Y: A Novel (25 page)

I feel the planets aligning, the puzzle pieces sliding into place. I’ll get my own
apartment. The Y will help me. It will be that easy. I look around. I could get used
to this place. I could live on my own. Sure. Why not?

“We can set up a meeting with one of our social workers. Would you like me to do that?”

But then I feel the sting of tears in my eyes because I’m thinking about Miranda,
and about Winkie, and Lydia-Rose. God damn it. I wish I could just be happy with what
I have. Either that or coldhearted enough to leave.

“No, thank you,” I tell Chloe. She waits for me to compose myself. Finally, I do.
I say, “I have a favor to ask.”

She leans toward me and, like someone has cracked me open, I start to tell her the
story of my birth. I point at the entrance. I tell her the date and the year. I take
out the article about me and smooth it out in front of her. She looks at the baby
in the picture, then up at me. I’m so little that I don’t even look human.

“He’s the one who found me.” I point at Vaughn’s name in the middle of the article
and then stare at her face.

“I never knew about this,” she says finally. She shakes her head and then looks around
as if to see if anyone is paying attention. “Vaughn’s basically a fixture here. He’s
worked here for years.”

“What’s he like?”

She does another one of her half-laughs. “He’s great. He’s really great,” she says,
and I see something behind her eyes—is she in love with him? I can’t tell, but there’s
something there. “Look,” she says. “I’ll give you his address. He’s not in today.”
She writes it on the back of a business card and holds it out to me. One of her coworkers
sidles up to her and asks if I’m a new member. He’s a stringy guy, skinny as hell,
his hair spiked up like a cockatoo’s. He puts his skinny hand on Chloe’s shoulder.
Clearly he’s interested in her.

“She was found here,” she says to the guy, then looks at me quickly, as if maybe this
is a big secret she’s not supposed to give away. I grin at her. “She was abandoned
here as a baby,” Chloe continues, like a little
engine gaining speed, “right out front. Vaughn found her.
Vaughn
. Can you imagine?”

The coworker leans over the counter to get a look at the article, skims it, then rears
his cockatoo head at me. “This is you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, man.” He looks at the article again. “Oh, yeah, look at that. Vaughn.” Both
he and Chloe look at each other and then at me. And then we have nothing to say to
each other, so I tap my foot against one of the turnstiles for a second and thank
them for their time. On my way out Chloe hands me a sticker that says
This Is a Drug-Free Zone,
and I press it onto my backpack.

XII.

m
y mother comes out of the bedroom sometime in the late afternoon, Eugene slumped over
her shoulder. The living room is empty, the car gone. She lays Eugene on the couch,
tucks a coffee-stained pillow under his head. She gave birth to him in the back bedroom
of her parents’ big house. Her mother, Jo, wiped her brow and later, after he was
born, taught her how to nurse. Yula was sixteen. Quinn was outside, pouring concrete
into a hole in the soil. The pine cabin took thirty days to build. A month after it
was done, Jo was dead.

Harrison and Dominic have left the space heater on, and the room is too warm. Yula
flicks off the heater and examines her son’s face. Eugene was not a tactile child.
He did not like to be touched. It seems to her now that this is the most intimate
she has ever been with the boy. She runs her fingers over his face and studies the
way the bridge of his nose rises up and forms a deep ridge between his eyes. His eyelashes
are thick and black. His lips are full, the insides stained red from the cough syrup.

How could she have let herself fall asleep? Yula places her hand on the top of her
son’s head. He is as cool as a harbor seal. When her mother died, Yula held her hand
over her mother’s head and felt her mother’s soul shoot out and away. The back of
her son’s head is cold. There is no energy there, no heat. He has died alone, without
anyone to witness it. This is the
greatest tragedy of all, Yula thinks, that she did not bear witness to her son’s death.
This is worse than the death itself.

Moments later she hears the screaming. It seems to be coming from a place outside
of her—somewhere within the cabin but not from her own mouth. She crouches on the
floor in the middle of the cabin and hears the scream all around her, from every surface
and every wall. Whose voice is this? She does not recognize it. The shadows are too
black, and the wind makes a horrible hollow sound. It rushes right through her. And
then there is no floor beneath her and no walls. She feels herself falling, but when
she puts out her hands, she can still feel the hardwood floor. The house must be falling.
A sinkhole has opened up in the earth and she is plummeting toward its center. Her
hair rushes past her face and streams out above her. She reaches for Eugene but he
is still on the couch, balanced at the edge of the sinkhole, and she puts out her
hands and waits for it to tip. She will catch him. She will catch her boy when he
falls.

Harrison finds her on the floor of the cabin, unconscious, and Eugene, his skin almost
blue, on the couch. He rushes outside, where Dominic is waiting in the old car, the
engine idling. In a panic they discuss things, and the decision is final: they will
give the boy a private funeral and a proper burial. They will do it now. He was raised
in the woods; he will be buried in the woods. They will do this before Yula wakes,
and they will wait awhile before they tell her. There are too many factors at stake.
The boy might have drunk the two bottles of cough syrup, choked on his vomit, and
died—he might have. But Harrison’s bag of cocaine is missing, and this is the greater
concern. Harrison can’t—won’t—go back to jail. He just won’t. And then there’s the
baby. A mother who lets her child die will not be allowed to raise another. The baby
will be taken away. No, and this is final—Harrison and Dominic will bury Eugene, and
they will do it out of respect and love for Yula, for the new baby, for their family.
They’re not “covering up” anything. This is not a sinister act. This is a father who
wants to continue down the righteous path he suddenly sees himself on; this is a father
who wants to leave the isolated compound, leave the
drugs behind, take Yula and the baby and start a new life, far away from here. Leave
the old man, Quinn, to fend for himself. Yula has given up too much of her life to
him and his suffering anyway. And he is a miserable man. He killed Yula’s mother.
He is the murderer here. Let him die alone in his big house. Harrison will tell Yula
the plan in the next couple of days, when she’s out of shock. He will sit her down,
kiss her, tell her that this is a sign. They will set out together, take the ferry
off the island, find a new life somewhere on the mainland. They will stay with one
of Harrison’s friends in Abbotsford, then drive to the Interior in somebody’s borrowed
van. He will work construction again. Yula can clean motel rooms. Dominic will sell
most of his stash and lend them some start-up money; he’ll stay on the island and
keep an eye on the miserable old man. This will be Harrison’s promise to Yula; this
will be the thing that will let her leave. What is the alternative? Jail for them
all? A baby born to murderers? No. They will bury Eugene and flee. No one will know.
Everyone will assume, when they leave, that they’ve taken Eugene with them. Why wouldn’t
they? A family starting again. A new beginning. They’ll bounce back from this. The
human heart is resilient. It can bust apart; it can heal.

Harrison bundles Eugene in Yula’s gray sweatshirt and carries him out to the car.
Dominic opens the trunk and watches his brother lower the boy in. It isn’t as if it’s
easy—it isn’t as if Harrison isn’t broken inside, some part of him crying out and
bleeding as he adjusts the boy’s head so that it rests at a more natural angle. He
tucks his little hands by his sides. The boy’s feet are bare, and Harrison thinks
this is wrong somehow.

“Wait,” he tells Dominic, then goes into the cabin for Eugene’s little red boots and
socks.

The cabin is dark and Yula is still on the floor. Her hands are curled like claws.
He walks into the bedroom and opens the top drawer of the dresser, where they keep
their underwear and Eugene’s clothes. His little socks are rolled into balls at the
back of the drawer, and he takes one out and puts it in his pocket. One of Eugene’s
rubber boots is on the floor, but he can’t find the other one, and it isn’t under
the bed. He searches the cabin quickly and gives up, walks back outside with the one
boot in his hands.

“Can’t find the other one,” he says to Dominic, as if to make up for it somehow. He
slides the socks over Eugene’s cold feet and puts the boot on. Dominic has put a flashlight
and a shovel in the trunk, too, and Harrison stands over the boy, looking at the awful
scene for a minute before he closes the trunk and gets into the car, his brother at
the wheel.

“’Preciate all this,” Harrison says out the side of his mouth. He flips up the collar
of his jacket and blows hot breath on his hands. Just as Dominic starts down the gravel
driveway that leads to the long stretch of Finlayson Arm Road, Harrison sees Yula
in the side mirror, running after them. It is early in the evening, and the sun is
setting fast behind her. Harrison squints in the golden light and puts his hand on
his brother’s arm.

“Stop,” he yells to Dominic, and Dominic hits the brakes. Harrison leaves the passenger
door open and jogs toward her, takes her in his arms. “Baby, baby. It’s going to be
okay now, I promise you.” He pulls away from her and cups her face in his hands. She
is sweaty and her skin is cold, clammy to the touch.

“We have to go to the hospital,” she says, her voice shaking. Her face is pale. She
can barely say the words. “Harrison, it’s too early. It’s too early.”

Harrison looks at his brother, tapping his hand on the steering wheel, chewing his
lip. The sun falls rapidly past the forest’s edge, and the temperature plunges.

“My water broke.” She says it as softly as a frightened child.

What should he do? “Okay,” Harrison says. “Okay. We’re going to go. Come on, get in
the car.”

“I can’t find Eugene.” She grabs his jacket, but her fingers are numb from the cold
and it slips from her hands. She pounds her fists against his chest. “Where’s Eugene?
Where’s Eugene?”

Dominic gets out of the car and stands between them. “We took him to your dad’s. He’s
over there. He’s fine.”

It’s such a bold lie that Harrison almost stumbles. He braces himself on his brother’s
arm.

“He’s fine, Yula,” Dominic says again. “He was just sleeping. He’s fine now.”

Yula looks back and forth between Harrison and his brother. His words are so beautiful
that she wants to swallow them whole. Is this true? Did she dream this? Is Eugene
with her father, in the big warm house? She wants to run back toward the house, but
a pain swells in her back.

“He’s there, baby,” Harrison says. He takes her hand and pulls her against his body,
lets her put her whole weight on him. “He’s with your dad, in the house.”

Yula spits and then wipes her mouth. “I want to go see him.” She walks as if through
mud, holding her belly with one hand. “I want my baby.”

And then Dominic is behind her, grabbing her, his hands on her shoulders, pulling
her toward the car. She fights him, but she is no match for his strength. She slumps
in his arms and the men lead her to the car.

“Get in the car, baby. Get in the car.” She lets Harrison muscle her inside. He kisses
her forehead, shuts the passenger door, and nods to Dominic.

“Let’s do this,” Dominic whispers to Harrison. “Let’s go.”

Harrison thinks a minute, drums his fingers on his thigh. “I don’t know what to do
about Eugene.”

“I’ll get out at the bottom of the hill and then you can carry on to the hospital.
I’ll bury him myself. Just don’t let her see me take him out of the trunk.”

The brothers look at each other for a minute. In another few minutes, it will be dark.

“This is going to work out,” Dominic says. “This is going to have a happy ending.
Just take her to the hospital. Stay with her while the baby is born.”

XIII.

s
ometimes Vaughn pictures time as being a long stretch of satin, all the events of
the past and future laid out and shimmering before him, a tiny shifting line where
the present moment keeps inching forward. His father shared his gift of prescience,
but the two men never spoke of it. Still, by the time Vaughn was three, he could sense
his father’s actions moments before they occurred. He could see his father so much
more clearly than he could see other people. He concluded, eventually, that it was
because his father was like him: two men so aware of their own placement in time—of
their place in history—that the future was never surprising, only inevitable.