It Happened to Us

by François Houle

  “It helps.”

  “Won’t help bring Nadia back.”

  Samuel looked like he’d been slapped again, but only for a second.

  “Lori’s not getting anywhere with the way things are between the two of you. I thought if this is going to end in a divorce anyway, why not—”

  “Go to hell, you bastard.”

  “I can make it easier for you to start over. Lori is still young.”

  “Get off my property.”

  “I won’t offer this again,” Samuel said in a low, even-keeled voice. “If you don’t take me up on it now, you’ll get nothing from me when your marriage ends.”

  “I don’t care,” Mathieu said. He grabbed the wet rag and went back to work. “By the way, she hates being called Lori. Guess you don’t know your daughter as well as you think you do.”

  “Think about it.”

  “Leave,” Mathieu said in a tired voice. “If I never see you again, I’ll be fine with that.”

  “This isn’t a life for her. You two fighting all the time. She deserves better,” Samuel called out from the end of the driveway. “So much better.”

  Mathieu turned around. “And so does Victoria.”

  Once his father-in-law was gone, Mathieu put his rag down, sat on a stool, and rested his hands on his thighs to try and calm down. He replayed the scene in his mind, but felt more confused than ever. Had Lori-Anne gone to her parents and told them everything? Had her father really tried to buy him off? Who the hell did that? This wasn’t some TV show where shit like that happened.

  Mathieu stood and paced. If Lori-Anne wanted a divorce, why didn’t she just ask? No, he didn’t think she did, not yet anyway. This was purely the old man getting his nose into someone else’s business. Mathieu’s business. What an arrogant SOB. Had he really believed that Mathieu could be bought?

  “Hi Uncle Mathieu.”

  “Jesus!” he said. “Scared the you-know-what out of me.”

  “Sorry,” Caitlin said as she stepped off her bike and put it down on the driveway. “What are you doing?”

  “I was taking a break.”

  Caitlin walked into the garage. “That’s the bed for that girl? Looks really nice.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “It’s turned out pretty good.”

  “All the things you make do.”

  He smiled. “That’s because you’ve never seen the things that go wrong. I usually trash those and start over.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “People pay me good money for custom furniture, so I can’t give them anything but the best.”

  “I guess,” she said and ambled over to his workbench. He watched her look at a few tools. “I saw Aunt Lori-Anne this morning. At Grandma’s.”

  “You did?”

  Caitlin nodded. “I went to see Grandma because I was mad at my parents and I knew Dad wanted to take me for the day and I didn’t want to be with him and his new girlfriend so I went to Grandma’s.”

  Mathieu didn’t say anything.

  “Aunt Lori-Anne was mad at you.”

  “I know.” He paused and looked at his niece. “I just can’t seem to do the right thing by your aunt lately.”

  “That’s because you’re still hurting from losing Nadia.”

  Mathieu watched her take a chisel in her hands and was glad he’d put the cap on the cutting end. “It is, but it doesn’t make it right to hurt your aunt. I need to be better.”

  “If Nadia was here, do you think you and Aunt Lori-Anne would be fighting?”

  “No, we wouldn’t be.”

  “So all you have to do is pretend.”

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. “That’s one pain I can’t pretend doesn’t exist. Nadia was my special little girl.”

  “I wish my dad thought of me that way,” she said. “I don’t think he does. He’s never spent a lot of time with me. Not like you did with Nadia and me. You’re more of a dad to me than he is. Maybe I should come and live with you guys.”

  “Caitlin.” Mathieu waited for her to look at him. “You have a home. Your mother loves you and I’m sure your dad does too even if he doesn’t live there anymore. And you can’t take Nadia’s place.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s just maybe if I . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, Aunt Lori-Anne said you’re really depressed because you miss Nadia so much and you guys are always fighting, and I thought maybe if I was here, it would be like . . . better.”

  Mathieu looked at nothing in particular so he could sort out his thoughts.

  “You’re a wonderful, thoughtful young lady,” he said. “And I love you for wanting to help. But I need to find peace in my own heart about Nadia. I can’t have my niece take her place. That would be so . . .”

  “Weird.”

  “Yeah. It would. It sure would.” He thought back to Samuel’s unexpected visit. The old man had wanted to ruin his marriage and his life, and here was his fourteen-year-old niece doing exactly the opposite. “I think your dad is missing out on a great kid.”

  Her face lit up and once again he saw the family resemblance. It made him look away.

  “You love Aunt Lori-Anne?”

  He forced himself to look at Caitlin. “Yeah, I really do.”

  She smiled. “That’s good.”

  Mathieu smiled back. “Yes, I think it is.”

  “Well, I guess I should go home,” Caitlin said. “Before my mom reports me as a missing person.” She got on her bike. “See ya.”

  “Be careful,” Mathieu said. “And tell your mom I say hi.”

  “I will.”

  Mathieu watched her ride down the driveway, cross the road, and disappear from sight.

  * * *

  Lori-Anne and her mother sat outside at the patio table after Caitlin left, drinking iced tea and talking. Mostly, Lori-Anne talked and Victoria listened. Lori-Anne didn’t hold anything back. She was tired of hoping that things were going to get better when it was obvious they weren’t. She’d been denying too many things lately.

  Lori-Anne told her mother about Mathieu’s mood swings, the way he walked with his shoulders rounded and his head hung low as if the weight of all his grief was too much to bear. He had dark and lifeless eyes, like the real Mathieu was lost somewhere behind those eyes and there was no way to reach him. He was unpredictable, either sad and helpless, or granite hard and ready to fight. They hadn’t slept in the same bed for weeks, and never ate together. They spoke, when they spoke at all, with cutting cordiality. Even her work no longer provided refuge. How could she heal when she spent her days wondering what he might do?

  “Maybe it’s time for me to face reality and accept that we’re not going to get through this.”

  “Oh, honey, it’s not that bad.”

  “It feels like it, mom. I thought I could handle anything, but . . .”

  Lori-Anne looked out into the yard, the calm pool water a contrast to the turmoil inside of her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt at peace.

  “You’ll be fine,” Victoria said. “I have faith in you.”

  “Glad someone does.”

  “Did you mean what you said earlier to Caitlin, about Mathieu blaming you?”

  Lori-Anne shrugged. “Wouldn’t that make it easier if he did say it? Wouldn’t that be easier on him, like a burden tossed away? I’m not without blame. I was driving and I was distracted.”

  “You need to stop torturing yourself if you expect to help your husband,” Victoria said. “Maybe you want him to blame you because you feel you deserve to be blamed?”

  “Maybe I do,” Lori-Anne said and put her fist to her mouth so she could bite down on her fingers. “If it wasn’t for me—”

  “Stop! Maybe Mathieu isn’t the only one unable to move forward.”

  “I want us to get help, not just him. I need to tell him, but I can’t. I want him to hold me and tell me it wasn’t m
y fault.” Lori-Anne snatched a couple of tissues from the tissue box her mother had had the good sense to bring out with them. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “But he can’t tell me that because it really was my fault.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  “Except mine killed my daughter.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”

  Lori-Anne shook her head so hard her hair whipped across her face. “Maybe it’s me that’s preventing him from moving on. Maybe if he didn’t see me every day, he wouldn’t be reminded of what I did. Maybe he’d be better off without me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he loves you, I know he does.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “He’s a good man. You know that. You wouldn’t have married him otherwise. Keep that in mind. He’s in a world of pain and he’s not seeing things right. He’ll come around.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Just look at his grandfather,” Victoria said. “Mathieu is so much like him, but he’s still young. And grief can blind us and make us forget what’s important. You are important to him, honey. Each day, the pain will ease off a bit. It may take a long time, but don’t give up.”

  “But how long do I have to wait?”

  “However long it takes. You go home and keep trying. Giving up on him will not do either one of you any good. Try and do things, however small, that will help him, even if he doesn’t see it that way.”

  “Feels like anything I do is wrong.”

  “Just do your best.”

  When Lori-Anne arrived home, she noticed Mathieu’s new truck wasn’t in the driveway. He’d probably gone to see his grandparents. Inside, the house was uncomfortably quiet. She put her purse, keys, and phone on the hall table and headed to the kitchen to see if he’d left a note.

  Nothing. She wasn’t really surprised. This was the state of their marriage. Her mother had told her to go home and do something to help him. Maybe she should make dinner, set the table, and they could at least eat together.

  Lori-Anne went to the fridge to see if she could find something to turn into a meal, but then her phone beeped three times. She hurried to the foyer and grabbed her cell.

  “Oh no,” she said after reading the text. “Not now. Damn it!”

  She grabbed her purse and keys, and left.

  ELEVEN

  Canada Day

  July 1, 2012

  6:41 p.m.

  Lori-Anne felt panicky, her throat was closing, and her heart hammered against her ribs. She stopped just outside the emergency room doors, took a couple of deep breaths, and forced herself to enter the hospital. A blast of cold air hit her, a shocking difference from the muggy heat outside.

  She rubbed her arms and looked around. The place was crowded and noisy. There was a baby screeching and a mother doing her best to quiet the child; a group of people appearing to be of Middle East origin were talking loudly, huddled over a boy with a bloody face; a black couple, maybe in their early thirties, were trying to soothe a little girl who looked pale and dazed as she lay across the mother’s lap.

  Lori-Anne couldn’t see her husband.

  Her mind reeled back to those three small words that could totally destroy the man she loved. How would he handle this on top of losing Nadia? She looked at faces, trying to see who might be going through worse things than they were. But none of these people were here by choice. It didn’t matter what tragedy they’d suffered. It didn’t make it less heartbreaking because no one had died.

  Lori-Anne made her way to the nurses’ station and tried to get someone’s attention. This place was pandemonium. These nurses didn’t get paid enough, she probably earned twice as much as they did, and her actions never saved a life.

  A tap on her shoulder.

  Mathieu.

  He said something but she couldn’t hear him. He took her hand and led her away from the triage area and down a hall where it was quieter.

  “Are you all right?” she said. A couple of nurses walked by, paying little attention to them. “Mathieu?”

  “She’s dead,” he said. “Grandma is dead.”

  Three little words.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “A stroke, worse than the last one. Too much for her to take. Grandpa said she was dead before she hit the floor. They were standing in the kitchen talking, and all of a sudden, she got this weird look on her face. She was trying to say something but nothing was coming out and he knew what it was. Before he could get to the phone, Grandma crumpled to the floor like a rag. He tried to catch her but she was too heavy for him and he went down with her.”

  “Did he get hurt?” Lori-Anne said. “Where is he?”

  “He’s with Grandma,” he said. “In one of those rooms.” He gestured with his right hand down the corridor.

  “How is he?” she said. “Is he in shock?”

  Mathieu shook his head. “He seems fine. Says the Lord felt it was time to bring Grandma home.” He curled his fists. “I really hate that religious crap. God has no plan except to torture us.”

  “Mathieu,” she said. “Your grandparents are very religious and you have to respect that.”

  “I respect it, but I don’t believe in it,” he said. “Grandma was old and she’d already had a stroke. It’s all medical. God had nothing to do with it.”

  “Well, maybe you can keep that to yourself,” she said. “We need to be here for Grandpa. He’s going to need us once the shock sets in and he realizes that she’s really gone.”

  Mathieu looked toward the room where his grandmother lay dead. She’d been the mother he’d never had, making sure he was taken care of. She’d taken him to doctors’ appointments, met with his teachers, and helped with homework. He owed her so much. “I can’t believe she’s gone either.”

  “She’s in a better place.”

  Mathieu turned to Lori-Anne, the muscles around his eyes tightening. “Do you believe that?”

  Lori-Anne was non-committal. “I guess. She’s not suffering, so that has to count for something. Would you have wanted her to survive and live paralyzed? Grandma was too proud to live that way. She wouldn’t have wanted to be a burden.”

  “No, she wouldn’t have wanted that,” he said. “But is there really a better place? Seems to me that dead is dead.” But then he stopped and remembered what had happened during his Father’s Day cemetery visit.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Nothing. It was nothing. I was just thinking about Nadia, about the short time we had with her, that’s all. It just makes me feel . . .”

  Lori-Anne looked up at her husband. “Nadia gave us fourteen wonderful years. We are who we are because of her. She was our daughter and we loved her no matter how angry she made us sometimes. But wasn’t it worth it? I think it was. I’d rather feel this pain that we’re feeling right now than to never have known love the way we loved her. She was our beautiful little girl and her short life was not for nothing.”

  Mathieu looked away, his heart climbing up his throat.

  “Look at me,” Lori-Anne said.

  Slowly, he did.

  “Nadia’s life wasn’t for nothing. You need to believe that. Just like your grandmother’s life wasn’t for nothing. It doesn’t matter how long or short it is. We all bring something to this world, to the people who matter to us.”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything, the muscles around his lungs closing and squeezing the air out like a burst balloon.

  “Are you okay?”

  After a moment, he was able to nod. “It just never seems to stop.”

  “I know,” she said. “But we can’t lose sight of Grandpa. This is a bigger loss for him. Let’s go see how he’s doing.”

  * * *

  When she entered the room, Lori-Anne
went straight to Grandpa and hugged him. There was comfort in this old man’s arms, a comfort she used to get from Mathieu. She even allowed herself to cry quietly into his shoulder, and when she pulled away, he offered her his handkerchief.

  She shook her head and pulled a tissue from her purse. “I’m so sorry. Grandma was such a wonderful lady.”

  “Can’t disagree with you,” he said, taking hold of his wife’s lifeless hand. “Had some great years together. Sure glad she said yes to me so many years ago. Sure glad she did.”

  Lori-Anne glanced at Mathieu but he was sitting on a chair by the door, his hands clasped between his knees and his head down.

  “Are you okay?” she asked Grandpa.

  “I miss her already,” he said as his lower lip trembled. “We’re both old. Can’t live forever, I suppose.”

  She couldn’t fathom what it must be like for him, to lose the woman he’d loved for more than sixty years. He probably couldn’t remember life without her. They had suffered so much, too. And yet, they’d remained devoted to their faith, going to church every Sunday. She felt ashamed. She hadn’t stepped into a church since Nadia’s service almost three months ago. Maybe religion should be a bigger part of her life. She glanced at Mathieu again and knew that it would be a solo journey if she decided to follow through. If he’d had any faith, it was gone now.

  Lori-Anne gave Grandpa’s arm a rub and he smiled at her. His eyes reminded her of Mathieu’s. His jaw was also Mathieu’s jaw. She’d seen a picture of Grandpa at Mathieu’s age and they looked so alike, they could have been brothers. Words her mother had said came to her: he’s just like his grandfather, a good man with a good heart, just a bit lost right now. Lori-Anne saw it, the truth of it.

  “I remember the first time I met you both,” she said. “Mathieu hadn’t told me you were his grandparents and I kept thinking, wow, his parents are sort of old, and then I noticed the picture on the small table by the sofa, the picture of Mathieu with a young couple, and stupid me, I asked who they were and you all went quiet for a moment and then Grandma took me aside and told me the whole story. My heart and my love went to Mathieu that night, and to the two of you.

  Grandpa smiled and patted her hand. “We were just glad he’d finally brought a girlfriend home, and a pretty and smart one at that.”