by Lesley Crewe
“Don’t cut it too short, honey. You’ll look like a boy.”
“Exactly.”
Sometimes her mom watched her as if she’d done something wrong.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
Hilary knew she was looking at something. Or for something.
The only thing she looked forward to was her summer with her Aunt Colleen and Grampy. The boys didn’t care for Round Island, saying there was nobody around, but of course they didn’t see anyone. They just sat inside playing video games all day.
At last the big day arrived and her mother helped her pack, sneaking in a few girly t-shirts when she thought Hilary wasn’t looking. Some of them were okay so Hilary let it pass.
Then it was goodbye to her brothers, who grabbed her around the neck and gave her a noogie each.
“Have fun, squirt,” Adam said.
Mark gave her a ten-dollar bill. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
She did love her brothers…sometimes.
Then it was off to the airport because Mom and Dad were super busy and couldn’t spare the two days it would take to drive her up to Cape Breton and drive back home. Hilary didn’t mind. She had a nice flight attendant who let her sit near the front. It was a small Dash 8 and it only took about fifty minutes to get to Sydney.
Aunt Colleen and Grampy were at the airport window, waving like crazy. She waved back and ran into the terminal. They had a race to see who could grab her first. Grampy won.
Back in Glace Bay the three of them sat at the kitchen table and ate their chicken casserole with homemade scones, coleslaw, crispy sweet pickles, and candied carrots. They feasted on chocolate cake that Aunt Colleen made from her Grammie’s recipe book. They listened to every word Hilary said and wanted to know all about what she did, and how she felt.
Grampy smiled at her. “What would you like to do while you’re here?”
“This.”
* * *
Colleen missed her grandmother very much. Abigail died in 1985 after a series of small strokes, her sister Muriel soon afterward. Grammie’s last year she was in the old folks’ home just down the street, because Colleen and her dad couldn’t cope. As small as her grandmother was, she was a dead weight when Colleen tried to get her in the tub. She was incontinent as well. It broke Colleen’s heart to have her Grammie look up at her from her hospital bed and say, “Where am I? I want to go home.”
Her dad would go visit during the day, as he had retired by then, and he’d read to his mother from the books he inherited from his father. The sound of his voice soothed her. Colleen would go for an hour or so in the evenings, after she came home from the farm. She worked there full-time, managing Lila’s craft store and helping Ewan with the animals. She’d stay at the cottage with Lucky the Second, a black mutt, naturally, from May until October, and then come back home with her dad in the winter months. The original Lucky was buried near the cottage. Ewan had helped her dig the hole. It was a terrible day.
As a way of remembering her grandmother, Colleen typed out her recipes. They were in black hard-covered scribblers and most were written in pencil, and after years of use, the writing was disappearing. Splatters, drops of vanilla, and even the feel of dusty flour covered a lot of the pages, and Colleen could always use these signs to tell which ones were the family favourites. The hardest part was interpreting the directions. Grammie knew what she was doing. She often wrote down, for example, “1 baking soda,” knowing it wouldn’t be a tablespoon. Instructions were just as vague. Place in a warm oven means what? Until done. How done?
She made copies for her sister and all her cousins so they could pass it down to their children. Uncle Henry was thrilled when she gave him a copy. He said Annie would’ve loved that, because no one enjoyed her mother’s food more than she had. Leelee kept it in her room. Then Colleen gave one to her cousin John, who was a sales rep in Cape Breton with two boys and one girl. His wife was a bit of a scatterbrain, but harmless. Colleen loved their kids and they loved her, probably because she saw them more often than the others and took them to McDonald’s to let them eat crap.
She went up to Baddeck to hand one over to John’s twin brother, Daniel. He was a fisheries officer and his wife was a teacher who was always as busy as a blue-ass fly. They had three sons, all of them full of piss and vinegar.
Then she mailed a copy to George, who was a banker living in Ottawa. His wife was a nurse at the Heart Institute and they had two daughters who were sophisticated city girls.
When Colleen went down to Halifax to visit her mom, she gave one to her cousin Robbie, a great machinist like his grandfather. He had a daughter from his first marriage and three girls and a boy from the second. Colleen always thought of the old woman who lived in a shoe when she pulled into his yard.
Lastly she handed one to Frankie. She wouldn’t use it, since she made dinner with food that came from frozen food containers, jars and cans, but maybe Hilary would someday.
The three musketeers, as they called themselves, settled into the bungalow for a long and glorious summer. Dad would swing on the hammock, his straw hat over his face. Colleen and Hilary would go for a swim with Lucky before heading to the farm.
“This is what heaven looks like,” Hilary told Ewan.
“You are absolutely right,” he smiled.
Colleen and Lila got a kick out of Hilary because she wanted to do everything at once. She was almost hopping. They watched her climb over the fence into the pigpen. “You’d think she was your daughter, Colleen.”
Colleen nodded. “She might as well be. I love her with all my heart.”
“She reminds me of another little girl.”
“Who?”
Lila smiled. “Just a child I knew a long time ago.”
A truck came up into the yard with a load of hay in the back. It was Duncan, the son of the man who bought Ewan’s property. He worked almost full-time on the farm, as well as helping his dad with his place.
He was always joking around with Colleen, in a good friend sort of way. He certainly knew about animals and running the operation, so he was a great source of information when Ewan wasn’t around.
After a long day she and Hilary crossed the field and smelled Dad’s barbecue going. He had pork chops for supper with boiled new potatoes and steamed spinach with butter. Hilary hoed into her food. “I don’t know why, but when I come here everything tastes delicious.”
“There’s nothing like hunger to make food taste good,” Dad said. “I hear you put in a full day’s work up at Ewan’s.”
“I love it there. When I grow up I’m going to work there.”
Dad pointed at her. “You’re going to university first, young lady.”
“Yes, sir.”
They had fresh raspberries and cream for dessert. Out of nowhere, Hilary said, “That man likes you, Aunt Colleen.”
“What man?”
“The hay guy.”
Colleen made a face. “Duncan? He’s a friend.”
“He likes you.”
Colleen felt herself blushing. “Eat your dessert, you saucy brat.”
* * *
One day when Aunt Colleen had to go to town to get groceries, Hilary’s Grampy said they should go for a walk. They started up the beach, with Lucky leading the way, his nose to the ground, sniffing everything in sight. Once they got to Long Beach he took her up through the woods and onto a long path that snaked through the trees. She saw glimpses of Mira Bay every so often and then they came to a clearing, where there was the biggest tree she’d ever seen in her life.
“Wow! How old is this tree?”
“I’m guessing pretty old. Someone once told me that it looked like a ballerina. What do you think?”
Hilary considered it. “Yes, it does, but it also looks like mommy when she tries to put me in
a dress.”
Her grandfather laughed. “That’s true. That’s how she used to look when I told her she couldn’t go out on a school night.”
They sat together on the edge of the bluff and looked out at Mira Bay, Lucky beside them.
“This is a special place. I used to come here when I was a kid.”
“Does anyone else know about this place?”
“My sister, Annie, who you would’ve loved. You remind me of her.”
That made Hilary feel good for some reason. “Was she nice?”
Grampy looked out over the water. “She was the best.”
Grampy looked sad, so she put her arm through his and leaned her head against him. He patted her cheek.
“I have it on good authority that a tree fairy comes here.”
Hilary wasn’t easily fooled. “You’re making that up.”
“Cross my heart, it’s true. There’s also a very special cricket that hides here.”
“A cricket?”
“If you listen for it you’ll hear it.”
Hilary listened but she only heard the water below.
“I hope you remember this place, Hilary.”
“Oh, I will.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Then spit in your hand and we’ll shake on it.”
It was a done deal.
“We should head home,” he said. She helped him up. “Thank you, dear. Now, do you think you could handle a secret mission?”
“A secret mission? Oh boy!”
“I’ll tell you about it as we walk back.”
He wanted her to find out more about Duncan. Was he nice? Was he a hard worker? What was he like around the farm? He said that Aunt Colleen never told him anything. He knew he was being nosy, but he was interested. Hilary asked him why he didn’t go up to the farm himself and check Duncan out. He said it was more fun this way.
Hilary took a notebook with her the next day and snuck around when no one was looking, peeking at Duncan from behind the barn. She followed him as he and Ewan unloaded bags of feed from the truck. At one point he turned around quickly and she had to run and hide ramrod straight behind a rather skinny tree. She worried that he saw her but he didn’t seem to notice, though he did wink at Ewan for some reason.
She gathered her observations in the notebook and put it in her pocket, before heading out to find Aunt Colleen. There was only one place to look, the little store in the screened-in porch. She was forever fiddling and placing things so that it looked nice. Hilary loved to go in there because it was so chock full of neat things, like knitted throws and quilts, Lila’s paintings, jars of pickles and preserves, bowls of sea glass, old bottles, and tin signs.
Aunt Colleen said she could stay as long as she didn’t interrupt anyone. A big car pulled up and two elderly couples emerged wearing fanny packs and sun visors. Aunt Colleen greeted them and they said they were thrilled to be here in Cape Breton, wasn’t the weather beautiful and they couldn’t get over how friendly everyone was. Her aunt asked them where they were from and they said Columbus, Ohio. Hilary thought their accents sounded different.
They smiled at Hilary and said how cute she was. Hilary didn’t like being called cute but she never let on. Then the two ladies went nuts over the quilts and especially the hooked coasters and table runners. The handmade rag dolls they adored. They’d never see anything more beautiful and were enthralled when Colleen said she’d made them herself. The two men said they knew they shouldn’t have stopped in. Everyone laughed. The men went to sit on the new Adirondack chairs that were placed outside on the lawn for just such a purpose. Aunt Colleen said she’d learned over the years that if men were comfortable, their wives shopped longer. She sent Hilary out with some lemonade for them and you’d think she’d given them gold. They couldn’t get over it.
The two ladies bought every one of the dolls because they said they had six granddaughters between them. Hilary wondered why older people always thought girls would like dolls.
Then they picked up two table runners, two sets of hooked coasters, an embroidered tablecloth, painted rocks, a piece of driftwood that looked like a loon, bars and bars of homemade goat milk soap, and four jars of honey.
By the time they left Aunt Colleen knew their life history and called them by name. “Thank you, Deborah. Thank you, Dana. Have a great time around the trail!”
After they left Hilary looked at the handful of cash in Aunt Colleen’s hand. “Holy moly. Do you sell this much every day?”
“During the summer. That’s why I pay some of the local women to hook and sew and quilt for me. Lila and I would never be able to make all these things on our own. Our business has grown.”
“And then you get the families who pay to let their kids pet our pets. I wonder if I could do that with Precious. Probably not. He’s too cranky.”
Aunt Colleen set about replenishing her inventory, so Hilary went into the house and found Lila at the kitchen table making a list. She went over and looked at it. Lila put her arm around her waist.
“Anything I can do for you?” Hilary asked.
“Yes, you can keep me company while I do this.”
“That’s not very important.”
“It’s terribly important to me to have a little girl sit at my kitchen table. Would you mind?”
“Sure.”
“Before you sit, go into the pantry and get us some molasses cookies. I made them this morning. And get two glasses of milk.”
Hilary set about getting their snack and when she was done she sat. Lila gave her a big smile. She picked up a cookie and held it in the air, gesturing for Hilary to do the same.
“To us!”
“To us!” Hilary repeated.
They knocked their cookies together and dunked them in the milk.
To Hilary’s delight, Ewan’s parrot, Polly, was awake and feisty that day. Lila told her that someone had given the bird to Ewan because they knew he would take care of it. Polly was over thirty years old and they didn’t know much about her other than she could swear like a trooper. She was forever hollering for people to “Come in!” when someone knocked on the door. More than once Lila said she found people standing in her back porch looking confused.
So while Hilary and Lila ate their cookies, Polly was on her perch eyeing the cat, who was eating a dish of food on the counter, away from the dogs. The cat’s tail swished back and forth. Polly reached over and bit the end of it. The cat turned around and swatted Polly so hard she landed on the floor.
It all happened so fast, Hilary and Lila didn’t have time to react. Polly flew back on her perch and screeched, “You son of a bitch!”
The two of them fell into fits of laughter and made such a commotion that Polly turned on them. “Drop dead!”
Hilary eventually went back to the cottage ahead of Colleen so that she could report in to Grampy. He was in the kitchen preparing supper.
“Hi Grampy! My secret mission is complete.”
“Wonderful. What did you find out?”
Hilary took out her notebook out and looked at it. She sat on a chair and jumped right back up again. “Ow!!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I sat on that!”
It was the electric frying pan he’d placed on a chair because there were so few outlets at the cottage you had to make do. There were sausages in it. Fortunately it was on low.
Grampy looked upset. “Did you get a burn?”
Hilary wiped her greasy jogging pants. I don’t think so.”
“Don’t tell Aunt Colleen. She’ll kill me.”
“I won’t.”
She changed her pants before she stood and delivered her report. Grampy sat on the sofa with a glass of sherry.
“Our suspect’s name is Duncan something. I don’t know his last name
because people only call him Duncan and I didn’t want to raise suspicions if I asked Ewan or Lila.”
Grampy nodded approvingly. “Quite right.”
“But I can check his mailbox at the top of the road if you like.”
Grampy put his hand out. “No! Don’t do that. Never go up to the highway by yourself. The cars drive by too fast up there. Do you promise me?”
“I promise. Okay, so Duncan has brown hair but sometimes it looks lighter. He has blue eyes I think. He’s taller than Ewan but not as thick. He was at work before I got there, so he must come early. He helped Ewan unload bags of seed, he cleaned out the horse stalls, fed the goats and donkey, and put a splint on the wing of one of the ducks. The duck wasn’t happy.
“I casually asked Ewan what his favourite colour was and he said blue. Duncan was standing right there so he said green, like the trees and the grass.
“Then he helped Ewan fix a fence, he milked the cows, and he took some people around to show them the animals. He made them laugh a lot. When Aunt Colleen came out to ask him something, he made her laugh too. She told him he was being silly and he said what’s wrong with that? He watched her go back into the house and then he put his gloves back on and shovelled cow poop.
“I conclude that Duncan is a hard-working, funny, nice man, who likes Aunt Colleen and the colour green. The end.”
Grampy put down his glass and clapped. “An excellent report, Miss Roth. You make a superb spy and I will use your services at a future date, if that’s convenient.”
“Very.”
When Aunt Colleen came home for supper, she asked Grampy to pass her the plate of sausages. He did, and then turned to Hilary. “In my day, they were called bum warmers.”
Aunt Colleen couldn’t figure out what was so funny.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
1995
Colleen’s grandfather Louis Hanover died at the age of ninety-five. He’d been sick for years, but when you have money death can sometimes be delayed for a while. He left his empire to his son, Louis Jr., and daughter, Kay, with endowments to many charities and foundations that were close to his heart.
