The Retreat Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t leave the little things for two months or more, how would they survive, and this was a humane act, a work of mercy. “Your mother has her heart set on this place. You know that. She believes that she will be happy there.”
    Lizzy had listened. She hadn’t argued. She asked how.
    “Painless,” her father said. “Don’t worry. They won’t suffer.”
    This was near Brooks, just after they had left Calgary. That night, they took a room in a motel by the side of the road, outside of Regina. Using the small hotplate, Mrs. Byrd cooked spaghetti and served it with ketchup. It was raining and the boys sat with the kittens and tossed them from bed to bedand watched them land right-side up. At night, Lizzy woke and lay listening to the radiators bang and she heard the slow breathing of her three brothers and her mother and father. Fish called out. She heard him the first time but willed him away. If he knew she was awake, he would want to sleep beside her. He was barely four and he liked to curl up against her stomach and steal her warmth.
    “Lizzy?” he said again.
    She waited.
    “Lizzy,” he whispered. “A dream.”
    “Go back to sleep.”
    “A bad dream. With death and God.”
    “It’s okay. Come here, I’ll hold you.”
    He came to her bed and pressed his nose to her neck. His face was hot, his knees clamped her leg.
    “Daddy was drowning.”
    “It’s just a dream.”
    “I’m afraid.”
    “Here.” She placed a hand against his back and rubbed. Went “shhh” and then said, “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”
    “Uh-uh. I’ll dream again.”
    “Not the same dream. It doesn’t happen that way.”
    “I don’t want to dream at all. God had a big hand and was holding Daddy down. God’s hand was big and Daddy’s head was small.”
    “God wouldn’t do that.”
    There was silence. Lizzy heard someone move, perhaps her mother.
    “I don’t want to die,” Fish said.
    “You won’t, silly. You’ll live so long.”
    “Forever?”
    “Yes. Go to sleep now.”
    And he did, finally. His breathing slowed and his chest, narrow beneath Lizzy’s hand, moved up and down slightly, and then his hand twitched and finally his foot jumped as he startled. Lizzy slipped out from between his scissored legs and lay at the edge of the bed, away from his heat. The rain fell against the window. Lights from a passing car passed over the wall above Lizzy’s head. Her father snored lightly. One of the kittens climbed onto Lizzy’s chest and lay down, tapping her face with a paw.
    In the morning, the rain had stopped. Mr. Byrd was shaving. While he shaved he sang and then he spoke of omelettes made with special cheeses and how, when he was twenty, he had worked on a farm in the south of France, and he had risen at four every morning to milk the seven special cows. Friesians, he called them, and he said, “Oui, mes amis , how incroyable, ce que le farmer and his wife prepared for breakfast. Fresh croissants so buttery they melted in your hands before touching the mouth, and whole milk with thick cream, and muesli from the Swiss Alps, and then, after étouff ing ourselves, we sat by the fire and smoked une pipe. Oh, man. That was the life.” He paused. Inspected his chin and his nose and said, “I’ll go out into this little village we’re perched by and I’ll forage for a nice breakfast. How about it?”
    He left. Half an hour later he returned with tiny cereal boxes and a carton of milk and plastic spoons and he laid everything out on the small table and rubbed his hands andpronounced breakfast prepared. “Not the fare of my youth, but fuel nonetheless.”
    Fish wanted crescents with butter.
    “I looked, son. Believe me. This isn’t France, this is Canada. No culture here. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. We have white bread and Jiffy Pop. The world would be a sad place if my children stooped to graze on Jiffy Pop. Hey, come along. Here.” And he held Fish on his big lap and pulled