by Beth Hautala
“Hello, Talia,” Meryl, the owner, greeted me cheerfully. Loudly. The other diners turned to glance in our direction. I didn’t like being the center of attention. But Meryl did, and in her restaurant, she always was.
Meryl ran a damp cloth across the counter, scattering leftover crumbs from the previous diner’s meal. I thought about doing the same thing—scattering. But I gritted my teeth and remained sitting.
“Hi,” I said, sipping my hot chocolate and scanning the people who’d returned to their lunch.
Meryl made it her business to know everything about everyone in Churchill. Dad and I hadn’t been here for more than a few days before she dropped by Sura’s house with a plate of cinnamon rolls. Meryl was a big woman—she filled a room with her presence and her voice. Really, she was no taller or wider than Sura, but she always made me feel swallowed up.
“Are you meeting someone?” She cocked an eyebrow at me, leaning her elbow against the counter. Dad and I had come here together our first week in Churchill, but I’d never come by myself.
“No.” I shook my head, trying to look mature, like I went to restaurants by myself all the time. “I was just thirsty.”
I wished Meryl would go away. She didn’t. Instead she followed my gaze around the room as I searched for a shock of blond hair sticking up off just one side. But he wasn’t there, and I drank my hot chocolate too fast, burning my tongue and the roof of my mouth.
Meryl winked at me as I paid for my drink. She knew that nobody came to the Hub just for food. Everyone came for the company. Even me. Churchill, Manitoba, was too cold and too far away from the rest of the world for people to pretend that they didn’t need each other.
Tugging my hat down over my ears, I stepped back out into the cold, feeling more alone than before. It was silly. I didn’t even know Simon, or anything about him. So I had no reason to feel any different than I had before. But I did. I felt like I’d missed out on something. He seemed like the sort of person who would be fun to be around.
I took the side streets toward the blue house, dragging my feet in the dirty snow until I found the gravel road that ran along the edge of town. This eventually wound along the shore, and though it was sort of a long walk, I wanted to look at the frozen bay before going back. Sura would worry if I was gone too long, but the bay tugged at me. My dad was out there somewhere, standing on its frozen surface, looking for whales. The wind pushed at my back, urging me along, and every now and then I scanned the scrub brush for the off chance that a polar bear was there, waiting for an afternoon snack to come along.
Rounding a small bend in the road, I could see the curve of the shore stretching out ahead until it met the mouth of the Churchill River. And I was so busy tracing that curve of shoreline I almost ran straight into the Birdman.
He was standing in the middle of the road, and I knew it was him, though I couldn’t say how I knew. It was just that he couldn’t have been anyone else. He wasn’t fat at all, but wonderfully fit, like a runner. His hair was salt-and-pepper gray and he had a long mustache, which curled up at the ends just a little, making him look happy even if he wasn’t smiling. A small pair of binoculars hung around his neck.
I was about to say hello when he raised a finger to his lips and pointed. He was aiming just over my left shoulder into the scrub. Slowly, he brought his binoculars to his face. I froze, caught in the crosshairs of a fantastic observation.
“Northern Wheatear,” he said, his voice low. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but I didn’t dare move. I barely even breathed.
At last, he lowered the binoculars.
“Come, have a look,” he said.
I relaxed, curious, and took the binoculars he offered, holding them to my face. With some help, I found the nondescript little bird, teetering on the sparse limb of a black spruce.
“Notice the inverted black T along its tail,” the Birdman pointed out.
I noticed and nodded, and we both watched until the little bird flew away into the scrub. Reluctantly, I returned the binoculars.
“Talia Lea McQuinn,” I said, sticking out my hand, and he took it with a surprised grin. “And you’re the Birdman,” I finished with certainty.
He threw back his head and laughed, and for a minute I wondered if anyone actually called him that directly. Maybe they just called him the Birdman when they were talking about him.
“Why, yes. Yes, I guess I am the Birdman,” he said. “It’s very nice to meet you, Talia Lea McQuinn.”
“Tal,” I said.
“Tal,” he agreed.
And that was that.
I WOKE UP THE NEXT morning with a terrible cold. My throat ached, I could hardly breathe, and every part of me hurt. I felt as if a polar bear had tried to snack on me during the night. Groaning, I pulled the covers over my head and rolled over, trying to fall back asleep.
Under the covers in the muffled darkness, I tried thinking about cool, calm waters, hoping they might lull me back to sleep. Then Sura knocked and opened the door.
“Are you all right, Tal? It’s almost eleven o’clock.”
“I’m sick,” I said, poking my head out from under the covers. My voice was funny, like it was stuck in my head.
Sura came in and sat on the edge of my bed, pressed a cool hand to my forehead. A rush of memory washed over me, and the room heaved like the deck of a wave-tossed ship.
My mom had always been quick to press her hands against my face—when I was sick; when my cheeks were cold and rosy from being out in the wind; when they were warm and her hands cold; when she wanted me to know I was loved.
I jerked away from Sura’s hands and she pulled back, standing up awkwardly.
My small room seemed to shrink even smaller and I wanted to pull myself back under the covers like a turtle.
I knew Sura was just trying to be nice, but it only reminded me that Mom was gone all over again. Homemade pancakes for breakfast. Hot chocolate on a cold afternoon. A cool hand against my hot forehead. And what if Mom was watching? What if she knew?
“I’ll bring you some tea and toast,” Sura said. But I just nodded and didn’t look at her.
Sura was the perfect sort of mom person, even though she wasn’t anyone’s mom. She wasn’t even anyone’s wife. I’d never thought about that before, and it suddenly made me a bit uncomfortable. Because, what if she wanted to be? Maybe she would have liked to be someone’s wife? Someone’s mom? She was already pretty good at taking care of other people, though I knew from experience that you didn’t have to be a mom to learn how to do that.
I was only eleven when Dad and I started taking care of Mom. I knew then that she wasn’t going to get better. The three of us never talked about it, at least, not like we talked about other things. And we never talked about the future at all—about what we’d do after.
The truth was, I was terrified. I didn’t know how we would ever be okay without her. Everyone is afraid of what they’re unable to control, Mom had told me. All fears can eventually be traced back to that. It made sense, what she said. But it didn’t make me feel any better.
I knew Mom loved me, but she and Dad weren’t the sort of people who went around saying so all the time. Instead, they showed it in hundreds of little ways. It never really bothered me, until the cancer. Once Mom was diagnosed, it would’ve been nice to have those three little words inside me somewhere, so I could anchor myself to them when the waves really rolled.
The day I realized things had flipped—that Mom was no longer taking care of me—wasn’t anything I could have prepared for. And it wasn’t just because of the cancer; it was the drugs, too. There would be no more chemotherapy. No more radiation. There would be just Dad, and me, and Mom. And morphine.
Dad told me that morphine is a pretty wild breed of painkiller, and toward the end, when she came home from the hospital, Mom was hooked up to an IV that fed her a
constant drip of that particular wild breed.
“It helps with the pain,” Dad said. But it didn’t help mine at all.
It was a late October afternoon, and Mom was propped up by pillows next to the big picture window in the library. She liked the sunshine, so we turned our story room into her bedroom.
I was doing homework at the desk beside her bed, and I had a terrible cold. I remember the balled-up tissues on the floor and how my nose hurt from blowing. Dad had gone into work to wrap up a report after I got home from school. He had arranged for a nurse to come and check on Mom every afternoon—but she wouldn’t be there for a couple more hours. So it was just Mom and me, cozied up like a couple of cats in the warm autumn sunshine that poured through the library window.
Out of the blue, Mom asked me a question I knew I would never forget.
“Have I been a good mom, Tal?”
I glanced up from my homework, a little confused by her question. At first I thought it was the morphine talking. Mom wasn’t the sort of person ever to be uncertain about things, at least, not to me. Before cancer she never would’ve asked me that sort of question. I put down my pencil.
“The best,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it. “You’re the best.” I said it again because I didn’t want her to have to think about it, either. Why hadn’t I ever told her this before? I guess sometimes you overlook things because they seem so obvious.
I got up from my desk and went to lie beside Mom, trying my best not to hurt her. I traced the bright blue veins in her thin hands. They looked like the twisting lines on a road map, and I wished that we could all just drive away and leave the whole broken and sick world behind.
I don’t know how long we lay there together, but when I looked over, Mom had fallen asleep. The morphine made her do that—fall asleep really fast. I didn’t want to wake her, but I needed her to know, so I whispered, “I love you.”
Dad found us there in the library when he got home later that night. Mom and I were both asleep. And when she woke up, she didn’t seem to remember any of our conversation. Or if she did, she never said anything.
She died a week later, while I was at school.
The school secretary called me out of class to the principal’s office. He didn’t need words to tell me what had happened; his face told me the truth I didn’t want to know. I remember slowly packing up my books as the class watched, my hands shaking.
It’s funny the things you remember. I knew I wouldn’t finish my math homework that night, and I remember wondering if I should talk to my teacher about it before I left. But I didn’t. I just slid my pre-algebra book into my backpack and zipped it up, the noise filling the silent classroom. Then I made my way down the long hall to where my dad waited, red-eyed and broken.
He pulled me into his arms and held me so tight I could barely breathe. And then he cried, right there in the principal’s office—big gasping sobs. I remember how the principal looked down at his shoes, scuffed across the toes, and rubbed his forehead. I felt sorry for him, and embarrassed for us. Sometimes it’s hard to know how to help people who are all broken up, right there in front of you.
I wanted to cry, too. I knew exactly what was happening. Mom was gone, and all the things I loved most about her were suddenly just memories. No one would ever get to know her like I knew her. I’d never be able to say, “You have got to meet my mom. She’s super cool,” because she was dead. I tried to cry because it seemed wrong, cruel almost, to let Dad stand there and do it alone. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t cry because I was too angry.
They had made me go to school that day, even though the nurse said she could go at any time. Mom and Dad had made me go, and now Mom had died without giving me a chance to say good-bye. The tears were there, drowning me from the inside out. But the weight of my silent good-bye kept getting in the way, keeping my eyes dry. It was like a wall.
I didn’t get to say good-bye. I didn’t get to say good-bye. I didn’t get to say good-bye.
Those words kept repeating in my head, over and over, and no matter how hard my tears crashed against my insides, they couldn’t get out. I couldn’t manage a single tear, not even at Mom’s funeral, which I barely remember.
After it was all over, my heart finally caught up with my head, squeezed around that absent good-bye, and down inside where I was most real, I knew she was truly gone. Then Niagara opened up in me.
I cried at the breakfast table when Dad tried to make oatmeal for us, because he didn’t really know how to do it. I cried getting dressed for school because Mom wasn’t there to tell me how nice I looked or to make sure my socks matched. I cried in the lunchroom at school and didn’t care who saw me because it didn’t matter what people thought anymore. I cried doing my homework because Mom wasn’t there to help, and I cried myself to sleep at night because she wasn’t there to tuck me in. Mom wasn’t there, and she never would be again.
And then, as fast as it had started, it stopped. Like a faucet finally turning off. I didn’t stop on purpose, the tears just quit coming, and I was relieved.
I haven’t cried since.
Not when we sold our house in town and moved to an apartment close to the institution.
Not when my cat got hit by a car right after Christmas.
Not when I didn’t get asked to the middle school dance.
I just couldn’t imagine a reason to cry over anything else. And even if I could, I wouldn’t let myself. I refused. Nothing could ever be that bad again.
I must have fallen asleep, because a while later I woke up to the sound of creaking floors. Sura pushed my bedroom door open with her shoulder, and it whined on its hinges. She carried a tray of tea and warm toast, and though I didn’t want to admit it, it smelled perfect. Sitting up in bed, I pulled my pillow up behind me, and Sura set the tray on my lap.
“You may find the tea different than what you’re used to, but it will help,” she said. “I added honey, to sweeten it up.”
I peered down into the cup of golden liquid. “What is it?”
“Chaithluk tea.”
“Chaithluk?” I asked.
She nodded. “Stinkweed. A bit like chamomile, but the plant grows here on the tundra. It will help your throat and fever.” She rubbed her arms to demonstrate. “Take the ache away.”
I nodded, nervous, and took a tentative sip. It was bitter. But only at first. And it did make my throat feel a little better.
Sura stood beside the bed, watching. But she didn’t touch me and she didn’t sit down. As she turned to go, I caught her sleeve.
“Thanks,” I said. “This is nice.”
Sura nodded, accepting the compliment. Then she left me in my room with only my thoughts for company.
SATURDAY MORNING, I MET THE Guitar Boy. Officially.
Plodding down the stairs, rubbing sleep from my eyes, I found him at the breakfast table eating pancakes as fast as Sura could flip them. His guitar hung over the back of his chair where he’d taken it off, like the way a man removes his hat in church. Sura and Simon were laughing—his warm and boyish, and hers as warm and rich as the hot chocolate she made. Her eyes squinted up all tiny when she laughed, and I stood on the step, watching, confused.
They knew each other.
I’d assumed Sura just knew of Simon. But they talked like people who’ve known each other for a long time. And she hadn’t told me anything about him. Not a single thing. She just let me wander off the other day and go looking for him. That lonely feeling was creeping into my chest again, forming a lump in my throat.
I chewed on the ends of my hair, wanting to run back up to my room. I turned on the stair, hoping I could creep up quietly without them noticing. But Sura must have heard me. She cleared her throat, and I turned to find a setting at the table where she’d laid a place for me.
“Come and eat, Tal,” she said, pulling me down the stairs
with her smile and a plate of homemade pancakes. I sighed and reluctantly came down into the warm kitchen.
On the stairs I’d been an observer, but as I stood there trying to decide where I fit in this room, the blue house curled itself around me, pulling me in. Everything smelled like maple syrup and hot coffee. Guitars, sweaters the color of saffron, and red hats belonged. The cold frozenness of the Arctic wasn’t allowed inside.
I slipped into the chair across from Simon, a little uncomfortable. He passed the bottle of syrup without comment. His hair was behaving itself today. I liked it better sticking up off one side.
I watched as Sura turned pancakes at the stove, smiling. I was beginning to realize that Sura used her cooking to show people how she felt about them. It was kind of nice.
I didn’t say much all through breakfast, which seemed to be okay with Simon. The Guitar Boy was alive and animated, making up for my silence by talking and singing continually, telling about his year, his friends, and his grandfather. His life seemed like some kind of grand performance, and it made my life seem pretty boring by comparison. I thought about that sweeping bow he’d made the first time I saw him. It made more sense now. It fit him. He had a song for everything, and when he couldn’t find one, he made one up.
As I finished eating, the Guitar Boy pushed himself away from the table and slung his guitar back over his shoulder where it belonged. He kissed Sura on the cheek, thanking her for breakfast, and then nodded toward the door.
“C’mon, you,” he said to me. “We’re going to visit Miss Piggy.”
I waited for a minute, expecting some kind of explanation, but he just stood there, looking at me.
“I have a name, you know.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The Guitar Boy grinned, unfazed, and as if that had been some kind of invitation, he swung his guitar around and broke into song. Something about names, and that everyone and everything has one.