Somewhere In-Between (32 page)

And some of her tears belong to Virgil, to the truth she read in his eyes today, that he is unwell, yet his illness is something he wishes to bear alone. And the truth behind his words to her—that somehow along the way she has allowed Darla's memory to become a burden.

By the time she reaches the north end of the lake she can barely see to put one foot in front of the other. She trips on a frozen rut beneath the snow and stumbles forward. Unable to stop herself from falling, she comes down hard, her hands scraping on ice and gravel. Wearily she pushes herself up, then sinks back down onto her knees in the middle of the road, drops her head into her hands and gives into her utter despair. At her side, Pup whimpers and pushes himself against her. Blindly Julie reaches for him and, hanging on to him like a lifeline, buries her face in his warm coat and sobs. Held back for too long, the unleashed sorrow engulfs her. Kneeling in the snow, she allows her too long held-in-check grief to take over, crying until she is spent, until her shaking and drained body can give no more.

When she looks up again, stars are appearing in the late afternoon sky. She is exhausted, so tired that the temptation to just lie down and fall sleep is overwhelming. But the dog squirms in her arms and licks at her cheeks, forcing her back from the edge of despondence. She pushes herself to her feet, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. Through blurred vision she looks down the lake at the ranch house on the distant shore, barely visible in the fading light.

Ian will be worried. It's time to go home. It's time for them to speak truthfully. Before he makes any decision about selling the ranch, it's only fair that she releases him from their broken marriage. It's too late for them, too late to find a way past the brittle sorrow that they both wear like armour. But it is not too late for Ian to keep his dream.

She looks down the road, at the winter shadows closing in from the forest. She's forgotten how early, and how completely, darkness takes hold of the land once the sun passes over the western ridge. Turning, she heads across the marsh. It will be much easier to follow the shore-line back—keeping the lights of the ranch house in view—far quicker than trudging through the snow on the road.

Picking her way through the reeds and frozen bulrushes, she quickly crosses the marsh. Along the way Pup investigates every tiny animal track in their path. When they reach the lake Julie brushes away a patch of snow with her boot and sees that the ice is rock solid. Still, she hasn't forgotten what Terri told her about the springs at this end of the lake. The dark patches further out on the ice attest to their presence. She climbs back up onto the shallow bank and, under the shelter of trees where the snow is only a few inches deep, follows the shoreline toward home.

Still, it's slower going than she expected and she has to watch her footing with every step along the uneven ground. After a few hundred yards, a rabbit, his winter white coat blending with the terrain, hops out from the underbrush ahead. Sensing her presence the rabbit freezes on the edge of the bank, and then darts out onto the ice, only to come face to face with the dog. The frightened rabbit bolts, zigzagging back toward the marshes, with Pup in hot pursuit. Julie opens her mouth to call him, and then decides not to. He'll come back.

As she continues along the shore, fine powdered snow drifts from overhead branches, floating like dust motes through the air. Out on the lake, gusts of wind skitter across the ice, lifting the dry snow in swirling eddies across the frozen surface. Julie glances back over her shoulder to check on the dog, who has given up on the chase and is now following a fresh scent. Suddenly a gunshot-like crack shatters the silence, and the dog stops in his tracks. Crouching low, he heads back toward Julie with his tail between his legs, as if the sounds emanating from the ice are in pursuit.

Like music, the sonic pings carry through the air, bounce off the ridge and echo across the frozen valley. Drawn by some inexplicable urge, Julie steps down from the bank and walks out onto the ice. Ignoring the warning voice inside her, she moves forward. Tempting fate with every step, unable to stop herself, she keeps putting one weightless foot in front of the other. She hears Pup whining somewhere in the distance, feels the dry snow turning to slush beneath her boots. Still, she walks as if in a trance, further and further out onto the lake's frozen surface, drawing closer and closer to the dark patches. And then, out on the ice, one of the dark patches moves. Behind a curtain of lifting snow, the black image rises like a mirage, its outline growing larger, shifting and changing, until it gives form to an illogical shape. But it can't be. It's only a trick of her sleep-deprived mind, a hallucination brought on by exhaustion, and by Levi Johnny's words. But even as she denies it, the black shape becomes the hulking form of a bear. The beast appears so real, that Julie imagines she can see each snorting breath turn to crystallized vapour. She squeezes her eyes shut, closing them against the impossible vision. Yet when she opens them the apparition is still there. Strangely unafraid, she moves toward it, admiring the beauty of the animal rising on its hind legs to stand upright.

Pup's whines turn to furious barking, and then to howls that lift to the heavens. And still Julie keeps going. The voice screaming in her head turns into Darla's.
Go back!

But it's too late. Beneath Julie's feet the lake groans in protest. In the split second before the ice gives way, Julie sees it coming, as clearly as if this has all happened before. But she is powerless to stop it. It happens in less than a heartbeat. In one moment her world is filled with afternoon twilight, swirling snow, the image of a bear, and Pup's howling pleas, and the next, she is plunged into a black nothingness. Before her brain can make sense of what's happening, the shock of cold hits and the frigid water sucks her deeper and deeper. She kicks frantically against its icy grip. Her lungs screaming for air, not knowing if she is up or down, she struggles until she feels her head break though the surface, feels air on her face, hears Pup's howls. In a panicked gasp she sucks in water, and is pulled back under, her heavy jacket, her boots weighing her down. She searches madly for them, trying to kick them free, but cannot locate her own feet. Struggling against the inevitable, feeling the penetrating cold sapping her strength, paralyzing her body, she gives one last futile kick. Her head bumps up against something solid. Her heart and lungs ready to explode, she reaches up, blindly searching with unfeeling fingers for the opening in the ice above her.

And then suddenly, in the black silent depths a pinpoint of light appears, and a peaceful warmth, a lightness of being, floods through her. She stops struggling. There is no more fear. No more urgency. Surrendering, she reaches toward the light and sinks slowly down into the murky depths.

“You have to go back.”

“Darla!”

“You can't stay here, Mom.”

“Oh my God! Darla, where are you?”

“I don't know how to explain it.” Where is Mr Emerson when I really need him? “I can only tell you that I'm here, somewhere on the edge of forever, waiting for you to let go, to let me move on.”

“Oh, Darla, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't save you.”

“I didn't need to be saved, Mom. Nothing you, or Dad, or Levi, could have done would have changed my date with destiny. My life, my purpose, on earth, was over.”

“So is mine now.”

“No, it's not; you have to go back to your life.”

“Please. Let me stay with you. I don't want to return to a world without you.”

“You're never without me. The only thing that separates us is time.” How can I explain that here, in this in-between place, time is not linear, but concurrent, eternal. That our lives on earth are nothing more than a breath in eternity? I can't.

“I'm ready now, Darla, I'm not afraid to die if only I can be with you.”

“It's not your time, you still have so much to do on earth.”

“Please, no. It's too painful.”

“Pain is the price we pay for love during life's journey. No one escapes it.” I no longer question these thoughts manifesting themselves as I need them. Neither does Mom—the reversal of our roles is as natural as if it has always been this way. Maybe she knows more than she realizes.

“If you give up now, if you don't pull yourself back up onto that ice, Levi will be lost forever.”

“Levi? I forgave him.”

“He didn't ask for your forgiveness. If he needed that he could have told you about the rose.”

“The rose?”

“The reason I took off my seatbelt.” He didn't tell Mom because he was afraid that it would hurt her too much. But I would rather she blamed a rose for what happened, than Levi. So I tell her about the yellow rose falling out of my hair, taking off my seatbelt to reach for it, splashing the beer over Levi, causing him to brake. I tell her everything that Levi couldn't bring himself to. “Levi needs much more than your forgiveness, Mom.” And then I tell her about his determination to help me reach the spirit world. About his secret sweat lodge, the danger in his plan—the danger hidden in the rocks.

“You are the only one who can stop him. The only one who can release him from his promise to bring me home safely.”

“It's too late.”

“It's not too late. You can go back and stop him.”

“Please, let me stay with you.”

“I know you would die for me, Mom. But will you live for me?”

Her eyelids slowly flutter open. The vague memory of a dream she doesn't want to let go of slips away into the murky green light. Through a veil of watery half-vision the green hues turn into curtains. Beyond an opening in those curtains, a large wall clock takes shape, its minute hand soundlessly clicking off the seconds. She lets her gaze stray downward, to the blankets covering her—their warmth radiating throughout her body—and to the head resting in folded arms on the edge of the bed.

“Ian?” Her voice comes out a hoarse whisper.

His head jerks up. His silver hair sticking up at odd angles, his swollen eyes searching her face, he chokes, “Oh God! Julie, you're awake.” He reaches up to touch her cheek.

“Where am I?”

“In the hospital.”

“How...?”

The curtain snaps back and a white-coated doctor steps in. “Well, back with us, are you?” he asks picking up a chart at the foot of the bed.

Ian reaches for his crutches, but is waved to stay in his seat by the doctor. “This won't take long,” he says removing the stethoscope from around his neck and placing it in his ears.

While she's being examined Julie searches Ian's face. Beyond the relief etched into his furrowed brows, she senses something different. And then she realizes that the difference is not in him, but in her. Something is missing. The resentment, the bitterness she has carried for so long is no longer there. Looking into Ian's eyes, she is filled with comforting warmth that goes beyond the warmth being forced into her body by the intravenous tubes, the heated blankets.

“That was pretty clever of you,” the doctor says replacing the stethoscope around his neck. “Hoisting yourself up onto the edge of the ice like that.”

Julie looks from Ian to him. She has no idea what he's talking about.

He pulls another instrument from his pocket and clicks on the light. “If your jacket sleeves hadn't frozen to the ice,” he says leaning forward, “you would certainly have slipped back under when you lost consciousness.”

Trying to make sense of what he's saying, she lets him move her head from one side to the other to peer into her ears. Satisfied, he gently lifts one of her eyelids and says, “Look into the light.”

And the fragmented memories come flooding in with his words. She tries to sort through the vague details of the dream, the hallucination, whatever it was, as the light moves from one eye to the other.

The doctor straightens up, clicks off the instrument and replaces it in his pocket. Julie only half hears him speaking about hypothermia, about bringing her core temperature up a few more degrees. She glances beyond him at the wall clock. Nine o'clock. Morning? Night? She has no idea how long she has been unconscious. Her last clear memory is of walking out onto the frozen lake, in a blur of swirling snow.

“We'll just keep an eye on her for a few more hours,” the doctor says to Ian. “But I'm pretty certain they'll be no reason you can't take her home in the morning.” He smiles down at Julie. “You're a lucky lady.”

After he leaves, she turns toward Ian. “I went through the ice.”

“Yes,” he says. He leans down to press his lips on her fingertips. But not before she sees the unasked question in his eyes.
Why?

“Ian?” she whispers to the top of his head, “I need to ask you something.”

Without looking up he squeezes her hand.

“If there were no me,” she asks, “would you still sell the ranch?”

His lifts his head, his red-rimmed eyes searching hers. “If there were no you,” he says, “I would be devastated.”

Julie swallows back the lump in her throat. “I don't know why I walked out onto that ice,” she says holding his gaze. “I can't tell you in all honesty that it wasn't on purpose. But I can promise that you will never have to worry about me doing anything like that again.”

Ian lowers his head, saying, “We don't need to talk about this right now.”

She places her hand onto his face. “Darla was there,” she tells him. “When I was under the ice... Darla spoke to me.”

She feels him stiffen. Feels him withdrawing into wherever he goes whenever their daughter's name is mentioned.