Uncharted

by Graeme Connell

  “Hello, Horton. You should be down by the river here with me in the sunshine instead of being up there in your tower watching the world go by.”

  “You sound chirpy for a change,” Horton says. “Somebody has to look after your affairs. Anyway, I’ve got good news. All is well. The fellow you spoke about, Stan, was a bit taken aback. I guess he was on vacation and hadn’t been briefed on the project by his associates. Bit of tension in his department, by the sound of things. His main concerns were whether the department publications group had been involved, and he wanted an assurance that the book will be up to department standards. He also wanted to know about the ability of the printer. To cut it short, his staff said the printer was well-known for high quality.”

  “He needn’t have been so rude about our gang,” Brewster said. “Still, it’s all sorted out, and that’s all we need to know. Thanks for lifting this load.”

  The fisherman has moved downstream a bit. Brewster watches the line flick in and out, rest on the water and repeat. Must be quite an art to it, he thinks. Catch and release. He’s about to walk over to the angler for a closer look when his phone buzzes again.

  “Hello, Wendell.”

  “Wonderful news here, Brewster. Holly’s up at the hospital, and we think Lily might be home with us very soon—this week, even. She hasn’t had one negative test for a couple of weeks, so it looks like the treatment is finally working. We’re very hopeful.”

  “Excellent, Wendell! We might get another picnic in at the park before the snow flies,” he says. “How’s the leg?”

  “Funny thing is I thought it would be easy, that the stump would heal up, they’d give me a new leg and I’d be walking. Not so. Now I find it’s going to take a good, long while. Basically, I have to learn to walk again. But if athletes can run on their bionic legs, then I will too. Odd, though: I still think the leg is there. Everyone says one day at a time. I’m getting a bit tired of that expression.”

  “I hear you. I’ve been hearing that far too often these days too, but I’m learning to smile and be patient, thanks to people like you. The good news today is that all is okay with the book—let’s say a good, old-fashioned bureaucratic wobble. Our proofs should be back at the park tomorrow. Please pass that along to Holly. She’ll be happy.”

  He switches the cellphone to silent. He’s not really in the mood for more calls. The angler swishes his line: flick, flick, rest. Brewster watches as the filament arcs into the sun and lands on the water. The artificial fly floats on the ripples and drifts with the current. Must be a metaphor in there somewhere, he thinks. Time to go. Horton has given him some good news to email to his partners.

  Hannah and Clotilde had shopped for him, and he guesses something will fall out of his magic freezer tonight to provide a tasty measure of sustenance. A container of what looks likes stew. Mmm, that’s new. Must be an extra from one of the meals he’d enjoyed earlier in the week with his recent guests. He runs the container under hot water and dumps the frozen lump into a pot on the stove. The only side tonight will be his usual raw carrots, mixed into a salad and topped with raspberry vinaigrette. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to this lonely meal factor. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t get excited about cooking. For all that, he enjoys his little supper while sitting in front of the television news in which he has little interest, but it does provide noise.

  #

  Hi Dad,

  Thanks heaps for helping me buy into the company. This is a terrific investment for us. You will hear and see what it’s about when you and Hannah come down in April or May next year, for the wedding.

  That’s right, Dad—I said wedding. Vicki and I (nice new pic attached) are going to get married. We’ll set the date so that you guys can come. I’ve already checked with Hannah, and she thinks that’s about the right time for her, before she has to start looking for a job. You’ll like Vicki. We only met a couple of months ago at the church. She lives with her parents and works in their resort complex. This place is growing so fast and attracts people interested in eco or adventure sailing.

  Now, Dad. Something I just have to tell you and get off my chest. Been worried about you for some time, especially since we moved some of Mom’s things out. Anyway, Tom, the fellow who started this company, lost his wife Sophie, a couple of years ago. She was a very experienced sailor, so everyone was devastated when she was knocked off a vessel in bad weather during a race down south. Tom fell apart. They’d been sailing together and in business together since school. They too met at church, or it may have been Bible school somewhere. Well, he just wanted to sell up and disappear. The business all but crumbled while the guys he employed and sailed with held it together. To make a long story short, he met Polly. She was here for a holiday from New Zealand maybe four months ago, and she stayed. They became an item very quickly and married within weeks of meeting. They’re a terrific couple. Personally, I think it was pretty brave of Polly to marry the moody widower.

  Because I was worried, I confided in them about your situation. Their advice, passed on from their pastor, was to simply trust in Jesus and go with your heart. You’ll always have memories, Dad, and you’ve got Hannah and me. We’re in your corner.

  I’m out sailing most days with really excellent passengers. One-day cruises, usually, but I do take the odd overnighters out as well. You’ve helped me into a remarkable life, which I often recollect beginning with my tearful, cold and windy days learning to sail out on the reservoir. I think I’ll be forever awed at the power of the wind as the sails fill, and I feel the surge beneath the hull. That’s what got me, even sailing the little Optimists and the Lasers. Now look where I am.

  This is a long note for me, Dad, but I just had to tell you about Vicki, and about Tom’s situation. He has this terrific helicopter photo of his Sophie standing at the helm of a 60-footer under full sail.

  I can’t wait for you to meet Vicki. She’s one exceptional gal who loves sailing and being with people. Most Sundays she’s helping with the toddlers at church. Think April. Hannah will be in touch soon with her schedule, so you can make the appropriate bookings. We’ll build the actual date around you snowbirds. I hope you bring Clotilde (ha ha). Hannah has told me all about her.

  Love you, Dad. Take good care of yourself.

  Harris

  My son, getting married. How life moves along. One generation to the next. Brewster muses about the youngster in the Optimist at the sailing club, and the races they had in the two-man boats and of those long ago holidays sailing down at the coast.

  “Pick up the phone, Dad. I know you’re there.” He hadn’t heard the house phone ring, and he jumped at the sound of Hannah’s voice.

  “Hello, daughter,” he says. “How’s it going out there?”

  “Just great. I want to graduate with honours, so I’m doing all I can to keep up my studies. Looks like I’ll be away over Christmas and New Year’s for about two weeks in Europe. The study tour is coming together, and we’re pretty excited about that. I just had an astonishing FaceTime with Harris. He’s getting married!”

  “Me too. I’ve just finished reading a long email from him,” he says. “Harris sounds pretty excited, and it’s nice they’re planning the date for when we—well, really you—can get there.”

  “Vicki is really lovely. She was on too. They look suited to each other, and they want me in the wedding party,” Hannah says. “That makes me feel special. Harris said something about me being best man. Do you think he was joking?”

  Brewster thinks about this and says, “Well, you know your brother. Doesn’t hold too close to tradition, so he’s probably for real, otherwise he wouldn’t have said that. I hope he doesn’t expect you to be in a morning suit and top hat!” They laugh at the image. “It’ll be good for Vicki to have clarity early, so there’s no surprises about Harris. And you should know that I don’t have a problem with you being best man, and I don�
�t think your Mom would either.”

  With the book finalized and his business life changing with the sale of the building, he talks about going away on another road trip into British Columbia. Maybe go for a couple of weeks this time See what’s out there. Holly will take care of the book.

  “Be honest, Dad. Are you okay?”

  “Sure am, most days. I’m still trying to adjust to the bachelor life. Evenings are the worst times, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. Good grief, it’s been almost 18 months since … you know, since.”

  “Well, you must be doing something right,” she says. “You looked well enough when we were home last week. Gotta go, Dad. Beddy-byes and a long day of lectures tomorrow.”

  It’s quiet in the house again, so he taps out a reply to Harris, congratulating him on his wedding plans, commenting on the photo and thanking him for his candour. He thinks how fortunate he is to have children who love him and are not afraid to express their concern.

  He looks up from the keyboard at the picture he has of Melanie and their kids on top of the bookcase. “They’re treasures, Mel,” he says. “You must be proud of them and how you shaped them.”

  He looks around his desk for the letter he’d crafted to Melanie just a few days ago. He’d left it there, unfinished, with his pen sitting on top. The pen and empty letter sheets are all that remain.

  Where is the letter?

  Chapter Forty-One

  Clotilde looks up at the brilliant frescos and stained-glass windows in the historic L’Eglise Saint-Pierre, built in Cheticamp some 100 years after the first settlers arrived, when they were tired of their wanderings and searching for peace. These first Acadians are part of her heritage, refugees from the tragic Great Expulsion of the mid-1700s. These days she finds it comforting to sit in the church for the quiet, with the southern sun streaming through stained-glass windows creating a warmth of rainbow colour in the sanctuary. The best days are when the parish priest stops by to talk about her Acadian-Mi’kmaq heritage. He’s fluent in American sign language, and he communicates freely about life in the largely French-speaking community, but he’s also encouraged her to consider her own faith more deeply.

  “I’m not part of a Catholic community, Father,” she signs. “My parents brought me up in a Baptist congregation in Fort McMurray.”

  He says, “But we look to Jesus Christ in much the same way.”

  She tells him about her deafness, and though she loves her family heritage, she feels lost and lonely. She feels a need to return to the West. “I only leased a place here for three months, to see if this is where I should be now that both my parents have died,” she says. “My cousin Ruth encouraged me to come. But you are one of the first to sign with me.”

  “You have a son,” the priest signs. “You should be nearer to him, though he has lived with his father. One day he will marry, and you will want to be near him. Keep looking to the Cross. There you will know the peace you seek and the path to overcome whatever you think you have lost.” He looks straight at her as he speaks. “But I think you have gained, not lost. Realize the gift you have.”

  Ruth does not understand when Clotilde says she will not renew her lease on her little cottage. Why do you want to leave this place?”

  “The West is where I was raised. Mon fils est là-bas. My son is out there. I should be closer to him.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  It’s day 13 since he left Calgary. He stopped travelling when he reached British Columbia’s Christina Lake. It’s 10 days since he moved his travel bag into the large cedar plank house overlooking the lake. Most days he lounges out on the wraparound deck following the sun. There’s a clear, idyllic view of the lake, framed by the pines towering up on either side of the house. Underneath the deck is a large carport; it’s calm. For the first time in a long while, Brewster finds a peace within himself at this lakeside oasis in the pines. “Is this it?” he asks. “Is this my place?”

  A week later, he’s in Calgary. Without hesitating, he calls Brad, his realtor. He speaks with Horton and checks with Joel. His house will be on the market in about a week. Brad’s expertise takes over. Gardeners arrive to tidy up the yard, an estate sales specialist takes control and a house-staging couple add their marketing savvy. All the furniture will be donated, along with the kitchenware, dishes, pots and pans. The contents of his well-equipped workshop, along with all his garden tools, will go to Habitat for Humanity. The special boxes of keepers will go to storage until he settles into a new home.

  Brewster boxes the art and Melanie’s knick-knacks. He assembles them in the garage, ready take back to his lake house. He’s very thankful that Hannah had pushed him to put together their keepsakes. He aggressively cleans out his own closet and drawers.

  “It’s a clean sweep, Brad,” he says. “A fresh start.”

  Holly and Wendell pull up in his driveway. “Wow, what are you doing?” they ask, taken aback at his efforts to expunge a period of his life.

  He says, “I’ve come to realize that life is about today. It’s all we have. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow has not yet come. Today is the present. That came from a message we had in church some time back. It’s funny how things pop back into mind at the oddest of times.” He invites them to help themselves to anything they see. Wendell says he’ll get his friend with a pickup to come move some of the stuff they could use.

  “And Lily—I put these aside for her.” He lifts two large, mounted flower photographs and a volume of Winnie the Pooh from a special box of gems “Think she’ll like these?” he asks. “I used to read Winnie to the kids when they were small.”

  Holly beams. “I’d say so. Doctors are getting more confident each day that she’s in remission, but it’ll take a few years before we can declare that. Will you tell us where you are going so we can visit?”

  “Well, duh,” he says. “I expect you to come when I’m all settled. I’m leasing a place at present right on Christina lake. I may end up buying it, or something similar. Next summer, for sure.”

  After they leave, he’s aware they did not discuss the book at all, and so he assumes all is well. Holly had said in her recent email that printing was underway. She’d rechecked colour proofs and the cover, and she expected the fully bound initial shipment of Underfoot: 100 Wildflowers by the end of the month.

  The one thing that bothers him in his clean-up and clean-out excitement is the unfinished letter he’d written to Melanie. In all the activity in his office, stacking and packing books and files, the letter did not show. No one ever went into his office. How did it fade away?

  Weird, he thinks. Just too weird. He’s sitting in the sun, sipping a coffee to the background hum of cleaners and packers in the house, when Joel finds a space in the busy driveway.

  “Shalom,” Brewster says. “What brings Mr. Joel out on a sunny day?”

  Joel says, “Just you. Couple of weeks ago, you were a moody son-of-a-gun. Then you burst back into town, put your house on the market, tell everyone you’re leaving and poof!”

  “Don’t be worried—it’s all good. I’ve just gotta move along, and I know in my heart that all this change is the way to go.” He describes the house he’s leasing and may possibly buy. There are three levels. A carport and utility rooms are on the bottom. The main floor has a three-sided deck looking out over the lake, and there’s a bedroom floor with clerestory windows for maximum exposure to light and sun. The house is angled into a rock face and surrounded by trees.

  “Sounds great,” Joel says. “But what are you going to do to stay busy? You and Melanie were always doing something.”

  “I’ll just email you 10 times a day,” he jokes. “Not sure yet, but that’ll come. If I like the area and decide to stay there and buy the place, I might look at investing in or developing an RV resort.”

  “It’ll be different, that’s for sure. Anyway, with that said, Anna wants you to come over
for Shabbat on Friday.”

  “I’d love that. Six o’clock, right?”

  By the end of the week, his home of 27 years is a shell of its former self. He’s astounded at the change after a few days of frantic activity by a lot of people. To him, it has that unlived-in look. Staged might be the term realtors use, but to him it’s more unloved. The laughter has gone from the walls, a family’s presence extinguished. He’s chosen to live in a nearby hotel for a few days and to leave the house in its pristine state for the realtor’s open house at the weekend.

  Brewster’s about to lock up and leave when he has the urge for one more walk-through. He pauses in each room and sees their babies and their teenagers. He sees their junk and their untidy rooms. He sees their friends and the many noisy sleepovers. He sees their birthdays. He sits in the tidy lounge and lights a candle the stagers left on a table. Brewster watches the flame and whispers a prayer of thanks for what has been and what is to come. He prays for the buyers and hopes that this house will become their home as it was for his family.

  He gently blows out the candle, walks out and locks up.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The welcoming noise of people encompasses Brewster as he enters the church lobby. People greet each other, and children run and dodge the clusters of adults. Hands grab his shoulders from behind. “So good to see you.” It’s Heath and Claire. He turns and gives each a hug.

  “Yeah, been awhile,” he says. “But today is the day I decided to be brave and return to the fold. I think it’s the result of being with Joel and Anna and their kids for Shabbat, and seeing the tranquillity in that home. Their ritual, their faith, their belief and their absolute assurance of the presence of God in their lives. They don’t search—they know.”