Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility Page 4

  When he walks in, the bottle of red wine they drank from at dinner is empty on the kitchen table and the girls have uncorked another. They sit sprawled out on the floor, playing cards and laughing hysterically. The energy in the cabin has changed since he left, the playfulness replaced by something frenetic, wild.

  “You brought pie,” Leslie squeals, snatching it out of his hands. “What kind?”

  “Pay attention. Count your cards,” Anna says, grabbing Leslie’s ankle. Leslie yelps and her cards flutter to the floor. “I don’t care about cards,” she says. “Let’s eat pie.”

  Anna flops back on the floor and, spreading her arms wide, yawns at the ceiling. “All you do is eat.”

  “Did you let your sister drink all this wine?” Ted says, picking up the almost empty second bottle.

  “It wasn’t that much,” Anna says, coming into the kitchen. “Is that the first bottle?”

  “No, the second,” Ted says.

  “Oops,” Anna giggles. “It was like a little itty bit. It’s fine,” she says, waving dismissively.

  Leslie walks unsteadily into the kitchen and pulls a large knife out of the drawer, too large to properly cut pie, and starts trying to slice a huge wedge for herself. “It’s fine,” Leslie parrots, though Ted is pretty sure she’s not following their conversation, judging by the single-mindedness with which she devours her dessert. She offers a forkful to Anna, who shakes her head. The bite of pie falls to the floor and Leslie scoops it up and pops it into her mouth.

  “Ew,” Anna says, leaning in to her sister’s ear to make pig grunting noises. Leslie places her plate on the kitchen counter and pounces on Anna, putting her in a headlock. They end up spinning on the kitchen tiles, their arms wrapped around each others’ necks. Ted pulls Leslie off Anna and holds her back as Anna gets to her feet. Leslie gets an arm free and flings it toward Anna, catching her on the cheek, and Ted grabs Leslie’s arm and wrestles it against her chest. He turns her around and gives her a gentle shove into the living room.

  “You touched my boob,” Leslie screams at him, her face contorting so he can’t tell whether she’s going to laugh or cry. “Child molester. Rape. You rapist.”

  “Oh, why don’t you go call child services then,” Ted says, flinging his arms up in frustration. He can feel it all of a sudden — the flash of heat that made Heather lash out.

  “Fuck you,” Leslie shouts, red-faced.

  “Up to your room — now,” Ted says. He tries to grab her again and slips in his socks on the kitchen floor. He slams his open palm down on the counter. “Dammit, Leslie.”

  “I don’t have a room here,” Leslie screams.

  “Then pick a bed and stay there.”

  Leslie goes stomping up the stairs and slams a door. A few seconds later the door opens. “Hoo, Hoo, Hoo.” The door slams shut again. Anna rubs her cheek, where a red spot is forming.

  “See,” Ted says, “that’s what happens when you let your little sister get drunk.”

  “Whatever,” Anna says, pushing past him and heading toward the stairs.

  “I don’t think your mother would like this display of yours.” Ted stands in the middle of the living room, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Well, good thing she’s not here,” she says on her way upstairs.

  “Anna.” Ted follows her. “We’re talking.”

  “She’s looking for your fucking attention, Dad,” Anna says, turning so they face each other. “Just like Mom. It’s pretty fucking simple, really.” She smiles unkindly before turning to run up the rest of the stairwell.

  “Anna,” he says, grabbing her to get her attention. The thinness under her sweater shocks him enough that he drops her arm. “You used to be a sweet girl,” he says.

  “And now what am I, Dad? What am I?” He stares at her blankly, her pale face. “You don’t even know,” she says, before leaving him on the stairs alone.

  SOMETHING WAKES HIM IN the middle of the night. He was having a dream he was in the city and the city went dark. In his dream he stumbled through rooms feeling for light switches. When he wakes up, he believes for a moment that he’s still in the blackout. The stillness and darkness are complete and for a moment he has trouble breathing. Then he remembers he is in a cabin on an island in the middle of the woods. Lying still in the bed, he’s aware of his wilting erection, an erection that has no reason to be there anyway and makes him miss a Heather that no longer exists, a younger Heather before the children were grown.

  He hears a door close softly — one of the girls in the kitchen, probably Leslie, going for her second helping of pie. He listens and thinks he hears footsteps outside on the gravel. There are no cars on the dirt road at this time. There’s no reason for anyone to drive out here. He can hear some rustling out front, maybe a deer searching for food along the front hedges. He gets out of bed and opens the bedroom door quietly, standing there for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. The door to the girls’ room is open. He can make out Leslie in one of the beds, her long dark hair a black halo against the white sheets, her limbs hanging off all the edges. He walks into the room and tries to make out Anna’s shape in the bed beside Leslie. He creeps closer, trying to see a leg or arm poking out from under the comforter. He isn’t convinced the bed is empty until he touches his hands to the cold sheets. Leslie tosses in her bed, mumbling, “Dad? What are you doing?”

  “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.” He makes his way downstairs without turning on any lights, using his hands along the walls to guide himself.

  On the front porch, he scans the bushes for deer or raccoons, but there’s nothing. He tries to remember if there are bears on Quadra and recalls a story about them swimming the short distance between here and Vancouver Island. He grabs a rake by the door and walks out, standing quietly in the middle of the front yard until he hears something — a quick breath, a cough, a sigh. He pulls open the door of the garage with a slow creak. Inside he’s surprised by a darkness that’s even darker. There’s a soft glow like embers in a tiny dollhouse fireplace and the smell of burning plastic.

  “Anna?” He hears a crinkle of aluminum and coughing. In the corner of the garage, he can begin to make out the silhouette of Anna’s body. She’s sitting on a crate, her dark hair hanging around her face. “What are you doing?” Anna stands quickly and brushes off the back of her pants. “Nothing. Nothing,” she says, walking past him. She makes her way across the grass, unsteady. He can see her clearly now, his eyes adjusted, the yard almost luminous after the total darkness of the garage.

  “Anna,” he says, his voice pleading in a way he doesn’t expect. She stops in her tracks, but doesn’t turn around. Her body sways gently from side to side. “What are you doing?” he says again. She turns toward him, her eyes wet and sparkling under the moon, her fingers picking at the skin of her lips, and they stare at each other. She’s having trouble focusing on him, her head bobbing up and down, looking behind him, at his feet, at the sky. He can’t find the words he needs. “What were you doing in the garage?”

  “Hm.” She presses her lips together and tries to look at him. Her eyes close and she says nothing for several seconds. For a moment he thinks she’s fallen asleep, until her eyelids flutter and she squints at him with a soft smile. “Nothing.”

  “Anna.” He takes a step toward her.

  “Dad! Jesus!” Her eyes bulge and she bites down hard on her lower lip. “Jesus!” She turns her back to him and runs her fingers through her hair, tugging in frustration. “Why are you here?” She starts to walk toward the front door.

  “Where are you going?” he says. She doesn’t answer him. “Are you going back to bed?” He follows her dark shape into the cabin and up the stairs to the bedroom, where Leslie is now sleeping. She climbs into bed and covers her head with the sheets. “Anna,” he whispers.

  Leslie rolls over and groans. “Dad, you keep waking me up
.”

  “Go to sleep,” he says. He goes back to his room and sits on the edge of the bed, listening. For several minutes he hears nothing, and then Leslie’s soft snoring. He waits in the dark for a long time before heading down to the kitchen to collect the plates drying on the rack and put them back in their rightful places in the cupboards. From the rack he pulls a mug with the words World’s Best Grandpa and fills it to the rim with wine. He sinks into one of the oversized sofa chairs by the window and looks out at the porch, the dock, the silvery shimmer of the lake. The absolute quiet is strange, as though he’s suddenly lost his hearing. His eyes register the world in front of him and expect something — some proof of existence.

  He lets the wine travel slowly over his tongue and coat his tight throat. It was easier to make the girls believe he could protect them when they were young. Back then his existence was enough to reassure them. One day when the girls were very young, they were driving toward Uptown Mall to go Christmas shopping. Heather was dozing in the front seat, a Christmas list in her lap, and Leslie and Anna were sleeping in the back, small enough to still be in car seats. It was raining hard, the highway covered with puddles, and in the distance traffic had come to a standstill. There was construction on the highway and ahead of them a sea of red tail lights glowed in the dreary afternoon. They were the last car in the long line, and as they slowed down, Ted pumped the brakes, checking the rearview mirror as any good driver would. That’s when he saw the sixteen-wheeler coming down the hill toward them. It was still several hundred feet away, but he knew it wouldn’t be able to stop — it was coming too fast. As his eyes searched the sides of the highway, trying to find a place where he could pull out of the way, the truck fishtailed, coming toward them sideways. It all happened in slow motion, in a vacuum of sound. At that moment Anna woke — she couldn’t have been older than five — her bright eyes watching him in the rearview mirror. She picked up on his fear and turned to see the truck, but she didn’t cry out. She didn’t even look scared — she looked at him. She sat up very straight and watched him. Past her head he could see the truck sliding toward them, and though he was still afraid, he felt calmer. He took his foot off the brake, ready to drive into the ditch, but before he even turned the wheel, the truck veered and careened along the shoulder of the highway, coming to rest a safe distance away from them.

  When he turned around to check on Anna, she’d already closed her eyes and gone back to sleep. Her reaction gave him confidence in her, but also in himself. Back then he believed that together they could handle almost anything.

  TED WAKES UP WITH a headache, a pain starting in the tightness along his shoulder blades and working its way up to his temples. He pulls on his sweatpants and laces up his old sneakers with the hope that an early-morning bike ride along the logging road will clear his head. The girls are still in bed, content in slack-mouthed sleep, their faces younger somehow. He half-expected Anna to be gone, though he’s not sure why. There would be nowhere for her to go. Her restful presence in the bed makes him question last night’s events, whether or not he dreamt the entire thing.

  Ted stops at the bay window in the living room to look out over the backyard and down its steep slope to the lake. The clouds remain dense, the day never breaking through the morning light’s first struggle. On the edge of the property, a deer noses in the salmonberry bushes, its gait twitchy as though it’s ready for a getaway at the slightest breeze through the treetops. He steps closer to the glass and the deer vanishes into the bushes, its soft brown flanks camouflaged by the branches. Ted realizes he would be a terrible hunter, and this makes him neither happy nor sad.

  Outside the air is still damp from a heavy morning rain. Ted opens the garage door and steps inside. It’s mostly empty, with dusty shelves at the back and milk crates stacked in one corner. He goes over to the spot where Anna was sitting the night before and gets down on his knees, scanning the dirt floor for any sign, a bit of tinfoil, a butt, ashes, anything to give him a clue as to what she’s been doing, but there’s nothing. There’s no sign of Anna in this garage. He picks up some of the dirt and sniffs it — ordinary dirt, not drug-laced junkie dirt. He brushes off his hands and goes to pick up the bike in the grass.

  Ted follows the logging road in the direction of Jim’s real estate property. He can’t remember the last time he went for a bike ride, but judging by the tension building in his shoulders and chest it’s been a while. His calf muscles tighten. He should’ve stretched before, but he’s too stubborn to stop now — he digs his feet into the pedals and pushes on, whizzing past undergrowth thick with dewy ferns. Birds call out from somewhere deep in the trees.

  He should have checked the garage last night or searched through Anna’s pockets for that tinfoil, figured out what she was smoking. Heather would have done it differently; she would have grabbed Anna by the shoulders and demanded an answer. She would have pulled her into her arms, held her tightly, smelled her hair, slapped her. She would have tried to get a sense of what was going on.

  The road in front of Ted winds down a long hill. He picks up the pace, focusing on his loud, uneven breath. Suspicions flash through his brain, but they come too quickly and then disappear: Anna’s long absences, her vanishing hunger, her vanishing body, her chewed lips. Everything is wrong somehow; he sees it now like a doll built from mismatched parts, the limbs too thin, the head too large. Her eyes are wrong. The wheels pick up momentum, flying as he surrenders control, his hands braced on the rattling handlebars. He can hear a rumbling behind him and he pumps the brakes, moving over to the side of the road. As he stops and catches his breath, a logging truck roars by, coming so close he can smell the freshly cut lumber. He clutches his hand to his chest and takes in deep ragged gulps of air. He has a sudden urge to reach out and grab onto one of the chains keeping the logs together, to go off flying with the truck through the forest, though common sense tells him what would actually happen: his arm ripped out of its socket, the rest of him left on the bike alone on the road. The truck’s momentum catches him off balance and his foot slips into the ditch, tipping him over into the tall weeds.

  He pushes the bike out first and then clamours up, wiping the dirt off his legs and arms. The truck has already clattered down the rest of the hill and takes a sharp curve at the bottom of the road. It looks unstable enough to go hurtling right through the forest, but somehow stays on course, keeping its load in position. Ted bangs his fist on his chest, trying to ignore the pain shooting through his shoulder: a sure sign of a heart attack. He lets his vision blur with the throb of blood rushing through his head. He could die here on this logging road. Someone would find him. Wrap him in a blanket. Put him in the back of a pickup and tie him down with rope for the long ride back to the mainland.

  Behind him he can hear laughter and the whistling spokes of a bicycle wheel. “Are you going to keel over?” Leslie shouts, braking beside him with a spray of dirt. He can feel the muscles around his heart slacken and, with his daughter as a distraction, the pain in his shoulder disappears.

  “I didn’t know you were following me,” Ted says, embarrassed, hoping Leslie didn’t see him fall into the ditch.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up? I thought we were all going together?” She gets off the bike and pulls her ankle behind her, stretching first one leg and then the other. “I tried to get Anna up, but she was bitchy.”

  “Don’t say ‘bitchy.’” Ted wipes the sweat off his forehead. “You both looked tired. You girls had a late night.”

  “I’m not tired.” She smiles shyly at him, completely different from the tipsy, belligerent girl last night.

  “Well, let’s go, then,” Ted says, starting down the road. Without discussion they both decide to walk their bikes. After several minutes of silence Leslie asks, “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “I think this is it, up ahead.” Ted veers and climbs up a steep dirt driveway that disappears into the forest.

&nb
sp; The site is barren, cleared of all vegetation, with huge mounds of earth along the edge of the lot. Tall firs stand around the perimeter of the property like mourners at a burial. There are still stumps to be dug up, and rusted machines — forklifts and backhoes — are parked along the driveway, looking as though they’ve been there for years. Ted sits on a stump to catch his breath. He’s still sweating. He watches Leslie walk slowly along the edges of the property. “We could put a pool here.” Leslie stands at the back of the lot in the middle of an empty square of mud.

  “So, what do you think?” He follows her gaze to the tops of the trees and watches her eyes focus on something distant, maybe the possible view of Cortes Island and the water. He is having trouble visualizing anything different, anything beyond the trucks, stumps, machinery, and porta-potties. He can’t picture his Adirondack chair, or rather he can’t picture himself in the chair. He had it drawn out in his mind, but now he sees nothing but the bare trees, the stripped branches, the mud and sky.

  “We could cut down those trees there, I guess,” Leslie says, pointing to the left of the bulldozer. She looks out at the land, indifferent, uncommitted. She can see it, but he guesses she isn’t sure she likes it. “I don’t know. It’s kind of a long way to come,” she says.

  “You think?” He knows she’s becoming a smart young woman, albeit slowly — but sooner than he probably realizes, she’ll be smarter than him. She lies back on a large stump and looks up at the sky. “It’s kind of far for a weekend place.”

  “Hm,” he thinks, sitting down beside her. “You’re probably right.”