Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
Then I begin a
rough draft of my letter to Liam. It’s an hour and a half before I’m satisfied
with it and composing it makes me cry a little again, but it also makes me feel
as though I’ve done what I can to push things closer to right.
Dear Liam,
I hope
this letter reaches you. I didn’t know how else to get in touch with you and if
your sister’s passed it on, I’m very grateful. I tried to come see you at your
apartment today and when I found out you were no longer there it was hard to
take. I wish I’d tried to reach you sooner—I hate to think of the way we left
things.
I’m
sincerely sorry if I blamed you for things you didn’t do. Either way, I know we
didn’t place any boundaries on our relationship. I wasn’t in touch with my own
expectations and that wasn’t fair to you.
The last
time you came to see me was very difficult. I couldn’t get things clear in my
head and I’d been very hurt by what Natalie told me and had assumed we were
already through. When you showed up, finishing things there and then seemed
like the best way to handle it, but I’m not sure about that anymore because I
miss you and, like I said the last time I saw you, I care about you.
I hope
your Christmas in Dublin with your family is a happy one and your time back at
Six West passes quickly, uneventfully and as painlessly as possible. And then I
hope London does everything for your career that you want it to and more. I
regret, on top of the other misunderstandings, not coming to see you in
Philadelphia, Here I Come. I’m sure you were wonderful. But I don’t regret our
time together this fall and I hope you don’t either. There are a lot of things
about you and us that I won’t forget and I did think of you as a friend too. I hope
in some sense that we still are friends.
Leah
I slide my
completed letter into an envelope addressed to Liam, seal it, fold it in thirds
and then insert it into the envelope made out to Alison along with the brief
note I’ve written her. I don’t have a stamp and have to wait until the next day
to buy one, coincidentally at the very same post office I gave Liam directions
to the first time we spoke. Then I drop the letter into the mail slot at the
side of the post office counter along with a wish that Liam will read it
someday soon.
***
When I leave Toronto on the night
of the twenty-third there’s a layer of hard-as-plastic snow blanketing the
ground, and still falling, that I’m nervous will cancel my flight. My first
stop, in the cab, is to a family five minutes away from Abigail’s house whose
pet care ad I found on a local supermarket’s community bulletin board. For the
bargain price of twenty-five dollars they’ll take care of Armstrong for the
entire time I’m gone. Once I’ve handed his cage over to them, I’m still loaded
down with presents for my family, Christmas pudding and Bastien’s laptop. When
that’s been checked in at the airport, my plane’s been de-iced and we’re at
last roaring into the air, I feel like applauding the way some passengers do once
a pilot has landed a jumbo jet at its destination after an especially turbulent
flight.
My mother,
father and grandfather meet me at the Vancouver airport four and a half hours
later. I note how my father, with his widow’s peek and deep laugh lines, looks
ever more like my grandfather; I never really used to see the resemblance
between them. There are other similarities too. My father and grandfather
aren’t comfortable discussing emotions. That must have made my breakdown
tougher for my father to deal with than it was for my mother; it forced him to
connect with me on a level he wasn’t used to.
But unlike my
grandfather—who will only give and/or allow a peck on a cheek when I first see
him or am saying goodbye—my father’s physically affectionate and is the first
one to reach out and throw his arms around me at the airport. When I lived at
home I hugged my parents every night before going to bed and I realize, as my
father releases me and I reach for my mother, how I miss this ritual and how
glad I am to be with them.
Then my
grandfather kisses me, tells me that I look well and wants to know what the
weather was like in Toronto. Before he retired he often used to fly out there
on business, and he still speaks highly of the level and variety of cultural
activities to be found in the city. If he had his way I would probably
currently be growing into a concert pianist rather than an anthropologist.
My grandfather,
having come over on the ferry from Victoria earlier today, is tired and heads
up to the spare room early, leaving me alone with my parents. I present my
mother with one of the Christmas puddings I bought at O’Keefe’s and, before she
or my father can start in on me about returning to school, share that I intend
to make an appointment with an advisor at the university in the new year with a
view to taking summer courses and then continuing with my degree in the fall.
My father and
mother exchange looks of relief which simultaneously satisfy me and make me
feel guilty about the worry I’ve caused them over the past year. My house seems
smaller than when I left it last Christmas and when I lie in my bedroom at the
end of the night it feels like a child’s room, although I was eighteen when I
went away to university.
Between those
four walls, Bastien feels neither closer to me nor farther from me, but when
his brother Jeremy answers the door for me at the Powell house the next day, my
heart pounds. The year has made a dramatic difference in Jeremy’s appearance.
He’s shot up several inches and his shoulders and chest have begun to fill out
too. Now fourteen, he doesn’t look like a boy anymore and has passed into
teenage territory. But his eyes haven’t changed at all. I feel Bastien’s stare
on me through Jeremy’s brown pupils. “Hey,” he greets as he opens the door wider
to allow me in.
“Hey,” I reply,
stepping inside with him. “How’s it going?”
“It’s all
right,” Jeremy says in non-committal tone.
I hand him the
Christmas pudding I’ve lugged thousands of miles. “I didn’t know what to bring,
so…” Abigail, who will not be here tonight but I hope to see in a few days,
warned me weeks ago not to get any presents for the Powells as they don’t want
to celebrate the season the way they normally would, but as practicing
Christians didn’t wish to ignore it either.
Jeremy holds the
pudding. “You should’ve taken it out of the package and pretended you’d made it
from scratch. No one would know.” His smile is totally unlike Bastien’s and for
some reason that relaxes me.
Jeremy leads me
into the Powells’ sunken living room, where his father and four other people—a
man and woman in their forties and two children who I estimate are both between
the ages of ten and thirteen—are already seated. Jeremy veers off into the
kitchen without a word and Mr. Powell, who I have to remind myself to address
as Henry, gets to his feet and stands with his right hand resting lightly on my
back as he introduces me to his cousin Noah’s family as Bastien’s girlfriend.
The cousin’s
wife says we met at the funeral, but that I probably don’t remember. That day—and
the ones directly before and after it—was a blur of grief. Without the
medication my mother had the doctor prescribe, I doubt I would’ve been able to
make it through the ceremony.
I apologize and
lie by saying that they do look familiar. Mr. Powell urges me to sit down and
asks if I’d like something to drink. I take a seat next to the youngest child,
who is tapping her toes on the living room carpet as if to invisible music. In
a minute Jeremy returns with my drink instead of his father. It’s a tall glass
of burgundy liquid on ice which I remember Bastien referring to as ‘Sorrel.’
As he places the
glass in my hands, Jeremy says, “My mom says it only has a dash of rum in it to
help preserve the drink.” He shrugs as though the fact is meaningless.
I sip my Sorrel,
which has a deliciously sweet tartness to it, and make small talk with the
cousin’s family and Jeremy. When Mr. Powell reclaims his seat, I announce that
I’m going into the kitchen to say hello to Joyce and inquire whether she wants
any help.
“She’s got
Noah’s eldest, Claudia, in there helping,” Mr. Powell tells me with a wave of
his hand. “They have it under control. But you go in and say hello.”
Invisible goose
bumps gather on my skin as I stride towards the kitchen. I’ve been afraid to
come here, even as I wanted to feel closer to Bastien’s family, but aside from
the jolt I felt when Jeremy opened the door this is not how I imagined the
night would be. I don’t feel magically closer to Bastien’s family or that we
have some shared purpose because of him. If anything, being here reminds me
that we barely know each other.
In the kitchen
the girl who must be Claudia is stirring the contents of one pot while Joyce
peeks into the oven at a roasting ham. “Ah, Leah,” she says as she closes the
oven door and notices me hovering by the counter. “How are you, child?” The
tenderness in her voice reminds me of Abigail and tears spring to my eyes,
though I hadn’t felt them lurking. I blink them away but can’t steady my voice
enough to reply for another few seconds yet.
“I’m okay,” I
say finally. “How are you?”
Joyce nods and
takes a step closer to Claudia. “Abigail said you were doing better.” As an
aside to Claudia she says, “We’ll mind this for a few minutes—you take a break
and join the others, okay?”
Claudia
dutifully leaves the kitchen and when it’s just the two of us I tell Joyce that
I have Bastien’s laptop, a few more of his clothes and one of his sketchbooks
in my dad’s car for her. These things don’t seem enough to bring her. I’ve
often felt, because Bastien and I had knit our lives together, that I was the
one who lost him when he died. But we were only together for a little over a
year, and much of what I lost was the future we’ll never have. Bastien’s
parents watched him take his first steps, say his first words, pinned his
earliest sketches to their refrigerator. One of them would’ve brought him to
take his driver’s test. Always there would’ve been someone to take care of him
when he was sick, or cheer for him when he came home with good grades, or lecture
him when he acted up.
With Joyce I
sense his loss most strongly. She wears her pain closer to the surface than Mr.
Powell or Jeremy—not in the all-encompassing way that I once did, but in what
feels like a deep wistfulness which spikes when I mention Bastien’s things.
Joyce wraps her
fingers around the locket hanging from her neck and says, “Henry doesn’t like
to talk about him very much. It seems to make it harder for him, but I feel the
opposite.”
In the beginning
I didn’t want to talk about anything else or to anyone else. I’m no longer
surprised that Bastien’s gone, but I’ll never stop feeling his absence. “I
prefer to talk about him too,” I say. “He used to…” I hesitate for the same
reason I was never able to finish my last letter to Joyce; I don’t want her to
think I sound unbalanced. People think of being in love as existing in some
kind of altered state which they revere yet are quick to place limits on.
“What?” Joyce
prompts, her eyes lingering on mine.
“I’d…hear his
voice wherever I went and whatever I was doing. I’d have entire conversations
with him in my head because I couldn’t be without him.”
“I do that too,”
Joyce says quietly. “And he comes to me with messages in dreams.”
“What kind of
messages?” I ask, curious.
Joyce stares at
the steam rising from the pots on the stove, but doesn’t make a move towards
them. “Things about his father or his brother most often, and things that make
me feel better too.”
“And he’s well
in the dreams?” I ask, my eyes damp again.
“He’s well and
happy.” Joyce touches my hand. “He’s fine, Leah. I believe he’s only sad when
he thinks of how we unhappy we are here without him.”
I want to
believe her; I wish I had that kind of faith. But it helps to think that she
believes this. And Bastien would come in dreams if he could, I know he would.
He’s come to me too; it’s just that I can never entirely trust whether what I
experience is him or something of my own making.
“This is why
we’re here tonight,” Joyce says firmly. “For him.”
I feel Bastien
in the air between us, a force of light and warmth. It’s as vivid a feeling as
I’ve ever experienced when he’s come to me alone, only those times were usually
in or near sleep. I rub the corner of my left eye casually, as though I’m
battling an eyelash rather than tears. Always, I’m happier when he comes, and
it’s right to sense him here, no matter who the experience is springing from
him.
I bob my head in
acceptance. “Is there anything I can do back here to help?” I offer as I find
my voice.
A smile flirts
with Joyce’s lips. “Bastien said you couldn’t cook.”
“It’s true—I’m
pretty useless in the kitchen.” Cheer leaks into my mouth and cheeks.
Joyce pushes up
her sleeves, grabs a wooden spoon from the top of the stove and then pauses to
look at me. “So was he.”
“I know. We were
both awful.”
“A good match
then,” Joyce declares and accepts my offer of help anyway. Eventually Claudia
returns to help also, which makes up for my ineptitude in the kitchen.
After the meal
and the dishes, and after Noah’s family have gone, Bastien’s family and I climb
into his father’s car and go to midnight mass together. They might have been my
family too, someday, and I notice how restless Jeremy is during the mass, like
he wishes he was someplace else, but that Joyce and Henry listen intently to
the minister. Like Bastien, I enjoy the carols the most and when the choir
raises their voices to sing “Carol of the Bells” I listen with extra care,
trying to find him in the notes.