Kin

by Lesley Crewe

  “A good day to stay in.”

  “Lila…I don’t know how to tell you this. Henry was found dead this morning.”

  “Oh no! Oh my god, what happened?”

  “They don’t know yet. John went to check on him and he was in his study, slumped in his chair. It was probably a heart attack.”

  “Where was Lee?”

  “Up visiting Daniel, thank God.”

  “Oh, David, Annie and Henry are both gone.” She started to weep over the phone. She couldn’t help it. It sounded like David was too.

  “He died alone. I can’t bear it.”

  They stayed on the phone like that a long time, neither one saying anything, alone with their memories.

  Lila finally wiped her eyes with her apron. “This getting old business is terrible. All our precious friends and family go one by one and it’s like our lives are disappearing before our very eyes.”

  “I try and take comfort in the hope that they’re together again,” he said.

  “Theirs was a real love story.”

  David didn’t speak.

  “Are you there?”

  She heard him cough and clear his throat. “Lila, I’ve loved you from the first day I laid eyes on you sixty years ago. I’m to blame for what happened to us, the misery I put my family through, and I regret it every day of my life. The one thing I don’t regret are the moments you were in my arms. Not all love stories end happily, but that doesn’t mean the love wasn’t real.”

  Lila put her hand to her throat. She couldn’t find her voice.

  “Lila?”

  “I loved you too, David. I still do.”

  She heard him crying and wished she was there to comfort him. He whispered, “Thank you, my love,” before he hung up.

  * * *

  After the funeral, the family gathered at Henry’s house. Colleen counted twenty people who were directly related to Aunt Annie and Uncle Henry: five children, thirteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Wouldn’t Aunt Annie have been thrilled, and wouldn’t her grandchildren have loved her.

  All these funerals were starting to take a toll on Colleen. She felt like life was passing her by. People were dropping like flies and she was already forty-one. Forty-one! She was ancient.

  The only thing that made it bearable was Duncan chasing her around the cottage after work. And the cottage was pretty small, so he caught her a lot. It was cold at night now that the month of September was disappearing. Their solution was to stay beneath the covers.

  To think that this man had been under her nose the whole time. Lila said the exact same thing happened to her—they were late bloomers.

  Colleen caught sight of Lee, waiting by the window. She was thirty now, but still looked like a teenager. Her sisters-in-law said that wasn’t fair. She was quiet and her sunny expression was gone. She and her dad had been a team. Everyone was worried about her. John and his family were going to take care of her, with periodic trips to see her brothers. Spreading the honey around, they told her. Robbie said they were going to sell the house and put the money in a trust fund for Lee, for her future needs, whatever they might be.

  Colleen decided to forgive Robbie for the fat remark he had made in this very backyard when they were kids.

  She picked up an egg sandwich, popped it in her mouth, and savored it. It reminded her that Grammie had always made great egg sandwiches. She was also at a perfect vantage point to watch her dad and mom on one side of the room and Ewan and Lila on the other. They were four harmless senior citizens, with wrinkles and grey hair. Dad was losing his in the back. Lila was a bit stooped but her skin was soft and lovely. Mom’s skin looked sallow, despite years of buying the most expensive cosmetics out there. The drinking hadn’t helped her. Ewan looked younger than the three of them. His lifetime of hard work had paid off handsomely.

  But the stories her dad told her about being a pilot in the war, flying in the dark, not knowing if he was going to make it back from a mission, were breathtaking when she thought about it. Dad had been eighteen or nineteen when he joined up and went halfway around the world; her nephew Mark’s age, and Mark still had to get his parents’ permission to take the car for a weekend.

  Colleen asked Ewan about the war once, but he didn’t want to talk about it. He said that door was nailed shut.

  They were an amazing generation and the stories of their growing up always made her envious. She was born too late.

  Back at Dad’s house, it was just the four of them again, and no one felt like talking. Frankie and Mom would be leaving in the morning. Her sister got changed into exercise gear and went out for a run. Mom said she needed a glass of wine since it was such a terrible day. Dad told her he didn’t have any, so she sulked. He got upset and then she got even testier.

  Colleen got in the car and drove out to the farm. Lila and Ewan weren’t back from the funeral. Duncan’s truck was there and she knew exactly where he’d be at this hour. She almost ran to the barn. He was there, just like always.

  He turned when he heard the door squeak. “Hi, you okay?”

  Colleen went over and took the pitchfork out of his hand and pressed herself against his warm body.

  “I’d like to be your wife, even though my parents’ marriage was a bummer and Mom divorced her next husband too and my sister and her husband don’t have sex, so who knows when that marriage is going to implode and I was married to the devil himself…”

  “Jesus, woman. Will you shut the hell up?”

  “Can I? Please?”

  He looked down at her. “Only if you promise to make fried bologna sandwiches. Every time I think of them I get a hard-on.”

  She smacked his arm. “Is this any way to talk to your future wife?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  1999

  Hilary remembered the lunch with Aunt Colleen when Colleen had said Hilary and her mom would be best friends one day.

  Hilary was still waiting.

  It would be different if she were a daddy’s girl. At least she’d have one parent she was close to. But her dad was a little remote. He was kind and generous and she knew that he loved her and her brothers, but he wasn’t the kind of guy you’d run home to and say “I’ve fallen in love!” or “I hate the jerk.”

  She saved that for her Grampy. Aunt Colleen was great too. Even Duncan was a source of comfort. He always had her laughing whenever she went to see them, which wasn’t as often as she’d like.

  Right now she was stuck behind a desk at Dalhousie taking first-year courses, which were basically geared to discourage you from everything. Dal was Grampy’s university, and when he talked about it, it sounded fun, but Hilary had to go home every night instead of getting drunk with her friends in a dorm. The idea of living in residence appealed to her. She’d be out of the house, but her parents nixed the idea.

  “Why would we pay for a room when you have a perfectly good one five minutes from campus?”

  “It’s not fair. You paid for Mark to live in a dorm.”

  “And look what happened! He flunked out his first year and we had to pay for it all over again.”

  “Which is the dumbest thing I ever heard. You should’ve made him pay for it.”

  Even her grandmother Hanover tried to get them to change their minds. She said she’d pay for it, but for some ridiculous reason her parents wanted to teach a lesson: you don’t always get what you want.

  Her parents were never consistent. She and her brothers were on the same page on that score. One minute they talked about mom’s inheritance from grandmother and the next they downplayed the fact that there would be money. Hilary got the feeling that as soon as her grandmother was planted in the ground, her parents were going to abscond with the whole enchilada and never be heard from again.

  That would suit Hilary jus
t fine.

  And then Mom would go and do something thoughtful, like buy her fair trade organic coffee and pick up vegetarian frozen dinners. There was one night Mom was in tears over a commercial on television asking for foster parents to help poor children and they showed a little girl about seven picking through a mountain of trash trying to find something to eat. The flies crawling on her face sent Mom over the edge. She got up from the couch, called the number, and now there were ten foster children’s mug shots on the fridge. Every time Hilary looked at them, she’d think maybe Mom wasn’t so bad.

  And then Mom would ruin it.

  This morning, for instance, Mom hollered at her to get up for school. She hollered at her to get out of the shower. She hollered at her about what she wanted for breakfast. This was a war waged every morning. Hilary didn’t like breakfast. She wanted coffee, not food.

  “Do you want a Pop Tart?”

  “No.”

  “How about Captain Crunch?”

  “NO.”

  “I have frozen waffles.”

  “NO.”

  “I read a magazine at the hairdresser’s that protein is an essential part of your breakfast experience. I’ll make you an English muffin and put peanut butter on it.”

  “NO.”

  There was a brief moment of respite. That meant her mother was waiting for the English muffin to toast. Sure enough, there was a ding from the toaster oven. “Come and get it!”

  “NO.”

  Hilary was doing a lousy job on her hair because she couldn’t concentrate “Shit!” Now she’d have to start all over again.

  “Hilary! It’s getting cold!”

  Hilary marched out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. “Do you not have ears? I don’t want it! God! You never leave me alone!”

  Her mother took one half of the English muffin and threw it in her face.

  It stuck.

  Then it slid down and hit her white shirt on the way to the floor.

  Her mother covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “You aimed before you fired.”

  “It’s just that you can’t talk to me that way, Hilary. I’m your mother.”

  At this rate, she was going to miss her sociology quiz.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “Thank you,” her mother said.

  Hilary turned to go.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to take a banana?”

  * * *

  Lila got a kick out of watching Colleen and Duncan together. They were middle-aged but acted like teenagers. They had this crazy lifestyle that involved them living all over the place, jumping from the bungalow, Duncan’s father’s farm, David’s house in town, and the farm here. But it didn’t bother them. Lila had never seen Colleen so happy and it did her heart good just to look at her.

  Life was unexpected. One day you’re damn near dead from grief, fear, or loneliness, and the next you’re in sync with everything in the universe.

  Lila remembered the years when Colleen was very unhappy and thought her life was just one dreadful day after another, and yet here she was laughing and hugging Duncan every time she walked by him. But that wasn’t the only reason for her satisfaction. Besides the small craft store in the house, she was the owner of three small shops along the coast that opened in the summer. Her army of rural women kept her in plentiful supply and they were very successful.

  And she adored her baby, her colt Dixie, who was all legs at the moment. When Colleen had bought her sweet mare Bonnie, she hadn’t known Bonnie was pregnant. When Dixie was born in the middle of the night, Colleen cried for hours, she was so happy.

  Lila heard it said that if you put everyone’s tragedies or difficulties in a pile, you’d still pick your own because there was always someone worse off than you. Even when she lost Caroline, there was mercy in the fact that she was able to bury her child and visit her every day if she wished. There were mothers out there whose children disappeared and they never knew what happened to them. Lila knew that would be unbearable.

  That summer when Hilary was down visiting her grandfather, she came over and weeded Lila’s garden for her. She chatted away about this and that while Lila sat in her chair. She was a lovely girl, but a bit lost under all that anger, insecurity, uncertainty, and hormones.

  “Colleen tells me that you and your mom fight a lot. Is this true?”

  “You would too.”

  “I wish I’d had the chance.”

  Hilary stopped weeding. “You lost your mom?”

  Lila nodded. “I was seven. I didn’t have a father, either. I came to live with a dreadful relative and your great-grandparents lived next door. They watched over me and found me this place to live with the world’s sweetest couple. I called them Aunt Eunie and Uncle Joe. I never fought with Aunt Eunie because I knew what it was like to be alone in the world. I’m sure I gave her a run for her money on occasion, but she only wanted the best for me. I was grateful I had someone who cared.”

  Hilary fell quiet.

  She was here again at eighteen, down for the summer. She came faithfully every year, calling it her sanity break. It was hard to believe she was Frankie’s daughter, that a woman so glamorous and refined could have a daughter who was such a rebel. Hilary looked like an unmade bed, with a sarong around her middle, rubber flip-flops on her feet, and at least three layers of tops. Her hair was a rat’s nest, caught up in some sort of kerchief, and there were beads in some long strands. She didn’t have the nose ring anymore, now it was in her eyebrow. A small tattoo was on the inside of her wrist. She had beautiful skin and wore no makeup. Lila thought she was stunning.

  She and David never talked about it, but Lila thought she could see Caroline in that face. It might have been wishful thinking, but Lila wondered if maybe wishes did float around in the air and settle somewhere in your life when you least expected it.

  It was a nice warm morning. Ewan had carried Lila out to her chair and wrapped a blanket around her, kissing her forehead. He had only left her because Hilary was there. Maybe that’s why she was always around. Lila thought that Hilary liked weeding a little too much.

  Lila’s fatigue was constant now, worse than she let on, and had been for a while. Her ankles and belly were swollen from her congestive heart failure. It was hard to catch her breath and the few hours of sleep she did get at night were while she was sitting up, Ewan’s hand resting reassuringly on her somewhere. Her heart was working too hard, trying to get oxygen, and she was winding down like an old clock. She and Ewan both knew it but they never talked about it.

  “Hi, Lila,” Hilary said. “Which row do you want to do?”

  “I’ll only supervise,” Lila laughed.

  “I love this time of day.” Hilary went back to the row of peas and knelt down with her wicker basket.

  Lila watched as the light crept over the lawn and into the trees as the sun rose. Everything around them was a beautiful salad green until you looked up into the pale blue sky. The multitude of colours from the flower gardens attracted big bumblebees and the hummingbirds Lila loved so much. She watched one ruby throat on a branch nearby, his tiny head going back and forth surveying and protecting his territory. As soon as another one tried to get to the feeder he’d tear off and chase it out like a Spitfire. It made her chuckle. She’d painted a lot of hummingbird pictures over the years and wished she had the stamina to do it now. Never mind. The real thing was more than delightful.

  Her speaking voice was slow, but if she took her time she was all right. “Your great-aunt Annie and I would sit here on summer afternoons and Aunt Eunie would bring us lemonade. Now I wonder why we didn’t go get it ourselves.”

  “She must’ve enjoyed doing it.”

  “Annie and I would make ourselves sick laughing about nothing. She was a character.”
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br />   Hilary wiped her forehead with her glove. “I’ve always heard about Aunt Annie. Grampy tells the best stories about when you were all kids. It sounds so much more interesting than when I was a kid.”

  “Children today look at the television as if that’s real life. They don’t have one because they spend so many hours staring at it and not moving.”

  “My brothers were like that with video games. If I wasn’t moving, it was because I was reading. I’ve decided my major is going to be English. I love to write.”

  “I never knew that. Clever girl. Dare I ask if you have a young man?”

  “I don’t have him and he doesn’t have me. It’s better like that.”

  “I admire young women today. I was horribly naïve and frightened of my own feelings. Do your parents like him?”

  “They’ve never met him.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s private. It’s ours.”

  Lila understood that sentiment.

  She must have dozed a little, because when she opened her eyes, David was in the chair beside her. “David.”

  “I’m here to entice my granddaughter away. We have a date to go to Louisbourg and pick up crab legs and lobster.”

  “That sounds fun,” she whispered.

  “Are you all right? You sound a little weak. Should I get Ewan?”

  “No, I’m sleepy, that’s all. I’m enjoying the sun. He’ll be here in a minute to check on me. You two go and enjoy your day.”

  David got out of the chair. “Come on then, kiddo.”

  Hilary came up and kissed her on the cheek. “Bye, Lila. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, unless it’s super hot, then I’ll be at the beach.”

  “Exactly where you should be.”

  David took her hand and kissed it. “We’ll see you later, dear.”

  She gave him a little wave. “Bye-bye.”

  * * *

  Ewan and Duncan cleaned out one of the pigpens and put new straw down for the two miniature black-and-white pigs that were coming in a few days. They would be company for Colleen’s pot-bellied pig, Ira, the world’s biggest sook. It was Duncan who saw them for sale on the Internet, and they were so darn cute he talked Ewan into getting them. Colleen was excited, but then she loved all critters. And they all missed Polly, who one day said, “I’m sick, Mama.” They found her dead at the bottom of her cage the next morning.