Thorn-Field
Page 22
Blake blurted, “I don’t have a problem with that. You two are way less uptight than my mom — ”
“Is that any way to speak about your mother?” said Michelle.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
Michelle raised her eyebrows.
“I mean,” he said quickly, “we have our arguments. Some of them are my fault, sure, but she’s so, you know . . . uptight. I can never get through to her.”
“You don’t have to explain.” Gloria’s voice was soft as the leaves. She said, “People living in close proximity to each other inevitably have fights. But there has to be give and take. It doesn’t work when only one person does all the taking.” She stood up abruptly. “I think it’s time for a smoke. We’ll go ‘round front so you two can finish your cake in clean air.” She grabbed the ashtray and one of Michelle’s hands. They walked side by side and disappeared around the corner of the house.
Blake found he couldn’t eat any more. He said, “What happened? Did I say something wrong?”
Angel shrugged and kept eating. She said, “They just went for a smoke.”
“Can I ask you something? Tell me if you don’t want to answer.”
“Sure.” Angel shifted to face him.
“What happened to your dad?”
Angel said her father had left when she was a baby. She barely remembered him. He used to hit her mom. One night he put her in the hospital in a fight about Michelle. Then he was gone. She did remember spending a short time living alone with Michelle when her mom was in the hospital, and concluded by saying, “And here we are, the three of us. Our little family in our old farmhouse, surrounded by brand new city.”
Blake looked around at the yard. The still leaves on this rare windless day were calming in the dappled shade. He said, “Your dad sounds mean. What would stop someone like him? He could’ve hit you next.” What would stop a freak like me from hitting? — that red flashed in his mind. If he got in a rage what could he do to someone as gentle as Angel? A creeping-flesh feeling rippled up his spine.
Angel’s voice was edged with concern. “You cool? You’re shivering.”
“It’s just,” Blake said, “it’s just I don’t think I like your dad, if you don’t mind me saying that.”
“I don’t mind. You’ll never meet him anyhow. He went to America to join the army. He’s probably in Vietnam. Plus he doesn’t even know where we live. I don’t miss him even a little.”
Blake tentatively reached to touch her arm. She didn’t pull back, and when he did touch her, she took his hand in hers. She said, “So can I ask you something personal?” She didn’t wait for him to respond. “What do you think of my little family?”
“Your mom and Michelle are with it. They aren’t dictators like my mom. They’re cool.”
“It doesn’t bother you, two women living together? You don’t think it’s strange?”
“Angel, it’s not odd. I like them and they really get along. I couldn’t imagine two of my mom in one house. There’d be war without end on two fronts. There’s no way I could have escaped two Hannah’s and made it over here.”
She squeezed his hand. “And you’re glad you’re here?”
He squeezed back and said, “Totally.”
Her nose wrinkled as she blinked and tilted her head down.
When he heard Gloria and Michelle crunching the gravel between the houses he let go of Angel’s hand and jumped up. She leapt up too and stood right beside him.
The women exchanged glances and Gloria asked if everyone was done with cake. Michelle cleared the table.
Gloria said, “We have to visit with Angel’s grandma soon. Sorry to have to throw you out, Blake. Will we see you again?”
“Only if it’s okay with you.”
“If it’s okay with Angel, it’s okay with us.” She gave Angel a quick smile. “We trust Angel’s judgement.”
She opened the back door for Michelle. “Come inside when you’re ready, Angel. We’ll call a cab then.”
Michelle said over her shoulder, “Bye, bye, Blake.”
The screen door closed.
Blake said, “That’s so neat your mom trusts you. I wish mine would trust me too.”
Angel shrugged. “She respects my opinion on lots of things.”
“Like what?”
“For one, my opinion of you.”
He took a step away from her. “Me? You hardly know me.”
“Maybe I know you better than you think. Like, I knew most of that turtle story before you even told me. I’ve been watching you.”
“Why?”
She took his hand again. “I saw how it all started. And how you walked away.” She pointed up toward the two garrets on the second floor. Obscured behind the leaves from ground level, both garrets had a clear view of the floodplain over the trees’ canopy.
“But what if I don’t always walk away?”
Angel squeezed his hand again. “I think you will.” With that, she put her arms around his waist and leaned into him.
The top of her head came only to his chest and he leaned his face down, pressing his cheek against her hair. He was suspended in time once more, like when he first saw her from the ladder. He closed his eyes and inhaled the hint of lemon in her shampoo. Her warmth was in his nostrils and against his body. He let out his breath in a long luxuriating exhalation.
They held hands and slowly walked to the gate.
He undid the latch. “I hope I can see you again.”
“Here’s a secret,” she said. “Just push hard on the gate. That latch will pop open.”
The gate swung wide and he stepped out.
As he left the cool soothing comfort of Angel’s backyard, he felt as though he was squeezing through a dark tunnel into the blinding light of day.
Angel’s voice called, “See you soon,” and the gate closed and her feet padded along the paving stones to the house.
A car came down the alley and pulled up to his garage, his mom in the front passenger seat, her face dark, scowling out at him.
The battle lines formed. Both sides awaiting the signal. He thought of blank-eyed soldiers shuffling away from combat and took a long breath and held it. He counted to ten before exhaling. There would be no signal from his camp.
He stepped lightly toward his parents’ car, arms held loosely at his sides, open palms toward his mother.
JAMES TRETTWER was a winner in the Saskatchewan Writers Guild’s John V. Hick’s Long Manuscript Award in 2016 for this short story collection. He has also won the SWG’s Short Manuscript Award. He has been most recently published in TRANSITION, Spring, and the anthology Wanderlust: Stories on the Move, (Thistledown Press, 2017). James Trettwer lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.