R. Allinson: The Long Road Home

A few hours later they came to the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area. Tom breathed a sigh of relief. He’d be home soon.

CLAIRE studied the map of Canada, wondering where exactly Tom was at this minute. She traced the Trans-Canada Highway in between Winnipeg and Toronto with her fingertip. Over two thousand kilometres. So much room for something to go wrong. She checked her email and phone, but there were no new messages from him. As she was staring morosely at the screen, a new email popped up. She smiled faintly. Lee had replied.

Hey Claire,

Thanks for the email. I honestly don’t know what to think about it all, either. It’s crazy, and you’re right. Nothing prepares you for something like this. At least it’s not zombies?

I’m gonna go bush for a while, so you might not hear from me again until it all passes. Or the alternative. Ellie and I are going to this place we found a few years ago, up in the mountains. It’s always been deserted — I don’t know if anyone else even knows about it — it’s pretty hard to get to, and we only found it by chance.

We decided we just want to get away from it all. Things are starting to fall apart in Melbourne. It’s not crazy yet, but it’s well on the way. A lot of supermarkets are almost out of food, and the power and internet keep dropping in and out. I’m not even sure if I’ll get to send this, it’s been out for the past hour. Well, if you’re reading this, obviously it came back on. Neither of us are close to our families, so it’s not really an issue. I called my mother yesterday. She’s happy to stay put in her house with my step-dad. He’s a bit of a hoarder — they have so much tinned food that he buys on special, they could probably feed the whole block for a year and still have some left over, so I’m not too worried about them.

I don’t even know where my sister is. Last I heard from her was a Facebook message about four months ago — she was in Sao Paulo with some new Brazilian fling. Who knows where she is now. I hope she’s okay and staying out of trouble, but knowing her that’s not likely. Anyway, not my problem anymore.

So if you don’t hear from me again, my friend, it has been an honour to know you and be your email buddy/counsellor/voice of reason. Stay safe.

My tent awaits.

Claire blinked rapidly, wondering if she’d ever hear from him again. She re-read the email and then glanced up at the lights. They hadn’t had any power outages yet, not that she’d noticed. How much longer would that last? With that in mind, Claire went out and found the spare torch — it had been pushed to the back of the laundry cupboard, and rounded up all of the candles she could find. She took a moment to be grateful that Lucy was out of Melbourne and back at the farm. She knew they’d be fine on the farm if the power went out. They were used to it and had a back-up generator. She didn’t want to think about when the internet stopped working completely.

The ding of her phone made Claire jump. She reached for it eagerly, hoping for some news from Tom. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed when she saw it was her friend Hannah.

Play date? I need to do something normal with the girls. XX

Sure, Claire typed back. Come over here if you want. Have plenty of yummy food.

Hannah had two girls, roughly the same ages as Noah and Tristan. They’d joked more than once about a double wedding in the future — Noah and Olive, Tristan and Hazel.

Claire busied herself cleaning up the kitchen, doing the breakfast dishes and setting out some snacks. Noah wanted to help. She gave him the tupperware to dry. Tristan was more intent on taking everything out of the cupboards than helping.

Noah raced to the door when the doorbell rang. Tristan ignored it and continued to bang two saucepans together. Claire was tempted to take them off him, but from prior experience she knew it would just end in tears, and at the moment she’d much rather hear his happy gurgling even if it was tempered with insufferable clanging.

She followed Noah down the hallway, wiping her hands on her jeans. He’d grown. He could almost reach the handle now. Claire reached him and unlocked the door. Hannah and the two girls stood bundled on the doorstep.

She gave Hannah a hug and then bent down to say hello to Olive and Hazel. Olive smiled shyly up at her, but Hazel was gazing intently at Noah. Noah grabbed her hand and led her up the hallway, asking the little girl if she wanted to see his teapot. Olive gurgled a reply that Claire couldn’t understand. Claire stifled a laugh, and wished she’d videotaped the exchange.

Claire and Hannah followed the children down the hallway into the lounge room.

“Tea? Coffee?” Claire asked over her shoulder and walked into the kitchen.

“Tea please. Green, if you’ve got it.”

“Sure do. I’ve got some beautiful Japanese green tea leaves I picked up on our last trip to Tokyo. I’ve been saving them.”

Claire flicked the kettle on, thinking about that Tokyo trip. It had been a quick visit, before Tristan had been born. Tom had attended a conference there, and she’d tagged along for the experience. It had been a wrench leaving Noah behind, but his grandmother had taken good care of him, and she had to admit it was lovely having a week with just the two of them again. She jumped and turned around when she heard Hannah clear her throat behind her.

“How are you holding up?” Hannah asked quietly.

“I don’t know.” Claire spooned the fragrant leaves into her favourite little red teapot. “I honestly don’t know, Han. Sometimes I’m fine, sometimes I feel like sitting in the middle of the floor and bawling my eyes out.” Claire turned back to the kettle and poured the steaming water into the waiting teapot. “How about you?” Claire asked belatedly.

Hannah sighed heavily. “A bit the same as you. Are you still planning to leave?”

Claire nodded. “As soon as Tom gets back.”

“Where is he now?”

“On his way. I don’t know exactly where.” Claire let her head drop and let out a sigh. “I had an email from him the night before last, but I haven’t heard from him since then. He lost his phone.”

Hannah reached out and touched Claire’s arm. “I’m sure he’ll be all right?”

“Are you?” Claire asked more harshly than she intended. Hannah took a step back and frowned slightly.

“Sorry,” Claire muttered. “It’s just… I saw a woman die yesterday. Her son was already dead. She’d crashed the car. No one helped. No ambulance, no police. Just me and Lisa. We couldn’t do anything.”

“Oh my god. That’s horrible.”

Claire closed her eyes and wiped her face. The dead little boy staring at her, imploring her for help kept flashing through her mind. Sometimes he looked like Noah, other times like Tristan, and sometimes he wasn’t a little boy at all, but her husband.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. We had to leave them there. I tried calling 911, but they didn’t answer. We didn’t know what else to do. I can’t help but think of whoever was waiting for them to come home. They won’t know. We looked at her licence, but it had a Halifax address. I’d have gone around if it had been local…”

“It sounds like you did all you could,” Hannah said.

“I suppose so,” Claire said quietly. “It doesn’t feel like enough though. And I’m worried sick that something’s going to happen to Tom and there’ll be no one to help him.”

Hannah didn’t say anything, just stared at Claire with sad eyes.

“Anyway,” Claire said after a moment. “I thought you would have left by now. You’re still leaving the city, right?”