The almost widow, p.25
The Almost Widow, page 25
In any case, all that was a small price to pay. Ben was alive in this forest that could have absorbed him into itself as easily as it had Elijah, the Green Man, and had almost swallowed me. My husband was right here, with me. I was, as Ben called me, the wife, and not the widow, though I very well could have been. I had come so close. I was the almost widow.
I blew my husband a kiss. Still smiling, Ben glanced at Owen and raised an eyebrow as if to say, What’s he doing here?
I turned to Owen. Arriving late, he had chosen to stand next to me within this crowd, his meaty arms crossed over his wide chest like he was a bouncer guarding an entrance. I expected him to heckle, to throw his complaints at Jackson during his speech celebrating the park formation, but he didn’t. His eyes scanned the crowd as if he was gauging the shifting winds, the changing attitudes of his neighbours, whose faces were flush with excitement and awe over this strange cathedral we stood within, and the future of the park. I felt a little sorry for Owen then. As local opinions about logging and the environment swung toward protection, his status within the community was sinking, and through his son’s actions toward Ben, it had already taken a hit. The few times I’d seen Owen at Maggie’s diner over the winter, he’d seemed subdued. He kept to himself, eating alone in his booth at the back. Nelson had taken to dining with chattier locals at other tables.
Jackson clapped his hands together as he wound up his speech, pulling my attention back to him. “Okay, everyone!” he said. “Let’s eat!” Outside, down at the beach, Maggie had set up a picnic for us all, to celebrate. Libby was helping her out there. Since my mother’s move to Moston, into a tiny lakefront cottage that was walking distance to the village, Libby and Maggie had become fast friends. Maggie had offered Libby a few shifts a week at the diner, to get my mother out of the house, she said, but also, I think, to keep Libby from getting underfoot at our place. Bless her. My mother visited us almost every day she wasn’t working.
As Jackson led the group back out the mouth of the cave, which we had cleared of bush and widened, and then down the trail through the Boulders, I found myself once again near Owen, walking with him, as if he had planned it.
I nodded at him. “Owen,” I said.
“Piper.”
“I was surprised to see you here,” I said.
He scratched his nose. “Yeah, well, it seems the whole town is over here today. I never miss a party. Or free food.”
“The cave is quite something, isn’t it?”
He tipped his head sideways, a half nod. “Don’t see how that hole in the ground’s going to make the town any money, though.”
And there he was, the old Owen. But then we turned a corner, stepping out from under the tree canopy and into sunlight. The spring warmth felt so good on my skin after a long, cold winter. I stopped, soaked it in. And then Owen shrugged. “But I’ll check out some of the cave passages. Maybe I’ll find myself some silver.” That was as close as we would get to his approval for the park.
When Ben had confronted him about the tree poaching, he had done the smart thing and owned up, and he now faced a fine, but no jail time, as Ben had promised.
“Have you found work?” I asked him.
He moved on down the trail. “Not much work to be had.” A bit of jab, a guilt trip, I thought, for making him give up his good living, the tree poaching.
“Well, that’s changing,” I said. “We could sure use your expertise, your equipment, in creating the trails and mapping out the cave system. Jackson said you were into caving at one time.” When he was younger, thinner.
“Are you offering me a paying job?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“Then I’ll take it.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll let Jackson know.” I looked back at the tree line, the cliff above, the monolithic tip of the Hourglass boulder towering over the trees. “When we get word out about this cave system, I have a feeling there will be more than enough work in this town for everyone.” Jackson and I had already been compiling photos and stories to release as soon as the trail system was ready and we could get tourists out here without damaging the surrounding forest.
“I’ll take any work you throw my way,” Owen said. “Got to support Tucker through trade school this fall. That ain’t cheap. He’s talking about doing a cabinetry program.”
“That’s so good to hear,” I said. I found myself talking to his broad back as we hit a narrow section of the path and he took the lead. “How is Tucker doing, anyway?”
Owen spoke over his shoulder. “He’s out now.” Out of the psychiatric ward. “He’s living with my sister in Vancouver.” Where I heard he’d enrolled in a new high school for students who were struggling. Owen paused. “Meds are helping.” And the visits to the psychiatrist too, I’d heard from Noah. After several long months of anger and grief over what Tucker had done, Noah had finally shot a text Tucker’s way. Then, when he didn’t answer, a few more. He tried again on Discord when he saw Tucker was on, invited him to play a game. At that, finally, Tucker replied with a one-word message. Hey.
Over time, over games, their friendship reignited, or at least a new version of it did, to the point where Tucker was now confiding in Noah again, about his therapy, a girlfriend, the shitty kids in the new school, how rattled and disconnected he’d been from reality in those months leading up to Ben’s disappearance, how he’d hidden it from us all. Noah had found it within himself to forgive Tucker, sort of. Kids were, indeed, resilient, far more resilient than me. I still harboured flashes of anger at Tucker for what he’d done to Ben, and at Owen for the harm he’d done to his own son, but perhaps my counsellor was right: my anger was more about me, targeted at the kid I had been, at what I had done, than about Tucker. And I was already well aware that my anger at Owen had been more about my father than about him. After I had addressed the circumstances of my father’s death, my guilt, with my therapist, I told Ben about it, thinking he would most certainly pull away. But instead he hugged me and said he fully understood me now, particularly when it came to my reactions to Owen, which had often puzzled him.
Now, as we hit the pebbles of the beach, I expected Owen to stride away, but he hung back a little, allowing me to walk at his side, inviting conversation. Ben glanced back at me and Owen, and raised an eyebrow, surprised to see the two of us chatting amicably. Noah walked with him.
“Will Tucker be moving back here this summer?” I asked Owen. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted Noah hanging out with him anymore, whether he was better or not, though I realized that was uncharitable. Noah would be going to university in the fall, in any case.
Owen kept his eyes on the trail ahead of us. “I don’t think he’ll ever come back.”
“I’m so sorry, Owen.”
“Yeah, well, that one is on me, isn’t it?” Was he asking for forgiveness?
“I think that one is on all of us,” I said.
We walked on until we were almost at Maggie’s picnic site on the beach, the folding tables and spread of sandwiches, chips and squares. Maggie and Libby continued to unpack boxes, adding more plates of food as what was there quickly disappeared. A long lineup had formed as people loaded up their paper plates. But Owen didn’t join them. He stuck with me, standing off to the side, like he had something on his mind.
“I stopped drinking,” he said finally.
“Oh?”
“Been clean a few months now.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“AA,” he said. “Meetings in Clifton.” He ran that nicotine-yellowed finger under his nose. I hadn’t seen him light up a cigarette since he’d landed on this side of the lake. Had he quit smoking too? “I’d like to say sorry to you,” he said, “for all the harm I done. I’ll do what I can to make things right.”
So that’s why he had hung back with me, to make amends as part of his recovery program.
“The things I said, the way I threatened you when I was drunk.”
Pushing me around in the diner, the graffiti on the door of my pickup, the ugly message keyed into the paint on the tailgate: Go home bitch.
His hazel eyes searched mine. “My counsellor says I felt threatened by you. I laughed when he said that. Me, afraid of that little thing?” When Owen laughed again, I eyed him, and his smile fell. “But then I got it,” he said. “I’d lost my job, and it was easy to blame you for everything. A city asshat in my face about taking down those trees. Throwing all that stuff about the park up on the net, trying to bring more city asshats into Moston.”
“This is an apology?” I said, grinning a little.
“I’m trying to say, I was the asshat, not you. And yes, I am sorry for that.” His feet kicked the rounded stones. “I’m sorry about a lot of things.”
“I think it’s safe to say we both acted like assholes with each other.”
He looked back at me. “Your dad drank, didn’t he?” Owen asked.
I didn’t answer. Had Ben said something to him?
“I could tell, the way you acted around me, like you were fighting a ghost. My dad drank too. Hit me. I know it isn’t an excuse for how I treated Tucker, or my wife, or you, but it was all I knew, right? I didn’t know nothing different. Or more like, it was what I went to when I wasn’t thinking, when I was on autopilot, when I drank, when I got mad.”
In that moment I saw not Owen but my father standing there in front of me, explaining himself, apologizing to me. Could I ever forgive him for what he had done to my mother and me? Could I forgive myself for what we had done to him?
I had to if I was ever going to get past it.
My mind went to the grizzly, the cinnamon sow, which Ben and Jackson had finally trapped that winter. They had released it in an even more remote area, where it wouldn’t be able to hunt another human. At least they hadn’t had to euthanize the animal. Euthanize: a kinder word for kill.
“I’m glad you got real help,” I told Owen. “I wish to god my father had.”
And there it was, a few faltering steps toward recovery, for us both.
As the lineup to the food dwindled, we joined it, grabbing our paper plates. Owen piled on the squares, and I noticed his paunch had grown thicker even though he’d given up beer. So he had quit smoking.
After lunch, as Owen and the others left in their flotilla of boats, Ben, Jackson, Noah, Libby and I helped Maggie fold tables and pack things up. As I placed boxes of leftover food in our boat, I saw a lone figure emerge from the bush.
I tugged on my husband’s sleeve. “Ben, look.”
It was Elijah. But he was no longer the Green Man. He wore no green face paint or camouflage. He was dressed like any one of us, in jeans and a T-shirt, a hoodie. He had shaved and given himself a haircut, albeit a choppy one.
Ben raised his hand, and after a pause, Elijah waved back. The surprise on Ben’s face mirrored my own.
And then, as Noah, Libby, Jackson and Maggie watched from beside our boats, Ben and I walked slowly toward Elijah, just as he tentatively edged toward us.
Once we reached him, Ben tucked his second cane under his arm and held out his hand. “It’s good to see you,” he said.
Elijah looked down at Ben’s hand for a long moment, then finally shook it. He glanced up at my husband, smiling, his eyes watering. “It’s good to see you too.”
It had been several months since we had seen him last, in November, in that cave of icicles. When he had run off into the forest, I had told him that when he was ready to leave this wilderness, we would be there to help him.
Now, as he held my gaze, he nodded, his chin trembling. “I’m ready,” he said.
Thanks
My deepest thanks, once again, to my editor Iris Tupholme and my agent, Jackie Kaiser, for giving me the opportunity to write this thriller. The experience has rejuvenated my writing life. I also offer my gratitude to my editor Janice Zawerbny for helping me develop and refine the story into the novel you have in your hands.
The town of Moston, its people and its surrounding landscape are fabricated, constructed to serve this story. I found inspiration for this community from all over British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the US, plucking ideas from many articles online, including the April 20, 2015, Times Colonist piece titled “B.C.’s Tiniest Towns Set Sights on Growth by Reinventing Themselves,” and, of course, by visiting many rural and wilderness areas in BC.
The area I called the Boulders in the novel was inspired by the amazing boulders at English Creek, southeast of Three Valley Gap, near Revelstoke, BC, as well as other bouldering areas throughout the province. The idea for the cave Elijah hides within came from the story of a real-life bushman, John Bjornstrom, who hid from authorities within a cave on Shuswap Lake. (The character Elijah is wholly imagined, however, and not based on Bjornstrom, who passed away some time ago. My father was a mountain man, and I grew up hearing story after story about bushmen, going back to the 1930s, from my parents, and I had written about bushmen in my first novel, before John Bjornstrom’s infamous activities in the Shuswap.) Details of my fictional cave were inspired by those found in the story of a legendary cave said to exist somewhere in the Shuswap, recounted in the March 4, 2020, Salmon Arm Observer story “History Mystery: Mammoth-Sized Cave Discovered at Shuswap Lake,” which offers a link to the original Summerland Review story about the cave from October 4, 1923. I learned about the unique reverse icicles of Cody Caves from The Nature of Things video on the CBC Docs page titled “In B.C.’s Cody Caves, Beautiful ‘Reverse Icicles’ Grow from the Ground Up,” posted January 12, 2021, and included that magical detail into my fictional cave.
The epigraph that opens the novel is from page one of C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed (New York: HarperCollins, 1994).
I owe a debt to my husband, Mitch Krupp, who is a GIS expert and drone pilot and worked in forestry for many years, for his brainstorming sessions on logging, drones and the BC wilderness.
Any errors in the novel on any topic, are, of course, my own.
Lastly, I offer my thanks to those involved in the fight to protect our old-growth forests, to the men and women serving as Natural Resource and Conservation Officers and, of course, to the search and rescue volunteers who find those lost in our wilderness areas. Writing this novel made me realize what a difficult and enormous task you all have. Please forgive the many liberties I took with reality in order to create this suspenseful story.
About the Author
GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ’s first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the UK’s Betty Trask Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Vancity Book Prize. Her second novel, A Recipe for Bees, was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Spawning Grounds was nominated for the Sunburst Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award and shortlisted for the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Fiction. Her thriller The Almost Wife was a national bestseller in 2021. She taught creative writing for nearly a decade in the MFA program at the University of British Columbia and now mentors writers online. Gail Anderson-Dargatz lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.
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Also by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
The Almost Wife
The Spawning Grounds
Turtle Valley
A Rhinestone Button
A Recipe for Bees
The Cure for Death by Lightning
Copyright
The Almost Widow
Copyright © 2023 by Gail Anderson-Dargatz.
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Cover art © iStockphoto.com (trees) / Shutterstock (fire)
FIRST EDITION
EPUB Edition MAY 2023 EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4434-6449-9
Version 03232023
Print ISBN: 978-1-4434-6448-2
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The almost widow : a novel / Gail Anderson-Dargatz.
Names: Anderson-Dargatz, Gail, 1963- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2022046992X | Canadiana (ebook) 20220469938 ISBN 9781443464482 (softcover) | ISBN 9781443464499 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.
Classification: LCC PS8551.N3574 A79 2023 | DDC C813/.54—dc23.
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