Salvage

by Duncan Ralston

  First things first, I feel I should apologize for how I left things with you and Mom. I was under a lot of stress, and if you read on, you'll understand why—

  His heartbeat quickened. She wrote this for me. She'd put it where he might find it, and he'd found the treasure without their usual game of clues. I am on a dusty shelf, he mused, and read on.

  —I have so many things to tell you, and hopefully this won't have all been for nothing. It's my first day in the house, but it took a fair bit of recon to get me here. Fisherman's Wharf, they call it. The realtor, with the incredibly silly name of Skip Wickman, told me why they called it that, but I'm sure he's told you, so I won't repeat it here. Needless to say, there's a lot of local colour, and that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to talking with some of the people who were here before the flood, see what they think of it all. I've got a feeling I should be cautious, though; there's likely still some sour grapes about the whole deal. I mean, wouldn't you be pissed if the government took your home or your farm because it happened to be in a deep enough valley along a river some consultant said would make a suitable source for a hydroelectric dam?

  I know talk like this might bug you, Owns, considering you might've had to expropriate land for a few of your own projects. I'm thinking about the wind farm, in particular. I know there's been quite a bit of protest against it, but you have to remember, in cases like that, the end justifies the means. And I guess I should remember that here. They may have lost their land, but because of it, hundreds of thousands of people don't have to rely on fossil fuels to power their smart fridges and cell phones. That's pretty amazing, dontcha think?!

  Owen ran a hand through his hair. Having never really looked at the wind farm issue from the community's perspective, he'd assumed they were the typical old biddies and angry landowners who would just as likely protest a big box store or subdivision or any other form of urban encroachment in their quiet rural area. But Lori had made him consider it now, as she'd made him consider many other perspectives, and he felt he understood a little better. He'd have to remember to be less dismissive of them back at the job site.

  He read the rest of the entry:

  I wish I could call you, but I need to know for sure I'm right before I do. I came here for you, Owen, and after what we'd talked about the last time I saw you, I know I'm right to have come. But I don't want to upset the life you've made for yourself, considering how important this is, and what it might mean to you. About you.

  It's too soon to tell you, I know it is, so I guess I'll just have to suck it up. The past few times we've all gotten together as a family, watching you made me think of a sandcastle built too close to shore. I look at you and worry you'll break apart into itsy-bitsy pieces under that first lap of untested water. I know that what I'm doing out here will help you. It's pretty obvious the issue has been following you, for as long as I've been your sister, at least… but it's too soon. I don't know enough yet. So I'll save it until I know for sure.

  The urge to skip ahead was difficult to ignore, to find out what Lori had thought was so terribly important to him—about him. To decide if it was a secret worth killing her over. He had too many questions. Why had she hidden her notebook, when she could have left it out for him? And what had she meant comparing him to a sandcastle? Was she saying he was fragile? That he couldn't handle whatever big, important secret she'd uncovered, without buckling under the weight of it?

  "She knew," he said to himself, a lump forming in his throat. "The whole time she knew I was—" He swallowed. "I am depressed. That's why she came up here, isn't it? To help me. To save me from drowning. But what did she find…?"

  His curiosity too much to bear, he flipped through to June 12, where he found what he'd been looking for:

  I guess I should tell you a little about why I'm here.

  I've always had a feeling Mom wasn't telling the full truth about your father. All that stuff about how he was a "great mind" who "wandered away." What was that supposed to mean, anyway? That he abandoned you both? That he wandered into the arms of some other woman? It never really worked for me, and I bet it never worked for you, either.

  Owen paused, his mouth incredibly dry, his nerves jangling. The mention of his father had shocked him.

  That's who she'd come here to find? My father? Why couldn't she just leave it alone?

  He was relieved, though, in a way. It meant she hadn't joined a cult after all, and her death could easily have been an accident. But the mystery only deepened: why would she have come all the way up here, to Chapel Lake, to find his father? He supposed there was only one way to find out, so he dove back into her journal.

  What always bugged me most about Mom was the way she'd shun any sort of religion or spiritual talk. There's atheism, and then there's anti-theism, know what I mean? Atheists don't believe in God, but they don't care if you do, so long as you're not forcing it on others. Anti-theists seem to have declared war on God. I feel like this type of thinking might be triggered by an event a person feels is an injustice to them, like a personal slight from God. Something minor, maybe, but maybe something big, an illness, a death, and it festers inside them like a cancer. The anger and bitterness toward religious groups, looking down on the religious. Pitying them. I'm sure we both agree Mom was one of those. Remember that whole thing about the Lord's Prayer? Of course you do. You're probably still traumatized by it, ha ha.

  That day we were playing our little game, and you said "I'm in a shameful place," or whatever it was. And my first thought was Mom's closet, because of the time I heard her crying after one of your big stupid arguments about nothing, and when I opened the door I found her kneeling there under the dusty yellow bulb surrounded by shoes. I still remember the musty, mothball smell of that closet like it happened yesterday. When I asked what she was doing, she tucked something awkwardly into a shoebox and wiped away her tears. She had to think for a second before telling me she couldn't find her Sunday shoes.

  Well, I guess I didn't think much of it at the time, only wondered why she'd be crying over shoes, and go on to scold me for crying over a skinned knee. But that day I hid in the closet, I remembered Mom crying for her lost shoes, and I found the shoebox with her Bible and all that other stuff in it… Well, you remember. That was when we started the whole "zip" thing, wasn't it? You said, if Mom hid it away in a box, she must have been ashamed of it. You never considered she might have kept it there as a keepsake, but I guess it was easier for you to think of Mom in a bad light back then. You had a lot of anger in you, and I think now I understand why.

  Anyway, I sort of forgot about all of this until Thanksgiving last year. I snuck upstairs to her closet after dinner, and found a few pictures of the two of you before you moved to the city, and you were SMILING in them, Owns! Crazy, huh? (Such a sweetie, btw. Never imagined you'd had blond hair!)

  I found her birth certificate in the same box. I don't suppose I have to tell you it said Peace Falls, but just in case you need Closed Captioning for the Subtlety Impaired, Mom was born here. I think the "zip" is implied, but please, Owns. ZIP. 'Kay?

  That was the end of June 12th's entry. He skipped ahead, desperate to know more. Lori had always been the insightful one in the family. Already she'd filled in gaps in their mother's life and his own that he'd never even considered before: Mom was born here, he thought. Incredible! It explained a fair bit, he supposed, but posed more questions than it answered. He flipped pages until he came across one written in heavy, scrawling pen, dated June 15th.

  I've found him! Finally!

  Spoke to an elderly man today who knows quite a bit about the old church since he was a parishioner before what he called "The Rift." Most other people refer to it as "The Schism," if they refer to it at all, and when they do, it's usually with pretty obvious contempt. Once, an old woman from the retirement home said, "the bother with that two-faced Bible-thumper," and after she'd said it spit on her own rug. I had to bite my lip so I woul
dn't laugh.

  Owen paused a moment, wondering if the "two-faced Bible-thumper" was the man he'd seen the day before: Brother Woodrow and his Blessed Trinity Mission. The holy man would have been young at the time, if he'd been the minister of "the old church"—which was likely Chapel Lake's namesake, the church under the water, since there was no other church in town.

  That's where Mom comes in. I always knew she wasn't quite telling the full truth about where you were from, and now I've found the proof. This man Pete Jebson was there, and he knew Mom personally—except he calls her Maggie, which we both know Mom hates.

  And guess what? You were born here too, Owen! In Peace Falls! I've always said the past is a bright and shining beacon, lighting the way home, and now it's brought us to yours! That house where you spent the first five years of your life is under that lake still, this man Mr. Jebson told me. He doesn't dive himself (afraid of the water, supposedly—a grown man afraid of the water! Can you imagine?), but he pretty much assured me yours is one of the houses still intact. Problem is, even though he's showed me the door to the gold mine, he won't give up the key: he's withholding important elements (like which house WAS IT? blerg!) and I suspect it's because he hasn't had the attention of a pretty young girl in a long time. He's flirtatious, but in an awkward way, instead of creepy. I kind of feel sorry for him.

  What he says about Mom is that she was married (see? you aren't a bastard, after all! haha) to someone in the church. He was there when you were baptized. (Okay. Weird, I know.) He said you were "your Momma's blue-eyed boy," and "the apple of her eye," which doesn't really sound like Mom at all, does it? He also called you "Israel's favourite son," though I can't find the name Israel among the church people, so I assume it's a Biblical or Torahic reference. Or likening Peace Falls to Israel?

  "Joseph," Owen told her, as if she were in the room. He wasn't sure how he knew it, though he supposed now he understood how he knew many of the Biblical references that sprang to mind here and there, without ever having studied them. Someone had taught him as a child; he'd been a part of this church, with his mother and, apparently, his father. "Jacob's favorite son was Joseph," he said, surprising himself by remembering more. "He gave Joseph the coat of many colors, except that's a mistranslation. What Jacob actually gave him was a long-sleeved robe. Only, in the Book of Genesis, God renames Jacob 'Israel,' so you could say, he's Israel's favorite son."

  Whatever he means, you were obviously thought to be a Very Special Boy—a favouritism no one ever seems to bestow upon the daughters, by the way. (Don't worry, Owns, I won't grandstand. I'm just saying.)

  Anyway, I'm getting a little off-track, when the whole point of this story is to tell you I've found your father! One: I know now he was someone from the church before and after the Schism. Two: he was married to Mom, which means there would have to be a marriage certificate on file somewhere. And three: I've got a photo of the church members my dad gave to me as a reference. He said he'd found it in a box of Mom's stuff (probably the same box she'd kept her Bible and the other Peace Falls stuff in), and she'd let slip once that one of the men in it was your father.

  Apparently they had a big argument about whether or not she should tell you (Gerald was on your side, Owen, though you probably won't believe it), and she put her foot down against it. He took the photo when she wasn't looking to give to you anyway. The last time he and I met he said you wouldn't talk to him, not that I needed to be reminded, so he asked me to give it to you. I had a better idea: instead of just a picture, why not give you your father himself? I've taped the photo to the back cover so you can have a look and see if you can figure it out. So far, no one seems to stick out for me…

  One of those men is YOUR FATHER, Owns! He's here!

  Owen stopped reading, the words from her postcard—He's here—echoing in his mind, blood thumping in his ears as he flipped as slowly as his anxious fingers would allow to the back. Part of him didn't want to see. So many times he'd caught sight of an older man on the subway or in the street with a vague resemblance to himself and thought, Is that him? Is he my dad? He'd consider talking to the man, but always that angry child in the deeper regions of his mind had held him back, the voice that said, Fuck him. He's a deadbeat. He abandoned me. He "wandered away." Don't even give that piece of shit the satisfaction of recognizing him. Don't let him think you give one single goddamn squirt of piss about him.

  On the back page was a strip of tape, torn at one end and speckled with dust—but nothing else. Lori had removed the photograph.

  His hopes sank. He hadn't expected to learn much from the photo, since Lori hadn't been able to recognize his father by sight, but Lori had never actually seen his father, and Owen had. He'd spent the first five years of his life in the man's shadow, or so he assumed, and for anyone with a somewhat decent memory the recognition should be instant. His memory had never been particularly good, though, and the few things he recalled from early childhood could have been the memories of a dream.

  He wanted to see his mother as she'd looked when she was young. He wanted to see himself as a blond-haired boy.

  Baptized! he thought. How can I remember pointless little scraps from Sunday school sessions I don't even remember attending, but I don't remember my own baptism? Why can't I remember a single thing about the man who sired me?

  Trauma, his mind countered. Isn't there something about childhood trauma causing depression and memory loss? Maybe something happened to me when I was five. Something bad.

  He thought of the worst thing he knew that had happened in Peace Falls, then backtracked, counting with his fingers to the date. "Born in '74," he said aloud, "so in '75 I was one. That means I turned two in 1976, three in '77, four in '78. That's it then, isn't it? It's gotta be it."

  In October of 1979, the approximate date of the flood, Owen Saddler would have just turned five years old.

  INTERLUDE

  The Dark Places

  WHEN OWEN WAS FIFTEEN years old and his sister Lori was seven, the two of them sat in the living room on a typical winter day when no one else was home. Outside, the world was white and getting whiter, as more snow fell in large flakes past the big front windows.

  "Frère Owen, frère Owen, dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?" Lori sang, sitting upside down on the loveseat, her head hanging over the edge, face turning red, blonde hair touching the floor. "Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines, ding dang dong, ding dang dong." Having sung the whole thing without breathing, she inhaled deeply, and puffed the breath out again. "I'm bored."

  "No shit, Sherlock." Owen glanced up from playing 6 Golden Coins on his Game Boy, his nimble thumbs making Mario leap and smash. "If you weren't such a little squirt, I could be doing something else instead of babysitting your ass."

  "I'm not a baby." She turned right-side-up, the color rushing out of her face. "And quit calling me squirt. You're barely even taller than me."

  Owen mimicked her. She stuck out her tongue and sat cross-legged on the chair. After a long moment of watching the snow fall, she said, "Let's do something."

  "I am doing something," Owen said with a grin, not looking up from his game. "I'm ignoring you."

  Lori leapt off the chair and approached him. She flicked his shoulder.

  "Get lost, shrimp!" He shooed her with a swish of his hand.

  "I thought you were ignoring me."

  "Who said that?" Owen said. "Must be a ghost."

  Lori scowled. She flopped down beside him on the sofa. After a while watching over his shoulder while he played, she sighed. "Why can't we have a Christmas tree like everyone else?"

  "You know why."

  "No I don't."

  "Sure you do. You 'member how nuts Mom got when Gerald tried to get us to pray that one time before dinner?"

  "Boy, do I." Lori rolled her eyes. "What does that have to do with gettin' presents?"

  "Christmas is religious, dumbwit."

  "Oh yeah." She slumped her shoulders. "I guess that means Mom's not gonna let Dad
take me to the Christmas concert?"

  Owen raised an eyebrow in her direction. "At the church? Are you crazy?"

  She slumped further. The telephone rang in the kitchen. Owen paused his game and got up from the couch. He'd been waiting on a call from his sort-of friends about a party that night, and thought it might be one of them. He hurried to grab it, catching it on the third ring. "Hello?"

  The caller was a telemarketer, looking for his mother. "I'm waiting on a phone call," Owen said curtly, then slammed the receiver down.

  Back in the living room, he saw that Lori had left. "Good," he said. He loved his sister, but he hated having to stay home with her while their mother worked. Not that he had much else to do. Aside from a handful of burnouts and losers, there were very few people he'd call friends. He sat back down on the sofa before realizing his Game Boy was gone. "That little asshole," he muttered, pushing back up. "Squirt!" He went to the stairs, and shouted up, "Hey, squirt! Get your ass back here with my Nintendo, or I'm gonna kick it!"

  Silence greeted him.

  "Lori…?"

  He returned to the kitchen. A scrap of notepad paper lay beside the phone. On it, Lori had written I am in a dark place.

  Lori's game. They hadn't played it in… must have been two or three years.

  "A dark place," Owen said, thinking. He tucked the page in his pocket and went looking, vaguely aware she had tricked him into playing with her, and realizing he didn't mind so much. At least it would take his mind off of the phone call he suspected he'd never receive.

  He opened the basement door and slid his hand along the cold stone for the switch. Flicking it, a bare bulb came on downstairs, illuminating the small space: the clean concrete floor; a shelf filled with old paint cans and cleaning supplies; the door leading to the furnace. It smelled damp, and certainly it held many dark places for Lori to hide. But there was no way she would have gone down there without the light.