Stones (20 page)

“As long as we’re together, I don’t care what I do,” Raphaella mused.

“But someone as smart and talented as you,” I began, and stopped. I sat up and looked down into her eyes. “Look, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with working in a store, especially if it’s yours, and you’re interested in it. I’m doing that now, and so is my father. And,” I added carefully, “I’m not trying to butt in where I don’t belong. All I’m saying is, I’d hate to see you trapped into something you’ll end up hating. I think you’re right to take your time and think things over.”

Raphaella closed her eyes. “Trapped is the word, all right. I feel like I’ve been trapped all my life. It’s as if …” She opened her eyes. “Well, suppose there’s this room, and you really like it, you like being in it. But somebody says
to you, ‘You
must
live in this room. There’s no choice. And you can never live anywhere else.’ Even if you like the room, you’d feel resentful. See what I mean?”

I didn’t, not exactly, but I nodded anyway.

“You’d always wonder, Why can’t I go into other rooms? What are they like? Maybe they’re better than this. Maybe this room only
seems
nice because I’ve never had the chance to try other ones. I sound demented, don’t I?”

“No, I understand what you’re saying,” I replied, catching on. “What bugs you is not having the choice. It’s wondering, if you could choose, what would you really want?”

“Exactly. No wonder I love you. You’re smart, too. And you look pretty good in that bathing suit.”

“You want to change the subject,” I said.

“Yeah. There’s something you should know.”

As if she had opened a door in herself that had been closed for so long the hinges creaked and the wood groaned, she told me.

“I’ve been afraid to tell you these things for a lot of reasons,” Raphaella began. “At first, I didn’t
want you to laugh at me. I’ve had enough of that in my life to last a century. Later, I was afraid you’d dump me. No, don’t say it. You think you wouldn’t have, but don’t be so sure. I’m not blaming you; I’m just saying. Now I’m confident about us. Especially after that night in the woods.

“I want to tell this right. You know I’m not … that I’m unusual. My grandmother — on Mother’s side — was also, well, I guess the modern word is psychic. She could feel things, as if she were a string on a musical instrument that vibrated is sympathy with her surroundings. I was very young — I can’t remember how young — when it first happened to me. I recall being terrified. But Gram taught me not to fear the gift, and finally to appreciate and treasure it.

“Mother says that, in our family, the gift skips a generation. She doesn’t have it, but I have. I can’t give up my gift or ignore it. I know that. And I don’t want to. Denying it would destroy me. It’s part of what I am, more than the shape of my nose or my shoe size or this mark on my face. But I’m certain now that I don’t have to give it up. Being with you doesn’t mean I have to deny what’s part of me. And I
know you wouldn’t expect me to. That’s what I’ve told Mother, what I tried to make her understand. You don’t take away from me; you add to me.

“But being different isn’t the only thing I’ve hidden all my life.

“You asked me once about my father and I ignored your question. I know, it’s not the only question I’ve dodged or ignored, so don’t give me that look. The truth is that, other than in the biological sense of the word, I don’t have a father.

“I come from Edmonton originally, but I don’t remember it because Mother and I left there when I was five. And I don’t recollect much about my father.

“He was a lawyer in a big firm, and he was away from home a lot of the time. He’d come home late. I’d already be in bed and he’d come into my room and kiss me good night. Then one night he didn’t come home at all. Suddenly, it was horrible around our house, with a dark atmosphere of doom and secrecy and disgrace, my mother crying all the time and Gram trying to comfort her. I didn’t know what was going on, why things had changed so fast.

“Slowly, I gathered that I was losing my father because he had done something bad, he
had made our lives dirty, but I was too young to take it all in. It was as if fate had come by one day and turned out all the lights.

“It happened at a Christmas party at his firm. He came on to a woman who worked there. She claimed he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He forced her. It sounds so cliché when I talk about it, something you’d see in a second-rate TV movie. A couple of people at an office Christmas party who had too much to drink.

“My father claimed she was willing. He was found guilty anyway. The thing was, my mother told me later, when I was old enough to understand better, she would have supported him, believed him, but, during the trial, a lot of stuff came out. Stuff about his life. He had a couple of girlfriends on the side. He’d been unfaithful for years.

“That’s what destroyed my mother. The humiliation. Finding out in a public courtroom, in front of people. Like I said, she could have held up under the trial, stood behind him, but when the other stuff came out, she broke.

“So we moved away, and my father is never, ever mentioned. I don’t miss him. All that was a long time ago. I’m glad I have no feeling for him, because if I did it would probably be hate,
and I don’t want to feel like that about anybody. I’ve seen what it does to my mother.

“I don’t know how you get over something like that, the betrayal and the debasement. It made my mother bitter, and it turned her against men. She has no use for males. That’s why she gets so unreasonable with me. She’s kept me away from boys all my life. You scare the wits out of her, because she knows how I feel about you. If she had her way, I’d be a nun, and we aren’t even Catholic. I understand how she feels, but the decisions she’s made should apply to her life, not mine. That’s what I told her that day we had the big fight. It’s over now for me. I have to live my own life, and you’re a part of it. You’re the biggest part.

“I’m glad I told you this, Garnet. I’m tired of carrying secrets on my back. I want to lay my burden down.”

chapter     

R
aphaella’s story explained a lot: her mother’s opposition to the two of us being together and her claim that it wasn’t personal; Raphaella’s reluctance to share a big part of her life. And especially the men at Hannah’s — the way they looked at her, as if she was Hannah come back to life.

As for her gift, as she called it, well, I had been aware of that for a long time. Her remarkable ability to sense and interpret things was something I was used to. As I slipped my hand over hers, I remembered that day in English class, the debate about love at first sight, and for the first time I wondered, How much had Raphaella known about me that day that I didn’t know about myself?

“Hannah’s murderers sensed your gift,” I
said. “That’s why they went after you. They thought you were like her, and they were right.”

“I guess so.”

“I wonder why Hannah didn’t do something to fend them off, the way you did.”

“From what you told me, they caught her by surprise and she had no chance to think or defend herself.”

“No, she didn’t,” I said, recalling the kicked-in door, the terrified woman dragged outside and stoned. “She was a helper and a healer, skilled and knowledgeable, like you, and because of her knowledge they killed her.”

I thought of my mother and the assault on her by the militia — I had told Raphaella about it — and once again I realized how much danger Mom had been in. Those men could have killed her. And they would have gone home at the end of the day telling each other and themselves that they had done the right thing.

“It’s your deal, Gareth.”

“Okey-dokey.”

While Mom added up the score, my father began to show off, shuffling the deck like a Las
Vegas pit boss — until a few cards burst into the air and fluttered to the floor. He started again.

“What’s the score, Mrs. Havelock?” Raphaella asked, smirking my way.

“Don’t tell her,” I said. “She’ll only rub it in.”

Raphaella had come over for dinner. Wearing a T-shirt with “Democracy: Use It Or Lose It” printed across the front in white letters, she had arrived on the front verandah carrying a package of sesame seed crackers, a small bouquet of flowers and a box of rosehip tea. It was a hot day, so we had eaten our salad and cold-cuts out on the patio. Dad and I had washed and dried the dishes — we lost the toss — while Mom and Raphaella set up the card table.

Raphaella and I were still learning the basics of bridge. To balance the skill level, she and Mom played against Dad and me. Mom played a conservative, calculated game. Dad took risks, playing with passion and energy. Raphaella and I stumbled along, trying not to make mistakes.

“Couldn’t we switch to crazy eights?” I asked as Dad dealt our hands.

“Don’t worry, podnah,” he said, sorting his cards. “We’ve got ‘em right where we want ‘em.”

“Then how come they’re winning?”

“They’re falling into our trap,” he said.

“Before the bidding starts, your father has something for you,” Mom announced.

Beaming, Dad slipped a small envelope across the table.

I gave Mom an enquiring glance. She raised her eyebrows but said nothing. Inside was a flimsy slip of paper.

“It’s a receipt from, let me see, The Book Bindery,” I read. “I don’t get it, Dad.”

“Read on.”

In the space under “Description of item” someone had written, “Maitland Diary.”

I handed the slip to Raphaella. Mom put down her cards and said, “The diary is being rebound. It should be ready in a few weeks.”

“Then it’s yours,” Dad concluded. “The bookbinder will preserve what’s left of the original cover and replace the missing part. It will be a refurbished artifact for Olde Gold’s refurbisher.”

“Dad, I … I don’t know what to say.”

“I saw you reading it that night in the shop,” he said. “You got so involved you let your pizza get cold.” He turned to Raphaella. “Can you imagine how interesting that diary must have been to make this guy forget his dinner?”

Raphaella looked me in the eye and smiled. “I think so,” she said.

“Dad, Mom, I can’t tell you how much this means.”

My father waved off my words. “Take it easy,” he said. “It’s just a book, right?” And picking up his cards he added, “Let’s play this hand. Your bid, Raphaella.”

Raphaella fanned her cards, hesitated and, with a gleam in her eye, asked, “Um, can I bid two no trumps?”

I groaned. “Pass.”

“Six no trumps,” Mom responded.

“Pass,” from my father.

“Seven no trumps,” Raphaella said.

I led one of my thirteen useless cards and Mom began to lay down her hand, neatly arranging the rows on the green felt.

Raphaella nervously fingered her cards. I could tell she was reviewing what she’d learned about playing a hand.

“Take your time,” Mom assured her. “And be careful.”

“And no shenanigans,” Dad put in.

Raphaella looked at me, then turned to my father.

“Shenanigans?” she said.

A few days passed before we got around to driving out to the Third Concession. Neither Raphaella nor I was anxious to return there, but we had left our equipment behind when we ran from the men.

“Besides,” I said. “Aren’t you curious to see if anything is different?”

When we got to the African Methodist Church I began to regret my bravado. I let the van roll to a stop and parked by the monument. It was the kind of summer evening when the air is soft, the sky taking on a pink band along the horizon, and you wish that time would stop. The building and cemetery looked peaceful, and the smell of freshly mowed grass hung in the still air. But my nerves didn’t feel the calm.

I got out of the van and closed the door quietly. Raphaella stole a glance at the church, then looked away. I kept my eye on her as we walked across the old cemetery and climbed the fence. If there were any unwelcome presences around, she’d know, I figured. She turned to me and smiled as if to say, Nothing yet.

We plodded slowly through the trees, scanning
the forest on both sides of the path, our feet making the only noise. By the stream, where Raphaella had confronted the men, the mark in the earth when she clawed up the handful of dirt was still there. We continued, slowing as we reached the clearing. I took her hand and we held our breath in unison as we stepped out of the trees.

I was the first to laugh.

On the pile of rocks that had once been Hannah’s chimney sat a grey squirrel, busily nibbling on a pine cone that he held between his little hands, as unconcerned as if he owned the place. Sparrows squabbled in the trees and darted across the clearing, chasing one another. Bees hummed and butterflies fluttered in the warm air.

“Well, I guess it makes sense,” Raphaella said, reading my mind. “Hannah’s gone. The others must be gone, too.”

Our tent was half-collapsed, and stones lay scattered about. We set to work, rolling the tent and stuffing it into its bag, then packed our gear, including the little radio, into the backpacks we had brought with us. When we were finished, Raphaella took a look around and shouldered her pack.