Chapter 1 - The Woman in My Backyard
I had imagined coming home a hundred different ways during four winters in Calgary.
Lucy running toward me.
My mother crying.
Brianna complaining that I had forgotten to bring something expensive from Canada.
I never imagined finding my wife on her knees in the backyard, trying to eat food that had been dumped onto the ground.
My suitcase was still in my hand when Theresa tilted the plate.
Rice, vegetables, and scraps of meat slid over Lucy’s shoulder and scattered across the patio.
“Eat,” my mother said coldly, “or starve.”
Lucy’s shaved head lifted slowly.
For several seconds, I did not recognize my own wife.
Her face had become narrow. Her wrists looked fragile beneath an old blouse. When she tried to reach for a piece of bread, her hand shook so badly she missed it.
Brianna stood nearby drinking wine.
“Hurry up. We need the plates.”
Something inside me became so quiet it frightened me.
“Lucy.”
Her head snapped toward the gate.
The bread fell from her fingers.
“Nathan?”
She tried to stand.
Her knees folded.
I dropped my suitcase and caught her before she hit the ground.
She felt almost weightless.
“My God…”
Her arms locked around my shirt.
“You came back.”
Theresa recovered first.
“Nathan, this looks terrible, but she’s been impossible since she got sick.”
“Sick with what?”
Nobody answered.
Lucy whispered the word against my chest.
“Cancer.”
Eleven months.
My wife had been undergoing cancer treatment for almost a year while I worked twelve-hour shifts believing the money I sent home was protecting her.
I looked around the backyard.
New patio furniture.
Fresh landscaping.
Through the glass doors I could see granite counters, a giant television, leather furniture.
Brianna wore a new watch.
Theresa wore Lucy’s hummingbird necklace.
“How much of my money went to treatment?”
Theresa said, “We helped.”
Lucy whispered:
“Two appointments.”
I looked at my mother.
“Out of eleven months?”
“She was wasting money on doctors who couldn’t promise anything!”
I carried Lucy toward the door.
Theresa blocked me.
“You come back after abandoning everyone for four years and suddenly you’re a hero?”
I didn’t argue.
Instead, I said the sentence I had decided to use before entering the yard.
“I came home because my company settlement cleared.”
Brianna stopped breathing.
Theresa’s expression changed.
“One million dollars.”
Their eyes met.
Fear.
Not excitement.
Fear.
Lucy felt it too.
She gripped my shirt.
“Nathan…”
I looked down.
“Don’t tell them.”
Then she stared over my shoulder at Theresa.
Her entire body began trembling.
“They aren’t going to kill you.”
I froze.
“Aren’t?”
Before I could ask what she meant, Lucy’s body suddenly convulsed in my arms.
Her eyes rolled back.
Foam touched the corner of her mouth.
“LUCY!”
As I lowered her carefully to the grass, Theresa did something I would remember forever.
She didn’t rush toward her.
May you like
She looked at Brianna and whispered:
“She wasn’t supposed to do this yet.”
