Alix Ohlin - Inside

That crying fit was never repeated, but he sometimes woke up in the middle of the night to go to the washroom, and when he came back he’d notice, in the bedroom’s dim light, the glint of tears on her face. The idea that she was crying in her sleep broke his heart.

Soon he was spending all his time at their place, his own apartment gathering dust.

They talked about everything, constantly hashing things out. They discussed what had happened in the zoo, how angry she had been at him and Mathieu and how oppressive that anger was, how much he regretted what he’d done, how sorry he still felt. She said she forgave him. All he had to do to stay in her good graces, it seemed, was to listen. Martine could talk about the stress of raising Mathieu for hours, could dissect the minutiae of his sentences and gestures and bowel movements. After the first of these sessions, she put her arms around his neck and thanked him.

“For what?” he said.

“For listening. For being here. I need you so much.”

These were exactly the words he’d been aching to hear for so long; but now that he heard them, the effect wasn’t what he expected. This had to do with Mathieu. Mitch couldn’t get over — and would never admit to Martine — how, that afternoon in the zoo, he had been so blinded with rage and protectiveness that in another second he would’ve knocked Mathieu to the ground. He’d thought he loved the child, but in that instant recognized the truth: he only put up with him, for her sake.

He was so disappointed in himself, so ashamed, that he began to crave escape. All through April and into May, nestling into the apartment while spring came, taking Mathieu to the park on weekends, attending the year-end concert at his school, lying in bed with this lovely, heartbreakingly vulnerable woman in his arms, he thought constantly about getting away.

He told Martine that the call to come north came out of the blue, and this was true enough — but only after weeks of dropping subtle hints and sending friendly e-mails to acquaintances he hadn’t spoken to in ages, just to keep his name in their minds. And when he told Martine he was thinking of going but wanted to talk it over with her first, even as he said it he knew that he’d already made up his mind.

On a gloomy Thursday morning he met Thomasie Reeves outside the hospital where his mother lay in a coma. They had arranged this over the phone, the boy’s voice slow and stilted, as if it were coming from another continent. He seemed to think that Mitch could convince the doctors of what he couldn’t, and that everything would change once Mitch had seen his mother for himself. As he approached that morning, sidling up the street in the same sideways, loping stride Mitch had noted from his office window, the smell of marijuana was almost overwhelming. Thomasie seemed bathed in it, his eyes red, his expression muted, his whole personality turned down a notch. Mitch’s heart went out to him; if this were his mother, he would’ve wanted to numb himself too.

He reached out his hand and Thomasie stared at it for a second, in confusion or fascination, before shaking it; then they went inside. The nurses walking past smelled the pot, and one of them grimaced in disapproval. Mitch shot her a look, and she rolled her eyes. In the waiting room, a father sat cradling a sick girl maybe two or three years old; his face was impassive, the child’s cheeks flushed a dark, unhealthy red. Opposite them, an old woman had fallen asleep with her round face dropped against her chest.

Thomasie, his face intent, led Mitch down a dim linoleum hallway without saying anything. He was wearing the same windbreaker, over which he’d slung a blue backpack. Beneath the pot was another, gamy odor, and his hair hung limp and thin. Mitch wondered if anyone was taking care of him — telling him to bathe, making sure he got something to eat. Every time Mitch had seen him there were dark circles under his eyes.

Thomasie stopped at a closed door, then opened it. Inside there were two beds, one of them empty, and the woman in the other had to be the boy’s mother. According to the newspaper, Gloria Reeves was only thirty-nine, but she looked much older, her face mottled and creased. Mitch glanced at Thomasie, who had wanted so desperately to come; he was standing uncertainly at the foot of the bed.

His mother’s eyes were closed, and she was hooked up to an IV and a monitor that indicated her heartbeat. It took Mitch a moment to register that the index and third fingers of her right hand and a chunk of her ear were missing, lost to frostbite. The tip of her nose was black. Though her breathing was labored, she seemed composed and too still, like a wax figure someone had arranged into position.

Mitch saw a doctor passing by outside and, after nodding to Thomasie, stepped out in the hall. He had met him a few days ago, a genial, outdoorsy young man from Victoria who was just out of medical school and on a year’s rotation in the Arctic.

“Bobby,” Mitch said, “how are you?”

In response, the doctor not only shook his hand but also grasped his upper arm, his eyes flickering with concern. “I see you’re here with Thomasie,” he said. “You know, we asked him not to come by so much.”

“Why would you tell a kid not to visit his mother?”

“He’s disruptive,” Bobby said. “He comes here stoned, even gets in bed with her. Sometimes he’s drunk and yelling at the doctors. It upsets the other patients. And God knows it’s not helping his mother, no matter how out of it she is.”

“What’s her condition?”

“Bad,” Bobby said flatly. “I mean, of course there’s a one-in-a-million chance. But her brain was probably damaged irreparably by those hours in the snow.”

“So she’ll stay in that bed forever?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. She’s deteriorating, and I don’t think there’s much functioning neural activity. Thomasie gets excited because her eyes open sometimes, but that’s just muscle reflex. It doesn’t indicate anything significant.”

When Mitch nodded, Bobby clapped him on the arm and strode off down the hall, whistling a little, young and vigorous.

When he stepped back inside he was surprised by what he saw in the dim light. Thomasie was half lying on the bed, with his legs on the floor and his upper body pressed against his mother’s, his head buried in the crook of her neck. Then, sensing Mitch’s return, he got up, keeping his eyes averted, and tucked something under her pillow — a small bottle of rye he must have had in his backpack. He glanced over at Mitch but didn’t say anything, and they left the room.

Once they were outside, Mitch said, “Maybe you shouldn’t visit quite so often, Thomasie. I’m not sure it’s helping her.”

The boy shrugged bashfully, as if he’d been complimented. “I don’t mind,” he said, “I don’t have much else to do.” He finally looked Mitch in the eye. “Talk to them,” he said. “Tell them I like coming here.” Then he walked away, his shoulders hunched against the wind.

A few days passed in which he didn’t see or hear from Thomasie. Then, one windy Friday afternoon, in between appointments, he got a call from the doctor.

“Just thought you should know,” Bobby said, “that Gloria Reeves died this morning. Her organs finally shut down. Thomasie was with her.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Mitch said. “How’d Thomasie seem?”

“He took it very quietly. Didn’t say much. Maybe he’ll do better now that she’s not just hanging on.”

“Maybe,” Mitch said, and hung up, finding the doctor’s optimism so misplaced as to be offensive. He sat there alone in his office thinking about the woman asleep in the snow, her tiny daughter shivering against her cold skin. The world was white . It made him ache for Martine and Mathieu, but when he called, there was no answer in Montreal. She was probably just screening his calls.