Читать книгу Hawk - Jennifer Dance - Страница 6

The female fish hawk is returning from the heavy humidity of the Texas marshes to the cool, crisp air of Northern Alberta where she was born, to the place where memory tells her that lakes and rivers are filled with fish, and men are few and far between. She has never made the migration in this direction, yet she knows the way.

She is here to find a mate.

With a roar, the plane races down the runway. The wheels leave the ground, and we rise into the air, the nose pointing steeply toward the bright blue sky. My stomach gets left behind, but that’s normal for me these days. I often feel as if I’m in several different pieces, all of them trying to stay together.

In seconds, Fort McMurray becomes a toy town, with Highway 63 stretched out like a piece of knotted string. I recognize the downtown core and then the miniature houses of Thickwood where I live. It should be exciting. It’s not. I’m numb.

Briefly, before the plane turns, I see the oil sands to the north, a strange, dull emptiness merging with the distant horizon. No forest. Nothing green. Just hazy brown sky and a landscape the colour of mud. In some strange way I feel as if I’m looking at myself … used up, depleted, empty.

The plane levels out, and we start our journey south. I look down on the river meandering in S-shaped loops through spruce-green wilderness. I know that I’m flying in the opposite direction of the flow. It’s going north, up to Lake Athabasca, where I grew up. A distant memory comes to me: water lapping gently against sand, and a little boat tipped upside down under the trees. For a second my heart feels like it might burst out of my chest. I can’t believe that I miss the old place. It’s been over six years since I left there and came south to live with Frank and Angela in Fort McMurray. I knew that McMurray was the oil-boom town, so I’d thought it would be dirty and oily and smoky. But it’s not! The sky is usually bright blue, and trees are everywhere. In summer, it’s like living in a green bowl with a river flowing right through the middle. In winter … not so much.

When I first arrived, I thought the coolest thing was the fast food. You could get anything — burgers, fries, pizza. Definitely better than eating fish all the time. Whether it was baked, stewed, fried, or made into soup, it was all still fish. The next best thing was the TV. My grandfather had an ancient box with rabbit ears that was right out of prehistoric times, so Frank’s flat-screen with countless channels kept me spellbound for hours. Even so, it wasn’t good enough for him. He soon replaced it with a thinner one, and now we have an awesome seventy-inch model. It’s almost like going to the movies.

At the beginning, Frank and Angela showered me with clothes and toys and video games. They were trying to buy me, but I didn’t care. I took it as payback for the years they gave me nothing. And I never gave an inch of affection in return. They still give me things, but the toys have morphed into the latest iPhone, iPad, and Wii, and the clothes include the best running gear on the market. So why is the old place on the shore of Lake Athabasca tugging at my heart? It doesn’t even have a McDonald’s. It doesn’t make sense. McMurray is my home. There’s fun stuff to do here, and people to do it with, and more girls to see in a minute than I would see all year up in Chip. My stomach lurches. I’m flying toward a very different future, one that I’m sure doesn’t involve fun, fast food, or girls. My heart sinks even lower at the thought of Chrissie, the only girl I’ve thought about for months, or did before all this hijacked my life. What are my chances with her now? Zip.

For the briefest moment, I see a bird flying north. I wish I was going with it. Instead I’m heading south, to Edmonton, to the Stollery Children’s Hospital. And I’m scared.

There’s nothing I can do.

I’m powerless.

I wipe my clammy palms on my jeans and force myself to breathe deeply, the way my running coach has taught me. It doesn’t help.

Angela is in the seat next to me, her fingers working the rosary beads in her lap. She’s praying under her breath. But when I listen hard, I hear the same phrase that she’s been mumbling all week. “It will be okay. It will be okay.”

I don’t believe her. I don’t think that she believes herself, either.

We fly through cloud. It hangs against the window, thick and damp and grey. I can’t see outside, any more than I can see my own future. I’m flying blind. It’s daunting.

There’s a jolt as the plane touches down. We’ve landed, yet I have little recollection of the last part of the flight. I’ve been reliving the day just two weeks ago when a grim-faced doctor pronounced two words that changed my life.

“It’s leukemia.”

Angela gasped.

I knew vaguely what leukemia was, but in hope that I was mistaken, I blurted out, “What’s leukemia?”

“Cancer of the white blood cells —”

My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out the doctor’s words. I felt strange, as if I was outside myself looking in. Occasional words pierced the fog: three-and-a-half years’ treatment … Edmonton … Calgary … Children’s hospital … Ronald McDonald…

“Do you have any questions, Adam?” the doctor asked.

I wanted to know what Ronald McDonald had to do with anything. I didn’t ask. My voice had vanished.

Angela unclips her seat belt, the metallic clunk bringing me abruptly back to my surroundings. I get out of my seat and follow her up the aisle of the plane to the exit, moving oddly, almost gliding, feeling as if the contents of my head are floating along a few inches behind. Angela looks back at me. She’s tired, I can tell. Her eyes are red and puffy. Briefly, I catch a look of pity on her face, and then it’s gone, replaced with a determined but silent it will be okay.

Life has changed. And although part of me hopes that I’m in a nightmare and will wake up soon, somewhere deep inside I know that things will never be the same.