The Cast Stone (37 page)

For no reason at all Dougie suddenly thought of his mother. He stopped and looked around. Did these people ever stop shopping? The mall was busy, filling the nine-million square feet of the largest mall on earth. He tried to imagine her here. He couldn't. Rosie simply would not stroll among the shoppers, drink coffee from a paper cup, dangle a handbag fashionably, lean over the rail and examine the plastic model of the planned phase III. He stopped trying.

Work on the big water pipeline was going well. His four crews looked after themselves pretty much, giving him time for a leisurely trip over to Minneapolis to spend a little time and more than a little money. There was lots of work in North Dakota, but not a lot else. Dougie was enjoying his time in the Mall. Looking around, eating, drinking, he even went to the amusement park and rode the big roller coaster alone. It would have been better if his wife and daughters were with him. Easter. He imagined, Easter he would bring them down when school was out, if she could get time off work. Maybe they should ask his mother to come with them. Give her a break from the cold of Moccasin Lake. But Rosie still refused to come. He let it go.

“I have something to do before we leave.” Monica thought of the house, the equipment, the open door to the bomb shelter. “Why don't you wait here until I get back.”

“Sure, no problem.” Ben relaxed into the kitchen chair.

“I won't be long.” She wrapped a scarf.

“No problem.”

“It's this house. I have to take care of a house and . . . ”

“No need to explain.”

But she did need to explain. “It belongs to the resistance. I could take you, you could wait in the car, but even that is against the rules. If anybody saw you there I would be in trouble.”

“I understand, No problem.” It didn't matter to Ben how long it took to get back to Moccasin Lake. Time was his friend, it was no longer his master. There was another cup of coffee in the machine, the sun was beginning to show through the window lighting up the trees outside, spreading its copper colour across branches, across snow. He was silently saying ‘thank-you for another day' while Monica went out the door.

“Theresa phoned.” Elsie wrapped meat in brown waxed paper.

“So did Dougie.” Rosie cut meat as fast as Elsie wrapped it, her knife finding its way easily around bone.

“What did Dougie have to say?”

“Not much, he's in Minnesota on a break, just called to say hello. What's your sister up to?”

“She's actually thinking about taking some time off work, come up for a visit.”

“It's been a long time.” Rosie paused, thought about it. “At least four years,” she remembered, “maybe more.” Her memory wasn't sure. “When's she coming?”

“Next weekend. Bringing the girls.” Elsie smiled.

Rosie smiled too. “They're getting big.”

“When was the last time you saw them?”

“When I went with Lester to the hospital. I stayed with them.”

“You mean you babysat for her.” Elsie remembered how it was when she visited her sister, left alone with the girls while Theresa worked.

“I spent lots of time with my granddaughters.” Rosie's answer was definite, final.

Elsie respected her mother's tone, accepted the bare truth of the statement. “Well, it'll be good to see them again.” She acquiesced, then changed the subject. “How's Lester?”

“Not good.”

“Going back to see him?”

“Maybe.” Rosie thought for a second. “Yeah, maybe I'll go back with Theresa.” She wasn't sure. Something was coming, she listened for it, then turned to Elsie, “Maybe you should go and clean up the house. I think Ben might be coming home today.”

“No big deal.” Ben examined the truck. “Nobody was hurt?” He looked to Benji.

“No, like I said, we were both at the tree.” Benji did not want to be here. He wanted to be anywhere else, but he stood straight. “I am really sorry, Dad.” He said the words, words he'd rehearsed over and over. They didn't come out the way he thought they would, the way he practised them. These words were filled with hurt, the practiced words were empty, probably why he tried over and over to make them right. Standing here in front of his father, beside the smashed truck, the son, the son who tried to do good, here the son spoke from the heart and the words came out naked, honest.

“No big deal, we'll get another one.” Ben heard more than the words, he heard the meaning.

“And the boat dad, I got the parts for the motor
.
Red said he'd help put them in.”

Ben shrugged. “Lots of time for that.” He looked around, spring was a long way off. “How have you made out?”

“What with?”

“Everything else.”

Benji thought for a second, spun his thoughts through time back toward Ben's arrest. “Elsie?” he asked thinking of the important things.

“Sure, how're things with Elsie?”

“Good, things are good with Elsie, and Rachel, and Rosie, and Red. Everything has been good, Dad.”

“Good.” There was nothing more to say. “Let's go eat some of that moose you shot.”

“I didn't shoot it. Red shot it.”

“Don't matter, let's go eat it.” Ben's hunger was for more than meat, he wanted to be inside with his son, with Rosie, with Rachel, with Elsie, with Red, with Lorraine, with Monica, with people, with laughter.

One of the reasons, maybe the main reason, that Theresa avoided coming back to Moccasin Lake was because here she often ran into people who recognized her from work, from the other side of the reinforced glass. She was never sure how to make the adjustment from institutional to social. The contact often ended in uncomfortable silence, sometimes bitter silence.

Rosie was happy to have both her daughters in the house, and her three granddaughters. They filled it with sounds, little girls squealing, shrieking. She had forgotten that little girls made that sound at every surprise, at dogs, at babies, at each other. It was a warm sound. She was happy to hear her daughter's visit, the chatter and laughter, to hear Theresa remind her girls to keep the volume down, just a little, so that adults could hear themselves think. When Rachel was not trying to climb onto every lap, especially her grandma's, she was chasing her cousins who were happy to be caught, to pick her up and carry her, feet dangling, to kiss her, give her baby smooches. “She's so heavy, Mom.” And plop her down.

It should all be perfect. Ben was home next door. There was fresh meat in the house. Winter was not harsh, the way she remembered it could be. Yet something nagged at her, some old dark dread she could not name. Dougie should be here, then it would be perfect.

She fell silent, looked often into her teacup that she held in both hands, listened to her daughters visit, Theresa's serious voice.

“I didn't know you were living with his son.”

“About seven months now.”

“What's he like? The truth now, you're talking to your big sister here.”

“Like his dad — ” She paused, thought about it — modified it. “Almost.”

“How's that?”

“Well, he's a thinker, likes to think things out, and he does. He's learning how to live here. Like going hunting, and he's had a net in for most of the winter until Mom told him she was getting tired of eating fish.”

“How long have you and Ben been friends?” Theresa drew her mother back into the visit.

“Forever,” Rosie came back slowly.

“You never talked about him. I had no idea who he was when they brought him in.”

“If you had come home more.” Rosie immediately wished she had not said it. “It's okay, my girl, I'm happy you're home.” She took the sting out of the words as best she could, touched her daughter's arm, soothed the flesh with her fingers. “Ben and I were friends when we were kids, then he moved back about three years ago.”

“Yeah, I got that much. But why didn't you ever talk about him?” Theresa was unstung. “You talked about absolutely everything else over the years.”

“Must've missed some things.” Rosie did not want to talk about pictures of a pedophiliac priest, not then, not now.

“What's with you Mom?” Elsie wasn't sure how to take an untalkative mother.

“Tired, I guess,” Rosie lied.

Ben lay on his bed, his own bed, for the first time in almost five months. It felt good, sleep was looking for him, circling the cabin, drawing on his will to stay awake. He went to his routine place, his prayer before leaving the world, the place where he said thank you. But first he remembered the day, the thing he was giving thanks for, from waking up on Monica's couch, to the ride home and the welcome. Poor Benji, he felt so bad about the damage to the truck and the boat. Elsie, was obviously uncomfortable with Ben being home again. It had been her house, her nest; now she wasn't sure. Something needed to be done. She and Benji were living as man and wife in a one-room house with an old man. Maybe a partition to give privacy. He let it go. That was for tomorrow.

He remembered Rosie's laugh, loud, from the belly. That in itself was worth coming home for. But, he heard something else in the sound. The laugh was the same. He let it repeat itself in his mind, let it fill him again. Rosie laughed easily, always, but today it sounded like she was trying, even forcing the laugh.