The Fortunate Brother (13 page)

“What's ye hooligans cahootin' now?” one of them asked.

“Mind your own beeswax,” snipped Hooker.

“I'll be going,” said Kyle. “See you later, bud.”

“Sure. Hey, Ky?”

“What's up?”

Hooker took on a pained look, then shook his head. “Nothing. Go on.”

“Let it out.”

“It's stupid. Too fucking stupid.”

“Can handle something stupid right now.”

“Forget it.”

“Spit it out, b'y, what's going on?”

Hooker shrugged, wiped at his mouth. “Fucking Roses.”

“What about her. What, I gotta choke it outta you?”

“I think she likes you.”

Kyle sank back on his stool.

“I knows you're not after her, man—don't get me wrong—aw, told you this was stupid. It's just—I dunno. The way she was fawning over you at the dance.”

“You nuts? You fucking nuts?”

“Yeah, I'm nuts.”

“She's playing you, fool!”

“Yeah, I know. I know. Aw, hell, this is bad.”

“Yeah, it's bad. You're getting soft, all right? Soft in the head.”

“I hates my head. Hates my fucking head.”

Kyle slapped Hooker's shoulder. “It's all right, buddy. Women does that to you. All right? I gotta go.”

“Sure, you go. See to your old man. You knows where I am, right?”

“Take 'er easy, hey.”

“I loves you, man.”

Kyle thumped Hooker's back and followed the last of the old-timers out the door. The moon was out and a smattering of stars. He looked over at his father's truck.
He was soaked. He was in the water. He knew Clar was dead.
He started walking. End of the road he turned left up Bottom Hill and crested the top and started down
the other side. He was tired, bone tired. The moon offered scant light on the underbrush crowding the roadside and he judged from habit the opening to the shortcut and started down the choked path, to hell with squeamish fears. A smell of rot and he more felt than saw the ground sinking away to his right and the charred flooring of the Trapps' burned-out sawmill, the smut-blackened skeleton of a corner post rising like a crucifix over some apocalyptic ruin. A loose piece of wood dangled from a half-collapsed beam like a charred effigy, its creaking in the stirred air sending chills down his neck. The path steepened, trees walling each side. He grasped at prickly branches, easing his way down, and was soon breaking through the woods behind his house.

The windows were unlit. He crept along the side. A gull cried out, its shadow fluttering across the lemon track of the moon over the sea. Wavelets fretted against the piles. Something shuffled down on the beach rocks and he drew back, near yelping as a black shape leapt onto the wharf. Clar's dog. Eyes burning yellow with moonlight. It stood staring at him, head down, tail down, whining deep in his throat.

“Go,” Kyle ordered in a throaty whisper. “Get home.”

The dog whimpered and flopped on all fours, looking up at him like a dejected child. Kyle crept towards the front of the house, pricking his ears. Drafts of wind snatched at the yellow ribbon that flickered like candlelight amongst the shadows. No cop cars. But he'd take no chances. Slipping to the back of the house, he hissed at the whining dog again to get home. He pushed open the window to Sylvie's room, remembering too late his bruised ribs and near crying out as he levered himself across the sill. Dropping onto the floor, he picked himself up and slipped off his boots so's not to soil his mother's clean floors, and then cursed as he stepped into a puddle of water.

“She'll shoot you,” he said, walking down the hall. “What, you couldn't kick off your boots?”

His father was sitting by the window at the kitchen table, a cigarette burning in the ashtray, his lungs rattling like a croupy youngster's. He was looking out over the water, his face carved in ridges by moonlight.

“We'll be thrown in jail if we gets caught in here.” Kyle hauled out a chair and sat beside him. “She come through it fine. She was sitting up when I left, ordered me to drive home and take care of you.”

“When's she coming home?”

“Another day or two. They don't keep them long these days. She got them tubes in her. We'll go see her in the morning.”

His father lifted his smoke to his mouth, scorched tobacco burning red through the dark.

Kyle jiggled his foot. “You're going to see her, right?” His father's collar chafed against his neck. He supposed it was a nod. “Get the footings finished today?”

“Ready for pouring. Harvey Rice gave us a hand. Some of the boys.”

“Good, then. They said they might. You had a time of it then. In Deer Lake with the police?”

“Doing their job, I suppose.”

“They talked about the blood on the doorknob, right? What did you tell them?”

“Nothing.”

“It was mine from where Clar hit me. Loosened a tooth or something. I drooled over my hand when I was sleeping and must've got it on the doorknob.”

Sylvanus butted out his smoke.

“I seen Bonnie Gillard here that night. Sitting here and talking with Mother.”

He felt his father stiffen. “When was that?”

“Before you got home.”

“What else did you see?”

“Nothing. That's it. Was she still here when you got home?”

Sylvanus pulled another smoke from his pack resting on the table. His hand was shaking. He struck a match, an awful light burning in his eyes. He took a deep suck and hacked, smoke skittering from his mouth. Kyle gnawed on his thumb. His father was frightened, he could smell it like dung from a horse.
How did you know Clar was dead, why were you in the water…

“So, was she?”

“Hey?”

“I asked if Bonnie was still here when you got home.”

“Never seen her. You?”

“I told you, she was sitting here with Mother. What the fuck's wrong with you?”

“That's it now.”

“That's it now, what?”

Sylvanus took a deep drag on his smoke. Kyle shifted with unease. Felt like he was sitting with an unyielding stranger before a forced supper.

“So, you never seen her?”

“What was she doing?”

“When I seen her? Nothing. She was bawling. Mother had her by the shoulders, like she was shaking sense in her. I think she did it.”

“Who?”

“Bonnie. Who the fuck do you think?”

Sylvanus butted out his half-smoked cigarette and rose.

“Hold on, brother, we needs to talk,” said Kyle.

“Go to bed.”

“No, we don't go to bed, we've got to talk.” Kyle was on his feet, chasing after his father who was heading for his bedroom. “Look at this!” He'd pulled the keys to Bonnie's car out of his pocket and dangled them now in front of his father. But it was too dark to see. “Bonnie's car keys. I found her car half in the river in past the old park ground. Not long after she left here. Either Clar got her car from her somehow and tried to get rid of it or she was trying to off herself. What do you think? I happened to see it when I was walking to the bar, after I left you in the shed. Keys still in the ignition.”

Sylvanus touched the keys. “You tell that to the police?”

“No. I never told nobody, for Mother's sake. I'm thinking Mother's covering for her. I think she tried to off herself and couldn't do it and then come here bawling to Mother about it. I'd like to know when Clar was killed—the timing of it. What do you think?”

“Less we knows the better, I think. Go to bed, now.”

“Hold on. Jesus, old man.” His father had gone into his room. “Dad?” The room door closed. “Dad, we need to talk.”

The bedsprings groaned beneath his father's weight. Kyle stood there, listening. Fighting the urge to push open the door and go kneel by his father's bed and ask straight out what the hell he was doing in the water that night and how did he know that Clar was dead. He lifted his hand to the doorknob, drew it back. He couldn't. Better he didn't know. Didn't want to know.

He went to the fridge, broke off a chunk of cheese, buttered a heel of bread and ate it, washing it down with cold tea from the pot his mother had made that morning. Felt like a fortnight ago. Finishing off the bread and cheese, he went to his room and fell across his bed, his body sinking beneath its own weight into the comfort of the mattress. His ribs ached. Silence ruled the house. The first night his mother wasn't in her bed.

H
e startled awake, a thump on his door. The room was dark.

“Get dressed,” his father called.

He hauled himself up. Christ. He was still wearing his clothes. He pushed open his door and smelled soap coming from the bathroom, his father already showered. It was morning. Jaysus.

He fished clean clothes from his drawers, showered, and then helped himself to the bacon and eggs his father had left for him in the pan. Sylvanus was sitting at his spot by the window.

“You want toast?” Kyle asked him.

“I'm done.”

Kyle poured coffee and sat by his father, chewing a piece of toast, the two of them watching through the window as light broke through the eastern skyline. It spilled over the water and crept up the side of the wharf where the last remnants of night hung like sin over the gump where Clar Gillard had likely taken his last breath. Sylvanus shoved back his chair, his boots on, and pushed his arms through his coat as he peeked through the curtains by the front door.

“Leave through the back,” said Kyle. He half rose, forking the bacon and eggs into his mouth. Then he drained his coffee cup
and hauled on his coat, following his father down the hall. The
burr-ring
of the phone cut through the house. They both looked back. It rang again, its sound urgent in the morning quiet.

“Might be your mother.”

Kyle went back, lifted the receiver and said
hello.
It was Sylvie. Her voice clear, as though she were standing next door.

“Ky? Are you there—can you hear me?”

His mother's words came to him.
It's fine she don't know, let her have her holiday.

“Ky?”

“Hi Sylvie.”

“How are you, bugger? How's everybody?”

“Fine. Where you at?”

“Some café in Stone Town. Zanzibar. How are things? Is Mom there?”

“No.”

“Where is she then?”

He heard the change in her voice. She knew the time. Their mother would be home unless something was wrong.

“Ky? Where is she then?”

He looked to where his father stood in the doorway, head slightly raised, listening.

“Ky, what's wrong? Is something wrong?”

“She's in the hospital.”

“The hospital—why? What's wrong with her?”

He hesitated. “Cancer,” he said finally. “She has cancer, breast cancer.” He felt a jab of satisfaction as he spoke the words. Then he heard her cry of fear and was sickened. “It's okay, she's fine,” he quickly added. “It was a small lump and now it's gone. She don't want you coming home, she told us not to tell you. There's nothing you can do.”

“They operated? Did they take off her breast? Ky, what did they do?”

“They—yes. They took off her breasts—”

“Breasts?”

He nodded. Then said yes out loud, feeling the sweat building on his upper lip. He glanced at his father again, who was looking at him with surprise. Sylvie's voice had fallen into the background with a wail and then Ben was on the phone.

“What's happening, what's going on, buddy?”

“Tell her Mom's fine. She'll be home in a couple of days. She didn't want Sylvie to know.”

“Right. We're on the next flight out. Hang 'er tough.” The line went dead.

Kyle cradled the receiver. He should have told her about Clar Gillard instead. He shouldn't have even answered the phone. “I shouldn't have told her,” he said. “But I had to. Mother's not here—she would've figured out anyway that something was wrong, right?” He turned back to the doorway but Sylvanus was gone.

He hurried to the back room, climbed out the window, and started up the choked path after his father. Hearing a soft mewl, he looked back: Clar's dog was sitting on his haunches near the gump, staring after him. He turned from its grieving eyes and remembered Sylvie's those times she tried talking with him after the accident.

He walked fast past the rotting, stinking sawmill, thrusting through the night-wet brush and breaking out onto Bottom Hill with cold, wet knees. At the top of the hill he looked down upon the darkened windows of Hampden, at the yellow ribbon cordoning off the wharf and Clar's truck. He looked to the violet house, Julia's room window softly lit—he'd seen her leaning out of it once, blond hair streaming down like some mythical damsel.

He turned onto the dirt road leading to the bar, glimpsed his father's back vanishing over a rise. He topped the rise and dragged his feet as he neared the bar, remembering the night Sylvie came out through the barroom door to where he was standing, his back against a car. She was upset, telling him that Chris had bought a ticket to Alberta and wanted to fly out with her the next morning.
Why wouldn't he?
he'd wanted to shout at her.
Why wouldn't he when it's the path you showed him?
Chris came out of the bar a few moments later, his face twisted with a scared smile. He'd never seen Chris scared before. Never, ever. He beckoned Kyle to follow him home. Julia had come to the door and was watching after Chris too, hand pressing against her chest as though holding back a heart beating too hard.

Sylvanus was sitting in the truck now, waiting. Kyle climbed in behind the wheel, switched on the ignition, and started them towards the highway. He looked at his father whose hands were gripping his knees and not the more accustomed whisky bottle. His face was sullen and hard. Whatever remnants of the tender, mischievous man Kyle had known as a boy, and that might have survived Chris's death, were gone now. Shed like old skin since the night of the murder.

“Don't open your mouth to your mother about Sylvie calling,” said Sylvanus.

“Good one. And when Sylvie shows up?”

“Too late for fretting then.”

“Fine.”

“Make sure you don't.”

“Why would I blab?”

“You blabbed where Bonnie was.”

“How'd you know that?”

“Your mother phoned last night. The cops were after being there, talking to Bonnie.”

“Right. They wasted no time.”

“Surprised they never found her before now.”

And you, do they know about you being in the water…

They spoke no more. At the hospital Sylvanus walked down the ward a step behind Kyle. Steel trolleys squeaked past. Slippered feet. Pale faces watching from doorways. A nurse with a tray of silver instruments rushed out of his mother's room and behind her a stout old priest with a sprinkle of dandruff on his black-clad shoulders. Kyle stood aside and his father stepped into Addie's room, shoulders hunched as though he were heading into nasty weather. Kyle stepped in behind him. She was propped up with pillows, eyes closed, face unnaturally pale. Bonnie was leaning over her, speaking softly, fingers assured as she fixed something into place on that bandaged chest—the tubes, no doubt. She pulled down the coverlet and he and his father hauled back from the doorway, their faces taut as drawn elastic.

Bonnie saw them standing there and patted Addie's hand. “You've got company, my love.”

Addie opened her eyes and Kyle saw in them her fatigue and then her worry as she took in theirs.

“We're doing fine,” he said too quickly and thumped his father's back, jolting him farther into the room. “He couldn't get here fast enough.”

“I can see that,” said Addie, her voice surprisingly clear. She smiled, raising a bony wrist encircled by an ID bracelet. “Well come in, sit.”

“Sit here, Syllie,” said Bonnie, indicating the chair behind her. “I'll go get some coffee. Can I bring back something?”

Sylvanus shook his head and took the chair. Kyle gave her a scant glance and sat at the foot of his mother's bed.

“She's been a godsend,” said Addie.

“Good,” said Kyle. He looked at his father, who muttered something too guttural to be understood. Then they both looked at Addie—her IV, the bandaged chest beneath the blankets. Their eyes fell, landlubbers on seas they couldn't fathom.

“Sylvie called,” blurted Sylvanus. Kyle snapped him a look of surprise.

“My, how is she?” asked Addie. “You didn't tell her, I hope.”

Sylvanus looked to Kyle.

“Kyle?”

“Well, uh—”

“My, Kyle, you knows you didn't tell her.”

“Now, Addie,” said Sylvanus as she tried to come forward on her pillow.

“I had no choice,” said Kyle. “But I told her you were fine and that you said not to come.”

She lay back, disappointment soaking her face.

“Well, what the frig was I supposed to say? She asked for you. And it was six this morning. She'd know something was up if you weren't home.”

“Jackson's Arm,” said Addie tiredly. “You could have said I was down Jackson's Arm. With my sister.” Her eyes came more awake. “You didn't tell anybody else?”

“No. Nobody knows. Only that you got stuff going on.”

“Thank God for that. I'm surprised they're not all here. I couldn't stand it if they were.”

“Might be nice, having your sisters here,” said Sylvanus.

“I wants nobody around me, times like this. I'll not argue it, Sylvanus. Is Sylvie coming home? You told her not to come, I hope?”

“That's what I told her, not to come,” said Kyle. “I never thought about your sisters—never come to me. And he never
offered nothing.” He looked accusingly at his father, who was sitting like a lump. He tried to avoid his mother's eyes. She was watching him, watching his face too close, and he fumbled for more words to defend or apologize and couldn't think why he'd want to do either.

“Go. To the cafeteria,” she said. “And buy Bonnie breakfast. Will you do that for me?” Her tone was quiet with disappointment and he rose irritably to his feet. She hadn't always felt so protective about Sylvie; they used to fight like dogs, she and Sylvie.
Always sneaking around, your sister is, like she's trying to catch me stealing from her,
Addie would complain, and Sylvie would whine to him in turn,
Always looks like she's the one who's snooping.

It's because they're just alike that they fights, his father told him. It's because she don't love me, Sylvie whispered. They're too close to pick it apart, my baby, dear old Gran told him as he fed vanilla ice cream into her gummy mouth. And then they did pick it apart, his mother and Sylvie. On the oil-drunken earth of Alberta over the broken bones of Chris. The day Sylvie left for those oilfields and took Chris with her, their mother went into a silence so cold it froze her face. He understood then that Chris was her favourite and that they'd fought because Sylvie wanted to be. When his mother flew off to bring back Chris's body he'd thought she'd return home alone. He remembered again that moment when his mother stepped off the plane, holding Sylvie's hand. They reached for him, his mother and sister, with those strong joined hands, Chris a mangled shadow in their eyes. And he had run from them both.

Everything smelled like boiled cabbage inside the cafeteria. Bonnie was sitting to the other side of an open counter displaying fruit and green Jell-O. She was holding a cup of coffee and looking out the window. His irritation grew. He poured himself a
coffee and went to her table. She didn't see him coming, caught, as she appeared to be, in her thoughts or the washed-out image of herself in the window. The corners of her mouth drooped, striking a picture of utter sadness, and it irked him further. Everything about her irked him. He hated that she'd placed herself like the angel Gabriel at his mother's bedside.

He pulled her keys from his pocket and laid them on the table before her. She drew back, startled. He thought she'd get sick she turned so pale.

“Found your car.”

She took a minute and then raised her eyes to his. He was surprised by their calm.

“I told the police where to find you,” he said when she didn't speak. “I'll tell them about the car, too, if you don't tell me what's going on.”