Thorn-Field

by James Trettwer

  “Then this willow-branch of a woman from Social Services and some fat Mountie with Sergeant stripes on his sleeve, came to see me. They said Edna had reported that I fell. I didn’t disagree. They wrote stuff down. I’m sure the cop was fully aware of Edna and her antics. He had to have talked to the Liverwood detachment at some point. Anyway, they left and I never heard from either of them again.

  “That death benefit payout was enough to cover a cardboard coffin while Edna went on a week-long bender in Yorkton. The Treadwells picked me up from the hospital, let me spend some time with them, and arranged a plot for Mary at the United Church graveyard.

  “Pretty soon after that I ditched Edna, and the Treadwells let me live and work here. Susan got pregnant and couldn’t finish high school. She and Barton got married and have three kids at last count. He got a job at the mine.

  “And here I am today, in all of my big-boobed glory.” She hugs the pillow. She says, “So what happens with us next?”

  “I’m not ending this tomorrow when I leave here, if that’s what you’re asking,” Lee says. “What happens next is I’d like to hold you again, if you’d like. And after that, I hope you’ll stay with me tonight.”

  There is a strata of chalk in that vein of granite, Lourdes thinks. She watches Lee while he lies there, rubbing his curled right index finger and thumb together. At that moment he seems such a little boy, wanting approval from his teacher.

  She puts the pillow back in place and slides up against him. He turns on his side and holds her tightly again.

  This time she does not feel smothered.

  After a few minutes silence, he says, “Can I ask you something that might be hurtful?”

  Not sure where he intends to go with this, she says to go ahead.

  “When I was at the mine site, I read a plaque in honour of Ted Smith. Was that your dad?”

  The crow’s wingtip brushes her hair — “Silence In Wind” was her first published poem. She smells musky water from the cool shadows of the hollow and finds she can’t answer.

  Lee says, “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” she replies. “I’ve mourned and I’m past it. Life goes on, right?”

  Lee pauses at that comment, eyebrows furrowed. After a moment he says, “You’re so stoic. There’s that strength I was talking about. You’ve had so much loss. . . . ” He doesn’t finish his thought. After another pause he says, “You’re a remarkable girl.”

  Girl? Not woman? “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

  “Well, now that you ask, what happened to your mom?”

  Lourdes is tired. She tells Lee a condensed version of that story. “She burned the trailer down after I left. The fire investigation found that she was cooking something in a pot and left the burner on. Then she moved in with her boyfriend Herb, the guy who ran the secondhand store and pawnshop, until he was sent to the Edmonton pen for drug trafficking. Then she took off with a trucker who hauled product from the mine. I haven’t heard from her since. And I don’t need to hear from her again. Ever.”

  Lee’s brow furrows again and his thumb and curled index finger rub together. “So why did your folks name you Lourdes?”

  “My folks didn’t name me. Edna named me. And she named me Lourdes because she’s crazy. And she’s crazy because she’s a hopeless boozer and a drug addict. She’s a nymphomaniac too. But she liked the singer Madonna who named one of her kids Lourdes. Mercedes was her alternative but Dad said I wasn’t going to be named after a car. And I have no interest in changing my name. It’s mine. So don’t ask.

  “How about we talk about you for a while now,” she says.

  “If you like,” Lee replies. “It’s pretty boring. I grew up in working class, east-end Regina, attended the same high school for all four years, was in the computer club, chess club, drama club’s technical crew, and on the wrestling team. I was just an average, all round kind of guy,” he says. “I just fit in and I wasn’t bullied and I didn’t bully anyone. We all seemed to get along at my school.”

  He repeats his university story and that he’s only ever worked at Bland. A few years back his parents moved to Arizona permanently and he bought their house.

  Then the conversation turns and they chat on about Liverwood, and Regina versus Saskatoon and other trivial matters until Lee suggests they turn out the light. He does not ask if she intends to stay.

  In the darkness, while Lee breathes deeply and rhythmically, the Human League’s song “Fascination” runs over and over in her mind. Yes, new connections are made and the conversation did indeed turn a number of times, well past sundown. But this is nice. A nice diversion. Perhaps momentary, perhaps not. Lee rolls over and she snuggles into his back, letting sleep overtake her.

  He invades her dreams again. Just like in her dream the night she met him, he is gigantic and smokes that Cuban cigar. Lourdes sits cross-legged, naked from the waist down, in the brown, poisoned field of thorny-thistles. The seedpod lies nearby, encrusted with dried blood and other matter she can’t identify. Lee picks her up in one hand. She sits on his palm facing him; he looms over her and blows smoke in her face. She doesn’t understand the specific words of his questioning but the tone is intense and combative. It grows in intensity and hostility as she keeps saying that she doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t understand the question.

  She startles awake with a gasp and thinks of Mary, even though the seedpod had lain dormant in the dream. She quickly recovers her composure because Lee is on his side, wide awake, watching her.

  “Hey you,” he says. “Are you okay?”

  She smiles at him. “Of course.” From constant practice controlling her breathing while she runs, her voice is steady.

  Lee says, “I should apologize for all this sneaking around with cards in doorjambs. But I’m not sure about the owner’s policy on workers dating customers. I should get your cell phone number.”

  “I don’t have a cell,” she says, happy he didn’t ask her how she slept or anything about her dreams. “I’ve never needed one here at the motel.”

  “We should get you one.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good. Besides, I’m sure it’s okay for you to call me either in the motel or restaurant. The Treadwells won’t mind.”

  “That’s good to know,” Lee says, “because I’d like nothing more than to be seen with you. To hold your hand in public. Kiss you goodbye in the restaurant.”

  She puts her fingers on his lips, slides toward him, and feels his erection against her thigh. Although she flew high last night, this time she remains rooted to herself and savours the moment. This time, there is no flight to the ceiling, no escape to the hollow.

  After a quick breakfast of toast and coffee right in the restaurant, Lourdes walks Lee to the parking lot. Standing by his grey Buick Lucerne they kiss goodbye.

  When she steps back into the motel lobby, Helena is waiting for her by the counter, arms crossed, hands cupping biceps. Helena’s grin lights up her whole face.

  “What?” Lourdes says. She knows it’s a feeble attempt at nonchalance. She also knows her face is red.

  “You are a brat,” Helena says. “They named that Bratz doll after you. You are Ell, the Fire-Haired-She-Devil model — taking advantage of that man like that.”

  “I just kissed him goodbye.”

  “After doing what else? You are glowing today. I knew it would happen because I checked Mr. Good-Looking in that other day and saw the way he talked to you.”

  “Well, he wants to build a shrine to me in the rest area. How would you like to see a naked statue of this body right by the highway? You’d lose all of your customers.”

  Helena says, “You are a voluptuous catch. Do I say that right? Voluptuous? Looking just like that Julianne Moore from the movies.”

  “I do not look like Julianne Moore.”

  “Okay, you might think you don’t look like actress. But you are wrong. You are also glowing. You can not hide glowing from me
. You can not hide passion from me either.”

  And with this, Lourdes becomes “the Lee Markham barometer” for Helena, the cronies, and Gus. They all say they can tell if Lee is in town by Lourdes’ glow or, if he has been away for a while, her glower. They never hesitate to take a loud barometric reading, either. At least once a day — thank you very much, Mrs. Treadwell.

  But when Lee is absent and Lourdes is left alone to write, she finds she is blocked. She sits with her laptop and stares at a white featureless wall that looks like the back of a white shirt.

  How easily she’s fallen into a routine with Lee. She decided not to enrol at the U of S this year and it’s now mid-September, just two months after meeting him, and she continues to be blocked by that featureless whiteness. Not only has he continued to invade her dreams, he is now encroaching on her living space.

  Helena, presumably preferring her to be glowing, may not be a co-conspirator but she is certainly complicit.

  Lourdes finishes her kitchen cleanup and goes to stand with Lee and Helena by the cash register counter. “What’s going on here, you two?”

  Lee says, “Maybe you should tell her, Mrs. Treadwell.”

  Stepping from foot to foot, Helena says, “We don’t charge Our Boy here for a room anymore. You stay together so why make him pay?”

  “I said you have to make the decision about me staying in your room,” Lee says. “It’s up to you, Lourdes.”

  She doesn’t quite know how to take this. It is the first time she’s ever been annoyed with Helena. The Treadwells took her in. Gave her a job. At one point they even said she didn’t need to clean rooms anymore. But that was always part of the agreement to cover her board. So when they tried to pay her for room cleaning, she wrote no thank you across the cheque and put it in their mailbox. She was terrified that they might take offence but they only asked, over coffee the next day, if she was sure. They said she was the best worker they’d ever hired and they were only concerned that they might have offended her.

  Now this. Helena is clearly excited, the way she grins and dances from foot to foot. And there’s Lee, rubbing his thumb against his curled index finger. She ignores the weight of earth pressing down on her. Why didn’t Helena talk to me first? Or at least talk about this decision with me present? She doesn’t answer.

  Helena stops shuffling.

  Lee says, “The company still pays twenty-five bucks if an employee stays with a relative or friend.”

  “Oh, well, in that case,” Lourdes replies. To Helena she says, “And that’s a very kind offer. Very kind. Thank you. I think it’s workable.”

  Helena beams. Lee grins, his thumb at rest. Lourdes tells herself that they made this decision with her best interests in mind.

  A week later, she thinks, Best interests, seriously? when a treadmill is delivered to her room. Helena tells her that Lee said it would be safer for her than running on the highway. “Really, I can not argue with Our Boy’s thinking.”

  Lourdes needs time alone in her hollow.

  It’s cool in the evening shade and dampness of the late September day. Studying the thistles’ vibrant green leaves and stalks, not yet touched by frost, she sees that the flowers have gone to seed, some pods are burst dull white, some still closed.

  Lee is suddenly beside her. “Hey you.”

  She jumps, startled. Annoyed. How has he found her hollow?

  “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “No worries. What are you doing down here?”

  “Helena pointed me in the right direction.” He investigates the leaves on a willow tree, touching them. “I’ll bet kids would love to play down here.”

  He continues to explore, running his hand down the trunk of the birch tree where the purple-sheen crow once lingered. He pokes the toe of his shoe in the mud and then tenderly lifts a seedpod. Abruptly letting the pod drop out of his hand as if stung, he says, “This would be a great place to make love. Out in the open air.”

  “Oh, it would, would it?” Lourdes says. “Out in the open, freezing air? Butts exposed to the cold and mosquitoes? We’d have to flip a coin to see whose bare ass gets rubbed against the table top.”

  She keeps her tone light but thinks, this is my place. Maybe, if I invited you . . .

  “I guess you’re right,” Lee says. “Your room is far more comfortable for that sort of thing.”

  She says with a neutral tone, “And for running, it seems. Thanks for the treadmill. But I prefer to run outside.”

  “I know,” Lee replies, using his soothing radio voice. “But winter’s coming and I expect you don’t run much when it’s cold. Besides, I worry about you running alone on the highway.”

  He is right about the cold. She believes she should be touched by his concern. After a moment’s thought, she lets it go and says, “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing, monetary. It’s my gift to you. But if you want to pay me back, I’m sure we can come to some sort of exchange of goods and services. GST-free that way.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

  The male crow with the purple sheen skips along a branch and watches Lourdes let it all go and lead Lee by the hand out of the hollow.

  She uses the treadmill because Lee wants her to. It’s okay, and winter is cold with lots of snow anyway.

  Lourdes lets the easy routine of visits continue. Christmas comes and goes. It’s the new year and he spends more and more weekends in Liverwood, arriving sometime Friday night and leaving the following Monday. They are comfortable with each other, right? This is the way it works. When two people seem to get along so well?

  And they can talk for hours and hours. Their conversations range from the antics of Liverwood denizens to government to SCADA — an acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition; Lee goes on and on about these SCADA programs. They are used in many industries and something he deals with on a daily basis. He goes on hour-long monologues on the ingenuity of some of the programs’ coding, programming languages, and the ever-present cyber-threats to today’s infrastructures — it’s all meaningless to her.

  But the talks are always cordial and casual, she thinks, because we’re simpatico, right?

  And the university conversation starts innocuously enough.

  One night, as they’re lying in bed together, Lee asks, “Have you ever thought about the future?”

  “You know I’ve been thinking about the U of S,” Lourdes says. “Then I’ll see where that leads.”

  “Does it have to be the U of S?”

  “I picked it because it’s closest to Liverwood. I can travel by bus. In case things don’t work out, my backup plan is to come back here.”

  “So that campus is not definite?”

  “I didn’t register last year — because we met. And I haven’t decided about this year yet. I received my registration acceptance just last week.”

  Lee takes a deep breath. “I want to give you more stability in your life. My first thought was moving here but I need to be headquartered near Bland’s office. So, if you’d like, you could move in with me in Regina, go to the U of R, like I did, and I can pay for your university?” Lips tight, his thumb and forefinger rub together; the sound is like a mouse trying to scratch its way out of a live trap.

  Lourdes’ heart surges in her chest. This is an offer like Treadwells’ when they told her she could stay at the motel. She hasn’t been to the hollow since the day Lee found her there just after the treadmill was delivered. She remembers previous winters, her parka crinkling in the cold while she made her way through snowdrifts to the hollow. With the leaves on all the trees gone, there would be more sunlight. More light to reveal the frozen and blackened thistle leaves and stocks showing through low spots in the snow that couldn’t quite pile up in the windbreak of the trees.

  “That’s a kind offer,” she says. “As kind as the Treadwells’. But you hardly know me. We’ve only been together a couple of months.”

  Lee cocks his head. “It’s been more tha
n eight months, Lourdes.”

  Eight months already? How routine makes the time pass unnoticed . . .

  Lee continues, “And that’s a long enough time for me to know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You’re one of the most mature people I’ve ever met. You don’t end your sentences with that questioning inflection, like most girls seem to do these days.”

  Girl? Still?

  Lee says, “You’re intelligent and passionate. You have a wonderful sense of humour. And there’s that strange mystery about you. That sense of longing, of things yet to be resolved. I’d love to take that journey of discovery with you, wherever it leads.” He pauses, his thumb constantly active, and then says, “So are you absolutely determined to pursue this Lit Degree thing?”

  It’s mid-March, Lourdes thinks. Where’s the gust of wet spring wind that’s supposed to rattle the windows with a loaded question like that? She suspects where this turn of conversation will lead and returns from the snow of her hollow. This talk has to be rooted in the reality of the here and now.

  “For now. It’s something I’d like to try.”

  Lee shunts sideways. “There’s no money in that line of work, you know.”

  “I know. But I’m going to try it. And, like I just said, I’ll see where it leads.”

  Lee takes another deep breath. “You know the Treadwells never stop talking about how smart you are and how hard you work. Even I can see that. You graduated high school with high honours. I can say from experience that a degree in CS or Engineering would be a breeze for you. And with either of those degrees you could work anywhere you wanted.”

  “You mean work anywhere in mining, like you,” she says with an edge in her voice. Trapped in that garage-sized cage, smothered under countless tons and tons of earth, she clings to her father when he picks her up, wrapping her in his thick arms. Face pressed into his chest, she smells his sweat. Her father does not cajole or tease or get angry about her fear. Instead, he tells her it’s okay. They’ll go right back up. Right back up to stand under the plume that hangs in the air like a question mark, that constant reminder of how the place controls, and sometimes destroys, lives.