Everything Is So Political by Sandra McIntyre Page B

look quite ripped as you’re whacking away.”
    When Sarah was just a little thing, not more than four or five, I could make her laugh so hard she got hiccups. Sometimes even now, at night mostly, I can still feel the weight of her attached to my hip, her powder-white legs dangling.
    Her mother gave her to me for a whole summer once. It was the summer she decided to fix her bulging feet. She had lined up her sister—the mouthy one with big teeth—to watch over Sarah, but then she got double pneumonia and there was nobody else. I was last resort—the bottom of the barrel. Ivan, you got to swear to me you won’t do any of your macho-shit around our daughter. Don’t let her near the damn elephants. I kept my end of the bargain, sticking Sarah to me like a fly on flypaper. Except when the chains came off during training rounds. Then I had no choice but to whisk her behind the rope. I never took my eyes off her. Only that one time. Only that one time when the babies butted heads and all hell broke loose and we had to whip them apart and everyone screamed bloody murder and when we finally got them separated, I jumped back behind the rope to where she was supposed to be perched on the hay bundle, colouring her butterflies page, only she wasn’t. All I could find were a few scattered crayons and one half-coloured wing.
    The telephone sounds buzzy. “Sarah?”
    I hear her sigh. Then nothing. Then, “You called me.”
    â€œI was hoping… I was hoping we could get together. When I’m in Canada. I know it’s a ways off—August 16—but I got an extra day at the end and thought maybe I could treat you to a steak dinner, someplace fancy.”
    â€œI’m a vegan, Ivan.”
    This was new. Or it wasn’t. Maybe she’d been a vegan whatever-the-hell since before her first bra. I could tell you about Ronnie and her watermelon rinds, how Bliss likes her oatbran with cinnamon on top. My own kid. I couldn’t even say what she looks like anymore.
    â€œI guess a hot dog is out of the question.” I wait, the phone clamped to my slippery fist. “Well, carrot sticks then. Whatever you like.” I say this stuff slowly to make it last longer. “It would be nice to catch up.”
    â€œThe circus comes to town,” she says. “Imagine.”
    â€œYeah,” I say, not sure.
    â€œI already heard, Ivan. I circled the date on my calendar already.”
    â€œReally,” I say.
    â€œI’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it.”
    I’ll be there, she’d just said. Wouldn’t miss it. Her words knock the breath from me. I imagine sitting across from my daughter at a table with a real cloth on top. I’ll look into her eyes, sea green like her mother’s. We’ll have hours and hours, and I will listen so very carefully to everything she’ll tell me, to everything she’ll leave out.
    I get so caught up in the notion of it, I forget to pay attention. I never even hear the lilt in her voice.
    If Ronnie had been that careless, I would have clipped her under the chin.
    * * *
    It used to be that we’d unload in a new city and the crowds lined up in droves. Everyone wanted to see the elephants with painted toenails and top hats marching down their street. The girls loved the praise, flapping their ears as they clomped along, tail to trunk, trunk to tail. People hollered and cheered, a mile-long standing ovation, and we’d wave and tip our caps and blow kisses to the pretty girls and strut along like we were kings of the jungle. Nobody cared about the size of our sticks or whether they had pointy hooks or whether we shouted when we gave commands. Back then, people respected what we stood for. People remembered that elephants could stomp you flat as a soda can and that it was the men like us who kept everybody out of trouble.
    I can’t remember when it changed. What city? What season? Now when we do the elephant