Cadillac Couches by Sophie B. Watson Page B

faint as a child?”
    â€œAre you okay, Annie? Have you been passing out?”
    â€œJust a few times lately. No big deal, I just wanted to know if you remember me doing this.”
    â€œActually, when you were really little, I mean quite small, up to my knees, I’m not sure what age that was, you used to hold your breath until you passed out. It used to scare the hell out of us. It was either a matter of will, being stubborn over something, like Brussels sprouts, or it was a nervous thing, like during scary movies.”
    â€œI totally forgot about that.”
    â€œWell, you were pretty young. Are you okay? You’re not taking drugs, are you?”
    â€œDad!”
    â€œSo when am I going to see you? We could go to the movies, or book hunting—you could come stay for the weekend.”
    â€œOkay, Dad, when I get back from Quebec. See ya.”
    â€œTake care.”
    I felt a little melancholy after that call. I loved my parents, I don’t know why I didn’t make the effort more to see them. Since they’d split up, only a few years ago, everything was so strained.
    But the holding-breath thing resonated. A memory came back of my older brother making fun, counting down as my four-year-old self puffed out my cheeks, ready to hold my breath for Canada over I don’t know what tantrum. “You’re going blue, no PURPLE! TEN, TWELVE  . . .” He missed a number and I opened my mouth to tell him so. He won.
    Isobel often commented on my sighs. I forgot to breathe sometimes, so I had to catch up with huge big gasps.
    I vowed to breathe better.
    â€œHoly shit!”
    â€œWhat’s going on?” said Isobel, waking up.
    â€œThere’s rocks and hills, trees and bumps and water. It’s not flat. Not flat! Are we dreaming?”
    â€œIncroyable!”
    â€œIt’s weird though, isn’t it . . . You can’t see for miles anymore. I kinda miss the horizon.”
    Isobel looked at the map. “This must be the Canadian Shield!”
    â€œI’ve heard of that.” We drove on, mouths open, taking it all in. All the variations of landscape we’d been deprived of having grown up as prairie girls. I liked it, despite having the sensation of being under a smaller sky than I was used to, I liked the hills, the valleys, the rock, the views of higgledy-piggledy bogs and lakes. It seemed more alive, more engaged than the big empty.
    By nighttime, we’d forgotten all about the flatness that had been with us for days on end and in fact for our whole lives. We were in a whole new province, a big one: Ontario. We found a beautiful campground near Kenora along the shores of the Lakes of the Woods and unpacked the car. It was so great to be near water and trees with the dusty prairies long behind us. Under the Mexican blanket in the backseat was Finn’s guitar. I was amazed he’d left it. Around the campfire later that evening, Isobel admitted that it was kind of sad without him and his floppy eagerness. She said he was like a golden retriever. I went to the car barefoot, crunching on pine needles, sap, and dirt. I got his guitar, thinking it would somehow invoke him. We could prop it up on the picnic bench and pretend he was there. Isobel unzipped it from its case. It had a big black mark on its blond wood.
    It was a scribble. To Annie—Hey Nice Name! kisses, Ani DiFranco. Finn had gotten his guitar signed to give to me. I was beyond touched. It was undoubtedly the biggest gift I had ever received. My own guitar! It had never occurred to me that it was something I could have.
    I’m not sure how Isobel felt though.
    She just sort of looked at it and looked at me. I couldn’t read her face in the dark with the slim light from the crescent moon above and the fire crackling on its last red embers.



side a, track 6

    â€œYou are a china shop and I am a bull
    You are good food and I am full”
    â€œYou Had