For the next few days, Nan is consumed with thoughts of Lily — disturbed, shifting thoughts. Before all this, she hadn’t really paid her much mind. She’d known Lily since they were kids. They lived in a small town. In a small town, you are who you are. You never expect to see someone you’ve known all your life as someone new. Isn’t that all part of the security? And when they bury you in Gart’s Bay, in your assigned plot, beside the rest of your family, don’t you already know what they’re going say at your graveside?
This is all scaring Nan. Worse, the booze isn’t helping, as it used to do, to keep thoughts at bay. Lily is there in her waking thoughts and in her sleeping thoughts. She thinks about how cruel she had been to Lily through the years. Before, it hadn’t mattered. Lily had been born into her unfortunate role. She existed to be made fun of and taunted. Even though she and Nan were friends, malice toward Lily was just part of the fabric of the town. Nan never questioned it. Not doing so gave her more status.
And Mark. Goddamn, they all knew. The whole bloody high school knew, when Mark was latching onto Lily, about the time of graduation, that he was looking for someone to take care of him. They all knew, Nan thought. All of them, except Lily, who thought Mark might love her and be a star shining through the cloud that had followed her all of her life. It was just another reason to pity and make fun of Lily. No one told her about Mark’s motives, though. No one warned her. Lily’s face glowed from his attention. If she had any inkling of truth, she never let on.
Nan doubles up on the scotch. Three full shots per glass. She opens her throat and lets the liquid slide down, then starts coughing.
Three days before the wedding, Nan lay in bed with Mark, the covers twisted and tangled around their feet. Sweat stained the sheets. Nan was dying from the heat, but Mark was too lazy to get up and open the window. Nan lay still, breathing in the scent of their lovemaking. She figured this would be the last time they would lie together. He’d be a married man soon, although she doubted the sanctity of marriage mattered much to him. Nan worried that Lily would find out and said so.
“Holy crap, Nan, what do you care?” Mark said.
Nan said nothing, pinching him hard in the flesh that covered his hipbone.
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“Don’t you feel bad?” Nan asked.
“Why the hell should I?”
“Because you should be fucking her.”
“I’d rather be with you.”
“I’m not going to be your wife.”
Mark rolled his head so he can see her face. “You would never say yes.”
Nan laughed. “At least you’re right about that. I know what you’re like.”
“Irresistible?”
“An asshole.”
She pushed him and he retaliated by leaping across and straddling her. Years of weightlifting had defined his forearms and biceps. Sweat glistened on his skin. He stared down hard at her, breathing heavily. Seeing he was ready to go again, Nan began a coy attempt to slide away from underneath him. But he trapped her with his weight. Within seconds, he was inside her again, and Nan stretched her arms to grab on to the headboard. Her hips bucked to meet his. Thoughts of Lily vanished.
Now, sitting at her kitchen table, Nan wishes these memories were fabrications. She wishes, for one thing, that really had been the last time she had slept with Mark. She knew all along the car accident wouldn’t work. She knew Mark too well. She knew he would never fall for a feeble pity plea. But there she and Lily were, drinking, Lily saying much more than she wanted to hear, she thinking about being in bed with Mark and how damn good the sex was. The more she drank, the more she saw how hurt Lily was, the more she needed some way out. Any way. Oh, Christ. The accident had seemed like a good idea at the time. And now…
Nan’s thoughts turn to her father. Why did she never blow the whistle on him, never stand up to him? Why did she allow the days to slip by and accept them as her life — unalterable, even if tolerable? Her whole family treated life this way. No one thought to break away, except Margaret, but then Margaret was adrift with no one at all, except her mother who snuck visits in when she could, careful not to provoke a beating from her husband. But it wasn’t simply fear. Apathy ruled the family, too. If they hated the program on television, they would complain about it, but they would watch it to the end rather than change the channel. Nan drank, her father drank. They seemed to float as helplessly as unanchored rafts on all that liquid. The sun rose. The sun set. Nothing changed. No one expected it to. No one caused it to.
Sometimes, after her father left the bathroom, and she cleaned herself up with the leftover water in the tub, holding the washcloth against her vagina, she would hear him turn on the record player. He would be mixing another drink and she would think about how she needed to sneak one for herself so she could sleep better. The needle would hit the vinyl and her father would sing along to the slightly warped record, a ditty about letting the sunshine in. “Smilers never lose and frowners never win,” was the lyric. If he was certain no one was looking, he’d dance a skewed waltz around the coffee table, bumping into the corner occasionally and reaching down to rub his leg.
Alice wakes up from a dream. Daryl has been gone for hours. Since she’s high most of the time, he avoids her. She has no one to tell about the dream. Even moments after awakening, all she can recall is the image of the snow bank, steep and icy. In the dream, it’s night. She can’t see to scale the snow, even with her body pressed up tight against it. She tries to find footholds to hoist herself up, but she slides down again. Then, night turns to day. Suddenly, the snow bank is clear. Trapped inside the ice — frozen and disfigured — are dozens of dead babies, their faces pressed to the surface. She can see every horrible detail, even the colour of their eyes.
Shaken, her mind racing, Alice reaches for her pipe and the bag of weed in the nightstand drawer. She feels as though she would like to rip her own skin off so her thoughts would peel away with it.
Once, when she lived in the city, she thought about taking therapy, hoping to release some of her painful memories. But she had trouble seeing the point of reliving a story that was unalterable with a stranger. The story remained the same no matter how many ways it was deconstructed. Sometimes it’s better just to trap it in your mind. Freeze it into snow banks. Dead babies. Alice is full of dead babies.
After two more drinks, Nan knows she needs a distraction. She decides go to Alice’s, to the porch, and talk about nothing. She could go hunting and shoot something for Lily, but she’d rather have someone to drink with. She owes Lily an awful lot more than a dead grouse.
She starts the car, buckles her seat belt, and cranks up the stereo. Rod Stewart is singing “I Don’t Want To Talk About It,” but she doesn’t want to hear a lyric about “cryin’ forever” so she shuts the radio off. There is only one station in Augustine. CBC comes in, if the wind is blowing just so, but she hates all the talk about politics and world affairs, and the snooty serious tone to the voices. The cassette player has eaten most of her tapes.
Silence. Jesus Christ.
But she can’t put the car in drive. There’s nothing mechanically wrong; she just can’t do it. “Just put the car in drive,” she says out loud, but her hand freezes on the gear shift. She thinks: I’m gonna kill someone.
The suddenness of the thought hurts her head. She didn’t really think it, surely.
Come on. Drive. Gas. Brake. It’s not so hard.
I almost killed her.
Ouch. There it is again. Like a sudden sinus headache or a blow to temple.
Be reasonable. It’s the booze.
Why didn’t you just take the gun and go shoot her? Why did you run her over? You knew she would be maimed. You knew Mark wouldn’t come.
“Aaahh!” Nan yelps like a wounded dog. Get out of the car, an inner voice commands. She does. Shut the door. She obeys. Walk to Alice’s. No, no, better yet, run! Run as fast as you can until you leave these thoughts behind. By the time you get to Alice’s, they will seem foolish. Tell Alice the car wasn’t working. She’ll never be the wiser.