by Karen Swan
Meg was quiet for a very long time, the words spinning round in her head as she tried to keep the tears from coming. Her gaze was on the distant sky again. It seemed curiously empty now, without him in it. ‘Saying goodbye never gets any easier, does it?’
Ronnie watched her. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘It never does.’
He could see her through the glass. She was chatting to a little girl as she fitted her for ski boots, laughing at something the child said.
Jonas pushed the door open, seeing how she froze as she looked up and saw him coming through, her smile fixed on her face but seeping from her eyes.
‘Hi . . .’ she began, and he could tell from her tone what she was going to say. ‘It’s not a good time.’
‘I’ll just browse,’ he said quickly, turning his back to inspect the rows of skis and boots, gloves, hats, goggles . . . Badger, who must have been snoozing somewhere, trotted over on hearing his voice and gave a low whine for a cuddle, his tail thumping on the floor as Jonas obliged.
The little girl’s voice was sing-song to his ear as he picked up a ski mask. It was top-spec, with a built-in camera and infrared capability. He replaced it and wandered over to the helmets, listening all the while to her conversation – hearing the kindness in her voice as she asked if the heel slipped or if the little girl could wiggle her toes, marvelled at how tall she was for her age as she measured for poles, gave her a free lollipop for being so patient when they’d tried on thirteen different helmets.
Eventually, to his relief and Meg’s discomfort, the girl and her mother left; Jonas turned to face her as he heard the bell jingle above the door. Meg was standing by the till, trying to look occupied, her mouth pulled into a flat line.
He didn’t hesitate. There was no time. ‘Meg, I’m sorry.’
‘You have nothing—’
‘Yes, I do. It was tactless of me to suggest that a scientific theory could ever best what you’ve learned from years of friendship.’ He watched her blink, saw the tension in her chest as she took only half-breaths, her gaze flighty as her hands sought to busy themselves, settling finally on fiddling with a paper clip on the counter.
She shook her head. ‘I’d had too much to drink. Besides, you were probably right. I’m not Tuck’s biggest fan right now.’
Right now? But Jonas didn’t push it. Frankly, he didn’t care who thought what about Tuck right now. Nineteen hours from now he would be gone – gone from here, gone from her. That was all that was in his head.
‘But if he is sleeping around, then he is a shit.’ He saw Meg’s surprise at his language, a hint of a smile come to her eyes. ‘And that would explain why Lucy is angry and insecure and depressed.’ He shrugged. ‘So you were right. I was wrong.’ He grinned. ‘Astronauts know everything about space and nothing at all about the human race. Everyone knows that. Why do you think we’re always looking for Martians?’
‘That sounds like one of your jokes,’ she muttered, but a smile escaped her – it was only a tiny one, but it was still like the sun emerging from behind clouds.
‘Have brunch with me,’ he said, walking towards her.
But her smile faltered and she looked away, the moment gone again. There was something else.
The jangling bell of the door behind him signalled new customers and his spirits sank. Dammit! He turned to find an older woman coming in. She was wearing a trapper hat, a beaten-up puffa jacket and a beautifully old pair of chestnut-brown hiking boots with decades-old tide marks on the leather. She looked at Jonas with a clear, concise gaze, her brown skin deeply lined and yet firm at the jaw, her short, straight haircut of the DIY variety.
He turned. ‘Dolores,’ he smiled. He had somehow missed her all week – any time he’d stopped by the store to see or pick up Meg, she’d been out.
‘Jonas,’ she replied in recognition, walking over to him and assessing him with a frank scrutiny, much like a farmer in the market for a bull. She put a hand to his cheek and nodded. ‘So you are flesh and blood after all.’
‘I am.’ He stood still as she looked at him in the way that only his mother had ever looked at him – seeing him fully, in the round, and accepting everything she saw.
‘Sorry – have you two met already?’ Meg interrupted.
Dolores dropped her hand and turned to Meg, unzipping her jacket. ‘No. But who else could he be? One look and you can see he’s a man who stepped off the world because he wanted a better view.’
Meg looked at him, as though trying to see him through Dolores’s eyes. But that was impossible. Too much had happened between them already for either to see the other clearly.
‘So, what are you kids up to today?’ Dolores asked, walking out back and hanging up her coat.
‘I was just trying to convince Meg to have brunch with me,’ Jonas said, leaning over and calling slightly so that Dolores could hear. He sensed he had an ally in her.
‘But as I was just about to explain,’ Meg said in a too-patient voice, her eyes on him, ‘I’ve got to work.’
‘Nonsense,’ Dolores said dismissively, walking back through. ‘You go.’
‘Dolores, really, it’s been insane all morning – I’ve barely stopped. And the eleven a.m. from Calgary has just pulled up. As soon as all those people have checked in, they’re going to be straight over here, wanting—’
‘I said, you go. I’ll deal with it.’
‘Dolores, no.’
‘Megan, yes,’ Dolores said firmly.
Meg inhaled deeply, casting an anxious glance between her and Jonas. ‘I’m not hungry.’ She seemed to be shooting Dolores some sort of meaningful look.
Dolores looked back at Jonas. He shrugged his eyebrows, feeling increasingly awkward. It was patently obvious Meg didn’t want to eat with him. She turned back to Meg again. ‘Fine. You’re fired.’
Meg gasped. ‘What?’
‘You heard me. Go.’ Dolores crossed her arms over her chest.
‘What? No!’ she half-laughed, half-cried.
‘I’ll call the police on you if you don’t.’
‘Dolores! You can’t . . . you can’t do that!’ Meg cried, watching as Dolores disappeared out the back again and returned a moment later with her bag and coat.
‘On the contrary, I should have done it years ago. Your performance has been below par for months now. You’ve been getting sloppy with the customers recently and you over-ordered on the Oakley account so now I’ve got to find a way of shifting three hundred pairs of four-hundred-dollar sunglasses.’
‘But—’
‘No, leave the dog with me. You can collect him on your way back.’ Dolores was pushing Meg towards the door. ‘Go. Just go.’
‘But—’
Meg stumbled out into the street, looking back into the store with an expression of utter shock and disbelief. ‘I did not over-order the Oakleys,’ she cried, throwing her arms out.
‘Chicken, you are without doubt the worst assistant manager I’ve ever had.’
‘I’m the only assistant manager you’ve ever had!’
‘That’s all well and good, but I should have done this years ago. It’s only my affection for you that stopped me. Now don’t make a fuss – it’s vulgar and my mind is made up.’ Dolores turned away from her.
‘What the hell . . . ?’ Meg asked, aghast; she looked as though she was about to burst into tears.
Dolores handed the bag and coat over to Jonas, her back to Meg. ‘Blueberry crêpes at Melissa’s Missteak,’ she murmured. ‘And she likes her coffee with hot cream,’ she whispered – sending him off with a wink.
Chapter Thirty-three
The lights were too bright, that was the problem. That was why he wouldn’t sleep. They needed low-wattage bulbs fitted. Or dimmers. Or maybe wall lights instead of these strip things that made her feel as though she was in an interrogation room. No wonder he was crying. She felt like it herself.
Lucy paced, her hands pulling at her hair as the baby continued to scream in his cot in the next roo
m. The book said to let him cry for exactly ten minutes before she went in so she mustn’t go in before then. She mustn’t or it wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t learn and all this . . . all this torment for both of them as he screamed till his lungs must surely be bleeding, it would all have been for nothing.
What time was it? How long it had been now? She ran to the kitchen and stared at the clock. Five forty-two. Six minutes.
She remembered the screening was at six. Tuck had said he’d be back for it. He’d said he wouldn’t be late. Not today. He’d be here any moment. She could do this. She could last.
The baby’s crying was less in here – he was two rooms away now – and she put the kettle on, praying for the roiling sound to drown him out further. She paced at the window, her hands on her hips as she kept her eyes on the arch, waiting for the nose of the truck to appear.
It had been snowing since lunchtime and there was a good thirty centimetres of new fall, judging by the tops of the bins. But that was no excuse.
None of them had any excuse for not coming here, not helping, leaving her here on her own with a screaming baby. She’d heard all about Meg’s exciting week with the astronaut from Tuck, and of course from her mother, via Dolores. Nordic skiing and picnics! Films and popcorn! Dinner parties and wine! She was living the high life, quite the girl about town now, relishing her freedom, her independence, her single status . . .
Lucy wiped a tear away angrily as the water in the kettle boiled loudly, decisively drowning out the baby. No, she wouldn’t cry. Not over her. Lucy knew she’d been a loyal friend to her; whatever mistakes she’d made in the past, she’d done her best to make up for them in those first, darkest weeks when Meg hadn’t even been capable of blowing her own nose. She’d looked after her, fed her, sat with her . . . she’d even gone to find Meg at the cabin and apologize, even though the stomach pains she’d been having all that day had been getting worse; even though it was Meg who’d been in the wrong, sleeping with that guy like it was no big deal. No, Lucy knew she’d done her best to try to clear the air between them and get them back to where they always used to be; and for a few hours, for a couple of days, she’d thought she’d done it. They’d felt close again, bonded by an incredible, life-affirming experience. So for Meg to throw her over because she disapproved of Lucy’s choice of baby name?
Lucy felt the resentment simmer her blood. It was unfair and unjust, but her reward was coming. Her life was about to change beyond recognition and she wouldn’t be the one left holding the baby on her own any more. If living well was the best revenge, she intended to turn her life around three-sixty. The contracts, several days late from the lawyers due to some fine print that Tuck said had to be clarified, were due any day and then everyone would know about their good fortune. Instead of ‘poor Lucy’, they would stare at her with admiration and envy; they’d be getting a new house – a better one than this dump – and she’d get a personal trainer, a sexy new wardrobe to incentivize her to lose the baby weight and remind Tuck that he used to love her.
She slapped the tears away again, pulling hard on the skin so that livid red finger marks tracked her cheeks.
The kettle had boiled, the rush and torrent of the rolling water beginning to subside again and the baby’s screams grew in pitch once more. Hurriedly, she poured the water out of the kettle and refilled it with cold water from the tap, switching it on and waiting again . . . waiting for the relief. Why was it so hard, listening to him scream? Why did he sleep through the night when Tuck was there to help, but when she was alone with him in the day . . . ? Didn’t he love her? Hadn’t he bonded with her the way she had with him? Was she destined to always repeat this cycle – loving more than she was loved?
She felt that distinctive tingle in her breasts and looked down, seeing two milky blooms spreading across her T-shirt.
‘Dammit,’ she spat, feeling the tears come again as she pulled the T-shirt away from herself. But it was too late and Tuck was due back any minute . . . She didn’t want him to see her like this. She hadn’t washed her hair in a week, her nails were bitten to the quick and she hadn’t had a wax since before the birth. Things were bad enough between them as it was. The baby had changed nothing, not really. Tuck had tried for the first few days, offering to hold the baby, but he’d given up after she constantly rejected his offers, feeling like every time he succeeded, she’d failed; and of course he couldn’t feed the baby until she introduced bottles, so now he was already back to drinking too much again, coming in late, and he wasn’t even trying to have sex with her, which could only mean one thing.
She ran into the bedroom, pulling the T-shirt off over her head and unclasping the sodden bra. She let it fall to the ground and opened the drawer, reaching for a fresh one. She had run out of breast pads but Tuck had bought more yesterday on his way home, as she’d asked, the plastic bag still sitting in the corner of the bedroom where he’d dropped it before having to turn on his heel and help out her mother with some goddam broken-down appliance in the hotel. She went over and pulled out the box, freezing as she saw that he’d also bought a biking magazine, some fresh mints and a pack of condoms.
But it wasn’t that which stopped her breath. Slowly she reached in and pulled out the letter discreetly slipped in at the back, her heart beginning to pound at double time as she saw the name written on the front in black ink.
Meg.
It was a change in her eyes that was always the first sign. Then her voice – lower. Slower.
In the next room, the baby was screaming, as he always was when Tuck got back at this time. It was one of the reasons he delayed coming home . . . He’d tried suggesting she should give the bottles a go, that perhaps the baby wasn’t getting enough milk and was hungry, but she always took this as an insult, a slur on her maternal capabilities, so he’d stopped. He’d stopped pretty much everything. She got angry if he stayed in, for ‘getting under her feet’; angry if he stayed out; angry if he got the baby to sleep when she hadn’t; angry if he tried to reach out to her in bed and then even angrier when he didn’t.
‘Hey,’ he said warily, putting his keys down on the counter and watching the way she stood, so still, by the door to the bedroom, something in her hand. Could she tell he’d been drinking? He’d got wise recently, switching from beer to vodka; it meant his breath didn’t give him away. ‘Want me to go in to him?’
She ignored his question. ‘What the fuck is this?’
His eyes flickered down to what he could see now was a letter, the letter he’d picked up only yesterday and had intended to hide. But Barbara had called almost as soon as he stepped in the door – she must have been looking from the window again, her timing was so spot on – and he’d had to cross the courtyard almost immediately to help with a dripping tap.
He fell still himself. ‘I was going to talk to you about it.’
‘Yeah? When? After you got her to sign it?’ she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
‘Look, Luce, I’ve been thinking—’
Lucy laughed, a hard, bitter sound that clanged like a dropped bell. ‘The hell you have. You don’t think. You just do, Tuck. You’re led by your stomach and your dick.’ She sneered. ‘And the goddam bottle. Where have you just come from, huh? Bill’s? Or were you drinking on your own in the office again?’
He stared at her, debating whether to just pick up the keys and get the hell out of here. She was spoiling for a fight and he would lose. He had to. It was the only way to make it stop.
He took a deep breath. ‘Look, you’ve had a bad day. You’re exhausted. Why don’t I just get the baby to stop crying—’
‘Mitch! His name is Mitch! He is not the Baby! Or Titch!’ Lucy screamed. ‘Why do you never call him by his name?’
‘OK, OK,’ Tuck said calmly, trying not to blanch at the word. ‘I’ll settle Mitch and then we can talk about this calmly . . . Shall I run you a bath?’
Lucy looked at him like he was insane. ‘You’re giving away all our money and you t
hink I want a freaking bath?’ she hollered, so loudly that for a moment she even drowned out the baby.
He blinked, a sudden wave of nausea surging from his stomach, her yelling making his head throb, the lights in this godforsaken bungalow too bright. ‘Not all of it. Just my share.’
‘Your share? You mean half of your share? Because you realize that’s what I’m entitled to, right? Fifty per cent of yours is mine and I’m not giving any money away.’
‘OK,’ he agreed quickly. ‘But even at that, a quarter share is still a very significant amount of money. More than we need.’
‘Why?’ she yelled, her face puce and distorted with rage.
Tuck knew his calm only inflamed her anger but he had no other option. They couldn’t both lose control. He tried to steady his breathing, to not be drawn into matching her heat. ‘Let’s just sit dow—’
‘I don’t want to sit! I want to know why! Why are you doing this to us?’
His shoulders sagged. ‘Because I have to. It’s the only way I can make amends.’
‘By giving her – what, seventy-five per cent of the value of the company? It’s bad enough that she’s getting Mitch’s share!’
‘She’s his widow,’ Tuck said, disgusted by his wife’s ugly greed.
‘They weren’t married!’
Tuck blinked, finding it hard to believe Lucy was actually arguing this again. ‘Apart from the fact that they were a week away from being married –’ he couldn’t quite keep the bitter sarcasm from his voice – ‘they had lived together as man and wife for over three years. In common law that means she’s got the same rights.’ He held out his hands, softening his tone. ‘Lucy, come on – surely you can see it’s the right thing to do?’
‘No, it’s not! Your responsibility is to us, your family,’ she cried, slapping herself so hard on the chest it left angry marks on the skin. He looked at them, wondering if they would bruise.
