by Dawn Dumont
Everett was in the kitchen cooking, the smell wafting in and reminding Julie that she had no appetite. But what about the other ones? Theresa, her favourite smoking friend — Julie heard she moved to Calgary years ago but that was all. Her aunts had not spoken to her since she’d left them in Grande Prairie. She’d even called to tell them about the baby but nobody had picked up. And Shells who Julie thought she saw at a bus stop. But when she called out to her the woman didn’t turn around. And Shay was many years gone now but Nellie still flinched when Julie said her name. And Taz, who made Julie freeze in place when she heard his voice. Only last week she stood in the kitchen and shook her head while Nellie offered her the phone. “Julie . . . ? No, she doesn’t want to talk. No, I’m not keeping her from you. She’s pregnant, idiot. She needs space. . . You take care, too.”
Malcolm was creeping. Back to the DVD stand. To pull it down again. Julie reached for him and felt a pain, sharper this time. She breathed through it. Stay in control, that was the advice her doctor gave her. At all times, control your breath. The stand came crashing down, a slick case slid past her foot. Her eyes went to Malcolm, he was free and clear; eyes shining at the drama he had created. Nellie was up and chastising him. “No, no, no. We don’t do that.” As if he knew what she was saying.
“Julie you feeling okay?”
Julie nodded and leaned back in her chair. She picked up a book and pretended to read it. She would go eventually but she was in no hurry to reach the hospital. The last time she’d been there alone. A nurse fixing the cut above her eye. “Has he hit you there before?” in a voice, slightly bored — I do this all the time and I am scared of nothing. Julie refusing to answer because then there would be police. And then the news from a different nurse, “there is no heartbeat.” And they both looked away and busied their hands.
Julie felt her own heart pick up speed at the memory. She felt her tummy, felt a movement down there. Okay, yes, it’s okay.
The pain was there again, like that rock in her back. Outside the high school was where Julie had some of her best times. Listening to the kids joke around and talk about partying like they had forever. They would be out there in all kinds of weather, the roof shielding them from rain, the three sides protecting them from most winds, only the coldest days driving them inside. They’d try though, they would huddle together in their leather jackets and thin coats and laugh into the circle, their smoke thick and slow in the cold air.
Inside was where futures were and they had none, no matter how much the nice teachers tried to tell them it was there for them too. Better to smoke and laugh than hope for anything else. Better to enjoy that brief time they got to be together.
There was a deer one time. Julie and one of her friends were outside getting stoned on the thinnest joint the world had ever seen. Julie saw the deer in the woods moving in and out of the trees. Flashes of brown. That slender head pointed at them, those dark eyes watching them. Julie stared back, wished she knew a call to bring her closer. Tell her it was safe.
Another cramp, this one enough to make her clench her teeth. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“We will have to go soon.”
“But not — yet.”