by Claire Tacon
“I’m sorry. We didn’t know. Stephen, can you put your ball back in your backpack?”
“I’ll have to ask you to check it at the front.”
“We’re almost finished,” I say, keeping my voice steady and low, like I’m approaching a dog. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
She appraises me, unsure of how far she can exert her Parks Canada authority. Finally, she scowls at Stephen and retreats to the air-conditioned centre.
Stephen slinks beside me and I apologize. “I didn’t know about the rules.”
We climb the steps up to the church and I hold the door open for the boys to go in first. There’s another guide at the front of the room, a summer student this time. She tells Stephen that he’ll have to carry his backpack. Mostly the place just has paintings on the walls, but there are a few display cases. In solidarity, I slide my backpack off too and carry it.
Stephen reads one of the signs then goes back to the guide. “So this isn’t the real church, right?”
“The first one burned down. This was built to commemorate it in 1923. It was purchased in 1965 as a heritage site.”
“Does anyone pray here anymore?”
She shakes her head.
Stephen starts to walk away but turns back. “Is it right on top of the old one?”
The guide’s voice takes on the singsong rhythm of a teacher trying to curb further questions. “No, it’s a little farther down.”
“What if they hadn’t built the church?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like what if you had put a McDonald’s here. Would it still be a heritage site?”
The corners of the guide’s smile are getting twitchy and she glances at me to see if I want to interject.
“If all the houses got burned down, why aren’t those heritage sites too? I mean everywhere’s a historical site, isn’t it?”
It’s a good question but the guide doesn’t choose to answer it. Instead, she feeds us a weak explanation, something about some places being more special than others.
There’s a meadow with a duck pond to the left of the church and a ditch we can probably climb to get back to the parking lot. None of us want to go through the building again. When we reach the field’s edge, however, there’s a row of shrubs woven together to make a fence. There’s enough of a gap that I suggest we just crawl through. It’s a scramble up a slight embankment before we hit the train tracks and even then there’s a fence barring us from reaching the parking lot. They don’t want anyone appreciating their heritage without paying admission.
We’re close enough that I just give up and walk the tracks towards the road. There are signs warning people against it, but I used to do it all the time when I lived here. In the parking lot, the Germans are sitting on lawn chairs, enjoying croissant sandwiches.
“Mom,” Stephen says. “This place is giving me the grand derangement.”
Me too.
On the drive home Stephen asks if I’ve heard from Parks and Rec. We both know I haven’t called. He just shakes his head as I apologize and stares out the window, his feet wedged against the dashboard.
At the house, Stephen bangs up the stairs, straight to his room. When I check on him an hour later, there’s a suitcase on the floor, his clothes jammed into it. He’s crying, his face pressed against the cell, his biceps tensed. He refuses to make eye contact but his bravado makes him look so vulnerable, all soft flesh like a shucked clam. The first impulse is to scoop him up, comfort him. He holds the phone out for me to take it, keeping as much distance from me as possible.
“Richard?”
No, it’s Terrence.
“Stephen called to ask if he could borrow the money to come home.”
“What did you say?” It’s a mixture of embarrassment and relief talking to Terrence. He’s always seemed less like a father-in-law and more like a long lost friend. When I was pregnant, he came by the house a few times a week, bringing an article to read or fried plantain for me to eat. He’d tease that it was his job to fatten up the baby. He always wanted to see my belly, liked to rub his hands in a smooth sweep across the bulge. Richard was adopted, so this was new for Terrence. He launched into being a grandfather with the fervour of a first-time parent. At this point, I’m prepared to take any advice he offers.
“I told him he needs to stick it out longer.”
“I should have called the Parks people again today.”
“Ellie, he’s a thirteen-year-old boy. The whole world doesn’t understand him.” Terrence isn’t ruffled. “It’s nice for your mom to have them for a while.”
I want to ask if he thinks the trip was a good idea, but can’t get the words out.
Terrence guesses at my silence. “You having a good time out there?”
“It’s different than I expected.”
“Always is.”
When I hang up, I take Terrence’s suggestion and drive the boys into Wolfville to check their email at the public library. Stephen still isn’t speaking to me. He hasn’t had a lot of privacy since he’s been here, and chatting with his friends or writing his dad might help.
The boys bolt to the only two computer workstations and I log into my own account standing at the express computer. It’s mostly spam, but there are several email threads from U of T Geology. Richard must have forwarded his work email to mine by accident. A message comes in from him when I refresh the page after deleting the previous emails. It’s sent from his BlackBerry and written like a telegram.
Dad called. I’ve sent Stephen an email. Are you doing okay? Conference going well. Good news about the BBC article. Possible collaboration on the oldest rock project. Still foetal.
Look, if you’re ready to come home, just come.
If you’re ready to come home. It’s what we tell the boys when we send them to their rooms. If you’re ready to come down now. If you’re ready to behave.
Leaving now is an apology that I’m not prepared to make.
I can’t call Jason McInnes to get Stephen on the team without talking to Bernie first. So after the boys have gone to bed, I finally ask my mother where he’s living.
“Last I heard he was still up at his uncle’s old place off Ridge Road. I seen his Dad from time to time. Always says hello.”
She takes her cup upstairs at quarter to ten. It might not be too late to drive over—Bernie never slept much anyway. The rain starts as soon as I get in the car. I drive the back roads, over the Port Williams bridge and out past the university, up the hill to Ridge Road. It’s like driving down a tunnel of yellow headlight, the rain obscuring the boundaries of the road.
The driveway always came up fast and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to recognize it on the first pass. I round the last corner, back over the top of the mountain to the lee of Gaspereau. At the first driveway, I cut the headlights and turn through the cover of the maples, using the fog lights until I can be sure I’m at the right place. Sure enough, the house is there, a stark wood frame two-level.
There are no lights on inside and no vehicles around, no tools or toys scattered about the yard like there used to be. When Bernie’s uncle lived here, there was a steady rotation of mutts, none of them lasting very long. There was always something wrong with them—a sliced lip from a fight, three legs, an eye sewn shut. There was a boxer named Butterscotch whose ears had been lost to frostbite and I can still make out the depression near the hedge where she used to sleep.
There’s traffic on the back road so I kill the fog lights. People around here are nosy. Someone’s bound to come poking in, wanting to know what I’m doing. It’s pitch-black now, and I’m barely able to make out the charcoal lines of the house.
Whatever I was expecting to happen isn’t. There’s no guarantee that Bernie still lives here. He could have flipped the property years ago. Best thing would be to call Doc Soccer first thing in the morning and beg.
For a few beats, I hear the music—CCR’s Bad Moon Rising on full blast—before the
rear-view floods with light. A truck’s turned into the drive and I’m temporarily blinded. A large engine drones through a weak muffler. The driver’s not going to see me. There’s no time to start the car.
I brace for the crash as the truck brakes squeal. There’s the crack of impact, a hollow metal and plastic crunch. The car lurches forward and I realize I shouldn’t have gripped the wheel, the air bag’s going to break my arms.
It never inflates. The car rocks back slightly. The chemical hum of adrenaline is dripping down my neck, through my arms and trunk, but I’m all right. I’m all right.
The door flies open. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” A man towers over the car. All I can see are his thick steel-toe boots, his face hidden by the glare.
I stare up, blinking, unable to speak.
“Jesus Christ. Ellie?” Bernie hauls me out of the car and runs his hand over my forehead and along my chin, checking for injury.
I’m so shaken, I start to cry.
“Oh, fuck, are you hurt?” He’s got his hand on my shoulder, gripping hard to guard against me collapsing. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
The words come out in half sucks through tears. “I didn’t think you were home.”
“You scared the shit out of us.”
There’s a line of pale faces peering out of the pickup’s window. Someone turns the music off. “Just go on and pull in by the house,” Bernie says.
I can’t get back in the car yet, so Bernie hops in and manoeuvres it down beside the house. He then pulls the truck up directly behind and leaves his lights on so we can see the damage. He hollers out the window, “She’ll be all right. Glad we got the brakes in order.”
He cuts the engine and steps out of the cab. Three figures pour out from the passenger door. When they hit the light, I see it’s a woman—mid-thirties—and two kids. Bernie calls to them across the hood. “Come on over, Linda, come on and meet Ellie.”
Linda ambles over, arms wrapped around her waist. She waits for an explanation.
“Ellie here was my best friend in high school.” He rubs his hands up and down my arms, like he’s drying me off. He shakes his head, then nudges me in Linda’s direction.
“Pleased to meet you.” I hold out my hand. She takes it weakly, retracts hers quickly.
Bernie points to the kids. “This one’s Max and this is Lisa.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
The girl’s blonde like her mother, skin transparent as a newt. I guess she’s about Luke’s age. The boy’s older, probably a year past Stephen, but he takes more after his father—brown curly hair and a slight pudge to his cheeks, just like Bernie at that age. Neither of them looks at me directly. I wipe my face dry and try to compose myself. The kids are probably terrified enough.
“Well, come in,” Bernie says. We file up to the porch and he flicks on a light and leads us into the kitchen. Linda sets her purse on the table and I realize I’d misjudged both her age and hair colour. She’s probably only 27, 28 and the blonde is all peroxide. Linda reaches up and massages her neck, a pinched expression on her face. She’s pretty but has the tanned, furrowed look some small-town girls get.
“I’m really sorry.” I struggle to navigate the situation. “I should have left the lights on.”
The girl huddles on her mother’s side of the table. The boy stays by the door.
“Truck’s got a grill at the front,” Bernie says. “Just gave us a start, that’s all. ”He holds out a chair for me and I sit down at the wooden harvest table that’s replaced the old line of card tables his uncle used. Bernie putters away at the sink, filling up the kettle and setting it on the stove.
“You’ve really fixed up the place.” I smile at Linda, trying to look as benign as possible.
“Oh, Bernie done all that.”
Bernie swings round and corrects her. “No, she’s the one who made it homey. I got the outside into shape, but she painted it and put up the decorations.” He points to an ivy wallpaper border near the ceiling—small pink flowers curl around the vines. The cabinetry’s been painted a matching cream, the middle stencilled with the same ivy motif.
“Did you do the painting yourself?”
Linda nods, still stony.
Bernie presses her. “Tell her, Lindie. Tell her how you did it.”
She glares at him. “I got one of those books. Then I got some stencils at the V&S.”
“Linda’s got a real talent with arts and crafty stuff.”
“I can see that.” I’m still smiling stupidly.
“How y’all know Bernie again?”
“Cornwallis.”
She taps her front tooth with her nail. “Hadn’t heard of you.”
Bernie comes up behind me and puts his hands on the back of my chair. “Ellie and me went right through together from grade seven.”
“Right.” Linda drapes her arms on her daughter’s shoulders. She tilts her head towards the hall. “Bern, I’m gonna take the kids up to bed.” She’s halfway out through the doorway when she turns back to face me. “If I don’t see you before you leave, nice to meet you.”
Bernie follows Linda into the hall. I start to stand, but he raises his finger, hold on a second. Whatever Bernie’s saying to her, he’s whispering, but she makes no effort to quiet her voice.
“She normally lurk in people’s drives?”
I slump back into the seat and look around the rest of the room, trying not to eavesdrop. Linda’s gone to town with the tole paint. There are miniature wooden figures everywhere—kitschy angels, brightly coloured hearts and a home sweet home sign. None of it looks much like Bernie, except for a pile of agricultural magazines in the wicker basket by the phone hutch. His dad used to keep the same ones in a receptacle by the toilet.
Bernie returns, deflated. “Might be a bit late for a cup of tea now. Are you okay to drive?”
“Oh, sure, yes.” I make a hasty retreat to the door. “I’m really, really sorry for stopping by like this. I didn’t know if you still lived here.”
He sees me into the vehicle. “You in town long?”
“For the summer.”
“Where are you staying at?”
“My mother’s.”
“Come by sometime in daylight hours.” He grins and taps on the hood.
“Please apologize to your wife again for me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about Linda,” he says, chuckling and shaking his head. “She’ll warm up to you. Next time she’ll be right happy to see you.”
I reverse extra carefully around the truck, mortified.
Bernie stands there waving. Same old, same old.
4
I GOT ACCEPTED to Acadia on early admission, full scholarship. School wouldn’t finish until June, but by February it felt like I’d already bought my ticket out.
The first weekend of March break there was a massive snowfall and a group of guys from my class organized a ski trip at Martock. Bernie was roped into driving them. Normally they’d never invite me, but Bernie sensed that I wanted to come, so he picked me up first and we all crammed into his dad’s half-ton.
I sat next to Bernie, my legs on either side of the gearbox. Chuck—Cornwallis’ resident stud and Supertramp enthusiast—was next to me, with his girlfriend Charla. The three other boys were crammed in the back with Bernie’s brother Jason. None of them other than Bernie and Jason had paid much attention to me before, but if they were surprised by my presence, they didn’t comment. Charla’s annoyance, however, took up all the remaining space in the cab.
“Bernie,” she said. “Jennie Murphy was supposed to come with us.”
“No room.”
When he wasn’t looking, Charla slid a finger in her mouth and pulled out a wad of grape gum, which she pressed against the underside of the dashboard at the exact spot my knee hit on every bump.
I was wearing my old snow pants from grade eight. I hadn’t grown much and they still fit. The bright pink my mother had thought was so cute ha
d faded to a pale flesh tone. With my oversized wool sweater, I still looked like a little kid.
Charla was wearing a new ski suit, teal with white piping, and a fluffy cream scarf and matching toque. Her dad was the manager of one of Wolfville’s banks and she went to Kings Edgehill, a girls’ boarding school in Windsor. She was slumming with Chuck.
As soon as we got to the ski hill, the two of them split to get lift tickets. My mom had given me money to rent equipment, on account of my grades and the scholarship, but hadn’t realized there was also an admission fee. Bernie’d thought of that though, and reached into the pickup and handed me a pair of skis. “Got them from the dump.” Bernie worked weekends at the waste transfer station.
I didn’t know how to ski, but neither did Bernie. One of the other guys showed us how to snowplow and by the end of the day, we could make it down the whole run without falling. Charla and Chuck left the slopes early to screw in the chalet bathroom. They met up with us as the run closed, looking flushed and sheepish. Charla made a point of wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“That’s fucking foul,” Jason said.
“I offered to bring my friends.”
“I don’t want my dick to fall off.”
Chuck glared but didn’t jump to Charla’s defence.
We drove to the Pulpit bar in Wolfville, because it was the only place we knew we’d all get in. It was close to Charla’s house and we stopped on the way so she could sneak out some of her dad’s liquor. She and Chuck went in and after half an hour they made it back out with bottles of gin, vodka and rank banana liqueur. She’d spent most of the time changing into tight butter-yellow pants and a blouse that laced and gaped, revealing the trim of her bra cups. She had a jean jacket over top and must have been freezing, but she bounced into the truck as though she couldn’t feel the cold. Her eye shadow glittered in the overhead light.
I dabbed my lips with Chap Stick.
The bottles didn’t last long with so many people, but there was enough for a buzz by the time we got to the ‘Pit. Inside, it was mostly university students enjoying “Beat the Clock.” Beer started off at fifty cents and went up by a quarter every half hour. Charla recognized some people and sauntered off, leaving the rest of us in our winter gear. It was too hot in my snow pants, and I looked ridiculous, so I took them off, along with my sweater and tossed them in the booth. I had on my jeans and an old tank top, really just a cotton camisole, something to keep the sweater from scratching. I wasn’t wearing a bra either, because I didn’t have to—I didn’t grow into my current B cup until I was in university.
