Somewhere In-Between (31 page)

When he finally takes his seat across from her, he brings an empty notepad and pen with him, placing them on the table. Sipping the bitter-strong coffee, Julie tries not to wince. She needs this. After last night's long sleepless hours, her brain will welcome a good jolt of caffeine. Still, she adds more cream, and then cupping the mug in both hands straightens up in her chair.

“I want to thank you for looking after Pup,” she says. “And for keeping the fire going in the house while we were in town after the accident. Well, for all you do for Ian, for us.”

Virgil looks up from his coffee mug, and nods.

“We saw Ian's doctor yesterday,” Julie continues, forcing herself to speak slowly. This has to be done right. “Ian will be in a cast for a few months. If all goes well he'll have a walking cast by Christmas. Sometime in January, February at the latest, he should be back on his feet. I came to tell you to, well, to ask you to stay. I...” she stops to watch Virgil take up the pen and write something on the notepad. He turns it to face her.

I'll try to stay until he is healed.

“Thank you,” she says, looking back up. “But what I really meant to say is that you don't have to move. Ever. There's no reason for you to leave.” She hesitates, and then adds, slowly, “Because when Ian is better, I will go.”

Virgil scribbles on the pad.
Where?

“I have no idea. Back to town, to Vancouver. Somewhere, I'll figure it out by then. All I know right now is that I have to go.”

Even upside down she can read the single scribbled word.
Why?

“Why?” She repeats his laconic question. There are so many reasons why. Some of which she cannot even explain to herself. Staring into her coffee mug as if the answer is there she swallows back an unexpected lump in her throat. “Our marriage is over,” she says with a shrug. “We're just one more statistic, one more relationship that couldn't survive the loss of a child.”

When she glances back up, his eyes are still on her. Perhaps it's because there's no judgement, no expectation lurking behind those dark eyes, that she continues. “The truth is that we both harbour too much blame, too much guilt for there to be room for anything else between us.” And then as if talking to herself, she is quietly recounting the evening of Darla's death, the mistakes, the missteps, both hers and Ian's. All of the facts, the truth and the imagined, spoken out loud for the first time, spill out of her, taking on a reality of their own. And as she unburdens herself a sense of peace that she hasn't felt in a long time fills her.

When she is done the sound of the fire in the wood stove behind her has died down. Outside the dogs' playful wrestling has ended and they wait somewhere in faithful silence.

“I'm sorry,” she says finally. “I didn't mean to dump all that.” She meets his eyes. “The real reason I came over here is to ask you, to beg you, to please stay. This is your home. There's no reason for you to leave. Ian's talking about selling. Once I am gone there'll be no reason for him to do that, no reason for either of you to give up on this place.”

Shaking his head slowly, Virgil writes something on the pad again and turns it around.

I cannot stay,
it reads.
I will be gone by spring.

“No, please,” she says, her head jerking back up. “It's because of Levi, isn't it, because I wouldn't meet with him? I'm sorry that I...” she stops mid-sentence and watches Virgil's gnarled hand move deftly across the yellow-lined paper. She leans forward and reads the words as they take form on the page.

Levi is all right
, Virgil writes.
He's returning to school, to hockey, after Christmas. He has found peace with his grief.

Julie sits back, the meaning sinking in.
Really? Well, good for him.
The acrimonious thought catches her off guard, and she chastises herself. This is not how she'd expected this to go.

Last night and this morning she had considered the possibility of agreeing to meet with Levi, agreeing to the healing circle Virgil had requested in order to convince him to stay. The truth was that since her own accident with the Jeep, every time she recalled the complete loss of control, which she had experienced as they slid sideways across the black ice, she thought about that other accident, when Levi was at the wheel. On the way over here she believed that, if Virgil asked her again, she was prepared to meet with his young cousin, prepared to give him the chance to redeem himself. Yet, now after Virgil's words, she feels a disquieting resentment, like a small animal gnawing inside, to the idea that Levi has found peace with Darla's death.
Where is my compassion?
Before she can sort her conflicting thoughts, the dogs start barking and a car door slams behind the cabin.

Ian? Would he have hobbled outside to drive over here with a broken leg just to search for her? Well let him, she thinks, pushing her chair back from the table wearily. Perhaps he can convince Virgil to stay. She has failed.

Virgil gives no indication of hearing anything outside. Instead, as if she had spoken out loud, he writes:
Maybe meeting with the boy would help you to find your own peace.

Shaking her head she stands up. Virgil rises with her and reaches back to open the top drawer of the roll-top desk. He removes the Electrolarynx, places it to his throat and says, “Julie.”

It's the first time Virgil has said her name, she realizes, the first indication that he even knows it, or that she is anything more than some intrusion on his solitude.

Suddenly, footsteps pound on the porch outside. A shadow moves across the kitchen window and the sound of a single knock breaks the silence. Julie turns toward the door just as it pushes open. Daylight floods in, silhouetting the figure standing in the open doorway, balancing two cardboard boxes. He steps inside, shouldering the door closed, and saying, “Hallo, this place.” The boxes lower. In the dim light, Julie barely recognizes the face of Levi Johnny.

Somewhere between Virgil's look of surprise at Levi's sudden appearance, and the heartbeat of recognition between Levi and Julie, is her awareness of the synchronicity of this moment. Here they were speaking about the boy, thinking about him, and as if summoned, he appears. Like other eerie coincidences in her life, she realizes that a split second before the door opened, she saw this coming, experienced it like a déjà-vu. In some deep part of her being, she has always been aware that their paths would cross eventually. Face to face with him now, she recalls that the last time she really saw Levi—through anything except the fog of grief—was on the night of the accident, when she had glanced back from the top of the amphitheatre as she left the high school. And with that memory, comes her last vision of Darla, her smiling face looking up so trustingly at Levi as he tucked the yellow rose behind her ear.

She shakes the image away and searches the changed face of the man-child standing before her. If she had run into him anywhere else, Julie isn't certain that she would have recognized Levi. Like Virgil, the weight has dropped from his tall athletic frame. His hair has grown longer. Dark and glistening, it's pulled back tight against his scalp into a ponytail, leaving his thin face sharp, angular, older-looking, no sign of dimples in his sunken cheeks. An unexpected ache for this lost boy tugs at her heart. She glances back at Virgil and sees in the concern flooding his face, his realization that he is mistaken—Levi is not all right. This is not a soul at peace.

Virgil is the first to speak. “Welcome, young cousin.” His crackling mechanic words shatter the rigid silence. And then, placing his Electrolarynx on the table, he turns his attention to the stove, stoking the dying fire as if nothing is amiss.

The hypnotic moment broken, Levi sets the boxes down inside the door. “Mrs O.D.,” he says straightening up, his voice barely audible.

“Levi,” she hears her acknowledgement as if from a distance.

“These are for you,” he says, indicating the boxes. “Darla's clothes.”

Taken aback, she opens her mouth then closes it again. There is no need to ask. She knows exactly where they came from. Levi's mother. The question is why? Why would she inflict this pain on her once again by returning them.

As if she had given voice to her thoughts, Levi responds. “My mother, she says you will want to complete their journey.”

At the stove, Virgil slides the cast-iron lid back in place with a jarring scrape. Turning to face them, he gestures Julie and Levi to sit down at the table.

Julie starts to protest, to say she must leave now, but the plea in Virgil's eyes stops her. A plea for the boy.
I can't do this
, her instincts scream. But her body betrays her, and she lowers herself to her chair. Levi takes the seat across from her.

Not knowing what is expected of her, not certain she can give it if she did, she studies a coffee stain on the tabletop. A chair scrapes across the floor and she senses rather than sees Virgil join them at the end of the table. Her heart thudding in her ears, she raises her head and meets Levi's eyes. For the first time since she has known the boy, he does not glance away, his gaze, steadfast and unwavering, holds hers. After what seems like forever, he says gently, “I see you, mother of Darla.”

Something inside Julie cracks. A sob rises in her throat, and with it, the question that only now does she allow to surface. “Why?” she chokes. “Why wasn't she wearing a seatbelt?”

And there it is. The question that has gnawed at her heart from the moment she learned that her daughter had gone through the windshield. Darla, whom she and Ian had always jokingly referred to as the ‘seatbelt police,' was never unbuckled in the car. A seatbelt would have saved her; it had saved Levi. Why wasn't she wearing one that night?

“She was,” Levi replies, his voice gentle. “She took it off...” he hesitates. His eyes flicker away, they focus on a spot somewhere beyond Julie, but not before she sees his inner struggle, his desire to spare her from more pain.

“Took it off? Why? Why would she do that?” She wants to know. She doesn't want to know.

“She took it off to pick something up off the floor,” he says slowly, as if remembering each measured word.

“To pick up what? What could have been so important?”

“Nothing,” he answers, his voice barely a whisper. His gaze shifts back to meet Julie's once again, the sorrow pooled in his eyes “The accident was my fault,” he tells her. “I lost control of the car when I hit the brakes.”

“Why? Why on earth did you slam on the brakes?” she demands.

“I'm sorry,” Levi says simply, offering no excuse, no reason, and no answer.

At the end of the table, Virgil starts to write on the notepad, then giving up, he drops the pen, picks up the Electrolarynx, and holds it to his throat.

Looking from Julie to Levi he asks, “Wasn't there more to your daughter's life, to your friend's life, than how she died?” He repositions the device. “Shouldn't the memory of her, of the time you shared on this earth, be a joy, not a burden?”

As the mechanical-sounding words echo in the silence, Julie's tired mind wrestles with their meaning. And a glimmer of truth finds its way into her heart.

“Levi,” she says with a sigh. “Please, get on with your life. You don't need my forgiveness to do that. But if you do, then I forgive you.” Even to her own ears the statement sounds hollow, insincere.

“Thank you,” Levi says. “But Darla's spirit is not home yet.”

Before Julie can grasp what he is saying, Levi adds, “She needs you to know that she is all right.”

Julie jerks back from the edge of absolution. “What are you talking about?”

“She told me to tell you that she is okay.”

“What do you mean, ‘
she told you
'?” Julie demands, unable to stop her voice from rising. “When? When did she say that?”

“After the accident.”

“The police said she died instantly. Are you saying that they lied?”

“No. Darla's spirit told me.”

“Her
spirit
told you?” Julie jumps to her feet, shaking her head. “If her
spirit
could speak,” she says, yanking her jacket from the back of the chair, “why wouldn't she speak to me?” She turns away and heads to the door.

“Maybe she does,” Virgil's robotic voice says behind her. “Maybe your head isn't quiet enough for your heart to hear.”

His words stop her. Her shoulders slump and without turning around she reaches for the doorknob. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I can't do this.”

“That bear,” Levi calls after her, as she pulls the door open, “She doesn't want to hurt you.”

Julie hesitates in the doorway.
Bear?
What does that have to do with anything? Had Virgil told him about her run-in with the black bear this summer. But when she glances back over her shoulder, the expression on Virgil's face denies it.

Her mind reeling, overtired and confused, she hurries out, closing the door behind her, but not before hearing Levi say, “Darla, she is the bear.”

Pup jumps up and follows Julie when she comes outside and rushes down the porch steps. As if sensing her mood he remains close by her side, until she reaches the end of the driveway. When, instead of turning toward home, she heads north, the dog hesitates and then bounds forward to catch up to her.

Levi's and Virgil's words follow her, too. Trudging through the snow she tries to ignore them. But they won't let her alone.

She quickens her steps, trying to stave off the threatening tears. They come anyway. These are old tears, they belong to a lost daughter, to a lost marriage, to Ian. She weeps at the image of the man she once loved so much, alone and unable to share his constant sorrow. She weeps too, for Levi, for her failure to reach out to him. She weeps for their three broken souls, all connected by their love for Darla, and hopelessly disconnected from each other.