The Fortunate Brother

by Donna Morrissey

  Putting the truck in gear, he booted it down the road and drove through Bayside towards the highway, shivers spiralling down his back. He flicked on the heat, drummed on the wheel. He couldn’t keep from shivering, thoughts shooting through his head like comets. It could’ve been a bear, this was the time for them, crawling outta their fucking caves, looking to eat. Jaysus. He wiped at his nose, tried to sit back, relax. He was all twisted inside. More from his talk with his father the night before than a stupid fucking bear. His mother. Clar Gillard. Bonnie. What happened? What the hell happened? He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear another thing, and now he had to pick up Sylvie. Last time he was at the airport it was to pick up Sylvie. And Chris was in a white box behind her.

  He wiped at his face, hand cold, shaky. He jacked the heat on high. Driving across the second bridge near Faulkner’s Flat, he saw too late the small reddish disc glimmering at the side of the road. Moose. He jammed on the brakes, tires screaming, rubber burning as he skidded towards the black bull lumbering across the road, antlers wide enough to hang bedsheets. Damn, gawd-damn. The tires bit into concrete, the truck’s rear end swinging sideways and the hind wheels thudding into the ditch, seat belt digging into his bruised ribs. The moose stood to the side of the road, looking back at him.

  “Get off the road, you fucking moron!”

  The moose sauntered into the woods. Jesus, oh Jesus. He rested his forehead on the cool hard plastic of the steering wheel. He didn’t know how long he waited there. Watching light sieve through dawn’s dusk. Greg Bushy drove by, stopped and chained the bumper of the truck to his trailer hitch and hauled him back onto the road.

  Forty minutes later, Kyle pulled into Deer Lake airport, the smell of jet fuel and car exhaust rankling his already nettled stomach. Inside the small, one-gated terminal, the baggage carousel creaked to a stop, a few suitcases grouped to the side of it, couple of odd souls strolling about. He learned from the striped-blouse attendant behind a ticket counter what he’d already figured: the flight had landed fifteen minutes ago, and was readying again for takeoff.

  He went outside, looking about the mostly empty parking lot. She’d taken a cab. Knowing Sylvie, she wouldn’t have waited longer than five, ten minutes, her urge too great to see their mother.

  He called the hospital, asking for his mother’s room. He might as well drive back home and work on the house with his father.

  No answer in her room.

  He walked about the deserted terminal for five minutes, then called back. No answer. Another ten minutes and he called again, cursing the wasted time. No answer. They’re in the family room, he thought. Sitting down, yakking. He’d go home, then. They didn’t need him now. He’d give his mother’s stuff to somebody else driving in, always somebody driving to Corner Brook.

  He got in the truck and drove back out the airport road. Nearing the highway, he braked, signalling left to head east, homewards. His mother’s bag of stuff shifted. It slid onto the floor and like the waters of the Atlantic being pulled by a celestial ball floating through the heavens, he, too, felt himself being pulled westward onto the highway by some invisible force. Hell, bloody hell. He drove hard, blasting his horn at a three-quarter-ton rust-bucket creeping along the highway. He pulled out and cut ahead of it and was mad, mad as he’d ever been and couldn’t say why. At his mother, he supposed, for what she’d done or hadn’t done that night on the wharf. And his father, for what he hadn’t done, but could’ve. And at himself for freaking out back there in the woods over whatever the hell it was that spooked him. And then near hitting a moose and missing Sylvie and his mother would have something to say about that. If she could think of anything else these days but fucking Clar Gillard.

  He found a parking spot near the hospital door. Inside he elbowed past a bewildered looking group asking for directions to the blood clinic. First time in the hospital, he figured, and all gathered around a splinter of an old woman dozing in a wheelchair. Jaysus. The whole horde gotta escort Granny for blood work. Outside his mother’s room, he was motioned aside by an unsmiling young nurse.

  “She has a small infection. We’ve given her antibiotics. She’s been sleeping a lot.”

  “She’s all right, though?”

  “She’s fine, but we mightn’t let her go home this evening. We’ll keep watch.”

  He searched the sober-faced nurse for more but she was hurrying off. He listened at his mother’s door; there were no voices. He nudged the door open, stepped slowly inside. She was alone, sleeping. He stood by her bed, looking down at her thin form beneath the sheets. Her face was anemic, spiritless, and each deeply drawn breath seemed punctuated by weariness. He felt the cold steel of the bed’s safety bar beneath his hands and no longer trusted that the cancer had left her and no longer trusted that she would be fine. Her eyes fluttered and her hand reached for his.

  “You didn’t get your sister.”

  “I near hit a moose on the way, ended up in the ditch. She’s here, though?” He spotted a bulging knapsack resting by the bathroom wall and a small canvas bag.

  “Kylie.”

  “I’m here.”

  “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “Whose?”

  “Your sister’s.”

  “What? Her fault for what?”

  “Chrissy’s dying.”

  “What? Jesus, Mother!”

  “That’s what your father does, blames himself.”

  “Mother, I don’t blame Sylvie.”

  “I sees it on your face. It robbed your father, his blaming did. He blames himself for getting sick. Eats at his heart.” She smiled up at him, her eyes the softest he’d ever seen them. She touched his knuckled hand. “It’s not time that ages you, my baby. It’s life.”

  “All right, enough of this.”

  “He can’t be in your heart if it’s filled with blame. Your father, now. He carries death in his heart.”

  He wiped at his face, couldn’t look at her. Her fingers clutched his hand, forcing him to her, her eyes bluer than the heavens and with a depth that had nothing human in it, like a wormhole through to eternity.

  “Go. Find your mercies,” she said urgently. “Before you harden into something ugly. Make peace with your sister.” She turned aside, her eyes closing, whether in sleep or dismissal he couldn’t know.

  “Jesus, Mother. What got you thinking like that?”

  Her eyes opened again onto his, so brutally clear. A week after Chris’s funeral and he’d snapped at Sylvie for some small thing as their mother stood on a chair, hanging curtains. She stepped down from the chair, staring at him with the same brutal clarity, and stood beside Sylvie, the curtain rod held aloft like Orion’s sword. He’d backed away from those knowing eyes as though he’d been caught slugging back wine from the holy chalice. And Sylvie. Just standing there, silent, fighting to keep erect her bowing head when he wanted it further bent with shame.

  Kyle moved back from his mother’s bed. He circled the room, jammed his hands in his back pockets, and kept circling. His mother’s breathing slowed a little; she was sleeping. He cut out through her door, hurried past the elevators and took the stairs, near leaping from landing to landing. Coming into the lobby, he bolted outside and was grateful for the wind scraping cold across his face. He hooked the truck keys from his pocket, stopped, then ducked behind a white van. Sylvie was getting out of a brown Buick parked a couple of car lengths away, just to the other side of the truck. She was balancing a couple of coffees on a cardboard tray and a brown paper bag greasing up the side from buttered muffins or bagels. She had lost weight. Her arms were reedy, her legs so thin she looked knock-kneed like their father. She’d always been concerned about looking knock-kneed, and as though hearing his thoughts she glanced down, like she was always doing, checking her knees, and he felt a rush of affection.

  She trotted past him so close he saw the colour of her eyes—brown eyes, Chris’s eyes. She’d watched the light leave them, she’d sobbed to him, stumbling drunk from the bar
one night. She hadn’t told anyone else in the world that she’d watched the light leave his eyes, watched them die like the flame in their old gran’s lamp after the wick burned dry. And when she curled her arms around Kyle’s neck, craving comfort from her awful secret, he shoved her away and ran, widening his own eyes to draw light, widening them so big they watered, his vision running like rivers and he swimming through them into a sea of dark.

  He watched the hospital doors close behind her and his face burned. Burned with the shame of wanting her to hurt further. He climbed into the truck, backed out of the space, and sped towards the street. Then he braked hard, thinking he saw her in his rearview. She had stepped back outside and was staring after him. No. No, it wasn’t her. A car blasted its horn behind him. He accelerated, checked his rearview—it was her! Watching him speed away. The horn blasted him again; he hit the accelerator and then instantly jammed his brakes to keep from rear-ending the arsehole in front of him. He hauled out and passed him, gunning uphill to a cacophony of horns blasting from all sides. He drove harder, checking his rearview; she was gone, she couldn’t see him. Make peace with your sister, make peace with your sister. Damn. Gawd-damn. He slapped the steering wheel and then slammed on the brakes, tires smoking as he skidded to a stop, watching another gawd-damned moose lumbering across the highway. Speed bumps. Newfoundland gawd-damned speed bumps.

  He pulled off the highway, fighting for calm. His face was wet. He wiped it, surprised. That he could harbour such secrets from himself, but not from those they hurt the most.

  Man. Oh man, he was fucked.

  He was almost at Hampden Junction when he remembered something. Trapp. He’d forgotten. That same night Sylvie wept on his shoulder down by the bar. Trapp had been watching them through a window. His white face staring at Sylvie, his eyes the false light of a jealous moon. A curious thing, he remembered now. Strange thing to have forgotten, that.

  TEN

  Nearing the gas bar and restaurant off the highway near Hampden Junction, he saw Julia getting out of her father’s car, fair hair fanning down her back as she headed inside. He flicked on his blinker and pulled into the parking lot. Inside the restaurant he took a seat at the counter, nodding at Rose coming out through the kitchen door, wearing bright red lipstick and a checked apron over black pants and a white shirt. She tucked her cropped brown hair behind pink-shelled ears and brushed at bangs a mite too long.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hay’s for horses.”

  “Aren’t you a smart boy.”

  “The company I keeps.”

  “We been noticing. Must be training to be a cop, are you? All the time you’re spending with them.”

  He tried for a flippant answer, couldn’t find one. Searched her face for meanness.

  “Joking,” she said and grinned. “Sorry about the stuff going on. Hear your mom’s doing fine.”

  He nodded. “New job?” Where’s Julia…

  “Evenings. Some weekends.” She patted a bulge of change in her apron pocket. “Few more truck drivers and I’ll soon have enough for next semester. Figured out what you’re doing yet?”

  “Working on it. Can I get a bowl of soup?”

  “Coffee with that?”

  “And wrap up some butt chops and chips for the old man. Make sure it’s a fatty chop.”

  “Use a bit of fat yourself. Getting skinny. And you needs a shave.” She went off. He swivelled on his stool, rubbing his bristled jaw, looking about for Julia. The place was crowded. Smelled of partridgeberry pie and french fries. A swinging door opened into the kitchen and he glimpsed Julia talking intently to Rose. She spotted him and her eyes widened with the surprise of a caught youngster. A waitress came through with two coffees, the door swinging shut behind her. He hadn’t time to think before Hooker hustled inside from the parking lot, bringing a rush of cold air with him.

  “Need to talk to you, buddy,” he said. He nodded towards a couple of folk from Sop’s Arm sitting in a booth nearby and then beckoned Kyle to the door still opened behind him. “Let’s go, buddy.”

  “What, we can’t talk here? I just ordered soup.”

  “Later. Let’s go!” Hooker was back outside and Kyle reluctantly followed, a last look towards the kitchen door for a glimpse of Julia.

  “Get in,” yelled Hooker, climbing inside the truck.

  “What’s going on, bud?”

  “Get in and start her up. We’ll talk behind the gas bar. Hurry up, man, let’s just fucking go.” He looked anxiously towards Hampden Road as Kyle started the truck and circled behind the building.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, shutting off the engine.

  “You tell me.” Hooker was staring at him with wide, perturbed eyes. “You tell me what’s going on. What’s this about the knife? The cops dug it out of the cement down on the site. They’re out in Hampden looking for you. They’ll probably be here any minute.”

  Kyle dropped back his head. His breath left him. She’d told.

  “Ky?”

  He hadn’t thought she’d tell.

  “What’s up, man?”

  “Go on home now, Hook.”

  “Go home? When you answers my fucking questions I’ll go home. What’s going on, bud?”

  Kyle shook his head.

  “Tell me about the knife.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Nothing. The plant shut down and I was just at Hampden turnoff and the old fellow, Hurley, was there, heading for his cabin. He told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That the cops dug the knife outta the cement.”

  “How’d they know it was there?”

  “I don’t know, he didn’t say.”

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Hurley told me—he was just here gassing up—who gives a shit! What the fuck, man, what’s going on?” Hooker was leaning towards him, taut as a forestay in a storm.

  Kyle gazed out the windshield at the trees trembling in a timid wind. He felt a sudden give in Hooker’s thinking, heard a slight groan.

  “Oh, man. Oh man.”

  “Go home, Hook.”

  “No. No, I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking, go on home, now.” Kyle reached for the keys to start the truck and cursed as Hooker grabbed his hand.

  “I’m not leaving till I knows everything.”

  “Some things, buddy, you don’t want to know.”

  “I already knows the worst.”

  “No, you don’t. The old man didn’t do it. Now bugger off and leave me alone with this.”

  “I knows what I seen that night.”

  Kyle dropped his hand from the keys and snatched at Hooker’s coat flap. “You don’t know fuck,” he snapped. “What you saw that night didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, remember? You swore it didn’t happen and I’m holding you to it. It didn’t happen.”

  Hooker pushed Kyle’s hand away. He withdrew into a huddle in his corner of the truck. Kyle laid his head back again. He rubbed hard at the back of his neck and suddenly stilled. He stared unseeingly at the windshield. Then he sat forward, rested his head for a second on the steering wheel, and reached for the keys.

  “I have to go,” he said to Hooker, starting up the truck. “And you’ve got to let this one happen.”

  “Let what happen? What’re you doing?”

  Kyle twisted sideways, backing the truck towards the parking lot.

  “What’s going on? Tell me, man. Let me help.”

  “Not this one. You can’t doctor this one, brother. Okay?” He hauled over to the side of the gas bar and parked.

  “There they are!” said Hooker. A police car had come into view on Hampden Road. It slowed, Wheaton and Canning’s morose faces staring at the truck.

  “All right, Hooker. Get out now. Want your word on this one, okay, buddy?”

  “Piss off.”

  “I want your gawd-damned word!”

  “F
uck you, you’ll not tell me who to talk to.” Hooker was out of the truck and slamming the door. Kyle got out behind him, yelling, “Hey, tell Julia it’s okay, all right? Tell her she done the right thing by telling, you tell her that?”

  The cruiser pulled alongside and Canning stepped out. As might a doorman from some fancy digs, he opened the back door of the car, gesturing for Kyle to enter.

  Jaysus. “Don’t put your hand on my head,” he snapped at Canning, bending to get into the car, and cursed as Canning put his hand on his head, pushing him inside.

  “Ky! Ky, wait.”

  Julia was running from the restaurant with Rose and Hooker trailing behind her. Canning closed the car door and held up his hand, blocking Julia from the car. She shouted past him at Kyle. He saw her mouth moving but couldn’t read her words, didn’t want to see them, didn’t want to hear them. You did the right thing, girl. Canning got in the car and Rose held Julia’s arm as they drove off. Kyle kept looking ahead. His neck ached to look back. He wanted to look back hard. His neck twitched and then he couldn’t help it. They were standing by the side of the highway. Hooker had his arm draped around Rose and Julia, all three staring after him. They looked so dear.

  And now, with the two silent cops in the front seat and the grey strip of highway unfolding before them, he was suffused with sudden loneliness. Canning turned towards Wheaton with a murmuring of words. Wheaton tilted his head to catch them. Shaved necks chafing stiff collars. The whir of wheels on asphalt. Rumbling of the motor. Static crackling from the two-way radio, wind hissing through a slightly cracked side window. It all sounded too sharp, nothing harmonizing, leaving him feeling at odds with everything. As if he was walking in someone else’s shoes again. Come to think, he’d been feeling that way ever since the phone rang three years ago with the news of Chris—that everything about him was surreal. And becoming more surreal with this new plan that was birthing itself inside of him. His old friend, fear, crept in. To be this removed was to be dead. He thought of his father, his aloneness with the bottle. And his mother. To have lost her son and then watch the rest of them in their isolated pods of grief. And what now, when she got word of this new thing he was about to do? When his father got word of it?