The Inquirer

by Jaclyn Dawn

  The article in the Inquirer had all the dramatic elements of a great story: plot, characters, love, conflict. Like the first article about me, this article consisted of a couple sensationalized facts and a lot of speculation. I would have written it the same way if it were about anyone else in Kingsley. Nathan could have at least given me some warning.

  I glanced at the time on my phone. 12:06 p.m. Mom hadn’t called yet, so Dad was probably still in surgery. Benton was balancing dinosaurs on and around his uncle. A stegosaurus on his thigh, tyrannosaurus on his stomach, a triceratops on his shoulder. I wondered if Alek had fallen asleep or if he seriously had that much patience. Benton was trying to balance a pterodactyl on Alek’s forehead when Danika’s minivan pulled into the driveway.

  I peeked through the blinds on the bay window as two people got out of the minivan. Despite grey hair the texture of cotton candy and a walking cane, Baba looked as fierce as ever. Her cane added authority, like the weapon on a soldier’s hip. Scowling, Baba led the way to the house as Danika followed carrying Minimart grocery bags. When the front door opened, Alek sprang into a sitting position, sending dinosaurs flying in all directions. Benton giggled and clapped his hands. Ruffling his nephew’s hair with one hand, Alek grabbed the sketchbook and pencil off the coffee table with the other.

  “Baba doesn’t understand the creative process. She needs the visual to believe I’m working,” Alek said.

  We could hear Baba wiping her feet over and over on the rug at the front door.

  “They’re clean enough, Baba,” Danika said. Baba scuffed her feet twice more anyway. Then we could hear her orthopedic shoes squeaking closer on the laminate floor.

  “The Sunshine Manor is an awful place,” Baba was saying for probably the hundredth time. “I will make a decent supper for Grandpa. They are serving so-called stroganoff again. It is a shame to call that slop stroganoff. I will make him a real stroganoff.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Danika said, probably for the hundredth time. “Will you make enough for everyone?”

  “Yes, of course.” Baba rounded into the living room.

  “Hello, Baba,” I said.

  “Amiah Williams, where have you been?” she demanded. “I used to see you everyday and then kaput!”

  “Are you making trouble?” I asked.

  “Bah! I never make trouble.”

  “How is Grandpa Leo?”

  “Some days he is intolerable. That is why I keep my room here. It was my house for twenty years and now I get the small bedroom and the whole place is painted like a clown. It’s very strange, but we are proud of our Danika.”

  I followed Baba to the kitchen where her Danika was arranging the contents of the grocery bags on the counter, including a copy of the Inquirer. Baba rolled up her sleeves and washed her hands. Then she unwrapped the beef and threw the butcher paper and the Inquirer in the garbage without Danika even noticing. Danika was too busy glaring at me.

  “I’ve been meaning to thank you, Miah,” Danika said, her tone indicating otherwise. “Benton has acquired an interesting new word.”

  “Bad language is a sign of a weak mind,” Baba said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “about everything the other night.”

  I wasn’t sure what else to say—or what not to say—with Baba in the room. She had taken her post at the counter. Her knife zipped expertly on the cutting board as she sliced the beef for her stroganoff. The thought of Baba’s cooking made me hungry.

  “You are not going to hurt another person in my life, Miah,” Danika said, which sounded suspiciously familiar. Did she get the idea from the Inquirer, or did the Inquirer get the idea from her? “How do I get myself into these messes?”

  “I’m not here to hurt anyone. And what mess did you get into?”

  “Mike was the one who asked me to invite you to the creek. He wanted to break some of the awkwardness, to show you … I don’t even know what he wanted to show you, Miah.” I was annoyed with the way she kept saying my name at the end of her sentences for emphasis. We all knew who she was lecturing. “I guess we all know what Alek wanted to show you. Do you know how hard it is to juggle the kids, RC, Baba, Grandpa, Alek, Mike, and now you? Of course you don’t, Miah.”

  “Maybe you should spend less time worrying about everyone else,” I said. There was a slight falter in the steady zip zip on the cutting board, but Baba recovered.

  “Whatever. Mike said he was just disgusted that you would embarrass me like this,” Danika said. Then, dismissing me, she turned away and changed the subject. “Are you all set, Baba? I have to get back to work.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “THERE HAVE BEEN SOME COMPLICATIONS,” MOM SAID OVER the phone. The nurses at the hospital were admitting Dad overnight for observation, and Mom wasn’t leaving his side until she could talk to the doctor. She needed to hang up to fill out admittance and insurance forms but promised to call me once she had more information.

  I mowed the lawn, weeded the garden, and fed Cutlet. Cutlet was the sick calf. I think it would have been weirder if I didn’t name the sick calf I was spending hours bottle feeding. After I showered, I baked banana bread and oatmeal raisin cookies. I was too worried about Dad to be hungry, but I made myself a sandwich and sat at the kitchen table anyway. I hadn’t eaten more than a few crackers and a cookie since the baked spaghetti.

  The kitchen clock was old and echoed in the big, quiet kitchen. Tick tock. Tick tock. I could hear the grandfather clock in the living room ticking almost, but not quite, in time with the kitchen clock. Tick tick, tock tock. Tick tick, tock tock. There were other clocks, too. Everything on the farm worked around clocks. The farmer, the cows, the fields. Tick tock. Tick tock. Then there was the deadline for the Inquirer, deadline for rent, deadline for UBC registration. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Even louder, my biological clock. Tick tock. Women in Hollywood and fast-paced careers were having their firstborns in their thirties. Not in Kingsley. Not where I was raised. If I found ‘the one’ within the year, we could date for a year, be engaged for a year, be pregnant for almost a year, and then still be behind. I had already invested so much time in one relationship. Tick tock. Maybe Mike had changed. The Mike Danika described wasn’t the Mike I had left. I was letting myself think dangerous thoughts. Familiar thoughts. Maybe it was just me.

  I looked at my cell phone again. 8:37. No missed calls. Mom had to have heard from the doctor by now. What if something was wrong? I envisioned her frantic like on the day of Dad’s accident, like I had written in the Inquirer. I started to dial Mom and Dad’s shared cell phone, but changed my mind. What if Mom got in a fiery crash because she tried answering the ancient flip phone while driving home? Suffering from a dozen more what-ifs, I tossed the half-eaten sandwich in the garbage and went to bed.

  The air in my room was stifling, so I moved the curtains and opened the window a crack. I fell into a restless sleep before dark. When I woke there was only a dim, unnatural light coming from outside. One of the mystery novels I had borrowed from the library for Dad was laying facedown beside me like a fat paper butterfly. I lay very still with a panicky feeling. It wasn’t because of the thriller I was reading or the bad dream I had been having. There was a vehicle in the driveway.

  The headlights turned off, leaving me at the mercy of the dark. A soft breeze came through the open window, but it didn’t bring the sound of a car door. My mom would have made her way in by now. It wasn’t her. Everyone in Kingsley knew about Dad’s surgery thanks to the Inquirer and the natural way word spreads. How many knew I didn’t go to the hospital, too? My Jeep was parked in front of the house. I was home alone. I thought about the unlocked front door and the open window. If I got out of bed, I risked being seen through the window by whoever was out there. Who?

  One name came to mind: Mike.

  The house phone rang, but I didn’t move to answer it. I couldn’t move. After five rings, the house was silent again except for those ticking clocks. My cell phone started ringing on t
he vanity where it was charging. I couldn’t reach it without crossing in front of the window. I didn’t want Mike to know I was awake. Was he checking to make sure I was at home where I belonged? He had done that before. Because he cared, he had said. Enough time passed that I wondered if I had dreamt the headlights, if maybe it wasn’t the sound of a vehicle in the drive that woke me. Then an engine fired up and the headlights lit my room for the amount of time it took for the vehicle to turn around in the driveway. I slid out of bed and peeked out the window to see the fading taillights of a pickup truck.

  I pressed the button to light up the screen on my cell phone. Missed call: Mom and Dad Cell. A tear rolled down my cheek. Of course, it was Mom who had called. Mike didn’t know my new cell number. No one else in Kingsley knew my new cell number. At almost midnight, no one else would have had a reason to call me. I dialled quickly, hoping Mom would answer. She answered on the third ring. She always fumbled answering her cell because she used it so infrequently.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Sorry, I missed the phone.”

  “Where are you? You’re calling from your cell.”

  “At home. I was sleeping.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m your mother. I know when something is wrong.”

  “Just a little spooked is all. How’s Dad?” I asked. Mom had enough to worry about without thinking that someone was lurking about on the property or that her daughter was going crazy.

  “They operated again this afternoon, after I talked to you. By the time your dad was out of recovery, my phone had died. I borrowed a charger off one of the nurses. Apparently not many people have chargers that work for our type of phone anymore,” she said. “I must have fallen asleep for a bit, too. It’s late, so I am going to stay here for the night. The doctor said he will be back first thing in the morning to see how Dad is doing, but he will likely have to stay another couple of days.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Well, don’t worry about anything around here. I’ve got it under control.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Mom asked. “Lock the doors, put on the radio for company, and try to get some sleep. I think the city has made you twitchy. Teddy is on the shelf, if you need.”

  Teddy was a brown bear with a purple vest that I had slept with every night from age three to ten. Okay, twelve. He was perched on the shelf watching with his shiny black eyes and smiling his stitched smile. I took Mom’s advice on everything except Teddy. I drew the line at Teddy.

  CHAPTER 18

  CUTLET WAS GETTING STRONGER. HE AND HIS MAMA SHARED A PEN in the barn. I was leery of her after my run-in with the mama that rushed me in the field, but so far Cutlet’s mama left me alone as I bottle fed her calf the electrolyte-infused water. They would be able to rejoin the herd soon.

  Cutlet heard all about my worries. I could talk to him in a way I couldn’t talk to anyone else in Kingsley. He was easier to talk to than even Nathan, whom I was missing terribly. No offence to Cutlet, but Nathan answered back and wasn’t destined to be someone’s dinner. But Vancouver seemed a world away, and whenever I had Nathan on the phone, my Kingsley worries seemed foolish and insignificant, so I glossed over them. I was alone.

  Dad wasn’t recuperating as well as Cutlet. Dad’s fever started the day after his surgery and still hadn’t gone down. Mom asked me to deliver a list of things to the hospital. Some clothes, slippers, the phone charger, and a book. She didn’t want to leave Dad’s side. I was grateful for the trip. I wanted to see Dad. Something didn’t feel right, and I wanted to be with my parents at the hospital, even if only for the afternoon.

  The fuel gauge in my Jeep pointed to empty or I would have waited until the next town to stop for gas. On a hot, summer Sunday, the Kingsley truck stop was especially busy. I waited behind a pack of motorcycles for an available pump and then pumped my own gas because the only attendant was juggling three other vehicles. I swear I could feel people staring at me, getting a better look than the cover of the Inquirer provided. I caught one man’s eye before he could look away. I recognized him from the vet office. He smiled and nodded hello.

  The sign taped to the store’s door read Gas Attendant Wanted. As I stood on display in line to pay, my eye was drawn to the back of a strawberry-blonde head disappearing around the candy aisle. Tamara Ennis? I hadn’t seen or thought of her for a long, long time—particularly considering I had gone what seemed like an eternity thinking about her every hour of every day. What she looked like, sounded like, smelt like. I could pick out her perfume in a department store. My brain had once been a spider web catching facts about Tamara Ennis. New to the Kingsley area. A registered nurse. Jogger. Used to jog by Trenton Auto Body in her spandex shorts and florescent sports bras. Green, pink, blue.

  Finley Brodowski joined the line behind me.

  “How were you feeling after Wednesday night?” he asked, too loudly.

  “Fine.” I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, especially with him. “Apparently you weren’t feeling so well, though, being so full of bullshit. I read what you said in the Inquirer.”

  “Hey now, don’t be like that.”

  I wanted to slap the big grin off his chubby face. He liked that the other people in line were watching us. I paid for my gas and returned to my Jeep without another word to Finley and before Tamara could spot me, if it was even her. The further away from Kingsley I drove, the lighter I felt. By the time I reached the University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton, I was feeling more optimistic and ready to hear some good news from the doctors.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Mom was sitting in a leather chair and staring but not seeing out the window. I set her suitcase down beside the bed. Dad was asleep. He looked frail in the hospital bed. The blue and white hospital gown with IV and heart monitor for accessories didn’t help.

  “Let’s go for a walk. I need a coffee,” Mom said.

  We made our way to the cafeteria where I ordered a bottle of water. My nerves were jittery enough without coffee.

  “He’s got an infection. It’s not responding to treatment. The doctor is talking about amputating his leg.” Mom was speaking in a bizarrely detached way. I thought I was going to throw up.

  “But why? He can’t.”

  Mom shrugged. “We need to sell the cows sooner than later in any case. This could mean weeks in the hospital, months of recovery, and, well, years without a leg. Your dad and I won’t be able to manage them, especially while we are here. And we could use the money. Don’t say anything to anyone, though,” she said. “Some people are greedy, and if they know we are desperate, it will drive down the price of the herd. As for the amputation, we need to wrap our own heads around it first.”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Hopefully nothing changes Travis’s mind about those cows.”

  Nothing or no one, like his jilted younger brother Mike. Thankfully, Mom wouldn’t find the latest issue of the Inquirer here.

  “Is there any reason anyone would have been out at the farm last night?” I asked.

  “No, why?”

  “A truck pulled into the driveway when you had called but no one came to the door.”

  “That was pretty late. What did the truck look like?”

  “When I got to the window, it was leaving, and I didn’t get a good look in the dark,” I said. I fidgeted with the zipper on my sweater. “I think it was Mike.”

  “Oh, well, maybe he was checking the sick calf or forgot something in the barn. I had called and told him I’d be gone for a few days. He’ll be back and forth between the farms as he helps Travis and sprays the fields.”

  “That’s probably what he’d say,” I said, more to myself than to my mom. It was a perfectly logical excuse. His excuses usually were.

  “Exactly,” Mom said. “So mystery solved. You can sleep easy tonight.”

  Dad was still sleeping when we got back to his room. Mom put her hand on his foreh
ead, and then flipped her hand over to check his temperature with the other side. An hour later, Dad woke up for about twenty minutes, during which time the nurse came to replace the medication hooked to his IV. The doctor still hadn’t come when I had to leave to feed Cutlet.

  Back in my old bedroom, I opened a hidden pocket inside my suitcase and pulled out a prescription bottle. My doctor in Vancouver prescribed the medication almost two years ago. I needed the pills only when I had an attack, and I rarely had attacks anymore. I hadn’t had one in almost a year. I set the bottle on the nightstand beside my bed and dialled Nathan, feeling like an alcoholic trying to reach her sponsor as she stared down a mickey of vodka. He answered on the second ring.

  “Amiah! You’re the Angelina to my Brad.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “One of the most famous pop culture topics of the new millennium, Brangelina. Except combining the names Mike and Miah gives you Miah, and combining Miah and Mike gives you Mike. That’s unfortunate, but sales have skyrocketed. We’ve never sold so many copies. I’m ordering a reprint. A reprint, Miah!”

  I was irritated that Nathan didn’t ask me first. Granted, he was editor-in-chief for the Inquirer, but these specific articles did involve me on a more personal level than usual. Maybe I should have tried talking to Cutlet instead. Nathan was making me more anxious.

  “Who says the extra sales are because of me and not because of the Canada Day piece or Deirdre’s advice?” I was particularly proud of Deirdre’s advice this issue.

  Dear Deirdre,

  What do I do about my neighbour dog’s incessant barking?

  Sleepless on Sparrow Street

  Dear Sleepless,

  After a polite conversation with your neighbour dog’s owner, you have two choices: a shotgun or the peace officer.

  Yours truly,

  Deirdre

  I even referred to the appropriate bylaw and provided the phone number for the peace officer.