My Temporary Life

by Martin Crosbie

  I don’t answer him. I don’t know what to say. We sit, staring at each other. Ellison is still sitting in the car, his head laid back on the seat. They must have been out all night, probably called out to look at John Postman’s body.

  It doesn’t feel like I’m talking to a policeman, as his backup sits outside, seemingly disinterested in what’s going on inside the house. If they were going to arrest us, or charge us, he would have come in. I’m sure he would have. No, it feels more like I’m talking to somebody who’s been in the same battle that I have. I’m just not sure yet whose side Macklin is on.

  “Is he dead?” I need to know. I remember the open car door as we drove past. I wonder if some way, somehow, he made it. Maybe he had a radio in the car. Maybe he was able to radio for help. Maybe John Postman is still alive.

  He doesn’t seem to hear me. His eyes look around the room as he starts to talk. It takes a few minutes of him speaking before I realize what’s happening. I feel the same way I did that day in Michael’s office. I’m listening to a confession, again. This time it’s Macklin’s.

  “He was a great cop, John Postman. He saved my ass on more than one occasion. He never hesitated, never, ever hesitated, to get involved. He’d put himself on the line for his officers any day of the week. They say not a lot happens out here in the sticks. Well let me tell you, that’s bullshit, complete bullshit. John Postman looked squarely into the eyes of many a man who might have pulled a trigger on him, and never, ever flinched. Never.”

  He looks over at me, then, quickly away again. “That day at the station, the day he gave you a beating, that wasn’t him. That wasn’t the cop that I knew. He came unhinged. He never did that in all the years I knew him.”

  Heather is in the doorway now. She must have woken up at the same time as I had. She slowly makes her way into the room, and sits beside me, never taking her eyes from Macklin. She speaks to him carefully, as though she’s remembering. “I know you. I used to know you. You worked with my Dad. I forgot all about you.”

  It feels strange to be sitting in his house, talking about him. It feels like he should be here too.

  Macklin looks at her, silently acknowledging her. His eyes are hard at first, but as he continues speaking, they seem to soften, almost watering up. He isn’t hearing us. He has his own agenda. “We didn’t know. We didn’t know for sure, and we didn’t ask.” He pauses as though trying to think of what to say next. “You left, so that part was easy. Young people leave town. They go away. They move. That was no big deal. But Emily, lovely little Emily, that was harder.” His face is pleading now, and he’s gripping his hat in his hand.

  I hold Heather back. Her body tenses up and she’s leaning forward, as though she wants to attack Macklin.

  He’s started now, and can’t stop. I’m right. It is his confession. “He called her his daughter. Emily was his daughter and he’d be raising her. I asked him, who’s the mother, John? Have you been hiding somebody away from us? Do you have a woman on the side? Who’s the baby’s mother? If it’s Heather’s and she got in trouble with some boy, then tell me. I can understand that. Heather went out and got pregnant. It’s not ideal, but it happens. It happens all the time. But he wouldn’t tell me. He just kept saying that he was doing the right thing, and that he was the father. How was I to know? How could I have known?”

  I keep holding onto Heather, as I lean us back on the couch. “I don’t get it Macklin. Known what? What is it that you’re trying to say?”

  He’s lost now, staring at the floor. “It never did make sense. I’m a cop for Christ sakes. I know when something doesn’t add up, but I never questioned it. I never pursued it.” He pulls his body up straighter and releases the grip on his hat, as though he just remembered that he’s a police officer. “After what he did to you at the police station, and the way he pursued Heather, how he had to find her, it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t him. I did some research. I had to find out.”

  He found out. Macklin found out what Brennan, Terry’s lawyer, told me a few hours earlier.

  “I checked the birth records. Emily Postman was born on July 10th, 1987 in Stoney Plain, Alberta. The father is listed as John Postman. He was right about that.” He pauses. He doesn’t want to say the words, “But the mother, the birth mother is listed as Heather Postman.”

  Heather looks at me, asking me with her eyes, and I give her the news that I received the night before. “It’s true. I called Brennan last night, after you fell asleep. He’s right. You’re the legal mother. We’ll be able to take her. We can get Emily out of here. Nobody can stop us.”

  Postman must have wanted to make sure that he had legal rights over Emily, so he listed himself on the birth certificate. But he also had no choice when it came to the mother. Heather gave birth to Emily, and she did it a long ways away from Woodbine. He had no choice. He had to list her as the actual mother.

  She holds onto me for a while, and we watch Macklin. He just sits there, looking like he’s waiting for something.

  “I almost told you once. I was just a little girl, but it had started already. I thought about how safe you looked, how trusting. But then I’d see you with him, I’d see you all laughing together. I could see the way you looked at him. You looked like you were afraid of him too.” She lets out a short laugh. “Maybe you were, maybe you all were. So, I kept it to myself. I never did tell you what he was doing to me.”

  I release my grip on her and let her get up and stand over him. Macklin raises his eyes to look up. I know what he wants. He wants what all of us want. He wants to be able to sleep, and breathe, and not have regrets, about the things that you don’t do. His eyes are wet now, as he speaks to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I never knew for sure.”

  And she gives it to him. She gives him his absolution. She lays her hand on his shoulder, and gently squeezes it as he lets his head drop towards her hand. Her head is still turned away, as though she can’t look right at him, but she lets the man breathe. And then, she leaves us to go upstairs to her daughter. Nothing else really matters to her now.

  “The other cop, Ellison, why did he help us at the hospital? Does he know too?” I still have blanks to fill in.

  He comes back to normal a little, trying to be a policeman again. “I told him to. I posted him in the hospital. I knew that you’d come for her. I knew that you’d be there at some point, and I told him to let you take her. He didn’t argue. He just followed my orders. I didn’t know that it would end like this, but I knew that I had to do something.”

  We sit facing each other for a few moments, then he gets up, still trying to look like a policeman, before going back out to face his junior officer. As he stands to go, he finally responds to my question, although I know the answer already. “And yes, he’s dead. John Postman died in an accident on the highway sometime late last night.”

  I cut him off, anticipating his question. “Yes, we’ll be going. We’ll be flying out immediately. And, of course, we will be taking Emily.”

  He nods at me as he leaves, but still looks lost. He looks like Michael the day that I left him at the side of the highway. I wonder if Macklin has a family to go home to. I wonder if he has a way to be happy, a way to forget about the mistakes that a man can make.

  I watch their car drive off, and listen to the sounds of the old house. After a while I walk halfway up the stairs, and listen to Heather and Emily talking. I can’t hear the words, but I can read the tones. I can hear Emily asking short, quick questions, and Heather answering in a kind, reassuring voice. From time to time, there’s crying from Emily, until Heather talks to her again, telling her how much she loves her, and that everything is going to be okay.

  The arrangements happen so easily and quickly that it feels as though someone is looking after us. I leave a message for Michael, telling him where he can collect his truck, and then I pick up the rental car back at the motel. I don’t go in the room. I don’t want to see it. I can imagine the mess that he would have made when h
e saw that I wasn’t there, and I don’t want any more reminders of John Postman, and what he did. I look over at the motel office, as I drive back to pick up Heather and Emily, and resist the temptation to go in and return Claude’s key to the laundry room.

  It’s an incredibly satisfying sensation to be driving out of Woodbine, knowing that we never have to go back there. Emily has three large suitcases, packed with the belongings that she wants to keep, and Heather and I have our small carry on travel bag, that’s starting to look very travel worn. We tell Emily to take only her favourite clothes, and that we’ll get her new ones when we arrive at our destination. Surprisingly, she doesn’t ask many questions. She just keeps holding onto Heather’s hand and watching me from a distance. It might be my imagination, but I almost think that I can see her breathing a little easier too, as the car pulls out of town and we head for Toronto airport.

  It’s easy to buy Emily a ticket and get her on a plane. When I call Brennan, and tell him what we’re doing, he assures me that we’ll have no problems, and he’s right.

  She’s never flown before and chooses the safeness of the aisle seat, with Heather in the middle and my big frame squeezed up against the window. I look over at her from time to time, and smile, trying to get a smile back, but she just nuzzles her head into her mother’s side. It doesn’t matter. She’s in the right place. All of us are in the right place.

  As the plane touches down, Heather looks over at me, and her face can barely stop beaming. “Are you sure Malcolm? Are you sure about this?”

  I stare out the window at the cold dreary rain, lashing against the side of the plane. “It’s too late now anyways, even if I’m not. But yeah, I’m sure.”

  Both of them are there, standing side by side. Hardly is leaning precariously on his crutch, and when he sees us, starts awkwardly trying to hop towards us. My Dad doesn’t seem to notice anything other than me, though. His eyes lock on mine, and he hugs me with the same strong arms that he’s always had. “It’s good to have you home, son. Good to have you home.” He’s smaller than the last time I saw him but he’s still the same. He’s still my Dad.

  In the movie of my life that plays in my head, there are no more temporaries, ever. The hero finds the girl. He knows exactly where his home is, and little girls never get hurt. When I called my Dad from Postman’s house and told him a little bit about what we’d been through he said to come home, and I didn’t have to think about it at all. I knew exactly where that was.

  Hardly reaches out to shake my hand, and I steady him on his crutch. “You’re home now then, Malcolm. You’re finally home. I was right, wasn’t I? It’s inside of you. It’s always inside of you.”

  I nod back to my friend and let him lean against me as my dad hugs Heather and kisses her on the cheek, the way the Scots do. He tells her that she’s welcome here, welcome in his home. Then, he leans down to Emily’s height, and holds out his hand to shake hers. “And who do we have here? Who is this young lady?”

  She holds out her little hand and lets him shake it. For a moment it’s as though she’s forgotten everything that’s happened to her, to all of us. She looks at my dad, staring hard at him. He’s just a harmless old man. He could be anybody’s grandpa or anybody’s dad, and with his Scottish accent and his kind, sweet grin, he charms the little girl. She pulls her hand away from him, but she’s smiling, smiling like any other little girl, and showing off her very own, perfect little half dimple.

  For details on Martin Crosbie’s next novel which is due to be released in late 2012 please join his mailing list at www.martincrosbie.com