THE RED CANOE by Wayne Johnson

Author:Wayne Johnson [Johnson, Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Polis Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

27

Buck

In his shop, late afternoon and working on a kitchen cabinet—the island he’d finished, now wrapped in foam against the south wall and awaiting pick up—he could not seem to get warm, so stood in the hot blast of the salamander. He looked out the rear window into his yard. He’d been doing that every half hour or so. For the van, he told himself. But it wasn’t that. Gyg, the feral, on her hindquarters, watched the birds at his feeder, finches and sparrows.

Who didn’t love bineshi? He set his hands at the small of his back. I’m fine, he told himself for the umpteenth time, his eyes on the birds.

But he wasn’t fine. His back and hip hurt like they hadn’t since back when he’d been pitching. And when he bent, so the heat of the salamander was focused on his shoulder, he could feel his collar bone pop out of place again. He’d hoped the swelling would go down, but it hadn’t. Being tossed around in the truck had bunged up his shoulder.

Which made trying to finish the cabinet something of a chore, but it wasn’t that either.

So it seemed some choreographed miracle when he heard the beep of a car horn, and went to the door.

Not the delivery van, but Lucy. She’d pulled all the way up, which she never did, then went around to the trunk and opened it and, to his shock, lifted out the very thing he’d refused to pick up at the house. A gray-green box, two by two by four. When Lucy, hefting it in her arms, came around to the side, he opened the door for her and she ducked into the shop, went around the canoe to set the box on his drafting table, then stepped back, a look on her face he couldn’t in any way read.

But a there, in it. That’s what she had to say, which, given what was in the box, meant—

“She sent you with this?”

Lucy nodded, standing in front of him, her fingers knotted together, looking.... She was both trying to own up to what she’d done and stricken by his reaction.

She was trying to think of the right thing to say. And then she said it. “I have no excuse for what I’ve done, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

She drew the hoodie down off her head. It was the first time she’d ever done it around him, and he knew the gesture for what it was. She was not a pretty girl, not exactly, more striking and beautiful, but the care in her face, her standing for all practical purposes in front of him exposed like this, and in her hands, held out, was something more than touching, and how could he refuse her—or it?

“I saw what happened, it was in the paper, and I couldn’t come over, because…. Well,” she closed her eyes, then said, “it has to do with me, and me coming over here. But you know that.”

She looked at him, over the table, and over the horrible box, and he felt it settle in him.

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