The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer

Author:Bronwyn Fischer [Fischer, Bronwyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2023-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

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I went to the house alone while my parents finished chores at the lodge. Inside, it smelled of pine, and thickening broth. In the kitchen, I unplugged the slow cooker like my mother had told me to. I lifted the lid. There were beans and onions drifting across a big shoulder of meat. I stirred it a few times and then put the lid back on.

The inside of our house wasn’t so different from the inside of the lodge. There was blond wood, floor and ceiling. Brown couches, one made of leather and the other of polyester. A framed map of Lake Temagami hung above a fire that looked in need of more wood. There was a square kitchen table with sticky placemats. They were plastic, and had different kinds of ducks on them.

I walked along the hall. I tried to find things that had changed in the house since the last time I’d been there. But it didn’t look any different than it had before. My parents hadn’t changed their minds about anything since I’d been gone. Hadn’t decided, after my leaving, to put up a different picture, to buy new art.

My room, as I went in, seemed less my own. The duvet on my bed was pulled flat, made for a long time without being touched. I pressed down my hand and the fabric wrinkled, and I felt a sense of reassurance that I could affect it. I looked inside my closet at all the clothes I hadn’t brought with me to school. I tried to remember what I used to think about when I chose what to wear. What did I used to think about before I’d met Nora?

I checked my phone again, but there was no reply to my bus picture. I considered taking a photo of my room and sending it, but I thought the appearance of so many wooden walls, of such a small and single bed, would make it seem that my life was tiny, and toylike. Would make her think of a rocking horse, a doll.

I wondered if I should try to call her. That would be more immediate. Her voice saying hello. I pressed her name on the screen and closed my eyes. I let the call ring out. It rang and rang, without an interrupting tone. I wondered if it would ring forever if I didn’t stop it—but then the door downstairs opened, and I had to hang up.

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