Heather and Henriette meet

Back in time yet again!  I guess I totally lied about doing things chronologically.  In this story, Georgia's sister, Heather, is staying with her.  Heather is Georgia's long lost twin that she thought had died at birth.  Turns out not.  Heather has tracked Georgia down and come to Vancouver from Richmond, Virginia, to stay with her.  Soon enough, Henriette, Georgia and Heather's mother, shows up from Virginia to meet her daughter for the first time.

Heather and Henriette meet

Georgia’s neck hurts and she feels certain that her eyes are bulging.  She has a top-of-the-head headache and is having a lot of bowel movement changes but not yet diarrhea.  Not quite.  Not yet.  Not now.  Soon, the cramps are telling her.  Soon.  Her anus once exploded brown liquid at her local library’s washroom and then the toilet would not flush.  It refused to flush.    She pressed on the handle eight times.  She even lifted up the lid and tried to move a thing or two around.  Nothing helped.  The smell was overwhelming.  She plotted out her escape, hoping to slither out like a snake.  Instead, she ran full on into a woman and her two toddlers.  By the time she stumbled outside after apologies and regrets were expressed, she saw that an old man with a white cane had gone into the restroom.  Since, that incident, Georgia tries not to go out when even when only a bit of gastro intestinal distress is in play.

Her mouth is dry every minute of every day and she has extra phlegm in her throat.

She feels that she is on the edge of hysteria.

Georgia and Heather are sleeping on the double futon in the living room.  The double futon, Georgia discovers, is longer than a double bed but not as wide as one.  Heather, being no small woman, takes up far more than half of it and more than once Georgia has found herself wedged into a tiny corner in the middle of the night. 

Heather snores too. 

Georgia does not sleep more than four hours, despite Ativan, warm milk and beer all consumed one hour before bedtime. 

Georgia’s mother, 82-year-old Henriette sleeps for exactly six hours every night in Georgia’s bed and bedroom.  11 to 5 a.m.  At 5:01 a.m. Henriette is in the kitchen making herself one egg, sunny side up, one piece of white bread toast and a cup of Maxwell House coffee, black.  This breakfast preparation, in Georgia’s opinion, is equal, if not louder, than the sound of four people making a meal for an entire wedding reception.  Why this should be, Georgia has not risen from the futon to find out. 

Heather manages to snore through the entire operation.

“I can make you breakfast when I get up at 7:30 for work,” Georgia has told her mother, who has been in town for four days.

“You could relax in bed for a while or watch television in my room, there’s headphones there so that you wouldn’t have to worry about being too loud.”

“Oh, no, no Georgia.  I am ready for the day at 5.  I can’t sleep longer than that.  I don’t mind waiting for you to wake up at your late hour but I do need to eat pretty quickly after I get up.”

Georgia has been dragging her fatigued self into work every morning, despite the almost surreal appearance of her aged mother at her doorstep five days ago.  Henriette had only ever been to see Georgia in Vancouver once and that was more than 30 years ago.  Henriette didn’t like to leave her own country and later, her own town in Virginia.  Georgia had been more than happy to visit her mother twice a year.  She missed her and wanted to make sure she was getting along okay all alone in her house.  Henriette did quite well on her own, Georgia discovered, and with the help of a few neighbours and a part-time homemaker Georgia had managed to hire, wasn’t having any problems.  But she was into her 80s now and Georgia had never in her wildest dreams expected her to show up on her doorstep. 

But on Sunday evening, as Georgia was worrying about why Henriette wasn’t answering the phone, suddenly, there she was, overdressed in a winter coat and leather gloves.

Georgia, so shocked at this maternal visit, could at first only comment on the clothing.

“Mom, it’s summer, it’s summer here.  You must be so hot.”

“No, I’m always cold.”

“But it’s at least 75 degrees tonight,” Georgia said, reverting naturally to Fahrenheit.

“I’m cold.”

“Come in, come in, you’ll be warm in here.”  Georgia, at first only thinking of the embarrassment of her mother seeing the basement suite she was living in, momentarily forgot that Heather was standing right beside her. 

When she remembered, something like a cross between a hiccup and a burp was expelled from her mouth.

Hi-burp.

And again.

Hi-burp.

And once more.

Hi-burp.

“Mom, uh, geez, mom, come in, sit down, sit down.”  Georgia asked her roommate Richard to turn off the television.

“Mom, this is Richard, my roommate.”  Henriette and Richard shook hands and he offered her the chair he was sitting in.  Georgia and Richard only had a chair and the futon in the living room.  A 28-inch plasma television that Richard had bought from a garage sale in West Vancouver completed the room’s furnishings.

Georgia snapped back a bit more to herself.

“Mom, how did you, what are you, how did you get a flight, that must have been a long”

“You must be exhausted, I don’t understand, I mean I’m thrilled to see you but –“

Heather sat down on the futon with her head in her hands, at first.  Then, she began to stare at Henriette, at Georgia and at Richard, in that order.

Shortly thereafter, Georgia could hear a low pitched humming coming from her and Heather stood up, approaching Henriette.

“Christ in a cake,” said Georgia.

“I’m just gonna go to my room,” said Richard.

“I’d like to use the facilities,” said Henriette.

“I’m your daughter,” said Heather. “The daughter you said you never wanted to hear from again.”

“I’m getting stomach cramps,” said Georgia and sat on the futon while her mother remained on the chair.  “But we do have a bathroom by Richard’s room that’s mainly for Richard’s use but I could use it, mom, if you need to use the washroom.  Oy.”

“Yes, well, Georgia left a few messages for me that you were up here with her and I decided just this morning that I better come up here to Canada myself and face this.  You are not going to go away it seems,” said Henriette, looking at the floor and then finally at Heather.

“There are cinnamon buns in the fridge,” said Georgia, “If someone would like one.  I better not,  I’m having these cramps.  And where, where there are cramps, there is diarrhea.  You never get a free cramp in this life.”

Both Henriette and Heather pause and look at Georgia.

“That’s true,” said Henriette.

“My mother – the one who adopted and raised me – she had her colon removed two years ago.  Colitis.  She’s able to have an internal pouch,” said Heather, moving to sit beside Georgia.

“You hate me,” Heather said to Henriette.

“No, no, now that I see you, I see that you are you.  I can’t, I mean you sent me pictures but I was so scared, so worried that you weren’t you, that you – “

“I’m just gonna nip to the potty,” says Georgia.  The potty, thinks Georgia that was a term she hadn’t used in 57 years.

After a small bout of loose stool but not diarrhea, Georgia hurried back into the living room to find her sister and her mother holding hands on the futon.  Georgia plunked herself onto the chair.

“Georgia,” said Henriette, “This really is your sister.”

“Yes,” said Georgia, “I think, I mean, I thought you had realized that but you got so angry –“

“I’m just going to use the facilities,” said Henriette and Heather took her by the hand to help her up.

“Oooh, you might have pulled me up a bit too quickly,” said Henriette, “That hurt my shoulder a bit.”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Heather.

Georgia showed her mother where the washroom was and headed into the kitchen, plopped three cinnamon buns on a plate and returned to the living room.

“I’m not sure what the hell is going on,” she said to Heather. 

“Maybe mom will want some water,” said Heather, “I’ll get it.”

“No, no,” and Georgia returned to the kitchen, turned on the tap before noticing that all of the glasses and most of the other dishes were dirty.  Georgia, who’d been doing the after-dinner cleaning since Heather had been cooking, hadn’t yet had a chance to get to the chore.  She grabbed a paper cup left over from Richard’s birthday and filled it with water.

“I’m feeling kinda exhausted,” said Georgia, “This is so so strange.  I don’t know how she got here or how long she is staying but it is amazing that she is here.  You seem to be, to be getting along, holding hands –“

“She’s my mother,” said Heather, “She may have disavowed me but I realize now that she’s just been in shock.”

Disavowed, thought Georgia, as her ability to think in complete words returned to her.