by Anna Kerz
“Well done, Aaron,” the teacher said when he had fastened the top securely. “That was quick thinking.”
Aaron smiled and took a fake formal bow that made some of the kids laugh. Karima started to clap and Jeremy joined her. The rest of the class clapped along good-naturedly. Everybody except Tufan.
“I hate snakes,” he muttered. “Only an idiot like Cantwait would pick one up.”
“I guess that makes Mr. Collins an idiot too,” Karima snapped. Tufan’s face flushed.
“Way to go,” Jeremy told Aaron as he walked by, but the end-of-recess bell rang just then and Aaron didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t hear.
Before the next lesson began, Aaron carried his chair back to his desk, but he didn’t sit in it for long. Even before Mr. Collins was done talking, Aaron slipped to the floor, crossed his legs and began rocking.
He’s so weird, Jeremy thought. How can I be friends with someone that weird? He sighed. Two more sleeps, he thought. Two more sleeps and I’m going home.
TWENTY – ONE
All the way to Nova Scotia, Jeremy’s stomach churned and his chest was tight with tension. His mother, thinking he was nervous about flying, showed him where the barf bags were kept, just in case, but Jeremy knew that it wasn’t the flight that was worrying him.
When they arrived at the airport, Grampa was waiting at the bottom of the escalator. He drove them to the farm where Nana welcomed them with smiles and tears.
Jeremy spent his days in the woods and beside the water and his evenings by the fire listening to the grownups talk. The time passed quickly, and then there was only one day left.
When he came downstairs on Sunday morning, he found Nana’s kitchen filled with the promising smells of the Thanksgiving dinner to come: apples and cinnamon, onions, sage and sausage. Jeremy took a deep breath and looked around. He watched Nana tossing spoonfuls of spices into a bowl of stuffing bread while his mother stirred the cranberry sauce.
“Buddy and I are headin’ out,” Grampa shouted from the back hall. “Anybody else comin’?”
“Me,” Jeremy called. He jumped up, spooning the last bit of oatmeal into his mouth as he carried the bowl to the sink.
“Take your time. He’ll wait,” Nana said. Then louder, so Grampa could hear, “You’re gonna give this boy an ulcer the way you’re rushing him around.”
“Stop fussin’, woman,” Grampa called back. “He’s got Williamson genes. Not one of us ever had the ulcer.”
“That man!” Nana grumbled. “Doesn’t he always have to have the last word.”
The nick of the latch as the door shut was like a starting pistol to Jeremy. He raced to put on his shoes, and seconds later he was outside with his jacket in hand, pretending he hadn’t heard his mother shout, “Brush your teeth.”
Grampa was standing near the front of the house, lighting his pipe. “It’s a right good day,” he said, shielding a match flame against the wind as he puffed.
“Sure is,” Jeremy said, slipping into his jacket. It was cold. The wind wasn’t strong, but it carried a bite.
Grampa whistled one sharp blast, and Buddy appeared from behind the barn and walked over to join them. He was breathing hard, his red tongue hanging, his tail waving a quiet welcome. The dog leaned his full weight into Grampa, who stood straight and solid, supporting the old dog’s weight.
“Ya tired yourself out again, didn’t ya?” Grampa said as he leaned down. He buried his hands deep in the shaggy fur around Buddy’s neck to give him a good scratch. “One of these days, you’ll surely realize you’re too old to be chasin’ rabbits.”
Jeremy liked walking with his grandfather. Grampa was a silent walker. He talked plenty at home, but when he was outside he hardly spoke at all. You could think your own thoughts when you walked with Grampa.
Their walk took them down and away from the house. The path here had two ruts made by the tractor’s wheels and a higher part in the middle where the grass and the weeds and the wildflowers grew. On one side Jeremy could see the farm woodlot filled with pines and birches and a ground cover of brownfingered ferns, on the other side, the sea, its waves rolling silently until they broke against the rocks that lined the shore.
This is nothing like home, he thought, remembering the distant wail of sirens, the painful screech of streetcar wheels on steel tracks, the cars and people and… He stopped, sucking a mouthful of air in through his teeth. Home? All the time he was in Toronto, he had thought that home was here. Now he realized that Milly’s comforting presence and Thomas’s rumbling purr made the Toronto house feel like home too. Was it possible to have two homes?
He looked up to find Grampa waiting, his eyes deep and dark and curious. Jeremy looked away, pretending interest in a dew-covered spider web. He didn’t think he had words to explain this new feeling, so he stayed silent.
The path narrowed until they reached the clearing in front of the old fish house where Grampa stored his boat and fishing gear. Beside that was an open patch of grass, dotted with goldenrod and the flat-topped white flowers Nana called Queen Anne’s Lace. The spot was sheltered from the wind and warmed by the sun. A low wooden bench sat in this space, and Jeremy watched his grandfather walk over and settle there. Buddy dropped to the ground beside him, so Jeremy followed and sat down too. For a while they were silent, staring at a rock that jutted from the sea like the nose of a whale, and the swirling patterns made by the waves flowing in from the sea.
“Grampa?” Jeremy finally said, “Did you ever have…?” He stopped. Started again. “Did you ever know somebody who wanted to be your friend, and you didn’t want to be their friend back?”
Grampa banged out the tobacco in his pipe, took out his pouch and refilled it with great care before he said, “You got anybody particular in mind?”
“There’s this kid in my class in the city,” Jeremy began. “His name’s Aaron. He’s one of those guys that never knows when to be quiet, so he’s always talking. The other kids call him Aaron Cantwait. That’s kind of mean, I guess, but he’s such a pain you can’t even feel sorry for him. He bugs everybody. Even the teacher.”
Jeremy stopped in case his grandfather might want to say something, but when he didn’t he went on.
“And the other thing about Aaron is that he’s kind of a klutz. He can’t catch or throw. He can’t do anything, so nobody ever wants him on their team. And you should see him run!” He chuckled at the memory of Aaron’s duck-run across the gym.
“Anything good about this fellow?” Grampa asked.
“I guess,” Jeremy began, wishing that he could say, No, there’s nothing good about him. Not one single thing. But he felt that he had to be fair. “He’s kinda smart about some stuff. He knows about mealworms and darkling beetles and snakes.”
Grampa nodded to show that he had heard.
“And he was nice to me the day everybody saw my scar for the first time. I was kinda worried about what they’d say. I thought they might think it was really ugly and everybody would make fun of me. But Aaron said it looked like a lightning bolt.”
When Grampa still didn’t say anything Jeremy took a deep breath and told him the one thing he hadn’t told anyone yet. “One day we made this maze for our mealworms. It collapsed, and my mealworm was smushed, but Aaron didn’t tell that it was my fault. He took the blame and he gave me his mealworm and now he doesn’t have one of his own.”
Grampa nodded again to show that he had heard. He peered at his pipe. “Padric Sullivan comes to mind,” he said. He struck a match, relit the tobacco and puffed a few times before he went on. “The two of us went up the coast together one winter where we had jobs lined up in a lumber camp. That was…oh, must be fifty-five, sixty years ago now. We were just young fellows at the time. Neither one of us wanted to stay in school and that was our first job away.” He stopped talking to puff on his pipe before he went on.
“I wasn’t looking forward to travelin’ with Padric. We weren’t friends; just happened that we both needed work and
ended up heading for the same place. Padric talked the whole way. Had big plans, big ideas of seeing the world, maybe taking flying lessons, joining the army and going off to Korea. Talked on and on. Most of it nonsense. Didn’t know that ears need a rest every so often. By the time we got to the lumber camp, I was right tired of the sound of his voice.” Grampa chuckled and shook his head as if he could still hear Padric’s voice.
“I remember there were three empty bunks left when we got there, two together and one at the far end of the bunkhouse. I headed for the one at the far end. Settled in there, happy to be on my own.
“Turned out the crew boss sent men out in pairs, and guess who he paired me up with? Padric, of course. By jiminy, I was mad. Wouldn’t talk to him for three days ’less it had somethin’ to do with the job. And that job was hard. It was cold in the woods, and the other men were all older than us. Turned out that we were paired up because none of them wanted new boys anywhere near where they were working.”
Jeremy was surprised. It was hard to believe that his grandfather had ever had a hard time with anything.
“On the fourth day,” Grampa continued, “a storm moved in. The sky was gray in the morning when we left the camp, and it only got grayer. The wind came up, and even in the woods with all those trees, it blew so hard it hurt. We worked, not even stopping for lunch, because we worried the horses might cool down and freeze if they stopped moving. ‘Let’s head back,’ Padric said a couple of times, but I wouldn’t answer him, so he kept working too.
“Now the thing of it was that I wanted to go back, but I was waiting for him to lead the way, thinking that once he went, I would follow. But he didn’t go, and I was too mule-headed to go first.
“We finished our shift that day and I led the horses back to the camp, the snow so deep they had a hard time of it. Padric had a hard time too. I could see that his feet hurt, and I felt a little sorry for him so I didn’t say anything when he sat on the sled on the way back. As it turned out it was the worst thing he could’a done. The cold froze his toes. They had to take him to town and the doc lopped off two on one foot and one on the other.”
Grampa stopped talking. When Jeremy glanced at him, he saw tight lips and a dampness at the corner of his eyes. Grampa pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and blew his nose before he went on.
“Boss called Padric a fool for not coming in sooner, but Padric never once blamed me for staying out in the storm. Told me later he was afraid to leave me in the woods. Worried I might die of cold. Said he didn’t want to lose his best buddy.”
“Were you friends after that?” Jeremy asked.
“For life. Padric decided to go back to school the next year, so I went along.” He chuckled. “After working in the woods, school didn’t seem so hard or so boring anymore. If it weren’t for Padric, I never would have finished high school.”
“What happened to him?”
“There’s a lot of jobs you can’t do when you’re missin’ toes, but it turned out that doctoring wasn’t one of them.”
“He became a doctor?”
Grampa nodded. “A darn good one.” He smiled. “And when he was done with all his schoolin’, he married my little sister and became your mother’s favorite uncle.”
“You mean Uncle Pat?”
“That’s the one.”
Buddy stood up and gave himself a shake. “You ready to head back?” Grampa asked.
Jeremy nodded.
They walked in silence for a while before Grampa said, “I dunno if that answers your question. I suppose there are some things in life you have to decide for yourself.”
Jeremy’s shoulders sagged just a little. Then he sighed. “I guess I knew that.”
TWENTY – TWO
As Jeremy rounded the corner of the house, he heard Nana say, “There can’t be too many days like this left in the year.”
He looked up. She was alone on the bench that ran across the back of the porch. Her eyes were closed, her face turned to the sun. A leaf, streaked yellow and brown, floated down and settled unnoticed on her shoulder. Through the window behind her came the clanking sounds of pans and the swoosh of water running into the sink.
“Leave it for now, Carol,” she called. “Come outside and enjoy this sunshine. We’ll tidy up later. The dishes can wait.”
Jeremy reached the porch steps just as his mother came through the door. She was drying her hands on a dish towel. “That’s the potatoes all peeled and ready,” she said. “We can put them on when the turkey’s almost done.”
“Where’d you leave Grampa?” she asked when she saw Jeremy.
“He went to get something from the shed. Said he’d be right in.”
Nana smiled and patted the seat on the bench beside her. “Come. Sit,” she said to his mother.
“Actually, I was thinking of driving over to our old house. Papa told me they have an Apples For Sale sign out, and I’d love to get some. You used to love those apples, Jeremy. Especially the ones from the tree by the side of the house. Remember? You wanna come?”
No! The word screamed in Jeremy’s head. No! No! He looked up. Was he shouting? He saw Nana hoist herself from the bench.
“Great idea,” she said. “I’ll just check on that bird and change my shoes.” Jeremy saw her walk through the door before he collapsed to the porch steps.
“Jeremy?” his mother said. “Jeremy? What’s wrong? Are you all right?” She hurried down to him. “Are you sick? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t…,” he started. “Don’t make me.” A pain, sharp and hard, flashed behind his eyes. And then he couldn’t stop the memory: the motorcycle roaring. The sudden stop. His arms and legs spread-eagled as he flew, hands reaching toward the road and the rocks. Water and blood patterning his visor. He heard himself rasp, “Daddy? Daddy! It hurts!”
Heard Henry’s pain-filled yips and saw the dog on the road, his head between his paws. “Henry?”
Henry’s head lifted. He whined. Struggled to rise. Then he whimpered and dropped.
“Daddy!” Where was his father? “Daddy?” There. Beside the motorcycle, his head turned in an impossible direction.
“Jeremy?” His mother’s voice cut through the nightmare images.
“No,” he groaned. He shook his head and closed his eyes, hoping the pictures would go away, but they replayed behind his eyelids. He couldn’t stop seeing them. Couldn’t turn off the sound of the motorcycle’s drone or Henry’s whimpers.
Why now? He clutched his stomach and gasped.
A new wave of pain spread through his body. He heaved and threw up. Once, then again and again, until there was nothing left. Still his body heaved.
He felt his mother’s hands. One, firm and warm, holding his forehead, the other rubbing his back.
“I didn’t. I didn’t mean it,” he sobbed. “I didn’t mean it.”
“It’s okay, baby,” she said. “It’s okay. People throw up. It happens.”
“No…,” he tried to speak, but she wouldn’t let him go on.
“Just breathe,” she said, “just breathe.” Her hands never let go.
TWENTY – THREE
Later, when he was washed and dressed again, he sat on the living-room couch bundled in one of Nana’s afghans. He was rocking. Like Aaron, he thought. Just like Aaron. He willed himself to stop, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.
Nana and his mother were seated on either side of him, Grampa on the chair opposite. Their faces mirrored their concern. He had to tell. He wanted to tell. They’ll hate me, he thought. But he couldn’t keep his secret. Not anymore.
“I was…I was so excited to ride on the motorcycle. I knew you didn’t want me to.” He glanced at his mother. “But…” He shrugged. “I held on to Dad’s middle the way he told me, and I leaned when we turned onto the road. I did everything he said. After we rounded the curve I looked back. I was gonna wave…but you were gone.”
“I was mad at your father,” she whispered. “I went inside because I couldn’t sta
nd to see you leave.”
“That’s when I saw Henry,” Jeremy went on. “He was cutting across the field. You know how fast he could run. He looked like he was flying. I called out to Dad, but he didn’t hear. I shouted. I guess he couldn’t hear me over the noise of the engine. I pounded on his shoulder, but by that time Henry was beside us. Dad swerved. We hit…I don’t know what we hit.” His voice cracked, and he coughed to clear his throat. “We stopped just like that.” His right hand smacked against the left. “And I went flying.”
“Oh, Jeremy.” His mother reached for his hands, but he shook her away, knowing what he still had to tell.
“It was my fault,” he said. “Don’t you see? It was… my fault.”
“No!” His mother wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “How could it have been your fault?”
“I…I didn’t close the latch on the dog run.” The words spilled out. “I must not have closed it. That’s how Henry got out. It was my fault that Daddy died.” Then in a whisper, “It’s okay if you hate me.”
It wasn’t until the second time she spoke that Jeremy heard his mother’s words. “You’re wrong,” she was saying. “Can you hear me? Listen to me! You’re wrong!”
He looked up, tears flooding his eyes.
“The gate was locked,” she said firmly when she had his attention. “Officer McKendrick checked after the accident. It was the wire mesh that gave way. You know how Henry always hurled himself against the fence. The staples gave way, and he squeezed through. That’s how he got out. It wasn’t your fault. It was not your fault,” she said, as if the repetition would make her words more true.
Jeremy searched her face, but her eyes never wavered.
“It was not your fault,” she said again. “I should have told you. I wanted to tell you everything, but every time I tried talking about the accident, I got too upset. I kept crying. I couldn’t help it. And every time I cried you got upset too…and you had those terrible dreams…