Botero's Beautiful Horses Read online

  For a short time, Tommy went home after school because he only had two hours before his dad came home from work, but he missed playing at Stacey’s house, and soon the three of them were hanging around, deciding what they would get up to. Tommy got his way at the end of September when they reminded Hart that he’d promised to help them make a genuine bow and arrow. They piled into Hart’s car and spent the afternoon down by the river where the leaves had begun to turn, and Hart showed them how to test the willow trees for suppleness, find a branch just the right thickness and about three feet long. They picked out a dozen smaller branches that he said would have to dry out for a few weeks but would do to make arrows. On the way home, they stopped at a turkey farm and got feathers for the arrows, and the adventure felt so exotic that Stacey and Amber enjoyed it as much as Tommy.

  Just before Sage left on his fishing trip, Della told him that he ought to spend as much time and effort on straightening out the shed and garage as he did on his fishing trips. The following week, he did just that, as he needed an accessible place to hide his stash. Della then told him it was stupid to put so much effort into a place they would have to leave in a matter of months.

  You told me you didn’t want to move away from here, he said.

  I don’t want to. You know that. We can’t afford to buy this place.

  Della, stop that. I have a plan. We’ll be just fine.

  What kind of plan?

  I can’t tell you right now.

  You’ve got a plan to find the money to buy this house, and you can’t tell your wife?

  It’s complicated. And besides, I want it to be a surprise.

  You’re not thinking you’ll catch enough Kokanee to raise the money, are you? That’s the stupidest idea you’ve come up with since I met you.

  Look, Della. We got off to a slow start. I plan on making up some ground. Just leave it to me and look after the kids. And I’ll go fishing if I want to. It’s no different than going to church on Sundays. At least at the end of the day I have something to show for it.

  Sage’s pronouncement sounded true even though, since he’d taken up fishing, he’d landed only one bull trout. Once he had enacted his plan and sold off his stash, he would have time to develop the art of fishing. He hated to ask Hart for anything, but he borrowed some of his tools and built cupboards in the back of the garage, a building awkward to get to that had never held a parked car. This took up one weekend, and the next Sunday when Della and Stacey went off to church, he busied himself packaging the weed into small bags he would sell for $25 each. He only needed one of the cupboards for his marijuana, but he put separate locks on all three cupboards, and he told Della he was keeping tools in there and didn’t want the kids messing with them. Della never went into the dingy garage because she was afraid of spiders, and there were plenty of those.

  Sage had three or four bags hidden in the trunk of the car at any given time. When he sold them, he replaced them so that when he was out and about he could always do business. He had a competitor selling in the valley, so he had to reduce his price to $20. He went along with it, then wrapped his bags smaller and smaller, and no one noticed. He always put a package of cigarette papers, Chanticleer, in the bag. Selling the stuff put him on edge, particularly when he sold to high school students. Still, they found the money, and they found him, and within a month, business was booming. Twice he went to Cranbrook and made a killing. He opened a second account at the bank and put extra money in their home account to give Della hope and keep her quiet, but almost all of it he socked away in a savings account.

  His sales progressed as he had expected well into the month of November. One Saturday he was in the garage sorting out what he thought he might sell over the next week when Della appeared. The kitchen tap was leaking and squirting water all over the floor. She came up behind Sage and saw what he was up to.

  You must be out of your mind.

  This is just temporary, Della. We’re going to get this house, you watch. Nobody’s getting hurt.

  You have a wife and daughter you’re supposed to be supporting. What happens when they throw you in jail for six months? What am I supposed to do then? I don’t know how to stop the kitchen taps from spraying water all over the house. There’s a minor flood in there.

  Sage tended to the pipes, glad to have something legal to do. He shut the water off under the sink and took the tap apart. He would need to rebuild the tap or just buy another. Right now he had Della to defuse.

  Come with me, he said. He went to his sock drawer and pulled out the two bank books he owned. First he showed her the one she knew about but likely hadn’t looked at for a while. Eight hundred dollars sat in their household account. Then he showed her his separate account with the total that stood out at the bottom: $2,916.55. I’m more than halfway there, he said. Nothing will go wrong. We’ll be buying this house by February.

  Della didn’t know what to say. She thought she had things to say, but her voice felt trapped in her throat. Nothing could get past her scattered and conflicted thoughts. She gathered towels and mopped the kitchen floor. Sage said he would go to the hardware store to get parts. Still, Della said nothing. She kept mopping the floor as if the leak hadn’t stopped and she would be mopping for the rest of her life.

  Sage fixed the tap an hour later and went back to the garage to tidy things. He looked up to see Hart standing outside the garage. Just standing there, as if lost. He said he wanted to get weed to smoke, but he didn’t want Molly to get wind of it or she would make him flush it down the toilet. Sage didn’t want Hart to know where he kept the stuff, though by the way he studied his renovations and the three cupboards locked up, he had already guessed, but he went out to the car and came back with a bag which he sold to Hart for $25. Sage found him a small tin and told him he could keep it in there and showed him a good place to hide it in the woodshed. They each rolled a joint and sat down on two wood blocks and looked out at the houses and dilapidated fences that met up with the backyard. Sage and Della wondered why Hart always seemed to get by without working too hard at anything. They wondered if maybe they’d had an insurance policy on the boy they’d lost years ago and that was part of the reason. They didn’t want to ask about a thing like that, but it was something to think about at least.

  I don’t drink anymore, Hart said. He filled his lungs with smoke and held it for a long time. I was drinking a fair bit when we lost Billy, he said. That’s not why we lost him, but I’ve never cared to go back to it since.

  Sage told him that this weed was more powerful than most and that sharing the one joint would be enough to even things out for the rest of the day. He said nothing about what his neighbour had mentioned. He didn’t need to. The way Hart had spoken the words made it feel like the two of them had shared a lifetime of grief without knowing it, and the sharing had cemented a bond between them.

  12

  In the middle of october, Della read a sheet stapled to a drawing of a bow and arrow Stacey had done at school. The sheet announced a meet-the-teacher opportunity to take place in the afternoon the following week, and they invited parents at individual times, should they wish to have a one-on-one chat with the teacher. Otherwise, they were welcome to come for a visit in the evening. Miss Deerhome had specifically written a note on the side for Della and Sage, suggesting if it were at all possible she would like to meet them at the appointed time so they could discuss Stacey’s deportment in the class. Della read it to Sage one night after supper.

  She’s touched in the head, Sage said. There’s nothing wrong with her behaviour.

  Stacey can be strong-willed, Della said.

  There’s nothing wrong with having a mind of your own. Her name’s Miss Deerhome, and my guess is she’s never married and never will. She has nothing better to think about.

  Still, I guess I’ll ask Molly to take over for an hour. I’d better go down there and see what’s up.

  The day of the meeting, Stacey came home in a downpour. Della didn’t have
the car so she dressed in boots and carried an umbrella and fought her way to the school. An afternoon kindergarten class was in progress, but Miss Deerhome sat waiting for her in an office off to the side.

  Thank you for coming, the teacher said. Your husband couldn’t make it?

  No, he’s working. Is there a problem with Stacey? I can’t imagine there being a big problem.

  I don’t intend to worry you, Mrs. Howard. There’s no big problem at all. I thought it would be useful if we compared notes on Stacey’s behaviour at school with what you see at home. I’m hoping that way I can get a handle on what your daughter is like. She’s very smart, that’s not in question here. Every year we have one or two arrive in kindergarten already reading, and she’s quite accomplished in that regard.

  Then what is the issue you’re talking about?

  Miss Deerhome got up and shut the door to her office. Della wasn’t sure if it was for their privacy or to block the singing of “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round” bouncing off the walls of the small classroom. Then she opened a file folder where she had scribbled a few notes since the beginning of the school year.

  One thing we try to build in kindergarten is a sense of cooperation and working with others. More often than not, Stacey refuses to join in with what we have organized.

  I’m not sure what you mean?

  Well, for example, you can hear the afternoon group working with our music teacher, which they get to do twice a week. If the teacher suggests it would be fun to learn a particular song, Stacey will often refuse to sing. Once when this happened and all the kids had finished the chorus, we could hear Stacey off in her own little world singing a Beatles song. I believe it was the Beatles. Sometimes we’ll place the children in groups of four or five and ask them to use the building blocks and work together to build something specific, say a skyscraper. Stacey refuses to help at all because she says the colours don’t match.

  The colours don’t match?

  That’s what she said. She said you never see a skyscraper made with different colours, so she refused to build one. We have a small nutritious snack served with hot chocolate in the middle of our morning. The kids love that. Stacey loves it too, which is great. But the cups are all the same, kind of wide so they’re more stable, except for one cup that is more like a conventional cup.

  And why is that? Della asked.

  Well, most everyone wants the nice wide cups, but there is just the right number for the class, so someone must use the narrow cup. In other words, they have to learn to take turns.

  You’re saying Stacey refuses to take her turn?

  No. She budges her way to the front during snack time and picks up the narrow cup for herself. None of the other children need to take a turn. You see what I’m saying?

  Della wished that Sage was beside her. He would think of something to say to this nervous teacher, fluttering like a feather in the wind and flushed in the face already from the exertion of explanation. Della could bring up that Stacey had come home on her own the first day and no one had noticed, but she thought better of it. Well, Della said, trying to think like Sage, what I hear you saying is that Stacey saw a problem in the social organization around her and solved the problem before it got out of hand. I would think you should thank her rather than criticize her.

  The teacher mentioned other examples of Stacey’s noncompliance, as if she owned a gun with anemic bullets and hoped that by employing spray and pray she might make an impression.

  Do you see any of this behaviour at home? Miss Deerhome asked.

  I wouldn’t say so, no. She’s asked to help with the housework on Saturday mornings, and she does so willingly. She’s a real trooper and sometimes shames my husband into being neat and tidy. She keeps her room immaculate. No, I wouldn’t say she acts anything like uncooperative.

  Della could have told the teacher that Stacey only ate with two or three forks in the drawer because the tines were uneven on the rest, but she wasn’t about to give her any lopsided information. The fifteen-minute meeting had stretched to half an hour, and a set of parents stood outside the door looking in. Miss Deerhome mentioned qualities she liked about Stacey as Della got up to leave. She knows a lot about the Wild West, she said, but Della didn’t bother an explanation of any kind. She didn’t know how to explain Hart in any case.

  Della was wet and uncomfortable by the time she got back home. Molly the Nose wanted to know how the interview went, but Della told her everything went fine. Sage got home late because he was out doing business, and he’d forgotten about the meeting at school. Della waited until Stacey had fallen asleep before she filled him in.

  I don’t think she dislikes her, Della said. But she’s not used to someone who thinks the way she does. She’s always been that way. Remember? She wouldn’t talk for the first two or three weeks when we got her. She refused to say a word. Not to mention her silent treatment after the bloody nose incident.

  Sage said he remembered. He wasn’t as worked up about what had gone on as Della thought he would be. He was thinking about the two boys he’d sold to after work. They were high school age, but he could tell they were dropouts. They kept asking questions about where he got his stash from, and Sage said, none of your business. Something about the whole transaction didn’t feel right.

  She offered the class a chance to paint anything they wanted one day, Della said, and Stacey painted a bow and arrow, and Miss Deerhome said she’d never seen a girl paint a bow and arrow before. It’s because Hart is helping them make their own bow and arrow, but what do you think about that?

  Hart’s helping them make a bow and arrow?

  I told you that. Tommy and Amber are making one too. Sometimes I swear you never hear half of what I have to say.

  Sage reckoned Della was right on that count. He was only half listening now. Being married to a woman like Della, who talked twice as much as she should, gave a man the right to only take in half of it. He almost had enough money for the down payment, and he didn’t want anything to screw it up now.

  After Sage decided to spend more than eight hundred dollars to rebuild the engine on his old friend the purple car, he told Della that they now owned a car that would last them for years to come, but then he changed his mind and drove to Cranbrook one Saturday and spent another six hundred dollars to trade his car in on a green Valiant owned by an old man who didn’t drive much. When he drove up to the house in the car, Della looked intrigued. She looked into the glove compartment and saw nothing there but the registration and insurance papers and a plastic tool for scraping ice.

  What did you do with our stuff in the other car?

  What stuff?

  I kept a St. Christopher’s medal in there, and we never had an accident the whole time we owned that car. And Stacey had a little kewpie doll she liked to hold on long trips. You didn’t throw them out, did you?

  I didn’t do anything with them.

  Well, where are they?

  Sage tried to explain that the slant-six engine in the new green car was an innovation, an engineering breakthrough. The car looked old, but it hadn’t been driven much at all. A good deal, he said. Stacey saw the car and asked if he planned to paint it purple.

  He didn’t explain to Della that he’d become a marked man in the purple car. The day the cops had pulled him over was likely the only day for months he had none of his stash in the car. They asked him about it and searched the car briefly, and when they drove off, his hands were shaking so badly he had difficulty driving. By late November, he had sold most of the bags and had almost had enough money for the house. He rearranged the woodpile out back and moved what remained in the cupboards to under a haphazard pile of wood in case the cops showed up and wanted to carry out a search. He moved the tin Hart used to keep his weed stored, up to the sagging cap plate of the woodshed and put a block of wood underneath so Hart, who wasn’t as tall as Sage, could reach. Why the cops were watching him, he wasn’t sure. It might have been some of the kids he’
d sold to. Kids blabber about what little they know, and it would be easy to describe how they got their stuff from a guy with a purple car. For a time, he wondered if Hart might be the problem, but once a week, usually on Sunday nights, Hart drifted over in the late evening, and the two of them sat out back and shared a soft conversation. This happened less and less now that the weather was turning mean, and Sage had put out of his mind the fleeting suspicion.

  December brought a Christmas Sage would never forget no matter how hard he tried. He negotiated with his landlord in Vancouver, and they agreed the title to the house would exchange hands on January 2nd. Della, overwhelmed with relief, told him she wanted nothing else for Christmas: the chance to own their own house was more than enough. But he bought her a few gifts anyway, things he knew she wanted, like a new dress she could wear to church and some fuzzy slippers for around the house. Santa organized a new bike for Stacey, racing red, a bike without training wheels, and he purchased a St. Christopher’s medal and a kewpie doll for the new car. Della orchestrated the weeks leading up to Christmas Day. She read excerpts from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to the family each night before Stacey went to bed. It wasn’t always easy to gather the family together for the event, and as they got close to Christmas, with time running out, she had to leave out some middle parts to reach the end by Christmas Eve. The ending felt lacking somehow, as if it hadn’t earned its way into the book without the middle parts.

  I’m going to lie down on the couch, Stacey said.

  Della said, It’s the middle of the afternoon. Are you not feeling well?

  I feel fine. I just need a nap.

  You must be excited about Christmas. It can take a lot out of you.