Goodbye and Hello again

Goodbye And Hello Again

By

Raymond Paltoo ----3-31-2020

She had selected a corner table in a little café in East Montreal for our rendezvous. She had always been the organizer in our family, and I suspected that it was a deliberate move calculated to remind me of the times and the places where we had met and had fun. We had shared ten years and three children before she announced that she was going to Europe to find herself.

Being a wife and mother was not her thing, as she had casually informed me while the taxi waited outside our home to take her to the Toronto airport. We had moved there after my residency, where I had obtained a very prestigious job with the University of Toronto and was making a great living. At least she had had the grace to call me before leaving the country, although she assured me that she had left a self-explanatory note on my bed. A bed in which she had not slept for the last year.

Now she was back after a three-year absence, sitting in this French-Canadian bistro in East Montreal, sipping a small Turkish coffee and talking. She had called me from Montreal, where she had been staying with her parents on her return to Canada. She looked every inch a sophisticated, slim European woman. She was smartly dressed, and her make-up was flawless, highlighting her cheekbones and giving that glow to her skin.

I was not listening to the words flowing steadily and smoothly from her mouth. She always had that talent for arty conversation and delighted in the company of friends with a like philosophy. I knew she and her friends had long lived in an echo chamber where dissident thinking was prohibited. I was looking at her. In particular, I was looking at her nose. Her nostrils were large and flared, in keeping with her nose, which no plastic surgeon could lessen. I liked her nose because we were both Jewish. She was from the posh area of TMR, the town of Mont-Royal, which was the home of the wealthy Jewish folk, while I was from the suburb of Snowdon, another Jewish enclave where we, belonging to a lower socioeconomic status, dwelt. We had met and fallen in love at McGill University and got married soon after I graduated from Medical school.

I had always believed we had a great life as we had grandparents on either side to babysit for us on the weekends when I was off-duty. Soon, as my Resident’s salary increased, we could afford to buy classier things and dine at more fashionable restaurants.

Now, I stared in fascination at her nostrils, the insides of which were pinkish red. I wondered absent-mindedly if she had been picking at her nose. I did not know if women ever picked their noses. Or was it a sign that she was snorting cocaine? As the reader may garner, I was not paying much attention to what she was saying until I heard the words, “I want to come back to Canada permanently, Brian. I miss my children!”

At this, I stiffened, my senses alert, as I said casually, “It may take a while for them to get used to you again as they have changed in the last three years, but you are certainly welcome to visit them as often as you like. Do you plan to visit Toronto soon?”

She took a deep sip of her coffee, ran her tongue over her lips, and said, “As a matter of fact, I am asking for custody of the children. You know the courts normally side with the mother in these matters!”

I took a deep breath, cleared my mind as I always did when I ran into a complication during a surgical procedure and answered as calmly as possible, “And you have the means to maintain them? Fifty thousand dollars could not have lasted you this long.”

She had the grace to blush, remembering cashing out all the money in our checking account before she left. It was easy at the time as she had controlled the checkbooks in our house.

“Oh, I work as a freelance photographer, and Pierre, my French husband, is an architect here in Montreal. He loves it in Quebec because of the language and culture. We have enough. Of course, we expect you to help with the children’s schooling and expenses later on.”

I laughed and said, “That ship sailed three years ago when you walked out of their lives. You did not have to explain puberty, menstruation, or training bras to Becky. You did not have to deal with Sam’s bedwetting and Rena’s dyslexia after you left! I think not!”

Standing up, she looked down at me and replied, “See you in court, Brian!”

Today is special! I sit on my porch, legs stretched out, gazing out at the setting sun. The blue waters of the Caribbean lap gently onto the white sand. A few wooden fishing boats are tied up at the docks and sway in time to the wash of the waves as they head to the shore. I work about four hours a day at the local wooden hospital, a far cry from the massive buildings of the University of Toronto. It is a small, prosperous island where rich people from Canada and America hide their offshore accounts. The people here had never had a Urologist before I came, so I do the best I can, and they are grateful.

A ship from the Big Island is sailing towards me, skimming over the waves in graceful flight, carrying my children for the few weeks allotted to me. They are bilingual and very much into the arts and humanities. They are big-city sophisticated folk now.

I guess that ship had not truly sailed as I thought! I had only been fooling myself. It turned out that the female judge in the Canadian court thought I had been the problem! Oh well! Goodbye, and Hello again!