They wanted to go to Nova Scotia for the summer.
“To Cape Breton,” said Dave. “To visit my mother.”
For a number of summers now, Sam and Murphy had gone for a week or two and stayed with Dave’s mother, Margaret. The first few summers, Dave had driven them down and hung around. The past few, they’d gone by themselves.
“So what’s the problem?” said Jim.
“They flew,” said Dave. “They flew to Halifax. I put them on the plane. My mom picked them up.”
“And?” said Jim.
“They want to go by train,” said Dave. “It’s a two-day trip.”
Jim said, “Did I ever tell you about the summer I was eleven?”
Then he said, “Let me top up your glass.”
To understand Jim’s eleventh summer, you need to know something about the ones that came before.
Jim’s father left when Jim was a baby. He grew up with his mom, Irene. Though back in those days everyone called Jim’s mom Sparkle.
Before she was born, someone gave Irene’s soon-to-be older sister a book about a cat who was having kittens.
“I’m having a baby just like the cat in the book,” explained Irene’s mom.
The cat was called Sparkle.
Irene’s sister got everything muddled. When her mother came back from the hospital with Irene, Irene’s sister said, “Where’s the kitten? Where’s Sparkle?” She thought her mother was having a kitten too.
Irene grew up to be a nurse. And Irene and Jim lived in the Annapolis Valley, in Nova Scotia. One of the prettiest places you can imagine, all the little towns strung out along the river like beads on a necklace.
“We lived on the south mountain,” said Jim. “More in the country than in town.”
Dave interrupted. He said, “Hold on a sec. I’m worried about Sam—I think I should call and make sure he made it.”
This time Jim didn’t offer Dave the phone. Jim just kept going.
“One day,” said Jim, “I was maybe five, I missed the school bus. It used to stop right out in front of the house, and I missed it. And I came in crying. I said, ‘I missed the bus.’
“Sparkle shrugged and said, ‘You’re going to have to walk, then.’”
“She made you walk?” said Dave.
“We didn’t have a car,” said Jim.
“And we had walked before. So I sort of knew the way.”
“How far?” said Dave.
“Two or three miles,” said Jim. “I had to cross the river and cut through the Pattersons’ farm. And then through town.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” said Dave.
“I impressed myself,” said Jim. “The fields at the back of the farm felt as wide as the ocean.”
“Were you scared?” said Dave.
Jim shrugged. “I did it two, maybe three times a year after that,” said Jim. “You know what I used to look out for?”
“Dogs,” said Dave.
“Not dogs,” said Jim. “And not strangers, either. Worse.”
“Worse than dogs and strangers?” said Dave.
“Far worse,” said Jim. “Eight-year-old boys.”
For his eighth birthday Sparkle got Jim a bike.
“I had complete freedom,” said Jim. “I used to ride it all over the place. By the time I was nine I’d been everywhere.”
Dave was fiddling with his drink, thinking about the boundaries he’d set for Sam when Sam was ten. As far as the main street—but not across it. No farther than the park.
“There were no boundaries,” said Jim. “None.”
Dave was staring at the phone again, about to reach out and pick it up, call Sam for just a quick check-in, when Jim, who could, apparently, read minds, slipped it under his chair.
“He’s fine,” said Jim.
The winter Jim was eleven, there was a school trip to Quebec City.
Jim missed the trip.
“I’m not sure why,” said Jim. “I think we couldn’t afford it.”
To make up for the missed trip, Sparkle suggested that Jim go to Winnipeg that summer.
Sparkle had a sister there.
“And I had cousins,” said Jim.
“To tell you the truth,” said Jim, “I always wondered if she might have had a boyfriend. I always wondered if she maybe wanted some time alone.
“Anyway. I didn’t care. Still don’t. I was excited to go.
“I had a paper route,” said Jim. “So I paid for half and I made all the arrangements. Bought the tickets and everything.”
Tickets. Plural. Because you have to take three separate trains to get from Halifax to Winnipeg.
Jim bought the tickets and packed his own suitcase. Sparkle packed the food.
“I had enough for a few days,” said Jim.
“Some fruit. Some cheese. A couple of bottles of Sussex ginger ale. I can still remember what my bag smelled like. Peanut butter and jam sandwiches don’t travel well when you pack them against an orange. A peanut butter sandwich turns into a baseball mitt when you pack it beside an orange.”
The trip still takes four days and three nights. You cross two time zones.
“The time changes were my first problem,” said Jim.
“I switched my watch when we crossed the New Brunswick border. And then I forgot I’d done that and switched it again when we got to Montreal.”
He had a couple of hours in between trains in Montreal. His plan was to go and see the Montreal Forum. He thought he would meet Rocket Richard.
He put his suitcase in a locker at the station and set off. When he got to the Forum he checked his watch. Which was an hour off. It said quarter to five.
“I nearly blew a gasket,” said Jim.
“I was sure I’d missed my train. I thought I was going to be stranded in Montreal.”
He ran back to the station in a panic. He went to the ticket counter and jumped up and down to get the guy’s attention.
“He was pretty dismissive,” said Jim. “He told me I had plenty of time.”
Jim bought a snow globe at a little store in the station.
“I still have it upstairs,” said Jim. “Want to see it?”
Dave shook his head. “It’s okay,” said Dave.
He caught the flick in Jim’s eyes and added, “I’m sure it’s beautiful.”
Of course Jim didn’t have a berth.
“We couldn’t afford a berth,” said Jim. He had to sleep in the coach. In his seat.
“It wasn’t so bad,” said Jim.
One night he snuck into the dome car and fell asleep in the very front seat. When he woke they were stopped on a siding in northern Ontario. They were waiting for a freight. There was a lake and a little bridge over a stream. The sun was just about to come up. He had never seen a sky like that. It was as if it were melting. And if that wasn’t enough, a deer and her fawn came out of the trees and stood there and stared at the train for a magical moment. Magical except there was a lady sitting beside him he’d never seen in his life, and he had his head on her shoulder.
He didn’t know what to do. Terrified, he didn’t move a muscle.
But she must have sensed him stirring. She said, “You awake?,” as though it was perfectly normal. Then she asked where his mother was.
“I lied,” said Jim. “I told her my mom was downstairs. I was afraid she was going to have me thrown off. Whenever I saw her after that, I’d hide in the bathroom.
“Once I saw her coming through the cars and I sat down beside another lady and pretended she was my mother.”
Then there was the soldier.
“He bought me a bag of chips at the snack bar,” said Jim. “I was scared to take them. But I was also hungry.”
There was a town where the train went right down the main street.
“It was the middle of the night,” said Jim. “I woke up in my seat and looked out the window and saw all these stores right against the window. It was like a dream.”
Somewhere the next day a bo
y his age got on the train.
“I saw him on the platform. He was travelling with a lady I thought was his mother. She turned out to be his aunt.
“He got on the coach before mine. I just knew he was going to be trouble. And that night when I came out of the bathroom, he was waiting for me.
“I didn’t want him to know I was alone. I told him I was the conductor’s son.
“The next morning when I woke, he was standing by my seat. He said he knew I was lying. He said he’d asked the conductor. And then while we were looking at each other, and I was waiting for him to do something, the soldier came by and asked if we wanted to finish his bag of chips. We shared the chips, and we became best friends. We hung out for a day—ran all over the train.
“The boy stole a chocolate bar from the snack bar and we went into the washroom and ate it.
“I never shoplifted because I didn’t want to get caught. And I didn’t like taking stuff that wasn’t mine. But I liked it when others did it.”
When the boy and his aunt got off the train, Jim watched them from the window.
“I remember them standing on the platform and seeing his aunt point the way. I remember thinking I had no one to tell me which way.”
“You had to look after yourself,” said Dave.
Jim sat there on the porch in his checked shirt and straw fedora. He smiled and pushed the hat back. “That’s right,” he said.
And so Dave changed his mind. And Sam and Murphy went to Cape Breton by train. Alone. On the day they left, Dave packed them food and drove them to the station. Sam didn’t complain about the food.
Dave’s plan was to park and go in with them to make sure they got off on the right foot. At least if they got off on the right foot he would have done everything he could. When they got to the station he had another change of heart. He pulled up to the sidewalk instead of into the parking lot.
“Well,” he said.
They got out and stood by the car, two impossibly young boys with two impossibly large packs at their feet.
“Well,” said Sam.
“Well,” said Dave.
Murphy rolled his eyes, looked at the two of them, and picked up his pack.
“Well,” said Murphy.
And that was that.
Dave hugged Sam, and then he said, “Come on, Murphy. You might as well be family. Give me a hug.”
It was an awkward hug. Murphy’s glasses fell off. But Dave was glad he hugged him. And as he stood and watched the boys walk under the huge stone arch of the station’s front door—watched them joining the river of other travellers—he felt as if he had done the right thing.
Until disaster struck.
They were just about out of sight when he saw something fall out of Sam’s back pocket.
It was hard to tell, but he was pretty sure it was his train ticket.
“Uh oh,” said Dave.
He stared at the white envelope lying on the ground—and at his son walking blithely on. Surely this was the hand of God. Surely this was God’s way of telling him that this enterprise was doomed. A disaster waiting to happen. Surely this was God begging him to put a stop to it.
He spun around and held out his keys and locked the car. Then he whirled back and headed off. His eyes were on the envelope—the ticket or whatever it was.
Everything in his being told him to hurry, to hurry. He didn’t run, but he was moving.
He took only three steps.
Something stopped him.
Jim Scoffield’s voice.
“I remember coming home,” said Jim. “And I remember how excited I was to see my mother. She came to meet me at the station. I saw her before she saw me. She was standing at the end of the platform scanning the crowd. And at that moment, when I saw her and she hadn’t seen me, I knew that I was coming home a different person than I was when I left—like I’d been away at university, or maybe to war.”
That stopped Dave. Dead in his tracks.
When are you supposed to let your children march off alone? When are you supposed to let them learn from their mistakes?
“Now or never,” muttered Dave.
So he stopped. And waited until he could barely see them. Their backpacks bumping in and out of sight. It took every ounce of self-control he had ever asked of himself. But he stayed put as they disappeared.
I wish I could tell you that as he stood there, he saw them stop suddenly. Saw Sam reach and pat his back pocket and then retrace his steps and retrieve the ticket. I would love to tell you that. But that’s not what happened.
In Dave’s imagination it went like that. And then he imagined this.
He waits. He waits until he knows they aren’t coming back, and then he waits a little longer. And only then does he walk, tentatively, toward the paper—still lying there in the crowded station entrance. When he gets to it he realizes it isn’t a ticket, it’s an envelope, a letter or something.
He looks down at it, and as he stands there looking at it, a man with a briefcase bumps him, and then a woman with a suitcase brushes by, and he can feel their annoyance at him standing there in their way, in the middle of things. So he bends over and scoops up the envelope.
There is one word written on the front. “Dad.”
He doesn’t open it until he gets back to the car.
It is a handwritten note.
Hey Dad, it reads. That was a test.
Congratulations.
You passed.
I knew you would.
We’ll be fine
You don’t have to worry
Love. Your son, Sam.
And as he sits there in the car with the note in his lap, he tears up.
Tears of relief.
He reads the note and his worries evaporate—just like that.
That’s what he imagined as he stood there staring at the entrance to the busy station.
But that’s not how it ended.
The real ending wasn’t nearly as good.
But it was good enough.
As Dave stood there imagining the envelope addressed to him, he watched the man with the briefcase, the man he imagined bumping into him, bend over and pick the paper up.
It wasn’t an envelope.
It was Sam’s train ticket. He didn’t know that for sure, but from where he stood it sure looked like a ticket.
He watched the man hold the ticket up in the air and call out to the boys. And then he watched Sam stop, turn, pat his pocket, and run back. He watched him say something to the man, point at Murphy, take the ticket and shake the man’s hand. Then he watched Sam turn and run—catching up with Murphy just before they both disappeared.
They had made it over the first hurdle. From the car, through the door of the station, by the skin of their teeth. It had been a close call. But they’d made it nonetheless. And they had made it the way Dave had made it over so many of the hurdles he’d cleared over the years. They had made it with the kindness of a stranger. That is the way of the world. It is full of kind strangers. They would be fine. Dave wouldn’t be, but they would. And that would have to do.
SAM’S FIRST KISS
Murphy had told him exactly where to be.
They had gone over it again and again.
“You go past the theatre,” said Murphy. “And then the coffee shop. And the shoe store. Five stores in all. One, two, three …”
“Five,” said Sam, interrupting.
“Right,” said Murphy. “Past all five. And then there’s the alley on your right.”
“And I go down the alley,” said Sam.
“Right,” said Murphy.
“And there are three fire exits down there,” said Sam. “And I go past all three, and around to the back. And as soon as I turn the corner …”
“There’s a door,” said Murphy. “On your right.”
“It’s a brown door,” said Sam.
“Reddy-brown,” said Murphy.
“And I wait there,” said Sam. “I wait by the door.”
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That’s where he was now, waiting, in the alley, behind the theatre, beside the reddy-brown door. Although he would have described it as a rusty door himself.
It was a Thursday. It was July. It was just about noon. The first features were an hour in. He wasn’t supposed to be there for twenty minutes. He was early—because he didn’t want to be late.
On the way over he’d run into Lyla Douglas. Lyla was Willow Cassidy’s best friend. Willow was a girl in Sam’s class. He hadn’t seen Willow since school got out. He had spent most of July trying to bump into her.
Biking by places where Willow might be. The pool, the park, the library. Nothing worked. This afternoon he was going to bike by Willow’s house. Except Murphy had made plans for him.
There was a bang. Sam jumped. The sound of metal against metal. One of the fire exits. An usher wearing a white shirt and red jacket came around the corner carrying a big bag of garbage. He threw the bag in the dumpster. When the usher spotted Sam, he stopped and stared at him, looking Sam up and down.
So what Sam did was turn and walk away, in the opposite direction, as if he couldn’t have cared less about the rusty door. He came back five minutes later. The coast was clear. He knocked on the exit twice, just as Murphy had told him, and said the password softly.
“Open the pod bay door, Hal.”
Nothing happened.
When the door finally did open, Sam almost missed it.
Because Murphy hardly cracked it. Anyone could have missed it. In his defence, when he noticed, he played his part perfectly. He ran back to it, gave it a tug, and slipped in. Well, okay. He forgot to check if anyone was watching. But no one was watching, so that worked out okay.
And now he was inside, squinting in the dark theatre hallway.
Murphy was nowhere to be seen. So Sam did what he was supposed to do: he turned left and went down the hallway to the men’s room.
Murphy appeared three, at most four, minutes later. He was holding out a ticket stub. He said, “Here. In case anyone asks.”
Sam gazed at the stub and smiled.
Murphy grabbed both his shoulders, gave him a shake, and said, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
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