In the Field

by Claire Tacon

  “It happened the night before you got here.”

  Richard clenches his fist and bangs it against the dashboard so hard that the whole unit shudders. He slaps his open palm down in the same spot. Dust stirs up with each hit.

  “Don’t.” I reach over to stop him. “The airbag.”

  He leans back in his seat, breathing hard and shallow, pressing the exhale out between his lips. The whole of his body is humming with rage. “With him?” he asks. “Him? What the fuck does he give you?”

  Anything I say will roll away cold and hard like a marble.

  “Do you think I haven’t had opportunities to cheat? I’ve always respected you.” He rubs his hands across his head. “I don’t even know if you used a condom.”

  “It’s never happened before,” I say. Not even close.

  “How could you after the fire?”

  “I didn’t want to after that first time.”

  “So what does that make you?”

  The guilt is a hollow along my sternum, the scrape of a plow over bedrock.

  Richard shakes his head. “You want to act like a teenager, go ahead. But I sure as hell don’t want my sons being raised by one.”

  He grabs hold of the wheel and lets out a deep, wounded groan and I realize how decent he was to tell the boys to go inside. Even a yell at that volume would barely make it out of the car.

  10

  THE FIRST THING I do is leave a message on the Kentville Agricultural Centre’s voicemail, withdrawing my name from the competition. Richard’s still prone when I open the door to tell him. The sleeping bag is low on his chest and he’s got one arm behind his head, the other draped off the mattress. It’s the same pose he always has in the early morning. I stand in the doorway, wishing I were lying next to him, the whole flank of my body draped over his. It doesn’t seem possible for that kind of intimacy to be finished between us.

  Richard catches me looking at him and reaches for his shirt. “The boys up?”

  I shake my head. He pulls his jeans on under the sheets and motions for me to sit on the corner of the mattress. “Did you sleep?”

  Not really. Neither of us did.

  “I think the best thing would be for me to drive back with the boys tomorrow. You’ve got your hands full with your mother.”

  “Are we really doing this?”

  “I can’t stay here.”

  “What if I went with you?” I tell him about my phone call.

  “You can’t ask me to accept this right away.” He lowers his voice to a whisper, the calm so incongruous with what he’s saying.

  He wants to talk to the boys right away. I don’t ask him to, but he promises not to tell them about the affair. “But,” he warns, “I’m not going to lie if they hear it from someone else.”

  We choose the living room because it’s the only place with enough seats. Richard’s on a chair from my mother’s room, the boys on the loveseat Bernie brought up from the basement. I’m on an upturned milk crate and the plastic hatching digs into my legs. Luke wants to sit on my lap, which I don’t allow because we want to keep this as neutral as possible. Stephen hasn’t spoken to me at all this morning. Both of the boys are on edge—they’ve never really seen us fighting before and they know something’s off.

  I start the conversation. “Your father and I are sorry about the fight last night. You shouldn’t have had to see that.”

  Stephen rolls his eyes. “Can you guys talk to Bernie and Linda before I have to see Max again?”

  Richard gives him a stern look and he slumps back into the cushion, propelling a cloud of dust. The couch came from the house’s previous owners. Dad always meant to re-cover it.

  “We’ve decided to go home,” Richard continues. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow. Your mom’s going to stay for a while to take care of your grandmother.”

  Luke wants to know when I’ll be home.

  “There’s a lot that still needs looking after here.”

  “That’s crap,” Stephen says. “You’re separating, aren’t you? Because of Bernie.”

  Richard stares Stephen head-on, waiting for the explanation. My instinct is to pull Luke outside, but if Stephen knows, Luke will find out.

  “Because Bernie’s an asshole but Mom’s friends with him.” For all of Stephen’s maturity in understanding the argument’s implications, he’s still got a child’s perspective.

  “We’re not separating,” Richard says.

  Luke doesn’t know what the word means.

  Stephen leans towards his brother. “Divorce.”

  “Stephen.”

  “Well it is. Parents separate and then they get divorced.”

  “We’re trying to take this one step at a time.” There’s nothing to say that doesn’t sound like a TV special.

  “We want you to know that we both love you.”

  “Whatever. I’m not leaving before the soccer tournament.”

  “That’s not until next weekend.”

  “I’m not missing the only good games this team will play all summer because you and Mom had a fight.” He kicks his feet up onto the bookshelf that’s doubling as a table. Dirt flakes off his sneakers onto the veneer.

  Richard’s firm. This isn’t negotiable.

  “You’re the one who’s supposed to know what this means to me.”

  Richard still doesn’t budge.

  “This is bullshit.”

  “Stephen, go to your room.”

  “This fucking sucks.” Stephen stomps off towards the stairs. “I’m glad you guys are splitting—two times the presents at Christmas.”

  Luke is now sobbing. I scoop him onto my lap, rocking him back and forth.

  Stephen watches me from the stairs and scowls. “Why do you always go over to him?”

  “I don’t always. . . .”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You do. It’s okay. Luke’s just a big baby.”

  “Your room, right now,” Richard bellows.

  I put my hand on the top of Luke’s head and whisper, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  Richard tries to give him a hug too, but Luke won’t let go of me. Richard leaves by the side door, the slam quickly followed by the car’s engine revving.

  Luke and I sit until he exhausts himself crying and falls asleep against my chest. I should go upstairs to release Stephen, but can’t let go of this closeness with Luke, this last chance to be a good mother before they leave tomorrow.

  I think about the collection of receipts in my wallet from earlier this summer—BeaverTails in Halifax, admission to Grand Pré, overpriced apple juice from Peggy’s Cove—the last remnants of my naivety that coming here would be good for the boys. I’m forced to confront the fact that because of me, this is the worst summer my sons will ever experience.

  Richard comes back an hour later and announces that he’s willing to stay until after the tournament. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect he spoke with Terrence. He expects the boys to behave, despite the circumstances.

  Richard turns to me when they’ve gone upstairs.

  “This doesn’t change anything.”

  “Everyone knows he only got hired because he’s the son-in-law of the mayor’s sister.”

  When I open the door to my mother’s room, there’s a woman seated in the armchair, knee-deep in conversation. She’s a heavy-set woman in a fuchsia boat-neck, sweat beading up on her collarbone. She doesn’t pause for breath as I come in, just keeps barrelling through her news and swatting the air as if she’s waving away a gnat. “Turns out them carnies never got permits and one of the cages flew off the monkey ride.”

  “Anyone hurt?” my mother asks.

  The woman shakes her head, jangling her tiered earrings. “Hit a parked car ten feet away. You could hear the alarm going off for half an hour.” She must be talking about the annual mini-carnival in the County Fair Mall parking lot. There was an article about it in one of the Kentville Advertisers my mom had lying around.

  I walk over to give my mother
a kiss on the cheek, which she coldly accepts.

  Her visitor does a double take. “No. It’s not,” she stutters. “There’s no way this is our Ellie.” She pries herself out of the chair and grapples me towards her. “You look like you haven’t aged a day. Of course, you’ve got some of them eye lines—what’s the word for that Lynne?—crow’s feet.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Who’d have thought I’d live to see the day that Ellie Lucan has crow’s feet? Thought you were the orderly—you remember me, don’t you?”

  It takes a moment, and then I do. Fat Mary.

  “Your Mom’s kept me up with all your news over the years,” she says. “Sounds like you’ve done well for yourself out in Toronto.”

  I squat on one of the footstools, my back against the base of the bed. “You’re still at the co-op?”

  “God knows I’m going to be there until I buy the farm. I was just telling your mom how my kids haven’t done so well—all over forty and still asking me for money. When it’s not them, it’s the grandbabies.” She crosses herself. “Of course, they all live close by, so that’s a blessing.” She glances at me, then looks down at her hands folded in her lap.

  I feel about as tall as the footstool, crow’s feet and all.

  My mother’s buoyed by the conversation. She laps up Mary’s gossip, which must be what it was like at co-op. When there’s a break in the chatter, I hand over the tin of photos I’ve brought. My mother opens it and digs through the pictures to find one of her wedding reception. There’s one of her and Dad standing in his parents’ backyard; she’s wearing a knee-length wedding dress and Dad’s making bunny ears above her pillbox hat. On the back, there’s a scrawled line “Horsing around, June 7, 1965.”

  “None of the Lucan women had elegant weddings,” my mother says and hands the picture over. “I always wanted to go shopping for Ellie to get one of those princess trains.”

  “You got hitched at city hall, no?” Mary asks.

  “Didn’t want to spend the money.”

  Mary nods. “Costs a fortune now—when my Maureen got married she wanted the whole lace and satin number. We paid over two thousand on it. Looked a picture though.” She hands around a wallet-sized portrait and my mother nods approvingly.

  Mary stays for another half-hour.

  When she leaves, she says, “Got to go visit you-know-who,” and winks.

  At first I think it’s a euphemism for the bathroom.

  “My mother-in-law’s two doors down. Sugar before the pill.”

  As soon as Mary leaves, the room falls quiet. My mother goes back to rustling through the photos. There’s nothing warm in her face—the earlier joy trailed out with Mary’s exit. She asks when she’s going to see the boys and Richard again.

  “I need to tell you something,” I say. “We’ve had a fight.”

  My mother sets the family photos aside. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard all about the noise you were making down Main Street.”

  Fat Mary.

  “You just can’t go around telling people what to do. Well, it’s backfired now and you’re going to have to make it up to Linda and Bernie.”

  “He shouldn’t have been driving home, especially not with the kids.”

  “Things aren’t the same out here with that kind of thing. Besides, you don’t go telling another woman’s man what not to do.” She unwraps one of the caramels that I bought her, the plastic crinkling noisily. “And now you’re going to tell me that you’re going home, aren’t you, before you’ve even got the place fixed up?”

  “All of us are staying until after the tournament.”

  “And after that?”

  “The boys will be going back with their father.” The fight with Richard is too raw to talk about. “I might stay on to take care of you.”

  My mother purses her lips. “I don’t need to be taken care of. Especially now that you’ve got me in here.” That’s what this is all about, the diatribe about minding my own business. She’s still livid about the discharge meeting. “Mary drove by the house. She said the power’s back on. You got water?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. The faster it’s done, the faster I can come home.” She curls back into herself, a giant mollusc settling in for the night.

  I’m the only family she has left. She’s got to forgive me sometime.

  Richard wants nothing to do with me, my mother or this province. He’s holed himself up in the boys’ room, using the phone jack to dial into the U of T Internet. Late Sunday night he was on the phone to the UK, begging BBC Science to reaccept his pitch. They’d already assigned a replacement story to someone else but agreed to accept his article on spec. Once they get it, they’ll decide if it’s worth bumping the other feature.

  Stephen’s spent most of the time in the same room as his Dad, playing video games. The two of them don’t talk. The only signs of life filter out of the room in the electronic pings and zaps when Richard reconnects the modem or Stephen explodes an enemy target. Luke and I have kept busy priming the walls and going to the lake. Meals are the only time we are all together but after ten minutes of stilted small talk, Richard usually puts his food on a paper towel and goes back up to the computer.

  Thursday, Stephen has a soccer game and it’s up to me to take him. I don’t argue. I want the alone time with him because there aren’t many days left to make things right between us.

  On some level, he must know the real problem with Bernie. As badly as I feel about cheating on Richard, I feel worse about the repercussions for the boys. Everything is going to change for them and they’ve had no choice in it, just as I had no choice when my father died. Stephen hasn’t spoken to me since the fight so I’m not sure if he’s had a chance to talk things over with Richard or his granddad. I want to tell him that he should confide in whoever he feels comfortable with. Maybe he’s already figured that out.

  There’s a bit of drizzle—just enough to have to put the intermittent wipers on. I ask if he thinks they’ll cancel and he stares me down, cutting. He springs out of the car as soon as I park. By the time I lock the door he’s already hit the field.

  There aren’t as many parents out today and I wonder if they’re waiting for the big tournament, banking their hours. I climb up to the top of the bleachers and try to get comfortable, hunched over a paperback, my feet up on the seat in front of me. I notice that Max and Stephen aren’t talking, but they’re standing fairly close together. If Max knows about the affair, Stephen’s going to find out tonight.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Linda and Bernie arrive with Lisa and I flip through my book again, a sci-fi thriller that my mother bought years ago from the co-op. I’m too tense to read but I still flip the pages every few minutes, glancing up only occasionally.

  Stephen doesn’t get the ball for a long time—the other team keeps passing it back and forth in our end, but can’t make a play. Finally, he manages to steal the ball and get it over the halfway line before passing back to Max. There’s no goal, but Max gets a shot in and the boys high-five all the same. It’s the greatest relief seeing this small gesture between them.

  With all the motion on the field, it’s hard to keep up the pretence of reading. I drop the book to my knees to watch a corner kick and end up staring straight at Linda. She’s climbing up the bleachers towards me. Bernie and Lisa are nowhere to be seen.

  In high school, I never got in physical fights but I saw a few. The worst was out behind the Cornwallis dumpster. Before they both fell, Denise Round pulled a clump of hair out of Carly Atkins’ ponytail and Carly pummelled her with a right hook that broke two ribs. The playground was paved with coarse gravel asphalt. It looked like the two of them had been in a motorcycle accident, Denise’s cheekbone bruised to eggplant. There must have been fifty of us watching but no one stepped in.

  When Linda reaches me, however, she doesn’t lunge.

  “Bernie’s some pissed with you.” She drops down beside me and pulls out her cigarettes. I don’t know what to say
because she deserves the chance to tear a strip off me. She’s still wearing the manicure from Bernie’s party but one of the palm tree decals has chipped off.

  She doesn’t bat away her exhale when it drifts into my face. “I told Max the fight had nothing to do with him and Stephen.” She takes another drag, her fingers thin as chalk. “It’s not your kid’s fault.”

  Linda shrugs when I thank her. I wonder if she’s warming up to confront me about Bernie.

  “Ellie,” she says. “Sometimes you’ve got your head so far up your ass you can’t see right in front of you.”

  Here we go.

  “Christ, I’ve got to spell it out for you?” She wiggles the fingers on her left hand, showing off a small gold band with a pear-cut diamond. “He popped the question the day after karaoke. Dropped the kids off at my mother’s, took me for dinner over at Peppercorns, got down on his knees when they brought dessert—did the whole thing right. Told me he’d been thinking over the summer, especially the past couple of days. He wants to start our own family.” She taps on the diamond. “It’s a full karat.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Soon as I said yes, he drove over to the mall, told me to pick out whatever I wanted.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “At first, I just picked a little bitty diamond. I figured, you know, don’t press your luck.” She pulls out another cigarette and lights it from her own, then hands it to me. I take it, grateful to have a prop. “I know we haven’t gotten along this summer—I thought you were a stuck-up bitch come sniffing around.” She tilts her head and laughs wryly. “But I’ve been waiting for Bernie to propose for a long time. Whatever you told him this summer’s made up his mind.” She holds out her hand and I have no choice but to take it. “I’m hoping we can start over.”