Bleak Landing

by Terrie Todd

  Bruce glanced at the door as if willing a customer to walk in. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can quit playing this stupid game. I don’t know what you think you have to gain by being so belligerent, but you know as well as I do that Bridget O’Sullivan is who she says she is, and she’s entitled to her pa’s place.” He leaned forward, his forearms on Bruce’s desk.

  “I don’t know any such thing. You’re the one who’s been duped, Harrison. Or has that pretty impostor got you so addlepated you can’t remember the smelly, skinny little woodpecker who used to sit in front of us? No one can change that much, that quickly. She doesn’t even sound like Bridget!” Bruce lit a cigarette and leaned back in his seat. “Did I tell you I saw her in the city?”

  “Bridget?”

  “No. This impostor. She came up to me at a restaurant, with some friend who did all the talking. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “She didn’t even have Bridget’s name right. Said it was ‘Sullivan.’ That’s how I knew for sure it wasn’t her.” Bruce blew out a big puff of smoke.

  “Well, how did she know you?”

  “Beats me. Actually, I think she worked in the university offices. So she’d have had access to my student files, my home address. That’s why she looked vaguely familiar.”

  “So you admit it! She looked familiar!”

  Bruce let out a frustrated sigh. “Quit twisting my words! Nobody in this town thinks that girl is Bridget O’Sullivan, Victor! Nobody except you and your gullible family . . . and even they’re probably questioning your judgment behind your back.”

  “All right, then tell me something else,” Victor challenged. “If she really is an impostor, wouldn’t she be trying harder to look like the ‘smelly, skinny little woodpecker that used to sit in front of us,’ as you put it? So we’d all recognize her?”

  “Sure. If she’d ever actually met Bridget. My guess is, she knows just enough to know there’s unclaimed property here and that the real Bridget is missing—or dead—”

  “Stop it.” Victor stared at him. Did Bruce really believe his own rhetoric? It was amazing what people could accept if they tried hard enough. He knew that was true from going to war and seeing Nazi propaganda pamphlets. He’d had enough.

  “How did you end up with Bridget’s locket?” he blurted. “And don’t you dare argue with me, Nilsen. I know it’s hers. Your father had something to do with her disappearance from Bleak Landing, and if you try to deny it I’ll expose him to the whole town.”

  “I already told you, that locket has been in my family—”

  Victor jumped to his feet and leaned across the desk. “Sell it to me!”

  Bruce stopped in midsentence. “What?”

  “You heard me. Any idiot knows it’s not your family heirloom. It’s no use to you. You’re so determined it’s a thing of value—it must be money you want. So let me pay you for it. How much do you want?”

  “What do you want with it?” Bruce sneered. “Gonna let that con artist have the necklace and the land?

  “You’re the con artist, Nilsen. Name your price for the locket.”

  Bruce studied Victor’s face, exhaling a long stream of cigarette smoke. “You can’t afford it.”

  “Try me.” Even as he said the words, Victor wondered if Bruce would call his bluff and name an exorbitant price. All he really had to trade was the old McNally property or whatever cash he might be able to get if he sold it. The money he’d saved to build his house was already spent on materials.

  “All right. I’ll name my price.” Bruce tapped his cigarette in the ashtray. “I want you to drop out of the election.”

  Victor froze. Slowly, he sank to his chair. “Are you serious? I pull out and you’ll give me the necklace?”

  Bruce nodded. “And you keep this between us. Can I trust you to stay quiet?”

  Victor looked out the window. Some kids hurried by on their way to school, lunch boxes swinging. He turned back to Bruce. “I’ve kept quiet about your sister, haven’t I?”

  Bruce went pale. His voice got very quiet. “You have.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  Victor looked him straight in the eyes for a full ten seconds before speaking. When he did, one word said it all: “Deal.”

  Chapter 39

  I waited until I saw children on the playground before approaching Bleak Landing School. Two newer-looking outhouses stood like a pair of soldiers behind the schoolhouse. Unlike the privy of my childhood, these outhouses were made without doors. Instead, each had a sort of fenced-maze entrance that provided privacy while remaining accessible. Little else had changed. Boys were building a snow fort on one side; girls forming snowmen on the other. They stopped their recess activity to watch me, and I heard muted whispers that did not raise my confidence.

  When I stepped inside, I was instantly transported back in time by the familiar smell of the classroom—a combination of chalk dust, ink, and wet mittens.

  Miss Johansen sat working at her desk and looked up at the sound of the door closing. My heart pounded.

  “Good morning, Miss Johansen.” I walked up to her desk with as much poise as I could muster. An expression I couldn’t identify immediately covered the teacher’s face. Mistrust? Recognition? I couldn’t tell. “It’s me. Bridget.”

  She merely looked at me, so I spoke again. “Bridget O’Sullivan? I know I’ve been away awhile. I’m really glad you’re still here.”

  “I was told to expect you,” she said.

  “You were?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I was told someone claiming to be Bridget O’Sullivan was in town and that she’d likely be asking me to vouch for her identity. Is that why you’ve come?”

  “Does that mean you will?” I smiled. “Oh, I knew if anyone in this town remembered me it would be you, Miss Johansen.”

  The door opened, and Victor made his way through the rows of desks to stand beside me. “Good morning, Miss Johansen,” he said.

  “Good morning, Victor.”

  “Has Bridget had a chance to tell you her story?” he asked.

  “I didn’t need to,” I said. “News travels fast around here.”

  Victor looked at me and back at the teacher. “Bruce has been to see you? That weasel.” He removed his cap and thumped it against his leg in frustration. “I suppose he warned you not to believe her.”

  “It doesn’t matter what anyone told me or didn’t tell me.” She looked back at me. “I remember Bridget O’Sullivan very well.”

  “Oh, thank you, Miss Johansen!” I wanted to hug her. “I can’t tell you how relieved—”

  “That’s why I’m still unconvinced that you are her.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “B-but, Miss Johansen—”

  “I remember all my students. And if you’ll excuse me, I have twenty-four of them who need my attention now.” She picked up a handbell and headed for the door to call the children in from recess.

  “Wait. Miss Johansen,” Victor said. “There must be some way Bridget can prove who she is. Surely you can think of something she could tell you that would convince you.”

  She stopped and looked at us, thinking. Had Victor managed to cast doubt on what Bruce had already convinced her of?

  “All right,” she said. “I loaned Bridget a book one day. Can you tell me which book it was?”

  I stammered. “You—you loaned me many books, Miss Johansen.”

  “I mean I visited the O’Sullivans’ home. After Bridget got in trouble at school. But instead of speaking with her father, I pretended to be simply loaning her a book. And I know exactly which book it was. Do you?”

  I remembered the incident. I recalled the relief I’d felt. I recalled Victor’s visit later that evening. Most of all, I recalled the beating my father gave me after he verified that I’d been in trouble. But for the life of me, I could not remember the book.

  “Bridget?” Victor sounded hopeful. “Ca
n you remember?”

  I felt panic rising inside as I tried to think. “Um. Pride and Prejudice?” I didn’t know if taking a wild guess would do more harm than good, but it was out there now.

  Miss Johansen slowly shook her head. “That’s what I thought.” She moved toward the door again. “If you were Bridget, you’d have also remembered that your father didn’t allow you to keep my book that day.”

  Victor dashed forward and took hold of her arm. “Miss Johansen, wait! That was a long time ago, and Bridget read all your books. Why, I bet she could tell you how many you had on your shelf!”

  “Seventy-one!” I blurted. Why couldn’t she have asked me that in the first place?

  Miss Johansen looked at me. “I have no idea how many books I had on my shelf back then, nor how many I have now. More than that, certainly. You’re wasting your time. And mine, and the time of my students.”

  “Please, Miss Johansen,” Victor persisted. “There must be something else. Something that only you and Bridget would know.”

  The teacher shook her head and pulled her arm out of Victor’s grasp, turning toward the door. Abruptly, she stopped and turned back. “There is one thing I can think of.”

  “Yes?” Victor sounded so hopeful, I was immediately frantic that it would be another question I couldn’t answer. At this point, I was more worried about disappointing him than I was about losing out on my inheritance. If this continued, even the Harrisons wouldn’t believe I was me.

  Miss Johansen kept her eyes on Victor. “The town hall meeting and election is tomorrow night. Obviously, you’ll be there.” She turned to me. “Make sure you’re there, too.”

  Then she marched to the front steps of the school and rang her bell as if her life depended on it.

  Chapter 40

  After we left the school, Victor and I walked in silence to the general store, where we found his mother selecting apples for her shopping basket.

  “Got a couple more errands,” Victor said without further explanation. “I’ll catch up with you at home.”

  I wandered to the display of yarn and admired the selection while I waited for Mrs. Harrison to finish. On the way to the counter with her groceries, she found me studying a pattern for a beautiful scarf.

  “I was always too embarrassed to admit I never learned to knit or crochet,” she said. “In my day, not having such a basic skill was like—well, like not knowing how to read!”

  And that’s how it began. Once she found out I knew how to use a crochet hook, nothing would do but adding four hooks and a very large skein of red yarn to her purchases. Now she, Nancy, Anna, and I sat in the Harrisons’ living room while I tried to pass along the skill Maxine’s mother had shared with me.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Bridget, who taught you?” Mrs. Harrison was catching on quickly, her chain already a foot long.

  I told her about Maxine, how we met at the garment factory and how our friendship bloomed. How her family welcomed me as one of their own. “Much like yours has,” I said softly.

  “You must miss her.”

  I nodded but didn’t mention our falling out. I’d mailed my letter to Maxine just that morning, addressed to the hair salon where she worked in case she’d moved. Of course, for all I knew, she no longer worked there, either.

  “Will you go back to Winnipeg once your land claim is sorted out?” Nancy asked.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer. “I suppose if the factory reopens and I can have my job back.” It was hard to imagine any kind of future for myself right now. I wondered how I’d even survive until tomorrow’s town hall meeting. I told myself there was no point wondering what question Miss Johansen was going to ask to test me. Either I’d know the answer or I wouldn’t. Still, the whole thing made me nervous.

  “I hope you stay,” Nancy said. Her sister nodded with a shy grin.

  “I do, too,” their mother agreed. “We need someone like you to class this place up, Bridget. Catch us up on the latest fashions and hairstyles.”

  “Will you put my hair in victory rolls, like yours?” Nancy asked.

  “Sure!” I said. Before I knew it, Victor’s sisters had set up shop in the middle of the living room and I was curling and pinning both girls’ hair. “I’m not as good at it as Maxine. She’s a trained hairdresser.”

  “You should invite her to come visit,” Mrs. Harrison said as she worked on her stitches.

  Never in a million years would I have thought I’d ever want Maxine to see Bleak Landing, but now the idea didn’t seem so outrageous.

  None of us had heard Victor enter the house. “Ask who to come visit?” His voice rang out from the kitchen, making my heart do that funny fluttery thing I’d noticed before. He leaned on the doorway to the living room, arms folded and held tilted at a cockeyed angle. “We takin’ in more strays?”

  I might have felt offended if it weren’t for the ear-to-ear smile that lit up his face.

  “Victor!” his mother scolded.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Harrison,” I said. “I am a stray.”

  “We were talking about Bridget’s friend Maxine.” Nancy fluffed her victory curls around her face with one hand while gazing into the handheld mirror she clutched with the other. “She’s an honest-to-goodness hairdresser!”

  “The girl from the train station?” Victor said.

  “The same.” I smiled, remembering how smitten Maxine had been at the sight of Victor in his uniform. It occurred to me that they’d make a good pair, but something inside me objected to the thought.

  “You free to go for a walk, Bridget?” Victor asked.

  “Uh . . .” I looked around. “We’re kind of in the middle of a project here—”

  “It’s fine, Bridget. Go ahead. The girls have enough victory curls to win the war, and I’ve got the hang of this stitch.” Mrs. Harrison’s crocheted chain was now longer than Victor was tall.

  “I wondered if you might be ready to see your old place,” Victor said as we headed out into the fresh air. “If you are, I’m willing to go with you. If not, that’s fine, too.”

  I hesitated. We’d driven past my old home several times now, and that was getting easier. But was I ready for a close-up look?

  “I need to check on something at my own property,” Victor said. “If, when we get there, you don’t want to go on to yours, we don’t have to.”

  “Okay.” I loved the way he said yours. He really did believe I was me, and somehow his believing in me made it easier to forgive him for all the pain he’d caused.

  An overcast sky and absence of wind made for much more comfortable temperatures than January normally brought, but we still had to walk at a fast clip to stay warm. Hundreds of small birds twittered from among the bare branches of poplar trees and brought life to an otherwise barren landscape. Small snowdrifts made intricate patterns on the gravel road.

  “Nervous about the meeting tomorrow?” Victor kicked a stone to the ditch.

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve been praying about it.”

  I had been, too. But somehow, I couldn’t shake the notion that Victor’s prayers carried more weight than mine. Knowing that he prayed for me filled me with an unfamiliar sense of well-being. It was almost as if my security didn’t actually hinge on whether or not I could persuade Bleak Landing of my identity.

  “You know what’s funny?” I said.

  Victor turned so he was walking backward, facing me. “No, what?”

  “When I left Bleak Landing, I wanted nothing more than to become someone else—anyone but Bridget O’Sullivan. I never dreamed I’d be back here trying to convince people that that’s exactly who I am.”

  “That’s not the only funny thing.” Victor spun around so that he was walking beside me again. He scooped up some snow to form a ball, tossed it in the air, and caught it. “I never dreamed Bridget O’Sullivan would turn out to be the prettiest girl in Bleak Landing. I’d have been a lot nicer to her if I’d known.”


  I intercepted his snowball, catching it myself. I ran ahead, turned around, and flung it at him. I missed by a mile, but the distraction gave me a chance to hide what I felt sure was a blush, and to recover from it.

  We’d reached the old McNally property, now Victor’s. I found it funny how country property always seemed to retain the name of its former owners. Victor’s new digs would probably not be referred to as “the old Harrison place” until Victor was long gone. He showed me around, telling me about his hopes and dreams for his house and garden. A large stack of lumber waited under a heavy tarpaulin that he peeled back. He asked me to count the pieces while he jotted down the numbers on a little notepad.

  I did so, distracted by the property next door.

  “Ready to go have a look?” he asked softly.

  I nodded.

  “Shall I wait here?”

  I nodded again. “I think I need to do this alone.” My home had been the shame of my existence as a kid. How much worse would it be now?

  With a deep breath, I strode over to the shanty and tried the door—half hoping that whoever had boarded up the windows had also nailed the door shut. To my surprise, it surrendered easily. The door swung open about a foot, until the bottom scraped on the floor where it had buckled. I squeezed through the opening and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once I was in, I heaved the door all the way open to let in more light.

  I surveyed the room. Our rickety kitchen table and two chairs—one overturned, the other with only three legs now—remained in their usual place. The rest was a shamble of broken bits of linoleum, scattered rags, random splinters of wood, and rat droppings. The old sofa that had served as my bed still sagged against the opposite wall, the remains of a blanket drooping to the floor. A curtain rod hung from the window by one end only, the curtain shredded and faded to a colorless heap where it met the floor. The ceiling had been falling in chunks. The walls were pocked with fist-size holes. And everything—everything—was filthy. How could Pa have been living here as recently as three months ago?