A Boy of Good Breeding

ten

“He doesn’t go out at all?” Knute asked Dory.

“Nope,” she said.

“What about when I’m at work?”

Dory shook her head. “Mm-mm.”

“Does he get up to eat?” Knute asked.

“No. Not really, no,” said Dory. She and Knute were in the kitchen drinking coffee and watching the sun go down. Dory leaned towards the open window, over the sink, and the warm breeze blew the hair off her forehead. Beyond Tom and Dory’s big backyard was a field, plowed and ready for seeding, pitch-black and chunky, with a faint line of bushes towards the very end, and the giant orange sun was slipping down behind those bushes, round as a poker chip, and the purple sky covered everything. That was the view.

“You know what, Knutie?” said Dory. “Tom and I have lived here all our lives. In this town, every single day of our lives.”

“Do you think that’s what’s making Dad so sad?” asked Knute. Dory looked at her and smiled.

“No, Knute,” she said. “It’s just the opposite. He loves this place, it’s all he’s known. He’s afraid to say good-bye. He’s afraid to leave it behind. He’s afraid, Knutie.”

“But he’s been given a second chance,” said Knute. “He’s still alive.”

“It’s more mysterious than that,” said Dory. “He wants his old life. He’s not a stupid man. For him to get up and cheerfully make the most of each day, at this point … he would feel like a fool.” Dory shook her head. Then she said, “He would be admitting to himself that life has suddenly become very short, very precious, that soon he’ll no longer exist, that it’ll be over. Of course he knew that, we know that, we say it, but to really, really know it, to be certain of it, is more than he can be right now. His bed is safe. Sleep is easy.” Then she said again, “He’s not a stupid man.”

The sun had gone down right before their eyes. “Did you notice it disappear?” Dory asked Knute.

“Well, I noticed it was gone,” said Knute. She put their coffee cups in the dishwasher and then stood with her hands on her hips and looked at Dory. “I’m going out,” she said. “Don’t worry about Summer Feelin’, she won’t wake up.” Dory reached out her arms and put her hands over Knute’s.

“I’m not worried,” she said. “I think I can take care of one little girl well enough on my own.”

“Yeah, well,” said Knute, smiling, “I suppose you’ve managed before, more or less.”

“What do you mean you suppose? What do you mean more or less?” Dory said, grabbing the tea towel from the fridge door and swatting Knute with it. “More or less,” she growled. “My foot, more or less. Ingrate! Get out of here!” She snapped Knute with the towel. “Hey,” she said, “where are you off to?”

“Oh,” said Knute, grinning. “A little paperwork at the office.”

“Really? I’m impressed.”

“Nah,” Knute said, “I’m going to check out my flowers. Hosea and I planted millions of them today, all along Main Street. And they’re all red and white. We planted them so they’d look like Canadian flags. It was his idea.”

Dory began to laugh. “Really?” she said again.

“That’s right,” Knute said, lowering her voice and tugging at the front of her sweatshirt, “that’s right. We can all be proud of Algren, Canada’s smallest town. Well, Dory, I, uh, I, uh, I, uh, really better get going. You know how it is, places to go, people to see.”

“Yes yes, Mayor Funk,” said Dory. “Onward and upward. Don’t let me stand in the way of progress. Carpe diem.”

“Okey, dokey,” said Knute. “And give my regards to Tom. And, uh, thanks for the coffee, Dory, you always did make a fine cup of coffee.”

Dory shook her head. “Oh you,” she said. “Go already.” She was looking at the wall where the mirror used to be, before Combine Jo broke it. Hosea Funk, she sighed. Lord love him, what a funny man.

Knute walked out of the house and down the driveway. The night was warm and very dark. She felt like crying. She hadn’t done a good job of helping Dory with Tom, and it was already June. She hadn’t helped him get better or lightened Dory’s load. He’d taken to his bed and Knute was concerned that Dory might be thinking of joining him. How much longer could she renovate one medium-sized house? Knute cut behind the feed mill and around by the bank and the post office and walked towards the flowers. She could smell them, they were beautiful, and they shone under the only streetlight. Something small and black jumped out from the middle of the flower bed and disappeared. Then another followed, and another. She bent over to see what they were and was almost hit in the face with another one. The Algren cockroach! The bastards were eating her flowers! She stood up and frowned at the flower bed and then picked up a few pebbles from the road and threw them into the flowers. About twenty of the cockroaches flew up and took off in different directions. She picked up another handful of gravel and threw it in the flowers and was about to do it again when she heard a voice say “Hey!” and she nearly fell over from fright.

“You’re gonna kill them if you do that.” She turned around and saw Max coming toward her, stepping into the white glow of the streetlight.

“Good,” she said. “Damn it, I just planted these things this afternoon.”

“And now you want to kill them?” asked Max.

“I don’t want to kill the flowers, I want to kill the cockroaches. Look at them. They’re eating the flowers.”

“They’re not eating the flowers, they’re copulating in the fresh dirt you used for planting. They don’t eat flowers. The Algren cockroach is conceived in dirt. They love dirt.”

She picked up another handful of gravel and threw it at the flowers.

“And stop doing that, you’ll just hurt the flowers.”

Knute sighed.

“So this is your work, eh?” said Max.

“Part of it,” said Knute.

“Do you enjoy it?” he said. He leaned against the streetlight and folded his arms.

She looked at him and smiled. “Max,” she said, “were you with a lot of other women in Europe?”

He cleared his throat and took out a cigarette and lit it. He had a drag and exhaled dramatically and said, “I stopped counting.” Knute threw a handful of gravel at him and he laughed.

“What do you mean other women, Knute?” he said. “Other than who?” They grinned at each other. Two little shapes moved towards them in the dark, making clicking noises on the pavement.

“Hey,” said Knute, as the shapes came closer, “it’s Bill Quinn.”

“And a friend,” said Max. He moved his foot out of the way so the dogs could pass.

“I’m supposed to get rid of him,” said Knute. “He gave Mrs. Cherniski a heart attack.”

“You’re doing a great job,” said Max.

“Yeah, well, you would know.” Knute looked at her flowers and up at the sky. It would be nice if it rained. She knew Max was looking at her watching the sky. She knew he was leaning against the streetlight smoking a cigarette with nothing to do and nowhere to do it. She picked up another handful of gravel to throw at the cockroaches in her flower bed, and Max said softly, “Is there a place we can go?”

“Um …” she said quietly, “there’s …”

“You know what I mean,” he said, looking at his big boots, blowing smoke at them, and waiting for Knute to rescue him.

She still had Hosea’s office key in her back pocket. She could feel the outline of it through her jeans. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know.” Max looked up and opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. He put his hands up in front of him, palms outward, as if to ward off an assault. He smiled.

“I can ask,” he whispered. Knute reached out and took his hand. He closed his eyes for a second or two and put his arms around her. They stood that way for a while in the dark, on the deserted main street of their hometown. He smelled like hay and cigarette smoke and the back of his neck was as soft as Summer Feelin’s. He pulled his T-shirt out of his jeans and put Knute’s hands on his bare back.

She moved his hand to her back pocket and he took out the key and said, “Where’s the door for this thing?”

“Right here,” said Knute. “We’re leaning against it. It’s my office.” She smiled.

“Your office,” Max breathed. “You have an office?”

“It’s Hosea’s office.” Max had already opened the door and was pulling Knute up the stairs.

They made love on the top of Hosea’s shiny desk, and on the floor, and when they were finished they lay there naked, smoking cigarettes and talking. “I love you,” said Max. And she said, “You don’t really know me anymore.” And he said, “Well, there’s that.” And they laughed and acted casual about everything and tried not to make any promises or plans. They could never go back to where they’d been. And nothing seemed to be waiting for them down the road. So they were free. It was a sad kind of freedom but at least they knew it. They didn’t say it but they both knew Summer Feelin’ was the best thing either of them would ever have. They got dressed and stood beside each other, leaning on the windowsill and looking out at the purple sky. “Eggplant,” said Knute.

And Max said, “Just what I was gonna say.” Every few minutes he stuck out his lower lip and blew the hair away from his eyes.

“Remember that time you cut my hair outside that bar?” he said. “Remember that grey sweater dress you had on?” They took turns kissing each other gently and touching each other and then they went back to leaning on the windowsill and looking out. Neither of them wanted to go home.

“So, let’s see, what’s new … hmmmm,” said Hosea. He had picked Lorna up from the bus depot and now they were sitting at his kitchen table drinking herbal tea and trying to get to a spot in their conversation where they could feel natural with each other. “Well,” Hosea cleared his throat, “Max is back in town.”

“Max?” said Lorna.

“Knute’s old boyfriend,” said Hosea. “Summer Feelin’s dad.”

“Oh yeah,” said Lorna. “You told me about Knute and Summer Feelin’. What a great name, Summer Feelin’.”

Hosea smiled.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“It’s a great name,” said Lorna again.

“Okay,” said Hosea. “She’s a sweet kid, too.”

“Yeah?” said Lorna. “It’s nice for her to have her dad back, I guess.”

Hosea nodded. “They get along,” he said. “He takes care of her while Knute works in the office.”

Lorna nodded and sipped her tea. “Hmmm,” said Lorna, looking at her watch. “It’s June sixth today, D-Day.”

“Is that right?” said Hosea. Oh my God, he thought.

Lorna shrugged.

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess it is.”

He stared at Lorna while she fiddled with her watch. He was trying to work up the nerve to tell her his plan. Isthmus rhymes with Christmas, he told himself. Her eyes, two oceans of blue, and a skinny isthmus of a nose running in-between. Her mouth, the Bermuda Triangle, no, that’s wrong. Dehumanize your audience. Hosea could hear the voice of Mr. Flett, his old speech arts teacher. Pretend your audience is a brick fence, a body of water, an ancient land mass. And then say what you have to say. A field of wheat won’t think you’re ridiculous. A small continent won’t get up and leave. Tell her right now, Hosea told himself, tell her. You love her, you need her, you deserve her, tell her right now or kill yourself.

“Lorna!” he said loudly, scaring himself and making her jump.

“What?” said Lorna. “Are you nuts? I’m not deaf.”

“We should do that talking now, the talking we talked about before,” said Hosea, “on the phone.”

“Okay,” said Lorna, taking a big breath. “You’re right.” She smiled. “It’s very weird.”

Hosea was confused. What was weird? What did she think was weird? He hadn’t told her yet. He hadn’t said anything about the plan.

“What is weird?” he said.

“Weird,” she said slowly, smiling, “weird is that …” She stopped and moved her chair closer to Hosea, leaned across the corner of the table, cupped his face in her hands, put her lips against his forehead, and whispered “… is that I’m pregnant.”

Mr. Flett had never mentioned the possibility of a land mass getting pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. Lorna’s lips were still fastened to his forehead. He could stick out his tongue and lick her neck if he wanted to. He put his arms around her and said, “That’s amazing, Lorna. That’s amazing.”

She sat back down in her chair, folded her arms, and said, “I know it is.” She looked at Hosea. “Please smile,” she said, “oh, please smile.”

“I am,” said Hosea, frowning, “I am.”

Lorna laughed. “Are you happy?” she asked. He was happy, he was thrilled. It had never occurred to him that he could make a woman pregnant, especially not a beautiful woman he really loved and wanted to live with for the rest of his life. He was happy, all right.

“Yes, Lorna, I’m happy,” he said, smiling. Trying to smile. “I’m happy.” And then he added, “Are you?”

Lorna nodded. “I think so,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I am.”

“Amazing,” he said.

“The doctor told me it’s the size of my thumbnail,” said Lorna.

“Really, wow,” said Hosea. “Let me see your thumb.” She held it up and he looked at it closely. He pulled her thumb to his lips and kissed it.

“But the thing is,” she said, holding out her thumb, “the thing is, Hosea, it’s got to be different.”

“How do you mean?” Hosea stopped kissing her thumb and held her hand in his lap.

“I’m just not gonna fool around anymore, Hosea. I’m too old for that and so are you. I’m not gonna date you like a teenager or have some kind of long-distance love affair with you when I’m pregnant with your kid. Forget it.”

“Okay,” said Hosea, “I know. I know what you mean, and things will change. You’re going to move in with me and we’ll be happy, we’ll be a family, we’ll all live together right here in Algren. We have a school, there’s a park, okay? Okay, Lorna?” Hosea smiled and opened his eyes wide.

“Today, Hosea,” said Lorna. “As of today I’m living here. If you can’t make that commitment, knowing we’re having a baby, and everything else — you know we’re not kids, you know we’re not getting any younger — then I don’t know. Then I just don’t know. Basically, I think, it would just be over. I’m not gonna raise a kid with you if you can’t make one commitment. Then I might not even have it.”

Hosea let go of Lorna’s hand and reached for the front of his shirt.

“Don’t,” said Lorna. “Don’t do that. Just deal with this, okay? I don’t mean for this to be an ultimatum, Hosea, I hate ultimatums, but it’s just at that point where we have to, where you have to, make a decision. Maybe I’m just an idiot, but I thought that when you said you had stuff to talk to me about, on the phone before, that you were gonna pop the big question, ask me to marry you or whatever, at least move in with you. That’s what I thought you were going to say. So what? Were you? What did you want to talk about?”

“I just need you to trust me,” said Hosea.

“You need me to trust you?” said Lorna.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“No,” said Lorna. “You need to trust me, you need to trust yourself. I do trust you. Why the hell do you think I’m here right now? Why the hell do you think I keep coming back to you time after time? Why are you so afraid of living with me? Because it might not work out? Because I’ll become more real to you? Because you’ll not have a reason to feel sorry for yourself, all alone? Why? I don’t understand, Hosea. Is there somebody else? Are you seeing somebody else?”

“God, no,” said Hosea. “I have a plan, and it’s very important to me, and if you just wait for three weeks, it’ll be over, and my life, my whole life, will be yours, and the baby’s. Please understand, Lorna, please don’t leave me …”

“Tell me what your plan is,” said Lorna. “Tell me what it is, and we’ll see.” She moved behind Hosea and stroked his hair and rubbed his back. “Tell me,” she said. “C’mon, Hosea.”

Hosea turned around to face her and he put his hands on her waist. “I want to see my father,” he said. “I want to see what he looks like. I want to talk to him. I want to see if I’m like him at all. I want him to see my town.”

“Hosea,” said Lorna, “who is your father?”

Hosea cleared his throat. “John Baert, I think. My mother told me that, anyway.”

“You don’t mean the Prime Minister, do you?” Lorna smiled.

Hosea nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the one.”

Max and Knute said good-bye on the street with a high-five in slow motion, their hands clasped together for a couple of seconds reaching for the sky and everything else unattainable, and then they smiled at each other and went their separate ways.

When Knute got home, Dory was still up. She had her SoHo T-shirt on and Tom’s sweats and she was steaming the wallpaper in the dining room with a kettle and tearing at it with a plastic scraper.

“Mom,” Knute whispered. “What are you doing? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yes, Knutie,” she said, “I made that observation myself. What does it look like I’m doing?” She hadn’t taken her eyes off the wallpaper.

“You’re gonna take out the whole wall, not just the paper, if you keep banging at it like that,” said Knute.

“Thank-you for that,” Dory said. “It might be a good idea.”

“Well,” Knute yawned, “this is kind of strange. Why don’t you go to bed and finish it in the morning? Or I could help you after work tomorrow.”

“Where were you?” asked Dory, her eyes still fixed on the wall. Knute paused and thought, To hell with it, she already knows.

“With Max,” she said. She moved the kettle closer to the wall.

“I see,” said Dory. Her lower lip started to tremble.

“Oh, Mom,” said Knute. “It’s not that big a deal.” Dory nodded and blinked a few times. “It’s really not.”

“I don’t …” Dory began.

“I know,” said Knute. “Don’t worry.” Dory looked at her and smiled, sadly, and wiped the sweat off her nose with the bottom of her T-shirt.

“Do you remember Candace Wheeler?” she asked.

“Candace Wheeler,” said Knute. “Candace Wheeler. No, I don’t. Why?” Knute already knew it would be something terrible, maybe a pitchfork through her cheek or flesh-eating disease.

“She had to have a C-section in the city,” said Dory.

“That’s too bad,” said Knute, thinking it could have been a lot worse. She wanted to go to bed. She wanted to dream of Max and their nowhere relationship before the sun rose and ruined everything.

“The baby was totally, you know, totally … stressed out,” Dory continued.

Knute smiled. “Stressed out?”

“Well, whatever,” Dory said. “Under stress, I guess is what it was, or duress. Apparently Candace’s pelvis wouldn’t open up far enough for the baby to go through, but they only discovered this after eighteen hours of hard labour. So Candace was just about dead from the pain, and then suddenly they decide to do the C-section. They thought they had given her enough anesthetic, but because they were in such a hurry to save the baby, they made a mistake with the levels and she wasn’t entirely, you know, frozen, you know, the area, and so she could feel the knife cutting her open. She was only slightly numb. She was far too weak to object, though, and, oh, Knute, it was awful. A large flap of skin, the stomach skin, was pushed aside, sort of draped up over her breasts and then it took two doctors to pry her rib cage open far enough to get the baby out. And she’s feeling all of th—”

“Mom,” Knute said. “Please stop.” Dory began to cry, and moved her finger through the condensation on the kettle and shook her head. “It’s okay,” said Knute. She sat down on the floor next to Dory and put her arms around her. Dory put her head on Knute’s shoulder and wept.

“Oh, Knutie,” she sobbed, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make him live. I don’t know how to make him talk.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” Knute stroked Dory’s hair the way Dory used to stroke hers when she was sad or sick.

“He doesn’t talk to me, Knute. He just lies there.”

“I know.” Knute nodded her head. She didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t want him to die, sweetheart,” said Dory. She had stopped sobbing but tears were still streaming down her cheeks.

“I know,” Knute said again. She kissed her mother’s forehead.

“But sometimes I do,” said Dory.

“Yeah.” Knute nodded quickly.

“Then I would know, you know?” Dory continued. “Then I would know what to do. I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know if I should force him out of his bed or if I should sit by his side or talk to him and just be patient and let him get up when he’s ready or if I should tell him I’ll leave if he doesn’t try, at least, but that’s so cruel and I don’t want to leave him. How could I? I just don’t know. And it’s not his fault. But he could at least sit down for meals or go on a little drive with me or just talk to me. Uncle Jack called earlier this evening and I couldn’t stop crying on the phone. You know how much Jack’s always loved Tom. He said he’d try to talk to him, but I don’t know …”

Knute didn’t know, either. “Maybe …”

“He can’t think straight, Knute, and it’s getting worse. The neurologist thinks that he’s had a series of small strokes, not big enough for anybody to really notice, except he knows it and he can’t do things, you know, like he used to. He can’t read anymore. When he said he was reading his journals in the garage while I worked, he wasn’t, you know, he just pretended to. His handwriting is illegible. His short-term memory is gone. Sometimes he forgets where he is, he gets dizzy. He can’t drive. And, Knute, he’s not affectionate like he used to be, he’s not funny, with the jokes and laughing, he’s just not the same guy …”

Knute closed her eyes and leaned her head against the damp wall.

“I’m sorry,” Dory said. “I don’t want to upset you. I just needed to talk to someone. I don’t know what to do. I want you to be happy, and now with Max back, I don’t know what’s going to happen, will he leave you again? Pregnant? Will he break Summer Feelin’s heart, too, this time? How many times is this going to happen?”

“Mom,” said Knute, “I’m not going to get pregnant. Don’t worry. Max and I aren’t even in a relationship. I can’t help it if he leaves again, but Summer Feelin’ is better off knowing him, having seen him, and having had fun with him. She’ll miss him but she’ll be fine. If he leaves again, I’m sure he’ll be back to see her. He won’t be able to stay away for long. He’s crazy about her. His mom lives here, I’m here for the time being, and this is his town. Don’t worry about me and Summer Feelin’ on top of everything else. Let’s just go to sleep and in the morning I want to hear about Dad and you and we’ll talk about it, and figure out what we can do, how we can live with it. It’s gonna be okay.”

Dory began to cry again.

“I love you, Mom,” said Knute. “I love you very much.”

Dory whispered, “I know you do, Knutie,” and stared at her ravaged wall.

Later, after Dory was asleep, Knute went to the garage and looked at Tom’s veterinarian journals. She skimmed over an article on ringworm and one on pregnant-mare urine, and then went inside the house and had a quick peek at Summer Feelin’. Her mouth was open, and her arms and legs were spread apart like a starfish. Knute moved her right arm and leg to make some room and then curled up beside her. “The sun’s coming up,” she whispered. She didn’t think S.F. had ever seen a sunrise, except for when she was a baby, and had woken up hungry and crying. She whispered it again.

“Okay,” said S.F. in her sleep, “that’s okay.” And she stretched out her right arm and leg again, on top of Knute.

“So, let me get this straight,” said Lorna. “You think Baert is your dad, but you’re not sure. Euphemia told you on her deathbed, and you believe she was lucid enough to know what she was talking about. That was three years ago. Since then you haven’t called him or even tried to get—”

Hosea interrupted. “Well, Lorna,” he said, “I can’t just call up the Prime Minister and say, Hey, I’m your son, you know, about fifty some years ago you rode through this small prairie town on a horse and—”

“Okay, okay,” said Lorna. “Fine, I understand. So then you get a letter from the Prime Minister saying he’s going to visit Canada’s smallest town on July first as a way of showing the country he’s interested in, well, small towns, I guess.”

“Right,” said Hosea.

“Hmmm,” said Lorna. “Interesting publicity stunt.”

“It’s not a publicity stunt,” said Hosea. “It’s a way of reaching out to rural Canadians, to show them that he cares.”

“Yeah,” said Lorna, “about their votes.”

“Well even so,” said Hosea, “it’s my chance.”

“Okay,” said Lorna. “It’s your chance. So, you want to make sure Algren is Canada’s smallest town on July first so you get a chance to see your dad, and show him what you’ve accomplished in your life.”

“Well,” Hosea smiled. “I guess—”

Lorna interrupted again. “Well, that’s basically it, isn’t it?” She smiled. “God, you’re an idiot, Hose.”

“Am I?” he said. “But do you love me?”

“Yeah,” she said, “because I’m an idiot, too, and now we’ll have a kid who’s an idiot, because how could it not be, with two idiot parents like us?”

Hosea smiled and for a second worried that she might be right.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Max and three babies. Four too many. Right?”

Hosea nodded. “Right,” he said. “Fifteen hundred is the number I need.”

“I know,” said Lorna. “You told me that. Okay, anybody else pregnant?” she asked.

“Just you,” he said.

“I mean anybody else in Algren due to give birth before July first?”

“Not that I know of,” said Hosea.

“Okay,” said Lorna again. She tapped her finger against her forehead.

“Look,” said Hosea, “the sun’s coming up.”

“Hmmm,” said Lorna. “You sound surprised. Now, Leander Hamm’s dead, so that’s one. Three left to get rid of.”

“Don’t say that,” said Hosea.

“Okay, not get rid of,” she said. “Three to, well, whatever.”

“Okay, get rid of,” said Hosea, smiling and rubbing Lorna’s stomach.

“Stop that, I’m trying to help you here. Cherniski’s in the hospital, because of Whatsisname the dog—”

“Bill Quinn,” said Hosea.

“But,” said Lorna, “who knows where that’ll go? If she makes it, she might go and live with her daughter in the city, which would be good. If she dies … well … I don’t want her to die. I’m just saying if she does, that would work out.”

Hosea frowned. “Well …” he said, “that’s not exactly how I—”

“I know, I know,” said Lorna. “Let’s just say Cherniski’s up in the air. Okay, then there’s the doctor. He says he might leave. But only after another doctor’s been hired and trained and et cetera et cetera and there’s no way that can happen before July first, so don’t even think of him as an option. You know, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“I’m sorry,” said Hosea. “It’s like I can’t stop, I can’t stop until—”

“Okay,” said Lorna, yawning and holding up her hand. “Stop. Then, um, who’s this Johnny guy?”

“Johnny Dranger,” said Hosea.

“Right,” said Lorna. “The guy who could be in or out?”

“Yup,” said Hosea. “But he has to be in, because he needs to be the fire chief.”

Lorna looked at Hosea for a second. “Needs to be the fire chief?” she asked. “Like he needs to eat and sleep?”

“Exactly,” said Hosea. “Just like that. He has to stay in, to be the fire chief. He loves to put out fires. He has to put out fires. I’ll explain another time.”

Lorna raised her eyebrows and let her head fall to her chest, in a dramatic gesture of defeat and exhaustion. “Make me some coffee,” she said. “No wait … no caffeine …” She had her head resting on her arms, on the table.

Hosea thought of Caroline Russo, pregnant with Johnny’s baby, and dying in the fire while Johnny was passed out in the yard. He nodded his head and stroked Lorna’s hair. “He needs to put out fires,” he murmured softly. “He really does.” Hosea understood perfectly. “You see, Lorna, it’s like this,” he said. “Years ago … Lorna?” said Hosea. “Lorna?” Lorna made a purring sound but didn’t move. She loves me, thought Hosea. She will help me meet my father, and then she’ll have our baby. Carefully, he picked Lorna up from the kitchen chair and carried her to the bed. As he bent over to remove her socks he noticed they didn’t match. One was pink and fleecy and had a little ball on it that poked out from behind Lorna’s ankle like a spur, and the other one was a kneesock, plain and white. Hosea gently pulled the socks off Lorna’s wide feet and laid them over the back of the chair so she would find them when she woke up. He stared at Lorna’s bare feet for a minute or two. He considered lifting her T-shirt slightly just to see her stomach and to imagine the thumbnail-sized embryo that was inside it that he had helped to create — but instead he moved her hair away from her face and covered her up with the blanket. He went back to the kitchen table and sat down and stared outside at the sky. The colour of Knutie’s cigarette filters, he thought to himself. He saw the water tower sticking up into the orange sky and imagined the white horse racing round its bulbous top. If he could paint the water tower the colour the sky was right then, the colour of Knute’s filters, thought Hosea, then the water tower would become one with the sky and the white horse would look like it was flying through the air. At least at those times of the day when the sky was orange. Like right now, thought Hosea, looking at the time on his VCR. 5:20, it said. Well, that’s quite early, thought Hosea. But how else to achieve this effect? When the baby was grown up a bit, thought Hosea, he could choose the colour of sky he liked best and Hosea would find a paint to match, maybe dark blue or pink, and Hosea could pass on his flying horse to his son. Or his daughter. “Or my daughter,” said Hosea out loud, smiling. Now close your eyes, honey, and stand over here and look way up and when I say open your eyes you will see a horse flying. But, thought Hosea, for now it will be filter orange. I’ve got to get on it. I’m running out of time. Will I be guaranteed an orange sky and a flying horse when the Prime Minister is in town? Not necessarily, he thought. But you never know. Hosea banged his scarred palm against the side of the table but felt no pain. Hmph, he thought, it must come and go. He did it again and still nothing, not a twinge, not one jot of tenderness, no pain. Hosea walked over to the bedroom and took off his clothes and lay down next to Lorna. She opened her eyes for a second and put her arm over his chest and her head on his shoulder.

Dory had asked Tom’s Uncle Jack to pay him a visit. Uncle Jack lived in the States, just on the other side of the border in Fargo, North Dakota. He was a part-time magician and a full-time auctioneer and even when he wasn’t working he spoke really fast, in entire paragraphs, a hundred miles an hour, like the telling of his stories was a timed Olympic event. Tom loved the guy, and Dory was sure that if anyone could jar Tom from his depressive stupor, at least for a minute or two, it would be Uncle Jack.

All right, I’m here, but not for long, you son of a bitch, what gives? Lost your sea legs, Tom? You’re down, you’re not beat, not yet, listen to me, I had a cancer of the groin not once but twice, not a fuckin’ picnic, I’ll tell ya, though it hasn’t, I repeat, has not affected my performance, the girls’ll attest to that much, what are you smiling at, two weeks after the chemotherapy gets rid of that mess in my groin, my prostate explodes in my ass, hadda have it hoovered out through my backdoor, eh? eh? still smiling? I shit you not, my friend, it’s true, Doc told me not to ride my horse for four goddamn months, I was on her in a week, scuze me? Less than a week, that’s right, four days it was, but then, Jesus Christ, that shit for a horse falls on top of me, breaks fifteen of my ribs, that’s all, but what? four? five? still, my pelvis, my arms, both of ’em, and my goddamn tailbone — that’s when I quit smoking, in the hospital, too much damn work going down the hall, down the elevator, out the front doors. When you can’t smoke in a hospital — that’s where you really need one. I don’t know, I don’t know, what’s that? Nah, forget about it. I went to Vancouver to visit my daughter and her husband, find out the guy’s a woman, she never told me it was her husband, she said, never ever, she said, Partner, partner, I said partner, Dad, she says to me, partner, Tom? What is that? Partner! But never mind, last summer I hooked my eyeball with the end of a bungee cord, pierced the retina, the iris, the cornea, the works, the hook stuck in my eye socket like it was plugged into a wall, the bungee cord dangling there like this, and I’m thinking, though of course I’m in excruciating pain, excuse me, do I look like a source of power, my eye holds no electrical current, under fifty watts in this cash register at all times, please unplug this hook from my eye, somebody, and then wouldn’t you know it, the neighbour’s cat spies the cord dangling and makes a running leap for it, I can just see it out of my good eye, the one without a hook stuck in the middle of it, and I’m thinking, No way, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t, but forget about it, he does it, and I’m thinking good-bye, right or left or whatever eye, depends of course on how you’re looking at it, good-bye it was nice seeing you or seeing with you as the case may be, because as soon as this damn cat, it’s a fat son of a bitch — looks like a small pony, makes contact with the bungee cord he’ll yank the entire eye unit out of its hole, and I’ll be Mr. One-Eye, Mr. Cyclops, the life of every boring party as I drop the glassy job they give me in the hospital into the punch bowl, and drag my foot around behind me, I’m thinking, you know, of how I can work this unfortunate loss of mine to my advantage when the damn thing falls right out onto the ground, the hook, that is, along with the cord, not my eye, the cat’s miffed and leaves, blood squirts from my eye, from the hole where until then the hook had been, blocking the blood from leaving, you know, like a knife in the back, you leave it in until you get to the hospital, so you don’t bleed to death, and so there I am, at emergency I didn’t have to wait, of course, nobody likes to sit in a waiting room next to some guy projectile bleeding from one eye and trying to read a magazine with his other, Doc slaps a patch over my pierced eye, the slimy tissue grows over the hole, leaving a faint scar, and everybody’s happy. Eh, Tom? Tom?

“Jesus Christ, man, a heart attack, not a death sentence…. Can you not look at me? I’m cracking a beer here and now I am pouring it — ahhhhhhh, good — down my throat. Cold, familiar beer. Want one? … Okay, I’ll drink it all myself. And when I’m done I’ll have fortified myself enough to give you a proper burial because this, this is not a life, pal. All I gotta do is get rid of this bed, pry away the carpet and the floorboards, not to mention the underlay and linoleum, then lower myself a few feet, jackhammer the concrete basement floor, drop you into the dirt, bed ‘n’ all, and you’re in your bloody grave, man, say a few Hail Marys, remember the laughs, hope it doesn’t happen to me anytime soon, and Uncle Jack bids a fond farewell to Tom McCloud, good-bye, Kid Fun, good-bye, my favourite nephew … good-bye. Jesus Christ.”

“Well,” said Tom’s Uncle Jack, “Lord knows I tried.” He stood by the front door wrapped in what looked like a groundsheet, fumbling with a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol. “Like Cheerios I eat these,” he said to Dory. He turned to Summer Feelin’ and said, “You’re perfect, you are a perfect little girl.”

“She’s a perfect little girl,” he said to Knute.

And then to Summer Feelin’ he said, “I was born the day the Titanic sank.” Summer Feelin’ smiled. “That’s right, two disasters in one day,” said Uncle Jack. “But never mind, have you got a pumpkin?” Summer Feelin’ shook her head. “That’s too bad,” said Uncle Jack. “If you had a pumpkin I could show you my card trick. Do you know that I can throw an ordinary playing card right through a pumpkin and have the damn thing come out the other side with not one, I shit you not, not one shred of pumpkin flesh hanging from it, and the slit from the card entering and exiting barely visible on either side of the pumpkin?”

“Can you do it with a cantaloupe?” asked Summer Feelin’. Or somebody’s head? Knute wondered. “Absolutely not,” said Uncle Jack. “It must be a pumpkin. But listen to me, have you got a ten-story building anywhere around here, anywhere in this town?”

“A tall one, you mean a tall, tall building?” said Summer Feelin’ standing on her tiptoes and holding her arms up over her head.

“That’s right, it’s gotta be ten stories, not nine, not eleven, but ten, ten stories tall.”

“No, we don’t have one of those,” said Summer Feelin’.

“Well, that is too bad, that’s really a shame, because if you had a ten-story building I could show you another card trick. There are only two men in the whole world who can do this trick, me and my brother, your Uncle Skylar.”

Dory cleared her throat. “Jack,” she said gently, “Sky’s been dead for …”

“Never mind,” said Uncle Jack, “that’s what you think.”

Dory shook her head and tried not to laugh, not because she didn’t want to offend Uncle Jack, but because she didn’t want to encourage him.

“Now listen to me, Hooked on a Feelin’ or whatever your—”

“Summer Feelin’!” said Summer Feelin’.

“That’s right,” said Uncle Jack, “and some aren’t. Listen! I can take an ordinary playing card and, on the very first try, with just the right wind conditions, of course, throw that playing card onto the top of a ten-story building. Standing on the ground, me standing on the ground, of course. What do you think of that, Summer-Time Feelin’?”

Summer Feelin’ began to flap and hum. “What are you doing?” said Uncle Jack. “What’s she doing?” he said to Knute.

“She’s excited,” said Knute. “Don’t worry. She likes the idea of that card trick.”

“Really?” said Uncle Jack. “You find me a ten-story building, an ordinary playing card, get me out there, bring the kid, and I’ll do the trick for her, it’ll knock her socks off. I’m serious. Bring a pumpkin, I’ll do that trick, too, no charge. I mean it. Tell Tom to crawl out of his coffin and come along, he’s seen me do it, I’m better at it than Skylar ever was, or is—”

“Good-bye, Uncle Jack,” they all said in unison.

“Find me that building, Knutie!” he yelled just before getting into his car. “I’ll do the trick, I promise! Good-bye! A rived-erci! So long, Knutie! Keep your knees together …” his voice trailed off as he drove away.