The Glass Harmonica (34 page)

Then they take me in for a meeting with the doctor, and he tells me that they're “not seeing the kind of progress” they'd like to see, and I'm not sure if they think I'm letting them down by not trying hard enough or if they're the ones who have decided to give up. Either way, it's like I've finally capped out on rehab, reached a point where any improvement is so slight that it's just not worth their continued effort, so they've changed the channel and now I have to start getting used to working with the little I have.

They've stopped with the parallel bars and started showing me how to wrestle a wheelchair up over the curb with no one there to help me, so I guess I know where I'm headed, no rocket science there. No one's talking about me fighting my way back anymore—they're not talking about rehabilitation, they're talking mediation, and there's a counsellor who comes in with a notebook and a serious level stare to ask me how I feel—or no, not how I feel, but “How do you
really
feel?”

And what the fuck does he think the answer is going to be? Does he want “I'm at peace with myself ”? Does he actually expect me to say that, even though I'll never again get a chance to do the things I love, and I lost them all without even knowing I was doing them for the last time?

Right.

For most of the day, “life skills” is stupid stuff like how many minutes it takes to boil an egg and how to reach the burner controls while you're always sitting down, how to plan a healthy menu, the right place to call to register for a trip on the wheelchair bus, and, eventually, even how to drive.

I like that part: how to drive. It's different, sure, but a lot of it is just the same. Apparently, the government or the insurance company is going to buy me a van, and instead of climbing into the front door and just slamming it behind me, I'll get to go through an incredible number of contortions to drag my way into the driver's seat from the wheelchair lift, and then I'll get to go on from there.

I was still learning the mechanics of getting into a driver's seat when they had an instructor come out to show me the new rig, to teach me the controls and show me where everything is. But it's not going to be like driving. I mean, it'll be just exactly like driving, except that it won't be the whole thing.

There's not going to be any more stopping out near Avondale, no scrambling down the rough bank of gravel and stone to see just where it is the river goes. No casting to see if there are any quick trout around, the kind of trout that slash up through the surface real fast and strike hard as soon as something lands on the water. I always had my fishing rod in the rig; some light-fingers has taken off with it long ago, no doubt.

It's amazing where the rivers go, you know. Some of them follow surface fault lines in rock in lines as straight as a die, so you can draw them on the map with a ruler and follow them through the countryside without ever having to make a turn. Others meander, always toppling into the lowest ground, nosing around from here to there, sometimes wide and shallow, other times deep and fast, doubling back in oxbows and flat, stupid corners that make no sense at all. Some of them fill in evenly with weeds from both sides; others sprout pond lilies and duckweed; and still others run over great hidden topographies of silt and decayed wood, so that every single footstep you take across them is bound to be changing some creature's entire universe permanently.

One thing I never imagined is that I would end up missing the gravel and rock on the edge of the road, the garbage and broken-off car parts and empty cigarette packs that you have to step over to get wherever it is you're really going. That I would actually miss all the crap that people throw out their car windows and then promptly forget.

But I do.

I imagine that even driving's going to end up being something of a curse, not because of what it brings within reach, but because of everything it will so clearly put just out of reach. King Tantalus and all that.

King Tantalus. That's mythology I read in high school, when it didn't really matter, when it didn't really make sense, especially when absolutely everything in the world seemed like it was always within reach, as handy as an apple right there in front of me, on a low branch. You never think for a moment that someone's just waiting to pull it all away.

Don't get me wrong: it will be wonderful to put some distance between myself and the Miller Centre, to get out on the highway with the windows down, even if I'm still going to need someone else's help to do something as simple as taking off my pants. And learning about the van was less about learning to drive than it was about learning where everything was. Seriously, if you can drive a dirt bike, this van would be no trouble at all; the worst part would be that your feet wouldn't have anything to do. But my feet don't seem to mind that. They're both off in their own little world. Bastards.

The accelerator was a hand control, like the throttle on a motorcycle, and I've ridden enough of them. A big knob set in the steering wheel so I could turn it easily, even without the strength to hold on tight, and another hand control for the brake. Easy as pie: it wouldn't be like the old days, holding the steering wheel with my knees while I lit my smoke or used both hands to twist open a stubborn bottle of pop, but it'd do. I'd manage. Heck, there's not much I can't learn to manage. And there's lots of room for sample boxes of potato chips in a van.

They've given me a driving instructor. A driving instructor! For me, who's never put less than 140,000 kilometres a year on the company rig, driving cars right into the ground because they just couldn't take the sort of driving it takes to service a region as big as the ones I always had. And the driving instructor, some pimply youngster, says to me, “Just put it in drive and ease the throttle open, and we'll head out and go around a few blocks while you get used to it.” Very much in charge, a kid not much older than some pairs of socks I have back at home.

I tell him, flat out, “It's not like I goddamned well don't know how to drive or anything. I've been driving my whole goddamn life.”

That shut him up, Mr. Driving Teacher, so that he's just sitting there in the passenger seat, sitting and staring, like me, and waiting. Wondering if I've actually got the strength and interest to reach over and pop him one in the mouth. There in the lot, and we were still waiting, the engine running and the brake still on, and I know that out behind me the brake lights had to be staring bright ruby red, and the nurses in the lobby are probably craning out through the windows wondering just what it is we're waiting for, anyway.

They're probably wondering and worrying why it is that we don't beetle away with that hesitant start-stop gait of every new driver, thinking about how I'm going to mess up their routine because the schedule says I'm supposed to be safely out and on the road for one-and-a-half-hours-and-we-don't-have-to-worry-about-Bob. One and a half hours when Robert can be someone else's problem. Check mark in the small square box.

And I bet the driving instructor is wondering exactly the same thing, wondering just how long we're going to be sitting there before he finally has to open the door and get out, if for no other reason than to get the nurses to bundle me back out into the waiting chair because I'm being so unexpectedly difficult.

The only difference is that I know exactly what it is I'm waiting for. The clock on the dash says 2:14, and the twin dots between the numbers flash on and off with every single second as it ticks away. And even though I can't see him yet, I'm sure that somehow, over the noise of the engine, I can hear his feet coming, happy, carefree, stringy-muscled feet.

Go ahead. Wave.

Just wave, stringy man. Just wave at me. I dare you. And at the same time, I don't have to dare you, because I'm certain you will wave. And I'll be down the Miller Centre's driveway flat out, the little knob cranked right over, and I'll be moving faster than those stringy old legs can carry you as you do your best to run away.

I'm sure you'll be surprised.

Because no one ever,
ever
, expects to meet their moose.

188
A
McKay Street

LIZ RHODES

FEBRUARY 11, 2006

M
AY BE
one day they'd have a house.

Just a small place, Liz thought, no bigger than the apartment they already had, but a real house just the same.

Maybe a place with two bedrooms and a real kitchen, instead of a narrow slot with a fridge and stove stuffed into it like peas in a pod. Maybe a washer and dryer that weren't six blocks away at the laundromat. A living room with a long window looking out over the street—irises all along the front of the foundation, jumping up purple and tissue-thin for a few weeks every summer, and afterwards, even just the satisfying green swords of leaves, the kind of plants you have because you're going to be settled somewhere for years.

She thought about it absently, the tip of her finger running through the condensation on the side window of the car. February, and another night of delivering pizzas in the snow.

Ronnie was at the top of a long flight of stairs, and there was a woman silhouetted in the door frame, giving him money for a pizza. The woman was probably looking at him and wondering what he was like, this guy who was all whipcord and tendon and long, lean muscle, wondering at the way he looked like a ball of barely restrained energy, the way he was bursting with here-you-go and let's-get-started. Perhaps the woman was wondering what Ronnie would be like in bed, whether he'd be as good as he looked like he could be, Liz thought. And wouldn't you like to know. She smiled.

Maybe they could have a place with a backyard, maybe a big long backyard like some downtown houses had, long and unexpected and hidden from view, somewhere where she and Ron could have a dog. Not a big dog, and not one of those stupid purse-sized things either, she thought. A real dog with a wet black nose, the kind of dog that scratched at the back door when it wanted to go out in the yard and then turned and looked at you with big, round, sad eyes. The kind of house where you could actually have a couple of kids and then eventually just be happy being old.

And she could do that with Ron, she thought. With just a bit of luck. Luck and care.

But everything was just so complicated with Ron. Sure, he was tough, but he also could be more tender than anyone she'd ever met. Lying naked in their apartment, he'd trace his finger down the inside of her arm and it was like he was almost going to burst into tears, he was so happy with just that.

And sure, he'd gotten into trouble before, but Liz knew she could change him. Just seeing him smile, the scar on his lip turning the smile into something far more self-conscious than an ordinary smile . . . she knew it would work, if they just caught a few breaks, if things just went their way a few times, just a few crucial times in a row.

The car was cold and the windows were all fogging up again, new, fine condensation filling in the lines she'd made a few minutes before, the small drops filling in and dropping a curtain over everything outside. It made the world outside the car seem almost ominous, Liz thought, as if the houses were leaning in closer, their windows more black and staring, because of the way their edges were smeared. Funny. Nothing really changes, and at the same time, everything does.

Soon Ronnie would be reaching across with his whole sleeve to wipe the windshield, and then he'd be rolling the window down to grab hold of the windshield wiper at the very top of its arc, lifting it off the glass and letting it slap back down to break off the clotted ice and snow. It was like clockwork, she thought, every stormy winter night the same thing, the car always full of the smell of soggy carpet and steam-wet cardboard from the pizza boxes, and every single night was going to go on being the same, even if the addresses were different. And then they were stopped again, Ronnie already out the door with the pizza in its insulated bag, the car idling rough so that it felt to Liz like it might just up and stop at any moment.

Stop-go, stop-go, the snowy nights even worse, pell-mell forwards through the tunnel of the falling snowflakes, and she knew well the way the snow could hypnotize you, the way it could grab you if you stared right at it and let your eyes gently unfocus, letting the snow have its way with you.

Next was 35 McKay Street, jumbo always, half pepperoni and extra cheese, the other half feta and tomatoes. And Liz knew all of that was for show, knew that 35 McKay would just end up eating the whole thing himself. Because there was never anyone else there.