It Happened to Us

by François Houle

  Lori-Anne reached for his arm. “That’s why I want you to try some medication.”

  “But don’t you get it?” He pulled his arm away. “I don’t want to stop feeling bad because if I do, I might stop thinking of her and remembering her.”

  Lori-Anne shook her head. “Torturing yourself isn’t healthy, it doesn’t prove how much you loved her. Staying in a state of pain isn’t the way to remember her. She was our daughter and she was beautiful and wonderful and we need to remember her that way. You will not forget her if you’re happy. If you’re happy you’ll be able to appreciate the joy she brought us. If you’re happy, we’ll be able to move forward with her in our hearts.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Do some research. Talk to your doctor. Connect with people who’ve gone through something similar. We can join a bereavement group. I’m sure there’s something out there to help us. I’m willing to try anything. Matt, please. Don’t you want to feel better?”

  He couldn’t look her in the eye.

  * * *

  Lori-Anne had been talking with her mother for over an hour, the two of them sitting at the kitchen table, a couple of empty Tim Horton’s coffee cups in front of them. She’d been venting and her mother had been listening, never choosing sides but offering advice when appropriate. Victoria had always liked Mathieu so Lori-Anne wasn’t surprised that her mother didn’t say anything bad about him. She’d say he’s hurting or he’d always wanted a big family so this is hard for him or he’s proud and doesn’t want to appear weak, that’s why he won’t go on medication.

  Well-intended words, but they didn’t change the situation. She and Mathieu were in a horrible place and it wasn’t going to change soon.

  “I just wish none of this had happened,” Lori-Anne said. “Maybe if I’d taken the Pathfinder . . .”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Mathieu had needed it earlier to go down to WoodSource and get some supplies, and since I’d been using his car that day, I just didn’t think to switch.”

  “We don’t know that it would have made a difference.”

  “It’s bigger and has airbags.”

  “Now you’re torturing yourself, honey.”

  Lori-Anne tore up the napkin she held in her hand. “I’m losing my husband.”

  “He’ll come around.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “You’ll be fine,” her father said from the living room.

  “You have something to say, Dad?”

  Samuel Weatherly came and stood at the edge of the kitchen. “Mathieu has never been the right man for you. I think you could have done better.”

  “Dad!”

  Samuel shrugged.

  “You can’t just say that and not explain yourself.”

  He looked at her. “You were so driven all your life until you met him, and then you changed. It was like he held you back.”

  “I disagree,” she said. “When I met him, I was lost and broken-hearted from my affair and Mathieu gave me what I needed. He’s exactly the sort of man I need. Kind, attentive, and passionate. With him, I was able to slow my life down and enjoy it instead of chasing an ideal that you planted in me when I was just a child. You don’t like him because you lost control over me, isn’t that right?”

  “Oh Lori-Anne,” Victoria said. “Your father didn’t mean that.”

  Lori-Anne turned to her mother. “Please Mom, let him defend himself. You’ve always tried to explain Dad’s actions to us kids, and I for one stopped believing in your explanations long ago.” She returned her attention to her father. “I love Mathieu, and even though we’re going through a tough time right now—how could we not after losing our only daughter . . .” She paused and waited to regain her composure. “I’m not leaving him. He’s the one who will have to end our marriage if that’s what he wants. So please, stop hating him.”

  “I don’t hate him,” Samuel said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “I just think you could have been much more.”

  “Dad, I’m a marketing director. I earn a darn good salary. I’ve taken care of my family. So what if I’m not running your company. I didn’t want it.”

  “But you could be,” he said.

  “I don’t want to,” she said. “And Jim, the idiot that he is, would be devastated.”

  “He’d get over it,” Samuel said. “I’ve always thought you had the better business acumen.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you again, but no thanks. I love my job and I love my husband. That’s my life. That’s what I want back. I just pray it’s what Mathieu wants.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” her mother said.

  Lori-Anne chewed her lower lip, a habit she’d had since she was four years old. Her father would scold her for something, and she’d stand there looking up at him, biting her lip and trying hard not to cry.

  “I think he blames me,” she said.

  “It was an accident, honey,” her mother said while reaching for Lori-Anne’s hand. “It was an accident.”

  Lori-Anne pulled her hand away and snatched another napkin from the napkin holder. She folded it in half, then again, and again until it was as small as it would fold.

  “I wanted Nadia to tell me what was wrong, why the moods lately? Something was going on and I wanted her to know that I was there for her. But she wouldn’t tell me. Kept saying I was imagining things, that nothing was wrong.”

  Lori-Anne started to unfold the napkin.

  “She was texting on her phone and I asked her to stop so we could talk, but she didn’t. I got angry and reached for her phone, and the light turned yellow . . .”

  Lori-Anne tore the napkin in half, then again, and again until it lay in a pile with the other torn napkin. She hadn’t told her family exactly what had happened. She’d only said that the roads had been slippery from the snow and that she hadn’t been able to stop in time. She’d said that the car making the left-hand turn should have seen that she couldn’t stop and should have waited until she’d cleared the intersection.

  But that was only partially true.

  If she hadn’t been so dead set on getting Nadia’s phone, she would have seen that she did have time to stop, even on the slippery road. But because she didn’t stop, the truck behind her followed her through the intersection and their car got wedged between the Lexus SUV and the black Ford F150. Mathieu’s eleven-year-old Honda Civic didn’t have airbags and the F150 crushed the passenger side like an accordion. Lori-Anne couldn’t believe that she’d had only cuts and bruises while Nadia had been killed instantly.

  “So you see,” she said after telling her parents almost everything—there was one last bit she’d kept to herself because it was too painful to share, “it’s my fault. I was careless and my daughter is dead because of it. And my husband hates me right now. He won’t say the words, but I feel it, the anger in his voice, the way he looks at me, the way he won’t touch me.”

  “Honey,” Victoria said. “I wish you’d told us sooner. We could have helped you get through this.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Lori-Anne said. “I’m afraid to tell him what really happened. I just don’t see what good that’ll do. Except that I’m carrying it like a burden and I think he senses my guilt. If I tell him, I could lose him.”

  “You have to tell him,” Victoria said. “Honesty is always best. A solid marriage is built on honesty.”

  Lori-Anne could see her mother pinning her father with her eyes and sensed there was some double meaning in those words. Someday she would have to have a long talk with her mother about her father. There was something there—Lori-Anne had felt it for a very long time.

  “What if it kills the last bit of life our marriage has?”

  “He’s a good man who’s hurting right now,” Victoria said. “He’s angry, but not at you. He’s angry at the situation. He’s
lost. I know that he loves you.”

  Lori-Anne shook her head. “I’m not so sure, Mom. We don’t even share the same bed these days.”

  “Oh honey! You have to tell him.”

  “Aren’t you listening to what she’s saying?” Samuel said.

  “Of course I am,” Victoria said. “After all, I’m the one who saved our marriage.”

  Samuel opened his mouth and closed it again. He stood and left the kitchen.

  “Mom?”

  Victoria shook her head. “Not today.”

  “But—”

  “Never mind that old coot,” she said. “You need to save your marriage, and it might not be easy, but if you truly love Mathieu, you’ll persevere, you will support him, you will give him love. Most of all, you will give him your heart.”

  “Oh Mom,” Lori-Anne said. “What if he breaks it?”

  “Then he breaks it,” Victoria said. “But at least you’ll know you gave it your all.”

  * * *

  Mathieu knocked and stepped inside his grandparents’ home. He hugged and kissed his grandmother on the cheek. “Happy Mother’s Day.”

  “Thank you, dear,” she said, the words slurring off her tongue. “How did you get here?”

  “Took a cab,” he said. “Guess I should think of getting a new car.”

  “Maybe you should get yourself a truck,” Grandpa said from the comfort of the couch in the living room. “Would be handy.”

  “I did think of that,” Mathieu said and followed his grandmother into the room. “It would make it easier when I get supplies.”

  Grandpa folded the paper he’d been reading and put it on the glass-top coffee table, one of Mathieu’s early woodworking projects when he was fifteen. “So, how’s that wife of yours?”

  “She’s fine,” Mathieu said. He looked down at his bandaged finger. “I guess.”

  “Oh sweetheart,” Grandma said. “What’s wrong?”

  Mathieu shrugged. The last thing he wanted was to burden them with his problems. Especially Grandma. She’d lost a lot of strength since the stroke.

  “We’re not really getting along,” he said, feeling ashamed. “She wants me to go on meds.”

  “It could help,” Grandma said. “It’s worth trying, don’t you think?”

  “No marriage is perfect,” Grandpa said, looking at his wife. “Sharing your life with someone can be trying at times. But it’s that sharing that builds a bond between two people and makes it nearly unbreakable. Sounds like Lori-Anne is looking after that bond. Are you?”

  “I just can’t let go of Nadia,” he said, remembering how tiny she once was and how she fit perfectly in his arms. “I want to hold her so badly.”

  “What’s that got to do with medication?” Grandpa said. “You think medication will make you forget your daughter?”

  “You don’t understand,” Mathieu said.

  Grandpa didn’t get angry often, but his eyes hardened. “I think we know exactly what you’re going through, young man. When your parents died in the car crash, you think that was easy on us? When your Aunt Jacqueline passed away of cancer the day of 9/11, you think that was easy on us?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mathieu said. “I didn’t mean . . . it’s just so hard.”

  “When your father died,” Grandma said, “I had awful nightmares.”

  Mathieu sat a little straighter, his eyes widening. “I thought I was the one who had nightmares.”

  “We both did,” Grandma said. “And looking after you was my way of coming to terms with the death of your father. When I held you, I held him. I remembered him as a boy. I thanked the Lord every day that you’d survived that crash. You were my medication.”

  “I . . . I never thought of it that way,” Mathieu said.

  “It was hard on your grandmother,” Grandpa said. “I’d often find her sitting at the kitchen table, leafing through old photo albums. Back then we didn’t know what she was going through, but today she’d be diagnosed with depression.”

  Mathieu shook his head. “I’m not depressed. I miss my daughter, that’s all.”

  “How do you sleep?” Grandpa said.

  “Not great.”

  “How’s work? You mentioned you’ve fallen behind,” Grandpa said.

  “I’ll catch up.”

  “You just said things with Lori-Anne aren’t going well. Sounds like you should be doing everything you can to help yourself get better. Are you?”

  Mathieu looked down at his finger again.

  “There’s no shame in admitting you’re going through a depression,” Grandpa said. “It’s a lot easier to get help these days. Have you seen your doctor?”

  “No.”

  “You really should,” Grandma said. “Those two years after your father died were pretty bad. If it wasn’t for your grandfather . . .”

  “Two years?” Mathieu said.

  “I was in a bad place. I’d see something on TV and start crying because it reminded me of your father. I’d be making your favourite meal, folding your laundry, vacuuming your room, and all these things reminded me of when your father was your age and I’d start to cry.”

  “I never noticed,” Mathieu said. “I mean, I never saw you cry. You always had a smile on your face. You always comforted me when I woke up screaming at night.”

  “Your needs came first, honey. You were hurting too, and you were so young and you needed me. I grieved when you weren’t around.”

  “I have no one who needs me that much,” Mathieu said. “Maybe if we had another child, I’d be able to do like you did.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Grandpa said. “You have a wife who needs you.”

  Mathieu shook his head. “She’s got her work. That’s her escape.”

  “Maybe it’s because she can’t count on you,” Grandpa said.

  “Your grandfather is right, honey.”

  Mathieu plucked woodchips off his pants. Maybe he should have changed his clothes before coming here, but the argument with Lori-Anne had left him rattled.

  “Go see a doctor,” Grandma said. “Don’t lose Lori-Anne because you’re stubborn.”

  “I’m not being stubborn,” he said, a little too harshly. “Sorry, Grandma. I’m just . . . I’m just tired.”

  “You need a good night’s sleep,” Grandpa said. “And you need to lighten your load. Listen to your wife.”

  Mathieu sat back and rubbed his face with both hands. Everyone was telling him the same thing that he didn’t want to hear. He missed his daughter and he didn’t see how being on medication could help. What he needed was to be left alone so he could grieve.

  Two years.

  That’s what his grandmother had said. It had taken her two years to get over the death of his father. Nadia had been gone seven weeks. He had another twenty-two months. That seemed way too long. He felt sure that in a few weeks things would turn around, he’d start to feel better. Maybe if he didn’t, then he’d think about seeing his doctor.

  He stood and stared at the painting on the opposite wall. The painting had been there forever, but he felt that he was seeing it for the first time. The artist had captured the very essence of a new beginning: a beautiful sunrise over the ocean horizon.

  Grandpa followed Mathieu’s gaze. “I bought that in 1949 just after we got married. Seemed like it was calling me. Never been to wherever that is, but it reminds me that each day brings new possibilities.”

  What Mathieu saw was an explosion of colours far away in the distance, almost a mirage really, forever out of reach.

  SEVEN

  Victoria Day

  May 21, 2012

  9:43 a.m.

  Mathieu had put it off as long as he could, but today he needed to get going on that little girl’s bed if he was going to deliver it in eight weeks. He grabbed a cup of coffee and headed for the garage to go over the plan and materials. He was measuring a slab of cherry when he heard the sound of
a coasting bicycle approaching fast. He turned just in time to see Caitlin dismount her bike and drop it on the driveway.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, putting his measuring tape down on the workbench and placing a pencil behind his ear. “What brings you here?”

  “I didn’t feel like hanging around our house,” Caitlin said and walked into the garage. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by like this?”

  “Any time,” he said. “You’re always welcome here. Anything going on at home?”

  “Not really. Nick is sleeping, mom is doing laundry, and Suzie spent the night at her boyfriend’s like she does every weekend. It was just boring.”

  “Well not much excitement here either.”

  Caitlin looked at the pieces of wood scattered about. “What’re you making?”

  “A bed for a little girl.”

  “Like Nadia’s?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That little girl is going to love it. Nadia was so lucky you made nice furniture for her.”

  “I don’t think she always felt that way.”

  “Probably not,” Caitlin said and ran her fingers along a smooth piece of mahogany. “Kids don’t appreciate stuff like that. I should know, I’m one. We always think if it doesn’t come from a store it’s no good.”

  “You might be right.”

  They stood silent for a moment but it was broken by the neighbour’s irrigation system rising out of the ground like camouflaged soldiers, a half-dozen sprinkler heads on the attack. A lawnmower roared to life in the distance.

  “I miss her,” Caitlin said. She wrapped her arms around herself and crunched her face. “I want my cousin back. I really do. It’s not fair.”

  Mathieu pulled her into him and felt her shake.

  “I wish we could get her back too,” he said. “But we can’t.”