Prized Possessions

by L. R. Wright

  But every time he got to this point in his thinking, the next thought he had was yeah, but she could phone up Harold, or write him a letter. And he thought himself around that circle about a million times…until finally it occurred to him that he could do this too.

  He could phone her up. Or write to her. Apologize. Like Sylvia had told him to do. It wasn’t too late. He wasn’t absolutely sure, come to think of it, what he was supposed to have apologized for before. It was the damn girl who owed him an apology, Eddie thought, for insulting him in her house like she’d done. But now, yeah, he had to admit, now he had something to apologize for too.

  He wasn’t very good on the phone. He often got stammery and couldn’t think of stuff to say. Besides, what if she didn’t answer? What if somebody else—the person who lived in the messy room—what if that person answered? When Melanie got to the phone, the roommate would probably listen in: he could just see them cackling away together, at his expense.

  So it would be better to write her a letter.

  It was tricky, though. He wasn’t about to admit anything. Not in writing. He was no dummy.

  He didn’t know how to start the damn letter, either. What did he say to her—“Dear Melanie”? To hell with that. And he didn’t know what the hell her last name was.

  Eddie pushed the notepad away from him so hard it landed on the floor. He sat there looking at the table he’d covered with red-and-white-striped oilcloth. After a while he got up and got himself a beer and picked up the notepad and sat down again. “Dear Melanie,” he wrote, and then he crossed out the “Dear.”

  “Melanie.” It sounded abrupt, but that was okay.

  He thought for a long time. Then he wrote: “You were right. I shouldn’t have kicked that dog.” He read it, then read it aloud. It sounded okay. Except it was too short.

  He thought some more. “I cleaned up the garbage,” he added. He read it again, from the beginning, out loud. It still wasn’t quite long enough.

  “I should have helped you with your stuff.” Now it was a decent-size letter. Yeah, that oughta do it, he thought, and he signed his name. “Eddie Addison.” He liked his name. It was a good name.

  He folded the letter and put it in an envelope and wrote “Melanie” on the front. That wasn’t so hard after all, he thought, feeling a lot better, putting the envelope in his jacket pocket. He’d drop it off at her house before going to work tomorrow.

  He poked around in his fridge, trying to decide what to have for dinner. If she got it tomorrow, which was Tuesday, and answered it right away—well, it would depend on whether she mailed it or delivered it to the drugstore herself, but one way or the other, he figured to have her answer by Friday at the absolute latest.

  Eddie got out some leftover spaghetti, the spaghetti and the sauce all mixed up together, and dumped it into a saucepan.

  He wondered what kind of paper she’d write it on. Maybe it would be perfumed—they sold perfumed stationery at the drugstore. Maybe it would have her initials on it. Maybe it would even have her whole name and address on it, at the top, and then he’d get to know her last name.

  Eddie heated up his spaghetti and sliced two pieces of whole wheat bread to eat with it. He’d show her answer to Sylvia, he thought. It would please Sylvia a lot.

  11

  “I’M SORRY, EM, but I have to go in to the office for a while today.”

  Emma, looking up from her toast and marmalade, made a moue of disapproval. “Charlie. It’s Saturday.”

  They were sitting at the dining room table in intermittent sunshine; the cutlery glinted, then the light rapidly faded and the silverware dulled, became pewter.

  “I know. But we’ve got a big meeting on Monday. I want to be sure I’m ready for it.”

  “That explains the way you’re dressed, then.” Emma was in a pink quilted housecoat, and her hair was tied back from her face with a pink ribbon, and there were pink mules on her feet. But Charlie wore brown wool slacks and a cream-colored shirt; no tie, but his brown loafers were brushed, as usual (thanks to Emma), to a scintillating shine.

  “Charlie.” She put down her coffee cup. “Why don’t I come with you? I could spend the day at Park Royal.”

  “Not much point, hon. I won’t be long.”

  “We could shop together, then. When you’re through. Or have lunch. Or dinner.”

  He tossed his napkin on the table. “I’m sorry, Emma, but this meeting is all I’ve got on my mind today.” He looked at his watch. “Better get going. I want to make the eleven o’clock ferry.”

  She walked him to the door, where he slipped into a sport jacket and picked up his briefcase, which was waiting next to the umbrella stand.

  “You’re flushed, Charlie.” She placed her hand on his forehead. “I think you’re feverish again.”

  He removed her hand and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I’m fine, Emma.” He opened the door.

  “When do you think you’ll be home?”

  “It depends,” said Charlie. He went down the walk to his car, which was parked in front of the house, behind Emma’s. She watched, shivering, while he unlocked the driver’s door. He opened it and then stood still, looking at her across the roof of the car.

  “Have you forgotten something?” she called out.

  Charlie shook his head. He tossed his briefcase in the backseat and gave her a little wave.

  Emma waved back and stood on the porch, half hidden behind the open door, until he’d driven off.

  She wished he’d told her about this earlier. She was sure that if she’d been dressed and all ready, he would have let her go with him. She felt irritable now. Pouty. Her day was all out of shape. Usually they went grocery shopping together on Saturday. And picked up a movie and some take-out food for the evening.

  She cleared the table and washed the dishes by hand; there were too few of them to bother loading up the dishwasher. Back at the dining table, she leaned on her hands and looked out at the day. The sun had retreated, apparently for good. Cherry blossoms spilled their petals into the wind.

  Emma roamed the house for a few minutes, then went into the bedroom to dress and put on her makeup. By the time she’d finished this it was eleven o’clock. Charlie would be on the ferry. Probably in the cafeteria, hunched over a cup of coffee, absorbed in papers taken from his briefcase. She looked into the mirror, checking her makeup. Then she reached for her new bracelet and snapped it around her wrist.

  In the kitchen, Emma made a shopping list, checked her wallet to determine if she needed more cash, collected library books due to be returned, and put into a plastic bag two sweaters and a dress to take to the cleaner. Then she left the house, locking the door behind her, and walked out to her car. The day was cold and gusty, and Emma almost went back for her down jacket. But she was wearing jeans, and her dark blue sweater was thick and warm; she’d be all right.

  It was almost noon when she parked in front of the supermarket that occupied one end of Sechelt’s small shopping mall. Charlie would be in his office by now. He’d probably be the only one there; that company, she thought, would be ten times more successful if everyone connected with it were as conscientious as Charlie was. It was located in a building adjacent to the Park Royal shopping center and consisted of a small, tastefully decorated reception area, offices for each of the partners, another for the secretary and the office clerk, washrooms, a storeroom that also served as a work area, and a boardroom. Emma had been there often, of course; though not lately, she realized, as she laid claim to a shopping cart somebody had abandoned in the parking lot. She thought about the photograph of herself that stood in a leather frame on Charlie’s desk. It had been taken three years earlier, when her hair was a lot shorter. Perhaps she’d give him a new one for his birthday.

  The only reason she shopped on Saturdays was so that she and Charlie could do it together. The stores were far too crowded on Saturdays, even in Sechelt. Shopping on Saturday was not a pleasant occasion, if you had to do it alone. She fo
und herself flinging things petulantly into her cart, having apparently forsaken her grocery list. Canned goods, cuts of meat and poultry, frozen foods, dairy products, fresh vegetables and fruits—soon the buggy was half full.

  While waiting in line at the checkout counter, she leafed through the new Chatelaine but kept a wary eye on the toddler in the cart ahead of hers, who was clutching a chocolate bar and waving it erratically. Emma was quite sure chocolate bars weren’t good for children that age. His mother looked harassed—and Emma suddenly felt a flood of gratitude; when she and Charlie had a baby, she’d be able to hire somebody to help her. And she’d get right back to normal in her body too, she thought, watching the overweight mother load grocery bags into her cart, evidently unaware that her offspring was leaning over to watch and in the process smearing chocolate on his mother’s shoulder.

  She’d diet and exercise, and soon you wouldn’t be able to tell, looking at her, that Emma had ever given birth.

  The wind was blowing strong when Emma came out of the store. People were hunching their shoulders against it and hurrying to their cars. Emma’s hair blew wildly as she struggled to push the shopping cart to her car. When the groceries were stowed away in the hatchback, she got in, started the motor, turned on the heater, and sat there, shivering, for a few minutes, unwilling to drive until she felt warmer.

  The thought of going straight home was not appealing. She’d have lunch out. She drove to a restaurant that looked out over the ocean, and wondered what Charlie was doing about lunch. Probably he wasn’t having any, she thought, watching the waves whipped up by the wind; he was careless about meals when he was absorbed in his work. But if he skipped lunch he’d be finished sooner, and home sooner.

  She had a Greek salad, pushing chunks of red onion to the side; she didn’t want to greet Charlie with onion on her breath.

  It was almost two o’clock when she got home, but the day was so gray and threatening that she turned on all the lights in the house. She took her time putting the groceries away. Then she dumped the contents of the clothes hamper into the washer, added laundry soap, and turned the machine on. She watered the few plants the house contained, did some ironing, swept the kitchen floor, and emptied the wastebaskets. Finally she had a long, hot bath, drowsing in the perfumed water.

  He’d probably caught the three-thirty ferry, thought Emma, toweling herself dry, which would be pulling into the dock at Langdale just after four—right about now. She could expect him in about half an hour, then.

  She put on her black lounging robe, made up her face, clasped the bracelet around her wrist, and stepped out into the hall.

  She heard the wind, much stronger than before. And was amazed at the blackness of the sky. It had begun to rain too; she heard it on the roof, sharp and angry, like toenails scrabbling for purchase on the shingles.

  Emma went to the phone and called Charlie’s office—although he didn’t like to receive personal calls at work—but there was no answer. She hadn’t expected any, of course. He was almost certainly on his way home. He would drive slowly, because the weather was bad, and might take twice as long to get here as usual, which would make it five o’clock before she could start expecting him.

  The road out of Langdale was narrow and twisty, and there was that terrible hairpin hill the other side of Gibsons.

  She was worrying, of course she was worrying; it was perfectly natural to worry.

  She turned on the television and made herself a pot of tea. She realized that she was shivering again, and adjusted the thermostat.

  Emma watched the news and drank her tea, and in the middle of the sports report the power went off. She was calm, though. She lit several candles and started a fire in the fireplace.

  The unseasonable storm raged outside, and she was unable to do anything but imagine Charlie in a variety of road accidents. Halfway through the evening, she called her friend Lorraine in Vancouver.

  “Charlie hasn’t come home,” she told her.

  Lorraine laughed. “Lucky you.”

  Emma waited, and in a minute Lorraine apologized.

  “Those are gale-force winds out there,” she said to Emma. “It’s one of the worst spring storms in history—that’s what they said on the news. He’s probably pulled over somewhere, don’t you think? Whatever else I may think of Charlie,” she added, “the man’s not a dunce.”

  “But he would have called me,” said Emma. She was imagining Lorraine in her snug, ground-floor apartment on Dunbar Street.

  “Did you phone him at work?”

  “Yes. There was no answer.” Lorraine would be slouched back in her Scandinavian chair, smoking a cigarette and probably drinking Scotch. Emma focused all her concentration on this image, dredging up disapproval.

  “Em. You’re really worried, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I am.” Lorraine was a junior high school teacher. She said her job fulfilled her almost completely. She said she was only a little bit resentful of Emma, because she was married and didn’t have to work. Lorraine always smiled when she said this, because they both knew that she had no desire at all to be married. She said she’d had enough of family life, growing up in a household with three older brothers.

  “Phone the hospitals,” said Lorraine. “As soon as they tell you he isn’t there, you’ll feel better.”

  So Emma did this, and Lorraine was right, she did feel better, knowing that a person of Charlie’s description had not been admitted to either the Gibsons or the Sechelt hospital.

  She poured another cup of tea, put more wood on the fire, and curled again into the oversize easy chair, from which she could see outside, through the window and also the front door, with its glass pane at eye level.

  But what if he’d had an accident on the other side of Howe Sound, between West Vancouver and Horseshoe Bay, she suddenly thought. He’d be taken to—where?

  And then she thought, what if he was dead? What if the accident killed him? Where would they take him then?

  She found herself standing up, rubbing the palms of her hands against her sides, staring outside at the black, blustery night. The candles flickered twice, in the living room and in the window glass. Emma pulled the drapes closed and picked up the telephone again. This time it was dead.

  ***

  “I’d like to know,” said the civilian, “if you’ve had reports of any automobile accidents tonight.”

  “You got somebody out on the road in this weather?” said RCMP Constable Ken Coomer sympathetically.

  “Can you give me that information?” She smoothed her hand over her blond hair, flicking rainwater onto the floor.

  The phone rang. “Excuse me,” said the constable, and he looked over his shoulder toward Corporal Sanducci, who got up from Sid Sokolowski’s desk and approached the counter.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  Emma leaned toward him, spreading her hands. The wide silver bracelet on her left wrist made a soft clunking sound as it struck the countertop. “I’m very worried about my husband. I don’t know what to do.” She was dry-eyed, but her voice trembled, and Sanducci figured she wasn’t usually so pale.

  He opened the gate. “First of all, come on through here and sit down, and let me get you a cup of horrific coffee. What do you take in it?”

  “Nothing,” said Emma. “Black.”

  Sanducci, handing her the coffee, noticed the bathrobe under her raincoat, and the backless black slippers on her feet. She was wearing eye makeup and lipstick, though these had not been recently applied.

  “My phone went dead,” she said, holding the mug with both hands. “Or I would have called you, instead of coming down here.”

  “Sure,” said Sanducci, nodding.

  “He was supposed to be home for dinner. About four. Or five. He went to Vancouver this morning. West Vancouver. To his office.”

  Sanducci waited, but she had nothing more to say. “What with the storm and all,” he said, “don’t you think he might have decided to stay overnigh
t?”

  “He would have called me. He would have.”

  “But your phone’s dead.”

  “Yes, it is now. But it wasn’t. And the storm started earlier. If he’d decided to stay over there, he would have called me.”

  Sanducci nodded. “Well, first of all, you’ll be glad to know we’ve had no reports of serious accidents. So you can put that out of your mind. But why don’t you give me a description of your husband’s car, anyway, and I’ll put it out on the radio.”

  Emma did this.

  “Good,” said Sanducci. “Now, if one of our patrol cars spots it, they’ll pull him over and let him know you’re concerned. Okay?”

  “I knew he was going to die,” she said. “It was only a matter of time.”

  “I beg your pardon? Ma’am?”

  She was looking straight at him. Usually Sanducci liked it when an attractive woman gazed into his eyes. He knew he appealed to women. But this woman wasn’t actually seeing him. He didn’t think she’d know him if she met him the next day on the street.

  “I probably won’t actually die of grief,” she was saying, in all seriousness. “But I don’t see how I can live, either.”

  “I think you’re being unduly pessimistic here,” Sanducci protested uncomfortably.

  “I mean, I guess I’ll go on doing things. But once I’ve done them, will they really have been done?”

  “Ma’am, we’ve got no reason to think that anything’s happened to your husband.”

  “Do you understand what I mean?” She looked away, over toward Ken Coomer, manning the telephone.

  “I can’t say I do, ma’am, no,” said Sanducci politely.

  Emma stood up and held out her hand. “Thank you for your concern.”

  Sanducci shook her hand, which was small and cold. “Why don’t I phone somebody for you.” She was moving through the gate, toward the door. “A friend, or a relative. Ma’am? Ma’am?”

  ***

  Emma sat in the easy chair all night.

  When Sunday morning dawned, she put on her jeans and a red sweater, cleaned her face, opened the drapes. The storm had passed, but the power didn’t come back on until early afternoon.