The Big Dig

by Lisa Harrington

  “To pack your stuff.”

  “Pack my stuff?”

  “You didn’t think I was just going to leave you here, did you?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “I assumed you’d be happy. Going home early. You didn’t want to come in the first place, remember?”

  “Yeah, I know, but—”

  “Listen, pumpkin.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I think you should come home. We need time, just the two of us, to figure this out, get our heads around it. We need to decide how all this is going to fit into our lives, how we want it to fit into our lives. And I don’t think we, or you, can do that here.” He paused and looked over his shoulder at Colin’s house. “Not with it all around you every day.”

  There was something about his tone that made Lucy frown and tilt her head. There was an edge to it.

  Suddenly an imagined mental image swam before her eyes. Her dad standing at her mom’s bedside while she wrote him notes explaining everything—explaining Colin. Was that really how she did it? Lucy had only found that one note. Were there others? Hopefully her mom had told him when she could still talk. What was it like for him when he found out? Like her, he probably would have been just fine with this staying a secret forever. He must have felt awful—to be blindsided when it was really too late to do anything about it.

  “Okay, Dad,” she said quietly.

  “Good.” His face filled with relief.

  “It’s just that I can’t go right now, like today.” The thought of rushing through a goodbye to Josie and possibly not even being able to say goodbye to Colin and Kit….

  “Can I have a week, maybe?”

  “A week?”

  “Yeah.”

  He gave her a tired smile and placed a hand on her hair. “To get your affairs in order?”

  She nodded. She knew Colin was going to have a hard time adjusting to what he had just found out, harder than her. But like it or not, he was part of her family now, and she might be the only one who could help. She had no idea how, but some tiny voice was telling her she should stay and at least try. Maybe the voice was her mom’s.

  “I guess you could call it that.”

  “Should we head back to Josie’s?”

  “You go. I’m going to track down Kit. Who hopefully tracked down Colin.”

  “Okay. Good luck.” He hugged her tight. “See you in one week.”

  “Love you, Dad.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Lucy could see a flash of pink through the trees—Kit’s T-shirt. She was crouched down behind a bush a little way away from the hole. Lucy ducked down and joined her.

  “I just got here,” Kit said. “I checked the beach first. Thought he’d go there to contemplate life and stuff. But then I found him here. Digging. I didn’t know what to do, so I’m spying.”

  Lucy spied too for a moment. “He’s not digging. He’s putting the dirt back in the hole.”

  “That’s what I thought he was doing, but I told myself I was probably just hallucinating.” She looked over at Lucy. “Why would he do that? He spent forever digging that hole.”

  “I’m not sure,” Lucy said slowly. Then she backed up into the trees and stood. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “To get some shovels.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to help him fill in that hole.”

  Kit’s jaw dropped. “How many times have I told you, I have very delicate hands.”

  “Exactly zero times,” Lucy said folding her arms.

  “Fine.” Kit hung her head in defeat. “Let’s go get some shovels. And gloves,” she added.

  Chapter 23

  Lucy and Kit made their way across the field to the hole, dragging behind them two shovels they’d found in Colin’s barn. He didn’t look up; he didn’t say a word; he just kept shovelling. The girls joined in, and for hours they worked in silence. The only sound was of dirt and rock as it slid onto and then off the metal shovels.

  The sun was beginning to set and they still weren’t even close to being finished. Lucy’s shirt was plastered to her back and she could feel the sweat running down her arms and dripping off her elbows. She glanced over at Kit and wondered if she was thinking the same thing as her. Was Colin ever going to stop shovelling? Or speak, for that matter?

  Dusk streaked oranges, pinks, and reds across the sky, which was beautiful but also brought the bugs out in full force. Lucy and Kit started swatting at mosquitoes like they were doing a dance.

  It was as if the slapping sounds made Colin realize they were still there. He looked up. “Thanks,” he said.

  Kit let out a huge breath. “Finally! I don’t think I’ve been quiet for this long in my whole life!”

  Colin ignored her and rested his chin on the handle of his shovel. “Guess I’m not going to finish this tonight.”

  Lucy chewed on her lip for a second. “We can get a fresh start tomorrow morning. That’ll give us the whole day. The three of us should be able to get it done.” She didn’t have to look to know Kit was glaring at her.

  “Sure,” Kit said half-heartedly.

  “You should go home. Get some rest,” Lucy said to Colin.

  “Home,” he scoffed. “Yeah, right.” He stabbed his shovel into the nearby pile of dirt and started walking off in the direction of the beach.

  “Wait.” Lucy ran up behind him. “Do you want some, I dunno, company?”

  He shook his head. “No. No thanks,” and continued on his way.

  Lucy watched him until his outline was swallowed up by the darkness.

  Kit came and stood beside her. “Don’t worry about him,” she said. “The beach is good place to think about things. He needs a place like that right now.”

  Josie’s Tuna Noodle Bake sat like a brick in Lucy’s stomach—even more than most of her cooking.

  “Don’t bother finishing that,” Josie said, taking away Lucy’s plate. “Let’s have strawberries and ice cream out on the porch. I got a new Harlequin. I’ll let you read it first.”

  Lucy nodded. She couldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t imagine anything she’d rather do at the moment.

  Josie hadn’t mentioned Colin or asked about what happened at Esther’s. Lucy assumed her dad had filled her in on everything before he left and that she was probably waiting to see if Lucy would bring it up first. She wasn’t going to.

  Later, as Lucy was getting ready for bed, there was a light knock. “Come in,” she called, then winced. How do I keep forgetting? She went over and pulled open her door.

  Josie was standing there holding the missing ceramic bunny from her pantyhose drawer. She tilted back the head and took out the velvet pouch. “These are for you,” she said. “I came across them a while back when I was housecleaning.”

  Housecleaning? Really?

  “I was sneaky and took them out of your room,” Josie continued. “I’d forgotten they were there. I didn’t want you to find them and start asking questions.” She made a face as she stared down at the pouch. “I probably didn’t even need to, though. Most likely you would never have found them. You don’t seem like the snooping type.”

  Lucy dropped her eyes to the swirly roses on the rug. No point bursting her bubble now.

  “These were your mother’s. She bought them as bridesmaid gifts for her wedding to Colin’s father,” Josie said, placing the pouch in Lucy’s hand.

  About to close her fingers around the pouch and say thanks, Lucy realized that she should be acting curious, like she didn’t have a clue what this was. She plastered on a puzzled frown and asked, “What are they?”

  “Open it.”

  Lucy unsnapped the pouch and slid out the necklaces. “Ooooh. Pretty,” she said, pretending to be all surprised.

  “They’re emeralds. Emerald was
always your mother’s favourite.”

  It was? Suddenly she remembered her mom’s dinner ring. It was a square emerald surrounded by little diamonds. Her dad had given it to Lucy after her mom died, but it didn’t fit and was a bit too fancy for a fourteen-year-old. She’d just tucked in the back of her jewellery box and forgotten all about it until just now.

  “Maybe you can think of something creative to do with them,” Josie said. “Something your mother would have approved of.”

  “Okay,” Lucy said, nodding. “I will. I promise.”

  Kit was sitting on the grass, scraping the yellow middle out of a daisy with her fingernail. “Do you think he’ll show?”

  “Yup.” Lucy sounded more sure than she felt.

  “I wonder how his night was.”

  “Not good, I’m guessing.”

  “Do you think he talked to them or anything?”

  “He probably went straight to his room.”

  Kit wound the daisy stem around her finger. “Same as my mom. I told her the whole story, like everything I heard at Esther’s. She got this look like she was melting. I thought she was going to faint.”

  “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “She went to her room and stayed there for hours,” Kit said, leaning back on her elbows. “I gave up waiting and went to bed.”

  Lucy didn’t say anything. She kept watching the break in the trees where Colin usually appeared.

  “I bet she spent some of that time rereading those letters,” Kit added after a moment.

  “You’re right. I bet she did. They have a whole different meaning now.”

  “I have a confession,” Lucy started. “In the beginning I was convinced the fight had to be your mom’s fault, that there was no way it could have been my mom’s fault. I was wrong, and I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I thought your mom ripped us off by taking that desk, and robbed me of my inheritance. Call it even?”

  Lucy smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

  “Though you probably kind of wish that was how it had really gone down,” Kit said.

  “No kidding.”

  Minutes later, Colin did appear. There was no “Hey” this morning, only a nod in their direction as he yanked his shovel from the pile.

  Kit pulled a pair of pink mittens from her knapsack and slipped them on. Lucy rolled her eyes and handed her one of the shovels.

  They worked in relative quiet except for some scattered bursts from Kit.

  “It’s way easier filling it in than digging it out, huh, Colin?”

  Colin shrugged.

  “I may sign up for softball. After this my arm muscles will be massive.”

  Colin shot her a doubtful look.

  “Try this bulldozer move I invented.” Kit demonstrated how she pushed the dirt over to the hole instead of lifting and flinging. Lucy actually did start doing it like that.

  “Hey, Colin! Guess you can start calling me cuz now.”

  Lucy held her breath.

  Colin made a face.

  Josie brought them a pitcher of Kool-Aid with a stack of plastic glasses. Colin mouthed the word thanks. Lucy didn’t think that counted as speaking.

  They didn’t finish filling in the hole that day. But by suppertime the next day, they were done.

  Colin stared at the large patch of fresh, dark dirt. “It looks like a giant grave.”

  Lucy kept quiet and waited. She was hoping Colin would say something else. He’d literally uttered fewer than a half-dozen words in the last three days.

  “Nice symbolism,” Kit said, nodding her head in approval. “Like we were burying something, don’t you think?”

  Lucy sighed. Sometimes she wished Kit would just stop talking.

  “Yeah. My life,” he said dully.

  Exhausted, Lucy dropped her shovel and sat down on the grass. She tried to think of something to say, something to make him feel better, but there was only one phrase that kept repeating over and over in her brain. “I’m really sorry, Colin.”

  He frowned. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I started digging around,” she said, then motioned towards the hole. “Not your kind of digging. The other kind.”

  “Neither kind of digging mattered,” Kit inserted. “Yours.” She looked at Colin. “Because, well, we’ve just spent the last few days, you know, undigging.” She turned to Lucy. “And yours, because they said they were going to tell you guys anyway. It would have come out, whether you’d been digging around or not.”

  Lucy had to admit, Kit sort of had a point. “What happens now?” she asked Colin. “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, it’s not like I’m going to pack my bags and set off to find my real parents. They’re both dead.” His voice was cold and flat.

  There was an uncomfortable stretch of quiet.

  Until Kit broke it. “But you’re not going to do anything silly, right? You’re not going to run away just to run away.”

  “Nope,” Colin said. “Nowhere to go.”

  “Okay.” Kit seemed reassured. “I’m outta here. Big Cove Camp next week. Mom’s taking me shopping. I need a new sleeping bag.”

  “Good luck,” Lucy said.

  Lucy and Colin sat quietly and listened to the drone from the fishing boats as they returned to the wharf after their day out on the water.

  Colin laid back on the grass and covered his eyes with his arm. “I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, what was the point? Like what was the point of telling us? It could have just gone on and on. We didn’t need to ever know.”

  “I’m not going to lie. I thought that too.”

  “I think they’re more concerned with making themselves feel better than us. Well, my mom—I mean, Esther, anyway. I can’t speak for your dad.”

  She didn’t necessarily agree, but she knew he was in no mood to hear that. “What’s it like at home? Are you guys speaking or anything?”

  “Not if I can help it. Though last night when I woke up, I did go in and ask M—Esther why they bothered.”

  “What she say?”

  “She said it would have to come out sooner or later. She said my birth certificate has my last name as Mosher.”

  Mosher. Mom’s maiden name.

  “She said so far she’d been lucky. When she registered me for school, she told them she’d been widowed but had recently remarried. That she wanted me to go by Conway, not Mosher. They bought it. But she knew her luck wouldn’t last forever.”

  Lucy nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t think luck ever does.”

  The next morning, when Lucy crossed the field to what used to be the hole, Colin was already there. Something had told her he would be, even though the hole was no more. She stood beside him and surveyed the vast circle of lumpy dirt. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  Kit came up behind them. “I wondered if you guys would be here,” she said. “I almost didn’t come. My arms are killin’ me. I had to soak in the tub for an hour.”

  “I’d rather not stay in that house,” Colin said, picking up a rock and whipping it into the trees. Lucy heard his elbow crack with the force of his throw.

  “You’re still mad, huh,” Kit said.

  Colin looked at her. “You don’t think I should be?”

  “I didn’t say that. But I mean really, you can be mad all you want—that’s not going to get you anywhere, though. It’s not like you’re going to be able to go the rest of your life never speaking to them again.”

  Lucy raised her eyebrows. It always surprised her how reasonable Kit sometimes sounded.

  Colin didn’t answer and picked up another rock.

  “Do you remember that time you told me everyone deserves a second chance?” Lucy said.

  He looked at her sideways. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d s
ay.”

  Kit whispered to Lucy, “I remember. He did say that.”

  “I know,” Lucy whispered. “Let it go, though.”

  “So, what do you guys wanna do now?” Kit said.

  No one said anything.

  “I think we should do something with Colin’s hole.” Kit put her hands on her hips and looked around. “Maybe get some big rocks and put them around the border.”

  “You guys do what you want,” Colin said. “It’s not my hole anymore.”

  “Come on, Lucy,” Kit said, prying up a nearby rock. “Help me.”

  Lucy couldn’t think of a reason not to, so she started lugging rocks over to the border of the hole with Kit.

  Colin watched them for a while, and then, either out of guilt or boredom, started to lug rocks over too. It went faster then. They had almost the entire circle completed. “You only need about a dozen more,” he said, stepping back and wiping his hands on his T-shirt.

  “You giving up?” Lucy said.

  “No. I gotta go. Dad—Dan—is taking me to look at boats.”

  “Cool,” Lucy said, trying not to look surprised.

  After he left, Kit said, “Do you think they’re trying to bribe him?”

  “He had to sell his boat for the move. A new one was always part of the plan, though not till next summer.” Lucy bent down to adjust the position of her last rock. “So yeah. It’s probably a bribe.”

  “Take it if you can get it,” Kit said cheerfully.

  The next couple days passed and Lucy could see subtle changes in Colin. Things were certainly not back to normal, but there were fewer prickly silences, fewer strained conversations, between them, anyway. She had no idea what was going on at home.

  Josie kept a constant eye on her, always shoving food at her. Her dad called every night to ask how she was doing. She insisted to everyone she was fine. And for the most part, she was. There were times she felt sad, and mad, but then she would just turn her focus to Colin—it was way worse for him. For some reason that made it easier to act like she was okay. Though sometimes she wished she could be more like him. He didn’t act for anybody.

  “Well, I think that looks great!” Kit exclaimed, standing back to admire her handiwork. She had been constantly bringing baskets of assorted flowers that she’d stolen from her mom’s garden and transplanting them into the “anti-hole,” which is what they called it now. Lucy wondered how long it was going to take Ellen to notice all her flowers were missing. She was going to freak.