“Getting into trouble, are you?” Mary barely turned her head, so it took Elena a moment to realize she was being addressed. Mamma responded for her.
“Too much trouble, Mary. Her head’s always in the clouds.”
“In my day we pounded it out of ’em.” Mary gave Elena a stern look. Elena shrank back in her chair but Mamma just smiled.
Mary glared at Elena’s bloody knees, scrutinizing the damage. “How did you get those?”
“I went to see the Chinese cemetery and ...”
“How the hell did you get down there?”
Mamma looked up but didn’t say anything.
“I fell,” Elena said quietly.
“From the road?”
She nodded. Mary shook her head.
“Dad goes there to shoot grouse sometimes.”
“I bet he does.”
“He went down there once, Elena. Don’t exaggerate.” Mamma dabbed at her stings with a little more force, making her squirm.
“Who’s buried there?” Elena asked.
Mary leaned back in a pose that pushed her large stomach into the table. She was the village historian, in charge of the local heritage society and a room in the village hall that was referred to as the Stapleton Museum.
“Those bones are old ... but they ain’t that old,” she replied. “The first Chinese migrants would’ve had their bones sent back to China. The folks buried in our cemetery were most likely miners, labourers and small business owners who lived here when Stapleton’s Chinatown was established. The Chinese mined a lot of jade in this area. They figured out it was here before the Europeans did.”
Mamma got up with a handful of dirty tissues and Band-Aid peels. She disappeared behind the counter to tidy up the first aid kit. Mamma always seemed to feel better when she tidied things, regardless of the reason for the mess.
Mamma had different glosses and powders for every occasion but most women in Stapleton wore makeup as though it had become part of their faces; the same look every day. Mary wore very soft pink lipstick that gleamed against the white ceramic mug as she took another sip of coffee.
“Can you read the writing on the stones?”
“My grandparents were Japanese.”
Elena took that to mean no but wasn’t completely sure. Mary was Asian but without an accent, just like Mamma was Italian without sounding Italian. Mary’s straight black hair didn’t quite reach her shoulders and she wore billowy blouses, sometimes with shawls and brooches.
“Why did they send their bones back to China?”
“So their families could pray for them. You gotta take care of the ones who came before you, even after they’re gone.”
That made sense. Elena hated being forgotten about. She had fought back tears from beneath her tea towel headdress when Dad didn’t show up for the nativity play.
“If you don’t take care of them when they die, they’ll come back and haunt you,” Mary said.
Elena’s eyes widened: “But the people in the cemetery ...” Mary leaned in and lowered her voice. “Nobody’s been praying for those bones, have they?” Elena thought back to the overgrown trail that Ken and Rob had to cut their way through to reach her, and the strange noise she’d heard near the gravestones. Dad would have told her if it was haunted, wouldn’t he?
“The Chinese call them hungry ghosts. They’ve got long, skinny necks because nobody’s been feeding them. In the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, the hungry ghosts come into our world, looking for trouble.”
“When is the seventh month?” she asked timidly.
“It’s right now.”
Elena’s eyes and ears were locked onto Mary’s words. “Stay away from that cemetery,” the older woman said.
“What cemetery?” Logan burst in, skateboard tucked under one arm. Elena had been so engrossed in Mary’s tale she hadn’t noticed him enter the café. Her best friend had a new haircut; bleached tips ready for the start of grade 5. The hint of intrigue lit up his blue eyes. He was small for his age, like she was, but his energy always put him front and centre.
Logan pointed at Elena’s bloody shins and she opened her mouth to tell him all about it but Mary set her cup down loudly and gave Logan a stare that sent him on his way to the ice cream counter.
Mary shook her head silently, but Elena would tell Logan everything at the first opportunity. The ghost in the cemetery would become their mystery to unravel.
Elena loved her house. They lived close to the river where the land dropped swiftly almost to water level. It was a mobile home with a yard that ran around all four sides of it. Mamma called it their paper house; she worried they would lose it in strong winds or a forest fire or a flood. Mamma said that, when she was little, she lived in a house with stone walls. She said houses like that lasted forever, but Dad wasn’t impressed. “Why didn’t you stay there, then?” Mamma went quiet and disappeared into the bathroom.
Dad bought 14 Juniper Drive because he fell in love with the view. He reminded Elena of that often, proudly, as he surveyed the land beyond them. The windows at the back of the house looked onto the river and the hilly banks of the reserve. A few hundred people lived on the Stapleton Reserve, but from the windows of their living room Elena found it hard to imagine that anyone lived there at all. The reserve housing was over a ridge further up the hill, so they never had to look at the town, and the town residents never had to look at them.
Elena was curled up next to Mamma, numbed by the television, when Dad came home. Her aches had diminished to dull throbs and the whole room stank of Mamma’s healing cream.
Just the sound of Dad opening the door brought his warmth into the house. Elena could hear him in the hallway, taking off his jacket and throwing his keys onto the table. “Elena is grounded again,” Mamma said, her eyes still on the screen. “You remember why we moved here, Curtis? You told me it would be safer for the kids.” Dad didn’t respond.
“Go tell your dad what you did today.”
Elena unfolded her body and limped awkwardly into the hallway. Her legs had seized up while she was sitting. She knew how he’d look before she saw him; tired, annoyed. She didn’t want to see his disappointment, so she stared at the ugly linoleum—swirly patterns in greys and browns. He’d already removed his heavy boots so she focused on the scruffy bottoms of his jeans as he approached. He came down to her level and cradled his big hands around hers. She brought her eyes up to his.
“Elena”, he said softly, “why do you have to get me into so much trouble?”
“Sorry,” she whispered.
He cupped her chin gently and brushed his thumb against her cheek, just under a prominent scratch. The delicate links of his gold necklace poked out of his t-shirt, and she hoped that he’d pick her up and pull her to him like he did when she was little.
“What did you do this time?”
He almost laughed when she told him. He probably would have if Mamma weren’t listening from the next room. “At least she didn’t get hit by a car on the highway,” he said, calling through to her. “That’s what they call an accident in Vancouver.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Mamma said. Dad went into the living room and gave Mamma a kiss and she didn’t seem so angry anymore.
“I told Mary you shot grouse in the Chinese cemetery.”
Elena’s betrayal of her dad gnawed at her more than the guilt of having traumatized her mother. The two of them kicked back on rusty lawn chairs with cracked plastic straps, Dad swigging from a can, relaxed. Mamma drank out of mugs and glasses but Dad always drank out of long cans. Sometimes they slowed him down and he fell out of time and Mamma snapped at him, but that didn’t happen very often. He and Elena watched the yellow remains of the sun glint on the shadowy river as it sank behind the reserve hills.
Elena shuffled uncomfortably. “Mary was angry you shot those grouse.”
Dad chuckled to himself.
She had more to say, but Dad scrunched his emptied can with one thick hand, l
aid his head back and closed his eyes. He didn’t like to discuss the ins and outs of everything.
CHAPTER 2
2 0 1 8
VIVIAN DRINKS COFFEE that is too bitter. The first sip always makes her squint. She admires sharpness in tastes, in people. Cutting through the blandness that surrounds her. They are conspiring against her. Whispering in the kitchen corner. Her husband and her son. But they won’t win. She always wins.
“Vivian, are you ready to go?”
Her husband. Todd. He sidles up to her and rests his weary old hand on the back of an oak chair. Sometimes she calls him Tom or Tim as though she has forgotten his name. When he corrects her, the wrinkles on his forehead mat together like tangled threads.
She has forgotten his name, really forgotten it, once or twice. A patch of white appeared where it had been, obliterating even the familiar letters. She chose not to blame herself. It is his own fault for being such a pointless human being. She had admired him once, but that was a very long time ago.
“Why do you insist on being so early?” she asks him. “I haven’t finished my coffee.”
“It’s a council meeting. There are procedures.”
“Procedures are only for show. You know that.”
Todd slowly exhales his frustration. Stuart, wisely, stays out of it, hovering closer to the door, waiting for his opportunity to make an escape.
Stuart has become quite stocky with age while his father has remained sinewy, but the thick curls he inherited from Vivian will last much longer than Todd’s hair, thinned enough to reveal the freckles on his scalp. The boy takes after his father in nature if not in looks; reticent, has to be pushed to act. He can’t even leave without seeking her permission.
Vivian hasn’t allowed her natural curls or colour to frame her face since her youth. Grey hair on an older woman invites doubts around her competency. Curls are too soft. She keeps her hair short and medium blonde, straight or with a sophisticated wave.
Todd checks his Rolex.
“Do the seconds move more slowly when you watch them?” She can’t resist baiting him.
“Please, Vivian, let’s not hold everything up.”
“But I do hold everything up. That’s the point. I have to hold up some very dense walls.” She glances across at her son. “Stuart, you would be amazed by the sheer lack of ability in Stapleton nowadays. There’s simply no talent here anymore.”
“No one can meet your standards, Mom.”
Vivian checks her charcoal grey blouse and ivory pants for creases. No pearls; she must remember to put those on.
Todd continues to admire his precious timepiece, a notso-subtle declaration to the world that he had done well for himself. She, of course, was the one who’d done well for them. Their magazine-page home—with its custom cabinetry, marble countertops, high end appliances and heated bathroom floors—is a drop in the ocean of her success. The crystals on the watch face scatter light across the wall as he checks it again.
“You know I think I admire that watch more than I admire you,” she says. “It could sink a few hundred metres and keep ticking, whereas you would just stop.”
“Thank you, dear. It’s nice to know I’m valued.”
Stuart’s phone buzzes. He leaps to that thing like a love-struck teenager. If he had any backbone, she’d suspect him of having an affair. She wouldn’t judge him for it. His wife is a horror.
Vivian glares at her son. “We could drown that device in a teacup, couldn’t we?”
“This is business nowadays, Mom. You would have been glued to yours if they’d been around back then.”
She shakes her head and returns to her slow sips of coffee, each one sure to infuriate her husband a little more. These simple pleasures are what keep her going these days.
“Well, it’s time I got on the road,” Stuart announces finally.
He kisses her on the cheek and she holds his hand tightly before releasing him. Todd follows him to the front door as if he needs escorting. Vivian has been playing the hard-of-hearing card for years, so she catches clearly their softly-spoken words.
“She seems like her normal self, Dad.”
Vivian doesn’t need to look at them to know Todd’s reaction. A little shake of the head and a furrowing of wrinkles. “Sometimes she’s fine. Sometimes she isn’t. If you saw her more often ...”
Their voices fade, until Stuart utters a dishonest “see you soon” and Todd sends him on his way with best wishes to his family, who they see even less frequently than Stuart. His wife and daughters have no interest in visiting little old Stapleton.
The councillors have waited, as they should. Vivian enlisted every one of them; handpicked them for their malleability, coached them and ran their campaigns.
Mayor Kirk George, 65, is the youngest of the group. He owns the gas station. “Business First” was the slogan she chose for him. Not that it mattered. No one else stood for the position, so he won by acclamation. He’s slurping his diet coke as Vivian enters but puts it down the second he spots her. He glances pointedly at Hazel.
Councillor Hazel Carter, aged 76 (who has been having an affair with her neighbour’s husband since 1997), dabs the corner of her eye with a tissue. “I only just found out,” she mumbles as Vivian and Todd take their seats across the table.
Vivian straightens her brass nameplate and looks at Todd. “Frank,” he says, as though that is an adequate explanation. Whatever is going on between Hazel and Frank is presumably a personal matter that Todd can update her on after the meeting.
Beside Hazel, Councillor Gerry Martin, 71 (former dealer to the restless youth in his rural Saskatchewan hometown) has a dead look in his eyes, but that is nothing new. Vivian places a hand on her collarbone to touch her pearls, the one constant in all the council meetings she has attended over the years and discovers they aren’t there.
The room is stifling and the start of the meeting is delayed while windows are opened and attendees hit the water cooler before shuffling back to their seats. The large ceiling fan was declared unfixable several years back and deemed unnecessary for replacement. Stapleton’s financial situation is precarious, to say the least. Potholes have to become sinkholes before a discussion arises about dipping into the minuscule maintenance budget.
Vivian and Todd Lennox, both now in their eighties, are the oldest councillors and undoubtedly the wealthiest people in town but Vivian has always strongly resisted Todd’s wish to provide the community with any form of financial relief. “A community cannot survive on handouts,” she always tells him. “We could at least replace the fan in the council chamber, Vivian.” He returns to this point only because of his own personal discomfort during the Monday night meetings. He sweats like a man three times his body weight, even in lightweight chinos and a short-sleeved shirt.
No. One thing leads to another.
Vivian will give back to Stapleton in a much more meaningful way. She can see it as clearly as if it has already come into being. Open doors on Main Street. Contemporary store-front signage with eye-catching window displays. Customers coming and going and chit chatting. A café with a patio and decent coffee. Before she dies, she will turn around the fortunes of this community, not by replacing an old ceiling fan but by once again bringing back industry and jobs to the town. That will be her legacy, as it was always meant to be.
Nonetheless, she can’t deny that it’s overly warm on this particular evening. The heat creeps into her old body and sticks to her brow. Discomfort turns to drowsiness, and the chattering of the room morphs into indistinct background noise.
Kirk clears his throat and addresses the handful of residents in the public seating area, the predominantly white-haired councillors, the village administrator, the minute-taker and the journalist who is there every week representing the Stapleton Herald (est. 1901). The journalist has gone down in Vivian’s estimation since developing the irritating habit of taking notes on a laptop, her manicured fingernails harassing the keys every thirty seconds. Ver
y distracting, particularly for someone like Vivian, who is not nearly as deaf as she pretends to be.
“Before we get into this week’s meeting, I would like to say something on a personal note.” Kirk clears his throat for a second time. Vivian’s jaw clenches. She hasn’t been briefed on this little detour.
“We are all deeply saddened by the death of Frank Buchanan who lost his fight with cancer. We would like to send our heartfelt condolences to his family. He has left quite a mark on our community and he won’t be forgotten.”
Frank isn’t ... he can’t be.
Hazel sniffles loudly. He can’t have died. Vivian would’ve heard. She clears her throat and reaches for her absent pearls, casting her eyes across the room. Heads lowered in respectful silence. She will not let them see her shock. That is one thing she can control. Why did no one tell her?
She visited Frank at the hospital. He was hollow-cheeked and hairless from the failed treatments. A tear fell from her eye. “The ice queen is melting,” he said. Then he turned on her, the man who would rather lie with a smile on his face than give an honest opinion. “You’ll suffer too, Vivian. Your time is coming.” She didn’t visit him again.
Kirk moves the meeting along and words bounce around the table—leftovers from the last session, motions to be dealt with—so-and-so’s concerns. More keyboard tapping as minutes are recorded. She can’t seem to focus. Frank is dead. Did he hate her, in the end?
“All in favour?” Kirk asks.
Vivian hasn’t the slightest idea what she’s voting on. She mimics her husband because she will have briefed him carefully beforehand. Sweat prickles her brow. Her throat is dry. The mundane decisions of a typical Monday night are suddenly too much.
Unravelling Page 2
