SPLITTING WOOD | Emily Groot
When I told my mom that it’s hard to hear the voices when I’m splitting wood, my dad started making two fires a day, whether or not the house was cold. The maul is heavy and makes my arms tired. I look for little cracks in the wood, spidering out from the centre. The cracks tell me where the log wishes to split. Place the wood on the stump. Line up the maul. Bring the maul down. Crack. Repeat.
I used to throw the split logs into a pile, but that made Terry bark. So now I carry and stack and Terry stays out of the way. Dad buys the wood from a farmer down the road. The farmer drops it off in a big pile from his pickup truck. My sister moved away. She wanted my parents to stop burning wood. She is an environmentalist. She didn’t leave because of the fires in the wood stove. She left for school. Although maybe those things aren’t unrelated. The faster I go, the quieter my mind becomes.
Terry likes to lie in front of the fire until his belly gets too warm. His bed is right in front of the potbelly stove. I like to scratch his belly and I know I’m doing a good job because he scratches my hand with his paw. I can tell when the stove makes his belly warm because his fur gets hot to touch. Then he gets up and sleeps in the corner of the living room.
YOU ARE EVIL.
I look around but I can’t see anyone. I don’t think I’m evil but sometimes I am not sure. When someone tells you something over and over, you start to wonder. I pick up another piece of wood. It has a knot. But it also has a nice straight crack right through the centre, away from the knot. I know if I can split this, I am not evil. Place the wood on the stump. Line up the maul. Bring the maul down. Crack. Not evil.
“Not evil,” I say out loud.
At dinner, I am hungry. From splitting the wood, the cold, the medication. I watch my mom’s face carefully when I tell her things. She winces when I say things that aren’t true. And that’s how I know what’s real and what isn’t. Whether my mom winces. So I tell her everything so I can know what’s real and what isn’t too.
“Am I evil?” I ask, mouth full of chicken. I ask almost every night.
My mom winces. “No, baby. Did they tell you that again?”
I nod. Dad sighs. It is a sad sigh. I don’t mean to make them sad. I swallow a mittful of medication from the dosette my mom put beside my plate. I can swallow pills without a drink, but I wash them down with water anyway. Terry looks up at me, the tags on his collar jingling when he moves.
Terry is a wirehaired pointing griffon. He is seven years old. He is named after the actor Terry Crews. Terry Crews is bald and Terry my dog has brown and white fur. He is a good dog.
Now the medication is sloshing in my stomach. I can’t feel it sloshing, but I know it’s there. Or, I will know it’s there soon, because it will make me very sleepy. Like the potbelly stove makes Terry sleepy. I start clearing the table so I can be helpful before I need to go to bed. I don’t mind feeling sleepy before bed, as long as there is enough time for me to be helpful. My mind is almost as quiet when I’m sleepy as when I’m splitting wood.
A whisper. I couldn’t catch what they said.
“Did you hear that?”
My mom winces again. Not real. “No one said anything. I’ll turn on the radio.” She presses a button and I hear the news anchor mention a car crash. No angels. She quickly changes the channel. Country music instead.
In the living room, my dad is feeding the potbelly stove. Sometimes I watch him light the fire. Balled-up newspaper, kindling, then larger and larger pieces of wood. Terry is already in his bed. I sit on the couch and listen to the radio. The stove creaks when dad closes the door.
When I get sleepy, little pieces of memory go missing. I watch a reflection of the flames on the floor. I’m in the bathroom. My toothbrush is already wet, but I don’t remember brushing my teeth. I’m in bed. My sheets feel cool after sitting in front of the warm stove, but I don’t remember sliding between them. I close my eyes. I open my eyes and the sun is up.
The sun rises late in the winter. I used to be an early riser. Then, most of the way through high school, sludge started running through my veins. Sludge, slugs, schizophrenia. Made me sluggish. No amount of sleep made the sludge dissolve. Sleep used to bring me rest. Once the sludge started dripping into me, I was always tired. And now I am a slugabed.
My doctor said it was important to keep a schedule. I wrote one down and taped it to the back of my bedroom door. My schedule says I should be in the bathroom, and then eat my breakfast. And then, then it depends on the day of the week. Today is a Tuesday in winter, so I can split wood until it gets dark, except for lunch time. My sister once showed me her university class schedule. She had colour-coded it with highlighters. I had a university class schedule once too, but I couldn’t follow it because of the sludge. And then the whispering. I stayed in bed, and then my parents got me and took me to the hospital, and now I follow the schedule taped to the back of my door.
Belly full of eggs. Toque, deer hide gloves, jacket. Whispers getting louder as I lace up my boots with steel in the toes.
EVIL. USELESS.
Place the wood on the stump. Line up the maul. Bring the maul down. Crack. Pile the wood. A nice stack. It will keep the house warm. Not useless. Terry watches but doesn’t bark.
I gesture at the growing pile. “Not useless,” I say out loud.
Terry is staring into the woods. I listen. A red pine branch sheds snow from its needles. The snow falls, poof, to the ground. It doesn’t make a sound. Behind the red pine. A coyote. I read about coyotes once in a National Geographic magazine. My sister got a magazine in the mail every month. Skinny legs, reddish fur, big ears. Terry’s ears flop down, but a coyote’s ears perk straight up.
WATCHING AND WAITING.
Did the coyote say that? I watch the coyote instead of the wood when I bring the maul down. Crack. The coyote runs off. Terry keeps staring into the forest. The pile of split wood grows. I am sweating. I take off my jacket. I got it for Christmas last year. It is red and breathable. Terry stops staring and starts chewing on a little branch, stripping off the bark into a neat pile. It looks like he’s making a nest. When we go inside, his fur mustache is decorated with little pieces of bark from his branch.
“There was a coyote watching me today,” I say. I look at my mom carefully. She makes an expression I haven’t seen before. “Do we have coyotes here?” I ask.
“I haven’t seen coyotes around before, but anything is possible,” my dad says.
My heart starts beating more quickly. The bottoms of my feet feel hot. “Anything is possible?” My voice screeches a little. I have it in my head that angels can rescue me. I know it isn’t true because my mom winces when I tell her. I had to promise her over and over I wouldn’t test my angels. But it is true, isn’t it? There are so many pictures and paintings of angels. Flowing hair, white robes, feathery wings. If I fell down the stairs, maybe one would keep me from hitting the floor. Or maybe if our car spun out on ice, angels would push us away from a telephone pole.
My mom puts down her fork and pats my hand. “No, not anything. That’s just an expression. There are still things that are true and things that are not true.”
I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, like they taught me at the group sessions I used to go to. The angels vanish. “Some things are true and some things are not true,” I rephrase. My parents nod. “Just I am unlucky enough not to know the difference.” My parents look pained. Silence. I slurp my soup.
“I guess you could say it that way,” my dad finally says. The soup is good—homemade chicken noodle from last night’s bones. Hot, lots of meat, thick egg noodles, carrots still with a bit of crunch.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
“No, they just said some things are not true.” I meant to say it in my mind, but I say it out loud.
“There’s no one else here, darling. Just us,” my mom says.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
The yelling is so loud. I cover my ears but I can’t block out the sound. Soup, soup, concentrate on the soup. There is a sheen of fat on the top. Steam still curls from the centre of the bowl. The soup is real. I find a piece of pepper in my teeth. Breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. Mittful of medication, brush my teeth, cool sheets, sunrise.
After breakfast, my schedule permits me time to split wood before going to town to the lab. The doctor checks my blood every month, sometimes more. My mom or dad drive me, ever since I got a speeding ticket. How fast can angels fly? I wanted to know, and I forgot my mom’s wince.
Toque, deer hide gloves, jacket, boots with steel in the toes. Terry’s nails tippy-tappy on the tiles by the front door. I open the door and he shoots out into the cold air, not waiting for me. He stuffs his nose down burrows, bouncing across the snow while I split wood.
Place the wood on the stump. Line up the maul. Bring the maul down. Crack. Repeat. Everything is quiet. Everyone is quiet.
My back itches. I am being watched. I look down the driveway. The coyote is staring at me.
GIVE TERRY TO ME. TERRY IS MINE.
Terry growls, a low rumbling sound. I put the maul down, confused. Can Terry hear that voice? The coyote takes a step forward. I pick the maul back up.
TERRY IS MINE.
Terry’s lips curl.
“Scram,” I yell, waving the maul. The coyote doesn’t move. It stares at Terry. The fur along his back is standing on end.
GIVE TERRY TO ME.
I don’t know if this is real. My mom is getting groceries.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
“Some things are not true!” I yell. The coyote flinches but stands its ground. Terry bares his teeth. I have it in my mind that angels will come. Angels aren’t real. I saw my mom wince. But there are paintings and pictures.
Suddenly, a rush. The coyote runs at Terry. It is like a bullet: snout first, ears back, teeth out. Terry snarls. A noise I have never heard before. They are both on their back paws, snarling teeth wide eyes. Terry screams.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
Angels are possible. Where are the angels? I am frozen. The steel in my boots is stuck to the ground. The coyote flips Terry. Terry writhes on his back. A terrible yipe.
I look up. No angels. Angels are not real. The coyote is real. Terry is real. Terry is hurting. I drop the maul and run. I shouldn’t have dropped the maul. I kick the coyote. I can’t tell what’s true, but Terry is real. Terry is real. My boot lands in the coyote’s side. It yelps. Another kick, another yelp. The coyote dashes off, tail between its hind legs.
Terry looks at me. There is blood around his muzzle. I lift him up. He licks my face. He is a good dog. I’m not supposed to drive.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
My boots are still unfrozen. I run inside, find keys. The keys are on a keychain that says “Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly.” I got the keychain from my grandparents when I turned sixteen, back when I was supposed to drive and go to university and live in an apartment by myself and maybe get married and have kids and know what is true and what is not true. I drive Terry to the veterinarian. I drive slowly, because there are probably no regular angels and I am certain there are no guardian angels. A veterinarian is a person who takes care of animals who are sick or injured. Terry is a dog, which is a type of animal, and he is injured.
The veterinarian says I saved Terry. Terry has to stay overnight in the hospital. I tell Terry it's not so bad to spend one night in the hospital. That’s true.
I saved Terry. Terry is real. It is true a coyote attacked Terry. I am a good person, and Terry is a good dog. Terry is a wirehaired pointing griffon, and he watches me split wood.
The coyote never comes back.
Emily Groot is a public health physician, born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario on the territory of Garden River and Batchewana First Nations. She now lives with her family in Sudbury, Ontario.