A Strange Kind of Comfort

by Gaylene Dutchyshen

  At suppertime, Caroline dishes potatoes and peas into bowls and sets down a platter of roast pork, then turns her narrow back to them as she piles pots into the sink. While the rest of them eat, she washes, the only other sounds in the kitchen the clinking of glass and the scratching of plates. Mr. Webb asks Sarah if she is off to Winnipeg in the fall, and when she says no he returns to his plate and mops up the last of his gravy.

  Later, the bonfire’s blazing, red-gold sparks flaring up each time someone tosses in a scribbler or a handful of notes. The flames crackle and lick at the air. Cady Hubley is dancing by the fire, tossing her hair and seductively rolling her hips as though she’s conjuring spirits. Del Foley’s blue Charger is parked nearby, stereo blaring so loud Sarah’s heart thumps in time with the bass. Addie’s not here yet and Sarah doesn’t feel like mingling with everyone else. They are huddled in small groups, the cliques from school separate and apart like they usually are, drinking beer and laughing. She feels strangely detached from everyone, all these kids she’s known her whole life who have promised to keep in touch in the messages they wrote in her yearbook. She imagines leaving high school will be similar to that one time she went to summer camp with Becca, all the girls exchanging addresses on the last day, vowing to keep writing to each other until they came back next year. Sarah didn’t get even one letter from those summer-camp girls but, then again, she didn’t mail one away either, and she never went back.

  “Wanna beer?” Bobby holds out a bottle and Sarah shakes her head. He gave her a ride out to the party and she’s hoping he’s not under the mistaken impression she’ll want to make out with him when he drives her home.

  Sarah notices someone in the shadows past the fire, leaning against the hood of a parked car, a lone figure slouched with his hands jammed into the front pockets of his jeans. She can tell by the way he holds his head that it’s Jack. She makes a wide circle around Cady and Del, who’s her latest boyfriend, and other couples pressed up against one another, slow dancing to the next track on the stereo. As she gets close to him, someone feeds the fire a fresh bundle of notes and the flames flare, lighting Jack’s face for a few seconds with a burst of light. He’s unshaven and his hair curls over his shirt collar, longer than it was the last time she saw him. There is sadness in his eyes but a purpose in the set of his jaw and he half smiles when Sarah walks up to him.

  “I haven’t been to one of these in a while.”

  “No doubt.” Sarah is suddenly shy, keenly aware this is the first time she’s been alone with Jack without Becca around.

  “I thought maybe Becca would be here. I need to talk to her. I guess you’d know if she’s coming?”

  Sarah shakes her head. “She’s still grounded.”

  Jack pulls a mickey from the inside pocket of his denim jacket and takes a swig, then holds it out for Sarah. She takes a sip; lukewarm amber liquid skims down her throat and a rush of heat spreads through her body. “Caroline will have to give in and let Becca out sooner or later,” she says. “She can’t keep her locked up all summer.” Her eyes don’t leave his face. “Becca told me how she had to break up with you over the phone while her mom stood there and listened.”

  “Her old man’s such a prick.”

  Sarah hands the bottle back to Jack. “He didn’t make her do it. Caroline told Becca they couldn’t even tell her father about it because of the trouble between your families, so he doesn’t even know. It was Caroline who made Becca end it with you.”

  A shadow of anger flickers over his face. “Always thought it was Eldon who had it in for us Bilyks, but I guess she’s no different than he is,” he says, tipping back the bottle again. “I figured things wouldn’t last between Becca and me, anyway. Because of who she is, not that she’s a Webb, necessarily, but because of that way she has about her, you know? Like she says jump and she expects me to say ‘how high.’ I guess she’s been used to getting her way all her life.”

  Sarah understands. She’s been under Becca’s spell, too.

  “I thought it would just naturally be over when she went away to school, we’d just drift apart without having to make a big deal out of it. I didn’t think she was really into it that much anyway, you know? Like dating me was just some kind of prize she was trying to win.” He takes another pull from the bottle. “But she needs to know that I think it’s best for both of us to just end it now.”

  A fight breaks out by the fire between Del Foley and some guy Sarah doesn’t know wearing a Locklin Lions jacket. Del jabs the guy in the face and he wallops him back on the side of the head. A crowd gathers around, chanting, “Fight, fight!” as they tumble to the ground.

  “Looks like it’s time to get out of here,” Jack says. “You need a ride back to town?”

  Sarah doesn’t want to ditch Addie, but she isn’t in the mood for hanging around. She is mostly quiet on the way home, thinking how thrilled she would have been back in the fall to be riding alone with Jack. She takes a sideways glance at him, at the face she’d like to drift her fingers across like a blind girl reading Braille, memorizing that slight bump on his nose, the firm bones in his cheeks, the moist curve of his lips.

  “Would you do me a favour?” He looks at her and turns down the volume on the radio. “Could you give Becca a message for me?” When Sarah nods, he says, “Just tell her I need to see her. I need to tell her it’s best this way, for this to be over. She’s not going to like it, but she needs to know the truth.”

  “Sure. I’ll tell her tomorrow,” Sarah says, as a faint glimmer of hope blooms in her heart. Becca always made her believe Jack was just as madly in love with her as she was with him, and now Sarah wonders if that was ever true. Maybe Jack was more ambivalent than Becca had let on, or even realized.

  She waits for Jack to say more but he’s quiet, the only sound the thump of tires against asphalt. Just before they reach town, he reaches over and turns up the radio. A song Sarah likes is playing and she listens, really listens, to the lyrics for the first time. Let’s just kiss and say goodbye. She’s glad Jack wants to do it, just say goodbye to Becca and let her go. But she knows Becca doesn’t want that to happen. Becca wants him and she always gets what she wants. She will do whatever it takes to keep him. Jack belongs to Becca and she’ll never let him go.

  When she gets home from her job at Pipers’ the following week, her father is sitting at the table, an open ledger in front of him. He takes his pencil and scratches the pale pink scalp where his thinning red hair flops over.

  “Did Becca call?” she asks him. All she could think about all day as she stocked shelves and rang customers through is what Becca and Jack might have talked about yesterday. She’d waited nearly a week to tell Becca that Jack wanted to see her. She didn’t want to spoil Becca’s graduation, but it didn’t really matter; Becca hardly smiled at all in her pretty pink gown. Jack and Becca finally met at Sarah’s house yesterday afternoon while Caroline thought the girls were rafting on the river with a bunch of other kids from school. They were alone in Sarah’s room for nearly an hour. When they came out, Becca’s eyes were swollen and red and Jack was so serious it looked as though he’d found out he was going to jail. He didn’t even look at Sarah, and she got the feeling he and Becca had discussed something more than a breakup. After Jack drove off, Sarah wanted to know what was going on but Becca wouldn’t tell her; she just kept crying. Sarah was desperate to know, and before Becca left she’d made her promise to tell her soon.

  Her father looks up and shakes his head. “Nope. Only one phone call and it was Hydro with a second warning that they’ll turn off the lights if I don’t pay the bill. Money’s like goddamn water around here. Flows through those boys’ fingers and evaporates into thin air.”

  Sarah knows how hard it is; she had to buy a box of cereal with her own money last week just so there’d be something for breakfast.

  “Don’t worry about making supper. Brian and Charlie aren’t home and I’ll make myself a sandwich later. Take the night off for a change.�
� He smiles weakly and turns back to his work.

  She goes upstairs and changes into a T-shirt and shorts then rinses out her uniform in the bathroom sink and hangs it up to dry.

  “Sarah, phone!” her father shouts. She flies down the stairs, hoping it’s Becca, but it’s Shorty, sounding hysterical. “Can you come over to my place? It’s Jack. He’s fucked up, man.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “He went over to Becca’s this morning, wanting to see her, and her old man came out waving a gun in his face.”

  What the hell is going on? “Geez, Shorty. Slow down!”

  “He threatened him. Said if he came around again he would beat the shit out of him or worse.” Shorty’s panting, short of breath as though he’s run up a couple flights of stairs, and Sarah can almost see his round red face, puffing into the phone. “He told Jack they’ve sent Becca away and he’ll never see her again.”

  Sarah doesn’t understand. Why would Jack go over there if they’d broken up? Becca’s father must have found out about them, but what did it matter if it was all over? All she can think about is Jack. “How is he?”

  “Like I said, he’s messed up. He’s been drinking all afternoon and now he wants to go back over there. He might listen to you. Can you come over and see if you can calm him down?”

  Sarah grabs the keys to her father’s truck and is out the door, tires squealing as she makes a sharp turn past the elementary school. There’s a little girl there, hopping along on one foot. Her pigtails bounce like springs with each little jump and her lips move as she sings. Sarah hears the high, shrill voice of a child chanting in her head.

  Step on a crack, Becca’s never coming back.

  PART FOUR

  2016

  CAROLINE

  Caroline opens her eyes. A dull ache in her head has grown to a stabbing pain and she can feel a pulse there, behind her right eye, with every beat of her heart. Looking around, she wonders, Where am I? Then she realizes she is in Sunny Haven, not twenty-one as she was in the moment she was just remembering but eighty years old, frail and old and broken, put here to spend the rest of her days. There’s no going back. Her life will end in this place as surely as Nick’s ended in that overturned tractor.

  She can still see herself standing at the Bilyks’ front door on that crisp October morning, the shock of learning about Nick like someone chopping her down at the knees. Eldon grunted his condolences then turned on his heel without saying a word about Anton’s dog and took his festering anger home. Caroline doesn’t recall if either she or Eldon said a word in the truck after they left. She only remembers a mind-numbing anguish circling her throat like a noose, yet she couldn’t let Eldon see it. She made herself think about the orderly suitcase stashed under her bed; the tight rows of rolled underwear and stockings, her black patent church shoes wrapped in brown paper. Sport was on the porch when they got home, waving his tail. Eldon reached for the gun and got out of the truck, and before Caroline could stop him he pulled the trigger and shot him. Her grief spewed forth in a tide of rage and she sprang on Eldon, hitting him dead-on with the full breadth of her body. His legs splayed out from under him and the rifle flew up in the air. And then she was on him, pounding and slamming, her fists raining down, connecting with hard bone and soft flesh, yet he didn’t fight back. When she was spent, Caroline rolled onto her back. The sky was as blue as she’d ever seen it and it had no business being that way. The tears came then and she opened her mouth and wailed, loud and long; she didn’t care if the whole world could hear. Eldon stood up and went to bury the dog.

  She got by the next weeks and months speaking barely a word. She quit eating and grew thin. When Eldon would catch her crying in the middle of the day, she would turn her back to him, and he let her, without comment or concern. Elvina finally told her the histrionics had gone on long enough; she needed to get over the loss of a pet and couldn’t she just get another dog? No one knew she was mourning the loss of the man she loved. She emptied the suitcase and put it away. There was no escape now. She resigned herself to the situation she had created. Before Christmas she told Eldon about the baby.

  SARAH

  From her father’s room, Sarah watches as Addie transfers Caroline out of her wheelchair into the reclining chair by the window. Her legs are frail, so thin Sarah could circle her thumb and forefinger around one of Caroline’s bony ankles. It’s been nearly six weeks since she first walked into Caroline’s room and told her who she was. Now Sarah stops by to say hello whenever she comes and lingers a few minutes longer each time. They were timid with each other at first, Sarah carefully choosing her words, but every visit is easier than the last, each of them opening up a bit more. Neither one of them has yet to mention Becca or Jack.

  On her way out, Addie pokes her head in Joe’s room. “You staying for a while?” She looks at her watch. “I’m on my break in twenty minutes or so, if you want to hang around. You can have coffee with me in the lunchroom.”

  “Sure,” Sarah says. “I’ll wait.”

  Her father is listening to his TV, wearing a set of big plastic headphones. The staff had been having trouble with him fiddling with the TV volume, turning it all the way up and back down over and over again, annoying bursts of noise echoing in the hallway, and they threatened to take the television away. It was Toni who came up with the idea of the headphones. A look of awe spread over his face the first time Toni placed them onto his head.

  Sarah considers going across the hall but Caroline appears to be nearly asleep in her chair. In her purse, Sarah has a large-print edition of short stories by Alice Munro she thinks Caroline will like. Last week, she learned Caroline was still an avid reader, despite having to use a magnifying glass, so when Sarah was browsing the stacks at the public library and she came across the Alice Munro, she thought immediately of Caroline and checked it out. She hasn’t told Jack she’s been visiting Caroline; he’s not likely to understand what it means to her to reconnect with the woman she was once so close to.

  There were plenty of rumours after Becca left. Millie Tupper had her own theory about why she had disappeared: over the years, a few girls had gotten pregnant and left town suddenly, only to return within a year as though nothing had happened, their eyes downcast when you looked at them. But Elvina wouldn’t stand by and let that sort of talk be spread around town about Becca. Elvina planted her own truth to dispel the stories, telling anyone who would listen that Becca had gone all the way to British Columbia to get a business degree at the best school there was.

  Sarah chose to believe Caroline, who denied the rumours and verified the story about school in B.C., although Sarah often wondered why Becca had never called to say goodbye and tell her about the change of plans herself. Their friendship must not have meant as much to Becca as she’d thought.

  She didn’t see Jack again after the day Shorty called. She heard he left town early in ’77 and she always wondered if he’d ended up in B.C. She assumed he hadn’t been honest with her about wanting to break up with Becca, so she went on with her life and tried to forget him.

  After Becca left, Sarah visited Caroline often. She seemed so lost and Sarah was lonely, too, with Becca’s sudden departure and Addie gone off to college. In the beginning, Sarah asked about Becca frequently, but Caroline seemed reluctant to discuss her. She once mentioned that Becca had written to Elvina, telling her about her business classes and her new friends. It made Sarah sad to think that Caroline, herself, had not received such a letter.

  Caroline and Sarah spent hours together, having tea, discussing books or playing cribbage or Scrabble. During that first winter, Caroline tried to teach her to sew, thinking it a skill every young woman should know, but Sarah was no better at it than she had been in home economics. Eventually Caroline gave up, and in the spring she shared her love of flowers with Sarah instead. They spent hours together in Caroline’s garden. Caroline taught her how to lift perennials and Sarah dug up a patch of grass next to her father’s house an
d created a bed of her own. She moved salvia and irises and phlox. Her favourites were pink lilies, which Caroline told her came from her own mother’s garden. The next year, clumps of them bloomed in the Coyles’ shabby yard.

  Jack came back in the spring of ’80 and walked into Pipers’ store, where Sarah still worked. She was surprised to see him at the counter, pulling out his wallet to pay for a few things. He’d grown leaner; his skin and body toughened up as though his time out west hadn’t been easy. He smiled when he saw her, his face lighting up, and told her they’d have to get together for coffee.

  She didn’t hear from him for a few weeks, but she wasn’t surprised. The weather was good; tractors and seed drills were rolling. In the middle of June, he came into the store and asked her to lunch. He kept this up, taking her out a couple of times a week for quick meals at the Chinese café or fries and a burger at the hotel coffee shop. They avoided mention of Becca at first, but one evening, about a month later, during supper at a nice restaurant in Locklin, Jack brought up the subject himself.

  “You know how I told you I was in Alberta the whole time I was out west?”

  Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. “You weren’t?”

  “I need to be honest with you. I actually went all the way to the coast at first. I hung around there a couple of months before I headed back to Alberta to look for a job.” Jack pulled the wine bottle from the bucket and topped up their glasses.

  Sarah felt a sharp stab of jealousy poke at her heart. “So … did you see her? What did she have to say?”

  Jack looked grim. “I didn’t find her. I checked out the university Elvina had told everyone about but she wasn’t enrolled there. I went to a couple of the colleges, but had no better luck.”