“Betty’s faster than anybody with figures. Works out percentages in her head like nobody else. Better than a calculator. Fahrenheit to Centigrade, miles to kilometres—all in jig time.”
“But she never looks at the newspaper, or books.” Silence. “And she doesn’t…. She doesn’t like to read stuff with words.” Cathy waited a moment and took a deep breath. “Dad, can Mom read?”
Dad stood still—still like a bird when there’s a cat around. Mom flapped about doing stuff when she was upset. Dad went still as a stone.
“Why don’t you ask her if she has a bit of trouble reading the same way you have?” He looked at her then. “And Cathy, ask her exactly that. Do you understand?”
And Cathy did understand. She did. “Can’t you tell me?”
He shook his head. “I promised.”
They went inside and Mom still hadn’t come out of the bedroom so Dad knocked and said it was him and went in and stayed for ages. Cathy walked up and down practicing what she was going to say, over and over, and wondered whether she should give her mom a hug, or look at the floor or something while she asked, and she got more and more nervous the longer she waited. But in the end she didn’t have to say anything.
They came out of the bedroom, Mom first, and her eyes were red. She sat in a chair facing Cathy and Dad stood next to her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Dad says you’ve been asking about my eyes.” Cathy opened her mouth but her mother didn’t wait. “I’ve always had trouble with reading.” She took a big breath. “Much worse than you, although I hid it better. And I was able to leave school early and go work in the fish plant like a lot of girls round here so I could hide it later on, too. Mostly. Dot knew. Mel knew.” And Mom gave Dad such a beautiful smile and put her hand over his, the hand that was still on her shoulder. Then she looked at Cathy. “But there’s no fish plant for you. Nothing for any of you.”
Not just closed but all the machinery taken out and sent somewhere. Head Off. Gutted. Mom sounded so sad but Cathy didn’t mind a bit, couldn’t think of anything worse than working all her life in a fish plant, but she didn’t say so.
“…didn’t want you to know about all that. Felt stupid. Wanted to help you with reading so much and I couldn’t, and then some total stranger walks in off the street and does what I should be doing.” Her eyes filled up and Cathy hugged her and Dad hugged them both, and little snags of hurt feelings surfaced and swirled and passed on: should have, tried, wouldn’t listen, so sorry, no I’m sorry.
And Cathy handed the report card to her dad to read out loud but he said no, you can read it to us from now on, Cathy. So she did. And afterwards they discussed it, piece by piece, and Mom and Dad both said how well Cathy was doing ten times each and how proud they were and Dad said next time they were in Gander they’d have lunch at the Albatross to celebrate.
Change of View
Cathy had asked her father about her mother’s reading difficulties: were they really that much worse than Cathy’s? And he said yes, definitely. So she asked Sarah more about that brain mix-up thing, dyslexia, and afterwards Dad said yes, Betty had all those problems. So how did Mom cover it up better than Cathy had? Dad said he wasn’t getting into that, better ask her mom.
Mom said she could read symbols easy enough and there were symbols on road signs and clothes and detergents and all kinds of household things. “And Mel and Dot helped with the reading and writing parts of homework. I listened real careful to the teachers so I could join in class discussions, said things over and over in my head so I’d remember. Then I was just as good as everyone else at classwork.”
Mom really had made the best of it, hadn’t let anything stop her, didn’t get left behind. Most people still didn’t know she couldn’t read. Cathy opened her mouth to say all that but her mom was back to moaning over how Cathy never listened to her, only ever listened to Sarah Brooks. Here we go again. Cathy switched off, walked out of the kitchen, out of the house. Out.
She brooded over all that. Why hadn’t Mom explained all this to Cathy years ago? Why did she have to learn about it from Sarah? She should have learned from her own mother.
“Dad, how did you find out Mom couldn’t read?” Dad was sitting opposite Cathy at the table and her mom was at the counter.
“I worked it out. We were in the same class and I noticed Betty didn’t even have her book out half the time, and didn’t write things down. I was always aware of what your mom did. Then one day after class I just asked her straight out and offered to help.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“I should have. I’m sorry.”
Her mother turned away from the counter, not noticing gravy dripping off the spoon onto the floor and said in a very quiet voice, “Why didn’t you tell us, Cathy?”
“I did, at the end of grade seven. The second one.”
“No, you didn’t. Because it’s hard. Dad read it out of Mrs. Elliot’s letter.”
“Well, okay. But you never asked. You could have been helping me all this time, could have told me about listening and remembering—”
“Good heavens, Cathy, I’ve been trying to tell you for years, over and over, but you never heard a word I said. You never want to hear what I say.”
“If you’d told me you couldn’t read I’d have understood.” Cathy’s voice was rising. “I’d have listened then.”
Mom turned back to the counter and put the spoon down. “I tried to tell you once. It was just after we moved here and you kept saying how you missed the lighthouse and how it was easy for me because I liked being nearer my sisters. And I said it had been hard when I first moved out to the light, just as it had been hard for me not being able to read.” Mom’s voice was real soft and Cathy had to strain to hear. “I was terrified,” her mother said. “It was the first time I’d told anyone right out. And I waited and waited for you to say something, holding my breath.”
She looked at Cathy then and Cathy said, “I don’t remember any of this, Mom.”
“No. Because you weren’t listening. Know what you said in the end? You said, well, anyway, Mom, what’s for supper?”
Cathy couldn’t move. Her heart banged extra hard but the rest of her was frozen. Mom and Dad were both looking at her with their mouths all tight and Cathy couldn’t think of anything to say except sorry, a million times sorry. Finally she unfroze enough to get up and hug her mom and say sorry out loud. And ages later she said how hard she was working at listening and she’d never do anything like that again.
August 24 1996
Done reading Superfudge by Judy Blume. Read every word. Just a litel kids book but 192 pages in chapters. Funny. Laffing made it easier to keep going. Start Fudge-a-mania nex. Grad 9 in 10 days.
On the Move
June. First week of summer vacation and all finished with grade ten. It was only twelve degrees and blustery but Hutch couldn’t wait to get out on the water. Usually Dad wouldn’t let them go out with less than three boats, said he didn’t trust the weather, but he let them go in the end.
“…only because you three are strong paddlers and only this end of the harbour.” His father looked them each in the eye: Hutch, Andy, and Jack. The boys were scuffing their feet and saying “yes sir,” and “yes, Mr. Parsons.”
Then Dad looked straight at Hutch. “That means not past the red buoy, Hutch.” Dad brought the kayaks down to the launch in his pickup: Dolphin, and one double. “Remember what I told you.”
The boats bucked a bit near the wharves where the water going out got in a shoving match with the water coming in. Then Hutch was free, riding the swells, feeling the water through the paddle, turning Dolph into the waves. He clipped the top of one wave with his paddle and the wind blew icy spray in his face but even that felt good. He heard Jack in the back of the other boat yell, “Hey! Watch it!” at Andy too, and Hutch laughed.
He reached ahead,
dug deep, and raced straight out, still laughing, with a damp wind in his face, salt on his tongue, gull screams in his ears, and a grey-green world leaping all around him. There was nothing in the universe as good as this.
They’d been paddling for an hour when the wind changed from chilling Hutch’s ear to freezing his cheek. It must have veered a few points and fast. It smelled less of harbour now and more of deep ocean, fresh and clean, and there were whitecaps with threads of spray unwinding off the tops. They had to paddle harder to stay on course so they headed back and by the time they reached the slipway the light had changed, taking the colour out of everything.
Hutch carried his boat over his head and he could feel the gusts pushing, letting up, then pushing again. His wrists strained as Dolph tried to twist out of his grip and he had his work cut out to keep her straight as he walked up to the truck. They loaded the double first, checking it was secure. A car drove by with Phyllis Barnes’s face in the rear window and Hutch watched until the car disappeared.
Jack said, “Like her, do ya?”
Hutch leered at him and Andy sniggered. They went back to the ramp for Dolph, Jack to one end and Hutch to the other. Jack nodded at someone on the road and said hi. Hutch glanced round but it was only Cathy Russell, striding away down Main Road, the wind flattening her clothes against her back.
“Like her do ya?” Hutch called into the wind, grinning at Jack.
“Just being polite,” said Jack. “Should try it sometime.”
“To Lighthouse?” Hutch was still shouting. Andy sniggered again and muttered something about Cathy needing a keeper.
“Yeah,” said Hutch, “they forgot to turn on the light in that one.”
“Keep it down, Hutch,” Jack said, frowning at him. “She’ll hear you.”
“Too much wind.”
“Hear you in Bonavista.”
Jack must have ratted on him because Jenny called him a mean bastard the day after. She was like litmus paper—turned red if you did anything she didn’t like. Hutch did a lot of things Jenny didn’t like.
It turned out to be a good summer for girls, though, that summer after grade ten. He dated Jane Butt and Maggie Abbott and oh-my-god, Phyllis Barnes.
There were more high-wind days than usual that year. When Dad said the wind was too risky for kayaking, Hutch and Jack would work on the shack the guys were building in the woods from scraps, or they would pester Jack’s brother, Eugene, for a ride in the back of his old Silverado. When he had any gas. When it was working. Hutch spent more time under it, passing stuff, than riding in it. But Eugene was a laugh and didn’t act the big brother with them and never minded Jack and Hutch hanging around. So there was always plenty to do, but nothing beat being out on the water.
The first time he’d rolled a kayak was in their second summer of paddling, all the gang on Uncle Em’s pond. Hutch’s dad and Hutch’s brother, Brian, had done kayaking safety courses so they could take tourists out on the bay. They practiced on the pond then taught the gang. That roll was harder than it looked: you could get fooled up when you were upside down and push the wrong way, then your lungs started taking on water. You needed strong trunk muscles too, for that flick of the hips that brought the boat right side up, but Hutch never had trouble with that part. Paul bought little clips to stop the water going up his nose—always had the fancy stuff.
They practiced the roll, both directions. That summer, Hutch could roll every time with his regular paddle, two or three times with a shorter paddle, even once with just his arms. He was the only one strong enough to do it with just arms. Dad said it was good to be able to do it with no paddle in case it got knocked out of your hands on a rock or something.
And at the end of that summer, Hutch had the run of his life: a white-water run on the Gander River. And it was the best. The Best. Jack couldn’t come, but apart from that, Hutch would remember it always as being perfect: Bud, Paul, and Hutch and their three fathers all in rented river kayaks. If there were flies they didn’t bite, if there was wind it blew the right way, and the sun never stopped shining. The campsites were flat, their cook fires lit on the first try, and the food was endless.
River sounds were different from ocean sounds: like an orchestra with less bass. Hutch would lie in his sleeping bag, listening, and fall asleep trying to figure out why. The river sounded more pure, more light and bubbly, even the big waterfalls. The ocean had all that weight of rock and mineral in it. The river talked, chatty some places, shouting in others. The ocean didn’t bother to talk—it was all roar.
Hutch did a roll in a real choppy patch, twice, and it was easy. A wave tipped him sideways and he just rolled with it and came up the other side and kept paddling. Felt natural. But he could see why you needed helmets on the river—some of those rocks were wicked.
He slept like a rock too. It was the portages that were tiring more than the paddling, but it was the sort of tired he loved. Satisfying: like coming off the ice dripping with sweat after a real tough game, or finally seeing the top of the bus in the distance after a long tramp with cadets, or like playing soccer on a full field with half the team missing.
Hutch dreamed of doing it again the next summer but Bud was heading to Memorial that fall. He had a summer job lined up, and could only come to Mariners Cove for a week. Paul’s family had visitors all the time and anyway Paul was always off somewhere with Jenny, doing boring stuff like peeling buckets of potatoes for the family dinner. The gang still kayaked when they could, and Hutch helped Dad take tourists out when there was a big group but wouldn’t it be great if….
Maybe after grade twelve.
Paparazzi
Cathy passed all her exams at the end of grade nine and not one borderline mark. She was passing everything these days and if she was stuck with something she’d ask a teacher and they always helped. None of them made her feel stupid for asking. Joan White was skipping more and more classes. She showed up for the exams but walked out halfway through. All year, she had nodded at Cathy, said hi, but never stopped to talk. If Cathy started to say something Joan would shake her head and walk away.
Cathy was almost done grade ten when her father graduated in the spring of 1998. He had a job for the summer in Labrador, right in the interior. He flew there by helicopter from Goose Bay and lived in a tent and had to watch out for bears and got isolation pay—which was funny because Dad loved being isolated.
He bought a new digital camera in St. John’s for the trip, for the work he was doing. He gave Cathy his old one and showed her how to use it and they practiced with it before he left. Cathy started taking photographs sometimes for people pictures because it was quicker—everyone moved around so much. Some guys had told her where to shove her sketches. Now they said things like, “Here comes the paparazzi,” and “Look what they did to Princess Diana.” But most kids just grinned or pulled faces at the camera. Jed Batton did a moon. Sarah said Cathy really should ask people’s permission first, but they’d all be gone if she did that. Anyway, people wouldn’t grab an expensive camera out of her hands the way Parsons had grabbed her sketchbook that time.
That had been the first week of summer vacation. Paul Wilson had been going out with Jenny Sheppard for a whole year and Cathy’s insides still got in a knot when she saw how they looked at each other. And she could understand. Jenny was so pretty—not as tiny as Sarah but small and dainty and Sarah said what glorious hair she had and that was the right word. It was like a sunset: long and smooth and shining red-gold. And everyone liked Jenny. She was friendly and always helped Cathy when she asked and never laughed at her or said unkind things about her or about anybody. If Cathy had been asked to pick out a girlfriend for Paul it would have been Jenny. But she so, so wished it could have been her.
So Cathy drew a lot of pictures of Paul instead. Didn’t paint any because you couldn’t hide paintings, but she had half a book full of sketches of him—one of her good ske
tchbooks with the thick paper that didn’t wrinkle. Sarah had picked up a whole bunch, cheap, at that new Price Club place in St. John’s.
And that was the book Hutch Parsons had yanked out of her hand and taken off with, waving it above his head, laughing. He slid into his kayak and pushed off. Some of the others were already on the water and they all pulled their boats together to have a look and Paul and Jenny were there in a double and Cathy didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t anything she could do.
She wanted to kill Parsons, run away, curl up in a ball and howl. But she just stood there. Then Jenny had the book and Parsons was holding his hand out saying “hey!” and Jenny was backing out her and Paul’s kayak, saying something in an angry voice which Cathy couldn’t hear. She and Paul paddled back to shore, Paul with his head ducked down.
Jenny laid the sketchbook on the dock a few feet away and called, “A few splashes on it. Better dry it off quick.” She smiled and waved to Cathy and they turned the boat and paddled out again.
***
Cathy tried not to think about it but it kept going round and round in her head, how Parsons had shamed her in front of Paul and Jenny and the other guys. She was slow getting to sleep that night because of it, woke up thinking about it. Bit by bit she got used to the idea of the guys knowing how she felt about Paul—half the girls in Mariners Cove felt the same way. She’d see that crowd around and they behaved how they always did, said hi, or not. Nothing much she could do but carry on.
But her anger at Parsons grew. She never wasted time planning revenge, but when the opportunity arose she didn’t think twice.
It was one of those iffy August days. There was a system off the coast and the forecasters didn’t know whether it would come close enough to cause trouble on land or pass them by. It was one of those things you lived with when you stuck this far out into the ocean. They had a bit of time before it hit, so Cathy was down on the dock early to finish some sketches. She’d finish them indoors if the weather bottomed out.
Catching the Light Page 5