But now and again I come home to Indian Road. I come home and sit on the veranda with Timber, Digger, Granite, Margo, and James and we talk about the old days, about Dick and cold snaps, Square Johns and rounders, shelter and fortune, and dreams and home. We talk a lot about home. Then we go to the movies to sit in the hushed atmosphere of magic and let the light of someone’s dream light up our worlds again.
Quite the story.
Quite the journey.
Quite the life.
Yes.
I wouldn’t change a single part of it.
Me neither. Going back to it always fills me up again.
Me too.
So where will you go now?
I don’t know. I never know. I just sort of arrive somewhere and inhabit that place for as long as I feel like it.
That must be nice.
It is. It truly is.
Do you have a home now?
It’s all home. Everywhere. It’s all home.
You sound so different. I know that it’s you, but you sound so different.
Well, the truth is that when you make it home, everything that made life difficult out there disappears. You become whole. You don’t stutter anymore, you think clearly, your body’s not old and tired. You’re healed.
That’s so comforting to know. But there’s one thing that bothers me.
What’s that, old friend?
What do I call you now? Do you have a different name there?
Well, I will always call you Amelia. And you can always call me Dick.
Yes. Dick. So long, Dick. Travel well.
I will. And I’ll see you again.
I know. I know.
Copyright © 2008 Richard Wagamese
Anchor Canada edition 2009
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication has been applied for.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37263-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in Canada by Anchor Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited
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