Flight

by Darren Hynes

  “All you’re good for is bagging groceries. What can you give her?”

  “I want to go on the plane,” Lynette says again. “I want to go with Mommy.”

  “There,” Emily says. “She’s chosen.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. What kind of father would I be if I gave her to a woman who can’t make anymore than minimum wage?”

  Lynette starts to cry softly.

  “And don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to with that Terry Hodder either.”

  She needs a moment to process his words. “What?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t ask him to go with you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about – ”

  “Or maybe he’s waiting for you on the other end already, is that it?”

  She nearly laughs out loud. “The shit you dream up.”

  “No wonder you were always in such a hurry to get to work.” He pauses for a second, then says, “Frankly, I’m surprised that you would stoop so low. Not the best looking fella’ on the block, is he?”

  “You’re crazy, you know that. Terry’s been nothing but a gentleman. You’re not even in his league.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, perhaps I’ll pay him a visit when I get back.”

  She remembers her nightmare from the other morning: Kent standing over Terry’s body, blood all over Terry’s shirt. She shuts the image out. Doesn’t say anything. Can’t. Cold all over. Sweating, but cold all over. Empty, that’s how she feels, a pumpkin with a scooped out centre. Finally, she says, “I’ll call the cops if you so much as touch him.”

  “Protecting your boyfriend now, are ya?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Call the cops, will ya? And what do you think they’ll say when I tell them that you were trying to kidnap my kids?”

  “They’ll say I should have done it ages ago.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right, once they hear what you’re like.”

  Lynette rests her chin on her father’s shoulder.

  “A slut’s all you are. A slut in high school and a slut now.”

  “Don’t say that in front of my daughter,” she says, the words coming from somewhere outside of herself.

  The pale attendant at the gate looks in their direction.

  “Oh,” he says, “it’s my daughter now, is it?”

  “You can say what you want to me, just not in front of her.”

  “I think this is something that a daughter might like to know about her mother.”

  “Kent!”

  Lynette lifts her head in order to wipe her eyes, then looks at her father. “Put me down.”

  “Give her to me,” Emily says.

  “Stay with your dad for now, sweetie, okay?”

  “Will passengers, Emily Gyles, Lynette Gyles, and Jeremy Gyles please come to the gate for boarding. Passengers, Emily Gyles, Lynette Gyles, and Jeremy Gyles. Thank you.” The attendant’s looking right at her, charcoal eyes in a milk-coloured face.

  She can hear her own breathing. There’s a thumping in her inner ear, as if the pulse in her neck has relocated there. Those wandering behind him have gone blurry, out of focus, their movements slowed, their voices metallic. All that’s clear is him: the colours of his clothes like fresh paint, bruises seemingly darkened, cuts suddenly re-opened and gushing thick blood, even the few hairs in one of his nostrils are visible.

  She lays her good hand, palm down, on one side of her, tries to suck in enough breath to speak. Nothing comes.

  She manages to unclamp her jaw. Perhaps some words will come now. Nothing does though. That’s when she sees Jeremy standing just outside the security gate. He lowers his eyes when he sees her watching, his hands in his pockets.

  Kent calls out to him. “I told you to wait in the truck.”

  “You were taking forever.”

  Kent puts Lynette down. “Take your sister out to play the video game.”

  “That game’s ancient, Dad.”

  “Then buy yourselves something at the restaurant.” Kent squats down and hands Lynette ten dollars. “Go on, sweetheart,” he says. “Go out with your brother.”

  Lynette takes the money, but doesn’t go. She stares at her mother.

  Emily stares back, wishing there was some way to scoop her youngest into her arms and run to the plane without Kent catching them.

  “Go on, sweetheart,” Kent says. “All sorts of yummy things in the restaurant.”

  Stay, baby, stay! She thinks to herself. Mommy can’t lose you too.

  “Come on, Lynette,” Jeremy says.

  Lynette looks at her again, then goes and joins her brother. Jeremy snatches the money fromher hands as soon as she gets there. He heads to the restaurant. Lynette follows.

  The terminal is practically deserted now. Emily looks at the plane, then at the attendant, the plane, the attendant, resisting the urge to get to her feet and burst through the gate. How can she though, without her children?

  Kent’s looking down at her.

  The attendant’s staring too.

  She turns towards the window. A man wearing a backwards baseball hat stands beside the plane holding what looks to her like an orange baton. The now-empty baggage car goes past him, its driver lifting a few fingers from the steering wheel as if to say, The show’s all yours. The baton-holding man cocks his head and gives the ‘thumbs up.’ She imagines the captain and first mate in the cockpit putting on headphones and talking into little mouthpieces, pressing buttons above and in front of them. Then the captain looking out his window directly at her. What are you waiting for? she hears him say.

  She thinks it’s Kent speaking to her first, but when she looks up, it’s the attendant. Taller close up, longer face too, a twig-like neck. Hardly any breasts.

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  Kent’s standing in the same spot. Looking at the both of them now.

  “I said the plane’s not going to wait forever.” She looks at him, then back at her. “You’re Mrs. Gyles, right?”

  Emily nods.

  The lady looks at Kent again, then bends over and puts her mouth close to Emily’s ear, breath like peppermint Certs. Whispering now, she says, “Is everything all right?”

  Emily nods.

  “All’s I need to do is make a call, you know. He can’t stop you from getting on board.”

  Kent’s still looking, big pupils, and a grin so slight that she doubts anyone other than herself can see it.

  For a second she considers getting the lady to help get the children on board, but then changes her mind. No sense in it so long as Jeremy wants to stay with his father. And Kent’s already warned her about trying to take Lynette. You can go, but not with her. Besides, he’s right, taking the children would be kidnapping. Even if she did manage to get away, how long before the cops tracked her down? How long can you hide two youngsters? Stick out like boils the three of them would in Vancouver. What does she know about city life, any- way? She thinks that St. John’s is too big. All those cars and one-way roads, the crowds down on George and Water Streets. Never off the island in her whole life and yet, somehow, she was silly enough to convince herself that she could make her way in a city like Vancouver. Over two million people. Four Newfoundland’s.

  “Two minutes and I won’t be able to stop it, Mrs. Gyles,” says the thin attendant. She straightens up to full height before adding, “Decide quick.” Another look at Kent before walking away: blue tights and flat bum beneath a blue skirt, hair bobbed and bouncing, heels too long for skinny, on-the-cusp-of-breaking ankles.

  How could a plan that had seemed so practical a few short weeks ago now feel as likely as changing the colour of her skin? She can’t think straight. Something else Kent has taken from her. In her mind, all she’d wanted was to get away. So far away. Off the island and past Halifax and P.E.I. and Toronto and Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Alberta. And farth
er still. Even Vancouver seemed too close. She’d have chosen Japan if she could have. Another planet. Away. That’s all she’d desired. Desired it so much in fact that she didn’t stop to consider the consequences. And now here she is with the plane about to take off without her and him standing over her. Always over her. A prisoner now. Forever. If he doesn’t kill her, she’ll lose her mind. Or perhaps she has already.

  Kent comes closer so that he’s standing between her parted legs.

  She lets him.

  “Come home,” he says.

  She doesn’t speak.

  “Won’t you?”

  All you’re good for is bagging groceries. What can you give her? He’s right. What can she offer? No trade, no university – nothing. And what happens when the money runs out? Cause it will, eventually. What then?

  “Or else they’ll be picking up pieces of Terry Hodder all over Lightning Cove.”

  “They’ll be anyway whether I do or not.”

  “Not if you come back.”

  She manages to hold his gaze for a second before turning to look once more at the gate, into the eyes of the Air Canada attendant, eyes longing to give her more time even though there isn’t any.

  “I love you,” he says.

  She turns back to him.

  “I said I love – ”

  “Yes, I heard you.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  She goes to say something, but stops herself.

  “Say it,” he says.

  She breathes and tries again. “Love me one second, then hate my guts the next.”

  “What?”

  “Grip my throat with the same hand that you lay over my belly button.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m so sick of being scared…” She almost cries, but manages to stifle it. “…when I hear your truck in the driveway, when you twist the handle of the door, when you lie down beside me.”

  He just looks at her.

  “I’m so stupid, so fucking stupid.”

  He takes half a step forward, but she brings her knees together, stopping him.

  He stares at her for a long time before turning to look at Lynette and Jeremy. They’re near the security entrance again sharing something from a greasy paper bag. Onion rings, Emily thinks.

  After a while, she says, “She had fries not ten minutes ago.”

  “What?”

  “Lynette, I bought her french fries not long before you got here.”

  “Oh.”

  Kent takes a few steps towards them.

  She watches.

  He stops. Then says to them, “Go wait in the truck.”

  Lynette takes the onion ring that she was just about to chew out of her mouth. “We’re not going on the plane then, Daddy?”

  Kent shakes his head. “No honey. Not today.”

  Jeremy’s mouth is stuffed. He’s licking the grease from his fingers.

  “Go on,” Kent says.

  “Mommy’s coming?” Lynette says.

  Kent gives Emily a look over his shoulder, then focuses back on his daughter. “Yes, sweetheart; Mommy’s coming.”

  Emily watches the children leave.

  Kent comes back.

  She looks at him.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  She doesn’t move.

  He holds out his hand. “Come on.”

  Still she doesn’t move.

  He stares right into her. “When you decide to give up this foolishness, I’ll be waiting in the truck.” His eyes linger on her a moment longer, then he turns and walks away, his strides older, more of an effort to lift his feet. The accident, she thinks. Kinks in his armour. A man after all. Just a man.

  A sound of engines to her right.

  She looks out onto the tarmac. The baton-man is guiding the plane into a wide circle towards the runway. No other planes in sight.

  A voice behind her then. The Air Canada attendant. “Too late now,” she says.

  Emily turns away from the window and looks up at the woman. It takes everything inside her to stay seated, not to stand up and go outside to him. She stares harder into the woman’s eyes.

  “What?”

  Emily says nothing.

  The woman sits beside her.-

  A long silence.

  “Is there something I can do?” the woman says finally.

  “Let me just sit here for a minute?”

  “Okay.”

  Emily’s tears are dripping onto her own hands.

  The Air Canada attendant hands over a tissue.

  “Thank you.” She dabs at her eyes. Blows her nose. Dabs at her eyes again because the tears won’t stop. After a long time, she says, “All of this waiting, and the farthest I could get was the airport.” Laughter then; tears are running down her face, yet she’s laughing.

  The Air Canada attendant stares at her.

  Emily stops. Breathes. Breathes again. “What good is running away if I have to keep looking over my shoulder? Or through the window above the door? That’s not freedom.”

  The thin woman just stares at her.

  “Perhaps I was never meant to go. Do you think?”

  The woman doesn’t say anything.

  Emily dries her eyes for the last time. Puts the tissue in her pocket.

  Another moment passes.

  Emily starts to get to her feet.

  The Air Canada employee helps her.

  They walk a little ways, then stop in time to watch the plane speed off down the runway and slip up into the sky.

  “That’s my favourite part,” Emily says.

  “Take-off?”

  Emily nods.

  Neither speaks for a moment. Then the woman says, “It’s coming down, for me.”

  Emily stays watching for a long time. Then she leaves the security gate and goes toward the waiting truck. Walks through the sliding doors.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To my first readers: Richard Hynes, Lori MacLean, Trona Balkissoon, and Gerri Hynes, thank you so much.

  Gil Adamson, thank you for reading and offering such valuable editorial direction. Thanks also for your guidance and friendship. I am truly indebted.

  Joel Hynes, your good word on my behalf was very much appreciated, as was all your sound advice.

  Ed Kavanagh, your honesty made this book better.

  Annamarie Beckel, thanks for giving the manuscript a thorough read. Your helpful comments and insights undoubtedly shaped this novel.

  The Humber School for Writers, thank you. Especially, Michael Helm.

  Wherever you are, Paul Quarrington, thanks for the wings and Guinness and shoptalk.

  A special thanks to: Eileen Morrow at The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses for the taking the time to talk to me about domestic violence.

  Thanks a million, Paul Rowe, Sherry White, Brian O’Dea, Dawson Oake, and especially my mom, June.

  To Donna and Janine and the whole crowd at Creative Book Publishing, thank you for taking a chance on a first-time writer, and for believing in this book.

  And finally to my love, Michelle. It’s only possible because of you.

  The second youngest of eight children, Darren Hynes was born in Fogo Island, Newfoundland, but grew up in Labrador City. He has a BFA (Theatre) from Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing from the Humber School for Writers in Toronto. Darren lives in Toronto and is currently at work on his second novel.

 

 

 
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