Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism

“One day,” said Jason, “a man came out of the bush and hit me hard. He was tall as a tree and wore a long coat of brown leather. I think I asked him something—I was playing with a couple sticks—and he looked at me and said something and hit me. That fellow was Bill Etherton. He knew my pa one way or another.”

“He came out of the bush,” said Ruth. “Your father—your pa would have been watching the pass, correct?”

Jason shrugged.

“And Mr. Etherton stole up behind the homestead. Which was unprotected.”

“We were unprotected,” agreed Jason. “I must have cried out loud, because my mama came running. I remember some of that but not all of it.”

Jason remembered more than he would tell. He remembered vividly the tree branch that Etherton had used to whack Jason with across the face. He did not remember getting hit, but he remembered the tears and screaming, for he was just small when it happened.

His mother cried out, and then Etherton said Good mornin’, Ellie, like he knew her, and Jason’s ma tried to get back into the house, but Etherton was fast and got in her way, and told her there would be no getting the gun this time. No gettin’ the gun this time, Ellie, nuh-uh-uh-huh… . That was one thing that Jason remembered clearly, because even though he was small and had only lived through four winters then, those words had the ring of history—ancient history between his mama and Mr. Etherton and somehow wrapped up with Jason himself.

Jason drew his knees up to his chin. It was warm here, but he shivered all the same.

“Jason.”

It wasn’t Ruth this time. It came from across the room, and before Jason could stop himself he said: “Ma?”

“Jason, just tell her the story. Tell us the story. Stop fussing.”

Jason sighed. “Sorry, Miss Butler. It’s hard in the tellin’—”

“Yes,” said Louise sharply. “It is hard. For all of us, Mr. Thistledown. Forgive me if I don’t—”

“Louise!” Ruth was just as sharp, and she took hold of Jason’s arm tightly. “Let him tell the story in his own time.”

Louise cleared her throat, and cleared it again. Soon, Jason figured, she would be coughing. He put his hand on Ruth’s, and was relieved to find it cool. For now.

“All right,” said Jason. “Etherton was a bad fellow. But I can’t recall everything that happened.”

“It was long ago.”

“I know my ma got herself hit too. In the stomach. Made her sick up. I remember watching that—never saw my ma sick up before.”

Ruth gasped. “He struck her? Jason… tell me. Was your father murdered by this Etherton? When he came back and found his family terrorized by his old enemy? When he confronted him?” She wrapped an arm over his shoulder and leaned close—like she ought to be comforting him. “Oh my dear Jason.”

Jason shook his head. “No,” he said. “My pa came back, but he didn’t confront anybody. Ma’d cleaned herself up and put a dressing on my cut, and when pa came back, he just gave that Etherton a big hug and the two of them set down to drinking. But…”

“But?”

“My mama said it was Etherton that pushed her to do it. Not him—but watchin’ them, Etherton and my pa. After what he did to both of us.”

“Mr. Thistledown,” said Louise in a low tone.

“She—” began Ruth, but Jason finished the sentence: “Took care of my pa.”

There was a silence, and Jason felt embarrassed by it, so he started talking faster: “It was not only that day that drove her to it. My pa would run off whenever he felt like it—he would get himself drunk and do bad things to my ma—he hit me same as Etherton did, for even less reason sometimes. He had it coming; he was no good and so my mama did what she had to, on account of our safety and her dignity and…” He stopped again, feeling as though the words were running together. Ruth took his head and drew it down to her breast, and held him there, and he could feel hot tears coming to his eyes as the image of that night, outside the house as the November wind blew black leaves up off the ground and the sky turned colours like bruised flesh and he had watched his ma…

“I’m sorry,” he said, and in his ear, Ruth hushed him, and her fingers entwined with the hair on the back of his head, and her other hand brushed down the side of his ribs. He tried to say more—how knowing it or not, he’d brought this fate down on her and Louise, and this whole town, how that sealed-up jar of sickness on the floor was the curse he’d carried here—how in bringing this curse, he’d killed her. He tried to say it, but it was too much for words: even having passed the story, or most of it, of his pa and his mama. Saying he was sorry to Ruth was the same as saying he was sorry to his ma, whom he hadn’t even buried—and saying that right, was more than he could say in words. So all he could do was lift his cheek from her blouse, and try and face her in the pitch black. It was too late after that; her mouth was on his, lips parted, and they were sharing the hot breath of fever.

Hush, darling. No regrets.