Please walk away, she silently begged her daughter. Please take the burden of having to take care of you away from me. Please find someone stronger to bring you up.
But Hazel didn’t walk away. She came into the hut and lay down on the bed beside her mother.
They passed the day that way. Sometimes they got up to use the latrine or get something to eat, but then they got back into the bed.
They talked a bit. They dozed a bit. But mostly they just spent the day together, touching hands and listening to heartbeats.
By the end of that day, Rose knew what she had to do.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, Rose and Hazel left the shack for the last time.
They’d woken up before sunrise, when the world was all silver and shadow. Rose’s back was still sore, but it was much, much better, and together they tidied and swept the yard and the shack. Hazel even put some pretty, dry grass in the vase on the table.
“Do you think someone else will move in?”
“Someone will,” said Rose. “Someone who needs a quiet place to hide for a while.”
“I wish I had a camera,” said Hazel. “I’d like to take a picture to remember it by.”
“Let’s take a picture with our minds,” Rose suggested. They raised pretend cameras to their eyes and fixed the memory of the hut forever in their brains. Then they walked away.
“I don’t want you to lie,” Rose said to Hazel as they crossed the field on their way into the city. “That story you made up about you being the one to hurt your father. I don’t want you to tell them that. Tell them the truth.”
“Okay,” said Hazel.
“Promise me,” said Rose.
“I promise. Can I show them where we lived?”
“You show them with pride, honey. We did something very special, so you hold your head up high when you’re talking about it.”
They walked some more.
“If you don’t like the people they put you with, you speak up,” Rose told her as they got closer to the streets and shops. “You are a great kid and you deserve to have great foster parents.”
“It won’t be forever,” Hazel said. “Right? It will be just for a little while.”
“That’s right,” said Rose. “Just a little while.”
Rose was scared to go into the city in broad daylight, but she had to do it. It would be safer for her to leave in the middle of the night, but not safer for Hazel. She had to think of her daughter, but her heart pounded as they walked out of the ravine. They joined the morning crowd on the sidewalk.
Their first stop was the donut shop. Carmen was off duty but Rose wrote down the address.
“Check in here from time to time,” Rose said. “We’ll use this as our mail drop. I’ll let you know where I am, and then you can write and let me know where you are.”
“Maybe when you get to Vancouver you can finally learn to use a computer,” said Hazel. “Then we can send e-mails.”
Rose’s husband wouldn’t let her touch the computer. He said she only wanted to use it so that she could hook up with other men. But her husband was gone now. She could do whatever she wanted to do. The thought made her laugh out loud. The whole world waited for her!
They started walking again. There were people everywhere, and there was so much noise! Cars, buses, people, dogs! Signs and boxes to walk around. Trucks and strollers to watch out for.
“I like it better at night,” Hazel said.
“Me, too,” said Rose. Then she had a thought. “You’re going to have to do what your foster parents tell you to do,” she said. “I mean, if it’s safe and reasonable. They’re not going to be happy if you wander around at night. You’ll have to do chores and be polite. If you give them a hard time, they’ll start to pass you from home to home, and your life will be very hard.”
“I can get along,” Hazel said. “Will they make me do a lot of chores?”
“Probably not a lot,” Rose told her, “but when they ask, just do them. Don’t argue.”
“After all, it’s just for a little while.”
Rose held tighter to her daughter’s hand. “Just for a little while.”
They kept walking, and then they were back in their old neighbourhood.
Rose felt — she didn’t know what she felt, as she walked past familiar shops and houses. She passed the corner store where her husband had bought his newspapers and lottery tickets. She passed the vegetable stand with the oranges, apples, and onions stacked neatly on trays. They walked past the Portuguese bakery with the plates of small custard tarts in the window. Hazel had loved those tarts when she was younger.
They crossed the street that had been their street. A few houses up was the house that had been their house. Rose did not turn her head to try to see it. Would it still have police crime scene tape around it? Would it have a For Sale sign in the yard? Would other people be living there now, using her kitchen, enjoying the flowers she had planted in the narrow beds at the front of the house?
That’s my old life, she thought. From now on, she would only look ahead.
Two more blocks, and there was Hazel’s school. Rose wiped away the tears that had come into her eyes.
This was where she had taken Hazel on the first day of kindergarten. She had stood and watched outside the school that whole first morning in case Hazel needed her.
This was where she had come for parent-teacher interviews and where she had learned that Hazel was one of the smartest kids in the class. This was where she had come to watch Christmas concerts and the third-grade play.
On days when it rained unexpectedly, Rose had waited outside the school with an umbrella. The two of them had walked home together, sheltered from the weather.
Why didn’t I leave then? Rose asked herself. Why didn’t I take Hazel, climb onto a bus, and head out of town back then, back before all this happened? We would have left with nothing, but what do we have now? At least we’d be together.
At the edge of the schoolyard, they stopped. Rose checked her watch. “They’ll be coming outside for recess soon. Tell me what you’re going to do.”
“I’m going to find Emma, and together we’ll go talk to the principal.”
Her friend Emma would help Hazel to feel brave.
“And if Emma isn’t at school today?”
“Then I’ll go right into the principal’s office and start talking. I won’t be scared at all.”
“Good girl. And what will you say?”
Hazel looked unsure.
“You’ll say the truth, honey,” Rose reminded her. “Only the truth.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll be watching, to make sure that you’re safe and they’re treating you well. You won’t be able to see me, but I’ll be watching.”
She wouldn’t be. As soon as Hazel hit the playground, Rose was planning to leave. To stand and watch would be too painful. She’d lose her nerve. She’d run and grab Hazel back, and that was something that could not happen.
“I’ve changed my mind, Mommy,” Hazel said suddenly. She started to cry. “I want to stay with you.” She threw her arms around her mother. “Let me go to Vancouver with you. I don’t mind hitchhiking. Or let’s go back to the shack. I’ll be good. I’ll help out.”
A bell rang in the school. Any second now, kids would start zipping around the playground.
“It’s just for a little while,” Rose said, breathing in the scent of her daughter’s hair. She tried to imprint the feel of her daughter’s body against her own so she would never forget it.
She heard the sounds of children and saw the schoolyard filling up. She reached behind and unclasped her daughter’s hands from the back of her neck.
“Listen to me,” she said, drying Hazel’s tears. “You are the best daughter in the world, in the whole history of the world. When you get older, you make sure people treat you with respect, all right? And if any man hits you, ever, even just one time, and even if he says he’s sorry, y
ou walk away from him.”
“Don’t tell me that,” Hazel said. “That sounds like advice for when I grow up.”
“You’re right,” Rose said. “Tuck it away until you need it. For now, brush your teeth every night before you go to sleep, work hard in school, and remember that I love you.”
They were starting to attract attention. Kids were staring and pointing at them in that unembarrassed way kids do.
“Go now,” Rose said. “Go find Emma. I’ll be watching, but don’t look back. Go!”
She turned her daughter around and gave her a little push in the direction of the school.
Hazel just stood there.
“Go!” Rose ordered.
Then Hazel ran. She didn’t look back. She kept on running, right to her friend, Emma. Emma squealed, then Hazel squealed, and then they squealed together and hugged.
Rose had to turn away. She walked quickly down the block, turned the corner, and was soon on one of the city’s main streets.
She stood on the edge of the sidewalk and watched the traffic go by. When she spotted a police car, she lifted her arms, waved them in the air, and stepped into the street.
The car stopped. She went over to the driver’s side. The officer rolled down the window.
“I killed my husband,” Rose said. “Four months ago. You’re looking for me.”
The officer helped Rose into the back of the car. There was a lot of talk on the police radio and between the two officers in the car that Rose didn’t listen to. She closed her eyes and thought about her daughter, so happy to see her friend.
The police wrapped up their radio conversation and steered the car back into the moving traffic. They picked up speed and took Rose away.
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Good Reads Series
If you enjoyed this Good Reads book, you can find more at your local library or bookstore.
2010
The Stalker by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
In From the Cold by Deborah Ellis
Shipwreck by Maureen Jennings
The Picture of Nobody by Rabindranath Maharaj
The Hangman by Louise Penny
Easy Money by Gail Vaz-Oxlade
2011 Authors
Joseph Boyden
Marina Endicott
Joy Fielding
Robert Hough
Anthony Hyde
Frances Itani
For more information on Good Reads, visit www.GoodReadsBooks.com
Easy Money
by Gail Vaz-Oxlade
Wish you could find a money book that doesn’t make your eyes glaze over or your brain hurt? Easy Money is for you.
Gail knows you work hard for your money, so in her usual honest and practical style she will show you how to make your money work for you. Budgeting, saving, and getting your debt paid off have never been so easy to understand or to do. Follow Gail’s plan and take control of your money.
The Picture of Nobody
by Rabindranath Maharaj
Tommy lives with his family in Ajax, a small town close to Toronto. His parents are Ismaili Muslims who immigrated to Canada before Tommy was born. Tommy, a shy, chubby seventeen-year-old, feels like an outsider.
The arrest of a terrorist group in Toronto turns Tommy’s world upside down. No one noticed him before. Now, he experiences the sting of racism at the local coffee shop where he works part-time. A group of young men who hang out at the coffee shop begin to bully him. In spite, Tommy commits an act of revenge against the group’s ringleader.
Shipwreck
by Maureen Jennings
A retired police detective tells a story from his family’s history. This is his story...
On a cold winter morning in 1873, a crowd gathers on the shore of a Nova Scotia fishing village. A stormy sea has thrown a ship onto the rocks. The villagers work bravely to save the ship’s crew. But many die.
When young Will Murdoch and the local priest examine the bodies, they discover gold and diamonds. They suspect that the shipwreck was not responsible for all of the deaths. With the priest’s help, Will—who grows up to be a famous detective— solves his first mystery.
The Hangman
by Louise Penny
On a cold November morning, a jogger runs through the woods in the peaceful Quebec village of Three Pines. On his run, he finds a dead man hanging from a tree.
The dead man was a guest at the local Inn and Spa. He might have been looking for peace and quiet, but something else found him. Something horrible.
Did the man take his own life? Or was he murdered? Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to the crime scene. As Gamache follows the trail of clues, he opens a door into the past. And he learns the true reason why the man came to Three Pines.
The Stalker
by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Very early one Saturday morning, Mike’s phone rings. “Nice day for a little kayak trip, eh?” says the deep, echoing voice. “But I wouldn’t go out if I were you.”
Mike’s business is guiding visitors on kayak tours around the islands off the west coast. This weekend, he’ll be taking Liz, his new cook, and two strangers on a kayak tour. Soon, his phone rings again. “I’m watching you,” the caller says. “Stay home.”
Mike and the others set off on their trip, but the stalker secretly follows them. Who is he? What will he do? The Stalker will keep you guessing until the end.
About the Author
Deborah Ellis is an award-winning author and a long-time peace activist. She has worked as a women’s mental health counsellor and volunteered at refugee camps in Afghanistan. Deborah’s bestselling series The Breadwinner Trilogy is based on a story told to her by a refugee. Deborah lives in Simcoe, Ontario.
Also by Deborah Ellis:
The Breadwinner
Parvana’s Journey
Mud City
Women of the Afghan War
The Heaven Shop
I Am a Taxi
Sacred Leaf
No Safe Place
In From the Cold Page 4
