by Louise Ells
“I’ll make you a coffee,” he says, and tilts his head towards a seat beside him. She navigates the uneven steps to the porch and lowers herself into the chair, clearly taken from a car, shifting to one side to avoid a spring coiling its way out through the knobbly fabric.
He goes inside, and she sees now the fire pit is made from an old washing machine drum, leans close to suck up some of its warmth. In the corner of the porch there’s an orange blob; Gail narrows her eyes for a better look. It’s a pumpkin, presumably put out last October. It must have liquified and then frozen; when it thaws it will be a pile of mush, leaving a stain on the blonde wood.
Jim emerges with a chipped once-white mug. She doesn’t look too closely. “Thank you,” she says, wrapping her hands around the heat.
He takes a drag of his cigarette and Gail wonders if the odour, a peculiar combination of sweet and harsh, could be a sign it’s marijuana. Catching herself staring at the cigarette, she looks away, not wanting to be one of the people who only ever notices Jim’s birthmark. She concentrates on the flames, white, yellow, orange, looking for a pattern that makes sense, then looks beyond the fire through the trees to the river. “I saw an abandoned yacht. I don’t suppose you saw it too?”
He shakes his head, no. But only to answer the question; no indication he thinks she’s crazy.
She describes it, embellishing. Adding a skull and crossbones that could have been there, and the eerie sound of the wind through the ripped sails. She hears herself mixing metaphors and realizes she’s become one of those lonely women who speaks to so few people that she overtalks with any hint of an audience.
Exactly like my mother.
That thought shocks her into silence.
Her mother has been dead for seven years, but Gail feels her discontentment on a regular basis. Disapproval at the way her son left her, then her husband. Displeasure at her choice to take early retirement rather than face the overwhelming challenges of the new school system and technical equipment she didn’t understand. And if her mother could see her now, sitting in a filthy chair making conversation with a man who might well be high on pot, she would express her disquiet with an intense look.
Seven years, Gail thinks, and still I seek my mother’s praise. She could ask Jim after his own mother, but instead takes another sip of the instant coffee, so as not to start another long monologue.
It wasn’t only that her husband had left her, it was that he moved in with Clara Campbell. One of the Black Creek Campbells, her mother would have said. With a weakness for liquor she would have added. Clara’s six years older than him, short and plump. Once, when she was in the library, Gail heard Clara’s teenage daughter refer to ‘Pops’ and realized, with burning cheeks, that the girl was talking about her own husband. Ex-husband.
Some of Gail’s friends have hinted that she’s foolish to stay in the four-bedroom house with its white columns at the front door. (An entrance she uses only twice a year, to greet her book club members when it’s her turn to host.) One evening, after three glasses of wine she blurted out the truth. “This is Don’s childhood home. What if he comes back?” Because children do return home, she knows this from stories she reads.
Jim has rolled another cigarette. When he lights it up Gail takes a deep breath and is sure. It’s mary jane. Pot. Whatever it’s called these days. He offers it to her and she shakes her head, no. Too late she thinks she should have smiled.
When Don was caught with hard drugs in his car and spent the night in jail she told him he wouldn’t get off so lightly after his next offence. Not under her roof, she said, he had to quit or leave home. She never imagined her husband would be so opposed to the ultimatum, or that Don would so calmly pack a rucksack and go.
She looks at Jim, meeting his gaze. “Did Don do a lot of drugs, back when you knew him?”
“Knew him?” Jim looks confused. “You make it sound like he’s history.”
“He could be. I often worry that he could be dead,” says Gail. “I don’t know.”
Now Jim is studying her as if she has said something insane.
“Would you like to read his last letter?” says Jim. His voice is so casual Gail can’t believe she’s heard him correctly.
“A letter? From Don? Don writes you letters?”
Jim stands again. For five minutes, longer, he moves about inside. She imagines he throws little away, judging by this porch. Stacks of newspapers, a pile of lumber, a broken deck chair and the remains of a parasol. But when he comes out, he passes her an envelope, upside down.
She takes off her gloves, holds the envelope as if it’s an artifact from a museum archive. There’s a ring from a coffee mug and a scrawl in black ink: You are three hours late for dinner! It’s Thanksgiving! Do you want to be part of this family? and she remembers that Jim has a sister, seemingly well-adjusted, happily married, working full time and raising two children. Reading that message feels as wrong as eavesdropping in the library stacks so she quickly turns over the envelope, almost crying at the sight of Don’s handwriting, barely changed from his grade school days. She runs a finger across the slanted letters, pictures his hand holding a pen, looping the J, capitalizing the post code.
There’s no return address in the upper left hand corner, but in the right a Canadian stamp with smeared postmark. That stamp was only issued a year ago, so if this letter came in this envelope (and why wouldn’t it, Jim’s hardly one to make more work for himself in an effort to hide her son’s whereabouts) then it’s recent. And he lives in Canada. He hasn’t gone off to Australia or Scotland or any of the other places she’s imagined over the years. Not even moved down to the States.
“He’s here,” she whispers. Here. Maybe even Ontario. Maybe she’s shared a subway carriage with him in Toronto, walked past him on a street in Ottawa.
Inside, a single sheet of paper, his handwriting again, and words that seem especially unimaginative. Mention of a ball game, some lousy weather, someone called Pat. A child? Partner? Wife? No indication otherwise of marriage or family or job. Or any answers to the question that keeps her awake at night - why has he never come back?
His signature at the bottom of the page is almost illegible. She turns over the paper, expecting nothing, and finds a postscript. Say hi to the folks if you see them round town.
The folks! “Who does he mean?” she asks Jim, pointing. “Folks, he says.”
Jim shrugs.
Gail reexamines the eleven short words. The folks? She can’t remember him calling them anything other than Mom and Dad. Maybe to his friends they were the folks. Or is that a reference to his father and-. Does Don know about Clara? Could that teenage girl refer not only to her Pops but to her older Bro as well?
There are no more clues that she can decipher. He doesn’t appear to be hiding, he simply doesn’t want to be found. Not by her.
Gail reads the letter three more times, then tucks it back into the envelope, considers asking Jim if she can keep it, and if they meet each other often. But instead she hears her mother’s voice. “Tell him I said Happy Birthday.”
Jim doesn’t sound shocked at her clipped tone. “Sure.” He closes his eyes.
The man with the birthmark doesn’t need to look at her, she realizes. He already sees her, and not as a retired teacher who sits on boards and volunteers for the community but as a bitter old woman who takes an invisible dog for a walk because she’s so anxious about appearances.
Who made her this way, desperate to be noticed for the ‘right’ things or not noticed at all? She can’t blame her mother for all the failures in her past, all the poor choices she’s made.
“You get used to the silence, don’t you,” she says. “Living alone.” She leans back in the chair. There’s a hint of warmth in the morning sun now, as well as from the fire. “I would like to see Don again. If he ever comes to visit, will you tell him? I’d like to know what it was I did.”
“What you did?” Jim’s calm voice has grown softer. “He left town was
all.”
Not town, she thinks, with resentment. Me. She never left her mother, not all those years. What gave Don the right, - no, the courage, to leave her?
Jim holds out the joint. “Sure you don’t want some?”
“I think I will. Thank you.” She only coughs a little, and only with the first drag. Discovers that what they say is right, it does relax. “It wasn’t really a ghost ship I saw, was it?”
“I’m guessing not,” says Jim. “Sometimes we see what we need to see.”
She looks over at him, notices how the dawn light has softened the port-wine stain, nods. A ship though. Why would her subconscious think she needed to see a ghost ship?
When they’ve finished sharing the cigarette, he flicks the butt into the fire pit. “Right.”
She can’t translate that single word comment. Isn’t sure she wants to. Isn’t sure what she wants or doesn’t want. She could leave the house. Leave this town, like Don did. No need to stay here in case he comes home; if he wants to find her he will. “They’ve asked me to run for Chair of the Hospital Board.” Jim is the first person she’s telling, because she worried it would sound like bragging at book club, as if she was trying to be the heroine of her own life story. A role which she is woefully, inadequately equipped to play. “I don’t know if it’s an honour, or if they couldn’t find anyone else,” she says. “But I’ve decided, I’m going to say no.”
If she looks to Jim for even a hint of approval, she will be disappointed. His head has fallen to one side, he’s asleep.
Dispatches
15 September 1931
My Dear Wife Bella,
The Doctor said you needed a rest so I signed the papers for the government to pay for your care. He says the best thing for me to do is let the city doctors look after you. I did not understand I would not have the chance to see you off. It’s Mr. Sampson down the school writing this out for me. Know this, I surely miss you. with love from your devoted husband, Samuel Ernest Eaton
2 October 1931
My Dear Wife,
I know you took the baby’s death hard, Bella, but the other kids need you back here. I got a surprise for you when you get home. I got Frank Lovell to install a water pump at the sink for you. No more hauling buckets up from the stream. with love from your devoted husband, Samuel Ernest Eaton
5 October 1931
Dear Ma,
I bin good, Ma, I promise, I bin real good. I et all the peas and swept the floor and washed all the whole house. I prayed every night like you taught me and I scrubbed behind my ears. Da says you’ll be home soon as you get fixed up good in that fancy city hospital. I wish I could come and visit you but I understand Da can’t leave the farm and it’s a long way to take the horses in to Toronto. Please come home this week. This is the longest letter I ever wrote in my life.
Samuel Junior
11 October 1931
My Dear Bella,
It’s been the best part of a month and I was hoping you would find the time and spirits to write to me. Better still, come home. We’ve all got pretty handy round here with you gone and I think you’ll find it an easier life when you come back.
with love from your devoted husband, Samuel, and your daughters, Catherine and Grace and your sons, Samuel Junior and baby Charlie
26 November 1931
My Darling Bella,
I’m just praying this reaches you and finds you in good health. Please come on home soon as you can, Bella. I need you.
with love from your devoted husband, Samuel Ernest Eaton
1 January 1932
For Mrs. Bella Eaton
I am truly sorry I ever signed those papers, Bella. I asked the Doctor to tell me where you are so I can come pick you up but he says you got moved to a new place and he has no notion of where that might be. You got to be better now, surely. I worry you have taken to the city life or life of leisure and you aren’t planning to come back to us. Please don’t forget your children who miss their mother and your devoted husband, Samuel Ernest Eaton.
15 September 1932
Dear Mother,
It’s been a year since you left us. Charlie says he don’t recall your looks, but I boxed him round the ears and showed him the photo from your wedding day and he recalled soon enough. We all miss you so. I’ll be graduating in June (did you know that Mr. Sampson left and Cath has been my teacher this year?) and I do pray that you’ll be here for that date.
With love, your daughter, Gracie.
3 December 1932
Dear Wife Bella,
Our girl Catherine has taught me to rite, just as she teaches all the children down the schoolhouse. Our first born a teacher. Can you imagine? I tell her you would be as proud as I am. I know this is true. I pray for a word from you in reply.
yrs, Samuel Eaton
June 1932
Dear Mother,
I know Cath won’t write to you herself because she worries that stress will trouble you, but I can not let the date of her wedding day pass without your knowing. She has been stepping out with Harris Simpson for all last winter and last night he met with Father in the front parlour, and, it transpired, asked his permission for Cath’s hand in marriage. They are planning a September wedding and we are all very excited.
Is this big news enough to bring you home?
With love, your daughter, Gracie
August 1932
Dear Ma,
Miss Vesta from the feed store been helping out. Da couldn’t manage by himself and get the harvest in this season. Some nights she’s here so late she stays over. I like her an all, but I wish it was you making those noises with Da like you used to.
Your son, Samuel Junior
Sept. 2 1932
Dear Mrs. Eaton,
I am hesitating with the writing of this letter but wish you to know, first and foremost, that I mean you no harm. I know my place and yours and you are Sam’s lawfully wedded wife. It is of weddings about which I am writing to you. I enclose a cutting of the fabric Catherine chose for her wedding dress which I helped her sew. I know she will be missing you tomorrow, as will everyone in the church. I am comforting Sam best way I know how, and keeping your children clean and fed. I feel as if we might become friends when you get home. They sure are keeping you a long time in that hospital, I do hope the treatment takes soon.
With very best wishes for your full and speedy recovery,
Vesta Adcock
Third September 1932
Dear Bella,
I gave away our eldest today. I cried when she kissed her groom. He is a kind lad will treat her good. You were missed more than I got words to tell you.
yrs, Samuel Eaton
June 1933
Dear Bella,
I know it’s been some time since you had a correspondence from me. I got disheartened that you have never once replied. But Vesta, that is Vesta Adcock, urges me to write and her advice is good. This is our news, and I do not lightly say it is ‘our’ news. Catherine Anne Simpson (her married name) has given birth to a girl. Gracie will enclose a note with the weight and such details. I want you to hear from me the name of our first grandchild: Bella Marie Simpson.
with congratulations and respect, Samuel Ernest Eaton
Dear Mother,
Baby Bella is such a doll! I wish we knew of someone with a camera to take a photograph but instead I have made you several sketches. She was a difficult birth, but the doctor says Cath will be fine. 7 pound 4 ounces.
Love, Grace
September 1942
Dear Mrs. Eaton,
I do hope this address, the only one I have for you, is current. It will be a surprise for you to hear from me after all these years, no doubt, but it is with a heavy heart I write as I have sorrowful news to relate.
I believe you know that Samuel Junior is missing in action on some foreign land as Sam sent you that news last month. Tuesday last we received a telegram informing us of the death of Charlie. I guess your memory of your youngest is a
chubby lad but he grew into a fine young man and when war was announced he lied about his age in order to enlist and was sent to fight overseas. The telegram states he was a brave man. You would truly be proud of him. As we are.
This news, in addition to the lack of news about his eldest son, caused severe distress to Sam and his heart took it bad. He is in hospital and we are all praying for his recovery, as well, as we always do, for yours.
With deep condolences on the loss of your son,
Vesta
18th August, 1942
France
Dear Mother,
You may not even remember you had a boy who was just a child when you got taken away, but I have never forgotten you through all these years of your silence. If you read the newspapers much or listen to the radio you’ll know about our role in this war. Tomorrow I head to the front and I am taking with me a Bible and the wedding portrait of you and Da. I don’t know why I feel compelled to write to you, but war makes a man do strange things. Wherever you are, Mother, I hope you are well.
Your devoted son, Charles Ernest Eaton
***
March 13, 1946
My most beloved,
I truly believed when you came home from that war, the worst was behind us.
I have spoken at length with Doctor Robinson. You may remember that his son was killed in Sicily in the summer of 1943. He says you are suffering from Battle Exhaustion, not dissimilar to the Shell Shock which affected soldiers from the Great War. He assures me that a stay in hospital is the best course of action.
I know it’s not what you want, my love. I know that. But the Doctor promises me they’ll care for you and soon you’ll be well and home again, and we can resume our lives and put all thoughts of these difficult years behind us. I knitted you some mittens to keep you warm; he says there are gardens for walking in, acres of gardens he said, and I want to make sure you keep warm. You just keep warm and get better Harold my love and we’ll get you back home in no time.
I love you, my Darling.
Always yours,
Mildred