Miles To Go

by Beryl Young

“Hey, Jerry,” Tommy says. “I got a good joke.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s a dirty joke about a horse.”

  Tommy looks over at me. “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. It’s a real dirty joke. You sure you want to hear it?”

  “Just tell the joke, Tommy,” I say.

  “Here’s the dirty joke. Ready?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “A white horse fell in the mud. Ha ha!”

  Jerry gives Tommy a punch on the shoulder.

  “I got another one,” Jimmy says.

  “No, Tommy!” I say.

  “Knock-knock.”

  “Don’t answer,” I tell Jerry. “It’ll be an old joke.”

  Jerry smiles and says, “Who’s there?”

  “Ignore him,” I say.

  “Shut up, Maggie,” Tommy says to me.

  “Shut up Maggie who?” says Jerry.

  “Do it right!” Tommy stamps his foot. “Police,” he says to Jerry.

  “Okay. Police who?”

  Big smile. “Pu-lease let me in. It’s cold out here!”

  Tommy’s chuckling at his own joke. I don’t often see him having this kind of fun. When Mom calls him he looks disappointed, but he punches Jerry on the arm and runs up the stairs.

  Jerry and I sit on the ledge beside the garage. “Tommy’s a great kid. Fun to have around,” he says.

  “I guess he’s okay. For a five-year-old.”

  “Way to go, Princess Maggie,” Jerry grins, then looks serious. “I notice you and Anna aren’t so friendly anymore. What’s up?”

  I didn’t think anyone had noticed. Anna and I haven’t spoken for more than a week. “I think she’s changed. She’s critical of me lately.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Anna.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  As Jerry’s leaving, Dad comes around the corner of the building. He’s been on patrol and he’s wearing his scarlet tunic and leather boots, which make him look very tall and official. Jerry catches his breath as Dad strides up with his hand out.

  “You must be Jerry.” His deep voice is familiar to me, but not to Jerry.

  “Yes, sir. Jerry Harvey. I live with my mother over at 2657 Alder.”

  “I don’t need your address and there’s no need to call me sir,” Dad says. “You can call me Sergeant Neilson. I hear you and Maggie have been up to some adventures.”

  “Well, yes, sir. I guess you could say that.” Jerry’s eyes are fixed on the holster at Dad’s belt. Is he remembering what it was like in the cells? Or is he like me and always sure he’s guilty of something, but never exactly sure what? Poor Jerry.

  Dad grins. “How about coming over for a cigar one day?”

  “No thanks, sir.” Jerry shakes his head, not looking my dad in the eye. I think Jerry’s hands are trembling.

  “Well, if you don’t want to smoke, come on over on the weekend and I’ll give you a ride in the patrol car.”

  “That would be great, sir,” Jerry says, taking deep breaths and heading for the gate.

  “No need to call me sir,” Dad calls back as we turn toward the stairs to our place.

  I FEEL PLEASED about the day. Tommy’s sitting on the floor, pushing around his collection of cars. He won’t learn to read until next year, and I remember Gram saying I had an expressive voice. I ask Tommy if he’d like me to read to him when he goes to bed.

  “Oh, man! You bet.” He runs to get into his pyjamas.

  I climb up beside him in his bed and open a book called Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain.

  “You’ll like this one. It’s about a boy who has adventures at sea.”

  Tommy slides his hot body up against me. I’m aware of his even breaths as I read. After a while he pokes my arm. “Hey, Maggie.”

  “What?”

  “Hope you know that I’m yours until Niagara Falls! Get it?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Tommy. If you want me to keep reading, you’d better stop cracking jokes.”

  When I come out of Tommy’s bedroom, Dad’s reading in the living room. I go over and sit down beside him, close enough to smell his aftershave. Old Spice. It’s in the bottle with a blue sailing ship on the bathroom shelf.

  “What are you reading?” I ask.

  “This is a novel about some prisoners in the last war who attempted a bold escape from a German prison camp.”

  “Did they get out?”

  “A few of them did, but most didn’t.”

  “What about that prisoner we had here, Dad? Will he ever be let out of the mental institution?”

  “Maybe. If they feel he’s better.”

  “I still have a hard time understanding how he could feel two things at the same time. Wanting to kill his wife and baby and then feeling bad about it.”

  “We can all feel two things at the same time. I can be disappointed in you and still love you.”

  “Are you disappointed in me?”

  “Well, I’m not sure I can trust you now. It’s hard for a policeman to feel proud of a daughter who steals.”

  How terrible! My own father doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t feel proud of me. I want to turn my life back to the day before I stole the cigarettes.

  Dad picks up his book. “Good night now.”

  This is the worst thing that could happen. I knew something was wrong when he stopped calling me Mags. I’ve totally wrecked the special thing we had between us. He’s not even proud of me. I might as well be dead.

  Anna

  SUNDAY, JUNE 13

  I DESPERATELY NEED to talk to Maggie. I hurt her feelings. I could see by her face when I told her she should be grateful she had a mother. She needed me to listen and I was impatient. I got tired of her always talking about being adopted and never asking her mother. I accused her of whining. You can’t take back a word like that.

  Papa’s brought me into town this morning to visit with the girls, but I told him I need to talk to Maggie first. Maybe she won’t even want to see me.

  There’s a telephone outside the pharmacy. I put in a nickel and dial her number. Maggie answers.

  “Hi,” I say. “It’s Anna.”

  “I know it’s you, Anna.”

  “Can I come over?”

  It seems to me there’s a pause before she says, “Ring the bell at the top of the stairs.”

  I walk up the hill to the RCMP barracks. The stairs up to her apartment are steep. It would be easy to turn back, but I force myself to the top. I have to try to make things right. Maggie opens the door on the first ring. She introduces to me her mother, who’s busy in the kitchen. They have a stove that’s electric and a real refrigerator, not an ice box. Her mother seems friendly, but Maggie’s right. They don’t look much alike.

  Maggie takes me to her bedroom and shuts the door. We sit on her bed.

  I take a breath. “I came over to tell you I’m very sorry I was mean to you. I know I hurt your feelings.”

  Maggie says, “You did, Anna.”

  Then I see a slow grin.

  “Actually, it was a good thing. It gave me a jolt. I started to think maybe you were right. At least I have a mother. Even if she wasn’t my real mother, she’s here.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry, Maggie.”

  “It was okay, because it shocked me and I realized I should stop whining about being adopted. I should ask her … so I did!”

  “That was brave.” I move closer to her on the bed.

  “It happened when Mom asked me to make a pie with her. We were sitting waiting for the pie to bake, and I finally asked her. Mom looked surprised. She got out my birth certificate, and it had our names and everything on it. Now I know for sure.”

  “Oh, Maggie, that’s wonderful.”

  “We had a good talk. Actually, we’re a lot alike in many ways. Mom’s not perfect, but hey, neither am I!”

  She does look happier. It reminds me how different my own life would be if Mama were
alive. Bella and the girls would still be with us.

  Maggie puts her hand on my arm. “Something else, Anna. I’ve been afraid you might think it was my dad who had your sisters taken away.”

  I shake my head. “I never thought that, Maggie. My father and Mrs. Covey talked it over, and it was Papa’s idea to go to the Welfare Department. He said he felt badly seeing me so worn out and was worried that all his girls were in trouble. The little girls, Bella, and me, as well.”

  “So you never blamed my father?”

  “Not for a minute. Are we still friends then?”

  “Of course we are. Best friends,” Maggie says, squeezing my hand.

  I squeeze back. “I wasn’t sure. Carolyn said Jerry was your best friend now.”

  “Oh, Carolyn is jealous of us. She’d like to be best friends with me, but she never will be. I feel kind of sorry for her. I’m going to try and be nicer to her. It will be an effort!”

  Anna smiles. “I’ll be your partner for that project.”

  “Partner, and best friend too. Jerry is my friend, and he’s fun to be with, but I’d never talk to him about the things you and I talk about. You can only have one best friend.”

  I smile at her, thinking that the one lucky thing in my life is having Maggie for my best friend.

  And the worst thing is that I don’t have Bella any more.

  “I miss Bella so much, Maggie. I didn’t have a chance to tell those people that she can’t fall asleep unless you jiggle her in your arms. I keep looking at her empty cradle and I can’t stop crying. Sometimes I cry the whole night.”

  Maggie puts her arm around me.

  “Papa says that I am keeping my promise to Mama because I let Bella go to a family who can give her a better future than we could. I guess in a way he’s right. But it feels as if those people have taken my place.”

  Maggie says, “Those people wanted a baby very badly. Remember they brought a knitted bonnet and jacket.”

  “I know. And they were very gentle taking her out to the car. But they’ll never love Bella as much as I do.”

  Maggie shifts on the bed. “You told me you can visit Helen and Lucy.”

  “Yes, I see them a lot. They have matching bedspreads on the beds. Chenille, if you can believe it! Mrs. B, they call the woman. She brought each of them a doll with lots of doll clothes.”

  “Let me come with you to see Helen and Lucy. School ends in two weeks. We can take the girls everywhere in town this summer.”

  “I’m lucky to be part of their lives, but I don’t call Mrs. B their foster mother. I call her ‘foster person.’”

  “I’ll call her that too.” Maggie smiles gently at me.

  Then she says, “But now I’m worried about something else. It’s my relationship with Dad. Ever since I stole the cigarettes, things haven’t been right with us.”

  “What do you mean, Maggie?”

  “I think every time he looks at me, he remembers I lied to him. He says he can never trust me. He never calls me Mags anymore.”

  Maggie’s mother comes to the door and invites me to stay for lunch.

  “Please stay, Anna,” Maggie says. “We can see the girls together this afternoon.”

  “I’ve got until four, when I’m meeting my father.”

  Maggie’s mother shows me where to sit at the lunch table. Tommy and her father are there too. Tommy starts to tell a knock-knock joke, but Maggie stops him. It doesn’t bother him. He just keeps stuffing a peanut butter sandwich in his mouth and grinning at the same time. There’s peanut butter stuck to the front of his teeth.

  “Maggie tells us you’ve worked hard to catch up on your school work, Anna,” her father says.

  “Miss Alexander says I’ll pass into grade eight for sure.”

  Her father smiles. “It’s hard to believe you and Maggie will be in high school next year.”

  Maggie’s mother’s smiling too. “And I’m glad you’ll have time with the girls this afternoon.”

  “Can I come?” Tommy asks.

  Maggie looks at me and says, “It’s up to Anna.”

  “Why not?” I tell Tommy. “Helen’s almost your age. We’ll go to the park and you can push Lucy on the swing.”

  Her mother gives me a bag with raisin cookies. “For you and your sisters,” she says. “Maybe take some to the boys.”

  Maggie cuffs Tommy on the arm. “No jokes.”

  Maggie

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16

  I NEED TO talk to Dad. I know what I have to say. Just do it!

  I find him reading the paper. “Can we go somewhere private to talk sometime, Dad?”

  He gives me a puzzled look. “Okay. How about today? I’ll show you a favourite place of mine.”

  It’s a little sudden, but I’ve been rehearsing what I want to say. I should be ready.

  Dad leads the way up the trail heading west behind the barracks. He doesn’t say a word, and neither do I. We climb the hill to the level part at the top, where Dad holds two strands of the barbed wire apart for me to duck through. I do the same for him.

  We hike until we come to a huge boulder almost as tall as I am. It’s the only big stone in the field. It has a rough top but is completely flat on one side. Dad runs his hand along the side and I do the same. It’s worn as smooth as ice.

  “People around here call this the buffalo stone. It’s made of white granite,” he says. “See where the buffalo have stamped down the dirt around it?”

  I decide not to tell him that the correct name is bison.

  Dad leans back against the stone. He looks out across the field and says, “This is an important place for me. When I come here, I think of the wild herds that travelled on this land. For hundreds of years those powerful creatures stopped to rub their backs against this stone. It must have made them feel good.”

  We stand, just the two of us on the hill, the sky so big behind us. I raise my head and see myself reflected in my father’s sunglasses. I look like a small trembling gopher in the field.

  Do it.

  Here goes. “Dad, I’m sorry I stole the cigarettes. I know when an adult steals they end up in jail. I don’t want to end up in one of those cells downstairs.”

  He smiles. “Certainly be easy for me to visit!”

  “Dad! Not funny. So … I’m promising I won’t ever, ever steal anything again.”

  “Good.”

  “And I promise not to smoke.”

  “I thought you liked the cigar?”

  “Not much. Well, not at all.”

  I see the start of Dad’s lopsided grin. “Figured that,” he says. “Remember the feeling the next time you think about smoking.”

  We’re both leaning back against the buffalo stone now, watching the wind ripple the grass across the field. It’s like a painting of waves on the ocean.

  Dad says, “It’s easy for kids to get confused about things. If you’re worried about something, ask your parents. We’re here to help you.”

  “Do you mean like thinking I was adopted?”

  “Yes. How could we possibly know you were thinking about that?”

  “I’m glad I got up my courage to ask Mom.”

  “I can’t imagine why you thought you were adopted. If you think about it, you are definitely our child. You’ve got your mother’s quick temper, and you get your stubbornness from me. You certainly weren’t going to let me know the cigar made you sick, were you?”

  “I barely made it to the bathroom!” I confess. “But Dad, who do I look like? I don’t look the same as either of you.”

  Dad laughs. “Don’t you know?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You’re so like your grandmother. I think of her every time I look at you.”

  I guess maybe I am like Gram. I have freckles on my nose and she had them on the back of her hands, and she wore glasses to read, even though I need them for everything. We both liked to sit and talk, and we both loved to laugh.

  “What colour was Gram’s hair bef
ore it turned white, Dad?”

  “A nice warm brown, just like yours.”

  He bends to pick a stem from the green sage bush growing at the side of the rock and hands me some small leaves. I watch him crush the leaves between his fingers. I crush mine and sniff the healing spiciness again and again. I can’t get enough of it.

  Dad puts his arms around me and hugs me hard.

  “One more thing, Dad,” I say, staying close to him.

  “Yes?”

  “I think we should get Tommy a puppy. He really wants one.”

  “Not a bad idea. Let me talk to your mother.”

  “Tommy’s already picked out a name.”

  “What is it?”

  “He wants to call his dog Mickey Mouse.”

  Dad starts to laugh, and then I laugh, and the two of us can’t stop.

  “Time to go home, Mags,” Dad says. He keeps his arm around my shoulders all the way back across the field and down the hill to the barracks.

  Anna

  TUESDAY JULY 6

  MAGGIE AND I spent the morning with the girls at the children’s swimming pool. It was fun to have Tommy along with us.

  Now Maggie and I are back on the barracks lawn with a picnic lunch her mother made.

  “I like your new glasses, Maggie,” I tell her.

  “I do too. I think they suit me better than the old ones,” Maggie says. “Yesterday when Jerry and I went for a bike ride, he said that some girls look cute in glasses. You don’t suppose he meant me!” She makes one of her funny faces.

  Then she adds, “Jerry and I want you to come biking with us. You can use his mother’s bike.”

  “That would be fun as long as I can see the girls first,” I tell her. “I’m still part of their lives. Lucy’s talking more, did you notice? And Helen’s hair is easier to manage since Mrs. B cut it shorter.”

  “Mrs. B seems okay,” Maggie says.

  “You mean Misbee! Berny came to visit the other day. The girls hung onto his knees the whole time. Dad says maybe I can bring them to the farm for the day. Why don’t you come too? The Saskatoon berries will be ripe in a few weeks.”

  “It’s a deal,” Maggie says.

  “When the girls are older and in school, I want them to come back to live with us on the farm.”