After by Francis Chalifour Page A

around while I grew up. I wanted to run, the farther away the better.
    “My mother wants to give my father’s clothes to my uncle Ted. What’s he ever done for us? Now he’s going to have Papa’s vest and even his shoes. There’s nothing left for me.”
    “I see.”
    “And she even wants to clean up the attic.”
    “Sometimes it’s good to clean up. We have to brush away the cobwebs.”
    “You don’t understand.” Mr. D. waited while I furiously stirred sugar into my cup. “I’m scared of the attic.”
    I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t know how to spit out the words that were choking me.
    “It’s where Papa died.”
    Mr. D. nodded in silence. I wanted to cry but instead I said, “Have you ever been to Toronto?”
    “Sure. We used to sail down the St. Lawrence with all kinds of cargo.” Mr. D. looked at me suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”
    “No reason. Have you ever heard of a place called The Sailor?”
    He laughed. “Oh, that takes me back.” He shook his head as if to rattle a memory loose. “What are you getting at?”
    “Do you know the password?”
    “Fellows, it’s time to close up.” Mr. Deli got up and started clearing the old men’s table. I knew he wasn’t going to answer me.

13 | D ELI D ELIGHT
    I was sitting on a stool in the deli’s dingy basement kitchen, peeling potatoes for pancakes and french fries. Upstairs the deli was packed. It was hot, and I was sweating.
    “Are you done with the potatoes?” Mr. D. called down the stairs.
    “I’ve got six or seven more to do.”
    “Leave them for now, and come on up and give me a hand.”
    I can’t say I liked working at the deli, but the money wasn’t bad and Mr. D. let me pick the music for the tape recorder that was always on. I brought in Jacques Brel and U2.
    “Francis, go serve the man at the table by the window.”
    “But I’ve never served anyone!” Talking to strangers was not high on my list of skills. My face burned as a Iflipped open the little order pad and asked the man what he wanted to have.
    “A clubhouse sandwich and make the bacon well-done.” He said without looking up from his newspaper.
    “I’m sorry, we don’t have any bacon here.”
    “Is this a deli or what?”
    “Yes, but it’s a kosher deli. Dairy.”
    “Shit!”
    The man took his newspaper, and left.
    “What happened?” Mr. D. asked.
    “He wanted a club sandwich.”
    Mr. D. just shrugged and said, “Finish the potatoes.”
    It was something like thirty degrees outside–freakishly hot for the month of May. I was soaked by the time I rode home up the mountain. Despite the heat, Maman was humming happily at the kitchen table, repotting her herbs into bright red ceramic pots. She had opened all the windows, but the house still smelled of fresh paint. In the last week she had painted the living room, the kitchen, and all the rooms in the house, except mine. I wanted to keep my room the way it was, pure white. There was color everywhere else–yellow in the kitchen, blue in the living room, and green in the bathroom. She had also cleaned up the attic with Aunt Sophie. I couldn’t do it.
Point final.

    In old movies, they show you that time has passed by having the pages fly off a calendar. Without my noticing,the pages that marked the year were disappearing. Maman was happy more often than she was sad. She had left the post office and had gone to work in an architect’s office, cheerfully organizing things to her heart’s content. She was earning more money and sometimes she went out with Aunt Sophie for a drink or to the movies while I baby-sat Luc. My little Luc. I picked him up at day care yesterday and as I was admiring a fingerpainting he’d done he said, out of the blue, “I think that Papa is really dead now.” He hadn’t talked about Papa for ages, so he caught me off guard.
    “What makes you say that?”
    He’d obviously given this a lot of thought. “Because he didn’t come for your birthday. He’s dead for