Free All Saints by K.D. Miller Page A

no.” She darted away, first turning to Emily and hissing, “I knew this would happen!”
    Emily stayed where she was, looking into the guest room, trying to strip away the ruffles and chintz, trying to picture Dave in it somewhere. “Stop it stop it stop it now!” she heard Dave’s mother yelping. “I’ll not have it! I’ll not have it in this house, and both of you know that!” Then silence.
    Back in the living room, she found a tableau. The two men squared off and stiff, their teeth bared. The woman tiny and hunched between them, but defiant. “I’m sorry,” Emily said. And they all turned and looked at her, silently accepting her apology.
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    Through the train window, whenever Emily glimpsed a CN truck on the highway running parallel to the tracks, she imagined it was the one that was carrying their things. All their clothes, books, records, dishes, towels, sheets, address books, tax files, photo albums, toiletries, framed posters, appliances, planters, shoes. Everything they had spent days wrapping in newspaper and wedging into boxes. Everything that would greet them at the end of their journey. Give them a sense of a shared past. Of continuity.
    There had been a moment when Dave had looked at the still-empty boxes and the newspaper still in stacks and had suggested seriously that they just get rid of everything. Start over clean in the new place.
    The No! that had come out of her had been visceral. Wounded. The train tickets were bought. The hotel, where they were going to stay at the company’s expense until they found a place, was booked. Their pre-wedding tasks were written down in a list. Her mother, who was finally talking to Dave on the phone and starting to call him Son, was ticking a copy of that list off at her end, item by item. It was all of a piece. It was their life. It was what they had. Couldn’t he see that?
    â€œHey,” he had said to her stricken face. “It was just a suggestion.” Then he had shaken out the first sheet of newspaper. “C’mon. Let’s do this.” Gradually, the crackling of the newspaper and the strangely satisfying discipline of wedging as many anonymous shapes as possible into each box had settled her down.
    Each night on the train they dressed for dinner and went to the bar car for a cocktail. A porter in a starched shirt and black bow tie poured martinis for both of them out of tiny chilled bottles. Each night, they clinked glasses and toasted a future that was hurtling toward them while they ate, while they slept, while the wheels clacked and the whistle moaned and the landscape out their window changed by the second, whether they were watching it or not.
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    Em gets up off Garth Marples’ bed. Walks slowly toward the locked door. Stands looking at it.
    She can sense Dave on the other side. Waiting. Listening to her breath, the way she is listening to his. If it wasn’t for the door, they would be looking into each other’s eyes.
    They can look forever into each other’s eyes, their faces inches away on the pillow. Not speaking. Not needing to. She can’t imagine looking for so long into anyone else’s eyes. But in bed, they can study each other’s faces for hours. Breathing each other’s breath. Smelling each other’s smell.
    Do other couples do that? Do Cass and Rick? Did Dave do it with Liz? And with the others before Liz? She doesn’t know. All she knows is him.
    â€œ Babe?” Just a whisper. Hardly more than a breath.
    She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “My name is Emily.”
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    They were married in All Saints church, where her parents had wed. He slid the ring onto the wrong finger of her hand, then had to fumble it off and try again. They bumped noses during the kiss.
    â€œYou’re us now,” her mother said afterwards, hugging him tearfully.
    â€œWelcome,” her father said, shaking his hand. Then he