A simple command, delivered to her daughter amid chaos. She had no idea if the message would get through:
Go home. Leave. Don’t stay. Leave. Go home
. And so on and on, as long as Audra could stand it.
The worst thing they ran into along the riverbank was a large deadfall they had to navigate. Erosion and time had set the tree on an angle and then, probably after a heavy rain, the whole thing had pulled up and fallen forward. The roots had left a hole in the eroding bank, thick ropy tendrils spreading out at the end of the tree in a spray. Even then, some still clung to the earth, buried deep.
The dogs solved the problem with the least amount of fuss. Gusto followed Old Tex’s lead when he jumped arthritically into the water and paddled slowly around to the other side of the tree. Paula worried whether Old Tex would make it back to the shore, but Sanderson pointed out that swimming was probably easier on his old bones than trotting along the cement sidewalks he was used to.
Rowan ignored her mother’s shouted advice and easily bounded through the mess of sharp branches and heavy limbs to the other side, where the dogs were.
“Don’t get too far out of sight,” Paula called to her.
“Can you make it?” Sanderson asked from close behind.
“I’m okay.”
“Take your time.”
Paula shinnied up onto the trunk, then looked over her shoulder and realized that her ass was in his direct line of sight. He grinned at her and she laughed, a belly laugh that felt good, and a little fluttery too. Butterflies.
Paula scrambled over and jumped down without incident, and Sanderson followed. Rowan had run far ahead with the dogs. Sanderson grabbed her arm lightly when he landed, as if to balance himself. She looked up, his face only inches from hers. His hand slid to her hand and he held it loosely.
“Hey,” he said softly. He smelled clean.
“Hey.”
He looked at her for a long moment, a half-smile on his face. She thought he might kiss her and wondered how she would feel about that.
He didn’t kiss her.
She slipped ahead of him and they picked their way past debris from the spring thaw, sticks and rocks, cinderblocks tied with ropes that went nowhere. A small wildflower poked out of the mud, all by itself. She started to grin; it was a perfect little reminder of—
She was about to say something to Sanderson about the flower, the way it stuck up so prettily through the muck, but just as she opened her mouth, a single word screamed inside her head
LEAVE
Startled, she gasped. She turned to Sanderson. “Did you say something?”
“Not yet. Is there something you want me to say?”
She half smiled and shook her head. “Never mind.”
She stood rooted to the spot. The flower seemed to be begging her to do something, so she reached out for it. It was a little, daisylike thing. She knew the name: brown-eyed Su—
GO HOME
This time the voice was loud, forceful and close. Automatically she looked ahead to where the riverbank curved into the park. There was no one there. Even as she looked, a numbness came over her neck and shoulders. Her head felt suddenly heavy.
“I have to leave,” she said. It came out automatically.
“But we just got here.” Sanderson was beside her now, a narrow strip of grassy bank between them and the water. The water made a pleasant sound, not fast at all, but lapping like a gentle brook in a movie.
“Haven Woods,” she said. “I have to leave Haven Woods.”
“Why?” He put his hand on the smallest part of her back. It gave her a shock, like static electricity. She was very aware of his hand.
“Uh … there are lots of reasons,” she tried.
“You can tell me,” he said. “I’ve been divorced. If it’s money—Hell, Paula, I’ve been in every imaginable kind of financial trouble. It won’t shock me …”
It was hard to think when he was beside her like this. She shook her head. “It’s not that. I wish it was that.” She did. “My mother doesn’t want me to stay.”
“Are you sure? I mean, is she—” The question hung in the air.
Rowan’s voice floated back to them. She was talking to the dogs, her voice deeper for Old Tex, higher for the younger dog.
“—in her right mind?” Paula finished the question for him. She shrugged. The little flower bent in a gust of wind, bounced back and then bobbed again.
leave go leave go
“Yeah. You said she wasn’t well.”
Paula couldn’t tear her eyes away from the daisy.
He turned her towards him. “Hey, look at me for a second.”
She pulled her eyes reluctantly away from
leave go don’t
“She really wants you to go?” His eyes were blue; she hadn’t noticed that before.
“We have this history, you know? We’ve had a difficult relationship. Estranged. Since I … was a teenager.”
He turned her around and nudged her forward along the path. “My feet are getting wet,” he said.
She barely heard him but moved with the press of his hand on her back.
“I remember you just disappeared back then. Did she kick you
out?”
“It wasn’t exactly like that.” Paula’s cheeks burned at the thought of what rumours there might have been, and she hoped he wasn’t looking at her. His hand was still lightly against her back. They both seemed to be moving very carefully, so as not to disturb it.
She took a deep breath. “Do you remember when I left? Do you remember that year?”
“Of course,” he said. “It was just after David Riley’s accident. I had nightmares about that for months.”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “David Riley, and my dad too. They both died that year. A few weeks apart. It was a horrible time. My mom and I just wandered around the house like ghosts. My dad was everything to her, to me too.”
Sanderson lifted the hand from her back, wrapped it gently around her neck under her hair and gave a reassuring squeeze. It felt so wonderful that she thought she could stop talking then, and maybe never talk again about anything.
“You poor kid,” he said.
Hardly a kid anymore
. “It was so
awful
, all of it. Every day some new kind of pain. I don’t know what you know about David and me”—she faltered, and caught her breath for a moment. “But he was my boyfriend. And my dad—I was close to my dad. And they both died. Just like that. I—I don’t think I could even talk the week after it all happened. I just remember staying in my room, coming out at night to wander through the house. We didn’t put the lights on. My mother wouldn’t answer the door. Not even when it was Izzy Riley, who of course was going through her own hell.
“Anyway, maybe my mom couldn’t stand it. One day she told me that she had decided to send me away to school. That she thought I needed to get away.”
“Maybe you did,” Sanderson said gently.
She shrugged. “Maybe I did.”
They walked for awhile, the bank less soggy when they came out from under the shadow of the trees to where the sun was able to break through.
“Anyway, I went away to school and I guess she didn’t want me home again. I only came back once, when Rowan was really little. When we saw her at all, she came to the city.”
“And you never talked about why you were sent away?”
“My guess is, she couldn’t stand to have me around without my dad there. Maybe she blamed me.”
“Paula—”
“I’d asked him to bring me something from the bakery. His car went off the road just before he got there. Maybe if I hadn’t asked him to stop—”
Sanderson turned her around again, to face him. “You can’t do that. Accidents happen all the time. It’s horrible, it’s awful, but it wasn’t because of you. Right?” His eyes held hers. His hands on her shoulders were warm.
Up ahead, Rowan came running into view waving a long stick, the dogs following her and barking. They broke eye contact and turned to watch her where she had stopped at the edge of the bank. She waved at them with the stick, smiling broadly, the two attentive dogs at her feet. They waved back.
Paula finally said, “She sent me away because I was pregnant. I think she was ashamed.”
Beside her, Sanderson was silent.
“So Rowan and my mom have never been close.” Her mouth opened and she might have added something, but Rowan squealed. They both looked up to see Gusto launch himself into the air trying to reach the stick, which Rowan was holding just out of range.
Paula let go of a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and Sanderson turned her back towards him again. She felt shaky and frightened about having revealed the biggest secret of her life. The only secret that mattered.
He leaned down and kissed her. “Please don’t leave,” he said.
Rowan watched Mr. Keyes kiss her mom. She was a little bit pissed off
(jealous)
but mostly what she felt was a kind of dread. If her mom started up with a man they would be stuck here forever. But, on the other hand, it’s not like this was Andy. Andy had been a Number One Creepoid. Her mom didn’t have great luck with guys. Her own father, for instance. Where was he? Dead.
Mr. Keyes, of course, was alive, and Ro actually liked him. He made her feel … normal. He was a normal guy. The kind of guy you could complain to about crappy things at school, and he would say dad things like
well, you just ignore those girls. They have nothing good to say
. Or, if you wanted to go on a ski trip to Quebec, the kind of guy who would say,
you betcha! here’s the money
.
Normal. But a normal guy who had just bought a house in the neighbourhood might want to stay here. A normal guy might want his
girlfriend
to stay here. And the thought of staying here made Rowan’s stomach hurt worse.
She wrestled the stick out of Old Tex’s mouth—which wasn’t too hard—and both dogs danced around her, eyes never leaving the stick. She’d deked them out a couple of times, but they were no longer falling for that. They knew she was about to throw it into the water. Finally she did, and both dogs plunged in, their paws working furiously as they raced to get to it. They looked funny and she laughed, forgetting for a minute that her stomach was sore and her back kind of hurt. She’d thrown that stick pretty far, though.
aren’t you God’s special thrower
The dogs chased the stick more than halfway across the river, Gusto closing in first. Old Tex was off to the right of him, paddling almost as furiously. Gusto snapped at the stick, which was still a foot or more ahead of him. He barked. He swam and snapped and snapped again and then he got it, water splashing all around him.
“Good dog!” she called out.
Old Tex seemed to pause in the water, staring at the far bank as Gusto headed back to Rowan. Tex did not. He started to swim to the other side.
“Tex!” Rowan called.
The dog threw her a look over his shoulder.
I’m heading over there
.
Gusto hesitated, turning around to watch Old Tex.
“Hey, Tex!” Rowan yelled. “C’mon back, boy!”
But by then Tex had reached the far bank. He pulled himself up with more vigour than he’d shown for awhile. He sloshed and clumped his way to the treeline and then he sat down facing Rowan, panting.
“C’mon back, boy!”
He wagged his tail. Barked once, assertively. Then his head drooped and she could almost hear him whine.
What?
Gusto swam back to Rowan, never letting go of the stick. He made it up the bank easily and dropped it at her feet. She touched the top of his head. “Good dog,” she said. He wagged happily. They both watched Tex.
Old Tex whined and snapped as if at a fly in the air. He looked up unhappily and then dropped his head between his paws. Gusto and Rowan watched their friend. Gusto barked at him.
Better over here
.
“Tex, you come!” Rowan called.
Tex wagged his tail cautiously. He stood up and stepped closer to the water, then sat back down again. He wagged. She could almost hear his whine.
Please?
Gusto panted and went down to the waterline on their side. He barked at his friend.
Come back
.
Tex went to the river’s edge and put a foot in the water, then withdrew it. He sat down again. He whined, and this time Rowan really heard him.
You come here. You come to me
.
Rowan took a step towards him. The water lapped over the toe of her running shoe. It looked cool and refreshing, in spite of the muddy colour. She bet it was lovely in there.
Old Tex stuck a foot in the water again and barked hard.
The lap of the water was a gentle drumbeat
swoosh swoosh swoosh
and she was so hot. Beneath her blazer she could feel sweat on her back, under her arms. She hadn’t been swimming yet this year. She put her foot in the water, sneaker and all.
Mom’s going to kill me
.
Behind her, barely audible, came the pitter-pat of small animal feet. Gusto growled softly. She turned her head just a little, not wanting to lose sight of the water for too long, and saw a cat standing behind them. It stared unblinkingly at her, just watching. Gusto lowered his head and growled at it, not softly at all this time.
She’d seen this cat before. She turned back to the river, and Old Tex barked madly as she waded in up to her knees, the water so cool and refreshing on her legs that she almost wanted to cry
so soothing it would wash over her tummy and all the pains would go bye bye bye bye
as she took another step deeper—
Old Tex went insane, bouncing around on the far shore, barking and whining. He put both front feet in the water, then backed away, turning in circles of frustration—
—and she walked in up to her waist, holding up the bottom of her blazer, not liking the idea of the piece of paper in her pocket getting wet
no!
oh that doesn’t matter
no!
Gusto barked and barked and barked—
Someone yanked at her from behind, screaming her name. As if something had snapped, Tex was released into the water, launching a good two feet into the air and landing with a spectacular splash. He swam as fast as he could back to their side of the river.