Flight

by Darren Hynes

  Because Lynette’s nightgown doesn’t go past her knees, it’s easy to see the fresh glob of blood on her right knee where, last night, a scab had been. She walks into the space between Emily’s parted thighs and gives her mother a hug, easily interlacing her fingers at the base of Emily’s back.

  “Good morning, my love.”

  “Morning, Mommy.”

  “What did I tell you about picking that?” Emily says.

  “Give your dad a kiss,” Kent says, splaying his arms.

  “It was itchy,” Lynette says, letting go of her mother and moving over to her father.

  Kent kisses and hugs her, reaches into his trouser pocket and hauls out some tissue. He dabs at Lynette’s knee.

  “Ouch!”

  “All done.” Kent balls the tissue up, then looks for somewhere to put it.

  Emily grabs it and throws it into the garbage by the porch door. Stands there long enough to watch her husband take Lynette into his arms, then bounce her on his knee.

  “What are you doing up so early?” he says.

  All the bouncing is making Lynette giggle.

  “Wanted to see your daddy before he went to work, did you?” He kisses her on the cheek before putting her down. “Daddy’s got a big day today.” He disappears the same way Lynette had just come.

  Emily is standing near the porch door. “Sit down and I’ll give you some Honeycombs.”

  While Emily is pouring the milk, Kent comes back in, putting his cell phone in its holder on his belt loop. Though his sport’s jacket matches his pants, the look doesn’t quite work. Too much tan, she thinks. Or maybe it’s just that now he looks too ‘done up.’ Too perfect. Too perfect, she thinks. Too perfect for those at his work, and the friends he goes fishing with; too perfect for the guidance counselor at Jeremy and Lynette’s school, and Sonya at the Royal Bank, and Pat Gullage at the marina; too perfect even for her own mother. Too perfect for everyone but her. Water in her face, and then he’s the sweetest thing going. Tomorrow it’ll be a slap across the mouth, or his body pinning her against the wall before his: “I love you,” his: “I didn’t mean it,” his: “Let me take you out for dinner.”

  He comes over and grazes the base of her neck with his lips, then says, “Best not to plan on me for supper.”

  She nods. “I’ll put some aside.”

  He pats her bottom, then blows Lynette a kiss.

  “Bye, Daddy.”

  “Bye,” Emily says.

  He slams the door. There’s the sound of a turning ignition and pumping gas.

  She listens to the sound of crunching rock and the two quick horn blasts as he backs out of the driveway. Listens too for the single one he insists on halfway down their street. Too perfect.

  2

  JEREMY’S JAW CLICKS WHEN HE CHEWS, just like his father’s. She watches him as she sips coffee. He overloads his spoon like Kent does too, then opens his mouth wider than necessary to accommodate the food. He’s most focused during mealtimes, his nose so close to the plate sometimes it looks as if he might dip his face in it.

  “No one’s going to steal it,” she says.

  He doesn’t bother looking up at her.

  An appetite nearly as big as his dad and not yet twelve years old. It’s not uncommon for he and Kent, during Hockey Night In Canada, to devour a whole extra-large pepperoni pizza. They’ll go piece for piece like it’s some game, every so often showing each other the contents of their mouths. Some evenings Jeremy will go into the garage with his father to watch him lift weights. Although Kent says his boy is still too young, Emily knows he sometimes lets Jeremy do a little. More than once she’s peeked through the garage window to see Kent instructing him, both of them with their shirts off, bandanas wrapped around their heads and soaked with sweat.

  Jeremy finishes and then dips his spoon in Lynette’s bowl.

  “Get out of it,” Emily says. She yanks the spoon from his hand. “Get an apple if you want something else.”

  “She’s not eating it.”

  “She is too.”

  “Can I have a toasted strudel then?”

  “Is it Saturday, Jeremy?” It suddenly occurs to her that, by then, the three of them will be in British Columbia. She needs a second to allow the nervousness in her stomach to pass.

  “How come only Saturday?” he says.

  “Because they’re loaded with sugar, I said. Now either you eat an apple or you go and get dressed.”

  “I don’t want a stupid apple.”

  “Go then.”

  “I don’t know what to wear.”

  “Your clothes for today are on top of your dresser like they are every morning. Best not to try my patience.”

  Jeremy stomps through the kitchen and down the hall to his bedroom. He’s been getting into fights at school. Lately, he’s been hitting his sister.

  Emily looks out the window. The sun is just above the surface of the bay. After such a long winter, these spring days are a relief. She sees the Lightning Cove ferry in the distance, loaded with cars. Passengers as tiny as ants taking the forty-minute ride to the main part of the island. Emily and the children will take that ferry too this Friday, then find some way to get to Gander by ten to catch their eleven o’clock flight. She figures she won’t breathe until the layover in Toronto.

  “Eat!” She says to Lynette.

  “It’s soggy.”

  “Whose fault is that?”

  Lynette is the opposite of her brother. Instead of eating, she’d rather be drawing pictures of trees and houses in her sketchbook, or finger painting in the basement. Eating is like an intrusion on her day. Mature beyond her years though, Lynette. Everything is why with her. Why is there a sun during the day and a moon at night? Why is the water closer to shore than other times? Why does Jeremy get to stay up later? Why does Daddy get quiet?

  “Four more spoonfuls, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Or no colouring this evening.”

  Lynette forces the cereal in, nearly gagging.

  “Good girl. Now go and get dressed. I’ll be right in.”

  Emily watches her go, then gets up and takes the cereal bowls to the dishwasher. She squeezes in some dish liquid and turns it on, then stands with her belly against the machine, letting its vibrations settle her stomach. She breathes in, lets the air out slowly, her mind on Friday.

  3

  SHE’S HOLDING LYNETTE’S HAND. Jeremy is walking a few feet ahead. Despite the clear day and a sun that is close enough to touch, it’s chilly. So the children are wearing spring jackets over their sweaters. A purple knapsack hangs on Lynette’s back. Jeremy carries a math book and a green scribbler in his right hand, pressed against his waist. Too cool, even at eleven, to carry a bookbag.

  They take a left on Trinity Street away from the water and toward the centre of town. Hanrahan’s Seafood, on her right, has a special on trout and shrimp; Anique’s Antiques has a gorgeous oak rocking chair and a grandfather clock for sale on the front stoop.

  Jeremy kicks at rocks on the shoulder of the road. Lynette hums a melody that Emily has never heard.

  “What’s that song, baby?”

  Lynette stops humming and gives her mother a look. “Miley Cyrus, Mom.”

  She feels old. And it’s not because of the way Lynette said Miley Cyrus, either. Some nights she lies in bed and tries to remember being young: running through the waist-high grass in her mother’s garden, filling salt-beef buckets with blueberries, riding her bike along back streets and trails in the woods. She’ll often check in the groceries of women much older than herself and wonder how they can seem so much younger, so free with their laughter, so animated when they talk, how they can be loaded down with bags yet still walk lightly.

  They pass the Royal Bank. She sees Sonya, one of the tellers, through the glass. Sonya waves while giving fake Oh, they’re so sweet looks to the kids. Emily waves back. Sonya’s the main reason why Emily decided against opening up her own account. Better to take her chanc
es in the basement rather than have her husband hear about her weekly sixty-dollar deposits from Sonya or one of the others. Kent prefers all of the money to flow into and out of the same place. Should have been a banker, Emily sometimes thinks, considering the attention he pays to their joint account.

  Underneath her jacket, she wears a blue button-up shirt with Hodder’s Grocery and Convenience written over the right breast pocket. Over the left is her nametag. As if anyone needs their name written on their chest in this town. Her black pants end at her black sneakers. Come Friday she can part with them, too – maybe throw them in the trash or leave them lying on the bed. Something for him to remember her by. Perhaps she’ll leave her nametag in his coffee cup.

  She almost forgets there was a time she’d dreamed of studying at the university in St. John’s: social work, or something to do with children. Becoming pregnant with Jeremy dashed those plans. As did the ring in its black casing Kent had presented to her on that day in September eleven years ago.

  “Jeremy, wait for us!” She was unaware that he’d run off already. That’s how consumed she is in her own thoughts. The other day she’d left the house with the stove on, then forgot her phone number when she went to call Kent and warn him.

  Jeremy doubles back, joins them. “I can walk myself, you know.”

  “But Mommy likes to go with you.” It’s not a lie. The fifteen-minute walk with them to school each morning is the only part of her day she loves. The chance to be alone with them away from that house. For so long she’s imagined taking the right onto Glover Street instead of Trinity, walking past the Anglican Church and the Parish Hall, Pete’s Fish n’ Chips and The Dock Marina, along the gangway and onto the ferry. Jeremy holding her right hand; Lynette her left. Them walking to the bow of the boat towards the mainland. Not once looking back.

  Years of weather have faded the orange-brown elementary school at the end of the street. With the rise of marsh, and stilted, windblown trees beyond it, the building seems out of place, like a scar. Children in open jackets and sneakers run and laugh in the courtyard. Some red-faced girls chase some red-faced boys. Others kick a soccer ball.

  “Can I go now?” Jeremy asks, his eyes on the boys with the ball.

  “Not before you tell me what you have to do.”

  He’s like a dog being held back from a steak. “Hold Lynette’s hand.”

  “That’s right. What else?”

  “Mom!”

  “What else, Jeremy? When are you allowed to let go?”

  “When we get to the house.”

  “That’s right. Don’t you dare let go until you’re turning the doorknob. I shouldn’t be much later than four today.”

  Emily wishes she could kiss him goodbye like she used to do up until six months ago. But something in her boy has changed since this past Christmas. Not only can she not kiss him in public, she can’t hold his hand either, or walk too close.

  “Go on then,” she says to him.

  He takes off without so much as a goodbye.

  Lynette still likes her mommy’s kisses though, and she’ll take a hug afterwards too.

  “Have a nice day at school,” Emily says, watching her baby girl walk away, purple knapsack flopping side to side with each step, and golden hair in two long braids with green buckles at their ends. Instead of joining the other children in the schoolyard, Lynette goes to the main entrance. Emily waits for the limp wave that her daughter gives her every morning before she pulls open the doors. Lynette doesn’t disappoint. Emily imagines her youngest going to her locker, then to her homeroom, not feeling the need to linger in the crowded corners, or gossip by the water fountain. Such a practical little girl. Twice her age it sometimes seems.

  Jeremy is hogging the soccer ball. A few boys give chase, but can’t get it away from him. Athletic like his dad, and bigger too than most of the other kids his age.

  “Fine morning,” says a voice behind her.

  She turns around to see a pregnant Irene Baker – hands, one on top of the other – resting on the impressive bulge beneath her long sweater.

  “Chilly though,” Emily says.

  “When isn’t it in this place?”

  “There’s a whole week in late August, I think.”

  They both laugh.

  “Where’s your boy?”

  “Chasing yours.” Irene points.

  “She doesn’t want to come out, does she?” Emily indicates Irene’s belly with a jut of her chin.

  “He. And no, he doesn’t. Nearly two weeks overdue now. Myles says with everything going on the baby’s better off staying inside.”

  In the silence, Emily remembers what Kent had said to her earlier: Myles is finished. “Perhaps it won’t come to layoffs,” she says.

  “There’ll be a lot of angry men if it does. That’s what Myles says.”

  Emily nods but doesn’t say anything.

  For a while both women watch their children.

  Finally, Irene says, “Some bite to that wind.”

  “Goes right through you, doesn’t it?”

  “To the bone.” Irene tucks a sliver of red hair behind her ear. Turns to Emily, hesitates before saying, “Has he said anything?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Kent. Has he said anything?”

  There might not be a Lightning Cove by the end of the month. “No.”

  Irene keeps her eyes on her for a long time before finally turning back towards the schoolyard.

  Another long moment passes and, just as Emily’s about to say goodbye, Irene says, “Not a skill does he have.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Myles. It’s either the plant or nothing.”

  The school bell rings. Children scatter.

  It rings again.

  “I should be getting to work,” Emily says.

  “Go on, my dear, don’t let me keep you.”

  “Have a good morning.” Emily turns around and starts walking. Then stops long enough to say, “I hope the little one comes soon.”

  “He’ll have to, won’t he?”

  She doesn’t get very far before she hears Irene’s voice again.

  “It’s good news.”

  She turns around. “What is?”

  Irene smiles. “No news.”

  Emily does her best to smile back.

  4

  TERRY GRINS AT HER through the glass doors of Hodder’s Grocery and Convenience – exposed gums above tiny teeth. He reaches inside a trouser pocket and pulls out his keys. Inserts one and then turns the deadbolt. Pushes open the door. “Morning.”

  She rushes past him. “Sorry I’m late.”

  He smells like Mr. Clean.

  “Hardly late,” he says, looking at his watch.

  She goes to the cash and takes off her coat, stuffing it into the cubbyhole underneath.

  “Early if anything.”

  She stops and looks at him. “Am I?”

  He nods.

  “That’s funny, thought I was late.” She looks down, notices that Terry has put her till, along with the two hundred dollar float, into her register. “You don’t have to keep doing this,” she says.

  “I don’t mind.” He puts the deadbolt back in place and goes over to her. Stands on the other side of her checkout counter with his hands in his pockets.

  “You don’t do it for Heather.”

  “That one needs all the practice she can get.”

  Those are new pleated slacks he’s wearing, she thinks. His dress shirt is new too, buttoned up to just below his Adam’s apple, the veins is his neck about to pop. The same shoes, except polished now. See your reflection in them. She pushes in the till and then runs a little receipt paper through. Tears off the top and tosses it in the garbage near her feet.

  “Put a new roll in not ten minutes ago.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He takes another step towards her, his lower half pressed against the counter. “There’s coffee downst
airs.”

  “Had some already.”

  “Oh. Well, you know where to find it if you change your mind.”

  She nods.

  He just stands there.

  Jutting her chin towards the store’s entrance, she says, “You going to open?”

  “In a minute.”

  Emily nods, then reaches towards the magazine rack for a Newfoundland Herald.

  Terry rushes over and grabs one before she gets the chance. He hands it to her.

  “Thanks.” Emily rests her bum against the cash register and opens the magazine. Searches through the table of contents for something interesting. There’s an article on page forty-eight: “The New Province of Newfoundland, Labrador, and Fort McMurray,” the caption says. She flips through until she finds the page.

  Terry’s still standing there.

  “You just going to watch?” she says.

  He takes his hands out of his pockets only to put them back in again.

  She closes the magazine. Pushes her pelvis forward so that she’s standing at full height. Moves closer to him. “Something the matter?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. You’re acting strange.”

  Terry shrugs. Fumbles with the loose change in his pockets. “It’s nothing.”

  “Tell me,” she says.

  He doesn’t.

  “Tell me.”

  He releases a breath. “Okay, but you don’t have to worry, you’re still a hundred times the worker that Heather is.”

  “Oh my God; what did I do?”

  “No big deal – ”

  “Tell me.”

  He hesitates, then says, “You left without cashing out yesterday.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “The till was left on the counter with all the money in it.”

  Still she doesn’t speak.

  “No biggie. Who’s going to steal it around here, right?”

  She goes back to yesterday in her mind. Ten customers the whole day. Maybe less. Donna Rowe with her two young ones; and Peggy Flynn with the dirty hair; Reverend Parsons, his basket loaded with Vachon Cakes and Canada Dry (To mix with his whiskey, no doubt); Alan Cross’s pretty wife, Marlene with the dimples and nice figure. Emily can even remember the clothes they wore, so why can’t she remember leaving out the money?