Until around dinnertime, when the weather reports started talking about a massive storm headed for Toronto.
They had all tried to talk her out of it. What was her hurry? It was dark. When the storm came, it might become dangerous. But once she’d heard the meteorologist on the radio say the phrases significant accumulation and snowed in, she’d become almost frantic. She couldn’t be snowed in in the city for several days.
She had to get…back. Initially she’d thought I have to get home. But that wasn’t right. She was home, huddling in a protective cocoon with her parents and siblings and nephews.
The problem was, it didn’t feel that protective. It felt, suddenly, stifling. Everyone was crying all the time and that, paradoxically, made her extra committed to keeping her shit together. Someone had to schedule obituaries and select caskets and wash casserole dishes. So she’d just kept putting one foot in front of the other, kept not crying, a robot carrying out the administrivia of death.
Until she was faced with the prospect of being forced to keep doing it because she was trapped. Escape had become imperative.
Once on the highway, she calmed down a bit. As she made her way along dark, empty country roads, and as the first snowflakes started falling, a word started to fill the silence, pulsing more and more insistently, like a weak heartbeat gaining strength.
Jake.
Jake.
Jake.
For some reason her mind kept landing back on the day—the moment—Rufus had ambushed her last summer. Jake had stood by her—literally stood by her—and lightly rested his hand on her back. He had not spoken. But he had been there, stalwart in his watchful silence.
That was what she needed right now.
She didn’t even know if he would be home. His truck was parked in its usual spot at the corner of Locust and Sarnia, but that didn’t mean anything. It was Friday night, and he always walked to and from the bar on Fridays. She’d given half a thought to stopping by on her way in. Even if he wasn’t there, someone else would be.
But she didn’t want someone else.
She could only hope it was late enough—it was just after eleven—that he’d be back home.
She parked behind his truck and began the cold trudge. She didn’t have boots. In a warped sort of way, though, she relished the prospect of walking through the cold water. Maybe it would jolt her awake, get rid of this plodding, sleepwalking, robotic feeling.
She hissed when she splashed into the icy lake—there were literal chunks of ice here in the shallows. If she’d relished this, it had been theoretical. The water felt like it was made of tiny, invisible needles. This wasn’t awake; this was hypothermia, or close to it. She rushed around the outcropping and stumbled onto the beach.
She cursed her way across the snowy sand to his front door, the cold air excoriating her wet ankles. She was so cold, she was panting. The cottage was dark. Please be here.
She took off her mitten and pounded on the door.
Mick started barking. Mick. Tears threatened.
He opened the door. Jake.
Jake.
Jake.
Jake.
Her refrain from the car kicked in again.
He was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a holey T-shirt. His hair was all messed up, and he was squinting. She had woken him up.
He said her name three times, an echo of her mantra. The first was a question, like he didn’t trust his eyes, was unsure whether it was really her. “Nora?”
She had made it. She was here. He was here. She was no longer a robot. She was a girl with a dead grandma. The tears came.
The second time he said her name was urgent, gruff, commanding, as he pulled her over the threshold and into his arms. “Nora.”
The third time he said her name, as her tears became actual, literal, mortifying wails, was gentle. Impossibly, acutely, exquisitely gentle. It was a whisper she felt as much as heard. “Nora.”
Nora only let him hold her for a minute or so before she started trying to minimize her grief. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. She was old. She was eighty-seven.” The sobbing of a moment ago had lessened, but she was still talking through tears. They were sliding out of her eyes silently and rapidly. “This is the natural way of things.”
“Shh.” He tried to get her back in his embrace, but she put her hands on his chest. She was keeping him at literal arm’s length. So he laid his hands on her cheeks. It wasn’t like he thought he could magically stop those tears that were still coming furiously, like a tap that had been left on, or even that he should stop them. But he did feel, irrationally, that even though his hands couldn’t stop those tears, they could bear witness to them.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “This wasn’t like Jude.”
He shook his head. It wasn’t a contest, or a zero-sum game. There was enough room for all their grief. He had enough room for it all. He would hold hers for a while, if she would let him.
But he found himself slow to speak. His throat was tight, and he couldn’t seem to get the words from his brain to his tongue.
“I shouldn’t be coming here like this. Waking you up, dumping this on you,” she said in a rush.
He kissed her. It was the best way he could think to make her stop talking nonsense and to convey what he couldn’t say. That he was so sorry her grandma had died. That he wanted her here. That he’d missed her and was glad she was home.
He went slowly, pressing his mouth gently against hers without moving it, so he could pay attention to the way she responded. So he could make sure it wasn’t too much.
It wasn’t too much, judging by the way she rocked up and down on her toes, gaining momentum, and, with her hands wound around his neck, hitched herself up and wrapped her legs around his waist.
He kicked the door shut with one foot and turned. He gave a moment’s thought to whether he should deposit her on the sofa or take her back to his bed, but he felt something wet on his hip. It was her foot. He slid one hand under her bottom so as not to drop her and the other down one leg. Her feet were wet. She’d walked through the lake.
So he went to the fireplace. He’d laid a fire earlier. It was down to embers now—he’d fallen asleep on the couch. He knelt in front of it and carefully laid her down on her back. Mick came over and stood guard.
She stared at him, silent tears still flowing as he tugged off her wet boots followed by her wet socks. Her jeans were wet up to the knees, too, so he unbuttoned them. She lifted her hips so he could get them off her, and as he did so, she shrugged out of her parka.
He’d only been intending to get her out of her wet clothing, but she kept going. She crossed her arms and reached for the hem of her sweater and lifted that off, too. When she got stuck, he helped.
She had not been wearing a bra.
Which was not the kind of thing he should be noticing right now. She was still crying.
But oh God, she was beautiful. The pixie doctor. The woman who fixed things. She was a healer who couldn’t conquer death. Her hair was glowing almost silver, and the dying light from the fire was gold.
She was breaking his heart.
There were a couple of his mom’s quilts on the couch. He reached for them and tried not to mourn the loss of her as he covered her up. Mick curled up next to her and whined. She turned her face into his fur.