by Jones, Kari;
The door creaks open and I step inside slowly and flip the switch to turn on the light. I’m still holding my breath, but the room is empty. I mean completely. This shed looks like no one has been in here for years. This should make me happy, this total lack of weed or anything to do with it, but it doesn’t, because I have no idea at all what that means. Was the shed always empty, or did Pedro clear it out?
I close the door behind me as I leave the shed, then walk around all the other outbuildings to see if there’s nothing. This can’t be good. No one around here has empty sheds. Most people’s sheds are full of things like old furniture and bikes and gardening stuff—pots and bags of soil and shovels. Empty sheds. Who the hell’s ever heard of that? It feels ominous, even more ominous than Pedro and Des leaving without telling us. Plus there’s laundry from the line strewn around and caught in the salal bushes. I don’t know what to make of this, but I decide not to say anything to Maddie when she and Willow come out to find me. Who knows what she might think.
“Did you find him?” asks Willow. Her face is stained with tears, she’s pouty, and she’s holding on to Maddie’s hand.
On the spot, I decide to lie. “I found a letter. He must have forgotten to send it with you when you came to my house yesterday. He’s gone away for a little while, and he’ll be back soon. He says you get to come and stay with me while he’s away.”
Willow nods.
“And he says he wants us to have lots of fun.”
“Did he say when he’s coming back?” asks Maddie, which seems like a stupid thing to ask until I realize she thinks the letter is real.
“Soon,” I say.
Maddie gives me a funny look but doesn’t say any more about it. “We have clothes and toys for Willow. Do we need anything else?”
I’ve looked everywhere I can think of, and there’s nothing here that tells us where they are, so I shake my head, and the three of us head back to the boat. Willow doesn’t say anything for the whole trip back. It’s not just that she’s quiet—she’s inside herself, like somewhere deep down she understands that she’s in for more than a little vacation in Bear Harbour. I wonder if she remembers being abandoned the first time. It’s so weird, though, because even though Pedro is totally flaky and mostly a person I hate, he’s actually devoted to Willow. It makes me scared, because it seems like something big must have happened to make him go away like this.
When we get back to Bear Harbour, Maddie helps Willow gather her bags and lifts her off the boat. She holds out her hand for Willow to hold as they walk down the dock. I make sure the boat is closed and locked before I follow them.
“You should come have some lunch with us, Ivan,” Maddie says as we walk along the boardwalk toward the beach to go home.
“Let’s get Willow sorted out at my place first. Then we’ll come join you for lunch.”
“What do you mean, sorted out at your place?”
“I’ll have to see if I can find some clean sheets for Des’s bed for her to sleep in, and we might have to go grocery shopping for some breakfast foods.” I don’t bother telling her Des’s room is a total mess. Willow won’t care.
“We have the back room. She can sleep there,” says Maddie.
“She can’t stay at your place.”
“Of course she can—why can’t she?” Maddie says.
“I told her she could stay with me.”
“It would be better for her to stay with me. There’s food at my house. And clean sheets,” she says.
Willow’s head swivels back and forth between us as we speak, and now she says, “I’m going to stay with Ivan, so I can help now that Des is away, like you said.”
Maddie doesn’t say anything for a few steps, and then she says, “Fine.”
I’m happy, because the less Peter and Bo see of Willow, the less they will wonder and the fewer questions they will ask. Who knows what kind of shit we’re in for? The less they know, the better.
* * *
The day with Willow is fun. She’s in a good mood after we make grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and Maddie and I play with her for a while. After lunch Maddie says, “I think you should have a nap, Willow.”
“I don’t need to,” says Willow, but Maddie says, “We’ll read a story and see.” She helps Willow choose a book from the pile they brought with them, and the two of them disappear upstairs to my bedroom. It’s strange—after trying to keep people away from the house for years, now Maddie seems to be here all the time.
I only have time to check my phone for messages from Des or Pedro before Maddie comes back.
“She fell asleep before I finished the page,” she says.
“I still haven’t heard a thing.”
Maddie frowns and gathers the plates from the table and takes them to the sink. She turns on the tap and pours soap into the water.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I do.” She picks up the first plate and scrubs at it, around and around, until it’s way past clean, and I watch her do it, only slowly realizing that she’s scrubbing to hide the fact that she’s crying.
I come up behind her and gather her long hair into my hands and say, “Hey, Maddie, don’t cry,” but she shakes me off and says, “I’m not,” through her tears.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” I lean over her and take the dishcloth from her hand, then turn her around until she’s facing me. “Why are you crying?”
“Why do you think?”
That’s not helpful, and it only makes things worse, because there are so many possible answers to that question. So many things seem wrong now, and the truth is, I don’t want to think about any of them. Instead of answering, I wrap her hair around my wrist and stare at her feet. She unwraps my wrist, turns around and returns to the washing. There’s just nothing to say, so I sit down and watch her.
When she’s done, she says, “When Willow wakes up we should get out of your house, get some air.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I say, but I know it’s the wrong thing to say as soon as the words are spoken, so I shake my head. “No, I don’t mean that,” and she looks at me funny and the two of us just stare at each other because neither of us knows what is going on or how the hell to cope with it or what to do or how to get out of it. And just as I’m thinking I should tell her that she doesn’t have to make this problem hers, she shakes her head, takes a deep breath and says, “Never say that.”
“Say what?”
“That it’s not my problem.”
“Shit, Maddie, how do you always know what I’m thinking?”
“It’s written all over your face, Ivan. So promise me. We’re in this together, right?” She takes my hand as she speaks and stares right into my eyes, so the only thing I can do is smile at her and say, “Right.”
If having someone help me could make all this go away, she’d be the person to help for sure.
When Willow wakes up she opts for the playground, and the three of us head out. I haven’t spent this much time at the playground since I was about six years old. She runs straight to the swings and hops on. Maddie sits on the other swing, and the two of them pump themselves as high as they can go. I sit on the merry-go-round and watch their hair streaming behind them. Willow squeals and Maddie laughs, and for the seconds that they are flying, I’m happy. Then, as always happens, every single time, reality returns, this time when Willow falls and scrapes her arm.
She wails, and I can see a long day of screaming ahead. So I say, “Willow, how about some ice cream?”
“Yes!” Willow’s mood shifts immediately, and she picks herself up and rubs the sand off her arm, and we head to the ice-cream store for the millionth time.
* * *
After three days, Willow is driving me crazy. She tries to help, and she’s pretty independent, but most of her help makes things worse, and then I have to fix whatever she’s messed up, but she’s always standing right where I want to b
e, and I keep almost tripping over her. At breakfast I burn the eggs because she’s in the way and I can’t get the pan off the burner fast enough. Willow pushes the eggs around on her plate but won’t eat them.
“That’s not how Grandpa makes eggs,” she says.
“I know. I burned them.”
“I’ll make some cereal,” she says.
I pull down two bowls and let her at it. Why not have cereal? There aren’t any eggs left. As I eat, I contemplate what we are going to do today. What do little girls like to do with their days other than go to the playground? I can’t handle the playground again. What did she say she wanted to do the first morning she was here? Only three days ago, though it seems like ages.
Willow doesn’t eat her cereal either. She dips her spoon into it but dunks it back into the milk rather than eating it.
“When’s Grandpa coming back?” she asks for the millionth time. I grit my teeth, because I have no answer.
“Want to go to the playground?” I ask.
She smiles, which is good, because I’m not up for a day of moping. “I’ll get my shoes,” she says.
“Can you bring me mine too?” I ask as I swallow a few spoonfuls of cereal.
Willow helps me tie my shoes and does a pretty good job of her own, and we head out of the house. We take the road instead of the beach, because it’s quicker, and Willow is enthusiastic about getting to the playground. There are a bunch of kids already there, and Willow seems to know some of them, so she skips off to play, and I sit on a bench to watch.
Willow’s holding it together pretty well, but the truth is, I’m not. I haven’t slept in three days, and the only thing I’ve eaten is cereal. Maddie comes by several times a day and plays with Willow, which is helpful, but it leaves me more time to contemplate what’s happened to Des and Pedro. Des has disappeared before, but not for more than a night without some kind of message. I’ve texted a million times and tried to call, but he hasn’t answered.
When it starts to rain, I say to Willow, “Okay, buddy, time to go back to my house.”
She ignores me and continues to swing.
“Willow!”
She keeps pumping her legs in the air.
That’s it. I can’t take it anymore.
“Willow, buddy,” I call. “Let’s go to the library.”
“I don’t want to,” she says.
“Too bad. We’re going.” At this point I’d grab her swing and make her get off, even though there’s a bunch of moms standing around who would probably shout at me, but Willow seems to sense I mean it, so she hops off the swing and follows me across the park to the library. I guess Pedro’s taken her there before, because she heads right for the little corner where the kids’ books are and finds herself a cushion to sit on. There’s a story time going on, so I ask the lady behind the desk if I can leave Willow there for a bit.
“Story time is half an hour. Be back by then.”
It only takes me a few minutes to get home, and a couple more to rush up the stairs, pull the backpack out from under my bed and check to make sure it has a hoodie and a toothbrush. There’s a small stash of money in my wallet. It takes me another few minutes to get out onto the road, but then it takes another fifteen minutes for a car to come by. It’s a white Chevy that I recognize as Noah’s mom’s. It’s visible for about two minutes before it reaches me, and in that time I change my mind four times. When she does finally approach me, she slows and rolls down her window.
“Need a lift to Port Alberni?”
I could run away so easily. Ride to Port Alberni, catch a bus to Nanaimo and a ferry to Vancouver and disappear. It would be so easy. But then I’d be just like my mother, abandoning a kid who needs me. Just like Des, incapable of seeing things through.
“Ivan?”
My palms are sweaty, and I can feel my heart pounding. It would be so easy. “No, thanks, just out for a walk,” I say.
“Need anything at Costco?”
“Crunchy peanut butter, if you come across some.”
She adds that to a paper list she has on the passenger seat and says, “You can pick it up tonight.” She smiles and drives on.
I hike the strap of my pack to make it tighter and turn back to town.
I’m five minutes late for Willow. The lady behind the counter glares at me, but Willow doesn’t seem to have noticed that I’m late. She’s on a cushion by the window, looking at a book. I sit down next to her. “How was story time?”
“We read a story about a crab who doesn’t want to grow into his new shell.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Did you like it?”
“Yes, and this one’s about a bear who gets left behind at the bus stop because no one wants him. He’s like you and me,” she says.
Oh, shit, shit, shit. How can she know that? I pick her up and put her on my lap. Her hair smells like baby shampoo. “Good thing we have each other then,” I say, because it’s true.
“And Maddie,” she says.
“And Maddie.”
Willow stands up and straightens her leggings, then sits back down on my lap. “Can you read it to me, please?”
I open the book and start at page one.
THIRTY-TWO
Maddie
It breaks my heart seeing Ivan so lost. He wanders around aimlessly with his little sidekick Willow, the two of them just pacing through time. At first, even though it was worrisome that Des and Pedro were gone, there was an edge of fun to having Willow, something like playing house. Somehow, all three of us seemed to be able to push away the fear and worry and just pretend, but not anymore. Noah’s mom told me she saw Ivan walking on the highway and he looked like he was heading out of town, but when she offered him a lift he said he was just out for a walk. Even though I don’t like to admit it, I think he was running away. He and Willow have been inseparable since then, and he won’t talk about what happened to make him come back. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Ivan in private for three days, and when I try to talk to him, he changes the subject, though I doubt Willow has any real understanding of what’s going on anyway. How could she? She’s only five.
I can’t even imagine what the two of them are going through.
“Hello, Maddie,” says Willow when she opens the door this morning. She’s wearing the same clothes she was wearing yesterday, though I brought a bunch with us from the island.
“Hi, Willow, how’s it hanging?” She likes clichés, and I love the way she answers them.
“It’s hanging low.” She points to Ivan, who’s half asleep on the sofa.
“Bad night?”
“He didn’t sleep much.”
Ivan looks up as I enter the room. He is obviously exhausted; the skin is purple below his eyes, and his face is puffy. He smiles at me but doesn’t sit up.
“Willow, buddy, why don’t you come and stay at my house for a while?” I say.
“It’s okay,” Ivan says.
“She’ll be fine.”
“No,” he says, and this time he does sit up.
“I’m not trying to steal her,” I say.
Ivan leans back in the sofa and says, “Sorry, I know.”
“What’s going on, Ivan? Has something happened?”
He shakes his head, but he’s lying. I’m sure of it.
“Willow, honey, how about you go choose some clean clothes so I can wash those ones?” I say.
“Do I have to?”
“Yes, please, your clothes are upstairs. You know where they are.”
She nods and runs up the stairs, and I sit beside Ivan and say, “Okay, she’s out of the room. Now tell me.”
“Nothing happened, Maddie.”
I study his face, trying to decipher what’s there, but he won’t look at me properly, so I say, “We have to tell someone.”
“No.”
“Ivan, we have to.”
“No way.”
“You have no idea what’s happened or how long they’ll be gone. We have to,
otherwise it’s like we’ve kidnapped her or something.”
“Des is on his way back. I’ll talk to him when he gets here.”
“You’re lying.”
He doesn’t respond. But enough is enough. He looks so beaten, and he shouldn’t be shouldering this. It’s not fair to him or to Willow. “You tell someone or I will,” I say. He turns away from me and puts his arms over his head.
When Willow comes downstairs, I take her over to my house, where Bo and Peter are delighted to see her, as I knew they would be. The four of us spend a couple of hours looking through the telescope and searching for shells on the beach and counting crabs. After lunch, Willow goes to sleep in my bed, and I head back to Ivan’s place.
The door’s not locked, so I walk in. Ivan’s still asleep on the sofa. He looks peaceful, for once, so I leave him be. Probably sleep is the best thing for him.
Ivan sleeps for the whole day, and in the evening when I go back for a third time to check on him, he’s awake and demands Willow back.
“She’s with Kyra and Laurie. They’re babysitting for the night, and you’re spending the evening with me,” I say.
Ivan shakes his head and says, “I’d better go get her. I don’t want her to think I’ve abandoned her or something.” He goes into the front hallway and pulls on his shoes.
“She was happy to spend the night with the girls, Ivan.”
I follow him out of the house and down the driveway to the road.
“Yeah. Well…”
“You feel responsible for her, don’t you?” I ask.
“How could I not? Don’t you?”
I don’t want Ivan to go and get Willow. I want him to relax, to spend the evening with me or Jack or Noah. To enjoy himself for once. I hate to see him like this. It tears at my heart.
“Ivan, I meant what I said earlier. I’m starting to get worried about Des and Pedro. I mean, something must have happened, right, to keep them away this long? Has Pedro ever done anything like this before? We should tell someone.”
“No,” he says and keeps walking.
Argh…he makes me want to tear my hair out. “What about Willow, Ivan?”
