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Burlington, Ont. October 18
4:40 p.m.
Home, sweet home.
I love my job. I spend a week, sometimes two, traveling to different provinces to help businesses streamline and boost their growth. I get to visit new cities, revisit old ones, and see the changes that took place since my last time there.
But all that work on the road makes me appreciate every single thing I miss about being home: my amazing wife, Heidi, and my beautiful daughters, Jade and Jaleesa. And of course, my own bed and that finely honed divot in the mattress.
The trees along Shadeland Avenue have really begun to shed their foliage. As I coast through my neighborhood, there are leaves everywhere. I see a big pile of them raked on our front lawn, and it makes me smile when I imagine Jade and Jaleesa jumping into it, laughing, then dropping armfuls of leaves on each other.
Our home is a bungalow built on a gorgeous ravine lot. We fell in love with the property eight years ago and haven’t once regretted buying it. It’s nice to have the extra privacy in your backyard and not have to look at the backs of other houses. If there’s one problem, it’s the deer that come up the ravine and eat Heidi’s flowers.
I park in the garage and grab my luggage from the trunk. As soon as Heidi sees me, she’ll ask about the bandage on my cheek. I must’ve kicked around a dozen excuses at the hotel room in Halifax. Only two seemed even remotely believable: blame the razor or blame myself.
Walking into the kitchen, I set my luggage on the floor. The house smells of roast chicken with a hint of scalloped potatoes. My stomach rumbles. Another thing I miss when I’m away—Heidi’s cooking.
I call out, “I’m home.”
Heidi comes in from the living room, a big smile on her face that quickly drops into a frown. She cocks her eyebrows and nods toward the bandage. Right on cue.
“What happened there?” she asks.
For a brief moment, the room around me vanishes, and I see a flurry of fingers shooting up from below me, long painted nails clawing at my face, at my eyes.
“I did it shaving,” I tell her. “Got in a rush. Wasn’t paying attention.”
She walks toward me. “Did it cut deep?”
“No, no. It’ll be fine.”
She stops two feet from me. One eyebrow falls, the other stays up.
“I bought you an electric razor for Christmas last year,” she says. “Remember?”
I see my way out of this, and I give her a smile. “Yes, dear. You did.”
“Where is it?”
“In the vanity.”
“You probably never had it out of the case, did you? You’d rather use those cheap disposables. The same one for weeks at a time.”
I nod, feeling like a child being scolded.
“You know they get dull.”
“I know,” I say.
“Start using the electric. That’s why I bought it. They’re safer.”
I sigh. “I will, dear. As soon as this heals up.”
The other eyebrow falls, and she smiles faintly. We hug.
“Missed you,” she says.
“Missed you too.”
Score one for me. Only Heidi doesn’t realize it. Truth is, I hate electric razors. They don’t give you as super-smooth a finish as a manual one. But agreeing with her ends the subject. Roll over and submit to a woman’s wishes, and more often than not, they’ll abandon the issue.
I pull away from Heidi and give a quick look around. “Where are the girls?”
“In their room,” she says. “Jade. Jaleesa. Daddy’s home.”
Jade is five years old. Jaleesa is seven. Seven years, five months, if you ask her. Both of them are the spitting image of their mother. When I hear the patter of their feet on the wood floor, it warms my heart. They come bounding into the kitchen and into my arms.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
As I hug them tight to me, I notice their long hair is done up in fishtail braids, just like Heidi’s.
“Were you and Mommy playing hairdresser again?” I ask them.
Jaleesa corrects me. “It’s beauty parlor, Daddy.”
“Oh, sorry. My mistake.” I look up at Heidi and wink.
“We played it yesterday,” Jaleesa says.
Jade touches the bandage on my face. “Are you hurt, Daddy?”
She has her mother’s big brown eyes.
“No,” I assure her. “It’s just a scratch, honey. I’ll be fine.”
“What happened?” Jaleesa asks.
“Cut myself shaving.” I reach for my luggage. “Say, I brought you girls back something.”
Their faces light up with broad smiles. They can barely contain themselves. Jade begins making fists. Jaleesa rises up and down on her toes.
I open the first bag and bring out two stuffed animals I bought at a gift shop in Halifax. They’re both the same—a moose hugging a lobster. I hand each daughter one.
“Aren’t they cute?” I ask.
“Yes,” they say, almost in unison. “Thank you, Daddy.”
They give me another hug. Then they run off to their room. It’s not hard to change a child’s focus. Just introduce a new toy.
“Supper’s in fifteen minutes,” Heidi calls after them.
“Okay, Mommy,” they call back.
I loosen my tie and pull it over my head. Heidi begins taking plates out of the cupboard and setting them on the table.
She asks, “How’d your presentation go?”
“Good. Good.” I take a beer from the fridge. “Whether or not they implement my recommendations is another story.”
“All you can do is give your best advice.”
“Yep.”
As I twist the cap off the bottle, I notice the Burlington Post on the counter. The headline draws my attention: Man Dies After Fall At Mount Nemo.
I take a mouthful of beer.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Heidi taps a finger on the newspaper. “A man fell at Mount Nemo. Died.”
“Did they give his name?”
“No. But everyone is saying it’s the missing hiker from Toronto. They haven’t confirmed it yet. I keep telling you to watch yourself when you go there.”
“I don’t go near the cliffs,” I tell her. “I keep to the trails. Some people ignore the signs. They don’t heed the danger.”
“You having coffee or tea?”
“Tea.”
Heidi fills the kettle, puts it on the stove. I pick up the paper.
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A man was found on Monday at the bottom of a cliff in very rugged terrain.
Halton Regional Police believe the man lost his balance and fell over three hundred feet to his death. Identification was recovered on the remains, but police would not confirm if it’s the body of Roger Pratt. The thirty-two-year-old Torontonian has been missing since October 9. Family members said they thought he went to Mount Nemo to do some bird watching. He hasn’t been heard from since.
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I FOLD THE PAPER AND lay it on the counter. Roger Pratt. I pull up his image in my mind. He’s a small man who stands on the cliff ledge, looking out through binoculars. His boots, cargo pants, backpack, and khaki Tilley hat remind me of many other hikers I’ve seen at Mount Nemo.
I climb over a fallen cedar. Roger doesn’t hear me approaching on the rocks. I’m not sure what draws me to him, other than the fact that he’s alone and far off the beaten path.
“Some view, what?” I say as I step up beside him.
Roger’s body jolts at the sound of my voice. He turns to me with his mouth agape. His eyes give me the once-over, but he must consider me harmless, because he turns away and presses the binoculars to his face again.
“Beautiful,” he says.
I nod. Indeed it is. Fall has splashed color all over Milton’s countryside. There are green pastures dotted with bales of hay. Brown squares of freshly cultivated farmland. The panorama extends so far off in the distance, I swear you can see the curvature of the earth.
It’s not only beautiful, it’s stunning.
Roger points to a huge bird circling over the valley. “See that?”
I squint. “What is it? An eagle? Hawk?”
“Turkey vulture,” he says. “Riding the thermals. They can detect the minutest scent of carrion.”
He hands me the binoculars. I bring the bird into focus. From a distance it looked black, but now I see it’s more of a brown color. With its prominent red head, it definitely resembles a turkey and is every bit as ugly.
I give Roger back the binoculars.
“Nature’s cleanup crew,” I say.
“They’re so important to the ecosystem. Can you imagine the world without them? Full of rats and disease.”
The world already is, I want to tell him. Take a look around.
“They sure are ugly, though.”
Roger laughs. “Nah, I think they’re beautiful, intelligent. Some cultures regard them as sacred.” He turns to me. “Tibetan Buddhists let vultures eat their dead. They call it a jhator or sky burial. It’s more out of practicality than anything else.”
“Really? Sounds barbaric to me.”
He smiles. “The Chinese thought so too. The body sustains the life of another living being. If you look at it that way, it doesn’t seem so bad. Buddhists consider it good karma. The body is just an empty vessel. The soul has already moved on.”
He’s an odd fellow. I watch him turn his attention back to the vulture. Fate and circumstance has brought us together, I realize. Glancing behind me, I check the trees. The park feels vast, silent. There’s no one around.
Roger continues his fascination with the vulture. He doesn’t notice me inching closer, moving my hand up to his backpack. With one powerful thrust, off he goes. Arms flailing, he falls over the edge. His high-pitched screams slice the air, and they seem to awaken the pleasure centers of my brain. I smile.
Roger skids headfirst down sheer cliffside. He strikes a rocky protuberance, and the screams end. I stand on the ledge, watching his body disappear into the tree canopy far below. I never hear him hit the ground.
Heidi’s voice comes to me, as if in a dream. I look at her. She stands by the table with her head tilted to one side and her eyes narrowed.
“Pardon?” I say.
“I asked you what the little smirk is for. What are you thinking about?”
“You and the girls,” I tell her. “I’m just happy to be home.”
