Safe Harbour

by Christina Kilbourne

  “It’s going to feel good to sleep in a bed again tomorrow,” she muses in the darkness. From the sound of her voice I can tell she’s lying on her back and from experience I know that only her face is exposed to the frosty air.

  “It’s only been a week,” I remind her.

  “I’m not as hard core as you. I only ever sleep out a night or two. I like being warm. And clean.”

  “I’m clean. I had a good wash at Subway.”

  She ignores my comment and leaves me wondering if I’ve started to smell bad, the way I notice some of the other people who hang out on the streets do. Frankie and Josh smelled like sweat and alcohol. What else could I smell like besides dog fur and smoke? I mean, I live in a tent with a long-haired dog, I haven’t showered in weeks, and we’ve had more campfires since the weather’s turned cooler. I give myself a sniff but can’t detect much beyond the smell of smoke hanging in my hair.

  “Do you have enough battery left for a song?” Lise asks.

  “Sure, which one?”

  “Do you have any I haven’t heard before?”

  I run through the songs in my head and pull out my phone.

  “This was from last spring. We had to get up early so we could move the boat before the tide went out and there was this amazing sunrise. It was rough as hell for two days after, but it was a great morning.”

  I hold up my phone and we lean our heads together. A beautiful red sunrise appears and offscreen Dad starts to strum his ukulele. He plays a few bars then breaks into a jazzy version of “Here Comes the Sun.”

  “I love this song!” Lise says and hums along. She has a natural singing voice, deep and gritty, which is going to make Dad gush with pleasure when he finds out. I’m remarkably unmusical.

  After a few stanzas the camera moves off the cloud-streaked sunset and onto Dad’s smiling face. His beard is thick and grey and his hair long and wild, but his eyes sparkle like stars. I love the way he sings the chorus, all flashy and fun with an extra round of “do, do, do, do.” He finishes the song with a flourish, then blows a kiss into the wind. He’s such a drama queen.

  When I zip my phone into the pocket of my hoodie, the ravine seems quieter and darker than before and I have to swallow twice to control the hot lump in my throat. Neither of us comments on the song and Tuff sighs. An animal rustles in the dead leaves a few metres up the ravine. Lise tenses.

  “It’s probably just a raccoon,” I try to reassure her and remember the panic I felt my first few nights camping out. I barely slept the first week and jumped at every nearby sound, afraid I was about to be attacked by a knife-wielding lunatic, eaten by a rabid bear, or trampled by a moose. I wasn’t even sure which option I preferred. It wasn’t until I looked up Canadian crime statistics in the library and researched wildlife in Toronto that I realized I was more likely to die from a falling airplane.

  “So, tomorrow night … you’re not going to back out. Right?”

  I roll my eyes in the dark, wishing she’d drop the whole shelter thing altogether. When I don’t respond she prompts me.

  “Harbour, I know you’re not asleep. Just tell me you’re going to try the shelter.”

  “Okay. I’m going to give it a try,” I say, even though my heart starts to race.

  “No last-minute excuses. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “We’ll drop Tuff off with Frankie and Josh at about six, hit the sidewalk outside the theatre for an hour, then head to the shelter just before they close the doors at eight.”

  “Are you sure? You’ll miss the after-show rush. That could be another twenty or thirty dollars.”

  “Harbour!” Lise’s tone is stern.

  “I still don’t know about leaving Tuff with those guys,” I say. My head has started to pound in time to my amplified heartbeat.

  “Oh my God! You’re impossible! You promised to give Frankie and Josh a try. I know it’s hard to leave Tuff, but I bet on my life that they can take care of him for one night. And you won’t owe them any favours in return, unlike some other guys we know.”

  “It didn’t seem so, I don’t know, impossible, when we talked about it before. I haven’t spent a night without him before.”

  “I understand you’re afraid to be away from him. But I promise you he’ll be fine.” Her tone softens and it makes my stomach ache to hear the concern in her voice. “You know I love Tuff almost as much as you do. Would I put him in a dangerous situation?”

  “I guess not.” My voice comes out small in the darkness.

  “I know those guys drink too much, but they wouldn’t hurt Tuff. They wouldn’t. Besides, he’s smart enough to stay out of the way if they start acting up. Look at the time he got their dinner and they didn’t even realize what happened.”

  “It’s not Tuff I’m worried about.”

  “I’ll be with you at the shelter the whole time. We can share a room. I won’t leave your side. Except maybe in the shower. I promise you’ll be safe there. Cross my heart and hope to die. You’ll be perfectly fine. And you can charge your phone. You won’t have to spend half the morning in the library.”

  “I like the library.”

  “I know, but still. It’ll give us a morning to do something different.”

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Sneak on the ferry and go out to the island. Would you like that?”

  Going out to the island sounds nice. I’ve been craving the wide-open sky almost as much as I’ve been craving hot meals. But still, the thought of sleeping in the shelter with so many people terrifies me. I’ve never even been to a sleepover.

  “What if they find out I’m not old enough?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her question gets swallowed by the blackness.

  “Frankie told me you have to be sixteen to stay there.”

  “You’re not sixteen?”

  “No.”

  “Then how old are you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Shit, Harbour! You’re only fourteen? What’s wrong with your dad sending you up here on your own?”

  “I’m mature for my age,” I say defensively because I am too afraid to admit to anyone, even Lise, that I’ve been wondering the same thing myself for weeks now.

  “True. But still. Sometimes I wonder about him.”

  “He raised me to be independent and I’m doing fine, right?” I find my stride and keep going as much to convince myself as Lise. “Besides, he’s going to be here any day now, which makes the whole shelter discussion redundant.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  I’m glad for the cover of darkness so Lise can’t see my temper spike. I breathe through the anger, but my tone is still tainted when I finally speak.

  “He probably got behind schedule because of that hurricane. Nobody can motor through a hurricane, you know, even on the Intracoastal Waterway. It was probably safer for me to be here than sailing through that.”

  “I guess so.”

  “So I can’t go to the shelter, right? Because of my age?” I say hopefully.

  “Nice try. Tell them you’re sixteen. Use the same birth date, but make it two years earlier. You can’t tell anyone your real age if they ask. You got that? If anyone finds out you’re only fourteen they’ll definitely call Children’s Aid. They won’t care that you’re expecting your dad any day. And I don’t think very many foster homes take dogs.”

  The thunder is directly overhead and sounds like a truckload of boulders being dumped beside the tent. I sit up before I’m fully awake, and when a flash of lightning illuminates the tent, I see Lise is awake, too, lying on her side in her sleeping bag. Tuff is still between us with his head resting on his front paws. He whines slightly when the thunder clashes, but he doesn’t move or ask to be let out.

  “It’s been rumbling for half an hour,” Lise says above the sound of the rain drumming on the fly. “I’m surprised you slept this long.”

  I don’t answer. I can’t find any words or feel anything beyo
nd terror. Despite the cold, I start to sweat, and the panic in my chest swells every time the ground shakes. I squeeze my eyes tight and stuff my fingers deep into my ears. I hum as loudly as I can. My throat tightens and I rock my body as a way to control my breathing. Backward. Inhale. Forward. Exhale. I repeat this mantra inside my head as if it has the power to keep me safe.

  Images of other stormy nights sneak behind my eyelids, but I push them away. I’m in the ravine, I remind myself. I’m safe in a tent with Lise and Tuff. Despite my efforts, a crash of thunder breaks through and I shudder. I can almost feel waves lapping at my toes and the ocean rising to swallow me.

  I feel Lise pulling on my wrists, but I resist her strength. Next, she shakes my shoulders. I can tell she’s screaming at me, but I can’t hear any words above my humming. Whatever she has to say will have to wait until the storm passes. If I don’t block out the sound, if I lose focus, I’m afraid I’ll suffocate.

  Tuff licks my face, but I don’t reach out to comfort him. I don’t dare open my eyes or unplug my ears even when a wet gust of wind whips across my face. I hum and squeeze and rock and am only vaguely aware of being pulled into the storm and across the ground before feeling something thin and wet being wrapped around me and Tuff.

  The next time I open my eyes, I see a pattern of golden leaves fluttering against an ocean-blue sky. The thunder is gone and so is the panic. But I’m shivering so badly I can’t concentrate on anything else. The only part of me that isn’t cold is where Tuff is curled up against my chest. I unwrap myself from the tent fly and look around, but he doesn’t move. The camp is a disaster. It looks like a tornado touched down. The tent is flattened and lumpy, soaking in a puddle of muddy water. My belongings are scattered everywhere, lying drenched on the ground as if they got shot down when they tried to escape.

  “Lise?” I untangle myself from Tuff and the fly and struggle to stand up. “Lise?”

  But even before I begin to dig through the rubble, I know Lise is gone. Why would anyone stay in this soaking mess of a camp? Not only am I wet, but I’m covered in brown leaves. It’s hard to move in my wet jeans and my hoodie feels like twenty pounds of armour on my shoulders.

  Don’t panic. Breathe. One thing at a time, I tell myself as I pat down every pocket and finally find my phone. It’s wet, but shows three bars of power, which means it’s still working. I sigh. Although everything I own is drenched, I still have a connection to Dad. And I can call for help in an emergency.

  I flick to my contacts to look for Brandon’s number before I remember that Lise deleted it. Shit, I think. There’s exactly one person in this whole city who would drop everything and come help if I really needed it, and now I don’t even have his number.

  “What was Lise thinking?” I complain out loud to Tuff in a ranting tone that makes him look nervous. “Just because Brandon reminds her of her ex, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a good heart. You liked him? Right? And you’re a good judge of character.”

  I look around at the disaster again and force myself to think. “What did I do with that flyer for piano lessons, the one with his number on it? It has to be here somewhere.”

  Tuff slinks away and curls up in a patch of sunshine with his nose tucked under his tail. I watch him enviously, then start to clean up.

  The first thing I do is to wrestle both sleeping bags from the tent. It’s hard to do anything over the shivering but I wring out as much water as possible. I use the drawstring to tie one end of the sleeping bag to a tree and then twist the other end with my hands. Coffee-coloured water runs down my arms. I twist until my fingers ache, then I spread it over a clump of bushes in the sun. Hopefully it’ll be dry by nightfall. I do the same with the other sleeping bag, then collect and wring out scattered pieces of clothing. I hang everything over tree branches until it looks like I’m living in a refugee camp. The last thing I do is I re-erect the tent and wipe out as much of the mud as I can.

  The wet ground makes it hard to walk and when I slip and land on my bum, Tuff glances at me briefly before he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. That dog has an incredible capacity for being able to sleep through difficult situations.

  “Thanks for the help,” I mutter bitterly.

  I collect the cans of tuna that have tumbled from the mouth of the tent and stack them next to my jugs of water. The paper labels have peeled away, but that’s okay since every can is the same. When I stretch out the tent fly, I find the bag of dog food and a tin of crackers under a bush, wrapped in a sheet of plastic. Luckily they escaped the drenching and Tuff perks up when I dump kibble on the ground for his breakfast.

  I don’t stop to eat, but wipe wet hair out of my face and continue to organize the campsite. If only I could find the lighter I’d start a fire. But it’s in Lise’s pocket for all I know.

  Working in the sun slows my shivering, but since the clothes on my body are still wet, I strip and hang those, as well. I’m taking off my jeans when I find a crumpled ball of green paper in my pocket. I lay it out carefully in the sun and type Brandon’s number back in my phone. Somehow having it makes me feel calmer, less alone. Like someone has my back.

  “C’mere, Tuff.” I whistle. When he comes close, I feel bad for ranting at him. I wrap myself around him and lie down on the driest patch of grass I can find. The warmth of the sun caresses my bare back and somehow I fall asleep. It’s not a comfortable sleep, but at least it’s an escape. When I open my eyes again, I realize I’m finally warm, but Tuff is gone.

  “Tuff?”

  A blanket falls away when I sit up.

  “She lives,” Lise says, deadpan.

  I turn to see her and Tuff sitting nearby.

  “What time is it?”

  Lise glances at the sun and screws up her mouth.

  “Probably about eleven.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Getting you a blanket so you didn’t freeze your ass off lying naked on the ground in the middle of October. What were you thinking? Anyone could have found you like that. You’re lucky it was just me.”

  “Thanks,” I say and pull the blanket tight over my shoulders. It smells mouldy but at least it’s warm and dry. I stare at the ground, focus on a patch of soggy wet leaves that have already fallen from the trees and turned dark brown. Lise is waiting for an explanation, but the truth is I don’t have one, or at least not a good one.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally mutter. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just everything was wet. And I was tired. And the sun was the only warm thing.”

  “That’s okay,” she says, and her tone has softened.

  I look up at her gratefully. She is wearing an army jacket I don’t recognize and must read the expression on my face when I wonder about her change of clothes.

  “I keep a few things with Frankie and Josh. In case of emergencies,” she says. Then she hands me a cardboard coffee cup and a box of doughnuts.

  “You’ve been busy,” I say.

  “Yep. I pulled in all my favours today.”

  Lise looks around while she eats a honey-glazed and I devour a double-chocolate. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  “Everything got soaked last night.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. You pitched your stupid tent in the path of a flash flood. Like, I’m surprised we didn’t get washed into the river.” Her tone is rough, but the sharp edge is gone. I know I’m forgiven. For the moment.

  “Thanks. For … you know.”

  “For dragging your ass through a freaking thunderstorm while you, like, had a total meltdown?”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way. But yeah.”

  “I get that people generally don’t like thunderstorms, but that was a whole new level of hiding under the bed.”

  “I had a bad experience with thunder once.”

  Lise looks impatient. As much as I would rather change the subject, I know she’s not going to give up on getting an explanation and she probably deserves one.

  “When I w
as younger, Dad would sometimes leave me and Tuff on an island for a day or two. Sometimes maybe longer. The first time I was really scared about being alone and then there was this storm. The wind was angry and the waves were wild. Our tent got swamped and it was just a little island. We had to get up into the middle of some mangroves to stay out of the water. Tuff was freaking out and he couldn’t lie down, but there was nothing else I could do except hang on. All night. It was awful.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nine maybe. Ten?”

  “And he left you overnight?”

  “Only when he had to.”

  “Why did he have to leave you?”

  “Because he had to run some errands.”

  “Listen, Harbour. Between my mother and a couple of the foster families I lived with, I’ve had some pretty awful parents in my lifetime. But none of them would’ve deserted me on an island by myself in the middle of a storm when I was nine.”

  “I had Tuff.”

  “Tuff doesn’t count.”

  “He didn’t know a storm was going to blow up.”

  “That’s not the point. What kind of errands did he have to do that he couldn’t take you along?”

  I don’t have an answer so instead I stand up and walk away. I know I can’t go far in just a blanket, but I can’t stand the way Lise is questioning me. I can’t stand the look on her face. I can’t tell if she thinks I’m crazy. Or if she thinks Dad is. I walk until I’m out of sight and then I sit down on a log. I hold up my phone and stare at it.

  “Ring,” I mutter.

  Then I say it louder. “RING. RING. RING.”

  CHAPTER 8

  FRANKIE IS OBVIOUSLY stoked about having Tuff for the night. When we arrive, he marches across the overgrown lot to greet us, his limbs jerking like a marionette. Then, while we make small talk, he swipes the hair out of his face and says right on about twenty times.

  “I wanted to get a dog last winter, but Josh refused, even when I pointed out that a dog would protect us. Like if anyone came along and wanted to mess with us we could get him to attack,” Franklin says. “But Josh was all like, no way, bro. He said we needed everything we had to keep ourselves fed. Besides, he said those street dogs are too spoiled to scare a squirrel, never mind someone who wants to mess with a couple of homeless bros like us.”