The Journey Prize Stories 25 (16 page)

Then the power went off. We had a wind-up radio so we didn’t have to waste our batteries, but after that, Joel couldn’t raise a signal on any band no matter how slowly he searched the dial.

And without power, of course, our freezer went, and we had to eat up whatever perishables we had left – the pound of hamburger, the half a package of fish sticks, our one chicken – before they spoiled. A brief, unwanted feast to no good purpose.

Reggie and I were still drinking coffee, which meant we still had power, when I started taking Megan to the shop. Adele realized she couldn’t keep the girl cooped up all the time. She was eight years old, she needed to run and play, at least a little. The shop was only a twenty-minute walk from the house. I thought the risk worth taking, for Megan’s sake. In fact, the risk seemed very low. I had never felt threatened on my way
there or back. I had not been confronted by anyone, and certainly not by the mythical gangs of roaming young men.

Megan played in the service bays or out front where I could keep an eye on her. Her favourite game seemed to be something she called “bus driver,” in which she drove an imaginary bus around the lot, picking up and dropping off imaginary passengers. Upon one occasion, I noticed she had come to a stop at the edge of her route between the gas pumps and the air hose. She remained fixed to the spot, and I grew concerned that she had seen something down the road, something unusual enough to rivet her attention for what had become a considerable amount of time. Reggie had his back to her and was going on about a rumoured shipment of corn coming up from Mexico, though how it was going to get here was anybody’s guess. I excused myself.

Reggie’s voice trailed off as I hurried away. “What’s up, Frank?” he said, suddenly nervous.

I shared his concern. “Megan? Honey?” I stood beside her. I looked where she was looking and saw nothing but the empty street winding up toward the railroad tracks.

“We have to wait,” she explained.

I nodded as if I understood. Then, “What for?”

“The train,” she said. “It’s a long one.” Though she had no watch, she looked at her wrist as if to check the time. She peered to her right and craned her neck. Drawn by her gesture I peered in sympathy, looking for the end of the train. For a brief moment I was with her, standing at the front of her bus, an enquiring passenger anxious to get home or to work, watching a whole string of freight cars trundle by. I could’ve sworn I heard them creak and groan. I even glanced the other way and
saw the thin plumes of exhaust making the air shimmer as the engines disappeared down the line.

And then with a word from Megan – “Here we go.” – the train had passed, the warning bells had stopped, the barrier arms came up, and we were on our way. She let me off at the next stop, and as I turned back to the office, I felt an odd surge of happiness. I was almost surprised to see Reggie standing in the doorway, his face grim, his eyes on Megan.

“Everything okay?” he said before he realized it was. His face relaxed; he offered a smile.

I shrugged, “Kids,” as if that explained everything, and maybe it went a long way toward doing just that. They didn’t see the world the way we did. “You’ve got a daughter, doncha, Reggie?” Back inside the office, I refilled our cups. “I recall you saying. What’s her name again? Sophie? You should bring her next time. She and Megan could play together. They’d be good company for each other. They’re about the same age, aren’t they?”

“About,” Reggie conceded, but he was reluctant to pursue the subject.

He could have had a hundred reasons not to want to bring her along on his daily trek, and I didn’t press him. “I’m only saying,” and left it at that.

But we had fallen into a bit of a funk, which only deepened when he said, “We are the blind leading the blind, Frank. We are the blind leading the blind.” Then he tapped the counter, “Better get going,” and he abruptly left.

“See you tomorrow,” I called after him, something I didn’t normally do.

He waved, but I only saw his back and in that there was no promise.

He did not, in fact, return the next day, but he did stop by the day after, when we pretty much found ourselves back to normal. I didn’t mention Sophie, and neither did he – not until several weeks later, long after the power had gone out. To me it seemed as if he had chosen to talk about her out of the blue. “Would you like to meet her?” He stood with his head back and his chest out in a formal gesture of pride that was undercut by a stiff smile and the uncertainty in his eyes, as if I might say no.

I clapped him on the back. “Of course, of course. Bring her around. Anytime.”

He brought her the next day, he and his wife, Nancy. They were waiting for us outside the shop. Reggie did the introductions and then stepped back, out of fear, I couldn’t help thinking, out of shame. He let his wife do the talking. I was hoping the girls might run off and play together, and although Megan looked on with some interest, Sophie seemed to know that was not why she was here, and so I scooted Megan into the service bays to play on her own.

It was the middle of October. In the morning the windows were rimed with frost. To save on firewood, we had started gathering in the living room and sleeping in our sleeping bags. And we had been rationing our food, of course, for a long time, and growing gaunt in the process, taking in a morsel of anxiety with each mouthful we consumed. The shelves of every grocery store, in as wide a radius as we dared to make, were empty, though we continued to search in hopes of finding something, anything. Scavenging had become part of our routine. Joel and I took turns, one of us going out and one of us staying home. A man, we reasoned, we hoped, at least for the time being, was almost as good as a dog at keeping intruders
away. And we didn’t have a dog. No one did. They either ran wild in packs or their bones had been picked clean.

By then I was opening the shop just long enough to give Reggie a chance to drop in, and long enough to let Megan drive her bus. She usually had the same route, though sometimes there were detours, she explained to me, due to road-work or a parade. It was a tough job being a bus driver, making her way through all that traffic, but she soldiered on for the sake of her passengers. She took great delight in having a full bus, calling out, “Move to the back, please,” when all the seats were taken and the aisle was crowded. When I boarded her bus and dropped my imaginary ticket in the fare box, she did her best to treat me as if I were any other passenger, regular or otherwise. She took her driving seriously, waiting for the traffic lights, checking her mirrors as we pulled away.

Sometimes I would be waiting on her route, other times I would be a few seconds late and have to flag her down. I invariably stood at the front of the bus hanging onto the pole and we would chat about the world through which we made our way. She told me all sorts of stories about her regular passengers. There was Martha who worked at the Tim Hortons, there was Sam who worked at the airport, there was Mrs. Jones who went downtown every Wednesday to get her hair done, and on like that. I didn’t know where they came from, all these people and names, all these stories. When I got off that bus and watched her pull away, the desolation in which I found myself – the abandoned houses, the stores with their windows broken, the empty streets – seemed, if only for a little while, the illusion, and not the other way round.

But Megan wasn’t playing “bus driver” the day Reggie and
Nancy brought their Sophie to my shop. Facing them – that woman with her fingers digging into her daughter’s shoulders and her hard, calculating eyes fixed on me – I wanted to order them out. Whatever they had to say I didn’t want to hear. Instead, with a heartiness I did not feel, I said, “So what’s up?”

Nancy pushed Sophie forward, leaving her to teeter. “She’s a good girl. She won’t be any trouble. Will you, Sweetie?”

Reggie could not contain his agitation. He began to pace, throwing himself from one end of the office to the other.

“She’s in perfect health,” Nancy continued. “She hasn’t had so much as the sniffles since all this started. Has she, Reg?”

“What?” He was running both hands through his hair, and with his fingertips still fixed to his scalp, he shook his head. “No.” He stopped as if to reflect. “No.” He laughed. Then he bent forward. I thought he was going to burst into tears.

We stood in rigid silence, staring at each other for all of thirty seconds.

“I told you this wouldn’t work.” Reggie jerked his whole body toward the door. “I told you.” He came back, grabbed his daughter’s hand and hauled her outside.

Nancy followed hard on their heels. “Reg, Reg,” she sniped. “You promised. We agreed.”

He kept marching, head down, toward the road, their little Sophie struggling to keep pace. They had a house several blocks from us over on Queenston.

Later that night as our walls creaked with a sudden drop in temperature, I told Adele about Reggie and Nancy, how they had come by the shop with Sophie, and the peculiar mood they were in. I tried to make light of it, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she was thinking what I was thinking.

One of the wilder rumours going around in a world full of wild rumours, an old wives’ tale really, was that parents were trading children. Hurried and clandestine exchanges were taking place on the principle that the idea of eating your own child was abhorrent, but in circumstances dire enough you might at least consider eating the child of another.

The change in the weather was sudden – from a frost that disappeared with the rising sun to a cold so dry we woke up the next day to find the windows deceptively clear. The visit from Reggie and his wife, however, had a much more dramatic effect on me. Their showing up with their daughter the way they did had changed my thinking. The shop was now off-limits, opening it every day, no matter how briefly, a link to the past that I finally had to admit had no future, at least not one that pursued a commerce I wanted to entertain. What if they brought their Sophie around again, and wouldn’t take no for an answer, simply took what they wanted, and over my dead body if it came to that? The shop was simply one more thing I would have to leave behind in a world where it seemed we were leaving behind more than we had ever thought possible.

The cold was a good enough excuse to forestall any questions Adele might have about our not going to the shop that day. Indeed, when I told her Megan and I were going to stay put, she barely raised an eyebrow.

Joel announced that if I was going to be around, he was heading out to see what he could find. The cold worried him, presaged worse weather to come. But he was gone less than an hour, though he did not return empty-handed. “Mom?” he
called from the back door. “Mom?” There was enough of a strain in his voice to make me lift my head.

I was reading to Megan, snuggled up with her on the couch.

After a long pause, I heard Adele say, “Who’s this?”

“This,” Joel replied, “is Sophie.”

He had found her bundled up in a parka outside the shop.

“Frank?” Adele called out. “Frank. Come here for a sec.”

I was already on my way. Joel had no idea of the bargain he might have entered us into, no idea. When I arrived at the back door, I half expected to find Reggie and Nancy waiting. Did they really think we were going to turn Megan over just like that? But Sophie was by herself.

Adele said to me, “Is this … the girl?” When I said yes, she told Joel to bring her in, quickly, and quickly she went to the door and locked it.

Megan had followed me into the kitchen. With a mixture of surprise and delight on her face, she said softly, “Can Sophie come and play?”

Adele was crouched in front of the little girl. She was holding Sophie by the shoulders. She shook her ever so slightly, “Where’s your mommy and daddy?”