Somewhere In-Between (29 page)

“How's that?” she asks.

“Fine,” Ian sighs. “Don't fuss, Julie...”

The highway is bare, not a sign of ice or snow on the road, as they head west. Still, Julie drives cautiously, taking each corner with extra care, trying to smooth out the ride in order not to jar Ian's leg. Half an hour from town, patches of snow appear in the fields and forests flanking the highway. As the road drops away on her left, she slows down even more, keeping an eye out for the spot where they went over the bank yesterday morning.

For miles it seems hopeless, everything looking so unfamiliar. Just when she believes she will never know exactly where their accident occurred, in the distance, a disturbance on the side of the highway appears. As they approach the churned-up shoulder—evidence of the struggle the tow truck had winching the Jeep up to the road—she slows to a crawl. She leans forward to look past Ian, who is also peering over the edge of the bank. Down below there is no sign of the debris, the boxes, tools, papers—no sign of Darla's clothes—which had littered the slope yesterday. “I wonder who cleaned up all the stuff?” she muses, pulling back onto the highway.

There is no response from Ian. After fifteen minutes of taciturn silence, as though no time has passed since she spoke, he asks, “Why?”

“Why what?” She glances at Ian. How vulnerable he looks without his glasses, she thinks, returning her attention to the road.

“Was it intentional, Julie? Going over that bank...?”

“What?” she demands, her foot reaching for the brake. “What are you saying?” As the car slows down she turns to him.

Staring out the windshield Ian murmurs, “Why did we go off the highway?”

“There was something on the road,” she says, her voice rising at the implication of his words. “For God's sake. I swerved to avoid an animal.”

“There was no animal.”

Pulling over to the side of the road she brings the car to a jerking stop, snaps it into park and turns to him. “Ian,” she says to his jaw-clenched profile. “Ian, look at me.”

When he doesn't respond she reaches over and takes his chin in her hand, forcing him, like an errant child, to face her. “Listen to me,” she says. “I hit the brakes when I shouldn't have. That's all. I had absolutely no control; there was nothing I could do. We skidded on a patch of black ice.” She stops, her hand dropping away from his chin, as the full impact of her words hits her. Out on the highway an empty logging truck passes by, the Jeep rocking in its passing airstream.

Looking down at her hands resting in her lap, Julie says, “I'm sad that you believe I'm capable of that.”

“What am I to supposed to think? You never,
never
, go into town with me. All of a sudden you want to? You insist on driving?” He waits for a moment, and then in a low voice adds, “I
heard
you, Julie. I heard what you whispered as we went over the bank.”

Her head snaps back up. “What? You heard what?”

Ian shakes his head, but holds her gaze, the pain of the words he won't repeat, obvious in his naked eyes. Had she really spoken them out loud? Had she truly given voice to the thought, to the strange relief she felt in that moment of inevitability? Resigned she starts the motor, leaving the unuttered words lying heavy between them.

At home, Ian's sullenness becomes a third presence. Julie tiptoes around it during the days, shutting her bedroom door on it with relief each night. Nothing she does seems to please him. Her suggestion to make up the cot in his office, so he wouldn't have to hobble up and down the stairs, is rejected. His favourite baked treats remain untouched. Whenever she brings him coffee in his office, he barely acknowledges her presence, and more often than not, she finds him slumped in his leather swivel chair staring outside.

This morning is no different. Setting down the steaming mug on his desk and picking up the cold one, she wonders how his eyes can take the relentless glare of sunlight reflecting from the frozen landscape. She has to squint just to look out at the lake, a solid sheet of ice now, shimmering beneath a brittle blue sky. A winter wind has swept the snow away from its surface, leaving behind an opaque tapestry of cracks and swirls.

“I'm going out to check the generator,” she says to the back of Ian's head. When there is no response she leaves his office, shutting the door behind her.

Since returning from town the communication between them has been almost non-existent, their conversation in the car left unresolved. Yet it has never left Julie's mind. Was there any truth in his implied accusation—does she have an unconscious death wish? Placing his mug in the sink, she shakes her head against the thought.

Outside, the crusted snow crunches with her every step as she walks over to the shop. The last few night's temperatures have dropped to well below minus twenty Celsius, struggling to climb to ten below during daylight hours.

Against Ian's objections she has taken over his chores. She feels a certain satisfaction in bringing in the wood and keeping the fires going, and looks forward to the physical activity. “There's no need for a fire,” Ian grumbles every time she bundles up to face the bone-numbing cold, “just let the propane kick in.” But Julie enjoys the comforting warmth of the ever-burning central fireplace. Not to mention the excuse to get outside. Hiking is out of the question these days, with Ian wanting to know her every movement if she leaves the house.

After checking the solar energy levels and finding no need to turn on the generator, she goes back inside and retrieves her camera from the mudroom. Trudging across the front yard down to the lake she feels Ian's eyes on her back. Resisting the temptation to turn around and look up at his office, she stops at the shoreline and stands in the hushed silence listening for the ice to ‘sing,' a phenomenon new to her.

She'd heard the strange, otherworldly sounds, for the first time the day after she brought Ian home from town, when she'd gone down to check the thickness of the ice. Stepping out onto the dark surface and finding it cement hard, she had taken a few cautious steps when she heard an eerie moaning beneath her boots. Retreating quickly to solid ground she had listened in wonder to the music-like tones reverberating from somewhere under the frozen surface.

Whenever she is outside now—or at night through the crack in her window—she finds herself listening for the random percussion-like sounds emanating like music from beneath the ice.

She does so now as she removes her mittens and shoves them into her jacket pocket, but all she hears is the screeching whine of a motor trying to turn over. The stubborn engine catches and the hum of an idling vehicle comes from the direction of Virgil's place.

Julie raises her camera and focuses on the horizon at the end of the lake where trees cut into a sky so blue it looks painted on. She adjusts against the light of the whitened landscape, wondering if it is too bright, but when she lowers the camera and checks the digital image, she is pleased with the results. Her fingertips burning, she takes a few more shots then hurriedly pulls her mittens back on. As she heads back to the house the distant engine hum turns into the sound of a vehicle in motion. She looks over her shoulder to see a strange pickup truck emerge from the north road. It turns into the ranch yard and pulls up a few feet from her.

The driver's window rolls down, and Terri Champion hollers above the engine noise, “Hello, on this glorious Chilcotin day!”

“Hello to you, too,” Julie says walking over to the truck. “What? No snowmobile?”

“Heck, you need a lot more snow than this piddley few inches for that. But don't worry, it'll come.” She turns the motor off and rests her elbow on the window. “Just thought I'd pop by to check up on you two, see how you're making out.”

“We're good,” Julie assures her. “Come on in for coffee.”

“I just had some at Virgil's. One cup of his is enough to do a soul for a week.” Her barking laugh is punctuated by a low moaning sound coming from the lake.

“Did you hear that?” Julie asks.

“Just another voice of old Mother Nature.” Terri takes off her sunglasses and grins. “Like your ‘talking trees.'”

“I wish I'd never told you that,” Julie laughs. “Really though, what causes those sounds?”

“It's just the ice expanding and contracting. The stress cracks can cause quite a chatter. The bigger the lake, the louder the chatter.”

“Sometimes it sounds almost like music.”

“Yeah, but music ya gotta learn to listen to. It changes with the thickness of the ice. Right now it's safe walking anywhere down at this end of the lake, or ice skating, if you've a mind to. Another week of this sub-zero weather, and you'll be able to drive a Mack truck across her. Heck, I could land my ski-plane here, I've done it before. Just gotta steer clear of the north end. Too many underwater springs down there.”

“Springs?”

“This lake isn't called Spring Bottom for nothing, Gal. Even in the coldest part of winter you can't trust the ice at the other end of the lake.” She studies Julie's face for a moment, then adds, “But I'm sure Virgil's told you that.”

Sensing something more behind Terri's words, Julie tells her that Virgil is leaving.

Terri nods slowly. “Yeah. I kinda figured that.”

“Did he say something?”

“No. You know Virgil. He doesn't waste any words, either with that contraption of his, or on paper. No. It's all the boxes stacked in a corner. Either he's giving a whole lot of stuff away, or he's moving. So what's up?”

Julie raises her hands to her mouth and blows warm air into her mittens, then says, “Why don't you come up to the house, and I'll make you tea.” She smiles, and adds, “In a china teacup.”

Sitting at the kitchen table, keeping one eye on Ian in his office and her voice low, Julie tells Terri the story, starting with the first time she met Virgil in the garden, and ending with the last time she saw him at his cabin.

“I had no idea until then,” she concludes, “that his cousin is Levi Johnny's mother.” Then taking in Terri's unsurprised expression, she asks, “You knew?”

“I doubt if anyone in the Chilcotin doesn't know that,” Terri says gently. “I just assumed you did, too.”

“No, I didn't. Don't you think it's something he should have told us?”

Terri lowers the delicate teacup. “All I know is that Virgil Blue is not a deceptive man. He's about nothing if he ain't about truth. I'm guessing that he believed you knew.”

After Terri leaves, Julie marches across the living room to Ian's office. He remains hunched over his desk, his back to her when she throws the door open.

“Were you aware that Virgil and Levi Johnny are related?” she demands.

The office chair slowly rolls away from the desk. Ian lifts his casted leg off the stool it's resting on, and swinging it to the side, he swivels the chair around to face her. He leans back against the headrest, pushing his new eyeglasses onto his forehead. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pinches his nose, and then replaces his glasses. Meeting Julie's gaze, he says quietly, “Yes.”

“How long have you known?”

Ian shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

“How long?” Julie repeats.

“Since August, since the day you met him in the garden. He thought we knew.”

“He thought we knew?” Confused, a flood of questions rushing through her mind, Julie shakes her head in an attempt to clear it. Struggling to keep her voice from rising she asks, “It didn't bother you?”

“Yes, of course it
bothered
me, at first. I only found out when I went over to his cabin that day, after you two met—after he realized we didn't know. He offered to leave, if you remember. But by then, well by then, I knew him, I relied on him. I was relieved when you said he could stay—I decided that it shouldn't make any difference. Being related to someone isn't a crime, Julie. He isn't responsible for...” he swallows, and looks away, speaking into the distance. “He isn't responsible for our ‘troubles.'”

Troubles?
She lets the trivial word hang in the silence. When his eyes finally meet hers again she chooses not to pursue it; instead she asks, “You didn't think it was something that, he—you, for that matter—should have told me?”

“I considered it, but decided against it when you voiced your opinion about keeping him away from you. I didn't count on you two spending any time together.”

Ignoring his statement Julie says, “I wish you'd told me.” Turning to leave she suddenly remembers their conversation about the dreamcatcher in Virgil's window—well, her conversation, Ian's ignoring. She is about to ask why he didn't take the opportunity then to tell her, but changes her mind. It makes no difference now that Virgil is leaving. What does make a difference is the depth of Ian's deception, and the revelation of how little she knows him.

“So how did you find out?” he asks behind her.

Without turning back Julie answers, “It doesn't matter.”

For the rest of the week she fills her days polishing and dusting every wooden surface inside the house, stacking wood and splitting kindling beyond what they will ever use, shovelling snow—making work, using physical activity as an excuse to keep her body moving in order to avoid thinking. It isn't working. At night she lies sleepless wondering if they can go on like this forever. Forever staying in a relationship that has deteriorated so much that their marriage is nothing more than an ‘arrangement' now. Forever pretending that they are anything more than two people occupying the same space, separate, yet together, bumping into each other coming around corners, mumbling apologies for the contact of strangers, forever sleeping in separate beds, separate rooms. They are less than friends, less than strangers, not in love, not in hate, worse yet, indifferent. She wonders if it's easier for those whose marriage erodes slowly over time, instead of being severed in a moment like theirs was, severed while they still loved each other, leaving them unable to talk about the one thing that links them. Every night she battles with this one-sided conversation, coming to the same conclusion: forever is too long. But with Ian temporarily disabled, now is not the time to force the issue.