by Donna Milner
“Good, it’s settled then.”
For a few moments the only sound is the clinking of cutlery against china. “Maybe that handsome cowboy, your Mr Blue, would like to watch it with us,” her mother says. “I must say that I’m quite disappointed that he didn’t join us tonight.”
Julie smiles at her mother’s complete about-turn of subject. But she too is sorry that Virgil couldn’t, or wouldn’t, share Christmas dinner with them. It wasn’t from lack of trying. She had invited him, knowing as she did so that it was a long shot, that he would never be comfortable at a table full of strangers. His absence was neither her choice, nor Ian’s.
During the last month, she and Ian have each, in their own way, come to terms with their relationship with Virgil. Julie knows he is still leaving, but in her heart she knows it has little to do with her and Ian, and more to do with Virgil’s own solitary journey. It is obvious now that Virgil is sick. Yet, she respects his unspoken request not to probe. Each time she sees him now she is aware of the subtle changes. More than once she’s come upon him in the barn standing between his Clydesdales, pressed up against one or the other as if drawing strength from them. Each time, not wanting to intrude on the private moment, she waits in the shadows until he resumes his chores. Every morning and evening now, she joins him in the barn to help feed and care for the horses. Although it has never been acknowledged, she is aware that he is teaching her to take over his role. There are no notes between them anymore, and no unnecessary words spoken by Julie whenever they are together. They have little need for words now. Everything that needed to be said between them was said that day in the hospital in the healing circle around her bed.
She recalls with wonder the brief ceremony and the unexpected calmness of mind and body she was left with when it was over. As everyone was leaving she had asked Levi to stay behind for a moment. When they were alone, the boy had listened without any indication of judgement or rejection as she described her meeting with Darla while she was under the ice. “She’s almost home now, thanks to you, Levi,” she had told him. “Your promise is fulfilled.” Only when she went on to tell him that she knew about the rose, and about the sweat lodge hidden in the bush at NaNeetza Valley, about Darla’s warning of the danger waiting in the stones, did a flicker of surprise cross his face. “There’s no need to do the sweat, the vision quest, anymore, Levi,” she had said quietly. “It’s time to go back to your life, to school, to hockey.”
He remained expressionless, motionless, for a moment before giving his head a nod so brief that Julie was not certain it was agreement. Had she convinced him? She had to be certain. “Darla asked me to give you a message.” She had no idea if the words had any meaning at all, or whether they had sprung from her own imagination, until she saw Levi’s reaction, the dimples that appeared on his cheeks, when she repeated, “She said to tell you, that ‘you make her heart come glad.’”
“Aunt Julie?” five-year-old Emily’s voice breaks into Julie’s reverie.
She smiles at her youngest niece, “Yes, Sweetheart.”
“Amanda said that you might give us some of the dolls in that big box in the closet upstairs.”
“Did not!” her sister cries, nudging Emily in the side.
“Did too,” Emily whines. “You said Darla doesn’t need them anymore.”
In the startled silence that follows, Julie feels everyone’s eyes turn to her.
She puts down her fork. “Of course she doesn’t,” she says smiling at the girls. “I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow, you can both go through them and choose as many as you want. You can even take the whole box home with you if you like. I’m certain that’s exactly what Darla would want.”
57
Virgil’s story
In the darkened cabin, dying embers glow through the wood stove’s cast-iron grill. Moonlight streams in through the window above the kitchen sink, pooling on the chrome tabletop, and illuminating the yellow notepads neatly stacked there.
Forty years of his life in these handwritten pages, one notepad for each year he has spent in the Chilcotin, for every year since he changed his name to Virgil Blue.
He sits at the table writing by the light of the moon. When he is finished, he places the final yellow page on the tabletop beside the letter addressed to his sister.
His chair scrapes across the wooden floor as he pushes it back, and he stands in the shadows surveying the room. His affairs are in order. His remaining possessions are packed and ready to go, their destination clearly marked on each box. It’s time.
Earlier this evening, he had walked over to the barn to be with his horses. Sensing the final farewell, the Clydesdales had shifted uneasily in their stalls, snorting their sadness while he stroked their muzzles.
On the way back to the cabin he had stopped in the ranch yard and looked up at the house. While the yellow light from the windows cast long shadows on the snow, the muffled sound of Christmas music and laughter had drifted out into the silent night. And he had smiled. All was as it should be.
He glances down at his final note. Certain that she will be the first to discover him gone, the first to find these notepads, he imagines her sitting at this table reading his life, and trusts her to carry out his wishes. Trusts that she will see that these pages, and the letter to his sister, with his explanation as to why he cannot keep his promise to return to his childhood home, are delivered.
Outside the full moon and the northern lights brighten the night sky. Down on the lake, reflecting the silver light, the dock, imbedded in the ice, and the willow chair, wait for him. He reaches up and removes the pendant from around his neck. He rubs his thumb over the smoothness of the intricately carved ebony crow, then lays the pendant across his final note to her.
Turning to the counter, he opens the black case lying there, and carefully removes his violin and bow. His gnarled fingers pluck at the strings until the instrument is in tune. When he is satisfied he goes over to the door. Frigid midnight air billows in around him as he opens it for the last time. Then, with his dog at his side, he heads down to the dock, where he will lift the violin to his chin, and play himself home.
58
The lilting strains of “O Holy Night” evaporate like smoke as she rises up from a dreamless sleep. A memory of tonight’s music, or could it possibly be Virgil playing his violin in the middle of this Christmas night?
Fully awake, the music nothing more than a dream, she lies with her eyes closed, straining to recapture the soulful melody of a distant violin. But the only sound in the room is Ian’s even breathing beside her. She opens her eyes. Careful not to disturb his leg, she gently untangles herself from his arms and rises from their bed. Drawn across the master bedroom floor by the memory of the music, and by the brilliant light spilling in the patio door, she pushes it open and steps out onto the balcony.
Outside the landscape is as bright as day. She gives an involuntary gasp at the shock of frigid air, and at the illuminated scene greeting her. Above, a full moon shines down from a star-filled sky; at the far end of the lake, the northern lights dance across the horizon. She stands for a moment, captivated by the beauty, the magic of the frozen night, and then turns to hurry back inside. Placing a hand on Ian’s shoulder, she gently shakes him, until she feels his sleeping body respond to her touch. His eyes slowly open and meet hers, and in his unguarded look she sees the reflection of the love that has never really left them. “Come,” she whispers, “there’s something I want to show you.”
And without question he rises. Grabbing the quilt from the foot of the bed and wrapping it around their shoulders, Julie leads him across the room.
“Incredible,” Ian gasps as they step out onto the balcony. Standing in his arms, watching the light show play out in the northern sky, Julie can’t help comparing this moment with the first time she experienced this celestial phenomenon, last summer, the night she first heard Virgil playing the violin. She can almost hear it now.
She looks over toward the ba
y, where the shimmering moonlight illuminates Virgil’s dock. The light and shadows create the illusion of someone sitting there in the willow chair. A trick of the light? The vision seems so real she imagines the blurred outline of Virgil playing his violin as he had on that summer night. But the shadows are still, no music fills the air tonight, and Julie is filled with the sadness of knowing it will never happen again.
At that moment, a howl breaks the frozen silence. A wolf, or dog, baying at the moon? As the mournful cry echoes down the lake and disappears, an involuntary shiver grips Julie; she wraps her arms tighter around Ian and melts against him.
In the hushed silence he leans down and places his mouth against her ear, “Come spring,” he murmurs, “we’ll build that dock.”
“Yes,” she whispers, her hands finding bare skin beneath the quilt. “I’d like that.”
59
A white aura begins to glow around their bodies. As it grows and brightens, just as Mr Emerson promised I would, I remember that I know—that I have always known, and forever will know—exactly what that white light is. It’s so simple that I can’t imagine I ever forgot. Thanks, Mom, for reminding me.
There’s no need to regret this goodbye to her, to Dad, to Levi, to everyone I love, because as soon as I pass through I will meet them on the other side. It’s so easy when you understand the truth about time having no meaning on our journey to Love.
In a single luminous flash, the light fills the universe before me, and in that light a figure takes form. Wearing his cowboy hat, carrying his violin in perfectly formed hands, he appears smiling and unhesitant, as he enters the glow radiated by the couple, and the twin brothers, waiting for him.
Welcome home, Virgil.
Acknowledgements
I am forever grateful to family and friends for their ongoing support and encouragement, and for always being there, ready and willing to read early drafts. In particular, I would like to thank Tanya LaFond, Aaron Drake, Joanna Stiles Drake, Diane Jonas, Bonnie and Keith Coulter, Angela Menzies, Joyce Aaltonen, Juliee Thompson, Verena Berger and as always, my husband, Tom. I am so blessed to have you all in my life and as a big part of my ‘writing life.’
I also wish to acknowledge Jane Gregory and the good people at Gregory and Co, as well as Vici Johnstone at Caitlin Press—thank you all for your ongoing faith in me.
And finally, to an old Chilcotin cowboy, for the ‘borrowing’ of his colourful name, my thanks to the late Virgil Blue—the most interesting character I never knew.
About Donna Milner
Tom Hawkins, tomhawkinsphotography.com
Donna Milner is the author of the internationally acclaimed novel The Promise of Rain, a Globe and Mail Top 100 pick for 2010, as well as After River, which was published in twelve countries and translated into eight languages.
Born Donna Jonas in Victoria, British Columbia, Donna spent her childhood in Vancouver. As an adult she relocated to the town of Rossland in the heart of the BC’s West Kootenay, and ten years later moved to the central interior city of Williams Lake. She now lives in an off-the-grid, eco-friendly, lakeside home in the Cariboo woods with her husband, Tom, and their dog Beau. She is currently working on her fourth novel.
Learn more about Donna and her books on her website, donnamilner.com.