Author's Note.
In writing An Incoming Tide I grappled with evil.
What possesses a human mind to plan and execute a murder? Is it just an isolated act, committed for a knowable motive? I think not. I suspect it arises from complexity rather than just a single cause.
I wrote the short story that follows in first-person, present-tense—a different voice for me. This writing required me to get inside the mind of the evil doer. In the editing process I kept pruning, asking the question would the character really have thought that, at that time, in that place?
I ended up pruning out a reflection I'd written in for our character, Jackson—reflecting on the differences between his now-dead wife and his long-dead mother. It just didn’t fit with the rest of the miserable musings that Jackson would make during his drive through British Columbia, returning to Calgary from the west coast of Vancouver Island where he had drowned his wife in the incoming tide. Not only that, but I just didn’t think this guy was that self-aware.
But I’ll let you in on that little hunk of backstory.
Jackson’s mother had been nurturing to the point of indulgence of him as a favoured child, a boy destined to be the next in a generational line of male doctors.
You see, as an author I know that part of the backstory. But Jackson wouldn’t have remembered it that way. He would’ve just grown into a sense of entitlement, expected that women should cater to him.
And in the story Jackson’s wife, Izzy, didn’t. Much to the contrary. She had her own mind—like they couldn’t even agree on what to call their twelve-year-old daughter. Izzy called Annalise Lise while Jackson called her Anna.
And clearly, as the story reveals, in their struggle with each other they both took to alcohol.
As an author, one who had a career as a psychologist and family therapist, I know there are people like these two. And those of us just trying to live a decent life sometimes get taken in by them and their self-centred view of the world.
I don’t expect readers to enjoy this short narrative. Not all writing triggers pleasure. But I hope that the stark reality of it resonates—not in the reader’s personal remembering, of course, but in recognition that this too is a part of human nature.
In writing An Incoming Tide I grappled with evil.
What possesses a human mind to plan and execute a murder? Is it just an isolated act, committed for a knowable motive? I think not. I suspect it arises from complexity rather than just a single cause.
I wrote the short story that follows in first-person, present-tense—a different voice for me. This writing required me to get inside the mind of the evil doer. In the editing process I kept pruning, asking the question would the character really have thought that, at that time, in that place?
I ended up pruning out a reflection I'd written in for our character, Jackson—reflecting on the differences between his now-dead wife and his long-dead mother. It just didn’t fit with the rest of the miserable musings that Jackson would make during his drive through British Columbia, returning to Calgary from the west coast of Vancouver Island where he had drowned his wife in the incoming tide. Not only that, but I just didn’t think this guy was that self-aware.
But I’ll let you in on that little hunk of backstory.
Jackson’s mother had been nurturing to the point of indulgence of him as a favoured child, a boy destined to be the next in a generational line of male doctors.
You see, as an author I know that part of the backstory. But Jackson wouldn’t have remembered it that way. He would’ve just grown into a sense of entitlement, expected that women should cater to him.
And in the story Jackson’s wife, Izzy, didn’t. Much to the contrary. She had her own mind—like they couldn’t even agree on what to call their twelve-year-old daughter. Izzy called Annalise Lise while Jackson called her Anna.
And clearly, as the story reveals, in their struggle with each other they both took to alcohol.
As an author, one who had a career as a psychologist and family therapist, I know there are people like these two. And those of us just trying to live a decent life sometimes get taken in by them and their self-centred view of the world.
I don’t expect readers to enjoy this short narrative. Not all writing triggers pleasure. But I hope that the stark reality of it resonates—not in the reader’s personal remembering, of course, but in recognition that this too is a part of human nature.
Jackson's return from the coast
6:01pm
Holy hell, that hurts. I’ve got to stretch my legs. Damn, what’s in my back?
Gosh, it’s cold. And cramped. How did I get back here? I should keep a blanket back here. Hey, that Canadian Club is half empty. It was full when I left. Did I really drink that much?
Why is the car moving? Am I parked? Where? Feels like its rolling. I’ve got to get up.
Up on my left elbow I wipe the condensation from the inside of the window. There are other cars, just sitting there in the next lane.
No drivers.
The smell, the smell of diesel and seawater.
Take a breath, Jackson, figure this out. One step at a time.
Okay, I’m on the ferry, must’ve taken to the back seat to get a bit of sleep.
Close my eyes, take a breath. I gotta get awake.
The ugly face of the Coast Guard officer is still in front of me. Go home. When the body washes up on shore we will ship it to the morgue in Victoria and call you to come back and identify it. It could be days, weeks even.
God, my mouth is dry. I’m so thirsty. The Canadian Club is right there. My headache says no. Another swig is tempting. No, I shouldn’t. I screw the top back on.
Better get up. I stick my legs under the front seat, push back into the leather.
The deck slides under my feet with the roll of the ferry. Staggering, I see my reflection in the passenger window of another car. I look like hell but I really need to pee. Up the stairs to the passenger deck. My hips are so sore.
Off the back of the boat I see the thin outline of the island mountains behind me. Awake enough now, I take stock. It comes back. Drowning Izzy went so smooth, felt so good. I smile at the memory. I did it! Intention, plan, execution. Then it was done.
I should feel satisfied. I don’t.
I go and pee.
11pm
How can it be this dark?
And where did the day go? I don’t remember Vancouver, winding my way out of the lower mainland, getting on the Coquihalla. Must have. I’m here.
Boy, that night sky looks brilliant. The mountains rounded soft and dark. Just fifty more clicks to Merritt. A city way out in the middle of nowhere. Merritt, the thought comes, was it merited, what I did? Gosh, the headache of finishing off that Canadian Club wants to make me puke.
Sure it was. She was a drunk.
The craving comes on so strong. Not booze this time, its Anna I’m craving now, Anna. I keep checking for cellular coverage so I can make the call. Nothing. Maybe in Merritt. Surely, in Merritt.
Why didn’t I just take Anna to the island? At twelve, she would’ve been more mature than Izzy—once Izzy had a few glasses in her, anyway.
But Izzy always has a few glasses in her. That’s the problem.
Had I guess, not has.
Was.
What could’ve been in my mind to think that Izzy and I would’ve been able to make it work out, that it was worth driving half a continent away?
Well, it worked out. It’s done.
God, do I crave Anna.
Then it hits me--Anna no longer has a mother.
That’s okay. Izzy wasn’t much a mother to her anyway. She called Anna Lise, couldn’t even get her own daughter’s name right, did it to goad me. Just couldn’t let it go.
Gosh, its cold. I wave at the C-store, get the clerk to come out and gas up the Lexus. He doesn’t come. My jacket’s in the trunk, it feels cold too. I reach for the Motorola mobile in front seat. Amazing, this thing. Hundreds of miles away with no wires connecting and with it … with it …
Come on… come on….
Finally, the sound of ringing, the second ring cut off by Anna’s voice. “Hullo, Dad?” She sounds sleepy, her voice softened to hushed tones.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m in Merritt, halfway.”
“Hold on. I’m going to slip out of my room and go downstairs so I don’t wake Auntie Leanne.”
There’s that sound, the bedroom door sound. Then Anna’s feet on the stairs. With it comes a sense of wellbeing, and then the thrill, the sense of awe in my Anna. My daughter. My firstborn. Me into the next generation.
It’s safer now, with her mother gone.
“I did what you told me. I took a phone into my room and turned the ringer down low, turned off the ringers on all the other ones. I don’t think Auntie heard it ring at all. It’s dead here, ‘cept I can hear you good.”
“That’s good, Anna. I’m on my way. Be there tomorrow. You stay home from school again please.”
I’m aware of pleading in my voice, the way I said please. That’s not good.
No, it’s okay. It’s Anna.
“I’m really tired, I’m going to catch some sleep in the car for a few hours now.”
2:45am
What time is it?
The lights from the gas station shine off the dash. I can’t focus to see the clock. How did I get over here, the gas pumps and C-store way over there?
Fuck. Every joint aches. Again.
Then the phrase how did I get here? I’m standing over a dead body as a young doctor in an arid, impoverished land. A Canadian Ocean and Fisheries Officer is running toward me, shouting what have you done? Hell, if I know.
But I do. God, I do.
It’s still dark outside. The clock. A quarter to three.
Gosh, that stinks, the exhaust from that truck.
Rolling down the window to get the stink out, it gets even worse. I’ve gotta get out.
Hey, look at the colours, the oil slick on the surface of the puddles. Beautiful, eh? No, just dirty.
Better get a coffee.
The counter is a clutter of sweet and salty snacks, those damn fluorescent lights reflecting off the foil wrappers. Tins of snuff pack a multitiered holder beside the till. The counter has its Arborite top cracked, broken away. There’s not much of it anyway, barely enough space for a five or toonie to be laid down, for credit cards to be run through the ka-chunk machine. The impulse items tell me I’m hungry. My stomach tells me not to risk it. I look around. A bank of coffee pots is off to the side. That I need. Packets of sugar, Sweet ’n Low, powdered creamer—torn and rolled up, discarded, littering the small space.
What a mess.
Then it strikes me. In Merritt. Halfway. Halfway between Izzy’s dead body floating or sinking somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and dear sweet, twelve-year-old Anna waiting for me back in Calgary.
“Ahem”.
I look up—red plaid flannel shirt and a peaked cap with the logo of the Vancouver Canucks, nose bulbous, dark eyes, belly distended. How long have I been standing here? I size him up, the guy standing in front me. I have to deal with him, push the other clutter of my mind away. Okay.
“The washroom?”
He gives a wordless nod of the head toward the back of the store.
The floor space under the urinals is sticky from the many men who’d dripped there. A string mop sits in a bucket—the water around it, foul. The sink is cruddy. Most of the silvery back surface of the mirror has flaked off. Washing my face doesn’t help, just makes me more aware of all the crap around me.
A display of donuts stands beside where I sugar my coffee. I pick one, some of the crust of icing falls off. Now my hands are sticky from it. I throw a toonie on the counter. Under the hooded eyebrows beneath the rim of the cap, black eyes stare at me. So I put a loonie with it, then another. He looks back at me and scoops the coins from the counter into the till.
Back to the Lexus.
As I settle back behind the wheel, I feel the sugar surge from the donut and coffee’s caffeine. Then thoughts of Izzy return—the sense of revulsion comes back.
But now it’s different. The revulsion no longer warps around Izzy. It’s at me, at what I did, like someone else had put that thought in my mind. How do I figure it? When we drove the coast, Izzy beside me sipping red wine out of her travel mug, I stopped listening to her. Then it came to me, over and over in my mind as I realized how I could do it—drink, drugs, drown. The plan was enticing, exhilarating.
Now that’s gone. Just how did I get here? and what have I done?
I sip the coffee, decide to think about of Anna instead.
Pulling out of the parking lot, I drive close by a garage can to throw in the rest of the donut.
Ten kilometres down the road, I look down at the dash, see the gas tank is just about empty.
I forgot the gas. I gotta go back.
7:30am
Ouch, that sun.
It’s rained, the road is wet. The sun stares directly into my eyes through the windshield, doubling itself off the pavement.
I know this stretch—east of Golden. But how did I get this far? I search my mind for any remnant of Kamloops and Revelstoke. None. I must’ve driven it okay, I’m not in some ditch. Probably it was that Fisheries and Oceans Officer yammering at me—at one moment chiding me for my recklessness in going to Devilish Bay when the tide was coming in, and the next comforting me in the loss of Izzy.
When I left, I sectioned the trip—coast to Namaino, the ferry, Vancouver and the lower mainland, the Coquihalla, that damn narrow road at Golden, the Kicking Horse Pass and then out past Banff. I’m almost there.
I look over the passenger seat and he’s gone.
I look over the edge of the highway and see the ground fall off. The road is narrow, two lanes crammed between the cut of rock and the mountainside falling off into the gorge below.
Izzy calls.
It’d be quick. A push of acceleration and when there’s a gap in the guard rail a sharp pull of the wheel to the right. I catch sight of the place just 100 metres ahead, five seconds it would take, ten at the most.
I miss the chance. Another will come. Surely.
Then I think of Anna. I’ve promised the Lexus to her, for her to drive when she is old enough to get her licence. The car will be a few years old by then, I’ll get myself another. Soon she’ll be mature enough, almost is now even though she’s just twelve, mature enough already. Just not the age she’s supposed to be.
I miss another chance. I imagine the car nose down into the gorge, gaining speed. The inevitable. I can’t give the car to her that way. I can’t. It’d be trashed, written off. I can’t do that to the Lexus. I can’t do that to her.
Reaching the top of the Kicking Horse Pass, the feelings vanish.
I’ll call again, will get cell coverage in Canmore, let Anna know when I’ll make it.
She’ll be relieved to her my voice, glad I’m coming home.
Holy hell, that hurts. I’ve got to stretch my legs. Damn, what’s in my back?
Gosh, it’s cold. And cramped. How did I get back here? I should keep a blanket back here. Hey, that Canadian Club is half empty. It was full when I left. Did I really drink that much?
Why is the car moving? Am I parked? Where? Feels like its rolling. I’ve got to get up.
Up on my left elbow I wipe the condensation from the inside of the window. There are other cars, just sitting there in the next lane.
No drivers.
The smell, the smell of diesel and seawater.
Take a breath, Jackson, figure this out. One step at a time.
Okay, I’m on the ferry, must’ve taken to the back seat to get a bit of sleep.
Close my eyes, take a breath. I gotta get awake.
The ugly face of the Coast Guard officer is still in front of me. Go home. When the body washes up on shore we will ship it to the morgue in Victoria and call you to come back and identify it. It could be days, weeks even.
God, my mouth is dry. I’m so thirsty. The Canadian Club is right there. My headache says no. Another swig is tempting. No, I shouldn’t. I screw the top back on.
Better get up. I stick my legs under the front seat, push back into the leather.
The deck slides under my feet with the roll of the ferry. Staggering, I see my reflection in the passenger window of another car. I look like hell but I really need to pee. Up the stairs to the passenger deck. My hips are so sore.
Off the back of the boat I see the thin outline of the island mountains behind me. Awake enough now, I take stock. It comes back. Drowning Izzy went so smooth, felt so good. I smile at the memory. I did it! Intention, plan, execution. Then it was done.
I should feel satisfied. I don’t.
I go and pee.
11pm
How can it be this dark?
And where did the day go? I don’t remember Vancouver, winding my way out of the lower mainland, getting on the Coquihalla. Must have. I’m here.
Boy, that night sky looks brilliant. The mountains rounded soft and dark. Just fifty more clicks to Merritt. A city way out in the middle of nowhere. Merritt, the thought comes, was it merited, what I did? Gosh, the headache of finishing off that Canadian Club wants to make me puke.
Sure it was. She was a drunk.
The craving comes on so strong. Not booze this time, its Anna I’m craving now, Anna. I keep checking for cellular coverage so I can make the call. Nothing. Maybe in Merritt. Surely, in Merritt.
Why didn’t I just take Anna to the island? At twelve, she would’ve been more mature than Izzy—once Izzy had a few glasses in her, anyway.
But Izzy always has a few glasses in her. That’s the problem.
Had I guess, not has.
Was.
What could’ve been in my mind to think that Izzy and I would’ve been able to make it work out, that it was worth driving half a continent away?
Well, it worked out. It’s done.
God, do I crave Anna.
Then it hits me--Anna no longer has a mother.
That’s okay. Izzy wasn’t much a mother to her anyway. She called Anna Lise, couldn’t even get her own daughter’s name right, did it to goad me. Just couldn’t let it go.
Gosh, its cold. I wave at the C-store, get the clerk to come out and gas up the Lexus. He doesn’t come. My jacket’s in the trunk, it feels cold too. I reach for the Motorola mobile in front seat. Amazing, this thing. Hundreds of miles away with no wires connecting and with it … with it …
Come on… come on….
Finally, the sound of ringing, the second ring cut off by Anna’s voice. “Hullo, Dad?” She sounds sleepy, her voice softened to hushed tones.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m in Merritt, halfway.”
“Hold on. I’m going to slip out of my room and go downstairs so I don’t wake Auntie Leanne.”
There’s that sound, the bedroom door sound. Then Anna’s feet on the stairs. With it comes a sense of wellbeing, and then the thrill, the sense of awe in my Anna. My daughter. My firstborn. Me into the next generation.
It’s safer now, with her mother gone.
“I did what you told me. I took a phone into my room and turned the ringer down low, turned off the ringers on all the other ones. I don’t think Auntie heard it ring at all. It’s dead here, ‘cept I can hear you good.”
“That’s good, Anna. I’m on my way. Be there tomorrow. You stay home from school again please.”
I’m aware of pleading in my voice, the way I said please. That’s not good.
No, it’s okay. It’s Anna.
“I’m really tired, I’m going to catch some sleep in the car for a few hours now.”
2:45am
What time is it?
The lights from the gas station shine off the dash. I can’t focus to see the clock. How did I get over here, the gas pumps and C-store way over there?
Fuck. Every joint aches. Again.
Then the phrase how did I get here? I’m standing over a dead body as a young doctor in an arid, impoverished land. A Canadian Ocean and Fisheries Officer is running toward me, shouting what have you done? Hell, if I know.
But I do. God, I do.
It’s still dark outside. The clock. A quarter to three.
Gosh, that stinks, the exhaust from that truck.
Rolling down the window to get the stink out, it gets even worse. I’ve gotta get out.
Hey, look at the colours, the oil slick on the surface of the puddles. Beautiful, eh? No, just dirty.
Better get a coffee.
The counter is a clutter of sweet and salty snacks, those damn fluorescent lights reflecting off the foil wrappers. Tins of snuff pack a multitiered holder beside the till. The counter has its Arborite top cracked, broken away. There’s not much of it anyway, barely enough space for a five or toonie to be laid down, for credit cards to be run through the ka-chunk machine. The impulse items tell me I’m hungry. My stomach tells me not to risk it. I look around. A bank of coffee pots is off to the side. That I need. Packets of sugar, Sweet ’n Low, powdered creamer—torn and rolled up, discarded, littering the small space.
What a mess.
Then it strikes me. In Merritt. Halfway. Halfway between Izzy’s dead body floating or sinking somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and dear sweet, twelve-year-old Anna waiting for me back in Calgary.
“Ahem”.
I look up—red plaid flannel shirt and a peaked cap with the logo of the Vancouver Canucks, nose bulbous, dark eyes, belly distended. How long have I been standing here? I size him up, the guy standing in front me. I have to deal with him, push the other clutter of my mind away. Okay.
“The washroom?”
He gives a wordless nod of the head toward the back of the store.
The floor space under the urinals is sticky from the many men who’d dripped there. A string mop sits in a bucket—the water around it, foul. The sink is cruddy. Most of the silvery back surface of the mirror has flaked off. Washing my face doesn’t help, just makes me more aware of all the crap around me.
A display of donuts stands beside where I sugar my coffee. I pick one, some of the crust of icing falls off. Now my hands are sticky from it. I throw a toonie on the counter. Under the hooded eyebrows beneath the rim of the cap, black eyes stare at me. So I put a loonie with it, then another. He looks back at me and scoops the coins from the counter into the till.
Back to the Lexus.
As I settle back behind the wheel, I feel the sugar surge from the donut and coffee’s caffeine. Then thoughts of Izzy return—the sense of revulsion comes back.
But now it’s different. The revulsion no longer warps around Izzy. It’s at me, at what I did, like someone else had put that thought in my mind. How do I figure it? When we drove the coast, Izzy beside me sipping red wine out of her travel mug, I stopped listening to her. Then it came to me, over and over in my mind as I realized how I could do it—drink, drugs, drown. The plan was enticing, exhilarating.
Now that’s gone. Just how did I get here? and what have I done?
I sip the coffee, decide to think about of Anna instead.
Pulling out of the parking lot, I drive close by a garage can to throw in the rest of the donut.
Ten kilometres down the road, I look down at the dash, see the gas tank is just about empty.
I forgot the gas. I gotta go back.
7:30am
Ouch, that sun.
It’s rained, the road is wet. The sun stares directly into my eyes through the windshield, doubling itself off the pavement.
I know this stretch—east of Golden. But how did I get this far? I search my mind for any remnant of Kamloops and Revelstoke. None. I must’ve driven it okay, I’m not in some ditch. Probably it was that Fisheries and Oceans Officer yammering at me—at one moment chiding me for my recklessness in going to Devilish Bay when the tide was coming in, and the next comforting me in the loss of Izzy.
When I left, I sectioned the trip—coast to Namaino, the ferry, Vancouver and the lower mainland, the Coquihalla, that damn narrow road at Golden, the Kicking Horse Pass and then out past Banff. I’m almost there.
I look over the passenger seat and he’s gone.
I look over the edge of the highway and see the ground fall off. The road is narrow, two lanes crammed between the cut of rock and the mountainside falling off into the gorge below.
Izzy calls.
It’d be quick. A push of acceleration and when there’s a gap in the guard rail a sharp pull of the wheel to the right. I catch sight of the place just 100 metres ahead, five seconds it would take, ten at the most.
I miss the chance. Another will come. Surely.
Then I think of Anna. I’ve promised the Lexus to her, for her to drive when she is old enough to get her licence. The car will be a few years old by then, I’ll get myself another. Soon she’ll be mature enough, almost is now even though she’s just twelve, mature enough already. Just not the age she’s supposed to be.
I miss another chance. I imagine the car nose down into the gorge, gaining speed. The inevitable. I can’t give the car to her that way. I can’t. It’d be trashed, written off. I can’t do that to the Lexus. I can’t do that to her.
Reaching the top of the Kicking Horse Pass, the feelings vanish.
I’ll call again, will get cell coverage in Canmore, let Anna know when I’ll make it.
She’ll be relieved to her my voice, glad I’m coming home.