Sarah pushed away her plate. Her appetite was gone. She was angry with Jack, although she had no right to be. They were just friends, sharing a meal. He’d made no attempt to show her this new relationship was anything else. “You told me that night at the book-burner it was over between you two.”
“And it was. I thought if I broke up with her, maybe I’d have a shot at dating you, like I’d hoped to from the very beginning.”
“Dating me?” Sarah reached for her wine glass, nearly tipping it over.
Jack pulled a hand through his hair. “The night Eddie Reston nearly smashed into my grain truck? I noticed you right away. You looked so scared and I could tell you didn’t want to be there. I was going to ask if you wanted me to drive you back to town.”
“It was me you noticed?”
“Damn right.” Jack smiled. “That pretty face hiding behind those black curls.” He reached across the table and touched her hair.
“But Becca …” Sarah started to say.
“Yeah, Becca,” Jack sighed. “She stepped right up and made it all about her.” He paused and took a sip of wine. “Just like she did that October, when was she walking down the road and flagged me down. I rolled down my window and she leaned in, all smiles, and asked me for a ride.” He looked at Sarah, as though asking for forgiveness, before he went on. “She was flirting, it was so obvious. Flipping her hair, reaching down to pick up something she supposedly dropped so I could see down her shirt. She jumped in and I drove a couple miles then said I had to get back, there was work to do.”
The waitress came by, asked if there was anything else she could get them. Jack shook his head and waited until she was gone before he continued. “Just before I dropped her off, I asked about you. If you were one of the other girls in the car. I thought I remembered you from when you were younger. ‘Sarah Coyle?’ she said, and then she got this look on her face; a darkness came over it. She stopped for a while to think, and, just like that” — Jack snapped his fingers — “she was all sweetness and smiles again and told me you were dating Bobby Boychuk.”
“Why would she say that?” Sarah could hardly believe it. Becca must have been shocked to realize Jack was interested in her — plain little Jane who’d never had a boyfriend, who’d never had much of anything. She’d decided to take Jack for herself because she didn’t want Sarah to have him. “Especially after I’d told her I liked you, too.”
“You did? You weren’t dating Boychuk?”
Sarah shook her head. “When was that exactly?”
Jack frowned. “Right after Thanksgiving. I remember because we still had a few acres to finish up after the holiday that year.”
“She knew I liked you and you liked me and she went after you anyway. And she lied to me; she said you two were already together by then.”
“Shit.” He let out a long sigh. “Becca moved right across the seat and wrapped her arms around me. She said, ‘How about me? Do you like me?’ And she kissed me and … well … one thing led to another until …” He drained his glass. “It shouldn’t surprise me she’d backstab a friend to get what she wanted. I wish, at the time, I would’ve known how you felt. It would have changed everything.” Jack tipped back his head and closed his eyes. “Damn her anyway.”
Sarah reached across the table and took his hand. “What do you mean?”
Jack was quiet for a few moments and Sarah sensed he was struggling to keep his composure. He opened his eyes and looked at her, taking a deep breath. “I went out west because … there was a baby,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Those stories Elvina Webb tried so hard to cover up? They were true. That day at your house, Becca told me she was pregnant. We were going to take a few days and figure out what to do.”
Sarah was stunned. That explained the way Becca and Jack had looked when they came down from her room. It seemed a logical explanation for Becca’s sudden departure. But all these years Sarah had believed Caroline when she told her the rumours weren’t true.
“I went over to talk to her parents the next morning, and her old man pointed that shotgun at me. She had obviously told them. I told him we could get married, if that’s what they wanted, but he was just as likely to kill me as let me talk to her or tell me where she was.”
“Oh, Jack. No wonder you were so upset that day at Shorty’s.”
Jack nodded. “I didn’t want anyone to know Becca was pregnant. What was the point if the Webbs had already decided she was giving it up?” He paused. “She told me no one else knew and I was ashamed you’d find out I knocked her up. But it was eating me up inside, the thought they were making her give our kid away, and I went back to the Webbs’ before Christmas. I needed to know where she was. Eldon said I’d never have Rebecca or the baby, either.”
The restaurant was nearly deserted by then except for another couple on the other side of the room. Sarah was thankful Jack’s back was turned so they couldn’t see he was crying.
“I went out west about the time I figured she’d be having it, not for Becca, but for our baby. I thought maybe, if it wasn’t too late, I could bring him home and raise him myself. I checked out the homes for unwed mothers and all of the hospitals. I bought a bouquet of carnations and wandered the halls on the maternity wards, asking about her, looking at the babies in their bassinets. But I never found either one of them. I guess she did what they wanted and gave him away.” His voice cracked. Sarah stood up and went around and sat next to him. She pulled him close and let him cry into her shoulder, stroking his cheek and whispering his name. She promised herself she would give him her love, all of it, and babies, too, as many as she could, if that’s what he wanted. They would be her gifts to him and she would cherish them, showering them with every bit of love ever denied to her by her own mother, and then some.
Jack kissed her for the first time that night when they were parked in his truck in her father’s driveway. She kissed him back, deeply, with a hunger she’d suppressed for four years. The unveiling of the truth about the baby unleashed a passion in both of them and they didn’t wait for their wedding. They married in September, a short ceremony at St. Michael’s country church with a handful of people. Instead of heading out west or to college like she’d once planned, Sarah quit her job and they started their life with nothing but the future rolled out before them. Jack was the best and truest friend she’d ever had in the world.
The business section of Main Street consists of two blocks and between them they share two empty lots and four boarded up buildings. Ross Prairie is down to one grocery store — Pipers’ has long since closed its doors — and the paint on most of the buildings is peeling. Gone are the days when, on Saturday nights, the street in front of the hotel was lined with cars and half-ton trucks, kids hanging out, waiting to convince someone of age to pull them some beer.
Sarah pulls up to the municipal office where the Regional Health Board is meeting tonight. Her hands tremble a bit as she fumbles with the Duo-Tang folder that holds her three-page presentation. The USB stick is tucked safely in her purse; Sam says the board has a laptop they can use and, luckily, he knows how to load it and queue up their PowerPoint so all Sarah has to do is read from her notes. They decided to invite Jon and Jolene Lentz to join them and tell the board their own personal story, how quickly the ambulance arrived early last year when their ten-year-old son, Carter, was mangled by a grain auger and response time was critical.
The Lentzes are waiting with Sam in a small office beside the boardroom when Sarah arrives. Jolene has regained the weight she lost in those long months while Carter recovered at Children’s Hospital and she looks up, the skin wobbling on her double chin. “They’ve told us we’re up in five to ten minutes.” She glances at Sarah’s folder and frowns. “I didn’t write anything down. Do you think I should have?”
“Just speak from your heart, the way you did at the public meeting,” Sarah reassures her. “Your words are more powerful than anything Sam or I can say in our presentation.”
&
nbsp; “I wondered if maybe we should have brought Carter along,” Jon says. “So the board could see for themselves how well he’s doing, after his leg was so torn up.” The accident was horrendous — a bent guard on the auger and Carter stepping over it when his small foot slipped through. Jon was right there, shut everything off within seconds, but Carter had extensive injuries.
“I didn’t want to have him listen to all the details of that day, how it seemed like forever before the ambulance arrived when it was really only twelve minutes.” The painful memory dulls Jolene’s eyes and she looks down at her hands. “I’ll never forget the sound of the siren wailing as it came, the seconds ticking off while the towels soaked through in my hands.”
Sarah remembers it well; Addie called from work to tell her about it. She was reminded of all the times the girls played out in the yard and all the warnings she rattled off over the years. Jack was paranoid about safety. He had told the girls the story of his uncle Nick so often they could recite it by heart: a handsome young man killed at twenty-four when a tractor he was operating on a hillside flipped over and pinned him. Jack put up a fence around the house before Allison took her first steps and he made Sarah keep the girls penned up like chickens until they were old enough for school. He wouldn’t allow the girls to step foot into the farmyard unless he or Sarah was with them.
The sun slants in through the venetian blinds and Sarah twists the wand so Sam can quit squinting. The office isn’t much bigger than a bedroom, tight with the desk and two filing cabinets, and it’s so stuffy and warm, a bead of sweat trails down the side of Jon Lentz’s face. Suddenly the door flies open and Cady Rankmore bursts through, carrying a briefcase. “Am I late?” She’s dressed as though she’s here for a job interview, in a tight black skirt with a suit jacket and her ludicrous shoes. Jon pops up to offer her his chair while Sam catches Sarah’s eye with a pained look on his face. “We didn’t expect you, Cady,” he says.
“These meetings are open to the public; I could be in there right now if I wanted to.” She looks at Sarah down the length of her nose. “I’ve come to hear how well you do in convincing the board with your presentation.”
“I suppose you’re welcome to come in and listen.” Sam is sweating, too; a sheen from the diffused light shines off the top of his head.
“I’d also like to mention the considerable contributions the Hubleys have made to Ross Prairie.” Cady reaches under her blouse at the shoulder and tugs at her bra strap, visibly hefting one pendulous breast. “My family funded many of the incentives to recruit new doctors and there’s not a one of them who knows that, least of all Carol Bodnarchuk, who supposedly represents our interests on this board. I’d like to know how someone like her got on the board in the first place.”
“I’m sorry, Cady, but it’s not possible. They’ve only given us twenty minutes,” Sam is saying when the door opens and the board chair, a silver-haired woman with eyeglasses dangling around her neck on a thick gold chain, invites them into the boardroom. Cady positions herself at the table next to the Lentzes instead of sitting in the row of visitors’ chairs at the side of the room and makes a show of opening her briefcase and removing a yellow legal pad as though she’s been asked to take notes. Someone offers Sarah a glass of water — she is so nervous her tongue clicks in her mouth — and she takes a sip. Cady’s come for no other reason than to judge her so she can have something to talk about later with Arlene. Sarah is also suddenly aware of the other eyes looking her over, strangers mostly since the board is now regional, although there is Carol Bodnarchuk, at the end of the table, who catches her eye and gives a slight nod.
After introductions, Sam taps a few keystrokes and their first visual lights up the white screen. Sarah begins. She’s comfortable and confident with what she’s written, yet during the presentation her mind floats off and she can’t help but wonder what the others are thinking, if they’re being swayed by her words. She’s aware of every intent face — the wide-eyed young man with thick glasses, a scowling dark-haired woman, Carol, bobbing her head, as well as the others.
She concludes her presentation and invites the Lentzes to speak. When they’re done, the frowning woman is wiping a tear. The board chair, a woman named Marianne, stands up to shake hands with them and is about to turn to Sarah and Sam when Cady jumps up and pumps Marianne’s hand. She beams when Marianne thanks her for coming.
“Wow,” Sam says under his breath. “Can you believe that?”
Yes. Yes, she can. Cady hasn’t much changed from fifty years ago, diverting all the attention back on herself in just the same way she rescheduled a birthday party so no one would attend Sarah’s party when they were little girls.
“Marianne just told me Carol’s stepping down. Have you heard?” Cady says to Sarah before turning back to Marianne. “I’d like to be considered for it. I’m very civic-minded; I take after my father that way.”
“There’s a process, forms and such to fill out, then interviews and a board recommendation of our preferred candidate we send on to —” Marianne starts to say before Cady interrupts.
“I’m a teacher, recently retired, and I have all the time in the world, and superior qualifications, too.” She lifts up her chin. “Not that Carol didn’t do a good job, that’s not what I’m saying, but I live right in town, not out in the country somewhere, and I have my finger on the pulse of the community. I know what they’re talking about.”
Sarah pauses as she gathers up her things. Cady’s right, no doubt. She collects and dispenses gossip as well as old Millie Tupper did back when they were girls. She turns to Cady. “It isn’t a matter of knowing what people are talking about. You have to understand the issues and you don’t need to live in town to do that.” Sarah pulls a pen from her purse, jots her email address on a small slip of paper. “You have to actually care about the people you represent.”
“I know everything about this town. I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Sarah,” Cady says, staring her down.
“If you don’t know what I’m trying to say, you’re even more obtuse than I always thought you were.” Sarah hands the note to Marianne. “If you wouldn’t mind, Marianne, could you send me the forms? I’d like to put my name forward for the position.” At the door, she turns and smiles at Cady. “We’ll leave it to the board to decide,” she says. “This isn’t high school and it’s not a popularity contest. May the best candidate win.” She turns on her heel and walks out the door.
CAROLINE
Caroline shifts uncomfortably in her bed and flaps her blanket so it snaps like a sheet in the wind then looks at the clock radio on the nightstand. Eight thirty-two. They’ve turned out the lights, but her room glows in a pale wash of lingering daylight, bright enough to read if she could only swing her legs over the edge of the bed, stand up, and reach for the book on the side table by her chair. She has no patience for the strict rules in this place. How do they expect her to sleep when it won’t be dark for hours?
Eldon was an early riser, up at dawn each day, even when the time changed at daylight savings. He always complained when they had to adjust the clocks, saying the concept was unnecessary, designed for the leisurely pursuits of city people, not farmers who worked in tandem with the rising and setting of the sun and not the hands of a clock. He insisted on a full breakfast so Caroline was drawn from her warm bed, too, frying eggs and ham or bacon as the sun poked over the horizon. At first, after he died, she’d still felt the need to spring out of bed once her rocking chair in the corner began to take shape in dawn’s tender light. But she soon realized she could linger if she chose, settle her head back on the pillow like she used to when she was a teenager and her mother indulged her on Saturday mornings. Her father used to huff about it; she could hear him in the kitchen telling her mother Caroline should be up, helping with chores, but her mother would shush him and say, “Let her sleep.”
Even now, Caroline feels a timorous squeeze on her heart whenever she thinks of her mother. Dead more than six
ty years and yet she can still see her standing in the kitchen, whisking a thick batter while the sun opened its sleepy eye. She has surpassed her mother’s age by nearly thirty years, in robust health the whole time until she slipped on the stairs. When she turned fifty-two, she marvelled at how young she still felt and she wondered why she had ever considered her mother an old woman at that age. Had her mother, despite her tired eyes and work-worn body, still felt like she did, young and so full of life inside?
Charity, the night-duty nurse, trundles by, those horrid plastic clogs she wears clapping against the floor. She backs up and looks into Caroline’s room. “Not sleeping yet?”
Who can bloody well sleep when you’ve put us to bed earlier than a bunch of eight-year-olds? Caroline wants to say it but she knows she must be polite, especially to this inaptly named beast of a woman. She once saw Charity pinch Simon Tuttle in the dining room when he’d purposely knocked his dinner plate on the floor.
“Would you like me to give you something to help you sleep?” Charity looms over her and Caroline can smell the nurse’s oniony breath.
Caroline shakes her head and is tempted to hold her two hands crossed over her mouth the way Becca used to when she tried to give her a teaspoon of Buckley’s. She won’t be fooled into swallowing one of those little pills Charity feeds to residents like Simon or Joe so she can sit at the desk doing crosswords all night.
“Could I have my book? Perhaps if I read for a while I’ll get sleepy.”
“Lights out means lights out and rules are rules.” Charity fills a glass with water, leaves it on Caroline’s nightstand, and waddles out of the room.
Caroline closes her eyes. If Addie were on duty, she’d give Caroline the book. She doesn’t always bother with the rules. Caroline has seen her passing Martha Gudz an extra dish of ice cream and racing out the door with John McTavish in his wheelchair when those four big red combines of Three Oaks Farms roar by, just so he can see them and be reminded of his own days on the farm. She’s always soft-spoken with residents like Simon and Joe. What good does it do to get angry with someone like that? Thank God for small graces. She might not be able to stand up and reach for her book, but at least she can read and she knows her own name. That’s one thing she thinks about so often now: the different ways to live and the different ways to die. She wants to go quickly when the time comes.
A Strange Kind of Comfort Page 24