Sweet Jesus (17 page)

They buried Fenton in an oak casket and Zeus couldn’t look at the final resting place so definitively in the ground. He didn’t want the memory of it, or the knowledge that Fenton was buried dressed in clothes chosen by his father. Brand new. Probably uncomfortable. He should have been laid to rest in a costume made of swan feathers.

At a distance from the grave, he leaned up against a grey stone angel pitted and flecked with orange lichen and raised his eyes to the sky. It was natural to think that’s where Fenton was. Up there, somewhere, because it was infinite space. It was the unknown. It wasn’t heaven. It’s just that, where else are you supposed to look?

Oh Fenton, he thought, how am I going to survive without you? Where do I go now?

Two men from the funeral came over and lifted him back onto his feet. Had he fallen over? Don’t touch me, Zeus said. He felt panicked. I’m sorry, please leave me alone, he begged them, backing away and then stumbling over another grave. Something was happening to him. It made him feel sick. He was somewhere with a huge crowd and loud music and people everywhere, laughing and crying. He was just a boy, he was only fifteen. Of course he didn’t understand what was going on. He was confessing to a small group of people that he was worthless. He really felt it, like there was nothing good in him at all. He was sitting on a chair, and people kept putting their hands on him. He remembered that on the floor nearby a woman was lying on her back, shaking like an epileptic. Suddenly, her head and limbs rose off the floor and she cried out as if something was being extracted, a long tapeworm dragged out of her mouth.

War Lord! someone shouted and he didn’t understand why. Tim had told him they were going to a special religious service, and had taken him to a conference centre somewhere in the suburbs. Zeus felt like he was losing himself, and it was terrifying, but there was pleasure in it too. He was caught up in the emotional swell, feeling the satisfaction of his father’s approval. There was a note of triumph in the voices as they prayed for him. It was so loud, he couldn’t think.

Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, and renounce the devil and all his works?

I do, he’d said, and someone clapped him on the back. More Lord! someone shouted, and he realized it wasn’t
war
Lord, it was
more
Lord.

At some point, Tim knelt down in front of him, his face softer with love and approval than Zeus had ever seen it. Son, your life’s in God’s hands now, he’d said, and you can’t go astray. Zeus had tried to get up, but two big men pinned him to the chair, as if they were supporting him, but the next day there were bruises on his arms.

Several hours later, Zeus was standing next to the red-brick fireplace in the Murches’ crowded living room, eating a toasted white-bread triangle, spread with chicken liver pâté. He was stroking the edge of the shag carpet with his toes when Ronald Murch came over and handed him a large padded envelope with his name on it, in Fenton’s unmistakable hand. Fenton had touched this envelope! Written his name on it! It was like a small resurrection. A white shock of electricity.

Fenton asked me to give this to you.

Zeus stretched his bottom lip into a shield against the physical urge to cry. Ronald held out his hand and they shook, and Zeus knew they would never see each other again.

He moved into the hallway and stood beside the stairs. He stared at the envelope and slowly flipped it twice, got his thumb under the flap and tore it open. Inside was a manila folder and two neat packets of hundred-dollar bills. How much money was that? Zeus removed the folder and opened it and took out the first thing. Attached with a paperclip to a handwritten letter was the colour photocopy of a picture of two people at an outdoor party or a barbecue, drinking beer, a man and a
woman in their late thirties, early forties. Zeus was transfixed, felt his legs go weak. Was it a picture of his parents? He could recognize his own features in their faces. They looked happy, a little drunk, laughing and toasting the photographer. His father looked tough but good-humoured, his mother softer, her hair long, still beautiful. Where did Fenton get it? All this time. He’d gone so long without seeing their faces. Zeus sank to his knees at the bottom of the stairs and let the envelope slide onto the floor. He leaned forward on his hands and for the second time that day tried not to hyperventilate.

Ruth Murch rushed past him on the way to the kitchen. She reappeared with a paper bag and, with the top folded over her hand like the petals of a flower, held it to his mouth.

Breathe deeply, she said, and the bag started to shrink and expand with the sound of small breaking twigs. Dark vertical streaks appeared on either side of the bag. His breathing calmed, and Zeus sat back on his feet.

What does the letter say? she said in a soft voice. Is it from Fenton?

He slipped the photograph out from its paperclip and read the letter beneath.

I
t was mid-morning. Connie was standing in the kitchen, her hands resting on a cold bag of milk that was on the counter. She was just about to lift it by the corner and drop it into its tight jug when the doorbell rang. She went to answer it, checking her watch on the way. She needed to pick Theo up from his play date in an hour and a half. Passing the hallway mirror, she noticed how unbrushed her hair was. Her eyes looked puffy. She was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. Did I look this shabby when I drove the kids to school this morning? Whatever happens, Connie, she scolded herself, don’t you dare let yourself go.

The doorbell rang a second time.

Coming, she said and opened the door. An enormous man in work boots and jeans stood there with a clipboard. In the drive behind him, a long white moving truck. She put her hand to her chest, sucked in a short, quick breath, and took a step backwards. She knew something was unravelling and didn’t know how to find the source, to tug it back and keep the rest of her life from coming undone as well.

I’ve got a court order here to repossess the house, he said and turned the clipboard around and pointed it at her stomach. Sign there. He held out a pen. He wore a name tag that said,
Jim
. She took the pen and signed. How could she not? And then Jim walked past her and four more men came around the door and walked inside.

They wore sandy-coloured work boots and loose jeans, and two had open, long-sleeved checkered shirts over t-shirts. Two of them wore leather weightlifting belts. One had a t-shirt that said,
I offered my honour, she honoured my offer. All night long, I was honour and offer
.

Jim was delegating. You and Stacy start at the top and work your way down. Jackson, you start in the basement. We got five hours and I wanna be outta here on time today. Excuse me, ma’am, but you might wanna get dressed and out of the way if I was you.

Connie hadn’t moved.

You don’t know what’s going on, he said, do you.

Connie shook her head.

Jim made a sucking noise in his mouth. Scumbag, he said. Fucking love this job. Okay, ma’am, so we’re here to take all your furnishings and appliances, he said slowly and loudly, as if talking to a deaf person. It’s called a repossession. I take it your husband didn’t warn you? Which means you didn’t get much of a chance to stash anything away, but I’m afraid we can’t make any exceptions. Not once we get started. The best thing you can do, little lady, is stay out of our way and let us do our job, okay? That’s all it is. At the end of the day, it’s just a job. Jim nodded a few times and, satisfied he’d made himself clear, headed down the hall.

From the den, Connie heard him yell, Hey, we got a baby grand in here! Shithouse, go get the hoisters!

Jim came into the kitchen a few minutes later. Connie was standing next to the counter, holding that bag of milk at the end of her arm, unable to move.

Look, lady, Jim said, coming up behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder and Connie spun around and gave him a backhanded slap across the face with that cold, damp bag of milk. In her mind she’d killed him. Smacked everything she’d ever known out of her life. There was no one left to trust.

Jim gave an abrupt laugh, loud and aggressive. Well, fuck me, he said. If you’d’a told me this morning. And then a dark menace passed over his features. You better get dressed, lady, and get the hell outta my way. This house doesn’t belong to you anymore.

Rose had offered to come pick up Connie and the kids, over at Mary-Beth’s. There wasn’t any time for discussion. Mary-Beth held Connie by the shoulders and said, Things have a way of working out.

Connie couldn’t pause enough in the moment to feel the reassurance of her friend’s faith. All she could do was plead with her eyes and then hug her. Mary-Beth stood in her doorway and waved goodbye.

Her mother was being overly cheerful and she smelled of perfume and her bracelets jangled and she was intent on distraction. She played a
CD
of children’s songs on the car stereo, and they sang ’skimmery Rinky Dinky Do’ over the Malahat while Connie stared at the passing trees, feeling haggard and destroyed. When they arrived at her parents’ place, her mother stopped the car and flashed her a look as if everything was
of course
going to be okay. She patted her leg in a way that made
Connie flinch, then bundled the children out of the car and into the house and set about getting dinner ready and making up extra beds.

After dinner, the kids went upstairs to watch a movie in their grandparents’ bedroom. In the kitchen, Rose needled Connie with statements about how she must be feeling this or must be feeling that. Connie hated how her mother’s attempts at empathy always sounded instead like a projection of her own emotions. While Rose made tea, Connie leaned forward with her elbows on the counter and held her head. How at once selfless and narcissistic a mother’s love can be. There was so much about each other that she and her mother didn’t know. Will I be the same with my own children? Connie wondered. She wished, with an intensity she could feel in her body, to be better than that.

Her dad came home and they sat in the living room and Connie told her parents about the man with the clipboard and the moving truck, how they’d taken things right off the walls, emptied drawers onto the floor, stripped the beds and taken the mattresses. Rose started to cry, and Tim pinched the bridge of his nose and kept his eyes closed while he said, They couldn’t have taken everything. When are you allowed to go back and get the rest of your stuff?

I’ve got forty-eight hours to rent a U-Haul trailer, Connie said.

Okay, Tim said. We’ll help you with that in the morning.

And then, defeated, Connie lay down on the couch and fell asleep for forty-five minutes and woke abruptly.

It was dark outside. Across the living room, her mother was knitting a child’s sweater. Rose lifted the strand of wool and pulled another length out of a plastic bag at her feet. Feel better? she asked.

Not really, Connie said.

The furnace kicked in and the forced air blew, warm and dry, into the house. Her father came down the stairs. They’re all asleep, he said. I told them a bedtime story about a boy on a flying ship who made his own wind by eating cans of beans and sailed all over the world. Tim chuckled and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Connie realized that her father was getting old. He was drifting towards jolly distractedness, and she wanted to catch him before he got there and say, I love you.