by Joan Boswell
“Sure,” I said. I was glad to go.
When I was finished, Mom told me to change my T-shirt, and in the bedroom I told Donny about Dad going down to look at the gatepost. “He started to tell me there were no marks, but then Mom came in and he clammed up. Do you think I should sneak down when it’s dark and hack at it a bit with the axe?”
“Naw, it wouldn’t be any good. He’d be able to tell. It wouldn’t be the same kind of marks.”
I was glad Grampa was coming that afternoon. I thought it might help lighten things up a bit. He was always so cheerful. “What’s the use of complaining?” he would say. “If you can fix a problem, fix it. If you can’t, get over it and get on with other things.” Could we fix this problem?
He arrived about four o’clock, carrying a bunch of pink flowers for Mom and a bottle of wine for Dad. He was all excited.
“I could hardly get through the village for cops,” he said. “They were all over the place, and stopping every car. Apparently there was a hit-and-run accident this morning, a little girl. They’ve taken her to the Children’s Hospital. Sounded serious. I stopped to get you guys some ice cream. Chocolate with chocolate chip, right?”
I saw Donny tense. “Great, Grampa,” I said. “I’ll put it in the freezer for later.”
“Yes, fellow in the store told me about the accident. The worst kind, hit-and-run. I hope they get the bastard. But it seems the police have found something that will help.”
“What kind of something?” Dad asked in a tight kind of voice.
Grampa shrugged. “He wasn’t sure. Glass, maybe, tiny piece of the car, perhaps. They could probably get paint chips from the little girl’s clothes, too. They can tell a lot from those, you know.”
“Do you want to go for a canoe ride, Grampa?” I said. “There’s a new cottage down at the end of the lake. They have a sailboat. Real nice. We saw it yesterday.”
Grampa smiled at me. “Maybe later, Tim. What else have you boys done since you got here? C’mon, tell me what you’ve been up to, Donny.”
“Donny’s not feeling too well, Poppa,” Mom said quickly. “In fact, I’m going to take him in and give him another aspirin. I think he should lie down before dinner.”
In the end, Dad and I took Grampa for the canoe ride.
Altogether, I guess it wasn’t the best party Grampa ever had. Mom and I tried to keep things going, but Dad seemed to have trouble concentrating and would have to jerk himself back into the conversation. Donny stayed in bed and just came out to say goodbye.
The next morning, we both stayed in bed until Mom banged on the door. We didn’t feel like an early morning swim that day.
As we sat down at the breakfast table, Dad looked at Donny. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“Fine enough for pancakes and bacon?” Mom asked.
“Oh, boy,” I said. “Sounds good. Is that what you’re making, Mom?”
“Coming right up.” She smiled at me.
While she was serving breakfast, Mom suggested we might all go to the July First celebrations in the village later. They always had a little fair and fireworks at night.
We were finishing our milk when Dad switched on the radio for the local news. There was something about a strike, then the July First celebrations, then: Four-year-old Tammy O’Neill, who was involved in a hit-and-run accident yesterday, is still in a coma at the Children’s Hospital. Police are looking for a light-coloured sedan which was travelling west along the main street of Ostanga, a village north of Kingston, yesterday morning. If you have any information, please contact the Ontario Provincial Police.
“Oh, those poor parents,” Mom said. “Imagine what they must be going through.”
Donny slumped in his chair with his eyes closed.
Mom jumped up to go round the table to him, but Dad waved her back. “Leave him.”
“But he’s sick.”
“Leave him.” Dad’s voice was harsh. “He’s going to tell us how the headlight got broken.”
“For heaven’s sake.” Mom was getting annoyed. “He told you he hit the post. What more do you want?”
Dad looked at her and shook his head. “There are no marks on either of the gateposts, and there’s no broken glass.”
They stared at each other for what seemed a very long time. Then Mom looked at Donny, still crumpled in his chair, and I could feel her looking at me, too. I kept my head down. Very slowly, she sat down.
“Surely you don’t think . . .”
“Tell us what happened, son.” My father’s voice was gentle now. I saw Donny swallow, trying to speak.
“We stopped to let these people cross the road,” I said. “Donny had his ice cream cone in his hand, and suddenly Alfalfa jumped forward to snatch it, and the ice cream fell off into his lap, and I guess it startled him so much his foot jerked on the gas, and then suddenly there was this bang on the side of the car.”
“Why didn’t you stop? Donny, why didn’t you stop?”
He raised his head. “I wasn’t supposed to be driving on my own, and I didn’t really know what happened. The people had already crossed the road. I knew it would be big trouble for you and Mom if anyone asked for my licence and they found out I only had a beginner’s permit. I thought everything would be all right. It was only when Grampa told us . . .” He started to cry.
Mom got up and wrapped her arms around him, cradling his head against her stomach. She looked over at my father. “What are we going to do? We’ll have to call the police.”
Dad ran his hands through his hair. “If we call the police, he’ll probably be arrested. Hit-and-run is a very serious offence.” Mom’s grip on Donny tightened. “We could be sued, too, you know, by the girl’s family. I don’t think the insurance would cover it.”
“But surely, when we explain he didn’t stop because he was trying to protect us . . .”
Dad just shook his head.
My voice came out all squeaky. “It was really my fault, because I was supposed to be holding Alfalfa in the back.”
“And I should have left the goddamned lawn mower,” Dad said.
There was a long silence. Nobody looked at anyone else.
Suddenly Donny pulled his head away from Mom’s arms. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he said. “I’ve really screwed things up, haven’t I?”
“We all have, Donny,” Dad said. He got up from the table. “Why don’t you boys go outside and get things tidied up. I’ll help your mother in here.” As Donny went by, Dad put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.
As we swept the porch and wiped the dew off the chairs, we could hear the murmur of their voices. Suddenly Dad burst out loudly, “Don’t you realize, if we say we allowed him to go, it will probably mean the end of my job? What company wants to hire a financial advisor who admits encouraging his own son to break the law?”
We heard Mom saying “Shush. He’ll hear.”
“What do you think you should do, Donny?” I said.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not just me. What would we do if Dad lost his job?” He looked at me. “And you’d always be the brother of that kid who ran over a little girl and ran away. How do you think you’d like that?”
I’d always figured I was the one who had to think about looking out for Donny. And now it was Donny the Dreamer trying to look out for all of us.
After that we just sat, staring at the lake. It looked so calm and peaceful.
The cottage door banged, and Dad came out, got in the car and drove away. A minute later we heard a crash and then the car came back. The right front fender was all crumpled.
“I guess Dad decided that was the best thing to do,” I said. “He won’t lose his job. Everything will be all right.”
Donny just looked at me.
We could tell almost right away everything wasn’t all right. When we went in for lunch, Mom’s face was set, and her mouth was a thin straight line. I figured Dad hadn’t told her he
was going to smash the car into the gatepost. Dad was on the phone.
“Okay if we take our sandwiches down to the dock?” I asked. She just nodded.
As we walked away, we heard Dad say, “Yes, Charlie, the day after we arrived. It was raining so hard you could hardly see. If you’ll put in the claim, I’ll bring the car in when I come back to town in a couple of weeks.”
Charlie was our insurance man.
We sat on the dock, and I ate my sandwich. Donny threw his in the lake.
We didn’t go into the village for the celebrations. Dad said he had a headache, but I think we all knew he didn’t want to have the car stopped with its crushed right fender.
Mom stretched out in a deck chair with a book, but she didn’t seem to be turning the pages very fast. I tried to get Donny to help me with a ship’s model I was building, but he really wasn’t interested. We could hear the fireworks over in Ostanga around ten p.m., and after that we all packed it in for the day.
When I went in to go to bed, Donny was lying facing the wall. I didn’t think he was asleep, but he didn’t answer when I said his name, so I got undressed as quietly as I could.
Around midnight, something jerked me out of a deep sleep. It was Mom and Dad arguing. I guess they thought we would be too fast asleep to hear. Mom was mad at Dad for smashing the car on the gatepost and telling the insurance man he’d done it the day after we arrived.
“Don’t you realize you’ve taken away any chance now for him to go to the police?”
“But I thought you didn’t want him to confess and go into juvenile detention,” Dad said. “You sure as hell hung onto him when I said that might happen.”
“But we never really discussed it,” Mom said. “You just went off and did it. We should have phoned someone to find out if he really would be put in jail.”
“Like who?”
“Well, a lawyer, I suppose.” Mom sounded as if she was getting really mad. “Don’t you have lawyers on staff?”
Dad sighed. “Yeah, sure. I’m going to phone someone in the company and let him know the mess I’m in.”
“The mess you’re in! It’s Donny who matters.”
Dad’s voice had that tone he used with us when he caught us doing something stupid. “Are you telling me it won’t matter if I lose my job? Would that help him?” He banged a drawer shut. “How do you think I feel? I was the one who said we should let him go.”
There was a long pause, and then I heard Mom crying. “Oh, God,” she said, “I don’t know what we should do. I only know now we have two criminals in the family.”
I looked over at Donny’s bed. He was sitting up with his head in his hands.
Things really fell apart after that. Everybody was edgy, and Mom and Dad snapped at one another for no reason. Donny looked like a ghost with big dark circles under his eyes. And it started to rain again, not even a good pelting rain, just a slow miserable drizzle that would stop for a while then start again just as you thought it was all over. After two days of it, I got Donny to come out in the canoe with me, even if we did get wet.
“It’s kinda nice to get away from the cottage for a while, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah. And it gives Mom and Dad a break from having to look at me.”
Every day, the radio carried a bit about the police still exploring leads to find the hit-and-run driver. Mom and Dad tried at first to listen to the news when we weren’t there, but Donny had a little radio of his own, and he’d go off alone for a walk in the woods with it under his yellow slicker, so they gave up. He’d take Alfalfa with him, but he didn’t want me along, and I didn’t know what to do to help him. I tried to keep busy giving Mom a hand to reorganize the kitchen shelves or restacking the wood for the fireplace, but that didn’t take long, and catching frogs or netting sunfish isn’t much fun on your own, especially in the rain, so it was pretty boring.
Then the report came that Tammy O’Neill had died and that the police had been able to identify the make of car from paint samples taken from the victim’s clothing. We were sitting around after breakfast, and when Donny heard that, he just got straight up from the table, grabbed his yellow slicker, and walked out the door. I got up to follow him, but we heard him tell Alfalfa to stay. I hesitated for a while, but I figured if he didn’t even want Alfalfa along, he wouldn’t want me, either, so I sat down again.
He still wasn’t back at lunch time.
“Don’t worry about it,” Dad told Mom, frowning. “He probably doesn’t realize what time it is.”
“He forgot his watch this morning,” I said. “It’s still on the dresser.”
“There, you see. Tim and I’ll go and look for him. Right, sport?” We got up from the table to put on our raincoats. “And then this afternoon we’ll go fishing. They say some fish bite better when it’s raining. They probably figure humans are too smart to be sitting there in the rain.” He was talking to keep Mom from worrying.
“Yeah, great,” I said.
But as we walked down towards the dock, we saw the canoe bobbing offshore. There was no painter trailing from the bow. My heart started to hammer in my chest. I should have followed him. I was supposed to look out for my brother.
“Alfalfa,” I shouted. “Find Donny.”
He found him in the woods hanging from a tall maple with the painter round his neck and rain streaming down his yellow slicker.
Audrey Jessup was a founding member of The Ladies’ Killing Circle and co-edited two of their five anthologies. Her work also appeared in Storyteller magazine and the anthology, Life Music. Audrey died in January, 2003.
Rock-A-Bye Baby
Susan C. Gates
Janet was expecting. Joy coursed through her swollen belly and thick ankles—which were currently propped up on the arm of her sofa. Soon, she’d be holding her new baby. She couldn’t remember ever being this happy.
In truth, she’d been expecting all her life. Her earliest memories were of playing mommy to a gaggle of dolls and stuffed animals. Her mother claimed she never showed an interest in blocks or cars and became hysterical if any of her babies went astray. At the age of three, she had peppered her mother with detailed questions about her aunt’s pregnancy. Later, Janet had crouched low on her heels, as only a toddler can, grunting at periodic intervals. When her mother had asked what was wrong, she’d said she was delivering a baby. That incident gained an honoured and amusing spot in the Anderson family lore, trotted out for clan celebrations or on those rare occasions when Janet brought a boy to the house more than twice.
She’d loved being the shepherd to her flock of younger cousins. She watched out for them, kept them occupied and in line while their beleaguered parents enjoyed a few moments of solitude or adult company. Babysitter, au pair, aunt, volunteer—all that experience felt irrelevant next to Janet’s fervent belief that every cell of her being was programmed for motherhood.
Janet set the open book of baby names on top of her rounded belly and stretched sideways to pick up a coiled notepad from the coffee table. A folded page of computer paper fluttered to the floor. Groaning with the effort, Janet rolled onto her hip to retrieve the list she’d assembled of pediatricians in their new neighbourhood. Not for the first time, Janet marvelled at the power of the internet and slipped the sheet back into her notebook.
The front of this book was reserved for girls’ names, the back for boys’. She had meticulously recorded her favourites, along with their meanings and ethnic origins. Today, she was narrowing down the choices. They’d been given such plain-jane names in her family, she was determined to find something original, but dignified. Research and contemplation were ingrained in her nature, but Janet believed that, in the end, the baby’s name would only be revealed once it was in her arms, gazing up into her face.
Looking back, Janet was glad that she had waited to start her family. She had worked hard at her accounting career and was now more than ready to make the sacrifices necessary for this child. The baby would be the centre of her
world—not an afterthought, or an obligation, or yet another checkmark on her life’s To-Do list. Always wise with money, Janet had scrimped and saved, investing shrewdly. She would be a stay-at-home mom.
The phone rang. After some frenzied groping under the sofa cushions, Janet came up with the cordless. “Hello?” she gasped.
“Hey, Jan, just checking in on you.” It was her sister-in-law. “How’s it going?”
It seemed to Janet that Marie had assumed the role of unpaid, and unsolicited, mid-wife. Marie acted like there was some sort of karmic connection between them ever since Janet had been present for the birth of her third baby, and Marie had continued to draw Janet into the minutiae of child development and infant achievements.
“About the same. How are the kids?” Janet could make out the sound of Sesame Street, drumming and the wails of at least one toddler.
“About the same!” Marie laughed. “How’d it go with old Doc Weatherly today? I still can’t believe that you go to him after he made that crack last year about your eggs getting old. ‘Use ’em or lose ’em!’—he should talk. Wasn’t he in training pants when Queen Victoria was crowned?”
“My appointment’s not till after lunch,” Janet said. “You should relax, Marie.”
“Me? Relax?”
Janet had to hold the phone away from her ear to protect it from the familiar shriek.
Without taking a breath, Marie continued. “I’m not the one having a baby out of wedlock at the grand age of forty-one, missy. I still don’t understand why you didn’t consider adoption.”
“I considered it, but I’d be waiting in line behind all the married couples. Talk about having Methuselah for a mother.”
“Not adopting, you ninny, giving it up for adoption.”
Tears stung Janet’s eyes. Marie mistook her silence as a licence to continue.
“It’s not like you couldn’t have married, if you’d set your mind to it. You had some boyfriends. You just scared them all off with your overwhelming desire to have kids. John says guys can smell that desperation vibe a mile away.”
