Sweet Jesus

by Christine Pountney

  On the ground at her feet was a tarnished orange loonie in a grey clot of matted debris that Connie felt she should pick up. Something to do with money. At the back of her mind an old frugality was standing up and brushing itself off. Connie looked over at the highway as an eighteen-wheeler shot through the intersection, some fir trees shook, and she heard a song lyric in her head. These are the best days of your life.

  There was no answer. She snapped her phone shut and nudged the loonie with her foot, then bent to pick it up. It was an old ginger beer bottle cap. How strange things can appear, and she thought again of the doctor’s gloves at Theo’s birth. Like red woollen mittens. How the doctor had raised them up and Connie had thought – a Christmas present.

  She turned the stroller around and walked back. She saw the sign in the window, LIQUIDATION SALE. How had she missed that before? She opened the door and walked in. Harlan hadn’t moved. Once again, Connie took Theo out of his stroller and turned to face her husband. She took a new stab at optimism. So please, tell me again what’s going on.

  All the sturdiness went out of Harlan’s posture. He fell back and without looking put his hands out to catch himself against the counter, as if he’d been dealt a soft blow. The counter was the only furniture left on the display floor, if you could call it furniture. It was just the hollow box of a counter, fastened to the floor. There was that, and a small, dark green, metal garbage can. It frightened her how thoroughly a room can be emptied, and how quickly. She had known this room. But she didn’t know it anymore.

  Harlan lifted a hand and smoothed his eyebrows with his fingertips. We’re totally bankrupt, Connie. I lost the store, the business. All our assets.

  And there it was, she could see it in his face, the sweet, immense relief of confession. How, Harlan? How could this happen?

  I got carried away.

  But you’re not impulsive. You’re reliable. You were going to build bridges, design highways.

  And I landed in security.

  See what I mean? You think that was an accident? Connie could not yet grasp what her husband was telling her.

  Maybe it was an irony.

  No, Harl, we all choose our paths in life.

  Sometimes things get beyond our control.

  That’s just an excuse weak people make.

  Is that what you really think? Haven’t you ever felt overwhelmed?

  Theo had walked over to the garbage can and was rocking it back and forth.

  Why do you always have to be the victim? Connie said. You always have other things to blame – your parents, your upbringing. When are you going to take responsibility for yourself?

  But I am! That’s what I’m saying. I made a mistake!

  Do you think this is what God had in mind for you?

  I don’t know what God has in mind.

  I mean, don’t you think he wanted you to rise above your station and excel?

  My station?

  Connie was saying words she didn’t know she was going to say. It was as if her mouth opened and a voice spoke. But she condoned the message. You know, she said, your disadvantaged background? Connie flicked her hair. She kept her eyes down. She stifled a sudden desire to be soft, to cry and lament. Instead, she threw a log on her anger and her judgment. I mean, how does a thing like this happen?

  I couldn’t resist it, Con. The big jackpot. The stock market.

  What are you talking about? A sharpness in her voice made Theo gravitate back from where he had wandered off.

  Please, Constance, don’t condemn me. Just listen.

  You never call me Constance.

  Sweetheart, we’re broke. I thought I could make – I made some bad investments. They were supposed to, well, I should’ve stopped, declared bankruptcy, but instead I kept borrowing, and signed liens on everything I could lay my hands on, and now –

  How could you fall for that, Harl? The stock market? You’ve got a master’s in engineering, you were supposed to work for a living. There’s no such thing as free money.

  Not unless you come by it honestly at birth, he said.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  You’re middle class, Connie. I don’t expect you to understand. How was I supposed to give you the life you wanted? Selling burglar alarms and deadbolts?

  What about your patent? Couldn’t you have tried to come up with another one?

  I did, Harlan said. I wanted it all too, for you, for the kids. What have you ever been tempted by?

  I try really hard, all the time, to do the right thing!

  I know you do, Harlan said. And that’s all you care about. As far as I know, you’ve never done a spontaneous thing in your life.

  Connie closed her eyes and clenched her fists. Look, Harlan, you’re a strong man and I want you to be strong now.

  Harlan felt exhausted. He wanted to sweep Connie up in his arms and take the children and fly somewhere far away where they could start again, from scratch, from hard stone and rippling brook and tree bark. He’d done that once, but he’d done it alone. Could he do it again and with a family?

  You’ve never understood me, Connie said, and her heart ached because already her prescient self had walked forward down the long corridor of the future and understood the hardship that lay ahead. What’s going to happen to us?

  Harlan crouched and held his arms out to his son with such little confidence Theo thought better of it and stayed where he was, attached to his mother’s leg. Harlan rose again. I’m going to work as hard as I can to make it up to you, he said.

  Connie walked over to a wall and slid down with her back against it and sat on the floor, her elbows resting on her knees. Theo squirmed his way onto her lap. Connie hugged her son. Inhaled the warm fabric smell of his head. Do you know, she said, slightly amused, as if it had just occurred to her, that I thought of killing myself recently?

  Oh, Connie, Harlan said, and his voice was beseeching.

  Not seriously, she said. Not really. Just out of some malaise, the thought struck me. But then I didn’t think I had any reason to be depressed. I mean, I have everything, right? A beautiful house, faithful husband, three healthy kids in five years. Do you know what it’s like to be so full of life you squirt breast milk halfway across the room? I thought, I am at the very centre of this family. I mean, I am so necessary to this life we have together, so integral. This big life we have, Emma and Si and Theo, it all literally came out of me, out of my body. And yet I’ve never felt so invisible either, so unimportant. I’m just a mother. People don’t respect that. People don’t even open the door for a pregnant woman anymore. I saw a pregnant woman hitchhiking in the rain the other day. Oh my God, I should have picked her up!

  Connie stopped talking and the stark emptiness of the store struck her as embarrassingly obvious. Does the whole town know about this?

  Harlan shook his head. I don’t think so. He was fussing with a loose thread on the outside seam of his blue pants. A dark hourglass shape walked past the window from left to right. Fingerprints and smudges glowed on the glass. The sun was too harsh, it was peeling everything back.

  Stop that! Connie said. Stop that goddamn fiddling! Can’t you control yourself?

  Don’t swear at me! Harlan yelled back and grabbed at his hair.

  No, Mama! Theo said and raised his hand and smacked Connie on the nose.

  Ow! Connie shouted and shoved her son onto the floor and stood up and watched him roll onto his stomach and kick the floor in a parody of outrage. I’m sorry, sweetie, she said, crouching down again and rubbing his back. I didn’t mean to do that.

  Harlan took a step forward, towards this unhappy, fragile unit of his family, but Connie threw him a look that was feral.

  Don’t, Connie said. Get the fuck away from me!

  Stop swearing! Harlan bellowed, and an instinct so deep and primordial Connie didn’t even know she had was alerted. She picked Theo up and slung him into the crook of her elbow and kicked the stroller around. Harlan bent and picked up the
small dark green garbage can and launched it into the air. It soared over her head and detonated the front window. The glass exploded, a waterfall of diamonds pouring over the edge of some place they had never gone before. The noise came after and lasted longer, petering out until it was the delicate tinkling of icicles. It was as if they had been forewarned, had had time to stand and turn and face the solid window to prepare, for a second, before the spectacle of its shattering. Theo was quiet. Connie held him tight, then her arms shot forward and he hung suspended in the air and flapping as she spun him right, then left. No blood. No cuts. Thank God. She pulled him towards her again and propped him on her hip and rattled the stroller viciously with one hand until it started to close and fold down against the floor.

  Harlan stared at the now-clear view through the jagged frame of his storefront window at the parking lot where Connie had pulled up, eleven years ago, with her doorbell in a box, and her soft brown hair, and an air of wholesome promise. He shuddered and clamped down on a deep necessity to cry.

  Several seconds later voices began to accumulate outside and Harlan’s neighbours started gathering from the other businesses along the short strip mall.

  Connie was trembling so violently it was hard to navigate the wreckage. She made a crunching path through the glass. She didn’t use the door but stepped over the spiky mountain range of the lower sill. She excused herself past a woman from the bakery, who was still holding a plate with a slice of carrot cake, and opened the back door of the Volvo and sat her bawling son in his car seat. It took both hands to steady the buckle enough to slide it into the lock. She heard a man say, What the hell, Harlan? What the H Christ is going on here?

  She winced at the man’s crudeness. It held the frightening potential of a crass new life she had just stepped into where people lost their tempers, lost control, where they swore and fought and threw garbage cans through windows.

  When the alarm went off at four-thirty in the morning, all Hannah could see was the shape of the window soaked in dark purple light and four stars in the sky. They got up and had flashlights and a kerosene lamp to dress by, and Norm made a fry-up of greasy eggs on thick slices of bread, and there was bacon, which they didn’t eat but made sandwiches with. Norm flicked on the high beams and they drove to a dirt road off the highway an old man at a gas station had told them about yesterday – a popular caribou crossing between the barrens. The road was pitted and they drove slowly. This is why you should never buy a used rental, Norm said, bottoming out again. They’re cars nobody cares about.

  They turned off their high beams and the trees tilted back into the darkness. Down the road, two demon eyes of red. There was a pickup truck parked ahead of them and they realized they’d reached the spot on the map. They drove up alongside the truck and rolled down the window. A woman was sitting behind the wheel, holding a 35 mm camera to her chin. See anything?

  A man in a green quilted shell came around the back of the truck. Saw two moose about a half-hour ago, he said.

  So you’re after moose, Norm said.

  There was a sound of nylon being scratched and the alder bushes parted and another man walked out, wearing a trucker’s cap and carrying a rifle on his shoulder. His eyes were wide and he was breathing hard. Jeeze, boy, I almost got him. Would have had the two of them if we’d been here sooner. If you sees ’em, shoot one of ’em for me, will ya?

  The guys got into their truck and slammed the doors and drove off down the road. The brake lights came on again after a couple hundred yards, and they got out and rustled back into the bushes.

  Man oh man, Norm said.

  What?

  All that noise.

  They walked into the woods where it was darker and they got lost for a little while, cracking their way through a web of spruce boughs, over moss-covered logs, holding the compass ahead of them. There were creaking noises in the velvety darkness and Hannah felt a little afraid. A city girl deep in the woods. This was not one of those moments when you could belt out a happy song either, because they were trying to be as quiet as possible. They checked the map by flashlight. Things looked the same in all directions – receding pillars of black and blue. There was a green sky growing lighter overhead, and finally a tinge of orange above the treetops. They came across a patch of flattened grass in a small arbour. That’s where they slept, Norm whispered.

  The forest brightened and ended abruptly and they found their way out onto the open marsh. The ground was soggy and made a soft suction against Hannah’s rubber boots. Then it changed and became rocky, dry, crunchy with lichen. The sky was now a light grey and a breeze sighed over the land, making the shadows move. Hannah felt as if she was breathing with her eyes. There, one of them would say and then, No. They walked slowly and stopped often to raise the rifle and scan the treeline through the scope.

  The day before, after a late start, hungover and shaky, they’d driven out of St. John’s and installed themselves at a friend’s cabin. They set off into the woods half-heartedly, and after several hours of cautious advances, long, searching intervals, they saw a magnificent stag. It was Hannah’s first sighting, and the animal looked magical, something out of Norse mythology or a child’s arctic fairytale. He had a rack of antlers like a huge inverted wishbone and a yoke of white fur. His back must have been five feet off the ground. He pranced out of the woods and sniffed the air, then turned and went back into the trees before walking out again, leading four does and two calves. The herd started to graze, but the stag was skittish. He knew something was up.

  Hannah had been trying to find him through the rifle. Norm was whispering, You have to get closer. They were downwind and had crawled and managed to get within a hundred and fifty yards of the caribou.

  Kneeling, Hannah held the rifle and caught him in her scope. That stag walked right across it, but all she could do was admire him, so she lost the shot. What would it require to shoot such a beautiful animal? Could she do it? He turned away and never gave her another chance. He must have caught a whiff of them then, because he raised his head and froze. The rest of the herd sprang to attention, and the stag led them at a trot back into the woods – except for one adolescent calf who lingered, who kept looking in Hannah’s direction, curious and rebellious, defying his patient father at the edge of the forest, waiting.

  A few minutes later, there was splashing as the animals crossed a shallow pond out of sight.

  You have to be quick, Norm had said, you can’t hesitate, you’ve got a fraction of a second when the caribou is yours. You want it side on. Then aim right behind the front shoulder, through the lungs and heart.

  Hannah realized that she had to stop thinking about the consequences and the beauty of the animal. All she could think about was that spot behind the shoulder and the trigger of her gun and matching those two things.

  Today they’d been sprawled on the ground, hiding in the scoop of a little hollow for about an hour when a good-sized female appeared about two hundred yards away. Norm and Hannah bent forward at the waist and lifted their feet high and rushed forward as quietly as they could in their plastic rain pants. But the caribou moved soundlessly and without effort, and they couldn’t gain on her.

  They’re so fast, Norm said, breathing hard from the exertion. Let’s try those barrens over there.

  No, let’s have lunch, Hannah said, and on their way back to the car, Norm spotted some fluorescent pink tape hanging from a branch on the far side of the marsh. They walked the quarter-mile to have a look. The tape marked the end of a trail that led back to the road, not far from where they’d parked. If they could get a caribou near this trail, it would make the job of lugging it out so much easier. There were caribou tracks all over the marsh where the trail led out.

  It’s Caribou Highway, Norm said. If we come back here, just before dusk, and sit quietly and wait long enough, a caribou will pass.

  They returned to the car and sat inside and ate their sandwiches. Who knew cold bacon could taste so good? Hannah said, and th
ey each drank a thermos cup of lukewarm tea and this, too, was very good.

  They had a blanket in the trunk and Hannah lay across the back seat, unable to sleep, while Norm slept soundly under his coat, reclined in the passenger seat. The sky was so white through the windows – the car’s interior sharply grey and metallic as yesterday’s hangover. Hannah was thinking about how it was going to work out, this living with Norm business. She had recently moved all her stuff into his apartment. Would she be inclined to defer to his tastes and opinions, or would she find the strength to assert herself in this relationship? She found herself wanting so badly to please him, she may not even have noticed how badly because she hadn’t yet begun to question the impulse. Her stomach rumbled. She was still hungry. The exertion of being outdoors and the adrenalin of seeing the caribou had carved out an appetite, but the sandwiches were all gone.

  Norman gave a chuckle and Hannah thought he was laughing at her, then she realized he was still asleep. She’d heard a couple of people laugh in their sleep and always liked it. It was a reassuring sign of a person’s essential character, like someone who was affable when drunk. Then Hannah remembered something that had happened to her mother once. Rose had woken up in the middle of the night because the bed was shaking. Her first thought was, Lord, if you take Tim, take me too! Don’t leave me here alone! Rose thought it was an earthquake, but it was just her husband, sitting up in bed, laughing in his sleep, so hard that tears were streaming down his face. He’d been dreaming about his father, but couldn’t remember the next day, what.

  And I thought the house was falling down, Rose had said. She’d told this story over dinner in Toronto years ago. They’d all been there – her parents, Connie, even Zeus. What a pretty boy he’d been, with dark hair and dark lashes. Nothing like the rest of the family – prepubescent and funny and excitable.

  If I have it my way, her father had said then, I won’t live a long life. I don’t want to get too old. I’m looking forward to meeting my maker.