9. Road to Hog Holler
S
OON AFTER THE FLUE
fire, and right after Ray had called earlier today to tell me he wasn't going to make it home, I phoned Alana to tell her we wouldn't be coming over for cards. She told me to come over anyway, and I said I'd probably just stay put since I didn't have the car.
“I heard about the flue fire,” she said. What a surprise. Of course she would have heard the news by then. The Four Reasons Gas n' Stop is the gossip hot spot of the entire community. The biggest news of the day would be my flue fire and the storm. Unless, of course, someone had driven off the road somewhere.
Thinking about that reminded me again about Gayl. She still hadn't phoned. But then again, she often forgets. Knowing this has probably kept me from falling over the panic cliff on many occasions. It's a kind of insurance, thinking she probably forgot to call. Instead of lying broken in a ditch, she was likely rooting around in my mother's freezer hoping to find some frozen gingersnaps. I sure hoped so. I didn't want to call and worry my mother in case Gayl got sidetracked there in town.
“Want Danny to come get you on the snowmobile?” Alana was saying.
I looked out my kitchen window. The frozen buds on the maple tree by the barn looked like Christmas ornaments. It was still light at six o'clock. Normally, in April, we'd be hearing the frantic mating calls of songbirds, but it seemed as though they'd given up on the day as well. Tonight, the clocks would spring ahead.
I said, “No, I'll call you later.”
Alana's voice had barely left my ear when the phone rang again and it was Gayl, calling from town. “Yeah, I don't think I should drive back today.”
“You mean tonight,” I said. “You were supposed to call hours ago.” I pointed out the fact that if she'd picked up the dog food and groceries and phoned me like she was supposed to, I would have told her to head back then.
“You were right about the road. It was real bad.”
“I knew I shouldn't have let you go in the first place.”
“But I did it, Ma. I drove slow and I survived. Aren't you proud of me?”
“Sure, but now I'm stuck here alone with no car and a hungry dog.” I stuck the phone under my chin and opened the fridge which was pretty much empty except for a bit of the roast beef
“Ma, tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it, okay?” Gayl was saying into my ear. “Like, I could leave now and go off the road, or Biz and I could stay here at Gran's tonight and come home first thing in the morning. It's up to you, Ma, because of course your judgment is always right.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. I scraped the leftovers into Suzie's dish and watched her savour it slowly in the way of old dogs. “I guess I should speak to your grandmother.”
“Um, she's having a nap.”
The clock over my sink read six-fifteen.
“What do you mean she's having a nap?”
“She was tired.”
“You mean she was drunk.”
“What am I supposed to do, Ma?” In her sigh I could hear her thoughts. She was trying to protect us both.
“Your Gran is lucky to have you there,” I said as I reached behind the fridge for my bottle of rum. “I wish I had someone to tuck me into bed tonight.”
“Where's Dad? Isn't he home yet?”
“Seems like the road's too bad for him to drive home too.”
“Oh.” Another sigh. “Well, I'm sure he would have come if he could.”
Poor Gayl. Protecting her father too.
She said, “Why don't you go over to Alana and Danny's, and not worry about Dad or Gran or me. It's not like you can do anything about anything anyways.”
“Maybe, I'll see.”
She's got it right that there's nothing I can do about it, I thought, as I hung up. I poured some rum and coke and leaned against the doorway between the living room and dining room. What happened to that family who lived here just minutes ago? I wandered upstairs to my bedroom, and then to Gayl's disaster zone. From the doorways I searched each room for a clue as to how things could have all changed without me even noticing. The only thing I found was what looked like my mother's sad face in the hallway mirror. “Now how the hell did
you
get here?” I said out loud.
I used to think of my life as time divided by two. Time before Gayl and time after. That's why I remember our farm so clearly, because that's when Gayl came to life and a couple of years later was when the farm died. Danny and Alana went on to buy the store, Bear built his log cabin up on Thunder Hill, and then it was just Ray and me and Gayl. We took out a loan and the house we used to call the farm was ours. After that, all that mattered was Gayl. All those summers filled with respectable vegetable gardens, with not a single pot plant peeking above the corn. Then there were all those winters of Gayl hopping onto the school bus that her own Daddy drove. I'd go feed the dogs and do the dishes, all before starting up the Toyota so I could go to work at Foghorn Pewter. Winter night after winter night, Ray and I would lie under the weight of half a dozen quilts, our child safe in the next room, the dogs on the floor beside the bed. I must have felt pretty content back then because I thought those years would last forever. That life now seems like one big blur.
Suzie's fur was so full of ice it sounded like the beaded curtains we used to have hanging in every doorway of the farm. I hoped her arthritis wouldn't get any worse because of all this.
Ice pellets stung my face. It was the kind of storm that leaves some fields bare, but will pile a ten-foot drift right across a road, just like the one ahead of me at the top of the lane. It's because of the spruce trees we planted almost fifteen years ago. Ray and I argued about those trees. He wanted to cut them down to prevent these drifts, but I wanted privacy from everyone who drove along the highway.
Today, when I finally reached the drift I figured I'd either have to climb over, or go around it, which meant tramping through swampy ditches. So, over the top I went, and got soaked anyway because I sank up to my hips in the snow and ended up feeling like I was swimming through the thing. At one point I didn't think I'd be able to pull myself out, but after one good fortification of rum I managed to slip out.
From where I stood on the highway, the Four Reasons was less than half a mile away and normally I could have seen it from here. But the wind had picked up and the ice pellets had turned to a mix of snow and freezing rain. Add that to a bare highway, and you've got
slippery.
I was thinking I should have brought my toothbrush because I might end up spending the night on the couch at the Four Reasons. The next thing I knew, my foot had hit a patch of ice and I was sitting on the road with a wrenched ankle.
I could see the Four Reasons' yard light up ahead. It was so close, but from where I sat it could have been in the next county. I also noticed Billy parked in the lot, which meant that Olive and Arthur were there, along with the pot of mulled wine simmering on the stove. Olive would have whipped that up the very second Alana called to tell her that Ray and Trish couldn't make it for cards. Could Olive and Arthur come instead? Alana wasn't about to spend Saturday night with nothing to do.
I was thinking about how I should turn around and go back home when I almost got run over. I was sitting right where Thunder Hill Road meets the highway to town when the black of night turned to blinding light. Normally, because there's a bend in the road near the bottom of the hill, cars slow down well before the intersection. But they wouldn't expect to see a person sitting just left of the stop sign, or the wet hairy dog standing there licking that person's face. The car skidded to a stop but not before it spun out and the headlights were again in my eyes. More annoyed than scared, I lifted my arm to shield my eyes and waved the other at the driver to turn off the fucking lights. Then someone came walking towards me and I almost didn't recognize Bear because he'd gone and shaved off his beard since I'd seen him in my kitchen earlier this morning.
I grabbed the stop sign post and pulled myself up. Good old Bear was pretending to be more concerned about Suzie's welfare than mine. I thanked him for that as I wiped the snow and ice from the seat of my pants. Then he asked me what the hell I was doing out in the storm. I said I might ask him the same thing.
“Hog Holler.” He pointed down the road.
“Doing it up tonight, are you Bear?”
“Didn't feel like being alone.”
“Me neither.”
“Ray didn't make it home?”
“Nope.”
There was some foot shuffling. “Want a lift to the Four Reasons?”
“I don't know if that's where I want a lift to, but I guess I can't stay here either.”
“At a crossroads, are we?” He laughed.
“Cute.”
Bear helped me into the front seat of the Rover. Then he gave Suzie a boost into the back seat.
“A couple of old cripples,” I said.
“Suzie's not
that
old, is she?”
I said I'd go with him to Hog Holler, if only to keep him out of trouble. The wind was driving the snow so hard that we crawled along that stretch of Thunder Hill Road that runs close to the water. It was so wild out there a person wouldn't have been able to make out the string of summer cottages that sit right beside the road. I was thinking this but then I saw a sliver of light coming from where I knew the old Chase cottage to be. No one had occupied it for years.
“Did you see that?” I said to Bear. “It looked like there was a light on in the old Chase cottage.”
“No shit,” he said, but when he suggested we turn around to investigate I said it had likely been a reflection from our headlights on a piece of metal and we dropped it. This was no night to be frigging around. Bear turned on the radio to an “Oldies” station and we sang along at the tops of our voices all the way here to Hog Holler where Bear is now sorting his cards.
“Whose crib? Mine?” Then, “So where's Ray? I thought he was coming home today.”
“Well, he's not.”
“Ah, that explains it. Fifteen for two.”
“Twenty-four. Explains what? My grouchiness?” I ask.
“Go. No, the reason why you were wandering around out there on the roads.”
“Six for thirty. Is that a go? My being out on the road had absolutely nothing to do with Ray not coming home.” I move my peg and count up my points.
“Sure,” he says, nodding his head. “So, then, why didn't he come home? The storm?”
“That's what he said.” I move my peg six holes. I watch his face as he counts up his points and moves his own peg seventeen holes.
“Sounds like you don't believe him.”
“Of course I believe him. Why should he lie?”
Bear shrugs. He has just skunked me in the game, so he sniffs and says, “Something smells around here.”
I ignore him and say, “It doesn't take much these days for Ray not to come home.”
Bear raises his eyebrows. “I thought you bought his excuse.”
“Would you?” I watch him closely, because if anyone knew if Ray has a hot one down in Newville, it would be Bear.
He shrugs. “I guess it's up to you to decide to believe him or not.”
“Yeah, but if you knew, would you tell me?”
“Are you nuts?” He laughs, but then he sees how serious I am because he says just as seriously, “I haven't a clue what Ray is up to.”
“Oh come on,” I say, poking at his shoulder like this subject is all a big joke. “Don't give me that crap.”
“Don't put me in this position, okay Trish? And don't say you don't know what I mean, because I know you do.”
I don't say a thing, because he's on to me, and I'm scared my tears will bust right out of my eyes.
“Trish?”
“Okay, okay,” I say and then I try laughing. “God, I sound so bitter, don't I? Sometimes Gayl calls me a bitter old woman. And the other day she called me an immature freak.”
“Bitter old woman and immature freak,” he says, shaking his head. “That Gayl sure has your number.”
“Which do you think I am, Bear? Or is that also an unfair question?”
“Yes it is, but this is more fun, at least.” He pretends to seriously mull this over. “Hmm, bitter old woman or immature freak. I'd have to say that, ah, I've seen you both ways. So it's a question of deciding which I've seen more often.”
“Thanks, pal,” I say, still fighting back the tears, which now sting my eyes. I must look awful when I cry because last year, when Ray was packing to leave for Newville, I was crying my eyes out and he kept emptying his sock drawer and all I could think of was how he once would have held me tightly and not let go until every single sob had stopped.
If Bear has noticed the tears he isn't letting on. He folds up the cribbage board and says, “It makes sense at our age to fit somewhere between bitter old and immature. Hey, I know, maybe they should call it middle age.”