by Ann Eriksson
By the time Paul emerged from the tent I was shivering inside the bag, propped against a log, trying to steady a cup of tea against my lips.
“We have to get her to a hospital.” He slipped on a sweater and started yanking tent pegs from the ground. “Let’s go.”
“We can’t risk driving. The road’s too rough,” Grace argued, her face creased with worry. “I tried the phone. There’s no reception.”
“What choice do we have,” Paul said. “You hold her. I’ll drive.”
“You can’t. I’ll get the keys,” Grace said. “I’ll drive.”
By the time the car was loaded and we were underway, the rain had resumed, steady and hard. It pounded on the roof, wipers thumping across the windshield, defroster on full in a vain attempt to keep the view ahead clear. Grace leaned forward and squinted into the downpour, driving at a snail’s pace to minimize the vibration of the car on the rough gravel road. Paul supported me on his lap in the back seat as the car lurched through potholes and shuddered across washboard. Rainbow fell asleep, propped on a pillow beside Grace.
“Is it any worse?” Paul adjusted the sleeping bag and brushed my hair away from my forehead.
I couldn’t tell, the space between my legs sticky but cold. No cramps or contractions. No flood of amniotic fluid. No river of blood flowing out behind with the rain. “I’m fine,” I answered, reluctant to add to the level of stress in the car.
Paul’s hand slipped under the blanket and stroked my heavy abdomen. “Hang in there baby,” he whispered.
“Is she okay?” Grace asked, the strain in her face visible in the rear-view mirror.
“All under control back here,” Paul answered. “You keep your attention on the road.”
We drove in silence, the tension in the car palpable. Paul’s thighs tight under my head, the muscles in his stomach taut.
Would he leave if I lost the baby? “Go ahead,” I said. “Say it.”
“Say what?” Paul asked.
“I told you so.”
He waited a moment before answering. “No point in that,” he murmured. “Besides, I love you for your adventurous spirit.”
Why else? I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t muster the energy.
He massaged the back of my neck. “Why don’t you try to sleep.”
I drifted into a state of semi-consciousness, aware of the drumming on the roof, the swish of water on the undercarriage as Grace manoeuvred the car through deeper and deeper puddles. In the haze of my semi-dream state, marbled murrelets circled above a red canopy. The birds dropped purple eggs from the treetops to the forest floor, the eggs bursting open in yellow splatters across the ground.
I woke when the car came to a stop.
“Damn.” Grace pounded her fists on the steering wheel. She swivelled around in her seat, face ashen.
“What is it?” Paul said.
“The road’s flooded.”
I struggled to sit up and leaned over the back seat to see the passage ahead a torrent of brown water and debris, the roadbed washed out for at least two car lengths. I wasn’t surprised to see both sides of the road were clear-cut, no trees, no root system to modulate the flow of water across the land.
“Shit.” Paul reached for his raincoat. “I hope it’s not too deep.” He glanced over at me. “You stay here.”
“You can’t go in there,” I said, alarmed.
“Don’t worry. I haven’t had a seizure in weeks. Any better ideas?” He stepped from the car, turning at the last minute to say, “This time I won’t do it in my underwear.”
Rainbow sat up and rubbed sleep from her eyes. “What’s happening?” she said, clambering onto her knees to peer out the window. “Where’s Paul?”
Grace pulled her onto her lap and pointed.
Paul hunted around at the edge of the road until he found a solid length of branch. Standing beside the torrent, he thrust it out ahead of him and down into the swirling water. The current caught the tip of the branch and threatened to snatch it from Paul’s grasp. He pulled it back and probed the bottom closer to shore. When he lifted his probe and measured it against his body, the watermark reached his kneecaps.
“He can’t go in there,” I said again.
Grace cranked the window open and called to him. He returned to the car, lifted the back hatch, and rummaged around in the jumble of gear. “I knew I brought this for a reason.” He lifted a climbing rope from a pack. He tied one end to the front bumper of the car, looped the other around his waist, and, against our protests, waded into the flood waters.
By the time he was halfway across, the water had reached mid-thigh. He turned and raised a thumb. “He’s going to make it,” Rainbow yelled. Grace grabbed my hand. “Yes, yes,” she whispered.
Suddenly, Paul’s body stiffened. Rainbow screamed as he fell. We watched in horror as his head disappeared below the waves. His shoulders rolled to the surface and the current carried his body swiftly downstream.
“Paul.” I heaved my bulk out into the driving rain, Grace close behind. We took up the rope and heaved, the loose untidy coils snaking in the mud at our feet. The line went taut. We followed it, hand over hand, until we found him, coat snagged on a half-sunk limb near shore, face submerged, body thrashing weakly. We stumbled down the embankment, turned him over, and hauled his torso onto solid land, legs floating. I knelt over him, my belly dragging in the muck and my ear to his mouth. “He’s breathing.” I burst into tears with a short-lived relief.
Keep him safe. I remembered the neurologist’s instructions. When he has a seizure your job is to keep him from hurting himself. I removed my raincoat to shelter him. Rainbow appeared in her pyjamas and rubber boots, the tent flapping like a giant airborne bird around her. The three of us knelt under it in the muck and watched helplessly while the seizure took its course.
Somehow we managed to drag the weight of his unconscious body across the road and lift him into the car. Grace fetched dry clothes from the packs and we peeled his mud-soaked sweater and pants from his clammy body and wrapped him in sleeping bags. I struggled out of my wet things, my underwear spotted with fresh blood.
“What were you thinking?” Grace scolded. “What if—” She buried her face in her hands. Rainbow slipped her fingers into the crease in Grace’s elbow. “Nanna?”
Grace pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.
“What, dear?”
“I want to go home,” she sniffed.
“I know.” Grace drew her close. “Me too.”
The rain continued, the floodwaters growing by the minute, and Grace backed the car away from the breach for fear the raging current would crumble the road bed further and take us with it. We huddled under sleeping bags and ate the dry remainders of our food. Grace boiled tea under the open back hatch for warmth, but we were reluctant to run the engine for fear of draining the gas tank. I checked Paul’s condition every few minutes. He remained unconscious but breathing, skin pasty and cold.
“We should set up the tents,” I ventured.
No one moved. The weight of our situation was suffocating. I reached again for my cell phone, praying for adequate reception. No signal.
Rainbow drew a picture with her finger in the thick grey film of moisture on the inside of the windshield. I punched numbers pointlessly into the dead phone. “Oh,” Rainbow exclaimed. Her crooked house with a tree in the garden came alive with an eerie glow. “Lights,” she cried out. A horn blared from across the washout. Rainbow wiped her landscape away with a single sweep of her sleeve and pointed through the glass. “A car.”
Grace opened the window and peered out. “A crew cab.” She bolted from the car and ran toward the torrent, arms waving. “Help us!”
Across the water, two people in heavy yellow slickers waved back. After a shouted exchange, Grace returned to the car. “I can’t tell what they’re saying.” She slid in behind the wheel and started the car. “We can’t wait. We have to try.”
“It’s too dangerous, G
race,” I said, “We can’t make it without a rope. Wait. Rainbow, crawl into the back and bring me Paul’s gear bag, the one the rope was in.” Within minutes she returned with the bag and I hunted around to find a length of parachute cord and a lead-filled pouch.
We climbed from the car and stood on the bank, loose gravel washing away below our feet with the current. I knotted one end of the line to the weighted bag, the other end to the rope that was still tied to the bumper. The two shrouded figures yelled encouragement across the water. I dragged the coiled rope to the edge of the torrent and threw the bag with all my strength, the cord looping behind. A cramp shot through my abdomen and I doubled over; the weight fell short in the middle of the stream.
Grace snatched the line from my fingers and reeled it back in. “I’ll do it.” She swung the bag in tight circles, then released it over the water. It too fell far from the opposite shore. On her third try, the weight cleared the water and landed on the crumbling roadbed at the margins of the flood. One of the men retrieved it and hauled in the line, followed by the climbing rope. They backed the truck to the water’s edge and secured the rope to the rear bumper. The driver gestured out the window for us to proceed.
Grace and Rainbow and I piled back into the car.
“Open the windows,” Grace ordered, starting the car. She paused, then added in a hushed tone that made my legs go weak, “in case we have to get out.”
“Put the gear shift in neutral, Grace,” I suggested with a tenderness for my mother I’d never felt before.
The rope stretched tight. The wheels turned. The car lurched forward in tot he rushing flood waters. “Mother of God,” Grace whispered and then raised her voice. “Hang on.”
“You can do it, Mom,” I assured her. “All you have to do is steer.”
The station wagon slipped into the current. I peered through the window and watched as water inched higher and higher on the hubcaps. At midstream, waves lapped at the bottom of the door. My heart banged in my chest and Rainbow’s fingernails dug into my hand, her eyes clenched shut. None of us spoke.
A branch careened off the back passenger door with a thud. The rear end of the car jerked and pivoted. The back wheels floated free and the car listed downstream.
“Drive!” I yelled and Grace stepped on the gas. The engine roared and the back of the car slewed side to side while the crew cab churned up the hill, wheels spinning. Rainbow whimpered. The front wheels hit the far bank and the vehicle bounced and heaved from the water. The tires bit into rock and earth. The car came to a stop on solid ground. We sat in stunned silence, breathless.
A figure loomed outside Grace’s door like an apparition and tapped on the glass. “You all okay?” The man stooped at the window and flipped back his hood. “Faye?” Roger Payne peered into the car. “What in God’s name are you doing out here in this weather?” Behind him waited the second man, rain gear covering all but a soggy beard dripping with water.
“We need to get Faye and Paul to the hospital.” Grace’s voice quavered. “Paul’s unconscious. Faye’s bleeding. It’s an emergency.”
“They can come with me,” he said. “The truck will be faster on these roads. I’ll radio for an ambulance to meet us at Midnight Bay.”
Roger turned and spoke to his companion.
“My partner here can drive the station wagon,” Roger offered.
“No!” Grace shouted.
I stopped halfway out of the car and gaped at my mother. “It’s a logical idea, Grace. It’s pouring. You’re beat. There’s not enough room in the crew cab for all of us.”
Grace rested her forehead on the steering wheel and mumbled something incomprehensible.
“Pardon?” Roger leaned forward.
“Take Rainbow,” she repeated. “Go”—she flapped her hands with irritation—“go.”
“I’ll drive slow, ma’am,” the man said. “Don’t worry.”
They transferred Paul with care to the back of the crew cab. “Careful.” I hovered close by. “Don’t hurt him.” My whole body trembled. “Watch his head.” They lifted me into the front seat, Rainbow following close behind. She curled up beside me. Roger honked the horn and we drove into the night.
I let my head flop back against the upholstery. “Thanks,” I said, too fatigued to talk.
“No problem. We should reach the lake in a half-hour,” Roger assured me. “You shouldn’t be out here this time of year and in your—” He shook his head in disbelief. “It can snow through to the end of the month. You were lucky Donnie and I came out to see if it’s clear enough to start timber cruising.”
At his words, the losses of the past year poured down on me like the deluge outside, threatening to overwhelm me, drown me under their weight: the trees, our study, the nests, Paul’s health, our baby. “Isn’t it difficult to assess the value of standing timber in a clear-cut?” I snapped.
“Oh no,” he said. “We don’t cruise in cut—” He stopped talking without finishing his sentence and concentrated on the road ahead.
An uncomfortable stalemate followed. The big four-by-four sped along the road through the rain on its heavy suspension, absorbing the shock in a way my old station wagon couldn’t. Rainbow slept curled up against my side. I wanted to yell at the man beside me, berate him for his lies, for aiding and abetting the demise of park trees and our study site, but I didn’t have the energy. I focused on the baby inside, willing it to send us down another path from death and loss to life. My thoughts turned to Grace in the vehicle we’d left far behind. Had she ached for my life this way when I was a newborn? She wanted this baby as much as I. And I had forced her out here, put us all at risk. Guilt pricked at me as I recalled the fear on her face as we drove off. Her reaction to Roger’s thoughtful offer was uncharacteristic.
My heart lurched with a sudden realization. “What was your partner’s name back there?”
“Donnie?” Roger glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Donnie Ransom. He’s a faller, and a wizard woodsman. He lost his wife last month. I hired him to cruise early this year as a distraction. Guy can track a deer through a snow storm and live for weeks with nothing but a knife.”
Or a crossbow? The mangled bow was packed in the back of my car. The car that carried my mother . . . and Don Ransom.
“Stop.” My yell startled Rainbow bolt upright. “Go back.”
Roger looked over his shoulder at me. “What’s got into you?” he said, then peered ahead through the windshield. “There’s the ambulance.” The truck slowed and bumped onto blacktop; the ambulance materialized out of the rain at the side of the road in front of an abandoned gas station.
“You need to go back,” I repeated over and over as two paramedics hustled Paul, then me onto stretchers and wheeled us into the back of the ambulance, Rainbow in front with the driver. As the siren came on and the ambulance turned toward town, a bewildered Roger climbed into the cab of his truck, doing as I demanded, and headed back. I tried to sit up, to go to Paul, but the attendant, who was fitting an oxygen mask to his face, cautioned me back. “We’ll get through this,” I whispered. “You’ll be all right.” But I didn’t believe my own words.
I awoke the next morning in the Duncan hospital to find my mother at my bedside, holding my hand. Grace appeared older, her hair loose and unbrushed, lips and cheeks without makeup.
“You’re here,” I mumbled.
“Where else?”
“Ransom,” I said. “He didn’t hurt you?”
“No. He was harmless. We talked about his kids.” She handed me a plastic cup of juice with a straw. “Drink, you need fluids.” Dark circles shadowed her eyes.
“You don’t need to worry. The doctor said I can go home tomorrow, but lots of bed rest and no exercise until the baby comes.” I drank gratefully, my body hungry for the cold, wet, sweet liquid. “You recognized him, didn’t you?”
“He used to come by the blockade and swear at us.”
“Do you think he’s the one who hurt Paul?”
; Grace paused. “Who knows? I didn’t ask and I can’t imagine he would have told me. If I’m not mistaken, the police don’t consider him a suspect.”
“He didn’t mention the blockades?”
“Not a thing.” Grace adjusted my blanket. “I doubt he remembered me.” She paused. “The poor man’s grief-stricken.”
I sank back into the pillow and studied the pattern of lines in the tiled ceiling. An eye for an eye? I felt ashamed. The police knew nothing, the man likely guilty only of a nasty temper. “How are Paul and Rainbow?”
Grace fussed with my blanket. “Your father fetched Rainbow home about two hours ago.” She gestured to a bag on the floor by the door. “He brought clean clothes.”
“I had an ultrasound last night.”
“Did they tell you the sex?”
The technician had shown me the monitor, the fetus curled like a fiddlehead inside my womb, the tiny disproportionate limbs apparent, the broad, flat nose. “Yes, Mother.” I lifted Grace’s long, elegant fingers and kissed each one. “She’s a girl. But what about Paul?” I said. “You didn’t tell me about Paul. Is he okay? Can I see him?”
Grace turned her face away.
“Grace.” Alarm blossomed in the pit of my stomach. “Where is he? How is he?”
“He’s gone, sweetheart.” Grace gripped my hand. “He’s gone.”
29
Camille Grace Taylor Pearson was born on March 19, in an operating room at the Victoria Hospital, in the early morning hours most inconvenient for surgeons. She surprised us by arriving days earlier than planned and I experienced a few hours of escalating contractions at home and later at the hospital as the infant’s too large head inched along the birth canal. The doctor—a kind woman with liberal leanings— checked the baby’s heartbeat, then mine. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “The nurses will get you prepped for surgery.” She ducked out the door to another birth.
Grace hovered close with offers of ice chips, massages, advice on breathing. Mel and Rainbow wandered in and out during the brief period of labour, Mel charged with keeping Rainbow—who had insisted on attending the birth—happy and occupied. In reality, Rainbow looked after Mel. Whenever he appeared unsteady, Rainbow hustled him into the corridor for a glass of water or another cup of coffee. She fell asleep on the couch in the hallway during the surgery, Mel with strict orders to “wake me up when my sister is coming.”