Somewhere In-Between (15 page)

They continue toward the far end of the field, the sun on their faces, a breeze at their backs. Above them the wind gathers speed and whistles through the treetops on the other side of the fence. From somewhere in the forest, comes a familiar creaking moan. Doreen freezes and grabs Julie's arm. “What was that?”

“Oh, that's just the talking trees.”

Her mother's hand falls away and she mutters, “Oh, for heaven's sake, Julie, you really are turning native.”

Julie stops in her tracks and holds her arms wide in a gesture of surrender. “What is it, Mom? What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“Happy. What's that?” she snorts and continues walking.

At the far end of the field, the remnants of an ancient Russell fence runs parallel to the newer snake fence. On the sloping hillsides beyond, naked branches and thin tree trunks form a grey mesh forest.

“Lodge pole pine,” Doreen says, studying the stand of trees. “Your father used to call them pecker poles.” She walks over to the tripod corner of the old fence and places a hand on a weathered rail. With her back to Julie, she says quietly, “I know you don't think I was much of a mother when you were growing up.”

Startled, Julie remains motionless behind her.

“And perhaps you're right. I was away far too much, travelling with your father. But everyone mothers in a different way.” She turns around slowly. “Did you really believe that I liked living out of a suitcase for a good part of every month?” Without waiting for an answer she turns back to the fence and, as if talking to herself, her eyes focused somewhere in the distance, says, “Your father was a travelling salesman when I met him. By the time you were born he owned the company. We had no worries about money, but he still insisted on being on the road. It was in his blood.”

Wondering where this is all going, and not quite sure she wants to hear it, Julie touches her arm, “Mom, you don't need to—”

“Yes, I do. Just listen. I want you to know. It's no secret that your father was a ladies' man. No secret how he treated women.”

Certainly her father had been a flirt. Julie remembers the twinkle in his eyes when he affectingly addressed every female as ‘Darling' or ‘Sweetheart.' She remembers how he would hang mistletoe in their front entry every Christmas, and then sweep every woman who walked through their door into his arms for the required kiss, while her mother stood by watching with pursed lips. But that was just how he was. Surely it was all innocent teasing.

“I'm not going to tell you the details of our marriage,” her mother says, “but I want you to understand that my travelling with him all those years was my way of protecting my family. Things were very different then. I didn't want to be a single mother, and even more, I didn't want my girls to lose their father to some silly temptation. You and Jessie worshipped him, and you still should. He was a good man. I may not have been the perfect mother, Julie, but I did what I had to do. And I am, and always was,
your
mother, just like you will always be Darla's. That part never goes away.” Her voice catches. “Even if your children do.”

Julie swallows. This is her opening to a conversation about Darla, to a beginning of sharing their memories of her. She moves closer and places an arm around her mother's shoulders.

But when her mother turns to her, the vulnerability that Julie expected to see in her eyes is missing. “Why I'm telling you this,” her mother says stepping back and looking away, “is that it's different for you now. There's no reason for you to put up with any of this anymore. I had no choice. You do. You don't have to stay out here. You can always come back to the city. You always have a home with me.”

Disappointed, Julie drops her arm and says, “Let's go back to the house.”

On the silent walk home, as much as she resents her mother's inference that there's no reason to stay in her marriage, it also makes Julie aware of how obvious the rift between her and Ian is. How long before he has had enough of this non-marriage? How long before she has? Until now she hasn't considered where she will go, where she will live, if it never heals. And how can it if they can't talk about the only thing that connects them, their daughter? It isn't all Ian. She is as frightened as he is to face the enormous truth that hangs between them. She sees it in his eyes. He doesn't have to say it out loud. If she hadn't let Darla off the hook so easily that night, if she had enforced her ‘grounding,' their daughter would still be with them.

She doesn't want to think about it. And she doesn't want her mother's presence forcing her to. As they approach the ranch yard she takes her hand. “Mom, I love you,” she says. “Now go home.”

Her mother misses a step, then nods and continues walking. At the back porch she says, “Julie, I love you. Now cut your hair.”

Mr Emerson is starting to fade around the edges. He says that I'm gradually letting go of my earthbound thinking, because, even if Mom can't see it, I understand why Gram showed up.

I still have a way to go, he says. But it's all good. Almost no one gets it right away. At least I've stopped asking him all the silly questions I did at first, like, can I go back as a bird, or a cat? Or, what will happen when I pass through the white light? Because the only answer I ever get is, ‘you already know' or ‘you will remember.'

It's not just Mom and Dad who are holding me back, he says. It's me as well, because even though I'm heading in the right direction, hanging onto earthly fears and attachments keeps me from getting to knowing.

I can't let go of my fear for Levi, though. Less than two hundred kilometres southwest of the valley where my parents struggle with their demons, Levi struggles with his. I watch him sink lower and lower into himself. And although time means nothing here it certainly does for him. His coach drove out to visit him. He tried to talk past that invisible wall Levi has put up around himself, but it didn't work. Even his threat that if Levi doesn't snap out of it, if he doesn't return to the team by the end of this year, he will lose his shot at the ‘big time,' brought only a shrug. The thoughts that buzzed around in Levi's mind as his coach spoke had less to do with playing hockey and more to do with a promise. A promise he failed to keep. He gave no one his word that he would be a hockey player, and it means little to him right now. But he made a promise to my mother to bring me home safely that night.

She's the only person who can help him now. It's not forgiveness he wants from her, or to explain himself and offer up excuses. He's too honourable to shift the blame. No, he believes there is still a way to keep his promise. The slowly fading Mr Emerson says Levi remembers something most people forget.

In town, on the way to a parting lunch with her mother, Julie catches herself checking out her new haircut in the rear-view mirror. Her attempt at appeasement backfiring, she had found herself sitting like a brooding adolescent while the hairdresser styled her hair according to her hovering mother's directions. During lunch, she keeps reminding herself that ‘in less than an hour this will be over,' the same technique she uses at the dentist. As soon as they are finished her mother will be on her way home to Vancouver.

“You should consider what I said, before too long,” Doreen says, putting down her fork after her last bite of Caesar salad. “I can't imagine how you must be dreading winter, let alone the drive all the way back out to that place today.”

Julie bites her tongue.
Fifteen minutes.

“Just think, you could go back into real estate, or accounting, even return to university if you wanted,” her mother says, watching Julie over the rim of her coffee cup. “There's nothing to stop you now.”

Julie believes there is no real intention of being cruel, but she sometimes wonders if she can hear herself. She's about to ask, then decides it isn't worth the effort.

In the parking lot she waves her mother off with relief. Then, fully aware that she is still in childish mode, she goes on a spending spree. By the time she's finished, her purchases fill the back seat. Among them is a professional digital camera and accessories, photography books, and a backpack with a built-in iPod and speakers.

Before heading home she makes a hurried trip to the grocery store, the danger zone in a small town, where you're more than likely to run into someone you know. She dreads the change in expression when someone recognizes her: their panicked look of not knowing what to say; the averting of eyes in pretence that they hadn't seen her; the flooding of sympathy when they do. And worse yet, is that look of fear she often encounters, as if tragedy is contagious.

She rushes through her shopping with the sad realization that she has become less afraid of meeting wild animals in the bush than she is of running into old acquaintances.

She almost makes it, but in the fresh produce department she hears someone call her name. Turning slowly she finds, standing behind her with a grocery basket on her arm, Valerie Ladner. The last time Julie saw her was as a blur at Darla's funeral.

Before Julie can respond she feels Valerie brush her cheek with a kiss. She lets herself be hugged, the awkwardness of the embrace double-sided.

“I never had the chance to tell you how sorry I am,” Valerie whispers.

As she pulls away Julie senses that the woman's apprehension is about more than sympathy.

“I've always felt bad about that night,” Valerie tells her. “Perhaps if I hadn't taken up Ian's time...” her voice cracks on the words and her eyes cloud over.

Julie hardens herself; she could not abide to see this woman's tears. Yet in Valerie's tortured expression Julie reads the need for redemption, the need to purge herself of guilt. Julie is about to snap,
You give yourself too much importance
, but something stops her. She reaches, pats Valerie's hand in a forgiving gesture and turns and walks away. Pushing her cart toward the checkout tills, Julie feels an unexpected lifting of her spirits.

On the way out of the store she glances across the street just as Virgil Blue comes out of the medical clinic. She holds back and watches him walk slowly to his pickup truck. His dog, waiting patiently with his head hanging out of the driver's window, jumps over to the passenger seat as his master climbs in. Julie waits until Virgil has driven away before heading out to her own car.

During the night an early frost settles on the valley leaving notice that autumn is close behind. In the morning the brittle grass sparkles with hoarfrost, a crystalline carpet spreading down to the shore. Out on the lake, one by one, loons appear like apparitions in the fog-like grey mist hanging over the still water. From her kitchen window Julie counts six of the water birds who, as certain as the coming of winter, are gathering to fly south. She wonders how soon they will leave. Used to their concerts of tremulous calls, she can't imagine not hearing them before she goes to sleep each night. A melancholy sadness floods through her at the thought of their departure. How empty the lake will be without them. Like the curious emptiness in the house this morning.

She turns her attention back to the breakfast dishes thinking how ironic it is that, as relieved as she was to see her mother leave, in a strange way she now feels her absence. Perhaps it's because during her visit she had served as a kind of buffer. Now that her mother is no longer in the house, the space between her and Ian seems expanded, a gulf impossible to breach. They eat breakfast in silence, neither attempting to resume their interrupted conversation from the day her mother arrived. Whatever his reasons for avoiding it—anger at her for returning to the guest bedroom?—Julie feels relieved. She doesn't want to revisit the conversation about Levi Johnny, or about talking to his mother.

In the living room Ian opens the fireplace doors to throw another log in. The sound of crackling wood fills the house. Early this morning he had started the first fires of the season in both the kitchen stove and the central fireplace. Unlike the draughty gas-fired heat of their furnace in town, the wood heat fills every corner of the house like a comforting hug.

While Ian goes back to work behind the closed door of his office Julie finishes up her housework. She spends the rest of the morning reading the instruction booklets for her new camera, and downloading music to her new iPod backpack. Later, when she steps outside, leaving the cocoon of warmth behind, she feels the bite of the crisp morning air. She pulls the collar up on her Gore-Tex windbreaker, and adjusts her backpack before starting out. This time, instead of hiking in the open fields she heads up the north road. She can't avoid it forever. How likely is it that she will run into the bear again anyway? Silence was her mistake then. This time she's prepared. The backpack is like a portable boom box. She might miss out on some of the sounds of nature, but any wild animals will have fair warning of her approach. The moment she can no longer see the house, she uses the remote control in her jacket pocket to switch on the iPod. Suddenly the strains of a Vivaldi concerto blast from the speakers on the sides of the backpack. She quickly adjusts the volume until it's loud enough to carry a distance without being completely overwhelming. When she originally thought of this idea she had wondered if it would interfere with the quiet solitude, which she has become used to on her hikes. But as she walks, the music of Joshua Bell's Stradivarius violin blends with the sounds of the forest as naturally as the wind. She tells herself that her choice of this particular artist has nothing to do with Virgil, other than the fact that their tenant's nocturnal playing has served to remind her how much she loves the music of this virtuoso violinist.

Passing the logging trail leading up to the woodlot, she notices hoofprints in the freshly churned earth, evidence that Virgil and his team have passed this way.