He looked at her, pensive. “Where did all those fun days go?”
“I don’t know,” she said, planting her right foot against the doorframe. “I really don’t know.”
A silence fell between them. Mathieu’s gaze returned to the picture on the wall. A small sensation ignited inside his chest, a flicker of happiness that burned out too quickly.
“Life was good then,” he said. “We were good.”
“It can be again,” Lori-Anne said. “We can be.”
He turned to her. “Do you really believe that?”
“Yes,” she said. “It will never be the same. We’re changed forever by what happened. But why can’t we find some sort of happiness together again?”
He rubbed the two-day growth on his chin.
“Want to give it a try?” she said. “Give us a chance?”
“I just need . . .” he said.
“What?” she said, looking at him. “What do you need? Tell me what I can do to help you. Don’t shut me out anymore. We need each other to get through this.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should see a counsellor.”
“Like a shrink?”
“Someone with experience and knowledge who can help us, yes.”
He shifted on the chair. “I’d rather not.”
“Mathieu,” she said, “We need help. I see it, why can’t you?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “I just need a bit of time.”
“It’s been three months!”
“SO!” he said, an explosion of anger darkening his eyes. “If I need a year, so be it. Just because you’ve moved on doesn’t mean that I’m ready. Damn it, I miss her so much.”
“And I miss her too,” she said. “I love Nadia as much as you do. Maybe I wasn’t with her as much, but you can’t fault me for that, and you can’t think that I loved her or miss her any less. She was my daughter too.”
“So how can you forget her so easily?”
“Who says I forgot her?” she said with a defensive hand gesture. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“It’s what I see,” he said. “You went back to work just a few days after we buried her. What am I supposed to think?”
“You know what?” she said. “I don’t give a damn what you think. I can’t believe this. It’s absolutely insane. Are you listening to yourself? Just because I drag myself to work every day and pour my energy into something else for a while doesn’t mean I’m not in pain. My work is my therapy. It’s a routine that’s helping me get on with life without my daughter in it.”
She turned her head to hide her coming tears.
“Sorry,” he said. He took a step toward her but she stepped back. “You just don’t seem to be in as much pain as me—”
“Who says I’m not?”
“I . . . I . . .”
“You know,” she said, “I was hoping we could spend the day together and figure things out and get us back on track. But I don’t think you want the same thing. I don’t know what you want. Do you? Huh? Because if you do, then I sure hope you’ll tell me someday so we can save what we have left. Just don’t wait too long or we’ll have nothing left to save.”
Before he could say anything, Lori-Anne strode down the hallway to their room and slammed the door. He took a few steps, then stopped.
He put his fist through the wall, the plasterboard crumbling to the floor.
“Fuck!” Holding his throbbing hand, Mathieu hurried down the stairs and slammed the front door on his way out, not bothering to lock it. He got in the Pathfinder, the tires squealing as he gunned the engine. He drove too fast through the neighbourhood, blaring the horn and jamming on the brakes when someone backed out of their driveway without looking. Mathieu swerved and gave the guy the finger. At the intersection, stopped by a red light, he slapped the steering wheel with his aching hand. Pain shot to his elbow. “Damnit!” Someone gave him a polite honk and Mathieu flipped him the bird. He needed to get away, get somewhere that wasn’t so bloody busy. He made a left on Jock Street and followed it to the end, by then knowing where he was headed. He hadn’t been there since the funeral, not because he hadn’t wanted to, but because he’d been unable to find his courage.
Today, he needed to go.
Mathieu parked the car at the edge of the cemetery and watched as people came and went in their cars. Groups of mourners walked the grounds, small families huddled together, an older woman stood alone in front of a tombstone. After a few minutes, he turned the radio station to the one Nadia liked, and listened to the music she’d listened to lately. He heard a lot of songs he’d once liked too, but over the years he’d pretty much listened to whatever Lori-Anne or Nadia wanted to listen to. As long as they were happy, he was fine with that. That’s really all he’d ever wanted, for the two women in his life to be happy.
His conversation with Lori-Anne played in his mind. All she wanted was for the two of them to be happy again, to make a life again, to find love again. He got all of that. It’s just that he wasn’t there yet, and didn’t know if and when he’d get there. For him, it was simply too soon.
He looked toward Nadia’s grave. It felt surreal that his daughter, that beautiful little girl who had once fit in the palm of his hand, was nothing but ashes. That reality tightened the muscles in his stomach, and his jaw clenched so hard it ached. How did someone find happiness after such a loss? Was it possible?
After an hour, he pulled away and merged with the traffic, his mind unable to convince his legs to step out of the car and make the walk to her gravesite. He’d come here tormented and consumed by rage, weighted down by feelings of worthlessness, and now he was leaving with his heart filled with shameful regrets. He saw a semi-transport coming in the opposite lane and slowly drifted toward it. To end this misery, to finally get relief, could be that simple. But then he pulled the car back and brought it to a stop on the shoulder, a shiver running up his spine even though the temperature gauge on the dashboard indicated that it was already twenty-six degrees Celsius outside.
A gorgeous early summer’s day.
Except that Mathieu couldn’t shake that shiver. He would never tell anyone, but he was certain that Nadia had just saved his life, her hands on top of his hands, steering the car away from the approaching death that he’d been so sure was the answer to the torture his life had become.
TEN
Canada Day
July 1, 2012
9:39 a.m.
Canada’s birthday arrived hot and humid, no clouds, and plenty of festivities. Being the capital of the country, Ottawa always put on a great fireworks event downtown, and several of the surrounding communities also catered to their constituents, especially to the young kids. Over the last few years, Bridgehaven had been putting on a full day of activities with rides, games, and music, and Nadia had loved going. Last year she’d brought a couple of friends in addition to Caitlin, who had joined them with Nancy and Nicholas.
Lori-Anne and Mathieu would be skipping those activities this year. Since Father’s Day, they’d grown further apart. Lori-Anne did her thing and Mathieu did his, the two never meeting in the middle, no meals shared on top of not sharing a bed. It seemed their relationship was heading one way, and it wasn’t the right way. They’d become strangers living under the same roof.
Lori-Anne watched Mathieu from the living-room window. He was washing his new truck. Last week he’d gone out and come home with it, taking whatever was on the lot. The new models were coming in so all the dealerships had great deals on. Lori-Anne thought if she and Nadia had been in that big new F150 instead of the old Civic, well things wouldn’t be where they were.
She finished her coffee and put the empty cup on the little table in the foyer and went outside. She was still in her pajamas. At the end of the walkway she stopped, not wanting to get sprayed.
“Hey,” she said.
Mathieu gave a nod her way. �
��Hey.”
Even though it was already hot, she wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold. She felt something drop into the abyss of her stomach, her heart probably. This is what they’d become, two people who didn’t even know what to say to one another, unless they were tearing each other apart.
“Do you have plans for today?” she said.
Mathieu rinsed the rear left tire. “Not really. Probably just work on that little girl’s bed. I’m almost done and then I need to apply the finish so they can pick it up at the end of the month.”
Lori-Anne looked away, her heart sinking deeper. “Guess you don’t want to go downtown later?”
“Not really.”
“Seems like you just don’t want me around.”
He rinsed the side of his truck. “Not sure what you expect from me. You’ve moved on and I can’t. Not sure where that leaves us?”
“Pretty much where we are.”
Mathieu turned to her. “And that’s my fault?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Lori-Anne took a breath and waited for the venom she felt rising inside of her to retreat. When she didn’t say anything, Mathieu turned his back and continued washing the truck. It would be so easy to follow this where it was headed, to let her frustration and hurt erupt from her with harsh and stabbing words, but she knew it wouldn’t make her feel better. It never did.
Lori-Anne went back in the house feeling like her marriage was over and it was only a matter of time before one of them asked for a divorce. She was starting to believe that it might be the right thing to do. She didn’t want to admit failure, but it was getting impossible to deny. This life was sucking all her energy and maybe getting away from Mathieu, at least for a while, would do them both good. If only she could trust that he wouldn’t do something drastic.
She wouldn’t be able live with the guilt of walking away if he did. But she couldn’t stay with him the way he was, either.
An hour later she left for her parents’. She needed to talk to her mom.
* * *
“I don’t know what to do with Mathieu,” Lori-Anne said, barging in as soon as her mother opened the front door. “He won’t talk to me. I try but it’s like he doesn’t care. He’s just—”
Victoria gestured with her eyes toward the kitchen. Lori-Anne peeked and saw her niece sitting at the kitchen table, eating a croissant.
“Oh sweetie,” Lori-Anne said. “How did you get here?”
“I rode my bike. Only took thirty minutes.”
“Is that all?” Lori-Anne said. “Yeah, I guess it’s not that far from home. Sorry you had to hear what I said.”
“I know how Uncle Mathieu feels,” Caitlin said and pushed her empty plate. “I can spend hours in my room lying on my bed, just missing Nadia. Sometimes I grab my phone to text her and then realize I won’t get an answer, and I just cry. It really sucks, you know.”
“I know,” Lori-Anne said and took a seat at the kitchen table. She reached for a croissant piled on a plate in the middle of the table. “But we all need to move forward, somehow. I know it sounds cold, but what else can we do?”
Victoria joined them. “It’s not cold, honey. It’s reality. It doesn’t make it any less painful but we all need, as a family, to support each other and move on.”
Lori-Anne picked at her croissant and put small pieces in her mouth. Her appetite wasn’t there so she put the rest of the croissant on a napkin. “I don’t know how to help him do that. I sound like a broken record, but how do I get Mathieu the help he needs when he doesn’t want it? Sometimes I just wish he’d say it so we can get on with it.”
“Say what?” Caitlin said.
“That he blames me for the accident. After all, I was driving.”
“It was an accident, Aunt Lori-Anne.”
“I know, sweetie, but if he needs to blame someone to be able to move forward, then so be it. We can’t stay how we are.”
“You won’t get a divorce, too?”
Lori-Anne rubbed her forehead. “I might be angry with your uncle but I’m not getting a divorce. Adults fight too. We just need to work things out. Somehow.”
“How come my parents couldn’t do that?”
Lori-Anne shook her head. “I can’t answer that. A couple needs a lot of love to get through the crap that happens.”
“Guess my dad stopped loving my mom,” Caitlin said, as if talking to herself. “Or he loved that other woman more. I hate her. And him.”
“I know it’s tough on you.” Lori-Anne moved closer and put an arm around her niece’s shoulder. “Life doesn’t always play fair, sweetie. We’ll get through it.”
“You can’t promise that,” Caitlin said. “You can’t know that. It could keep getting worse and worse.”
“I sure hope not.”
“But it could,” Caitlin said. “When you came in, you sounded so mad at Uncle Mathieu, like you hated him.”
Lori-Anne pulled her arm away and let her shoulders drop. “I wouldn’t say I hate him. I’m just really disappointed and frustrated. He’s impossible to be around with these days and I don’t know what to do about it. He won’t listen to anything I say. He won’t get help. I’m mad at him because I love him and I want him to get better. I need him to get past this. He isn’t doing well, and I’m worried.”
“He misses Nadia,” Caitlin said. “We all do.”
Lori-Anne sat back in her chair. “Uncle Mathieu is in a bad place. He’s really depressed, and not in a oh-I’m-depressed-today-because-I-can’t-watch-my-favorite-TV-show, but in a real clinical way, and I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
Lori-Anne glanced at her mother. “Because people who are depressed can do desperate things.”
“Like what?” Caitlin said.
Lori-Anne hesitated. “I think you know what.”
After a long pause, Caitlin said, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I have no idea,” Lori-Anne said. “I just don’t know.”
* * *
Mathieu heard a car door slam and turned to see his father-in-law walking toward him. The old man laboured up the driveway and Mathieu noticed how old Samuel suddenly looked. Didn’t make him seem as imposing or intimidating. Although Samuel’s intimidation had never worked on Mathieu, possibly because Mathieu was the same height and a bit heavier than Samuel. And now he had youth on his side too.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Mathieu said and put the rag he’d been using to apply Danish Oil to parts of the bed down on the workbench. “I’m really not in the mood for your bullshit.”
“I thought maybe we could talk,” Samuel said.
Mathieu grabbed a clean rag and wiped his hands. “About?”
Samuel licked his lips a few times. “Working on such a beautiful day?”
“Why are you here?” he said. “I’m sure it’s not to shoot the crap.”
Samuel cleared his throat.
“I suppose you’re right about that,” he said. “You and Lori aren’t doing too good these days.”
“No shit, Sam,” Mathieu said, taking a step forward. “In case you haven’t been paying attention, we lost our only child.”
“She was my granddaughter—”
“And how often did you spend time with her?”
Samuel took a step back. “Huh?”
“In the fourteen years she was alive, how many damn times did you spend with her? Did you know anything about her?”
“We had her over to our place plenty of times—”
“Oh sure, at Christmas, Easter, big family gatherings,” Mathieu said, taking another step forward. “But did you spend any time with her?”
“I’m sure I did.”
“Name one time.”
Samuel opened his mouth then closed it. “Look, that’s not why I came over.”
“Why did you come?” Mathieu said, taking anot
her step forward. “Lori-Anne isn’t here if that’s who you’re looking for.”
“You and I, we’ve never quite seen eye-to-eye.”
“That’s all your doing. You’ve never liked me.”
“That’s not it,” Samuel said. “I simply never thought you were right for Lori. I’d expected more from her.”
“So I was a big disappointment to you. Didn’t live up to Sam Weatherly’s high standards.”
“I wanted Lori to take over for me . . .”
“And because of me you had to settle for Jim. What? He’s not living up to your expectations either? Maybe your expectations are set a little too high. You ask me, that’s a recipe for disappointment.”
Samuel rubbed his lips with his hand. “Look, I’m not a bad guy. I worked hard and provided for my family. Gave them all a fair chance. I grew up pretty poor so I know what it’s like to have nothing.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re a self-made man who seems to look down on other people. Why is that? You think you’re better than the rest of us?”
“No, no I don’t. I’m sure you find that hard to believe. I just wanted my kids to have what I didn’t. I wanted them to know that hard work gets rewarded.”
“Hard work does, but showing love is also important.”
Samuel looked like he’d been slapped. “I love them all, even Cory.”
“When’s the last time you told any of them, especially Cory.”
Samuel made a dismissive hand gesture. “I’m sure they know.”
“I’m sure they don’t.”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Mathieu rubbed his hands with the clean rag like he was trying to remove something that wasn’t there.
“I have a proposition.”
“A proposition?”
Samuel nodded. “Yes.”
“So talk,” Mathieu said when his father-in-law said nothing more. “I have work to do.”
“I’d like to offer you a settlement.”
“Is this some kind of a joke?”
Samuel shook his head. “Starting over takes money.”
“Wow,” Mathieu said. “I never expected that, not even from you. You really think money is the answer?”
It Happened to Us Page 7
