Flight (7 page)

She nods.

He pulls away from the curb.

Will she forget the cuts and bruises over time, she wonders? The finger marks on her throat hidden beneath turtlenecks; the swollen eyes made less obvious with makeup and wide-rimmed sunglasses; the bald patches where he'd yanked out her hair covered by woolen toques and baseball hats; the limps caused by charley horses made less noticeable by sitting more, calling in sick for work? How about the ruptured kidney from when he'd thrown her down the basement stairs? “I tripped,” she'd said when they asked. “One of the children's toys, I think. I said, I tripped. Thank God Kent was there
.
” The whole time him seated next to her hospital bed, his hands covering the one of hers she'd allowed outside the blanket.

* * *

THERE'S A REPRIEVE IN THE RAIN by the time Kent pulls the truck up to the main entrance of Hodder's Grocery and Convenience. Won't last long by the look of the sky though, she thinks.

Terry's squirting Windex on the inside of the door.

Kent presses the horn, letting it go on longer than necessary.

“Stop,” Emily says.

Terry looks up and waves, then goes back to spraying the glass.

“Why does he make you come in so early? You don't open till nine.”

She doesn't answer.

Kent looks at his watch, then back through the windshield at Terry. “That's another forty minutes.”

She feels a tightening in her chest. “There's stuff to be done.”

“Like washing the door with Windex just to have customers put their grubby fingers all over it the minute he opens?”

She says nothing.

Kent shakes his head. “Should have stayed in Corner Brook where he belongs.”

She reaches for the handle of the door. Pushes it open.

“Hey.” He's pointing to his lips.

“I'm sick.”

“I don't care.”

She moves over and presses her mouth to his. He touches the tip of her tongue with his own.

After they pull apart, he says, “If you start to feel worse, call me and I'll pick you up.”

“I will.”

“Wish me luck,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because we're negotiating a severance package with those St. John's bastards today.”

“Okay then, good luck.”

She's halfway out the door when he says, “Love you.”

“You too,” she says.

3

TERRY'S STANDING IN FRONT OF HER, holding the Windex bottle against his chest, his forefinger on the spray trigger. A roll of paper towels in his other hand. “Odd to see him drop you off.”

“The rain,” she says, coming closer. She holds out her hand for the Windex, “Let me – ”

“No.” He raises the bottle over his head though she's nearly as tall as he is. “I'll do it.”

She doesn't bother reaching for it.

Silence then, both of them just standing there.

The rain starts again, pattering against the roof, against the windows.

He's done something different with his hair this morning, she thinks. Given it the ‘messy' look.

Finally, she says, “I hope the wind doesn't change.”

“What?”

“Or else you'll end up that way.”

He lowers his hand. Smiles. “The silly stuff that youngsters say.”

In order to clear a path to the cash register, she has to step around him. Once there, she takes off her raincoat and stuffs it underneath. “

“There's coffee,” Terry says from his spot in front of the door.

“Maybe later.”

“Okay.” He turns around and starts spraying the windows next to the entrance.

She leaves the till and makes her way to the back of the store where the small supply of over-the-counter medication is kept on display: a few bottles of Pepto Bismol, some Vicks Vapour Rub, five or six containers of Absorbine Junior, and one small box of Shield Condoms, caramel flavoured. There's no Tylenol Extra Strength, so she settles for regular. She hates cherry-flavoured Halls, but that's all there is. She takes two packs.

Terry's right behind her when she turns around.

“Oh,” she says, “you scared me.” She thinks that the word in the dictionary would read:
Scared: See Emily.

“I just wanted to give you this.” He hands her the inventory list. Looks down at the medicine in her hands. “Sick?”

“Touch of the flu, I think.”

He takes a half step towards her. “Perhaps you ought to lie down. There's that fold-out in my office.”

“I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

She nods. “Let me just pay for this and then I'll get started.”

“It's on the house – ”

“Terry – ”

“You're doing the
inventory
, it's the least I can do.”

She notices flecks of dried blood on his neck from where he'd shaved. He's put on too much aftershave, its sharpness makes it hard to breathe. To escape it, she makes to go. “I'll start downstairs.”

“Wait.”

She stops.

“You'll need some water to wash down those pills.”

She watches him walk away – too much weight planted on the outsides of his feet, as if chaffed inner thighs prevent him from keeping his legs together, his hands plunged into trouser pockets where they can fiddle with loose change, his head tilted slightly to the right, as if in a perpetual state of trying to make sense of things. Nothing at all like her husband's walk, she knows: the lifted chin, expanded chest, confident arms hanging lazily at his sides, and the huge amount of space he covers with each step.

She touches her forehead, feeling the heat in her fingers, thinking that people reveal so much about themselves just by sauntering up the road or down to the store. Not hard, for instance, to notice Terry's indecisiveness. Or Kent's boldness. What does she give away, she wonders? Is fear there every time her heels strike the pavement? Worry, in her bowed head? Regret, in the way her eyes stay on the space in front of her feet?

In her mind's eye, she sees Kent's
other
walk. Most people just have the one, but not him. This one is slower, deliberate, like a cat about to pounce. A bend in each elbow and the furrowed brows and the chin pointed downward.

“Emily?”

She looks up. Terry's standing in front of her. “Oh.”

He's holding out a bottle of Evian. “You okay?”

She nods, embarrassed that she missed hearing his footsteps.

He hands the water over. “Best to keep hydrated if you're sick.”

As she makes her way through the ‘Employee Only' door, she hears him say, “

“Take lots of breaks.” And, “There's a sweater on the chair in my office if you find it chilly.”

She passes through the cluttered back room, narrowly avoids banging her shin against a pail of dirty water sitting in the middle of the floor. Before continuing on, she puts her Evian on the floor between her feet and then searches her pocket for one of the packages of Halls. Rips it open and pops one into her mouth. It tastes like cough syrup. She lets the lozenge slip beneath her tongue before picking up her water and starting down the stairs.

* * *

SHE PICKS UP THE NEARLY FILLED-OUT INVENTORY LIST, bringing it close to her face. Notices that the five she'd marked in the box across from the Carnation Milk looks more like a squiggle. The seven, across from the Chef Boyardee, is even worse, as if a Parkinson's sufferer wrote it. There are other numbers she can't make out at all. Is that a nine beside the Kraft Dinner, or a four?

Putting the list aside, she clasps her hands together in order to stop them from trembling. Tries to slow her breathing. Shoots a look towards the stairs, half expecting to see Kent walking down them.

She's just swallowed the last of her first package of Halls, her throat numb now instead of sore. The three Tylenol she took earlier are making her feel light-headed, like she's floating a few inches off the floor. The coolness of the basement, she thinks, is keeping her fever in check.

Again her eyes go to the stairs – “Stop it,” she says to herself. “Just stop it.”

She stands up, starts walking towards Terry's office. He's left his door wide open, as usual. It's dark inside, the air a mixture of burnt coffee and black licorice. Near his desk, she fumbles about for the lamp switch. At last she finds it. The light casts an eerie glow against the far wall.

She walks around his desk and, before taking a seat in Terry's swivel chair, drapes his knitted sweater over her shoulders. There's a lever on the side of the chair that adjusts its height, reclines it either forward or backward. He prefers to sit forward and high up.

Not a picture on his desk. No mother or father, no siblings, no girlfriend, not even a dog or a cat. Pries into
her
business all he wants, Terry does, but doesn't say a word about his own family life. All she knows is he was born in Corner Brook, and that his parents divorced when he was still a youngster, his father off with some young thing down in Florida somewhere, his mother living alone in the house where he was raised.

He moved here not even five years ago. People
leave
, they don't come, she'd thought back then when he'd waved to her from the front window of the old dance hall. Had it renovated in a few months, then changed its name and opened for business. Bought some land about seven miles outside of town and had a house built. Too big for one person. Sometimes she'll see him out walking, hands behind his back like a poet, or a tourist with nothing but time. She'll see him every now and then at the marina too, when she's with Kent and the kids. Terry'll raise an eyebrow from across the way, then sip his coffee, slurp his chowder from a big spoon. She'll pretend he's not there.

His paperwork is in a neat pile in the centre of his desk beside a mug filled with pencils and pens. There's a notepad near to the phone on the right, and a book of crossword puzzles. No computer. The stained oak is dust free, shined to a luster, smooth against her fingertips when she runs them along it.

She reaches inside her pocket and hauls out an old, already-paid electric bill. Flips it over to where she'd written the number down. Picks up the phone. Dials nine to get an outside line, then punches in the 1-800 number. She waits for the call to connect, then listens to the rings going through. Tells herself that she's safe, that no one can hurt her here. Still though, she keeps her focus on the door, as if, at any moment, Kent might come barreling through, his heavy breathing and unblinking eyes, no colour in his face, those pounding steps just behind her as she tries to get away, the hand gripping her hair, hauling her backwards and to the floor, all of his weight bearing down.

All the operators are busy the recorded voice says, first in English, then in French, and that her call is important and for her to stay on the line.

She waits while music comes through on the other end. A piano with an accompanying woodwind instrument. A saxophone? Heather would know, she thinks.

Her eyes go to the small filing cabinet, then rest on the nearly full pot of coffee on top, a container of Maxwell House beside it with its lid off, and a plastic spoon submerged. Like drinking maple syrup that coffee would be now, she figures. There's a plant beside the filing cabinet, a fern or something that, despite the lack of natural light, appears to be thriving.

For the first time in ages she feels hungry. Imagines her mother's goulash, topped with mozzarella cheese. Blueberry tart for dessert.

Someone human comes on the line. “Thank you for calling Air Canada. How may I assist you?”

“Hello. I'd like to confirm my reservations for this Friday,” Emily says, her voice low.

“Confirmation number, please,” says the female voice on the other end.

It's on her plane tickets, she bets, but they're underneath the basement floor. “I don't have it on me. Can you find my booking by my name?”

“What is it, please?”

“Gyles, G – Y – L – E – S, first name, Emily.” There's a tapping of computer keys in her ear. She takes a pen out of the mug.

“That's Emily Gyles?”

“That's right.”

“Traveling with a Jeremy and Lynette Gyles?”

“My children – yes.”

“Departure time from Gander airport is 11:00 a.m., Friday, the eighth of May, arriving in Halifax at 12:05 p.m. before departing for Toronto at 12:45 – ”

“Sorry, departing when?”

“Departing from Toronto at 12:45.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Arriving in Toronto at 3:00 p.m., and then departing for Vancouver at 5:30. Arrival time in Vancouver is 7:30 p.m.”

The information is already on her plane tickets, but Emily scribbles it all down, her fingertips white from holding the pen so tightly.

“Did you get all of that, Miss?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Alright. Take this down too. It's your confirmation number.”

“Okay.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“It's J –K – ”

“I'm sorry, but didn't you say it was a number?”

“It's a combination of letters and numbers.”

“Oh.”

Emily listens hard, writes the confirmation in block letters along the bottom of the bill.

“Best to check that everything's on schedule several hours before departure time. Quote the number I've just given you. Is there anything else, Miss?”

“No, that's all. Thank you.”

“Thank you for flying Air Canada. Have a nice day.”

She returns the phone to its cradle, but keeps her hand hovering over the top, the pad of her palm nearly touching. She exhales the breath she's been holding. A shiver goes through her. She feels its journey from her toes to her heels, up her calves and hamstrings, along her spine, and into her head.

If it's the right thing to do, then how can it suddenly feel wrong?