Hosea shook his head. “I was, uh, talking to Bill Quinn, to the dog,” he said. “To that black dog there on the sidewalk.”
“Oh him,” shouted Combine Jo. “He looks harmless. Hey, wait a second, did you say his name is Bill Quinn? You mean from the original Bill Quinn? Is that one of his? Oh boy.” Combine Jo shook her head.
“What do you mean, ’oh boy?” shouted Hosea. “What’s the story with the Quinns?”
“Oh, they’re just wild, Hosea. They can’t be trained. They can’t be taught a thing. They do as they please. A few generations must have lived in Whithers or who knows where, ’cause you obviously missed out on it. Just ask Cherniski! She’ll tell you all about it!” Combine Jo shook her head. “Christ,” she said. She looked amused. “I guess they’re back. Yell all you want, Hosea, that dog ain’t gonna budge.” She turned back to the display window of Wiebe’s with a little wave over her shoulder. Hosea lifted his hand.
The phone rang.
“Lorna,” said Hosea as he picked up the phone.
“How’d you know it was me?” said Lorna, laughing.
“Well, you know, if you want something bad enough …” Hosea coughed. “How are you?” he said.
“I’m fine. How are you?” she said.
“I’m okay,” said Hosea, “I’ve …” Lorna interrupted.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she said.
Hosea had been about to say I’ve been better.
“Yeah,” he said. “How are you?” he asked again.
“I’m okay. Pretty good. Hosea, there’s something we need to talk about.”
“Yeah,” he said. He wondered what it could be. “Yeah,” he said again. “We should talk.”
“Could I come out on the bus tonight?”
“Oh,” said Hosea. “Of course you can, of course you can. I’ll be there to pick you up. I love you. I’m sorry I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. Lorna, I’m just really sorry.”
She sighed. “You keep telling me that, Hosea, and nothing ever changes.”
Hosea whispered, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Will you quit saying you’re fucking sorry!” she said.
“Okay,” said Hosea. “Yes I will, I love you.”
“And stop saying that, too!” said Lorna.
“Why?” asked Hosea. “Why should I stop saying I love you when I do?”
“Because it makes me sad, Hosea, that’s why. Because I wonder.”
“Okay,” said Hosea.
“Is that all you can say? Okay? So what does that mean, Hosea, that your love for me is a sad thing, that you don’t even know if you mean it or not?”
Hosea put his hand on his forehead. “Tell me,” she said again, softly. Was she crying?
“I have a plan, Lorna,” he said. “It’s a, well, it’s just a plan. And if you’ll just come here tonight I’ll tell you everything and then you’ll understand. My love for you is not a sad thing, Lorna. Please don’t think it is.”
“Just pick me up at seven, Hosea,” she said. “And you know, whatever.” She hung up.
Hosea closed his eyes. He could feel the warm wind blowing through his open window. He could smell the dust left over from last fall and he could hear Combine Jo laughing down on the street. He thought how much happier Leander Hamm’s corpse would be now that the earth was drying up and the snow had gone. My blood, he thought. I’d sell my blood to buy her chocolate donuts. That had been the first line of a poem he’d written on a scrap of paper the day he had decided to become a poet. He’d changed it around a million times trying to get something to rhyme with donuts and then with blood. Nothing. Except flood, and that had seemed futile. Euphemia had found the scrap of paper in his pocket and had laughed out loud for twenty minutes, and then had broken her leg. Hosea had been in the basement and had seen a spider, and because he was frustrated with his poem had screamed at the top of his lungs, “SPIDER!” Euphemia had come running and falling down the stairs, saying, “Where where where’s the fire” and her leg made a snapping noise and her femur poked off in the wrong direction, and Hosea had been quite happy about it. Even while Euphemia lay writhing on the basement floor, he had muttered sullenly, “I said spider, not fire.” Later that day he had written in his notebook that Vincent van Gogh and a lot of other great artists in the world didn’t care what people thought of them, which was nothing.
Hosea opened his eyes. Everything was going to be all right. He and Lorna would work things out. He’d tell her the truth about his plan and she would understand. She would know why he wanted to see his father. She loved him and she would know. He would take the Prime Minister by the arm and they would stroll off a ways from the crowd, down Main Street towards where the sidewalk ends, and then up Town Line Road in the direction of the dike, and Hosea would smile and say, Mr. Prime Minister, do you remember meeting a girl named Euphemia Funk years ago right here in this town? Well, I’m her son. He would smile and look into the PM’s face. And yours, he’d say. He wanted to show the Prime Minister his town, Canada’s smallest, the place of his conception, his birth, and his whole life. He wanted the Prime Minister to see it and to like it and to think well of Euphemia and the place where she was from and the son that she had raised. Lorna would understand. It was simple. Hosea nodded his head and smoothed the shiny surface of his desk with his hand. He reached for the top drawer and then decided against opening it. He would find Knute and the two of them would plant the flowers along Main Street. He would help her. And then he would go to the bus depot and pick up Lorna and show her the flowers and take her home.
ten
“He doesn’t go out at all?” Knute asked Dory.
“Nope,” she said.
“What about when I’m at work?”
Dory shook her head. “Mm-mm.”
“Does he get up to eat?” Knute asked.
“No. Not really, no,” said Dory. She and Knute were in the kitchen drinking coffee and watching the sun go down. Dory leaned towards the open window, over the sink, and the warm breeze blew the hair off her forehead. Beyond Tom and Dory’s big backyard was a field, plowed and ready for seeding, pitch-black and chunky, with a faint line of bushes towards the very end, and the giant orange sun was slipping down behind those bushes, round as a poker chip, and the purple sky covered everything. That was the view.
“You know what, Knutie?” said Dory. “Tom and I have lived here all our lives. In this town, every single day of our lives.”
“Do you think that’s what’s making Dad so sad?” asked Knute. Dory looked at her and smiled.
“No, Knute,” she said. “It’s just the opposite. He loves this place, it’s all he’s known. He’s afraid to say good-bye. He’s afraid to leave it behind. He’s afraid, Knutie.”
“But he’s been given a second chance,” said Knute. “He’s still alive.”
“It’s more mysterious than that,” said Dory. “He wants his old life. He’s not a stupid man. For him to get up and cheerfully make the most of each day, at this point … he would feel like a fool.” Dory shook her head. Then she said, “He would be admitting to himself that life has suddenly become very short, very precious, that soon he’ll no longer exist, that it’ll be over. Of course he knew that, we know that, we say it, but to really, really know it, to be certain of it, is more than he can be right now. His bed is safe. Sleep is easy.” Then she said again, “He’s not a stupid man.”
The sun had gone down right before their eyes. “Did you notice it disappear?” Dory asked Knute.
“Well, I noticed it was gone,” said Knute. She put their coffee cups in the dishwasher and then stood with her hands on her hips and looked at Dory. “I’m going out,” she said. “Don’t worry about Summer Feelin’, she won’t wake up.” Dory reached out her arms and put her hands over Knute’s.