The Fortunate Brother (26 page)

“Small thing to give, isn't it, a bit of time?” said Addie. “After what we've lost?”

He stood again, pacing the room with a growing agitation, then looked back at his mother. “When did Kate come to you?”

“That night. She had followed him.”

“She was here, too? Jesus, half the fucking town was here?”

“Stop your swearing!”

He stopped pacing, surprised by the strength in his mother's voice. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and sat, fidgeting with his fingers. Bonnie laid a calming hand on Addie's and looked at Kyle.

“Kate didn't see anything,” she said. “Trapp fled just as she was getting here. We told her and she ran off, back to her cabin. She was hoping he'd go back there. She was taking it hard and she, well, she just wanted time.” Bonnie shrugged. “Your mother said yes.”

“And you, too.”

“She said she'd explain later. She was pretty much begging us for time. And we gave it to her.”

“She was so upset, Ky,” said Addie. “If it were you, I would've asked for the same.”

“She knows it's wrong not to turn him in,” said Bonnie. “He wasn't so bad at first. She thought she could get around him. Get him to turn himself in. But he's after getting sicker. Your father phoned the police after your mother told him.”

“I got to go,” he said, and started from the room.

“Wait, Kyle.”

“Fuck, no. Don't tell me no more.”

“He needs our help,” said Addie, her voice fading. He turned back, alarmed as she winced, pushing herself up on her pillows.

“Hold on now, my love.” Bonnie was instantly leaning over her, her arm beneath her pillow, raising it a little. “How's that now? I'm getting your pills ready, we'll take them now.”

“A minute, just a minute. Kyle, she's a good soul…”

“Mother, just—Jesus, just take your pills. And stop off worrying. You'll see to her?” he said to Bonnie and backed out of the room.

His father was pouring tea at the kitchen sink, Sylvia sitting at the table, talking in low tones to Ben.

“What the fuck,” Kyle burst out. “Kate's his
mother
? Did you know that, Ben?”

Ben shook his head. “Not till your mother just said. He kept that one secret.”

“That's it now,” said Sylvanus. “Here, where you going?” Kyle was hauling on his coat and heading for the door. “Wait up there, brother.”

“Waiting no longer, sir.” He reached for the doorknob, pausing as rapid footsteps sounded from the outside.

“Don't open it, check first,” said Sylvie, getting to her feet. Kyle was already turning the doorknob. He pulled the door open and Kate rushed inside, her wind-blown hair harnessed by her toque, her face flushed, her eyes more feverish than his mother's.

“He's going to hurt himself,” she whispered, hands to her mouth in fear. “He's run off, he's going to hurt himself. I tried to follow him but he took to the woods.”

Ben shoved back his chair. “Bottom Hill—or in the road?”

“Bottom Hill. He just showed up. I told him the police knew and he panicked and ran off again. He's scared.”

“I knows where he is,” said Kyle. “He's up at the old sawmill. I seen he was camping there.”

“You,” said Kate, going to Ben. “You're Ben? He always talks about you. He loves you. You're the only one he might listen to. He's…he's really paranoid, he's sick. I don't want him dragged away like an animal by the police. And he'll do something, I know he will. I've seen him like this before.”

“We'll find him,” said Sylvanus.

“No, no, just Ben should go.”

“He won't know I'm there. Kyle, you wait here. Sylvie, close your mother's door, she don't need be hearing this.”

“Suppose he's violent?” said Sylvie. “I've seen his temper, and if he's not in his right mind—”

“We owe him,” said Kate sharply. “He took Clar down. He wasn't scared that night. He's scared now. And he needs our help.” She looked at them all, her eyes skimmed with fear.

“We'll find him,” said Ben. He strode out the door, Kate following him.

“Kyle, watch the house,” said Sylvanus, following outside behind Kate and Ben. Kyle looked at Sylvie. “I'll just be outside,” he said.

“No, you can't go too. Someone should be here, in case he comes back.”

“I'll just be outside. Go sit with Mom.” He flicked on the outside light in the rapidly falling darkness. His father and Ben were rustling through the bushes and vanishing up the path. Kate stood beside the gump, staring after them.

“I apologize for the secrecy,” she said without turning. “I apologize deeply.”

“You could've told me.”

“No. I couldn't. Besides, who would've sold their cabin to a Trapp? You already burned us out of town, once.”

“That the only reason you made yourself up?”

“I promised Vernon.” She turned to him, an edge to her voice. “You know what it feels like to grieve a brother, Ky. Well, I'm grieving a son. Weigh that in your heart when you're judging mine. I'm all he's got. He's lost his sense of reality. That makes him the living dead and he's only got me to fight for him. And he don't know that because he's angry with me. Real angry, and he won't let me help.”

“How come nobody recognized you?”

“I told you, I cut out—long before my family relocated to Jackson's Arm. And you might say I've aged somewhat. You want my sad song, Kyle? I've only ever sung it to myself.”

He didn't want to hear. His anger was comforting. He wanted to walk away from her, just as he'd done to Sylvie all those times she needed to talk, and his mother.

“I understand if you don't.”

He shrugged. “Pass the time, I suppose.”

“Be mad, Ky. Don't matter, I did it for him. It's been three years now since I told him. My mother died a few months after your brother. I went home for her funeral. I seen what he was doing to himself about the accident. His guilt eating him alive. He's not loved many people, but he liked your brother. I breastfed him, Ky. In dark corners so's no one would see. Some part of him remembers those moments, his milky mouth suckling. We loved each other. And then I abandoned him. To my abusive father. I've had to live with that. Least I know where my pain comes from. He wasn't allowed that knowing. And so I told him. I thought—well, I thought he'd be open. That it…might bring him comfort. Or something like that. Sure as hell pegged that one wrong. He was disgusted. It felt incestuous to him. I thought he'd be relieved that his father wasn't his own, he hated him so much. Guess he's like Clar's dog, licking the cruel master's hand. Always sniffing for something that's not there.”

“The only hand he had, I suppose.”

She turned from him.

“Sorry. Look, you don't have to tell me this stuff.”

“That's what I've never liked about you, Ky. You never look under rocks, scared something might bite you.”

“I know where my pain comes from, Kate. It's not always a thinking thing.”

“No. No, it isn't. But thinking is what brought me here. Knowing he needed to be around your family. Figuring if I put myself closer to you, he might come to me.”

“Is that the only reason you struck up a friendship? Always felt you wanted something.”

“Hey, it was you that kept coming to me. He did, too. Eventually. This is where I needed to be. Perhaps I might've told you if you'd asked. Not sure about that. Vernon made me promise not to tell who I was. That's his thing. Least I could give him—his privacy while he worked things out. Look, I didn't think it would take so long. He's a bit like you, there—don't like looking too deep. I mean that kindly, Ky. I found my son through you. And Clar Gillard.”

He huffed with insolence. “Just how the Jesus do you mean that?”

“Your loneliness. Thinking your pain is something only you can see. I realized Vernon could see mine, too. I think that's what kept bringing him to me, here in my little cabin. He saw my loneliness. Felt it. Felt it like he felt his own. We were starting to make ground when, well, Clar Gillard happened.”

“And just how does Clar fit in with your lovely little reunion?”

“He was a baby once. Where did his betrayal begin? What awful loneliness is that, killing the ones you love? They're the disheartened. And the abandoned. In the end, their loneliness is the only thing they're loyal to. Think of it, Ky. If we can't figure Clar Gillard, how does that look upon us? We're as blind he is.” She looked over the darkening sea and towards the moon rising yellow over the hills. Then she looked back at him, wiped at her glasses, pushed them up on her nose as though to see him better. That old expectant look was back in her eyes. She didn't look like a stranger with that expression, she looked like Kate, searching for something.

“Another song coming, I suppose. The lonely life of the penitent?”

“Why not? Somebody should sing for the lonely. Else theirs would be an unmarked road, and how fair is that? I've never lied to you, Ky. Not in my heart. I hope you come to learn that.” She
stood before him, unapologetic in her manner, and for the second time that evening he felt the pang of his judgment.

A sound came to them from over by the cliff—a growl, followed by a sharp yap.

“I'd know that yap anywhere,” said Kyle. “You hold on here,” he said to Kate. “I'll go see.” He let himself over the side of the wharf, boots scrunching through wet pebbles as he made his way across the beach towards the black mass of rock jutting into the sea. The tide was almost in; he'd have to scale around the cliff. He heard Kate's boots scrunching through the beach rocks behind him.

“The tide's in, you can't get around,” he called back. He broke off, hearing the dog bark again. He grasped the rock wall, wet with groundwater leaking down its face from the sods crowning it above. He pulled himself along, the cliff cold, gritty to his hands. His foot slipped on cloven rock and he cursed as water soaked cold through both boots.

The house door opened, and Sylvie called his name. “Where are you? The police called. Ky? Are you there?”

He looked back. Saw her peering around the side of the house, a sweater hugging her shoulders.

“They said they're coming here. Ky?”

He wanted to shush her, to yell out and reassure her, but he was scared he'd frighten off Trapp, should he hear him. Kate was silent behind him. He looked down. The water was black, smelling of rotting kelp. Another sharp bark and he pressed harder against the rock, inching himself along. He tipped the corner of the cliff wall and stilled. A bit of moonlight filtered through scattering clouds and he saw the dog crouched just ahead of him, where he'd been the morning he stood guard over Clar's body. He was staring up at the back of the inlet, his fur glistening wet and quivering. The dog sensed his coming and was quiet now, except for a soft
mewling in his throat. Kyle looked up. Straight up the rock face. He couldn't see anything, just black. He tried to get a footing on higher rock, kept slipping back. Up to his ankles in water cold as fuck. He looked up the cliff face again. The old sawmill was just above and he strained to hear Ben's or his father's voice. The
whoop-whoop
of a gull winging past. The clang of a buoy off from Hampden Wharf. A crab scuffling over rocks. Something else—a soft sound—from up above. Something shifting, scratching against the rock. The dog mewled and he hushed it. A flat voice, shivery with cold, perhaps fear, drifted down from the rock face.

“He won't hurt you.”

His eyes bugged out of his head, trying to see. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. He's just scared.”

Silence.

“You have a dog?” asked Kyle.

A flat
Ha ha.
“Naw. No dog for Trappy.”

“You can have this one. He got no home. Driving us nuts,” he added as nothing more came from above. “You want him?”

A shaving of moonlight on the rock wall. Trapp was crouched on a small ledge about forty, fifty feet straight up, roughly six feet down from the top. Bony legs drawn up, bony arms hunched like a stork readying to take flight. Slightest hint of a breeze and he'd blow over.

“Be doing us a favour if you took him. Can't get rid of him.”

Silence.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Ha ha. What're
you
doing down there?”

“Not much. Well. Looking for you, actually.”

“Lots of people looking for Trappy.”

“Sounds like it was an awful night.”

“He wasn't scared.”

“Who, Clar?”

“He never jumped. Everybody else jumped.”

“Jumped where?”

“Before she blew— We heard the rumbling. Everybody jumped.”

Kyle faltered.

“He never jumped.”

“Yeah.”

“Bad. That was bad.”

“Yeah.”

“Trappy don't like that one.”

“Sylvie…she said it was awful loud. When it blew.”

Silence.

“All them pipes blowing outta the ground.”

Silence.

“Guess everybody was scared.”

“Trappy still hears them.”

“Sis. She says things happen, hey? That's what she says.”

“Yeah.”

“True, that. You should come down. Go for a beer?” He was starting to shiver, as much from Trapp's words as from the iced seawater numbing his feet. He lifted one of his boots, scaling the cliff for a higher footing, but it slid back into the water.

“Who's there?”

“Just me. Slipped.” He clung to the cliff, hearing movement from above and not daring to inch farther. A minuscule draft of wind might topple that scrawny-shouldered hulk readying for flight. Then he thought of something.

“Hey, my knife. Did you drop it from up there or something?”