We rushed through the terminal to connect with a smaller regional airline. Bridget clutched my hand tightly but otherwise didn’t make a peep. She was more comfortable in crowds, where nobody looked at her or spoke to her.
After we seated ourselves in the tiny, propeller-driven aircraft, she fell asleep and didn’t wake until we landed in Juniper an hour later. Darkness had already fallen, so we couldn’t see very much. The taxi took us to a downtown two-storey hotel called the Excelsior. A garish orange neon sign advertised “Colour TV in Every Room!” There were two doors on the side of the building. One sign read “Gentlemen,” and the other, mysteriously, “Ladies and Escorts.” It felt very much like a foreign country.
The next morning Bridget refused to leave our hotel room. I had two equally repugnant choices: drag her downstairs kicking and howling, or leave her alone in the locked room, watching cartoons. I chose the latter. Such was the life of a single parent. It was like wearing a living, breathing ankle monitor. I dashed downstairs and grabbed coffee, juice, and muffins.
After we ate, we headed down Main Street toward the lawyer’s office. The few people we passed stared curiously into our faces, first mine and then Bridget’s, as if hoping to recognize us. Each time, Bridget cowered behind me.
The morning was sunny, but none too warm. Before leaving, I had checked Juniper’s temperature statistics. It had only three months of frost-free days on average, in June, July, and August. Today was the first of August. That meant frost was only a month away.
I hastened my steps, tugging Bridget along by the hand.
On the next block we found an office with “Franklin D. Jones” written in gold lettering on the front window. I pushed open the door, Bridget clinging to my knees as usual, and saw a young woman seated behind the reception desk reading a book.
She was extremely pretty, delicate and fine-boned, with pale golden skin and dark eyes. But the overall impression was spoiled by her hair — a teased, bleached mass of Dolly Parton curls in a style dating back to the 1980s. Her bangs stood out in a roll from her forehead, so stiff that you could have run a broomstick through them.
“Hello, you must be Molly Bannister! I’ve been waiting for you!” She set down her book, a romance novel called Dark Desires. The cover bore an illustration of a bare-chested man staring lasciviously at a modest maiden.
When she came toward us, I saw that her clothes were as dated as her hairstyle — a black leather miniskirt paired with a tight leopard-print top, clinging to her magnificent chest and tiny waist. “And who’s this young lady?”
“This is Bridget. She’s very shy.” I grimaced and widened my eyes.
Thankfully she took the hint and ignored Bridget while we shook hands. “Welcome to Juniper! I’m Lisette Chatelaine.”
“Hi, Lisette. What a pretty name. Are you French-Canadian?”
“Yes, it’s an old family name. The Chatelaines arrived here from France in 1794, and there have been three Lisettes before me.”
“Two hundred and sixteen years ago! Really?”
“Yeah, the Chatelaines were real pioneers. We have a whole room to ourselves at the local museum. The men were voyageurs for the North West Company, and they all married Cree women. The fur trade was big business back then. There’s not as much money in trapping now, but my father and brothers still make their living at it.”
Once again, I reflected on my ignorance about Canada’s origins. I remembered the map we had studied at school, the route of explorers Lewis and Clark inked across the New World. Above the forty-ninth parallel, nothing. Yet the Chatelaines had arrived here ten years before Lewis and Clark made their famous expedition in 1804.
“I’ll see if Franklin, I mean, Mr. Jones, is ready for you.” Her voice dropped when she spoke his name, almost reverently. “Will your little girl stay out here? There are paper and crayons on that little table.”
Without a word, Bridget slipped over to the corner, sat down with her back to Lisette, and began to deliberate over the crayons.
While Lisette was in with the lawyer, I studied the framed map of North America hanging on the wall. Canada looked so big, and the United States below looked so small. I was accustomed to seeing the opposite — my own country large and predominant, with Canada fading off the top. I knew that Canada was larger than the States, but I hadn’t realized how much larger.
“Mr. Jones will see you now.” Lisette showed me into his office and closed the door behind her.
The lawyer, a handsome man with a full head of silver hair, was leaning back in his big leather chair, his tooled leather boots propped on a polished mahogany desk. When I entered, he swung his feet to the floor and stood to shake hands. “How are you, Miss Bannister? Please, have a seat.”
He began to talk immediately as I sat down across from him. He didn’t live in Juniper, but in Edmonton. He had branch offices throughout the north and made a monthly circuit to visit them all. Since the oil and gas industry was booming in northern Alberta, he had his hands full with real estate deals and land leases. I suspected he was reminding me that my own little affairs were inconsequential.
“So you live in Phoenix,” he said finally. “My wife and I fly down there a couple of times every winter to golf. Fabulous climate, just what the doctor ordered.”
I nodded politely.
“I’m afraid you won’t find anything here that’s remotely comparable. The people up here are very, shall we say, unworldly. Some of them have never even been on an airplane. It’s certainly no place to raise a child. And you have a boy, is it?”
“Girl.”
He went on, seemingly determined to paint a dark picture of Juniper. “Of course, farming in the north is like going into battle. It’s a thankless occupation, completely at the mercy of the elements. I’ve seen dozens of farmers wiped out in a single year. If they aren’t dried out, they’re hailed out or frozen out.”
He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on me. They were a pale shade of grey, almost white. The effect was spooky. “I knew your great-aunt very well. My father acted for both her and her husband, and then of course she inherited the farm after George died. You have to understand, Miss Bannister, it wasn’t her intention to cause you any hardship. She had a romantic notion in her head, that’s all. There’s no shame in turning down her offer.”
Mr. Jones didn’t realize that he was suggesting the impossible. Nevertheless, my shoulders slumped a little as he kept talking.
“She would never have inflicted this condition on you, had she known how many years would intervene. The house has been utterly neglected. There’s no way that a young woman could spend a week out there, let alone a year. And of course, you have your boy to consider. You would be risking your lives by accepting this ridiculous offer.”
I didn’t bother correcting him. “It appears from my great-aunt’s will that she loved the place and wanted her heirs to appreciate it as much as she did.”
Mr. Jones made a wry face and cast his eyes up to the ceiling. “Perhaps she wasn’t fully in possession of her faculties when she made the will. That would be impossible to prove, although I did look into it on your behalf. The medical records show no indication that she was mentally incapacitated when she prepared her will in 1988. I’m merely suggesting that she wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.”
“Since she moved into the nursing home, what’s happened to the farm?”
“It was placed in trust and administered according to the judgment of the executor.”
“The executor — meaning you?”
“Yes, that’s correct. I rent the farmland to a neighbour, and the monthly rent is paid into your great-aunt’s bank account. The rent didn’t cover the cost of the nursing home, so her savings supplemented her expenses. Those savings ran out just before she died.”
“What will happen if I refuse to accept her condition?”
“Then I’m authorized to issue a lump sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. Neither Canada nor the United States has an
inheritance tax, so the money comes free and clear. I can give it to you right now.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a leather-bound chequebook.
“And what about the farm?”
He reached for a gold pen that was standing upright in a holder shaped like a tiny oil derrick. “I’m legally obligated to sell the farm to the highest bidder. The proceeds would then be transferred to the state, in this case the Alberta provincial government.”
I sat quietly for a minute while I pondered my options. Twenty-five thousand dollars was a big chunk of change. It would buy me a few months, give me a chance to find another job.
But it wouldn’t go far toward the cost of Bridget’s treatment. And it was a fraction of what I stood to gain by staying.
Mr. Jones darted a sideways look at me from his pale eyes. “Look, you have to understand that farms up here are operating at the subsistence level. You won’t get any more rent, if that’s what you’re thinking. The renter has the option of automatic renewal, and he signed the latest contract two years ago. Do you want to see it?”
“Thanks, that won’t be necessary.”
He leaned back in his chair, twiddling his pen. On the small finger of his right hand was a ring shaped like a chunky gold nugget. “Four hundred dollars a month isn’t much, unless you have another source of income. The cost of living up here is very high.”
I suspected he was fishing for information, but I didn’t answer. He frowned at me and clicked the end of his pen impatiently while my brain sifted through the options and reduced them to one. “How would I collect the rent?”
“There’s no mail delivery out there, so you’d have to pick it up here in the office. My girl can give it to you on the first of each month.”
My ears grated at the expression “my girl.” Even in Arizona lawyers knew better than that. I rose to my feet.
“Thank you, Mr. Jones. I’ll drive out to the farm and take a look for myself. I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.”
3
August
“It’s a scorcher, eh?” commented Edna, the plump, red-faced woman behind the hotel desk. I chuckled politely before I realized that she wasn’t joking. Edna patted her damp forehead with a tissue. “It’s twenty-three above. That’s the hottest day this year so far.”
I converted Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head — twice, to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. Seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit did not a hot day make, but we were in the far north now. As we entered the hotel restaurant, I saw several people in shorts and tank tops. Bridget and I were wearing jeans and jackets.
We found a booth in the corner and Bridget hid under the fake wood-grained tabletop while I placed our order for bacon and eggs. After the server left, I passed Bridget an antiseptic wipe and we surreptitiously cleaned our cutlery under the table.
I tried not to look too closely at the upholstery on the banquette, which had a pattern designed to hide the dirt, a swirling print like purple and brown storm clouds. The carpeted floor was dark brown, marked with heavy black streaks resembling tar, probably from the oil patch workers. Four young men at the next table wore steel-toed boots and orange reflective vests.
This was oil country. Northern Alberta had gigantic reserves of crude oil — the third largest in the world after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The “oil sands,” as they were called, produced billions of dollars in revenue and employed tens of thousands of people.
The room seemed unnaturally hushed. Breakfast at an American restaurant was a noisy affair, but here everyone was speaking in low voices, even the oil workers. Two older men in plaid shirts and suspenders quietly discussed the advantages of a forty-foot versus a thirty-foot combine header as if they were spies exchanging secrets. They might as well have been, since I had no idea what they were talking about.
As usual, Bridget refused to eat. I cut her toast into narrow strips and coaxed her to dip them into the golden egg yolks. She managed to get a few bites down while I wondered again how many calories a child her age needed to survive. She balked at drinking her orange juice because she said it tasted funny. The food was delicious and the coffee excellent, but the bill came to an astonishing $17. My dwindling funds wouldn’t last long at this rate.
I sang “You Are My Sunshine” while we drove away from town, along the paved, four-lane Mackenzie Highway that ran north and south through the forest like twin silver ribbons. Bridget refused to sing along. She sat in the corner of the seat, sulking.
The sparse traffic consisted mostly of trucks: tankers, pickups, and four-by-fours with equipment stacked in the back, all heading to the northern oil and gas fields. I was greatly encouraged by the quality of the highway. We should be able to drive eighty-eight miles in eighty-eight minutes.
As we sailed along, I marvelled at the vastness of this forest that lined the highway on both sides and extended to the horizon. At intervals the bush was broken by fields of waving grain, pastures of lush grass, and ponds of shimmering sapphire. Rocking horse oil wells dotted the fields, their red metal heads dipping and rising. Occasionally we passed a farmstead with a tidy wood-framed house and rows of tall silver cylinders that I assumed were for grain storage.
After we had driven sixty miles straight north, the pleasant woman’s voice from the global positioning system told us to turn right, toward the east. This road was much narrower, and the pavement was dotted with potholes. I slowed the rented Toyota Corolla, feeling a little apprehensive. Every few hundred yards we crossed a small bridge. The landscape was criss-crossed by creeks and lined with low shrubs and clumps of cattails that emerged from the forest and wound through the yellow fields like bushy green snakes. “Bridget, look at all the water!” She refused to raise her eyes.
At each one-mile point we intersected another crossroad. I finally coaxed Bridget out of her mood by asking her to count them. When she reached twenty, the voice told us to turn left, or north, onto a gravel road.
I had never driven on gravel, so I slowed the car again with a sense of misgiving. We were still eight miles from our destination. A cloud of dust rose behind the car. After the first couple of miles, all signs of human habitation ceased, and the forest walls closed in on both sides. We were driving through a tunnel of trees.
I gripped the steering wheel tightly. This must be how Hansel and Gretel felt, following the trail of bread crumbs through the dark woods. I was relieved to see the odd patch of pasture, where cattle grazed. The familiar sight of a cow was comforting.
The day was getting warmer and to save gasoline I rolled down the windows and turned off the air conditioning. The fresh scent of pine resin flowed through the open windows. There was an intermittent thwacking sound as insects hit the hood and the windshield, leaving disgusting green smears on the glass.
Suddenly Bridget let out a piercing scream. I slammed on the brakes and the car fishtailed on the gravel before coming to a stop. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
Still shrieking, Bridget pointed to a grasshopper that had flown in through the window and was clinging to her sleeve.
“It’s just a silly old bug! Here, let me grab it.” I took a paper napkin off the floor and gingerly picked up the grasshopper, then flung it out the window. I was trying to be brave for her sake, but the insect was hideous, chartreuse in colour and slightly sticky.
I pressed the button to raise the electric windows and started off again, but Bridget’s mood had changed. She continued to look around fearfully, clutching Johnny Wrinkle to her chest.
“Mama, the sun is shining right in my eyes!”
“Well, just shut them for a few minutes. We’re almost there.”
Bridget closed her eyes, scrunching up her face comically. “That doesn’t work! It just turns everything dark orange!”
Before I could answer, the dashboard voice spoke again. “You have reached your destination.” I glanced around but I couldn’t see anything that looked like a farmyard. A rutted trail, thick with grass and weeds, cut through a field of grain on ou
r left and disappeared over a slight rise.
Carefully, I eased the car onto the trail and heard a series of metallic-sounding thumps as the tall weeds struck the undercarriage. I was afraid the car would bottom out or, worse yet, hit a hidden rock. I braked to a halt.
“Come on, Bridget, we’ll have to walk.”
“No! Mama, there’s bugs out there!”
“They won’t hurt you, I promise. Let’s go and find our new house.”
I went around to the passenger door and opened it. Bridget’s little hands clung to the sides of the doorway like the suction-cupped arms of a starfish. “I don’t want to go!”
“You can ride piggyback. The bugs can’t get you up there!”
“No, no, no, no!”
“Bridget, you have to come with me or else stay in the car by yourself.”
Dreading a tantrum, I heard my voice assume its usual wheedling tone. I felt the familiar surge of anxiety and reluctance to upset her. Thankfully she allowed herself to be hoisted onto my back, and we set off. She must have gained weight, I thought as I staggered along the grassy ruts.
“Sweetie, don’t choke me, please.”
Even with Bridget squeezing my throat and shrieking every time a grasshopper whirred out of the grass, I admired the overarching sky. It was a deeper shade of blue than in the desert and looked as solid as marble. A chest-high field of emerald grain stood on both sides of the trail. The air was thick with the yeasty scent of ripening wheat. Occasionally an unfamiliar sweet fragrance rose from a cluster of wildflowers.
When we crested the rise, I saw a stand of trees that formed a rough rectangle, floating like a dark-green island in a lighter-green sea, backed by a solid wall of forest to the north. I quickened my steps toward a rough opening in the rectangle.
We came around the corner, and I stopped abruptly at the first sight of the house.
The three-storey building was shaped like an enormous shoebox standing on one end. If it weren’t so tall, it might have been hidden behind the surrounding mass of overgrown shrubs. The peeling, cream-coloured horizontal clapboards on the lower half were barely visible. On the upper half, the walls were covered with dark-red shingles faded to a deep rose, the same colour as the brick chimney that climbed up one side.
Wildwood Page 3
