Old Flames, Burned Hands

by McGregor, Tim

  SHANE lingered at the door, waiting for his daughter to get her butt into gear. Molly sauntered out with her school bag dragging across the floor in an apathetic dawdle meant to infuriate her old man. A practiced antagonism that was as much a part of their routine as brushing their teeth but this morning was different. He didn’t say a word about her lackadaisical pace.

  Shane looked out over the street and avoided his daughter’s eyes, shame-faced at having searched through his wife’s purse and phone. He had even opened the laptop and scanned through her email. At once relieved to find nothing unusual but peeved for not uncovering something incriminating to justify his suspicions. For once he was grateful for Molly’s dawdling pace. How would he have explained what he was doing if his daughter had found him scouring her mother’s things like some paranoid creep?

  “What’s the hold-up?” Molly asked, standing by the truck while he wool-gathered on the stoop.

  Two blocks before the school, he pulled the Nissan to the curb so Molly could walk the rest of the way. Still embarrassed by existence of parental units.

  Molly unlatched her door. “See ya.”

  “Hey.” Shane touched her elbow. “Do you think your mom’s okay?”

  “She’s sick.”

  “Besides that. Is there anything going on with her that I don’t know about? Or I’m not seeing?”

  Molly shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it’s just one of her phases.”

  “Phases? What phases?”

  “You know, her weird blue periods.” Molly tilted her head, as if to level with him. “They come and go. Remember two Christmases ago when she moped around like a zombie?”

  Shane watched the street, trying to recall the details. “Yeah. What was that about?”

  “She finished that last record, remember? She spent four months bitching about how hard it was going and then when it was done, she was depressed it was over with. Schizo-artist shit.”

  “Language,” he reprimanded.

  “Well what else do you call it?” She saw the concern in his eyes and softened her tone. “She’ll be all right. Just give her time to snap out of it. Or buy her some Xanax.”

  “Thanks, smart ass. Get your butt to school.”

  Molly swung out of the vehicle and slammed the door. Shane watched her walk away and then looked at his watch. Already late for work. He shifted into gear and spun the wheel hard. Instead of continuing north towards the office, he swung the truck around and drove for home.

  SHE had just begun to drift away. With the house empty and silent, Tilda finally found a position that didn’t hurt and her mind slowed, sleep gratefully wearing her down. She floated in that half-life between states but something clawed her back, pushing slumber away. She rolled over, causing a fresh stab of pain down her shin and then her eyes caught something out of place.

  The antique chair in the corner, the one no one ever sat in, was occupied. Its occupant no more than a dim outline in the darkened bedroom. She propped herself up on one elbow, squinting at the form. Gil? Had he crept inside after everyone had left?

  “Who is he?” the silhouette asked.

  Not Gil. Shane. Sitting in the dark. Watching her.

  “What are you doing?” Tilda rubbed her eyes at the bedside clock. “Did you forget something?”

  “Who is he?”

  Something wasn’t right. Shane didn’t move. He didn’t hit the lights or open the drapes. He just sat there, lobbing questions in the dark.

  “Who’s who?”

  “The man you’re screwing.”

  Everything went instantly numb. Her brains, her limbs. This wasn’t happening. She was dreaming, she decided, and lay back down.

  The antique chair was a remnant from Shane’s mother’s house. Beautiful but badly used, Tilda had always meant to refinish it. She watched it sail across the room and splinter against the wall with a boisterous crash.

  “ANSWER ME!”

  She jerked upright. Looked at the broken chair legs. “What is the matter with you?”

  Shane charged across the floor, his face red. “What’s the matter with me? My wife is cheating on me, that’s what’s wrong, Tilda! So pardon my fucking outrage!”

  “You’re being ridiculous.” Dropping back down, she turned away. “Leave me alone.”

  “Then what is it, Tilda? You’re out all night long, acting weird, the cops show up. What the fuck!” He paced the floor, his tone turning cruel. “Are you going through a crisis? You upset because you’re over forty now like the rest of us? Did you misplace your ‘authentic self’?”

  She screamed at him to go away.

  He snatched up the blanket and flung it back. Tilda coiled, exposed.

  “Good God.” He gaped at the bruises and scrapes hatched up and down her body. “What the hell did he do to you?”

  “Get out!” Tilda swung off the bed and shot to her feet. “Get out, get out, get out!”

  Shock registered across his face. “What did you do?”

  What little rage Tilda had left was running out. She bolted for the bathroom before it all tipped over into tears.

  He seized her arm and threw her back onto the bed. She scrambled for the other side but he tumbled onto her, pinning her down. His eyes were manic and bloodshot as he hovered over her. “All this time, I’ve been telling myself to be patient with you. To give it time cause you’re going through something tough. Giving up your music career. She’ll come around, I keep telling myself. Stand by her. And all this time, you’re fucking someone behind my back!”

  She turned away from his snarl. “Get off me!”

  “What a fucking joke? Did you have a good laugh at me, honey? Sweetheart?” Spittle flew from his clenched teeth. “Was it worth it?”

  “No! It wasn’t like that—”

  “All this time I been begging you to fuck me, being gentle, being patient. And you’re out giving it up like a whore.” Shane bounced up to his feet and tugged open his belt. “No more.”

  She squirmed away, her whole body hiccupping in sobs. “Is that what this is about? Then go ahead. I don’t fucking care!”

  He pushed her down into the bed, forced her legs apart. Skin scraped as he pushed into her dry. He pounded hard as if to punish her but he was already losing steam and then he went limp inside her.

  Shane pulled away and his face twisted, souring up with tears. He slid to the floor with his pants around his knees and his face hidden. Tilda curled into a knot.

  The hitching noise of their sobs harmonized in the dead air before tapering off into sniffles and panting.

  Shane slumped over, unable to look at her. “Why?”

  “I’m sorry,” her voice cracked.

  “Who is it? Tell me that much at least.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters.”

  Was there an answer to this? Tilda sat up, staring at a wedge of sunlight splitting the drapes and wondered what possible reply would satisfy him. Any name would do, really. All he needed was a target to focus his rage on. Brad Pitt. Nick Cave. Vladimir Putin.

  It just fell out of her mouth. “Gil.”

  “Gil who?”

  “Dorsey.”

  She watched his brow crinkle, trying to pinpoint the name in his memory. It eluded him like a slippery fish and then he looked at her. “I know that name.”

  Stupid. She’d said too much. Tilda swung her legs over the side but the thought of standing seemed impossible.

  “Gil Dorsey. Why do I know that name?”

  She lifted up on shaky knees and tottered clumsily around the bed.

  Grasping at straw after straw, Shane finally snapped his eyes on her. “Wait a minute. Isn’t that the guy you went out with before we met?”

  “Yes.”

  His forehead rippled again in confusion. “But that’s the guy who died.”

  Tilda bumped the doorframe as she teetered into the bathroom. “Yes,” she said and then closed the door behind her.

  SHE DIDN’T EME
RGE FROM the bathroom until she heard the slam of the front door. Leaning into the window, she watched the Pathfinder drive away and then crawled back into bed. Her hands were shaking but worse than that was the nauseous loss of footing, as if gravity had been switched off. Shane knew the truth, or most of it, and there was no going back. He wouldn’t understand and he would not forgive. Her betrayal would break him like a twig, along with their marriage and nothing would set it right.

  What had she done? She had dropped a grenade into their life and watched it detonate. Why was she thinking of forgiveness or reconciliation? She had no right to expect it, having forfeited everything.

  No relationship is ever truly equal in the strength of its clutches on the other. If she could admit the truth, she always knew that Shane’s love for her was the stronger knot than hers to him. And this would kill him. In some dim corner of her heart, Tilda had always harboured a cold suspicion that she needed Shane more than she actually loved him. Had the situation been reversed, she could have dealt with it. Of course it would hurt and trust, once broken, takes a lifetime to rebuild, but she could get there. She could deal with his infidelity if she had to. Shane was a different story. Cut to the quick like this, he might never recover. He may never want to.

  And Molly? Good God, how could she face her daughter if the girl finds out?

  Rumbling under all of this was the horrors she had seen the night before. Those obscene things, the coven. She couldn’t shake the images from her eyes. Gil, the victims, the blood. The whited eyes of that abhorred chieftain staring right through her. Had it seen her?

  How could Gil be one of those monsters? He didn’t look or act anything like them. And yet when the blood was spilled he prostrated like the rest to feed.

  Tilda flung the sheet aside and sat up. She had to get out of here. Hiding in the dark was just making the images worse. She needed sunlight. A walk, fresh air, anything. She padded to the bathroom and ran the shower. She avoided the mirror. The last thing she wanted was to look into her own eyes or see the scrapes and bruises on her body. Stepping under the scalding jets, she remembered what Gil had told her, how the vampires detested mirrors because they couldn’t stand to see what they had become. Her hand went automatically to the bite wound on her breast. Is this how it starts? Was she any different?

  Thirty minutes later she was out of the house, her wet hair dampening the back of her shirt. The unrelenting sunlight felt warm and antiseptic on her skin. It was five blocks before she spotted a payphone. The local Crimestoppers number was displayed below the push buttons. She dialled and informed the person who answered that a murder had occurred last night in the Spadina and College area. Unable to recall the exact address, she described the building as a sooty grey-brick two doors north of College. She told them to check the boiler room. When the dispatcher asked if she wanted to leave her name, Tilda hung up.

  SHANE sat at his desk with his eyes on the screen but he may as well have been on the moon. Nothing made sense and he couldn’t understand how his co-workers just went about their day like nothing had happened. They gossiped around the coffee machine and dissected last night’s baseball game. The phones rang and people buggered off for an early lunch. How could they not see that it was all bullshit? How could they just carry on the same insipid conversations while the whole world had turned to shit overnight?

  Their obliviousness galled him and he hated them for their happy fucking lives. Like they deserved their smug contentedness. Their callous nonchalance was like lemon squeezed on a papercut.

  How could she do this to him? Hadn’t he always been there for her? Hadn’t he supported her every step of the way in her career, through the good times and the tough times? And truth be told, the tough months far outweighed the good ones. Did she hate him? Had Tilda just taken him for granted, figuring him to be a doormat that she could walk all over knowing he’d always come back for more?

  Maybe you brought this on yourself.

  Shane startled at that little voice suddenly nagging his brain. His eyes darted about to see if anyone else had heard it. Of course he hadn’t caused this. He’d never been unfaithful to Tilda. He didn’t treat her badly or hit her or anything.

  But you’ve been drifting from her, becoming distant. You even withhold your affection to punish her.

  He thumped his desk to silence that evil voice, causing a few of his co-workers to look his way. Maybe some of that was true, he argued back silently, but that wasn’t cause for her to take their marriage and flush it down the toilet. Was it?

  All this time he’d been making excuses for her odd behaviour. What a chump. And then, as if he hadn’t had his guts kicked in enough, she had salted the wound by telling him that the other man was her old boyfriend. Her dead old boyfriend. What was he supposed to do with that? Was she losing her mind or did she layer that on just to be cruel? Tilda seldom talked about him but he had always known that she had loved him. That his death had screwed her up bad. In the really dark moments, Shane suspected that he and Tilda wouldn’t have met if that son-of-a-bitch had never bought the farm.

  Fuck him.

  Fuck her too.

  When he came up for air, Shane squinted at the big wall clock as if unable to read its hands. He had lost two hours inside his own head and had accomplished absolutely nothing at his desk. His phone blinked with waiting messages, emails piled atop one another in his inbox. It all seemed so pointless right now, this shit called work that was shovelled onto his desk so he could dump it onto someone else’s desk later.

  He turned off the monitor and got to his feet. Stuffed a couple of folders under his arm in a pretence of taking work home and headed for the door.

  The receptionist looked up as he swept past her. “Shane, if you’re making a coffee run, I’d kill for a latte,” she said.

  “I’m going home.” He muttered, stabbing the elevator button again and again.

  “Oh. Not feeling well?”

  “Family emergency,” he said, then cut for the stairs.

  “TILDA!”

  No answer. Shane took the stairs two at a time and pushed the bedroom door open. The bed was unmade and the drapes still closed. She wasn’t here.

  “Goddamnit.” He had scripted this perfect speech on the drive back and there was no one to deliver it to. With the target of his anger absent, all the pent up rage and speechifying curdled in his guts with nowhere to go.

  Fine. Play it that way.

  Hammering back down the steps, Shane stomped through the kitchen and down into the basement. The cat, perched on the window sill, listened to the banging and crashing echoing up from the cellar. It watched Shane clomp back up the stairs, dragging an enormous suitcase behind him and then watched him bang it all the way up to the second floor.

  The suitcase landed on the unmade bed and Shane unzipped it. Then he opened a dresser drawer and started tossing clothes in.

  IT was her day off but Tilda ended up at work. After wandering through the park and meandering along Queen, she didn’t know where else to go. She needed to talk to someone, and the best candidate for a patient ear and sound advice was Sarah. Cutting down to Richmond, she hoped to steal her away for a cold drink.

  Sarah, bless her heart, quickly twigged to the dark cast of her friend’s face and grabbed her bag, leaving Anne-Marie to hold down the fort. They snagged some iced tea and cut across to the park.

  “Okay, I’m all ears,” Sarah said as they settled onto the grass under the shade of immense elm. “Spill.”

  Tilda tripped over her words, fumbling about for a way to begin. Sarah touched her knee and told her to just state it as simply as possible. Tilda wiped her eyes and opened with the fight she had had with Shane and backtracked from there. She omitted Gil’s name, referring to him as simply ‘an old boyfriend’, along with the darker, confounding details about the coven. Everything else, including the fight that resulted in a man’s death and being questioned by the police about it, Tilda laid bare as simply as possible. Winding
down, she threaded back to the fight with Shane and the implosion of her marriage.

  Sarah set her cup onto the grass. “Wow. You really fucked up.”

  Tilda bobbed her head in agreement and wiped her raw eyes.

  “It’s okay,” Sarah shrugged. “Everybody does.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Everybody cheats,” Sarah stated plainly, as if discussing the weather. “At least once.”

  “Oh stop. I’m not asking for justification for what I did. I just need to get it out.”

  “Honey, look at me. Everyone steps out somewhere along the way. And I mean everyone.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  “Oh, not everyone will admit it. But they have.” Sarah slurped the last of the tea. “Everyone who’s stayed married has. You know those old couples you see on TV on Valentine’s Day? Talking about how long they’ve been together and the inevitable question about the secret to a long relationship? They did. That cute old man banged his secretary and that adorable grandmother had afternoon trysts with tall, dark and handsome down the block. They’ll deny it of course. Once it’s over, they run back to their spouse and convince themselves that it never happened. But they did it.”

  “Everyone? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Why is that so ridiculous? You don’t stay truly, madly, deeply for twenty years. Or even ten years. There’s loneliness in the happiest of marriages. And everyone’s human, everyone gets get weak or desperate or foolish. Every couple that’s managed to stay the course are the ones smart enough to know where to draw the line.”

  “What line?”

  “They stepped out, had a fling, scratched that itch. But they were smart enough to pull back before they got too mixed up in it or got caught. A moment of clarity, after the fun was over, when they realized exactly what they were risking. Before they got burned, they went back to their husband or their wife with a renewed sense of devotion or gratitude. That’s their big secret, all those cute old fogies celebrating forty years together. They knew when to quit.”