But this was going to be a close contender.
Two months ago, I had been laid off by the accounting firm that hired me fresh out of college. The recession hit Phoenix like a tidal wave, and I watched several rounds of layoffs with increasing terror until finally it was my turn.
I came home and glued myself to my computer, emailing hundreds of resumés. But there were no accounting vacancies, not in private firms, banks, or government departments. My skill with numbers and my stellar academic credentials were simply without value in today’s marketplace.
I had barely managed to make July’s rent. Yesterday I dismissed Gabriella, the Mexican nanny who had cared for Bridget ever since she was a baby. And I didn’t have the courage to tell my fragile little daughter that Gabby wasn’t coming back.
Tomorrow I would start looking for the cheapest apartment I could find, in a less desirable area. I would find a daytime job as a retail clerk or server, and Bridget would be forced into a low-income daycare centre.
I didn’t mind so much about myself. The fancy condominium and the white furniture could go. And I could endure waiting on tables for the sake of a paycheque.
What I couldn’t bear was the effect it would have on Bridget. When I thought about leaving her in an unfamiliar place, filled with noisy children and strange adults, then turning my back and walking away, I felt physically ill.
I opened the financial folder on my computer desktop and studied the numbers again. How I wished that the great banker of life, like the one in the Monopoly game, had made an error in my favour. But the numbers remained the same no matter how many times I reviewed them.
At work they jokingly called me “The Human Calculator.” So it didn’t take long to add the figures in my head. My total assets included my personal savings, the 2006 Nissan Altima purchased before Bridget’s birth, and some miscellaneous belongings.
My liabilities included a medical bill from the ear infection that struck Bridget two days after I lost my job, along with my company health insurance. Bridget’s psychotherapy had already drained my savings account, and I still owed the child psychologist $2,000. When I told Dr. Cassalet we couldn’t afford to come back, she looked grim. “Please get Bridget into treatment as soon as you can,” she said.
After setting aside money for the first and last month’s rent in a new apartment, I had $800 to last until I found a job and received my first paycheque. If I could find a job. Otherwise we would be living in a homeless shelter.
I took my hands off the keyboard and scratched my elbows. My eczema had flared up again, and both elbows and shins bore an itchy, painful rash. My skin never did well in the Arizona heat, anyway. I had the milky white complexion of my Celtic forebears that burned without tanning.
With an audible sigh that sounded more like a moan, I left the computer and went into the kitchen, opened a can of beans, and started to make burritos. Cheap and filling, they were one of the few things that my fussy child would eat.
When the phone rang seven days later, my heart leaped. Hoping it was a potential employer, I snatched it up without checking the call display.
“Hello!”
“Hello, is this Mary Margaret Bannister?”
“Yes, it is. Who’s calling, please?”
“My name is Franklin Jones. I have a legal practice in Juniper, Alberta. I’m the executor of a will in which you are named as the principal beneficiary.”
My impulse was to hang up immediately, but he was still speaking.
“According to the will, you’re the only surviving relative of Mary Margaret Bannister Lee. She passed away two weeks ago.”
I paused. It was true that Mary Margaret Bannister was the maiden name of my grandfather’s sister, but she had died decades ago, somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. I had been named after her, although everyone called me Molly.
“Where did you get this number?”
“I searched for Bannisters in Arizona and found your name on Aztec Accounting’s website. When I called the office, one of your former colleagues was kind enough to give me your telephone number. I realize it’s unorthodox to call rather than write, but I wanted to expedite matters.”
“Well, I’m afraid you have the wrong person. I did have a great-aunt by that name who lived in Canada, but she died many years ago.”
“Perhaps you were misinformed. Mrs. Lee was in a nursing home for the past twenty years suffering from Alzheimer’s, but she was very much alive until recently. In fact, she was 104 years old on her last birthday.”
Was this possible? After The Accident — I always thought of it with capital letters — the Arizona social services department had concluded that I had no living relatives. Surely the lawyer was mistaken — if he was in fact a lawyer.
The man spoke again. “When Mary Margaret made her will many years ago, she told me that she had a brother named Macaulay Bannister who emigrated from Ireland to Arizona, and he in turn had a son named Fergus Bannister. Was Fergus your father?”
“Yes.” I hadn’t heard my father’s name spoken for years. Just the sound of it gave me a pang.
“If you give me your mailing address, I’ll send a copy of the will by courier and you should receive it within forty-eight hours. Then you can call me back to discuss your inheritance.”
I couldn’t think of any way a scam artist could have come up with my father’s name, let alone my grandfather’s name, but I was still suspicious.
“Just a moment, please.”
I walked over to my computer and searched for “Franklin Jones lawyer.” Sure enough, a website popped up, belonging to a firm based in Alberta.
I reflected briefly, then gave him my mailing address. It wouldn’t be mine for long, anyway, so there was nothing to lose.
After hanging up, I searched for Alberta, a large province bordering Montana, and found the capital, Edmonton. I was surprised to find that Canada’s northernmost large city had more than one million residents.
We had learned little about Canadian history or geography in school. I knew only that Canada was enormous and sparsely populated, dotted along the border with a few urban centres, like Toronto and Vancouver. I hadn’t realized there was another large city so far to the north.
When I thought about them at all, I pictured Canadians as a hardy people who escaped to warmer climes whenever possible. From the local media, I knew that thousands of Canadian snowbirds bought homes in Phoenix, something that helped to bump up our real estate market. Michael Bublé, my favourite singer, had grown up in Canada before moving to Los Angeles. But overall, I felt slightly ashamed that I was so ignorant about this vast northern neighbour.
When the will arrived, we had nineteen days left in the condo, and nineteen sleepless nights. I had applied for another six jobs without success, including one as a server at a downtown coffee shop.
I didn’t know what I would do if an employer wanted to arrange a personal interview. When Gabby was here, I could leave Bridget at home. But now that there were just the two of us, she had to accompany me everywhere.
I opened the large brown envelope without much hope and scanned the contents. Most of the material was difficult to read, couched in incomprehensible legal language, but it concerned a farm in northern Alberta, “herein referred to as Wildwood.” But I could easily understand the accompanying letter. This was written in black ink, in a strong yet feminine hand, attached to the will as a codicil, signed and witnessed, dated June 4, 1988.
“My fondest hope is that one of my surviving relatives will come to know and care for my beloved home as I have done. To that end, I am leaving Wildwood to my nephew Fergus Bannister, and in case of his death, to my great-niece Mary Margaret Bannister, on condition that the heir inhabits the property for a full twelve-month period prior to the transfer of title. During that time, he or she will receive a living allowance in the form of the monthly rental income from the farmland.”
Well, that was out of the question. I had no intention of living on a farm
, especially one that remote. And Bridget’s precarious mental state would completely unravel if she had to adjust to unfamiliar surroundings.
On the other hand, she was facing a very uncertain future here in Phoenix.
Where was this place, anyway? I went to my computer and googled Juniper, Alberta. It was two thousand miles straight north of Phoenix, a ridiculously long way. To put things in perspective, if I drove two thousand miles east instead of north I would find myself in the Atlantic Ocean. I checked the map again. It was farther north than Ketchikan, Alaska!
I tried Google Earth. The digital globe revolved, then zoomed into the town, a small settlement along the banks of a wide river, surrounded by a checkerboard of rectangular green fields. Apparently it didn’t snow there all the time.
I wondered if I could find the farm itself. I entered the legal description of the property, and Google Earth focused on a spot that seemed a long way from Juniper. Eighty-eight miles, to be exact. It wasn’t bad enough that the town was so far away, but the farm was even farther. Unfortunately the satellite image was blurry. The farm was no more than a dark blot on a green background.
I zoomed out. The farm stood at the edge of an irregular block of light-green and yellow rectangles that looked like they had been carved out of the forest. At the northern edge of the property, the landscape abruptly changed into flat, dark-green wilderness that continued — I scrolled north, farther and then farther again — practically into infinity. The forest, dotted with rivers and lakes, morphed into frozen tundra that finally ended on the banks of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Circle.
This particular farm was situated on the very fringe of human habitat.
I turned back to the will again. My inheritance, if I fulfilled my great-aunt’s condition, consisted of two sections of land, plus a dwelling, its contents, and several outbuildings.
What was a section, anyway? I did some more research and was pleasantly surprised to find that a section was 640 acres. So there were 1,280 acres. That sounded like a lot. But what could be grown so far north? Christmas trees?
I typed: “Value of farmland in the area of Juniper, Alberta.”
That was when I got the shock of my life.
According to an official-sounding report from Agriculture Canada, dated one month earlier, the value of land was $1,150 per acre and “trending upwards.” I did the mental math at my usual lightning speed. Two sections of land were worth $1,472,000.
I fell back in my chair, staggered. But then I remembered that the price was listed in Canadian dollars. With my luck, the Canadian dollar would be worth ten cents on the American dollar. Hastily I looked up today’s exchange rate. This time I was more than staggered; I was stunned. The Canadian dollar, at eight o’clock this morning, was worth two cents more than the American dollar.
One hour later I called the lawyer in his office. It seemed incredible that he was in the same time zone — just two thousand miles closer to the North Pole.
Franklin Jones was shocked when I told him the news. “Miss Bannister, when I sent you the will, I certainly never expected you to accept that ridiculous condition. Let me explain. The farm is in a very remote location, with no power or water, and the house hasn’t been lived in for years. I must urge you to reconsider.”
He sounded so convincing that my heart sank. If he was right, I was going to waste my remaining funds on a wild goose chase.
I couldn’t keep a quiver out of my voice. “Can you tell me how much rental income to expect?”
“It’s not much, I’m afraid.” There was a rustle of papers, and then a long silence. I thought we might have been disconnected, but finally he spoke. “I’m afraid it’s only $400 per month.”
That was less than I had hoped for, but at least we would have free accommodation. What would we need except groceries?
I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak firmly. “Thank you, Mr. Jones. We’ll be there in three weeks. I’ll come straight to your office when we’ve arrived.”
That evening after Bridget had her usual bubble bath and fell asleep, I stepped onto the balcony. The night was simmering, thick with the muffled roar of invisible traffic coming from freeways that surrounded us on all four sides.
I looked up at the sky. Phoenix lay in a bowl on the desert, and at this time of year the bowl was filled with thick smog. I could hear an airplane overhead, beginning its descent into the nearby international airport, but I couldn’t even see its blinking red landing lights through the grey blanket above.
Arizona was my birthplace, where my parents had chosen to raise me. I felt almost disloyal for thinking of leaving.
But the numbers didn’t lie. For that kind of money, I would have moved to the Congo. If I could inherit and sell the farm, I could afford the best doctors, the most skilled therapists in the world for Bridget. This was her only chance.
Twelve short months from now, God willing, we would be back in Phoenix with enough money to create a new life for both of us.
2
August
As the airplane rose from the tarmac, I peered over Bridget’s head and watched the sprawling city fall away. It looked as if it were smouldering under the haze of smog. Through the brownish mist I could see irrigated green lawns like square-cut emeralds and swimming pools like turquoise stones. These suddenly gave way to the bare, brown desert as if a line were drawn in the sand. Then we were up and away.
Bridget opened her pink backpack crammed with her prized possessions, including three Dr. Seuss books and a stuffed toy bloodhound named Johnny Wrinkle. After much deliberation she had decided to leave the Barbies behind where they would be “safe.” I wasn’t sure what she was expecting in Canada. In spite of my efforts to make this into an exciting adventure, she was even more fearful than usual.
Now she pulled out Green Eggs and Ham while I went through my mental checklist.
I had shucked off our city life like a snake shedding its skin. The car brought in enough cash to pay the bills. I even sold my computer and my phone, since the farm had neither internet nor cell service. I cancelled my credit cards and filed my income tax return in advance.
After setting aside our warmest clothing, I had donated the rest to charity. Personal belongings went into a storage locker, including my photo albums and a few precious mementoes of my parents. There weren’t many: a joke tie covered with reindeer faces that I had given my father for Christmas, a souvenir pebble from Arizona’s Petrified Forest, one of my mother’s favourite silk scarves.
The scarf still carried a faint hint of perfume, but my childhood recollections had faded like the scent itself. For years I had repressed all memories of my parents, but sorting through my possessions had drawn them closer to the surface. Now I sank back in my seat and closed my eyes, feeling the old pain.
As an only child of older parents, I had been cherished. But after The Accident everything changed. My former life blew apart into fragments, and every iota of confidence I had — in myself, in other people, in the future, in the very world around me — dissolved and vanished into outer space.
Perhaps if my parents had died earlier, I could have coped better. But adolescents have trouble seeing the big picture since everything revolves around them. And if I had been a younger or prettier child, family acquaintances might have taken me in, but they understandably balked at the prospect of an awkward, grief-stricken twelve-year-old.
So I went to foster parents in their sixties, the Sampsons. They had no children of their own and little idea how to raise a teenager. They were kind enough, but we didn’t bond, as the current terminology goes. I once overheard them discussing their future — the monthly sum they earned from Social Services for fostering me was earmarked for their retirement home in Palm Springs.
At first, I simply refused to grow up. Somewhere in my subconscious was the notion that if I grew older, I would be leaving my parents behind. I kept my hair in the same childish bob with bangs. I wore my old clothes until they wore out. My
shoes were so small that my heels bled. Finally, Mrs. Sampson insisted on buying me some new things.
To be fair, she asked me if I wanted to choose my own clothing. We went on a couple of painful shopping trips, and I shrugged with indifference at every suggestion. My misery was so encompassing that I would have gone to school in rags.
So Mrs. Sampson picked out outfits that she would have chosen for her own granddaughter. Polyester pants in black and navy, wrinkle-free synthetic blouses in tiny floral prints, pastel cardigans, and plaid skirts. It was another reason to be shunned by my peers, yet in my unhappiness I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
I didn’t care because I couldn’t feel anything. In old novels the author often “draws a veil” over the past. I felt as if a veil had been drawn over my past, a filmy but impenetrable shroud through which only the merest glimpses were visible. And I refused to look, grateful not to be reminded of what had been.
Now all I recalled from my childhood was an overall warm blanket of happiness and security. A familiar tune, the odour of pipe smoke, a feminine laugh — these were fleeting wisps of memory. Thinking about my parents was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. They were very distant and very tiny.
I sighed and leaned back in my seat. Although it felt like we were flying to the dark side of the moon, the international flight was surprisingly short. Four hours later, we were on the ground. We collected our luggage — two large suitcases crammed to bursting — and approached the Canadian Customs and Immigration counter in Edmonton.
“What’s the purpose of your visit?” A young woman wearing a smart navy uniform with an embroidered gold maple leaf on each shoulder examined our passports.
“We’re going to visit my family home in Juniper.” This was close enough to the truth. I was grateful that I didn’t have to lie, since I was a terrible liar.
“Beautiful country up there. Enjoy your holiday. Welcome to Canada!” She handed us our passports and waved us along with a smile.
Wildwood Page 2
