“I told him you were helping me.”
His father’s words suddenly made everything seem hopeful.
Over and over, they stopped at shops and offices, and went in to speak with the respective managers. One said, “Not right now, Tom, b’y. Maybe in time.” A couple of people wished they had work to offer. But, in the end, no one was willing to hire the most gossiped about man in Darwin whose name wasn’t Crowley.
“Don’t you ever feel like fighting back?” Finton stared out the side window, fists clenched in his lap as the shadows of early afternoon encroached. They were parked in front of the town hall, where his father had just applied for two weeks of work on the garbage truck. It was a long waiting list, they told him, and it wouldn’t be until the spring, if at all.
“I feel like fighting everybody.” Tom lit a cigarette and rolled down the window. “In many ways, I feel like I’ve been doin’ that my whole life.”
Finton regarded him doubtfully. “But you’re the most popular man in Darwin. Everybody knows you and talks to you—everybody loves you.”
Tom laughed, in spite of himself. “You just keep tellin’ yourself that little fairytale. Meanwhile, I needs a job.”
“Why are they punishing you for something you didn’t do? They’re just being stupid. Bunch o’ backwoods hicks.”
“Hey, hold on now. These are our friends and neighbours. This is your place, right here. Don’t ever forget it. People can be pricks, but they’re still your people.”
Finton was stunned into silence, frustrated with his father’s refusal to see Darwin for what it was—just a mean-spirited killer of souls. “They only questioned you,” he said. “They can’t prove anything. And you’re just looking for a job! I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” He drove his fist into the dashboard and cried out in pain. The dashboard wasn’t even dented.
Tom leaned back his head and laughed. “See where violence gets ya? Don’t be a fool, b’y. Change what ya can, and accept the rest—and the rest is just bullshit.”
“You’re acting like you don’t care.”
“Just the opposite. I care so much that I feel like givin’ up.”
“Sometimes I think—”
“What?” Tom narrowed his eyes. “What ’n hell do ya think?”
“I think—I wonder—I mean—for someone who didn’t kill anybody, you accept it all too easy.” As soon as he said the words, Finton cringed.
“So, after all this, you still think I did it? Is that it?”
“No. That’s not what I—”
“Let me say this once—and I don’t intend to repeat it, ever again: he was my friend, and I didn’t kill him.”
“But you bought him a drink—and he wasn’t supposed to drink.”
“So you’re putting me on trial.” Tom thrust his head forward, gazed into Finton’s eyes. Never before had Finton been so afraid of his father. “All right. I guess that’s the way it’ll always be. Yes, I bought him a beer. Big fuckin’ deal. He was thirsty. Haven’t you ever had a friend so thirsty, craving something so much that he couldn’t have, you’d do anything in your power to get it for him, no matter the consequences?”
“No,” said Finton. “I’d do the right thing.”
“Well…” Tom pulled back, giving Finton some breathing room, “maybe that’s the difference between us. I’d do the right thing too. But it would be truly the right thing, and not just what somebody told me was right.”
Finton was silent.
“I gave him a beer. He thanked me. That was it.”
“You told the cops you and Sawyer got into a fight.”
“That’s my business, not yours or theirs.”
“What was it about?”
“I told the police—that’s enough.”
“Fine.” Finton sighed. “I got one more place we can go.”
Finton wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.
Father Power was out for a walk when they arrived at the big, white house. They waited on the front step until he arrived, hands in pockets, dressed for the weather.
He was startled to see them and kept looking at Finton with a sad expression.
“We need to ask you a favour, Father,” said Finton.
“Strange… very strange… but go ahead.”
“My father needs a job.”
“I see.”
Tom stepped forward and said, “I’ll take anything, Father,” then blew on his cold hands. Finton was aware of how his father looked with his tired eyes and five o’clock shadow, exuding desperation. His clothes were ragged, his boots worn at the toes, and his hands bare. His shoulders slouched forward like those of a man who’d spent his whole life bent over.
“He’s a good worker,” said Finton. “And I thought… you could do something.”
“Funny you should ask,” said Father Power. “Perhaps we can help each other.”
“Here we go,” said Tom, with a roll of his eyes.
“How?” Finton asked.
“You said you were looking for a job. I just happen to have an opening. It’s not full-time, mind you. But it is something.”
“Thank you,” Finton said, beaming.
By the time they returned to the car for the last time that day, the sky was pitch black and the street lights had come on. They didn’t speak to each other. The radio played “Somebody Done Somebody Wrong,” and Finton gazed at the Laughing Woods as they passed. His fingers were tingling in a way they hadn’t in some time, his entire body filled with a familiar warmth, a sense of possibility and promise he’d thought gone for good.
Meanwhile, part-time or not, Tom had become the family’s first gravedigger.
News
Supper was in the oven when they burst through the door.
“Dad got a job!” Finton shouted. Everyone was in the living room, watching TV, and wondering aloud why they hadn’t heard from the two hunters. The whole family was ecstatic, and Elsie hugged her husband. They chattered excitedly about how good times were finally returning. There was justice in the sudden turn of events, and they all seemed to feel it. After a celebratory supper of chicken and potatoes, all hands, except for Nanny Moon, returned to the living room where Elsie added to the joyous ruckus by putting The McNulty Family on the stereo.
Finton crept out to the kitchen where Nanny Moon was rocking by the wood stove, humming to the music and tapping her foot, as she read. He leaned in and said softly, “I think I can do it again.”
She kept rocking and reading as if she hadn’t heard. He held up his trembling hands, so close to her face she couldn’t ignore him. “My hands.” He raised his voice slightly, yet kept it low so those in the living room couldn’t hear.
“What are ya talking about, b’y?”
“That thing… the gift…” He didn’t mean for his voice to quiver, but it did.
While she maintained her place with an index finger, she raised her head and looked at him over her glasses. “The gift.”
“Something’s changed,” he said. She regarded his small hands and waited for an explanation. “I think I could make you young again. I can heal your old age.” She laughed and pressed the Bible to her chest. “It’s not funny, Nanny Moon. I can do it.”
Laying the Bible aside, she took off her glasses and grasped the corner of her apron. She smiled as she wiped a smear from her lenses. “Tell you what, b’y. If I ever needs ya to do that, I’ll let you know. For now, though, I think I’ll stay just as I am, the way God intended me to be—old as Methuselah and crooked as sin.” She laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed as if to absolve him of some secret offense.
“But I can probably do it.”
“I’ve no doubt you can, child. There’s lots you could do. Lots we all could do.” She slipped her glasses back on and clasped her Bible with both hands. “But that doesn’t mean we always should.”
While she went back to reading, he studied the flesh of her sallow, lined face. She had several brown spots on her cheeks and
the backs of her hands, and sometimes he imagined he could play an endless game of connecting the dots on her skin. Neither of them knew how much longer she would live. Nor did they know if he could actually make her younger and stronger. But if he didn’t try, she would never know.
Eyes still focused on the Bible, she suddenly spoke again. “I don’t suppose you’ve given much thought to the priesthood lately.”
“Not really.”
“And why is that now? A young man of your talents belongs to the church.”
“These days, I’m not sure what I think about God.”
“Oh? That’s a hard thing to say. You’ll need to confess that one.”
“See, that’s the other thing. I’m not too keen on the church lately either.”
She didn’t respond, just returned to her reading, and so he sauntered to the living room. No one there paid him much attention, being too enthralled by the return of The McNulty Family. Only once did his mother look up and catch his eye. He didn’t see what he’d expected to see—a hint of contentment, perhaps, or a trace of love. But, instead, he saw and felt—rising above the accordion’s squawk and the raucous singing—a terrifying emptiness, devoid of hope. She never expected to be raised from the stultifying poverty that engrossed every thought and nuance of this family. Things are never going to get any better. This is it—this is all there is ever going to be. My husband digs graves, but we can pretend it’s all right. The most horrifying words he could imagine, he’d read in his mother’s eyes. The thoughts—and those eyes—followed him all the way to bed where he lay on his back, staring into the darkness.
About two in the morning, as he dreamed about some magical place he’d never been that had lots of trees and books and was surrounded by ocean, Elsie awakened him with a gentle shove, the look in her eyes unreadable. “Morgan is here. She’s asking for you.” Without a thought or a word, he got up and dressed, while his mother wrung her hands and said, “She asked for Finton. Only Finton will do.”
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he stumbled to the kitchen, with the entire family in tow. Even Nanny Moon opened her bedroom door and came out in her grey nightgown, squinting and rubbing her eyes. Morgan was waiting in the porch, her hair bedraggled, eyes dark and bewildered, her face luminescent like autumn moonlight. Those eyes accused him of having avoided her. “She keeps asking for you,” Morgan said. “Finton knows how. That’s all she says, over and over.”
He shook his head, feeling as if he could slip away.
“You don’t have to go.” His mother stood back, arms folded across her chest.
“I don’t want to.”
Her face slackened in relief. Nanny Moon patted him on the shoulder and called him a good boy.
“But I think I have to.”
“I don’t want you to go,” said Elsie. “I forbid you from going.”
“She needs me,” he said, prepared for his mother to stand in his way. But, though her face showed the strain of utter disapproval, she didn’t try to stop him.
He left his mother and father, Nanny Moon, and his brothers standing in the kitchen, shocked and bewildered.
All the way down the lane, Morgan squeezed his hand and never spoke. The early winter had injected the night air with a cool vitality. The sky was high and deep above the babbling brook in its icy sarcophagus. But at least the piles of dirty snow standing sentry at the bottom of the lane had withered.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
She wouldn’t answer, just kept marching and turned left at the road.
All lights were off at the Battenhatch’s. The place never changed. The shadows of night concealed much of the decay. Miss Bridie was nowhere in sight. Morgan pushed open the door and ushered him in. “Upstairs.”
The aroma of fried fish nearly gagged him. Morgan hung her coat on the back of a chair, but left on her boots and prompted the boy to do likewise.
With clunking footsteps, they crept carefully up the stairs. The house creaked with every move and breath. Family photographs hung from nails above the railing, their faces buried beneath a veil of dust.
They turned right at the top of the stairs and were confronted by a white door. Morgan rapped and paused. She held her breath, her face morbidly pale as she glanced at Finton, who was shivering. Finally, she cracked the door ajar. Moaning came from within. Morgan took Finton’s hand and squeezed it, startling him with the blunt-force cold of her skeletal fingers. “Don’t be frightened,” she said. But he couldn’t speak, could barely move his head. So he said nothing, just waited for her to fully open that awful door. She pushed it further inward to a reverberating screech, revealing the darkened pit within. The stench of decaying flesh was overpowering. To his tired eyes, there was mostly darkness. Squinting, he discerned the bed’s edgeless shadow, quilts spread over the central bulge. He clamped both hands on his mouth as bile jumped to his throat and backed down, leaving a bitter taste on his gums and tongue, lips and teeth. Mumbling arose from the bed as several flies buzzed all around.
He let go of Morgan’s hand and stepped inside, gradually discerning the gaunt shape beneath the blankets. When the tenuous mass emitted a death-defying groan, he exhaled with gratitude.
Bridie smacked her gums as she muttered a Hail Mary. But her rosary broke off. “Come in,” she said in a voice stretched and gravelly like a long dirt road upon which he had no urge to travel. “I want to talk to you.”
The way she said “you” made him want to turn and bolt, but he managed to step forward. “What do you want?” The flies seemed to thicken and perch on the blankets around her face like a tiny coven, buzzing and praying.
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Mudder’s got it into her head that she’s dyin’.”
“I am.” Miss Bridie’s breathing was congested, making speech a chore.
“I’ve seen her like this before. Gets all tired and weak. Don’t eat for days. Don’t remember the last time she et anything.”
“Wednesday, I had a bun.”
“She wouldn’t eat dinner on Thursday, though I cooked a fine feed. I ate what I could meself and threw the rest out to the cats. Today, she never ate no leftovers, nor none of the fresh cod fillets I cooked up. I expect I’ll have to force her soon.”
“Damned if you will.” Her mother wheezed and hacked, sounding as pained as if she were trying to regurgitate a small, furry animal.
“Damned if you can stop me.” Morgan stood by the bedside, arms folded across her chest, her bedraggled, blonde hair casting the room’s only light—so bright that Finton could discern some of Miss Bridie’s features, especially the haunted eyes encircled by deep lines, like knotholes in a tree, gazing straight at him. Morgan herself was more visible, her mesmerizing face emerging from the shadows in which the room was submerged. She was a fairy come to life, like one of the ancient folk of the King Arthur tales—maybe a sister of Morgan le Fay. Her face was thin and dream-like, seemingly lit from within, skin like a white sheet illuminated from beneath by a flashlight.
“Are you really dying, Miss Bridie?”
“If you never thought so, why did you come?”
“You told Morgan to come get me.”
“’Cause I wanted to see you.”
“Tell him.” Morgan’s voice was stern, but softer. Her eyes flickered back and forth from her dying mother to Finton.
Eyes closed, Miss Bridie drew a soulful breath and gradually let it out. She coughed and clamped a hand to her chest as if to keep herself earthbound. “She never told you, did she?”
“Who?”
Miss Bridie struggled to swallow, but finally managed to rasp: “Elsie.”
As he stared blankly at her, Miss Bridie coughed, then paused to collect her faculties, and raised her voice as much as she could. “You must have always wondered why you weren’t like the rest of ’em.”
“I’m just different. That’s all.”
“No, me b’y. That’s not all.” She shut her eyes and then opened them to gaze at the ceiling, her bre
athing tentative and ragged. “I had a baby.” She glanced furtively at Morgan. “Another one. A boy. Had ’im right here in this bed. Different times then.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Your mother was pregnant too, right before that—but she lost it.”
“You mean the baby died?”
“And that baby was you—well, not really you.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Mudder, stop torturin’ the boy. Tell him!” Morgan said in a warning voice. “Tell him what you told me.”
“Gettin’ to it, child. Don’t hurry me.”
“Yes, yes. We all knows yer dyin’.” In Morgan’s eyes, Finton caught a flicker of emotion, but he couldn’t tell if it was sadness or anger. “Just get on with it.”
Miss Bridie looked at him and took a shallow breath that seemed to cause her pain, for she winced as she exhaled, then licked her dry lips. “Look at me,” she said. “You need to know this.” Except for her eyes, lips, and faltering breath, her body was still. She measured her words, speaking without hurry. “They told me I wasn’t fit, kept saying so over and over till I was convinced of it. ‘You fucked up your daughter,’ they said. It was Phonse that said that. Times like that, you don’t forget the things people say. Takes nerve, b’y, considerin’ the brood he got.”
“What did they mean, you wasn’t fit?” Finton asked.
“To have you—to keep you. No money, no husband. Didn’t know if I was comin’ or goin’. There was no midwife—not in them days. Them times were long gone.
“I was skinny then too. No one woulda guessed I was havin’ a youngster. Five months into it, I panicked and told Tom I couldn’t have no baby. I sent Morgan away to her father’s crowd in Halifax for the summer. They were used to that. But you had to come early, ya little devil. Seven and a half months—couldn’t wait no longer. No sir, not for another second. Out ya comes! Oh, what a state I was in.”
Miss Bridie’s voice faltered. Her eyes shimmered. A single tear slipped from each eye and onto her pillow. Finton dared not interrupt, could barely draw a breath to call his own. Morgan laid her hands on his shoulders.
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