by Nicole Baart
“We have a wonderful, not-too-salty prosciutto,” the man offered.
Abigail could hear him start down the stairs.
“A nice Edam, too, and spiced if you prefer it that way.”
He was standing next to her now, and when Abigail glanced at him, she caught a grin. His bottom teeth were all crooked and gnarled like shards of broken porcelain; his top teeth were pin straight.
“Maybe you like the eels?”
So he had seen her jump. Abigail smiled sheepishly at him in spite of herself, and in that very second of tenuous connection she decided to drop the subterfuge. “Actually I’m looking for someone.”
The man’s face fell a little, and he reached out to touch Abigail’s arm. “You knew my Gia, too? It’s funny how now that she is gone all these people come to see her. You are the third person since . . .” He trailed off and fixed her with a sad and meaningful look. “Gia passed away almost three weeks ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” The words came out automatically, but even as she said them, Abigail wondered how she would explain to this man that Gia was not the person she sought.
“She was so beautiful, my Gia. Remember how she smiled?” The man continued as if Abigail were a close relative or at least a dear friend. “She loved this store so much. But you don’t look familiar to me. Maybe you knew her from the class downtown? Were you a teacher, too? You don’t have an accent. I don’t think you could be one of her students.”
Abigail struggled for words. “I’m sorry. I don’t . . . I didn’t know Gia.”
The glow of fond remembrance faded from the man’s eyes. “You didn’t know Gia?” he repeated, his voice ripe with disappointment.
Abigail shook her head.
There was a heavy silence before the old man sighed and put his hands on his hips as if to steady himself.
“Maybe I have the wrong place,” Abigail heard herself say. The unexpected words startled her, and she instantly wished to take them back. She had the right place! She couldn’t back out now.
But though the man was disappointed, he quickly settled the appropriate mask over his momentarily naked features. “No, I shouldn’t have assumed.” He fit a smile on his face again. “Who exactly are you looking for? Because now that Gia is gone, there is only me.”
Abigail swallowed. “I’m looking for Tyler. Tyler Kamp. Do you know him?”
The man’s smile flashed genuinely. “Yes, I know Tyler. I should have known, pretty girl like you . . .”
“Did he work here?”
“No, Tyler is Gia’s son. He’s my stepson.”
It made perfect sense, but something in Abigail balked at the word and refused to let it pass her lips. “Tyler came home for . . . for the . . .”
“Funeral.” The man studied Abigail. “I’m sorry. I’ve completely forgotten my manners. I’m Murray Kamp.”
“Abigail.” She shook his hand firmly and was surprised at how warm and reassuring it was.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Murray moved behind the counter and slid open the glass door to peruse the selection before him. Choosing a small wedge, he knifed a crumbly section and offered it to Abigail on the tip of his blade. “Queso Iberico. It’s Spanish. A little hard, a little oily, but very smooth and mild. Once we got a wheel of Iberico with fresh strawberries stirred into it. Can you imagine? Strawberries in cheese.”
Abigail took the cheese and bit off a corner. “Delicious,” she affirmed after a moment.
“One of my favorites,” Murray agreed. Then he laid the knife on the counter and looked directly at Abigail. “Now, because I like you, I’m going to be honest. Tyler has lots of girlfriends. If I were you, I’d buy a nice quarter wheel of something exotic and go home. Find another boyfriend.”
Abigail couldn’t stop the blush that spread across her cheeks. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. It sounded like a lie even to her ears.
Murray spread his lips in a thin, thoughtful line. “I love Tyler. He’s been my son for almost twenty years. But I have to tell you, he’s not a bad boy, but he is trouble.”
“I know,” Abigail said softly. And she thought, If only you knew.
Murray continued to study Abigail. “Gia would have liked you,” he said eventually. “If I can’t dissuade you, I will tell you that Tyler isn’t here.”
Abigail’s heart plummeted. All this way. All this heartache, worrying, and wondering. All her planning.
Her distress must have been evident on her face because Murray looked at her with concern. “Don’t chase him. You’re not the first, and I don’t think you’ll be the last.”
I will, Abigail thought. I will absolutely be the last. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she asked, “Where is Tyler?”
“He decided to work for his uncle this summer, take some time off before he decides what to do from here,” Murray answered.
“And his uncle is . . .”
“The owner of a vineyard. It’s called Thompson Hills Estate.” Murray stalled, then obviously decided that Abigail would not be deterred. “It’s in the Summerlands. In between Revell and Larson.”
“Thank you,” Abigail said.
Murray sighed. “You’re welcome. But let me give you his cell phone number. Call him before you race off across British Columbia.”
“No thanks,” Abigail said. “I want to surprise him. Where exactly is the Summerlands?”
Realization blossomed across Murray’s face. “You’re not from BC, are you? Tell me you didn’t come from Florida. Are you one of his friends from Florida?”
Abigail shrugged and offered him a little wave as she started for the door. “Thank you very much, Murray.”
“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” he called after her. “Tyler’s a nice kid, but he’s not worth it.”
His words rang in the air like prophecy, but Abigail left them behind the moment the door fell shut.
†
Abigail pulled into a Tim Hortons for dinner.
The man behind her in line was more than helpful in giving her directions to Revell. All she had to do was take Highway 1 eastbound to Highway 3—the Crowsnest—head through Manning Park, and find herself on a straight shot to Revell.
The Crowsnest? It sounded almost menacing to Abigail, as if she would be precariously perched on top of the world. She pictured hairpin passes and thousand-foot cliffs with knee-high guardrails that served as little more than a warning. Caffeine was in order. But it sounded like an easy enough route, and Abigail figured that if she could make it to Revell, she could find her way to Thompson Hills without too much trouble.
“Beautiful country,” the man in line assured her. “You’ll love it. Wineries, orchards, warm weather . . . It’s Canada’s only desert, you know.”
Abigail nodded, trying to discourage his cheerful conversation.
“Lots of Quebecois go there in the summer for work. The whole place has a sort of . . . Bohemian feel.” He looked her up and down, taking in her tailored, dark jeans and Bindi leather flats.
She wanted to tell him that she got the Christian Lacroix shoes on clearance because it was obvious that he thought her a far cry from her sandaled, cutoff-wearing peers at BC’s hottest vacation destination. But it was her turn to order, and she turned away from him gratefully rather than try to defend herself.
Abigail got a large black coffee, a chicken salad sandwich on a whole wheat kaiser roll, and a cup of broccoli cheddar soup to go, eager to be on her way.
Revell was about a five-hour drive according to her friendly fellow customer, and since it was already close to six o’clock, Abigail planned to get a hotel room when she arrived and locate Thompson Hills the next morning. When she was fresh. When she had a little more time to prepare. After a few hours of driving and the emotional upheaval of finding Gia’s to be more and less than she had bargained for, Abigail was happy at the thought of having a bit more time to pull herself together before seeing Tyler. She felt like she got a reprieve. She got one more day.
Highway 1 wound through farm country before curving into the dark line of mountains that obscured the horizon. Abigail searched for a station on the radio, but nothing kept her interest, and she decided to drive in silence, chewing slowly on her sandwich and watching the sharp outlines of the glacier-carved peaks loom ever closer. She regretted buying the soup because once she was in the car, she realized that she couldn’t eat it as she drove. The aroma filled the tiny interior and teased her, but Abigail let it sit in the cup holder and ignored it the same way she ignored any misgivings that tried to prevent her from driving deeper into British Columbia.
And though she had been told that she’d hit the junction for the Crowsnest before the little town of Hope, Abigail found that her informant had been wrong—it was just beyond Hope. Abigail almost laughed out loud at the irony. She didn’t consider herself beyond hope, but something about the way the sun was setting behind her as the dark hills split to consume the road ahead seemed foreboding.
Abigail pushed such morbid thoughts out of her head and pressed forward into the growing twilight. For a few kilometers she could see the lights of Hope flickering in her rearview mirror. Then the road angled behind the rising hills that were bent in anticipation like an archer’s bow, and she found herself almost immediately and unsettlingly disorientated in the jigsaw of the darkening mountains.
†
Abby was oriented to the irrepressible pull of Hailey’s compass long before she could understand the implications of her sister’s immediate and absolute control of everyone around her. The situation was unfortunate in many ways, but most disturbing of all was the fact that due north was a moving target when it came to Hailey. No matter how carefully Abby studied her sister, no matter how sincerely she tried to understand, Hailey refused to be predictable. She refused to make it easy.
The first few years weren’t so bad. Abby had just turned five when Hailey was born, and though part of her mourned the division of her mother’s attention, Abby was also pleased to have a living, breathing doll to play with. And she was too young to be jealous of the features that transformed Hailey into the flawless representation of a porcelain doll.
Hailey won a beautiful baby contest when she was six months old, and everyone who laid eyes on her gushed about her perfection, yet Abby was young enough to enjoy the attention directed at her sister almost as an extension of something that she herself had done well. Somehow Hailey was tied to her, and Abby didn’t let her sister’s distinction translate into feelings of inadequacy or competition. At least not in the beginning.
As Hailey got older, infant fussiness translated into toddler irritability that transformed into a preschool ferocity, assuring Hailey the lion’s share of any attention that was to be doled out. Friends and family joked that she was a difficult child, but the enchanted beauty Hailey possessed ensured that people forgave and even forgot her eccentricities. She could be a bright and happy little fairy; the tips of her delicately fashioned ears were slightly pointed as if to prove it. But then she could also be a paradoxical nightmare—ethereally beautiful but dark and wild. Her tantrums became legendary, and she was uninhibited by the thought of unleashing herself anywhere on anyone.
Abby became the most likely target for Hailey’s childish rages, but instead of turning against her, Abby defended her sister, rationalizing the episodes away because Hailey was indeed a child. And a spoiled one at that: Lou doted on her, Melody enabled her, and Abby vacillated between unreservedly adoring and barely tolerating her. It wasn’t until Hailey was six and Abby was eleven that the balance began a slow and eventual decline, and Abby’s tolerance finally wore thin enough to tear.
It was a gorgeous, early summer afternoon, and in celebration of the end of the school year, Abby had convinced her mother to let her have a sleepover. The plan was to take advantage of the warm weather and bunk side by side in sleeping bags on the wide platform that comprised the top level of the two-tiered tree house Lou had built for Hailey. The little girl was both possessive and dismissive of the elaborate gift, and she vacillated between protecting the fort from even an innocent, wayward glance, then offering it to the neighborhood kids for the rock-bottom price of a mere mini candy bar.
Although Abby had already secured her mother’s permission, she sought out Hailey to ask her about using the tree house before she made any permanent plans. Her sister might be almost half her age, but Abby was well aware of Hailey’s ability to use her influence to make life miserable for anyone who crossed her. It wasn’t worth the heartache.
When Abby found her, Hailey was lounging in the grass with her legs propped on the ladder of her wooden swing set. Abby studied the matching white-blond plumes of her sister’s long ponytails and admired the way all that corn silk shone golden against the new, pistachio green grass. Hailey’s arms were already turning a soft, nut-brown shade; the summer was kind to her. Abby glanced at her own milky skin in faintly veiled disappointment before remembering why she had come in the first place.
“May I join you?” Abby asked.
“Indubitably,” Hailey answered, without looking at her sister. She enunciated every syllable of the grown-up word, then repeated it in an equally careful whisper to herself: “In-du-bi-ta-bly. Do you like my new word? Dad taught me. It means ‘of course, without a doubt.’”
Abby let her head sink back in the grass and tried to follow the line of her sister’s sight. There wasn’t a breath of wind against her skin, but the sky was filled with a profusion of cotton ball clouds that raced across the expanse of blue.
“Aren’t the clouds pretty?”
Abby mumbled a reply.
“Where are they going? Where did they come from? Who made them? How fast are they going?” Hailey asked in rapid succession.
“I don’t know,” Abby cut in before Hailey could rattle off more questions. She focused on the ones she could remember. “God made them, and they’re going pretty fast, I guess.” The truth was, they were absolutely flying. The wind, so high above them and so seemingly impossible on such a still and beautiful day, was whipping the outline of each individual cloud. It made subtle alterations to the throng of glaringly white puffs, tearing them all along as if they were incapable of keeping up on their own.
“Look.” Hailey pointed.
Lying beside her, Abby could train her eyes on the tip of Hailey’s long finger.
“Why doesn’t it pop them?”
At first Abby had no idea what Hailey was talking about. But then as she followed her sister’s unswerving aim, she focused in on the little flagpole at the top of Hailey’s swing set. Last summer a rainbow flag had fluttered at the top, but it had been ripped off and lost in a winter storm. All that remained was the thin, wooden dowel affixed with an arrow-point finial that thrust almost violently heavenward. As she watched, a cloud floated toward it, and though she almost expected it to snag on the point of the flagpole, it swept along intact and unharmed.
“The clouds are too high,” Abby reasoned for Hailey’s sake.
“I wish they weren’t. I want to see one hit the pole. Do you think they would bleed?”
“The clouds?” Abby turned to her sister. “A cloud can’t bleed. Don’t be silly.”
Hailey rolled on her side and fixed her eyes on Abby. They were the same color as the sky, Abby noted, and flecked with the polka-dot reflections of the dozens of clouds above her. “I’m not silly,” Hailey said very seriously. There was a familiar edge to her voice.
Abby realized her mistake and reached out to correct it, to erase it with her fingers. She laid her hand on Hailey’s cheek and said just as seriously, “I know you’re not.”
They were quiet for a minute, looking at each other. Abby held her breath, waiting for the possible outburst to fade and pass. It did. When Hailey’s face softened, Abby pretended that none of the earlier conversation had taken place and quietly posed her request. “Can me and some friends sleep in your tree house tonight?”
“Indubitably.” Hai
ley turned her face into Abby’s hand and kissed her solemnly on the palm. Then she hopped up and raced across the backyard, down the gravel alley, and out of sight.
But it became apparent when Abby’s friends arrived and unrolled their sleeping bags in the beloved tree house that indubitably actually meant “no way, over my dead body.”
Hailey stood in the backyard and watched them unfold three neat bags and toss backpacks on top of each. She didn’t say a word. The older girls laughed and made plans, but Hailey never raised a complaint. They even leaned over the railing, surveying the neighborhood and enjoying the view, without fielding a single protest from the little girl beneath them. It wasn’t until Abby and her friends walked past her to get snacks from the house that Hailey proved her volatility and collapsed in an explosion of fury on the ground at their feet.
Abby rolled her eyes in affected annoyance, a charade for the sake of her friends. “All little sisters throw tantrums,” her expression insisted. “No big deal.” But in reality, she knew it could be a very big deal. Her heart was pounding, and the hair on the back of her neck had risen in response to something that felt a lot like fear—fear of being embarrassed in front of her friends, fear of what Hailey could do if she wanted to.
“Go on,” Abby mouthed over the screams that were intensifying beneath them. She motioned that her friends should head into the house without her, and mercifully, they complied.
“Stop it,” Abby spat out when they were gone.
Hailey was writhing on the ground, jerking her limbs as if she were caught in the throes of a seizure. Abby knew better than that. Every motion, every sound was an act of Hailey’s iron, unbending will. All at once, it infuriated her. All of it. She had asked. Hailey had no right. Hailey was ruining everything. Glancing around the yard to make sure they were alone, Abby dropped to her knees and tried to pin Hailey’s arms to the ground.
The little girl froze for the span of a blink and fixed Abby with a look so hard and ugly that Abby’s grip momentarily slackened. Then Hailey redoubled her efforts and Abby was thrown off-balance.
