Page 68 of Your Echo
“A hug for your poormaman, ma belle,”Mamandemands when we’re all crowded in front of the door.
She and I hug, and she whispers that she still has to make up her mind about Ace, but tells me the outlook seems good. We all know she whispered just loud enough for Ace to hear.
“I think that went well,” I announce during the ride back to my place.
“Are you sure? I couldn’t tell.”
I think he’s joking until I see the panic in his eyes.
“Ace, yes. I’m sure. She liked you a lot.”
He swallows and nods a few times, like he’s trying convince himself.
“I liked her too,” he admits. “She’s...spunky.”
“Spunky? What does ‘spunky’ mean?”
He laughs. “Like, um...she seems light-hearted, but tough.”
“Light-hearted, but tough,” I repeat. “Yeah, that sounds like my mom.”
We climb out of the Uber, and I thank the driver before he pulls away from the curb. Instead of heading to my apartment, Ace takes my hand and leads me on a walk down the darkening street.
“She raised you all by herself?” he asks.
I nod. “My dad left us when I was three. She did everything on her own.”
“Has she always been in a wheelchair?”
My hand tightens around his.
“No. That...That happened when I was ten.”
He returns my squeeze and seems ready to let the subject drop, but for some reason, I’m not.
“I saw it happen,” I blurt. “The accident.”
He stops walking. “God, Stéphanie, I’m so sorry.”
“Do you mind if we sit down?”
We’re on a tiny pedestrian street that’s unusually empty for a summer night. I lead him over to a bench a few feet away. The story starts pouring out of me before we’re even fully seated.
“She used to clean houses. She couldn’t afford a babysitter all the time, so she’d bring me along on some of her jobs. Most of the houses were in Westmount.” I spit the last word out. “She hardly ever saw the families she cleaned for. To them, she was just the service she provided. Nothing more. It happened in the winter...”
Ace’s hand has gone limp in mine. I can’t look at him right now.
“This one family always made her use the side door. I guess the front entrance wasn’t for staff or some ridiculous shit like that. The side door was at the top of a staircase, and they never salted the steps. She almost fell a few times. She even sent her agency emails about it, but they never did anything. When it happened, I was making a snowball at the bottom of the staircase.”
I hear Ace make a sound somewhere in the back of his throat. I force myself to go on.
“I’ll never forget the sound her body made when she fell. She rolled all the way down the stairs. She landed face down in the snow. I thought she was dead. I screamed and screamed, but nobody came out of the house.”
My voice sounds flat. It’s almost like I’m listening to the words myself, not speaking them.
“I looked up and there was this little boy in the window—the family’s son. Maybe he had the day off school like me. I used to play around in his giant bedroom whenMamanand I had the house to ourselves. I looked right at him and screamed for him to help me, but he just ran away. Maybe if he’d sent someone outside...He didn’t, though. A deliveryman driving by was the one who found me. My mom never pressed charges. She got letters from their lawyers, and they scared her. She said she just wanted to focus on taking care of me. She wouldn’t risk losing, but she could have won. I know she could have.”
I watch a woman pass by us with a small dog on a leash. Somewhere nearby, kids are singing a French jump rope rhyme. I’ve always found that odd, how a moment can seem so still and stagnant in your mind, even while the world pulses with life around you. Ace doesn’t say anything for awhile.
