by Donna Milner
Julie bites her tongue. Fifteen minutes.
“Just think, you could go back into real estate, or accounting, even return to university if you wanted,” her mother says, watching Julie over the rim of her coffee cup. “There’s nothing to stop you now.”
Julie believes there is no real intention of being cruel, but she sometimes wonders if she can hear herself. She’s about to ask, then decides it isn’t worth the effort.
In the parking lot she waves her mother off with relief. Then, fully aware that she is still in childish mode, she goes on a spending spree. By the time she’s finished, her purchases fill the back seat. Among them is a professional digital camera and accessories, photography books, and a backpack with a built-in iPod and speakers.
Before heading home she makes a hurried trip to the grocery store, the danger zone in a small town, where you’re more than likely to run into someone you know. She dreads the change in expression when someone recognizes her: their panicked look of not knowing what to say; the averting of eyes in pretence that they hadn’t seen her; the flooding of sympathy when they do. And worse yet, is that look of fear she often encounters, as if tragedy is contagious.
She rushes through her shopping with the sad realization that she has become less afraid of meeting wild animals in the bush than she is of running into old acquaintances.
She almost makes it, but in the fresh produce department she hears someone call her name. Turning slowly she finds, standing behind her with a grocery basket on her arm, Valerie Ladner. The last time Julie saw her was as a blur at Darla’s funeral.
Before Julie can respond she feels Valerie brush her cheek with a kiss. She lets herself be hugged, the awkwardness of the embrace double-sided.
“I never had the chance to tell you how sorry I am,” Valerie whispers.
As she pulls away Julie senses that the woman’s apprehension is about more than sympathy.
“I’ve always felt bad about that night,” Valerie tells her. “Perhaps if I hadn’t taken up Ian’s time...” her voice cracks on the words and her eyes cloud over.
Julie hardens herself; she could not abide to see this woman’s tears. Yet in Valerie’s tortured expression Julie reads the need for redemption, the need to purge herself of guilt. Julie is about to snap, You give yourself too much importance, but something stops her. She reaches, pats Valerie’s hand in a forgiving gesture and turns and walks away. Pushing her cart toward the checkout tills, Julie feels an unexpected lifting of her spirits.
On the way out of the store she glances across the street just as Virgil Blue comes out of the medical clinic. She holds back and watches him walk slowly to his pickup truck. His dog, waiting patiently with his head hanging out of the driver’s window, jumps over to the passenger seat as his master climbs in. Julie waits until Virgil has driven away before heading out to her own car.
22
During the night an early frost settles on the valley leaving notice that autumn is close behind. In the morning the brittle grass sparkles with hoarfrost, a crystalline carpet spreading down to the shore. Out on the lake, one by one, loons appear like apparitions in the fog-like grey mist hanging over the still water. From her kitchen window Julie counts six of the water birds who, as certain as the coming of winter, are gathering to fly south. She wonders how soon they will leave. Used to their concerts of tremulous calls, she can’t imagine not hearing them before she goes to sleep each night. A melancholy sadness floods through her at the thought of their departure. How empty the lake will be without them. Like the curious emptiness in the house this morning.
She turns her attention back to the breakfast dishes thinking how ironic it is that, as relieved as she was to see her mother leave, in a strange way she now feels her absence. Perhaps it’s because during her visit she had served as a kind of buffer. Now that her mother is no longer in the house, the space between her and Ian seems expanded, a gulf impossible to breach. They eat breakfast in silence, neither attempting to resume their interrupted conversation from the day her mother arrived. Whatever his reasons for avoiding it—anger at her for returning to the guest bedroom?—Julie feels relieved. She doesn’t want to revisit the conversation about Levi Johnny, or about talking to his mother.
In the living room Ian opens the fireplace doors to throw another log in. The sound of crackling wood fills the house. Early this morning he had started the first fires of the season in both the kitchen stove and the central fireplace. Unlike the draughty gas-fired heat of their furnace in town, the wood heat fills every corner of the house like a comforting hug.
While Ian goes back to work behind the closed door of his office Julie finishes up her housework. She spends the rest of the morning reading the instruction booklets for her new camera, and downloading music to her new iPod backpack. Later, when she steps outside, leaving the cocoon of warmth behind, she feels the bite of the crisp morning air. She pulls the collar up on her Gore-Tex windbreaker, and adjusts her backpack before starting out. This time, instead of hiking in the open fields she heads up the north road. She can’t avoid it forever. How likely is it that she will run into the bear again anyway? Silence was her mistake then. This time she’s prepared. The backpack is like a portable boom box. She might miss out on some of the sounds of nature, but any wild animals will have fair warning of her approach. The moment she can no longer see the house, she uses the remote control in her jacket pocket to switch on the iPod. Suddenly the strains of a Vivaldi concerto blast from the speakers on the sides of the backpack. She quickly adjusts the volume until it’s loud enough to carry a distance without being completely overwhelming. When she originally thought of this idea she had wondered if it would interfere with the quiet solitude, which she has become used to on her hikes. But as she walks, the music of Joshua Bell’s Stradivarius violin blends with the sounds of the forest as naturally as the wind. She tells herself that her choice of this particular artist has nothing to do with Virgil, other than the fact that their tenant’s nocturnal playing has served to remind her how much she loves the music of this virtuoso violinist.
Passing the logging trail leading up to the woodlot, she notices hoofprints in the freshly churned earth, evidence that Virgil and his team have passed this way.
She approaches the next bend in the road with trepidation. At the spot where she encountered the bear, there is no sign of the dead bird on the roadside, or the flock of crows that had blackened the tree branches above where it lay. Still her heart quickens, pounding in her ears along with the music. As she hurries by, she checks over her shoulder, peering deep into the forest on either side. Half an hour later, other than squirrels skittering up and down tree trunks—too busy gathering winter provisions to be concerned with the mobile concert—she sees no sign of any animals. She slows her pace, beginning to wonder, what is she doing here? Tempting fate? The idea of taking photographs seems somewhat less exciting now. Still, she continues on until she arrives at the northern end of the lake. Spotting a better vantage point at the water’s edge, she leaves the road and heads toward the marshes along the shore. She picks her way gingerly through the bulrushes and sun-bleached deadfalls, which reach up like bony fingers from the spongy bog. The wind has stopped and the scent of peat moss underfoot and the faint aroma of distant chimney smoke fills the air. Near the water’s edge, she finds a firm foothold on a grassy hummock and stops to stare down the lake. All along its shore, yellowing poplar and birch leaves, evidence of Jack Frost’s overnight touch, dot the green landscape like random brush strokes. The mirrored image of a ragged treeline cutting into a washed blue sky reflects from the lake’s glass-like surface.
She turns off the music and in the sudden silence hears the distant honking of Canada geese in flight. She scans the sky but there is no sign of the birds. Shrugging off her backpack she takes out her new camera, removes it from its case and focuses on the scene before her. As she takes her first photographs the call of the wild geese becomes louder. She glances up and quickly changes the ca
mera’s angle to capture the image of the vee formation flying so low that she can hear the whooshing of air beneath their wings. She clicks continually as they pass directly overhead and then skim down the lake, heading south. Going home.
She lowers the camera watching the birds become dots above the ranch house roof, and wonders if the log house on the distant shore will ever feel like home to her. Will anywhere without Darla?
Back on the road, with the music blaring once again from her back, she considers exploring the logging area above the lake. But nearing the fork in the road, she changes her mind. Glancing up the trail she sees something moving in the flickering shadows. Her heart leaps into her throat leaving the blood pounding in her ears even after she realizes that it isn’t a wild animal but Virgil Blue emerging in the afternoon light. He stands silhouetted on the ridge of the hill for only a moment before turning away.
Julie switches off the iPod, and heads up the logging trail. By the time she reaches the spot where Virgil had stood, he’s nowhere in sight. Pine and fir needles crunch under her hiking boots as she skirts around a log pile. In the clearing beyond, scraps of bark, boughs and branches carpet the ground. The air is sharp with the scent of pitch and freshly cut timber. At the far end of the landing, behind his team of horses, Virgil is bent over a felled tree securing a chain to the butt end. If he notices Julie when he straightens up to take the reins, he gives no sign. She scrambles up a bank and watches as the horses lean into their harness. With mouths working their bits, and sweat lathering beneath leather collars, they strain forward at Virgil’s silent command. Before long the massive tree trunk jerks forward, and then skids easily behind the team as they cross the landing. Only after it comes to rest alongside the log pile, does Virgil glance Julie’s way. His dark eyes and unchanged expression give no indication of his reaction to her presence, other than to acknowledge it. She lifts her hand in a quick wave, and then holds up her camera with a gesture that asks for permission to use it. Feeling foolish at the realized error—he’s mute, not deaf—she hollers a little louder than necessary, “Do you mind if I take some photographs?”
Virgil’s nod is so brief, and he resumes his chore so quickly, that she wonders if she has imagined his consent. Still, she focuses her camera and takes a few test shots of him unhooking the skidding chains. When she gets no sign of protest she climbs down the bank and removes her backpack. Placing it on the ground on top of her jacket she readies her camera again. When Virgil straightens up he points down at her backpack. Confused Julie looks from him to the ground, and asks, “Is it in the way?”
He shakes his head, and then taps his ear, the meaning clear. For the rest of the afternoon, while Julie follows at a distance taking photographs of Virgil and the horses at work, the music of Joshua Bell fills the forest.
Later that night Julie rises from her bed. Finding her way downstairs in the dark she removes the shawl blanket from the back of the couch and wraps it around her shoulders. Out on the front deck she stands in the moonlight, smiling. It hadn’t been her imagination after all. From across the water, just like the violin music that had played out from her backpack today, comes the sorrow-filled strains of the Vivaldi concerto.
23
Virgil’s story
Sorrow. No one makes it through life without experiencing it. He was born to it—its presence replacing the father he had never known. A father lost to the Korean War, one week before the ceasefire was signed, one month after his youngest son’s birth. The boy kept a picture of him tacked to the panelled wall in his room. In the old sepia photograph, not a soldier, but a cowboy, wearing sheepskin chaps leans against a corral fence, a lariat coiled in his right hand. A wide-brimmed Stetson pushed back on his forehead reveals a flashing white-toothed smile shining from his father’s handsome face. Every time his mother gazed at the photograph the boy sensed her silent mourning for a lost husband, and he believed there could be no greater heartache.
Until his fourteenth birthday.
Despite the money the twins sent home each month, the mobile home grew steadily sadder-looking. After his brothers joined the army on their eighteenth birthdays their mother went through the motions of carrying on life as normal. But once they shipped out to Vietnam, she gave up all pretence. The crabgrass lawn was gone, replaced by dust and bits and pieces of windblown trash. The wilted marigolds shed ignored yellow and orange petals onto the weed-covered path. The porch sagged with neglect.
Pedalling as hard as the worn-out wheels of his second-hand bike would allow, the boy hurried home from his Saturday music lesson. Taking the skidding turn into the trailer court, he thought about how he could do more to help his mother. Perhaps he could fix the front porch. All it would take is a few boards, a hammer and some nails. He cringed at the thought of using a hammer. He secretly feared hitting his fingers with it. But today he turns fourteen and it’s time to become a man. And he would. He would have to find time between schoolwork, his newspaper routes, violin lessons and practice. He would start tomorrow, after the surprise horseback ride his mother has arranged for his birthday gift. For an entire week he has tried to rein in his excitement so that she doesn’t find out that his little sister, Melody, has spilled the beans. Birthdays mean so much to his mother that he would have no trouble acting surprised when she presented him with this gift. He had long outgrown his desire for toy guns, but still dreamt of being a cowboy, like his father. He had learned very early though to be guarded about who he shared this information with. When he was eight years old he had made the mistake of taking the photograph to school.
A nigger cowboy! No friggin way! Even worse was the laughter.
After recess, Margie Smith, who sat in the desk behind him, had leaned forward and whispered not to listen to them, that she thought it was neat that his father was a cowboy. On the way home from school the blonde, blue-eyed girl asked to see the picture again. He stopped and took it slowly from his pocket. He handed it to her, wondering what he would do if she too mocked it, or even worse, tore the picture up. He stood nervously while she studied the photograph, then handed it back saying, Neat!
If it was true, as his sister told him, that for his birthday, his mother has paid for him and a friend to go riding at the stables on the outskirts of town tomorrow, Margie was the one he would invite.
On the corner to his street, their neighbour, Mr Fowler, stepped out onto his covered porch. Lifting the black violin case from the handle bars, the boy held it up to let his old teacher know he had been practising. The old man nodded from his trailer porch. Since the boy’s seventh birthday, in exchange for a few dollars and some yard work, Mr Fowler gave him lessons once a week. Then last year, their neighbour announced that he had gone as far as he could. I ain’t good enough for anything more’n list’nen to the boy practise now, he told his mother. He needs a real teacher. He gave her the name of an instructor in town.
She had bartered with the boy though, extracting a promise in exchange for professional lessons, which would be paid for from the money his brothers sent home. She made the offer only once. And he had given his oath that he would not follow in his brothers’ footsteps when he grew up, that he would not go to war. Now, every Saturday, he rode his bike into town for lessons.
But it was a boy’s promise, made with fingers mentally crossed behind his back. Surely by the time he was old enough to join his brothers she would understand if he retracted it. He would face that when the time came.
His wheels wobbled as he hung the violin case on the handlebars again. He gained control, waved back at Mr Fowler and turned onto their road. The smell of cabbage boiling for Saturday dinner filled the air. But it was not coming from their trailer. They would not eat corned-beef and cabbage tonight. His mouth watered at the thought of the chocolate cake and ice cream waiting at home. He smiled wider yet knowing that in a few moments he would see his mother happy, or pretending that she was happy, for a few hours.
A taxi was parked in front of their house. His heart leapt
into this throat. His brothers home for his birthday?
He skidded into the yard, kicking up dust in his wake and letting his bike drop to the ground. Sprinting across the dirt, he almost stumbled before he leapt onto the porch. Throwing open the door in excitement, he pushed inside to find two army officers, who were not his brothers, in the entryway. With hats tucked under their arms they stood, as if rooted, a few feet from his mother. In the living room, his little sister sat on the couch, her cream-coloured skin ashen. His birthday cake waited on the side buffet. Above it, his brothers’ stern faces stared out from matching frames.
He looked from his brothers’ army photographs to his mother, who was listening with a stony expression to one of the officers murmuring that he hoped she would ‘find comfort in the fact that your sons were together when they gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country.’
When the words stopped, when there was no air, no sound, left in the room, his mother reached between the officers and opened the door. The two men nodded as they filed past her and walked out into a world that would never be the same. The door closed. The ticking of the kitchen clock sounded loud until the taxi motor roared to life. On the couch his sister Melody hiccupped, pulled her hand away from her mouth and buried her head in the sofa cushion and wailed. His mother stepped over to the sideboard, removed her sons’ photographs from the wall and shuffled, an old woman making her way down the hallway to her bedroom. The sound of her door opening and closing startled the boy. He moved over to the couch, slumped down and wrapped his arms around his sister. He rocked her trembling body while the animal-like keening seeped out from beneath the door at the end of the hall.
