by Karen Swan
He’d had big plans, a grand vision, but he didn’t see what was coming for him. He could never have predicted that within a couple of months, he’d be dead and Tuck would be left to run the business on his own. Lucy was worried about her husband – he didn’t have Mitch’s vision, he wasn’t a businessman and instead of dealing with suppliers and manufacturers, he was spending hours in the studio trying to finish editing the film for this year’s festival, so that calls were going unreturned, emails piling up . . . The stress, the responsibility – it was too much.
Ditto Meg. Lucy could understand why she wasn’t focused on the business right now. Beyond her artistic contributions, she had never been too involved in the day-to-day running of Titch anyway – but to have forgotten that night altogether, one of the greatest of their lives? It was almost as though she was a computer hard drive that had crashed, everything on it wiped clean. ‘You do remember that, right?’ Lucy asked, leaning in a little closer. ‘The boys didn’t go to bed till eight the next morning, they were so busy plotting and planning for world domination. They wrote their business proposal on the toilet tissue . . .’
Meg smiled, shaking her head. ‘Crazy,’ she said blankly.
Disappointed, Lucy sat back, patting her hand. ‘You must be tired.’
‘It’s been another long day,’ Meg nodded. ‘Thank God the ski season’s done. If I had to fit one more pair of skis . . .’ She made a jokey strangled noise.
They lapsed into silence again. Meg seemed oblivious to it.
‘So how are you sleeping now you’re back home?’ Lucy asked. ‘You look pretty rested.’
‘I am. I just put my head on the pillow each night and—’ She clicked her fingers.
‘Any bad dreams?’
Meg shook her head – perhaps a little too hard – so that her hair swung. ‘None at all. Just . . . black.’
‘Me too. I’ve never known exhaustion like it. Tuck’s getting really fed up with me, ’cause I . . . you know.’
It was a moment before Meg did know. She straightened up. ‘Oh. Well, he needs to grow up and understand you’re growing a baby. His baby.’
‘Yeah. I guess.’
‘Is the sickness any better?’
‘It is, actually. I’m down to only twice a day now which is pretty good.’
‘Pretty good,’ Meg echoed, her eyes distant again. After a pause, she added, ‘You’re so lucky.’
Lucy spluttered on her drink. ‘Lucky? Me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Me with the swollen ankles and inability to keep a meal down or stay awake past seven o’clock every night? Me?’
But she was up late tonight, wasn’t she? And her husband was in the next room, not in the ground.
Meg stared at the cork noticeboard on the opposite wall. ‘I’d do anything to have him back. A piece of him. A baby would have . . . made it easier, somehow.’
Lucy felt her throat close up and the tears rush at her eyes, guilt clawing at her. ‘Oh, no, Meg, it would have been worse, so much worse. You wouldn’t wish a child without its father, would you?’
Meg looked straight at her, her hazel-green eyes watery. ‘I wouldn’t wish any of this.’
Lucy reached forward to clasp Meg’s hand in her own. ‘No.’
They sat in silence again, the clock on the wall ticking quietly above the fridge, the moon creeping along the mountaintops outside the window.
What was left of the coffee was cold now. From the sound of the snores coming through the walls, Tuck was asleep. It was safe for her to go to bed now. ‘Time to sleep?’ asked Lucy.
Meg nodded and got up, visibly grateful to be released from the strain of conversation.
‘See you in the morning,’ Lucy murmured, watching Meg go down the hall to the spare room that had become hers in the first weeks after Mitch’s death and would soon become the nursery. She was trying her best to look after her, to be the friend Meg needed her to be. To be someone more than she knew she was.
Meg closed the door behind her with a click and leaned against it. Badger was already asleep on the bed thanks to Barbara, who’d been looking after him for the evening, and she walked straight over to him, nuzzling her face in his fur.
Tonight had been one of the hardest so far to endure. Mitch had passionately supported his team, always travelling whenever he could to support them, and he’d been so excited at the Flames’ progress up the rankings this season. The score had suggested it had been a tight game, although she didn’t recollect a single moment of play, but she knew he’d have loved tonight; he wouldn’t even really have minded the defeat. Well, no, he’d have hated it, of course – his mood would have matched Tuck’s – but to have been there, been part of the moment . . . That was what he loved. ‘The journey’s the destination, Meg, don’t you know that?’ he used to tease when she’d lose her temper sitting in traffic on the way out from Calgary or when she’d beg for mercy on a particularly gruelling hike, the picnic in his backpack and him fifty metres ahead.
Going to those games, the four of them talking and laughing all the way along the highway – the boys swapping facts and trivia in the front, her and Lucy gossiping in the back – it was what they did, what they’d always done, so when Tuck had first insisted they go to the game anyway, she’d thought he’d been joking at first. How could they possibly go to a game without Mitch? How could they sit there with his chair empty . . . ? How could they take it in turns to buy beers and hot dogs, but now just get three instead of four? Couldn’t he see how diabolical that idea was to her?
But he’d been so adamant this was what Mitch would want, desperately trying to hold on to traditions made with his best friend and wanting life to be how it used to be, regardless of how anyone else might feel. His grief was total. His loss absolute. No one’s could compete, not even hers – he wouldn’t have seen that she’d thought she’d throw up when the guy in the seat one along had casually tossed his coat on Mitch’s chair, how she’d turned away from the big screens whenever the kiss-cam came on, wouldn’t have noticed that she’d had to hide in the toilets for fifteen minutes when getting the drinks because she thought she was having a panic attack. He didn’t register that poor Lucy looked wiped out and nauseous and exhausted, he didn’t see how driving home in a filthy mood muffled them with a soured silence.
He didn’t see that his very presence repulsed her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, angry at this backwards step and feeling her pulse climb. She’d been doing so well too, working in the store every day and talking to people, remembering to eat lunch and managing not to feel too much. She was getting good at tuning out the world and turning down the volume.
She reached for her phone, setting the alarm. If she got in early in the morning and organized the dead rental stock for the clearance sale, she could clear some space for the Schoffel delivery they were expecting . . . She saw the email icon on the top of the screen and clicked on it, unused to being able to pick up Wi-Fi in the evenings; there was none at the cabin of course and she and Mitch shared a personal email address, so rare was any correspondence to them there. Almost everyone contacted them via their work addresses. So what came next was a velvet-gloved punch.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .
Up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
P
ut out my hand, and touched the face of God.
The words were strong and soft, tender and brutal. With the lightest of touches, they pierced the membrane that had sealed her up and kept the world at bay; they broke the dam that had kept her dry, slow tears making a stately march down her hollow cheeks. But it wasn’t just the poetry that her eyes kept returning to, it was the message at the bottom:
With deepest sympathies, Jonas Solberg.
Chapter Nine
‘How d’you think he got it?’ Lucy asked in amazement the next morning, flipping the pancakes onto the plate and drizzling them with maple syrup.
‘I don’t know. I just can’t think. I mean, how many Meg Saunderses must there be in Canada, for God’s sake? It’s hardly an unusual name. My parents weren’t exactly blessed with the originality gene.’
‘And he’s actually an astronaut?’ Lucy asked, heaping blueberries on top of the waffles and bringing the plates over. ‘Like, with a helmet and pet space chimp and everything?’
Meg smiled. Actually smiled! ‘I’m not sure about the chimp but he does have a dog. He’s called Yuri, although he’s not with him up there. I know that, because he said he was missing him.’
Lucy held her cutlery in her hands, her momentary sugar craving forgotten as she gazed back at Meg in wonder. Her face was pale, her eyes swollen and puffy – had she . . . had she cried? – and it was clear she hadn’t slept well, but she looked changed somehow. Not better, not happier, but definitely . . . present. ‘How many times have you spoken to him?’
‘Only twice. The first . . .’ She swallowed, looking nervous, looking sick. ‘That night, obviously. The landline was down and I couldn’t get into town to raise an alarm so I tried Mitch’s radio. I was just trying to get hold of someone, anyone, who could help. And it was him who answered.’
‘On his spaceship?’
Meg cocked her head to the side, recognizing Lucy’s trademark sarcasm. Her friend had hidden it away these past few months but if ever there was an occasion for it to rear its ugly head . . . ‘I’m as baffled as you, remember. I couldn’t work the thing—’
‘Well, obviously you could! You made contact with outer space. Hey, have you given your details to NASA? Perhaps you could help them out. I hear they’re working on some project with little green men on Mars.’
Meg laughed and it changed her face completely, boosting a pink flush in her cheeks and bringing a light to her eyes. She looked beautiful when she laughed although Lucy knew her friend had no idea of that fact. She had always been unaware of her looks, thinking she was just average – bemoaning when they were teenagers that she was just medium height, medium build, with medium-length dark brown hair and pale skin that didn’t tan easily. But she didn’t see what everyone else saw – how beguiling it was the way her top lip stayed full and straight when she smiled, the delicacy of her shoulders and arms, how wholesome she looked when her freckles came out in the summer. Little wonder Mitch had fallen so hard for her, or that Lucy sometimes saw Tuck looking.
Lucy smiled, taking the laugh as a small victory – a sign of progress – and began to eat. ‘And the second time . . . ?’ she prompted, her mouth full.
Meg’s smiled disappeared, a flash of desolation in its place. ‘My first night back at the cabin. I couldn’t sleep and . . . well, he was out there, trying to get hold of me.’
‘Jeez, what is he? Some kind of stalker?’ Lucy chewed quickly, laughing as she thought of another joke. ‘Although, if he is, at least you don’t need to get a restraining order. It’s hardly like he’s in the vicinity. He’s not even in the same atmosphere.’ She chuckled, pleased with herself.
Meg smiled too. ‘No, it wasn’t like that. He was just worried.’ She paused, reflective. ‘I guess from his point of view it must have been really . . . odd being all the way out there and . . . and hearing me.’
Lucy stopped chewing. She couldn’t begin to imagine how terrible it must have been up there, all alone, that night. It had been bad enough down here, clinging to Tuck as the wind barrelled through the town, funnelled between the mountains. ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah,’ Meg nodded, before taking a sharp intake. ‘Still, it was nice of him to send the poem.’
‘Nice of who to send what poem?’
They both looked up as Tuck wandered through in just his jeans, hands pressed back on his shoulders as he stretched long, the square muscles of his abs like stepping stones. His voice was still furred with sleep and Lucy didn’t want to imagine what his breath must be like just now after all those beers last night, but he always looked good first thing. That tousled look suited him – surf-bum blond hair, snow tan, athletic physique, super-blue eyes ringed with long dark lashes . . . He still did it for her. Totally.
‘Meg here’s been talking to an astronaut. She used Mitch’s radio the night of the storm and somehow made contact with—’
‘The International Space Station? You’re freaking kidding me?’ If he’d been half-asleep moments before, he was wide awake now, pulling out the chair in front of Meg and straddling it. Meg seemed to recoil a little – from his breath no doubt, Lucy thought. ‘Mitch had been trying for weeks to get hold of them.’
‘He had?’ Meg asked, surprised.
‘Yeah. That’s why he got that new super antenna.’
‘Oh.’ Meg looked stunned. ‘I had no idea.’
‘I can’t believe you got hold of them,’ Tuck said excitedly, shaking her lightly by the arm. ‘You got any idea how many hams try to do that?’
Meg shook her head, taking her arm back from his grip.
‘Thousands. And there’s only like a five-, ten-minute window when you’re in range.’
‘Wow. I . . . I didn’t know that.’
‘And he called her back too,’ Lucy said brightly, wondering if Tuck had even noticed her yet. Certainly he hadn’t come over and planted a kiss on her lips the way he used to. ‘When she got back to the cabin.’
‘No shit!’
Meg nodded.
‘And now he’s sent her a poem, by email – which is lovely and all, but it’s driving us crazy trying to work out how he got hold of her email address ’cause she didn’t give it to him.’
‘That’s easy.’ Tuck shrugged. ‘He would have logged your call sign on your first contact and been able to trace it back to the personal details registered on that licence.’
The girls frowned at each other.
‘Huh,’ Lucy murmured. ‘Is that legal? Aren’t they supposed to be confidential or something?’
Tuck shrugged. ‘He probably pleaded extraordinary circumstances? Or maybe astronauts get special privileges, I don’t know.’ He looked at the girls’ plates – Meg’s almost untouched, Lucy’s cleared and practically polished clean. ‘Are there any more of those pancakes going?’
Lucy pouted. ‘Depends.’
Tuck leaned over, planting a kiss on her puckered lips.
‘Sold,’ she sighed, picking up her plate and walking back to the stove. ‘To the only bidder.’
Tuck watched her go – she could see his reflection in the window but not the nuance of the expression on his face. Did he think she looked fat? Before she could see, he turned back to Meg, who had picked up her cutlery and was trying to summon the appetite to finish her breakfast.
‘So, are you gonna write back to him?’ Tuck asked her.
‘Who?’
‘Who? Whaddya mean, who? The astronaut! . . . Hey, what’s his name anyway?’
‘Commander Jonas Solberg,’ Lucy answered for her, seeing that Meg had retreated into herself. ‘We think he’s European. He’s got an accent, apparently.’
Meg looked nervous as she glanced her way. ‘Do you think I should write back? I hadn’t thought about it.’
‘Well, you could say thanks at least,’ Lucy called over the hiss of the batter hitting the pan. ‘It was a kind thing to do and he must have gone to some trouble to get your details.’
‘I guess.’ Meg bit her lip. ‘I can’t beli
eve he’s got email up there. How come he can get it in outer space and I can’t even get it at the cabin?’
‘I think their tech system’s a bit more geared than yours,’ Tuck drawled.
‘Hey, if you do write to him, can you ask him a question from me?’ Lucy said, shaking the pan lightly. ‘How do they go to the bathroom up there? I always wanted to know.’
‘I’m not asking him that!’ Meg said, looking mortified.
‘Ask him what’s been his best view then,’ Tuck said. ‘I bet he’s seen some incredible sights.’
‘I wonder if he can see the Great Wall of China? They say you can,’ Lucy said, flipping the pancake expertly and sliding it onto the plate.
She brought it over and set it down in front of Tuck a few moments later, heaped with the last remaining blueberries and a ladle of syrup. Her reward was a squeeze on the bottom.
She smiled, bending down and kissing him again, grateful that his disappointment over last night’s defeat had passed.
‘So what have you got lined up for today then?’ she asked, sitting in the chair opposite.
‘Well, I’m heading over to Edmonton just as soon as I’m done eating this. I’m meeting with the organizers of the Ski and Snow Show – they’re over from Toronto and they’re the biggest forum to get.’
Lucy watched his eyes dart up to Meg – seeking approval, acknowledgement, her blessing, something – but she was still looking at her phone, the way her eyes were flickering left to right suggesting she was reading the poem again.
Tuck looked back over at her and arched an eyebrow but Lucy just shook her head. Meg had gone again.
‘You should definitely write back,’ she said in a louder voice.
Meg looked up. ‘Really? You think so?’
‘I do. He was kind. It’s the polite thing to do.’ Lucy chortled. ‘Hell, there are worse pen pals to get than a rocket man.’