He worked steadily, gradually improving his technique, increasing his accuracy. He found the work satisfying, taking pleasure in the arc of the axe’s blade as it cut through the air, the crack of the dry wood as it split. He could measure his progress as the split wood began to accumulate on the ground before him. Once he established a momentum he found no need to rest. He did not stop even when the handle of the axe began to burn his hands and blisters formed inside the gloves. The steady repetition was mesmerizing, propelling him onward when his mouth dried and his arms began to ache. It was not until he had worked for several hours that he rested the axe against the shed and wiped his forehead with the back of his glove. The shadows had grown and the sound of crickets coming from the grass at the edge of the dried pond had intensified. He heard the train long before he saw it coming. The air horn blared and the wheels sounded against the rails and then it rolled into view, approaching steadily, growing louder and nearer, commanding his attention. The blade of the axe rested against the ground and he leaned his weight on its shaft and stood and watched the blue-grey passenger train as it passed. The faces in its windows appeared to him only as streaks, though he knew they could see him clearly. In his last semester of university he had taken the train to a conference in Moncton. He turned to look at Lloyd’s house as the train disappeared from view. He imagined the old man in his bed in the dark of February, awakened for the thousandth time by the passing clamour in the frigid night.
He gathered as many of the split pieces in his arms as he could and carried them into the shed. The air inside was dry and warm and the scent of earth and sawdust and decaying wood made him want to lie down and rest. He set the wood down against the back wall, went out for more and worked until he had filled the far corner of the shed. As he deposited his last load on the earthen floor he noticed something on the side wall. By the thin shafts of sunlight between the slats he could make out a magazine centerfold tacked to a cross-beam. The monochrome print had a silvery sheen and at first he thought its colours had faded with time, but when he saw the figure he knew she had been photographed in black and white. A lithe, young model in sailor shorts dangled over a calm sea, holding onto a ship’s rigging with her left hand, waving with her sailor’s hat in her right. She had short bangs and dark curls that hung to her shoulders. The nipples of her bare breasts were erect, as if chilled by the ocean breeze. Her left knee was bent as she perched one foot on the bottom of the rigging. Her other long, shapely leg was fully extended, its pointed bare foot poised squarely on the deck. She smiled coyly, her eyes betraying the slightest hint of trepidation at her precarious pose. Richard thought of the men’s magazines in his neighbourhood corner store, and could not imagine this sort of expression on the face of the models between their pages. He realized it was most likely not Jim who had hung the photo, but his father. It occurred to Richard that Jim must have seen this photograph every time he filled the wood shed and every time it was emptied in the spring. He wondered what he had thought of this model, whether he had ever mentioned her to his father or shared the old man’s evident enthusiasm for her.
When he came out of the shed Lloyd was standing in the doorway of the house.
“Thought you’d gone to sleep in there,” he said. “Come have something to drink.”
He took the can of orange soda that Lloyd off ered him, and was glad to find it ice cold. He drank it quickly while Lloyd appraised the progress he’d made in the unsplit wood stacked outside the shed. When he finished the soda he asked Lloyd for a glass of water. Lloyd took the empty can him from him and came back a moment later with a mug of water. It was lukewarm and tasted slightly of coffee.
“Called the fella from down the road. He’s due in for an evening shift. He’ll take you back in.”
“I appreciate it.”
“I’d have you back to finish up some other time, but I figure I’ll do it myself once it cools off a little. Keeps me in shape.”
Richard nodded. He went to the stump and sat down, untied the boots and put his shoes back on, wondering whether Lloyd regretted hiring him. He took the boots and the hat back up to the house. As he rapped on the screen door he could smell the odour of frying fish.
Lloyd opened the door, took a billfold from his front pocket, peeled off a crisp fifty and handed it to Richard.
“Don’t spend it all at the Crow’s Nest.”
Richard put the bill in his wallet and accepted Lloyd’s outstretched hand.
“I’m grateful for the work.”
“Better head down to the road,” said Lloyd. “He won’t drive up. You’ll be lucky if he slows down long enough for you to open the door.”
“Sure. Take care, Lloyd.” Richard had walked halfway down the drive when Lloyd called out.
“You’re forgetting something.”
He turned to see Lloyd standing by the shed. Lloyd held the axe in his hands and Richard realized he had forgotten to put it away. Richard walked back toward the shed, unsure of what was expected of him. Lloyd gripped the axe handle, pointed toward the door of the shed with its shaft, where Richard’s shirt hung on a nail. Richard grabbed the shirt and hurried back toward the road.
“Don’t worry,” Lloyd called out. “Things will turn around for you. Stick to your guns.”
Richard waved once, and turned to watch the road. He heard the screen door bang at the back of the house. A few minutes later an ancient grey Chevrolet pickup approached in the distance and came to a stop a few feet from where Richard stood.
Richard opened the door, climbed onto the running board and into the cab. The man behind the wheel had a dark moustache, wore a suit of navy blue work clothes and a tweed driver’s cap. The brim’s shadow fell on his face and Richard couldn’t tell if the man was forty years old or sixty or something in between. A metal lunch pail and a Thermos rested on the seat beside him.
“Evening,” said Richard.
“I’ll drop you uptown,” said the man.
“Fine by me,” said Richard, and closed the door.
The cab of the truck was air conditioned and the windows rolled up. The two men drove in silence, neither making any attempt at conversation. Richard looked out the window at trees and then lakes and houses as they neared the city. They rounded a curve in the highway and the sun lay directly in front of them, low in the sky. The man lowered the sun visor over the windshield. Richard shielded his eyes with his hand. The clock on the dash of the truck read twenty after five. Laura would be home by now. She would call his name and then wonder why he didn’t respond. She would walk to the kitchen and look in the refrigerator. Then she’d go into the bedroom and rest her knapsack on the floor at the foot of the bed and look in his study. She’d examine his desk to see if he’d written anything that afternoon. He imagined her looking through the trash can. He realized then that she might find the crumpled page torn from his notebook. She would carry it to the bed, sit cross-legged with her running shoes still on, smoothing down the page on her thigh. Later he would walk in the door, covered in dust and dried sweat with burst blisters on his thumbs and the edge of his palm and she would not ask where he had gone or what he’d been doing.
“I found something odd in the trash today,” she would say, after he came out of the shower and they sat down to dinner. She would ask him about it, out of curiosity, and he would not be able to explain. Or she might return the page to the wastebin, as if she had never found it, only bringing it up later, the next time they fought, using her discovery of his strange and morbid exercise as the very reason she finally decided to leave him.
Lloyd’s neighbour took him as far as the apartment buildings. He pulled to a stop two blocks before the row houses began and left the engine running. Richard looked up the street, but the lemonade stand was gone. He stepped out of the cab into the warm evening air.
“Thanks for the lift,” he said, and shut the door. The man touched the bill of his cap and then drove away.
June, 1978
“Have you tried get
ting him into one of those support groups?” said Joan. Lyle looked across the table at Susan and she could tell by his expression that he knew the answer didn’t really matter.
“The woman’s made up her mind, Joan,” he said, almost yelling. “She’s got to think about what’s best for the girls.”
Joan stood at the counter spooning coffee grounds into a chrome percolator.
“It’s just the timing,” said Joan. “If you could wait, hold out a little longer. Things might change. You know we won’t be able to help you financially, now that Roy’s starting college.”
The phone rang in the living room and Joan put down the spoon and left them. Susan could hear the change in her sister’s voice as she answered the phone. She took out a cigarette and reached in her purse for a lighter. Lyle placed his hand over hers. She looked at him and he looked directly back at her, without averting his gaze. His hand was dry and calloused and its weight pressed her bruised wrist painfully against the hard Formica of the table, though she tried not to let it show.
“Don’t listen to her,” he said. “You know best. We’ll help you. You and the girls. However we can. I’ll help you.” Lyle was half deaf from the clamour of freight trains and tended to speak as if it was not himself who was hard of hearing but the person he addressed. There was a softness in his voice when he spoke to her alone. As soon as he had finished what he had to say he withdrew his hand from hers, picked up his coffee cup and lifted it halfway to his lips before he realized it was empty. He put it down and looked away and Susan took her lighter from her purse and lit her cigarette. She exhaled, careful to blow the smoke away from Lyle. They sat there for some time without speaking, the sound of Joan’s voice in the other room filling the silence between them. Susan looked at her brother-in-law, sitting in the warm summer light. His hair had always been fair and thin and though she saw him only on occasion its gradual transition from blonde to white had been almost indiscernible. He was almost an old man she realized, fifteen years older than her own husband. He had recently developed a rasp when he breathed , which made him seem even older than fifty-three. Susan had heard such rasps at the hospital where she worked and knew the sickness they betrayed.
She stood up and put the lid on the percolator and plugged it in. Then she took a small carton of cream from the refrigerator and sat down.
“You’ve got your own to worry about,” she said.
“You’d do the same,” said Lyle. “Joan knows that too. She’s just—unaccustomed. She doesn’t handle these situations well.”
The water began to percolate, lapping the glass-domed lid with a soft, erratic rhythm as the aroma of coffee filled the room.
“Lionel,” said Susan, looking at him.
Joan hung up and came back into the kitchen, glanced at the table and went over to the breadbox.
“What kind of host are you, Lyle?” she said. “Would it kill you?” She took out a lemon pound cake and put it on a plate, took a knife from a drawer and cut the cake into six slices.
“What did you two talk about?” she asked.
“I’d like for you to ship some things to me,” said Susan. “After we find a place. I’ll send you the money.”
“You won’t be gone that long, will you?” asked Joan. “I’m sure once he sees you mean business, that you won’t put up with—”
“We’ll send your things by rail,” said Lyle. “We’ll use my discount. It won’t cost hardly anything.”
Joan set the cake on the table along with three porcelain dessert plates.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t just stay with George and Edith in Grand Falls,” said Joan.
Lyle turned to look at his wife. “Where is she going to work in Grand Falls?” He reached for a piece of cake and it crumbled in his hand, leaving a trail of crumbs between the plates.
“She won’t need to work, Lyle, if she stays with George and Edith.”
Lyle looked at Susan.
“Take the transfer. Find a home. Close to a school. You’ll find a place. Joan and I have been talking about a trip to the coast for years now, haven’t we Joan? I could use a vacation.”
Joan filled their cups from the coffee pot and sat down on the chair between Susan and Lyle and looked at her sister.
“Lyle hasn’t taken time off in years. Now that Roy’s in college I figured I’d be going on vacation all by myself again this year.”
Lyle sipped his coffee and looked at his wife.
“Susan came by with that casserole for me and Roy last year,” he said, “while you were gone to Fort Lauderdale. You remember that? Came by one evening on her way to work and dropped it off. You go away on vacation without me this year, I’m liable to starve to death.”
Joan added two spoonfuls of sugar to her coffee, drew the last cigarette from Susan’s pack, held it between her lips and lit it with Susan’s lighter.
“Doctor says I need to take it easy,” said Lyle. “Sea air would be good be for me. I figured I might take a couple of weeks this year. Did you tell Susan the good news, Joan?”
“What good news would that be, Lyle?” said Joan.
“Roy got a scholarship. Full tuition, and a stipend.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Susan. “Smart kid.”
Lyle looked at Susan.
“Smarter than his old man was,” he said.
“You know what Roy told me the other day?” said Joan.
“When he came home from Jim’s place?” She looked at Susan. “He said he was thinking about starting a band. Studying geography and he says he wants to play in a band. Bass guitar.” She took a drag from her cigarette. “He gets these ideas sometimes.”
Lyle cleared his throat. Joan looked at him.
“Did you know,” she said, “that Herb used to be a singer, back when Sue first met him, before he started with the post office?”
“I knew that,” said Lyle.
“What was the name of his group? That group he was in?” said Joan.
“The Dilettantes,” said Susan.
Joan smiled.
“That was it,” she said. “The Dilettantes. They never tried to go professional, did they?”
“No,” said Susan.
“I should get going.” “Already?” said Joan. “I need to pick up the girls,” said Susan.
“You still want that pattern?” said Joan. “For Sarah’s communion dress?”
“I don’t think I’ll have the time,” said Susan.
Joan stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray and stood up.
“I know exactly where it is. It won’t take a minute,” said Joan.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Susan.
“Of course you’ll have time. It’s not till next spring. I’ll grab it.” Joan went into the living room. “You want to take that cake home with you?” she called out. “Lyle doesn’t eat it. And I shouldn’t.”
Susan reached for her purse on the table, but Lyle placed his hand upon the handle, picked it up as he pushed out his chair. He coughed as he stood up, his chest heaving, his face contorted with pain. With his free hand he reached toward his back pocket as if for a handkerchief, but it was a lettersized envelope he produced, bulging slightly. Before Susan could protest he had opened the purse, slid the envelope inside, closed it and placed it in her hands.
“Things will work out,” he said, softly. “You’ll see. It always seems hardest just before you go through with it”
Aricia Agestis
The parasol over their table shielded the three of them from the late September sun. When Jacob saw the waiter eyeing their table, he beckoned for him. The waiter came over and cleared their plates away and filled Anna and David’s coffee cups.
“Anything else?” he said.
“We’re fine, thank you,” said David.
“I would like a fruit cup,” said Jacob. “A fruit cup and two grapefruit halves. Please.”
“Very good,” said the waiter. The waiter left and Anna leaned in toward Jac
ob.
“You’re certain you weren’t followed?” she said.
“Quite certain,” said Jacob. “At least, not followed by anything with four legs.”
“Well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” said Anna.
David stirred milk into his coffee and looked at Jacob.
“You look pale,” he said. “When was the last time you left your apartment?”
“The day after I received the first acceptance letter,” said Jacob. “From the Mid-American Review. A little over a month ago I suppose. That afternoon when I left my flat I noticed the Siamese that lives on the corner. Watching me.”
“I know that Siamese,” said Anna.
“She followed me to the library. I spent roughly two hours consulting the Celtic Chieftain Compendium and then when I emerged she was waiting for me. I walked home by a diff erent route.”
“But the Siamese was on to you,” said David.
“You couldn’t shake your tail,” said Anna. David looked at Anna.
“Sorry,” said Anna.
“You didn’t, perhaps, fry up some tilapia for breakfast that day?” said David.
“Jacob doesn’t eat fish,” said Anna.
“I spent the rest of the day at home,” said Jacob. “When I checked the mailbox the next morning there were two more acceptance letters.”
“Jacob! Congratulations!” said Anna.
“Thank you,” said Jacob.
“All that hard work of yours is finally paying off ,” said David. “Three acceptance letters.”
“In two days,” said Jacob.
“That’s unprecedented,” said David.
“Yes,” said Jacob. “Normally I would have been elated. But when I left my apartment later that morning, the Siamese followed suit. By the time I reached the corner she had been joined by two companions. An obese, black cat with a white tuft at its neck, and a tabby. I recognized the tabby. Normally it wants nothing to do with the Siamese. But that day they were united by a common purpose.” “Tailing you,” said Anna.
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