Soon it is over, the yard now still except for the odd call from the circling vultures, and she returns to the house, wishing she had a wood stove like her mother’s with a greedy fire inside so she could burn her blood-soaked shoes. She leaves them by the door and washes her hands then washes them again, scrubbing with a brush under her nails. She can’t rid herself of the stench of fresh blood or the sticky feel of it under her feet.
The next morning, Eldon’s rifle is leaning against the wall by the door, the stock resting on Sport’s rug. Sport still wasn’t home when Caroline went to bed. She searched the yard after supper, looking under the granaries and in each of the stalls in the barn, hoping to find him. Wherever he was, he was afraid to come home, knowing he’d done wrong, but what he couldn’t know was that Caroline would forgive him, that no mistake he made was too great to absolve. She wants him to be safe from Eldon’s rage, but she needs him to come home. She’ll do her best to protect him for the rest of the day, hide him somewhere if she has to; there’s no way she’ll leave tonight without him.
She was awakened during the night by Eldon prowling around downstairs, opening and closing doors, taking no care at all to be quiet for her sake. She could not fall asleep again, thinking about the eventful day ahead and about Sport, alone and afraid somewhere in the dark. She thought about the final visit she planned to make to lay the last chrysanthemums from her garden on her mother’s grave. It is one of her greatest regrets, knowing the gravestone will be left untended when she goes away. Quack grass and thistles will sprout up around the cold granite stone and grow tall enough to eventually obscure her mother’s name. That’s what troubles her most, thinking her sweet and gentle mother might be forgotten once Caroline’s gone.
Eldon comes in from outside, digs a box of shells out of the closet and throws it on the table then reaches for the gun.
“Where are you going with that? Did Sport come back?” She runs to the door and looks out. “You can’t shoot him for this one mistake. I won’t let you.”
Eldon drops a shell in the chamber and cocks it. “It’s that dog of Bilyk’s that’s the ringleader. The other dogs, Jip and Sport included, are just following along. You said so yourself. If Bilyk had put him down after Howard’s heifer was killed, the other calves and our chickens would still be alive. I’m going over there to make it right.”
“You can’t just drive into their yard and kill their dog!”
“Just watch me. I’ll walk into their kitchen if I have to and drop that dog right where he stands,” Eldon says, clenching his jaw so tightly a thick blue vein bulges on his temple next to his eye. He’s been stewing over this all night, Caroline thinks, and it’s burrowed into him like a tick under his skin. He thinks he’s been wronged by Anton Bilyk and he can’t let that happen. Eldon Webb does not lose.
“I’m going with you,” Caroline says, opening the closet and pulling out her coat “You’ll go nowhere near their house, raving like a lunatic, waving that gun around. She has children, for God’s sake. If you have a bone to pick with Anton, you’ll do it out in the yard.”
“You’ll stay right here at home where you ought to.” Eldon props the rifle up on his shoulder as casually as if he’s off to shoot gophers in the pasture. “This is business I’m discussing with Bilyk and no wife of mine is meddling in my affairs.”
Caroline races for the door, skirting around him, and she feels her blouse jerk off her shoulder, hears the split of a seam when he lunges, but he is unable to stop her. She runs to the truck, pulling on her coat, and clambers in. She has to go with him so she can communicate to Nick in some way. He’s sure to think Eldon has discovered their secret when he sees him stalking across the yard with the gun. She feels a gut-wrenching danger tumbling toward her as she pictures Nick half running across the yard to confront him.
Eldon yanks open her door, grabs hold of her arm. “You’re not coming with me. Now get out of my truck.”
“I won’t!” Caroline braces her feet on the floorboards and presses her back to the seat. She feels something rise up, a match that’s struck and lit up inside her, and when Eldon leans in, she strikes out with her fist.
She half expects Eldon to lash out but he is stunned, his eyes wide, shocked at the nerve of her, or maybe she hit him just right and she’s punched out his air. “Have it your way. I’m not about to drag you out,” he growls.
Scant drops of rain spatter the windshield then turn into pellets of sleet on their way over. Howard Cornforth’s truck is parked close to Anton’s house and beside it is a black car Caroline has never seen before. No one is out in the yard, the barn door is closed. No wild barking, no lunging dog at the end of a chain.
“What are you going to do?” Caroline asks.
Eldon is staring at Anton’s front door as if he’s reconsidering his plan. Caroline’s eyes slide over to the other house under the bare-limbed maple and she wonders if Nick is inside. Her world seems to be twisting apart, changing direction, and she feels as though she’s lost her place, skipped over a page in the book of her life. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here, how it’s come to this, sitting in Nick’s yard with Eldon and a gun, and she needs to see him, if only for a moment, to ground her again.
“Going in to talk to Bilyk like I planned,” Eldon says, reaching for the gun.
Caroline grabs his hand, stills it. “Leave it.”
Eldon grunts, an acknowledgement of sorts, and takes his hand off the barrel.
“I’m coming with you.” There’s a chance Nick might be in the house and she wants to let him know, if only with her eyes, that everything’s all right; she’ll be waiting for him at midnight like they planned.
Eldon grunts again. “Suit yourself. I can’t very well stop you but you’re not to speak. Not a word. This is between Bilyk and me.”
It is Betty Cornforth who answers the door. “Oh, you’ve heard,” she barely whispers when they step inside. “I meant to phone you but it was so early. It was Millie Tupper who let me know. Phone ringing at six in the morning, I just knew it had to be bad news. He passed on shortly before midnight, Millie said. Lay eight hours on that hillside before he was found. Such a shock for someone so young,” she says, shaking her head. “Howard always said it was too dangerous to plough up those steep hills.”
Caroline feels the room begin to spin — too warm, too bright — and she braces one arm against the door jamb. A simple question is pinging off the edges of her mind; she has to ask it but she can’t compel her lips to form the puckered O, can’t force her lungs to exhale that faint puff of air.
And then Anna appears in the doorway, dead-looking eyes in her ashen face. Little Jack is hefted up on her shoulder, too big to be carried, but whimpering nevertheless into a pale blue blanket, and Caroline thinks please, please, let it be Anton, let this agony, this razor slicing my heart be Anna’s burden and not mine to bear but then Anton is standing behind her, his huge calloused hand weighing down Anna’s narrow shoulder, and Caroline tastes bile at the back of her throat and a moan rises up from the pocket of her soul but she holds it inside. She doesn’t need to ask her simple question, who, because she already knows.
PART THREE
SARAH, 1975 - 1976
SEPTEMBER
They are hanging around outside the pool hall when Eddie Reston and another boy they don’t know drive up in a cherry-red Camaro. The street is mostly deserted, usual for this end of Main Street on Saturday night when most of the cars are parked farther down the street in front of the hotel. It’s warm for the end of September; every car cruising down Main has the windows cranked wide, tunes blaring from eight-track stereos, the laughter of teenagers — recently back at school but free once again for the weekend — riding on waves of moist end-of-summer air.
“Hey, girls. Wanna go for a ride?” Eddie is in the driver’s seat, his arm dangling loosely out the window, drumming his fingers on the door to Led Zeppelin. He’s wearing sunglasses, big as half his face, even though the sun’s ready
to disappear over the brow of the horizon. “Hop in the back,” he says around the cigarette hanging off his lip as he guns the engine.
“Like we’d go anywhere with you,” Becca says, flipping her hair and looking away down Main as though she’s waiting for someone better to pull up.
“C’mon. Don’t be like that,” he says. Eddie is in grade twelve like they are, an awkward boy with few friends and an unfortunate tic, a sporadic jerking of his head, which has earned him the nickname Pecker.
Becca leans in, propping her elbows on the door. “Pretty nice,” she says, turning on the charm and smiling at the new boy. “Who’s your friend?” she says to Eddie.
He folds himself out of the passenger seat, a tall, stocky guy with dirty blond hair curling past his shoulders. He is Eddie’s cousin, Steve, from the city, and they learn the car doesn’t really belong to him; it’s his older brother’s.
“Whaddya say?” Eddie says as Steve folds down the front seat so the girls can crawl in the back.
“Well?” Becca asks, turning to Sarah and Addie. “You want to go?”
Sarah doesn’t think they should; her dad’s warned her about climbing into the back seat of cars with strange boys. “We don’t even know his cousin,” Sarah says quietly enough so the boys don’t hear. “You really want to ride with Pecker?”
“Oh, lighten up. It’ll be fun,” Becca says.
Addie walks around to the passenger side where Steve is standing. “Where are we going exactly?”
“Just cruise out of town a couple miles. Show you what this thing can do.”
“Sure. Why not?” Becca says and hops in, her golden hair bouncing.
There’s a two-four of Canadian on the back seat and Becca shoves it over when Addie climbs in. “What’re we supposed to do with this?”
“Drink it, what else?” Eddie says and revs the engine again.
“There’s no room for me,” Sarah says, looking in. “That’s really okay, I’ll just walk home.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Becca says, rolling her eyes. “Shove over, Addie, and give me that beer.” She takes out a bottle and turns the box on its side, jamming it in front of her legs on the floor. “Got an opener?”
Steve reaches back for the beer and cracks the cap off with his teeth. “You comin’ or not?” he says, and Sarah reluctantly crawls in.
They make a few laps around town, stopping long enough to talk to Bobby Boychuk, who’s cruising in his beat-up old farm truck with the rear bumper hanging off. He tells them there’s a roadside party north of town on Boot Hill Road, so Eddie floors it in front of the post office, squealing the tires, as Steve hoots and bangs his outstretched hand on the roof. Becca and Addie squeal as they head out of town.
Sarah braces her legs and hangs on, wondering how she got railroaded into this, trapped in the back seat with a dipshit she doesn’t even like at the wheel, off to a party she doesn’t want to go to in the middle of nowhere at the side of a deserted road.
“Want a sip?” Addie asks, holding out the beer. Sarah shakes her head so Addie downs another gulp and hands it back to Becca. Addie’s going along, Sarah sees, forcing down the beer because Becca wants her to. Addie was hurt when Sarah first started hanging around with Becca, until Sarah made it clear that she wasn’t being replaced. It hadn’t taken long for Becca to take control of the trio, however. She made all the decisions about where to go and what to do, and Sarah and Addie found themselves following along.
“So you got a boyfriend?” Steve asks, looking over his shoulder, asking no one in particular but both Sarah and Addie know he means Becca. Every boy loses some level of control around her. It’s her hair, Addie always says, and Sarah thinks that’s part of it, but there’s something more. It’s like Becca is friends with the sun and uses it to her advantage, tilting her head so it catches in her hair, weaving flaxen threads through it, turning her into some kind of golden girl. That radiant sunshine seems to seep into her pores, fill her up, and she knows just when to use it. She can manipulate anyone, picking the exact right time to laugh at Mr. Strump’s pathetic jokes in math class and keeping Cady Hubley in check with nothing more than a strategic lift of an eyebrow.
Becca doesn’t answer him. She’s staring out the window at the trees whizzing by.
“Okay, girls, ready for a real ride?” Steve taps a drum roll on the dashboard with the palms of his hands. Eddie grins and guns it. The Camaro lurches forward and the girls’ heads snap back. Addie’s front teeth connect with the lip of the bottle with a distinct clink and a splash of beer sloshes onto her lap.
“Holy shit, you made me chip my tooth!”
The car jets forward, a satisfied hum coming from under the hood, then Eddie shifts it to high.
“Whoa! This baby can go!” Becca’s enjoying this, a look like rapture spread across her face.
Faster and faster they go until Sarah feels the tires shimmy against the blacktop and the car fishtails a bit. A tragic accident last year suddenly comes to mind — five kids killed near Locklin — and the photo she saw in the newspaper, that one girl’s shoe, lying on the highway. The fields and trees are nothing more than blurs of orange and yellow, blending together now out of the corner of her eye. They hit a dip in the road and go airborne, sailing up then slamming back to the pavement as the car rocks on its wheels.
“Slow down!” Sarah shouts, patting and poking her hands into the crevices of the seat around her, searching for a seat belt tucked away. It’s time to put it on. Just then there’s a terrible screeching and she pitches forward, smacking her forehead on the back of Steve’s seat, and the car skids sideways, tires squealing. Becca screams.
When they finally come to a stop, the smell of burnt rubber hangs in the air. “Fuck, man,” Steve says and Eddie just sits there and stares, hanging on to the wheel. A grain truck sits at the edge of the highway, its front end angled into the ditch, and a young guy is walking toward them, waving his arms.
“He’s pissed off, man,” Steve says and they all crawl out of the car.
There’s something familiar about him although Sarah isn’t sure who he is. He’s not much older than they are, but she notices the way his eyes take everything in, looking things over, seeing them all for what they really are, a bunch of crazy kids with a case of beer and nothing to do on a Saturday night except try to get someone killed.
He is glaring at Steve and Eddie, his chin jutting out. It’s a rugged chin that matches his strong cheekbones and the confident line of his jaw. Sarah doesn’t want to stare but she can’t help herself. His face is perfect.
“You’re damn lucky I swerved over or they’d be picking pieces of you up off the road. You think that tin can is any match for my grain truck?”
“You were going too slow, man,” Eddie mumbles. “And I didn’t see that other car coming.”
“You’re fuckin’ lucky I didn’t roll.” He takes a step forward, lifts a fist like he’s going to lace Eddie between the eyes but then he stops himself, clasping the knuckles of his clenched fist with the other and looks away. “You girls okay?” His face softens as he looks at Sarah with real concern and she feels something reach up and grab hold inside then roll and pitch in her stomach. She feels almost sick, but in a good and glorious way.
“Scared shitless, but we’ll live,” Becca says, stepping out from behind Steve. She gathers her hair with one fist and drapes it over a bare shoulder. “Heard you were back from college but I haven’t seen you around.”
“Hey, Rebecca.” He seems caught off-guard, as though he’s surprised to see her. “Been busy with harvest, same as everyone else.”
“Heard you’re back to stay and farm with your dad,” she says, smiling sunshine at him. “We’re going to a party. You wanna come?”
He shakes his head. “No, gotta get back with the truck.” He takes a sidelong look at Sarah again, as though he, too, might know who she is. “Make sure you idiots take it easy,” he says with a frown to Eddie and Steve, then he climbs back into his t
ruck, backs onto the road, and pulls away.
After the close call, they ditch their plan to go to the roadside. Sarah and Addie want to go back to town, although Sarah knows she can’t go straight home — her dad will kill her if he sees her drive up in that fancy red car — so they drop her off at the pool hall. She takes the long way home, walking briskly along Park Street, swinging her arms, breathing hard, working out her duelling emotions — the bright fear she felt in the car and the warm flush that washed over her when the guy in the truck first looked at her. She slows down when she nears the luxurious brick houses with two-door garages and backyards overlooking the valley, the ones with the perfect families living inside. She imagines mothers and fathers behind the walls, playing canasta at dining-room tables while children sleep in comfy bunk beds or eat popcorn in front of flickering TVs. Maybe she’ll have a life like that someday with a husband who’ll adore her and beautiful children with fine-featured faces. If she closes her eyes tight and wishes really hard, she can almost believe it.
They’re in school on Monday morning, waiting for the first bell beside Addie’s locker, when Sarah finds out who he is. Cady Hubley is standing beside the biology lab with a crowd of girls around her. “It was so fun!” she is saying, telling them all about the Saturday night roadside, loud enough so Sarah and Becca and Addie will know what a great party they missed. Eddie is rummaging at the bottom of his locker across the hall. When he stands up, he looks over, trying to catch Becca’s eye, and she looks away as if she doesn’t know him.
A Strange Kind of Comfort Page 19