savings while never complaining when he was assigned odd jobs that didn't quite align with his initial assignment in the municipal roads department.

Several months passed and Daniel was pleased that Margo had curtailed her drinking. Then, two significant events twisted the projected timeline. 1) Daniel once again struck up a friendship with a female co-worker, and 2) Margo found out she was pregnant. Daniel made the claim that the friendship was purely based upon their mutual love of the Andrews Sisters and James Cagney films. Margo felt there was no need to push the issue any longer, and acquiesced to the altered life that she was now presented with.

After Daniel Jr. was born—dubbed Danny from day one—Margo casually gravitated back to regular drinks after meals and again in the evening after Danny went down for the night. Daniel and Margo spent less time together. They would excuse it away to being new parents but Daniel had become bitter over Margo's insistence on drinking, and Margo would shout insinuating slurs about his two-timing habits.

They carried on this way, with occasional bouts of contrition, for nearly 3 years until Margo gave birth to another boy, whom they named Walter, but everyone called him Wally. Wally was egg-white and pillowy. Danny loved to poke his brother’s cheeks until he made sounds like a whoopee cushion.

Danny and Wally were mates all through elementary school. Then when Danny graduated from high school, Wally realized that he liked doing things on his own, and within two years Wally was the most popular boy in school. By the time that Wally graduated, both he and his brother had forgotten that they got along and hardly spent any time together.

--

It was 1974, Danny was 20 years old, and he wanted to get away from the bickering and bitterness. He decided that his escape was through marriage. He knew that he had to remove himself from Daniel and Margo's grasp, and he knew that he was in no position to take care of himself domestically. Rather than room with friends, or find a suite for one and fill it with his imagination and discover how to care for himself, he ventured out for a caretaker. Who she was he didn't know. In fact, the more he thought about it, he really didn't care. He felt confident that he could mold to her personality, and she could bend to his eccentricities. It was only a matter of time.

In walked Leah Johnson. She was lost. Not in the room, but in the world.

Leah stood five foot eight with narrow shoulders and slightly wide hips. Her shoulder-length black hair lightened to brown in the sun. She had hazel eyes and a bony jaw that tapered to a pointed, cream-colored chin. When she smiled—usually as a smirk—it gave her a look of pretty innocence, though she frowned far more often than she smiled.

She had no idea what she wanted with her future or what she needed to carry her through the scattered debris of her young adult life. She was 21 years old, and had no sparkle in her eye. The clock in her heart had stopped ticking.

Her sister, Joleen, invited her to a backyard BBQ one Saturday afternoon. The BBQ was between the gathered logs at Ambleside beach. Friends knew that Leah and Danny were looking for an escape. Early on at the party, Joleen told Danny that her sister, Leah, was over by the shoreline washing her toes in the broken seashells and that he should go and ask her about her favourite music group.

Daniel timidly shuffled behind Leah and started skipping flat pieces of glass past the small whitecaps that broke near her cold ankles.

"I hear you like The Beach Boys," he said matter-of-factly to the general area.

"Sorry, what?"

"Oh, I just meant to say, I'm Danny. I saw you over here and thought that I'd introduce myself."

"That's very nice of you. This isn't really my sort of party. I prefer being at home in my room, but I can't stay there forever. At least, that's what Joleen says."

"Joleen's right. Um, she told me to ask you about music."

"But, I thought you said that you came over this way because you saw me standing here?"

"Well, yes. That's what I meant. Is Joleen your only sister?"

"No, I have one other sister, and a little brother. We don't all spend much time together."

"Oh, I have a little brother too, we don't spend much time together either,” Wilson shuffled his feet unknowingly and tried not to avert his eyes from Leah so as to give her the impression that he was earnestly listening.

"What do you do?" asked Leah.

"Right now, I drive a truck for Knudsen's Bakery."

"Oh, I just love their croissants."

"I can get you some. Every week we're given a ton of leftovers and I usually just throw them out."

"But aren't croissants pretty hard and stale after just a day or two?"

"I suppose so, yeah."

"That's too bad."

"I don't plan on working for them much longer. My little brother, Wally, he just got a job at a construction site gathering the garbage, and he said that the supervisor asked him about any fellas that are looking for work. I'm going to go down there on Monday morning to sign up to be a driver. The pay is better and there's plenty of opportunities for me to move around and try out the different jobs."

"That sounds pretty promising,” Leah responded.

"I think so. You just wait. I'm going to build up my savings and have a family."

"Oh, really?" questioned Leah.

"Yeah. That's what I'm supposed to do."

"Who says?"

"I dunno. People."

"What people?"

"Just, you know, everyone."

"That sounds pretty planned out,” stated Leah.

"Not planned at all really."

"That's what I meant. I'm hungry."

"Yeah, me too. Let's go grab a hot dog."

"Okay."

--

Six months later, Leah and Danny were married.

Margo didn't like Leah. Leah didn't care too much for Margo. Danny worked hard for Mr. Knudsen, and before the year had ended he was training as a ceramic tile apprentice.

"That's fantastic, Danny!" hollered Leah from the alcove of their kitchen as he kicked his boots off in the entryway of their tiny apartment.

"My new supervisor says that if I commit myself I can be handling my own jobs in no time. Extra pay, less commute, and maybe even set hours."

"That's what we've been hoping for!"

"I know. Maybe we can start to talk about expanding our family?" he twirled the dishtowel with his wrist and playfully snapped it lightly on her exposed thigh.

"Maybe. A big maybe."

"Come on, Leah. You know when we first met that I've always wanted kids."

"I know. I know."