Flight (10 page)

Before Kent has a chance to open the door, Emily is there to do it for him.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he says, coming in, the bags covering his face to just below the eyes. Above the eyebrow on his left are six neatly sewn stitches.

“You didn't bring food, did you?” She steps aside to give him room to enter.

“Why?”

“Cause we brought your supper already,” her mother says. She points her head in the direction of her husband. “Felix, take a bag why don't you.”

“Chicken?” Kent says.

“And fries and coleslaw…”

“You must have been reading my mind, Shirley,” Kent says.

Emily's father is there now. He takes one of the bags before noticing Kent's eye. “You walk into a pole or what?”

Kent laughs. “I wish.”

Her mother rushes over, practically knocking Felix out of the way. “Your eye!” She says it like Kent's unaware of the gash himself. With her free hand, she appraises the damage, gently running two fingers along the freshly stitched wound like one would do on a piece of furniture to check for dust.

“A scratch is all.” Kent wriggles out of his shoes. “People tend to get upset when their livelihoods are being threatened.”

“Just take a look at this, Felix,” her mother says.

“I just did.”

“That's the thanks you get for all you've done?” Her mother lowers her hand. Takes a step back, then turns to Emily. “You report it?”

Kent laughs. “No need for that.”

Shirley looks back at Kent. “Aren't you on their side?”

“It was crazy yesterday. I don't think even
they
knew who they were swinging at half the time,” Kent says.

Emily goes over and takes the other bag from Kent, bringing it to the kitchen table. Puts it down and then stares across at them. When had her mother ever fussed over
her
like that?

Kent comes in, takes the bottle out from underneath his arm, and holds it up with the label towards Emily. “I got the Aussie kind.”

Jeremy runs over to him. “Pop did a pull up.”

“He did?” Kent says. “Wow.”

“Feel, feel.” Jeremy flexes his bicep until he turns red in the face.

“Almost as big as your old man,” Kent says.

“Hi, Daddy.” Lynette still holds a section of her hair.

“Hello, my love.” He lifts her into his arms and carries her into the kitchen. He puts her down in one of the chairs.

“Are we celebrating something?” Emily asks. When was the last time he brought wine home?

He puts the bottle down on the table. Breathes out slowly, like someone would upon realizing that the bad news they'd expected is not so bad after all. “We're close to setting up a nice severance package. Where's the corkscrew?” He moves over to the counter and hauls open a drawer. Finds one.

Her dad asks, “How nice?”

“Nice enough to keep the heat and lights going.” Kent comes back over. Picks up the bottle and inserts the spiraled blade. Twists the top like he's been opening wine all his life. Like there isn't anything he can't do. He pulls out the cork as easily as if it were a plug in the sink. “Nice enough to keep the deep freeze packed with meat,” he says, looking up at his father-in-law, a smile across his face. He holds the tip of the bottle under his nose. Closes his eyes. Inhales deeply.

As if he knows anything about wine, she thinks.

He opens them suddenly. “Glasses. We need glasses.”

Her mother makes to move toward the tumbler cupboard, but Kent stops her.

“The
good
ones, Shirley,” he says, indicating the dining room cabinet with a quick point of his chin.

“I'll help you, Mom,” Emily says.

It isn't really a dining room so much as an extension of the living room. There's no partition or change in the colour scheme or anything to indicate a separate living space, just a long oval table, its sur- face gleaming, in front of a floor-to-ceiling-window. For show, really. When was the last time anyone had sat there? The cabinet is flush against the wall. Taller than Kent. The sparkling glass allows an easy view of rows of cups and saucers, plates and bowls. Blindingly polished silverware. A shelf in the centre sports an immaculate row of whiskey glasses identical to the ones she'd given him three Christmases ago, and that he'd smashed in a fit of rage after she'd said something that he didn't like. Jeremy had stepped on a shard in his bare feet and needed it taken out at the clinic.

The wine glasses with the elegant stems are on the top, beside the flute glasses and the crystal.

“I need a chair,” she says to her mother.

Shirley takes the one at the head of the dining table, positioning it behind her daughter. Emily grips the tiny brass knobs and pulls. The seldom-opened doors stick for a moment before giving way. Everything inside the cabinet vibrates.

“Careful,” her mother says.

She stands on the chair. “I'll hand them down to you.” She does so slowly, one after the other, both hands on each thread-thin stem, as if the glasses were ticking bombs.

She lets go of the fourth one before her mother has a chance to grab it. It breaks against the hardwood.

“Everything all right in there?” Kent says.

Her mother turns in the direction of the kitchen. “Just a broken wine glass.”

Emily gets off the chair. “Why didn't you grab it?”

“It was nowhere near my hand.”

Kent comes in with a broom and dustpan. “Excuse me, ladies.”

They move aside, but watch him as he sweeps up all the pieces.

“Lately, she's always dropping something,” he says to her mother.

She feels like she's not even in the room.

“The other day it was a cup of coffee. A pan of french fries the day before that.” He squeezes between them, back to the kitchen.

Emily gets back on the chair to try again for that fourth wine glass.

“Nothing but a waste of money,” her mother says, finally.

Emily pauses to look down at her. “What?”

Her mother points up to where the good crystal jug is, its top made more visible now that the wine glasses in front have been removed. “You never use it.”

She thinks of it in Kent's hands last night: the rising and falling of his chest as he held it in front of himself, the whites of his eyes in the dark, the smell of rain despite there not being any, and the damp sheets. Cold. So cold.

She hands down the last wine glass, then closes the cabinet doors. Slides the chair back in place before brushing past her mother without bothering to help her carry the glasses in.

* * *

IT'S NEARLY DARK WHEN HER PARENTS decide it's time to go. Her father, with Lynette in his arms, is the first to step out onto the front porch, then Kent, one hand in his pocket and his laces untied.

Emily's surprised to see Jeremy holding his grandmother's hand. He used to hold
her
hand like that. It occurs to her, since the top of his head goes past his grandmother's shoulder, that her little boy is not so little after all. How could she not have noticed until now? What else has she not noticed, she wonders? Before she started planning an escape, there had always been after-school chats: Jeremy sitting on the arm of the chesterfield and Lynette in her lap. Each of their accomplishments would be posted on the fridge back then – Jeremy's A in Physical Education or Lynette's drawing from Art class. When was the last time she'd posted anything? Or sat either of them down for a real talk? I haven't
really
been here, she realizes. Not lately. Not like I should be.
Used
to be.

“Fine evening,” her mother says.

They've all stopped to linger on the porch.

“Like summer,” Kent says. “Nearly.”

The wind's warmer than it had been earlier. A clear sky now with a half-moon, the perfect night for stargazing. She can make out Venus, and the Little Dipper.

“Are you sure we can't convince you to stay?” Kent asks.

“You know Felix, Kent. Can fall asleep at a booth in a restaurant, but claims he can't sleep in a bed that isn't his own.”

“I wish
you'd
sleep more so your tongue would stop flapping,” Felix says.

“A flapping tongue,” Jeremy repeats, laughing.

They walk down the porch stairs to the driveway.

At the car, her mother says, “You should bring the kids this weekend.”

She doesn't speak. The roar of the Boeing 747 that she and the children will have taken by then is in her ears.

“Can we, Mommy?” Lynette says, from high up in her grandfather's arms.

“We'll see, sweetie.”

Her father kisses Lynette before putting her down. Goes over and shakes Jeremy's free hand. Looks at his wife. “Let's go, unless you plan on swimming across.”

Emily goes to him, hugs too hard. Doesn't want to let go.

“I'll see you soon, sure,” her dad says.

“I know,” she says, letting him go finally. She goes to her mother and kisses her coolly on the cheek.

Kent walks her father to the driver's side door. Shakes his hand; her dad won't look him in the eye. Kent comes back and hugs her mother. “Good to see you, Shirley.” He opens the passenger side door for her.

“Convince that wife of yours to come this weekend,” Shirley says, ducking her head and getting in.

Kent waits for her to swing her legs in before closing the door.

Her father says to Kent, “Let us know about the severance package offer.”

Kent nods. “Will do.”

“And be sure to keep that cut clean,” her mother says.

“I got the best woman in the world to take care of that,” he says, reaching out and taking Emily's hand.

They watch the car back out of the driveway.

“Be good youngsters!” Her mother shouts through her rolled-down window, just as the car pulls away.

Jeremy and Lynette run out into the street, waving.

His grip on her hand tightens. “Let's go in,” he says.

5

HE'S PRESSING EACH OF HER WRISTS into the mattress above her head. His grip is so strong. She imagines her blood fighting to make its way through her too-thin veins, then clotting, bulging before exploding. Dark purple spreading out near the top of her skin.

He flips her over suddenly. Because he can. Because he's used to getting what he wants. Because she knows better than to fight. She turns her head, letting her right cheek sink into the pillow that smells of him: outdoors and gasoline. The moonlight, through an opening in the blinds, is casting their shadows on the opposite wall. It's like she's spying on two other people, the larger of them on top, going up and down with metronome-like rhythm. The bottom shadow perfectly still. So small it might not even be there.

Why does he never seem to be able to take any of his own weight?
Stop, you're crushing me!
It's like her life being snuffed out, little by little.

He bites her lower neck.

She doesn't cry out.

He's salivating. Droplets falling against her skin. Clumps of her hair in his hands. Deep breaths and strained moans. Grunts.

She's silent. Deadened now to the part of him inside her. Hadn't always been. In another life it seems to her now, she'd been louder than he: lifting herself to meet his thrusts, holding onto him like he was the last person on earth. Then lying with him afterwards. From that to this, she thinks. That. This.

He tenses – shudders, then goes still. The shadows on the wall, she notices, have gone still, too. He says her name. At least she thinks it's her name. Perhaps it was a moan that sounded like it.

“I can't breathe,” she says.

He gets off, still pulsating, still stiff.

She rolls onto her back, filling her lungs as if for the first time. Slips beneath a sheet.

“Don't.”

“What? ”

“Cover up.” He pulls the blanket off. “Let me look at you.”

He does. Then says, “You didn't make a sound.”

“Didn't I?”

He lays his palm on her stomach, just above her belly button. “Let's go somewhere.”

“What?”

“Just you and me.”

They haven't gone anywhere in ages.

“We'll leave the kids with your parents.”

She pauses. Then says, “Where?”

“St. John's.”

St. John's, she thinks. Kent's centre of the universe. There's so much more to see beyond the Narrows of St. John's harbour, she imagines. Perhaps one day, when the children are older, she'll get a chance to see it. Without
him
, though.

“We'll stay at the Battery and you can shop all weekend.”

Without him
. She lets the words drift inside her mind. Waking…
without him
, suppers…
without him
, holidays…
without him
, everything…
without him.
She turns to look out the window, unsure what to call the feeling in her belly.

“Wouldn't you like that?” he asks.

I'd rather die than go anywhere with you
. She nods.

“When was the last time you bought yourself something?” he says.

“I buy plenty.”

“Something fancy, I mean. A nice dress, or jewelry?”

She can't remember the last time she's worn a dress. And it's hard to get earrings in since she's allowed the holes to grow over.
A nice
dress
.
Jewelry
. She imagines her hair unbound, and a tinge of eyeliner. Long nails instead of bitten ones, and smooth, unchapped lips. In her mind, she's being stared at. Desirable again. Sexy again. A woman again.

“How about Friday?” he says.

She nods again, absent-mindedly.

“With everything that's been going on, I could use a little break.” He raises himself to one elbow. “It's settled then. We'll bring the kids to your mother's on Friday morning and spend the weekend in Town. Come back on Monday. Fuck it, Tuesday – we'll come back Tuesday. We deserve a little rest.”