Chapter 33
Within twenty minutes he’s in uniform, driving south on Commercial, then left on East Hastings Street. The roads are unsalted
and slick with a thin layer of ice. He drives slower than usual on tires that feel slippery. The weather reporting airs on
the radio in the background; he should be listening, but he’s not. He got a coffee at the Tim Hortons drive-through but hasn’t
touched it yet.
He hasn’t seen Annie that rattled in years.
Peter’s phone call hadn’t woken her, which was unusual. He called her name softly before he got out of bed, just in case—-wanting
to hear her voice and reassure himself of her okay-ness. Fast asleep, still, she’d reached out to him and pulled him close
to her face. Her hair was still damp. He lingered there in the scent of her shampoo, and brushed tangled strands from her
closed eyes.
What happened to her up there?
It was her first coast guard rescue. He’d marvelled at her hawk-eyed accuracy and minute-to-minute decisions; the way she
knew what the patients needed before they needed it. But on the way home, she was absent, staring blankly out the window of
the helicopter.
Evan turns on his left blinker for Granville Street.
Snowflakes drift around the red and yellow neon of the Vogue Theatre sign and its depiction of Diana, goddess of the wilderness.
On the right now is the Vancouver Public Library, which he always thinks looks like an ancient colosseum, all sandstone and elliptical walls.
Five years ago, they went to a violin performance at the library. Annie was still grieving. Hardly getting out of bed after
Ruth died, an inertia even worse than she’d had after losing her parents. He had to remind her to eat; to change her hoodie
every third day. She’d managed to get to school, but only with extensive pep talks and sometimes he had to walk her there,
his arm hooked around hers. At that point, they weren’t “back together” yet. Evan had been desperate to find things she liked—-things
that were not beach or sailing or ocean swimming—-so that maybe she’d like him again. Maybe they could resume where they left
off.
It felt like a scavenger hunt: watermelon popsicles from Whole Foods on Cambie, and the rosemary garlic sausage from the corner
butcher. Flat whites from Ugly Mugs Cafe. She liked those things; her mood seemed to lift, temporarily, by degrees. What about
music? While looking at a flyer for the Vancouver Public Library musical performances, he remembered that Aiden played harmonica.
Had Mara played classical, maybe, on the cockpit radio?
Annie had never been to a concert before. She’d never been to any kind of public performance at all.
He couldn’t take her to a crowded event, though. It needed to be somewhere quiet and subdued, where they could exit easily,
if required. He booked tickets for a performance at the library, hoped for the best, and dragged her along. He got a fresh
haircut, wore a new pair of pants and polished leather shoes. She wore her earplugs, jeans with holes in the knees, a high-necked
sweater, and a woollen hat pulled over her ears.
She was still the most beautiful woman there.
He’d called ahead so they could arrive right as the music started. A trio of brothers—each in black suits, starched white shirts and matching ties—played violin in the grand staircase. With the first notes, Annie’s posture softened. She’d been holding on to her seat edges, but she let go.
“It’s so much better when the noise is from instruments,” Annie whispered. She listened with her eyes closed.
Evan felt a flare of hope.
At the end of the performance, a representative of the library rose to thank the violinists, to talk about the new children’s
literature wing opening. They were taking donations. He closed by reading aloud a quote by Oscar Wilde: “With freedom, flowers,
books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?”
Annie’s eyes opened abruptly. Her gaze dropped to her empty hands.
Evan leaned close toward her. “What is it?”
She didn’t answer. She refused to get up while all the other patrons stood and departed. The violinists packed up their instruments;
a janitor swept the stairs. Had it been too loud for her after all? Was it the wrong idea to come?
“Let’s go, Annie. You’re okay,” he tried.
“Why have you stayed with me?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you could be perfectly happy without me?”
He was speechless. He wanted to reply with a reassuring mix of: We’re in Vancouver and nothing bad will ever happen to us again, I promise, and I love you, and we can do this. But he couldn’t mash all these thoughts together fast enough before she launched back in.
“I’m the worst,” she went on, words tumbling out.
“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“How can you stand me?”
He’s the one he can’t stand—it was true then, and it’s true now.
Blinking his eyes, he’s back on the tug watching Walker drown in the white-capped ocean.
He still hasn’t told Annie what happened that night: Walker sacrificing himself so Evan could live.
If Evan hadn’t been so fucking manipulative, maybe Annie wouldn’t have been so sad. Maybe she’d have what she needed.
A pair of headlights blinds Evan momentarily as he crosses onto Granville Bridge. He grips the steering wheel. His hands are
freezing and sweaty at the same time and his uniform clings to his neck. He cracks the window to get a full breath. There’s
no point in arguing the tape recordings in his head; they always say the same thing, about how awful he is, how ashamed of
himself he should be. He knows from experience that he has to let them play out until they reach the end.
That night in the library, as the violinists descended the stairs, leaving them alone with the janitor and his broom, Annie
said: “I don’t deserve you. I haven’t been there for you at all.”
“You’re right here.” He put his hand over top of hers. “We can get back to the way it was between us, Annie. I know we can.”
As he said it, Evan wasn’t as confident as he wanted to be. But he knew what he’d done, and now it was his responsibility
to keep life going for her. An eternity must have passed while he waited for Annie to say something. She looked at him with
her grey-blue eyes and they held him there, a mooring buoy.
“I have to get better,” she said with a determined look on her face. “For us.”
It settled something inside her. A door opened, and they stepped through it.
They go to hear music all the time now. It doesn’t get old; she seems to have a full-body experience each time.
Season tickets at the Orpheum, ukulele on Sunday afternoons at the pub down the street, even concerts at the Pacific National Exhibition.
She collects the ticket stubs for performances they attend in a stack in her desk drawer, runs her fingertips over the neatly perforated edges, reminds him which ones she liked best. She plans ahead and fits in shows between ER shifts and department meetings and rounds.
She doesn’t talk about her family much anymore.
It was unusual that she mentioned Aiden, yesterday.
She talks about medical conferences and mortgage rates and possibly learning to play the cello.
He still can’t bring himself to tell her the truth about what happened on the tug.
It nags at him. That deeper questioning: Had Walker been what she really needed? Seeing her there on the ocean yesterday . . .
it’s a version of her he misses. In part, that’s what made him suggest the coast guard in the first place.
Evan approaches West 4th Ave. now. He has to get through another rescue today, then a slog of mission reporting. So much paperwork
to deal with. His cell buzzes again in the cup holder and he answers on the dash.
“Hey, bud. You caffeinated yet?” Peter says.
He looks down at his untouched coffee. “No.”
“I gotta send you to Campbell River.”
He waits for Peter to go on with details, knowing he will, while he takes a sip of coffee and prays the caffeine focuses his
brain.
“King tide event last night. A tug collided with a container ship near Desolation Sound. Its lines are tangled up with the
ship’s engine. Visibility is shit, too. Winds forty knots, gusts to sixty.”
“Can’t they handle it out of the Campbell River station?”
“They’re short an engineer, for starters.”
Evan puts his coffee back in the cupholder and rubs his chin. “You have a pilot for me?”
“I’ll even throw in two cadets.”
Evan turns onto West 4th Ave. “Alright,” he says, because that’s what he always says. He’s good at this job. Being good at
something and liking it are two different things. “My ETA’s four minutes.”
Evan rolls the window back up. He totals the hours it’ll be before he and Annie will sync up. Not until tomorrow morning, likely.
He wants to call the apartment, wake her up, hear her voice tell him he doesn’t need to be as worried as he is—-about any
of it.
All he wants to do is get home.