Winning Chance

  Winning

  Chance

  Stories

  by Katherine Koller

  Copyright © 2019 Katherine Koller

  Enfield & Wizenty

  (an imprint of Great Plains Publications)

  1173 Wolseley Avenue

  Winnipeg, MB R3G 1H1

  www.greatplains.mb.ca

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or in any means, or stored in a database and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Great Plains Publications, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5E 1E5.

  Great Plains Publications gratefully acknowledges the financial support provided for its publishing program by the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund; the Canada Council for the Arts; the Province of Manitoba through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Book Publisher Marketing Assistance Program; and the Manitoba Arts Council.

  Design & Typography by Relish New Brand Experience

  Printed in Canada by Friesens

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Winning chance / Katherine Koller.

  Names: Koller, Katherine, 1957- author.

  Description: Short stories.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190056126 | Canadiana (print) 20190056142 |

  Canadiana (ebook) 20190056142 | ISBN 9781773370132 (softcover) |

  ISBN 9781773370149 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781773370156 (Kindle)

  Classification: LCC PS8571.O693 W56 2019 | DDC C813/.54—dc23

  To Lorne

  There are so few people given us to love.

  —Anne Enright, The Gathering

  Contents

  Belovèd by the Moon

  Memory Mine

  The Exchange

  The Care & Feeding of Small Birds

  Broken Plates

  The Return

  Sunset Travel for Single Seniors

  The Teeny Tiny Woman

  The Maternity Project

  Spring Fever

  The Red Velvet Curtain

  Winning Chance

  The Winter Police

  Love, Janis

  M & M

  Acknowledgements

  Belovèd by the Moon

  A flattened baseball cap jutted from the drift of curb grit and unleashed a flutter of pleasure in Brenda, who probed her anorak pocket for a plastic bag. The hat, once black, sported an oil company logo. Her father had worn a similar cap to protect his bald head at the annual Consolidated Parts Supply picnic or when they walked the neighbourhood together. Brenda depended on his red cap in the garden because the side mesh vented the heat, but also because she heard him instructing her to keep the bean rows straight. This solid black cap would attract warmth from the sun. This, her sixth hat rescue this spring, could be a guide for someone, somewhere.

  Brenda gloved her hand with plastic, tapped the hat on a tree to dislodge winter dirt, and parachuted it into her bag. She presented the hats to the Goodwill, along with anything else she had no use for. The Goodwill staff called her Hat Lady. “You have so much to give,” the shaky older one said last time. All of her lovingly laundered hats had found homes, but she longed to know to whom.

  Tying the bag loosely, Brenda continued on. She imagined this oil field cap would go to an open-faced young man, unemployed, new to the city, biceps pale above his T-shirt sleeve. Soon, she’d find children’s sunhats. This was the worst: children’s heads exposed, their tender scalps, eyes, and ears.

  Building up her speed again, Brenda almost missed the yellow. In the shade of an angle-parked electric blue motorcycle, on the brownish boulevard grass, a little shoe. A yellow shoe, sweetly sweaty, still moist. The women who lived at this house were all bikers, but Brenda had never noticed a child before. On the stoop, the oldest, the bossy one, stared down the street, hard. She yelled, “Crazy bitch,” then slammed the door. Brenda turned to look.

  A lurching figure with a huge mottled dog heaved a stroller around the next corner to the right. Brenda set off as fast as she could. The shoe must belong to the blonde child in the stroller whose bare arm, Brenda imagined, had waved. She might intercept the stroller if she veered off at the end of her block.

  Brenda charged up her heart muscles by swinging her arms. Her pace paid off. As she turned up the next street, the furious threesome hurtled toward her. Brenda paused. The dog looked fierce—held firmly by its owner, who had purple and black hair, geometric designs inking one whole arm and the neck, wrists banded in braided leather, piercings of lip, eyebrow, nose and chin, ripped clothing, and a posture that said get outta my way.

  But, the child. Pink and yellow sundress, bobbing hatless head. The matching yellow sneaker was double knotted on her right foot. When Brenda revealed what was in her pocket, the child reached and said, “Shoe.”

  Her smile made Brenda want to give her the moon. Brenda bent and gave the child her shoe and the child put it in her mouth.

  “Wait,” said the girl in black.

  Brenda stood, unsure if the command was to the dog, which lunged despite the combat boot stomped on its leash, or to the angelic child, or to her. The girl crouched to retie the shoe and cooed at the child like a dove. Brenda decided it was safe to make conversation.

  “I’m glad I spotted you. What a little darling.”

  “Yeah.”

  Confused if that constituted a thank you and, if so,

  whether it was for the effort of returning the shoe or extending a compliment or both, Brenda persisted.

  “Are you the babysitter?”

  “I’m the frigging mom.”

  That language and worse Brenda had heard at the subway station, and she kept an iPod (from Goodwill) in her purse in case she must endure it for any sum of minutes. Although the iPod provided no music (she had no idea how to work it), the ear buds were comfortable. But Brenda detected hurt behind the young mother’s darkened eyes. And that cooing. Was that a teardrop wiped away by the fingerless leather glove? Brenda’s own eyes wept regularly, but never in public. Her weekly trip to the stores cancelled out the desire to cry on that day, anyway.

  The girl said, “Got kicked out. She needs to eat.”

  Brenda assumed that meant the child, not the terrifying dog. The carrier basket underneath the stroller was empty. “Would you like a cup of tea and a cookie for your little one?”

  “Cookie,” the baby said.

  “What a smart child.”

  “Well, she can hear,” the girl muttered. She flipped down the stroller sunshade over the child, picked up the leash, and looked directly at Brenda. “Dog needs water.”

  Brenda knew exactly what Goodwill-destined bowl

  she’d use.

  The girl and the dog and the stroller and Brenda proceeded together. Brenda persevered on the uneven grass boulevard. The girl kept quiet, so Brenda inquired.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Chandrakanta.”

  “How … exotic! What does it mean?”

  “Belovèd by the moon.”

  As Brenda’s moon-faced father had loved her. She often sat alone in her father’s musty Chevrolet in the dank garage. Sometimes for hours.

  The girl paused, pivoting the stroller.

  “This one, right?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I seen you before. Dog likes your lawn.”

  The dog stopped to poop
on her lush spring grass. Brenda babied the lawn for her father, who had taken pride in its health. He last crossed it by ambulance gurney. Five years ago, but each time she fertilized or mowed, the memory was still fresh.

  Rather than observe the dog do his labourious business, Brenda plucked out a spare bag from her other pocket and handed it to the girl.

  “Take it to the garbage at the back, and come in the kitchen door.”

  “Don’t forget his water.”

  Brenda unlocked the front door. Only when their eyes met did the girl bend to scoop up. She didn’t tie the bag, which alarmed Brenda, who would check the garbage can after this impromptu get-together.

  Past tea parties with her father and his chess buddies, who had gifted her early motherlessness with a collection of teapots, seeped into her preparations. While her father and his friends played in silence and smoked cigars, she passed the cookie plate, refilled the tea cups, and watched, soon learning the game and becoming an able opponent for her father. He had secured for her the only job she ever held, twenty-one years as receptionist for Consolidated Parts Supply, but without him she could not go back. His chocolatey cigar smoke came spiralling back inside her head as she decided on the sunflower teapot, a recent treasure from Goodwill, as yellow and cheery as the child’s shoe. She longed for Danish shortbread biscuits from a tin.

  In her compact kitchen, she heard the gate latch bang closed, and a jolt of anticipation jostled her. Next came a stab of hunger. How many years since she stopped for tea mid-morning? Or entertained company after her solitary egg, multigrain cracker, and black coffee at sunrise? Her lilac tree, heavy with buds in the wind, bustled behind the stroller parked under the blossoming crab. The dog bounded about the yard, wetting every shrub. Another dry spring, but the forecast promised rain this evening.

  Rain will wash the world with petrichor, her father’s voice echoed. Brenda loved the mineral smell of earth after a rain and she cherished her father’s word for it.

  “I need the can,” the girl said. She hurried in, boots on, handed Brenda the child, and marched her way unbidden down the hall to the bathroom.

  Brenda touched the child’s cherub hair and carried Chandra, as she decided to call her, to the sink and ran warm water. Chandra splashed in delight, soaking the kitchen window, her sundress, and Brenda’s shirt.

  “It’s only water,” Brenda said, not wanting to change her shirt and leave her guests alone. She dried the child’s hands on her best dishtowel.

  Holding Chandra on one hip as the girl did, Brenda dumped the prodigious black cap out of its bag to soak in the warm soapy water and rinsed the gritty bag to dry on the line later. She half-filled a cup of milk, and tried to feed the child. Chandra wanted to hold it herself.

  “Yucky.” She spat out the milk, but Brenda had the dishtowel at the ready.

  Brenda found a plastic tumbler and ran room-temperature water into it. The child’s precious lips slurped and slopped. Brenda wondered about the rejected milk. Maybe the mother would drink it in her tea?

  “We don’t do cow milk. Only soy.”

  “Is Earl Grey all right?”

  “Herbal is better. Cinnamon.”

  But Brenda only had the one kind. The girl took the tea but made a face as she drank it. Then she held out her cup for a refill. She ate six Dad’s oatmeal cookies and the baby ate two. Brenda felt she should add a little more to

  the table.

  “How about a sandwich? Peanut butter and crabapple jelly?”

  The girl ate three, which finished off the bread bag. And a Granny Smith apple. Chandra munched on peeled, diced apple softened in the microwave and sucked peanut butter off a big spoon. The girl threw her crusts and apple core to the dog outside. Brenda remembered an old soup bone she’d been saving and offered it.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Licker.” He was licking himself now.

  Brenda held out the bone, but the dog’s warm tongue on her hand made her drop it on her foot. Luckily, she still had her Nikes on, almost brand new, a find.

  “And yours?”

  “Kali.”

  Brenda washed her hands, rinsed the dishes, and wondered if that was the girl’s given name or if it was a kind of alias. She asked where they were going.

  The delicate skin around Kali’s left eye swelled and purpled. “Far,” Kali said.

  Brenda wondered where she’d go, if she could afford it. She surprised herself by sharing dreams of outdoor adventure, climbing a mountain or a canyon, or rafting down a river.

  “I like beaches,” yawned Kali.

  Kali also yawned through Brenda’s retelling of a friend’s account of Acapulco, the dangers there.

  Brenda had things to do. There was the crossword, which she’d normally start right after her walk, and the groceries today and her weekly run to Goodwill. At least she’d managed to wash and hang the black baseball cap in the time they sat around her little half-moon table.

  “Do you want to change Chandra?” The baby looked sleepy.

  “Chan.” Kali pronounced Chan like Shawn. “Have you got a diaper?”

  “We’ll improvise.”

  First they bathed the baby in the sink. Kali held her in the water, tenderly soaped off her bottom, then lifted her into the softest towel Brenda could find. Kali dried the chubby creases while Brenda held the squirmy bundle.

  Brenda laid the child on the bathroom rug, brought out some sanitary pads from the back of the linen closet, and snipped the long gauzy ends into two strips each.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “They’re old. But they should work. The ends clipped to a belt you wore around your waist.” Brenda was going to add that it was like a garter belt, but Kali was laughing.

  “You wore that? Freaking hell.”

  Brenda coloured a little. She didn’t want to divulge that they were left a lifetime ago by her mother, along with soft towels, fine linen, and fabrics.

  Brenda fit the pad under Chan and separated the forked strands to tie one end from the top and one from the bottom, at each of the baby’s hips. She made a bow instead of a knot.

  She asked Kali, “Do you play chess?”

  Kali laughed again and cuddled Chan to her breast. Chan fit her head under Kali’s neck. Brenda’s eyes rested there until Kali felt them and marched outside with Chan.

  When Kali pulled the stroller down into a bed and nestled Chan under Brenda’s bulky green gardening sweater, Brenda thought she heard “Crazy witch.” It could have been “bitch,” but maybe Kali was recalling the motorcycle maven—could she be Chan’s grandma?

  Brenda set to work washing the baby’s blanket. Three rinses released crust, grime, and stains. Pinned next to the black cap, the blanket pirouetted on the line, a pastel plaid of yellow, pink, and blue. Kali flopped on the chaise lounge near the stroller and the dog kept vigil, front paws holding down the bone, gnawing. Kali stretched her bony shoulders, sang to Chan, and lay there, out like a light. Same with Chan. And soon, Licker.

  Brenda couldn’t go out now, so she got busy. Groceries were low, partly because Brenda did not believe in stockpiling, but mostly because she looked forward to her weekly visit to Safeway, an oasis of colour and motion and purpose. Chandra’s milk would do for a coffee cake, along with the last apples, a half-used half-lemon, and cinnamon. At Safeway tomorrow, she might splurge on that cinnamon tea Kali mentioned. And Danish shortbread. Brenda cleaned up the kitchen right to the floor and thought ahead.

  What if Kali and Chan had to spend the night? Brenda concentrated at the sewing machine, stitching down that possibility. She fixed a tiny rip in the black baseball cap and a massive split in the baby blanket, still a bit damp, and then hung them up again. Then she stashed her sewing supplies to give space for mother and child in the spare bedroom, once her father’s. Chan could sleep in the bed with her mother and they’d
leave the stroller outside with Licker.

  Brenda thawed a chicken in the microwave and put it in the oven. She seldom cooked a whole chicken unless she wanted a batch of soup. But Kali ate no red meat, and a stewing hen was the closest to that description in Brenda’s compact fridge freezer. Chicken soup was perfect for the predicted rainy evening, and for a child who had no other clothes than her cotton sleeveless dress. Tomorrow at Goodwill they’d find some cute things and wash them in Perfex for Chan. Brenda added some old potatoes and carrots, her last onion, and a little garlic to the roasting pan. Because she’d neglected lunch for herself, she scraped out the remaining cream cheese and spread it on saltines while she chopped, but forgot her rewarmed tea in the microwave while she hastened to mix up the coffee cake since the oven was hot. Soon it would smell like home, but tomorrow, no egg

  for breakfast.

  Brenda tucked the dry fluffy blanket on top of her gardening sweater over the slumbering child. The air had cooled. She unfolded her Mexican blanket, a gift from her travelling friend, over Kali. Ladled out in heaping portions, clouds floated above.

  After the activity of this auspicious day, Brenda also had to lie down. She didn’t mean to but, in the breeze of the open window, she fell asleep. She dreamt of her father again. He dropped her off at Safeway, as he used to while he browsed at the library. She pushed her cart to the cashier and then went around the counter and rang up the items by herself, at a discount!

  The rain angling down on the window pane woke her. Did she burn the cake? Goodness! She’d intended to pop up when she heard the timer.

  She hurried to the kitchen in sock feet and a daze. The oven and timer were off, but the cake, and her trusty eight-by-eight aluminum pan, along with the potatoes and carrots, had vanished. The chicken, hacked apart: the sorry legs and slim breasts, she guessed, deposited in a Ziploc bag, because that drawer protruded; and no chicken bones lay in the garbage, only a saturated sanitary pad. The rest of the crackers, peanut butter, lone banana, and sanitary napkins went for a walk, good, as well as some hand cream, shampoo, and the top two towels in the linen closet. Brenda’s favourite tea towel, the one she’d used on Chan’s little hands, along with the damp towel she’d used on Chan’s bottom, huddled in the laundry hamper. A plastic ginger ale bottle from the recycling box was gone, full of fresh water, she hoped. Also, of course, her gardening sweater, and several plastic bags. The Mexican blanket. The dog bowl, too, and the soup bone—but maybe it was buried somewhere, fertilizing a tree.