The Big Dig

by Lisa Harrington

  “Um, yeah. Yeah,” Lucy said distractedly. “We were right.”

  “Hey. Are you really sick or something? Because I thought it was just an excuse, like to tell me about the picture.”

  “No. It wasn’t an excuse.”

  “Oh gosh, sorry. Can I do—”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” All she wanted was to get home to Josie’s. When they got to the end of the lane, she said a quick goodbye to Kit and ran across the lawn. Once on the porch, Lucy glanced back over her shoulder. Kit was still standing there, staring after her and scratching her head.

  Chapter 21

  Lucy sat on the floor and leaned against the side of her bed. She needed time to think, time to figure this all out. She hadn’t really caught it the first time Colin’s dad had yelled the name. But her brain had. It had tried to send her a message—she just hadn’t let it through. It wasn’t till she heard it again, and Kit had asked who Scotty was, that Lucy felt her memory kick into overdrive. The word Scotty. It was back. She’d heard it before. A couple times.

  The first was when she’d eavesdropped on her dad’s phone call. He’d been talking to a Scotty. Then there was that note from the box in her closet, the one her mom had written. The name had been written on that as well. She’d already connected those two Scottys, assumed they were the same person; how many Scottys could there be out there? They had to be the same one: Esther.

  She thought back to that phone call, tried as hard as she could to remember it. What did her dad say?

  “Part of me wants to forget the whole thing…How do you think she’s going to react…How do you think he’s going to react?…No, we’ll do it together.”

  Forget what? And who is she? And he, for that matter? Did Dad even know Esther? Well enough to do something together? Do what?

  And the note from her mom:

  Talk to Scotty…figure out what to do together…please forgive me.

  Again with the together. What could they possibly have to do together?

  Lucy’s head was starting to throb. What did it all mean? And why did she have such a sick feeling about it all? If she was living in a soap opera, she would think they were having an affair. No way. Not possible. She must be spending too much time with Kit. Or reading too many Harlequins.

  She got up to stretch and walked over to the window. On the way, her eyes landed on the ceramic bunnies on the dresser. The big one was still in Josie’s drawer under her pantyhose. She hadn’t thought about the necklaces in a while—there’d been so much other stuff going on.

  She leaned her forehead against the glass and stared out over the front lawn. Had her mom stood here and done the same thing? Did she use to hide out in this room to be alone and try to figure things out? Especially after Dean broke it off and abandoned her? Was this where she decided to leave home and ruin Ellen’s life? How could she have chosen Esther when her family needed her here? And all to help with—well, there was no pregnancy, so an adoption? Could Kit be right? It made no sense. She was missing something.

  The glass was getting warm. Lucy straightened and stepped away from the window. Her eyes swung back to the collection of bunnies. She got that pinging sensation again. Snippets of things Esther had said about her mom and Dean seemed to echo in her head. Things like how he called off the wedding because he got cold feet, and how devastated her mom had been, and how Esther had persuaded her to come help with her pregnancy, that the change of scenery would do her good. Mom had talked about Esther’s pregnancy in her letters home to Ellen. If there was no pregnancy, that meant she was lying.

  “No,” Lucy said out loud. “Mom’s not a liar.” Esther had to have been pregnant. There was no way her mom would have left for anything less. There was no way she would have left without a good reason. “Not—” Lucy’s brain paused, like it was shifting things around, putting them in order till they fit. Almost like a puzzle. Click. “Unless she had to.”

  What if her mom hadn’t lied about the pregnancy? What if she just lied about who was pregnant? What if she was the one who was pregnant?

  Her heart felt like it was skipping every other beat. Or maybe it was doubling up; she couldn’t tell anymore. Lucy sank into the worn, velvet armchair. Even though she wasn’t standing, she felt dizzy. She drew a deep breath in through her nose and let it slowly out through her mouth. Back in grade six, her mom had told her to do that when Lucy had been waiting in line to audition for the honour choir and she’d thought she was going to faint.

  Kit’s words sounded in her head: Maybe they weren’t married. People can be all judgey about that sort of thing. She was right. People could be all judgey. Would her mom have been worried about what other people thought? Maybe. Maybe she was more worried about what her family thought. What her mother thought.

  Her mom and grandmother weren’t close, not from what Lucy ever saw. But had they been at one time? Would Mom have been ashamed to tell her? Afraid? Did she think Gran Irene would never forgive her? That she would disown her?

  Kit’s words sounded in her head again, this time from the Co-op parking lot: We might just have to accept that it’s something we may never have the answer to.

  She lifted her hair off her sweaty neck. Maybe she had read too much Nancy Drew, or watched too much Columbo. Or she was just exhausted and her mind was going all out of control. Closing her eyes, she could actually feel the thoughts zooming around in her head, like they were shooting across her brain and bouncing off the sides of her skull. Her eyes flew open. Colin.

  She thought of the first time she’d met Colin and had a conversation with him. There had been something familiar about him. She had thought he reminded her of Jean Pierre from clarinet class, but perhaps it hadn’t been that at all.

  It was time to talk to somebody, but who? Her dad, for whatever reason, had lied to her. Esther? She figured she was lying too. Josie. It was time to talk to Josie.

  After a few more deep breaths—in through the nose, out through the mouth—Lucy left her room to go search for Josie. She found her in the side garden. Lucy tapped her on the shoulder. “Can I talk to you?” she mouthed.

  Josie nodded, took off her gardening gloves, and pointed to the bottom porch step. They both sat, and Lucy waited while Josie pulled a cigarette from under the ribbon on her sunhat and lit it.

  Only wanting to tell this story once, Lucy reminded herself to speak slowly and carefully enunciate her words. An afterthought, she ran up and grabbed the notepad and pencil off the table, just in case, for backup.

  She took a final deep breath and began. “Kit showed me some letters Mom wrote to Ellen.”

  Josie nodded and took a drag.

  “She said she was sorry for leaving, but she was going to help Esther through her bad pregnancy,” Lucy continued, then waited for a reaction. Josie didn’t seem to have one. Worried she hadn’t understood, Lucy wrote, “Esther had a bad pregnancy.” Something changed in Josie’s expression but she still didn’t say anything, so Lucy added a question mark after the word pregnancy.

  Josie’s head was making little shakes. “I’m not the one who should be talking to you about this.”

  You’re all I’ve got at the moment. “Esther wasn’t pregnant, was she?” This time she didn’t wait for a reaction. She put a big X through pregnant.

  After a pause, Josie finally said, “No, she wasn’t.”

  Lucy’s stomach dropped like an elevator. I was right. Part of her had hoped that Josie would cut her off at some point, tell her she was crazy, off her rocker, nuttier than a fruitcake. And then Lucy would tell her about the phone call, and the note, and the date on the photo. But none of that happened.

  Her mouth felt dry and she had to swallow a couple times before continuing. “Esther’s not Colin’s mother,” Lucy said. “My mom is. Was.” Josie wouldn’t have been able to tell, but her voice had cracked on almost every word.

  A
look passed across Josie face, more a cringe, like she was in pain. She nodded.

  “That means…” Lucy’s back went rigid and her breathing turned shallow. “Colin’s my brother. Stepbrother. No, half. Half-brother.”

  Josie frowned and lifted Lucy’s chin. “Say it again.”

  Her hand shaking slightly, Lucy wrote, “Colin’s my brother.”

  It seemed to take Josie a long time to respond. She sucked on her cigarette and exhaled a giant billow of smoke. “I really wish your father was here.”

  It was Lucy’s turn to take a long time to respond. “Why?” she asked, her tone flat. She was pretty sure her dad must know all this. He’d kept it from her, and she didn’t how she felt about that yet.

  “They wanted to tell you together,” Josie said. “That was their plan, anyway.”

  Lucy closed her eyes. The phone call. Now it made sense. That’s what they were going to do together—break the news. “Dad. How long has he known? Forever?”

  Josie looked puzzled. Probably because Lucy’s brain was working a mile a minute—she knew she wasn’t speaking clearly. She wrote, “Dad. How long?”

  “Not long,” Josie said gently. “Just before your mom passed.”

  The note. Was that part of her deathbed confession? How dramatic. She knew that was a bratty way to think about it, but she didn’t care at the moment.

  “Did you know?” Lucy asked.

  “No.” Josie flicked her ash. “Shortly after your Gran Irene passed, Esther wrote me a letter explaining everything. Then your father came to see me, told me how he and Esther had been trying to figure out what to do. They hatched this fairy-tale plan to bring you here, let you meet Colin, let you guys get to know each other so that when they finally spilled the beans you two would”—she paused and shrugged—“maybe be all happy about it.”

  Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s a pretty stupid plan. What if we hated each other? Then what? They weren’t going to tell us?”

  Josie just sighed heavily.

  “Or even worse,” Lucy went on. “What if we liked each other. Like, liked liked? Ew!”

  A look of confusion settled on Josie’s face. Lucy started to write out what she meant but then stopped. She didn’t feel like explaining it. “Never mind,” she said.

  “I told them they were livin’ in a dream world,” Josie said. “But they weren’t listening to some batty old woman. In the end, all I could do was offer to help any way I could.”

  Off in the distance, the horn from a fishing boat sounded. Lucy leaned back and rested her elbows on the step behind her. There was something, a piece of wood or a chunk of peeling paint, digging into her arm. She pushed down harder until she could feel it almost breaking the skin. “I think it was selfish,” Lucy said.

  Josie reached over and turned Lucy’s head. “Say it again.”

  “My mom. I think she was being selfish,” Lucy said clearly. “She wrecked everybody’s life then left us to put it all back together.”

  “She probably thought she was doing the right thing.”

  “The right thing would have been to take the secret with her,” Lucy said.

  “You don’t really think that, do you?” Josie gently patted Lucy’s knee. “And if your mother hadn’t told your father, Esther would have.”

  “How do you know?” Lucy couldn’t imagine that Esther would want to do that. Reveal to everyone, including Colin, that he’s not her son? “With Mom gone, it was really only her secret to keep.”

  “Well, there was Dan. But in her letter she said it was time to deal with everything,” Josie said. “That’s why she moved back.”

  Lucy pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. Everything was such a giant mess.

  “I think we should call your dad,” Josie announced.

  Dad. She was mad at him for keeping this from her. She wondered how he was going to wiggle his way out of this one.

  “Shall we?” Josie butted out her cigarette and stood.

  Lucy nodded and pulled herself up from the step. She felt so tired. Then she stopped and turned. “So you didn’t invite me here for the summer. That was their idea.”

  “True.” Josie licked her thumb and rubbed some orange Popsicle off Lucy’s jaw. “But I never dreamed I would have you, Laura’s daughter, for a whole summer.” Josie put her arm around her shoulders and nestled her snug against her chest. “I felt like I’d won the purse at Bingo.”

  Lucy buried her face in Josie’s bumblebee-patterned gardening smock. The weird mentholly smell didn’t bother her anymore.

  Lucy’s hands were sweaty as she dialled. She could feel her finger slip when she stuck it in the hole. As soon as her dad said hello, she melted into tears.

  “Lucy? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She grabbed some Kleenex off the top of the fridge and noisily blew her nose.

  He waited until she finished. “Pumpkin?”

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she hiccupped.

  “You don’t sound okay.”

  Silence. Then, “I know about Colin,” she said.

  Silence again. “How?”

  “There was this photo, and then I—” She stopped. “Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess not,” he sighed. “I’m so sorry you found out—well, that you found out…not from me. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

  “Yeah. So I heard.”

  “You must be pretty angry.”

  “I’m more angry I didn’t find out from Mom.”

  “Look. I can be there in two hours.”

  “No,” Lucy sniffed. “It’s fine.” She wasn’t sure if she even wanted to see him.

  “It’s not fine. We should talk about this,” he said softly. “We need to talk about this.”

  “I’m kind of talked out right now.”

  “How about if I come up tomorrow? I have to be in court first thing in the morning, but I should be able to be there by lunchtime.”

  She opened her mouth to say no again, but then the tears came back. She unravelled the balled-up Kleenex. “Okay.”

  “And don’t worry, pumpkin. Everything’s going to be fine.” He paused. “Is there, uh, anything I can help with now? Anything you want to ask?”

  Lucy didn’t answer.

  “Okay then. You just sit tight until I get there.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Aren’t you mad at Mom? Aren’t you mad she lied to you? To us?”

  After a few seconds he said, “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

  After another few seconds, Lucy said, “Is there a difference between lying and not telling someone something?”

  “There could be.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did she keep it a secret? Why didn’t she tell us?”

  Lucy listened to him breathing. “She probably had what she felt were important reasons at the time,” he said.

  “Do you think she thought we wouldn’t understand?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sad she never gave us the chance to find out.”

  “Me too. See ya tomorrow?”

  Lucy nodded into the phone. “Okay. Oh, and wait, Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yours and Esther’s plan? It was the worst plan ever.”

  He paused again. “You’re probably right. Unfortunately, they don’t write any how-to books covering this kind of thing. Trust me. I checked.”

  She knew he was trying to make a joke, but she didn’t bite. “Like did you and Esther actually think we would be like, ‘Awesome. We’re brother and sister. Your mom is my mom. My mom is your mom. How great is that?’”

  “That would definitely make things easier.”

  “Dad. That’
s not funny.”

  “I know, I know,” he sighed. “Forgive me. Love you, pumpkin.”

  “Love you back,” she mumbled, almost against her will.

  That evening, Lucy stayed in her room and didn’t go down for supper. “I’m not hungry,” she said when Josie stuck her head around the door.

  She lay on her bed staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours. How could Mom have a baby and then just leave it? Give it away. How could Esther keep someone else’s baby and tell everyone it was hers?

  Rolling over, Lucy reached her arm under the bed and felt for the corner of her suitcase. She slid it out just enough to dig into the side pocket and pull out her mom’s passport. Shortly after her mom died, Lucy found it in the kitchen drawer. She kept it with her because it was the most recent picture, snapped only a few weeks before she’d gone into the hospital. Her parents had been planning a trip to Portugal that fall. She flipped it open and stared at the photo. Sometimes people told her she looked like her mom. Ellen did. Esther did too, said she had her mouth. Lucy wasn’t so sure. Actually, the more she studied the photo, the more she could see Colin. The shape of the eyes, and they had the same nose. But maybe she was just imagining it.

  A burning feeling began to inch its way up the back of her throat and she flung the passport across the room. She heard it hit the wall and fall to the floor. After a second, she jumped from the bed and scooped it up, checking for any damage. Frantically, she smoothed out the bent page as a tear dripped down her face and splashed onto the laminated photo. She crawled into bed clutching the passport to her chest and finally fell asleep.

  When Lucy woke the next morning, she snuck out while Josie was standing at the counter eating her bran-coated marshmallows. She took the road instead of the lane to avoid Colin and Kit, who would probably already be at the hole.

  She found Esther in the kitchen, washing dishes. Lucy raised her hand to knock on the screen door, but Esther happened to look up right at that moment. “Hi, honey,” she said. “Colin’s not here.”

  “That’s okay. I came to see you.”

  Esther raised her eyebrows. “Oh?” She turned off the tap.