“That’s a beautiful story,” Sasha said. Tears were running down her wide flat cheeks. They just slid, spilling naturally from her steady, green eyes.
Annika shook her head roughly. She didn’t like the tears or how they quickened the flutter inside her. “It was medieval is what it was. I don’t know how they expected us to live in the world, growing up the way we did. They were fundamentalists and refused, absolutely refused to change with the times. My brother is totally fucked up too . . .” She stood suddenly. The sound of the chair scraping against the floor was loud and jagged.
“Well, I’m glad you shared it any way.”
Annika reached for the door. She wanted to get away from the strange flutter inside her, from Sasha’s understanding moon eyes, from the dead air and the dying supplies. She thought of the wind as it had travelled through the house. She grabbed the doorknob, then stopped. “I want you to tell her that you did that.” It was as if the flutter had a voice of its own, as if it were pushing words up and out before she had a chance to think them.
“Pardon?”
“I want you to tell her,” she said, louder now. “I don’t care if you actually do it or not, but I want you to tell my mother that you covered the mirrors. That I asked you to. It would make her happy.”
Sasha spoke very quietly. “I would be honored.”
Annika went outside. She hadn’t been outside in weeks, she realized. She walked quickly on her shaky legs but couldn’t get away from the strange, naked feeling inside her. She breathed deeply but couldn’t dispel it. She stood on the gravel beach and looked out to where the clouds were threatening. The wind had kicked up and there were whitecaps cresting now and a rumble of thunder far off in the distance.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” she whispered and the wind came up and smoothed her hair back from her brow; it was cool and smooth, like a lover’s hand pushing her hair from her forehead. She closed her eyes, trying to make sense of things, of the fact that she’d only remembered now. Her aunt had been almost the exact same age, they’d even looked like one another, she realized and somehow this fact brought everything else into question: the choices and the genes and the seeds . . . Maybe it would have happened anyway, she thought. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered what she’d done or what choices she’d made. She felt all mixed up. I know nothing about myself, she realized. I don’t know anything anymore.
The thunder rumbled again and she found herself thinking of Hamish. It struck her as strange to find him there, in the cool, soothing touch of the offshore breeze, but there he was, fluttering up to the surface, not the icy, cruel post-divorce Hamish but the one before that, the one forgotten. There were so many forgotten things.
He’d had a deep voice, Hamish did. She used to put her head on his chest to hear it rumble deep inside him. His chest was broad and flat and her head had rested perfectly there, just below the shoulder. They used to lie in bed and he would tell her things, he would talk about his elaborate, detailed plans for the future, what he would do, the schools their kids would attend, the vacations they would take; he sketched for her the exact map of his future and she would lie and listen to the rumble beneath the words, like the Earth moving, like thunder and she’d liked how it made her feel, as if she were safe in the shelter of his warmth with a storm coming, but it occurred to her now that maybe he had, in fact, tried to tell her. He’d told her his dreams and she’d listened to the resonance only and maybe none of it had been so sudden after all.
She blinked tears away just as the first few drops of rain began to fall. They spattered on her forehead and on her face then Sasha was at the door of the cottage, in the yellow light yelling, “Quick! Anni! Quick! You’ll catch a cold!” and Annika took one last look at the sea. It was loud and hissing now as the rain came across and as she drew in her breath she realized what was so strange, what was different in her. It was the hardness. It wasn’t there anymore. She breathed deep and her breath went right down to the very center of her and then she ran towards the cottage and the warm yellow light and Sasha beckoning.
CHAPTER SIX
Big, fat, greasy raindrops splattered down on the roof of the car where Matt sat parked in front of an empty townhouse, drinking cold coffee from a paper cup and waiting for a client who he suspected was a no show. The neighbourhood, a new suburb about an hour from downtown, was close to schools and parks; on the website he’d called it family-oriented and community-minded, which might have been true after five o’clock when all the busy productive people got home from their busy productive lives; but at midday, in the cold and the rain, the streets were eerily deserted, like the soaked and silent countryside left behind by the frontlines of a war.
He watched the rain hit the pavement: a thousand tiny explosions on a sheet of running water. It was hypnotic, in a way, and part of him liked it, liked being here, though it was cold in the car. He could be truly alone during the days, his thoughts his own in a way they never were at home. He watched the rain and his mind drifted again to the name he hadn’t expected to see; that spare, mean signature carved into the last page of the contract: Annika Torrey.
Most women had an upright, loopy way of writing, a kind of apology in the lightness of their hand, but not this one. This one had a dark, leaning cursive, her signature an angry slash she’d practically carved into the page; he’d felt the tiny grooves with his fingertips when he’d signed his name next to it and it was this, more than anything, that his mind kept coming back to. Was she angry? Nervous? Why had she pressed so hard?
He took another sip of coffee, then checked his phone. The guy was already half an hour late. Five more minutes, he told himself. Five minutes, then he’d go. He settled back, wrapping his arms tight around his chest.
It was only 3:30, yet all around him Christmas lights were beginning to turn on, strands of hopeful glow-bugs making a doomed stand against the dreariness, against the cold wet night that was, even now, descending. On the lawn next door, someone had put up a creche: cheap, plastic statues of Mary, Joseph and Jesus surrounded by hay bales and what appeared to be a camel made of birch logs. The whole thing was an eyesore and he’d fretted about it at first, fearing potential clients would balk at the prospect of overtly religious, not to mention tacky, neighbours; but now, as the flood lights came on, casting long shadows of the Holy trio onto the soggy bales behind, he paused, filled with a strange ache, like longing, like loneliness.
He was not a religious man and never had been. Both his parents had moved away from their families at a young age and let go of any religious beliefs. They’d never taken him to Church and the Christmas story was one he understood only vaguely; yet something about the simplicity of the three figures on the lawn—man, woman and child—moved him almost to tears; the quiet of it, the hay, even the camel, made him want to lay his head down and rest, made all the striving and busyness of his life these days feel hopeless, cruel somehow.
He thought again of Annika Torrey. What was she doing with the last of her days? Did she have someone? Somewhere warm and dry and out of the rain? Had his money helped her? He hoped so.
He sighed heavily, then reached forward and started the car, glancing one last time at the Holy trio before pulling away. Was it a sacrilege, he wondered, to envy them?
The next day, he stood in his own driveway, watching Jen go back and forth as she loaded their things into the car. They were going to Anacortes to visit her parents for Christmas, the three of them travelling together in one vehicle the way he’d once imagined happy families to be; yet looking at Jen now, he was filled with anxiety. He couldn’t help but see her as her parents would see her: their once confident, hopeful daughter so thin and downtrodden, so nervous she had to check and re-check every bag with her spidery hands. He closed his eyes. He wanted a drink, something strong and quick to sear his worried mind to stillness.
It was two days to Christmas and he still hadn’t told Jen about his inves
tment. He’d meant to do it; yet each time he came to it, he found he wasn’t able and what had started as avoidance had morphed into something that felt like a lie. He watched as she hurried back into the house. The screen door slammed shut behind her.
He hadn’t expected to feel this way. The way Ken had talked about it, the deal had made sense, even if it was a bit on the morbid side: this woman needed money right away; he needed money long term. She’d agreed to it; he’d agreed to it. It was a business transaction, nothing more. Yet, now, outside Ken’s rationale and icy, pale charm, it felt different, shameful somehow, and he found himself wishing that Ken had just gone about it the normal way, grouping the policies together rather than cutting him a ‘special deal’ and going ‘straight to the source.’ Ken had stressed that this was a rare opportunity, that this was pancreatic cancer, as if it was a good thing and urged him to act quickly. Maybe too quickly. And there’d been the medical report with all these detail Matt hadn’t expected to see and the shady lawyer he’d hired to look things over because he was too embarrassed to use his regular lawyer and then her name carved like that into the last page of the contract . . . There was no way he could explain this to Jen!
He watched helplessly as she came back out of the house carrying a basket of brightly wrapped presents. He felt sick, the enormity of what he’d done bearing down on him as he watched her. It was bad! He’d taken out a $50,000 line of credit against the house to pay for the fucking thing, and even though Jen took almost no interest in their finances, it was her money too. He looked at her pleadingly, hoping to catch her eye.
She stood, looked over at him, then frowned. “Can you watch him a little closer, please?” she scolded. “I told you to watch him, and you’re not watching him at all.” Then she bent back down to rearrange something in the trunk.
Matt looked to the end of the drive. Jacob. There he was in all his four-year-old glory, getting his feet soaked as he crouched next to a puddle, his wire-rimmed glasses streaked with dirt. Matt walked over. “Try not to get your feet wet, Bud,” he said. “We want to look nice for Nanna and Poppa.”
Jacob picked up a worm and dangled it in front of him.
“It’s the eve of the eve, buddy, are you excited?” he asked, trying to muster up some of that old Christmas excitement he remembered as a child, but Jacob scrunched up his nose then went fishing in the puddle for more worms.
Jen closed the trunk. “There. I think that’s it,” she said. “Jakey, are you excited to see Nanna and Poppa?” she called over, sickly sweet.
Jacob looked up from where he was crouching. “I found four worms.”
Matt clapped his hands. “Pitter patter let’s get at’er,” he said, aware of how much he sounded like his own Dad sometimes. His old man had been a great one for sayings: Christmas, part deux he used to say after the divorce, deux in a mocking exaggerated tone that made the holidays sound slightly squalid and naïve, although, to give him credit, the old man always had the best gifts: video games and pump-up sneakers and Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts when they were first coming into style. It used to make his mother jealous, he remembered, because she couldn’t afford the same, and he used to hide his Dad’s presents from her, keeping them stashed in his backpack until he got to school.
He bent down and scooped Jacob up in his arms, holding him tight against his chest. “I love you, Bud,” he whispered as he carried him over to the car. No matter how bad it was between him and Jen, he wouldn’t put his own son through that, he vowed. Jacob would never, ever be torn in two: it was one of the promises he’d made to himself.
Soon, they were off, winding through the suburbs in their little Subaru wagon, then out onto the northbound Interstate where the road quickly became a total holiday shit show. People were rushing, braking for no reason, cutting each other off. Matt felt his stress levels rising. His head began to pound. Ahead of him, on the shoulder, a car did an impossible squeeze play and he had to jam on the brakes. “What the fuck?!” he exploded. Jen gave him a dirty look. “Did you see what that guy just did, though? People think just because its Christmas, they can do whatever the fuck they want!”
Jen glared at him a moment longer and didn’t answer, then, she leaned forward and started screwing with the CD player. Soon, her and Jacob were singing along to a children’s album while he leaned forward and tried to concentrate, his shoulders curving inwards as if guarding something dark and real against the inane little knives of the music. Then, just when he thought he couldn’t take anymore, the city spat them out and they left the highway, driving North, then West along a quiet, winding road.
Traffic subsided. The forest closed in around them, huge groves of cedar and fir with glimpses of the water, grey and restless, between the pillars of their trunks.
The music ended. Jen sighed. “Ahhh. Finally. Seattle’s not the sea. Not like out here.”
He glanced over at her. The angry crease between her brows was gone. Her face looked soft and pretty, the way he remembered it. In the rearview, Jacob was sitting placidly, his pale, fair head against the glass, his long limbs dangling limply over the edges of the car seat.
“We’ll walk down to the beach,” Jen mused. “We’ll take Jakey to the beach and then go to the Wildflower for a hot chocolate.”
Tentatively, Matt put his hand on her leg and glanced again at her thin, young face with the forest rushing behind it. This was the Jen he knew, the one he’d fallen in love with.
“And we’ll have a fire,” she continued. “We’ll have a fire down at WestPoint and roast marshmallows if there’s a moon. Dad used to take us to do that when we were kids. It’s so bright down there with the moon on the water, sometimes it’s like daytime and you can see your shadow on the rocks. One Christmas it was like that.”
The moon on the water: he liked it when she talked this way. It was easy to forget when she was rushing around Seattle looking like all the other busy moms, that Jen grew up in a place where wood smoke still hung on the air and people said hello to one another in the street and let their dogs roam free. It was easy to forget that she cared about things like the moon on the water, that she grew up building tree forts in the forest near her parents’ house and that her growing up was not that long ago.
She turned towards him and smiled softly. She looked like a little girl when she smiled, and his heart swelled with the urge to protect her. How had everything gotten so screwed up? After Jacob was born, her doctor had told him she had postpartum depression, and he’d tried to help her, he’d rearranged his whole life to help her, but most of the time it just felt like she hated him and it hurt, especially since he’d tried so hard. Still, he wanted it to work. He would tell her, he resolved; he’d find a quiet time and tell her everything.
She sighed again then slid her hand over top of his and they drove in silence for a while, their fingers intertwined, both hands resting on top of her thigh, until Anacortes came into view.
His in-laws, Crystal and Ed, must have been watching for them out the window, because as soon as Matt turned the car onto the long gravel drive, they rushed out onto the porch, waving Matt in, their rambling, cedar-shake palace falling down behind them. It was an absolute monstrosity of a house, cobbled together over years of renovations, so sunken and grey, it seemed part of the forest floor.
“So it begins,” Jen whispered in that dark and comic way she used to have. Matt slowed the car as Crystal came running out into the drive in baby steps, her arms held open in front of her, her great breasts bouncing up and down, a teal and silver poncho streaming out behind her.
“Jenny! My sweet Jenny!” Crystal cried, leaning in the open window and planting multiple kisses on Jen’s face before the vehicle was even fully stopped. Crystal looked her daughter over with big, soul-searching eyes, then went around to the backseat where she flung open the door and began smooching Jacob. “Look at how big! Oh! My heavens! You’re so big now!”
Matt got out and breathed the cool, fresh air. He looked around at the overgrown garden and the woodpile and the sheds. High above, the branches of the great fir trees sighed and shifted. It was so completely different from where he’d grown up, he could never quite get used to it.
Now Ed came down into the drive, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, a small sheepish smile on his weathered face, as if Crystal’s theatrics embarrassed him. Matt stepped forward and offered his hand. “Merry Christmas, Ed. Thanks for having us.”
Ed was a carpenter and his hand was rough; it made Matt was conscious of how soft his own hand was. A blush rose to his cheeks. Ed had never been anything but kind; yet it would always be there, hanging in the air between them, what Matt had done to his daughter.
“Nana! Poppa!” Jacob was out of the car now, hopping up and down with excitement, then he was off chasing an orange cat into the bushes, through giant ferns and rotting logs and rough, papery salal. They all stood in the driveway, smiling after him, and then, suddenly Jeremy, Jen’s brother, was there, appearing from the shadows, like a wraith. “Hey little sister,” he said.
Jeremy was two years older than Jen but still lived in the basement of his parent’s house where he wrote screenplays and tried to make connections as an artist, whatever that meant. His narrow face was permanently mocking yet he never missed a family event. He was always simply there, skulking in the background.
When it was Matt’s turn, he hugged his brother in-law and felt Jeremy’s thin chest draw inwards and away. Then Jeremy said in that sour mocking way he had, “How’s life in the burbs?” and Matt felt his blush deepen.
That evening, once they’d settled in, they all came down and sat around the large country table where Crystal had laid out a feast: roasted potatoes, a huge roast beef, steamed carrots and pickles and onions and mustards, all in brightly coloured pottery dishes. The kitchen was bathed in a warm yellow light; in the darkened living room, a fire crackled in the woodstove.
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