At the Edge of the World

by Jones, Kari;

  When I’ve got bread cut and bowls of chili laid out on the table, I call everyone in. Before they get there, I put a small bowl of strawberry flowers in the center of the table.

  “Beautiful as always, Maddie,” says Peter as he pulls his chair out and sits down. He’s talking about the table, not me.

  “Great news that Maddie got into Emily Carr, eh?” Ivan says.

  Oh, Ivan! If looks could kill, I’d slice him in half from across the table. Peter and Bo both beam at me.

  “I knew it!” Peter says.

  “Well done, Maddie,” says Bo.

  I can’t look at them when I say, “I’m not going to accept their offer.”

  No one responds. The silence drags until I’m forced to look up from my plate. All three of them are staring at me.

  “What?” Peter says.

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “That wasn’t our deal, Maddie,” Peter says.

  “I said I would apply. I never said I would go.”

  “That’s not the spirit of the deal, and you know it.”

  Bo leans across the table and puts his hand over mine. “At least think about it for a few days, Maddie. Emily Carr is hard to get into. Many young artists would love to trade places with you.”

  “I’ve done nothing but think about it since I sent off the application. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go to any university. Not yet. I just want to paint.” They don’t get it. They hear the words, but they don’t understand the meaning. I can tell by the way they’re all still staring at me.

  “You can always defer, go later,” Bo says.

  They’re already totally upset with me, so I might as well tell them the whole deal right now. “It’s a one-time-only offer. At least, the scholarship is,” I say.

  “A scholarship!” Bo exclaims.

  Peter shoves his chair away from the table and stands up. “I can’t believe you, Maddie. Throwing away such an amazing opportunity. Well, I guess this means you’ll have to start paying rent. No time like the present to experience the reality of being a starving artist.” He throws his napkin on the table and storms out. Typical Peter, being so dramatic, but still, it’s hard not to cry.

  Bo lets go of my hand. “He spent a long time being hungry, Maddie. You have to expect him to overreact. He’ll calm down. But Maddie, don’t say no quite yet, okay?” He gathers our dishes and takes them into the kitchen. Ivan follows him, and I can hear Bo telling Ivan about meeting Sartre—the actual Sartre—when he was at university. Ivan laughs and says, “Okay, who’s Sartre?”

  I leave the table and go into the living room, where I settle in on the window seat. There’s a sketchpad lying on the cushion. I keep it there so I can doodle or draw things I see from the window. The pad is a couple of years old, and the early drawings are mostly of whales, and they’re mostly rough, but some of them are pretty good. The later ones are better. Stronger lines, more character. The sketchpad is open to a drawing of Bo sitting at his desk, and though it’s hard to be objective about my own work, I like it. It captures the way he looks when he’s thinking.

  Ivan comes in from the kitchen and sits next to me on the window seat.

  “That’s awesome,” he says, pointing to the drawing of Bo.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you think Peter’s really going to charge you rent?”

  I shrug. Peter and I have been arguing about this for months. He lived rough and hungry for a long time and thinks university is my ticket out of that life. But the one time I pointed out that even though he never went to university he makes a pretty good living as a violin maker, he went ballistic and even showed me a scar he has on his upper arm from the time he was living in a shed and tore it on a rusty nail. As if that has anything to do with anything. The only reason he got to be a violin maker was because of Bo’s support, and he never forgets it.

  I crave some time to explore on my own, to figure out what kind of art I want to do. I don’t want people telling me what my strengths are just yet. I need to find out for myself. I’ll live in a shed if I have to.

  “I just wish Peter would realize I’m not him,” I say to Ivan.

  Ivan laughs. “You so are him.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “You’re a mini-Peter. Stubborn and dramatic. Not hard to figure out who your bio dad is.”

  “What! I’m not stubborn,” I say, but then Bo walks into the room.

  “Storm’s coming,” he says. “Ivan, you’d best leave now before the winds get too wild.”

  Ivan reaches over and picks up my sketchbook and hands it to me. “Yeah. Des’ll be wondering where I am.” He smirks at me to show he doesn’t mean what he says at all.

  “I’ll walk you,” I say. I’m not really upset at Ivan for saying I’m just like Peter. I know it’s true. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be any easier living with him while he gets used to the idea that I’m definitely not going to university in the fall.

  The incoming storm has blurred the edges of the world, and we can’t see clearly where the water ends and the land begins. We walk slowly, balancing on the logs, like neither of us wants to get where we’re going.

  When we reach the pathway that goes up to Ivan’s house high on the hill, he stops to adjust his hold on his surfboard. “Good luck with Peter,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s just because he cares.”

  “Well, sometimes I wish he didn’t care so much.” As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn’t.

  Ivan snorts and says, “Be careful what you wish for,” then spins on his heel and walks up the path.

  I head down the beach for home. The wind tears at my hair and makes walking hard, but I don’t care—it’s exactly what I’m in the mood for. I’m in for a long fight with Peter on this one. I know it.

  THREE

  Ivan

  Des and I stand at the window. Des’s hands are still shaky from last night’s drinking, and he squints at me like he’s got a migraine. Our house is at the top of the hill, so there’s always a good show in a windstorm like this, but tonight it makes me worry about Maddie and Bo and Peter down there right on the beach. Wind like this could whip up waves big enough to drag their house out to sea. Des has a crease down his forehead that only appears when he’s worried.

  “Do you think we should go down and check on them?” I ask.

  “Who?” he says.

  “Bo and Peter and Maddie,” I say.

  He chews his lip but doesn’t seem to have heard me.

  “Should we?” I ask.

  “That house’s seen worse storms than this,” he says.

  “I guess.” He’s right, but still. It’s a bad one.

  A zigzag of lightning streaks across the sky, getting bigger and bigger until it crashes, throwing flames up into the trees and way out into the bay.

  “Holy shit.” I jump back from the window, spilling coffee over my fingers.

  “Looks like it hit something,” Des says. We both peer out the window. At the far end of the beach, where it curves into the headland, there’s fire, and already the smell of smoke wafts through the windows.

  “That’s Maddie’s house,” I say.

  Des is already half out the door, so I run after him, ignoring my burned fingers and pulling on rain boots at the same time. Together we race across the grass at the back of the house and slither down the muddy path through the forest to the beach. Usually we can move fast on the beach, but tonight the tide’s so high there’s hardly any sand, just driftwood piled against the hillside. It slows us down, and we curse and shout as we stumble along. Waves crash over us and drag at our feet, so we have to climb back into the forest and run along the path.

  It’s hard to see. It smells like a building is burning. The stench of melting paint hits us, and we gag.

  “Shit, that’s awful,” says Des.

  I bite back the vomit that rises in my throat and carry on running, though it’s hard to keep going toward the smell, and now
the air stings, making it hard to breathe. I wish it was raining.

  “Come on,” says Des without looking back, and I stumble along behind him until we reach the far end of the bay, where we find Maddie.

  “Thank God you’re here,” she says. “I wish we got good cell coverage down here. I’ll have to run up to the road to call 9-1-1.”

  The air is clogged with smoke, but Maddie leads us around the house until we can see flames coming from one of the sheds. The fire sounds like a lot of people shouting.

  “Where are Bo and Peter?” I shout to her above the noise of the fire and wind.

  She points down the path. I can just make out Bo spraying water from a garden hose onto the burning shed. I turn to join them, but Maddie pulls on my arm and points to the house. She moves her mouth, and I can’t hear what she’s saying, but then Des, who’s standing with us, nods and shouts, “Save the house.”

  He sweeps Maddie’s hair back so he can shout into her ear. She listens, then says something to him and points before she leaves us and runs up the path to the road. Des and I pull our T-shirts up over our noses, then rush to the side of the house, where we find some more garden hoses tangled against the wall. We don’t speak as we gather them in our arms. The only outside tap is already being used, so I shove open the kitchen door and wrestle the hose into the sink, but the tap’s not meant to have a hose attached to it, and no matter how much I fumble with it, I can’t join them together.

  “Laundry room,” Des shouts through the window.

  I should have thought of that. The washing sink is in the back hallway next to the kitchen, and it doesn’t take too long to screw in the hose. When I catch up with him, Des is already running around the outside of the house with it, spraying water everywhere.

  “Douse everything you can see, including the roof,” he shouts, handing me the hose. It’s hot even with the water gushing everywhere, it’s getting harder to breathe, and somehow it’s getting louder too.

  “Spray me,” Des shouts, so I turn the hose on him and he ducks and twists until he’s soaked, and then he pushes deeper into the smoke to a small garden shed. A moment later he returns with a hatchet in his hand, which he swings into one of the saplings Bo planted last year as a windbreak between the path to the sheds and the house. The tree falls on the first swing, and we both watch it land.

  “I could have soaked that,” I say.

  “We need a firebreak.” He swings the hatchet against the second tree, and I know he’s right—the trees make a pathway for the fire right to the house. The two trees closest to the sheds are already in flames, and the third one is smoking.

  “Peter and Bo are still next to the shed, fighting the fire. They’re going to get caught,” Des says. He hands me the hatchet. “Keep cutting until you can’t breathe, then get out of here.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  He takes the hose from my hands and showers himself with water again before he says, “Peter and Bo will be trapped. Soon.” He turns the hose on me, and the shock of cold water slaps me in the face and chest.

  “If you have trouble breathing, get to the beach.”

  “Where’s Maddie?” I haven’t seen her since we got here.

  “She’s up at the road, waiting for the firefighters.”

  We both grimace, because it’s clear no fire truck will be able to get anywhere near here. Des hands me back the hose and moves into the smoke, and I don’t know whether to keep spraying water or cut down the trees. It seems like either will be pointless, but maybe I can at least clear a path for Bo and Peter and Des to come out of the smoke, so I point the hose down the path after Des and hope the water will clear the air.

  I’m still aiming water down the path when Maddie appears from around the house with three firefighters. When they reach me, the three men huddle together and Maddie takes my arm. The two of us watch the firefighters wave their arms around as they make a plan. A minute later they break their huddle.

  “You two get to the beach,” one of them says. The ax in his hand is much bigger than mine.

  “What about Bo and Peter?” Maddie asks. Her hair flies so thickly around her face, we can hardly hear her words.

  “We’ll worry about them,” he says, but there’s no need, because Bo and Peter and Des all come up the path at that moment.

  “It’s spread to the trees,” Bo says. His voice is rough from smoke, and all three of them are coughing.

  “Get to the beach—you’ve had too much smoke,” says the firefighter, and before any of us can say anything he pulls a mask over his face and turns his attention to the remaining saplings.

  “Come on,” Des says, and he herds us down toward the ocean. It’s only when we hit the fresh air of the beach that I realize how much my eyes sting and my throat hurts.

  “I’m soaked,” I say.

  “We all are,” Bo says. And then there’s nothing more to say, so we just huddle in a row on a log that’s high enough on the beach to avoid the waves but is not out of the wind.

  It feels like forever until one of the firefighters comes back.

  “It’s not as bad as it could have been,” he says. “Shed’s gone though. And we had to cut down those saplings.”

  Peter nods.

  “You guys need to get dry and drink some water,” the firefighter says.

  I stand up to start home, but I’m so cold my feet barely move, and I sit back down.

  Maddie pulls my arm until I’m standing again.

  “We’ll keep at it a while longer. You lot get into the house. You look like shit,” the firefighter says, pointing at me. “Get him inside and warm.”

  I’m about to protest, but Maddie takes my hand and leads me toward her house, and I decide I do need to get warm and dry. As fast as possible.

  For a while, Maddie and I are alone in the house, and it seems like I should say something reassuring, but the stench from the fire is in my nostrils and on my hair and my clothes, and the only thing I can think about is getting rid of it. Maddie doesn’t even wait for me to ask before she hands me a towel and a pair of Peter’s sweatpants and points to the shower.

  “You stink,” she says.

  The water feels good, and I stay in the shower a long time. When I come out, I find Maddie and Bo and Peter and Des in the kitchen. Maddie hands me a glass of water, which I down in two gulps, and then another, which I drink more slowly, and finally a cup of hot chocolate, and we all go sit in the living room. The waves are higher than I’ve ever seen them; a couple break over the front deck, sending Maddie and me leaping out of the window seat. It’s raining now, which is good, but it’s too loud to talk.

  Maddie and I sit there watching the storm while the others shower. I’m so tired it’s hard to keep my eyes open, and maybe I even fall asleep, because one second I’m sitting there next to Maddie, and the next she’s got her head on my shoulder and we’re all wrapped up in a blanket.

  Des comes in from the bathroom with a bundle of wet clothes under his arm and says, “We should get home, buddy. Let these guys get some sleep.”

  “Yeah.” I start to unravel myself from the blanket and from Maddie. She whimpers when I move her head off my shoulder, so I’m extra gentle when I settle her into the corner of the window seat. Everyone whispers so we won’t wake her as Des and I leave.

  “Thanks, guys. I don’t even want to think about losing this house.” Peter’s voice shakes a bit as he speaks.

  Bo nods. “Yeah. Thanks so much.”

  “We’re here for you, buddy. You can count on us,” Des says.

  My stomach twists a little when Des says that. It’s true—Des is always there for them when they need him. He’s good in an emergency, and he knows how to put on a good front. A very good front. That’s one thing he knows how to do.

  FOUR

  Maddie

  It’s morning when a pain in my neck wakes me. I’m shoved into the corner of the window seat, and it takes a couple of seconds to free myself from the blank
ets that have become tangled around me.

  The whole house stinks of smoke and something else I can’t put my finger on, which makes the back of my throat tickle unpleasantly. Burnt things.

  I head into the kitchen for a glass of water. Peter is standing over the stove, cooking up a mess of scrambled eggs, and Bo is sitting at the table, looking shattered.

  “Bo, are you okay?” I ask. Bo’s my rock. He’s everyone’s rock. Seeing him like this makes my stomach clench.

  “I think some food will help,” Peter answers from the stove. Bo puts out his arms, and I go ahead and sit on his lap like a little kid.

  “Oof,” he says.

  “Oh, thanks,” I say. It’s a joke between us, since Bo is one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen, and he can still carry me in his arms if he feels like it. Luckily for me, I have Peter’s more delicate genes, not Bo’s.

  He squeezes me tightly, and I can also feel Peter stroking my hair, so we’re all touching, like one big person, all soaking each other up. For a tiny second I’m glad the shed caught fire and brought us all together. I used to feel like my two dads had their arms around me and each other all day every day, like no matter what people or life threw at us, it wouldn’t matter at all. I haven’t felt that way lately. Stupid university.

  Peter returns to his eggs, and when they’re ready, I get up to pull out the cutlery and some plates. Bo stands and stretches, then sits back down, but this time he sits straighter.

  “You okay?” I ask when I bend over him to place the cutlery on the table.

  He nods. “I wore myself out, that’s all.”

  I’m sure that’s not all. I’m sure training a hose on a fire that’s blossoming and growing around you takes its toll. But I just smile at him.

  “Sit next to me,” he says, so I do.

  Bo’s silent throughout the meal, which means no one talks, because he’s the one in the family that keeps conversation going. I don’t care, though, because the longer we sit here together, my little family, the more right the world feels.