by kc dyer
He pressed the stone into Darby’s hand. For the first time in all her summer’s travels, she held something warm. It was a small rock, flat, grey and almost heart-shaped. “From the heart of the highlands to the heart of Canada,” he whispered.
She had to laugh. “I thought I told you that Toronto was the heart of Canada.”
“That you must decide for yourself,” he replied, and as he stepped away from her, his eyes gleamed. “See you around, sometime,” he said. Without another word, he turned and followed Alasdair and his father through the door of the immigration shed.
“See you,” Darby whispered.
It was time to go home.
Death by misadventure.
Misadventure.
That’s what a coroner calls it when a grandfather runs into the water to save a toddler. Even when the toddler doesn’t need saving, not really. And even when the toddler is not the toddler he thinks he’s saving. One that he didn’t manage to save nearly fifty years before.
Darby sat in the funeral parlour and thought about the coroner. Who would want that job? Looking at dead bodies and trying to figure out how they got that way. The PEI coroner told Nan that Gramps’s heart attack was probably brought on by the rescue of the little girl. He also told her that Gramps’s brain showed evidence of Alzheimer’s.
Darby tried not to think about what Gramps looked like when Ernie pulled him out of the water. She’d seen so much death already this summer—why should his be any different?
He was Gramps. That made it different.
The night before, when she had run home from Gabe’s house, she’d got to the top of the stairs by her room before she realized she didn’t have a headache. No aura. Not even a trace of pain.
Just a rock in her pocket, still warm from the hands of the man who brought his family—her family—to Canada.
The sign over the door said Viewing Room, but Darby was alone with Gramps and there wasn’t any viewing going on. His casket was not much more than a plain wooden box with some kind of brass handles. Not too shiny.
Darby figured the least she could do was to sit with him. Her parents weren’t set to arrive until later. Besides, Gramps had agreed to take her to the beach. Mostly because Nan had talked him into it, but still. His last trip away from his house was because of Darby. She couldn’t take this trip with him, of course, but she could at least sit with him a while.
Nan came into the room. Every time Darby had seen her since Gramps had died, she had been surrounded by women. Darby had recognized some of them: the two sisters she had first met that day in the front yard with the fire department; and there were Shawnie, and Fiona; Dr. Brian’s wife, Addie, had been over, too. Darby didn’t have a clue who most of the others were.
But for once, Nan wasn’t surrounded by all the clucking old hens. She sat down beside Darby with a sigh, and took her hand.
“I was wondering where you’d gotten to,” she said in a low voice.
“It didn’t seem like you really needed any help,” Darby said. “So I thought I’d just sit here a while.”
“Ernie is here. He wants to take you to the airport to meet your parents.”
Darby stood up reluctantly. She wasn’t at all sure she was ready to face her parental units so soon. “Okay. Is there anything you would like me to do first, Nan?”
Nan shook her head. “No, I think everything is looked after. The service is this afternoon, and—” She sat quietly for a moment, then stood to take Darby’s face in her hands. “Oh, I am so going to miss you, girlie, when you go back home. I have become accustomed to having you here. The house will feel so empty with you gone.”
“With both of us gone,” Darby said, bitterly. “Nan, this is all my fault. If you and Gramps hadn’t had to drag me to the beach that day, he would still be here with you.”
Nan dropped her hands to Darby’s shoulders and gave her granddaughter a little shake. “Don’t you even think such a thing,” she said severely. “In the first place, the trip to the beach that day was my idea. And,” she sighed a little, “if it comes right down to it, your Gramps was already almost gone. Any hope I had of trying to care for him in our home was lost.”
She smiled sadly. “After he burned his uniform with the iron, well, I should have seen how serious things were.”
The door opened and Ernie poked his head in. “Ready to go to the airport, Miss Darby?” he said with a gentle smile. “Oh, and you can come, too, kid.”
Nan arched an eyebrow. “Very funny,” she said, dryly. “I think I’ll just go home and get changed, if you don’t mind, dear,” she added, looking at Darby. “You bring your mother and dad right into the house when you get back.”
They followed the still-chuckling Ernie out the door.
The funeral was held at Trinity United Church that afternoon. Darby was surprised at how many people packed the benches inside. I guess a person makes a few friends over a life that long, she thought.
She was not as surprised, however, as she had been at the airport when her mother walked into the arrivals section. Darby’s mother had beamed at her, yelled “Surprise!” and given her daughter a huge hug. Literally huge, seeing as her mother was at least twenty pounds heavier than when she had kissed her goodbye in Toronto. And Darby was pretty sure it hadn’t come from eating doughnuts because she was missing her only daughter.
“Honey, you’re going to be a big sister!” she yelled. Just in case Darby had missed it—or any of the hundreds of other passengers in the airport had.
“Uh, congratulations,” Darby said, feeling strange. Her grandfather was dead, a new baby was coming and from the beaming smiles on her parents’ faces, she guessed she’d been a little off base about the whole divorce idea. She wasn’t actually sure how she should feel, but for the moment she settled on feeling a little sick.
They had to go through the whole thing all over again when they walked out to Ernie’s cab. He had known Darby’s dad while he was growing up, and soon the three of them were all talking at once about the baby, and the parental units’ worries because of their advanced ages and the reno, which was finally done. When they got to the house, Nan got into the action, too.
Darby stood a little to one side, just listening. The strangest thing seemed to have happened to her dad’s voice. It took her a few moments to figure it out, but suddenly she realized he was speaking with an Island accent. She’d never heard it in his voice before. Maybe it got stronger when he was surrounded by all the other Maritime accents. It made Darby think of Gabe, and how his voice changed depending where they travelled. And then Darby started to wonder about her own accent. She knew she didn’t have an accent.
Did she?
People will do whatever they can to get through a funeral. Darby didn’t remember much about the service, except that a bunch of old guys from Gramps’s Legion dressed up in their uniforms. Everybody had a lot of nice things to say about him. Near the end of the service, the minister invited people to share their memories of Gramps. Michael and Shawnie both got up to talk about how he helped mow their lawn. Doctor Brian got up to speak and Fiona Grady had a few nice things to say, too. Even Darby’s dad managed to say a few words about his own father. He spoke quickly, with his head down, but he smiled at Darby when he was done. She hugged him tightly when he sat back down beside her, and she could feel his shoulders shake a little at this last, sudden goodbye.
Afterwards, there was a reception in the church hall and all the ladies tried to outdo themselves with fancy recipes for the sort of finger foods you usually only see in women’s magazines. Everyone was laughing and milling around, and even Nan seemed to be enjoying herself.
Darby stood against a wall with a pinwheel sandwich in one hand. She quickly discovered that if her hands were empty, one of the church ladies would push more food on her, so the sandwich was running interference. Darby didn’t know how all those people could eat so much. It was like they had never seen food before.
She just stood there, f
eeling a little queasy, until she noticed Shawnie Stevens making her way through the crowd. Darby waved the hand not holding the sandwich.
“Hi, Darby,” Shawnie said quietly. “You remember my husband, Michael?”
Darby nodded at him.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said, in his soft voice. “I’ll see you at home a bit later, Shawn,” he added, and handed her a small box he had been carrying.
“Is that something for Nan?” Darby asked, wondering how they were going to find room on the table for even more food.
“No, it’s actually something for you,” Shawnie said, and her face flushed. “I’m a bit worried about this,” she continued, her words tumbling out almost as if she was embarrassed. “When I heard what had happened, I just wanted to do something for you that might help, so I hope you’re not upset with your nan and me.”
Darby was totally baffled. How could she possibly be upset with Nan at a time like this?
She took the box from Shawnie and opened it. Inside was a small inuksuk, maybe ten inches high, like a miniature version of the one Darby had seen on her very first adventure of the summer.
“It’s for your grandpa,” Shawnie said softly. “To help him find his way on his journey.”
Darby stared at it for a minute before she realized.
“You’ve used my rocks,” she said, hardly believing her eyes.
“Oh, I hope you don’t mind, Darby,” Shawnie said, her voice filled with concern. “When your grandma told me you had been using Michael’s basket for storing your favourite rocks, I thought this might be a special way to remember your grandfather.”
Darby lifted the inuksuk out of the box and set it carefully on the table. The base was made of her round, flat piece of red PEI sandstone, and the other rocks were balanced on top. The piece of the Irish hearthstone was there and so was the heart-shaped stone from the Scottish highlands. Sitting on the base beside the inuksuk was the piece of soapstone.
“I carved that one a little,” Shawnie said as Darby picked it up. “I really hope you don’t mind.”
It was a tiny green polar bear.
After the reception, they took Gramps’s ashes to be interred at the military section of the Sherwood Cemetery, and then Ernie drove the family back home in his cab. While Darby’s parents were getting settled, she grabbed her skateboard and took it out onto the street. Somehow, though, she didn’t feel like riding, so she propped it on the front porch and walked up to the old blue house.
The air was a little cool, and Darby tucked her knobbly knitted sweater tightly around her arms. Summer was almost over. In a day or two, she and her family were due to fly home to Toronto.
Of course, there was no sign of Gabe. Darby didn’t expect to see him. Not really. A yellow piece of paper fluttered in the wind where it was stuck up near the front door. She ignored it and walked around the side of the house. One section of the back wall had caved in over the past few days—she wondered how she’d missed seeing it. Darby just stood there, staring at the house, thinking about all that had happened over one short summer.
Maybe there was no Gabe. That’s what the rational part of her mind said. Maybe he was simply a figment of her over-active imagination.
“You’d better close that mouth of yours. You’ll catch flies.” She jumped a little, but it wasn’t Gabe showing up to prove her wrong—or crazy.
Instead, it was Nan who smiled as she walked up. “I thought you might want this,” she said, and held out the skateboard.
“Wow, thanks, Nan,” Darby said. “You didn’t need to carry that all the way over here for me.”
“I know I didn’t. But I wanted to talk with you for just a moment or two.” She glanced up at the house. “Did you see the building permit out front?”
“The yellow paper?”
Nan nodded. “I was thinking about your friend who was staying here.” She turned a steady gaze to the hole in the back of the house. “I guess he’s not here anymore?”
Darby shook her head. “I guess not. I never really got to say goodbye, either.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “But I was remembering the people who lived here when I was a young girl. They were an Acadian family. I think they eventually moved on to Tignish, or maybe somewhere in Nova Scotia.”
“Acadian?” I said. “Really?”
“Yes. They were the ones who painted the house this colour blue. I think it was sort of a cream colour before, but I can’t really recall.”
Darby thought about Gabe’s accent, with its trace of French, but she couldn’t think of anything she could say that Nan might understand.
They walked around to the front and out through the rusty iron gate.
Nan looked critically at the house. “It’s time they fixed this old place up. Fiona tells me the people who bought it come from New Orleans. Perhaps they want to build a lovely safe home here after that last dreadful hurricane.”
“Maybe.” Darby dropped her skateboard on the road. “Want a try, Nan?” she joked.
Nan didn’t look as horrified as Darby thought she would. “Perhaps next time, dear,” she said mildly. “I do hope you didn’t mind that I gave Shawnie your rock collection.”
The rock collection—the one piece of solid evidence that this whole crazy summer might not just have come from her imagination.
Darby smiled at her. “It’s okay, Nan. It’s better than okay. Did you see the cool inuksuk she made me? Way better than some old pile of rocks. It’s beautiful.”
She coasted slowly beside her grandmother back along Forsyth Street.
“Well, thank goodness for that. Perhaps you can make a new collection when you come back to visit me next year?” Her voice sounded so hopeful.
Darby thought about it for a minute. “Not a bad idea, Nan,” she said, with a grin. “I’ll probably be ready for a little peace and quiet by next summer. And maybe I’ll even get a chance to give Fiona’s PlayStation another try.”
Nan laughed. “There may be more friends to play with on the street if the new owners have moved in by then. The Island is changing so quickly these days.”
“I’m with you, Nan. I like things the way they are.” They stopped to look back at the old blue house as the last rays of sun lit up the gingerbread trim in a brilliant golden glow.
The sun must have been playing tricks with Darby’s eyes, because for one instant, she was sure she saw a hand, waving cheerily from one of the high gabled windows at the front of the house.
Darby’s bags were all packed, and the flashy silver convertible that her father had rented was running in front of the house. No “Taxi by Ernie” ride to the airport, after all. They were all set to take off, but Darby felt a pang of loss surge through her as she hugged Nan goodbye. She held on extra tight for a minute and then kissed Nan’s cheek.
“See you next summer, girlie,” Nan said.
She turned away to hug Darby’s parents, and Darby fiddled with her MP3 player to give herself something else to think about besides going away.
As he helped Darby’s mother to get the seatbelt adjusted, her dad leaned across the seat and tugged on the earphone cord. “What do you think, Darby?” he asked, smiling a little. “Would you rather have a brother or a sister?”
“I don’t care,” Darby said. “But since I’m the only sister the thing will ever have, I think I should get to pick the name. What do you think about Gabriel? That would do for a boy or a girl, don’tcha think?”
Everyone muttered approvingly, and Darby looked up the street at the blue house with the gingerbread trim and mentally dusted off her hands. There you go, Gabe, she thought. My job here is done.
She stared at the sunlight dappling the trees along the street, and thought about all the attention the new baby was getting. What about Gramps? They’d just said goodbye to him. Wasn’t he more important than some baby who wasn’t even going to show its face for two more months?
But maybe Gramps wouldn’t have minded so mu
ch. The new baby gave everybody something to look forward to, including Nan. Darby’s dad finally got in the car and they all waved a last goodbye and headed up Granville Street to the highway that led to the Confederation Bridge.
“You know, Darby,” said her dad. “I’m so happy you agreed with our decision to drive home to Toronto. You still have a couple of weeks before you head back to school, and,” he patted her mother’s knee, “your mother and I have been talking.”
Darby rolled her eyes. All their talking was why she was trying to listen to her music. She sighed and pulled out one earphone.
“We’ve agreed that it’s all very well to visit your relatives,” her dad continued in his I-mean-business voice. “But why take an airplane when you have the opportunity to see your country first-hand?” He smiled at his daughter in the rearview mirror. “We’ve decided it really is about time you got off that skateboard and learned a little bit of the geography and history of your country, don’t you think?”
Darby pulled the tiny green polar bear Shawnie had carved out of the pocket of her shorts and rubbed the soft stone under her thumb.
Yeah, Dad. Whatever you say.
Glossary
Abegweit First Nation A First Nations Band in PEI, and also the one of the earliest names given to the Island itself.
Acadian / Acadien Name of a group of settlers, originally from France, who lived in the Maritime provinces, particularly the area now known as Nova Scotia. The Acadian Expulsion by the British (1755–63) meant that people of Acadian descent were forced to move far away from their Maritime home.
Atikuat Innu word for caribou.
Atlée Tlingit word for “Mother.”
Bairn “Baby” in Gaelic dialect.
Behemoth A gargantuan object or thing of great power; in this case a printing press being carted across an ocean.
Beothuk Extinct indigenous culture once found on the island of Newfoundland.
