“The speed limit here is 50, Nicki.” I tried to keep the impatience from creeping into my voice.
“I know, Mom.” She kept her eyes firmly glued to the road, but the eyeroll was clear in her voice.
The speedometer needle didn’t budge over 40.
Although I was inwardly clamouring for just a little bit more speed, Nicki was navigating the DTES with suitable caution, as a new driver, and I couldn’t fault her for that. When she had called that morning asking for my help, I had done a swift mental calculation and decided I could still squeeze her in to the afternoon, so I would just have to accept it if things didn’t go exactly as I’d planned.
But hers hadn’t been the first call that day.
“I wonder if you could pick Chuck up from his piano lesson this afternoon,” Annie asked. “EJ has a birthday party in New West and I can’t be two places at once. Afterwards, we could all meet at your place and order a pizza at 6.”
My stepdaughter has a formidable gift for ruthless efficiency, and a request of this nature is not easily denied unless something really urgent is on the calendar. I tried to enlist my husband to take on this task, but he had agreed, he said, to host his quartet buddies for an afternoon of Shostakovich and begged off, saying he would need a nap afterwards. After Shostakovich, I could well understand the need for a nap.
Just as I was contemplating how to avoid being in the house for Shostakovich myself, Nicki phoned.
“Mom, I”ve been cleaning out my closet and I have to get all this stuff out of my entrance way today! Would you drive me to WISH?”
Anyone who knows Nicki knows that she is completely obsessive about finishing tasks she has started, so I understood that she would have a meltdown if the bags of clothes I imagined were piled up in her little apartment weren’t removed immediately. The other thing about Nicki that came into play here was her determined support, through volunteering and donations, of the WISH drop in centre for sex workers on the DTES. I really had no other option except to agree to drive her, both to preserve her mental health and contribute to a worthy cause.
But I also knew that driving her would actually mean being driven. Nicki was a week away from her driving test, and that meant she would still want to practice.
Once I arrived at her place and the car was loaded, she announced, “I want to drive.”
I suppressed a groan and handed her the keys. So there we were, rolling through the back alleys of the most impoverished postal code in Canada with a mountain of clothes in the trunk. Nicki parked at the locked gate and hopped out.
“Back in a minute.”
The gate opened and Nicki disappeared inside. For the next 10 minutes, I fidgeted in place: she’d taken the car keys with her, the gate had closed behind her, and I had nothing left to do except another calculation of how to manage the rest of the afternoon without leaving my grandson waiting after his piano lesson. Just as I had reached the end of my tether, Nicki reappeared with another woman from the centre, who thanked me profusely for taking the time to bring donations, and the two unloaded the car, talking animatedly the whole time.
Fortunately, the wait before Nicki's return was shorter this time, and we were on our way, Nicki again wheeling carefully towards the main street. This time, she actually achieved the 50 km per hour, and I was greatly relieved, since we had just enough time to get her home before I had to pick up Chuck.
“Maybe I’ll invite myself along for pizza!”
I met this announcement with mixed feelings. Of course, I always enjoyed having time with my daughter, but on this occasion, having that time also meant spending another 45 minutes in the passenger seat of my own car, which is never my seat of choice.
By the time we collected Chuck, it was 5:30 and dark, and it would take another half hour to get home. And then —
“Can we go by my place and pick up my coat, Seya?” chirped Chuck from the back seat.
I sighed and conceded, and by the time we pulled into the very dark carport at home, my mood had taken a decided turn downwards.
“Why can’t Opa leave the light on for us if he knows it’ll be dark when we get back?” I grumbled as I fumbled for the lock with the house key. “Honestly! In fact, why are all the lights out? Where is he?”
As we stepped inside, all the lights came on suddenly.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SEYA!!”
The collective roar from the assembled family practically knocked me over. I learned afterwards that only at that moment had it occurred to my husband that maybe surprising me for my 60th could have less than desirable consequences!
Fortunately, after the initial shock that left me pinned to the wall, I recovered sufficiently to accept a glass of bubbly and grope for someplace to sit down while the excited group sang to Chuck’s accompaniment on the piano.
I’d been had.
I’d made my husband promise that he would let this birthday go by, told all the adult children it would be a non-event, that I was grimly determined to grimly get past it, and had relaxed only after I thought I had.
Clearly, no one in this family ever does what they’re told, and I should know that. But on this occasion, they had truly outdone themselves in their deviousness and ingenuity, gotten me out of the way — out of my own house! — on pretexts they knew I couldn’t say no to by appealing to my motherly and grandmotherly desire to help out. How they pulled it off, I’ll never know, all that planning and organizing, but from oldest to youngest, not one gave away the secret in the days and weeks before.
The party was memorable, to say the least — at least, for everyone else. I was still too much in shock to really take in and appreciate everything, the music, the cards, the gifts, the roasting they gave me in song with a rewrite of ABBA’s “Mamma Mia,” with Chuck hammering out the melody on the piano and the entire group belting it out exuberantly.
It is true, I’m sorry to say, that I have a much more vivid memory of how the day played out before the party than I do of the party itself. That is likely the way of surprise parties: that the guest of honour feels more like the victim of a police raid.
But far be it from me to sound grumpy and unappreciative. They showed their love for me in so many ways that day, needing my help — even if the errands were manufactured! — and wanting to celebrate my birthday with me in spite of my protestations, but most of all in the gift of a new name.
I had been promoted. To Mama Seya. Breached copyright and all.
