The Undertaking of Billy Buffone by David Giuliano

Author:David Giuliano [Giuliano, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Latitude 46 Publishing

-26-

FOLLOW ME

By afternoon, the rain that soaked Catherine at Pebbles Beach is mixed with ice pellets. She decides, before the weather gets worse, to drive out to Pickerel River to see Florence and Bernadette. Sleet pelts the road, pings the hood of her car, and clatters against the windshield. The temperature is above freezing, but not nearly enough above to melt the torrent of freezing rain and sleet. Her tires slip as she makes her way up the hill out of town. A couple of times, the back end of the car fishtails. A pick-up truck is leading the way, ahead of her, carving a wake in the sleet. Catherine aims her tires into the splashed-out troughs.

Her windows fog with condensation. She turns the fan up to high and begs the heater to kick-in. “Come on, come on.” She shivers, and digs a paper serviette out of the glove box to blow her nose.

After Pebbles Beach, Catherine headed home to the manse, convinced that she was suffering from hypothermia. She stood under the showerhead until the hot water tank ran cold. She cranked the thermostat up to 30 degrees Celsius, burrowed like a gopher beneath the heavy blankets on her bed, and slept until noon.

Now, in spite of the shower, heat, and sleep, a chill persists at her core. In her coat pocket, she finds a long-lost lozenge. She strips off most of the paper and pocket lint with her teeth, and pops it her mouth. The lemony softness is remarkably soothing.

Passing the cemetery, Catherine risks a glance from the road to where the bear had appeared earlier in the week and is surprised to see it is still there, or back. She is. Catherine thinks of the bear as a she, though she isn’t sure how—from a distance or for that matter even from up close—one distinguishes a mama bear from a papa bear. Sow, she thinks. That’s what you call a girl bear. A Sow.

The bear sits on her haunches at the back of the graveyard, a block of darkness visible through the curtains of freezing rain. She must be caked in ice and soaked to the skin. The bear turns her head, following Catherine’s progress up the hill. The idea that the bear, this mama bear, is watching her, comforts Catherine. It warms her.

At the highway the pickup truck turns east, and continues to lead the way, down the highway toward Pickerel River. It turns south toward the reserve, weaves through the community and into Florence’s yard.

Before setting out, Catherine had checked for the address in the phone book, but only a few of the houses actually display numbers. On the reserve, posted numbers on houses are considered more ornamentation than location markers. Everyone knows where everyone else lives, but newly posted numbers can bring a smile. “As if I don’t know where you live, or do you get so many strangers dropping by you have to nail up a number out front, Frank?” Streets are also better known by the names of the residents living on them, than they are by their formal names.

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