No One Cries For The Lost

II: A Cold & Lonely Road Home

II

A

Cold And

Lonely Road Home

Day 1

March 9th,exactly one month after my 35th birthday. Jesus why do I remember it so well? Taft girls aren't supposed to remember our birthdays well. They're usually just supposed to go by for us in a flash of somewhat dim strobes and dazzled up swirly drinks. Oh well, just a side-effect of turning 30 I guess. Then, it never slowed my younger sister down. I don't dwell.It was one hell of a party that evening anyway. The month after my birthday I mean. Mike and Natasha's cabin, house, cabin-house, whichever you'd prefer. About twenty minutes north of Winnipeg in what I don't even think you could really call a town more less a community, Stony Mountain. Not really much of a Mountain either. Then again, this is Canada. So mountain is really relative. Stony Mountain, Mike and Natasha chose the most uneventful place along the most uneventful road to set up shop. And boy was it an uneventful drive. I love my province. Manitoba, where you could take me south and tell me I was in the prairies of neighbouring Saskatchewan and I'd smile and nod along. Where every road looks the same.

It was along that same stupid Stony Mountain road that I began to realize how little Shawn and I really had to say to each other after so long. How little we really had to talk about anymore. How much I had fooled myself into thinking we still had things to say to each other or to talk to each other about. And how I had fooled myself into thinking that I still knew him. Knew who he was, knew what colour tie he liked wearing or didn't like wearing, what kind of breakfast cereal he liked the most or didn't like. As it turned out later it was corn puffs. Terrible. Especially for kids. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth just saying it.

It's funny really. When I look back on it all, I should have seen it coming so much sooner. The distance, the neglect, the way we looked at each other when we walked into the same room...or didn't look a teach other. The way we separated as soon as we finally got to Mike's party. I can't even remember what he was celebrating back then. Not his engagement, he and Natasha had already been engaged at least a year by then. Must've been his promotion. Or maybe something to do with his hunting. If there ever was a candidate for top Canadian bushman out there. Mike even had the permanent logger beard back then. Back before he shaved it off in favour of finding his chin again.

I sure have to give Mike this, he and his buddies sure know how to throw one damn good fucking party. I wish I could give Natasha credit too. But I've known my sister all my life and she has never been a very good planner. Half the people at that damn place I don't think I had ever seen in my life. Hell, I doubt Natasha and Mike had ever seen most of them before. Shawn sure seemed to get along fine with most of them. I was usually the social one of the two of us, kicking back and having drinks and getting along with people. But tonight was different. Tonight was something else. Tonight I couldn't have drinks.

I found myself throwing up after what one could barely call a root beer float. Bombarded by "are you okay Nea?"s and "what's wrong?"s from every which way. I composed myself in the washroom of Mike and Nat's house and returned to the party in the backyard by the lakeshore. Trying to get Shawn's attention.

I figured tonight would be the night. Tonight would be the night when I would tell him. I mean finally tell him.

But I couldn't have been more wrong. As the night went on, I kept vying with all of the other people around me for Shawn's attention. All of the other men and women around me. Laughing and having a good time with him. Something I hadn't done with him in a long time. My fiance Shawn, always the life of the party.