“Ummâ¦I won't lie and say that I wasn't scared thoughâ¦for a minute. (Coughing, then clearing his throat.) Can you believe it, me scared? Well, I was. (He pauses again.) I saw your face.”
She swallows hard.
“Before the truck went off the road, I mean.”
Now she switches the phone to her other ear, waiting for him to continue.
“You were smiling. (Yawn.) Sorry, I'm so tired.”
She can relate to that.
“You seemed younger, somehow, like when we were first dating.”
In the silence, she senses him wanting to say more about that, about being younger. He doesn't. Instead he says, “Tell the youngsters that daddy loves them.”
Nothing then for a long time. But he's still on the line. She waits. And waits some more.
He sucks in a lot of air all at once and she knows he's crying. It's so foreign a sound coming from him that she fights an urge to throw the machine against the wall.
The message suddenly ends.
She stays where she is looking at the machine as if it might come to life.
The coffee percolator beeps.
She thinks about listening to the message again â
I won't lie and say
that I wasn't scared â
but decides against it
. I saw your face. You were smiling.
She walks past the kitchen and into the foyer, to the door leading to the basement. She twists the knob, lifts, then pushes, her nose at once overcome with mustiness. It's the smell of her life, she thinks, this basement. Kent's unwashed hockey gear and wood glue, homemade quilts and Javex, old newspapers and stacked boxes.
Down she goes, one foot in front of the other, a hand on the rail to guide her. Near the bottom she pulls the chain, then stands there underneath the light feeling removed from herself, as if she's watching it all from outside and above her body.
She steps down finally, moving towards Kent's workstation, feeling as though she's treading water. She reaches underneath, removing the tarp that's covering everything, tossing it aside. She hauls out the two suitcases she'd eyed yesterday. First the smaller blue one â for Jeremy â then the larger green one for her and Lynette. She lays them on either side of her, knowing how difficult it will be to stuff their lives into two pieces of luggage, then carry those lives aboard a plane and try to transplant them someplace else. Each folded shirt a reminder of what was left behind.
She grips the handles and straightens her legs, not bothering to put the tarp back. She goes for the money now.
On her knees, she feels around for the loose panel. She finds it but has trouble lifting the edge. It was much easier when she had strong and polished nails instead of these bitten-to-the-quick ones, the skin around them either chewed or scratched off. She gets an index finger underneath at last, lifting and then pulling it away like a scab. Takes out the bundle she'd gotten at the bank first, transferring it to Jeremy's suitcase, then the airline tickets and the stuffed sock. Zips the suitcase closed and then fits the floorboard back in place.
Sadness presses down on her as she gets to her feet and heads for the stairs. On the second step she stops, wondering if what she's feeling might have something to do with the end of routine. No more weekly deposits beneath the floor, no more constant planning and writing out of lists, no more having to go over everything in her mind. It occurs to her as she pulls the light chain that there had been comfort in repetition, in structure, in knowing what to expect. But now â by taking the stashed money and hauling out the suitcases â she's starting down an unfamiliar path.
In the kitchen, she loses her breath when she sees Kent sitting at the table. Wait. No. It's Jeremy. Just Jeremy. Her boy's not the first that she's mistaken for Kent. Once, she'd walked into Hodder's Grocery and Convenience and could have sworn that the man holding the clipboard was her husband. Another time, at the marina, the man pour- ing her coffee was Kent too. She'd even see him in women. Heather. Her own mother. Sometimes he's everywhere â on her walks with the children, in her sleep, in each person she makes eye contact with. He's like a part of her, an organ in her body, an appendix about to burst.
She stops beside him and rests a hand on his shoulder, his forehead glistening with sweat. “What're you doing up, baby?”
He doesn't answer.
She pulls out a chair and sits alongside him.
His eyes are wide, unblinking, transfixed on the flower-patterned tablecloth.
Quietly, so as not to wake him, she says, “You're still asleep, my love.”
Still he says nothing. Doesn't move.
“Let me take you back to bed.”
She starts to get to her feet when she hears him say, “Where's Dad?”
She freezes. Sits back down. Looks again into his eyes. “Are you asleep, Jeremy?” she asks, unsure of it herself now. “Jeremy?”
He's quiet for a second, then says, “He won't let you.”
“What?”
“He won't.”
She has the strangest feeling of being watched â someone staring through the window at her, or waiting just outside the door, their hands around the knob. She looks behind herself, then towards the hall. Settles on her boy again. “Who won't let me?”
He doesn't answer.
She leans closer. “W
ho
?”
Suddenly he wakes. Looks up at her with disoriented eyes, like he has no idea where he is. It's like he's about to cry.
Emily holds him before he can. Says, “You were talking in your sleep, my love.”
He pushes her away, then says, “I want some juice.”
“You're thirsty?”
He nods. “I want some juice.”
She gets up and goes to the cupboard and takes down a tumbler, laying it on the counter. Grabs the fruit punch out of the fridge. Realizes that the hand holding the container is shaking so badly she can barely pour. A little misses the glass.
She goes to bring it over to him, but sees that he's standing right behind her, in the middle of big yawn. She hands him the glass.
He hardly takes any before handing it back.
“I thought you wanted juice?” she says.
“I'm tired,” he says.
She lays the tumbler on the counter, leads him through the kitchen and back to his bedroom. After tucking him in, she goes to leave but then she stops herself and sits on the edge of his bed in the dark. Runs a hand through his hair. “Are you still awake?”
He pushes her hand away as if it were an extra blanket that he was trying to get out from under. “I'm tired.”
“Jeremy?” she says. “Who won't let me?”
“What?”
He's slipping back into sleep, his legs already starting to twitch.
“You said that someone wouldn't let me. Who?”
Silence.
“Jeremy?”
Deep breathing then, young and unobstructed, his mouth hanging open. She pulls the blankets up to just below his chin, wondering if, somehow, her boy has figured out her plans for later on this morning.
He couldn't possibly know
.
No one does
.
She doesn't consider herself superstitious or even slightly religious. When was the last time she'd walked into the foyer of St. Paul's or cracked open the Bible in the drawer beside her bed? Still though, there are times when she thinks there's a higher power at work, someone watching over things, keeping His/Her hands out of it, but taking stock all the same, delivering messages through peoples' dreams, revealing pieces of the future. Although she's never experienced this herself, hadn't her mother dreamed of her grandfather's death the night before it happened? Saw her husband's swollen prostate before the cancer had a chance to spread? Perhaps Jeremy has inherited a bit of her mother's gift, she thinks.
He won't let you
.
He
meaning Kent, she knows. And what he won't let her do is go.
Instead of going back to the kitchen, she decides to check on Lynette, Jeremy's words in her ears the whole way
. He won't let you.
He was sleepwalking, for heaven's sake, has been every couple of months since he was five or six. How many times has he said or done something strange? Hadn't he, one time, gone to the basement in the middle of the night and tried fitting himself in the dryer? Another time she'd woken to find him eating mayonnaise right from the bottle with his fingers.
Lynette's on her side, her giraffe pressed against her face, when Emily inches open the door.
It's the timing of it, she thinks, that of all the nights, Jeremy would pick this one, the eve of her leaving.
He won't let you.
She goes over to Lynette's bed, feeling the years of living in her legs, in her insides. Although she hadn't intended to, and knowing all the things she's yet to do before the ferry in the morning, she slips in beside her youngest, relishing in the mattress taking her weight, little though it is.
She turns on her side so that her face is pointed towards Lynette's. Noses almost touching, her daughter's sweet breath on her lips and lifting the few hairs off her forehead with each exhale.
Can you believe it? Me scared? Well, I was
, she hears him saying. And,
I saw your face, you were smiling.
She pictures him lying awake in his hospital room, his collarbone already fusing together, the cuts on his forehead scabbing over and shrinking. A little battered, exhausted too from all this fish plant business, yet every part of him wanting to pull the sheets off and put his feet on the floor. A man who can't be tied down for long. Full of life. Good to everyone. Almost.
She breathes in her daughter's scent knowing that she hates him, and, inexplicably, loves him too, a little. It's not enough though. She knows this now. Not enough so long as she's scared of him.
Her eyes get heavy. She'll close them for ten minutes, she thinks, then rise and pack her things. It occurs to her that she still hasn't arranged to have a taxi waiting after the ferry docks. She makes a mental note to do it first thing, soon as she gets up. Call the airline too and make sure the flight's on schedule. Perhaps put a call in to Jackie. Why not? No reason she can't now. Now that Kent's gone.
She drapes an arm across her daughter's tiny torso. Stares into the beautiful, sleeping face. After a moment, she tries shutting her own eyes, but all she sees behind the lids is Jeremy. “But where's Dad?” she imagines him saying. “I won't go without Dad.” She sees herself grabbing him and forcing him out the door, but he's way too strong.
She flips over onto her back. Breathes. Breathes again. She'll lie to him if she has to. Whatever it takes to get him on that plane.
SHE OPENS HER EYES. Sucks in too much air and starts coughing. Brings her hand to her neck, expecting his to still be there. She sits up. Tries to recall her dream. Kent had been sitting astride her on the bed, bearing all of his weight down, his hands around her neck. Or had they been over her mouth? Threatening her, wasn't he? Something to do with the children. What was it? The more she tries to remember, the more it starts to crumble away until nothing's left.
She looks down and notices that all the sheets have been kicked off the bed.
Lynette's facing away from her, mangled hair and pajama top half way up her back. A ray of sunlight, through a space in the blinds, illuminates her daughter's smooth and unblemished skin. Like soapstone that skin.
The coughing has stopped, but now her stomach's bubbling. Something she should be doing, she thinks.
It's when she brings a fingertip to the corner of an eye to remove the crusty sleep that something electrical seizes her â a panic shooting through her whole system at once, stopping her heart, yanking the breath from her lungs, stiffening each muscle, each tendon.
It seems like forever before she can move again. She looks at her watch. 7:15. “Oh my God,” she says breathlessly, “Oh my God.” She doesn't quite know what wrenches her from the bed and plants her on her feet, certainly not her own power, rather something outside herself, some external, unseen force.
“Get dressed,” she says, “We're late!”
Lynette wakes. Sits up. Disoriented eyes. “What's wrong, Mommy?”
“Get dressed, baby, okay?”
Lynette doesn't move.
“Now, sweetheart.”
Lynette swings her legs out, then stands up, heads for her dresser.
“Hurry.”
“All right.”
On her way to Jeremy's room she tries to calm herself. Only 7:15. Would have had to wait until at least seven if Kent were here. Fifteen minutes. Only fifteen. Lots of time to get ready yet. Well, not lots, but enough. Still enough.
She stops at Jeremy's room, then nearly takes the door off its hinges opening it.
Jeremy lifts his head, eyes still closed from lingering sleep.
She goes to his bed and tears the sheets away. “You need to get up, my love.”
He's not wearing his pajama pants and does his best to cover himself. “What are you doing?”
“Right now. We're leaving in twenty minutes.”
“But school's not 'til â”
“No school today. We have to catch the ferry.”
“What â”
“Get dressed.”
She runs out into the hall, back to her own room, then stops. Changes direction and sprints towards the kitchen.
Breathe, just breathe.
Lots of time. Loads of it.
The suitcases are where she'd dropped them last night; Jeremy's still upright, hers and Lynette's on its side. She grabs them and takes off back through the kitchen, and down the hall to Jeremy's room. Opens his door.
He's managed to haul on an undershirt and underwear but no pants yet. “Can't you knock?”
Emily tosses the suitcase on the floor beside him. “Fill this.”
“What?”
“Your clothes, your hockey cards if you want. Hurry.” She whips around and heads out into the hall again, not bothering to answer him when he asks where they're going.