Me, You and Here

Chapter Forty-two

While approaching land, I look for signs of people. There are no boats, no tarps, no smoke from a fire and no dogs running around. I don't smell anything cooking. I don't hear the buzz of a chainsaw nor sounds of music spilling over from the bush.

I think I'm in the clear. I think we have a place to rest now. To spend time together.

The bow of the canoe crashes on the rocks, jolting me forward. You don't move. I climb out of the stern and into the water, sinking up to my waist-deep. Wading

to the front of the boat, I hold my breath. This is the first time in a couple of hours that I'll have seen your face. I'm scared to look at you. I don't want to know what I'll find.

I slosh my way to you, the water and my imagination weighing me down. Will you be breathing? Will your eyes, red and wide, be staring at me? Accusing me?

I reach you and gently remove the hat I put over your face. I look at you.

Phew.

You're fine. On the outside anyway. Your skin is flushed. Hot to the touch. But if anyone had seen you, they'd only think you had sunstroke. They wouldn't know the difference.

I caress your sleeping cheek. You mumble. It makes me smile. You're like a baby all swaddled in the boat. A big baby boy. My big baby boy. Maybe a little too big for me to lift out of the boat. I haul the canoe as far as I can onto shore. I'll let you rest here for a while more before I wake you up. I have to prepare the site anyway.

I haul our packs up the well-trodden trail and see that there are a few good flat spots for me to pitch the tent. I pick a place behind a stand of bushy wild willows so we are hidden and also have a bit of a windbreak if it starts gusting again. The weather is holding though. We're going to have an extraordinary evening tonight. Out in the open clear air with the stars – and if we're lucky, the northern lights.

I use the axe to hammer in the tent pegs and then raise the nylon. I change my soaked pants inside the tent before making a fire in a pit I found a couple of metres away from the beach. I light a match and flames jump to life in a few moments. Then I lay out our theramrests and sleeping bags by the blaze. We don't need to be confined in the tent tonight. This fresh air nest is cozy and I made it for me and you. A place for us to enjoy the NWT elements. We can talk and maybe you could tell me one more story. Just one more.

I'm pleased with my campsite and it's now time to get you. Walking to the canoe, I notice you've shifted a bit. You had been leaning to the left and now, you're leaning to the right. Huh. You must have moved in your sleep.

"Baby," I whisper in your ear. "Can you get up?"

Not much of a response from you. A meek whimper.

"Come on," I say as I kneel and slide my arm behind your shoulders. Help you sit up.

"Come on," I say, the pitch of my voice rising. "You can do it."

You aren't my husband anymore. You are a child.

You groan. Loudly. It scares me. Alarms me. The guttural racket was primordial. A creature has been unleashed inside of you and is shaking the death rattle. How many days do I have with you? How many hours? How many minutes? How many moments?

"Let's go," I tell you firmly. "One, two, three, up!"

Instead of standing and stepping out of the boat, you slither over the side like a drunken snake. It's sickening. I'm used to you being strong and capable. Here you are almost a single-celled creature. A jellyfish human. It's disgusting to me.

Then you start crawling like a large brown beetle, all your appendages moving slowly at once, up to the shelter I constructed near the fire. I coax you into your sleeping bag. Otherwise, you would have curled up on the forest floor like a dog. Interesting how we morph back into animals when we're dying. You wouldn't think that though. You believe in creation – in God and heaven and Adam and Eve.

Well, this Eve has some more fatal fruit to offer you.

"Do you want some water?" I ask.

Sasha's voice kicks me in the head.

Water...

Do I want water?

I shake my head, "no."

"Are you hungry?"

"No, Sasha," I say with gravel in my throat.

"Okay. Let's sit here together and talk then, shall we?"

I can barely breathe and she wants to chat? How can she be this fucking chipper when I'm this fucking sick? I think I need medical attention.

"Call for help, Sasha," I say. "I need to see a doctor."

"You know I can't do that," I say to you.

"Sasha, I feel like I'm dying here. Please, please, please call someone."

You stare at me with those blood-red eyes. You have this look on your face, like I'm responsible for you feeling like crap. What are you accusing me of? What?

"You're my husband," I say to you, "and we're a team. I'm helping you get better. Don't you want to get better?"

No answer from you. Just that incriminating bloodshot stare.

"Isn't this nice?" I ask. "No wind. Beautiful sunny day. I'm so glad I'm sharing it with you.

"Leave me alone, Sasha."

"You know I'm never going to do that. We were so great together. You and me. Shared a lot of similar interests. We're both active and artistic. We fit together. I could have made you happy for the rest of your life. Well, I guess I can do that anyway!

"I wish we could go back to the ways things were when we were first together. Everything was so easy. Easy peasy. What changed? What made things so difficult? More like who made things so difficult.

"Was it because you thought you could use me to get over Cara? That I was the answer to your heartache? No, no, no, no, no. That's a lot of crap because you never wanted to get over her. You didn't even give me a chance in this relationship because Cara was already in it with you.

"You know even when I was sleeping with James, I only thought of you. Of how much I loved you. If only you had thought of me while you were off in Toronto screwing Cara. Didn't think I would find out, did you? I read your precious letter from precious Cara. I know it all now. I knew all along that you loved her more than me. I knew it deep down inside in my gut. I have good instincts."

There. That was my piece. All I had to say. It's your turn to answer.

"Are you insane, Sasha?" I ask, pausing to catch my breath. "Or psychotic?"

I take another breath and then sit up slowly and carefully. One vertebra at a time.

"How did you get so twisted? I loved you – only you. I never had any feelings for Cara after me and you got together. How did you manage to skew our relationship into one big fuck up? I don't understand it. You've hurt me beyond words. Once we're off the lake, I'm never seeing you again."

"Eric!" I screech in a voice that I don't recognize. "When you say things like that it makes me angry." I get up and stand over you. "Why can't you be nice to me for a change?"

I straighten up, sitting taller. Even though I can barely lift my arms and feel like I have glass in my bones, I could still do some damage to that little mite yelling in my face.

"Sasha, nothing I do will make any difference now."

I huff.

"Shut up, Eric," I say, kicking a stone at him.

You're right, though. You really are. Honestly, it wouldn't make any difference if you started being nice to me at this point. There's no going back from this. Nothing you say will ever change what I had done. What I've done. What I'm doing.