Strangers Among Us

by LR Wright

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Eliot. “It probably doesn’t cost much to take a bus.”

  “Geez. That’s a long way to go in a bus. How far is it anyway?”

  “It’s six thousand one hundred and nineteen kilometers.”

  Alvin was struggling into his knapsack. “Wow. So how’re you gonna get the money?”

  “Your face is dirty,” said Eliot. “You’ve got bean juice all over your face.”

  Alvin rubbed his face clean with the sleeve of his jacket.

  “I’m gonna sell some stuff,” said Eliot. “If it’s still there.”

  “What stuff? Where?”

  “I’ve got some rollerblades. And a guitar.”

  “Where?”

  “And there’ll be other stuff. My dad’s got a camera.” He finished tying the strings of the sleeping bag and picked it up, holding it out to Alvin. “Here. You might as well take this. I’m not gonna need it anymore.”

  Alvin’s eyes got big and focused. “Whaddya mean? Where’re you going?”

  “What’ve I just been telling you?” said Eliot impatiently. “I’m gonna go back to Sechelt and collect some stuff and sell it and take the bus to Nova Scotia.” And while he was in Sechelt, he’d call the hospital, and find out how Rosie was. He was afraid to do this—afraid that the cop was wrong, and Rosie was hurt bad, or maybe even dead—but he had to do it, had to know.

  “I’m coming with you.” Alvin grabbed hold of Eliot’s sleeve. “Come on, we’re a team,” he said earnestly.

  Eliot jerked away and walked off through the trees toward the path they’d found the night before. What would he do, if they told him she was dead? Eliot’s heart pounded, just thinking about it.

  Plus he was wet and cold and irritable, and he was tired of Alvin. He didn’t see how he could just dump the kid, but he sure didn’t want him tagging along all the way to Nova Scotia. And what would he do with him when they got there? Eliot knew he’d have to hide out when he got home—he was counting on Sammy to help him out with this—and that was no kind of life for a little kid.

  “I know some guys,” said Alvin, trotting behind him. “They can help you get rid of your stuff. Sell it.”

  “Yeah, sure,” muttered Eliot, pushing through a bunch of waist-high underbrush, leafless, but wet with rain. He took note of this, however, because he hadn’t thought out exactly how he was going to exchange his merchandise for cash.

  They emerged on the path and Alvin danced ahead of Eliot, hanging on to the straps of his knapsack, jogging backward.

  “Quit that,” said Eliot. “You’re gonna trip yourself.” So Alvin took his place beside him. “Okay, okay,” said Eliot impatiently. “You can come to Sechelt with me.” The kid needed a bath. So did Eliot, of course. He’d get him all cleaned up before he sent him on his way.

  “Yea,” Alvin caroled. “I’ve never been on a ferry.”

  “We’ll have to find a bunch more cans first,” said Eliot, “to get money for the fare.”

  “And they got those little cubicles, didja see that? didja see it?” said Alvin, all excited. “You can write a private letter in there if you want.”

  “Or plug in your laptop,” said the lady, smiling as she drove. “Your portable computer.”

  “What? Noooo,” said Alvin, drawing out the word.

  “It’s true,” she said.

  “Geez,” said Alvin, and he was quiet for a moment. Which was a big relief to Eliot. He kept thinking Alvin was going to give them away.

  They’d met the lady on the ferry, and she’d offered them a ride when she heard where they were going. “I live in Garden Bay,” she’d said. “I drive right through Sechelt.” She was an older lady, with gray hair, and she was wearing a raincoat that was gray and a bright red rainhat with a brim on it. She looked like a nice person, somebody who had no what Eliot’s mom had called ulterior motives.

  So here they were in her car, going along the highway, and Alvin had been talking nonstop about the ferry, about how big it was, how big its windows were, how big the café was, and the car deck. The snack bar knocked him out. The arcade knocked him out. The bank of telephones knocked him out. Eliot had been embarrassed at first, then he felt a weird kind of pride, as if it was his damn ferry. But now he was just sick of hearing Alvin talk.

  “What were you kids doing in Vancouver?” the lady asked.

  It was a casual question, and an obvious one—a question she would’ve asked earlier if Alvin had shut up any sooner.

  Before Eliot could open his mouth, Alvin said, “He’s my cousin, see, and my dad’s in the hospital, and my mom works, so I’m gonna stay with him for a while, until my dad gets home.”

  “Oh, dear,” said the lady.

  Eliot, riding in the backseat, knew he had a horrified look on his face and tried to wipe it off.

  “I’m sorry about your dad,” said the lady.

  “He’s not dyin’ or anything,” said Alvin. “It’s just kinda inconvenient. Are we nearly there?” he said, peering out the window.

  “We are indeed,” said the lady. They were passing Trail Bay, which was a pretty enough sight when the sun shone, but on a gray and gloomy day like this it was just as gray and gloomy as everything else. “We go up that hill, and there we are,” she said. “Where do you want to be let off?”

  “On the other side of town. Just past the shopping center,” said Eliot, “if that’s okay.”

  As they drove up the hill he bent over, pretending to be looking for something in Alvin’s knapsack, which was stowed on the floor, so as not to be seen. Now that he was actually back in Sechelt he was terrified, and couldn’t believe that he’d done such a stupid thing, shit, everybody in town knew what he looked like, everybody in town knew what he’d done, shit, thought Eliot, I’m an idiot, a total idiot. The lady’s Toyota crawled along the town’s main street and Eliot was practically lying down in the backseat by now.

  Meanwhile Alvin was chattering away about this father who was supposed to be in the hospital. Apparently he’d broken his leg when he fell out of an apple tree he was pruning. Eliot listened, incredulous, as Alvin made up the tree, the yard, the house, the school he went to—and finally, finally, the lady pulled over and let them out.

  They waved at her as she drove off.

  “Okay, what now?” said Alvin.

  Eliot trotted along the edge of the road, heading north, away from town, and Alvin trotted after him. Soon they reached the track that led from the highway to Eliot’s house.

  And to the beach.

  It was mid-afternoon, and some rain was falling. Eliot, heading along the track, sure hoped the power was still on in that house, keeping the furnace going, and the fridge. “We can’t turn on any lights,” he said, though.

  “Right,” said Alvin. “We can use the flashlight.”

  Eliot, watching the ground so as to avoid the puddles, knew that they were getting closer and closer to the house. And he did not want to get there. He still thought he had a good plan. He still thought it was the only possible plan. But he did not want to get to that house. He was glad, now, that he’d let Alvin tag along. He admitted to himself that he might not have been able to do this alone. He glanced over at Alvin, walking quietly beside him.

  “I was in there because I keep running away,” Alvin had said last night, lying on his half of the sleeping bag.

  They’d taken out all the clothes in his knapsack and Alvin was wearing half of them and Eliot had tried to wrap himself in the rest. But they were still cold. They had found a spot deep in the woods where they were pretty much protected from the rain, but there was no way Eliot could sleep. There’d be all kinds of animals in that huge park. And they had seen occasional clusters of homeless people there, too. Who knew what, or who, might stumble onto them as they lay there? But nothing and nobody did, as it turned out.

  “How come you run away?” said Eliot. He sensed, more than saw, Alvin’s shrug.

  “You know. You saw.”

  �
��Well do you tell them?” said Eliot. “The social workers? Whoever?”

  “They’d just send me to a foster home. I been there. Foster homes are no better. At least at home I know the place. I got my stuff.”

  Eliot lay on his back, looking up toward the sky. It was all clouded over, though, so he couldn’t see stars or the moon. Only blackness.

  “How come you were there?” said Alvin.

  Eliot was silent for a long time. He didn’t know if he could say the words. Which ones would he pick to say, if he decided he could speak of it? Alvin shifted a little, trying to get more comfortable. The ground was bumpy and lumpy even with the sleeping bag on top of it.

  “I killed my parents.” Eliot’s voice sounded perfectly ordinary. He was disappointed. He had hoped to learn something from the sound of his voice when he said it.

  Alvin lay still. Then he gave a long, low, respectful whistle. “Geez.” He thought about it for a while. “Was this a planned type thing?”

  “No.”

  “You did both of your parents?”

  “Yeah. And I hurt my little sister.” Eliot’s stomach rose into his throat. He threw off Alvin’s extra clothes and got up and leaned against a nearby tree. “Rosie, her name is.” His voice was husky, now, and there was a shake in it.

  “Why?” said Alvin after a while.

  Yeah, right, thought Eliot, walking next to Alvin up the track toward his house. Why. Why.

  “Hey,” said Alvin, coming to a halt.

  “What?”

  “Did it happen in this house we’re going to?”

  “No,” said Eliot in disgust. “Of course not. You think I’d go back in there if…?”

  They arrived a few minutes later. Eliot first heard the ocean, and then they were there. He stood in the turnaround, staring across at the small gray house, and in the background, washing over the house and the woods and the garden and him and Alvin, was the ceaseless sound of the sea.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s go in.”

  Enid was again looking into the mirror, being careful not to get too close to it. She didn’t want to see herself too clearly. She wanted her outline slightly blurred, as if she were moving while being photographed. Her fingertips moved curiously across her lips. She had a lovely mouth, if she did say so herself.

  She had spent the morning cleaning her house, vigorously, and would spend the afternoon shopping for groceries. Perhaps she would stop in to see Bernie. But maybe not. Bernie was eagle-eyed, and might see the kiss on Enid’s lips.

  She smiled in the mirror.

  She had paid no attention to him this morning. She hadn’t heard a sound from down there. But then she’d had the vacuum cleaner on, and had been singing as she worked. Now she went to the bedroom window and peeked out—his truck was gone.

  She smoothed the duvet on her king-size bed, and had a flashing remembrance of Harry Mason, his long white legs and his cavernous armpits and his obsessive enthusiasm for open-mouthed kissing. She’d met him at Grace Markworthy’s funeral. Harry himself was dead, now, of complications following some kind of surgery, Enid didn’t know what kind, they hadn’t been seeing each other anymore when he had it.

  She went down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the shower, filling the room with steam. She peeled off her clothes and dropped them on the floor, stepped into the tub and pulled the shower curtain closed. She hummed to herself while she stroked her soapy body, long strokes of arm and thigh, circular strokes of breasts and stomach, humming “I Could Have Danced All Night,” singing aloud the phrases she remembered.

  Later, she dressed, in gray slacks, a blue short-sleeved tucked-in sweater that reflected her eyes, and flat shoes.

  She would make some vegetable soup, she decided, for the freezer. She consulted the recipe and listed the ingredients, sitting at the kitchen table. Then added to the shopping list paper towels, aspirin, sugar-free ginger ale, cocoa powder…

  Enid tucked the list in her purse and went to the closet for her jacket.

  But then she stopped.

  She looked to make sure his truck hadn’t returned, and went quietly down the stairs.

  If he’s locked his door, she thought, I will take that as a sign, and I won’t use my key.

  But he hadn’t locked the door.

  She left it open when she slipped inside.

  His bed was slightly rumpled, as if he’d lain down again after making it. Enid resisted an urge to smooth the spread and make it wrinkle free.

  She moved fitfully through her lodger’s apartment, feeling like an explorer, or a scientist; a person on the lookout for data, for information that would explain the inexplicable. She bent over to look again at the photograph of the child. Heather. My goodness, thought Enid. My goodness. She had meant what she said to him, that there was no room for should haves in a livable life. But she had to ask herself, what kind of a man would stay with a woman he considered crazy? What kind of a man would leave his daughter with such a woman?

  Enid straightened, uneasily. The kitchen tap was dripping. She turned the faucet tightly closed, and it stopped. He had left dishes in the sink, a mug, a cereal bowl, a spoon, and the coffeepot.

  Dissatisfied, Enid moved restlessly back into the bedroom. She tried to open the drawer in the bedside table but it stuck, she couldn’t get it all the way open—but far enough to see that it was empty. And no wonder. She should have remembered to have that drawer repaired.

  The bottom two drawers in the bureau were also empty. The top one held piles of underwear, shorts and T-shirts, and several pairs of socks. Under the T-shirts, a rectangular box. Enid lifted the shirts, discreetly, and saw that the box contained something that was wrapped in a piece of white fabric.

  She put the pile of shirts on top of the bureau and poked at this object, which was very hard, and she reached in to pick it up, to take it out of the box. Her hand closed around it. And although Enid had never in her life held a gun, she knew she was holding one now.

  Chapter 22

  THE BACK DOOR WAS locked, but his mom always left a spare key handy. Eliot got it out from under a big plant pot that sat on a tree stump; it had had flowers in it in the summertime.

  They went in that door because it was the only door the family had ever used. The front door, in the living room, was never even opened, except when Eliot’s mom wanted to air the house out, by which she meant get rid of the smoke from his dad’s cigarettes.

  Before they actually entered, Eliot bent down to pick up a pair of boots that had been knocked over, maybe by the wind. Alvin watched him do this but didn’t say anything, didn’t ask whose boots they were; probably this was because they were small and red and therefore he could tell they were Rosie’s.

  Alvin waited out there on the porch, sheltered from the rain by the overhang, and let Eliot go in first, by himself.

  Eliot, standing in the kitchen, worked out in his head how many days had passed since that morning. A lot of dust must have collected, he thought.

  A tea towel was draped over the back of a chair. The table had been wiped clean. His mom had done the breakfast dishes and left them in the drainer to dry. It was all so terribly familiar and ordinary that Eliot fully expected his family to be there, concealed somewhere in the rooms of this house: Rosie asleep in her bed, his mother maybe having a bath, his father around the corner drinking beer and watching TV in the living room.

  He told Alvin to come inside and Alvin did, closing the door very quietly behind him, as if he, too, believed that they were not alone there.

  “I’ve gotta check,” Eliot mumbled, and he moved silently across the kitchen. He pressed against the wall beside the doorway and looked cautiously around it. He saw a beer can and an ashtray full of butts and some other stuff lying around, but of course the living room was empty.

  He took the stairs two at a time. In Rosie’s room there were clothes lying on the floor and the bed wasn’t made. Eliot could hear his mom—he didn’t know if he’d heard this that
morning or not, he might have, could have—could hear her saying, “Rosie, Rosie, sweet as a posy, Rosie make your bed,” and she’d give a gentle little swat to Rosie’s behind when she said the word “bed.” The curtains were still closed, too. Eliot’s throat had that big ache in it again. He shut the door to his sister’s room and went down the hall. His parents’ room was empty. The bathroom, empty. He wasn’t ready yet to look inside his own room, to encounter the Eliot who would definitely be haunting that room, the Eliot who had gotten up that November morning, and put on his clothes, just like it was going to be a normal day. All the while he was in there, waking up, getting dressed, there was still hope for him and he didn’t even know it, didn’t even know that when he left his room that morning he was abandoning himself.

  Downstairs, Alvin was still standing by the door.

  “It’s okay,” said Eliot. “There’s nobody here.” He went into the living room and got rid of the beer can and emptied the ashtray and folded up the newspaper. He just wouldn’t look over there where the crayons and the coloring book were. He’d ignore them. “I gotta water the plants,” he said.

  Alvin took off the knapsack and dumped the contents onto a countertop. Then he wandered around the house. Eliot heard him upstairs, padding along the hall. He knew the kid would stand in every doorway, looking in, but he was pretty sure Alvin wouldn’t actually enter any of the rooms and start poking around.

  Eliot was surprised at how many of the plants were still alive. In some pots the soil wasn’t even totally dry yet, and this was so scary, to be touching soil that had been carefully dampened by his mom who was dead.

  Alvin skipped downstairs and went into the living room to watch him.

  “I’m gonna get rid of these ones that died,” said Eliot.

  “Phew,” said Alvin, gazing into a vase of flowers. “These died, that’s for sure. They stink.”

  Eliot stopped watering. “Jesus. You just reminded me.”