There was no slowing down Alice's cancer; it would run away with her in a hurry, befitting a disease that had a twenty-year head start. Later that same morning--after he'd said good-bye to Dr. Yap--Jack got himself down to Queen Street and once more entered the tattoo world of Daughter Alice, where he and his mother had a little talk. (A little dance would more accurately describe it.)
"Do you still take your tea with honey, dear?" his mom asked him, when he walked into the shop. "I just made a fresh pot."
"No honey, Mom. We have to talk."
"My, aren't we serious this morning!" his mother s
aid. "I suppose Leslie spilled the beans in her dramatic fashion. You'd think she was the one who's dying--she's so angry about it!"
Jack didn't say anything; he just let her talk, knowing she might clam up at any moment. "Of course Leslie has a right to be angry," Alice went on. "After all, I'm leaving her--and I promised her I never would. She let me go to all those tattoo conventions, where there's a lot of fooling around. But I always came back."
"I guess you're leaving me, too," Jack said. "When were you planning to tell me?"
"The only person I ever wanted to agonize over me was your father, Jack, and he simply refused. He didn't want me--even knowing that, if he rejected me, I would never let him be with you."
Perhaps it was being with Maureen Yap that made Jack wonder if he'd misheard what his mother had said, but he could tell by the way she suddenly gave his cup of tea her complete attention that she might have said a little more than she'd meant to say.
"He wanted to be with me?" Jack asked her.
"I'm the one who's dying, dear. Don't you think you should ask me about me?"
He watched her put a heaping teaspoon of honey in his tea; her hands, like Mrs. Oastler's at the kitchen table, were shaking slightly as she stirred the spoon in the cup.
Jack knew that he'd not misheard her. She'd clearly said that William didn't want her--even knowing that, if he rejected her, she would never let him be with Jack. When his mom handed him his cup of tea--looking, for all the world, as if she were still the wronged party--Jack imagined there would be no stopping him this time, no turning him away.
"If my dad wanted to be with me," Jack persisted, "why did he flee from us? I mean everywhere we went. In city after city, why had he always left before we arrived?"
"The cancer is in my brain--I suppose you know," his mother replied. "I wouldn't be surprised if my memory is affected, dear."
"Let's start with Halifax," Jack continued. "Did he leave Halifax before you got there? If he was still there when you arrived, he must have wanted to see me be born."
"He was still there when I arrived," Alice admitted, with her back turned to Jack. "I wouldn't let him see you be born."
"So he wasn't exactly running away from you," Jack said.
"Did Leslie tell you about my mood changes?" his mom asked. "They're not always logical, or what you would expect."
"I'm guessing it's bullshit that I was a Cesarean birth," Jack told her. "The scar from your C-section wasn't why you wouldn't let me see you naked. There was something else you didn't want me to see. Isn't that right?"
"Leslie showed you the photographs--that bitch!" Alice said. "You weren't supposed to see them until after I was gone!"
"Why show me at all?" he asked.
"I was beautiful once!" his mother cried. (She meant her breasts, when she was younger--he'd meant her tattoo.)
"I've been thinking about it--I mean your tattoo," Jack told her. "I'll bet it's a Tattoo Ole, from Copenhagen. You had it almost from the start."
"Well, of course it's a Tattoo Ole, Jack. Ole preferred only outlining, and I wasn't about to shade myself."
"I suppose you wouldn't let the Ladies' Man shade you," he said.
"I wouldn't let Lars touch me, Jack--not even shading. I wouldn't have shown Ladies' Man Madsen my breasts!"
"We're getting ahead of ourselves, Mom. Let's talk about Toronto before we talk about Copenhagen. When we got to Toronto, had my dad already left?"
"He got a girl at St. Hilda's in trouble, Jack--he had another girlfriend at the school, and for all I know an affair with one or more of the teachers, too!"
"Mom, I know about the girls."