February Read online

  Tell her to wait, Dave, until you get there. She can’t walk in this.

  Be watching out for me, he’d say.

  The cars Dave and Meg bought always had the new-car smell, and the two of them were vigilant about upkeep and oil changes and winter tires. They would not let Helen spend money on taxis.

  Tell her to save her money, Meg would say.

  Hang tight, Dave would say. They would not let her walk the length of herself. Don’t be dragging them youngsters out in the weather.

  Her motherin-law had babysat for Helen and offered to do her laundry and sent down cooked meals when the babies were born and had the family over for Sunday dinner every week.

  Dave had called about Cal’s body and Helen had leaned against the kitchen counter with the phone. She was looking out the window as she listened to Dave speak about the bodies in a voice that was intimate and far away. Dave had called to spare her. He wanted to tell Helen there was no need for her to go. He seemed to want to talk.

  I took hold to Cal’s hand, Dave said. His hand was there under the sheet. Had his wedding ring on. You’ll want that ring, Helen, and I’ll make sure you get it. I said to the man there, My son’s wife is going to want that ring. I took Cal’s hand and held on to it. I held on to his hand. I don’t think you want to see him, Helen. I said the same thing to Meg. I said to his mother, I don’t think you should go over there. That’s all. That’s what I said to her. That’s all there is to it. Some of the bodies, I said. I said to Meg. I don’t think you want to see. The place is all a shambles. It’s orderly over there but there are a lot of bodies. I said goodbye to him, Helen, Dave said. That may sound foolish.

  He was silent for a while and Helen didn’t speak either. She could see through her window, over the back fence, the deep yellow square of light from her neighbour’s kitchen. The neighbour—she was some kind of actress—was at the sink washing dishes. Helen watched her putting plates in the rack. Then a man was standing beside her. The actress turned from the sink and she and the man spoke. Not long, just a few words. The woman left the sink and followed the man into the dark hall at the back of the kitchen. Helen felt a welter of jealousy. The couple framed in all that yellow light, the white plate in the woman’s hands as she paused to listen, and the man turning into the dark hallway. Why Cal? Why her husband? Why Cal? Then Dave spoke again.

  I don’t think we’re going to get over this one, he said. This one is a hard one. Meg is in there in the bedroom. She went in to lie down.

  It doesn’t sound foolish, Helen said. Holding his hand and saying goodbye. That doesn’t sound foolish. A giggle escaped her. She was so far outside of everything. Some half-hysterical sound came out and she covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

  The light went off in the kitchen across the yard. The garden was dark now and Helen could see snowflakes. It was still snowing.

  Dave kept talking and didn’t know he was talking, but it was also an effort to talk; Helen could tell. Dave sucked in air through his teeth the way someone does when he is lifting something heavy. He kept saying the same things. He kept saying about holding Cal’s hand. Not to worry about the ring. She would get the ring, he’d make sure. That Cal’s glasses were in his pocket. That Cal had on a plaid flannel shirt. The receiver felt sweaty and it was dark early in the afternoon because it was February, and it would be dark for a long time. It was silent out in the dark except for the wind knocking the tree branches together.

  Helen hadn’t ever believed that Cal had survived, but the news of his body was a blow. She had wanted the body. She had needed the body and she could not say why. But the news of the body was awful.

  There were people who went on hoping for months. They said there must be some island out there, and that’s where the survivors were. There was no island. Everybody knew there was no island. It was impossible. People who knew the coast like the back of their hand. But they thought an island might exist that they hadn’t noticed before. Some people said there might be. Those people were in shock. Some mothers kept setting the table for an empty seat.

  Someone on one of the supply boats had seen a lifeboat go under with all the men strapped into the seats, twenty men or more, with their seat belts on, going under.

  The morning of the fifteenth, Cal’s mother had phoned the Coast Guard and argued with them.

  She shouted, You’ve got the wrong information. The company would have informed the families if the men were dead. Meg hoped for the whole day and well into the next day. A great rage had blistered over the phone between Helen and her motherin-law because Meg said there was hope and Helen didn’t say anything.

  I know he’s alive, Meg said.

  Helen had no hope at all, but like everybody else she had needed the body of her loved one. She had needed Cal’s body.

  She listened to her father-in-law talk about the bodies he’d seen, and her purse was on the counter and she picked it up and clutched it to her chest as if she were about to go out, but she just stood there listening. She thought about Meg lying down in the bedroom. Meg would not have bothered to take off her clothes. Maybe not even her shoes. The curtains would be drawn.

  Helen had wanted Cal’s body and now it had been found and she was afraid of it. She was afraid of how cold it would be. What kind of storage facility was it in? They must keep the temperature low. She was, for some reason, afraid of Cal’s being very, very cold. Her heart speeded up as if she’d just run down the street, but she was stuck to the kitchen floor.

  She wanted to ask someone what to do about the body and the person she wanted to ask was Cal. She was going over it with him in her head. Not thinking it out exactly, but telling him about the problem. She wanted to get off the phone so she could ask Cal what to do.

  You don’t want to remember him that way, Dave said. She heard a loud spank of water, a great gushing slap, and looked out into the hall. She had let the bath run over and the water had come through the ceiling. There was water everywhere. The children came out of the living room where they had been watching TV and stood at the end of the hall looking at her on the phone. Mommy, they screamed. The water poured down in fat ropes and thin sheets that tapered to a point and got fat again. Sheets of water that slapped the linoleum, and Helen shouted, Get out of the way. She told Dave she had to go. She ran up the stairs two at a time. When she came back downstairs the receiver was on the counter, buzzing hard.

  She would call her sister Louise to drive her to Cal’s body, she decided. She did not have to tell Dave or Meg she was going. She wanted to hold his hand too, no matter how cold it was. Maybe she would just sit outside the facility. Maybe she didn’t have to look at the body. But she had to be near it.

  … . .

  The Carpenter, October 2008

  HELEN SPILLED THE cleanser onto a sponge and went at the bathtub.

  Helen had waited for Barry one month exactly. Back in the summer. He had come into the house and they had introduced themselves but they did not shake hands.

  How strange, she thought, that they did not shake hands. Barry walked into her living room with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops, and he looked at the ceiling. For a while he didn’t speak.

  I’m going to tell you straight, he said. He stamped his foot twice. You’re going to need a sub-floor, he said. His eyes were grey.

  There’s no way around it, he said.

  Helen got under the bath with the Swiffer. It was a claw-foot tub. She didn’t care half as much about the kitchen, but she liked a clean bathroom.

  He’s an excellent carpenter and reliable and you’ll like Barry a lot. This was Louise’s daughter-in-law Sherry. Sherry had said, He is very good. Sean’s wife, Sherry: You’ll like Barry a lot.

  Had Sherry been trying to set them up? Helen froze at the thought, her outstretched arm still under the tub. Of course she was. Helen heard the reciprocal saw downstairs. The saw tore through, a revving up and dying down. But that’s silly, Helen thought. She waved the Swiffer back and forth,
big sweeps. She heard Barry walk to the foot of the stairs and she felt a hot flash.

  I’m going to step out for a coffee, Barry called up to the bathroom. She imagined him on one knee, tugging on his steel-toed boot. She stood and saw herself in the mirror and she was bright red, with the sheen of a fast sweat on her forehead.

  Okay then, Barry, she called.

  Sherry had imagined her to be lonely. Helen was flooded with shame. The blood rushing to her head, making her ears ring. She would not be pitied.

  … . .

  The Valentine, February 1982

  THERE’S SOMETHING IN the mailbox, Helen said. A bright red envelope, big enough to hold the lid up about an inch.

  Louise was leaning forward, holding the wheel. She wore her fox-fur hat and black suede coat and matching gloves, and she had on a dark lipstick. They had come from Pier 17, where the bodies were, and Helen had not gone inside to see Cal’s body.

  Louise had pulled into the parking lot and they had just let the car idle. Helen couldn’t go inside. But she was glad to be there. Louise had picked her up and hadn’t said much, and they’d just stayed there is all they did. They stayed for a while. The radio was on, and after some time Louise turned it off. She wasn’t in a hurry. She took off her hat and put down the visor and smoothed her hair and put the visor back up. They didn’t have to talk.

  Louise reached over and opened the glovebox and rooted around, and there was a packet of tissues and she slit the plastic with her nail and tugged one out and Helen took it. Louise opened her purse and got out a cigarette and pushed in the lighter and waited until the lighter glowed orange and popped out.

  She lit the smoke, her cheeks caving, and pushed the button so the window went down a crack, and she blew the smoke out the window. After a while she threw the cigarette outside into the snowbank.

  Cancer sticks, she said. They watched an ambulance pull up and park, and someone got out and went into the building and the door closed behind him. After a very long time a woman came out and there was a man with her and he had his arm around her. He brought her over to a Buick and opened the door and the woman got in, and the man trotted around the front and got in himself and started the car, and they drove off.

  Helen said, Okay.

  Okay?

  Let’s go, Helen said.

  You’re not going in, Louise said.

  I should get home, Helen said. She blew her nose as hard as she could. Jesus, Louise, she said.

  I know, honey, Louise said. You’re my baby sister.

  And now they were sitting in the car outside Helen’s front door. Louise’s husband was a car salesman and they’d always driven a Cadillac because Cadillacs were big and safe, and Louise liked a luxury car.

  A pickup truck came up behind them. The road was narrow because it wasn’t plowed properly, and the truck waited for them to move.

  Louise watched the truck in the rearview. She narrowed her eyes.

  The guy tapped his horn once.

  Go around us, you bloody fool, Louise whispered. Then she pressed the button and her window rolled down and she put her hand out and waved him around. Her hand outside the window did two slow turns and she pointed with one finger. The finger looked stern and mocking in her black glove. She drew her hand back inside the car. The cold air came in and all the noises of the street. She took two fingers of her glove in her teeth and pulled it off and then she tugged off the other glove, one finger at a time.

  The driver of the pickup didn’t attempt to go around them because there wasn’t enough room. Only one side of the street had been plowed. Louise opened her purse with a loud snap and found the pack of cigarettes again without taking her eyes off the rearview.

  Look at that fool, she said. There was a group of teenagers coming down the hill too. They had their coats open and their breath was visible in the air and they were bright-cheeked and loud. A scrawny girl at the back was full of shrill giggles. She was running to catch up with her friends and her boots slapped loudly on the pavement.

  Helen knew the mail in the mailbox was a valentine from Cal. He always sent a card on Valentine’s Day. He liked to mark all the occasions with a card. He liked the card to arrive more or less on time.

  The lighter popped and Louise lit her cigarette and turned her head and blew smoke out onto the street. Then she tilted the mirror to watch the guy in the truck.

  He pressed his hand into the horn. He kept the horn blaring for as long as he could, and then he let up and then he pressed it again. There was traffic behind him now and he couldn’t back up. And he couldn’t go around. The kids coming down the hill had stopped and gently collided with one another, their heads all turned, trying to see what was going on.

  I guess I better go on inside, Helen said. But she didn’t move. She felt like she couldn’t move. Or that she had moved, had got out of the car, had lived out the rest of her life, and had died and was dead and was back in the car, a ghost, or something without musculature or bone. Something that could never move again.

  The guy was out of the truck now and he slammed his door. He was in a fury and he brought the flat of his hand down on the roof of Louise’s car and it made a hollow boom. He bent down to look Louise in the eye and his face was very close. But Louise kept looking straight ahead. She took a draw on her cigarette and blew smoke at the windshield. The man might have kissed her temple if he were a couple of inches closer. His eyes were a pale watery hazel and he was bald, a pale face with high cheekbones and a weak chin, and his lips were pressed tight.

  You’re blocking the goddamn road, he said.

  My sister’s husband was on the Ocean Ranger, Louise said. We were just up identifying the body. But actually she didn’t go in.

  Louise, Helen said.

  The man stood back from the window.

  We’re just sitting here now because we’re worn out, Louise said.

  The man looked back at his truck.

  I don’t even smoke, Louise told him. She was looking at the cigarette as if she didn’t know what it was. She dropped it out the window.

  It’s a dirty habit, she said.

  I should help you, the man said.

  Oh, we’ll be fine, Louise said. Helen put her hand over Louise’s hand. Her sister was holding tight to the wheel. Louise always drove leaning forward slightly, gripping the wheel. She drove as if she required the seat belt to hold her back from something she wanted.

  I’m going now, Louise, Helen said.

  The man came around the front of the car and he opened Helen’s door for her and he held her by the elbow as she walked as if she were an old lady. Or as if she was leaning on him. Helen was leaning, because she had a feeling she couldn’t walk. She felt drunk. It took her a long time to find her house keys in her purse. Finally the man took the purse from her and dug out the keys and he opened the door and put the keys back, and he was standing there holding the purse. The traffic all down the road was backing up bit by bit and turning around and finding side streets. When the door was open, Louise toot-tooted and drove off.

  Helen let herself into the house and it was quiet. The kids had gone to school that morning. They must have discussed it amongst themselves because they hadn’t awakened Helen. They’d let her sleep. She took off her coat and hung it on the banister and she put her boots by the heater. The heat was off in the kitchen and she turned it on high. She put on the kettle and dropped a teabag into a cup, and she drank the tea without taking out the bag because she forgot to take it out. She had taken a butter knife from the drawer and it was lying on the table next to the red envelope. There was also a phone bill and some kind of flyer from a pizza shop. Then she just opened the red envelope.

  There was a card with a picture of a big bouquet of red roses on the front. The words were in gold swirling italics and they said For My Wife on Valentine’s Day. Inside there was a greeting-card poem that didn’t rhyme about love. The poem touched on the meaning of a life and generosity and kindness and all the good tim
es, and on the back, in extremely small print, it said the card was a product of China. Cal had written over the top of the poem, My Love, and he’d signed it at the bottom, XOXO Cal.

  … . .

  Baptism, October 1982

  YOU SEE YOUR life but it’s as though you are behind a glass partition and the sparks fly up and you cannot feel them.

  You know it’s your life, because people behave as though it is. They call you by your name. Helen, come shopping. Helen, there’s a party.

  Mom, where’s the peanut butter.

  There are bills. You wake in the middle of the night because you hear water and there is a leak in the kitchen roof. The plaster has cracked open and water is tapping on the tiles, faster and faster.

  She did not want a tree the first Christmas after Cal died but Cathy demanded a tree.

  Mom, we have to have a tree.

  Hit the sauce. Do not hit the sauce. Gain weight. There are two outfits in her bedroom closet and they are both black because black is slimming. Because you didn’t notice there were only two outfits and you didn’t notice what colour; thirty pounds and you didn’t notice.

  Stop believing in meaning. Hurry by staying very still. There is no meaning. The unheralded velocity hidden in not moving; watch all of time flick by. Tap, tap-tap-tap. Tap, tap-tap-tap on the kitchen tiles. Hear the pause and the speeding up of time. She has spent many precious hours of her life helping her toddler (which one?) sort Cheerios on the high-chair tray. You fall into a kind of doze where the blue of the high chair looks more blue. It bristles with blueness. There’s a pattern in the distribution of the Cheerios over the vibrant blue and the time between each drip from the tap, and then the big spoon comes down and all the Cheerios jump and skitter.

  Don’t cry in front of the children. Cry all the time. Eat meat loaf. Beg for forgiveness. Beg to go back to the wedding night or the birth of the children or an ordinary moment cooking in the kitchen or when there’s a bill to figure out, a snowfall, skating on the pond. She thinks of an afternoon when they all went skating on Hogan’s Pond. The wind blew the children and they sailed forward with their arms out.