Mouse

by Brian Reynolds

  Iowa has rivers, two big ones: the Missouri and the Mississippi. There are lots of smaller ones as well. I know, if not first-hand at least from local news, what havoc all of them can wreak in flood; I know the prospect of losing life or property quite rightly strikes fear in those who live nearby. I’ve seen on television sandbag levees and basements being pumped and highways closed or detoured. The National Guard sometimes gets mobilized and daring rescues of a stranded pet take place. Yesterday’s high water, however, lent a different feeling to the word. Our comic run along the road, Sister’s gentle paddle through the compound, and even my unwarranted panic have made me question just how deadly rising water in the north might really be. Before I break into a sweat from Sister’s shouting, I consider first of all, if this time there’ll be a greater inconvenience than rolling up our pant legs and second, if there’s any way at all that I could be of use.

  It’s Chad, of course, not me, who Sr. Theresa yells at, who she subpoenas to rescue victims from the village. He’s wandered back from the bank where he watched us hoist the canoe onto the shore. Thomas has already parked his truck beside the hospital and disappeared inside without a word of thanks or cheerful “See you in the morning.” Sister and Chad stand in the middle of the road discussing details, but from what I’m near enough to hear, not much is known for certain. Help has been requested. What kind and how much still remains a mystery. Sister’s tone, unlike her jovial, curious manner yesterday, is urgent and sober now. When they finish she heads directly to the school without a word to me, no doubt to try her luck with the radio again. Chad walks over to where I’ve been eavesdropping.

  “Lend a hand, eh?” he asks. “This might be serious.” Once again it’s me who’s tapped to be the helper. From Chad’s perspective I’m easier to ask than Thomas, even if much weaker. Whatever the job, it’s unlikely it will involve swimming or walking on the ice. I’m not complaining. Late afternoon is quickly waning into evening so it’s unlikely there’s all that much we’ll do today.

  “I’ll try,” I say.

  “I need some gas. We’ll have to hurry.”

  As we talk we hurry toward the helicopter sitting beside the terminal, a chill spring wind finds my bare hands and neck, and I hunch my shoulders to draw my jacket-collar higher. “Where’s the pump?” Strange. I realize I’ve never seen a gas pump in the eight months I’ve been here. I’m not at all sure what it is I’m signing up for, but I’m in his debt; saying no would not be cool.

  “Nobody on this side has a key to the terminal so I got no access to hydro. We’ll have to pump it by hand until we get a key.” I have no idea what exactly he’s talking about, but I nod. “I can’t pay you, kid, but if you help me out here, I’ll see if I can charge your rescue to the Health Centre. They brought me here. The dog won’t spill the beans, I pretty sure.”

  “Sounds good to me.” It hasn’t occurred to me someone would have to pay for my failure to tie a decent knot. I wonder if Thomas will get billed for his tow. I’m sure he has bigger worries right now: the other man probably suffering from hypothermia, the patient with some problem big enough to risk a trip across that ice. Thomas is a mystery and a thorn. He has been from the first minute I stepped off the plane last September. But now, I reason, he deserves some slack.

  Chad kicks a metal drum standing next to the terminal, which produces a hollow thud, then curses and pronounces it empty. He points. “Over there. We need a fresh one.” A long row of forty-five-gallon drums has marked this end of the runway since Suzanne and I arrived. Some stand upright, some lay on their side, some are half-submerged in lingering snow, while others rest in random pools of yesterday’s high water.

  “Shouldn’t we use Thomas’ truck?” I’m ready to go borrow the keys. The barrels are maybe fifty yards from the terminal, but the terrain is uneven and sloppy in places. It doesn’t look like an easy job.

  Chad looks at me as if I might be joking. “You’ve never lifted a drum of fuel, have you?”

  “No. Actually. I’ve never lifted a drum of anything. But there’s a first time for everything, right?”

  Chad sighs. “They’re a bit heavy. Unless you have a forklift parked somewhere close, we’d never get it in the truck. And that old piece of crap would never make it through the mud anyway. Come on. This will take both of us. I see you’re wearing your track shoes. I hope I can keep up.”

  “I’ll go change.”

  “No time. It sounds like it might be desperate over across the river. We don’t have much daylight left to work with.”

  Four steps later, my sneakers are wet through and my toes are freezing. Chad’s got Kodiaks: also wet, but dry and warm on the inside I’m sure.

  To my right is the hospital, dark clouds reflected in the windows that bracket the front entrance. In the distance behind it, the school windows signal the same warning of impending bad weather. A little to the right, to the side of the school sits my house, second in the line of six identical one-story boxes; all of them are now just shadows against an ominous sky painted from opposite sides of the colour wheel: blues dulled with massive doses of orange, purple dimmed with yellow, the umbers and siennas drowned in green. It must be close to eight o’clock already.

  “This one.” Chad has his gloved hand on a bright red and yellow drum. “Help me tip it down.” I give it a pull with one hand. Nothing. “Come on, sonny. You’re gonna need some muscle. It’s probably still frozen in a bit.”

  It takes both of us—one pushing, one pulling—with our combined weight to finally tip one edge up off its nest of frosty horsetail and quack grass and shove it over onto its side. Then we turn it. Then we start to roll it toward the terminal.

  We haven’t pushed it a dozen yards before Chad stands and grumbles, “Mother fuck! That’s just what we didn’t need.”

  “What?”

  He nods toward the hospital.

  “What?”

  “The lights. Hydro’s off now. There’s probably water damage at the power plant—if there still is a power plant. We’d better hurry.”

  The lights flicker at the hospital and come back on, but none of the other lights. The rectory and the office light in the school stay dark. So does my porch light. The Nurses’ Residence is black. St. Marie’s is the only building I know of with a back-up generator.

  Once we hit the gravel near the terminal, things go more quickly. The barrel gets some momentum and we keep it turning. But the hardest part, once we roll it next to the helicopter, is getting it upright again. Chad finds a two-by-four and chunk of firewood we can use as a fulcrum to help us get it started. In end it is a dead lift with both of us on the same side, straining. “Use your fucking legs there, sonny, or you’ll wreck your back and be no use at all to me.”

  When it’s up, Chad digs a bung wrench out of the helicopter and in no time he has the hand pump screwed in and the hose fitted into his gas tank, and I discover my role in the plan is to do the pumping. It’s been a long day and I’m tired before I start. In minutes my triceps burn from the effort. I am ready to interrupt Chad in whatever prep he is going through to get the helicopter airborne and tell him I simply cannot do it. I can’t. But I only get to, “Chad, my arm...” when I see Rosemary out of the corner of my eye standing right beside me.

  “David.”

  I keep on pumping.

  “When you’re done here, David, you’re needed in the school. There is much to be done and too few of us to do it.”

  “What’s up over there?” I tip my head toward the village.

  “We don’t know. I have to go back now.” There is something anxious in her quiet voice, and I immediately think of Watikwan—my student, her brother—in the village now, perhaps in danger, perhaps worse. Then I see my other Grade Five students: Anice, Peyak, Shikak. Only then do I see the faces of their parents, their relatives, the whole community. I look up from the pump.

  But she has already turned and started running back toward the school before I can speak. She is swallow
ed whole by the twilight shadows, the impending gloom of the low-hanging clouds. It’s too late. I have no words anyway, none that could comfort her, and I keep on pumping.

  

  My fingers hurt. While we chat I use the aluminum key to loosen another spoke from the bike’s front wheel while Juan works on the rear. He’s already removed the gears and has them scattered in front of him on the bare wood floor of the loft.

  September 1973. The bike project belongs to Juan; it’s art not transportation and, to me, lies somewhere in between the absurd and the totally insane. It’s easy for my mind to wander back to Suz. She’s said September is a special time for teachers, and this is her first September since she finished university that she doesn’t have to calm a stomach full of butterflies. Instead of playing teacher to a classroom full of kids, I think she’s found herself playing student to a loft full of would-be teachers; she must feel like an adult in the care of children who only know one conversation, one game, one sustenance: art—perhaps, to her, a topic with a fast fading allure.

  The loft is perfect for my creative projects. I have space, yawning space to paint, to store materials, to stretch a canvass, space to pace and get away from it when something isn’t working in a composition. There is space for drying oil, space for other artists who want to talk, who for those who need to share, who need a break, who need to brag or get a different point of view, an inspiration, a place to make a mess and not worry about ruining a floor. Today there’s space for Juan to take apart an abandoned ten-speed bike, twisted front wheel, missing one pedal—looking for that perfect angle, a “right,” that “yes” a sculptor has to feel. Yes, the loft is perfect—for me.

  After the first week, Suzanne joked aloud that maybe, she had joined the circus. We both laughed. At other times she called it bold and cutting edge. She told me it was dreamlike. Magic. But is that really true? What if she’s become the female lead in some Fellini film, the gaffer, the cook, the roadie for a band of rip-off geniuses that act a lot like clowns instead of true professionals. Reality, who needs it? I worry that she does, or will; it’s just so different from her life before.

  Juan and I sit cross-legged on the floor focused on the pile of parts.

  “I’m tinking dis is—generous. Generous is de perfect word for what it is. What you tink, mon?”

  “I think I was thinking about something else. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, Juan.”

  “Dis sculpture it is not controlled no more. Not constricted. Tings are just how they happen to be. Not how most people try to force them to become.”

  “Like it’s not a bike anymore? That’s true. But how is that ‘generous?’ I’m not sure...”

  Suzanne flops into the heavily duct-taped beanbag chair behind us, my only piece of real furniture.

  “Mon, nature is generous. Nature she is always giving and we are always taking. Nature has all de answers. But human answers, our answers always get fucked up. We are self-destructive by nature, mon.”

  “So a bike that looks like a bicycle is—what? Selfish, right.”

  “Now you got it.”

  “And this looks like, what? I know it doesn’t look like anything useful. And I suppose useful things are kind of what? Destructive? I’m not sure. Sometimes, anyway? Maybe?”

  “Dey hurt de planet, mon, hurt everything and everyone on it. You got to see that, David. A bike, de FLQ could used it to deliver a bomb or some robber could use it for a getaway. Right? I mean bikes look so peaceful, right? Dey look friendly. But basically it is man-made, mon. It is like a gun or an oil well or a fucking TV set.”

  “I guess.”

  “But dis bike. It can’t be used for nothing. So it cannot be used for anything bad. It’s nature. It’s generous. Like nature.”

  Suzanne says, “Wow! My head is spinning.”

  My first thought is: she’s hungry. “You should cook something, Suz. I bet Juan is starving too.”

  “That might help. I’ll cook. Sure.”

  “No tanks. I got to go, mon. I be on de lookout for one more bike. Another junker. You sure you don’t want to come, too. Hey! So much great stuff down in dat ravine.”

  “I don’t know...”

  “You should go if you want, Dave. I’ll be fine here. I might even go out for a short jog.” Suz has started running, a pastime as far beyond my comprehension as this pile of gears and sprockets must be to hers.

  “I think I’ll stay here, Juan. You go ahead. What about your—sculpture? You taking it with you?”

  “Can I leave it here? It looks so perfect. But don’t worry if you accidentally knock something over. That be nature, mon. Just let tings lay where dey fall. You start organizing, you’ll wreck it sure.”

  “Check.”

  “Cervesa, come on, boy.”

  In the doorway Juan fleshes out the care and feeding of what he feels may well be the apex of his somewhat unheralded, to this point, art career. He adds codicils to cover potential emergencies and cautions I’m supposed to deliver to any drop-in guests. The list is long and in the end it is only the slam of a cupboard door that finally prompts him to leave.

  “Suz? He can be a little crazy. I...”

  “There’s not much I can cook for us with what we’ve got here. I’m not as creative as you and Juan. We have one can of luncheon meat, one potato (actually I think it’s closer to point seven five of a potato) and a fairly awful looking onion. That’s it. I hope you’re not too hungry.”

  I step behind her and put my arms around her waist. “Are you okay?”

  She twists and kisses me quickly on the lips. “I’m fine,” she says too quickly. "Maybe we should go get groceries?"

  I study her. “I don’t believe you. I don’t see how you can honestly put up with this, let alone like it.”

  She reaches up and laces her fingers behind my neck. She smiles. “I’m not liking it; I love it. I love being here with you. Every minute of it.”

  “Suz. It has to be hard. I don’t understand why it isn’t too hard. This is so different from what you had in Pembroke. Jesus, it’s a zoo sometimes. Most of the time.”

  “I like zoos—and carnivals. I like deep discussions about the meaning of life.”

  “You say that. You used to like having a TV and a phone and going out to eat and furniture and cupboards with actual food in them. Suzanne, I feel guilty. We’re broke all the time. I make squat at Tim’s. I want something nicer for you.”

  “I have you. That’s what I want.”

  I can’t look at her. Instead I stare at the pile of bicycle parts and consider relieving my frustration with a well placed kick—an act that would require putting on socks and shoes. Why did I let him leave this junk without even talking it over with Suzanne? “This isn’t fair to you.”

  “David, are you happy? Having me here? Do I get in the way? Was it easier before I came? I don’t want to change you.”

  Not what I expected. It takes me several seconds to shift gears. “Of course I want you here. You’re the one that has to put up with shit like bike parts in your living room. You never complain. The only reason we have a can of Spam is your pogey. You cook. You bring me coffee in bed. You listen to Juan’s absolute insanity like you’re watching the World Series. Yes, you changed my life. All for the better.”

  “I’m happy too, David.”

  “Suz?”

  “Maybe you could help me peel that onion. I refuse to cry right now.”

  I don’t. I peel her blouse instead. And in the confusion of discarded clothes I accidentally kick the front fork of Juan’s bike and tip the frame, which send a pile of spokes and sprockets skittering across the floor. It doesn’t matter. I don’t give it a second thought. But deep down I know this isn’t going work without some changes. I know that things aren’t balanced. I know it really isn’t fair.

  

  “Ain’t about what’s fair, dude. It’s about what needs to be done.” Chad packs the drum bung back inside the copter. “I n
eed the seats for evacuations—bottom line.”

  The gas is pumped. While I did the grunt work, Chad hooked a flashlight to the flagpole halyard and ran it up high enough it could help him find the airstrip in the dark, in the absence of a real beacon. I thought my aching arm had earned me the co-pilot’s seat at least for the first trip over to the village. I’m not sure if I believed I could be of help or just wanted to see the damage for myself. Or maybe I am trying to avoid my mystery job, the one the nurses have dreamed up over at the school. Whatever the reason, I immediately see how foolish I’m being. Whatever is going on over in the village, it’s not about me.

  Chad climbs into his perch but speaks to me again before bringing his craft to life. “This is going to be one long night, dude. Just hope it all goes smooth.”

  As the engine coughs and wheezes, I turn and I hustle to the school as temperatures drop and an inky night unfolds on Orkney Post. Black is odd here; even when it’s overcast, unless the clouds are very heavy, at least some starlight or moonlight silhouettes trees and buildings, compensating for the lack of streetlights. Not tonight; these must be storm clouds, portending nasty weather.

  I pause in the doorway of the school. Without a sliver of light anywhere, I suspect no one is here but me. “Hello? Hello!” I shout into the empty hallway.

  “We are on the second floor here, M. Taylor.” It’s Sister Theresa’s voice. “We are glad you can finally come.” I never know if her English is incapable of sarcasm or if she is in some way continually annoyed with me. I slide my feet along the hall, feeling with my hands until I hit the stairwell. Then when I round a corner, a dim light flickers from above and shadows move.

  Sister meets me at the top of the stairs. “We are having much excitement tonight, no? Dere will be visitors here soon. The water she is very high in the village. Dey must try to come over here. We receive a short radio message around seven o’clock, but the signal he is gone again. Now we know the reason why our helicopter was brought here for us. Not just for dat silly dog.” She chuckles. “Oui?”

  The implication somehow rankles, but obviously the chopper was my good fortune too. “A real stroke of luck for certain, Sister.”

  Her smile changes from playful to smug. “Dere is no such thing as luck, M. Taylor. We are being taken care of. Your new job is moving beds. I have the important duty to attend.”

  “Beds?”

  “Mattresses.”

  “The school has beds?”

  “Oui. Of course. Two years ago dere are hundreds of children sleeping here right now. The mattresses and bedding, we store dem on the third floor after the residence closes. Quickly, M. Taylor. We need your strong arms. Dere is much to do.”

  I’d rather not contemplate my throbbing arms. “I’m on it.”

  “Mind the oil lamps on the floor. A fire, it is not a good idea right now.”

  “I’ll be careful, Sister.”

  “I go now to the hospital to try the radio dere. We have no message with the outside since the call from your wife. It is time to ask for help now. For... how do you say it? The S-O-S?” She chuckles.

  The mattresses are not box springs, of course, nor any kind of springs. They are, some of them, little better than ticks stuffed with cotton rag and goose feathers from a time when the price of transportation relative to their means must have been even worse than it is now. The largest are cot-sized; the thickest, a few inches. They are musty from being stored. I meet Rosemary coming up as I stuggle down with my first mattress.

  “David. We have ten now in the Grade Eight classroom. We need at least ten more.”

  “Just twenty?”

  “They will bring the babies first. We are making a nursery here, but there are other things that need to be done. The rest of the beds, we will bring down once the infants are safe.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “I don’t know. Sister says some are in boats. Some are on a sand bar that is a little higher and more sheltered from the ice on the other side of the island.”

  “A helicopter full of babies?” But she climbs the stairs for the next mattress without looking my way, without hearing or without wanting me to see her face, without saying a word.

  So that’s what we do; we drag mattresses and bedding, pillows and blankets. Rosemary and I drag, push, shove them, as fast as we can. We wrestle them into a classroom lit with a single kerosene lamp. We pile the desks along one wall like goblin sentries in the eerie gloom.

  I am stoic about my muscles, sore already from pumping gas, and my lack of food today, but I can’t do this forever. Stumbling around by lamplight makes everything harder. Thinking about the dead radio reruns the dilemma we’ve faced the last eight months here: we are isolated, cut off; we are on our own no matter what. I’ve felt like I needed to be rescued myself so often here that it’s nothing new tonight. On the other hand, I know better than to complain. I’m dry. There is no ice ready to crush me on a whim of nature. The real problems are safely on the other side of the trees that line the river. My family is not sitting over there with the others in their wooden boats. I keep my hunger and fatigue bottled behind clenched jaws as we struggle with the bedding until the floor is covered except for narrow walkways. In the stillness of the Grade Eight room I let Rosemary decide what our conversation will be about.

  “At least Suzanne won’t be worried,” she says.

  “Why should she be worried?” I stiffen slightly at the mention of her name.

  “The CB radio,” she says. “If this were on the news down there, I’m sure she would be worried.”

  “I suppose...” I wonder. Of course she would be. Frantic, I would think. “You’re right. I’m sure she’d worry, but she might be even angrier I’m here instead of there.”

  “She’s angry that you didn't take the charter?”

  “Well...” It’s awkward and not just because I should have been prepared with some polite response. I should have known that everyone would ask. I should have thought up safer topics, more peaceful subjects that would pass the time. But worse than that, I should have put it into words myself; I should have had a reason I could tell Suzanne.

  “I’m sorry, David. It really isn’t my business.”

  “It’s okay, Rosemary. It’s not that. It’s me. I’m just...”

  “That’s okay, David. I didn’t mean to pry."

  “It’s me. I honestly haven’t put it into words yet. I could not get on that plane; I didn’t want to rush off with those people, the other teachers. I wanted to be here.”

  “Enough said, David.”

  “That’s it. I wanted to be here—with my kids. It sounds simple when I say it to you. It’s so complicated when I think about saying it to Suzanne. I’m sure I don’t understand about being pregnant. I know that’s part of it. Right now nothing is as important as what’s going on right here, right now—not that I had any idea breakup or a flood was going to happen.”

  “Suzanne would be very concerned about you, though. Especially if she’d seen you in the canoe this afternoon.” She says this without a trace of levity or condemnation as she puts a pillow on a mattress and walks over to the lamp and picks it up. “We’d better get to the hospital now. Let’s take this down by the front entrance so we don’t have to stumble around in the dark.”

  “What’s at the hospital?”

  "We need to make formula. There will be a lot of hungry, crying little ones, and Sr. Theresa said only a few mothers would make the first trips over.”

  “Why is that?” I take the lamp from her and we start down the hallway.

  “Because they will want to get as many infants out as fast as they can. There is only so much room in one helicopter.”

  “I remember.” Now the overhead room lights come on—blinding for a second. Then they go off again and we are back into darkness. “We’d better hurry.”

  Seconds later we step outside through the front door of the school. I can’t see them but I immediately know what they are: sno
w flakes landing on my cheeks and nose. I look over at the makeshift beacon on the airstrip flagpole and see streaks of white in the feeble yellow cone designed to help Chad find us with his human cargo. Snow can’t be good—not for flying, not for waiting for a ride over there on a sandbar in a flood. It occurs to me my afternoon adventure may be small potatoes before the night is over, before all this returns to normal.

  “Hurry, David.”

  We jog along the road toward the brightly lit hospital. If we could lift the hospital high enough, I think, we would have sufficient light to make Sister’s S-O-S to Cochrane or to Timmins. Maybe even Toronto. I must be very tired. My mind wanders along strange paths: a table groaning with food, crowded with family. Food.

  

  Thanksgiving Day, our second together in Toronto, is a day to count one’s blessings most would say. I hunch at the back of the loft painting gesso onto canvasses when something unseen and wistful accompanies Suzanne through our front door. She tosses her windbreaker onto the sawhorse-borne planks we call a kitchen table and pulls her sweat-soaked tee over her head. “Dave? Do we have visitors? David!” The invisible fugitive presence behind her is neither coloured leaves nor the crisp, fruity smell of October; no hint of those—not three floors up a musty stairwell. “David? Where are you?” Her thighs and calves glisten in the soft glow from the skylight. It’s not the aroma of sage or nutmeg or poultry browning or cranberry; there’s nothing simmering on our only hotplate. She levers her runners off without untying them. She cocks her head and waits for me to answer. “Dave, really. You need to come and run with me next time. It was just so awesome out there today. I’d just jog for you; I promise. You could do it. You really should.” Her words, her tone belie no trace this is a holiday or that she has a family back in Pembroke. She stops beside the beanbag chair, reaches behind her back to undo her bra as I emerge from shadows. “Dave? What the hell?”

  “Hi. Was a good run, eh?” I admire her muscled calves and thighs, her trim abdominals and remember how she nearly died her first trudge up my steps. She’s become a serious runner. I envy that although I’ve always had contempt for athletes, nothing but disdain for needless sweating. I sit down on the floor cross-legged beside Juan’s sculpture and begin playing with the pile of parts.

  “We’re alone?”

  “Yup,” I answer. “Just us. Maybe a ghost or two.”

  She tosses the wet bra onto the beanbag chair. “You hungry? I need some sugar and some protein.”

  I arrange the gears into a careful stack with the largest on the bottom, sequenced to the smallest on top.

  “What are you doing?”

  I don’t respond. I’m busy shuffling the spokes into a neat stack and curling the chains into a circle.

  “Dave!”

  “I’m tidying up a little.” Against the wall, the rims, the fork, and the frame now stand in what is clearly the shape of a bicycle. “I’m almost finished. We need to clear this out of here.”

  “Dave, look at me.”

  I turn. "I love that top, Suz.”

  She covers her breasts with her hands. “What’s wrong? What are you doing to Juan’s sculpture?”

  “It’s not a sculpture anymore. I don’t think it ever was.”

  “Hang on. Just let me get into something dry. What happened while I was out?”

  “I’d rather talk about your new top.”

  Suz comes back from the sleeping area pulling on her robe. “What’s eating you? Did I do something to upset you?”

  “Of course not. I’m the crazy one. All I know is I hate this pile of junk. I have no idea why it took so long to see that. How about you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “How would I know? I’m a runner, a teacher—an ex-teacher really. I’m not a mind reader. Talk to me. What changed your mind about the bike experiment?”

  I stand and face her. She’s beautiful. I want to hold her, want to make love to her, want to get my hands beneath her robe, want us to stop talking and stop myself from thinking. I can’t. I slump into the chair. I don’t believe in ghosts, but there is something palpable here between us, and it scares me. I don’t know how to deal with it. I pull the sodden bra from under me and toss it toward our pile of dirty laundry. All I can do is shake my head.

  “David. What did I do? Talk to me.”

  “We talk too much already. Normal people have TVs instead of conversations. They have stereos so they can turn the volume up and drown each other out. They go places in their cars so they can talk about the things they see and do. They sit down to turkey dinners and thank imaginary Indians for not letting them starve. Wouldn’t you like that better than all this crap about colours that aren’t really there and piles of bike parts pretending to be cool?”

  “Where is all this coming from? Have I ever complained? Do you really want a television? I don’t. Are you saying that I do?”

  I lean against one of the metal floor jacks that support the beam across our ceiling and drop my chin onto my chest. “I don’t know, Suz. I don’t know anything right now. Did you ever feel like some creature from outer space scooped out your brain and put an alien life force inside your head? Who are we anymore, Suzanne? I don’t know what I want.”

  She puts her arm around me, pushes me over to our futon, pulls me down and, then crawls up next to me and touches my cheek. “I see you gave up shaving too. Poor boy.”

  “I just forgot is all.”

  “You shouldn’t worry too much about creatures from outer space. Your brain is fine, Dave. Maybe I’m the alien that’s changing how you want to live?”

  “No, Suz. It’s not you. I just feel like things aren’t right with how we live. There has to be something better.”

  “I’m happy.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “If you’re thinking about the holiday and family, maybe it’s you that’s homesick. You’ve been here for how long now? Six years? You haven’t seen them once in all that time.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Hear me out. We’ve talked about Ford’s amnesty. I know you said you wouldn’t do the six-month alternative service. But maybe you could—if you knew I was there waiting for you. Think about it. Are you sure?”

  I shake my head. “Very sure. I don’t want to go back. I’ve never wanted that. And I’d never ask you to go there. I’m here. I don’t care what they do down there.”

  “Thanksgiving has a way of...”

  “It’s not even Thanksgiving—not down there. Why would I care? Come November, I’d rather celebrate Grey Cup.”

  “Get real. You hate football.”

  “Okay. Seriously, I knew what I was leaving when I came. I haven’t regretted it ever.” I try to smile but I can’t. “That’s not it. It’s you. I think it’s you that needs an amnesty; maybe it’s time for you to go back. How could you not be thinking about your family and your hometown today? How could you not miss that life? We don’t even have a phone for you to call them.”

  “I want to be with you. This is our Thanksgiving.”

  “Some celebration. What I want for you are at least five different vegetables and a real pumpkin pie. I want an oven with a turkey in it. You deserve those things. I’d understand completely if you hopped a bus right now and never looked back.”

  “Jesus, Dave, I’m capable of knowing what I want.” She strokes my hair and snuggles closer. “Are you sure you’re not trying to get rid of me?”

  “You think you know what you want.”

  “This is ridiculous. Where did all this come from? Were you rubbing Tim’s toe down at Eaton’s, wishing you were a millionaire? This is too crazy even for Juan?” She gets up and starts pulling clothes from my pasteboard box-closet. “You need to get out of here. We’re going for a long walk.”

  “It’s cold out there.”

  “Come on, Mr. Canuck. Don’t make me revoke your immigrant status; it’s only October. Get your blood moving; you’ll be fine. At least you might have a fighting chance when
Juan tries to kill you for destroying his precious sculpture.”

  I sit up in bed and pull on the sweater she’s tossed into my lap.

  “I want to move.”

  “So fine; we’ll move. That’s fine with me if that what you really want for you.”

  “I want a place with rooms. I want a stove—even if it’s a stove from the Sally Ann. I can look for a better job.”

  “We’ll talk about it. I kind of miss the classroom. I might want to pick up some supply work. Maybe even go back to full-time next September. That might be fun. Then we could afford a real turkey next Thanksgiving if that’s all that’s got you down. We could invite my folks to visit if a little family harmony would cheer you up.”

  “Now you’re trying to scare me, aren’t you?”

  Shivering through the downtown streets, we find it easier to talk about the future. Suz says the f-word: furniture. I mention carpeting. Suzanne composes a sentence with the word “marriage” in it, something about the marriage of the aesthetic and the utilitarian in relation to sand-cast candle making, mentions it so casually, I’m not sure she means it. So I pretend she hasn’t said it. We talk about Juan’s dream of making candles instead of my possible dream of getting married.

  Then along Queen’s Quay almost to the ferry terminal I unexpectedly come upon Diego Rivera. Well, it isn’t Diego yet. It’s just a skin and bones kitten whining under a park bench. Its needle claws dig into my sweater and, yes, I fall in love at once. Yes, of course we put up signs, Mouse. We try to find an owner, but of course we fail. I know we’ll wind up keeping him the first time I pick him up. I know I’ll rescue him, take care of him, make him purr, make him healthy, make him happy, too. That much, at least, I’m sure that I can do.

  

  You see, Mouse, I’m always the good Scout, always ready to fabricate a splint. Even if there’s no one in need of rescue yet tonight, standing over the metal counter in the bright light of the hospital kitchen, I’m still prepared to try. The large six-burner propane stove hisses at us playfully. A caldron of evaporated milk on the front burner is still cool when I touch my finger to its surface. Never in my life have I seen a can of what Rosemary simply calls “Carnation.” Tonight I have opened an entire case. While I stir the creamy liquid with a slotted stainless steel spoon the size of my forearm, Rosemary crafts us sandwiches out whatever she can find in the walk-in fridge. Right now anything not frozen solid would taste great.

  “I hope he brings Cheepash over on one of his early trips.” She cuts thick slices of cheese with a meat cleaver.

  The sandwich looks so good that I’m afraid I might drool into the formula. “Cheepash?”

  “Charlie Chookomolin—my uncle. He’s the cook here at the hospital. He used to cook at the residential school kitchen too. Tomorrow there’ll be hundreds of mouths to feed. We could never do it without someone who actually knows what he’s doing.”

  “Are you criticising my formula before I’m finished? I hope not.” In truth, since I have no idea what to put in next, a real cook might help. But do real cooks ever make baby formula in a five-gallon stockpot? It’s hard to keep up with everything that needs doing here. Everything is happening so fast.

  “Just keep stirring, David. We can’t make mistakes tonight. We have to concentrate.”

  “I get the message. But I promise, I am better with a spoon than I am with knots. Well, probably.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Thomas should’ve shown you how to tie it—or he should’ve done it himself.” She lays the broad flat blade on the counter and looks at me—sincerely.

  “I wonder if Sister or Hélène has heard anything more yet.” Then I ask the wrong question. “Are you worried? You know. About your family?”

  She starts in on the cheese again. She swallows and I watch the hint of an Adam’s apple rise and slowly recede into her slender throat. “I’m trying to stay busy. I’m trying not to think about it, okay? We need to stay focused. You need to test the temperature again.”

  “I’m sorry. Just. If you wanted, you know... If you need to talk or anything... Well, I’m here. I mean that would be okay.”

  “Let me know when the milk starts to steam so I can add the corn syrup and some water.”

  “Right.” I pick a different subject then. “Cheepash is a funny nickname. I thought it was a river. I saw something like that on the map in Sister’s office.”

  “It is. It’s south of Moosonee. He was born there.”

  “And speaking of nicknames, I’m still in your debt for that. It helped so much. Really. You never did tell me yours though.” I’m playful or giddy from hunger; I already know this is a forbidden topic.

  “And you never will.”

  “I bet Watikwan would tell me.”

  Rosemary sets her jaw and glares. She stabs the knife into the block of cheddar as Hélène appears in the doorway waving her hands as she speaks. “He is finally on our way, dat pilot. Dis first load he takes forever. Dey just now are off lifting he says. You both go. Meet him at the airport and carry the tikinakans at the school.”

  “How many?”

  “Six bébés and one mère dis trip. I am sending Sr. Francis to help. Dat pilot, he must go back ASAP for da next load.”

  “The radio? Did you raise anybody south of here?” I ask.

  “Nothing. Just the static. I can only keep on trying. Dat other sister, she is helping me here. If dey had de hydro maybe the other radio she would work.”

  “The milk is steaming.”

  “I hear dat helicopter. Go. I can get Linda to finish dis formula and send Sister Francis to the airstrip. David, you go now. Hurry quick. Rosemary, you keep stirring till Linda gets down here.”

  I pull on my jacket. “Tell Linda not to touch my sandwich!” I yell to Hélène, but already we are running in opposite directions.

  Rosemary says, “Hurry,” and I rush through the door, passing into night and snow that is heavier now, onto a slippery landing and stairs, onto ground already white—running toward the roar of the already landing helicopter.

 

  

  Suzanne finds us in the yard, me running figure eights barefoot through the uncut grass trailing a length of string behind me—with Diego in violent pursuit. “Hi, guys. Working hard I see.” Just home from work, she smiles down at her new husband, me, then jumps off the porch and takes me in her arms.

  I whisper in her ear. “I’m letting Diego pretend he’s my coach. I promised him a big gourmet supper if he teaches me to run as fast as you.”

  “Looks like he’s doing a good job. Whose idea was the string?”

  “Diego thinks dragging a heavy weight will make my calves stronger. But that’s a training secret. You aren’t allowed to try it on your runs. You’re fast enough already.”

  “Smart coach. That’s what I’m about to do right now. Want to come?”

  We both know my answer before she makes the offer. We both know she prefers to run alone, and I prefer to walk. Bored with the string, Diego stares at a screaming cardinal high in the line of mature eastern white cedars that mark the property line and hide the neighbour’s fence. “Mm. That would mean Diego would have to be in charge of supper,” I say.

  “Ew. I’m not so sure about that. What is for supper anyway?”

  “Depends on who’s cooking. Would you rather have stir fry and a glass of Pinot noir or cardinal tartare avec les plumes with a saucer of two-percent milk and water?”

  It’s possible she’ll pick the bird. It’s me in charge of discouraging Diego from stalking songbirds in the yard; Suzanne is content to let nature take its course. A cat’s a cat, she tells me if I try to enlist her help. “Tough decision. You two draw straws, okay?” She kisses me again. “I’m going up to change. I’m thinking about sixty minutes for the run: a little warm-up and a six- or seven-mile tempo. The Skylon International is four weeks away. I’m freaking out a little.”

  “You’ll win.”

  She snorts. “You
never know. The fastest woman last year was 3:16. My goal is 3:30. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Can we take Diego? He’s never been to Niagara Falls. It might take his mind off killing things.”

  “It would probably take my mind off running. He’d hate the bus and then I’d hate him. I have enough crap on my mind with school.”

  “Tough day?”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” she says and kisses me once more, lightly as she turns back toward the porch.

  “Don’t be surprised if you wind up eating a helpless little songbird then.”

  She laughs. “Protein is protein. Diego, don’t you neglect his training; David needs all the exercise he can get. You’ve got your paws full with that job.”

  And then she’s gone again.

  Again, I’m alone, talking to the cat. All afternoon I sprawled on the bull’s eye of our new braided rug in the epicentre of the hardwood living room floor of our new second-floor apartment in the converted three-story mansion with a fancy brickwork facade on Lowther Avenue a short subway ride, a million miles from my former loft and friends. All afternoon I plotted my position in the universe with a 6B pencil, its point sanded to a flat ellipse, making thick dark slashes on the cream paper of my sketchbook. I drew cartoons depicting a man sitting on a rug on a hardwood living room floor next to an impatient cat. The cartoons weren’t art. They were silly. They were the shortest distance between two points: the interval between lunch and Suzanne’s arrival home after work. They were my distraction from glancing at the clock and thinking about the loft.

  It’s been two years since we abandoned poverty for the middle-class. Now I’m free from pouring double-doubles and hawking doughnut holes. I have the time and the capital to play as long as I want with colour and shape without a worry in the world. I’m free. The constant interruption by bearded hippies with a plan to stun humanity with a new idea has dwindled over time, and one day soon they’ll disappear completely. I’m free to concentrate on me, on what I want to be, who I want to be, what I want to do. Suzanne is happy back inside a classroom, working hard, running hard after work, and always, always encouraging my quest for fame and fortune. All I need to do is stop procrastinating—just move my butt. If I can’t find my inspiration on a braided rug, then nothing’s keeping me from looking elsewhere. Nothing stops me from getting on my brand new bike and riding off to Winston Churchill or down to High Park to sketch a landscape. I could walk over to the University and watch the students playing pick-up rugby on the commons by the dorms. Capture them in gesture sketches, Sumi brush contours, whatever I desire. Anything is possible right now. But all I did all afternoon was track the circumnavigation of the clock.

  We didn’t have a clock on King Street. We ate when we got hungry whether it was morning or the middle of the night; we ate when there was food, when shapes and colours needed time to incubate. Don’t get me wrong here, Mouse. I don’t pine to move back there. I’m not hoping I could feel my stomach growl again. No thanks. Living in the middle class hasn’t softened or romanticized the truth of being poor. Life here in the Annex hasn’t sparked the myth that artists have to suffer, have to freeze their fingers in a garret before the muse can sing, can flit about a canvas splashing colours in amazing places. Going back is not my object, but living on a teacher’s schedule is taking time to figure out.

  “Mew!”

  I reach down to scratch Diego’s ear, then pick him up and carry him through the yard, up the back stairs, and into the apartment. The late September sun throws patches of ochre onto the gleaming counters and the checkerboard tile floor. I release Diego to saunter off to find his comfort spot atop the chesterfield. “Sure. Have a little nap after your run. Don’t feel the slightest guilt about leaving me alone to cook. Loafer! You can forget about your songbird supper; we’re having veggies and rice, Señor Rivera.”

  “Mew.”

  I pull the wok from the cupboard and start to heat some oil while I peel parsnips and a sweet potato. I know better than to blame it all on clocks; I do. I get it. Schools may not be my favourite institution but honestly I understand how Suzanne has come to love them, how important time is to formal education, how important education is to kids. Thirty children need to start and stop on schedule or nothing would get done. It’s simple. If one lesson goes too long, something else is shorted. And when the final bell is rung, Suzanne has no choice but to plan another day, another set of lessons, minutes to fill and materials to prepare. She has work to do that keeps her in the classroom and prep at home each night. Suz doesn’t seem to mind. The things that bug her are the things she cannot change: the child bent by a broken home or slowed by a rotten memory, a pointless procedure, an arbitrary ruling, a thoughtless or reckless or biased colleague. Those gnaw at her, those make her toss and turn at night. Yes, she knows she’s lucky getting paid for what she loves. I’m happy that’s she’s happy. It’s me that’s feeling lost.

  We have our supper on the balcony this evening. We watch the sun die slowly through the filter of the pines followed by an outrageous extravagance of crimson and plum. We talk of school.

  “Some things are not going well this year, David. I dread tomorrow.”

  “Dread? I thought you loved it there.”

  “This is really good. I’m the luckiest teacher ever. Who would have guessed you were a great cook as well as a great lover and a great artist? Thank you. I should be happy, but sometimes one bad apple spoils a whole day.”

  “Did I put something rotten in the stir fry?”

  She smiles. “Of course not. It’s not supper. School. I don’t want to spoil this moment.” She raises her glass. “To your new trainer.”

  “Sh. He might be playing possum. We don’t want his ego getting any bigger than it already is. He’s a good coach, but maybe he puts too much emphasis on winning.”

  “Do you think he might be distracting you from your work? I haven’t seen much progress on the paintings.”

  “I thought we were going to stick to ‘dreading school.’ Talking about an unfinished masterpiece is bad luck.”

  “I doubt that, but I’ll let you off the hook this time. I’m okay. My class is fine. It’s just a kid from last year. Officially not my business, but it puts a dark cloud over other things.”

  “I know you. There’s no such thing as ‘just a kid.’ You love them, every one of them, and I love that about you. You care.”

  “Maybe I care too much sometimes.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt that, Suz.”

  “He’s a good kid. He was in the class I had last spring. I probably mentioned him: Baptiste Jefferies—a Native kid from Alberta.”

  I shake my head and place my fork beside my plate.

  “This year he’s started coming in to visit me after school or dropping by my room on the way home for lunch. His father is taking courses at the U of T. His mom works as a teller at a bank.”

  “So he liked you as a teacher. Not surprising. You’re good. How’s he doing in Five this year?”

  “His Grade Five teacher is Arnold Austen. He’s the one with the problem. Not my favourite person on the staff.” She wrinkles her nose.

  “So what is Mr. Austen’s problem?” I push my chair back and come around behind her and rest my hands on her shoulders.

  “We look at things from different points of view. Most of the time we try to avoid each other. That’s easier than arguing. But sometimes things come up and it’s hard not to express what we feel. Remember the big demonstration at Wounded Knee last March? I guess it lasted until May.”

  I do not read newspapers. I do not watch the news on television. I’m not sure why precisely. It’s not a source of pride; it’s closer to a way of staying positive. I don’t want to define myself in terms of politics and going down that road is just crazy and antithetical to art, and did I mention depressing as well as masochistic? “Wounded knees? It sounds like something to do with that stupid designated hitter rule? Football? I have no idea. Really.”r />
  "Wounded Knee, David! You are kidding, right?”

  I massage her neck, hoping she won’t turn around and make me feel more ignorant than I no doubt am. “I might have heard it mentioned somewhere. I take it Mr. Austen thinks it’s good—or maybe bad. And you... Maybe I could use a hint or take a mulligan.”

  She shrugs my hands off her neck and turns to face me. “Maybe you need a history lesson.”

  “Please. Enlighten me, Suz.” She’s serious. I know that I could stand a lesson here.

  “Sometime in the 1800’s the U.S. Army killed hundreds of unarmed Native People somewhere south of Saskatchewan. It was genocide, David.”

  “Like in Little Big Man, right? That was a long time ago though.”

  “Right. But last spring there was a big demonstration where the massacre happened. People were protesting about treaty promises that weren’t being kept, and a few people got killed—on both sides.”

  “Okay. Could I assume Indians got like a really bad deal most of the time back then, but maybe things are better now—I hope?”

  “Maybe not. But you're free to hope. Anyway, I got into it with Mr. Austen last year when it was in the headlines. He’s pretty much a racist and a bigot as well as a homophobic anti-union misogynist. He said Nixon should send in the army and start shooting. Of course, I went ballistic. But that was last year and it was just a staffroom blow up.”

  “Well, he’s an asshole, Suzanne.”

  “Exactly—which is why I generally just try to avoid him. But now Baptiste comes into my room after school to tell me his teacher never picks him to be a monitor, gives him detentions for the slightest cause, allows and even encourages the other students to bully or shun him. He says he doesn’t know why and wonders if it might somehow be his fault. Except I know the reason. The reason is: he’s Native.”

  “Report him.”

  “I’d rather to shoot him. Seriously, without some really hard evidence, I’m afraid an incident report would leave Baptiste at even greater risk. I did mention it to the principal, but he needs something concrete. If I talk to the parents, I’m really, really exceeding my authority and it would really piss off Austen if he found out.”

  “Piss him off, then.”

  “Where does that leave Baptiste?”

  “You might feel better. It’s too much for you to take on. You’re not responsible.”

  “Of course I’m responsible. Baptiste came to me.”

  I shake my head. “You can’t win He’s not your student anymore.”

  “That’s exactly what’s so frustrating.”

  “Well... What if you don’t have the whole story?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Like what?”

  “Like, I don’t know. Maybe the boy has a crush on you. That could happen. I’m sure that happens sometimes. Maybe he’s exaggerating just so you’ll feel sorry for him, so he has an excuse to hang out with you.”

  “David? I would know. You’re not being helpful.”

  “I know you, Suz. You’d like the whole world to be fair and honest and polite. You can’t change things all by yourself. You have to let some things go.”

  “David? I can’t believe you’re saying that.”

  “Don’t let this spoil your year. Focus on all the good things. I bet the kid had the best half-year of his life last year. You did your job. Now you’ve got a different class to take care of.”

  Suzanne’s mouth opens but nothing comes out. She pulls back from my embrace.

  “Suz?”

  “Who are you?” She says it quietly. She says it to the wall as she walks into the bathroom and closes the door and locks it.

  “Suzanne! Talk to me. What did I say?”

  Through the keyhole, she says, “Being an artist doesn’t give you a license to live with your head in the sand. Grow up. You don’t just walk away from racists.”

  Of course, I do tell her how sorry I am. I don’t precisely know what I said that was so terrible but I am, for sure, extremely sorry for saying it out loud. This becomes a very long apology. It starts right then and lasts all fall and winter until Suzanne signs a contract with the Department of Indian Affairs to teach in somewhere called Orkney Post, a small James Bay reserve, a place I cannot find on my highway map because it is nowhere near a highway.

  

  In spite of the blinding snow, I can see Chad has found the terminal and is hovering the helicopter a few feet above the apron between the runway and the road. The light from the hospital across the road behind me is barely enough to reveal the blue and red North Star logo emblazoned on the nose and tail. Then the roaring monster does a one-eighty so the passenger side will face me before it touches down in a spray of snow and gravel.

  I hesitate a moment, wondering if the engine will cough and the rotors will start to slow, but they don’t. Chad is apparently waiting for me to unload so he can hurry back across the river. I duck my head and run under the whirling blades to the front door where I grab the cabin handle and unlatch it. I’m an old hand at this after my lesson this afternoon. When the door swings open, there is a woman bundled in a parka belted into the seat next to Chad. On her lap is a one by three foot slab of plywood with a hoop at the top. A cover made of printed cotton is stretched over the hoop and down to the base of the backboard. I recognize this as a tikinakan, a cradleboard. I know what it is. I know this Cree word. I’ve seen them worn on the backs of women at the store. Under the cloth, there will be an infant, securely laced up against the board. In the back of the copter there are five more tikinakanak, two wedged on the floor and three buckled roughly onto the bench. There is a lump in my throat. I have never seen, never even imagined a more precious cargo in a more perilous circumstance.

  The woman starts to undo her seatbelt, but Chad puts his hand firmly on top of hers. The engine continues to roar, and Chad has to yell to be heard. “You. Make sure she stays clear of the rear rotor, dude. Do you understand me?” He waits for me to nod. “Get her clear before you unload the kids.”

  I give him a thumbs-up and he takes his hand away. The woman slides the tikinakan from her lap, transfers it to me, and swings her legs out so she faces me. She steps down off the seat and lands on the snow-covered gravel, stumbling a little having missed the metal step and failed to judge the distance. She wears moose-hide canvas-top boots secured with rawhide laces wrapped around her ankles. When she regains her footing, I return the baby to her. I point up at the main rotor and crouch to instruct her. Then I point back at the tail rotor and shake my head. I put my arm over her shoulder, and we hurry out beyond the reach of the deadly blades and paddles.

  Rosemary and Sr. Francis wait there for us. I lean close to Rosemary and shout in her ear. “Don’t go near the back. Danger there.”

  She smiles at me and I ask myself how foolish could I be. She’s no doubt ridden helicopters dozens of times and never once had to be rescued for not tying a decent knot. I hold up an open palm stop sign to Sr. Francis telling her to wait while Rosemary and I dive back under the rotors to open the back doors on opposite sides and pull out cradleboards. I take one and deliver it to Sister Francis before going back for the last two. One under each arm is a heavy carry, but I can’t ask Chad to wait while we make trips back and forth to the school. Sr. Francis and the mom are already on their way to the school, already enveloped by the night. Rosemary, with one on her back and one in her arms, is a blur as she passes through the dim light from the hospital. I check the handles on both back doors and give Chad a thumb up that everything is clear.

  Before I am out of its circle of flying snow and gravel, the helicopter lifts off, its flashing red and blue lights disappearing all too quickly into the night and the snow.

  I trot as best I can while hugging someone’s child under each arm. Their mothers sit worrying in the storm, in a canoe, or maybe on the roof of a house or a sand bar around a makeshift bonfire. There are fathers and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles, grandparents, all saying prayers I
don’t drop their child, the pilot won’t become disoriented in the storm, the helicopter won’t crash trying to land in a sudden gust of wind. Somewhere out there in the black, people are hoping these two lives will be warm tonight and fed, that they will be reunited soon. Their houses may be full of water or crushed by ice; that means nothing anymore compared to what I am clutching under my arms. Maybe I am just tired and hungry or maybe it is the blowing snow, but my eyes blur and my cheeks are wet as I hurry toward the school.

  

  “I do, Suzanne; I really, really do.” A fine mist, heavy with grit, stings my face and eyes as I step out of the DC-3 onto the top step of the portable staircase pushed up against the plane’s side. “Christ. It’s a gravel tarmac. It’s freaking gravel, Suzanne.”

  “Gravel tarmac is an oxymoron, David. And no, you do not trust me on this—not yet—so it’s a good thing I trust myself.” She’s right behind me, urging me gently with a hand in the centre of my back, seemingly oblivious to the fact it is raining and we are outside and not about to enter one of those enclosed airport debarking ramps. Gently she says, “You’re keeping everyone waiting here, David. Go.”

  I creep down the half-dozen steps, searching with one hand and then the other for a railing, which does not exist. My stomach still churns from the two passes it took for the aircraft to align itself with the runway during the brief thundershower that blew us side to side and then bounced us up and down along the landing strip. I’m nauseous from the thick cloud of cigarette smoke in the small cabin. I’m aghast (yes, Mouse, to be truthful “aghast” is the proper word) that some of the passengers counted in unison each time the wheels smacked the ground only to lift off again as if this was locally humorous rather than possibly fatal. Seven, eight, nine, ten... Could this have been the maiden voyage of a drunken student pilot? My mind reels at the bleakness of the landscape when I look up from the metal stairs. My sandaled feet freeze even before I’m forced to dip them into a sea of even colder mud. (Yes, a “sea,” Mouse, not an exaggerated puddle.) There is no sidewalk in sight. The road is made of mud. I see no grass at all. Just mud.

  I’m in the middle of pinching myself to wake up from this nightmare when a battered pickup truck whips past me splashing through a pothole and sending a wash of grey and tan across my denim jeans. It slows into a three-point turn and backs against the body of the aircraft. A panel on the side of the plane slides open and a burly Indian man begins tossing luggage into the truck. He works effortlessly as if he’s shifting feathers or Styrofoam instead of heavy trunks and boxes.

  Just before we got to Pearson in Toronto, to calm my panic, Suzanne lectured me about Gauguin, his idyll in the South Pacific. While she’d be busy in the school, she said, I’d have time to capture native culture, portray the beauty of the people and their habitat in oil and charcoal sketches. People in the city would love to see a show like that. Dealers would eat it up. Orkney Post could be my ticket, my opportunity to shine, to contribute something vital to both the world of art and to educating city dwellers that had no clue of what the north was really like. She murmured words like “picturesque” and “rustic” into my ears like they were lullabies. I bought it all, each syllable, and now I watch it crumble in this mist and mud and poverty. I feel like I’ve been conned. “This is not Tahiti, Suz. Not even close.”

  “Trust me.”

  “I do.” Of course I do, but there’s no conviction in my voice. “Where’s the terminal?” I eye hopefully a two-story cinder-block building across the road with “St. Marie” lettered awkwardly above the door.

  “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”

  “Oh, shit! Diego!” I head for the man standing in the back of the truck, no longer obsessed with the mud sucking between my toes. He’s intent on his work. I wave a hand but apparently he doesn’t to see it. In the front seat of the truck there’s a young child, pretty, maybe ten, raven hair to her shoulders. She notices my signal. I see her deep chocolate eyes for less than a second before she pulls her arm up covering her face as if I’ve frightened her.

  “Excuse me. Sir. Excuse me! There’s a cat...”

  The man simply looks down and points his chin at a rickety shed behind us, then turns back to his work.

  “But, Diego, my cat, he’s is still on the plane.”

  The man turns again, this time frowning; one hand rests on his hip while the other points to a large sign affixed to a post near the shed: “Claim luggage inside terminal.” There’s a line of strange triangles and squiggles just below the English. They are more reasonably a Cree translation than an arrow pointing to my cat.

  I lift my foot up onto the tailgate of the truck. If I stand in the back perhaps I can see into the plane.

  The man shakes his head at me, waves his hand to motion me away.

  “I just want my cat.”

  “Eshkwa! Peo neta!”

  “Cat. Do you understand? I want my cat.” I push myself up onto the tailgate convinced that once he understands what I want, he’ll help me get Diego. I see the crate, its edge quite visible behind a suitcase. “There! Over there! I can see him.” I point.

  “Mona!” The man puts down the bag he’s holding and moves so he blocks my view of the hatchway. “Mona minoshin. Mascha!”

  Clearly he doesn’t understand what I want. Clearly I don’t understand what he is saying or what he expects of me. Clearly Diego must be traumatized by the flight and the cigarette smoke and the strange language of the passengers, the noise, the change in pressure, the absence of his comfort place, and yes, this brutish man confronting his future track star. Clearly it’s up to me to console him, assure him things will be okay. I try to bridge the barrier between the baggage handler and myself. (Did Gauguin learn Tahitian before he stepped off his ship, I wonder.) I draw a picture with my hands. “Please,” I say politely while I bring the palms of my hands together in front of my chest. Then I point to the plane and say, “Meow.”

  The man snorts. The people near us on the runway laugh. There are muffled but clear meows throughout the crowd of people waiting for passengers or luggage, and many others make weak attempts to hide their mouths with hands or sleeves. The large man in front of me sneers before he turns and puts his muddy boot on top of the suitcase he’s been swinging, pulls himself up and thrusts his torso into the plane, emerging with the cat crate seconds later.

  “Fucking pushe. Mona minoshin pushe.” He glares at me and extends the crate, which I accept as graciously as anyone could while trying to erase nearly thirty years of stern warnings about the importance of a first impression.

  Diego cries. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay,” I croon with not a whiff of genuine sympathy. Then I say, “Thank you; I really appreciate this,” to the backside of the man who’s already turned and resumed the unloading. I squat on the tailgate and leap back into the mud with the crate clutched to my chest.

  Suzanne says, “Hey there, Diego. Good flight? I think that’s the terminal.” She points, not the large building across the road, but to the same plywood shack the handler indicated, a structure that looks more suited to housing a broken lawnmower or an abused dog. It obviously won’t house a baggage carousel or a coffee shop, a carpeted floor or a working pay phone.

  “Suzanne Robinson, I am guessing, non?” The voice comes from a short nun who has just stepped out of the dilapidated shed; she wears black rubber boots and grey sepia habit partially covered by a purple raincoat, the plastic hood pulled over her head.

  “That’s me.”

  “Soeur Theresa Gagnon, Sisters of Charity du Hospital de Montreal, principal of the Orkney Post Day School. I hope you had the pleasant flight. The weather, she is not the best day for flying in, non?” Her smile looks genuine. Her extended hand appears reassuring. “And? Dis must be Mister Robinson, non? Welcome to Orkney Post.”

  I shake her proffered hand shifting the crate with Diego to my other arm. “Dave Taylor.”

  “Mais oui.” The rest she directs to Suzanne. “Let me ge
t you to your accommodation. I see you have already met with one of your students—Alice Cheechoo, the quiet one. Her father, M. Cheechoo, our custodian, he will bring your belongings in his truck. I already have arrange for dis.” Then she puts her face close to the plastic kennel and speaks to Rivera. “Bonjour là, petit minou.” She straightens up. “You must be careful here. Our owls, dey are a different, how do you say it, prédateur down in your city.”

  I shudder from the cold as we begin the muddy walk toward a very large building, which must be the school, and a row of identical houses, one of which has been apparently assigned to us.

  My only hopeful thought is that sometimes the original idea for a painting is far afield from the finished product. I’ve seen nothing yet on which to base a friendly prediction of our future here as we slosh past the hospital and the school in a steady drizzle. Stark. Bleak. Threatening, even. Both big buildings are painted white with white trim, against the grey and brown of mud and sky, and in the distance a perfectly flat horizon supports a line of grey conifers. Cold. There’s a fortress-like quality to the architecture—a stern, almost military, tone to both buildings. The hospital is two-, the school, three-stories tall—both brick and block construction. The first-floor windows are adorned with something, which at first looks to me like vertical Venetian blinds. Or drapes? But no, they’re metal bars—bars, I wonder, to keep us out or keep us in? Neither prospect offers any reassurance. The structures are built up on berms that raise them even higher in a landscape where literally nothing other than the distant trees are more than a single-story high. Behind the school, the mud evolves into a space of weeds and stubby willow that stretches to the trees. No fences. No playground. No people. A single-lane gravel road, apparently shared by both vehicles and pedestrians, joins them to the terminal. Simple. Austere. As photogenic as a baseball bat, I think. Suzanne, I long to tell her, this is not bucolic; I am more likely on the verge of painting something more like Munch’s “Scream. ”

  Sr. Theresa stops us at a bungalow, which looks out on a muddy gravel field, not fifty yards from the school. She calls all of this “the compound” as if it were a base for soldiers or construction workers. “I hope you will not miss having dat subway,” she says. “But your commute it is not so long here anyway,” she says, unable to contain her laugh. Then she fumbles through a massive ring of keys while she gives Suzanne a warning. “Do not lose dis. She is a long, long way to the nearest hardware store.” Another snicker. “Our children here,” she smiles, "are very beautiful—but some are prone to the light-fingering. Always be watchful of your keys. Report any missing property to me at once. You will get your school keys tomorrow—all five of dem.” She laughs again. “Carrying so many keys is what keeps us fit in Orkney Post. Thomas he will be along soon with your things.”

  My sandals are soaked, and I leave them on the porch. Then, with Diego under my arm, I follow Suzanne into our new home. There have been so many jokes in the last half hour, and not a single one that made me want to smile.

  

  By the time the helicopter makes its fifth landing my socks would not be wetter if I’d worn them in the shower. The snow, already deeper than my high-tops, shows no sign of letting up. My toes are numb. I’m dizzy from hunger and exhaustion. As I dive under the rotor once again, the engine cuts and slowly dies, the drum roll of the blades gradually ebbs into isolated beats. Or it’s just my imagination, a dream, a wish my merry-go-round day is coming to an end. When I pull the door open this time just four tikinakanak accompany the mom in the passenger seat. Chad doesn’t wait for the rotor to stop or for me to wrest the final baby from the backseat. He grabs his logbook and flips the necessary switches on the panel and steps down into the snow. He closes and locks the cabin door behind him.

  When he can finally make himself heard above the noise, he tells us, “That’s it. No more trips tonight. Too dangerous landing over there right now. Out of gas anyway. I need some sleep.”

  I look at Rosemary who has turned away and heads back toward the school clutching a cradleboard too tightly to her parka.

  “Chad, wait. What about the others? I could pump more gas. I’d ride along and help keep you awake. There’s hot coffee at the hospital.”

  He puts a hand on his hip and shakes his head at me for a full second. “In the morning. The weather is getting worse. It’s just too risky, dude. People over there are lots safer where they are than up top in zero visibility. That puny makeshift beacon died two trips ago. I’ve been taking chances I have no right to take, okay?”

  “But...”

  “First light won’t be that long. We got at least another hundred trips to make. I can’t do this any faster, not as fast as everyone including me wants it done. Be an even longer day tomorrow; now it’s time to grab a nap.” He turns and starts to go, then stops. “You get some sleep too. Rest that arm. I’ll need it in the morning.” He smiles, then heads towargd the Nurses’ Residence, the closest thing we have to a hotel, scuffling a path through the drifting swirl.

  I catch up with Rosemary and we hurry the last tikinakanak to the school in silence. It’s hard to know what to say to her, her family over there in peril, so I resolve to keep my mouth shut. What I really think is this: the large snowflakes drifting through the light from the hospital windows are as beautiful as anything I can remember seeing. Of course... Yes, you’re right, Mouse; I am way too light-headed to know one end of beautiful from another.

  When we bring our cargo up the stairs and into the Grade Eight classroom, the women shush us. All is quiet. The infants are asleep; the formula has done its work. Everything’s under control. The women smile at us and take the cradleboards and wave us away. In Cree, they speak fast and softly to Rosemary, and afterward, suppress a laugh behind their hands. Rosemary smiles back, but says nothing.

  Outside again on the way to the hospital, I rest my hand on Rosemary’s shoulder and stop her. “I wish there was something, anything, I could do to help the people still over there.”

  “Thank you, David. You did all you could. You did a lot today.”

  “Were any of the babies—relatives of yours?” I don’t have a clue. One of them might even be a brother or a sister. I’m embarrassed that I have to ask.

  “No. Well, none from my immediate family, but two are second cousins. We did good work today.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay? It must be really hard.”

  “Everything will be fine, David. We both need sleep. My people have been dealing with breakup since the Hudson’s Bay built their post here three hundred years ago. We are smart and resourceful. We help each other. They will be safe.”

  “You want me to walk you to the residence. I guess you have a key?”

  Rosemary smiles. “I doubt it will be locked tonight. The people they're afraid might get in are all trapped across the ice.”

  I frown at that.

  “I’m sorry, David. I’m tired too. I just mean no one locks their door in the village. To us, locking a door is a kind of insulting thing to do. It means you don’t trust the others. It’s an accusation. It’s a danger too. If someone, even a stranger, really needs something, well, they might not be able to get it. It might be something really important—a matter of life and death even.”

  That takes my breath away. “That’s sure a different way of looking at things,” is all I can answer. This is not the first time Rosemary has enlightened me about life in the other Orkney Post. Maybe that is why I follow her instructions.

  “I didn’t mean to give a lecture.” She smiles. “Forget it. I’m just very tired. Go get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning. We will be the cooks. People will want a big breakfast. Until Cheepash gets across I think we are in charge of the kitchen.”

  I don’t know why I do it, but I squeeze her shoulder with my hand before I pull her against my side and give her a quick and friendly hug.

  “I’ll be there. First light.” My throat is so dry it’s sore, and when I say her name it
gets lost in the cold wind. “Rosemary. Thanks.” But she has already faded into the dark and the dancing snowflakes.

  I turn around and start shuffling toward my own house but then remember the sandwich I have dreamt about since I started helping with the formula. I change direction and follow the road to the hospital. After a dozen steps I see Hélène sitting on the wet stoop smoking a cigarette. “Your sandwich. She is getting stale.”

  “I might be too tired to eat it, but I’m too hungry not to try.”

  “You have de long day, M. Taylor. You are looking forward to a little sleep, no?”

  “I’m done, but it’s only a few hours until I have to be back in the kitchen.”

  “Not quite done.”

  “Did I forget something?”

  “Maybe so? I have da good news. Dat skip in the CB she is finally clear of the static. I am contact Timmins, and we have one more helicopter tomorrow morning. Who knows, maybe we have planes coming soon too.” She shrugs. “If dat runway she is safe, we don’t know yet. Everything she is come at once. Excitement for sure.”

  “That’s good then—about the other helicopter.”

  “Mais oui. And you have da phone call, too, monsieur.”

  “Really?”

  “I tell her you will call her back when you finish wit the bébés.”

  “Does it have to be tonight?”

  “Oui. She is waiting. You are busy before, but you are not so much busy now.”

  “It’s really late.”

  “She will be worrying. I’m telling her you are floating wit dat ice jam in the river today. And the village she is under da water. Your wife, she waits up for the call.”

  Check. And mate. I have no choice. Now that the CB is working there will be scary news reports soon. I don’t want her to panic. “Of course. Thank you. Merci, Hélène. Can you help me make the connection?”

  

  Trying to connect the dots, trying to find just one thing hopeful in the damp dull grey around us, I stare out the picture window of our new home on the muskeg. Diego Rivera purrs in my arms, oblivious to the potential threat of owls, perhaps wistful of a cardinal or a wren to stalk, maybe thankful that his nightmare flight has ended. I run my fingers through his mackerel fur and watch, through the glass and light mist, the same man to whom I recently meowed carry suitcases and boxes from his pickup truck up the wooden steps and into the house next door. The peak of a purple parka hood is barely visible crouched down in his front passenger seat. A short, olive-skinned man stands on the neighbouring porch waving his arms and hands like a traffic cop trying to unravel rush hour. No sound, whether it’s due to Diego’s purr or the rain on the glass, penetrates our house, but I can imagine his tirade: be careful with that, take that one right into the kitchen, don’t put it down there, hurry up, you’re tracking mud across my floor.

  I assume our house is next in line for luggage delivery and wonder if local custom expects me to perform a similar dance. Could that possibly be any worse than meowing at the airport? I’d like to disappear. I make a hasty plan to do nothing, to lock the door and close the drapes and hide behind the couch. If I do that, would the man with the truck leave everything on the porch and drive away, or might he take everything back and reload it onto the plane? And if he assumes we are no longer interested, could I hide Diego under my coat and sneak back to the airport and onto the plane myself? And will the stewardess look me directly in my frightened and pathetic eyes and take pity and not ask for a boarding pass and by sometime very late tonight will we land back at Pearson International where I can hail a cab to take us back to the Annex—or anywhere—anywhere but here?

  “I’m off.” Suzanne. I’ve left her out of my daydream—not because I have the slightest wish to leave her behind, but because I know she would find a way to stop us.

  Wearing her new L.L. Bean raincoat, she breezes past me on her way to the front door.

  “Where? You can’t go now. Our stuff is about to be delivered.”

  “I can’t stand not knowing what the inside of that school is like. I’m going to find the nun and get my keys and have a look around my classroom. You’ll be fine. Or better still, you should come with.”

  “Our stuff? I can’t leave Diego alone. We just got here.”

  “He’ll be fine. I’m sure he wants to do the same thing here I want to do over there: explore our new world.”

  “Maybe...” I dread the thought of being alone with the baggage handler, dread the thought of leaving Diego, dread even more the prospect of trading this strange new house for a stranger more foreboding school with bars on its windows. “Maybe Diego needs to find his hiding place from owls. You go ahead.” I’m already sizing up the closets and the space behind the fridge as potential sanctuaries for a timid artist.

  “I won’t be long. Kiss?”

  A peck on the cheek is all that I can muster. “Take your time,” I lie.

  When I look back outside, my neighbour is shaking a finger at the school as if the building has just uttered a naughty word. His lips are in constant motion. The baggage handler, who I believe the nun said was also the school custodian named Thomas, ignores my neighbour in much the same way he tried to ignore me.

  When Suzanne slips through our front door, we are suddenly alone, bereft and defenseless. “Oh, Diego,” I sigh. “You are going to have to help me get through this.”

  He struggles to get down and I acquiesce. There is no use fighting it. The wheels are not just “in motion;” they have moved and have already come to a full stop. Wherever, however this started, it’s now ended. We are officially here. Somewhere. All that remains is to establish the coordinates, find us on some map, and discover what rules govern this part of the galaxy. “You and me, Diego,” I call after the tail disappearing into a bedroom. “We can do this together, Señor Rivera.”

  There is a knock at the door and I abandon my options by answering it. Thomas Someone (it sounds like a train) stands in the rain, nods to me and waits. I nod back—and wait. My lips are paralyzed in the fear something worse than a meow might stumble out.

  He mumbles something that might be, “Robinson?”

  “Taylor.” The man frowns and starts to back away. “Wait. Robinson. I’m Mr. Robinson today.” I resist adding, “Crusoe,” and point to the living room and spread my arms, palms up. I shrug my shoulders. I say, “Wherever?” hoping shrugs and points translate more easily into Cree this time. Desperately I wish I could smile and whisper, "Meow" and we would both have a hearty laugh and I’d offer him a beer and help him carry the stuff in and we’d be friends forever. The man turns and walks back outside, leaving me to shoo my curious cat back into a bedroom and close the door in anticipation the local owls might swarm inside or the custodian might be allergic. Then I walk straight through to the kitchen and out the back door, leaving the man to do his work in peace. I wish that I could have had a conversation with him, that I could in some way know what is normal here without the help of Cree.

  As soon as I step off my back porch I am intercepted by the neighbour I was watching from my front window.

  “New teacher, you are?”

  “Ah. No. David Taylor. My wife’s the teacher: Suzanne Robinson.”

  “Sundara Singh. Grade Four. I am back again. Oh no. You will think, being crazy coming back here, I am.”

  “Mr. Singh.” I extend a hand and thankfully it’s accepted. His grip is firm; his smile is broad. I guess from his face and hints of grey along his temples that he’s in his forties or fifties. Underneath his open raincoat, I can see a brown suit and tie.

  “Sundara, I am. We are all alone here, David, in this shithole. Good neighbours, we must try to be.”

  “Good neighbours then, Sundara. I suppose that means we need a fence here?”

  “What fence? No, no. No one has a fence. Not here. To build a fence, there is no need. Department would never pay for fencing? Ha. A fence. A fence, no one has! You will learn, Mr. David.”

  “That w
as just a joke, Sundara. Not a very good one. So you’ve been here how long? How many years?”

  “Second year now. Ha. No one comes back second year. Looking everywhere, I was. All summer. As far away as Newfoundland, applications I sent out. No luck at all. Nothing. Why, I really don’t understand.”

  “You’re not too happy here?”

  “No one is happy here, David. But letting you find this out for yourself, I am. It’s not my business to scare you off. That Mrs. Taylor, she is the brave one.”

  “Yes. She’s very brave. What about the nun? She looked pretty happy.”

  “Which one?”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “Three at the school and one more at the hospital. Two more work at the convent and the rectory. What it is makes a nun happy, you tell me. I myself do not understand them.”

  “I have no idea either, Sundara. What do people do in Orkney Post for fun? What do the nuns do for fun?”

  “Those nuns pray for fun, I think. Me, for fun, I go to Toronto—but not untill Christmas. In the spring we have a two weeks hunt break; go back to Mumbai, I will. Already my ticket, I have.”

  “There must be things people do in their spare time.”

  “Oh yes. Invited to the Nurses’ Residence, we are sometimes, if someone has the wine or liquor. But they are speaking French there. And quite young, they are—except the nuns—like you.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Playing solitaire and listening to my stereo, I am. Or reading.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you come here in the first place?”

  “Why does anyone come here? Why did you? The nuns, because someone, that Mother Superior, she must send them here. The rest of us? It is a job. Pay is high; rent is low. You will not believe your rent, how low it is. And where does one spend money here? There is nothing. Enough saved for a down payment on a house in a civilized town, I will have by June.”

  “Sounds good. What grade did you say you teach?”

  "Four, I am again. Four will be a better grade this year, I hope. Unbelievable it is how lazy these kids are, but handle them I can. Your Mrs. Taylor, what grade is she?”

  “She said they were giving her a Five. I guess those would be your students from last year?”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “My, oh my. She will not be pleased. Helping her, I can be. You tell her to come see me.”

  “You had a rough class last year?”

  “Oh, my, yes. You tell her, the solution to her problem, I know: put that Metat boy in the front row. Watch him like a hawk from the first day or he will raise hell. Put him in handcuffs, that boy, she should, and the rest will be falling into line. Knows how to deal with him, the Sister does. First sign of trouble, send him to the office.”

  “I’ll pass that along. I’m sure it will be helpful.”

  “Oh yes, going now, I must. Buy your food before the store runs out, you should. Always they are empty, the shelves.”

  Enough time has passed. The truck has moved on down the line. Going back inside should be safe now. “I should let my cat out too. He’s probably freaking out.”

  “No, no, no. Outside, never allow your pet. Owls. Even a small dog, they take. Indoors you must keep it. Please indoors. See you around, David Taylor.”

  “Thanks. Good luck at the store.” Owls, I think. Could they be worse than traffic in Toronto? Now that Diego has a million square miles without a car in sight to roam and hunt for birds, the birds fight back. Ironic. It’s even more ironic: an Indian man teaching Indians, a neighbourly conversation with disquieting and ominous overtones.

  

  “Ominous” hardly covers it. Hélène hands me the mike. I wait impatiently, my eyes craving sleep, while an operator in Pembroke or Toronto explains to Suzanne what she already knows about how a CB radio works.

  “Hello? David? Over.”

  I swallow. I look at Hélène before I press the button on the mike. Her eyes ask me if I want her to leave the office. Without a thought I shake my head, no. I don’t know why. My brain is numb? I’m nervous about using the radio? Or am I simply afraid of being alone in this dimly lit room with my wife? She folds her hands in her lap and looks at the ceiling. “Hi. It’s me: David. How are you? Over.” I release the button.

  “David. Oh God. Finally. I’ve been trying for two days, getting excuses about sun flares and skip not working. Are you okay? What’s going on there? Hélène told me you were in an accident. Were you hurt? What happened? Just tell me the truth. Over.”

  “I’m fine, Suz...” Hélène taps my hand, reminding me to push the button on the mike. “I’m alright, Suzanne. Just tired. I’m not in any danger. I didn’t even get wet. Just a little scared, I was never in much danger. The real problem is the flood in the village. We don’t know what the damages are there yet. Everything is fine on this side of the creek. We started evacuating people, the infants first, from the village. Tonight. Over.”

  “David, why are you still there? You’re supposed to be here. Didn’t the hunting break start yesterday? I thought you were on your way. Dad was going to pick you up in Ottawa, but Sr. Theresa said... David, are you there?” There is a pause. Then, “Over.”

  I take my time bringing the microphone up to my lips. “It doesn’t matter why right now. I’m here. They need me. Are you okay, Suzanne? How is the baby? What does the doctor say? I’m glad you are there. You’re safe there. Over.”

  “David. What’s going on? I’m fine. The baby is fine. As far as I know everyone is fine—except maybe you. When can you come? Can we count on you being on the Tuesday sched? Over.”

  “I’m sorry, Suzanne. I don’t know what to say right now. I’m just so tired. Can we talk after things have calmed down here? There’s so much happening. I don’t know. I just don’t know, okay? Over.”

  “Jesus, David. Not knowing is not an option. Your place is here. I hate this fucking phone. Over.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to go get some sleep. I’m just exhausted. Good night, Suzanne. Please, take care. I’m sorry. Over.”

  There is silence—deafening silence. There isn’t a muffled sob or the slam of a receiver or a whispered endearment or sobriquet. It feels like hours before finally the operator intervenes with an especially formal, “Ten two. Over and out.”

  My finger doesn’t press the button again. It would have been superfluous anyway since the connection is no longer there, but I say it anyway, or at least I think I do, or I think I should have said it: “I’ll come, Suzanne. I will. I love you.” I know I hand the mike back to Hélène instead of replacing on its cradle. I know she meets my glance and holds it as if she’d like to slap me. I’ve never seen her this angry. She grits her teeth, and clenches her fists as I brush past her.

  Chapter Five