by Vicki Delany
I said nothing, simply stared past her, and she mumbled something about taking the salad into the kitchen.
“You look good, Rebecca. Aileen told me you like to be called Rebecca now, rather than Becky. It suits you better.”
“Jimmy.” The word choked in my throat. He was as amazingly good-looking as ever, although he showed every one of his years. His hair was not quite as long as when we were young, but it was still long enough that the thick curls danced around his ears and tickled the back of his neck. By conventional standards he would have been considered too thin and too short, like his father and grandfather, to be truly attractive. But his size never seemed to matter, and since I’d seen him last he’d bulked up considerably. Instead of going to middle-aged fat, as I had hoped, a line of muscles bulged under the sleeves of his clean white T-shirt and his stomach was as taut as my mother’s washing line. But the years had not all been kind: his hair and moustache were streaked with gray, and some of the intense color had faded from his remarkable eyes. Lines reached out from the corners of his mouth and were carved into the delicate skin around his eyes. His face held none of the anger and arrogance I had been expecting.
Thank God he didn’t try to hug me. Instead, he took my hand in his. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yes.” I pulled my hand away.
I’ve negotiated contracts with billion-dollar companies and stared down men worth almost as much, but under the strength of my brother’s blue eyes I looked at my feet.
Chapter 11
The Diary of Mrs. Robert McKenzie. September 1, 1944
I found Aunt Betty working on a lovely piece of yellow wool this morning. I have finished at Barnum and Son and have been helping out at the shop, but today I felt so sick that Dad insisted I go home. Will this horrid nausea ever end? I think not. I believe that I am condemned to throw up everything I eat until the end of time. It is too awful for words. Aunt Betty was embarrassed to see me, and tried to hide the needles and wool. But I saw them, and I also saw her trying to hide a slight smile.
January 19, 1945
Bob is here on leave. It seems so very strange, to have my husband with me. I feel like a real married woman. Somehow Mr. Fitzpatrick heard that my Canadian soldier was coming on leave and he sent his motorcar to take me to the train station to meet him. Can you imagine? Me, riding in a motorcar with the Fitzpatrick driver. Dad came, of course, because he wanted to greet Bob. But also I suspect that he was rather afraid of leaving me to old Bert’s driving. Almost all of the young men have left, except for a few like Mrs. Maitland’s Hugh with his withered leg and bad eye. Years ago all the women felt so sorry for Mrs. Maitland. All except for Mum, who said that Mrs. Maitland got what she deserved with a freak of a son like Hugh. But now the women seem rather envious of her, although of course they would never say so. She is the only woman in the village to have her son still at home with her. The old men have to take over jobs like driving Mr. Fitzpatrick and Lady Helen into Woking or to the train station. Dad says that Bert can’t see much beyond the end of his nose. It is wonderful of Mr. Fitzpatrick to spend precious petrol coupons on me! Dad says that he made a lot of his money in Canada after the Great War and still has a soft spot for the Canadians.
I was so nervous. I haven’t seen Bob for months and months. Would he still love me, I wondered. Now that I am all fat and awkward with legs swollen to the size of an elephant’s. Aunt Betty has gone up to London to visit Aunt Joan. Joan’s feeling poorly, she said. I haven’t heard from Mum, but I know that she will come, once she hears the news of my marriage. The post is so terribly bad, since the War started.
Bob was so happy to see us. He grabbed me in his arms and swung me around and around, until I shouted for him to stop. He said that I look wonderful and placed his hand on my stomach so gently. The little devil has been quiet this past week, and he wouldn’t move for his daddy. I have decided to name him Arthur, after Dad. I wrote to Bob and asked if he agreed. He said Arthur is a wonderful name. Of course, it might be a girl, and if it is I will call her Shirley. For no reason, just because I like it. But it will be a boy, I am sure. A boy just like his dad.
***
He’s asleep now and I’m writing this by the light from a bit of candle. The stub is almost burnt down, and I don’t have much more time. I don’t want to switch on the lamp. It will wake him. He looks so handsome, sound asleep. His right hand is under his cheek and he is curled up like a baby under the old blanket. Dr. Mitchell said that we could still have relations, right up to the last month. I feel so ugly, with my hideously swollen belly and my ankles almost as bad. So I told Bob that the doctor said I mustn’t. That is my first lie to my husband. He said it was fine. He understood. But I lied. I will make it up tomorrow. I’ll get up early and make a lovely breakfast. Mrs. Beeton gave me a bit of ham. She had a twinkle in her eye and I was so embarrassed. But it was kind of her. Dad went to the pub after dinner. He was all embarrassed too, and I think he wanted to give us some time alone. I love my dad so much, I don’t know if I will have the strength to leave him when it comes time for me to go to Canada.
The candle is flickering now. Time to slip back into bed. I will lie next to my husband, with our son wrapped up in my body warm and safe between us.
Chapter 12
The cheerful sounding of horns saved me any further regression into emotional babyhood. A tiny convoy consisting of Shirley and Al’s car followed by a late-model van pulled into the driveway.
Sampson ran out to greet the newcomers. Buried under an avalanche of emotion, I forgot she was at my side, and now that my senses were coming back, I cursed her for not sensing danger and sending Jimmy scurrying for cover.
“Oh, wow! What a nice dog.” A boy of about ten, all freckles, tousled red hair, and gigantic feet, fell out of the van and grabbed Sampson around the neck before I had time to open my mouth and warn him to approach her gently.
But she didn’t disappoint. Dogs always seem to know that they are to treat children differently, and she politely allowed her ruff to be rubbed before she wiggled out of his grasp and stepped away.
“Leave that filthy animal alone,” Shirley shouted. “You don’t know where he’s been.”
Which got the evening off to a great start.
“I’m sure its okay, Mom.” A young woman jumped down from the passenger seat of the van. “The dog seems perfectly well behaved.”
“He’s dirty.”
“Mud washes off, Mom.”
Shirley marched up the steps without another word. She thrust a foil-covered pie plate into my hands and plopped herself down on the couch.
“You would be Rebecca. The baby of the family.” The young woman who approved of Sampson—I’d taken an instant liking to her—grinned at me. “I’d give you a hug, but I see you’ve got your hands full. I’m Jackie, your niece.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jackie. At long last.”
“And this rascal is Jason.” My niece rubbed the head of the ten-year-old as he wiggled past her, in hot pursuit of Sampson, now heading back into the kitchen, knowing that that was where the food was headed.
“Your son,” I said, inanely. “My great-nephew. How amazing.”
“I see you’ve met Jackie.” Al reached for my hand, apparently not noticing that I still held a pie. Rhubarb by the smell of it, and straight out of the oven. Fruit rich with the flavor of the good earth, pastry redolent of steamy kitchens, wooden rolling pins and clouds of white flour.
My mother had made rhubarb pie every spring.
Al pumped my right hand with enthusiasm as I balanced the pie in the other. He was a nice antidote to my sister’s far-from-warm greeting. “And this is Jackie’s husband, Dave.”
“Dave.” I nodded and he forced a smile in return. My niece’s husband was fat and bald. He looked to be much, much older than his wife. “Pleased to meet you, Dave,” I lied.
“Nice to meet you,” he lied in return.
A third car pulled up as we were still standing in the doorway exch
anging greetings. My brother took a seat in the living room beside his older sister. Dad, Al, and Dave joined him and they were soon chattering on about the latest hockey game, and who would make it to the finals, but Jimmy watched me, his ocean blue eyes filled with a calm silence. I pretended not to notice.
Two little girls bounded into the room and squealed in delight at the sight of the great dog now returning from the kitchen. These were the great-grand twins my mother had written about so proudly. Jessica and Melissa, as alike—to quote a well-worn but appropriate cliché—as two peas in a pod. They both were dressed in pink denim overalls (since when did denim come in pink?) and white T-shirts. Pink ribbons, chosen to match the overalls, shone in their pale hair. I smiled at the girls, but they scarcely noticed me in their eagerness to greet, in this order, Sampson, Jimmy, and my father.
The twins’ mother, presumably my niece Elizabeth, followed them in. She nodded at me, said nothing and plunked her fat body down on the chair nearest the TV.
That left me standing at the open door, all by myself, clutching a warm rhubarb pie. Even my dog deserted me as the twins descended on her and started rubbing every available patch of her great, furry body. The traitor.
The tops of the big trees lining the driveway swayed in the rising wind. They didn’t have any leaves this early in the year, so their movements were soft and quiet, like a ghostly orchestra, all tuned up and starting to play but trapped behind the barrier to the outside world, a barrier beyond which sound and life would not pass. The sky stood stark and gray behind the row of moving branches and solid, grounded trunks.
I slammed the door shut with one foot and carried the pie into the kitchen. Dad had switched the TV on and he, Al, and Dave were thoroughly engrossed in some sort of game. The overweight woman on the couch struggled to her feet and followed me into the kitchen. Jimmy watched us go.
“You must be Liz?” I said brightly, holding out my hand, having finally relieved myself of that rhubarb pie. “Shirley’s youngest daughter?”
“That I am.” Her handshake felt as limp as a fish left in the market at the end of a long, hot day. The family resemblance was there: She was short, with her mother’s fine pale hair and contrasting dark eyes. But where Shirley and her eldest daughter, Jackie, were thin to the point of scrawny, Liz was, to put it rudely, a barrel.
Shirley followed Liz into the kitchen and greeted Aileen. I knew that I couldn’t really blame my sister for being cold and distant toward me. But it annoyed me, nonetheless.
“Isn’t this nice,” Aileen bubbled. “All the McKenzie women together at last.”
I smiled at her, overwhelmed with gratitude. A hideous platitude but at least the poor woman was struggling to bring us together.
Mostly they ignored me. And I was happy about it. These people saw each other almost every day. Every child was bounced on every knee and the women popped into each other’s kitchens with tomatoes straight off the vine and squash picked that morning. The men watched hockey in the winter, baseball in the spring, and football in the fall while the women prepared thick stews, rhubarb pie, and roast turkey brimming with sage and walnut stuffing.
But it was not a world I wanted to be part of, I reminded myself. A world of women in the kitchen, children dancing around their varicose-veined legs. Of men watching the game on TV or on special occasions standing over the barbecue as if they had tracked down the wild animal and then killed it with their bare hands.
I didn’t belong here.
Funeral tomorrow, then a day or two to finish sorting out Mom’s possessions. Even I couldn’t expect Dad to do that.
And Sampson and I would be on our way back to the West Coast.
Aileen reached into her enormous tote and produced a bottle of red wine. A lovely Australian Shiraz. “Care to join me, Rebecca?”
I grinned. “I do believe I will.”
“Ladies?”
My female relatives nodded in unison. Jackie pulled glasses out of the cabinet. She knew her way around this kitchen. We consumed the Shiraz quickly and Liz pulled another, cheaper, bottle out of the plastic shopping bags she had brought and refilled our glasses.
I didn’t dare ask why Liz’s husband hadn’t come. She might not even have one, and Mom would not have wanted to mention such a tender detail in her letters.
Aileen pulled cutlery and glassware out of the cupboards and carried them to the dining room. Liz took her glass of wine and waddled back to the TV. Jason flew into the kitchen shouting that they needed more beer in the living room. Jackie joined her nieces in their admiration of Sampson, and Shirley stared out the back window at the gathering storm clouds.
I followed Aileen into the dining room. The table was new since my day, and a good deal larger than the one that had been used mainly as Mom’s sewing table. We always went to the big house for Christmas or Thanksgiving and the occasional family birthday. Otherwise, like every other family in the Hope River area, we took our meals at the chipped Formica table in the kitchen. This new table had been carved out of a beautiful dark wood and was surrounded by matching chairs with high backs and deep, colorful cushions. The wood felt as smooth and cool as lake water under my fingers.
“This is a lovely table. Must have cost Mom and Dad a lot.”
Aileen laughed her light, tinkling laugh. “Only the price of the wood. Your dad made it.”
“Dad?”
“That’s right.”
“My dad only ever made cheap picnic tables with benches that broke the first year they were used.”
She continued placing knives and forks in neat formation, tucking a paper napkin under each fork. “Some things have changed since you lived here, Rebecca.”
I shrugged. “I guess. Tell me, is Liz married?”
“Oh yes. But it’s no surprise that her hubby hasn’t put in an appearance. He doesn’t like family things much. He might make it tomorrow, to the church, but if he does that will be a stretch. His name’s Ralph.”
“How long have you been married to Jimmy?”
“Three years. Don’t assume that everything here is the same as the way you left it, Rebecca. It isn’t. I haven’t known your family for long, only since I married Jim. But I am aware to some degree of what things were like, and, well, things have changed. And people not the least of all.”
“Perhaps. This house has changed. Some money has been put into it. But people don’t change.”
“Some do.”
“Not in my experience.”
She set the last place and straightened the knife in a proper line. Only then did she lift her head to look at me. Difficult thoughts swirled behind her eyes, and she hovered on the verge of opening her mouth, struggling to find the right words to say.
“When’s dinner?” One of the twins bounded in. “Grandpa says if dinner isn’t ready soon, can they have a bag of chips?”
“No, they can not. Your grandpa shouldn’t be eating chips no matter when dinner is.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him.”
“No, don’t.” Aileen laughed. “Tell him that dinner is almost ready.”
The girl scurried off, intent on her errand, her long pale ponytail bouncing behind in a swirl of pink ribbons.
Jackie stuck her head around the corner. “Something needs attention in the oven, Aunt Rebecca.”
I rushed to do my duty. A bit of sauce had bubbled over the edges of the pot and hissed on the oven floor.
Jackie peered over my shoulder. “No damage done. It’ll clean up. But maybe you should put a cookie pan on the bottom shelf to catch the drips. If it needs to cook much longer.”
I checked the timer on the microwave. “Twenty minutes?”
She pulled a cookie sheet out from under the sink and waved me out of the way.
“Smells good.”
***
And, to my surprise, it was.
“Can I come visit you in Vancouver, Aunt Rebecca?” one of the twins asked, spearing the last bit of chicken off her plate.
�
�Of course you can,” I said. “If your mother will let you.”
“Can I, Mom? Can I?”
“Can we, Mom? Can we?” The second girl added her voice.
“Certainly not.” Liz tossed me a malevolent glare. This niece of mine had decided the moment she laid eyes on me, and probably long before that, that she didn’t like me. Her loss.
I returned her glare with a bright smile. “When the girls are a bit older, they could fly out by themselves. Children travel unaccompanied all the time. I have a vacation home near Whistler. Do you ski, girls?”
Two pairs of matching brown eyes opened wide. “No.”
“No matter,” I said. “You can learn.” I wasn’t trying to be difficult. Simply feeling all caught up in the warmth of family, a hearty dinner, and the soft evening light fading to darkness outside, the expected storm having failed to materialize. At that moment I really did think it would be nice if the twins could visit.
Liz’s eyes narrowed to nasty slits. “Don’t think I’m going to allow my children to travel the whole way across the country to visit a stranger. We’ll hear no more about it.”
The girls deflated.
Jason innocently stirred the pot. “I can ski, Aunt Rebecca. My mom and I go skiing all the time. Don’t we, Mom?”
Jackie nodded.
“Can I come visit you in Whistler? My friend Rob went to Whistler last winter with his whole family. He said it was the best.”
“No point in talking about that now,” Al interrupted. “In case you have forgotten, your great-grandma’s funeral is tomorrow.”
“Sorry, Grandpa.” Jason bowed his head. His mother tossed him a sympathetic smile.
“A place in Whistler, eh?” Jimmy said. “You’ve done all right for yourself, baby sister.” I looked for the traces of spite in his expression but couldn’t find them. In prison you learn, I would imagine, to hide your thoughts very deep. He’d barely said a word all through the meal. But his blue eyes watched me constantly.
Jackie rose and started collecting the plates. Aileen followed in a graceful, liquid movement that set her bangles clanging.