What They Wanted (10 page)

ONE WEEK IN EARLY JUNE
, about five years after we left Cooney Arm, I got so homesick for the life I’d once had in my own little house with Gran that Father took me for a walk up the road to where the river emptied into the sea. It had been so long since we’d been alone that I almost felt shy walking beside him. The tide was out, the sandbar shimmering wet beneath the sun and spreading about a quarter mile out, almost flush with our house on the wharf. Hundreds of gulls cried and strutted about, their feathers white against the browns of the sandbar as they snatched hold of clams with their beaks and took flight, dropping and cracking the hard shells on the rocks below.

“Nice way of making supper, hey,” said Father, skirting one of the smashed clams as a burly gull swooped down, suckling the wet, slimy muscle out of the broken bits of shell.

“Yuh,” I said, and noted his hand swinging by his side as he walked. Somewhere in the past few years I’d grown too big to naturally grasp hold of his hand. I trailed behind as he followed the river deeper into the estuary through little crooked paths amongst the immense alder bed, bringing us to a meadow not too unlike the one in Cooney Arm.

“Pretty, hey?” Father said, gazing upon the hills to the far side of the river. They rose tall, steep, forming a wall of patch-worked greens. Growing tired, he sat on a rock near where a strong current gutted itself over the rocks, drowning out most other sounds but its own gurgling. I sat beside him, watching as he listened quietly to the song of the river. His thick, dark hair was longish, past his usual cutting point, and there was an ease about him that I hadn’t felt since before the fish went, before the hated move from Cooney Arm.

“Thought I might build agin, here—near the river—your mother’s getting crippled up, arthritis,” he said to my surprised look. “Needs to get away from the water. Think this might be a nice place?”

“Is she going to be crippled?”

“Noo, just aches and pains is all. She’d like it here, away from the wind, have a garden.”

My twinge of alarm faded, and I looked about disinterestedly. “What about you, you like living near the water.”

He gave an offhand shrug. A brown-feathered sparrow with a grey crown flitted onto a shrub nearby, letting out a series of short, incessant chirps to which Father quickly responded with a low, trilling whistle. I noted again how he wasn’t looking as glum as he used to. “Long as the family’s all right I can live anywhere,” he said and leaned back on his hands, watching as the sparrow took flight, flittering into the thicket.

“But you hates it here.”

“Gets silly after a while, don’t it, hating something because you’re mad at something else, you think? Time we had a bigger house—you needs your own room.”

I scoffed. “I don’t need my own room, I’d rather sleep with Gran, and I wouldn’t like living here in the woods, too many flies. Besides, there’s no road, how’re we going to get places?” I got up, bored with sitting and scratching flies off my neck. “Can we go back now? I don’t like it here.”

He kept gazing into the thicket where the little bird had flown, then slowly got up, brushing off the seat of his pants. “Tomorrow,” he said, starting back along the river, “we’ll go to Cooney Arm, camp over for the night, you want that?”

I eagerly agreed, and the following morning glided through the house in ghost slippers again so’s not to wake the boys, not wanting them along on this coveted trip with Father to the place of my heart. Gran had given up her garden, and it had been a few years now since I’d been back.

The one-hour boat trip took forever, and then finally we were motoring through the rock-choked channel of the neck.

Father shut off the motor, letting in the roar of Bear Falls as it foamed an angry white whilst crashing down the centre of the tree-draped hills. The few abandoned houses on the flat, grassy land beneath looked small and weathered, sagging heavily inwards. I turned to Gran’s house, its yellow paint all blistery and cracked, the weathering beneath encroaching like a grey fungus over whatever yellow was left. And the gouged-out earth where Father’s house had been was grassed over now; with its thick spattering of dandelions it looked little more than a sunken grave marking where the house had once stood.

I shivered. The sky was cloudy and a brisk wind chopped the water, cooling the air. Father lifted me out of the boat and I stood for a moment, looking about. It felt eerily quiet in a sudden lull of the wind. Everything looked so small.

“It’s because you’ve grown,” said Father.

I wandered over to his old stage, its floorboards no longer trustworthy to stand upon, then trailed along the beach, stepping over anchors left behind by the uncles and now bleeding red onto the rocks. Farther up on the bank were bundles of netting that looked like clumps of rotting seaweed. The ribbed skeleton of a boat, tossed inland by the sea, lay beside the abandoned house where I’d crouched with the spirits.

I walked slowly through Gran’s broken-down gate and untied her front door. I nudged it open, the hinges squeaky and stiff, and made to push my way inside but suddenly pulled back, unable to stand the smell of mould, of decay. Rot. The whole place—Gran’s house, everything—felt like death.

Father was in the graveyard, ripping handfuls of last year’s dead grass off the three graves and clearing away space around the crosses. He’d brought a bucket of white paint. I retreated to the falls, grateful for the bounteous rush of air from the cascading water. Something caught my eye near the back step in Gran’s backyard. My breath caught in my throat and then slowly released itself. On a nail beside Gran’s back door was one of her aprons, the kind that looped around her neck and tied around her waist, hanging past her knees. It used to be blue and was nearly white now from the sun and snow, and hung in tatters. For a second I thought it was Gran, stooped, as she always was, over a bucket of scrubbing water or a dustpan or some such thing.

I huddled on Mother’s white-speckled rock near the brook, hugging my knees, the vapour from the falls settling like a wintry mist on my face. After Father had painted the three crosses and tidied up the graves, he came and stood beside me, watching the gulls squawking and swooping over mussel shells they’d dropped and shattered on the rocks.

His dark eyes beneath their brush of brows looked sadly at the decaying wooden structures and then back to the gulls again, the water lopping against the shore, the sun just breaking through the cloud, perking open the dandelions that had claimed the spot where his house had stood.

“Wanna go?” he asked.

“Thought we were spending the night.”

“If you want to.”

I shook my head.

“Let’s go then.”

For the first time in the years since we’d left Cooney Arm, I relished hopping into the boat. And for the first time ever I didn’t look back as we motored through the neck.

THREE

I
SAT FORWARD
on the springy sofa in the hospital waiting room, watching while Mother stirred, as intrigued as I’d been as a child by those thickly fringed eyes fluttering alive.

“What’s wrong, my, what’s wrong?” she cried upon seeing me sitting so close and looking so pensive. “

Nothing. Nothing,” I said. “I—everything’s fine. I just saw Dad;he’s looking better. Sit back,” I coaxed as she made to rise, “sit back, it’s early.”

She shook her head. “Lord, if I lives through this.” “

You will. And he’s doing great.” I watched as she rubbed her temples, rubbed her eyes, noting the tired lines on her face. “Gran’s worried about you.” “

She shouldn’t worry, then. Enough on her mind.” Mother broke into a yawn. “My!” she exclaimed, shaking it off. “Feels like I haven’t slept in days.” “

Why don’t you go home for a day? I’ll stay with Dad. Why not, you should, you should go home.” “

No. No, I’ll not leave him. I’m fine—you’ve been in? You’ve seen him?” “

Yes. Yes, I told you. They’re bathing him.” “

I told them I’d bathe him.” “

They’re doing other stuff too. Oh, just sit back, Mom.”

She sat back, unable to stop yawning. “My,” she said again, and rubbed some more at her eyes. “Chris!” she exclaimed, glancing about the room, “Where’s Chris—and Kyle?”

“Doing stuff around the house.”

“Stuff—what stuff?”

“Cleaving wood. Are you eating?”

“Cleaving wood?”She eyed me suspiciously. “They got lots of time for cleaving wood. How come they’re not here?”

“Tomorrow. They’re coming tomorrow. You need some breakfast—seriously, why don’t you go home for the day, let Gran feed you. I can sit with Dad—will you take a day?” I pleaded as she rose with a brisk shake of her head.

“I’ll not leave, Sylvie, don’t start with that again. The boys should be here, too—where’s my purse, lord, search by the sofa—he’ll not like it the boys aren’t here, does him good to see the boys.”

“I told them to stay with Gran. I’m leaving in a couple of days, I want to spend some time with him.”

“He likes seeing everybody here, your father does. First time he’s ever been sick.”

“He’ll be fine with me. Gawd, Mom, there,” I said, exasperated by her inattentive searching for her purse. “I told you, I want to sit by him all day. Besides, the boys are looking after Gran, she’s tired.”

“Where, Sylvie, I can’t see no purse.”

“By the chair leg—there.” I darted forward, rescuing the purse from behind the chair. She took it gratefully and sat back, pulling out a compact. “Quite the fright, I know,” she said, eyeing herself in the dusty little mirror.

“You look like a girl,” I said.

“I looks like the hag.” She slipped the compact inside her purse and shut her eyes, clasping her hands in her lap. “My,” she began, and as though too fatigued to speak, lapsed into silence, laying back her head.

“What? What’re you thinking?”

She blew out a deep breath. “Gawd knows what I’m thinking. Thinking about everything. What about Gran, how’s she holding up through all this? She looked so tiny in this place, thought she was going to vanish.”

“Just fine, I told you. She sent you some bread, worried you’re not eating enough. You want me to get tea?”

“No, not yet. I can’t drink tea this early. Bless her, she’s worrying herself to death, I knows she is.”

“She said you’re not to think about her. It’s good the boys are there, though.”

“Bless them, too,” she murmured. “Such good boys. We were blessed there.”

“Oh? Was I the curse?”The words kind of slipped out and I smiled to take away their abruptness.

Surprisingly, Mother smiled too. “Lord knows you tried to be,” she said, fighting back another yawn. “Like your father, stubborn as cowhide.”

“That right, now. Gran says I’m like you.”

“God help you. Like neither of us,” she said quietly. “Like neither of us. Your grandmother, that’s who you’re like; steady like your grandmother—guess I’ve got lots to be thankful for.” She held out a pale, slender hand, and I took it like a gawky youngster unexpectedly handed a delicate piece of china and not knowing where to put it.

“You always worry, Mom,” I said, my voice but a whisper.

Her hand slipped like a cool breeze from my grasp. “Always them nights I sits worrying, my girl. Nights I sit by the window and pray, like I’m holding up the world—my own world, at least,” she added dryly. “Gran always says she’s praying for them who can’t. I envy her that. All about myself I’ve been.”

I blinked at this bit of divulgence. “I’ve never thought that about you.”

“It was back before you could think. It was always your father—back in Cooney Arm—who kept things together. Even with the fishing all but gone, he held things. Never knew my comforts.” She rose, pacing the small room, wringing her hands, pausing before a small framed portrait of the darkly bearded Jesus. “Everything changed after we left the arm. Mostly me holding things together—even when he’s working straight through winters and summers and keeping the house warm, feels like it’s me holding it. Is there retribution in that?” she asked the framed portrait, her tone turning persuasive. “Make up for all them years I spent worrying about me?

“Well”—she turned back to me, more silent now than Christ before my mother’s bartering—“we’ll soon see how good I do.”

“But he got used to everything,” I said. “Working in the woods, and he kinda enjoys living on the wharf—like living in a boathouse, he often says. You can’t say he let himself go.”

“Ohh, I don’t know, I don’t know anything anymore. He’s not able to work in the woods again, that I knows. How’s he going to deal with that? And money—not like we can live on Gran’s spuds. We’ll have to give the truck back, unless he sells his boat—kill him to sell his boat.” She started pacing anew, wringing her hands.

Shaken by her words, I stepped impulsively before her. “I’ve got money saved. I’ll take over the truck payments.”

Her face took on a scandalized look. “My lord, no. We’re not that poor we’d take your money. Good god, your father would have a fit.”

“Why? No different than Chris helping.”

“All the difference in the world, you way out in Alberta, scrimping and paying your way through university.”