I met Bert rushing out the back door of the lodge. His shirt was untucked, and he had a daub of shaving cream on his neck. Two of Johnny’s band members were lounging on the steps, smoking.
“What’s going on?” Bert asked.
“Johnny’s out of control. He attacked my brother,” I shouted.
Bert looked suspicious, but not all that surprised. “What did your brother do to him?”
“He didn’t do anything!” I yelled. “Johnny is crazy!”
Bert held his hands up in surrender and tried to calm me down in a voice that only managed to irk me even more. “I’m sure we can work things out, why don’t we just get the boys in a room together …”
“It’s a little late for that,” one of the boys muttered. “The kid’s long gone.”
“What are you saying, Don?” Bert asked. “Did you see something?”
Don took a long drag on his cigarette before replying, “I saw the blond kid book it to the road. He had a couple of bags with him.”
“How do you know it was Bo?” I demanded.
“The kid I saw was hurt. He was holding his jaw like maybe it was broken or something.”
I pushed Don aside and tore up the stairs and into Gwen’s room without knocking. Gwen was nowhere to be found. Her bed was unmade, but otherwise there were no signs that anyone had been staying there. The assorted bottles of shampoos and creams had been cleared from the wardrobe. There were no clothes to be seen on the floor or in the closet, and every last letter was gone. It looked like she had been planning to leave.
I thought about the last time I had seen Gwen, when she had squeezed my fingers before taking to the stage. She had said something, but I couldn’t hear it over the noise in the mess hall. Now I wondered if it had been goodbye.
I ran down the stairs and into the dining hall, expecting to find no one. The four big windows along the front of the room, looking out over the lake, framed the landscape into neat squares, like four perfectly hung paintings — the kind people would pay a lot of money for. A woman was silhouetted in the furthest window, one hand resting on the table, the other in her lap. She was looking out over the dark lake. It was Mimi.
I called her name but she didn’t stir. I hadn’t seen her at all after the catastrophe. I had assumed she had run for Daddy, but then why was she sitting here, alone?
“Mimi? It’s me, Reenie.”
I approached with caution, like you approach a strange dog. I couldn’t tell what kind of mood she was in, but I knew it wasn’t one of her better ones. As I got closer I saw that Mimi had her scarf full of treasures open on her lap, the old locket wound between her fingers. She was gripping the chain so tight her knuckles were bone-white in the darkness.
“Mimi, have you seen Gwen?”
She shook her head, but didn’t turn to look at me.
“She’s missing.” I added, “Bo is, too.”
“All this time I was worried about you.” The sound of her voice was like a cold finger drawing the length of my spine.
“Worried about what?” I asked.
“Gwen. I thought she might be a bad influence on you. I never once thought about him.”
I inched closer, despite all the impulses in my body that were telling me I didn’t want to be here. Mimi’s voice was so odd, and I wished she would just turn and look at me. If I could just see her face, I could tell what kind of mood she was in.
Mimi had opened the locket, and the curl of almost-white hair lay on the table beside her. Irritation prickled at my skin like heat rash. Now was not the time to be stuck in the past, getting romantic about old baby things.
“Did you hear me, Mimi? They’re missing. Bo was hurt. We have to find them. This isn’t the time to be playing with Scarlett’s baby hair.”
Mimi looked at me then, and the sadness in her eyes was so deep, I thought I might drown.
“Oh, Reenie, it’s not Scarlett’s hair. It’s Gwen’s.”
Mimi’s Secret
I was aware of other noises, gravel crunching under tires as car after car pulled away from our front lawn, laughter drifting up from the beach, but these sounds felt far away, as if they belonged to another world. In the world of the lodge, Mimi and I were the only living souls. When Mimi started to talk her voice was so low I had to lean in to hear her, but I was afraid of getting too close; her words were too alarming. Each one set off an explosion in my brain and blew apart the entire landscape of everything I had known to be true.
“When I first moved to Toronto, I felt like I had won the lottery. I had new, exciting friends, men were sending me flowers, taking me to dinner … It was intoxicating, all that attention, all that freedom. It was wartime and everybody was living like there was no tomorrow, and why not? The papers made it sound like there wasn’t going to be one. I was reckless. We all were.”
I took two steps backward, needing to get away from her words. I felt I would be safer at a distance. My movement must have caught her eye, because she turned to look at me with beseeching eyes.
“Believe me, Reenie, this is not the kind of picture a mother wants to paint for her children, but you need to know the truth now. When I realized I was pregnant, I panicked. I couldn’t look after a baby. I was so ashamed. No one could know. Not the father, not my family, no one. The only people who knew were Grace and her husband. They took pity on me and let me stay at their family’s summer place when I started to show. It was surprisingly easy to keep it a secret. I was terrible at keeping in touch, so no one so much as batted an eye when I dropped off the map for six months.”
As Mimi’s story poured out, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a true story, not the plot of a play she had been in once.
“I knew I couldn’t keep the baby. That was never part of the plan. But the thought of giving it away to a stranger was …” Mimi paused, flexing her hands as if they had fallen asleep. The chain fell from her fingers and landed in the scarf in a pool of burnished metal links. “Well, it was harder than I’d expected. Grace had been having some trouble conceiving and it just seemed like fate. A little cruel and twisted, but fate all the same. And so the arrangements were made. Grace agreed to keep me informed on the progress of our little girl — that’s how I thought of her, as mine and Grace’s — but we agreed that Gwendolyn was never to know.” Mom paused to wipe her eyes, which were starting to fill up. Even in her sadness, it was an elegant gesture. “To this day, she doesn’t know she was adopted.
“Afterward, I tried to carry on as if nothing had changed. I moved back to my old rooming house, went to auditions, but it wasn’t the same. Then I met your father. He was so sweet and funny and full of plans … So when he asked me to marry him and live up north, I said yes. We hadn’t known each other long, but it just felt right. And here was a chance to leave the past in Toronto and start fresh.
“Bo was born the year after we were married. I’d wanted to start over, with a family of my own. Grace wrote and kept me informed on how Gwendolyn was doing. When she told me that Gwen was going to ballet school, it made me so proud. I didn’t make it as an actress, but maybe my daughter would find success on the stage.
“But a few months ago, Grace told me Gwen was in trouble. She was sneaking out at night and came in reeking of alcohol. She’d been skipping classes and was threatening to leave ballet altogether. I didn’t want her to make the same mistakes I made. I thought I could help her. I thought if I could bring her here, I could keep her away from all those bad influences. I could keep an eye on her. Maybe we could even get to know each other …” Mimi sighed. “It was a selfish plan. I just wanted to know my little girl.”
Somehow I found my voice. “But you had us,” I said.
Mimi turned to look at me, and she smiled. It was a real smile, although it did little to calm the churning feeling in my stomach. “Yes. And I am so, so lucky to have you and Bo and Scarlett. You are the best children in the world. I want you to know that whenever I was sad, whenever I was … distant, it wasn’t because of you or y
our brother or sister. It was never because of you.”
“Last summer, when you disappeared, you went to visit her,” I said. It hurt to say those words out loud, like each one was a shard of glass I had to swallow.
“Not at first,” Mimi said. “At first my head was such a mess I didn’t know what I was doing. I just needed to get away. I caught a bus headed for the city, and eventually I made my way to Grace’s.” Tears glistened on Mimi’s cheeks. “She wasn’t even there. I felt like such a fool. I had frightened everyone so badly, and Gwendolyn wasn’t even there …”
“Does Daddy know?” I asked.
She nodded. “Your father is the best man I know,” she said simply.
I looked out at the horizon, wondering how to go forward from this moment. I had watched the sun sink into the lake more times than I could recall. It was something I took for granted. The sun set and it would rise again tomorrow. But tomorrow the world it revealed would be completely different from the world I had grown up in. In this new world, Gwen was my sister, something I had wished for secretly time and time again. Now that wish had come true. It made me uneasy. I know it’s silly to think a person has the power to wish something true, but part of me wondered.
I wished I could take it back.
A car sped into the driveway, two yellow beams moving like ghosts across Mimi’s stone face. The shrill sound of squealing rubber made me flinch, but Mimi remained motionless, even as the doors slammed and the sound of Bo yelling grew louder as he and Daddy neared the lodge. Gwen walked a few steps behind them, head down, like she was on her way to a funeral. She was still wearing her white dress, which shone eerily in the moonlight.
My heart ached for Gwen. She seemed like a thwarted princess, now more than ever. She didn’t even know she was adopted, let alone related to the boy she was in love with. My chest tightened. I needed to get out of there. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Bo or Gwen when Mimi told them the truth. But I wasn’t fast enough. I had barely made it halfway across the dining hall when the door swung open and Bo burst in, Daddy close behind him. Gwen hovered in the door, looking unsure of herself.
“I found them halfway to Orillia, speeding down the back roads,” Daddy said to no one in particular. “I was watching over the cars and saw them leave. That boy with the eyebrows was driving them, the singer.”
“His name is Paul,” Bo said curtly, “and he wasn’t speeding, and we weren’t breaking any laws! Stop treating us like criminals!”
He grabbed Gwen’s hand and pulled her closer to Mimi. For a moment I thought he was going to get on his knees to implore her. He must have thought better of it, because instead he smoothed his hair and lowered his voice.
“I’m going to Toronto with Gwen. I want to be a musician. There’s nothing here for me anymore.”
“Of course there is,” Mimi said, looking hurt.
“You can’t stop us,” Bo said in a valiant attempt at controlling his nerves.
Mimi stood then, regaining her composure. Her chin was set at the exact same angle as Bo’s. They were both stubborn, but there was more steel in Mimi’s gaze.
“I can, and I will,” she said. She sounded calm and confident, like she was ready to win this argument. I couldn’t remember a time when she seemed as formidable. Even when she decided to bring Gwen up north as the dance teacher, she was eager for Daddy to agree. The Mimi standing here now, staring down her most stubborn child, wasn’t looking for anyone’s approval. Bo must have thought so, too, because I saw a moment’s hesitation in his eyes.
“I don’t get you,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I would have thought you of all people would understand. All you ever wanted was to get out of this place. You did once, remember? Or did you forget the time you just abandoned your family?”
“I remember,” Mimi said sadly.
“I’m not staying here. You can’t make me. If I don’t leave now, then some other time, and soon! And Gwen’s coming with me.”
“You’re right, Bo. I can’t make you stay. Not forever. But your future is not with Gwen, not the way you think. There is something you need to know,” Mimi said calmly. “Both of you.”
“Reenie.”
The tone in Daddy’s voice told me it was time to go. I didn’t need to be told twice.
I ran through the lodge, across the dark lawn and crashed into the woods. I ran faster and harder than I ever had before. Branches whipped at my face and scratched my arms, but nothing could slow me down. My toe caught on something and my ankle twisted, but I ignored the pinch and kept on going. I skidded to a stop by a birch tree — tall and white as a sentinel — pausing to lean forward with my hands on my thighs until my breath came evenly again and I could think rationally.
It was darker now; night had finally descended, but I knew this place tree by tree, stone by stone. Carefully, I picked my way back, toeing my way through exposed roots and rocks and slippery patches of crabgrass, until I emerged from the woods behind Monarch Cottage.
Years ago I’d convinced Daddy to give the cottages names instead of numbers. I made a list and we voted on them as a family. Some of my favourites, like Silver Shingles and The Sand Castle were voted down. “Too girly,” Bo protested. Instead, we agreed on simple names, like Pebble Cottage and Birch Cottage. Bo and I made signs for each one, using Daddy’s wood burner to write the name on a plank of wood. Bo did the burning and I varnished them when they were done. Every time I walk by and see the signs hanging on the cottages, pride flutters in my chest.
Behind Monarch Cottage, a patch of milkweed grows as tall as my waist, with leaves as big as Scarlett’s hand. In early summer, caterpillars striped yellow, white and black gorge themselves on the milky leaves until they grow fat like sausages. Then one day they hang upside down and start spinning themselves cocoons as green as celery. It takes a week for them to build them. Every year I plonk myself in the grass nearby and watch them. It’s almost like being hypnotized. The walls of the cocoons become translucent, until one day you’re staring at the fully formed orange and black wing of a Monarch butterfly.
On hatching days, I used to pack a peanut butter sandwich and a Thermos of Mimi’s sun tea and find a spot in the tall grass, my back against the sun-baked boards of Monarch Cottage. It was one of my favourite places in the whole world. At least it used to be. In the distance I could always hear the sound of kids shrieking and laughing as they splashed in the water, but all their noise was almost lost under the hum of the bees and cicadas that surrounded me. I’d watch as the brand new butterflies emerged, wet and glistening. It would take at least an hour before their wings were dry and they were able to fly.
Only I hadn’t come this year. I had been too busy, first with Gwen, and then plotting Johnny’s visit. It hadn’t even crossed my mind until now. Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks. I had missed my chance. I had missed that magical moment when the butterflies threw themselves into the breeze, dipping woozily in the air before fluttering away to begin their new lives. I could use that magic now, something beautiful and miraculous to wonder at, instead of all the secrets and confusion that were waiting for me beyond the sanctuary of Monarch Cottage. Too much was changing too fast.
I wished I could turn back the summers to when I was nine, eight, even seven — and hold on to them as long as possible, because they were perfect. If only I had known it then. I would trade everything — Gwen, Ray, the truth — to go back again. No one had ever told me that growing up would hurt like this.
I sniffed, drawing my arm across my face, mopping up the tears and snot that had collected there. I couldn’t stay here forever. No amount of wishing would change anything. Eventually, I’d have to go home, look Mimi in the eye, see Gwen and Bo and continue on.
It was almost funny, if you think about it. All summer long, all I’d wanted was for people to treat me like an adult, and now that they were, all I wanted was to be eight years old again, waiting for the butterflies to hatch.
* * *
I managed
to make my way home and crawl into bed without running into a single person. I didn’t think I could bear more tears, mine or anyone else’s. But later in the night I awoke to cold little feet kneading my leg. I rolled over to discover a stowaway in my bed.
“Scarlett,” I hissed. “Stop kicking me.”
Scarlett moaned in her sleep and tossed violently, waking herself up in the process.
“Are you awake, Reenie?”
“I am now,” I muttered.
Scarlett sighed and snuggled into me, fitting her head between my cheek and my shoulder. “Your shoulder is bony,” she complained.
“Then use your pillow like a normal person,” I said.
Scarlett continued to wiggle around the bed, trying to get comfortable. After a while, she asked, “What’s going to happen?”
“With what?”
“Gwen.”
“So you heard?”
“I was listening outside the door,” Scarlett admitted. “Is she really our sister?”
“Yes, she’s our half-sister.”
“We look alike,” Scarlett mused.
“You do,” I agreed. I’d noticed a few times how similar Gwen and Scarlett or Gwen and Mimi looked. Now that I knew the resemblance was more than just a coincidence, it seemed as obvious as blackflies in June.
“Will she stay here now?” Scarlett asked.
“Probably not. She has a family in Toronto. Plus she wants to be a singer.”
“She sounded nice tonight, even better than at campfire.”
“I thought so, too.”
“Will we go visit her?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want a big sister?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“I’ve already got one.”
“I meant another one.”
“I don’t really need two sisters,” Scarlett said. “But I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I like Gwen.”
“I like her, too.”
“But not as much as I like you.”
“You better not,” I said, tickling her. Scarlett giggled and the sound was so normal it almost brought tears to my eyes.
Summer Days, Starry Nights Page 15
