Flight (2 page)

“I thought I smelled coffee,” he says, as casually as if she were a buddy from work. As if it was someone else who'd thrown a jug of water in her face not more than twenty minutes ago.

She forces a smile without looking at him, the pulse throbbing in her neck.

“Baloney, too,” he says, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Aren't I a lucky one?”

His scalding lips suck momentarily on her neck.

“Don't.”

He stops. “You're not still mad, are you?”

She shakes her head.

“I said I was sorry – ”

“I know.”

He grips her tighter. “Do you love me?”

She doesn't answer.

“Do you?”

She nods.

“Say it.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too, baby. So much.”

If he squeezes her any harder she'll pass out.

“Sit down,” she says, “I'll bring over your breakfast.”

He lets her go and sits down at the kitchen table. She watches him: tan chords and black cashmere sweater, clean shaven and too much gel in his combed-back hair. Because it had been thick, wavy, and parted in the middle, they'd called him ‘Vinny Barbarino' in high school. The dimple in his chin along with his height helped the nickname stick until well after graduation.

With a fork, Emily stabs at the crusted-over baloney, dropping it on a plate. Pours his coffee, then brings everything over to him. Before he has a chance to ask, she grabs the bottle of ketchup and the cream from the fridge, laying both beside his plate. The sugar is already on the table.

She sits down.

“You'll have a cup with me,” he says.

She rises and pours her own, then sits beside him again.

The ketchup makes a fart noise when Kent squeezes the bottle. He squeezes again and again until his plate is a collage of red and brown, like the insides of some wild animal.

Emily turns her face away, looking out the window. She finds herself paying extra attention to his clicking jaw and his sticky saliva as he chews, suddenly conscious that, soon, she will no longer have to listen, or look at him.

After he finishes eating he sits back, his thick fingers around his cup. He brings the lip to his mouth and sips. Scrunches up his face. “That's strong.” He drops in another spoonful of sugar and more cream. Tries another gulp. Puts it back down.

Emily notices his eyes lock onto the centre of the table. She waits for him to look up at something else, the view outside the window perhaps, or at her, but he doesn't. He's left her and she knows it.

She glides a fingertip along the top of one of his palms. “Kent?”

By the look on his face, it's like she's not even in the room.

She slides her chair closer. “Kent?”

She wishes now that one of the children were up – Lynette, so he could throw her up in the air and then catch her, or Jeremy, so they could talk hockey or weightlifting. They could bring him back, she thinks.

She takes her hand away. Slides back in her chair. Is he thinking about earlier? Had the cold water in her face not been enough after all?

“Kent?” she says. “What's wrong?”

He looks up, finally. Right at her. Back from wherever he'd been.

It's Emily now who looks away.

“They're announcing the layoffs this morning,” he says. “‘More workers than there is fish,' the crowd from St. John's says. In their fancy suits and ties they were. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans with a goddamn flower on his breast pocket.” He goes silent again, this time casting his glance out the window.

Other than the thinning hair and the few lines in the corners of his eyes, she thinks he looks exactly as he did in high school. His body even better. Hard not to be, with all the exercise he does. Five nights a week he lifts weights in the garage with the stereo blasting. The other two evenings he's on the treadmill. Comes back in the house then soaked in sweat and plays with the youngsters before their bedtime. Jeremy likes to wrap his hands around Kent's flexed bicep. Lynette on her daddy's shoulders, her long blonde hair down to the middle of her back.

“Myles is finished,” he says, still looking out the window, “and him with another young one on the way.”

In the silence, she gets up and returns with the coffee pot. He speaks as she's refilling his mug. “I dare say there won't be a woman left by day's end. Not enough seniority.”

She lays the pot on the table and sits back down.

“Young Alan Cross says he's taking his wife and getting the hell out.” He doesn't use the spoon for his sugar this time, just tips the jar. “Can't imagine many wanting to stay after this.” Thick waterfall of cream. The clinking of the spoon inside his cup as he stirs. Licks it off after he's done with it.

He leans toward her. “I shouldn't be saying any of this, but there's talk about shutting her down. ‘Too expensive to keep it going,' the St. John's crowd says.” He pauses long enough to suck in a big breath before letting it out slowly. His forehead is suddenly creased with wrinkles. “There may not be a Lightning Cove by the end of the month.”

She holds his gaze for a second before looking down at her coffee, then wraps both hands around the mug, enjoying the warmth in her palms. Takes several sips in quick succession, but doesn't put the cup back down after she's done. Just keeps it below her bottom lip, in front of her chin.

“Nothing to say about it or what?” he says.

“Hmm?”

“I said, you've got nothing to say about it?”

The town can sink into the bay for all I care
. “What's to say?”

He leans in closer. “Lots, considering we live here.”

Another sip before she says, “What difference what I think?”

After a moment he sits back in his chair. “I'm glad it's not you fighting for us.”

She finds the air between them growing thinner, lately. Can barely fill her lungs. Suffocating. The pillow over her face being pressed down harder.

There are footsteps in the hall, quick and light, like a puppy. Lynette. Emily imagines her daughter's feet: big toes curled in and longer than average baby ones with nails always in need of trimming. She imagines Lynette's walk too, her reed-like body thrusting forward as if through pounding wind, her little darling never getting to wherever she needs to be fast enough.

Lynette's hair is all tangles when she comes into the kitchen, her giraffe trapped at the neck between her ribcage and the nook of her left elbow.

“Always in a rush, my little darling is,” Emily says, prodding a forefinger under Lynette's armpit.

Because Lynette's nightgown doesn't go past her knees, it's easy to see the fresh glob of blood on her right knee where, last night, a scab had been. She walks into the space between Emily's parted thighs and gives her mother a hug, easily interlacing her fingers at the base of Emily's back.

“Good morning, my love.”

“Morning, Mommy.”

“What did I tell you about picking that?” Emily says.

“Give your dad a kiss,” Kent says, splaying his arms.

“It was itchy,” Lynette says, letting go of her mother and moving over to her father.

Kent kisses and hugs her, reaches into his trouser pocket and hauls out some tissue. He dabs at Lynette's knee.

“Ouch!”

“All done.” Kent balls the tissue up, then looks for somewhere to put it.

Emily grabs it and throws it into the garbage by the porch door. Stands there long enough to watch her husband take Lynette into his arms, then bounce her on his knee.

“What are you doing up so early?” he says.

All the bouncing is making Lynette giggle.

“Wanted to see your daddy before he went to work, did you?” He kisses her on the cheek before putting her down. “Daddy's got a big day today.” He disappears the same way Lynette had just come.

Emily is standing near the porch door. “Sit down and I'll give you some Honeycombs.”

While Emily is pouring the milk, Kent comes back in, putting his cell phone in its holder on his belt loop. Though his sport's jacket matches his pants, the look doesn't quite work. Too much tan, she thinks. Or maybe it's just that now he looks too ‘done up.' Too perfect.
Too perfect,
she thinks. Too perfect for those at his work, and the friends he goes fishing with; too perfect for the guidance counselor at Jeremy and Lynette's school, and Sonya at the Royal Bank, and Pat Gullage at the marina; too perfect even for her own mother. Too perfect for everyone but her. Water in her face, and then he's the sweetest thing going. Tomorrow it'll be a slap across the mouth, or his body pinning her against the wall before his: “I love you,” his: “I didn't mean it,” his: “Let me take you out for dinner.”

He comes over and grazes the base of her neck with his lips, then says, “Best not to plan on me for supper.”

She nods. “I'll put some aside.”

He pats her bottom, then blows Lynette a kiss.

“Bye, Daddy.”

“Bye,” Emily says.

He slams the door. There's the sound of a turning ignition and pumping gas.

She listens to the sound of crunching rock and the two quick horn blasts as he backs out of the driveway. Listens too for the single one he insists on halfway down their street.
Too perfect.

2

JEREMY'S JAW CLICKS WHEN HE CHEWS, just like his father's. She watches him as she sips coffee. He overloads his spoon like Kent does too, then opens his mouth wider than necessary to accommodate the food. He's most focused during mealtimes, his nose so close to the plate sometimes it looks as if he might dip his face in it.

“No one's going to steal it,” she says.

He doesn't bother looking up at her.

An appetite nearly as big as his dad and not yet twelve years old. It's not uncommon for he and Kent, during
Hockey Night In Canada
, to devour a whole extra-large pepperoni pizza. They'll go piece for piece like it's some game, every so often showing each other the contents of their mouths. Some evenings Jeremy will go into the garage with his father to watch him lift weights. Although Kent says his boy is still too young, Emily knows he sometimes lets Jeremy do a little. More than once she's peeked through the garage window to see Kent instructing him, both of them with their shirts off, bandanas wrapped around their heads and soaked with sweat.

Jeremy finishes and then dips his spoon in Lynette's bowl.

“Get out of it,” Emily says. She yanks the spoon from his hand. “Get an apple if you want something else.”

“She's
not
eating it.”

“She is too.”

“Can I have a toasted strudel then?”

“Is it Saturday, Jeremy?” It suddenly occurs to her that, by then, the three of them will be in British Columbia. She needs a second to allow the nervousness in her stomach to pass.

“How come only Saturday?” he says.

“Because they're loaded with sugar, I said. Now either you eat an apple or you go and get dressed.”

“I don't want a stupid apple.”

“Go then.”

“I don't know what to wear.”

“Your clothes for today are on top of your dresser like they are every morning. Best not to try my patience.”

Jeremy stomps through the kitchen and down the hall to his bedroom. He's been getting into fights at school. Lately, he's been hitting his sister.

Emily looks out the window. The sun is just above the surface of the bay. After such a long winter, these spring days are a relief. She sees the Lightning Cove ferry in the distance, loaded with cars. Passengers as tiny as ants taking the forty-minute ride to the main part of the island. Emily and the children will take that ferry too this Friday, then find some way to get to Gander by ten to catch their eleven o'clock flight. She figures she won't breathe until the layover in Toronto.

“Eat!” She says to Lynette.

“It's soggy.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Lynette is the opposite of her brother. Instead of eating, she'd rather be drawing pictures of trees and houses in her sketchbook, or finger painting in the basement. Eating is like an intrusion on her day. Mature beyond her years though, Lynette. Everything is
why
with her. Why is there a sun during the day and a moon at night? Why is the water closer to shore than other times? Why does Jeremy get to stay up later? Why does Daddy get quiet?

“Four more spoonfuls, okay?”

“Why?”

“Or no colouring this evening.”

Lynette forces the cereal in, nearly gagging.

“Good girl. Now go and get dressed. I'll be right in.”

Emily watches her go, then gets up and takes the cereal bowls to the dishwasher. She squeezes in some dish liquid and turns it on, then stands with her belly against the machine, letting its vibrations settle her stomach. She breathes in, lets the air out slowly, her mind on Friday
.

3

SHE'S HOLDING LYNETTE'S HAND. Jeremy is walking a few feet ahead. Despite the clear day and a sun that is close enough to touch, it's chilly. So the children are wearing spring jackets over their sweaters. A purple knapsack hangs on Lynette's back. Jeremy carries a math book and a green scribbler in his right hand, pressed against his waist. Too cool, even at eleven, to carry a bookbag.

They take a left on Trinity Street away from the water and toward the centre of town. Hanrahan's Seafood
,
on her right, has a special on trout and shrimp; Anique's Antiques has a gorgeous oak rocking chair and a grandfather clock for sale on the front stoop.

Jeremy kicks at rocks on the shoulder of the road. Lynette hums a melody that Emily has never heard.

“What's that song, baby?”

Lynette stops humming and gives her mother a look. “Miley Cyrus, Mom.”

She feels old. And it's not because of the way Lynette said
Miley
Cyrus
, either. Some nights she lies in bed and tries to remember being young: running through the waist-high grass in her mother's garden, filling salt-beef buckets with blueberries, riding her bike along back streets and trails in the woods. She'll often check in the groceries of women much older than herself and wonder how they can seem so much younger, so free with their laughter, so animated when they talk, how they can be loaded down with bags yet still walk lightly.