Trail of Crumbs

by Lisa J. Lawrence

  Roger closed the door behind them, as if preserving it. “Yes, Ash’s room.” He checked a text on his phone. “My buddies will be here in five.”

  They wandered back to the living room. Greta pressed her hands against the window, leaving the shape of her print. She resisted the urge to press her nose against the glass, too, some forgotten habit. She inspected the mud-brown grass, the remnants of the last snow still lumped randomly across the lawn.

  “Dad”—Greta heard him move behind her—“didn’t we live in a house like this when I was little?”

  Roger gave a laugh of surprise. “You remember? I think that’s why I liked this one, actually. They’re very similar. You were probably three or four.”

  “I remember moving in,” she said. “An empty room like this. We sat on the floor to eat. Mom was…mad about something.” She pictured Diana’s face, usually calm but pinched in irritation as she talked to Roger.

  “I gave you donuts,” Roger said. “We went through a Tim Hortons drive-through on the way over, so you didn’t want your sandwiches and vegetables.” He chuckled at the memory. “She had packed a lunch for nothing.”

  Greta smiled at the thought of Diana coaxing them to take a few bites of real food. “Yes, she did try to explain things like vitamins and fiber to us, didn’t she?” Then she saw her mother tucking her and Ash into sleeping bags at night, blankets spread beneath them, sorting through boxes with Roger by the light of a floor lamp.

  “I remember,” Greta said. Before Mother. Before Family. Some mundane memory of her mom getting annoyed with Roger. She remembered it. Roger either didn’t hear her or understood that she wouldn’t want to explain. He stood next to her at the window, smiling at the memory in his own head.

  Greta could see it all again. Her, Ash and Roger sitting on the floor, trying to eat Chinese food with chopsticks, not knowing which box held the forks. She could see them slouched on the sofa watching Quiz Kings, snowflakes falling outside the window. She saw them. They argued about whose turn it was to clean the bathroom. They made scrambled eggs for each other. They sat on the back porch on summer days, sticky hot, and couldn’t imagine a season when snow would fall again.

  But that vision included Ash. Her joy dropped away. If she asked him, he’d walk away from anyone—Roger, Nate, Alice, Elgin, Aunt Lori—to sleep in a ditch by her side. She traded places with him in her mind, tried to imagine Ash shopping around for another home while she couch surfed at Aunt Lori’s. He’d never. She felt a twinge of guilt. She didn’t totally understand his anger, but she understood his loyalty to her. They had just dragged each other through a valley of broken glass and vinegar. That counted for something. She’d tell Roger “not yet” when he dropped her off later and do her best to explain. It stung, seeing something that beautiful, that comfortable, and knowing she had to let it go. But there was relief in finally making a decision.

  The doorbell rang, and Roger hollered, “Come in!” He clapped his friends on the shoulders as they came through the door. Greta smiled and squeezed past them, sitting on the edge of the bottom porch step while they hauled in the big furniture.

  The end of the sofa dipped close to her head. She ducked to avoid it and the men’s clumsy feet as they groped for the next step. She slipped off to the side, by the wilted flower bed, and waited for them to pass. As she settled back on the step, a yellow blur moved in the corner of her eye. Rebus at the curb. Then a shadow up the path, a loping gait, hair flopping over one eye.

  Greta smiled. Like she had waved a magic wand and willed him there.

  “I’m not making any promises,” Ash said before Greta could speak. “And I call dibs on the biggest bedroom.” His lips tugged upward in an almost-smile.

  “You can have it,” she said. That and Chinese food, and Quiz Kings, and scrambled eggs and hot summer nights. And every good thing. “I already marked my territory in the other one.”

  Ash smiled back for a second. Then his face fell serious, as if he was already in the house and starting that conversation with Roger—the one that needed to happen. He gave Greta a nod, squared his shoulders and stepped through the door.

  AFTERWORD

  Greta’s story is just one of many; it does not represent how all survivors experience sexual violence. Trauma affects people differently. In Trail of Crumbs, Greta confronts her perpetrator to help her heal and move forward. This may not be the best course of action for every person who has experienced sexual violence. In some cases, confronting the person who has done harm may be retraumatizing or unsafe. There are many ways to go through the healing process, and the person who has experienced sexual violence should get to decide what their process looks like.

  If you have been affected by sexual violence and would like to seek help, many resources are available to you. Unsure where to start? In Canada, Kids Help Phone (kidshelpphone.ca or 1-800-668-6868) is a free, anonymous and bilingual professional counseling, information and referral service for young people. The service is available 24/7 by phone, Live Chat and the Always There chat app. In the United States, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is a national anti–sexual violence organization (rainn.org or 800-656-4673). There are many other national and local hotlines, organizations and counselors ready to help you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, Debbie Watson (counselor extraordinaire), for sharing ideas and insights and for your feedback and encouragement while I wrote this book. The staff at the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton was also extremely helpful and supportive. In particular, thanks to Jess Marie for her feedback on a variety of topics!

  Thank you to the whole team at Orca: Sarah Harvey (editor extraordinaire), who saw the potential in this story, Teresa Bubela for her cover design, Sofía Bonati for the cover illustration and all the people who work behind the scenes with such professionalism. You truly are a well-oiled machine (with a very human touch!).

  Thanks also to Hilary McMahon and Liz Culotti (agents extraordinaire) at Westwood Creative Artists for all their efforts on my behalf.

  Thanks to Lisa Wickstrom (friend extraordinaire) for reading an earlier draft of this book, and to Lisa and Karen Wickstrom for any stolen dialogue. You always were the clever ones. To the fellow survivors of “the” basement suite—solidarity, ladies. I thought of throwing in a few sewage backups, but I didn’t think anyone would believe a place this gross would actually be rented to humans.

  Thank you to my teenage consultants—Kiana, Morgan MacLeod and Oceanna Juhlke—for taking on some interesting questions without flinching! I appreciate your unique insights.

  There are three people I will always be thankful for: Jocelyn Brown, Marina Endicott and Sarah Harvey. Jocelyn and Marina, you made me believe I could be a writer and took those first early steps with me. Sarah, you picked Rodent out of a slush pile and started me on the path I am now on. And your patience with my sentence fragments. Your medal is coming in the mail!

  Thank you to the readers, friends, teachers and administrators who support my writing. It’s an honor to be able to share my stories with you.

  Thank you to friends (and friends of friends) on Facebook who respond to my random writing questions with enthusiasm. Thanks, Mike Fisher and Dean Walker, for answering my trucking and military questions. Any mistakes and omissions on those topics are my own.

  Last but not least, thank you to my husband, Mike (also counselor extraordinaire), and my children, Liam, Maia (the queen of Would You Rather) and Anna. You are the spice of life and always patient with the long hours I spend writing and editing. (And I can’t forget Chloe the cat, who’s a great writing buddy and so worth the allergies.)

  LISA J. LAWRENCE grew up as a free-range kid in small towns in British Columbia and Alberta, calling Stettler, Alberta, her hometown. She graduated from the University of Alberta with a BA in Romance Languages, an MA in Italian Studies and a BEd in Secondary Education. She currently works as a writer and Spanish teacher in Edmonton, Alberta, where she lives with her husband
and three children.

  Her first novel, Rodent, was nominated for a White Pine Award and a Snow Willow Award, longlisted for an Alberta Readers’ Choice Award and was a finalist for the George Bugnet Award for Fiction. Trail of Crumbs is her second novel for young adults.

  Find her on Facebook at Lisa J. Lawrence or follow @lawrenceauthor on Twitter.

  ONE

  “I’m wet,” a voice whimpers in my ear.

  My eyelids snap open as my head jerks from the pillow. Evan stands beside my bed, hair disheveled, naked from the waist down. Chicken legs shivering.

  “What?” I blink, trying to clear my head.

  “I’m wet.” Now the tears come.

  “Evan!” I grab his wrist and drag him, wailing, toward his bedroom. “Not again!”

  In the early-morning sun filtering through the blinds, Maisie is still asleep in her bed next to his, curled up with a matted lamb. I strip the blankets and sheets from the mattress, cursing under my breath. I fling everything in a pile at his feet.

  “Disgusting,” I say, eyeing the foul wet circle. Rounding on him, I bring my finger right up to his pale face. “Tonight, you’re wearing a pull-up.”

  “No! No diaper!” He sobs harder now.

  “Yes, diaper!” I snap. “If you act like a baby, you have to wear a diaper.” Maisie stirs in her bed, makes a chirping sound and rolls over.

  Evan gives up arguing now and shivers, tears running down his cheeks. He scratches at his peed-on legs. He looks so pathetic, I start to feel sorry for him. I check the clock for the first time. Mickey Mouse’s hands tell me it’s 6:15 AM. I was cheated out of an extra fifteen minutes of sleep.

  “C’mon,” I say, taking his hand and pulling him to the bathroom. I mop him up and find a clean pair of underwear. The plastic garbage bag I always put under his sheet has slipped to one side in the night, so I scrub his wet mattress for a minute before giving up. What’s one more stain at this point? He waits on the sofa in his Batman underwear while I wake up Maisie and get started.

  Breakfast. Shower for me while they’re eating. Lunches. I lay their clothes on the sofa and let them watch some alphabet cartoon while they dress themselves. That gives me ten minutes to get myself ready. Right before we leave, I try to wrestle a brush through Maisie’s straggly mess of cinnamon curls.

  She shrieks, trying to writhe away. I clamp my hands on her shoulders and push her back down. “Sit still! You want to look like a hobo on your first day at a new school?”

  She gives me a dirty look but gets her shoes on when I tell her to. I help Evan into his.

  “All ready?” I say, trying to sound more cheerful. Evan nods slowly, and Maisie just stares. “Okay then.”

  I lock the door behind me, and we shuffle to the end of the hall. The elevator smells like piss again. I blame the loser on the floor below us, who roams the halls in his bathrobe half the time.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I tell Evan and Maisie, making them stand on either side of me. This place is even more of a dump than the last, and that’s saying a lot. In the lobby we follow a worn path across the dirt-colored carpet to the main door and step into the bright September sun. Once outside, Maisie perks up and starts to tell me about her dream, which involves a farm.

  “I got to ride the pony as much as I wanted,” she says, skipping over the cracks in the sidewalk.

  I pick up the pace. Evan almost runs to keep up, two fingers gripping my belt loop. We follow the sidewalk to a strip mall half a block away, stopping in front of a rainbow-striped sign: Little Treasures Day Care. Someone has thrown a rock through the corner of the sign, so the r in Care doesn’t line up anymore.

  Mrs. Carrigan, the owner, smiles at me as I push through the streaked door. I nod at her and crouch to help Evan take off his shoes and sweater, which I drop into his cubby. Then I corner Elaine, who runs the three-to-five-year-old room. She reminds me of a donkey, with her flat, tawny hair and the way she brays at the kids. Evan’s only been coming here a week, and I already know Elaine’s useless. Government subsidy covers most of the day-care fee, but it still feels like we pay too much for this place.

  I get straight to the point. “Can you make sure Evan comes home in the right socks today?”

  “Those were his socks.” She frowns and pulls her head back, which gives her about four chins.

  “My Little Pony?” I say, eyebrows raised. “I don’t think so.” Without waiting for a reply, I turn and herd Maisie out the door with me.

  We have about thirty seconds to make it to the bus stop on the corner, so we cover the rest of the block at a full-out run. Maisie’s backpack thumps up and down with every step, and I hear her puffing behind me. I turn and take her hand, slowing my pace a bit.

  We make it with ten seconds to spare. The bus is packed. I finally find one seat near the back door and point for Maisie to sit down. Holding the bar above my head, I sway as the city slides by: cop cars, dogs, old people raking leaves, pawn shops, parking meters.

  Maisie unpacks her backpack in her lap and shows me where she wrote her name on all of her school supplies. “I like this one,” she says, pulling the cap off a glue stick. “The glue is pink.”

  After ten minutes, I ring the bell. The bus slides to a stop in front of Sir John A. Macdonald Elementary School, where we squeeze out with a few others. The bell has already rung, and the hallway’s a solid wall of children. Two boys wrestle each other, swinging backpacks and laughing. When they trample on my feet, I give them a good shove and say, “Watch it.”

  We weave our way to the grade-two classrooms and scan the class list outside the door for Maisie Bennett. This is it. Her teacher, Mrs. Williams, strikes me as the cookie-baking-grandma sort. Silver hair pulled back in a hippie ponytail. Laugh lines around her eyes. She extends her hand to me as I leave Maisie at the door.

  “Isabelle,” I say, shaking it. “I’ll be back to pick up Maisie after school.” I give Maisie a pat on the head and push my way through the swarming hallway.

  Back out on the sidewalk, I look up and see my final destination across the street—Glenn Eastbeck High School—where I’m about to begin my first day of grade eleven.