Here So Far Away(72)

“A book Francis left for me. We like the same poets.”

“Awfully considerate of him, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“I talked to him a few times on the phone, seemed like a decent young man. Suppose he had to have been. He was an RCMP officer, for god’s sake. But at the same time, this was a guy who could . . .”

I wasn’t sure I wanted her to finish that sentence.

“Well, who could just pack up his car one night, with everything he owns. No notice to the employer, no notice to the landlord—who considers you a friend, maybe even a son. I don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t be mad if Dad isn’t. Are you going to let me eat this entire pie?”





Thirty-Five


Abe accelerated through the twists and turns of the old highway, darting around the few vehicles on the road.

It had taken me too long to put it together, but the facts were finally presenting themselves.

Francis hadn’t gone off the road on his way to meet me that night; he was leaving. The valley, Rupert, me. He’d taken all his things, Sarah said, which meant he had no intention of coming back, and she’d also told me that he left hours before we planned to meet at the Dempseys. That old book in my bag, that was supposed to be good-bye, and he wasn’t even going to give it to me himself.

I pressed harder on the accelerator and an oncoming car flashed its headlights at me.

The first time I saw Francis, drifting through the fallow meadow like a life raft, a flare had shot through my chest. A beacon, I thought. Or a warning. That was how it began. Was this really how it ended, with seven words, three of them A?

A memento. A promissory note. A ticket.

When had he made up his mind?

I just don’t want you planning your life around me, he’d said in the barn. I can’t promise to do the same. That was the last time I saw him. Maybe he never meant for us to go to the city together. Or he went to pack a weekend suitcase and kept on packing. Maybe he told himself that it was better to slip away because he didn’t want to hurt me. God forbid she cries! So instead of hitting me with it straight, he quietly hooked me up to the back of his car, got in, and started driving. That’s what it felt like, the not-knowing, the non-good-bye, like being dragged behind him.

A small shadow darted in front of my wheels. I swerved and the car fishtailed wildly, hit gravel on the side of the road and skidded toward the ditch, stopping right at the brink. I could feel how close Abe’s tires were to the loose edge. I set the emergency brake, forced myself to breathe.

Rabbit.

It’s true what Nat had said, that I was both a liar and a fortress. Loyal keeper of secrets, promises, and lighthouses. But the real reason I didn’t tell anyone about Francis, the absolute truth, is that if I had, they would have pointed out the too-obvious. That there must have been something wrong, something broken inside him. That’s what Lisa would have said. She might try to put it nicely, but it would boil down to this: If he wasn’t broken, why here and why you? Did you really think your whistling was so damn charming?

I’d been playacting at being a grown-up with this person I hardly knew and had turned into the very thing I’d accused Lisa of being: a girl who would sink everything for some guy who was always going to be a passing ship. Worst of all, it was that guy who’d shown me that I wasn’t cold-blooded. Now I was alone and felt like I was literally dying of heartsickness, like a karmic clobbering with a big cliché stick.

I’ve never been able to make myself believe in any of the gods, but as I idled on the side of the road, gathering myself, I said a prayer. Please let it end now. Let me put this down and drive away. Let me forget, so that when I’m as old as my parents are, I won’t be sure whether this happened. Do me this favor and I will believe and I will behave and I will be forever benevolent toward all of your creations, even baby corn.

For just a second, I thought the hum in my chest was gone, and then it began again.

Carefully, I shifted the car into reverse and released the brake, inching backward with more caution than necessary until I was on the road.

By the time I pulled onto the new highway, the western sky was a mess of Easter colors between the mountains. Every tree branch was in relief against the low clouds and dome of darkening blue above, like those delicate paper illustrations, the silhouettes you see in old children’s books with the funny German name. The woman in a rocking chair. The boy and girl under the apple tree.

My exit was coming up, but I decided to keep going, head over the mountain and drive along the bay. I rolled down the window an inch, shrugging my jacket loose. The darkness was inkier now, the sun a gold thread hemming the horizon. I passed a pair of transport trucks without cargo, like insect heads that had lost their bodies, and a magnificent willow. Its canopy against the blue-black sky had such otherworldliness that you might have believed this was a road on a desert island or some other faraway place, not an ordinary rural highway that ran from here to nearly somewhere, then circled back on itself like an empty promise.





Thirty-Six


My friends and I never knocked at each other’s houses. When I let myself into Bill’s, it was quiet except for the shower running upstairs and his off-key singing.

“Sometimes the snow comes down in June. Sometimes the sun goes round the moooooooon . . .”