Unravelling

by Josephine Boxwell

  “Giulia started planting flowers here during the trial of the two Peterson boys, the kids responsible for burning down her house. A few locals noticed she would take regular walks to the riverbank to care for her flowers. They began adding to her collection and over the years it’s become quite the spot to visit in the springtime. People come here to reflect and enjoy the flowers and watch the river. Someone even put a bench just over there. The locals call it Elena’s Place.”

  The river is wide and full. Vivian wishes she could rush quickly by like the water. Instead she lets him lead her to the bench. She doesn’t want to sit here. This is the very last place she wants to be. There is no beauty in these flowers or this river, not today. She wants to get away from him but knows she can’t. So she sits quietly and frowns.

  It shocks her, to see Mary of all people, standing on her doorstep with tear tracks on her cheeks. Hair dishevelled, a complete mess.

  “How much did you pay those boys to do it?” Mary’s voice wobbles, wavering between anger and grief.

  Vivian retreats into her house and tries to close the door, but Mary jams it with her foot.

  “You’re upset,” Vivian says calmly, “but why you would think I had anything to do with it ...”

  “Because you always do. It always comes back to you.”

  “Surely even you must realize I am not responsible for everything that goes wrong in this community.”

  Vivian waits for a vicious comeback. Instead, Mary looks at her with utter disgust. She can’t forget those eyes.

  “You cared about that girl,” Vivian says, “but her family had issues. If the mother hadn’t got herself arrested, that terrible accident never would have happened.”

  “Accident?” Mary spat. “Two kids burned their house down.”

  “I believe that’s speculation at the moment.”

  Mary lunges towards her. Todd breaches the gap and takes the impact, pushing the woman back. He slams the door shut.

  “Was she really such a threat to you?” Mary shouts from the step. “She was just a child!” Vivian tries to stop the quivering in her hands.

  Quiet outside and Vivian takes a heavy breath. “You’re a monster!” Mary shouts as she retreats down the road. Todd grips Vivian’s shoulder as she hovers by the door. He looks into her eyes and asks in a whisper so quiet she pretends she hasn’t heard: “What have you done?”

  She slips down to the hard ground. I didn’t mean to; a weak sentiment in a weak moment. The tangled threads unravelled too quickly. She thought that as the creator of the piece she was in control of it, but she wasn’t.

  Is it minutes or hours later, when Todd finds her again? In bed, fully clothed, blanket over her head, pillow wet with tears.

  “The Mayor’s on the phone. He’s been asked to make a statement.”

  Vivian collects herself, finds her politician’s words. Dries her face, straightens her blouse, checks her pearls, strides defiantly past the portrait of Father on the mantelpiece and picks up the receiver in the living room.

  “Do you have a pen? Our community is in shock today ...”

  Dean opens up the folder, pulls out a couple of old newspapers and places them on her lap. He traces the headlines of the first paper with his finger. Familiar words, painful ones, but the context escapes her.

  “This is the story that fell out of your pocket that time I saw you at the gas station. Do you remember?”

  STAPLETON STRUCK BY TRAGEDY AGAIN.

  She throws it on the ground. He doesn’t retrieve it. He picks up the other clipping and starts reading to her.

  “This is the follow-up article. These are the names of the dead, just here,” he shows her. She reads the black print. Elena Reid. Ken Melnyk. “Their bodies were washed up where the river broke its banks a short distance downstream from here.”

  Vivian wraps her long cardigan around herself as though defending herself from a chilly breeze.

  “There was one survivor: Roberto Reid. Both kids escaped the burning house but in the confusion Elena fell into the flooding river. Ken Melnyk appears to have run after her, presumably to try and save her.”

  He pauses and looks at Vivian.

  “Do you understand anything I’m saying?”

  She did know them, once. They bring up that dreadful feeling that she has spent years pushing down. It wasn’t supposed to be. None of it was.

  “Mike Peterson’s sons confessed to setting the house on fire as revenge for their dad’s death, but they also kept insisting they were told the house would be empty that night. I read the court transcripts. They said Ken Melnyk encouraged them to do it, but you can’t cross-examine a dead man. The jury was convinced by the prosecution’s argument that the boys hadn’t given a second thought as to who might be inside, and Ken was a hero who happened to be passing by when these two delinquents decided to burn down a family home.”

  “Who is Ken?” she mumbles. The young man whips a rock into the river, grabs her arm and leads her back to his car.

  They are standing outside the Main St. Café. The young man has a key. Brown paper covers the large front windows. Peeling white paint.

  Inside has been hollowed out. Gone are the tables and chairs, the counter holding baked goods and the other one stocked with ice cream. The stranger flicks a switch by the door but nothing happens. All that remains are the items that could not be picked up and taken away; linoleum peppered with black scuff marks and scraped walls with cobwebs clinging to the corners. As Vivian looks closer, she spots a couple of tiny nails where picture frames used to hang. She remembers the photographs. One featured a fly fisherman casting a line into a river, and there was another of a majestic bull elk.

  “Wild and free,” Vivian says casually as Ken draws the blinds, preparing to close shop. “Couldn’t be more different than life at a correctional facility.”

  Ken won’t look at her. He pulls down the other blind. “They’ll leave town eventually. We don’t need to push them out.”

  He keeps on fighting her. It’s as if the explosion has left a terrible ringing in his ears and he can’t hear her well-reasoned explanations. The whole affair has sucked the life out of him. The café is dead and it’s not just because people are short on cash. Ken spends all day looming over the counter looking about as welcoming as a snarling grizzly bear.

  “Ken. That girl keeps asking questions and sooner or later, someone will actually listen to her.”

  “Why can’t you ask someone else? I’ve done enough.”

  He hadn’t complained in the seventies. Ken was in his 20s then, thicker hair and thinner around his torso. He took pride in his new business, but those first years were tough for him, the town having shrunk so much since the closure of the coalmine. There was also a restlessness about him that Vivian knew would be useful. Some men like to keep a few secrets while remaining, for all intents and purposes, “decent guys.”

  “Good money for good work,” Vivian called it, and Ken happily accepted the bribe to help push Vivian’s mill proposal through council. Soon enough he was offering to “do whatever is needed to help the town.” He pitched in several times over the years, no complaints, and he was always well remunerated.

  “You and I are in this together, Ken.” Vivian stands in front of the fly fisherman photograph. “Involving more people increases our risk. And you know the Peterson family. The boys will listen to you.”

  “They’ve been through enough.”

  “Oh, come on. If they’re smart, they’ll get away with it. If not, those two are heading to prison sooner or later anyway. The older one has spent more time in juvenile detention than he has in school.”

  “That doesn’t make this right. And what about Giulia? Curtis was my best friend. I can’t do that to her and the kids.”

  “This is what’s best for them. There’s nothing left for them here. Curtis isn’t coming back. Giulia won’t get another job in Stapleton. This way, they can start fresh with the insurance money, which is more than eve
ryone else is getting.”

  Ken grumbles and Vivian leaves him to consider his options. In the end, Frank talks him into it somehow. Frank can be very persuasive.

  “Melnyk was one of your guys, wasn’t he, Vivian?” The young man is watching her as she stares at the tiny nail protruding from the empty wall.

  “When things started to go wrong, he was in over his head. It didn’t matter that he was Curtis’s friend. You found a way to implicate Ken and Frank and whoever else was involved in the scam you pulled to get the mill built. They had to help you cover up its destruction if they wanted to avoid prison.”

  Vivian raises her eyebrows as if to say: “That’s quite a story you’ve dreamed up.” A small action, but effective. He reaches over and rips the nail out of the wall. Vivian stares at the scar.

  Ping; he flicks it to the ground. He clutches her shoulders. There’s so much anger in his eyes but he holds his voice steady.

  “One of the nurses at your home told me that familiar places and objects from the past can trigger memories in dementia sufferers. I know you remember something, even in this empty room. I can see it in your face.”

  His expression is desperate. But she can’t give him what he wants. Some secrets are supposed to be buried.

  “A man named Vince Thomas left a statement with the police. He said Ken was at the Inn that night. When someone mentioned the Reid kids had gone missing, Ken left his pint at the bar and ran out of there. The prosecution argued he wanted to help find them and he thought they might have returned to the house. But Ken knew what the Peterson boys were about to do, didn’t he? Giulia was in police custody, the kids were taken away, supposedly. The house should have been empty, but it wasn’t.”

  Vivian closes her eyes. She’s old now. When she closes her eyes, people get blocked out, people go away. There is quiet, when her eyes are closed. But he just won’t be quiet.

  “My father controls everything,” she mumbles, eyes still closed. “Talk to him.”

  She can see Father now, in front of the wide fireplace at their grand Stapleton home. Whiskey in one hand and a watchful eye on her. Not loving. Controlling. Mother tiptoes around him, so weak she doesn’t even catch his attention anymore. She offers him another glass or something else to eat. He won’t dignify her with a response. It’s all part of his game. He wants them to believe they are less than him, but Vivian knows she is not. She will succeed. After all, she is his daughter.

  She opens her eyes. A man is dragging her into his car. She tries to resist, but she isn’t strong enough. She tries to call out, but Main Street is dead.

  “Maybe you’ll talk to her,” he mutters.

  They pull up outside the Inn. The long veranda shadows the entrance and the ground level windows. They should bulldoze the whole thing. Why keep such an ugly piece of the past? She shakes her head as he unbuckles her seatbelt.

  “I don’t want to go in there, Frank. We can talk somewhere else.”

  “Why don’t you want to go in there, Vivian?”

  He’s taunting her. He knows exactly why.

  “Are you afraid of Giulia Reid?”

  She doesn’t like that name. Giulia. Even the sound of it. Joooo-lee-ah. Like a sneer. She scrunches her eyes closed and turns her head away from the man who won’t be quiet.

  She won’t let him pull her out of the car. She won’t. She goes limp. He pulls her out effortlessly. He practically carries her into the building.

  It’s dark inside. It takes her eyes a moment to adjust. The bar is empty. He sits her down at one of the tables and Vivian glances around helplessly. There she is, that woman, looking back at her, like a ghost.

  “Do you remember Giulia?” he says.

  She does. She does remember. But before she was beautiful. Now she is skeletal with hard edges.

  “She needs to leave,” Vivian says.

  “Why don’t you want to talk to her?” Frank says. He gestures to Giulia and she drifts slowly towards them. She doesn’t speak. Her feet don’t make a sound on the old boards. She isn’t quite alive.

  “She needs to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why, Frank.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Vivian glances at Giulia. “I can’t tell you in front of her.”

  The man leans forward. “Is she dangerous?” he whispers to her.

  She refuses to acknowledge him. She’s looking at Giulia, watching her, remembering. The little girl. The little girl who was paying too much attention. Elena. The family had to leave town. “A clean break,” she mutters. Frank doesn’t want to hear it. “She doesn’t love you, Frank. Stop being so damn sentimental. Fire her and she’ll leave. They have to go.” Giulia wants to leave, she just needs a push. She’ll go when she has nothing left to stay for. The kids will go with her, and the little girl will stop asking questions. That’s all Vivian wants.

  She leans towards Giulia who is now sitting across the table. “You’ll find somewhere in Stony Creek,” Vivian tells her.

  Frank speaks. “Giulia’s daughter is dead.”

  Vivian’s hands tremble. She fumbles for her pearls. They aren’t there. Where is Todd? She grips the edge of the table and pulls herself up to her feet. Where is her cane? He legs feel weak.

  “Who caused the explosion at the mill?” he asks.

  Giulia rests a hand on the table and her wedding ring looks heavy against her thinness. Frank speaks for her. “It wasn’t Curtis, was it?”

  Curtis. Vivian doesn’t remember his face, but she knows the name. She knows exactly.

  “Did you frame Curtis Reid?”

  “You framed Curtis Reid,” Vivian says, staring at him, “because you’re in love with his wife.”

  Giulia looks at him, with what—guilt? Shock? She doesn’t speak.

  He starts again. “Are you saying ... Frank framed Curtis?”

  Vivian doesn’t answer him.

  “How did the explosion start?”

  Vivian slams her fist on the table, surprised that it hurts. She leans away from him. He’s too close.

  “Pete Bernier died in the explosion. He was Frank’s former brother-in-law, wasn’t he? Was he involved?”

  Frank suggested Pete. He would get it done. He would wait until the shift change and start a fire far away from the main exits. The employees would be evacuated. No one would get hurt. Frank said that, she remembers him saying that.

  “No one gets hurt!” she shouts. Frank shrinks back in surprise, but Giulia doesn’t flinch. Vivian isn’t thinking about them. She’s thinking about what Frank said. Pete knew exactly how to make it look like an accident. A mechanical malfunction combined with excess dust. If anyone were to shoulder any blame, it would be the mill company. Vivian was satisfied. She had to be; there was no one else she could trust to be discreet with a situation as delicate as this.

  Frank tries again. “Did Pete cause the explosion?”

  Vivian refuses to look at him but it’s rushing around in her mind as though it happened yesterday. She looks at the veins running through her wrinkled hands. Half the time, she doesn’t recognize the world she inhabits now in this old skin. But there are pieces of the past lodged in her brain that she cannot shake out. Pete started the fire too early and it caught too quickly and the fool blew himself up. Frank didn’t admit to Vivian until afterwards that his dependable friend had been a nervous wreck the whole time.

  They are waiting for an answer, but she doesn’t give them one. When Giulia finally speaks, her voice sounds as weak as her body looks.

  “Is Curtis dead?”

  Vivian looks directly into her eyes. “I don’t remember.”

  Giulia curls her head towards her knees, hugging her body tightly. It is a necessary lie. Vivian will not let them beat her. She will not be dragged down by them, not now. Anyway, she wasn’t there. Frank was there. She only has his word to go on as far as the truth is concerned, and if anyone can stretch the truth, it’s Frank.

  “In a letter my dad
left me ...” The young man pulls out a piece of paper. “He says: ’Giulia needs to know Curtis is gone. He’s not coming back. I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do.’”

  The young man puts the paper down and waits for Vivian to explain. They don’t seem to understand, either of them, that she will not give them what they want. She will not willingly give them, or anyone, power over her.

  And Frank wasn’t so helpless, after all. He knew that the mess at the mill needed to be cleaned up. He did that all on his own. Pete was Frank’s guy. If the cops suspected Pete was involved in the explosion, they would find their way back to Frank sooner or later.

  Curtis Reid was Frank’s solution. She wasn’t there, was she? But she remembers the smell, the burning, the chaos as if she had been there. It is very clear now; Frank waiting in the parking lot, listening to Bob Dylan’s caterwauling in his truck, expecting an evacuation and then the flames. But it didn’t happen that way. The blast came first. It shook Frank out of his seat, shook him too his core. Something had gone badly wrong and someone other than Pete Bernier would have to take the fall for it.

  Frank found Curtis Reid’s burned body in the parking lot. Frank said he couldn’t find a pulse. That’s what Frank said. Vivian chose to believe him.

  Other men were running out of the building but in all the mayhem, no one saw Frank hoist up Curtis and half drag, half carry him to his truck. Vivian never asked how he got rid of the body. She didn’t want to know. Frank moved Curtis’s truck to make it look as though he’d made an escape. He sent his guys back a couple of days later when the military activity had died down to plant more evidence. If the cops were looking for a suspect, they had one.

  Vivian glances over at the widow. So much hate, she sees it now, in those eyes. She will never understand; neither of them will. They’ve never had to make such difficult decisions.

  The bar door opens and daylight streams in. She squints and when her vision comes back, she sees a frail old man who has been by her side for most of her life, his face contorted with rage.

  “I called the nursing home, and they told me my wife was out with my son. But I knew it was you. You kidnapped my wife! I could have you arrested!”