The Weekend: A Novel by Peter Cameron Read Free Book Online Page B

with Tony.
    As Marian drove toward town, the rain stopped and the sky lightened. She pulled off the road. There was a trail here, she
knew, that wound down through the woods to a stream. She felt she needed a moment alone.
    In the woods it was dripping, but the ground was dry. She stood for a while on the bridge of logs that lay across the swollen stream, watching the water gush furiously beneath her. She stood there until the rain started again and then she moved off the bridge and under the cover of trees. The sound of the rain and the stream seemed unnaturally loud. Not unpleasant, just forceful. All that water pouring through the world.
    When she drove back up to the house, she thought it looked different somehow: closed, and empty. And then she saw Lyle sitting on the stoop, the front door shut behind him, and her immediate thought was he’s locked himself out. She put the car in the garage but left the groceries in it and walked around front. Lyle didn’t get up.
    “What are you doing out here?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
    “It’s Tony,” he said.
    “What?”
    “He died,” Lyle said. “He’s dead.”
    She wanted to ask him if he was sure but she knew she couldn’t. But in a way she didn’t believe him. So she asked. “You’re sure?”
    Lyle looked at her. His face was so wet with rain she couldn’t tell if he had been, or was, crying. “He stopped breathing,” he said. “And his heart isn’t beating.” He choked a little and then there was no doubt that he was crying.
    “Come inside,” she told him, almost fiercely. She helped him up and opened the door. In the foyer she held him, as best she could against her swollen stomach, and felt and heard him cry. She hadn’t closed the door and she looked outside, at the rain pelting the dark wet grass and the huge, thousand-leaved trees.
People shouldn’t die in summer, she thought, not when the world is this ripe. She held Lyle, who cried for what seemed like a very long time. She almost forgot what had happened, so disorienting was it to be holding Lyle in the foyer with the door wide open. After a while they sat on the bottom step of the front stairs. She got up and closed the door. There was a puddle of water on the stone floor.
    “We should call John,” Marian said. “And the police, I suppose. Or the ambulance. I don’t know, who should we call?”
    “I don’t know,” said Lyle.
    “I’m going to call John. Will you sit here?”
    “I think I’ll go back upstairs,” said Lyle.
    “Are you sure?” asked Marian.
    “Yes,” said Lyle.
    “I’ll be right up,” said Marian. She went into the kitchen and called John. He said he would leave work immediately and get home as soon as he could. Marian sat for a moment at the table, with her head resting on her arms. Then she went up the back stairs. The door to Tony’s room was closed. She thought: Perhaps I should stay downstairs longer, but she felt like something had to happen, and it was up to her. She knocked on the door. Lyle told her to come in. She opened the door. There were two beds in the room. They had arranged to rent a hospital bed but it had not yet been delivered. So in the room were two twin beds, two antique wooden beds, a pair. Tony lay on one bed with an arm hanging down over the edge, his head thrown back. His eyes were closed. The pillow was on the floor. Lyle lay on the other bed, the way Marian imagined dead people should rest: flat on his back, his hands crossed on his stomach, as if he were assuming Tony’s death. She walked over to and opened a window. Then she sat down on the bed beside Lyle, put her hand on his.
    “John is on his way,” she said.
    Lyle nodded.
    “I think I should call the police,” she said, “and find out what to do.”
    Lyle nodded again.
    “Do you want a drink?” asked Marian.
    “Not now,” said Lyle.
    Marian looked over at Tony. “Can I move him?” she asked.
    Lyle looked at Tony. For a moment he didn’t respond, and