Read Online February by Lisa Moore - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lisa Moore
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Grief, Family & Relationships, Psychological fiction, Family Life, Domestic Fiction, Widows, Single mothers, Newfoundland and Labrador, Pregnancy; Unwanted, Oil Well Drilling, Oil Well Drilling - Accidents
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to know so badly, but something is holding her back—the children, the roof, the phone. Is there a way to go and come back? Why can’t Cal come back?
When she wakes up she is full of guilt because she decided to stay. Something rigid and life-loving and unwilling to cave in takes over. She betrays him in this way, every single night of her life, and it’s exhausting. She denies him, she forgets him. Every time she says no to him in a dream she forgets him a little bit more.
She remembers the time he poured boiling water on his foot and the blister was as big as the palm of her hand, and how he left his sneaker unlaced and the tongue hanging out and he could not walk for a week, but she doesn’t remember if that happened before or after the children.
She will never forget his face. She won’t forget the green cotton scarf he had. Or the time he patched the canoe and there was the smell of Varathane.
To remember his voice she has to think of him speaking to her on the phone. She could feel if the phone was going to ring. She’d have a feeling, and the phone would ring and it would be him, and they’d say just a few things. About groceries, or did she want to get a babysitter and go out. Did she want to go to a movie? Helen thinks of Cal on the phone and she can hear his voice perfectly. Or she can remember his voice if she thinks of him singing.
If they were in the car she’d say, Sing me a song, and he knew Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash and every single thing Leonard Cohen had written, and he mimicked whoever the singer was because he was shy about singing, even when it was just her.
Or she remembers the way he held her hand when John was born, nearly breaking every bone, and how he wasn’t afraid.
Or she remembers the times when they had to push the Lada to get the motor to catch. The guy who sold it to them saying the car didn’t have reverse. He was going to charge an extra twenty-five bucks for reverse. They’d leave the two doors open and lean in and feel the weight of the car, and then when it started to roll they had to half-jog and jump in and pull the doors shut, and the car coughed and backfired and shook and the engine came on and there was a hole in the floorboards. She could see the asphalt under her feet.
She does not forget making love. She remembers Cal’s smell. What he tasted like. The texture of his hair and his curls and the freckles over his chest, and if he had been out in the garden the tan line of his T-shirt sleeves, how creamy his skin was above that line. She licked his belly at the top of his jeans. She licked the waistband of his jeans and his belt buckle and the leather belt. And then she undid the belt and the snap of his jeans and the zipper, and she put her tongue on his cotton underwear and then her whole mouth.
He made her come, and waited and made her come again; this went on and on, she remembers. She does not forget that. And she remembers his legs wrapped around hers and his feet digging into the bed and his face with his eyes closed and the colour coming up in his cheeks.
She listens for his voice or a sign or advice. But there is nothing. She lives through the disaster every night of her life. She has read the Royal Commission report. She knows what happened. But she wants to be in Cal’s skin when the rig is sinking. She wants to be there with him.
ONE AFTERNOON IN that first year after Cal died, Helen left Gabrielle with her mother-in-law so she could do some shopping. The older children were with Louise. She took the bus back to Meg’s at the end of the day and she knocked on Meg’s door and waited, and there was no answer.
It was mid-October and her breasts were leaking and they were hard as rocks and her nipples hurt; one of them was cracked and bleeding. It was still warm that late in the season and she could smell barbecues somewhere in the neighbourhood, and she went around the back.
Meg had her laundry out and the garden had been mowed. The geraniums had
When she wakes up she is full of guilt because she decided to stay. Something rigid and life-loving and unwilling to cave in takes over. She betrays him in this way, every single night of her life, and it’s exhausting. She denies him, she forgets him. Every time she says no to him in a dream she forgets him a little bit more.
She remembers the time he poured boiling water on his foot and the blister was as big as the palm of her hand, and how he left his sneaker unlaced and the tongue hanging out and he could not walk for a week, but she doesn’t remember if that happened before or after the children.
She will never forget his face. She won’t forget the green cotton scarf he had. Or the time he patched the canoe and there was the smell of Varathane.
To remember his voice she has to think of him speaking to her on the phone. She could feel if the phone was going to ring. She’d have a feeling, and the phone would ring and it would be him, and they’d say just a few things. About groceries, or did she want to get a babysitter and go out. Did she want to go to a movie? Helen thinks of Cal on the phone and she can hear his voice perfectly. Or she can remember his voice if she thinks of him singing.
If they were in the car she’d say, Sing me a song, and he knew Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash and every single thing Leonard Cohen had written, and he mimicked whoever the singer was because he was shy about singing, even when it was just her.
Or she remembers the way he held her hand when John was born, nearly breaking every bone, and how he wasn’t afraid.
Or she remembers the times when they had to push the Lada to get the motor to catch. The guy who sold it to them saying the car didn’t have reverse. He was going to charge an extra twenty-five bucks for reverse. They’d leave the two doors open and lean in and feel the weight of the car, and then when it started to roll they had to half-jog and jump in and pull the doors shut, and the car coughed and backfired and shook and the engine came on and there was a hole in the floorboards. She could see the asphalt under her feet.
She does not forget making love. She remembers Cal’s smell. What he tasted like. The texture of his hair and his curls and the freckles over his chest, and if he had been out in the garden the tan line of his T-shirt sleeves, how creamy his skin was above that line. She licked his belly at the top of his jeans. She licked the waistband of his jeans and his belt buckle and the leather belt. And then she undid the belt and the snap of his jeans and the zipper, and she put her tongue on his cotton underwear and then her whole mouth.
He made her come, and waited and made her come again; this went on and on, she remembers. She does not forget that. And she remembers his legs wrapped around hers and his feet digging into the bed and his face with his eyes closed and the colour coming up in his cheeks.
She listens for his voice or a sign or advice. But there is nothing. She lives through the disaster every night of her life. She has read the Royal Commission report. She knows what happened. But she wants to be in Cal’s skin when the rig is sinking. She wants to be there with him.
ONE AFTERNOON IN that first year after Cal died, Helen left Gabrielle with her mother-in-law so she could do some shopping. The older children were with Louise. She took the bus back to Meg’s at the end of the day and she knocked on Meg’s door and waited, and there was no answer.
It was mid-October and her breasts were leaking and they were hard as rocks and her nipples hurt; one of them was cracked and bleeding. It was still warm that late in the season and she could smell barbecues somewhere in the neighbourhood, and she went around the back.
Meg had her laundry out and the garden had been mowed. The geraniums had
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