Bitter Sweet (35 page)
Staring at the tree lights, Eric thought of Maggie and wondered what Christmas would have been like if he’d married her instead of
Nancy
. Would he have children of his own? Would they be together now near their own Christmas tree? He pictured Maggie in the big house with its bay windows and gleaming floors and the kitchen with the old, scarred table, and recalled the day he and Deitz had had coffee with her, and he missed her terribly.
During those same days and nights, she thought of him, too, and her sense of loss fingered, unaccountable though it was, for how could one lose what one had not possessed?
She had lost nothing except the daily longing for Phillip which had magically dissipated since her return to Fish Creek. With some shock Maggie realized it was true - the feelings of self-pity and deprivation had mellowed into velvet memories of their happier times together. Yes, the loss of Phillip hurt less and less, but the one she missed now was Eric.
As the holidays approached she spent many bittersweet evenings recalling the recent occasions they’d shared: the first night in the dark, poking through the house with a flashlight; the day he found her painting in the Belvedere Room, and the snow had begun outside; the day they’d eaten their sandwiches on the bench on Main Street; their trip to Sturgeon Bay. When had it begun, this insidious building of memories? And was he remembering, too? She had only to recall their last minutes together to feel certain he was.
But Eric Severson was spoken for, and she tried to bear that in mind as she filled her days and prepared for Christmas.
She called her father, and Roy came to help her carry in the mattresses from the garage, and move the twin bed down to the maid’s room, and to rejoice with her over the new furniture for the Belvedere Room, and to praise her wallpapering efforts.
She rfiade up the great hand-carved bed for the first time with eyelet sheets and puffy down comforter, then fell across it to stare at the ceiling and miss a man she had no right to miss, Mark Brodie called and invited her out to his club for dinner and she declined his invitation once again. He persisted, and she finally said, ‘All right. I’ll go.’
He did his best to impress her. A very private booth in a remote corner with discreet and gracious servers, linens, candlelight, crystal, champagne, escargots, Caesar salad mixed tableside, hot popovers, fresh abalone (which he’d had flown in especially for the occasion since it was not on the regular menu), and afterward Bananas Foster, again flamed tableside and served in fluted-stem glasses.
The entire meal, however, seemed flavoured by his cologne.
He was attentive to a fault and a brisk conversationalist, but he liked to talk about his own success. He drove a Buick Park Avenue that smelled inside exactly like him - spicy sweet and suffocating. When he took her home she almost leapt from it in relief and gulped the cold night air like a person coming up for the third time.
At her door he took her shoulders and kissed her.
French-kissed her. For damn near half a minute while she tested herself, resisting the impulse to shove him away, spit and wipe her lips. He wasn’t a masher. He wasn’t bad looking, unkempt, obnoxious or ill-mannered.
But he wasn’t Eric.
When the kiss ended he said, ‘I want to see you again.’
‘I’m sorry, Mark, but I don’t think so.’
‘Why?’ He sounded exasperated. I’ m not ready for this.’
“When will you be? I’ll wait.’
‘Mark, please...’ She drew away and he released her without further coercion.
‘If I may be so gauche, I’m not a fortune hunter, Maggie.’
‘I never thought you were.’
‘Then why not have some fun together? You’re single. I’m single. This town doesn’t have a lot of others like us.’
‘Mark, I have to go in now. It was a lovely dinner, and you have a lovely restaurant and a great future, I’m sure. But I have to go in now.’
“I’m going to break you down, Maggie. I’m not giving up.’
“Goodnight, Mark. Thank you for tonight.’
She called Brookie the next day and they made a trip to
Green Bay
to shop for lace curtains and Christmas presents, and to have lunch.
She admitted, ‘Brookie, I’m lonely. Do you know any single men?’
Brookie said, ‘What about Mark Brodie?’
Maggie replied, “I let him kiss me last night.’
‘And?’
‘Did you ever eat a mouthful of geraniums?’
Brookie choked on her soup and ended up doubled over the bowl with laughter and tears and split peas nearly doing her in.
Maggie ended up laughing, too.
When Brookie could speak again she asked, ‘Well, did you go in afterward and make meatballs?’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe you ought to ask him to change cologne.’
Maggie thought about it the next time he called and she turned him down. And the next.., and the next.
Katy called and said she’d be heading home on December 20 , right after her morning classes. Maggie put up her tree in the parlour and made fancy cookies and a rum-soaked fruitcake, and wrapped gifts and told herself it didn’t matter that she had no man of her own to buy for this year. There were her father and mother and Katy and Brookie. Four people who loved her. She should thank her blessings.
The weather warnings began on Tuesday morning but sceptics, meeting on the street, grinned and reminded one another, ‘They said the last two blizzards were headed our way, but we barely got enough snow to keep the winterkill off the shrubs.’
The snow began at
, sweeping out of
Canada
across
Green Bay
, fine shards that skittered like live things across ice-slicked roads and grew into a biting force mothered by fearsome thirty-mile-an-hour winds. By
schools closed. By
businesses followed suit. By
maintenance crews had been pulled off the roads.
Eric retired at ten P.M. but was awakened an hour later by the shrill of his bedside telephone.
‘Hello?’ he mumbled, still half-asleep.
‘Eric?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Bruce Thorson at the sheriff’s office in
Eric squinted at the clock, sat up and ran a hand through his hair in the dark. ‘Sure. Where do you want me?’
‘We’ll be dispatching Fish Creek volunteers through the Gibraltar Fire Station. Bring any emergency equipment you can spare.’
‘Right. I’ll be down there in fifteen minutes.’
He hit the floor hurrying. On his way downstairs he buttoned his shirt and zipped his pants. He put water in the microwave for instant coffee, found a large black garbage bag and threw in candles, matches, flashlight, newspapers, a bobcap, Nancy’s snowmobile suit and helmet (which she’d worn exactly once), a sack containing two leftover doughnuts, a bag of miniature Butterfinger candy bars and an apple. He pulled on his own silver snowmobile suit, boots, gloves, ski mask and helmet. A quick fill for the thermos, topped off by two glugs of brandy and he stepped outside looking like an astronaut ready for a moonwalk.
In the shelter of the house the storm appeared overestimated.
Then he moved off the back steps and sank into a drift to his hips. Halfway to the garage, the maelstrom hit him full in the face and he floundered, falling sideways as he struggled on. He shivered and waded to the garage door, where he was forced to shovel with his feet and hands to find the handles. Inside, the building was frigid - always more frigid on concrete than in the insulating snow. The sound of his own felt-lined boots on the icy floor reverberated in his covered ears. He filled the gas tank on his machine, tied a shovel and the bag of emergency supplies on the passenger seat, started the engine, and pulled outside. Already it was a relief to put his back to the wind while closing the overhead door. Shrugging and shivering, he faced the wind once more, boarded his machine and lowered his Plexiglas face shield, realizing it would be a long time before he climbed back into a warm bed.
The winds had escalated to near gale force, driving the snow in sheets that obliterated everything. Even from a block away, the red-and-blue Christmas lights on
Halfway to the fire station he heard the roar of an engine off to his left and glanced over his shoulder at a spectre looking much like himself, only dressed in black and riding a Polaris. He raised one hand and the other driver saluted back, then the two drove side by side until out of the swirling white maze the red light of the fire station guided them in.
Two other snowmobiles were parked out front. Eric left his machine idling. He threw a leg over the seat, raised his face shield and called, ‘Hall of a time to be rolled out of bed, ‘ey, Dutch?’
‘God, you said it!’ Dutch’s muffled voice came from behind his face shield before he flipped it up. ‘She’s a real piss-cutter, ain’t she?’ Dutch ploughed his way to Eric and the men slogged toward the brick building together.
Inside, Einer Seaquist was parcelling out emergency supplies to two other drivers. To one of them, he ordered, ‘Get over to Doc Braith’s as quick as possible. He’s got insulin for you to take out to Walt McClusky on
Take ‘em anywhere - motel lobbies, private homes, or bring ‘em back here. You need any supplies?’
‘Nope, got what I need,’ Eric replied.’
‘So do I,’ Dutch seconded. I’ll take EE.’
‘I’ll take 42,’ Eric said.
They left the fire hall together, ploughing down the steps where the wind had already obliterated the tracks they’d made coming in. Straddling the scat of his machine Eric felt the reassuring vibrations of the engine rise up to meet him and thought of how much faith men put in machinery.
Dutch, too, straddled his seat, reached for his faceguard and shouted, ‘Steer clear of barbed wire, Severson!’
‘You, too, Winkler!’ Eric returned, pulling his ski mask down and dropping his own faceguard.
They put their machines in gear and drove side by side, westward, along the length of
Eric spotted it first and pointed. But when they pulled up and started digging, they found it was only the boulder dubbed ‘the Lord’s Rock’, upon which the message, Jesus Saves, had created a landmark along Highway 4z for as long as Eric could remember.
On their machines again they drove as a pair until reaching the spot where Highway 4.z intersected with County Road EE. There, with a salute of farewell, Dutch veered off to the left and disappeared into the storm.
After Dutch’s departure, the temperature seemed colder, the wind keener, the snow sharper as it struck Eric’s face mask. His lone headlight, beaming first high, then low, like that of a train engine, seemed to be searching for the mate that had been beside it until now. The snowmobile rocked, sometimes bumped, sometimes flew, and he gripped the throttle harder, welcoming the shimmy of motion that climbed his arms and vibrated beneath his thighs - the only other sign of life in the vast, swirling night.
In time his limbs grew weary of shifting and balancing.
The thumb of his left hand began to freeze. His eyes began to hurt and he grew dizzy from squinting into the kaleidoscopic motion before him. Monotony dulled his senses, and he feared he might have passed a stalled car without observing it. A stretch of blacktop swept along his left flank and he swerved toward it, realigning himself with the centre of the road. Deep in his mind, beyond conscious thought, echoed Dutch’s warning, ‘Steer clear of barbed wire!’ Unwary snowmobilers had been decapitated hitting barbed-wire fences. Others who lived through it wore a red necklace of scars for the rest of their lives.