by Mere Joyce
Copyright © 2019 Mere Joyce
This edition copyright © 2019 DCB, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities, and the Government of Ontario through Ontario Creates, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Things that fall / Mere Joyce.
Names: Joyce, Mere, 1988– author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190089636 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190089644 |
ISBN 9781770865563 (softcover) | ISBN 9781770865570 (html)
Classification: LCC ps8619.o975 t55 2019 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23
United States Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967102
Cover design: Angel Guerra / Interior text design: tannicegdesigns.ca
Printed and bound in Canada
Manufactured by Houghton Boston Printers in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada in August 2019.
DCB
An imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.
260 Spadina Avenue, Suite 502, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 2E4
www.dcbyoungreaders.com
www.cormorantbooks.com
Contents
Kayla
Nolan
Hailey
Kayla
Allison
Nolan
Kayla
Hailey
Thomas
Kayla
Eli
Hailey
Nolan
Kayla
Thomas
Hailey
Eli
Kayla
Hailey
Thomas
Nolan
Hailey
Kayla
Eli
Allison
Kayla
Hailey
Nolan
Thomas
Kayla
Hailey
Eli
Thomas
Nolan
Kayla
Hailey
Eli
Kayla
Allison
Nolan
Thomas
Forrester
About the Author
Landmarks
Cover
Copyright
Start of Content
PageList
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For My Cousins
KAYLA
THE WINDOW IS MOCKING me.
High up on the wall and small, not much larger than the narrow panes built into new home basements, its shine a taunting reminder of the bright October day waiting outside this dismal parlor.
I blink away from the hint of sun and glance over to where Mom and Dad stand talking to some bald guy I don’t know. I should be the dutiful daughter and join in the conversation. I don’t want to risk disappointing my parents, but I’m also not eager to leave my comfortable spot. We came early, and I nabbed a corner angled away from the casket at the far end of the room. Prime real estate in an awful place like this. When more people start showing up, I’ll lose it for sure.
Stuck with indecision, I stay rooted as my eyes stray toward a couple standing near the coffin I can’t quite see. The people are unfamiliar, and I watch their somber poses until they step away to make room for others. When their rigid forms no longer totally obscure my view of the casket, my gaze snaps back to the rectangle of light from the window. I saw the body when I first arrived. I have no interest in spending more time staring at it.
Why do people insist on having corpses present at a funeral? Wouldn’t everyone feel more at ease without the dead body dressed up like a demented life-sized doll?
The room is quiet, and even from its far side I hear snippets of my parents’ conversation.
“It wasn’t just Simon,” the bald guy scoffs in response to some comment my dad has made. “Growing up I spent more time with the Hacher family than I did my own.”
The sound of my uncle’s name as I gaze at the small rectangle of light sends a tingle of annoyance through me — the same kind of frustration I felt on Tuesday when I sat in math class, trying hard to focus on the equations in my textbook instead of the streaming sun beyond the windowpane. That was four days ago, when I was still oblivious to the fact that at the same moment I was watching a bird flitting by on the other side of the glass, Uncle Simon was miles away, lifting a load of plywood in the above-average September heat — and collapsing beneath its weight as his heart gave out.
Four days ago. For four days, my uncle has been dead. And now I’m here, wasting a warm, yellow Saturday in a room black with mourning.
“After all,” the guy continues, “the cooking was always better, and at my house I was surrounded by girls.”
Dad laughs, and I tilt my chin in his direction, curious about his reaction. My father doesn’t talk about his brothers. He hasn’t even seen any of them in a decade, Uncle Simon’s body notwithstanding.
“Joey and Oscar would have loved to switch places with me,” the guy says, referencing two of the four brothers Dad never mentions at home. “Quite a change from a house of five boys to one with three girls. Those two loved my sisters. A little too much, if you recall.”
The guy — who must be an old family friend my parents have never bothered to mention — smiles, before his expression falls.
“Simon loved them, too, but not in the same way,” he adds. “He just thought it was spectacular to have a girl around.”
He gives Dad a weird look then, a glance clearly meant to convey something important. Dad’s quick to avert his gaze, which makes me uneasy. I turn back to the window, wishing I weren’t standing here alone. If only Hudson had been able to come home for the weekend — my boyfriend would be a much better distraction than the irritating pane of light.
“Kayla?”
Footsteps sound behind me, and I turn to find a different source of distraction as someone stares at me from the back of the parlor. For half a second, I wonder who the girl is. When I finally recognize her face, I’m washed with embarrassment — and a grateful sense of oncoming respite.
Hailey.
My cousin, half a year older than I am, stands with her family near the room’s entrance. I haven’t seen Hailey since we were seven years old. And yet, I know both her and the younger siblings standing at her sides, a boy and a girl I haven’t seen since one was a toddler and the other one a babe. They’re strangers, but I know them all.
How can people be so familiar and at the same time so completely unknown?
My uncle Dean hovers near the entryway with his family, my aunt beside him, the kids a step behind. They look drained and uncertain, like my own parents did four days ago when they got the phone call from the hospital where Dad had been listed as next of kin.
Uncle Dean’s eyes scan the room until they find his dead brother’s body. I watch him sob, holding a fist to his mouth as he turns in against his wife’s embrace.
Then I look away.
My eyes veer to where Dad stands watching his brother, unmoving. The sight is disturbing. I wonder if my dad will eventually cross the room or if he’ll spend the entire morning studying Dean from afar.
Saying I don’t know much about the history of Dad’s family fight is a blatant lie. I know nothing about it, except it means Dad hasn’t spoken to any of his four brothers in ten years. And now there’s one brother he’ll never be able to speak to again.
Hailey ushers her younger siblings away from their parents, and I look back in time to see them approaching me. I smile, relieved to have her nearby. Maybe I don’t know Hailey anymore, but at one time we were close, the two of us part of a cluster of cousins our parents used to call the Group of Seven. Besides, having someone around my age — someone holding the same position as “niece to the deceased” — means a lot in a situation like this.
“Hey,” I murmur, my voice rising only a fraction above a whisper. Everything I’ve said this morning has been quiet. A normal tone seems disrespectful here.
“Hi,” Hailey sighs, leaning forward and pulling me into an unexpected hug. As soon as she envelops me, though, I remember Hailey has always hugged people. The recollection is amusing, and her weight against me is a comfort. She smells like eucalyptus and cedar wood. I breathe in the earthy scents and let myself enjoy the familiarity of the moment.
When Hailey steps back, she runs her fingers through her hair. The strands are thick, black, and long, a complete difference from the thin, mousy mane covering my head. Hailey’s mother is Cree, and Hailey looks far more like her mother now than she ever did when we were children. She’s grown into her heritage, and the result is stunning. Her skin is darker than mine, her brown eyes bright and wide, her small lips a crooked heart. Our fathers are brothers, and I look like my dad, but no one would ever think Hailey and I were related. She’s taller than me, and her frame is fuller, her curves more pronounced. I don’t consider myself a beast, but without self-pity I can admit Hailey i
s prettier than I am. She has a natural kind of beauty I don’t possess. I don’t even think she’s wearing makeup, and still her features are more radiant than my carefully contoured ones.
Her sister is like her miniature twin, while her brother has more of his father’s looks, his hair lighter and short, his eyes blue and his face round. After Hailey’s hugged me, she takes a moment to guide them to a couple of nearby chairs that are out of view of the casket. Her sister whispers something, and Hailey glances back at me with a frown.
“She’s your cousin,” Hailey explains to the little girl, who must not even remember who I am.
The description feels odd, like it has smacked my funny bone and left an uncomfortable prickle shaking down my arm. Maybe if I lived across the country from these kids it wouldn’t be weird for them not to know me. But we’re only an hour away from each other. Or, at least, we used to be. It’s not unheard of for people to move in the space of a decade, so it’s possible Hailey’s family has relocated.
The uncertainty of it all makes me squirm. Should cousins need to behave like strangers?
Hailey hands her sister a cellphone and warns her to keep the volume off as the two kids hunch over the screen to play a game. They look uncomfortable, crowding so close together they’re practically sharing a single chair. I wonder why their parents even made them come.
Hailey waits until the two are settled before she turns back to me with another sigh.
“Crazy, eh?” she says, nodding her head in the direction of our late uncle. “And to think of all that time wasted. My dad hadn’t seen him in years. Stupid men.”
Her words cause an instant reflex in my muscles. I grab her arm, my nails pressing into her blouse.
“Your dad hadn’t seen him, either?” I ask. This is not news I anticipated hearing. Of all the people in attendance today, I believed only my parents and I would be the outsiders skirting the edges of my late uncle’s life. “It wasn’t just my dad who stopped speaking to the family? I figured everyone else still saw each other.”
My cousin’s startled expression probably matches my own.
“No. At least, not my dad,” she says. “I don’t think he’s talked to any of his brothers in, I don’t know …”
“Ten years?” I interject.
Hailey glances at her parents with a nod.
“Yeah, I guess that’s about right,” she says. “You too?”
I relax my grip and let my fingers slide off her arm.
“Me too.”
“Shit,” Hailey mumbles, sighing for the third time since her arrival.
My cousin and I stand together, watching groups of people enter the parlor. I don’t know any of them. I suppose they’re friends, co-workers, or maybe relatives from Aunt Shirley’s side of the family. Whoever they are, their appearance is dull and stiff as they enter the long red-carpeted and beige-walled room.
