A Panoramic View

By Abe Margel

I thought I understood how my family operated, its rules, habits, prejudices, passions. I was wrong. 

My sister, Nina, was born first so got the larger of the two bedrooms destined for the children. Her room had a big walk-in closet which, as a kid, was a fun place to hide. From her window on the second floor she could see the leafy street below and on most days had a fantastic view of the Rockies far to the west.

The smaller bedroom, the one I occupied, was fine until my teenage years when I had a growth spurt. My new, spacious bed filled the chamber. I found myself constantly bumping into my bookcase, bed and dresser. I suggested to my parents and sister that Nina and I switch rooms.

“No, that wouldn’t be right,” my father said, sounding annoyed. 

“She’s the eldest,” my mother said. “It’ll have to be her decision.” 

“No way, I love my bedroom. I don’t want to change. Sorry, Cameron.” 

It seemed to me I was being punished for growing. It just wasn’t fair.

Food. Teenage boys spend a good deal of time chewing. As it was I always loved food, loved to eat and loved to cook. By the time I was seventeen I stood six feet two inches and I was always hungry. 

School to me meant mostly a place to socialize. I was not a serious student although I had no real difficulty passing my courses. After having my shoulder dislocated playing high school football, I soured on sports. Upon graduation I didn’t look to university, the construction trades or finding a menial job but headed to a community college. It was a practical decision, one that my parents and my sister backed. 

Although I held down a part time job while attending college I didn’t earn much. My parents helped me out and paid for my tuition and books. This was a major sacrifice on their part since they were working people, my dad a welder with his own truck and my mother a bookkeeper for a bottling factory. 

“We were always planning to help you and your sister out as much as we could,” my father said.

“It’s what parents do,” my mother said, “You’re our kids. We love both of you.”

But I knew some of my friends’ parents were far less financially and emotionally generous with their children.

When I graduated chef school from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, I was lucky and found work in one of the best hotel restaurants in Calgary. The atmosphere in the kitchen was intense. After three years of being worked to death and humiliated, I decided I needed a break. The furthest I’d been from home was San Francisco with my parents years earlier.

“But it was such a good job, Cameron,” my sweet mother said. “They paid well and the head chef was so nice.”

“He was nice to you that one time when you and dad showed up for lunch. But he was a bastard to the workers.”

“No! You never said a word about it.”

“But I did hint.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I won’t be hearing his yelling and swearing anymore. And I won’t have to duck every time he has a fit, no more avoiding dishes tossed on the floor or at the staff.” 

“He seemed like such a fine man.”

At twenty-three I wanted to see the world. I spent a few months backpacking through Europe, first the Scandinavian countries, then the Iberian Peninsula. After France I headed to Italy. 

In Rome on the Spanish Steps, I met an English girl, Haley. She was tall, lanky, with long black hair, olive skin and sparkling light brown eyes. She was in Italy for a week with a couple of girlfriends. 

We hit it off so I followed her around for a couple of days. The more I saw of her, the happier I felt. 

“Come back home with me,” she said. “In Manchester I have a little apartment with a panoramic view of Stockport Road, a ginnel and a Caribbean Bakery, that.” She had a good job with a British electricity company in their human resources department. She assured me she could afford to look after me for a time. “I’ll also teach you to speak proper English, that,” she said in her middle class Mancunian accent.

“Will I have to end my sentences with the word, that?”

“It would be mint if you did that. A fine way to indicate you’re accepting Manchester culture, that.”

“How can I say no to such an invitation?”

In England I found employment as a cook in a fine French restaurant. At first, not being legally allowed to work in the UK, they paid me under the table and with my share of the tips I did alright. I was able to pay half the rent and other expenses. 

Via WhatsApp, phone calls and texts I kept in touch with my parents and sister. 

“Son, you should come back home,” my mother said. “We all miss you.”

But I was happy where I was and did not move back to Calgary.

While I was gone, Nina’s boyfriend proposed and they set a June date for their wedding. The two had been living together in a small rented townhouse on Elton Street in Calgary. From their back bedroom window they had a disturbingly good view of a Catholic cemetery. 

As a couple they seemed to complement each other, my sister being quietly efficient and Derek more outgoing, even flashy at times, with his love of sports and sometimes brash clothes. Some of his friends were not to my taste. They were beer-swilling jocks whose lives outside of work centred on watching professional hockey, basketball and baseball. If they got off their couches it was to play a round of golf and drink a dozen pints. But Nina didn’t appear to mind.

“So he has a few beers with his buddies. He brings home his paycheck, doesn’t run after other women, won’t lay a hand on me and can tell a joke.”

I always thought of her as smart and was astonished when she accepted a mediocre man like Derek for a mate. Perhaps she was comparing him to her previous boyfriend who, we later learned, liked to slap her around. She was no child and if Derek was okay with her, he was okay with me. I was no expert in deciphering the workings of the heart. Haley and I seemed to have little in common when we first met but we got along.

Derek having been married once before didn’t bother any of us. It did however complicate the couple’s financial lives. He was knee-deep in debt to lawyers due to the nasty divorce from his first wife. There were no children from that union and therefore no child support payments, still his ex didn’t want to let him go. When the split became inevitable she decided to punish him. In this she was successful. Her sister was a lawyer and her family came from money. Derek on the other hand was the son of failed working-class parents who opened one small business after the other, only to go broke every time.  

My parents were just happy to see her domestic situation resolved, now that she had a good job as a clerk in an insurance broker’s office and a steady man at her side. 

Nina was four years older than me. In effect she had been a second mother when I was young, looking after me at school, helping me with my homework, explaining to me the facts of life. 

In our teens however we grew apart, she with her crowd, me with mine. I was no longer her cute sibling but a rival for our parent’s attention and support. 

I flew home to Calgary for the June wedding and brought Haley with. That was a mistake. My girlfriend got drunk at the reception and said some unfortunate things, making uncomplimentary remarks about my sister’s wedding dress and Derek’s receding hairline. But Haley was beautiful and had a British accent that set her apart in an exotic way from the other guests, so it appeared all was forgiven the moment the words left her pouty lips. 

The next morning I read her the riot act.

“Oh, that,” she said, making light of her behaviour.  

“My parents and sister mean everything to me. You can’t go around being rude to people and expect they’ll excuse you just because you were drunk at the time. It’s as true in Calgary as it is in Manchester.” 

My criticism made an impression. From then on when we went out she had only one drink then switched to pop. I had to give her credit for the change in her behaviour and loved her all the more for it. 

My sister, however, did not forgive Haley for her insulting comments and never asked about her when we spoke.

Soon Nina was pregnant. She and Derek lived paycheque to paycheque and I was worried for her.

“We’ll be fine,” she told me over WhatsApp. “Mom and dad said they’d help out and there’s a daycare next to the building where I work.” 

I wondered how they’d make out living in a small, rented two bedroom townhouse if they had a second child. 

I received regular photos and video calls from my parents and Nina after her son was born. Their lives centred on the boy. The child was flourishing, full of energy and curiosity.   

A few months after his first birthday I got a text from Nina announcing she was pregnant again. And she told me she and Derek had bought a house and were about to move. This puzzled me since they were always broke.

My own financial situation steadily improved. So, not long afterwards in Manchester Haley and I were able to move from her cramped apartment to a two bedroom suite above a women’s clothing store.

Being a cook in a restaurant meant that most nights I worked past eleven. When I arrived back from my job Haley was often waiting for me, usually in something skimpy. She was a tigress in bed and knew positions the Kama Sutra was not acquainted with. I was often tired but I was also a young man and more than happy to have a go at it time and again. What was more, our relationship grew from passion to real love. We were truly a couple, of that I was sure. Her parents liked me. Even her brother thought I was okay. 

Life for my family in Calgary also went on.

On WhatsApp my mother informed me she and dad had moved from their home on Northmount Road to a new house. This to me was dismal news and filled me with nostalgia. 

The house on Northmount was old but it stood on a rise and on most days you could see the mountains some seventy kilometers away. Even as a child growing up I realized the view of the Rockies from our front porch was fantastic. 

“And we bought new furniture.” With the camera in her cell phone my mother showed me around their dwelling as my father waved from the new couch. 

“The place is real cozy,” he said to the camera.

“Nice, isn’t it,” she said to me, with a questioning smile.

“It looks comfortable but isn’t it a little cramped? And those small windows seem too high up, their tops touch the ceiling.”

“No, it’s good,” she said. “The windows are fine.”

The camera continued to drift up, down and from side to side but I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The whole situation confused me. 

“I don’t get it. Why move house now and why not tell me you were planning on moving?”

“Cameron, you live so far away and you’ve got your own life there in England. It just didn’t seem right to bother you with all this.”

She changed the subject. “I see you’re not wearing glasses. Have you gone back to using contacts?” 

“Yes, sometimes.”

“It’s easier to tell you’ve got gray eyes without the glasses. And I like the way you’ve cut your hair.”

“Thanks, Mom.” 

It was several weeks before I realized my parents, my sister and her husband all shared the same address. That this wasn’t made clear to me from the start made me uneasy. 

“Something is off,” I said to Haley. “They’re not telling me the whole story.”

I contacted my sister on WhatsApp.

“We live in the same house,” Nina said, sounding defensive. “I told you, I’m pregnant again and we’ll need more room. Mom and Dad agreed that we should pool our resources and buy a larger place together. The way houses cost today there’s no way Derek and I could afford anything proper to raise kids in. This new house is good for all of us. There’s lots of room. Mom and Dad have a separate apartment so it’s not as if we live in each other’s lap.”

“So, let me understand, Mom and Dad live with you?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The following week we had a similar conversation.

“Derek and I treat Mom and Dad as if they were royalty. We love having them around and we show them we love having them around. Trust me, they’re really happy with this arrangement.”

“But from what I saw on WhatsApp their whole unit looks crowded. And those little windows…”

“Dad jokes about the panoramic view and mom’s glad not to have a whole house to clean. It’s all a question of perspective.” 

How could I argue with that? And why would I want to? They were adults and had made adult decisions.  

I was only twenty-eight so I legalized my living in the UK by getting a Youth Mobility Scheme Visa. Shortly afterwards the head chef at the restaurant I worked in left and I was promoted to take his place. 

“It’ll have to be a church wedding, that,” Haley said.

“Church wedding?” I asked.

“Yes, our wedding, that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Alright, which church?” And that’s how I proposed to Haley. 

The minister at the unpretentious West End Church was very accommodating to our little group. On the wedding day the heavens opened up and rain came down in waves. Rain is not something that usually stops the British from getting on with life. Haley had a number of family and friends attend. My parents and sister, her husband and small son and daughter also were present. Haley looked beautiful. 

Later that day we had a party in the backroom of the restaurant where I worked. It was a modest yet grand event. My co-workers in the kitchen had gone all out. Heady aromas filled the room. We were offered shrimp salad, terrine of foie gras and oysters for appetizers. For the main course there was a choice of sea scallops, lamb saddle or ricotta ravioli. There were salads and drinks. Dessert consisted of rhubarb streusel tart or coconut cream pie and of course lemon and raspberries wedding cake. 

A small band, made up of Haley’s cousins played ballads and some dance tunes. 

We honeymooned in Portugal.

It had only been a year since my parents and sister attended my wedding but I missed them. Also I hadn’t been home to Calgary for nearly eight years. I felt I had to see my extended family and friends. By now I’d applied for British citizenship, had a proper work visa and could freely come and go from the UK.

I took a direct flight from London to Calgary landing at six the following morning. No one could meet me at the airport that early in the day so I stepped out of the terminal and into a cab. It was April, the sun had just risen and they’d had a bit of snow a day earlier. I was no stranger to Alberta and came prepared for the weather. 

The taxi pulled up at the front door of my family’s house just after eight a.m. I retrieved my suitcase from the trunk, paid the cabby and then headed up the walkway to the entrance. The house was a one storey ranch-style affair, smaller than I expected. I climbed the steps to the veranda dragging my luggage behind me. It was cold and I felt my fingers getting numb. There were two door bell buttons. I pressed the white one first a couple of times but no one answered so I pressed the other button and waited. From the side of the house I heard a door open.

“Oh, Cameron,” my father said. “Nobody’s home upstairs. Nina and Derek are at work and the children are on their way to school. Come down from the veranda. We’re back here.” He pointed to a side door level with the ground. Since I’d last seen him my dad’s shoulders appeared a little rounder, his few remaining hairs now pure white. 

“Come in, son. It’s real cosy and warm in here.” He gestured with his hands as I stood at the basement entrance. “It’s nice. Nina, Derek and the kids live just upstairs.” He could see the confused look on my face. “We’re comfortable and it’s convenient. We can see them whenever we want. It’s far better than having the grandchildren grow up in a tiny rental townhouse.” 

My heart sank as I stepped into their apartment. I immediately felt hemmed in. Before I could say anything my mother rushed up, hugged and kissed me.

“Dear Cameron, it’s been so long, too long.”

It took only a moment to realize where my poor parents were living. The furnace room and a large storage closet filled a good part of the basement. What was left was one medium-size room with a kitchenette and a washroom. The ceiling was not much over seven feet high. A vague, musty smell assaulted my nose. 

I nodded toward one of the three little windows in the suite. My guess was they were only two and half feet wide by one foot high. “So, that’s the panoramic view Nina was mentioning.” 

The view consisted of the lower stems of a bush, the blade of a shovel and the bottom a neighbour’s picket fence. The other two windows had similar dismal aspects. It was awful. The unit had the feel of a cellar not a basement apartment.  

“Whose idea was it to sell your house and buy this place with Nina and Derek?” I said.

“Well,” my mother said, “I think it was mine but maybe it was Nina and Derek’s.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it was Nina’s idea,” my father said. “Why, what does it matter?”

“How could you let yourselves be tricked into selling a nice house with a view of the mountains for this dungeon?”

“Tricked?” my mother said, looking surprised. “You don’t understand, we’re happy here. No one tricked us. We all agreed to this arrangement.”

“Yes, Cameron,” my father said, sounding resolute, “we like this place including the view.”

Abe Margel worked in rehabilitation and mental health for thirty years. He is the father of two adult children and lives in Thornhill, Ontario with his wife. His fiction has appeared in Yellow Mama, BarBar, Freedom Fiction, Pulp Lit, Spadina Literary Review, Mystery Tribune, Ariel Chart, Uppagus, etc.