by Laurence Lumsden

A solitary pork chop, on a white dinner plate in the centre of the table. Ah, ma pauvre Annabelle, you don’t want to look at it or even think about it—cold, forlorn—but your dad doesn’t seem to understand. “Well, it’s there now if anyone wants it,” he says. He bought a family pack of chops at the supermarket. Family packs are always for four.

Slow-baked chops are one of his specialities. A survival recipe your grandma gave him when he left Ireland. But this is the first time he’s attempted ma version Québécoise, marinated in maple syrup and lemon juice. Well, it’s the first time by himself. Something has gone wrong. They’re usually tender, meat falling off the bone, but these have a brittle crust and they’re hard in the middle. You smell burnt flesh. Tommy doesn’t want his, but Annabelle, ma belle fille, you cover yours in ketchup and you do your best.

“Eat up now, Tommy,” says your dad, “or there’ll be no maple syrup pie for you.” You know that this is the wrong thing to say. The only way to get your little brother to do something is to tell him to do the opposite. Since he turned ten, Tommy has become a master of deflection.

“Have I mentioned that I found Jesus?” he says.

“Jesus?” Your dad has that perplexed expression of his, and you can’t help smiling. The Québec sens de l’humour has always been a challenge for him.

“Yep, Jesus,” says Tommy. Annabelle and I found him in the park on our way home from school. He was collecting cans.”

Your dad looks to you, our responsible twelve-year-old daughter. “It was a homeless man,” you say. “He had long blond hair, and Tommy said he looked like the picture of Jesus on the Easter card we got from Grandma.”

“He was exactly like him,” says Tommy. “And he had a superpower. He was wearing shorts and sandals even though it was freezing cold.”

Now your dad smiles. “Ah poor old Jesus, it’s been a difficult month for him. Crucified on Friday, back from the dead on Sunday, frozen to death in Montreal the following week.”

No one laughs. Your dad realizes what he’s said and looks down at his plate in silence. None of you is ready for a joke about death. You cut a piece of meat, your fork scraping against your plate. You concentrate on chewing.

Little Tommy deflects again. “Jesus told me that he gets ten cents at the supermarket for every can. And we have lots of beer cans under the kitchen sink.”

“For Christ’s sake, Tommy,” says your dad suddenly, his fork clattering onto his plate, “haven’t I told you a hundred times not to talk to strangers?” He bangs the table, then stands up and disappears into the living room.

“Tommy, you shouldn’t have mentioned the beer cans,” you say sharply. He looks at you like he’s about to cry but then runs to his bedroom, closing the door silently behind him. You clear off the table. No one gets dessert.

On Saturday afternoon your dad has work to catch up on, while Tommy has the new Assassin’s Creed game to play, so you go to the park by yourself. You’ve never minded being alone, Annabelle. It’s one of those in-between days of April. Spring is coming, but winter is refusing to leave. Last week’s snow is sparkling in the sunlight, and the park is huge and airy under a wide blue sky. You leave the path and climb the little hill where your dad taught you to cycle, running alongside you in case you fell. And you pass the bench and remember. The clapping and cheering. Regarde devant! Garde le cap! Just keep going, ma belle Annabelle.

You continue to the top of the hill, then stop to look back at your footprints in the snow, at the trail by the bench. There’s an emptiness inside you. You breathe in to fill it, but you can’t breathe that deeply. So you keep going, down the other side of the hill towards the playground. There’s a blonde girl on the swings. Her hair streams out behind her as she rushes through the air, and she kicks up little clouds of snow with her feet. But as you get closer you realize it isn’t a girl at all but a man, the same man that you and Tommy met yesterday, still in jeans shorts and sandals. He smiles at you, and his smile is warm, but he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps on swinging, feet swishing through the snow. He’s not really a stranger.

“Doesn’t the cold hurt your feet?” Your voice sounds different in the park, older.

For a moment he says nothing, though he must have heard you. “No,” he says eventually. “No, it doesn’t hurt. It’s more like an electric shock—everything feels strange and new.”

You consider this. “I think I understand. Still, I would never go barefoot in the snow.”

“Well, I’m not barefoot. I have sandals.” He looks like an adult, but he doesn’t talk like one.

“Are you homeless?”

He stops swinging and closes his eyes. It’s like when your teacher Madame Duhamel asks you to solve a math problem in your head. A crow calls out from the trees at the park’s edge.

“This,” he says finally, indicating with a sweep of his arms the playground, the trees, the hill, the park that you’ve known all your life stretching far into the distance, “all of this is my home.”

You nod at him. He looks down at his feet and says nothing more. You remember the eulogy, how you’re supposed to be kind and welcoming to the poor and the homeless. And you don’t want any more leftovers in the centre of the table.

“Do you like chicken?” you ask him. He looks up at you, uncertain, as if expecting you to hint at the correct answer. “I mean, to eat? We’re having chicken for dinner tonight. Would you like to join us?”

He looks all around. “Who are us?”

“My family, I mean . . . my dad, my brother, and me.”

“Yes. I like chicken.”

You hold out your hand. “I’m Annabelle. I live in the apartment building on the corner.”

He takes your hand and shakes it vigorously in his two hands, as though receiving a prize at an awards ceremony. “I’m Marcus.”

When you get home your dad is busy in the kitchen preparing dinner. Tommy is already at the table in the dining room. “Annabelle, you found Jesus again,” Tommy says with a grin.

“Tommy, this is Marcus.”

“Well close enough.”

Marcus looks worried. “Perhaps there won’t be enough food for everyone.”

“Don’t worry,” you say. “Chickens are perfect for four—two legs and two fillets. You just need to decide which part you want.”

“I’ll have whatever is left over.”

You leave Marcus with Tommy and go to check on your dad in the kitchen. He’s mashing potatoes with cream and butter. The chicken is cooling on the countertop, crisp skinned and golden.

“Dad, can you make an extra plate? I invited a guest over for dinner.”

“Oh? Who’s the guest?”

“It’s a homeless man I met in the park.”

“A what?” He stops mashing. “You’re kidding me, Annabelle, right?”

“It’s okay, Dad, it’s not a stranger. It’s the same man that Tommy and I were talking to yesterday.”

“Seriously, Annabelle? You and Tommy seem to think that none of the family rules apply anymore since your mother, uh, your mother . . .”

“No Dad, you don’t understand.” You take a deep breath and try to explain. “Remember Uncle René’s eulogy at the funeral? He talked about how Mom always said we should be kind and welcoming to the homeless, that actions mattered more than words.”

“Well, she didn’t mean you should actually invite them home.”

“You don’t get to tell me what Mom meant!”

His mouth falls open as if you’ve slapped him. There’s a pause, as though he’s counting in his head, and then he speaks slowly and deliberately. “Listen to me now, Annabelle. Until you are much older, you are not to talk to strangers. Maybe not even then. And you may not open the door to some homeless person you just met. Do you understand?”

“But he’s already here.”

“Jesus!”

He rushes into the dining room with you just behind him. Marcus is sitting at the table next to Tommy, in the chair that hasn’t been used for two months. They’re deep in conversation, and look up in surprise as the two of you rush in. Your dad hesitates. You can see that he doesn’t quite know what to do. He never used to be like this.

“Dad,” you say, “this is Marcus.”

Your dad looks at you for a moment, then turns back to Marcus. “Annabelle tells me she’s invited you for dinner.”

“Yes, thank you very much.” Marcus bows his head to each of you in turn.

“Dad, Dad,” says Tommy, “Marcus eats garbage.”

“What?”

Marcus remains silent, head bowed.

“Tell them Marcus,” says Tommy.

“Food is a miracle of nature,” he says. “Yet people throw away perfectly good food as though it were worthless. I eat very well with what I find in trash cans.”

“Yesterday we threw away two pork chops,” says Tommy, “though they were a bit burnt.”

“Tommy!” says your dad.

Marcus continues. “And there are generous people who give me food that’s just a little bit past its expiration date. Like Maureen at Papi’s Bagels, she—”

“We know Papi’s Bagels,” shouts Tommy. “Right, Dad?”

“Well, yes,” says your dad, “on Boulevard Saint-Laurent. On Sundays we used to always—”

“Their bagels are so good with smoked salmon and cream cheese and capers,” interrupts Tommy. “Marcus, do you prefer their sesame bagels or the ones with poppy seeds? Or maybe the plain ones?”

“I prefer whichever is left over.”

“Right,” says Tommy. “Me too.”

“That reminds me,” you say, “of a joke that Mom once told me.”

Tommy and your dad turn to stare at you, and you realize the enormity of what you’ve just said. But, ma belle Annabelle, it’s too late to stop now.

“So,” you say to the three faces watching you, “what is always left over when you eat a bagel?”

They all shake their heads.

“The hole.”

“Haha,” says Tommy, “that’s such a Mom joke.”

Your dad’s mouth has fallen open.

“The hole,” repeats Marcus, as though considering a hole in front of him and examining it from all sides. “The hole is left over.” He has the same look of deep thought on his face that he had in the park when you asked him if he was homeless. There’s a long pause. No one speaks. You discover that you can decide what happens next. You’re not a child anymore.

“Dad, can you serve the dinner, please? Marcus will have a chicken leg.”

Your dad hesitates for a moment, then goes to the kitchen to get the food, shaking his head as if unable to take in what’s happening. You place a knife and fork in front of Marcus who is still lost in his thoughts.

“Bon appétit,” your dad says as he serves each plate.

“Merci beaucoup,” you each say in turn.

Marcus eats quickly, but still not as quickly as Tommy. “Hey, Marcus,” he manages to say with a mouth full of mashed potatoes, “this is a lot better than garbage, right?”

“Yes,” says Marcus. “Much warmer.”

Everyone laughs. Your dad doesn’t tell Tommy not to speak with his mouth full. He doesn’t tell you to stop slouching. Out of the corner of your eye you can see that there’s a smile on his face. No one talks. Nothing needs to be said.

When he’s finished, Marcus puts his knife and fork down carefully. “Yes,” he says, “the hole is still there, but only until I decide that it isn’t there anymore.” He leans back in his chair, satisfied that he’s solved the mystery. Your dad nods slowly at you, his eyes shining, and you smile back.

“Are you really homeless?” Tommy asks Marcus.

Marcus is ready for this question now. “This,” he says, waving a hand around him to indicate the dining room, the table, your dad, Tommy, and you. “All of this is my home.”

“You’re going to live here?” Tommy is bouncing in his chair.

“No, Tommy,” says your dad, “Marcus will be leaving now. Isn’t that right, Marcus?”

“No, Dad,” you say firmly, “not yet.”

“Annabelle, I don’t understand.”

“We have dessert, left over from yesterday.”

“Oh,” says Marcus.

You all look at him.

“I hope it’s not ice cream,” he says. “The cold hurts my teeth.”

But he does love warm maple syrup pie, and his eyes open wide with delight at the sight of it. His slice disappears. “Well,” he says, “that’s the end of sugaring season.”

“How do you know it’s the end, Marcus?” asks Tommy.

“Because the sun was so warm today. Tomorrow the snow will be gone, and the sap will stop flowing.”

“Everything has to come to an end,” you say, but you don’t feel sad. Seasons are meant to change.

“It’s been a pleasure to share our dinner with you, Marcus,” says your dad. “For the first time in a while we’ll have no leftovers.”

“It’s better that way,” Marcus says, then stands up to leave.

“Wait a minute,” your dad says. He goes into the kitchen, and you hear rattling noises from behind the closed door. He re-emerges with a recycling sack full of beer cans. “These are for you,” he says to Marcus, who accepts them and leaves after another round of bowing.

Your dad closes the door behind him and turns to you and Tommy. “It’s time we went back to Papi’s Bagels,” he says. “How about breakfast there tomorrow?”

“Yes!” shouts Tommy. You nod too.

The three of you clear off the table together. You scrape the plates, filling the compost bin with the bones and carcass of the chicken; Tommy and your dad take the plates from you and stack the dishwasher.

“Annabelle, I wish you’d asked permission first,” your dad says, “but you did a good thing today.”

“Yeah, Annabelle, that was cool,” says Tommy.

“Mom would have loved it,” you say, “she would have just loved it.” Ah ma pauvre fille.

Your dad puts his arms around you. You bury your face in his shirt. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay.”

“But, Annabelle,” says Tommy, “if Mom had been here, we wouldn’t have had any leftovers for Marcus.”