Somewhere In-Between (12 page)

Ian returns from his office in town after midnight. On the cusp of sleep Julie considers getting up to talk to him but decides against it. She is still confused by her encounter with Virgil Blue earlier today.

They had walked home together, accompanied by the creaking of the horses' harnesses and the clanking of chains dragging on the gravel road. Julie had wanted to expand on her apology, or attempt to account for her rude behaviour on the day they first met, but sensed an explanation was unwanted. All the way back she stole glances at the reins resting lightly in Virgil's palms, noting the evidence of healed scars on both hands, the deformed fingers of his left and wondering once again how those fingers could possibly play the violin. Perhaps she had imagined it after all.

When they reached the yard, he gave a quick nod goodbye without meeting her eyes before he and his team veered toward the barn. Inside the house Julie had stood at the den window watching as he, with a deftness that belied his gnarled hands, unharnessed the horses and rubbed them down.

In the morning, Ian is already at his desk, hunched over the computer, when Julie comes downstairs. She heads to the kitchen to make coffee, but curiosity gets the better of her and she goes instead to his office and stands in the doorway. Sitting at his desk, his back to her, a new banker's box at his feet, Ian is so focused on his work that he's unaware of her presence.

“Why didn't you mention that Virgil is mute?” she asks.

Startled, Ian swivels around his chair to face her. “Mute?” His eyebrows furrow in the preoccupied manner they do when he is concentrating on something.

“I ran into him yesterday.”

“Yeah?” he says, bending over the banker's box on the floor. “And how did
that
go?”

“It would have gone a lot better if I had known.” Julie leans against the door jamb and crosses her arms. Trying hard to keep an accusatory note out of her voice, she says, “I just don't understand how you could neglect to mention something like that.”

Ian retrieves a handful of files from the box. “I don't know. It never occurred to me at first, I guess,” he says, sitting back up. “Then after you met him that day, I just assumed you knew.”

“Well, I didn't.”

Ian pushes his glasses up onto his forehead. Squeezing his eyes shut he pinches the middle of his nose, a habit he has whenever he is tired or thinking. “I'm sorry,” he says when he finally looks up at her. “I didn't think.” The sincerity in his expression matches his words.

Julie shrugs. “You spend so much time with him. How do the two of you communicate?”

Ian pauses for moment, then says, “He's a good listener,” as if telling himself something he has just realized. “When he has something to say, which isn't often, he writes it down. He does have one of those voice gadgets like your father had, but I've never heard him use it. Guess he hates the mechanical sound of it as much as your dad did.”

Julie had witnessed her father use his Electrolarynx only once, and that was to tell her mother, in a robotic-sounding voice, to stop fussing over him. The surgery that stole her father's voice had stopped his throat cancer from spreading. For a while.

Julie studies her husband. Something about the way he holds himself now reminds her of her workaholic father. Like him, Ian looks consumed by his profession. Even now he has lowered his glasses and turned his attention back to the stack of files in his hands. There's no reason for him to work this hard, or to work at all for that matter. They are financially secure. It's a point of fact that he had used to convince her to move out here—they have enough money to last the rest of their lives.
More than enough. No need for that college fund; no need for the bundle stashed away for an only daughter's lavish wedding.

Yet, here Ian is, putting in more hours than he ever did when they lived in town. His way of coping, she guesses, burying himself in work. Running away, after all, hasn't been enough.

Not ready to give up the conversation, but wanting to change the subject, Julie lets her gaze stray outside to the lake. “We should have a dock,” she muses, half to herself.

“A dock?”

“Or not.”

“No... I mean, yes. Of course we can have a dock. A great idea.” Ian places the files on the desk and turns back to her. “I'm just surprised. Dare I ask what brought this on?”

Aware that this is the first time since they moved out here that she has suggested a change, Julie senses his pleasure in her taking any kind of ownership in their new home.

“It occurred to me the other night when I went for a moonlight swim.”

“A swim?” If Ian is startled he hides it well. “Must have been chilly.”

“Not bad. Probably the wine kept me warm.” Why is she doing this, baiting him? Is she looking for a confrontation?

To Ian's credit, instead of the expected lecture on the foolishness of swimming in the dark, under the influence, he smiles and shakes his head.

“I wonder why the Woells, who seemed to have thought of everything out here, never had a dock built,” Julie continues. “Even Virgil has one.”

“Speaking of our tenant, where did you run into him?”

She opens her mouth to tell him about the bear encounter, but on second thought decides against sharing that right now. She can't stand the idea of an ‘I told you so.'

Instead she tells him, “On the north road. He was with his team—working somewhere up on the hillside, I guess. I didn't realize his woodlot was so close.”

“It's not. He's doing some logging for us.”

“Oh.” Julie unfolds her arms and asks, “Cutting down the beetle-kill?”

“Yes, and doing some selective logging.”

She raises her eyebrow, the previous owner's reluctance to cut trees coming to mind.

As if reading her thought, Ian says, “If we don't prune the forest, Mother Nature will do it for us, one way or the other. Fires, insect infestation. Selective logging makes the forest stronger, not weaker.”

“Let me guess. Virgil Blue's idea?”

“Yes, and no. He lent me a report from the Cariboo Horse Loggers' Association. After I read it we decided to do some timber thinning at the same time that he removes the bug-killed pine. We'll share any profits.”

She imagines the two of them sitting over their coffee mugs at Virgil's table, their heads together over notes and plans. Virgil writing, Ian nodding agreement. The vision reminds her of the ‘talking trees' supporting each other in the forest.

At one time it would have been her with whom Ian talked things through, her he leaned on. No more. His making decisions about the ranch without discussing them with her proved that. Still, it was good that he had Virgil. She wondered for a brief moment if he ever spoke to him about Darla. If he had ever said her name out loud in the neutral territory of a stranger's cabin.

“Well that's good then,” she says. “I'm glad.”

Ian's expression suddenly changes. He nods at the other office chair beside his desk.

For a moment Julie doesn't move. Then she slowly settles on the edge of the indicated chair with the same apprehension she reads in Ian's face.

Perhaps this is it then. Perhaps Ian has had enough of this non-marriage, and is not willing to give it any more time. Divorce is common after the death of a child. It was something she learned at a Compassion Group meeting for parents who had lost a child. Her doctor had recommended the group. Ian flatly refused to go. Although he gave no reason, she knew why. He couldn't share his feelings with her, how could he share them with strangers? Julie went alone, but unable to stand the collective pain, she herself had quit after only a few sessions.

At the last meeting a young mother, whose son had drowned, confessed to an uncontrollable anger at everyone, an inability to talk with anyone close, especially her husband, without lashing out. In a quiet voice, neither laced with sympathy nor judgement, the psychologist-facilitator had asked her to try stopping for a moment before speaking with a loved one. ‘Take the time to remind yourself that the only objective, the only outcome that's important, is to finish the conversation still feeling good about the other person, and yourself.' ‘Compassionate understanding,' he called it.

Perhaps now is the time to practise this advice. No matter where this conversation leads, Julie promises herself, she will hold onto that objective.

Tentatively she places her hands on her lap. “All right.”

“There was a telephone message at the office yesterday,” Ian says slowly. “From Levi Johnny's mother.”

Julie stiffens. Her resolve extinguished by his unexpected words, she blurts, “They didn't give her our new number, did they?”

Ian shakes his head. “But I thought about calling her back.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“I don't know. Curious? I wonder what she could have to say,” he watches her reaction. “The word in town is that Levi Johnny is in a bad way. That he's left school, gone back out to NaNeetza, given up hockey.”

“Darla gave up her life,” Julie whispers.

At the sound of their daughter's name Ian's shoulders sag. “Don't,” he says.

He lowers his head, but Julie cannot stop herself.

“And he got a fine. A fine. God! Driving with undue care and attention? What's that? A slap on the wrist. He got off lightly.”

Ian looks up. “I'm not so sure.”

“What does that mean? You said yourself he reeked of booze.”

“His alcohol level was less than .002. That's nothing. Maybe...” He stops mid-sentence and holds up his hand—as if to stop his thought, or her objection. “Anyway. I wondered if we should talk to her.”

“No!” A flood of panic washes through her. “Oh God! Do they know where we live?”

“This is the Chilcotin, Julie. It may be spread out over thousands of square miles, but it's still a small community. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing. The minute the Woells sold to two greenhorns from town, I'm sure it was all over the grapevine. We're probably old news by now.”

The sound of a car horn outside punctuates his words. They both turn to the window just as a car pulls into the yard. “Just what we need right now,” Ian growls. “Another bloody tourist who doesn't know how to read.”

It's been a good month since anyone has missed, or deliberately ignored, the Private Property sign at the top of the hill. In the beginning, exploring tourists in SUVs, campers, and bus-sized motor homes would appear in the ranch yard at least twice a week. Many drove back up the winding road in a huff, as if insulted to discover that the huge log home wasn't a lodge ready to serve them. Ian had a larger sign made and posted it at the first turnoff. If that doesn't work, he swears that he will have a locked gate installed. It hasn't come to that, partially because the number of accidental tourists decreased and partially because Ian is worried what kind of impression a locked gate would give to the locals.

“What's the matter with these people,” Julie asks, jumping to her feet. “Are they blind?” Feeling a pressure cooker valve of relief at finding a safe place to vent her anger she rushes from the room. Whoever it is, they have chosen the wrong moment to come down their road. She'll give the intruders a piece of her mind they won't soon forget. Storming through the house to intercept them, she decides she might be ready for that gate.

She throws the mudroom door open just as the car—a Cadillac so new that the gold paint still glistens beneath a layer of road dirt—comes to a stop in a dust-filled cloud.

Striding across the back porch Julie feels Ian's hand touch her shoulder. “I'll take care of this,” he says.

They both stop short as the driver's window rolls down and reveals the Cheshire-smile on the face of the person behind the wheel.

Ian is the first to recover. Stepping off the porch he calls out, “Hello Doreen,” to Julie's mother.

Trust Gram to blindside them like that. Really, though, it's Mom's own fault. She's turned her back on the world and now it's snuck up to bite her on the butt. If she bothered to check her email more than once a week, if she had answered the phone when Dad was in town, or even checked the messages,
she would have got the warning. Aunt Jessie, who knew that Gram had
suddenly decided to make a surprise visit, tried to give Mom a heads-up.

You have to hand it to Gram; she's feisty for sixty-eight years old. But her timing isn't the greatest. I get it though, why she didn't bother to ask Mom if it was a convenient time for a visit. She knew the answer. It would never be convenient. So believing it better to just show up, yesterday she packed up her new car and drove as far as Waverley Creek. Early this morning—because Aunt Jessie, who refused to be part of her plan, wouldn't give her directions to the ranch—she used her GPS to locate Spring Bottom Lake.

The expressions on my parents' faces when that window rolled down would have been freakin' funny if I didn't know what was behind them. I could feel their silent groans. And as much as I love Gram, like them I was sorry she had picked that moment to show up. It was too bad she had interrupted Mom and Dad the first time they were trying to have a real conversation. And they were talking about Levi. They need to talk about him.

The rumours Dad heard in town are true. Levi is broken. He tried to talk to Mom after the accident. He needs to, for her, for himself, for everyone, including me.

He made his first quiet attempt at the funeral, but Mom just looked right through him as if he wasn't there. It was pretty brave of him to show up and face all the accusing stares, the whispers: ‘Judge let him off because he's a big shot hockey star.'

‘Point zero, zero two alcohol level? That's enough—he's an Indian.'