She loves the pink sleeveless dress, even though it accentuates things she doesn’t have. It is the 1950s; the cars have curves and the women are supposed to, so it fits tightly around her chest and waist and flows out around her non-existent hips. Vivian wonders if it is his secretary who has the duty of selecting her birthday gifts, or his new wife. She does a twirl for Mother, whose only remark is that it makes her look common. It’s clear who Mother thinks sent the gift.
Father started a new family soon after he and Mother divorced. Mother insists on making Vivian visit his Vancouver home for at least a few days during each school vacation. Mother says it’s good for her and it will prevent Father from forgetting that he also has a daughter to think about.
Two little boys and a wife much younger than Mother. The first time Vivian was sent to stay with them, she felt quite afraid of meeting Mother’s replacement. It is bearable though. The boys think only of themselves and her stepmother is hardly the villainous hag depicted in fairy tales.
Unlike Father, Ruth is always very welcoming to Vivian. She’s in her twenties (which outrages Mother), and she treats Vivian as more of a friend than a stepdaughter. They chat about fashion and music and movies. Ruth is petite and fine-boned with bright blue eyes that are almost as striking as her wavy auburn hair. It is Ruth who teaches Vivian about the importance of presence, and Ruth who tells her that a woman can be noticed without being spectacularly beautiful if she exudes confidence and learns how to dress well.
Father had been successful in Stapleton but he seems even more so in his grand city home. It’s an imposing stone building on a street lined with chestnut trees. A little pathway weaves through the landscaped garden and large lawn, hidden from the street by a low wall and tall, sculpted bushes. The house is so large it has wings and a grand central staircase connecting them.
When Vivian visits, Father works late during the week and golfs all weekend. She hasn’t determined if this is his usual habit or he’s avoiding her presence. They are rarely alone together. It doesn’t hurt her particularly; she’s used to his ways, until she sees him with the boys. The youngest one is still toddling, and his big brother is only slightly older. When Father comes home, he grabs them and throws them up and spins them around. She has no recollection of a time when he was ever as enthusiastic about greeting her.
Vivian approaches Ruth when the two of them are alone. “I want to talk to Father privately but I’m not sure when he’ll be available.”
Ruth treads around the topic as carefully as Vivian. “Oh, I know it’s difficult. He’s always so busy. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you have a chance before you leave.”
Ruth keeps her word. Towards the end of the week, the five of them are having dinner and Father seems in a relatively good mood. The boys are fidgeting and he hasn’t snapped at either of them. The moment the little one loses interest in his cut-up chunks of food, Ruth yanks them both away from the table. “Come on,” she says to their confused little faces. “Let’s see if those clothes Grandma sent actually fit you before she calls and asks.”
Father barely looks up as the three of them stumble off with minor protests from the boys. He pushes meat and vegetables onto his fork and into his mouth and doesn’t acknowledge Vivian. She doesn’t know how much longer they’ll have alone, so she gets right to the point.
“I’ve been offered a place at university, to study law,” she says, “but I need some help with my student expenses.”
He puts down his fork and frowns.
“You don’t need a degree. You’ll be married soon.”
“I can be a married lawyer.”
“Your husband will provide for you.”
“Please, Father.”
“If you’re so set on providing for yourself, you can make your own way to university.”
She slams her fist on the table and her father frowns at the disturbance, so unbecoming of a young lady. His sons rush back into the room, pushing each other to get through the doorway first. Ruth’s voice peals out from another room and they race back out, giggling at each other.
Vivian looks back at Father but he refuses to meet her gaze. “Will you be putting them through university?”
“If they want to go. Someday they’ll have their own families to provide for.”
He looks over at Charlie, who has darted back in to grab another piece of bread. He is the oldest and chunkiest. Strong for his age, and not stupid, but not brilliant either.
“Charlie will probably do better going straight into business,” Father says.
“Why can’t I choose?”
“Because you will have a husband and children to take care of.”
It is crushing to hear his words but Vivian was expecting this rejection from him. Mother was right about one thing. Her regular visits to Father’s home have made it possible for her to remind him of his duties to his first child.
“I came up with a proposal that might convince you. One that would be mutually beneficial.”
Father leans back in his chair and smirks, as though a high school girl couldn’t possibly know the meaning of the word “proposal” unless it is related to marriage.
“Go on,” he says smugly.
“You cover my university fees and I won’t tell Ruth about the woman you visit on Cedar Drive.”
“She’s been stealing from me.”
“Who?”
Vivian points at the woman who follows her around her home. She wants to say the woman with the terrible hair, but she’s forgotten the name of it, that particular form of hair catastrophe. The woman grimaces like she’s just been slapped and Todd throws up his hands.
“What have you lost this time?”
“My gold necklace and I didn’t lose it. She stole it!”
Vivian is so angry her voice is hoarse. She’s right. She knows she is. That woman took it. She’s a thief. Perm, that’s it. She has a terrible perm.
“Don’t talk to Angie like that!” he says. “You probably left it somewhere.”
“I’ll see if it’s in the bedroom,” Angie says nervously.
She dashes off. Todd looks around the kitchen as though it might pop out from the fruit bowl or the knife block. He stops, turns. He’s holding it in his hand. The gold chain is dangling from his hand.
“You left it by the toaster, Vivian.”
“No, I didn’t! Why would I leave it there?”
“Why would anyone else?”
He isn’t being kind. His tone isn’t kind. He walks over to her and opens up her hand and gently drips the gold into her palm. “Here’s your precious necklace.” Then he walks over to Angie and apologizes to her. Vivian looks down at the gold in her palm. She has nothing to feel guilty about. She worked for it, she tells herself.
Father agrees to her terms. He will pay for her university education in exchange for her silence about the woman on Cedar Drive. Vivian is surprised he gives in so easily until she realizes that fighting with her would be more interaction than he could bear. He has only one question for her.
“How did you find out?”
“It wasn’t difficult. I pay more attention to you than you do to me.”
She doesn’t tell him this, but it was Ruth who unintentionally helped her uncover his big secret. Father’s study was strictly off-limits, an indication that there was something in there worth finding. Vivian felt sure that if she could gain access to his study, she could dig up something that would cost him more than her tuition fees.
Ruth was her way in, Ruth who seemed to be forever trying to impress her. Vivian chose an afternoon when the boys were being particularly rowdy and asked her for a quiet space with a large desk where she could finish a school project. Ruth flitted around the house and made a few suggestions, but Vivian politely declined all of them for various reasons until they reached the study. Ruth disappeared into the master bedroom and came back with a key. “Don’t move anything and don’t tell your father!” she said, seemingly excited that she and Vi
vian were doing something they shouldn’t.
As soon as Ruth left the room, Vivian rifled carefully through her father’s papers and noticed only one detail that seemed out of place. On the inside cover of one of his notebooks, he’d written in tiny scrawl; 403 Cedar. Wed. 12 pm.
When Wednesday came around, Vivian told Ruth she was going out to meet a school friend. Instead, she made her way over to Cedar Drive. It was a nice house, not as impressive as her father’s but still grander than any in Stapleton. She arrived at 11:45, giving herself enough time to find a discreet hiding place. The homes were all large and fenced or walled. There were mature trees with thick trunks spaced at regular intervals along the street, but it would look suspicious if she were spotted lurking behind one of them.
As she was debating where to position herself, she heard a car coming. Dark green and polished, just like Father’s. She turned and began walking in the other direction, hoping to slip by unnoticed. The car stopped, a door opened and closed and footsteps crunched gravel. She dared to glance back. There he was on the front steps of 403 Cedar and opening the door for him was a woman.
The scene itself didn’t really shock her. What shocked her was how plain the woman looked compared to his current wife. She was almost disappointed that her father didn’t have higher standards when it came to his mistresses. The vehicle in the driveway was a sparkling red Cadillac Eldorado. Vivian didn’t know a lot about vehicles, but she knew Cadillacs weren’t cheap. Vivian slipped away as her father stepped inside the house.
She returned to the house on Cedar Drive the next day. There were no cars parked out front and no sign that anyone was home. Vivian walked confidently up to the front door and knocked as if she had business there. She slid her hand into the mailbox pinned to the wall. Inside was an envelope addressed to Mr. W. Langston. So, there was a husband. She slipped the letter back in the box and knocked again, for the sake of any nosy neighbours. She waited a moment, then walked back down the driveway.
Father was still at work when she returned to his house. Ruth greeted her with a warm smile and drew her into the living room so she could hear her latest record. “Jo Stafford,” Ruth said excitedly. “Such a beautiful voice.” Ruth had played it enough times already that she could sing along, swinging her hips.
Vivian sat while her stepmother slowly waltzed around the room. Ruth was the type of person who could be completely entranced by the beauty of something, a trait which Vivian both envied and loathed. Vivian waited for the song to end before asking the question.
“Do you know a Mr. Langston?”
Ruth nodded. “Yes. He partnered with your father on a development of some sort, but the two of them couldn’t see eye to eye on anything, so they went their separate ways. I suppose they’re competitors now.”
So that was the attraction of the plain woman.
“Why do you ask?” Ruth asked.
“Oh ... a friend at school. He’s her uncle. She thought I might know him.”
Ruth smiled and picked out another record. Vivian couldn’t pity her. She didn’t want to know about her father’s bad behaviour. She was doing what she had to do. It wasn’t fair; it simply ... was.
“Don’t you point the finger at me! I did what was needed!”
A familiar woman rushes over to her bedside and takes her hand. “It’s alright Vivian! It was just a bad dream.”
Vivian sits up in bed and stares at the woman’s bedraggled curls.
“Why don’t we get you up now seeing as you’re awake?”
The woman puts her hands behind Vivian’s shoulders and gently pulls her forward.
“Lift your arms up and we’ll put on one of your nice blouses.”
Vivian does as she’s told. The woman’s cold skin brushes against hers as she pulls off her nightshirt, slips a bra around her chest and pulls her weak sagging arms through the sleeves of a crimson blouse. This is what old is. Humiliating.
“What about ...” She can’t remember the name. “The girl?”
“Do you mean Elena?”
“Yes. How do you know her?”
“I don’t know her. You ask about her from time to time, wanting to know how she is.”
“How is she?”
The woman pauses. “Your husband says you don’t need to be thinking about her because it gets you all worked up and I agree with him. Leave the past in the past.”
“But it isn’t in the past. It’s ...”
She wants to continue, but she doesn’t know what she means. The passage of time is no longer clear to her.
The woman changes the subject. “Your husband told me your granddaughter is starting university. You must be very proud.”
Vivian doesn’t answer. She has no recollection of having a granddaughter.
CHAPTER 15
1 9 9 4
THE CHILDREN GAGGED at the dead bodies. Their odour crushed all the wonder and anticipation Miss Meyer had been building on the bus ride there. Sand mixed with broken flesh; red and white scales ripped up, partially eaten bodies without heads, heads without bodies, rotting.
Miss Meyer apologized. They had come too late. Most of the salmon had already battled their way upriver, laid their eggs and breathed their last. Riverbanks of dead fish. It wasn’t what Elena had imagined when Miss Meyer announced that they would be taking a school trip to see the salmon run. There were no great shoals of fish swimming against the current, breaking through the surface, jumping and splashing. They only saw one or two fish alive; the dawdlers, the latecomers. She wondered if they could sense the dead ones, and if they knew what was coming.
“Who knows what colour a sockeye salmon would be if we saw one in the ocean?”
All the kids had covered their mouths and noses with their sleeves. No one wanted to unmask themselves to speak. Elena had stopped answering questions altogether because for the first time in her life she didn’t want any more attention. The kids at school saw her differently now that Dad was suspected of doing something terrible. The longer no one could explain where he was, the guiltier people seemed to think he must be.
“They’d be silvery-blue,” Miss Meyer answered cheerfully. “They turn bright red when they return to the rivers to spawn.”
Her voice became tinny when she strained it, scraping their ears with her insistence that they listen.
“The wonderful thing about nature is the way it adapts. The salmon have different needs during different stages of their lives and they’ve learned to change to survive.”
This didn’t look like survival to Elena. It looked like the exact opposite of survival.
Nathan, the only kid not affected by the stench of death, hopped over to one of the male corpses, identifiable by its humped back and hooked mouth. He bent down to pick it up.
“And we will start to see changes in our own community, as we adapt to our new ... No, Nathan! It’s dirty! Put it down!”
Nathan bobbed it up and down as if it were talking. The birds had pecked out its eyes. A couple of the boys laughed hysterically and the girls all jumped back in disgust.
“Put it down, Nathan!” He did, and then he shoved his fishy hands at Kathryn’s face. She screamed.
Elena missed Logan. He would’ve picked up a rotting fish, but he would’ve thought of something funny to say as he bobbed it up and down. It worried her deeply that he might believe what the others were saying; that it was her dad’s fault his dad was dead.
Elena fell asleep on the bus ride home. She had the whole seat to herself because no one would sit next to her. She leaned her head against the window pane, the buzzing glass numbing her thoughts. Her eyelids drooped a few times before they closed.
She woke abruptly, a pungent smell in her nostrils and something tickling her chin and a weight against her chest. A fish tail was poking out of her pink-collared windbreaker, its body bulging under the zip. She shot to her feet and pulled off her jacket. The rotting salmon dropped to the floor. Just the sight of it made her sick. Nathan laughed and kic
ked it down the bus. Her sweatshirt was damp where the wet, slimy carcass had been. She pulled it off, trying not to feel the dampness against her face.
“Oh my God! That’s so gross!” Kathryn squealed while the other kids snickered.
Elena looked down at the smaller dark spot on her t-shirt. She’d have to wear it all the way home. Miss Meyer marched to the back of the bus and told them how appalled she was, but that was all she did.
Elena tried putting her windbreaker back on, but she couldn’t do it, so she sat back in her seat, overwhelmed by the smell, and she turned the outside of the jacket over herself like a blanket. Kids up front popped their heads over their seats to gawk at her. She turned away and stared out the window.
Mamma threw Elena’s fishy clothes in the machine and asked her what Miss Meyer had done about the situation.
“Nothing,” Elena told her.
“I should go down there and talk to the principal.”
Elena knew she wouldn’t. It was alright though. Elena only wanted her to be angry. That was good enough. She had showered and put on fresh clothes and at home at least no one would be mean to her.
Rob stormed in through the front door, threw off his sneakers and went straight into his room. Elena looked over at Mamma for an explanation. “Ashley dumped him last night,” she said softly. “He’s taken it quite hard. Don’t tease him about it, please?” Yesterday, she might have done. Today, she wasn’t in the mood.
There was a knock at the door and Elena went to answer it. Brandon. They weren’t expecting him. He was one of those people that just appeared.
“Hey Elena. Is your mom home?”
Elena turned around and yelled down the hallway. “Mom! Brandon’s here.” She stared back at him, lingering in the doorway. He filled the whole space; she couldn’t see the world behind him. He hadn’t seemed so big last time he was standing there, bent over and coughing his lungs out.
Elena stared at him while they waited for Mamma. “Do you have nightmares? About the fire?”
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