by Susan White
Rachel could see that Amelia’s frenzied recitation of Winnipeg trivia was covering what she was really feeling. “That woman was very mean to ask you that,” she said as they stepped into their room on the second floor. “It was very rude.”
“I could say that I’m used to that reaction,” Amelia said, putting her suitcase down and turning around to face Rachel. “But of course I’m not, since I chose to hole up for thirty years and not let anyone see my face.”
“You should have asked to speak to her boss. She had no business asking you that.”
“When I was young I had light brown spots on my face and nobody knew why. My grandmother had never seen anyone else with them and the doctor had no idea what caused them. If I got them from a parent it must have been the father I never knew, because my mother certainly never had anything like them on her face. I remember staring at them and wondering if that was why my mother didn’t want me. She was so beautiful and I thought she probably couldn’t stand to have such an ugly daughter. When I became a teenager people started telling me I was pretty. My friends would tell me I should be a model or an actress. I had never been told that before and I became obsessed with my looks. I started wearing makeup to cover the brown spots and I was always fixing my hair and fussing over my clothes. I got more and more caught up in how I looked. Then there was the Miss Saint John pageant. All my friends kept telling me that if I won, it would be the springboard to a modeling career. By that time I had already finished my social work degree and was happily working at the Protestant Orphans Home in Saint John, but I entered the competition, vainly believing what my friends were telling me. I won and that just made me more obsessed with my looks.”
Rachel propped herself up on the bed, putting two pillows behind her head, while Amelia continued to talk.
“I was engaged once, you know. I met a very nice young man named Sheldon in university and we dated for a few months. He proposed to me on the night before the pageant, surprising me with a beautiful diamond ring. I was caught up in the whirlwind of the whole thing and was sure that he only loved me for my looks, because deep down I felt like he didn’t even really know me. I had never taken him to meet my grandmother and hadn’t told him anything about my mother. After I won the title of Miss Saint John, I was so full of myself that I didn’t even see that this was a problem. Then Gram got sick and I had to go home to take care of her for a few weeks. During that time, my condition began to get worse. The brown blotches on my face started turning into clusters of bumps that I couldn’t conceal with makeup. I pushed all my friends away and wouldn’t take Sheldon’s calls when he tried to reach me. After it became clear that the bumps were not going away, I finally called him and told him that I didn’t love him and that I wouldn’t marry him. I mailed the diamond ring back to him, and after a few weeks he gave up trying to talk to me. My friends quickly forgot me and I put all my energies into looking after Gram until she died about a year later. Then I called my boss and asked if it would be possible to take in foster children. By that time the orphanage had closed and there were lots of kids who needed homes.” Amelia stood up and straightened out her clothes, then walked over to the sink and washed her face. “But that’s enough about that,” she said as she picked up a towel to dry off. “Let’s call room service and order something really delicious for supper. Pass me the menu in that folder on the bedside table, would you?”
The prairie landscape was so much different than the rugged terrain of Ontario. As they travelled down the flat open highways, Rachel and Amelia both felt the excitement of getting closer to their destination. They were going to stay at Jason and Megan’s in Calgary for five days and then head on to Golden.
After registering at the Super 8 motel in Regina and taking their suitcases into their room, Rachel and Amelia went to a nearby A&W restaurant and ordered takeout before heading back to the room to call Jodie and the kids.
The phone call home was upsetting for Amelia. Jodie told her that the night before, Chelsea had woken up from a nightmare and it had taken a really long time to calm her down. She had been hysterical and had cried violently for a long time, constantly asking for Amelia. In her disturbed state she couldn’t grasp the fact that Amelia wasn’t there, and Jodie had been worried she would make herself sick with her crying. Seeing her sister like that had of course upset Crystal, and Jodie had needed to call Zac to come and help comfort them.
“I should never have left them,” Amelia told Rachel after she hung up the phone. “Chelsea hasn’t had a bad night for quite a while, but I should have known that if she did she would need me to be there. When they first came to Walton Lake, we went through that almost every night. Sometimes both of them would wake up at the same time, but even if it was just one of them, the other would always wake up and panic when she heard the other. For months they wouldn’t let me touch them, and they’d go crazy if I tried. I’d have to let them exhaust themselves before I could get anywhere near them. It took such a long time to gain their trust.”
“In my first foster home I woke up the second night from a very scary dream,” Rachel said. “I was screaming uncontrollably and the woman came in and told me to shut up. Her husband had to get up early for work the next morning and she told me if I woke him up she would give me something to scream about. After that, whenever I had a bad dream I would put my head under my pillow and quietly calm myself. The dreams finally stopped and I never told anyone about them. The twins were lucky to have you. Try not to worry. They’ll be okay until you get home. They know you’re coming back and they have Jodie and Zac there until you do.”
Chapter 8
Silence is Golden
After filling themselves at the motel’s breakfast buffet, Rachel and Amelia started out for Calgary. They figured that if they drove straight through, with only a bathroom stop or two along the way, they should get to Jason’s about suppertime. The night before Amelia had Googled Jason’s address on the computer in the hotel lobby and made a printout of the directions for how to get there from the highway. She’d called Jason and he’d said that he and Megan would have supper ready when she and Rachel arrived. He’d seemed really anxious to see them. Rachel had called Audrey Anderson, as well, and she had also sounded excited that Rachel was getting so close.
Two bathroom stops and a quick lunch at a roadside rest stop put Rachel and Amelia on the Macleod Trail in Calgary at quarter after five. After only a few wrong turns, they drove up to Jason’s house at 56 Millcrest Green at quarter to six. J ason ran out to meet them with Logan running along behind him.
“Hi, Amelia!” he said excitedly as he helped Amelia out of the truck and gave her a big hug. “I can’t believe you’re here. Meg has supper all ready.”
“You must be the famous Rachel,” Jason said. “You’re the wonder worker who persuaded Amelia to take off driving across the country. I don’t know how you did it, but we’re very glad you did. The last thing I ever hoped for was to have Amelia come to visit. I may not let her go, now that she’s here. We could use some help with that little namesake of hers—she’s keeping us up around the clock! Come on in and meet my girls. We can bring your stuff in later.”
By the time supper was finished Logan had made Rachel his new best friend. After dinner he kept her busy playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine toys and reading his two favourite Curious George books over and over. He was not happy when his mom said it was time for bed, but when Rachel promised to still be here when he woke up in the morning, he gave in. Amelia had been holding the sleeping baby Amelia in her arms for most of the evening and decided after the long day that she, too, would go to bed.
Rachel was going to sleep on the pull-out couch in the family room. Jason put Logan’s toys away and set out her bedding for her. “There’s a shower stall and towels and such in the little bathroom down here,” he told her as he headed up the stairs to his room. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need. Have a g
ood night.”
Rachel made up her bed then headed to the bathroom for a shower. She stood in the shower for a long time, letting the water wash over her as she thought about the day’s events. Jason and Megan had both been so nice to her and had made her feel really welcome. Logan was absolutely adorable, and baby Amelia was precious. It felt so nice being here with them, feeling almost like part of their family. She hoped that she would feel this way when she met the Andersons.
The next day was a frenzy of activity and it went by very quickly. It was late in the evening now, and Amelia, Megan, and the kids had gone to bed. Rachel and Jason were sitting together in the family room, watching an old episode of Law and Order on TV.
“I bet it was the lawyer,” Jason said. “Megan gets mad at me when we watch this show because I always guess who committed the murder in the first ten minutes. Have you seen this one before?”
“No,” Rachel answered. “We don’t watch much TV at Amelia’s. There’s always something else to do. Lots of chores and stuff, and we play a lot of games after supper.”
“Dominoes, right? We played that a lot when I lived there too. Does Zac still think he’s the champion?”
“Yep,” Rachel laughed. “He does this little victory dance when he wins.”
“Oh, I remember that dance. And how about the two rules?” Jason asked. “Are they still the same? Do your part and spend an hour alone at the lake.”
“Exactly,” Rachel answered. “Still the same.”
“I thought that the lake rule was the stupidest thing I had ever heard when I first got there. I was ready to break all the rules, just for the sake of breaking them. But how do you break a rule like that? Go for twenty minutes instead of an hour, stay for two hours, or refuse to go at all?”
Rachel laughed, thinking about the first time she’d walked down the hill to the lake, and what she’d thought of the rule back then.
“I think that’s part of Amelia’s magic,” Jason continued. “She never backs kids into a corner with rigid rules.”
“Did Amelia have Sam and Bud when you lived there?” Rachel asked.
“Yep,” Jason said, smiling. “I miss those old dogs. And I miss that hour alone at the lake, too. I know it sounds pretty extreme, but the lake saved me. It saved me from the fate I was sure was mine.” He lowered the volume on the TV and turned toward Rachel. “Did Amelia tell you anything about me?”
“No,” Rachel said, fiddling with the fringe of a blanket hanging over the back of the couch. “She doesn’t tell us much about the other kids. And she doesn’t make us talk about stuff we don’t want to, either. That is one of the best things about her, I think.”
“Well, there definitely was a time I didn’t talk about my past, but I talk about it now. I decide if and when people need to know about it and I don’t feel the shame about it that I once did. My father murdered my mother.”
Rachel looked over at the commercial playing on the TV. She stared at the talking hamburger, not wanting to look at Jason. She hoped the shock of his words didn’t show on her face.
“I was eleven years old,” Jason continued. “I saw my mother bleed to death while my father turned on the hockey game and drank a beer, cheering his team on as if it were a normal Saturday night. After the game was over, he called my uncle and told him to call the police. Then he took off and left me alone in the house with her. They arrested him at a bar later that night. He killed himself in his jail cell five months later.”
Rachel turned to face Jason, unable to keep the tears from filling her eyes. She couldn’t understand how he could be so calm about all this. He was telling her this horrible thing as if they were discussing the plot of a movie or TV show, but it had all actually happened to him.
“I didn’t talk for weeks afterwards,” Jason said. “I thought I was just as guilty as he was because I hadn’t called anyone for help. I’d just sat there on the kitchen floor across from her body and watched her take her last breath. I was sure that I was just like him, that I was just as evil and heartless. I thought I was dangerous, that I should be locked up so I couldn’t hurt anybody, but no matter how hard I tried to convince people of that they wouldn’t believe me. It wasn’t until I was in my fourth foster home, when I gave the man who ran it a broken nose, that they finally locked me up. That was right before they brought me to Amelia.”
“You thought it was your fault?” Rachel asked, not understanding how he could possibly blame himself for something he’d had no control over.
“I knew I hadn’t killed her,” Jason explained. “I loved my mother and I was a good kid, but I had always been told I was just like my dad. That night those words took on a whole new meaning. I thought if I was just like him, I must be capable of doing what he had just done.”
Rachel wanted to say something, but the words froze in her throat.
“Walton Lake. I remember getting left there and being told I had to spend an hour by myself beside the lake. Two weeks before getting to Amelia’s I had been locked up in a juvenile facility with no freedom at all. But now all of a sudden I was being left all alone. I knew I could take off if I wanted to. I could just follow the shoreline back to the road and take off. But when I went to the lake, I heard a sound that stopped me in my tracks. It haunted me and I just sat down on the shore and cried. I cried like a baby. I can’t explain why, but it felt as if my mother were there with me. I know it sounds corny, but that’s what it felt like. It felt like she was there with me, telling me I was a good boy and that this place was where I needed to be.”
Jason kept talking. Rachel pushed back a falling tear in awed silence. “The sound was a loon. There was a pair nesting on the lake, and I became obsessed with them. I read everything I could about the common loon. That summer I read somewhere that loons mate for life, and even though I’ve since read information that disputes that fact, back then I believed it and held the whole species in reverence. I spent all of my hours at the lake watching that pair. The male was loyal to the female, and they were both protective of their young. They never left their babies alone.”
“I’ve seen loons at the lake,” Rachel said, finally finding her voice. “Would they be the same ones?”
“The life span of the common loon is between twenty-five and thirty years, and they generally come back to the same place every year, so it probably is the same pair if nothing has happened to either one of them.”
“That’s amazing,” Rachel said. “They have two young ones this year.”
“They just lay two eggs. The young will fly off before the lake freezes. Every day when I went to the lake that first summer, I would talk to my mother and tell her that I was going to be a father and a husband just like the male loon. And it seemed like the loons could hear my thoughts. They would swim in close to me and every sound they made was like they were talking right to me. They’re what got me through that first summer. Little by little, it broke my anger and fear down. That’s why I say the lake saved me.”
“I love the lake too,” Rachel said, her eyes shining. “Zac taught me to swim last summer. I would never try before, but the first time I saw that lake I knew I needed to swim in it.”
Talk about being corny, Rachel thought to herself. She had almost just told Jason that she’d believed right from the start that the lake was the place to hold her tears. She barely even knew him. She wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeve and turned back toward the TV.
“I told you it was the lawyer that killed her,” Jason said. “What can I say? It’s a gift.” He stood up and headed up the stairs to bed.
Rachel sat there alone, listening to the muffled voices coming from the TV. She thought about what Jason had told her about his parents and how normal he seemed now with his wife and kids. She wished her dad had been able to be that kind of father to her and Caleb. Maybe it isn’t too late for him, she thought. I guess in a few days I’ll find out.
Amelia and Rachel sat on lounge chairs on the front lawn as Jason finished packing the Jimmy for them. Their five days in Calgary had gone by so quickly. Their plan to meet Jason, Megan, and the kids in Jasper on the way back home was the only thing making their departure easier.
The drive from Calgary to Golden would only take a few hours, so they were going to have enough time to stop at Lake Louise and Banff on their way. Rachel had talked to her grandmother last night and she could hardly believe the day had actually come when she would meet her.
Rachel had really wanted to talk to Jodie and Zac last night, but Mrs. Fullerton had answered the phone when she and Amelia had called. She’d been babysitting Raymond and the twins because Zac and Jodie had gone out for dinner and a movie with Roger and Leslie. Rachel had been really disappointed that she’d didn’t get to talk to them—she’d been counting on them being able to help calm the nerves that were building inside her as the time to meet her family approached.
A few minutes later, Rachel and Amelia backed out of the driveway. As they rolled down the windows to wave good-bye, they heard the pleading cries of Logan, who wanted to know why he couldn’t go with Nanny Amelia and Aunt Rachel.
Lake Louise was amazing. Standing on the boardwalk, looking at the snow-covered peaks rising up above the sparkling blue lake, Rachel felt a strong sense of peace and thankfulness.
Amelia pointed over toward Chateau Lake Louise, a huge hotel perched grandly on the edge of the lake. “Look at the golden windows,” she said. The sun was shining off the expanse of windows facing the lake, making them glow with golden light. “My grandmother once told me a story about a house with golden windows. Every day a little girl who lived in a poor part of town would look up at a large mansion up on the hill above where she lived, and when the sun shone a certain way, it would make the windows in that mansion appear golden. The little girl would always stare up at that house with the golden windows, dreaming of someday living there. When she grew up, she became wealthy, and her new circumstances allowed her to finally live the dream of buying that mansion. When she moved in, she looked down at the small house she had grown up in, and the way the sun was shining on it made it look like it, too, had golden windows. My grandmother always followed that story with the quote: ‘Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it, all that is not gold.’”