February (6 page)

Dave said, It was Cal.

Helen lost her peripheral vision. She could see a spot about the size of a dime in a field of black. She tried to focus on the surface of the kitchen table. It was a varnished pine table they’d bought at a yard sale, and in that little circle she could see the grain of the wood and a glare of overhead light. She had willed the spot to open wider so she could take in the bowl with the apples and the side of the fridge and the linoleum, and then the window and the garden. Her scalp was tingling and a drip of sweat ran from her hairline down her temple. Her face was damp with sweat as if she had been running.

Dave said, They had bodies down there with just their ordinary clothes on and a few men who weren’t fully dressed like they’d just left their bunks and there were some had their eyes open.

One man in particular, Dave said. Looked right at me. Draped in white sheets. Dave said, They looked alive, those men. He’d half expected them to move.

I can’t get over it, he said.

Helen could think only of how frightened Cal must have been. He couldn’t swim. She felt such a panic. She wanted to know exactly what had happened to Cal. She wanted that more than anything else.

Only twenty-two bodies, Dave said.

Helen was in a panic as if something very bad was going to happen, but it had already happened. It was hard to take in that it had
already happened
. Why was she in a panic? It was as if she were split in half. Something bad was going to happen to her; and then there was the other her, the one who knew it had already happened. It was a mounting and useless panic and she did not want to faint. But she was being flooded with the truth. It wasn’t going to happen; it had already happened.

You don’t want to see him, Dave said.

Helen was in the kitchen looking out the window over the backyard. She had the phone cord scrunched up in one hand and her other hand slipped a little on the Arborite counter and made a squeak. The tap was dripping, sharp pings in the stainless steel sink. She pushed the faucet so the drip would hit a dishcloth. She watched the faucet shine with wetness and watched as the wetness gathered into a drop and hung at the rim of the threaded washer and jiggled and fell and hit the cloth with absolute silence.

I wanted to catch you, her father-in-law said again. Before you left the house.

Helen had kept her own last name when she and Cal got married. Not many were doing that then. Nobody she knew. There’d been a dinner before the wedding and Dave O’Mara had said, I don’t know what’s wrong with our name.

It was all he’d had to say on the subject. He’d half lifted his wineglass and put it back down without drinking.

Helen had kept her own name, and when she found out she was pregnant with Johnny she decided to give the child her last name. Cal had been fine with that. He had liked the idea. He was all for women’s lib. But her father-in-law had come by to fix the faucet over the kitchen sink. She’d been without the sink and the dishes were piling up. Dave had fixed the faucet and dried his hands and folded the pot cloth and patted it.

I’m going to ask you to do something for me, he said. I want the baby to have Cal’s name. Our name.

Dave turned and put his tools back in the toolbox and closed the lid and flicked the two latches shut. He was down on one knee and he put his hand on his leg and pushed himself up from the floor. He hefted the toolbox and everything slid to one side with a
clang
and he met her eyes. Will you do that for me?

It was the only thing he’d ever asked of her during the ten years she was married to Cal. He had treated her just like a daughter. He’d fixed her plumbing and loaned her and Cal money and co-signed their mortgage when they finally found a house and he’d driven her to work. Helen couldn’t drive. She didn’t have her licence back then.

I can walk, she’d say.

You just hang on, Dave would say. I’m coming to get you.

He’d show up in the rain and wait outside and give the horn one toot, or later he’d call to say he was picking up the children from school, or he’d drive Helen to the supermarket and he’d wait outside with the newspaper crammed up against the steering wheel, the windows fogging. Her in-laws had walked in the rain when they were raising a family and they said there was just no need for it. Dave would call to say he was coming and Helen would hear Meg in the background.

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 mother-in-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 mother-in-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.