by Anne Simpson
There was also a scent of almond soap. A neighbour had brought over a basket of soaps – watermelon, almond, and apple spice – and he’d chosen the almond. He’d washed her that morning. He’d started with her face and worked his way down her body. Her thin arms, her forearms, her wrists. Her stomach with the sharp pelvic bones on either side, and her thighs, legs, and ankles. He did all of this gently, with a basin of warm water and a washcloth, and then he towelled dry each part of her before moving on to the next part. He rubbed lotion into her dry skin after he was finished.
When the fire died down he took her upstairs and put her back on the bed, covering her up as quietly as he could. Her eyes flew open and she looked at him, without seeing anything. Something lodged itself within him, because it was her look, and yet it was not her look. It was the look of death. Her eyes seemed darker than they’d ever been. They bored through to the realm of death, which she could see and he could not.
She died at 5:22 in the afternoon. Perhaps it had been 5:20, because he hadn’t looked at his watch until after he closed her mouth. There was one dragging, rattling breath from her, as if she’d been emptied out inside. Her mouth was open, and it made him afraid, because now there was darkness within her mouth, and it was deep and black. There was the sound of a crow, and then another crow. He reached to close her mouth, but his hand trembled. There was no way to shut out the brazen noise of the crows. He tried to think of what he ought to do next, and he glanced at his watch, trying to figure out the time. He couldn’t read the little golden hands on the face of his watch: the minute hand and the hour hand. What were they trying to tell him? That he was alone. He sat on the bed, looking out the window. All that was left was a blue rectangle of sky, and below, where he could not see them, were the pink tulips Cecily had planted around the birch tree.
What happened with your sister was an accident. Raymond cleared his throat. It was a terrible thing, an accident – it wasn’t your fault.
It was my fault.
You didn’t turn that ATV on. She turned it on. She took it onto the beach. She happened to have an accident.
Damian shrugged.
Here, Raymond said, going to Damian and taking him by the wrist. He opened the door and they both felt the cutting wind, though it was quite warm. Raymond stepped through the door, holding Damian’s wrist. He was old, but he was strong. He took Damian down the steps, across the sand.
It reminded him of leading Peter by the hand when he was a boy. When had he let go of him? He could see the child, excitedly bending to scoop up handfuls of sand and getting up, hooting, to skip beside him. Raymond had been at the centre of his son’s universe. Raymond, from the German, meaning protector. Meaning guardian.
Damian twisted his wrist lightly out of Raymond’s grasp and walked beside him.
They came to a shallow ditch where a stream of water intersected the beach. It didn’t look like the kind of place where someone could die.
When Damian found her she was face down in the water. Her hair was wet, but he could see the dark strands and the paler ones, floating out from her body in long, serpentine strands. Her body was splayed under the machine. Damian sloshed into the shallow stream toward her, breathing hard from running. He couldn’t lift the ATV, and he didn’t try. He managed to turn Lisa’s head with his clumsy hands, raising it out of the stream. Water dribbled from her mouth. He felt the weight of her head as he held her, as he cleared her mouth, and breathed into it.
It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.
Time went backward. Lisa’s face came out of the stream, blind with surprise. Water streamed away from her as she was drawn up swiftly, loose as a rag doll, into the seat of the four-wheeler. It jerked and righted itself, shuddering, and jolted into motion, taking her back across the sand. It shone in the light.
She was withdrawn as if something was pulling the four-wheeler with a magnet, back to where Damian had parked it in front of the cottage, after taking it off the trailer on the back of the car. The keys came out of the ignition, and Lisa sat still for a moment looking at them in her hand, before she got off the seat and walked around the four-wheeler. Swinging the striped beach bag out of the rack, she moved away from the vehicle to the cottage. She went backward and when she came to the steps, she sat down on them. The sun was on her hair as she fiddled, thoughtfully, with the keys.
Damian made a shallow dive, a brief arc, backward to the rocks. Water sprang from his body, gleaming, as he returned to where he’d been standing.
The two of them had been outside on those rocks the night before, and Lisa had cried, as if someone had slapped her. No one had slapped her, but she was crying. She called him a son of a bitch. It had nothing to do with Trevor, she cried, but it had everything to do with Damian wanting to control her life. He’d always wanted to be in charge of her life, trying to play the part of their father, but he wasn’t their father.
Anger was drawn back into their throats, and they stood, awkward in the silence. Lisa left him there by himself, as she walked back to the cottage. He hadn’t been looking at her; he’d been scuffing pebbles off the rocks into the black water below. Plink, plink. It was stupid, how things went.
Night unreeled into the day before, each hour folding into the hour preceding it. Lisa wasn’t coming into the cottage with her knapsack, she was leaving. Damian turned to her as he locked the cottage door with the key their mother had given them. He saw Lisa getting back into the car, long hair caught back in a ponytail. Going away from him. The sound of the car door: not opening, but closing.
Raymond put his hand on the boy’s arm, but after a moment he took it away. Let’s go back, he muttered. Damian was standing next to a man he hardly knew.
The water was the same as it had always been, slowly coming in, slowly going out, making a soft, hushed sound. He wanted to lie down on the sand and let it all slide away from him, but it wouldn’t slide away. He knew it wouldn’t. It was there in the morning when he woke up, and it was there when he went to sleep. It would always be there.
I keep waiting for something to feel different, Damian said.
For what to feel different?
I don’t know.
You’d like to get outside yourself. But you can’t.
I made her cry. The night before she died, we had an argument.
You’re torturing yourself – it’s going to make you crazy. I’m positive that a single argument wouldn’t have changed anything for your sister. Sure, she might have been angry, but she’d have forgiven you if she could have. It’s not your sister who needs to forgive you.
Who, then? asked Damian, bewildered.
DAMIAN WASN’T EXPECTING his mother to answer the phone. He was expecting Roger.
Mum, he said. It’s me – it’s Damian.
There was a pause.
It’s me.
Raymond was tapping his pipe into the palm of his hand.
Damian put down the receiver slowly. She hung up, he said. I guess I should have expected that.
Raymond put the ashes from his pipe in the hollowed-out rock that served as an ashtray. You dropped out of sight and didn’t tell anyone, he said, taking new tobacco from the tin and tamping it down in the bowl of the pipe.
What should I do? asked Damian.
Give her some time, and try again.
Raymond’s briar pipe, which had been his father’s, was the one he liked best. It had an elegant little bowl and a curving stem, and when he smoked from it he thought of his father.
She didn’t think it was me, said Damian.
She’s probably been beside herself with worry. Raymond lit a match and danced it across the surface of the tobacco, drawing on the pipe at the same time. It’s a shock.
He got the pipe going and sat back, imagining Damian’s mother receiving the call. Perhaps she sat down and ran her hands through her hair, or got up and wandered around her kitchen before sitting down again.
When Raymond and Cecily brought Peter home from
the hospital, he wasn’t himself, though they’d been assured that his medication was back on track. Once they were home, they took him up the stairs to his room, where he sat down, heavily, on his bed, eyes closed. He didn’t help to take off his clothes, except to extend his arms when he was coaxed, or to stand so his jeans could be taken off. His face was smooth and blank as a stone.
You’re crying, Cecily said softly to Raymond.
He needs his pyjamas.
She got them and handed them to Raymond. She touched Peter’s arm, but there was no response.
What have they done to him? she whispered.
I don’t know.
Ray, he’s cold. We should get him in the bathtub – get him warmed up.
She ran the water in the tub and came back to help Raymond take him into the bathroom. He was big and awkward, and they had to move him as if he were asleep or dead. This thought wouldn’t dislodge itself from Raymond’s mind. They sat him down on the edge of the tub, but Raymond had to roll up his own trouser bottoms to the knee and step ankle-deep in the hot water. The tap was still running. He got Peter into the tub, and finally got him to sit down, head bowed, with his legs stretched out in front of him. Cecily went to make up the bed, leaving Raymond and Peter alone.
The light in the bathroom had always been otherworldly, like the depths of a forest. It was the reflection of the mint-green tiles, and it tinted Peter’s fair-skinned body pale green. His legs, underwater, were thin. There was dark hair on them, but it was sparse. It was curious how the threadlike hairs waved a little in the steamy bathwater, as though they weren’t part of a body at all, but had small alien lives of their own.
Are you warmer now? asked Raymond.
Nothing. Nothing at all in Peter’s eyes.
Raymond got up and dried the breakfast dishes when Damian phoned a second time.
It is me, Damian said.
Raymond finished drying a mug, a bowl, a plastic container.
But I didn’t. I didn’t. I’m sorry –
Raymond set things out on the counter as quietly as possible.
I’m at Cribbon’s, said Damian. No, not the cottage. I couldn’t – You mean you’ll come? You’ll come all this way?
Damian looked at Raymond.
No, I’m at a different place. Yes – yes, it is me. Wait, I’ll let you speak to the person I’m staying with. Raymond – his name is Raymond.
He passed the receiver over to Raymond.
Was that Damian? asked Ingrid.
Yes, said Raymond.
Are you sure?
He’s right beside me here.
And he’s fine?
Just fine.
But we thought – we thought he was –
You’re welcome to come here and see him for yourself.
It’s what? Mid-morning? she asked. I’m not going to waste time trying to get a flight. I’ll drive straight there. I’ll leave now and that way I can be there around midnight, well, give or take – do you mind if I come? Wait, you’re at Cribbon’s? We used to rent a cottage there. It’s the place where – the place –
Yes, my house is at Cribbon’s, next to the old Boyd farmhouse. But flying might be easier for you.
The one beside the Boyd’s, the one with the green trim, yes, I know that house. You don’t mind? I won’t be able to see the green trim in the dark, though, will I? Oh God, Damian. Let’s see, I’ll bring something–what should I bring? I’ll bring some apples. We’ve got corn here – I’ll bring corn on the cob. Do you like corn on the cob? I’ll bring some.
Yes, but –
My name’s Ingrid, she added. Just so you know who I am.
Ingrid, said Raymond, think about flying here. You could fly from Hamilton. You’re in Niagara Falls? That’s a very long stretch of driving.
Yes, but I can’t wait.
Well, it’s pretty lonely and it’s exhausting. Stay overnight somewhere. Stay in Edmundston if you can.
I can’t wait; I wouldn’t sleep at all. Would you tell me your name again? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten.
He told her.
Do I know you? she asked.
I don’t think we’ve ever met.
But are you sure it’s my son? Are you sure it’s Damian?
Yes, it’s Damian.
Raymond got Peter out of the tub and stood face to face with his son. What sort of storms went on in his mind? Raymond wondered. His body was not flaccid, it was firm. His penis hung between his legs: pinkish, pendent, and his pubic hair was dark and curled, but rather sparse. His hips were narrow but well-proportioned, and there was the slightest bit of extra flesh around the middle. Raymond had the same slight fleshiness.
He bent down to dry Peter’s feet and ankles with the towel, working his way up the legs. The calves were firmer than he expected. He dried the thighs and the chest, and turned his son around, gently, so he could dry his back. He passed the towel over the nodes of the spine, each one a hidden stone. He rubbed Peter’s hair, and the scent of the shampoo emanated from him. Clean and dry. Raymond helped him into his pyjamas, buttoning up the shirt.
Cecily came back and stood at the door, watching. Do you think he’ll sleep?
He won’t have any trouble sleeping.
They spoke in whispers, Raymond noticed. He took Peter to the room he’d had since he was a boy. Cecily turned on the lamp by the bed, the one that Peter had never wanted them to change. It gave off a warm, golden halo of light. There were hockey players skating around the shade after an elusive puck. Cecily drew up the sheets and blankets once Peter was in bed.
Goodnight, dear. She kissed him on the forehead.
Raymond turned off the lamp and they went down the hall to their own room, where they undressed without speaking and got into bed. For a time, both of them lay side by side, her thigh touching his. He felt desperately lonely, despite her nearness. Finally he heard her soft, breathy snoring, though it was hardly more than a murmur. He heard her inhalations, her exhalations. His heart was beating quickly, and he couldn’t seem to make it quieter. He couldn’t calm down. What he forced himself not to think about was how, soon, they would take their son out of the house where he’d grown up and settle him somewhere else, probably in a group home, where other people would take care of him. Each time his mind moved around the edges of that thought, tears came to his eyes. It was not to be borne.
It had been a long time ago, but the thought of Peter stayed with Raymond after he spoke to Ingrid on the phone. It stayed with him as he mowed the small lawn and raked it, as he weeded the little flower garden that was filled, once again, with Cecily’s gladioli, day lilies, and roses, just as if she were still there. As if she’d come around the side of the house to put away the gardening tools in the shed – there, there she was – with that large straw hat on her head.
All day Raymond had been busy, and he kept finding things to do in the evening. Now it was past midnight, nearly one o’clock, but he didn’t want to rest, and he didn’t want to sit and read. Damian had fallen asleep on the couch, his head against the worn curve of the armrest. His mouth was open. Max was tucked into a warm place by his legs, his heavy head on Damian’s thigh. It might be a long time before the boy’s mother came. She’d be in the car; she’d probably put cobs of corn in a bag and slung it in the backseat, and now she would be wide awake, driving along a dark highway.
Raymond rose quietly and went to the door, taking his warm jacket from the hook. The keys jingled in the pocket, but not enough to rouse the two on the couch. He slid the door back and went outside.
The woman would come to meet her son and stay the night, and Damian would go away with her, and that would be the end of it. What would Raymond do? He’d go to Halifax, straight to the group home where Peter lived, and they’d have tea and misshapen cookies studded with orange and yellow Smarties. There would be a little conversation, initiated by Raymond. Then he’d go away.
He had walked along the path to the beach without paying attention, and now he stood l
ooking up at the sky. It was aflame with rose-coloured light, and there was a band of pale green below. He watched the aurora borealis move and shift in the darkness, like the skirts of a flamenco dancer. He’d seen it several times before in October, but not in September: it could have been a gift or an omen. He wanted to show someone.
After the fifth treatment, when she tired easily, Cecily spent her mornings in the living room. Wrapped in the moss-green mohair blanket, she spent hours looking out at the ferns that had begun to poke up their heads in the rock garden. There were books beside her on the table, but she rarely picked up any of them. It was spring, and the last of the snow had melted away in the hollows. Chickadees and slate-coloured juncos lighted on the birdfeeder, snatched a few seeds and flew away.
Raymond had been about to take her some tea one morning, but he’d paused between the dining room and the living room. She’d changed; she was so much thinner. Her hands rested on the green blanket, and the sunlight fell on them. He’d put on Bach’s English Suites for her, and it was clear and concise, yet sprightly too, like a curled fiddlehead. She would not live long. He realized this, and he could not make himself go forward. He could not go and give her the cup of tea. It didn’t matter if he lavished her with all the love and kindness in the world, she would still disappear.
She turned, with the cautiousness of people who are ill, and smiled at him. He didn’t trust himself to speak, but he set down the tea and sat beside her. She reached over and he took her hand in both of his, wordlessly. She moved her hand inside his, not restlessly, but gently. It was as if she was trying to say all that could not be said. They stayed like that, her hand inside his two hands, until a raven in the white pine made a series of rasping croaks that sounded like steel wool rubbed against the inside of a pot.
He released her. She picked up her cup of tea and drank.
It seemed a long time before Ingrid arrived. Raymond went back to the house and made himself a cheese sandwich after the northern lights faded completely. He sat in the armchair, dozing, until he heard the car just after three o’clock in the morning. Max heard it too and jumped down from the couch, but Damian didn’t waken. Raymond went outside with Max, who promptly leapt up on Ingrid when she got out of the car.