The Waterproof Bible E-Book

Andrew Kaufman

• Herausgeber: Telegram Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Rebecca has a most unusual problem: no matter how hard she tries, she can't stop broadcasting her feelings to people around her. Luckily, she's discovered how to trap and store her feelings in personal objects -- but just how much emotional baggage can Unit 207, E.Z. Self Storage hold? Lewis is grieving for his wife, Lisa, Rebecca's sister. Inconsolable, he skips Lisa's funeral, flies to Winnipeg, gets a haircut and meets a woman who claims to be God. At the wheel of a stolen Honda Civic is Aberystwyth, aka Aby, driving across Canada to save the soul of her dying mother. She is green, gill-necked, and very uncomfortable out of the water. An unexpected encounter with Aby sets off a chain of events which sends each of them on a personal quest. Can Rebecca, Lewis and Aby find redemption before a terrible flood destroys their chance at happiness? "A quirky, tender, fantastical page-turner" -- The Globe and Mail

Leseprobe

Andrew Kaufman

THE WATERPROOF BIBLE

TELEGRAM

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-84659-098-6

First edition published 2010 by Telegram This ebook edition published 2011

Copyright © Andrew Kaufman 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

TELEGRAM

26 Westbourne Grove, London W2 5RH, UK

www.telegrambooks.com

For Marlo

PART ONE

Keepsakes

Rebecca 1

1

The woman who couldn’t keep her feelings to herself

The limousine taking Rebecca Reynolds and Lewis Taylor to the funeral had stalled in the middle of an intersection. The long black car faced west on Queen, straddling Broadview Avenue in the east end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Rebecca and Lewis sat on opposite ends of the bench seat, and no one sat between them.

Although they were both grieving the loss of Lisa Taylor—Rebecca’s little sister and Lewis’s wife—the two were similar in few other ways. Lewis was relatively short. Both his suit and his haircut were fashionable. Rebecca was quite tall, her naturally brown hair cut in a shoulder-length bob, and she wore a simple black dress. But as the driver repeatedly turned the key in the ignition, they each stared out their own window, mirroring each other.

Rebecca idly wondered if it was a problem with the engine or whether they’d simply run out of gas. She ran her hands over her skirt until the fabric was without wrinkles. She realized that this corner was close to E.Z. Self Storage, where she rented unit #207. She played with her clutch, snapping the clasp open and closed. Then she looked down at the carpeted floor and remembered that she was in a limousine, travelling to her sister’s funeral. Her grief, sadness and guilt returned.

As Rebecca felt these emotions, Lewis became overwhelmed with them as well. The grief, sadness and guilt were heavy and painful. It had been three days and eleven hours since he’d discovered his wife’s body, but until now Lewis had felt nothing. A sense of relief flooded through him. Then he remembered that he was sitting beside Rebecca and that these feelings weren’t his own, but hers.

“Oh,” Lewis said.

“Yeah,” Rebecca replied.

“Yeah,” Lewis repeated. The grief radiating from his sister-in-law only made Lewis more aware of his failure and Rebecca’s overwhelming ability to push her emotions into the world as surely as her lungs pushed out her breath.

Rebecca had been able to project her emotions since the day she was born, when everything was dark and then suddenly it was bright and there were colours. Rebecca didn’t know where she was going. She hadn’t known there was somewhere to go. It hurt and there was no way to resist. She couldn’t focus her eyes, didn’t know she had eyes, and didn’t know that the light and the colours were coming through them.

When hands first touched her, Rebecca didn’t know what hands were, what skin was, what touch was. Only that the thub-thub was missing. There had been darkness and the thub-thub, and they’d been consistent and soothing, but now both were missing. The newborn Rebecca became quite distressed. Feelings of great anxiety and fear went through her and they did not stop there. They went into the room. They went inside everyone. The doctor stopped and stared at the baby in his hands. The nurses turned from the stainless steel tray and stared helplessly at each other. The hum of the machines became audible.

“What’s wrong with her? What’s wrong?” Rebecca’s mother asked.

The doctor didn’t know what was wrong, so he did what he normally did. Cutting the cord, he laid the baby across her mother’s chest. Rebecca heard the thub-thub. She closed her eyes and the darkness was back. She began to feel calm and safe, and she broadcast these feelings to everyone in the room. The doctor and nurses sighed. The mother put her hands on top of the baby. The delivery room became still and quiet, and Rebecca fell asleep.

Not every one of Rebecca’s feelings travelled the same distance—the more intense her emotion, the farther it went. To feel her happiness at finding her favourite show on TV you’d have to be very close to her head, almost touching it. But when she fell in love, people a full city block away knew. This caused many problems, since the things Rebecca wanted most to keep to herself were the ones she broadcast the farthest.

The limousine was still stalled in the middle of the intersection when Rebecca looked out her window and noticed a white Honda Civic rapidly approaching. It did not slow down.

“That car is going to hit us,” she said, quietly.

Having felt Rebecca’s anxiety, Lewis had already turned his head. When the white Honda Civic was less than half a block away and still showed no signs of stopping, Lewis and Rebecca noticed something extraordinarily peculiar.

“Do you see that?” Lewis asked.

“Yes,” Rebecca replied.

The driver of the Honda Civic seemed to have green skin. Just as they noticed this, the creature finally hit the brakes. The back wheels locked, the tires squealed, the smell of burnt rubber was pungent, but the white Honda Civic kept skidding towards the limousine. With only inches remaining between its front bumper and the back door of the limousine on Rebecca’s side, the car finally stopped. For ten seconds the occupants of both vehicles sat motionless, staring at each other through the two planes of glass separating them. Lewis and Rebecca were so focused on the green-skinned woman that neither heard the driver restart the engine. The limo lurched forward, pushing them back against their seats. Another sudden stop a moment later threw them to the floor.

Rebecca’s face was pressed against the carpet, which smelled of both bleach and champagne. Scrambling, she got out of the limousine. She was so intent on catching another glimpse of the white Honda Civic’s driver that she didn’t stoop to pick up the contents of her purse, which had spilled onto the road. Rebecca exited the limo and Lewis soon joined her, as did the limo driver. The three of them stood in the middle of the intersection. Rebecca noticed that the car had Nova Scotia plates as it travelled south on Broadview, picked up speed and took the first left without signalling.

“That was close,” the driver said. Rebecca nodded in agreement. Lewis raised his hands and began backing away. He’d been confident that the grief he so desperately wanted to feel would soon arrive. But now, having nearly been killed by a woman with green skin, it was easy to believe that stranger things could happen and that his grieving might never begin. Keeping his hands raised and ignoring the honking of the cars whose path he blocked, Lewis continued to back away from the limousine.

“Lewis? Where are you going?” Rebecca asked, projecting her confusion across two lanes of traffic.

“I can’t go to the funeral.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’ll be there. She’ll see me. She’ll know.”

“Know what?”

“I’m so sorry.”

Gesturing with his right hand, Lewis hailed a taxi, which stopped in front of him. “You’ll regret this,” Rebecca shouted. Her anger reached pedestrians on the far side of the street, causing some to stop and stare, while others scurried away. Lewis climbed inside the cab and shut the door. He looked straight ahead but continued to feel Rebecca’s anger as clearly as if it were his own.

2

The many reasons why Rebecca Reynolds hates Lewis Taylor

As the limousine finally cleared the intersection of Queen and Broadview, Rebecca kicked off her shoes, lay on her back, pressed the bottoms of her feet against the cold glass of the passenger window and began making a list of the reasons she hated Lewis Taylor. These came easily to her. One: he’s arrogant. Two: he’s an asshole. Three: he’ll never, ever, understand how irreplaceable she is. She was at number twelve before the limo reached Parliament Street, and the list kept growing as they continued driving west on Queen.

Keeping her feet against the glass, Rebecca closed her eyes. She took deep breaths, knowing that her anger would upset the driver. She kept still but could not calm down. Raising her arm, Rebecca checked her watch, seeing that she had thirty minutes to get to the church. She sat up and lowered the tinted window between her and the driver. “Please don’t get there until just before 1:30,” she said. She raised the partition and lay back down on the bench seat of the limousine. As she felt the car make a sharp right, Rebecca tried to pinpoint the exact moment she had begun hating Lewis Taylor and realized it was the first time she’d met him.

Rebecca had come home from university for an unannounced visit. It was mid-afternoon and, as she’d expected, the house was empty. Lisa was still in high school and her parents were both at work. She made a sandwich and went to her former bedroom to study. Several hours later, she was still trying to memorize the atomic weights of the elements when she heard loud music. Shutting her textbook, Rebecca went downstairs. The music got louder, but she was in the living room before she understood that it was being performed live, in the basement. Midway down the basement stairs, Rebecca saw that Lisa was playing a keyboard, while a drum machine ticked and a boy Rebecca did not recognize sang into a microphone. Lisa was in a rock band, or, more accurately, a synth-pop duo. The boy’s voice was terrible—thin and whiny. His haircut was trendy and his posture calculatedly slouchy. By the time she reached the bottom step, Rebecca had already projected her dislike of him into the room.

Lisa and Lewis were startled not so much by Rebecca’s unannounced appearance as by the dislike that radiated from her. Lewis turned off his microphone, setting it on the floor. Lisa kept her fingers on the keys, her synthesizer producing a long, sustained E chord.

As she stood there, Rebecca found one more reason to dislike Lewis: he was oblivious to the fact that Lisa was in love with him, a reality Rebecca recognized by the way her sister’s hips were angled towards him and how she kept looking at him, using only her eyes to smile.

“Um, this is my sister,” Lisa finally said, taking her hands off the keys. The drum machine continued to tick. “Rebecca, this is Lewis.”

“Good to meet you, Rebecca.”

Rebecca did not reply with words.

“Maybe we should call it a day?” Lisa asked.

Lewis had already grabbed his bag. “Later,” he said, watching his feet.

The driver opened her door before Rebecca noticed that the limo had stopped. She looked at her watch: 1:35. She put her shoes back on, ending her list with the most powerful reason to hate Lewis Taylor: he had failed to keep her sister safe.

Inside the church, Rebecca saw her mother in the foyer, surrounded by two uncles and an aunt. Rebecca hovered at the edge of this group, with her hands clasped firmly behind her back. Desperately wanting to smoke, she opened her purse to find her nicotine gum—a temporary measure she’d been using for two years. She looked inside, easily found the package and began pushing a piece out of the plastic wrapping. The crinkling seemed out of place, echoing through the church foyer, but she didn’t stop. Not even when both of her uncles turned their bald heads in her direction.

Rebecca noticed that her mother’s slip was showing, pushed past the crowd and took her mother’s hand. She wanted to offer support, not receive it, but when her mother felt Rebecca’s worry, she tightened her grip, making her daughter feel safe.

Shortly after her seventh birthday, Rebecca stood on her neighbour’s lawn and held Lisa’s hand as they watched an attendant push their mother up the front walk. It was the first time they had seen her in seven months. Her mother bounced when the wheelchair hit a crack in the sidewalk. Her arms rested on top of an orange blanket, and her skin was very pale. Rebecca wanted to wave, but she was afraid her mother wouldn’t wave back. The attendants carried her mother up the steps and through the door that her father held open.

“There she is,” Rebecca told Lisa.

She led Lisa to the backyard and the two girls sat facing the house, looking up to the second-floor window where they knew their mother was now sleeping. Lisa pulled up a fist full of grass. She threw it back on the ground. She looked up at Rebecca.

“I’m scared, too,” Lisa said.

“They wouldn’t let her come home if she wasn’t better,” Rebecca said. She tried to think about anything else, but couldn’t.

“Why won’t they let us see her?”

“She’s tired. We can see her tomorrow,” Rebecca said.

At six o’clock Rebecca and Lisa were allowed back into the house. Dinner was in the microwave. Her father was making phone calls. Rebecca turned on the TV and found her sister’s favourite show. She raised the volume louder than it had ever been before. When her father did not ask her to turn it down, Rebecca took off her shoes and snuck through the kitchen. She climbed the stairs on her tiptoes. She was a little out of breath when she reached the top and stood in front of the door to the guest room. The door was old and didn’t shut tight. Rebecca looked through the gap. She saw her mother lying on her side, facing away. Rebecca pushed the door with her index finger until it was halfway open, and then she went into the room, moving as quietly as she could.

The blinds were down, so the room was dark, but some late-afternoon sunlight snuck through the gap between the shade and the windowsill. Her mother continued to sleep. Her blankets had slid down. She was wearing a hospital gown that tied at the back. Her skin was very white and her hair was too long. Rebecca walked to the side of the bed but did not reach out to touch her.

“It’s okay, baby,” Rebecca’s mother said. Although her eyes remained closed, she’d heard her daughter’s distress. “I’m not too far. No? Right here.”

Rebecca touched her mom’s arm. Her skin was damp and cool. Her mother rolled onto her back, and Rebecca knew she couldn’t stay. Nothing in the room felt like it was supposed to: the light coming from the edge of the blinds; the colour of her mother’s clothes; the smell of medications coming from the bedside table—all of it was wrong. Rebecca had to leave the room, but she needed something to take with her. An object she could hold, something that would continually confirm that her mother had come home. She knew she couldn’t take the pill bottles, because their absence would be noticed. She looked around, but there were very few things in the room that hadn’t been there before her mother’s return. Then she saw the identification bracelet that her mother had been wearing when they’d carried her into the house.

The bracelet had been cut and lay on the nightstand, but her mother’s full name was clearly visible in purple type. Rebecca reached for it, and when her fist was tight, she felt something very strange. The sensation was almost electric and pushed out from her chest into her arm, through her fingertips and into the broken plastic bracelet. It made her feel like she needed to pee, and then it disappeared completely. Rebecca opened her fist and looked at the bracelet, but nothing on the outside had changed. Keeping the bracelet tightly in her hand, Rebecca left the room, closing the door as much as she could.

Putting most of her weight on the banister so that she could move as soundlessly as possible, Rebecca was attempting to sneak down the stairs when she met her father on the second landing. She closed her fist tightly to make sure the plastic bracelet could not be seen. Her father looked over her head to the door of the guest room, then back at Rebecca.

“Did you see her?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Rebecca said. This was a lie. Everything about seeing her mother weak, tired and vulnerable had disturbed Rebecca. As these feelings went through her, she waited for her father to hear them, but he didn’t. Her father simply smiled.

“That’s great. We should have let you see her earlier. I’m sorry.” He hugged her, then turned and walked down the stairs. Once her father was completely out of sight, she opened her hand and stared at the bracelet, knowing it was the only thing that was different.

For the next six weeks, while Rebecca’s mother remained in bed, Rebecca carried the plastic bracelet with her at all times. She held it in her hand while she slept. She kept it in the front right pocket of whichever pair of pants she was wearing. She never forgot to bring it with her, not even once. When someone asked her how her she was doing, Rebecca could just say fine and they would believe her. Rebecca Reynolds finally had the power to lie.

Seven weeks later, Rebecca came home from school and found her mother watching television in the living room. She wore her housecoat, and her skin was still pale, but this was the first time Rebecca had seen her outside of the guest room.

“Come here, baby,” her mother said.

Rebecca climbed onto the couch, curling up beside her. Together they watched The Edge of Night. Things felt normal and Rebecca knew that this moment would have been impossible if the bracelet hadn’t been in her pocket. Otherwise, she would have been too afraid to let her mother feel how frightened she really was.

After the success of the bracelet, other experiments quickly followed. When she failed to land an axel in competition, Rebecca kept her skate laces. When her teacher gave her a failing grade, she took his coffee mug. When Jenny Benders didn’t invite her to her birthday party, she stole her hair clip.

All of her keepsakes were put into a shoebox, which she kept underneath her bed. It wasn’t long before there were two shoeboxes. Then three and four and five.

When Rebecca turned fourteen, she began collecting mementos from all the good moments in her life. Her emotions had become so powerful and important to her that when one of them left her, she felt incredibly vulnerable. Keeping these feelings of joy to herself kept her from feeling exposed. It gave her some privacy. It soon became a habit that every time Rebecca experienced a moment that produced any significant emotion, happy or sad, she stored a souvenir.

The number of boxes under her bed grew and grew. By the time she was sixteen, the shoeboxes were stacked three high and took up all the space under her bed. When she went to university, she took the shoeboxes with her and rented apartments based on closet space. When the closets weren’t big enough, she got rid of her roommate and used the second bedroom. Then the living room. Then the kitchen. Finally, Rebecca rented unit #207 from E.Z. Self Storage near the corner of Queen and Broadview in downtown Toronto and moved all of her boxes there, where they were safely secured under lock and key.

“Where’s Dad?” Rebecca asked.

“He’s inside. Where’s Lewis?”

Rebecca’s response was a guilty feeling, mystifying her mother. She felt guilty because it was her fault that Lisa had married Lewis in the first place.

When Lisa finished high school, she and Lewis had moved to Halifax together to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Lewis still thought of Lisa as nothing more than a friend—the apartment they rented had two bedrooms. Even more than she hated Lewis, Rebecca hated knowing that her sister would never get her heart’s desire.

Both sisters were home from university for the holiday, and on Christmas Eve their mother sent them to buy wrapping paper. It was a task easily accomplished. With time to kill and a desire to avoid a relative-filled house, Rebecca and Lisa drove around and eventually parked in the lot of their old high school.

“Do you remember those white jeans that Phillip Wilson used to wear?” Rebecca asked.

“Lewis still thinks of me as a friend. I don’t know what to do.”

For some moments it was quiet inside the car. For once, it was Rebecca who saw the simple solution. “Where are the bedrooms in your apartment?” she asked.

“At the front.”

“Right next to each other?”

“Yes.”

“So you share a wall?”

“Yeah.”

“How thick is it?”

“It’s not thick at all.” Lisa turned in her seat and faced her sister. “It’s really thin. Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“Do you really love him?”

“You know I do.”

“Is he worthy of you?”

“I know you don’t think he is, but he really is.”

“So, yes, I am suggesting that. Everyone and anyone. Start the night you get back, if you can.”

Lisa took her older sister’s advice. The shared wall proved even less soundproof than imagined. Lewis lasted three weeks. Nineteen months later, they were married. Rebecca’s plan had worked, and she’d never forgiven herself for it.

“Rebecca?” her mother repeated.

“We almost got in an accident. Then he just left. He walked away. He said he was sorry.” Rebecca looked up at her mother and tried to smile. “Should we go in?”

“Okay.”

Still holding her mother’s hand as they walked into the church, Rebecca saw her father sitting in a pew at the very front. But as they walked towards him, Rebecca began to feel very strange. With each step she took the strange feeling grew. And as she took her seat beside her father, she realized it wasn’t a strange feeling. It was no feeling at all.

3

Forty-five square feet of canvas

One thousand, eight hundred and four kilometres west of Lisa’s funeral, Stewart Findley waited on the top step of the only post office in Morris, Manitoba. Metaphorically, Stewart was waiting for a number of things to happen, but at this precise moment he was waiting for Margaret, his boss, who was now forty-seven minutes late.

Taking his cellphone from his pocket, Stewart confirmed that he had no missed calls and then hopped down the steps to the sidewalk. He looked south down Main Street but still didn’t see her. He kicked the large cube, which was made of several layers of folded canvas, at the bottom of the stairs, then turned and continued to wait. As he checked his cellphone again, he heard Margaret’s truck.

The truck came into view, red, old and given to as many eccentricities as its driver. Seeing Margaret behind the wheel, Stewart tried once again to guess her age. Of all the strange things about her—she seldom blinked, her skin often had a greenish tinge to it, she was very strong, and she owned and operated a hotel that rarely had guests—it was her indeterminate age that Stewart found the most perplexing. He had been the Prairie Embassy Hotel’s only employee for three and a half years, but he had never been able to figure out how old Margaret was. His highest guess was seventy and his lowest was thirty-seven; with both estimations he’d been confident that he’d finally got it right. As Stewart watched Margaret park in front of the post office, he made another guess: fifty-seven, as there was something taxed and sweaty about her today.

Leaving the engine running, Margaret slid across the seat and out the passenger door. She kissed Stewart on both cheeks. “The goddamn council meeting went long,” she said. “Guess what the idiot’s solution to the drought is?”

“Which idiot is this?”

“The mayor. Fifty-four days, with crops perishing in the fields, and what’s his brilliant idea? He’s hiring rainmakers. Two of them, father and son. I said they could stay at the hotel for free.”

Stewart ordinarily had little interest in the doings of the Morris Town Council, and today he cared even less. With a sweeping motion, he pointed to the cube of folded canvas on the sidewalk. It measured three feet on each side. Margaret immediately recognized what it was.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“It is.”

“Your boat has a sail!” Margaret punched him in the arm, the impact knocking Stewart off balance.

For three years, six months and one day Stewart had been the Prairie Embassy Hotel’s only employee. This, less three weeks, was exactly the amount of time he’d been building his sailboat. Although Margaret had witnessed every stage of construction, she’d never commented on the fact that he was building a sailboat in the middle of the Canadian Prairies. Or, more specifically, on a bend of the Red River that could float a boat only once a year, for a few days during spring runoff. But Margaret was not someone who needed to pry. This was partly her respect for privacy and partly due to her love of eccentricity, but mainly because she had secrets of her own.

Stewart opened the tailgate. Margaret adjusted her scarf and they each picked up a side of the sail.

“It’s heavy,” she said.

Stewart nodded his agreement, rendered speechless by the weight. Taking tiny steps, they moved towards the back of the truck.

“One, two, three,” Margaret said. On three they heaved it into the bed. The truck rocked on its springs, and a thin layer of dirt was knocked to the ground. Stewart closed the tailgate.

“Should we tie it down?” Margaret asked.

“It’s not going anywhere,” Stewart said, but he drove slowly. They had made it past the town’s population sign when his cellphone rang. Stewart looked down at his phone. Margaret studied his face.

“It’s her. I can tell,” she said.

“What if it is?”

“Then you just don’t answer it,” Margaret said, trying to pull the phone out of his hand.

“She’s just lost her sister!” Stewart said, holding the ringing phone as far away from Margaret as possible.

“That’s true,” Margaret said. Her hands fell to her lap. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Answer it, then.”

Stewart nodded. He swerved onto the shoulder and stopped.

“Rebecca?” he said to his wife, a woman he had not seen in three years, six months and one day.

Stewart had met his wife not by accident but because of one. Pushing an overly burdened grocery cart across an icy parking lot, he’d slipped. The cart got away from him and rolled towards a row of parked cars, picking up speed on the ice. Lying prone, he predicted that it would hit either the rusted Ford Tempo or the cherry red Karmann Ghia.

To his surprise, Stewart hoped it would be the Karmann Ghia, although he wasn’t sure why. If it hit the Tempo, the bumper would absorb the impact, whereas a collision with the Karmann Ghia would destroy the right tail light. Stewart watched as the cart, seemingly of its own will, veered slightly left and struck the Karmann Ghia. As predicted, it shattered the tail light.

Stewart got up and retrieved his cart. He was squatting to survey the damage when a shadow crossed his face. Looking up, he found Rebecca looking down.

“Had a bit of an accident,” he said, words he would later conclude to be the worst opening line in the history of love.

“I can see that.”

“I can fix it.” He raised his head and looked her in the eye. Somehow he could feel her doubt. Not just by inferring, or assuming, or being empathetic—he literally felt it. “Honest, I’m good with my hands,” Stewart said and, as if to demonstrate, he produced a business card.

“General Repairs,” she said, studying his card. “Impressive.”

Her voice was icy, but Stewart knew—again, he could feel—that she was actually quite attracted to him. He had always had trouble reading women, but this one seemed unable to hide her true feelings, which made her very appealing. Plus, she had long, shapely legs that even in the dead of winter were covered not by pants, a long skirt or a parka, but just by black tights and shapely boots.

“I’ll need your phone number,” Stewart said. He realized that she was only feigning impatience as she asked for another card and wrote down her contact information on the back.

The replacement tail light was more expensive than he’d hoped, but three days later Stewart phoned ahead and went to her house, tools in hand. Finding the car parked on the street, Stewart began work and was crouched beside the rear bumper when he felt her shadow on him.

“Good morning,” Stewart said.

“Hello. Make sure you do it right.”

“I will.”

“Just remember, I don’t trust you at all,” she said. Stewart felt that the opposite was true.

He did not question being able to feel this woman’s emotions. Stewart rarely thought anything was strange. This was one of his gifts. Another was his innate ability to build or fix anything. It was as if he could hear how the pieces wanted to fit together. They were not exactly speaking to him, not with words, but they let him know what needed to be done. The proof was irrefutable in the cars he’d rebuilt, the houses he’d rewired and the lifespan of household appliances he’d greatly extended, so Stewart just didn’t question it.

He’d finished the job before his hands were cold. Rebecca had stayed with him, watching over his shoulder.

“Do you want to pop the hood?” he asked her.

“Why?”

“I just thought I’d give it a look over.”

“The engine’s in the trunk.”

“Right.”

He looked at Rebecca. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, and her face held a sour expression—yet he could feel how much she liked him. With this in mind, he opened the trunk, bent over the motor and over-tightened the butterfly valve, ensuring that the car would have problems as soon as the temperature dropped below -10° C.

“Listen, if you have any more problems, just call me,” he said.

“I have your card.”

“Don’t hesitate to call.”

Three weeks later, there was a cold snap. But it wasn’t until he’d rescued her for the third time that Stewart finally found the courage to ask her out.

“Rebecca? Why aren’t you at the funeral?”

“I am. Stewart, listen to me. Something horrible has happened. I’ve lost my love for Lisa.”

“What?”

“Or at least, I’m losing it. It’s not all gone. But some of it is.”

“You’ve lost what?”

“You’re not listening!”

Stewart felt how scared she was. One of the strangest things, of the many strange things, about his relationship with Rebecca was that Stewart could feel her emotions through the telephone. This did not happen when Rebecca talked on the phone with anyone else. Stewart was the only one.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca, I’m just not getting it. What’s happened?”

“It’s all about when she moved out . . .”

“That’s the story you’re telling at the funeral?”

“Yes, but just listen. I can remember everything about it. All the facts. The rain. What the van looked like. What Lisa was wearing. That’s not the problem.”

“What is it?”

“Just listen. Please. The problem is that it doesn’t make me feel anything. Not happy, or sad, or how I loved her more than ever when she came back. All those emotions are gone. They’ve vanished. They’re just gone!”

“That’s, that’s . . .” Stewart said. “Hold on for a second.”

Making a worried face to Margaret, Stewart got out of the truck and walked into the wheat field he’d parked beside. The stalks grew higher the deeper into the field he went. He continued walking. The stalks were slightly taller than his waist, but he still didn’t know what to say.