The Journey Prize Stories 28 by Kate Cayley Read Free Book Online

do—leave her on the doorstep tied with ribbon? Rewrap her in the packing paper and call it an early Christmas parcel? He wants her to be safe, protected, but there can’t be anything linking her to him. With the band long finished, the wharf is his lifeline now. Abby will be starting school next fall…which means books, clothes, backpacks. Things to pay for.
    He opens a couple cans of Beef-a-Roni for the girls and gives them another hour or so before taking them together into the washroom. Abby picks up her toothbrush and squirts on a blob of bubblegum-flavoured toothpaste.
    â€œDaddy, is it okay if Soo-bin and I share?” she says.
    For a second he hears
soy bean
. Then he realizes. Winces. Nods his head.
    â€œYes, sweetie.”
    The girl—Soo-bin—takes the brush, touches it to the stream of water gurgling from the tap, runs it back and forth across her little Chiclet teeth, curious and mute. He wonders how much of this is new to her, what kind of conditions she lived in back home. He wonders if she feels lucky that Kyle found her. He wonders if she is.
    Once the girls are asleep, he sits down in front of
Shawshank
with a can of Pabst to decompress. He goes through the exercises his mother taught him after Kris died: start with the eyes. Then the jaw. Move down through the neck and shoulders…let relaxation fall over your joints like dandelion wisps. He still finds himself fighting it—answering every loosening with a desire to grit teeth, grip mic, bark a righteous retort. Pummel stress into submission. Live hardcore as a steady inner scream. There’s no one to scream at, though. Just Red and Andy Dufresne, and why would he scream at them. He swigs beer, savouring the sour aluminum fizz. Closes his eyes, trying to feel the warm place.
    Kris, massaging his shoulders after a show. Working the strained muscle, popping a joint into his mouth from behind, holding it for him while he inhales.
    Over the droning of the TV, he hears a dull thump outside. His eyes pop open. The girl? He gets up, drains his beer, and goes over to peer through the half-open door to Abby’s room. Two bundles snuggle each other on the bed, rising and falling with children’s breath. Safe, both. He turns back to the movie,where Andy Dufresne is counting seconds between thunderclaps. Kyle doubts anyone from the wharf would come for him at night. Not worth the effort, when you can intimidate someone just as well in the light of day.
    He hears the hollow clunk again. Recognizes tactile, insistent scratching. This part of town is a magnet for raccoons. They must be at the garbage, rooting for old apple cores and cheese-caked pizza boxes. He grabs the broom and another Pabst and snaps the porch light on before stepping out into the foggy grey night.
    Crouched comfortably on its haunches, nibbling away at the remains of an old corn cob, the fat masked invader squats in front of an upturned compost bin and turns its head toward Kyle:
What? What you gonna do?
Kyle waves the broom around a few times, smacks it on the paint-chipped porch slats. He knows it’s futile. These things have no fear, will sit there ransacking your trash right in front of you unless you take drastic measures. Kyle’s never had the heart. Krista volunteered at the humane society and would always come home with horror stories about coons full of buckshot, or choking their way through the last throes of death by Javex-brined chicken carcass. For the most part, he’s learned to live with them, clean up their toxic feces during the day, and hope they end up moving on to another bin once they’ve cleaned out the meagre leavings in his.
    Besides, Kyle and the raccoons go back a ways. He remembers a night his grandfather let him help set the traps. Non-lethal—just a bit of peanut butter bait and a trigger-action wire-mesh door that would hold them until morning, when Granddad would load the cage in the back of his pickup