Easter was always the worst until it wasn’t.

With our hands folded on our laps, my brother and I were forced to sit up straight and listen to a man in a white dress drone on about the resurrection. Then they made us go to Sunday School and cobble together crucifixes out of construction paper. After that, we had to line up and eat the gross wafer that made everyone’s breath smell like The Dollar Store. Then we went home and endured a seemingly eternal Easter brunch. But after what felt like three days and three nights, we were rewarded for our sacrifices. Just before we passed out from a mixture of boredom and extreme obedience, mom excused us from the table. 

We ran. We ran from that brunch table like we were being followed by a creepy man in a creepy white van, periodically looking back to see if we would successfully escape the clutches of Catholicism. When we finally made it to the TV room, I hurled myself onto the couch, kicked off my patent leather church shoes, and pulled the comforts of a scratchy military-style wool blanket over my body. My brother, two years older, flipped through the channels like a raccoon with distemper, in a desperate search for the network that aired the movie we watched after Easter brunch every year: Mary Poppins.

Within minutes we were absorbed in Julie Andrews’ Oscar-winning performance, mindlessly gorging on crappy chocolate eggs, inadvertently swallowing bits of foil wrapping. We mimicked Bert’s over-the-top cockney accent, hummed along to Jolly Holiday and belted out the one about the mysterious bird food called “tuppins.”

I especially loved the ending. After “fixing” the Banks children, Mary Poppins opens her talking-parrot-umbrella and floats away on a gust of wind. Just like that. She didn’t say where she was going, but I always assumed she went on to help the next messed up family with badly behaved kids. She was dutiful. She was devoted. She was a good soldier. She didn’t die for our sins, but in my little church-going mind, she exemplified selflessness. And I had been taught to admire selflessness.

************

By the time I was in my mid-twenties, I had a pretty shitty track record when it came to dating. I had unsuccessfully tried to fix a hoarder with a rodent infestation, rehabilitate a guy who had just finished court-ordered anger management classes and resuscitate several out-of-work alcoholic-actors. After zero hours of therapy and a level of self-awareness that had been flatlining since birth, I stumbled across the one I was convinced was the one.

We worked together. He was a chef. I was a waitress. He was charming. I was smitten. On our first shift together, he told me his ex was “a psycho.” I felt bad for him. I wanted to know what had happened, what she had done to him. When he told me, I said things like, “you poor thing” and “she sounds like a real bitch.” He seemed wounded. And I loved wounded. Wounds provide jobs and jobs provide purpose. I was desperate for purpose. So we dated. We moved in together, we planted a vegetable garden together, we drank piña coladas at all-inclusive resorts together. We had cats.

When he asked me to marry him, I contracted almost every muscle in my body and felt my palms go from dry to clammy. There were red flags. They had been multiplying over the years. White lies were becoming malicious, garden variety jealousy was becoming intense. Casual drug use was becoming commonplace. I was starting to understand why his ex said what she said and did what she did. I was starting to want to say and do those same things. Maybe she wasn’t as psycho as he led me to believe? Or maybe I was becoming a psycho? But as soon as his knee touched the ground and the blue velvet box creaked open, consent fell out of my mouth like a gag reflex. Saying no would have hurt his feelings and I didn't want to do that. His ex had hurt his feelings and it was my duty to not be like her. To not control him like she did. So I let him slide the ring on my finger. And I kept it there. For years.

I woke up one morning in my early thirties to find the coffee table I inherited from my grandmother as I had grown accustomed to finding it—covered in a fine white residue. I wiped my index finger across the table, tracing a straight line through the powdery mess. I smelled my finger. My nose scrunched. I put my finger in my mouth. My face scrunched. Neither of these digit-related tasks was necessary. I knew it was cocaine. It was always cocaine.

I took a damp dish towel from the kitchen and wiped up his mess. Just like I had wiped them up so many times before. That morning, a few tears splattered on the tabletop. And I wiped those up too. I fell into the sofa and stared at where the wall meets the ceiling. And during that blank stare, I literally threw in the dish towel. I accepted that I couldn't fix him. He wasn’t going to change for me. I wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t good enough. In my quest for purpose, I had failed. Again.

When he finally woke up, hungover and sketchy, I did what I had been avoiding for a couple-few drug-filled years. I dumped him. I hadn’t planned on doing it that day. It just happened. It was one of those out-of-body breakups, when someone else takes control and does the talking. My voice was calm and slow and monotone. It formed words that formed sentences about his penchant for not coming home at night. About how he tried to fuck my friends behind my back. About his career pivot from chef to drug dealer and about why he treated his mother like shit. I probably sounded like a psycho.

When whoever was in charge of my breakup speech finished explaining that our relationship was an unconsolable tire fire, we cried. From his armchair, he cried. From my armchair, I cried. He went back to bed. I called my mom.

“Happy Easter!” On Christmas and Easter, my mom answered the phone as though everyone were Catholic.

“Hey mom…”

“Are you ok?”

I had tried my best to put on a “nothing to see here” voice.

“Yeah. So. It’s just gonna be me for brunch.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We broke up.”

“Oh! I need to call Leah.”

My mom wasn’t the best in an emotional crisis. A crisis-crisis? Sure, she could handle Cuban missiles no problem. But if tears were involved, she struggled. Leah was my ex’s mom. She was supposed to come to brunch. My mom wanted to call her off before she started her hour-long drive.

“Good idea. Let Leah know. I’ll be there soon.”

“Ok dear. See you soon.”

With a mucous-clogged nose and raw-swollen eyes, I sat down at my mom’s Easter brunch table, decorated with lilies and ceramic bunny figurines from HomeSense. I heaved mouthfuls of scalloped potatoes and honey glazed ham in my mouth. My family stared at me. They stared as though they were watching Days Of Our Lives. They wanted me to say something, to tell them some over-the-top story about what happened. But they didn’t dare ask and I didn’t say a word.

Eventually they lost interest. They moved on. They talked about the stock market, the potholes on the DVP and the Malaysian 777 that had gone missing. They said things like “pass the mustard” and “Christ is risen.” When I had had my fix of pork and tubers and crying, I started nodding along. I dropped little asides about the importance of having a diversified portfolio and winter tires until I was able to fully participate in the conversation. Then I did the dishes. I always did the dishes. My mom always thanked me for doing the dishes. And that thanks always felt good.

Although I secretly wanted to, I didn’t escape to the TV room with my brother after brunch that day. He pulled his Subaru out of my parents’ driveway, sitting next to my future sister-in-law, and tooted his horn a couple times before leaving. I stood on the porch by myself with a raging cry-headache and waved. After they turned the corner, I watched knobby-kneed kids chase each other from lawn to lawn, swinging Easter baskets, their little voices fluttering down the street. I leaned over the porch railing and noticed the peonies were coming up, their magenta-coloured zombie arms were pushing through the soil, exiting their temporary tombs in slow-motion.

I left the shade of the porch and stepped onto the sidewalk. Onto a hopscotch game traced in lavender and baby chicken-yellow chalk. The breeze smelled good, like dusty sunshine, so I stood there for a minute and let it dry my clumped-together eyelashes. When I got home, he was gone. God knows where. I started packing his things.

************

Maybe a decade or so after that breakup, I rewatched Mary Poppins on a whim. I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid. I still remembered most of the lyrics and didn’t skip a beat when it came to the “tuppins.” I looked forward to the ending, my favourite part. But on that particular viewing, I noticed something about the scene that I had missed when I was a kid.

When Mary’s flying away, her feet in first position, Bert says, “Don’t stay away too long.” And I swear to God, after she smiles, she tosses the earthly plane the tiniest bit of cut eye. Like, “good fucking riddance” cut eye. I always thought she went on to fix the next family. But now I’m not so sure. Now I like to think she retired from sorting out other people's bullshit. Now I like to think she never came back—she realized she was more than good enough. She realized she deserved better.