Our Homesick Songs

by Emma Hooper

  I brought our things, he said. I thought you might want to work on it a bit before your shift, get your hands back busy. He set the bag down on the bed.

  She picked it up, back off the bed, and put it on the floor. Here, she said. You can sit down, John.

  OK, he said. He sat down. Laughed a little.

  She sat next to him. Despite his clothes, he smelled like work, like here. How’s your sister?

  Not speaking right now. Still. Mom has to dress and undress her. Each morning and each night. Else she’d just wear the same thing forever.

  I’m sorry, said Martha. I bet she’ll wear these mittens.

  Anything from Cora?

  No.

  She’ll be all right, Martha. She’s young, she’s strong.

  How do you know? That she’s strong?

  Like her mother, said John. I mean, I bet she is. Right?

  Maybe, said Martha.

  You go home tomorrow, don’t you? said John.

  Yes, said Martha.

  It’s a long time, a month, isn’t it? said John.

  Yes, said Martha.

  They were both facing the knitting bag on the floor, not each other. She looked up, at his face in profile. His skin impossibly smooth for here, for work. She moved toward it and kissed his cheek. Easy. Just like that.

  He turned and kissed her back. Easy. Just like that.

  Cora finished her shift. She walked Giancarlo and Giannina back to their kennel, fed them, making sure the portions were exactly equal, said goodnight and good job, and went to get her own dinner from Darwiish.

  Deal of the Day!, please, she said.

  Darwiish nodded and took her money and handed her a disposable Styrofoam bowl, already prepared and waiting for her. He smiled and she smiled back.

  Before going to bed Cora got down on hands and knees and pulled her violin case out from under her bed. She opened it. Inside, there was a brown envelope. She reached in and pulled out little stacks of bills held together with hair elastics, one stack per denomination. She removed the elastics and counted the bills out, adding up each stack with the next until she reached a total. Four thousand eight hundred and sixty-five dollars. She crossed out an old number and wrote this down on the envelope, then put it all back. She was halfway there. Almost halfway.

  Before falling asleep she thought about the kind of apartment she’d get in Edmonton, the kind of city job. She thought, like she usually did, about the letter she’d write to Finn, in English, to the England! house, when the time came. To get him to join her, go to school like a normal kid, have friends and groceries and a black-and-white dog before it was too late, too late for them both to be just normal.

  And then the month was over and Martha came home and Aidan left. They met in the ferry lot, she coming off, he getting on. They spoke but did not kiss, they leaned in but did not hug, both holding their bags, their things, as Finn watched and waited to the sound of the car idling, the seabirds circling, the ferry engine humming long and low.

  When Finn and his mother got home, she went upstairs. For a nap, she said. A quick nap. To reset my dreams, she said, even though that didn’t make sense because dreams aren’t something you can control, not like that.

  It was still light out, still the middle of the afternoon. Because it was easier than negotiating his way back into his own now-too-small boots, Finn slipped into his mother’s, pulled on Cora’s sweater and went out again. He sang into the wind as he walked.

  Oh the bog flower waltz is the waltz of the hungry

  And it started to rain,

  Yes the bog flower waltz is the waltz of this land

  but not heavy.

  As the wind blows west and the fog rises lonely

  •  •  •

  At the Italy! house he updated his lists, added all the batteries and everything else to Things Taken, and added Birds (terns, petrels, gulls, guillemots) and Sophie McKinley to Things Back. He put the lists back up on the Trevi Fountain and surveyed the room. He had everything, everything he needed, sorted and ready. He had:

  • five bowls of batteries, sorted by type: double As, triple As, little round watch ones, nine volts and big, heavy Ds;

  • twelve flashlights, three headlamps, six bike lights, five fake candles and five little ceramic Mary and Jesus figurines that lit up when you pressed the bottom;

  • two plastic Ziploc bags per light, one normal and one colored green all over on the inside with permanent marker (the lights would go inside these, waterproofed);

  • thirty-one paper clips, each one hooked through a corner of one of the clear bags, each one attached to a length of fish twine;

  • thirty-one floats, tied around and attached to the paper clips with the twine (these were just whatever Finn could find that passed a floating test in the Beggs’ bathtub: a beach ball, an octopus bath toy, a plastic bottle, a bundle of corks);

  • thirty-one pink, white and green plastic flags from a hundred-pack that Finn found in the Doyles’ shed (they were duct-taped upright to each float and stuck up and out about twelve inches).

  And that was that. Lights in bags marked by floating flags. Simple. Ready. He counted everything one more time, then turned off the lights and put on his boots and went home, to dinner, to his mother.

  Martha put down her things and lay down on the bed she shared with Aidan. She lay on her back, facing straight up at the white-painted beams of the ceiling. Her eyes were open. She didn’t sleep, she didn’t move, she just lay there, staring up. She heard the front door open, heard Finn go out. Then, after an hour or two, she heard the front door open again and Finn come back, his footsteps moving into the kitchen, so she got up. She looked at herself in the mirror, unclenched her hand and went downstairs.

  •  •  •

  They had toast with beans for dinner, microwaved so it got soggy and sauce leaked through the middle of the bread. Martha was quiet. Each scrape of their knives against the plates, each gust of wind against the window, was the loudest thing.

  Once Finn had eaten half, exactly half, of his portion, he asked, Will we go on a field trip this month, Mom? Field-trip day?

  Martha was looking down at her beans, at her fork. A drop of red sauce dripped onto her plate. She let it fall before answering. No, Finn, not tomorrow.

  Maybe?

  Maybe.

  •  •  •

  That night the fog pushed in and whited out the sunset, the stars, the moon. It pushed under the door gaps, through cracks in the floors and windows. It rose up and covered the Eiffel Tower in France!, the tea ceremony in Japan!, the piñatas in Mexico!, the mermaids in Atlantis. It flowed up the stairs and rose around Finn where he was sleeping and around Martha who wasn’t, pulled through her hair like breath, pressed against her head like memory.

  •  •  •

  By morning the sky had cleared and the light was yellow and simple on the water. Finn watched it out of Cora’s bedroom window in his pajamas. He slept there most nights now. Then he got dressed and went downstairs to where his mother was drinking coffee in the kitchen and said, I’d like to take my boat out today.

  Martha took a swallow of coffee and said, OK. And then, Eat first?

  OK, said Finn, even though they were out of cereal again, out of milk again.

  •  •  •

  Finn took a mug with a green and red moose on it, probably a Christmas mug though they used it year-round, and, before going to Italy!, boulder-jumped inland to find and pick bakeapple for Mrs. Callaghan, in case she was as hungry as he was. They were still tricky to find, still small and red and hard, but after an hour or so he had enough to look all right, there in the mug. He held one hand over the top as he hopped back, the berries bumping back and forth against his palm. At the Beggs’, Finn packed two flashlights and one Mary, along with their bags and floats and flags, in his backpack, all that would fit, and put the backpack on. Then he closed and latched up his accordion and put it on his front. It didn�
��t look like rain, or heavy mist or hail, but he brought an empty garbage bag too, an emergency accordion raincoat, just in case. Accordion on his front, backpack on his back, garbage bag in one hand and berries in the other, Finn used the door instead of the window, walking out and down to his boat as the birds flew up and around and around.

  Oh yes, said Mrs. Callaghan. I thought you’d come today.

  You did?

  Well, the fog last night told me you might.

  It did?

  Yes.

  Oh. Did it tell you anything else?

  I didn’t get to be this old by telling other people’s secrets, she said. She stepped aside and opened the doorway up to him. Come in, come in anyway. You’re loaded down like a potato horse, and we’ve got plenty of work to do.

  They ate the berries sprinkled over with dark brown sugar to ease their early sourness.

  •  •  •

  After the lesson, on his way back from Mrs. Callaghan’s, Finn sank his first three lights. Then he dropped off his accordion in Italy!, got three more lights-in-bags, rowed them out and sank them too. And again and again. He had a map he’d drawn of where the things were, the cars and trucks and bikes and chairs. He dropped lights down and into each, glowing green down and down and down among the strollers and van and broken boats. The color of safety, the color of home.

  Snow had fallen

  Snow on snow

  Snow on snow on snow

  Again, Cora made her rounds. One last round for the day.

  She’s like the sunshine

  On the lee shore

  No bears. She fed Giancarlo and Giannina, put them to bed. Visited Darwiish. Deal of the Day!, ready already.

  She read some of a Russian–English dictionary and took a few notes, = dogs, = soon, BOT = here, and then went to bed. Tomorrow was another payday. She thought of each like a square forward on a snakes and ladders game. Just keep moving forward, look for ladders, don’t be tempted by snakes.

  She fell asleep around ten o’clock.

  The boys came at midnight, like they sometimes did. They banged on her door. They yelled, D-ON! D-OON! Come out with us! They started Giancarlo and Giannina barking. D-ON! D-OON! Come out, come out with us! They barked along with the dogs. Or let us in with you! We love you, Don! We love you! Shaking the door handle, howling. Cora, though awake, kept her eyes closed and thought about the board game, counted how many squares left. Counted and counted again. They yelled and barked and howled and she counted how many squares left.

  Once it was quiet, no voices or footsteps, Cora got up, pulled on her oversized Deep Wood Energy and Industry T-shirt and her coat and her boots with no socks and went out to calm the dogs. Before leaving, she slipped the Russian dictionary into her coat pocket. There was already paper in there, and a pencil. She opened Giancarlo and Giannina’s kennel, got in and closed the door after her. She sat between the two dogs and stroked their heads in turn and read out loud to them. , MAMA . When they were breathing regularly again, asleep or almost asleep, Cora flattened out a piece of paper on the cement floor and, with the help of the dictionary, wrote to Finn in slow, careful characters.

  When she was finished, both dogs were fully asleep and she had to lift Giancarlo’s head from her lap to get up. She locked them both in and walked back toward her own room. The sound of the night work mixed with the sound of the night birds and Cora looked out toward the edge of camp, toward the woods. Bears were just as likely to come at night, she knew, she’d been told, but she saw nothing but the darkness of trees and the darker darkness between them.

  Sophie held the letter out in front of her. She turned it over. Sometimes foreign ones had the return address on the back, like the ones she wasn’t supposed to deliver to officially off-grid Mrs. Callaghan but did anyway, but there was nothing on the back of this one. She turned it around again. There it was, in cheap ballpoint: her own address, her own house, but not her name, or even her parents’. The letter was addressed to Finn, Finnigan Connor, at her house. Finn was getting letters at all sorts of weird places lately, houses that weren’t his, and that was fine, she delivered them as addressed, that was her job as stipulated in her Postal Oath, but this was different. For this one, she would have to wait for Finn to come to her, to her house; she’d have to hold on to the letter herself, and that didn’t seem right. The Postal Oath was fuzzy on this, but it didn’t seem very ethical, her keeping something that was his. It wasn’t far to the Connors’, if she treated it as speed training she could run over and back in less than ten minutes. The reposting of the letter would be like the passing of a baton; she probably wouldn’t even see Martha, or be seen by her, she would just be doing her job.

  Martha drank her coffee slowly, hot to warm to cool, then made another cup and drank that. Then she heard the noise of the mail slot opening and closing, something falling onto the mat.

  She finished the second coffee and looked down at the still-dark ring in the bottom of the mug, the always-dark ring. You need to stand up, she whispered, into the ring. Stand up, get the post. She stayed for ten more seconds, then thirty, she scratched at the ring, it stayed dark. She turned the mug upside down onto the table, put her hands on either side of it and pushed herself up, away. She walked the fifteen steps to the mail. The letter had landed facedown. She bent, turned it over.

  •  •  •

  She dialed without stopping to think, without sitting or putting down the letter.

  Hello, Bear Falls Energy where safety is chief and quality is standard, this is the central desk, how can I help you?

  It’s Martha Connor. I need to speak to Aidan Connor right now. I know he’s at work, but I need to speak to him now.

  Right now?

  Right now.

  •  •  •

  Martha? Aidan’s breath was heavy, like he’d just been running or lifting.

  She’s alive, said Martha. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive.

  She’s— said Aidan. His voice was quiet, was barely there at all.

  She’s alive, said Martha.

  She’s alive, said Aidan.

  Martha told him about the letter. It’s her writing, I know it is, she said.

  And it’s to Finn? asked Aidan.

  It’s to our Finn and it’s our Cora’s writing, said Martha.

  The address, Finn’s name, the McKinley house, it was all Cora. The writing as familiar to Martha as a picture, as a voice.

  Did you open it?

  Finn’s not home. He’s at accordion.

  You can open it, Martha, said Aidan. It’s allowed now. It’s OK.

  Martha made a small tear, the upper right-hand corner. OK, she said. Yes. She slid her finger along and the cheap glue gave way like nothing, like water. The paper inside was small, was ripped, and was covered over in symbols from somewhere else, a language beautiful and illegible. The envelope fell down, onto the floor. Oh, said Martha. It’s not English, Aidan. It’s . . . far away. She’s far away.

  What is it? What language?

  I don’t know.

  You can’t read it?

  I can’t read it.

  Trucks crunched gravel behind Aidan, shouting men and machines called back and forth. The postmark, he said. Martha, what about the postmark?

  Yes, said Martha. Yes, yes of course. She picked up the envelope again. Oh my God, she said.

  The trucks and the shouts and Aidan. What? he said. Where?

  Aidan, it’s, said Martha. It’s a picture of a buffalo. It’s the stamp for the camps of Wood Buffalo. For the work sites. For—

  For where we are, said Aidan.

  For where you are, said Martha.

  Oh, said Aidan.

  Oh, oh, oh, said Martha.

  OK, said Aidan. OK, OK, OK. We know Arthur Begg’s at White Bison work camp—

  And Clem Dwyer’s at Blue Spruce—

  And Jeannie O’Neil’s at Round Mountain—

  And Patrick O’Neil’s at Clear Springs�
�

  And Ali Doyle’s there too, and there’s the local papers too, the Chronicle and the Bugler and the local constabulary and—

  Wait, wait, Aidan, wait. Martha opened drawers until she found a pen with ink and something to write on, an old flyer for a dance six years ago. OK, she said. Say them again. Say them all again. And phone numbers if you know them. I’ve got all afternoon, I’ve got all month.

  Egyptian, said Finn. Or, what they speak in Egypt. He was still carrying his things, he wasn’t even all the way in the door yet.

  Egypt? said Martha. How do you know that?

  I, said Finn, his neck hot, his fingers slippery around his accordion case’s handle. We, we studied it for school.

  You did?

  Yes.

  Can you read it?

  No, he said. He stopped, his mind splitting off in all the directions things could go, all the things he could and couldn’t say. I, he said. I think I could find books on the library boat, books that could help.

  Translate?

  Yes.

  OK. OK, then, let’s go there.

  •  •  •

  Why did she send it to the McKinleys’? asked Martha. They were walking to the library. She was still holding the letter, hadn’t given it to him.

  I don’t know, said Finn.

  No idea?

  Maybe Cora knows Sophie’s the new postwoman. Maybe she thought that’d be faster, sending it through her.

  Or, maybe she didn’t want us, me or Aidan, to see?

  No, said Finn. No, no. The letters under his sweater and shirt were soft and thin from wear, like cotton, like skin.