The Between Years

presumed dead. That's a drawn-out process that required more years than it ought to, and seems much easier to achieve in the movies. In reality, the police considered Randy to be a missing person because of the fact that no body was found in the rubble. Under ordinary circumstances, one might think that his body had been burned to a crisp in the explosion, but the combustion that blew that house to bits was far from ordinary.

    For one thing, nothing burned down. Not one part of that house showed any evidence of having been on fire. There was no smoke, no charred wood when the police searched it. The fire department had no fire to extinguish. Certainly Randy's body would have been among the smouldering mass had it ever been discovered. I think even some of the antique furniture was still salvageable, for which I'm glad for Randy's family's sake. Some of those items were too old and too precious to earn such a fate.

    Because of a pickaxe found, the police did question whether Randy had deliberately committed a criminal act on his family's behalf. I asked them why he would do such a thing and they answered by telling me that they could collect easy insurance money that way. When I asked them how one man could have caused a train wreck like that, particularly given the limited amount of time he would have had to do it. They quickly shut up and entertained other possibilities.

    I wanted to return to the house, the place where Randy left this earth, but I was cautious. At first, I didn't know how much Randy's family would welcome such a visit. I'd taken a lot of blame for his emotional state-one that they caught onto very quickly-only because I didn't want to give Randy a bad name. I wanted to at least see the place and his relatives one last time, if only to clear the air.

    So I picked up a few Tim Horton's coffees and drove to the house. One car was parked outside, the Taurus that belonged to Randy's dad. I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. Two hoppers filled with debris sat before the tool shed and giant tire marks from a backhoe branded the front lawn. I stepped out of the car and proceeded with a slow march to the front door. The inside door was open, separated by a wooden screen door.

    “ Hello?” I called in the door.

    “ Come on in, I'm just upstairs,” Randy's dad said. I'd hoped to God that he was alone.

    Inside, I found a complete disaster of a house, which was worse than what the police had described. The ground floor looked like it had been gutted, except for what looked like pieces of canvas that hung from the frame. Though I didn't have time to observe it up close, the canvas looked like it had been part of the wall itself. I stared up the stairwell and saw the upstairs sans the roof and the sunlight shining down on it. To me the house looked like the ruins of an ancient civilization.

    Heading upstairs, I met Randy's dad, broom in hand, amid a serious clutter. He looked like a torchbearer, staying behind to care for the house rather than his brothers and sisters.

    “ Good to see you honey,” he said.

    “ Good to see you too.”

    “ Well, we've got most of the salvageable junk out of the way,” he said, “but there's still one hell of a mess to clean up.”

    “ I'll bet.”

    “ At least the police will let me near this place,” he said. “For the longest time it was cordoned off with police tape, and I couldn't even show up here without being escorted. I guess it wouldn't have mattered it thieves had gotten to it though. Not much left to steal.”

    I offered him a coffee, which he accepted, thanked me, and pulled back the plastic tab. Steam rose from the cup as he sipped it.

    For a moment, neither of us spoke. We just surveyed the wreckage and sipped our coffees. I had Randy on my mind and surely he did too, but neither of us wanted to be the first to bring it up, or speak of it at all if possible. He just slid his arm around me, the way Randy used to do to reassure me, and it promptly felt comforted.

    “ I don't know what I'm going to do with this old place,” he said. I think he said it to mask the pain he felt from losing Randy. And maybe that pain intensified when he saw me, but I can't be sure.

    I wish I could have loaned him the same reassurance he offered me, but I simply wasn't strong enough. He would need to be strong enough for both of us. The house would have been charming for people who wanted a cozy home to live in or a virtual museum for