All is Clam Read online

  All it had taken was a few decent men—Ian, Nathan, Oliver—to show a genuine interest in him, for him to realize what a poor father Fitz was. Jamie didn’t have the experience to know what Fitz had done to his mother, but he could imagine. And what he imagined was a dark place he didn’t want to visit. A dark place his mind was entering now, as he thought of turning back, finding Fitz, and…and…What could he do?

  The tears came in a fresh flow, his discouragement welling up and wetting his face, so that he could not tell what were tears and what was snow, falling wet and heavy.

  His billy boots impeded him, making him trip and stumble face-first into the wet snow, which washed him of the salt tears. He kept falling, plunging his freezing hands into the snow. They were red and raw and hurt around the wrists, where the moisture had gathered under the cuffs, rubbing at him. The same thing was happening to his ankles. His boots were wet through inside and were causing blisters on the bottom of his feet. The third time he fell down, he didn’t get up right away. Instead, he pulled off the boots. His feet were bare underneath. He had not, as his mother always told him, put on heavy socks to keep his feet warm and make the boots fit. He wished he had them now. His feet were red and, curiously, warm. He could feel heat, not cold, in them, so he put the boots back on, got up, and continued on his way. Where?

  It was then that he saw his mother.

  He followed her. And soon, she was following him, though neither knew it.

  On the way into the woods from Moira’s house, Oliver passed a dumping ground from before the politically correct days of waste management. There were oil tanks, bits of old farm machinery, all rusting or rusted out; but the pride of the Wild Rose Cottage dumping area was a 1950 Chevy, its original soft turquoise colour still visible in patches, the rest stripped clean, its perfectly round headlight openings gaping emptiness. Every usable piece had been taken and used for something – including engine parts, car seats, and windshield wipers. The doors and trunk had been pulled off, the window glass smashed, and there was moss growing on the dashboard.

  Fresh urine was dripping down the hood of the car.

  Oliver’s sensitive nose picked it up. He followed the trail with a surprising nimbleness, down the long hill to the gully. He was following a trail of blood.

  When he saw Fitz, anger boiled up in him and turned him red with rage.

  Ben and Annabelle had arrived home to a phone message from Lili, letting them know that she and Nathan had arrived at the hospital, but that Nathan was still unconscious. They called the hospital several times through the night, but there was no change.

  Dr. Diamante talked to them personally.

  “I cannot say when – if – he will wake.”

  “If?” Annabelle’s voice rose in terror on the short word. She was on the kitchen phone, Ben on the mobile extension, both clinging to the receivers and to each other.

  “We cannot say, with injuries to the head…the brain…what may happen.”

  “But he’s young…” Annabelle.

  “…strong…” Ben.

  “It doesn’t matter that he is all these things. We don’t know what the extent of the injury was to the brain. It floats around in the head, you know. It depends how hard the impact was when it hit. Until…when…if he wakes, we won’t know the extent of the damage.”

  “Can’t you do an MRI?”

  “If we but could, we would.”

  The Winterside hospital was equipped with nothing so advanced. That would mean a trip to Halifax.

  As if reading Annabelle’s mind down the phone line, the doctor said, “We cannot risk moving him now.”

  Nathan had been hit – hard. Ben had examined his truck, shaking with anger that Nathan had disabled his airbags. They’d had an argument about it, a rare blowout. Both were by nature too easy-going to get worked up. Ben saw, though, that airbags might not have helped. Nathan had been struck in the back of the head by a toolbox that flew up from behind him. There was dried blood on the box and a new dent in it. Ben smiled grimly. Hardheaded kid.

  “There is the vomi….vomi…” Dr. Diamante had lost the word, and turned to the easier one. “Pook. He pooked. This is not good.”

  “Pook?” Ben didn’t get it. Puke. Annabelle mouthed the word.

  “I am sorry I cannot tell you more. Perhaps the family should come in when you can.”

  Annabelle paled at the doctor’s words. He was famous for them. “It’s time to call the family” meant he thought someone was dying.

  But that’s not quite what he’d said, Annabelle reassured herself as she put down the phone.

  Rose scrambled along the side of the creek, looking for her son. She was following his prints. She didn’t know they were old prints, left from his running around in circles in the woods, distraught and disoriented by his new-found hate for his father. They were also becoming quickly obliterated by the heavy snow and the wind creating drifts along his pathway. She wondered why he’d come out. She wondered why she had, too, and pulled her shawl around her. She’d only meant to step outside the door, to call Jamie in. Then she’d panicked when he didn’t come, and came out herself. The wind was whipping the snow up and at her. Her feet, wearing indoor slippers, were freezing and wet, her face red with the snow hitting it like sand. There was a bright red trail on the snow behind her.

  The evergreens were thick and beautiful on either side of the trail down to the ravine. The branches hung heavy with snow, some clumps knocked off by passing humans. There were fresh footsteps in the snow. The trail sloped gradually for a while, and then became steep. The foot treads slipped down the hill to the gully below, the creek running high, the trail just barely cresting it above the culvert.

  A couple of coyotes were huddled in the trees. They’d watched the young, tender boy, deciding if they were going to make a move. Now they watched Rose, and smelled her blood on the air.

  The battery level on Hy’s flashlight was low. It produced a weak wash of pale light that illuminated very little. She was searching through the house, looking for Rose, calling out to her in a loud whisper.

  Stupid, she thought, why can’t I make more noise?

  The house was so big in its silence, it unnerved her to crack it. The place was creepy, but even creepier when she made noise.

  She could hear and sometimes see mice and rats skimming across the floor. The sound of shredding coming from the library grated on her ears. It was a big sound, not like a mouse or a rat, not like a squirrel – she’d had encounters with those in her own attic. She was compelled to look in. The bright eyes of a raccoon stared back at her when she shone the flashlight on it. It was ripping apart Volume III of The Encyclopedia Britannica 1942 Edition and eating its pages. She saw the word crustacean hanging out of the creature’s mouth. She felt queasy.

  The raccoon froze when she saw Hy, stayed statue-still. So did Hy, paralyzed for a moment. She backed out of the room, slipping the door closed behind her. Raccoons could be vicious. She hoped that it had another way out.

  Her skin was shot with sensitivity, goose bumps all over it, hair rising. Inside her skin, her blood was fueled with adrenalin.

  Why am I doing this? Rose can’t be up here. Unless –

  Unless something has happened to her.

  And then it occurred to her. Jamie. Where was Jamie? He hadn’t been here all night. Had something happened to him?

  Rose clambered up the hill out of the gully, away from the horrible scene, from the man who had destroyed her life. Away and home. The home of her ancestors. She had some feeling for it, in that way. Otherwise it was just another crazy scheme that Fitz had cooked up. How they’d go to her family home, get all kinds of help from the neighbours because she was a local, and soon be sitting pretty. They could even start an inn or a bed and breakfast if she wanted.

  If she wanted. There wasn’t anything she wanted except for her a
nd Jamie to be safe. Safe. When had she ever been safe with him?

  But now she knew she was safe. Safe from him. Jamie and she both.

  She was breathing with difficulty. She’d been on all fours all the way up the hill. She stood up and dusted off her hands, red with the cold. When she did, she looked down and saw the blood. She looked behind her and there was a trail of it. She kept going, her gut aching, cramps nearly doubling her over, blood marking her way in the tread of her slippers. Deep dark blood, from the very depths of her, spilling out onto the snow, the flakes falling on it, and making it run, turning it pink.

  The snow would soon cover it.

  She struggled across the field, against the wind, her damp shawl snapping at her shins.

  Jamie. Perhaps now –

  She shook the thought from her head. Home. Get home. He must be there by now. He’d be wondering where she was.

  Unless he’d seen her.

  Had he seen her?

  The snow was blinding her, disorienting her. She needed to know that Jamie was safe.

  Well he was, wasn’t he? He was safe now. They both were.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The snow bank on the side of the creek had given way under Jamie. He lay in the water, just out of Buddy’s reach. Buddy was terrified of water. Even of this water, this creek, only waist-deep. He didn’t know why. He’d erased the memory of his father trying to drown him like a kitten, at birth. It was his first and only real memory, a sensation that stayed with him. The sensation of being dropped into the cold dark water. Not warm, like the water of the womb. Dropped in and held down. He could remember his own infant cries, reverberating in his ears. He remembered struggling. He remembered a creeping feeling of euphoria, on the tipping point of drowning, when he was suddenly yanked out of the water, back into the world. That’s all he knew. That’s almost all he knew. He didn’t know that if his father had not tried to drown him, he would have been normal. Ugly, but normal. A hare lip and bulging eyes. A big mouth over which he seemed to have no control. He drooled when he was born, and he would drool constantly until the moment he died.

  His father had tried to kill him because he was ugly. But this child was beautiful.

  Buddy stared at Jamie. At the water. He put a foot forward, tentatively, touched the water and yanked it back.

  Jamie moaned. The beautiful child with the golden hair, now wet and pasted to his skull, making him look very young, very vulnerable.

  Buddy must. Buddy must do this. Buddy forced himself to step into the water, his own infant cries shrieking in his ears, the world around him losing focus as he reached toward the child he could no longer see. His hand hit the water and he reeled back for a moment, pulled himself together, and tried one more time. His hand landed on Jamie’s face. He felt the soft cheek.

  Tenderness welled up in him. He picked him up gently. Forgetting his fear of water, he took a couple of lumbering steps to the edge of the creek, and, with a strength he didn’t know he had, stepped up onto the bank and out of the water.

  Jamie was semi-conscious, a wet weight in Buddy’s arms. Burdened by his own laboured walking, he had the extra weight of the child to carry up the hill and out of the gully. But he did it – through sheer determination. Up and out of the shelter of the woods into the furious night, with nothing to guide his way other than his sure knowledge of the terrain, and the tiny flicker of candlelight in the house off in the distance. Buddy headed straight for it. When he got there, he slowed his pace, came within a few feet of the door, stopped, and looked in.

  Hy had just come back into the kitchen. Buddy smiled. His friend.

  Hy saw the shadow flitting at the window. Rose?

  The door burst open, and she jumped. There stood Buddy, with Jamie in his arms.

  “What!” Hy rushed over, about to grab Jamie from him, when he put a hand up to his lips.

  “Sleep.”

  “But what?...where…?” Stupid to ask questions. He couldn’t answer them.

  “Little one safe. Buddy keep safe.”

  “Here, give him to me.”

  Buddy looked puzzled, resisted. “Safe,” he said. “Safe with me.”

  “And me.” She gestured impatiently. “Please, we have to get those wet clothes off him.”

  Roughly, she took Jamie from his arms, and, oddly, the child did not wake. A spike of fear pierced through her. Not dead? She laid him down and touched his cheek, felt the warmth of breath coming from his slightly open mouth.

  “Where have you been? Where did you find him?”

  Buddy stood, holding his arms as if he were still holding the child. Open and empty. A tear slid down his face, and met up with the drool sliding down his chin from the right side of his mouth.

  “Buddy woods,” he said.

  “I could figure that out,” she said. Why was she being nasty to Buddy? Buddy knew friendly from unfriendly tones. He’d protected the child, and now Hy had taken him away, making Buddy feel bad.

  Buddy turned and slipped out of the house before Hy could offer him tea. She shook her head in annoyance with herself for being short of patience with him, frustrated that he couldn’t tell her what had happened.

  Buddy left, confused. He should be going home, but his mind was back at the creek. With that man who was there, but gone.

  Gone. Will Buddy go away someday, too?

  Jared turned and ran from the culvert. Should he help Fitz?

  Jared didn’t know and he didn’t care. They weren’t going to pin this one on him. He went out the way he had come in – through a trail in the woods that joined with his own woodlot, and out onto the lane that took him home. He didn’t think about the footprints he left behind him. He’d worry about that if he were questioned.

  Questioned. His blood buzzed with fear. He’d be questioned, he was sure. Somehow the cops always got around to it, whenever anything happened near him. What would he say if he were questioned? It had been just a simple dope deal? Had they argued? Should he admit that much? Just a bit of a disagreement over price earlier in the day. He wouldn’t say that Fitz had walked off with all his drugs. What if he were charged with murder? It could happen. Just because that old lady had died when his truck hit her, they’d think he’d done this, too.

  He stopped in his tracks, and in his thinking, turned and approached Fitz, slow step after slow step. He jumped back when the feet jerked and the body moved. Not dead, then. But soon. Jared reached and grabbed the twisted plastic bag of drugs hanging out of Fitz’s pocket. And the money.

  All there. He grinned, and lit off once again into the night. He’d need a joint when he got home.

  Hy was trying to get Jamie’s wet clothes off when he woke and wriggled away from her.

  “You’re soaking wet.”

  “I can do that,” he said, squirming away from her. Hy realized he was just old enough to be embarrassed about someone other than his mother undressing him. Old enough that maybe he wouldn’t let his mother do it anymore. She threw a blanket around him and he slipped into the tent.

  When he emerged, in dry clothes, Hy gave him a mug of hot tea. He lifted his head to drink. He saw the basket. He saw the baby. The dead baby.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, Lord.” It shouldn’t be she who told him. The burden of the responsibility overwhelmed her.

  The door opened. Rose, her hair sticking to her head, her neck, her chest, was blown in on the wind. She struggled to close the door, and then leaned up against it to hold it fast. She was trembling.

  “Thank God you’re here.” Hy felt instantly unburdened.

  “I got lost. I thought I’d never make it back.”

  Jamie leapt up and hugged his mother.

  She winced. He pulled her into the room. They both stood shivering by the wood range. The house was freezing, so cold it was cracking in places. B
ut that wasn’t it. Not all of it. It was the baby. His sister. He looked at the basket, then up at his mother. Gently, very gently, she explained to him. He listened, face falling.

  “You lost my sister?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Does she hurt?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Something else to lay at his father’s door. But not anymore. Not anymore. Another reason he was shivering.

  He couldn’t rid himself of the image of his father. He couldn’t rid himself of the sense of relief. Nor that of guilt. Shame. Fear. But relief was the strongest emotion. Relief that now his mother would be free. Free to be with someone else who would be good to her, who wouldn’t make her lose babies. Oliver?

  As if Jamie had called him up, Oliver walked in the door.

  “Here you are, my lad.” He swept in, red in the cheek, his jeweled slippers soaked, his feet frozen.

  Then he did what always amazed people. He folded down into a Lotus position at the front of the tent, uncurled, and stuck his feet out toward the fire.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “Been out in the weather, son?” Oliver asked Jamie.

  “Been out,” Jamie mumbled back.

  “Well,” said Oliver, coming to the point immediately. “What shall we three do? What shall we say?”

  They stared at one another. They cast glances at Hy. They were silent.

  For the first time, Hy felt unwelcome in this house. She was curious, but knew she had no right to be here, that something was going on between the three of them that she had no right to know.

  She excused herself, not looking forward to the walk home in a blizzard. Perhaps she’d stay at Ian’s.

  No one tried to stop her from leaving, which meant her instinct was correct.

  After she left, the three sat up most of the night, saying little, and that all lies. The only eavesdropper was the dead child, wrapped in the mohair scarf in a basket on top of the table, away from the rats and the mice.