“Mom liked this film,” Tim said. 

  It was midnight, and I had been sitting on my bunchy, broken-springed beige couch, watching Casablanca.  I turned around.  Tim was supposed to be in bed.

  “I couldn’t get to sleep,” he said.  And then he repeated, “That was Mom's favourite movie.”

  “I know,” I said. 

  After all, it was Mom who had given it to me.  Just before I’d moved to Vancouver.  She’d driven me to the airport, hugged me goodbye, and pulled out a DVD-sized gift, wrapped in Christmas wrapping because every Christmas she bought too much paper.  I’d stared in surprise at the Santa Claus ho-ho-ho-ing his way across the gift and then I'd looked at her.  She was wearing her I'm-trying-not-to-be-sentimental-here-because-I-know-you-hate-mushy-gushyness-but-you-are-my-baby-girl-and-you-grew-up-too-fast expression. 

  “I have a surprise for you,” she’d said.  Those six words she'd always loved to say.

  Pulling off the paper, I’d seen the cover photos of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and suddenly felt sniffly.  Not just because I loved the film, but because it was the movie we’d watched together, over and over again, after the divorce.  Mom had always cried at the "Here's looking at you, kid" part.  I never asked why.  But, because children always pick up on these things with a strange mixture of precociousness and understanding, I knew it had something to do with her memories of dad. 

  “I know,” I said again to Tim. 

  He glanced at me curiously as the credits rolled on the screen.  He must have thought it was strange that tears were dripping down my face, because I never cried.  I hated mushy-gushyness, and he knew that, so I said nothing.  When the DVD menu selection came on the screen, Tim grabbed the remote and turned the power off, and for a while, we sat in the dark.

  “Sometimes there’s something so comfy about darkness,” I said.  I hadn’t meant to speak my thoughts out loud, not really.

  Weighing what I’d said in his systematic way, Tim waited before speaking.  Then his voice croaked up, “I know.”  There was silence.  “Except when you have to sleep alone and...and you think there are grizzly bears under your bed.”

  “Well, there is that, of course,” I admitted.

  “Mom always checked under my bed for me.  Sometimes she would call me to check under her bed for her, too.”
  “Mom?”

  “Yeah.  She said that when she finished reading a scary mystery story, she could never get out of bed to turn off the light because Something might grab her from under her bed.  So she’d call me.  She said that Somethings only grabbed people who had been reading scary stories late into the night.”

  From somewhere, there was a creak.  It was a solid, dependable creak, and Tim glanced around.

  “I like this apartment,” he said. 

  “Yeah.  Me too.”  I stopped, remembering my first few months here.  “I was lonely for the first bit.  I named everything in this apartment.  Like, this couch is Bernard.  The microwave is Snap, Crackle, Pop.”
  The dimple in Tim’s right cheek turned into a smile.  “Like in Rice Krispies?”

  “Yeah.  The microwave opens with a snap.  The door never closes properly, and it always springs open with a pop!  And then while it’s warming things up, it crackles.” For a minute, I was silent.  “We live almost at the very top of the building, but there’s a vacant apartment right above us, and sometimes I can hear rats and mice scurrying around.  So I thought it would be cool if I pretended actual people lived up there, and I invented some.”
  “What did you name them?”

  “They were foreign, and their names were Vladimir and Justoff.  I don’t know where I got that name from, Justoff, but it sounded foreignish.”
 “Like something from Star Wars,” giggled Tim.

  “Well, I was thinking more Icelandic or Kyrgikistanish.  Anyway, Vladimir is Norwegian. He has blonde hair and blue eyes.  Justoff always wears one of those weird foreign hats.  Vladimir is studying forensics at UBC, and Justoff is studying at a culinary school.  He decided he wanted to be a chef when he was a kid, after he read that book about pancakes falling on the city, the one I used to read to you over and over again when you were younger.  Except I’m not sure if it was translated into Icelandic or Kyrgikistanese.”

  Tim nodded.

  “So I’ve never seen them yet, but every time I hear something creaking upstairs late at night, I wonder why Vladimir or Justoff is getting home so late.”  I stopped, remembering that it was late and Tim was eight.  “And speaking of which, it’s bedtime.”

  “Mom always said that bedtime was when you felt tired.” He paused before adding the punch line,  “I don’t feel tired.”

  I didn’t argue the point, I simply pointed to his room.  He sighed and went to bed.

   And I got up and turned on the radio, making sure the volume was low.  I needed just a little bit of noise; everything was too conducive to thought.

  So I guess I can blame it all on the radio.  Or maybe it was the deejay’s fault.  Or the fault of the electrician who assembled the radio.  Or the person who invented the radio.  Or maybe the first person to play music.  Or perhaps I could blame it all on the entire human race. 

  Because suddenly, the Graduation song was playing.  Not loudly.  But quietly, just enough that I could hear the words and feel the rhythm.  Little blurbs of memories began to jump around in my head. 

  It was prom night.  Tammi was getting ready, dressing up as Cleopatra, while her boyfriend was going as Anthony.  I was staring at her completely outrageous green dress.  Outrageous.  Cleopatra would never have worn green silk, I said.  Ever.

  “Tchah.  Of course she would.”

  I was silent.  I wasn’t an expert on Cleopatra.  Then again, neither was Tammi...

  Another memory blurb from that evening danced inside my head.  Walking into the decorated gym.   Flashing lights.  Vitamin C playing on stage.  A hundred kids revolving on the dance floor, the bright streamers, a hundred colours assaulting my eyes.    Danae, wearing jeans and a team hoodie because she would never dress up.  Riley in his penguin costume, trying to dance with webbed feet and tripping up, grumbling about how it was too warm, how much colder it was in Antarctica.  Being snubbed by Tammi because his jokes were just too lame.

  Feeling like something out of a movie, the scene was so colourful and so perfect.  Everyone smiling.  Euphoria.

 Tim was asleep; the only sound floating on the air was the last few chords of the song.  And for the second time that evening, I began to cry.  I cried until I fell asleep on the sofa, sharing my sleep with nightmares that played like sharp pictures hurting my mind, fading only to make room for the next nightmare.  It was five thirty in the morning when I woke up.  Light was dribbling into the apartment.  Cars were zwizzing past below. 

  I felt grey.  Greyer.  Greyest.  Like smudgy newspaper ink.  And I had to go to work.

   So it made sense that I had a bad day, even though I wore odd socks and a bright red scarf in an attempt to be happyfull.  I suspected everyone of ulterior motives.  I resented the customers who told me to have a good day.  “As if,” I thought to myself, “as if I had to do what they said.  I can have a bad day if I want to.”

  Yeah.  So that was a childish argument.

  Finally, the hours disintegrated into minutes, then seconds.  Then it was five o’clock and I could go home.  I drove through the streets, shivering because my old car’s heating system was on the fritz.  Climbed out and slammed the door.  Locked my car, as if I actually had a reason to think anyone would want to steal it.  Pulled off my glove with my mouth and opened the front door.  Climbed steps.  Unlocked the apartment door.  Tim was inside, lying across the sofa and listening to music, and I glared at him.

  “Tim.  The mail was lying on the floor when I pushed open this door.”  I dropped my car keys on the counter and unpeeled my coat.  “Remember I told you, first thing when you get home from school...listen to me!”

  Tim had replaced his headphones and was closing his eyes, moving his head to the music.  He looked up in a mildly inquiring way.  I snatched the headphones off his ears.

  “I’m out all day working, I ask you to do one simple thing when you get home from school, and you forget it.  You forget it!  It’s not like I’m asking you to hack into the CIA’s computer systems here, Tim.  I asked you to pick up the mail.  Pick. Up. The. Mail.  Is it really that hard?”

  “You rhymed,” said Tim.

  “The mail was lying on the floor

    When I pushed open this door.”

  “Except,” he added reflectively, “the meter is all wrong.”

  “Well, aren’t you so clever.” I kicked off my shoes.  “Guess what, there’s more?  It’s snowing, and I’m not taking you to Tyson’s birthday party tonight.”

  “Aw, it’s not so bad out...”  Tim’s voice faded as he looked out the window.  Because it was.  Not only was the temperature -2, but huge flakes had already covered the road.

  “And don’t look at me like that,” I went on, “because I’m not changing my mind.  Tyson lives an hour away and it’s icy out.  I already called Tyson’s mom to let her know.”

  Tim sulked for a bit.  Then his face brightened.  “Well then, Jane, could we...”

  “No.”  I cut him off as I sourly flipped through the mail.  Advertising.  A new phone plan from Fido – because, of course, No One Rewards Like Fido.  Did they have any idea how much I was turned off by the candy cane draped around the rabbit’s neck?  A flyer from the grocery store around the corner.  Glitzy brochures from clothing stores I’d given my address to in what must have been a fit of insanity.  And Christmas catalogues, plastered with elves and red and green.  Christmas.  Already.

  It was with venomous pleasure that I threw all the advertising in the trash.  I stubbed my toe against the corner of the counter and swore with great variety.  There’s something so innately satisfying about completely giving in to a bad mood.

  Tim was gazing at me.  He had spent a long time practicing The Woebegone Look, and as an expert in the field, I can say that he did it very well – but it did not move me.  Of course, I should have repented of my snappy answer and become The Model Older Sister once again, but instead I revelled in my moodiness.  Ignoring the twinge of conscience that warned me that social workers would arrest me immediately for child abuse were they to catch sight of Tim’s expression, I went to my room.

  Behind me, the door shut.  I collapsed on my bed.  At last.  At last I could wipe that silly smile I’d worn all day off my face, and I could frown.  Scowl.  Or, if I was feeling particularly daring, perhaps even glower.

  But there was nothing to glower at except my wall, which was singularly unreceptive.  Unfortunate.

  I turned on some depressed music and swam in a sea of misery.  To completely fulfill the Dejected Protocol I should of course have felt a deep dark misery pressing upon me and I should have squeezed out a few dry sobs and hopeless tears, but I didn’t feel up to it.  Giving in to depression was too much fun.  And then my music player skipped to a comforting song, and I realized that lying on my bed staring at the ceiling was a fairly pointless occupation.  That didn’t mean that I would stop doing it. It just meant that I would realize how utterly pathetic it was to be sprawled across my bedspread wondering whether life was worth living, but feeling somehow comforted by the voice of someone who didn’t even know I existed singing ‘I love you’.

 I was used to dozens of to-do lists whirling around my head in a kind of crazy merry-go-round, blocking out everything else.  So it shocked me when I realized that I really had nothing to do tonight.  Nothing.  I could just go to bed...

  Bed.

  Pull on my old t-shirt that advertised Palm Springs, the one with the picture of a purple palm tree.  Open my window a sliver and close my blinds.  Turn down the covers, crawl under the sheets.  Feel the clean coolness.  Grab my iPod from the nightstand.  Insert the earbuds.  Turn it on repeat and turn the volume down until it became just background noise.  Snuggle into the blankets.  Then dissipate into dreams, listening to Mat Kearney songs playing over and over and over again. 

  It really was astonishing how rarely I relaxed, I thought.  If only my head were a remote control and I could turn it off for an hour; then maybe me and relaxation could become best friends.  Relaxation.  That word always reminded me of hammocks.  Or long books, the kinds where you check the number of pages part way through just to give yourself the delicious knowledge that there are still 341 pages left to read.  Hot chocolate, steaming from a pobby mug.  Long soaks in vanilla bubble bath.  Pushing your toes through the sand on the beach, feeling the warm granules of sand give way to the dampness underneath.  Long phone conversations with someone you know so well you can sit in silence and still feel like you’re talking.  Or maybe just going to bed and lying awake as you tell yourself that you can sleep in as long as you want, as long as you want, as long as you want...

  But there is a problem with having one’s head as a remote control.  If one’s head has turned itself off, what is going to turn it back on again?  Yes.  That clearly would not work.  But dreams be dreams.  Dreams...dreams...dreams.  My eyelids drooped.  It was only seven thirty in the evening, but mmm, sleep sounded so good right now. 

  I climbed off of my bed and opened the door. 

  “I’m going to bed,” I croaked to Tim.  He was sitting in the chair, reading.  I glanced at the book, saw that he was reading Harry Potter and not Shakespeare like I’d found him doing a few weeks ago.  Which was a mild relief.  Particularly because when I’d asked him in astonishment what he was reading, he had looked up in surprise, as if I’d asked him why he was reading something age-appropriate like The Hardy Boys or The Boxcar Children.

  “I found this in your room when I was out of books.  It’s really cool.  I didn’t think people actually ever used thee’s and thou’s, but they use them all the time in this book.  It’s by some guy called Shake-speare.”  Carefully, Tim had read out the name.

  “Uh,” I’d said.

  And then I’d told him that we’d start a contest.  Once in a while he should come up with a Shakespearean quote that in some way suited the weather or the situation or the conversation.  And I would have to guess which character said it.

  But when I’d said that, I hadn’t meant for another instalment of this contest on the evening of one of the worst days in my life.  Tim, obviously, did not recognize this.  And now he closed his book and looked up from his favourite cushioned chair.  “’To sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.’”

  “That was Hamlet,” I said wearily.  “Right.  Okay, Tim.  I’m going to bed.  Now.”

  “I made you some hot chocolate.  And Cliff came by and said that you had asked to borrow this book.  And it’s snowing outside.”

  It was a Wodehouse book I hadn’t read before.  A long one.  Sitting on the table beside the sofa was very chocolatey hot chocolate, in a mug that was irresistibly pobby.  And the blinds were open, looking out on streetlights with clouds of mesmerizing snowflakes whishering beneath. 

  Tim knew me too well.  If they came separately, I could resist hot chocolate, watching snow fall in the dark, and a good book.  But not all of them together.  I gave in. And after all, there are worse things than a cozy winter evening.  I remembered why evenings were always my favourite part of the day. 

   “You looked really crabby before.  Like, really,” Tim said.  “You looked ugly.”

  But I remembered that I had banished crabbiness from my thoughts, so I refrained from giving Tim these valuable insights.  A pity.  Then again, the sarcasm would have been wasted on him.  Tim didn’t get sarcasm.

  “Hey.  Your socks are different colours.”  He was staring at my feet.

  “I always wear different-coloured socks on gloomy days.  It’s hard not to feel cheerful when you’re wearing mismatched socks.  Particularly when one of them is turquoise.”

  He blinked.  He was either too young or too old to appreciate the depth of this statement. 

  “So you wore mismatched socks to work?”

  “I was wearing boots, Tim.  No one could see the socks.”

  “Why’d you wear them then?”
  Clearly, he did not understand the concept of feel-good-clothes-that-no-one-else-can-see.  Wrapping my hand around my hot chocolate, I thought about how to explain this to him. 

  “You see, Tim, it’s like this.”  I stalled for time.  “It’s like...it’s kinda like, um, you know, maybe...well, it’s really just all about your imagination.”  His face was blank.  “It’s like, no one knows about it except you, and that’s the point of doing it.  It’s...um, well, yeah.  I guess...it’s one of those things you’ll understand when you’re older.”  A lie.  He’d never understand it, because he was Tim.  But how are you supposed to explain something that requires imagination to someone with no imagination?

   I went back to my Wodehouse book.  And he went back to his Harry Potter.  On the table, where it wouldn’t get wrinkled, he had placed his bookmark.  He was careful to read every sentence of the book, never looking ahead to see how the chapter ended, methodically turning the pages so that they wouldn’t rip.  As I read, I twisted my bookmark with my fingers, fraying the already worn edges and bending it.  A drop of hot chocolate landed on my book and I hastily brushed it off, smearing it across the whiteness of the page.  Tim looked up, reproach in his face.

  “Cliff lent that to you, you know.  You should be more careful,” he said.  Wasn’t it me that was supposed to be saying that kind of thing to him? 

  Sometimes I wondered who was older.  And who was taking care of whom.