A Suitable Companion for the End of Your Life by Robert McGill

Author:Robert McGill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Coach House Books

Five Henchman

In the back seat of the cab, Regan kept turning to see if they were being tailed. Halfway through the ride to the waterfront, she spotted a beige van approaching. The vehicle passed by them and sped off. A second later, her phone rang. It was the supervisor at the treatment centre, wanting to let Regan know that her father had left without telling anybody. The woman said she was concerned, when all she probably cared about was not getting sued. Regan said not to worry, he’d been in touch, and she’d have him back there right away. As she hung up, she hoped she hadn’t sounded as awful as she felt. The whisky in her stomach sloshed with every bump in the road.

Two years had passed since she’d last rescued him. Back then, he still talked of making music, but all he really did was play covers one Monday a month at a gimcrack Irish pub owned by an old beer buddy whom he claimed to be doing a favour. The night the guy called Regan, though, asking if she could pick her father up, the disdain in his voice suggested that the favour ran in the other direction. Once she got there, her father’s jumpiness made it clear that he hadn’t just been drinking.

At the parking lot for the pool, there was no sign of him. When she asked the driver to wait while she had a look around, he sucked his teeth and asked to be paid for the ride so far.

‘My philosophy,’ he said, although she hadn’t asked to hear it, ‘is that you aren’t just hiring my car, you’re hiring my life. So when you make me wait, you put a whole life on hold.’

She didn’t think it sounded like a great philosophy for a cab driver.

A cool wind blew off the lake, slinging waves over the break-wall that ran parallel to the shoreline park. A row of willows stood heavy with yellow catkins. From behind her came the thrum of traffic on Lake Shore Boulevard. It was mid-afternoon, with a month to go before the end of the school year, and the paved fitness trail was nearly deserted. A shirtless man with cartoonish muscles wobbled along on rollerblades, while a black poodle lacking a visible companion sniffed its way down the thin gravel beach.

The pool was closed. A sign blamed renovations. Next door was a playground with a jungle gym, a swing set, and someone in a baggy green sweatshirt sitting on the end of a teeter-totter, legs splayed. Only when he waved to her did she know for sure it was her dad.

‘My knight in shining armour,’ he exclaimed.

‘Come on, I’ve got a cab waiting,’ she shouted as she approached him. ‘I ordered it just for you. I said to myself, no stanky old Uber for a father of mine.’

It was amazing how quickly, in his presence, this version of her sprang into action. Dealing with his freak-outs, she seemed to muster a self-possession that she could never manage on her own.

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