Too Much Happiness

teacher.
    Thursday, the day of the music lesson, is the momentous day of the week, its happiness or unhappiness depending on the success or failure of the child’s performance, and the teacher’s notice of that performance. Both are nearly unbearable. The teacher’s voice could be controlled, kind, making jokes to cover its weariness and disappointment. The child is wretched. Or the teacher is suddenly lighthearted and merry.
    “Good for you. Good for you. You’ve really made the grade today.” And the child is so happy she has cramps in her stomach.
    Then there is the Thursday when the child has tripped on the playground and has a scratched knee. The teacher cleaning the injury with a warmed wet cloth, her suddenly soft voice claiming that this calls for a treat, as she reaches for the bowl of Smarties she uses to encourage the youngest children.
    “Which is your favorite?”
    The child overcome, saying, “Any.”
    Is this the beginning of a change? Is it because of spring, the preparations for the recital?
    The child feels herself singled out. She is to be a soloist. This means she must stay after school on Thursdays to practice, and so she misses her ride out of town on the school bus, to the house where she and her mother are now living. The teacher will drive her. On the way she asks if the child is nervous about the recital.
    Sort of.
    Well then, the teacher says, she must train herself to think of something really nice. Such as a bird flying across the sky. What is her favorite bird?
    Favorites again. The child can’t think, can’t think of a single bird. Then, “A crow?”
    The teacher laughs. “Okay. Okay. Think of a crow. Just before you begin to play, think of a crow.”
    Then perhaps to make up for laughing, sensing the child’s humiliation, the teacher suggests they go down to Willingdon Park and see if the ice-cream stand has opened for the summer.
    “Do they worry if you don’t come straight home?”
    “They know I’m with you.”
    The ice-cream stand is open though the selection is limited. They haven’t got the more exciting flavors in yet. The child picks strawberry, this time making sure to be ready, in the middle of her bliss and agitation. The teacher picks vanilla, as many adults do. Though she jokes with the attendant, telling him to hurry up and get rum raisin or she won’t like him anymore.
    Maybe that is when there is another change. Hearing the teacher speak in that way, in a saucy voice almost the way big girls speak, the child relaxes. From then on she is less stricken with adoration, though entirely happy. They drive down to the dock to look at the moored boats, and the teacher says she has always wanted to live on a houseboat. Wouldn’t it be fun, she says, and the child of course agrees. They pick the one they’d choose. It is homemade and painted a light blue, with a row of little windows in which there are potted geraniums.
    This leads to a conversation about the house the child lives in now, the house where the teacher used to live. And somehow after that, on their drives, they often come back to that subject. The child reports that she likes having her own bedroom but doesn’t like how dark it is outside. Sometimes she thinks she can hear wild animals outside her window.
    What wild animals?
    Bears, cougars. Her mother says those are in the bush and never to go there.
    “Do you run and get into your mother’s bed when you hear them?”
    “I’m not supposed to.”
    “Goodness, why not?”
    “Jon’s there.”
    “What does Jon think about the bears and cougars?”
    “He thinks it’s just deer.”
    “Was he mad at your mother for what she’d told you?”
    “No.”
    “I guess he’s never mad.”
    “He was sort of mad one time. When me and my mother poured all his wine down the sink.”
    The teacher says it is a pity to be scared of the woods all the time. There are walks you can take there, she says, where wild animals won’t bother you, especially if you make a noise and usually you do. She knows the safe paths and she knows the names of all the wildflowers that will be coming out about now. Dogtooth violets. Trilliums. Wake-robins. Purple violets and columbines. Chocolate lilies.
    “I think there is another proper name for them, but I like to call them chocolate lilies. It sounds so delicious. Of course, it isn’t anything about the way they taste but the way they look. They look just like chocolate with a bit of purple like crushed berries.