Kate waits at the bus stop with her hood pulled tight, slim
silhouette with a brown coat and
blue leg warmers. Everything else is white, or at least grey – we are in
the eye of a shaken snow globe, and Ottawa disappears in the whirl. Two layers
of gloves, furry boots just liberated from storage, long underwear, woolen
socks, and a scarf I looped around her face myself: This is Ottawa at thirty
below, the 10th of February; the wind keens around the chimney smoke
then slips up your sleeve.
A few days ago she was in Nicaragua, sipping a Tona in a hammock in our fairy
godmother’s garden. A black puppy yapped at first but she soothed it to sleep
by stroking his ears. Thirty-five degrees but cooler in the shade and that Tona may be watery but it certainly
quenches. Sunscreen. Bug repellant. An umbrella for the sun. The wind is
cooling but it shakes the mangoes from the tree; they squelch and startle the
dog. Kate has fallen asleep with her laptop on her stomach. She wakes an hour
later with butterflies in her hair.
Now she has arrived home in Ottawa after five months in
Managua, a thirteen-hour delay in Chicago, the endless hoops of customs and
security, a few hours unsatisfying sleep on an airport bench in Houston, and a
sixty-degree drop in temperature. I met her at the airport with her coat and
mitts; we hugged and sniffled at each other as people shuffled past with their
luggage – it was like a movie. The delight of coming home. When mundane things
become exciting, like Timmy’s coffee, or cheesy pretzels, or even the orderly
way the traffic moves without careening or honking, despite the slush-sprayed
windows and patches of murder-ice. Looking around at the city Kate asks, “Where
are all the people? Why is it so quiet?” The bus, for which we’ve been
shivering, arrives with a squeal of metal and douses our boots with slush.
Onboard, I lean in to Kate, “Do you hear that? I’m the only one talking on the entire bus!”
We are staying at a friend’s place where books line the
walls and the smell of coffee permeates. Getting in the door we fling away the
boots, toques, scarves, gloves, jackets, leg warmers, and second layer of
socks. There is a soft blanket; I mummify us. Ah yes, how could I forget those
icy feet of the grave nibbling at my warmth! She says, “I can’t believe we only
have a week together before you go to China.” I say, “It will move so fast, you
could blink and miss it.” She curls
a little closer.
On the drive from Ottawa to Toronto to visit Kate’s family the
snow falls relentlessly on our rental car. A five-hour trip grows to an
eleven-hour odyssey when we realize we forgot a passport necessary for our
endless visa administration; I
stop the car and pick up coffee, gas and Red Bull. When I return, Kate is
wielding pen and paper: “Let’s brainstorm for our last blog post.” In Nicaragua
the blog was our demonic overlord, pushing a camera into our hands, demanding
its weekly tribute: a slice of brains. Now it is an old friend who makes us sad
when we visit because she keeps staring off into a vacant corner and talking
about "the good old days.” We keep ourselves so busy we don’t notice the
ticking clock: Captain Hook’s crocodilian nemesis. The ride is long enough
for us to run out of paper and words; Kate begins to drift off (“I did not
drift off!” she protests) and I slip my hand into hers. Our fingers
tangle.
In Toronto we slip away to grab a moment together and a
coffee. She sips from a mug the size of her head; I snap photos to remember her
by. Looking back, I wish there was more Kate in the photos, and less mug. In
this moment we are feeling particularly adrift; we have grown confused by the
idea of home. Is it Canada, Nicaragua, France, China? It has become a moving
target. It used to be wherever my books were, but then I bought an e-reader.
Now I think it has something to do with Kate and a fuzzy blanket.
It’s our last night together before I fly to China; I must
have blinked. The hockey bag and the duffel bag and the gym bag are all lying
in a heap in the hall. I’ve arranged tomorrow’s socks and underwear – my
passport and tickets are in the binder on the desk. Kate scans the preparations
and for a long minute doesn’t say anything, just stares at her hands from where
she sits cross-legged on the bed. I sit next to her and rub her back softly.
Her lip quivers. She says, “Matt, I don’t want you to go. You’re my favourite person” and I cry.
The next day there is too much snow on the ground for the
cabbie to make it down the street. I heave the hockey bag on my back and Kate
shoulders the rest. I will remember her overladen, snow-pelted, icicles of
tears. I will remember her strong, skipping up the side of Maderas as I panted
in the heat. I will remember her mermaiding in the Corn Islands, shrieking at a
cockroach in Managua, leaping from the rocks at Somoto. I am picturing her with
butterflies in her hair. I am trying not to blink.
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