by Darren Hynes
The front door swings open, nearly making her faint with fright. She grabs the railing.
He steps out onto the porch. The laces of his boots are untied. He walks to the top of the stairs, then stops.
She sees herself running, along the driveway, up their street, the turn onto Trinity, past Hanrahan’s Seafood and Anique’s Antiques, faster, faster, faster, not even him in his truck able to catch her.
He stares down at her.
She looks up at him, then turns away. Looks up, turns away.
He crosses his arms in front of his chest. He’s still in the clothes from this morning. “Strange you not being here when I got home.”
“I was walking.”
Silence.
“Strange you out walking, this time of the evening, the youngsters left by themselves.”
“I was craving fresh air.”
“Open a window. Come out on the porch.”
More silence.
“Where’d you go?”
“Around the block.”
“Where?”
“Along Trinity, where it connects to Main. Why?”
He takes a step down. Stops. Lays a palm on the rail. “The same way I came not ten minutes ago.”
She’s warm underneath her jacket, but she has a chill. “Why this talking first?” she says. “Always this talking.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“I’m here,” she says.
Kent steps back up onto the porch again. Moves to the door, opening it, his hand on the knob. “Come in.”
She climbs the first three stairs, then stops. Winded, like an asthmatic. Too young to be this tired.
“Come on,” he says.
Up some more before she stops again. Then finally all the way up. She stands at the other end of the porch staring at him. His face is calm, his body relaxed and leaning against the door frame, feet crossed at the ankles.
She goes toward him, the porch wood straining beneath her though she weighs less than ever, her own breath in her ears, and the pulse in her neck quickening. Stops right in front of him.
Instead of grabbing her like she expects, he steps aside in order to let her pass.
She grazes him as she goes in.
The door closes.
A lock is turned.
He’s right behind her, the energy from his body pressing against her back. She stays standing a couple of feet inside the door. Take off your boots and go in. Get it done with. The sooner it starts the sooner it will be over.
Another moment before she finally kicks off her boots and unzips her jacket.
He’s still behind her.
She goes to take off her coat, but he slips it off for her. Hangs it up. Lays a hand on the small of her back, leading her past the foyer and into the kitchen.
“Mommy,” Lynette says, looking up from her colouring book, a red crayon in one of her hands.
Jeremy’s got hockey cards strewn about the table. His glance at her and then away is hardly noticeable.
Kent guides her towards them, his hand still resting on her sitting bone. At the table, he pulls out his chair and lowers her onto it, then walks around and stands behind her.
She waits. Her hands in her lap. Her eyes on the children. “Go to your rooms,” she says.
“They’re okay there,” he says.
Lynette’s eyes linger in her direction for a moment before going back to the colouring book.
His supper. It’s in the oven, covered in tinfoil. Three quarters of a meatloaf. She thinks about standing, but then changes her mind, her face slightly turned now towards the window. “Your supper,” she says.
“Not yet.”
Why this waiting? she thinks.
She flinches when he touches her shoulders. He lifts her hair in order to get his hands underneath, then massages deep into the muscles, the place where the shoulders connect to the neck, the place he’s kissed ten thousand times. Although she tries not to, a moan releases itself from the back of her throat. She chews down on it just as another one comes.
He stops. His mouth is next to her ear. “I’m sorry about earlier,” he whispers. He kisses the grown-over hole where pretty earrings had once hung. “Forgive me?”
She manages a nod before all of her – so tight a moment ago – goes slack. She has to squeeze her bottom teeth against her top ones just to keep her jaw from flopping open, grips the sides of her chair to keep from falling out of it. The breath she sucks in is so deep that she wonders if she’s left any oxygen in the room. Heart beating slower, finally.
He walks around until he’s facing her, wedges himself in between her thighs. Kneels down.
She turns from the window and looks at him. Despite having shaved this morning, there’s already the shadow of a beard longing to break the surface of his skin. His neatly combed hair is now hanging in front of his forehead, a few strands reaching into his eyes. The cut she’d seen to the other night probably won’t even leave a scar, she thinks. If he’ll let her, she’ll take out those stitches later.
“I almost forgot,” he says.
“What?”
“Irene had her baby. Nearly nine pounds, Myles said.”
“Finally.”
“He was outside waiting for me after the meeting, a flask of Johnny Walker inside his jacket. ‘Drink to my new son,’ he said. He was relieved, I think, to hear that the crooks from St. John’s had agreed on the severance package. Even got it in writing from Mr. Fisheries and Oceans himself.”
“How’s Irene?”
“Tired, Myles said. Worried, you know, about everything down at the plant, how they’re supposed to manage with him out of work. Wants Myles to apply for a job in Fort McMurray.” He rubs the top of her hands as if to warm them even though they’re not cold, then says, “Myles gets homesick when he goes to Gander.”
In the silence, Jeremy returns his hockey cards to their box; Lynette searches through her book for a colourless picture she might have missed, humming as she does. Kent looks down at her hands. Plays with her wedding band, pulling it in the direction of her fingernail, then back again. “Getting loose,” he says.
She looks down at it, remembering that long ago blustery September when he’d knelt on her front stoop and offered it to her, how he’d had trouble sliding it on at first, how he’d hugged her too hard even though she hadn’t said yes yet.
“Let’s take a drive,” he says.
“What?”
“Yay!” Lynette pushes out her chair.
“It’s getting late,” she says. “They need their baths.”
“They can do that afterwards.”
She pauses for a moment, then says, “Where?”
“Around the shore. Then afterwards we’ll get french fries at the marina.”
“Yay!” goes Lynette again.
Jeremy’s eyes lighten a bit too at this suggestion.
“But they’ve just had their supper.”
“A few fries won’t kill them. Get your coats on youngsters.”
She watches them run to the foyer, then fight to get into their coats, to shove on boots without tying the laces.
He’s still between her thighs. “There’s something else I wasmeaning to mention.”
“What?” she says.
“It’s about Friday.”
She’s unable to speak. Wonders if he’s somehow figured out what her intention had been for that day. Has she left some clue behind? A floorboard not quite in place? A phone call that he might have been listening in on? It’s about Friday. Friday. Funny how it was just a day of the week not that long ago. “What about it?” she says, finding herself sitting a little more erect, her bum perched on the chair’s edge.
He leans in closer, his nose almost touching the space between her breasts.
What if it’s all been an act, she thinks – his gentleness? What if his intention all along has been to get her out of the house? Some place secluded. Outside of town. Could really let her have it then. With the kids, tho
ugh? No way he’d bring them along.
“Can’t do it.”
She looks down at him. Holding her breath. “Can’t do what?”
“Let’s go!” Lynette shouts from the foyer.
“In a minute,” Kent tells her. “Your mom and I are talking.”
“Tie up those laces,” Emily says.
Jeremy’s tucked his pant bottoms into his boots. He’s wearing a blue windbreaker, his hand on the knob of the door, watching them.
“This Friday,” Kent says, his nose grazing her chin now. “I know I said we’d leave then, but – ”
“What?” she says. If not for gripping the edges of the seat, she’d be on the floor by now.
“I can’t. There’s a big meeting called for Friday morning that I can’t miss. Severance package stuff. And Mr. Fisheries and Oceans is supposed to have a say about the future of the plant too.”
A fluttering in her chest. “That’s too bad, I was looking forward it.”
“We’ll still go, don’t you worry. Saturday. And instead of coming back on Wednesday, we’ll stay for the whole week. How about that?”
“I’d love it.”
“Thought you would. Call your mom tomorrow, so she knows to expect the kids.”
“I will.” She lays her hands on his shoulders. How close she’d come to changing the flight, she thinks. If Terry hadn’t called it might have been too late. “If we’re taking a drive, let me get my sweater.”
She goes to stand up, but he keeps her there. Wraps his arms around her, one side of his face pressed against her chest. After a moment, he says, “I’m sorry about this morning.”
“I know.”
“It’s just when I saw Jeremy’s face – ”
“I know.” She wonders if he’s ever bothered looking at hers afterwards. “I didn’t mean to hit him.”
He lets go and helps her to her feet. “How could you have, right?”
Halfway to her bedroom, her vision blurs. She wipes the corners of her eyes and finds them soaked with tears. She pushes open her bedroom door, then flicks the light switch. In the middle drawer of her dresser she finds her favourite beige sweater, its length going past her bum, its collar perfect for keeping the wind out of her ears. She walks to the long mirror and watches herself as she buttons up.
“Hurry up, Mom!” Lynette shouts from down the hall.
“Just a minute!” she says.
She turns back to the mirror. Quickly pushes the final two buttons through their designated holes. Stands there for a moment. Breathes in and out, in and out. It’s back on again, the plan. Tomorrow will be her last day of work. At the end of her shift, she’ll grab her pay and be gone. She’ll toss a goodbye over her shoulder at Terry so he’ll have no reason to suspect anything, no reason to think that she’s planning what she is. No reason to think that they’ll never see each other again.
She’ll ask Sonya for all of her money this time, not just the regular sixty dollars. “A special weekend together,” she’ll tell the nosey teller when she asks.
“Emily!” It’s Kent’s voice this time.
“Coming!”
Two days, she thinks. Not even. Two sleeps, although she knows there’ll be little of that now. Just get through Thursday. She feels her throat tighten. Her heart races. The next breath she takes she holds, releasing it slowly, feeling herself relax a little. Just a little. Thursday. Just get through Thursday.
“Emily! Come on!” goes Kent again.
She turns from the mirror and heads towards the door, switching off the light as she goes.
THURSDAY
SHE’S AWAKE WHEN HIS ALARM GOES OFF. He’s pressed against her. Slightly hard penis between the top of her ass and her tailbone; one of his thighs inserted between her two, the heat of the too- close limbs making their skin slippery with sweat; chest hairs tickling her back; his chin resting on top of her head. One of his arms is wrapped around her ribcage, its hand cupping her right breast. Usually, during the night, their bodies will drift apart, so that by morning each of them is one roll away from landing on the floor. Not this day, though. She’d woken with him intertwined like this nearly three hours ago. She’d disentangle herself only to have him latch on again and again.
She pushes her bum against him. “Your alarm, Kent.”
He mumbles something but doesn’t turn over to switch it off.
“Time for work.” She goes to shut the alarm off herself, but he won’t let her. She feels all of him harden, muscles flexing, skin on skin. “Kent!”
“No,” he says, far from asleep now. “Don’t make me.”
“It’ll wake the youngsters.”
“But I’m so comfortable, and you’re so beautiful.”
“Please.”
He finally lets her go. Stretches out an arm and turns off the alarm. Grabs her again before she has a chance to move. “Just a minute longer.” He sniffs her hair, then the base of her neck. “I love your smell.”
Three and a half hours she’d managed last night, she figures. Asleep before her down pillows could take the weight of her head. Then waking in a panic some time later with the feeling that she’d forgotten something cramping her belly. No sleep then, just a perpetual going over of the plan for Friday. Then nearly screaming upon realizing that that is tomorrow. Tomorrow. Forming the word with her mouth but making no sound. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Kent’s limbs like snakes, wrapped here and stuffed there. One side of his burning face against her own.
He kneads her bum, one cheek then the other.
She hates loving it, the muscles reluctantly giving themselves over to his touch. Releasing their toxins.
“Odd that you’re up,” he says.
“Maybe if you’d stopped mauling me, I’d go back to sleep.”
“If you could see what I do, you’d be mauling too.” He laughs, then gets on top, burying his face in the nape of her neck.
“Stop,” she says, “that tickles.”
He burrows deeper, then flutters his tongue tip against her throat like a sex-starved teenager.
“Stop!” she manages, before laughter comes, the quality of which surprises her: higher-pitched than usual, younger-sounding, a girl’s laugh. She twists to the left, then right, but can’t budge him. She grabs his hair. Pulls. For a moment the licking stops, but then it starts again, even faster than before, all of him shaking because he’s laughing too. she can’t breathe. Might pee herself if he doesn’t stop. She reaches down and takes hold of his balls.
He stops.
She squeezes.
“Okay,” he says, lifting his head, “you win.” He’s red from laughing.
She doesn’t let go.
“I said you win.”
She’s still holding on, imagines squashing till something pops.
“Ouch. That’s starting to hurt.”
She lets go.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” she says, pushing him off.
He crawls over her to get to the window on her side of the bed. She watches him twist the rod that opens the blind. What morning light there is filters in, displaying his firm hamstrings and behind, calves and shoulders, chest and still-flat stomach.
He stares out. “Looks chilly.”
“It’s not raining, is it?”
“No, but there’s wind.”
Wind’s nothing new in Lightning Cove. Wind and more wind. Wind with sun and fog and rain and snow. Wind needs to be the centre of attention here almost as much as Kent does.
He turns to her, his now-flaccid cock coming to face her before he does, the shaft long and narrow, its foreskinned tip like pouting lips.
He stretches, pointing his fingertips towards the ceiling, arching his back.Yawns before bringing his arms back to their sides. He sits near her on the edge of the bed. Runs a hand through her hair. “Gotta go to Gander this morning.”
Me too. Tomorrow. “You do?”
“Meetings. I’ll try not to be too late.”
She nods.
<
br /> Instead of heading to the shower, he continues stroking her hair. After a while, he says, “You don’t feel neglected, do you?”
“What?” she asks, despite having heard him clearly.
“With me working so much. You don’t feel neglected, do you?”
She doesn’t answer.
He stops smoothing her hair. “You know it’s all for us, right? You, me, the kids.”
Still she says nothing.
“It’s why I do anything.”
She sits up. Rests her back against the headboard, the sheets covering her breasts and nipped underneath her armpits.
He shifts closer. “Perhaps I don’t tell you enough.”
She’s looking at the wall now, just above his shoulder. Finally, she says, “Tell me what?”
He takes her chin into his hand as if he’s about to kiss her. “That I appreciate everything you do. For me, for the kids.”
She wants him gone – in the shower or in the kitchen or out the front door or in his truck or in whatever meeting he’s supposed to be in, anywhere but here beside her, anywhere where he can’t make her feel as though she might not want to go through with it.
“You look sad,” he says.
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay.”
He pulls her towards him. “Hug me.”
She does. And then she’s first to pull away, her hands pressed to his chest. Get out of my sight! “Go on or you’ll be late.”
“See?” he says, smiling. “See how you take care of me?”
She watches him grab his bathrobe from the hook behind the door. He puts it on with his back to her.
“I’ll make you coffee,” she says.
“No, go back to sleep.”
“I want to.”
He smiles again. “Not too strong, though, okay.”
“Okay.”
* * *
SHE SITS AT THE KITCHEN TABLE LISTENING to the coffee percolate, her chin resting on cupped hands, and the chair cold against her backside. Enough wind outside to blow the house down.
She’s facing the window. It’s because she’s leaving that she looks more closely, taking everything in as if for the first time: swaying trees and overloaded clotheslines; the sea unfurling its bullying waves onto the landwash below; the ferry making its first crossing of the morning. The tip of the sun far out on the bay, almost but not quite hidden behind a veil of mist. She tries to brand the picture in her mind, breathing it down into the pads of her feet, holding it there.
