— 29 —

Welder’s Flash

GINA LIFTED THE hummingbird feeder from its hook in front of the kitchen window and carried it down the stepladder. The feeder was covered in snow. The Anna’s hummingbird hadn’t been around for weeks. She had watched for it, kept the feeder thawed and fresh, available during the bird’s usual feeding times, but now she had to admit it was gone. Dead. Likely frozen within some tree in the night when temperatures dipped. It would have died alone, huddled under the branches. The thought made Gina weep. She wiped the tears from her face as she carried the feeder to the kitchen door. She had been too emotional in recent weeks, and sleep was hard won. The change coming on, she thought. It had hit her mother early too.

As she reached for the kitchen doorknob, she heard the front door close and saw Grant jog down the deck stairs and cross the snow-covered lawn as he left for work. Avoiding her. He had kept his distance since Hannah’s visit the day before. She assumed Grant had taken Hannah’s appearance as a sign that she had continued to visit the Robertson house either for Jesse or for the kids. She hadn’t bothered to correct him, if that was in fact what was bothering him. He was a man who resorted to cold silences rather than outward rage. His unwillingness to talk things through, to argue, used to bother her. She had once peppered him with questions until he finally opened up to her, revealing the source of the wound he nursed, but in the last few months she had lost energy for it. She realized she no longer cared. Nevertheless she raised a hand to Grant when he glanced back at her as he got in his truck. But he didn’t say goodbye.

Gina crossed the road to the Robertson driveway in the dark, the yard light by the old farmhouse guiding her way. The snow squeaked underfoot and flakes continued to fall, as they had for most of the evening. She loved these winter nights, snowflakes drifting, collecting in the shaft of light from the farmhouse.

Hannah was in the living room. Gina could see her through the window, sitting on that old red couch. Brandon was in the room with her, perched, as she so often saw him now, in a chair in front of the main window. He sat where Elaine had sat, leaning forward, eyes staring straight ahead with a similar intensity, though what he was looking at was anyone’s guess. The river beyond was dark. Only the street lights of the reserve offered light.

As Gina reached the outbuildings, Abby barked once from the machine shed, but then only wagged her tail. The dog knew her. From her house across the road Gina had seen the spray of sparks leap from the shed and out into falling snow. So she knew Jesse was out here working late, as he had since Stew’s death, keeping his distance from the house, from Hannah, from Bran.

Gina waited outside the round metal shed as Jesse finished up his weld. She shielded her eyes to watch the blue and white sparks, and not the brilliant glow at the heart of the weld, fearing welder’s flash. She had nursed Jesse through an episode during Elaine’s illness. He had groaned with the pain and had been all but blind for a day after he’d stupidly worked without his mask. Jesse lifted the shield on his helmet to inspect his work and startled a little when he saw Gina there, waiting in the snow outside the shop. “Gina,” he said.

She stepped inside, brushing the snowflakes from her hair. “I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said.

He took off his helmet and welding gloves, placing them on the workbench beside him. “I was just finishing up for the night.”

“You’ve been working late a lot. A rush job?”

“No, just a bit of fabrication. Stairs and railings for the mill. I’ve been picking up work from them now and again.” He turned off the MIG welder.

“I bet they would hire you back.”

“I suppose. If I wanted the job.” He unbuttoned his leather shirt and turned off the valve on the tank. “So, what brings you here?”

Gina noted the distance in his voice. She had talked to him only once in the last couple of months, for a few minutes stolen at Stew’s funeral, when she had offered her hand in condolence. There had been others waiting to talk with Jesse, his father’s old friends, farmers from the valley, and she’d had to move on.

“Hannah came by yesterday.”

Jesse shrugged off the leather shirt and hung it on a hook by the door, then took down his coat. “Does Grant know you’re here?”

“She tells me you’re leaving, heading back to the coast.”

“Once I get Bran set up.”

“He’ll need ongoing care. You can’t just house him in some ward or group home and leave.”

“I have a life I left behind, Gina. A business. A house.”

“You have a life you left behind here. Your kids.”

“Hannah is a grown woman. I said I would help her pay for a place while she’s in school. Brandon needs more care than I can give him.” He put on his jacket. “Look, we gave it a shot. Keeping Bran at home is just too much for us. It’s not fair to Hannah either. She should be in college, making a life for herself, not playing nurse to Bran.”

“You’re right, of course.” Gina looked out into the snow. The flakes shining in the shop light like sparks from a welder. Then she turned back to him. “Would it make a difference if I stepped in to help?”

“You made it clear that wasn’t going to happen. Grant made it clear.”

“Would you stay if I did?”

“I don’t know.”

Gina took his hand. “You’re burned,” she said, circling her thumb around the edge of the fresh wound on his finger. There was a bandage on the palm of his hand where he’d suffered another burn, evidently that evening.

“I got lazy,” he said. “Welded without my gloves.”

She kept holding his hand, inspecting, and rubbing a thumb over the many recent and healed burns that covered it. “I’ve missed you,” she said.

He pulled his hand away. “You made your choice.”

“I said we needed to cool it. Things were moving too fast. And you had other things to think about. I haven’t made a choice, Jesse.”

“You’re still in that house, aren’t you? You’re still with him.”

“We’ve slept in separate bedrooms for months.” Gina felt a twinge at this half-truth. They did sleep in separate rooms, but she and Grant had come together a handful of times on the couch, out of need, familiarity, grief.

“You said you weren’t ready to give everything up. Him. The house. Your place here.”

“I said I wouldn’t give it up if I had nothing to go to.”

“So, what? You want to live here? With me and the kids?”

“No.” Gina raked both hands through her hair. “I don’t know.”

“You tell me you want me to make a commitment, and yet you won’t make one yourself.”

“Can’t we just take some time to figure it out? Together, I mean?”

“But you’ll live in that house, with him.”

“For now.”

“And we sneak around, behind his back.”

Gina crossed her arms and stared out into the night. “Or I move out,” she said finally, without looking at him. “So I have a place you could come to, when you can. So we can see how this goes.”

“You would do that? Move out?”

“If you stayed.” She nodded slowly as she worked things through. “I could get an apartment right away, but it would take me a while to unwind everything here. Grant won’t want to sell the house. He’ll want to come to some kind of settlement. I’ll have to figure out what to do with the animals. They’ll have to stay on the place for now.” She looked at Jesse. “I would have to stop in daily to care for them. I know Grant won’t.”

“Am I just an excuse for you to leave him?” Jesse asked.

She took his hand again, touching the many scars there. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything at this point, except I don’t want you to leave.”

They stood there together saying nothing for a time. Then Jesse turned her hand and shook it firmly as if they were making a deal. “Okay, but no guarantees,” he said.

She smiled. “No guarantees.”

Jesse pulled her close to study her face, and she felt him growing against her. He smelled of heated metal and sweat. His face appeared sunburnt, and flushed. Sometime that night he had welded without his mask. Stupid, stupid man, she thought, and, perversely, loved him for it. He would risk injury, blindness, but not love. Well, maybe he was risking it now.

He kissed her and his lips were hot, as if he were feverish. She felt feverish herself. She had come to convince Jesse to stay with his children and yet, in this machine shed, she had chosen to leave her husband. But then, she had left him months ago. Perhaps Jesse was right; that was the reason she had come here all along. She was surprised to find that this time she experienced no guilt, no remorse. It was done.

Abby shifted and whined from her spot under the overhead heater. Somewhere close, a coyote cried and another took up its call, echoing off the hills, filling the narrow valley with a chorus of yips and howls.