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"Well, congratulations, kids, we're in Canada." "You really are friendly with the border patrol," Mrs. Allweather said in awe. "They didn't even check the RV!" "I told you, I come up here all the time," Mr. Parker said, hopping back into the driver's seat. "They're used to me having random people with me. Usually fishing guys, but they just assume...." "Dude, that's not safe for them to be doing," Dilani said, glancing out the window to see the several men waving them on. "What if we had converted you into our crazy society that thought Canada needed to die...?" "Yes, well, they're not the most diligent people," Mr. Parker said. "It's stupid, but it saves time for us." While the three continued talking, Amaranthine sat in the back of the RV, twisting her short hair until she could get it no more tightly wrapped, and then letting go and feeling the hairs snap back into place on her head. She had no interest in border affairs; she didn't think that any sensible person, especially not any writer of stories, would want to dwell on such boring matters for too long, especially if they were not at all knowledgable about that sort of thing. All she knew was that they were halfway to finding her man with black eyes - Leopold Anderson - and that was all that mattered. "Okay, I need to crash," Dilani announced, stretching and lying back on the plush couch. "Don't mind me, I'll be asleep in a few...." The girl's arm flopped off the couch and she pretended to start snoring for a few moments before sitting up and laughing. "I think I need to rest as well," Amaranthine said, standing and walking to the bedroom. "I'll see you all in an hour, at most. Drive safely." "Aye, mate," Dilani called, putting her head on the arm of the couch and closing her eyes. Within a few minutes, she was still. By that time, the RV was slowly gliding down the road again. Mrs. Allweather could tell it was getting colder, but she didn't mind; instead, she was content to watch the landscape out the window. "I didn't expect it to be this pretty," she commented, wondering if Mr. Parker could hear her. "Yeah, it's nice," the man agreed absently, concentrating on the road until he heard a small shuffling of feet. He turned, and saw that Mrs. Allweather - Julia, he reminded himself - was in the compartment with him. "Listen," she said, sitting down, "I'm really sorry about what happened a few days ago." "Oh, no, no, it's nothing," Marcus said quickly, waving one hand in dismissal while keeping the other on the wheel. "I can see how it would be hard to talk about your job without thinking of ... yeah, I know you probably don't want to talk about it again," he said, cutting himself off abruptly. He turned and looked at the road again. "You're right," Julia replied. "Every time anyone brings anything to do with him up, I wind up wallowing in my own misery and making a complete fool of myself. Look, here I go again! It's like I can't open my mouth without asking for pity. Even saying this, I sound pathetic." "It's not pathetic to have feelings," Marcus said awkwardly. He did not enjoy conversations such as this, and he found that half of himself wished Julia would leave. The other half was quite happy to be speaking with her, though it wished she would talk about something happier and start smiling again. "Of course it's not, everybody has feelings," Julia said shortly. She opened her mouth again, but realized that she had absolutely nothing else to say. She turned and looked out the window, unsure of what to do. "Listen," Marcus said, "if you need to talk about it, you need to talk about it, I'm not about to tell you otherwise." "No, no," Julia said, pressing a hand to her forhead. "It's not your problem, it's mine. Goodness, I'm a counselor, I'm always telling other people how to deal with their issues, I'll be able to find a way to deal with my own." "Well, sure," Marcus replied, wondering why he was pushing it, "but it sometimes helps to talk about it. Only when you're ready." And he turned to the road. "I guess," said Julia, and he sighed, "it's that the shock is still so great. Gosh, there shouldn't have even been a shock, I knew he was dying from the moment I met him. Lung cancer, we never liked to talk about it. He had two daughters already, and they liked me well enough. They were just happy, even at as young an age as ten or eight, their dad found someone who loved him, even with his bleak future. I liked them as well; I'd always wanted kids of my own. But it seems to me like he was the only thing holding our little makeshift family together. "We were married for eight years, I think, or nine; long enough for both girls to go off to college. I had always kind of taken his sickness for granted, and it wasn't important, in my mind; it had only just been diagnosed when I met him, which was why he was in counseling in the first place, his doctor had referred him. It was one of those things that would never happen; you know, when your dentist says you'll have to schedule an appointment for a filling or a root canal or something awful, and you walk away worried but okay because at least it's not happening at that very moment. That was what it was like, even knowing his time on this earth was numbered in years, then months, then weeks ... it wasn't happening then, so it was like it would never happen at all. "And then," Julia paused to dab at her eyes with a tissue Marcus had handed her, "then he went to the hospital and stayed there. They wouldn't tell me why, they just wouldn't check him out. I stayed there night and day, watched him grow thin and pale. I had always kept him looking healthy, he did love my cooking...." Julia trailed off and bent over, head in her hands. Marcus wasn't sure what to do. He reached over with one hand and patted her back awkwardly while trying to keep on the road. "It's all right," he said. "There was nothing you could've done." Julia sniffled, and sat up, looking remarkably composed. "I'm just rambling," she said. "The point is that he ... he died, and the girls and I were awful for a month. He was wonderful to all three of us. But they got better, they knew he was looking down on them from heaven and smiling, proud of what they were doing with their lives, and they moved on, got jobs, got boyfriends. I never got better. I would talk to them and be absolutely depressing, and I'm sure they got sick and tired of it, though they were far too sweet to ever say so to my face. So they moved far away, going to law school and an art academy, and I barely ever hear from them. They send me cards at Christmas, on Easter, on my birthday ... you know, that sort of thing. And I miss them, but I don't want to intrude on their lives with my misery anymore." Julia bit her lip. Marcus shook his head. "I'm sure they don't mean to make you unhappy," he said. "Perhaps ... perhaps they are worried that you don't approve of the way they're dealing with the death of your husband. I don't know, I really doubt they think you're depressing...." Marcus could tell that he didn't sound convincing, and he could tell that Julia wasn't buying it. "I just wish I could talk to them again about the things we used to talk about," Julia said, smiling with tears in the corners of her eyes. "I would talk to them about boys and clothes and things, stuff that my husband never quite got his mind around. I would take them shopping for school every year, it was a whole big occasion ... we would get cake and ice cream, even, before we left, we'd have dinner at that little restaurant we loved, and we'd absolutely go mad, buying things they didn't even need because they thought they would come in handy someday...." "See?" Marcus said. "Just because you lost your husband doesn't mean your life is over. You have those two beautiful daughters just waiting for you to come out of your slump, or whatever you want to call it. Don't you think they know what you're going through? He was their father, the man who gave them life. He wouldn't want any of you to suffer longer than you had to, I'm sure. It's not disrespectful to him to move on in your life, it's what he would have wanted." Julia nodded. "I know, I know," she said, and she looked up. "I just feel like ... like I need a little more time, first. I don't know how long. Just ... time." Marcus felt a little tingle at the base of his neck. "You have all the time in the world," he said. "Don't use it up waiting for an opportunity." "Do you know," said Julia, "I don't think I will." And she got up and left the compartment. She became Mrs. Allweather again as Mr. Parker watched her go, the moment gone. Sighing to himself, he turned to the road again and watched cars as he passed them by. |