Flight (4 page)

Heather sucks on her straw, then says, “Better off sinking this shit-hole town into the bay.”

Emily imagines herself standing on some other shore, watching as the last of Lightning Cove sinks beneath the ocean: the cross atop of St. Paul's; the dome of the parish hall where, by now, the layoffs have already been announced; the last of the jagged rock peppered along the hill behind Jeremy and Lynette's school. She sees Kent's face slip beneath the water too. Him along with this life she's been living.

“We should get back, break's over.” She goes to stand up, but Heather reaches out and grabs her wrist.

“Place won't fall apart if we take a few more minutes.”

She sits back, wishing she were less tentative, braver, like her younger co-worker. Might have left Kent ages ago if she were, she thinks.

“Terry's probably got his chubby hand wrapped around his stopwatch by now wondering why we're not back at our tills.” Heather squeezes the now-empty Crush can, throwing it into the bin beside the back door.

“He's okay.”

“Never said he wasn't, just anal is all.”

In the silence, the young woman jams the ball of her tongue ring into the space between her front teeth.

Emily points to her own tongue. “It hurt getting that?”

Heather shakes her head. “The guys love it.”

“How do you mean?”

A grin lifts one corner of Heather's lips. “Are you serious?”

“What?”

“You don't know?”

Emily shakes her head. “Know what?”

Heather simulates giving a blowjob.

Emily watches for second. “Oh.”

“Apparently the stud feels good against the head of the guy's dick.”

She nods slowly but doesn't say a word.

“The last guy I did it to made such a racket I thought his bag caught fire or something.”

There's a second of dead air before the laughter comes. Emily bends forward, her hands pressed against her stomach. There's the fight to try and breathe then, tears running down their cheeks, feet pounding the ground. Finally, when it seems like they've gotten themselves back under control, Heather adds, “The best twelve seconds of his life.” This sends them into fits again, stomachs burning, tight jaws, hands gripping upper thighs.

After the second bout of laughter recedes, and they've caught their breath, Emily says, “Perhaps
I
ought to get one.”

Heather looks across at her. “Your hubby could use it, that's for sure.”

“What's that mean?”

“Oh come on, he's that wound up I'm surprised he hasn't given himself an aneurysm or something.”

Emily looks away. After a moment, she says, “It's the plant business. All those people getting laid off and him not being able to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, well, nothing lasts forever, right?”

Tell-it-like-it-is Heather, she thinks. Younger than herself by six years and yet she already knows so much more. Perhaps it has some- thing to do with Heather being in a rock band, Emily thinks, having the freedom to hop in a van and take to the open road and play in nightclubs and Lion's Club halls in every little town from here to St. John's. Standing centre stage with all eyes on you and all ears open to the sound of your voice as it's amplified through thick black speakers.

Emily tries to remember the last time she went anywhere. If not for work, and walking the kids to school, she thinks she'd never leave the house.

The sound of her name snatches her from her thoughts. “What?”

“Where'd you go?”

“Hmm?”

“I said your name three times.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm a bit out of it, I think. Barely slept last night.”

“Me neither.” Heather smiles.

“What did you want?”

“I was wondering if we could do a shift-swap.”

“When?”

“You take my Friday and I'll take your Saturday – ”

“Can't. ”

“The manager of the bar we played in last night booked us for another show – What? You can't? Is that what you said?”

Emily doesn't answer.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing. I'd switch with you if I could, but I can't this Friday, that's all. Sorry.”

In the silence they both slant their faces towards the sky, the gathering breeze against their young skin, the sun warming the tops of closed eyelids, their noses alive, finally, to the smells of spring – black earth and grass and dog shit and the sea.

A car with a dying muffler roars past. A distant shout from a mother beckons a playing son in for lunch. A dog barks, then stops. Barks again.

“Why don't you eat?” Heather says.

Emily looks at her. “I do.”

“Really? When was the last time I've seen you eat something?”

“Come inside then and you can watch me eat a bag of ketchup chips.”

“Just tell me that you don't have an eating disorder.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

She can't help but laugh as she gets to her feet. “We should go back in.”

“It's not funny. An old drummer friend of mine used to be into that shit and she almost died. Eighty fuckin' pounds she was.”

Emily sits back down. “I don't have an eating disorder.”

“Explain all the weight you've been losing then.”

“A few pounds, that's all.” Closer to ten, she knows. Worry weight. Nearly 130 three months ago. “I haven't had much of an appetite lately.”

“Swear to God?”

“Swear to God.” She takes Heather's wrist and pulls her to her feet.

They walk towards the back door.

“I should have you over to my place for supper some time,” Heather says. “Mom'll put five pounds back on you with all the butter she uses.”

Emily pulls open the door, stepping aside to let Heather pass before going in herself.

6

SHE CAN'T GET THE NEEDLE INTO THE FABRIC. She gets up from the kitchen table and goes over to the stove, flicking on the light above it. Tries again. Still can't get the needle through. It's her hands; they're shaking. “Goddamn it,” she says, throwing the crossstitch onto the floor. “Goddamn this.” She jams her hands inside her pockets to steady them. Fights the urge to cry. Not too long ago, she could finish a decent sized one in two or three nights. How long now has she been working on this one, she wonders? Two weeks? Three? And this one simpler too than the others.

A deep breath in before she reaches down and picks it up, then goes back over and sits again at the kitchen table. She lays the crossstitch down in front of her. All that's done is part of the log cabin and the hill beyond it. There's still the sea and the sky and silhouetted birds flying in front of a reddish sun to finish.

She imagines herself behind the cabin's walls; her children, in light sweaters, running through the fields in back, their echoing laughter, a fire in the wood stove and a cup of tea on her lap. Then the children coming in, their heavy breathing and red faces. “Come sit with me,” she hears herself saying, “I'll read to you.” They doze as she reads, the smell of earth and sea on them. She imagines herself looking to the door, expecting him to burst through, looking for a place to unload his torment. But not even Kent can find her here.

The sound of Kent's tires in the driveway make her jump. Between the heavy wheels on the crushed rock and the idling and then shutting off of the truck's engine, she manages to grab his macaroni and cheese from the oven and put it on the table. By the time she hears the slamming of the driver's side door, she's already removed the tinfoil and fetched him the ketchup and a Canadian from the fridge. She fills a tumbler with water as his steps travel up the stairs and then along the porch. Water spills over the edges of the glass and onto the hardwood floor as she carries it to the table. She lays it down just as she hears him grip the doorknob. A cool breeze from outside rushes in and brushes against her face when he pushes it open. She's there at the entrance of the foyer when he steps inside.

“You're so late,” she says. It's too dark to see his face.

He kicks off his shoes and pushes by her. Not bothering to take off his jacket, he goes straight for the bottle of beer. With his back to her, he twists the cap and then takes a gulp.

There's a tingle in her stomach, numbness on the soles of her feet. She moves towards him, slowly. “Are you all right?”

He slams the bottle on the table, freezing her in midstride, then turns in her direction.

She notices an open gash above his right eye, blood trickling from the wound.

When did her hands go up to her mouth, she wonders? “Oh my God! What happened?” She's unable to move. Wonders if she ever will again.

Kent touches the cut with a few fingers, covering the tips with fresh blood, then lowers them to take a look. He wipes the mess on his good pants. “Everything I've done for them and this is the thanks I get.”

She can barely make out his words.

Between his open jacket, she notices a tear along the neck of his cashmere sweater, and three red lines just below his Adam's apple. Nail marks, she thinks.

He pulls out a chair but doesn't sit in it, makes to grab his beer again but doesn't pick it up.

“Let me wash it,” she whispers.

He doesn't say anything.

She
is
able to move after all, slipping past him like a stranger, through the kitchen and down the hall. Each creak of the floor, each crack of ankle or knee, or wind against the windowpanes, or her own breath, she hears as if for the first time.

A door opens. She turns, knows who it is despite the dark. “Go back to bed.”

“Daddy home?”

“Yes. Now go back to bed.”

“I want to see him.”

She's able to grab her daughter's shoulder before Lynette has a chance to move towards the kitchen. How familiar her tiny body is, Emily thinks, every toe and finger, every scratch and bruise she knows as if they were her own.

She drops to her knees and turns Lynette around so that she's facing her. “Remember how sometimes Daddy needs to be by himself?”

Her face is in shadow, yet Emily sees her nodding.

“This is one of those times, sweetie.”

“But –”

“I”ll tell Daddy to come and wake you first thing in the morning. How's that?”

“But I want to see him now –”

“No!” Emily shakes her, then picks her up and carries her back to bed. She pulls the covers up to just below her daughter's neck. Goes to kiss her cheek and tastes salt on her lips. These are the times she hates him most, when she has to grab and shout to protect them. “I'm sorry, baby. Mommy didn't mean it.” She wipes the tears from Lynette's face, then swipes at one of her own. “Give me a hug.”

Lynette does.

“I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

* * *

HE'S PACING THE KITCHEN WHEN SHE COMES BACK IN, his face pointed towards the floor, mumbling to himself, oblivious to her.

She stands at the threshold, watching him, Polysporin and a wet cloth in her hand. Never before has she seen him this way, unraveled. She moves to the table and slides out a chair, her free hand resting on its back. “Please sit.”

He stops pacing and looks over at her, surprised to find someone else in the room.

“Won't you?” She moves around to the side of the chair.

He approaches. There's a dried rivulet of blood all the way down to his chin. The chair's wood groans under the weight of him as he drops onto it.

Using the damp cloth, she wipes away the blood on his chin, along his cheek, and to the place above his eye. The wound is deeper than she'd expected. “This'll need stitches.”

“No.”

He doesn't even flinch when she presses the cloth directly onto the exposed flesh. An inch lower, she thinks, and he'd have lost his eye.

She crouches between his parted legs and, in silence, washes and then applies a thick coating of Polysporin. How stale his breath is, like sickness, against her face. His forehead slick with sweat despite the coolness of the room. The trousers she'd given him last Father's Day covered in dirt.

On her haunches now, a palm on each of his knees, she surveys her work. Blood still trickles from the cut's corners. “You
need
stitches –”

“No, I said.”

She takes her hands away from his legs. “I'll get some Band-aids.”

Returning, she finds him leaning forward in his chair with his face in his hands. A long time passes before she says, “Tell me what happened.” She takes several steps towards him.

He doesn't move.

“Please.”

More silence passes until, finally, he lifts his face to look at her, half of him in shadow. “On the hall steps they were, calling me down to the dirt.” His voice is low and gravelly, almost parched.

She comes closer, so if she'd wanted, she could reach out and touch him. “Who?”

“Them from the plant. Who do you think? ‘I'm not the one who stole your Jesus jobs,' I said.”

How many meetings in St. John's had he gone to in order to get them better wages, she wonders? And a full year maternity leave instead of the six months? How many times had he taken from his own pocket to help someone who'd just been laid off? Groceries for one, a light bill for another. Sure, hadn't he paid half of Carl Rideout's mortgage last year? “You can't provide for them all,” she'd had to say to him.

“The St. John's crowd got out through the back, so then they turned on me. ‘Boys, it's
me
!' I said. An empty Pepsi bottle hit me then.” Kent points to the still bleeding spot above his eye. “Knocked me right off my feet. I had too many demands, they said. Can you believe that? ‘I asked for what I thought you deserved,' I said. Some grabbed hold of my hair then. That's when Myles Baker and Tom Bennet and a few others broke it up. ‘That's enough,' Myles said.”