by Darren Hynes
“I’m so glad, Mommy was worried that you and your brother were going to get drenched.” With her purse in one hand and the collar of her sweater in the other, Emily moves to the basement door. “I need to hang this up downstairs.” She uses her shoulder to push open the door and starts walking down the steps. Nearly halfway down she realizes that Lynette is following her. “Go back up, sweetheart, Mommy’ll be there in a second.”
“I want to come.”
“Go back up, I said.”
Lynette does, closing the door behind her.
Emily continues down. On the second-last step, she stops and pulls the chain for the light, then goes to the far corner of the room, to the makeshift clothesline that she and Kent had put up some years before, each end of the rope looped and knotted through hooks that they’d screwed into the walls. That Kent had screwed into the walls, really. She’d just stood there and watched, directing him on the appropriate height since it was she who would be using it the most.
She throws the sweater on the line, not bothering with clothespins, then moves to the washer and dryer. Laying the purse down, she gets on all fours and starts running her hands along the floor. Eyes downward, then on the stairs. On the floor, then on the stairs again. He’s in Gander. Won’t be home for hours yet. Hours.
She finds the one, sliding her pinky underneath and pulling upward. Puts the panel aside before taking out the plane tickets and the Adidas sock. Hardly any room left in there for what’s in her purse, she knows. Unzipping her handbag, she reaches inside for the manila envelope. Hauls it out, and slips her hand in.
The wad is too thick to grip with one hand, so she uses two. She sits back on her haunches then, just staring at it. More money then she’s ever seen let alone held. How much did Sonya say was there? Eight thousand? Twelve? Fifteen? She has no idea. In fact she can barely remember the bank teller counting out the bills, or bounding the money with elastic bands, or sliding the envelope across the counter. She tries to recall the look on Sonya’s face. Shifty eyes. No, she was smiling. Or was it more of a frown? Or had her lips been pursed so tightly together that they’d gone white? White with the gossip she could barely contain a second longer. Won’t be long before the whole town knows, Emily thinks. Before Kent knows –
The basement door opens suddenly.
She drops the money, then scrambles to pick it back up. Turns towards the stairs, swears that she can see his boots, his way of taking the steps two at a time.
Not his boots though. Big Bird slippers, she realizes. Lynette. Just Lynette. Gander. That’s where he is. Won’t be back until late.
Lynette takes a few steps down, then stops. “Mommy?”
“What, baby?”
“Are you coming up?”
“In a minute.”
“Jeremy’s hungry.”
“I’ll be up in a minute. Now close the door!”
Lynette’s slippers turning and then tramping back up.
She stays where she is, her eyes on the stairs. A moment later they’re still on the stairs.
Finally she looks away. Picks up the money and jams it into the hiding place. The Adidas sock’s next, then the three plane tickets, pressing everything down with her palms. All of it fits. She picks up the panel of hardwood, puts it back in place. She makes a fist and brings it down hard against the spot. From the other side of the room, she looks to see that it’s flush with the others. Pretty good, she thinks. Not so much money that it eases her worry, yet enough to give them a fighting chance, buy them some time.
She goes back over to the clothesline. Takes off her pants, shirt, and socks, hanging them beside her sweater. Stands there in her underwear and bra then, the floor cold under her feet, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth.
So long she’s waited. How many times had she imagined this very moment? Hours away from freedom. Imagining, yet never really believing it would come. How strange then to be here now and feel as if everything is moving too fast.
Breathe, just breathe. No choice now but hang on tight and focus on the end. Everything does, eventually. End.
She goes back over and presses the heel of her foot against the spot, just to be sure, and then picks up her purse. Goes up the stairs.
Lynette’s at the kitchen table, drawing. Pencil crayons scattered.
Jeremy’s against the counter, his hand in a box of Fruit Loops. “Mom!” he says, looking away because his mother is practically naked.
“You came out of this body, don’t forget,” she says, walking past them and into the hall. “I’ll put fish sticks on in a minute.”
“Can we have french fries too?” Jeremy says.
“Okay.” She pushes open her bedroom door.
“Deep fried?” he shouts.
“Baked!” she shouts back.
She unfastens her bra and slips out of her panties, throwing both in the clothes hamper. She finds a new mismatched pair at the bottom of her drawer: white, with a tiny hole at the crotch, and a lacey red bra. Puts them on. Nice to be in dry underclothes after having spent too long in soaked ones. Over them she steps into her favourite jeans, the ones with the holes in the knees, and her grey fleece. Doesn’t bother with socks, just slides into her slippers.
She goes into the bathroom and towel dries her hair, thinking how old the face that’s staring back from the mirror is. Is it too late to get back all that’s been lost, she wonders? To scavenge the scattered pieces of herself?
After she puts frozen fish sticks and french fries in the oven, she sits with the children. Lynette has flipped the paper over so she can draw on the other side. Jeremy is still eating Fruit Loops by the counter.
“Put those away,” she says.
“But I’m starving.”
“I said put them away, you’ll ruin your supper.”
He does so, reluctantly, not bothering to close the box. Then heads for the hallway.
“Where’re you going?”
“To my room.” He keeps walking.
“Come here,” she says.
“Why?”
“Come here.”
“I want to play PlayStation.”
“Come here.”
He stops. “What!”
“Sit down with us.”
“Why?”
“Sit down with us.”
He comes back, hauls out Kent’s chair at the other end of the table and sits. Puts his elbows on the table and rests his chin in cupped hands. Barely a trace on his face now from when she hit him. Like his father when it comes to healing.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing.” She pauses. “We never sit together.”
Lynette slides her paper across.
“Who’s that, Baby?”
“You.”
“Wow, it’s good.” She looks closer. “But my hair’s not red, is it?”
“Couldn’t find the brown pencil crayon.”
“Oh. Well, it suits me, doesn’t it, red hair?”
Lynette nods. Takes the picture back. “It isn’t finished.”
Already there’s a faint smell of baking fish.
Rain pattering off the roof.
She looks at Jeremy. He sees her watching but looks away, his face turned toward the window.
His profile so much like Kent’s, she thinks. Same shape of chin and nose, same eyes with their long lashes. A carbon copy of her husband is what he is. Dad’s boy. Slipping farther and farther away from her, but Dad’s boy still. Always Dad’s boy.
“Mom’s sorry,” she says finally.
He turns to look at her.
“You know that, right?”
He shrugs his shoulders, makes a grunting sound.
“It’s just that when I saw you on top of your sister…” She stops herself from going on. What good in telling him that he had reminded her of Kent? That, instead of Lynette underneath him, she had seen herself.
He looks away again.
“You should never hit. Not your sister, not anyone.”
&nb
sp; Lynette stops drawing, looks at her brother, then her mother.
“And I should never hit either. Not you, not anyone.”
It’s quiet for a moment.
“How about we say that we both made a mistake? Okay?”
Jeremy looks at her, then nods. “Okay.”
“Can you tell your sister, you’re sorry?”
He looks over at her. “Sorry, Lynette.”
“That’s okay,” Lynette says. She flips over her paper, to the drawing she was working on when Emily had first walked in. Raises it in the air towards Jeremy. “This one’s you.”
Jeremy laughs. “I got horns.”
“I’ll draw a new one.”
They all sit in silence for a while as Lynette takes a clean sheet of paper and starts working on her brother’s portrait, a less devilish version.
Emily says, “Go play PlayStation if you want.”
Jeremy disappears so quickly she wonders if he was sitting with them at all.
Lynette colours while the wind moans between the spaces, while the rain drums against the house, while grey day slowly fades into greyer night.
Tomorrow, she thinks. One sleep. No, no sleep. No sleep now. Hopefully she’ll be ready when the time comes. Ready to do what needs to be done.
“Go wash your hands before supper,” she says to Lynette.
“I’m almost finished.”
“You can finish after.”
Emily listens to her daughter’s steps in the hall, the opening and then closing of her bedroom door.
She sits back, slipping her hands into her fleece pockets, feeling suddenly lonely. Strange considering the many nights she’s spent by herself at this very table, a cross-stitch in hand and warm milk in her favourite mug, the little ones in bed and Kent still at work. The radio playing lightly, the country station. Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood she’ll turn up. Move her chair closer and sing along if she knows the lyrics, helping her forget for a time.
Everything seems bigger, somehow – the kitchen, the chair beneath her, the distance to the hallway, the bathroom, to her own bedroom. Maybe it’s not so much that things have gotten bigger as it is that she’s gotten smaller. Hardly noticeable now when she walks down the road with her youngsters, or checks someone’s milk and eggs through. Sometimes it’s like she needs to tilt her head back to see above the dashboard when Kent is driving them somewhere.
She gets a fork from the cutlery drawer and walks to the stove, opening it, her face turned away from the heat. When she reaches in, she brushes the edge of the pan and burns her pinky. She pulls her hand out, throwing the fork on the counter en route to the faucet. Lets water run over her smoldering finger, wishing that a little cold water could relieve everything as quickly: each foul mood, each threatening word, each slap across the face.
She turns the water off but has to turn it back on again because the pain returns. The finger’s red now all along its length right up to the nail. A fluid-filled blister will appear later on this evening, she bets. Jeremy will want to pop it with a sewing needle. Lynette will watch between the spaces in her own fingers pressed against her eyes.
Emily holds the finger underneath the tap again, the pain instantly fading. Keeps it there as she goes over everything in her head. As long as they’re at the ferry terminal by eight everything will be fine. She reminds herself that she’ll have to get a taxi from Gander to pick them up when the ferry docks. She’ll call before she leaves the house. Plenty of time, as long as the taxi’s waiting, to catch the flight. No doubt Donny Boyle will ask where they’re going with the suitcases and why Kent isn’t with them. She’ll smile and tell him St. John’s. That Kent will join them on Saturday, after his fish plant business. She’ll tell him to hand over the tickets then, so that the three of them can walk along the gangway and up to the canteen before the line-up starts. She’ll say thanks when he wishes them a good trip.
The phone rings. She turns off the water and then grabs a drying towel hanging inside the door beneath the sink. The burning is back by the time she presses the ‘talk’ button.
“Hello.”
“Mrs. Gyles?”
“Yes.” She moves the phone away, then blows on her finger. Puts the receiver back to her ear.
“…here in Gander.”
“Sorry, what?”
“This is Mrs. Butler and I’m a nurse at the James Paton hospital here in Gander.”
“Hospital did you say?” It’s her father. A heart attack, or one of those brain aneurysms. On a slab in the morgue. The top of her feels heavy suddenly, almost too much for her legs to support. The countertop helps keep her upright.
“Are you still there?”
Despite the lack of breath, she’s able to say, “What’s happened?”
“There’s been an accident.”
It’s even worse, she thinks. Her dad mangled behind the wheel of his car. Mom too. Need to identify the bodies.
She can’t speak.
“Your husband…”
Although she keeps the phone pressed against her ear, she can’t hear anything the woman is saying. She’s become blind and deaf, incapable of deciphering words.
“Mrs. Gyles?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Mrs. Gyles?” the nurse says again. “Did you hear what I just said?”
She forces herself back into the moment – in the kitchen with her hands pressed against the countertop, her head tilted towards her shoulder, the cordless phone trapped in between. “No.”
“No?”
“Tell me again.”
“I said your husband fell asleep behind the wheel…”
He can’t be hurt, she thinks. Bruised maybe, cut too, but not hurt. Not really.
“…veered off the highway and down an embankment…”
She sees his eyes close in sleep, his head slump forward, his beautiful truck, his pride and joy, plunging over the bank and into the dark woods. Him waking long enough to be knocked unconscious, his body falling this way and that way because he’s not bothered wearing his seatbelt.
“…glass from the windshield embedded in his forehead…”
Did he think of them, she wonders, in his brief moment of waking before the world turned black?
“…broken collar bone…”
Or was there nothing? Just the tumbling truck and the sound of crunched metal and snapping branches and him inside, alone. All alone.
“…overnight for observation…”
Quiet then. The headlights still on and his crushed chest fighting to rise and fall. Rain on the windshield, and only one wiper working.
“…released in the morning –”
“What?”
“I said, he’ll be released in the morning. He’s very lucky. It could have been a lot worse.”
She manages to walk herself over to the table and sit down. Overnight for observation, the woman had just said. Released in the morning. It occurs to her that the one thing she’s been trying so hard to run away from now lies beneath white sheets at the Gander hospital. Bare chest, probably, his arms outside the blankets pressed to his sides, new wounds on his forehead to keep the nearly healed one above his eye company, and a broken collar bone. It’s like he’s left without bothering to close the door, left it swinging on its hinges in the wind. Nothing to prevent her now from walking right through it.
“He asked for you,” the nurse says.
“Did he?”
“Yes. He’ll call, I’m sure, once he wakes up.”
“I won’t let the phone out of my hand.”
“Can you come? He shouldn’t be driving.”
“I’ll take the first ferry out of Lightning Cove tomorrow morning,” she says. I’d intended to anyway.
“He’s going to be fine.”
“Okay.”
“In the best hands here, he is.”
“I’m sure. Thank you.”
She presses the ‘off’ button before the nurse has a chance to say goodbye and brings a fe
w fingers to her forehead, trying to massage the tension away.
How often has she wished for this very thing? Kent striking a moose on a foggy night or traveling too far over the median into an oncoming transport truck or spilling his Tim Horton’s coffee and wrapping himself around a tree. A light pole. How comforting, for a time, those thoughts had been. So why then hasn’t she run into the children’s rooms and covered them in kisses, or poured herself a glass from the half-full bottle of cabernet sauvignon sitting on the counter, or run out on the porch and screamed at the top of her lungs, a scream of joy for being so close to what she’s wanted since forever?
She tries summoning happiness. Imagines it as a liquid in the body of a needle, the tip being inserted into her vein. But happiness doesn’t come. Not a drop of it. Instead what she feels is relief. That it wasn’t her father. Her mother. That Kent was not badly hurt.
Lynette’s there suddenly. Or perhaps she’s been there all along.
“What, sweetie?”
“Something’s burning.”
It’s takes a moment for her to remember there’s food in the oven. “The fish sticks!” she says, rushing over to the stove.
A cloud of smoke billows out when she lowers the door. “It’s burned, I’ve burned your supper.” She grabs oven mitts and hauls out the pan. The fire alarm goes off as she lays the pan on one of the elements. “Ruined,” she says, “ruined.”
She slips off one of the mitts and walks to the fire alarm near the threshold of the hallway, close to where Lynette is. Stands beneath it, waving the mitt back and forth.
The commotion brings Jeremy out of his room. He stands behind his sister.
The alarm stops. She stays there looking up at it, expecting it to start again. It doesn’t.
“How come you’re crying?” Lynette says to her.
“Hmm?”
“You’re crying.”
She wipes at her eyes, surprised to feel wetness there. “The smoke, sweetie.”
She walks back to the stove. Looks down at the shriveled, blackened fish sticks, the fries that look like charred bacon.
“What are we going eat now?” Jeremy says.
She turns around, the oven mitt still in her hand. Forces a smile. “How does take-out sound?”
FRIDAY
