25

On the drive up to Cultus Lake, they got into a conversation about race, and her reactions came out frustrated, even angry. He didn’t want to have the conversation in the first place, but he was in the muck before he knew it by expressing himself lazily, and she got the wrong idea. He calmed her by qualifying what he meant, and she grudgingly let him back into the boat. They drove in silence for a while, which grated on his insides. So far, there was nothing relaxing about getting away.

As planned, they spent a few hours at the beach and had a picnic lunch before checking into the Airbnb at 3 PM. She had brought her paddle board. They pumped it up and set out together across the tranquil lake, the paddler, her at first, standing behind the sitting passenger, the quasi feeling of riding a gondola in Venice. The breeze neutralized the full sun, and the lake held them like babies, enveloped by the shores of dense forest with mountains beyond. He felt his first relieving breaths in weeks. They traded stories of summer family vacations at the beach, and she got to asking about his father. Her voice from behind him was as calm and warm as the day, wrapping around him like a comforting blanket.

“Did you worry about him?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Worry about what he thought. About you.”

“Yeah, of course. Don’t all kids?”

“But what was it like for you?”

“He was a pretty sombre guy, imposing at times. No doubt stressed about his business, but of course I didn’t understand that at the time. He brooded, but we didn’t know what it meant. It was always tense when he was around.”

“That must have been rough.”

“Rough?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I guess. I got used to it, except for when he would blow up. That’s what made it tense too, we never knew when he suddenly might pop. Scary sometimes. ”

“What would set him off?”

“One of us would say something objectionable in some way, or disrespect him somehow, or push his limits wanting something. We all had to be so careful about what we said or did, or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Just that – he’d be angry and yell at us. He was an imposing presence, six foot three, a deep voice with a deep frown, a goatee.”

“Did he ever hit any of you?”

“No, never. Just yelling, guilting, criticism, closed opinions.”

“Mm,” she confirmed, understanding.

“It wasn’t like that all the time. He was devoted and caring, probably cared too much in a twisted way, you know?”

“Like what?”

“Too idealistic, which made him believe his opinions and ideas were the only ones worth considering, and he’d get frustrated with other ideas or opinions. When he was happy, we could all relax. Our needs and desires were superficial compared to the need to keep him calm. In fact, I can see now how we got trained to forget ourselves when he was around. We learned, all of us, he was the only important one.”

Her empathetic questions felt good. She hadn’t asked about his life in this way before and wondered why she had now. It felt odd that it felt odd. He had a growing feeling that something needed to be attained over the next couple of days. If they weren’t going to the next level now, what was holding them back? He felt it was all on him for one reason or another, simply not being likable enough, good enough, worthy of her. How could he make it seem otherwise? Was there a trick?

In the car on the way to the Airbnb, the disparity between their feelings came up. It was the first time they’d talked about it since he said he loved her. He assured her it didn’t faze him in the least that she didn’t share his feelings. Of course, this was bullshit, but what else could he say? He hoped by using reverse psychology and not being needy, she would be more drawn to him. “If we both have a nurturing attitude toward the relationship, that’s all that really matters, right?”

“Mm,” she said noncommittally.

It had been five weeks since she’d given him notice of probation. He wondered what the score was now. How close was he to being cut? The mix of feelings felt untenable. An hour earlier she was wrapping him in a warm blanket of care and understanding, an hour before that she was angry at him for slipping up during a conversation about race, and now she was indicating they were on thin ice. He tried to think optimistically about their getaway. Perhaps it was a chance for a controlled burn to incinerate the dead wood and clear the ground for fertile growth. Wasn’t that what trips away were for?

They arrived at the Airbnb just after 4 PM. It was the usual impersonal but clean and comfy standard one expected. The big, soft L-shaped couch, big-screen TV, a tiny dining table between the kitchen and living room, various windows with no view, blocked by trees. Bathroom and bedroom steps from the kitchen. Tiny for the price, but everything they needed.

After some unpacking and sorting he checked his email. There were two urgent messages from two different clients. His temples immediately ached, his ears went hot. Casually, he said, “I need about an hour to work on something urgent for a client.” She was quite happy to do some writing and settled onto the couch with her laptop and notebook. In his office at home, he was free to sigh and cuss at the screen if he felt like it, but here he had to keep it all under wraps and found it hard to calm himself enough to concentrate on solving the issues before him, which required some statistical analysis and creative strategy, and careful crafting of emails back to the clients asap. Just as he was finishing, another email arrived. The third new client criticized his assertive communication with the developer to complete a project phase. He typed a response right away with the utmost professionalism and an apology. He pressed Send, but it didn’t reduce the weight in his chest, and he expended a lot of energy pretending he was fine and relaxed.

What would be the point of telling her? It would just put an even darker cloud over everything, and the last thing he needed was her being upset with him for being stressed out and spoiling her road trip. He would handle it, and she didn’t appear to notice anything off in his behaviour. It wasn’t deception. I’m handling my shit, that’s what a good partner does. He closed his computer and joined her on the couch with his book. His eyes ran over the text but absorbed nothing. He re-read the same passage and still understood nothing, as if written in another language. His eyes grew heavy, exhausted. He whispered he was going to have a nap and stretched out on his part of the L-shaped couch. He awoke twenty minutes later, feeling as if hours had passed, his mind clear of everything for a few seconds except for one thought: Don’t break my heart.

He looked up at her, his eyes blinking into consciousness.

“That was quick,” she said.

“Power nap, yeah.” She turned back to her notebook, reading, pen in hand. He sighed. “Wow,” he said quietly.

“Mm, what?”

“I woke up with a strong idea in mind.” His default filters and restraints hadn’t woken up yet. “Don’t break my heart.” As the words came out, he was embarrassed but also relieved. It seemed like a reasonable request.

She seemed to take it lightly and simply said, “Hm,” in a high tone as if he’d told her some nonsensical dream about someone else. He would have loved an assurance or even something compassionate but wasn’t surprised she didn’t offer it. He still felt jangled from the client issues and was glad to follow her suggestion to go to the nearby beach. He felt out of place with the other vacationers: families, grandparents, or groups of young couples. The water felt used. At dinner she said she didn’t like the music he’d chosen. Slightly annoyed, she asked to change it in the act of doing so.

After dinner she wanted to watch something silly, a guilty favourite of hers, ‘Bridesmaids’, and he thought, what the hell, good, if it makes her laugh, great! But she didn’t, she’d seen it too many times. And he definitely didn’t, but forced a few chuckles to be polite. She looked up at the window. “I’d like to catch the sunset.” Music to his ears. They parked at the head of a short dirt road that led to the lake. It seemed private, but she assured him it was fine. A large pod of geese waddled out of the way as they walked toward the dock where a few lonely boats were tied up, needing love. There were no places to sit so they sat on the weathered planks, facing the hazy pale yellow and grey clouds on the horizon, the sun somewhere behind. No one else was around in the harbour, the only stirrings from cottages, kids playing, adults puttering or slumped in chairs with drinks.

He lay on his back and welcomed the small bit of relief it offered from the weary tension to not show his unabating stress, which dug deeper from worrying if she was having a terrible time. By now he had no energy to rally to be engaging or funny. He took deep yet imperceptible breaths to try and unload. It didn’t do much. He looked up at the broken, clouded sky. It reminded him of his interest in astronomy, since childhood.

“Do you like astronomy?”

“Like it?”

“Does it interest you?”

“Kind of.”

“Do you want to hear something interesting about it, well, I find it interesting, anyway.”

“Sure.”

He sat up. She snapped a photo of him, then another. “Well,” he began, happy to have something to focus on. “The sun is a star, as you know. The next closest star to us is four light years away. That means, of course, it will take you four years to get there at the speed of light. Four years doesn’t sound like too much, but the problem is, we can only go as fast as Voyager 1, the fastest man-made object ever built.” She waited in silence, perhaps in boredom. “At that speed, it would take seventy thousand years to get there.”

“What?” Her eyes were a little wider and it pleased him.

“Yeah. It would take seventy thousand years to get to the next closest star.”

“Holy.”

“Yeah. They seem so close, but it’s an illusion. They are very far apart. We are no more than a faint point of light to each other.”

It was quiet. He felt like a complete geek with no connection to her. Her eyes rested on the horizon, which had hardly changed, the sun still hidden.

He looked around. “Quiet, much quieter than I would expect for July. Dead, not even a single boat moving. It’s weird.”

“They come on the weekend.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

They chatted meaninglessly without passion or interest. Naturally he blamed himself, his heaviness, which she seemed pulled down by now as well. He shouldn’t have said that thing about breaking his heart. He shouldn’t have told her he loved her that day. He shouldn’t have taken on so many clients. He wanted to go home and forget everything, in every way possible, even himself. Himself most of all. But he also wanted to love her, love her forever, even if she never loved him back.

Twenty minutes later the sun had already been down for ten, and nothing had changed on the horizon except for an overall dimming. There had been no sunrise on the last road trip, and no sunset on this one, but there had been billions of magnificent rises and sets everywhere else.

“Well, maybe that’s it,” he said.

“I guess so.”

They stood up and walked back to the car, past the geese again and the lonely boats that seemed to look up with resigned eyes like beggars, too depressed to bid them farewell.

“Feel like driving?” she asked.

“Sure.” He liked having something useful to do. They turned and took a last look at the horizon, but still nothing had changed. It was just another grade darker. They got in the car and wound their way back following the yellow-lined road. He felt pressed like a balloon that would soon pop and mess its neediness all over her. He checked the rear-view mirror and, suddenly, through the trees, a bright red blob appeared on the horizon.

“Holy shit!”

She looked at him quickly as if something was wrong.

“Look back there!” he said.

She twisted and looked back. Hot red and orange light popped through the trees.

“Oh, myyy, God,” she said.

The car rounded another bend, removing the brilliant sunset from view.
“I can’t believe that,” she said. Another twist in the road revealed more of the brilliant shards. “Incredible.”

“Should we go back?” he asked. She didn’t answer. “Probably be over by then.”

“Yeah,” she said, a little disappointed. The twist in the road removed it from view again.

“What do you want to do?” he asked, putting it all on her.

“I don’t know.”

“It’ll be over,” he said pessimistically.

“Yeah.”

He pulled into the driveway of the Airbnb. They walked to the west side of the property, looking for a gap in the trees. Slivers and tiny red blobs continued to cut through from various angles. It was obviously spectacular and hadn’t even started to fade yet. Had they turned back, they would have seen it all. On the tip of his tongue was the urgent call to return now, like the futile call of a child after he’d accidentally let go of his helium balloon and all he could do was watch it grow smaller, leaving him.

They went inside. It was dim, lifeless. A cloud of loss hovered over them. He cleaned the kitchen. She wrote in her journal. He checked his email. Nothing. They went to bed and had lifeless sex. After he came, she got frustrated with how he was using his hand to get her off and pushed it away, giving up entirely. They fell asleep.