Sonja & Carl

by Hillier, Suzanne;

  The room is similar to our honeymoon room and I pour shampoo under the faucets of the bathtub, watching it fill with foam. I undress slowly, my body harsh with cold in spite of the car’s heater. I glimpse myself in the mirror, my swollen belly and my breasts pendulous with their brown splashes of nipple.

  “Great breasts,” he would say. “Did anyone ever tell you’ve got great breasts?”

  I wait for him to finish his shower as I watch from my hot bed of foam. He will emerge soon, his towel around his waist. It is only after I get in bed and know that he won’t be joining me that I am able to cry, and then I cannot stop and I cry well into the night, for Carl, for his wasted life, and for myself.

  I wake up, sodden from tears and lack of sleep, as reality seeps in. I feel the need for closeness, to talk, to share memories. I think of Jerry, his grief will mirror mine.

  “Where are you?” he asks, his voice husky with concern. I know he knows, nothing remains secret in Davenport.

  “At the Sinclair. Can we meet at the house later? Carl’s mother has the key.”

  I break down sobbing, and Jerry answers, his voice as broken as mine.

  “Sure. I’ll meet you there around five. It’s good you called.”

  Nausea mixes with my grief and I drive to the New Davenport Mall for toast and coffee, and then I drive out to the lake again, but this time I sit and watch as the temporary sun flickers away and the shadows start.

  Before I head for home, I drive to Beringers. I’m told that Mutti has already been there and has selected the coffin. I start to become angry, and then realize the futility of anger under the circumstances and I’m glad she’s done it.

  “An autopsy is mandatory in these cases,” Thomas Beringer tells me softly, “then the remains will be brought here.”

  Then I remember the brain, Carl’s battered brain, to be sent to the forensic team at Boston University. I give instructions.

  THERE ARE TEN of them from the original group at our house when I return. Mutti had given Jerry Henley the key, a reminder of that first night after the final concussion, when we returned to find them all there, but now without the music and raucous voices.

  “We’re staying,” announces Jerry, “two of us all night. Can’t have you sleeping at the Sinclair by yourself and driving round in the Challenger half the night.”

  In Davenport, news travels like lightning.

  I start to protest, then think better of it. I smell tomato sauce strong and welcoming from the kitchen. “Mama’s makin’ spaghetti and meatballs, I enlisted her, not that she minds,” says Sophie Gallo. Mrs. Gallo, large and aproned, appears from the kitchen and embraces me. I feel her stout arms and smell a mix of basil and olive oil. She rocks me and I start to cry, leaning into her sponge-like warmth and finding comfort. Then they all surround me, cooing like homing pigeons and patting me, and I lean into them and we shake together with sorrow. Later they speak of Carl, as he was and not how he’d become.

  “Remember that last game? The one against Etobicoke? That last goal?” They nod, brightening up, seeing the speeding figure once again. It was the last game for Davenport, the one I didn’t attend.

  “You mustn’t blame yerself for any of this,” whispers Jerry with rye-soaked hoarseness. “You were great to him, couldn’t be better. If he’d been his self, he’d a done himself in months ago, rather than see himself turn into a dement. It’s the old Carl we all miss, not like he was toward the end. What triggered it anyhow, him overdosing?”

  “The baby, Mutti told him about the baby.” My head is buzzing with rye.

  “Crazy bitch, but imagine him not knowing, shows how far gone he was.”

  “I’m only telling you this. I’m going to say it was an accidental overdose, better for the baby.”

  “Appreciate your confidence,” says Jerry, obviously pleased. He’d been such a good friend, the least I could do was trust him with the truth.

  Vince Fanelli lights a cigarette and inhales deeply. It reminds me of Ma.

  “People don’t smoke in other people’s homes anymore, it’s very ignorant,” lectures Sophie Gallo, “and a real insult to Sonja.”

  Vince gives me a sheepish and apologetic look and heads for the downstairs bathroom. I hear him flush the butt down the toilet.

  “Don’t worry, Vince,” I slur upon his return. “I smoked two packs a week in second-hand smoke before I was five.” Vince smiles his relief but doesn’t light up again.

  “Candace’s mother says she’s coming down for the funeral,” says Gwen Andrews, “and we’ll have to listen to how close her and Carl used to be. A few shags in the back seat of Helbig’s Bug and she thought he was making some sort of commitment.”

  “He only ever loved Sonja,” says Jerry. “He always told me that, he knew that much.”

  I start to cry again, but this time the tears flow easily, almost like balm.

  “This kind of talk only makes Sonja feel bad,” shrills Sophie, “and who the hell cares about Candace Stewart she’s so high and mighty since she’s in university it makes you wanna puke. Christ, imagine being a battered wife and having to turn to Candace Stewart for comfort an’ advice—like bein’ battered all over again.”

  For the first time there’s a soft titter of agreement and even I smile, remembering Candace’s disparaging remarks about her former friends.

  “Sophie and Gwen will be sleeping here tonight,” announces Jerry. Vince’s mom will be here at ten to prepare breakfast, then we’re having a potluck at Gwen’s tomorrow night.

  I lie in bed and listen to Gwen and Sophie snarl at each other before heading for their respective bedrooms. Sophie sticks her head in my bedroom door before finally retiring.

  “You all right, sweetie?”

  “As right as I can be, considering. I really appreciate your mom’s coming, preparing dinner like that. I didn’t thank her enough.”

  “No problem. You’re family. She says to tell you not to drink hard stuff, though, vino is better for the baby.”

  Of course, what was I thinking? Lost in my own misery, not thinking at all.

  Downstairs Jerry is urging everyone to leave, and persuading Chris Devine, the only one sober enough to be the designated driver, to drive four of the drinkers home. I’m glad they’re here. It is comforting. Perhaps I’ve joined the marching army. I lie in my bed listening to the voices of The Choir surrounding me. They were there for Carl, now for me.

  THE NIGHT BEFORE the visitation I am alone with Carl surrounded by flowers. In his polished coffin, the scars, the forehead scars, are no longer visible, only his golden hair swept back from the last cutting less than two weeks ago. I touch his hair and it is thick, cool silk beneath my fingers. “Great hair,” I whisper. I touch his face, so young and still, and run my finger down the marble cheek, along the icy jaw.

  “You should not have done it,” I whisper, my voice reproving. “We could have talked. Sorry I wasn’t there for you, you must forgive me for that. I’ll miss you.” I touch his hands, to see his nails one last time, but they are clenched, frozen together.

  “NO, HE WILL wear his dark suit, his wedding suit,” I insist to John Beringer, who tells me Mutti had produced his Davenport hockey jersey. “No hockey jersey, he wore one much too long in life.”

  On the side of the coffin is a bronze plaque: CARL HELBIG JR. TWENTY-TWO YEARS. A Mutti touch.

  It is a huge funeral, no quiet cremation here. Blankets of flowers and so many players; three of the Bruins are pallbearers. The Choir is there, all of the familiar faces, and Jerry Henley, beside himself with grief. We sob and cling to each other, Jerry and I, and I embrace The Choir members again. I am of their fabric, woven together, our humanity indistinguishable. My little guy will have them, aunts and uncles, who will be there for him. Candace is there, subdued and tearful, and I forgive her for being Candace.

  They speak of Carl in the crowded church, of how he made Davenport proud, and of how he made two goals that last night, the night of the final conc
ussion.

  Cremations are so clean and neat, and I think of Ma and Pops being reduced to ashes, Pops residing in the cheapest urn provided by The Reasonable Alternative, and Ma residing in a more elegant one, both together on my mantelpiece in the Davenport house. I had no place to scatter Pops’, not planning a trip to Ukraine in the future, and the Sinclair Hotel dining room where Ma had spent her happiest hours would be out of reach. Carl’s internment is so different. Pristine and handsome, with his icy face and eyes glued shut, he is to be slipped into a yawn of raw earth, where, in his satin-lined mahogany casket, he will spin throughout eternity alone—and he hated to be alone.

  Sitting through the service, the eulogy’s emphasis on Carl’s hockey career increasingly grates on my nerves, and my bitterness increases.

  Outside the church, four reporters approach, one from the Davenport Guardian, the others from the Star, the Globe, and the National Post. One of the reporters is a woman, a writer of a daily column I had read while attending university. She has obviously been appointed spokeswoman.

  “We apologize for bothering you at such a time, Mrs. Helbig, but we were wondering if you would care to make a comment on your husband’s death at such an early age.”

  The remaining three, all men, shift and exchange uneasy glances, obviously expecting the comment that I am not prepared to speak at such a critical time. In fact, Jerry Henley, who is acting as my self-appointed bodyguard, had already told them to “have the decency to get lost.” But I will not do normal, as anger floods through me like a switched-on light bulb. In a clear, definite voice, a relic from my days as super-nerd of Davenport High, I speak to them.

  “Carl’s death at twenty-two was caused by his hockey career, which started when he was seven and went on until his final concussion at the Bruins opening game last October. Carl was a warrior who played through pain. I would like to send a message to all those parents who are investing so much in developing little hockey prodigies to consider the results of devoting their child’s life—and brains—to this vicious so-called ‘sport.’”

  The reporters are scribbling and I notice one signalling to a photographer. In my mind I see a headline: “Grieving Widow Blames Hockey for Husband’s Early Demise.” I step into the car on the way to the cemetery, with a stone-faced Mutti and an ashen-faced Carl Helbig, no longer a senior, with Jerry Henley at the wheel.

  “Sonja, Carl would not like what you say,” mutters Mutti.

  “Carl is gone. What difference does it make now?” I reply wearily.

  “Sonja’s been through a lot,” says Jerry Henley defensively.

  The word is out. After the gut-wrenching graveside ceremony, the dropping of the gravel on the polished lid, the reporters are back—with television cameras.

  “Was your husband’s death a suicide?” asks the Star reporter.

  “Carl suffered from frontal lobe dementia. He could easily have become confused with his meds, especially when he was drinking. The report from the Boston University Forensic Unit has not been released, but from what several neurologists told me before he died, Carl had brain damage. This caused him pain and confusion while he was alive, and may have contributed to his death.”

  “You do realize,” drawls the reporter from the Globe, “that attacking Canada’s favourite sport won’t make you popular. Do you intend to become an anti-hockey activist?”

  “My comments were especially for parents of concussion-prone kids, and no, I’m not becoming an activist. No more questions, please.”

  “Whew, that won’t score you any brownie points,” says Jerry as we drive away in the car, aware of the disapproving silence from the back seat. “Guess all this puts an end to Uncle Jerry taking little Carlie to hockey practice.”

  “Perhaps baseball,” I reply.

  MUTTI IS ASHEN, her breath stale. “When did you tell him?” I ask as we leave the car.

  She does not reply but eventually says, “He had to find out anyway.”

  Afterwards, we all sit together in the polished living room, drinking the rich coffee. His two sisters, Helga and Anna, have flown in from out of province, accompanied by their husbands. Helga’s small, active, tow-haired children, who had played with Carl less than a year ago, but what now seems like only yesterday, run from room to room.

  “He was such a bright little boy when he was six,” muses Helga. “I remember his reading Dr. Seuss to us, The Cat in the Hat it was, and we all thought he was a genius. Then there were problems. I wonder what happened.”

  “Hockey happened,” I answer, not bothering to keep the bite from my voice.

  The sisters look startled but keep drinking their coffee. The children scamper noisily over Mutti’s polished floors, and I think of Carl, who could barely read Dr. Seuss in Grade 12.

  Mutti sits, deaf to the children’s happy cries, her head bowed. Sorrow has taken her and she is leaden with grief. Never an introspective woman, but I know she has regrets. But she will never disclose them. These, I think, are the worst kind, for they devour you, deep inside, late at night and early morning, just before the dawn.

  “The baby will be seven weeks old when I return to university,” I say. “Do you wish to care for little Carl during the week?”

  “You would trust me with him?”

  “Like no one else,” I say.

  “There, Mutti,” the sisters chorus, “what a great idea.”

  Mutti smiles slightly, her first smile in days.

  I DRIVE THE Challenger back to Toronto. Someone must drive it, and I cannot bear to sell it. On the side of the road, just before the 400 turnoff, a girl stands. She carries a sign that says TORONTO. I stop the car. She is perhaps eighteen, her hair bleached, with black roots showing, and she chews gum. She wears the usual uniform of faded jeans and a frayed duffle coat.

  “Get in,” I order.

  She hops in beside me, obviously delighted and relieved that I’m not a man, intent unknown, offering the lift. I smell her perfume; choking and strongly floral, it permeates the car.

  She chats with me. She has no job prospects as yet. Her boyfriend’s gone to Alberta, but there have been no letters, not for months. Her mom’s dead and her dad’s address is unknown.

  “Will there be a job in Toronto for someone with my energy and willingness to work?” she asks, her voice brash but somewhat unsure.

  I let her off near Spadina and Queen. She has a relative who lives near there, a cousin.

  Before she leaves I count out $500 in hundreds and fifties and hand it to her. Carl had always insisted I carry what he’d called “walking around money.”

  “I can’t take this,” she protests.

  “Take it,” I insist, “and promise you’ll change your hair. Go to a good salon in Yorkville, it will help with employment prospects.”

  She laughs and asks, “When will I see you again, so I can pay you back?”

  “No doubt we will run into each other,” I lie. “And find some friends, good friends who’ll have your back, who’ll help you out and care about you.”

  She smiles as she waves me goodbye, and I smell the blatant floral perfume. It remains with me as I drive into the underground parking lot of the Manulife Centre.

  IT IS NOW June and sometimes in the twilight I sit on the back steps of our house and wait. I do not know who or what I wait for. Perhaps Carl will come skating out of the copper sunset, hockey stick in hand, his golden head without his helmet. He will skate toward me, and I will see his smile glisten through the encroaching darkness and for a moment I will smell Irish Spring soap and Aqua Velva mixed with the fresh new grass of June, while inside me I feel our son turn and I await, await the future joy.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many thanks to Taryn Boyd, publisher at Brindle and Glass, along with her in-house staff; thanks as well to editors Colin Thomas, Bethany Gibson, and Heather Sangster. I am grateful as well for the editorial help of Robert Karr, Ava Hillier, and Laurie Laughlin-Hillier. The enthusiasm of readers Betty Gorin, Jean Vi
ereck, Jerry Peterson, Adair Lara, and Carol Dreleuch is appreciated. A special thanks to Joan Clark for her enlightened reading, and to John Metcalf for his early encouragement. I read and relied on a plethora of articles relating to concussions and hockey as set out in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the New York Daily News, and the New York Times. Especially enlightening were interviews given by Dr. Charles Tator, neurosurgeon and concussion specialist, and of the surviving family members of deceased hockey players who suffered from CTE.

  SUZANNE HILLIER is a former schoolteacher and retired lawyer who loves to cook for her family, cheer on the Toronto Blue Jays, and spoil her many grandchildren. Since retiring from her law firm, which she established in the 1970s, she has succumbed to her first love: writing. Sonja & Carl is her first novel.

  Copyright © 2017 by Suzanne L. Hillier

  Brindle & Glass

  An Imprint of TouchWood Editions

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For more information, contact the publisher at brindleandglass.com.

  Edited by Colin Thomas

  Design by Pete Kohut

  Author photo by Magdalena M.

  Cover silhouettes by zhaolifang, Vecteezy.com

  Quote from Dylan Thomas, from The Poems of Dylan Thomas, copyright @ 1939 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Permission also granted for use throughout the world excluding the USA by agents David Higham, representing The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The Centenary Edition, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and acknowledging the authorship of the poet Dylan Thomas.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Hillier, Suzanne L., author

  Sonja & Carl : a novel / Suzanne L. Hillier.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-927366-56-1 (softcover)