Читать книгу After Helen - Paul Cavanagh - Страница 9

I don’t realize that I’ve fallen asleep until I open my eyes and see that we’re not on the highway any more. Through my salt-sprayed window, I make out what looks like the geodesic sphere of Ontario Place. As I widen my gaze, I notice that the snow has eased off for the moment, but the clouds are still hanging low and heavy, obscuring the observation deck of the CN Tower ahead.

My neck has a kink in it the size of a grapefruit. “Jesus,” I say, tasting the sour, milky residue of sleep in my mouth. “How long have I been out?”

Marla’s grip tightens on the steering wheel as the car passes through a fresh drift of snow that’s blown across the road. “Your throat must be sore from all that snoring,” she says, her eyes fixed firmly on the car ahead of us.

I finish taking my bearings, ignoring her complaint. Just ahead I see Exhibition Place’s giant wind turbine, looking like a forlorn propeller for a gargantuan plane that someone had the good sense not to complete. “Lakeshore Boulevard?” I ask.

“The Gardiner was solid,” she says. “This’ll get us there faster.”

I survey the frozen surface of Lake Ontario. We’re not far from our destination now, I realize. Despite all my urgency, I’m woefully unprepared for the moment when I see Severn again. I have no idea what I’m going to say to her, particularly if she’s come to meet up with Livingston, as I’m almost certain she has. Now I regret not taking the copy of Northwest Passage that Will offered me. I can only imagine what Severn saw in the story—people and events too familiar to be the invention of a stranger; support for suspicions she’d begun to harbour about the official version of our little family’s past. I feel as if I’m about to go into the most important final exam of my life without ever having read the text for the course.

“Have you tried calling the condo lately?” I ask, pushing aside my trepidation.

“I’ve been a little busy,” she says testily.

I pull my cellphone out of my jacket pocket. “What’s the number?”

Her lips crinkle.

“What?” I say.

“I’ll call when the driving’s not so bad,” she says.

“That’s not going to happen until you park the car.” I read the pinched lines on her face. “You don’t want me talking to Avery, do you?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Afraid of what I might say to him?” I say.

She takes her eyes off the road just long enough to give me a dry, what-do-you-think look.

“I work with kids his age every day,” I tell her. “You think I can’t control myself just because he spent the night with my daughter?”

Marla kneads the steering wheel. “You make it sound like he kidnapped Severn,” she says sharply. “Like she didn’t have a choice.”

“What are you saying? You think this was her idea?”

She pierces me with a penetrating stare. “I think you know it was.”

I narrow my eyes, trying to decide whether she’s simply pushing back or knows more about Severn than I’ve imagined. Before I can make up my mind, her arms go rigid. She slams on the brakes. I grab the dashboard for dear life as I feel the car fishtail.

“Jesus Christ!” I exclaim.

She fights with the steering wheel. I feel my seat belt digging into my shoulder. My head pops back as the car behind us kisses our bumper. I brace myself, waiting for the next impact, but it doesn’t come. We’re stopped now, aimed askew, straddling two lanes. A wisp of snow blows across the hood. I look over at Marla. Her hands are shaking.

“What was it?” I ask. “A patch of ice?” My impatience is bubbling at the surface. I’m thinking of the police, tow trucks, all the time we’ll waste here while Severn becomes increasingly lost to me.

Her eyes are round with panic. “Something ran out,” she says, her lips continuing to move, but her voice failing.

“What?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she says, gulping air like a goldfish.

I unbuckle myself in disgust and get out of the car, stepping ankle-deep into the slush. It’s a cab that’s rear-ended us; the driver glaring at me. He has to wait for the traffic to clear before he can open his door and begin his cries of bloody murder. In the meantime, I scan the pavement for signs of roadkill—a dog, a cat, a squirrel—but see nothing, just a steady progression of annoyed drivers edging their way around our accident.

“You crazy?” yells the cabbie, now out of his vehicle. “Why you stop in the middle of nowhere?” He has a Middle Eastern accent. He must hate winter driving even more than I do, I realize.

“Something ran out in the road,” I say, despite having no evidence to support my claim.

“What ran out in road?” he says, waving his arms. “Nothing ran out in road.”

I examine our respective bumpers. “Doesn’t look too bad,” I say, trying to cut a quick deal. “Maybe we don’t need to get our insurance companies involved.”

He’s still angry, but I can tell he’d just as soon not wait for the police or see his premiums go up. “Papers,” he says with a modicum of compromise. “Show me your papers.”

“They’re just in the car,” I say, sensing that I may be able to talk my way out of this mess after all. “I’ll get them for you.”

He follows me, perhaps worried that I’ll try to make a break for it. I open the passenger door and reach for the glovebox. Marla is gasping for air now, her hands splayed across the dashboard.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, knowing full well that she’s not. There’s a panic in her eyes that I recognize. I last saw it in Helen in the weeks before she died.

The cabbie sees it too. “Hey, lady, I not hit your car so hard,” he says, suddenly worried that a case for personal injury is about to be made against him.

“Just try to take a deep breath,” I tell her.

It’s no good. Her translucent complexion is turning an even more ghostly shade of white.

I realize this has nothing to do with our trivial collision.

I turn to the cabbie. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

“You follow,” he says, heading back to his taxi. “I take you there.”

As I help Marla around to the passenger side, I wonder whether I should have asked him to call an ambulance instead. She grips my arm like a vice, her lungs straining, fear still floating in her eyes. At one point, she leans against me heavily, and I’m afraid she’s about to pass out, but then she recovers. The cabbie’s already edging back into traffic by the time I get her strapped in, so I scramble around to the driver’s side and slide behind the wheel, not even bothering to adjust the mirrors.