The Waiting Hours

by Shandi Mitchell

  “Okay, then.” Mike had solved another crisis. “Let’s get ready for bed.” He stood and his back pinched. He grunted upright and headed for the house. Caleb didn’t follow.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “Do I have to go to jail now?” His cheeks were blotching red.

  “No, Caleb.” His little boy was so soft. It worried him. “Let’s go inside.”

  “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” What he meant was You’re my son forever and ever. I will always protect you. Connor was squirming and his diaper was full. “Yes, stinky boy, I smell you. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  “IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.”

  He looked back to Caleb. The kid liked to push it.

  “Get in the house. Now.” He didn’t leave room for debate.

  By the flinch of his cheek, he knew Caleb heard him. Mike trailed him inside. He didn’t know how Lori did this day after day.

  20

  Tamara clipped the obituary from the newspaper, careful not to lose any words. She folded up the Arts and Life section and the arbitrary words she had filled in the crossword while reading the adjacent notices. She appreciated the juxtaposition of comics and death side by side.

  4 down, Vast expanse: Him

  JOHNSON, DEVON, 12, was a caring, fun-loving boy, who loved music, piano, riding his bike, and his friends.

  6 across, More acute: Antoine

  An honours student and recipient of a Maritime Conservatory Music bursary, he was preparing for his Grade 8 piano exam.

  After school, he worked part-time at J&J’s Grocery delivering groceries to those unable to get out. Often, if they had a piano, he would stay and play for them.

  Devon is survived by his mother…

  22 down, Dyeing art: Devon

  A Home Going Service will be held Monday, August 30, 10:00 a.m. at Cornwallis Baptist Church. Donations can be made to the Devon Johnson Music Fund.

  She trashed the remaining unread pages and carried the small square of paper to the living room and opened the piano stool. She pushed aside the music books, then laid the clipping alongside two other small squares, yellow and brittle, and closed the bench.

  She ran her hand over the silk scarf bundling her braids. Tonight, her hair would stay in place. She checked the door, shut off the lights, and headed to bed. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed.

  911. What is your emergency?

  The words were calm and comforting. She smoothed the silk wrap encasing her pillow, adjusted the fan’s direction, and turned off the lamp. Her eyes adjusted to the moon’s light. The sheets smelled clean and cooled her skin.

  She breathed in the sweet scent of the wild rose sprig. On her side table, she could make out the water glass and the flower’s bowed head. She touched its petals and thought about the taxi driver’s hand and his thick, short fingers and the white scars marring his misshapen knuckles. And how gently he held the stem between his fingertips. An older man’s hand that reminded her that she was younger. But not too much. And about how his words sounded like music. She couldn’t remember the poem, but she could hear its rhythm. It sounded like a river. He was a nice man. She saw it in his eyes. Younger eyes that smiled easily. Her Granny Nan always said, The eyes will tell you everything. She shut her eyes.

  Tomorrow was another day. Tonight she would sleep. Tomorrow she would work. Tonight she would sleep. Tomorrow she would work, and the day after that, and the day after that…

  26 across, Ocean motion: blue

  Blue was the colour of the dress she would wear to his funeral.

  21

  Zeus groaned when Kate kicked off the sheets. Her bedroom was stifling. She checked the time again. The red light glared 2:28 a.m. The night was never going to end. Outside, through her open window, university students whooped and serious drunken young men murmured about serious things. The power pole outside her window was humming and Zeus was snoring.

  Enough.

  She eased out of bed, snuggling the covers against Zeus. On her way to the kitchen, she tripped over her boots. Zeus watched her, but didn’t bother to get up.

  She opened the fridge and the light blinded her. Drinking from the orange juice container, she leaned into the open door. Cold air rolled up her belly and over her breasts. She shut the fridge and the room went black. She held her ground until she could discern the room carved from streetlight. The voices receded.

  Her skin felt dry and her eyes stung. She shouldn’t have had that coffee and wondered if a beer would help, or a whiskey, but she was out of whiskey. She traced the kitchen counter to the catch-all drawer and rifled through it. Something sharp jabbed her finger. She weaseled around it until she felt the pack. There were two cigarettes inside. Months old, forgotten by a friend. She turned the stove burner on high and waited for the snaked coil to glow. Lighting the smoke, she inhaled deep and held her breath. Then she remembered the smoke alarm overhead.

  She hurried to the living room, cranked open the casement window, and exhaled through the gap. Her head floated and she leaned against the sash to steady herself from the nicotine rush. The street was empty and the houses were dark. She took another long drag and her shoulders dropped.

  She hated days off, too much time to think. She wasn’t good at waiting. Something would eventually happen. Her mother would live. Her mother would die. Her brother would return. Her brother would be lost. There was nothing she could do but wait for whatever was next. Now was the time to rest and gather strength for when she was needed. Now was the time to sleep. Follow the nurse’s creed: Keep yourself intact. In a few hours, she would be back at work. She focused on the glow of the cigarette’s ember. Zeus brushed against her bare leg. She reached down and rubbed his ears, keeping the smoke high above his head.

  “Some things are just sad,” she said.

  Zeus cocked his ears. He was a good listener, but tonight she didn’t feel like telling him her stories. The red tip flared in her reflection. Headlights skimmed the street. She didn’t retreat from the window. She willed the driver to look up. She wanted someone to see her. Maybe even smile. Someone who would remember her fondly and twenty years from now affectionately tell the story of the Woman in the Window. Her nipples were erect and the cigarette burned low.

  The car drove past. She looked down at her body, pale and stark in the street lamp’s light. She laid her hand on her belly and conjured Riley’s arm holding her close. Zeus pressed harder against her leg.

  “I know,” she said. “He’s with her.”

  She let the cigarette smoulder until she could feel its burn.

  22

  Hassan pulled into the international departures lane and eased in behind another parked cab. The night was grinding along. There had been only four calls and another three hours remained before he could pick up Tamara to drive her to work. A security officer leaning against the wall assumed an official stance. Here, his skin colour made people nervous. He checked the rear-view mirror. His fare was slumped forward with his head on his chest. “We’re here.”

  The man’s head snapped forward, sucking up drool. Bleary eyed, he took in the fluorescent lights and low building. He groped for his wallet in his breast pocket. It was an expensive suit, tailored. He passed Hassan a wad of twenties and opened his smart phone. The cab’s interior glowed blue. Hassan counted out the change. Men like this preferred him counting out the change. The man waved away the bills. It was a decent tip.

  “What time is it in London?” He tapped numbers into his phone.

  “I don’t know, sir.” Men like him preferred “sir.” He popped the trunk and hauled the luggage to the curb. The two sleek hard cases had the sheen of sports cars. He considerately extended the handles. The man climbed out of the cab with the phone to his ear.

  “I dunno. I just got here, I’m checking in…” He squinted at his expensive watch. “It’s four thirty here.” The man looked from his bags to the door to Hassan, then headed for the r
evolving doors.

  Hassan shut the trunk. “Have a good flight, sir.”

  Men like him were always surprised when he didn’t carry their bags. He settled into his seat and took a sip of his lukewarm tea, extra-large, three sugars, three milk. In the side mirror, he watched the man struggle with his suitcases, refusing to relinquish the phone propped to his shoulder. The car radio glowed 3:31 a.m. The man’s expensive watch was not good with time.

  He looped around the partially constructed ten-storey hotel. Billboards proclaimed Coming Soon, but the project was bankrupt. The shell of steel girders and cement floors jutted ragged and abandoned. He heard it was being torn down. This country liked to tear things down rather than use what it already had.

  He settled back into the vinyl indentation of himself, thankful he owned such a good, solid, reliable car. It wasn’t easy finding parts for a ten-year-old Buick, and its size made it challenging to park, but it was a real automobile of chrome and metal. The weather report came on and he turned up the radio. Continuing hot and sunny. A storm forming off the coast was gaining strength due to the elevated water temperature and was expected to become a Cat 1 hurricane. Early projections were indicating a possible landfall. He shut off the radio. Forecasters had been wrong before.

  The last one wasn’t supposed to make landfall and look what happened. The roads were a mess for days with crushed cars, blocked streets, and lingering power outages. He had a good couple of weeks ferrying passengers to work, restaurants, and pubs. Another storm like that and he could buy new tires and maybe replace the shocks.

  He headed down the side road leading to the cargo and freight compounds, until he reached a dead-end hemmed in by warehouses—his favourite waiting place. He couldn’t risk napping now for fear of not hearing his alarm. He would sleep after he picked up Tamara. He nosed the hood close to the tarmac’s fence and shut off the lights and engine. It wouldn’t be long before a security vehicle pulled up and blinded him with their spotlight. They knew his car and his name, but never remembered it.

  He rolled down his window. The night chirped with crickets and frogs. Moths and crane flies ricocheted around the coned lights embedded in the runway. He had flown only once, eleven years ago on a one-way flight. Even if he could afford to travel now, he had nowhere to return to and no desire to go elsewhere. He was content circumnavigating the globe in books. He had walked Scottish moors, huddled in bunkers on the Western Front, climbed Kilimanjaro, voyaged the Congo River, run with wolves, and stood on the deck of the Pequod as surely as he was sitting here drinking cold tea.

  It was true there were things he would never know: the taste of cut sugar cane, the sound of a trumpet in Brazil, the smell of a glacier, the colour of Diwali, the undulation of the northern lights, the smell of the fish markets in China, the neon shock of Times Square…but he was not a writer. It would sadden him to see such life and not have words to describe it.

  The clock ticked over another minute. Tamara would be sleeping now. He wondered if she travelled in her dreams. He hoped so. Her eyes seemed filled with stories he would like to someday hear. He drained his cup to the slurry, syrupy bottom.

  A high-pitched whine screamed to its frenzied pitch. The frame of the car vibrated up through his bones and quivered the dregs of his tea. He leaned forward to widen his view through the windshield. A quaking roar and a jet appeared, engines screeching, climbing impossibly skyward. Red-green-white lights and wings sheared the night. Pale faces opaque in windows. The landing gear retracted, groaning against the folding of its mechanical limbs into its tin underbelly…

  He watched the plane’s lights until they were lost in the stars. It was flying east into the sun rising and rising. He lifted his cup to the sky: Safe journey. High beams blasted the interior of his cab. He raised his other hand to show he meant no harm.

  * * *

  —

  Hassan lowered the visor to the blaze of morning and checked the rear-view mirror. Tamara hadn’t said a word since getting in the cab’s back seat. The black-eyed Susans brightening the dash he had snipped fresh from a south-end garden went unacknowledged. She kept her eyes downcast and concentrated on her hands on her lap. When they crossed the bridge, she shut her eyes, and didn’t open them again.

  He worried he had done something wrong. When he’d picked her up, he held the door open and said, “Another beautiful day,” but she didn’t respond. After yesterday, he thought she might sit in the front seat and her smile would say Good morning, Hassan, and they would talk about books.

  He pulled up close to the security door. The surveillance cameras and severe concrete building tightened his heart. It happened every time, even though there weren’t guards posted at the steel door. His eyes and his heart chose to believe different things. Tamara unfastened her seatbelt and slipped her security badge over her head. She handed him the fare and refused the change.

  “I’ll pick you up this evening?” Not wanting to transgress further, he hesitated to use her name.

  “Yes. Please,” she added, without looking up. She remained seated. “Hassan, yesterday…that wasn’t me.”

  He wasn’t sure whether she meant the woman with the new hair or the woman who sat in the front seat or the woman who cried.

  She said, “Some days are just…”

  “Yes,” he said. “Some days are.”

  She reached into her purse. “I thought you might like this. It’s not new…I’ve read it, but…” She passed him a hardcover book. It had weight and its jacket was smooth and glossy. The end cuts were unspoiled and the spine pristine, unlike his thrift-store buys. “A small thank-you for yesterday. If you don’t like it, I have others.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  Before he could thank her with proper words, she stepped out of the cab.

  “I’ll be here,” he said, but the window was up and she didn’t hear.

  With each step, she settled into her stride. He watched her back straighten, neck elongate, and chin tilt up. It must be an important job that required her to be that strong. She swiped her badge and stepped inside. There she is, he thought.

  The glass building prickled his sleep-deprived eyes. He lowered the visor and opened the book. Not a single page was dog-eared or inked with marginalia or brittle with mustiness. It didn’t matter that he had read it before.

  He lifted it to his nose and inhaled the new pages. It smelled like the sun-warmed skin of his wife.

  23

  Mike wrenched the steering wheel hard left and barrelled up the centre line, forcing the traffic to part. The siren wailed to clear the intersection. Move! Cars braked in front of him. Revving his engine, he nudged tight against the bumper of a sedan. In the passenger seat, an elderly man excitedly motioned the driver to pull over. Brake lights flashed as the car lurched curbside. Mike veered around it, glaring at the grey-haired woman clutching the steering wheel, and accelerated through the red light.

  10–30. Proceed with caution. 34–year–old male. Caucasian. History of mental instability. Suspect armed with knife. Mother knife wound upper shoulder. Guns in house. Officers on scene. Bus en route. Request for backup.

  He swerved hard as a pedestrian ran across the road. His tires fished on the searing asphalt. This was his third call since shift began and it wasn’t even noon. Nineteen calls yesterday. The city was losing its friggin’ mind in the heat.

  He sped through the residential street with its two-car garages and manicured lawns. Triple his pay grade. The on-board computer spewed directions. He typed through the turn—10-23 Arriving on scene. The screen showed the blips of three cars converging and two on site. He shut off his siren.

  Up ahead, two police vehicles were jackknifed across the street. Gawkers and media weren’t on scene yet. He slammed to a stop. As he stepped out of the car, he unfastened his Taser and weapon holsters. He reflexively touched his chest for assurance. Bulletproof vest. Check. The house looked like any other house on the street.

  A woman, mid-forties, wa
s sitting on the curb. On closer approach, he reassessed her age to be mid-fifties. Eyeliner smeared her eyes. Her tank top and pants were spattered red. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Kneeling beside her, Constable Raylene Wade was applying pressure to the shoulder wound. She had the reputation of being a steady cop. Ten feet from the front steps, a second officer had his gun drawn. He was young. Mike couldn’t remember his name.

  On the doorstep was a man. Naked, thin, butcher knife in hand, screaming incomprehensibly. Blood trickled down his arms and legs from what appeared to be bite wounds. Inside the house, a German shepherd barked hysterically. It clawed at the aluminum screen door’s glass. The thin metal flexed with each pounce.

  Mike hitched up his holster and his lower back twinged. The mother’s pupils were dilated in shock. Raylene’s eyes said she had it under control. The woman pleaded with him. “Please don’t hurt him. Please. He’s sick.”

  “Ma’am, what his first name?”

  “He didn’t mean it. I was vacuuming and it was too loud. He doesn’t like things loud. My son wouldn’t hurt me.”

  The rookie was yelling at the man to drop the weapon. His voice was hoarse and his inflection shrill. He was scared. He was aiming point-blank at the man’s chest.

  Mike urged the mother along. “We’re here to help him, ma’am. Tell me his name so we can help him.” His voice was controlled, belying his urge to scream at the woman to stop wasting time. He took a precious moment to look her in the eyes. Trust me, I’m all you have. Her lips tightened and the corner of her mouth trembled. He had her.

  “Luke.”

  He said the name loud and certain. “Luke!”

  The man looked at him, his eyes wild and sunken. Mike approached slow and calm, taking his position alongside the rookie. His kept his hands low, slightly raised to show he didn’t have a weapon.