Viaticum

by Natelle Fitzgerald

  Then there was the sound of a car creeping up the gravel. She tensed. She clicked the safety off the gun as Helmut had shown her; Helmut hadn’t asked her what it was for only made sure the serial number was filed off so no one could blame him and she liked that about him, that he would think to file the serial number. He was a practical man, sentimentality was dead to him and she understood what that was like.

  The vehicle came into view. It was Cosmo and Sasha’s mini-van. Animal Matters Therapy it said in white letters on the side. Sasha was gone to India for palliative yoga but she had put her partner Cosmo on the snooping trail like everyone else, snooping for the chance to round her up and poke her and prod her in the dead and airless space and talk to her like a plastic surgery robot about how it would all be okay. She wouldn’t let them do it. The van stopped next to the cottage and Cosmo got out. He opened the back door to let Max and Kia out. Dogs! Annika sucked in her breath. If they were to find her here . . . The dogs bounded off towards the beach. Cosmo went to the door. He knocked then tried the handle. He cupped his hands to the glass and peered inside.

  “Annika? Annika?”

  Go home, Cosmo, she thought. You don’t need to be here. Even from a distance she could see the concern on his elvish face.

  He walked around the cottage, peering into the windows along the side, then he came back around to the driveway. He stooped and peered into the car, then stood and frowned. He looked out to the beach, then down the lane. She flattened herself even lower to the ground.

  Finally, he whistled for the dogs and they came sprinting back across the grass, then another vehicle pulled in and parked next to the van. A man jumped out. He seemed desperate and out of breath.

  The dogs came up to him but he ignored him. “Is Annika around? Is she here?” the man yelled at Cosmo.

  It took her a moment to realize it was him. It was Matt Campbell. He’d transformed into a wild man with a silver beard and dirty clothes and hair standing on end. “Is Annika here?” he demanded again.

  “I knocked but no one answered. Her car’s still here though so she can’t be too far. Is something wrong?”

  “Jesus!” Matt Campbell exclaimed and just like that he kicked the door in. He literally broke it off the hinges. “Annika? Annika?” he hollered, “Are you alright?” His urgency startled her. He was like a super hero in a movie, the way he broke down the door. Maybe he . . . Focus now. The river of choices could not go back.

  The two men were inside the cottage yelling her name but the dogs were now in the drive. Max, the black lab, stood still and sniffed the air. He turned to stare at where she was hidden then wagged his tail. She held her breath. They would find her. It was done. She wasn’t ready yet for the final choice, she wasn’t ready to do it.

  Then a flash of silver streaked out of the cottage. Zebedee! Max and Kia went racing after him. Zebedee her savior.

  Now Matt Campbell and Cosmo came out in the drive again, talking to one another with serious expressions. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. Cosmo nodded several times then whistled for the dogs, got back into the van and peeled out of the drive.

  Matt Campbell stayed. He looked around then went down to the beach. She saw him crane his neck in both directions then he sat down on a log and faced the sea.

  He seemed so alone as he sat there, completely motionless and staring out at the grey that she almost felt sorry for him. She was filled with despair. She wanted to scream at him, talk to him, kill him, hold him, she didn’t know what she wanted just that he needed to understand and that no one understood or had ever understood and she was hiding and wanting to be seen and she rose in the forest with the gun in her hand and held it out in front of her and it pulled her towards his silhouette the way a divining rod will lead you to water. You, you, you, she thought.

  She came to the place where the grass stopped. She stepped onto the small round stones. He turned. She came around in front of him. He didn’t understand at first then he did. He stood up from where he was sitting.

  She raised the gun. “You,” she said. Her arms were shaking terribly.

  He held his hands out to the side with the palms up like he was saying the Lord’s prayer. He didn’t raise them in front to protect himself, he raised them to the sides. He said, “I’m sorry.”

  She blinked. She pointed the gun towards him then she put it to her temple.

  “No, no,” he said, “please no.”

  Then she pointed it at him again, then at herself again. “I’m sick,” she said, then the world seemed to spin and she slumped to the ground and everything went grey then white then grey again and she didn’t know where she was or if she had died. There was the sky white and reeling above her and cold stones against the side of her face and she was afraid because she didn’t understand what was happening and she started to cry.

  Then she felt herself being lifted up by a pair of hands. She felt herself being lifted and carried across a wide, open space and she heard a man’s voice rumbling through his chest, it’s okay, you’re okay, I’m with you and for a moment the confusion left her for his hands on her body were steady and strong.

  When she woke again she was in her bed and Matt Campbell was there, in her room. She told him she hated him. She told him not to leave. He made phone calls; she could hear him on the phone and then a nurse came, one of Sasha’s friends, and the pain went away for a while. She heard the nurse talking quietly to Matt Campbell downstairs then he came up and sat in the corner of her room and just sat there.

  People came and went. There was a nurse. A doctor from the hospice. Matt Campbell slept on her couch and did not leave. There was such sadness in his face, such pleading when he looked at her that she felt sorry for him, in spite of everything he’d done. She went to sleep and woke up and he was still there.

  Sometimes, he sat by her bedside and moistened her lips with a towel. Sometimes, he brushed her hair back from her face. Sometimes she was angry and told him to go away and he did go, but never far. She’d hear him downstairs, talking to the nurse, puttering around, making tea. Sometimes, she remembered how they’d made love and she missed him even though he was there.

  Days went by. Sometimes she thought about the contract and the creepy stuff he’d done, but somehow her old hurts, her old angers didn’t seem to matter anymore, only the moment, the people, the warm caring hands. Matt Campbell sat in her room on the hard boards day after day, looking so much like a castaway in his dirty clothes and unshaved face that she was filled with a softness, a desire to help him. She remembered him stroking her hair. She remembered he whispered forgive me. She held out her hand and he came over and took it and she said, “It’s okay. I’m not mad anymore,” and she saw his face utterly transformed in that moment and it gave her peace to see it, as if in this one small act of forgiveness lived the forgiveness of all things: of self, of world, of others, and she thought about the strange journey of her life, how it had narrowed down, funneled her towards this one final choice and she was no longer afraid; she felt grateful that she could do this one last thing. She said to Matt Campbell, “I forgive you,” and she knew by the look on his face that she had chosen well.

  And in the end, the peace that Sasha had talked about did come. It did. Sometimes she slept and sometimes she woke, always in the safe, warm bed with the quilt overtop of her. When she ran her fingers over it she thought of her mother and her family and the farm. She drifted in and out and there was the crackling of the fire at night and the sound of the waves and slow, steady breathing in the room.

  Sometimes there were faces that she recognized: a trembling man with long white hair, a fat woman with a beautiful voice, a fairy goddess in a white dress, a sharp faced man with silver hair and there were others too and though she couldn’t find the names she was glad they were there.

  Sometimes there were animals that came and pressed their warm bodies against her and she touched
their fur and smiled and there was the gentle weight of a sleeping cat that sat atop her feet and kept them warm and the sound of the heat in the pipe tat tat tat like a small creature climbing.

  And there was a man also who was often in the room and sometimes she thought he was her father and sometimes she thought he was Hamish and other times she knew him to be Michael and she was glad that he was there.

  Then one day there was a pain inside her and when she cried out the man’s hands were there, warm and dry and steady. They stroked her forehead, pulling gently, smoothing her hair back from her brow the way a breeze does when you turn to face it. Shhh . . . Shhh . . . he said and it was a whispering sound like wind through the trees shhh it was a soft and streaming sound like water rushing over stones shhh like grass that bends silver and tosses and shifts and is restless and beautiful shhh and she found there were spaces in the sound, bright white spaces between the threads of the sound shhh shhh and that she could part them, she could part them like curtains to reveal an extraordinary brightness and she found that she wanted to go towards it, she wanted to go, she was ready to go and there was nothing holding her back anymore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  After Annika died, Matt let his life fall apart. The bank took his house and Jen filed for divorce; he didn’t fight any of it.

  With no job, no family and no house to go back to, he decided to stay in Saltery Bay. It seemed like the right thing to do. It was just a short ferry ride to his in-laws so he was able to see Jacob more often and he liked it there: the smallness of the town, the slower pace. He took a job as a bartender at the hotel and rented a basement suite from an elderly lady in exchange for maintenance on her property. The transition happened quite naturally; there was no fighting or striving or anxiety; the pieces simply slid into place. He liked working at the bar; he was good at it and quickly established himself as a quiet, competent worker, someone that did his job and wouldn’t judge if you happened to find yourself alone with a pint and your problems on a Sunday afternoon.

  When the off-season rolled around, he took other odd jobs to help pay for his rent and child support payments. Cosmo, the man he’d met in Annika’s driveway, and his partner Sasha were converting an old estate property they’d purchased into a private hospice and they needed someone to help with the renovations. He made himself available whenever he could. The location was beautiful and they paid him well. They said that any friend of Annika’s was a friend of theirs. What little extra money he managed to save, he sent to Jen and Jacob.

  Jen and Jacob! It was bittersweet, in a way, to see how much they were thriving without him; yet, even though his heart was broken, Matt kept his rule: he would not let his own son be torn in two. He allowed Jen to make whatever arrangements suited her best and, after a few months had gone by, he found that she was more than fair. The darkness that had hung over her since Jacob’s birth finally seemed to be lifting. She was back at school part-time finishing her degree and helping her father build ­cabinets on the side. While reluctant at first, she eventually encouraged Matt to visit and even joked with him about being a resentful teenaged Mom one time when he came to pick Jacob up and he thought, maybe, that he heard a bit of softness in her tone, so he joked back about being a bankrupt alcoholic, and, without warning, they both burst out laughing. It felt good, even if it didn’t change anything. Jacob was thriving too, spending lots of time outdoors with his uncle and his grandparents.

  Time passed. A kind of quiet crept into Matt’s life then, a kind of greyness. It was not a bad thing. There was some peace to it, like a grey and colourless day when the air is still, the kind of day that passes quietly without event, waiting for tomorrow. His life was simple, spare. When he wasn’t working, he spent his time walking and thinking and reading. He’d never been much of a reader but, since he no longer owned a television and couldn’t afford cable, he picked it up and read anything and everything he found at the thrift store: crime novels and history books, but mostly, he liked reading about religion. He liked how it calmed his mind.

  And yet, despite this newfound peace, Matt wasn’t entirely at ease. A sense of unfinished business still hung over him; the liquor still called to him late at night. He managed to stay sober, but barely. It was because of the lie, he knew. To everyone on the island, he was still Michael and he worried constantly that someone who knew him as Matt would show up and then he didn’t know how he would explain it. He didn’t know if he had the strength. All the people he’d met at Annika’s bedside, except for Cosmo and Sasha, he avoided whenever he saw them in town. They were always friendly and never failed to tell him how thankful they were, yet he couldn’t quite face them, couldn’t quite look them in the eye.

  Then one day, about a year and a half after Annika’s death, Barry, the Trembler, came into the bar. Matt barely recognized him; his decline had been so rapid. Barry looked like an old man now, stooped and shaking, leaning heavily on his cane.

  Matt came around to help him when he saw him struggling with the door. He took Barry by the arm and walked him over to a stool, surprised at how small and frail the old man felt under his hands; it made him think of Annika, how tiny she’d been at the end, how vulnerable. “Barry! It’s good to see you,” he said brightly, trying to disguise his sadness at the old man’s decline. “What can I get for you today?”

  “A b-b-beer,” came the halting response as Barry settled himself down.

  It was late afternoon and the bar was empty. The light from the windows was gold and warm where it lay on the floor. It was odd for the old man to be here, Matt thought as he poured: Barry wasn’t a drinker and it was early yet for dinner.

  He slid the pint across. “How’ve you been?” he asked, trying not to cringe as the glass teetered and tottered on its excruciating journey from the bar to Barry’s lips. “I don’t see you around very often.”

  Barry brought the glass down, rivulets of beer running down the sides where they’d spilled over the rim. His trembling lips were covered in foam. Matt pretended not to see; he picked up a rag and started wiping down the bottles on the bar behind him.

  “I kn-kn-know who y-y-you are.”

  Matt froze. He felt cold, unable to move or speak. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he managed after a few long seconds, then he turned and began to polish the glasses that were drying on top of the dishwasher. He didn’t look up.

  “Th-the l-letter. Th-the viatical s-s-s-settlement,” Barry said.

  Matt kept shining the glasses. He could feel a blush creeping up the back of his neck.

  “I f-f-figured it out. I d-d-did some snooping, M-m-matt C-c-campbell.”

  “She knew who I was, you know,” he blurted out. “I wasn’t lying to her, at the end.” His hands were busy, moving quickly, running the rag expertly around the rims faster and faster. “I never saw that money. I didn’t make any money off it.” He was speaking quickly, the words loud, desperate, his face on fire.

  “Sh-sh-she w-w-was a-a good friend.”

  He wanted to die, to run away, to be anywhere but here. “You probably won’t believe me, but I did care about her. That part was real.”

  There was a long silence. Matt ran out of glasses and started wiping down the sink, the tabasco sauce, the taps, the bar, anything. “I’ll leave,” he said, not looking up. Leaving, at this point, seemed easier than facing it. “I’ll get out of here and you’ll never have to look at my face again. None of you will ever have to . . .”

  “D-d-don’t,” Barry interrupted.

  Now, Matt did look up to find that the old man was staring at him with a kind of sad smile on his lopsided face. Despite his trembling, his eyes were steady and clear. “M-m-maybe I b-b-believe you. A-a-annika w-w-was a smart p-p-person.”

  Matt put down the rag. He hung his head and leaned against the bar.

  “We h-h-have a group,” Barry said. His speech was getting slower, more broken, a
s if it were an enormous physical effort for him to continue at all. “It h-h-h-helps t-t-to talk s-s-sometimes.”

  “I can’t. I couldn’t do that.”

  “I kn-kn-know it h-h-helps b-b-because I w-w-wasn’t always a g-g-good p-p-person myself.”

  Matt shook his head. “I couldn’t do it. I don’t think any of those people could forgive me.”

  Now Barry motioned for Matt to come closer and Matt was suddenly terrified, afraid of what he might say. The old man reached out and grabbed his arm, holding him there, his grip surprisingly strong. “N-n-not th-them,” Barry stuttered, staring into Matt’s eyes. Now he let go and poked a trembling finger deep into Matt’s chest. “N-n-not th-them. Y-y-you.”

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Viaticum has taken me seven years to write, edit and publish. Carving out the time to do so has been no small task and one that I never would have accomplished without the help of many people. I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the following: my husband Pierre Hungr for his unwavering support and belief; my parents James and Lucille Fitzgerald for their faith in me and for giving me such a start in life; my good friends Melanie DiQuinzio and Sarah Fuller for taking the time in this busy world to read a work in progress; Chris Needham of Now Or Never Publishing for taking a chance on an unknown; author John Metcalf for his mentorship and advice; the many volunteers at Vancouver Writer’s Fest and Salmon Arm Word on the Lake, two festivals that have provided me with a much-needed sense of community as I’ve wrestled with this solitary pursuit; and all the people over the years who’ve expressed interest and enthusiasm in my work: to be able to share it with you now is an honour and a privilege.