Théodora Armstrong - Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

“What!” Thom had said, shaking his head. “What a waste! But marriage will do that to you.”

“Thom, God! Please don’t start,” Veronica put her hand on Thom’s neck. It was hard to tell if she was going to strangle him or give him a massage. “Can’t we have a holiday without badgering? For once!”

“He’s not even part of a program, Thom,” Angie said. “Don’t be sad because your friend’s getting a life.”

Angie had spent the day in the lake, swimming, while I watched her from the dock, drinking. She’d aim straight, swim far out to some hidden point on the horizon. Eventually I was drunk enough to follow her into the water, my messy hands slapping the water like dull blades. I played that game with her, grabbing her ankles underwater and pulling her under, the game she hates, putting those messy hands all over her body, the smooth skin over her shoulders and along her neck, her waist, her thighs, my fingers running under the edges of her swimsuit. Later she leaned against me, legs stretched out on a chair in front of her, hair still wet, my hand resting on the inside of her thigh and twitching to move farther up.

“Marriage will do what to you?” I said. I felt like humouring Thom. I felt better than him.

“Smarten you up. Smarten you silly, maybe.” Thom smirked into his plastic cup. There wasn’t much left but ice. “We won’t be doing that song and dance.”

“Marriage is hardly a song and dance,” Angie laughed.

Veronica stretched her arms far above her head and yawned, making a point of being bored with Thom.

“Oh, it is. Mostly a dance, though.” Thom stood up from the table, curtsied and did a lively soft-shoe.

“Sit down, you idiot,” Veronica said, shaking her head.

“I think I’ll have another,” he said to himself as he opened the two-litre of coke with a hiss.

“Have a glass of water, Thom,” Veronica said.

“It really has though. Changed your whole look. The look of you.” Thom was staring at me across the table with disgust. “You’re a different person.”

“Fuck off.” I was smiling.

I felt sorry for Thom that night, and for Veronica too, because of her association with him. My pity grew out of Thom’s own pity, out of Angie’s secret and our own happiness. The entire scope of our lives together stretched out before me that night, clear as a backyard surrounded by a blanket of trees and a sky full of stars. And that night, sitting across from Thom, my hand on Angie’s thigh while she sipped her water with lime, I found it all incredibly funny.

I WAKE UP IN the chair in front of the computer and make my way through the dark house to the bedroom. Angie’s set up a fan in this room too, pointing it at the bed so the breeze makes ripples across the sheets. She settles herself closer to me as I get in.

“What happened?” she mutters into the pillow.

“She went right to sleep.”

“At work, I mean?” Angie raises her head and tries to find my eyes in the dark. She always seems to know when something is off. It will never be possible to lie to her.

“Water bomber crashed into the side of a mountain.” I lock my hands behind my head and look over at her. She’s in one of my threadbare shirts. It’s worn soft, with holes in the sleeves.

“Jesus.” Angie raises herself on an elbow. “Your call?”

“The whole thing was over in under a minute.” I lift up the shirt and run my hand over her stomach.

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

We have sex and we both come fast, which is the way it always is now, infrequent to the point of desperate mutual hunger. I come so hard it almost hurts, as though I’m being sucked right into her body, bound so tightly by her flesh I cease to exist. She asks me if it was good, better than any waitress I could get in town, and I laugh off the snarky comment. I tell her it was better than good.

Angie’s up and into the bathroom immediately, because of her recurring bladder infections, trying to piss out any unfriendly bacteria that might be trying to climb up her urethra. Usually, by the time she gets back in beside me I’m fast asleep — and those are the only nights I sleep well. But tonight I’m still awake, eyes-closed-pretending as she slips quiet as a mouse across the carpeted floor, standing stark naked at the window awhile to look out at our neighbourhood, dawn light behind the mountains, her hand pressed to her mouth as though she’s trying to stop something from escaping. When she eases herself back into our bed, I realize, for the first time, how careful she is not to wake me up.

THE LIGHT IS WHITE HOT through the curtains and the windows are closed against the noise of the neighborhood, but there are still reverberations — lawnmowers, motorcycles, children running down the sidewalk. The knock on the bedroom door is what woke me up and it comes again, louder this time. I sit up on the edge of the bed, groggy with sleep. The room is thick with heat, nearly airless. The fan is buzzing, jerking through its rotation. Angie pokes her head through the door with the baby on her hip and holds up the phone. She’s wearing shorts and nothing but a sports bra on top. “Work,” she mouths as I take it from her.

It’s the Transportation Safety Board. “We had a few questions for you regarding yesterday’s incident.”

“The crash?” I run my hand over the bedsheet. It’s damp. I feel over-rested, my mind in a fog. I try to rub my head out of its stupor. They’re calling to go over the data: weather information for five hours prior and one hour after the crash, audio records of radio contact, records from the navigational aids and radar. There’s someone else on the line, a voice that pipes in every once in a while to elaborate on a question or detail, someone’s name I didn’t catch. Everything they are checking is normal for any emergency, but now they’re asking me for a chronicle of all previous shift activity and an account of my sleep patterns.

“My sleep?” My voice catches in my throat, dry from the hot bedroom.

“The details of your sleep schedule over the past week.”

“Why?” I reach for a glass of water on the bedside table, take a sip.

“Have you been having any difficulty sleeping?”

“Sorry, am I being investigated for something?” Beside the water glass is a roll of antacids. I tear back the paper, pop a few in my mouth.

“These questions are procedural.”

“Procedural?” I rub the tingle of sweat on the back of my neck along the hairline and pop the window open, the racket from the neighbour’s mower flooding into the room.

“Normal for any investigation.”

“Oh, normal.” I take a deep breath out the window; the smell of cut grass. “All right.”

“Mr. Harris, have you been unusually fatigued this week?” I can hear the other voice talking to someone in the background. Somewhere in the house Angie is singing rhyming songs.

“Fatigued? No.” I crunch another antacid, chalky residue coating my tongue. “I sleep like the dead.” The words are out before I take the time to consider them.

“Can you think of anything else, Mr. Harris, that might help us with our investigation?”

“Anything of importance was submitted to you in that envelope. You should have everything you need.” I try to keep my tone even, but it comes off sharp and annoyed.

“If you think of anything else you can reach us at the office.”

“I won’t need to reach you.” I push the drapes back and bright midday light pours through the window. What time is it? Suddenly, it occurs to me I might have slept for more than a night. Would Angie let me sleep for an entire day? Longer?

“Do you have any questions, Mr. Harris?”

“No,” I say, pulling the drapes closed again, a draft sucking them against the open window. “Actually, yes. How old was the pilot?”