One Good Thing

by Rebecca Hendry

  “Yeah,” Jones says through the screen. “Hurry up, it starts in ten minutes. Will’s in the truck.”

  Delilah scrambles to find her sandals and runs out of the house. Will is in the driver’s seat, his arm resting on the edge, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. “Hey, kid. Hop in back there, you two. You can catch the breeze.” Laska is beside him on the seat. Delilah and Jones climb up and Will takes off up the hill, honking at Bear as they pass a group of people in front of Weaver’s. Delilah thinks briefly of Clem, imagines her snuggled next to her in the back of the truck while her dad drives them up the hill, as she would have been if she had come to visit when she was supposed to. Delilah knows it’s silly, but still. She imagines a squirmy, giggling child laughing beside her as the breeze whips their hair. A little phantom sister.

  They have to wait in the long line that trails down Franklin Avenue, and Jones is so nervous about not getting in that Delilah thinks he might bolt to the front, but he contains himself. Will buys them popcorn and red licorice and they find seats.

  “All right, Jonesy,” Will says, settling his big body back in his seat. “Now we get to see what you been shooting your mouth off about all this time.”

  Jones sets his popcorn on his lap. “This is going to be the best movie you have ever seen,” he says.

  Will laughs and chews his licorice. “That so?”

  After the movie Jones is on fire. He babbles non-stop about dark forces and battleships and dying planets. Delilah tries to keep up as he reconstructs the entire movie while they walk to Nettie’s for food. Will humours Jones with good-natured teasing, and they settle into a booth at the packed restaurant. Apparently, everyone else has had the same idea.

  “Other worlds . . .” Jones is saying after they order their orange pop and cheese perogies and Will orders his Labatt’s and bratwurst and onions. “Like, his imagination with all these worlds and the creatures. It’s genius.”

  “Genius?” Will says. “You think so?”

  “Well, yeah,” Jones says. “It’s all make-believe. It all came from his imagination. He didn’t base it on anything he knew or had ever experienced before.”

  “Ah,” Will says, and thanks the waitress when she comes over with their drinks.

  She nods at Will. “This one causing you trouble, kids?” She’s grey-haired and soft, like a sassy grandma.

  They laugh.

  “He’s a charmer, but he’s a troublemaker.” She winks.

  Will takes a swig of the beer and winks back. “Must have me confused with someone else,” he says.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” She smiles and walks off to another table.

  “So,” Will says. “You don’t think there are other worlds out there? Other people living their little lives, just like us?”

  Jones stares at him. “What, like aliens?”

  Will shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe like aliens.”

  “That’s nuts,” Delilah says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jones slaps a hand down on the table. “Wait. You believe in aliens? For real? Like, aliens with weird faces and green skin?”

  Will nods solemnly, then his face breaks out in a wide grin. “Nah! Just pulling your chain.”

  He sits back and surveys the busy room. “Tell you what, though. It’s a great big universe. If we think we know everything that’s out there, we’re in for a big surprise.”

  “Do you think there are other planets like Earth?” Delilah says.

  Will waves at someone across the room. “I do.”

  “With people on them?” Jones asks.

  “Why not?” Will says. “You know how many planets in a galaxy? Billions. You know how many galaxies in the universe? Billions. You know how many stars are out there? You know how long humans have been living on this earth and having their children and working at their jobs and loving who they love and hating what they hate? Two hundred thousand years. Think about it.”

  Jones sits back.

  “Make you feel small?” Will says.

  Jones nods.

  “Good,” Will says as the food arrives. “It’s supposed to.”

  He thanks the waitress and then leans across their plates of perogies and sausage. “Any time you start feeling like maybe you have some big problems nobody else ever had before, walk outside and look up. Then you’ll see how big you are. How big those problems are. Look up and you see where we came from. Where every single thing you look at and play with and love and hate and wonder about and think about came from. It’s all from up there. And that’s where we go back to when we’re gone. We are small. We are very, very small. You never forget that, and you’ll be okay.” He smiles at them. “Eat up.”

  DELILAH SITS ON THE bow of the Aurora, leaning against the cabin, her face turned to the late-evening sun. The light dances off the bow wave as it slices the water. There is noise to the stern, someone singing, someone yelling. She has left Jones at the crib tournament in the cabin below battling Will for first place.

  By tonight they will be at a small island off Lonesome Point. It’s a six-hour trip, after touring around the North Arm for a while, and the fishing boat is packed with Old Town residents. City Jane had arrived at the docks with Will and an expensive-looking backpack. Louise, a waitress from the Wildcat, and her four-year-old son Dusty came with their gear stuffed in garbage bags.

  “This seat taken?” Mac settles beside her. He’s wearing a pair of worn cut-offs, and he’s sweaty and already sunburned.

  “Nope.” Delilah’s skirt ruffles in the breeze.

  Mac takes a sip of his gin and tonic, the ice cubes rattling in the cup. He’s had more than he usually would. She doesn’t mind, though. This is the most relaxed, the happiest he has looked since Annie left. Earlier Delilah and Jones had been making drinks for the adults, taking orders like waiters and throwing extra shots of gin in before handing them over innocently. The counter inside the boat is strewn with lemon carcasses and spilled tonic.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  She nods. There is nothing out here but water. Once in a while they pass a small unpopulated island of rock and trees, but otherwise, nothing. It’s hard for her to grasp that this is just a lake. It feels like you could go for days and never see another person.

  “First time you’ll be camping since you were five,” Mac says, tossing the ice from his cup into the lake. “Aside from the Barrens trip.”

  “Yeah.”

  They were in Saskatchewan when she was five. Delilah remembers dust and heat. She remembers walking from their tent to the lake, how she just wanted to drink it. She sat in the water with her pink bucket, filling it and dumping it on her head over and over.

  “Dad?”

  He looks over at her, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun.

  “Are you and Will having a fight about something?” She has noticed they haven’t spoken since everyone got on the boat. Not once. No good-natured ribbing, no whispered conversations away from the crowd like usual. Nothing. They avoided each other, sitting at opposite ends of the boat. It’s unsettling for her. Mac puts his hand down and sits back. Closes his eyes.

  “No. We’re not fighting.”

  “But you’re not talking to each other.”

  He smiles sleepily. “Not talking doesn’t mean you’re fighting, Lila. Just means you have nothing to say.”

  “Okay.”

  He takes a swig of his drink. “So listen, Lila . . .”

  She feels a tug at her belly.

  “I’ve been talking to your mom . . . and the thing is, you know, it’s just too hard on everyone for us to be apart.”

  She is watching Mac, every squint, every breath he is taking, the rise and fall of his sunburned chest. Suddenly it comes to her.

  “We’re going to California,” she says flatly.

  He takes another sip of his drink and sets the empty cup down. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I know you like it here. But she says she won’t come back. So I�
�m thinking . . . you know, we head down there and surprise her.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  He is taken aback. “What?”

  “I . . . no, I am not going to California. I’m going to school here in September. Grade 8. I already picked my classes in June. I’m taking sewing . . .”

  “Kiddo, I know it isn’t ideal, but it’s not like it’s the middle of the school year or anything.”

  “No. No. I’m not.” She knows she sounds like a toddler, but she can’t help it. Her mind is racing. She thinks of Jones playing cards downstairs. She thinks of Will. Of Maggie, making everyone avocado sandwiches in the galley. Red, driving the boat wearing some old navy captain hat over his scraggly hair. She feels desperate and latches on to the one thing she thinks might buy her time.

  “She was with Marcel.” She can’t bring herself to say “slept with” or worse, “had sex with.” She wants to crawl out of her own skin, but she knows she must do this.

  The wind has picked up off the lake, and her hair is blowing wildly around her. She tries to tame it with shaking hands. Her father is staring at her.

  “With him?” he says numbly.

  She nods, miserable.

  “How . . . how do you know that? You could have misunderstood . . .”

  “I heard them! So many times. They were in the room next door to me. Mom always thought I was sleeping, but I never was.” She is almost yelling. The indignity of having him question her when having to even say the words is like pulling off her own fingernails. Having to remember. Marcel’s stupid deep voice whispering things to Annie . . . disgusting things, Delilah is sure.

  Mac looks like he has been punched in the guts. He lets his breath out in a sudden rush, as though he had been holding it a long time. He looks out across the water. “I see,” he says.

  “Yes. So . . . so you shouldn’t go down there. Because that’s what she did. And . . . and not just with Marcel.” Delilah is blinking back tears, either from her whipping hair or from the sting of hurting him, she isn’t sure.

  Someone shouts from the door to the cabin, calling for Mac. He stands, a little unsteadily.

  “Dad?”

  “I should do down,” he says. He isn’t looking at her. “See what they want.”

  “Dad . . .”

  “See you later, Lila.”

  And he’s gone. She’s hurt him. Even though it wasn’t her that did the terrible things, she still hurt him. She wonders if telling him was the right thing to do after all.

  DELILAH AND JONES SPRAWL on the bunk in the wheelhouse, high above the chaos and drinking below on the decks and in the cabin. She has put her book aside, a battered mystery she found in a box of odds and ends under the bunk when she was looking for her sandal. Jones is twisting the dials on a transistor radio trying to get something besides the static and white noise. They are too far from anything, he had said, but he keeps trying.

  The boat sways and rocks them, keeps steadily on, and Delilah feels relaxed, the worries that gnawed at her since her talk with her dad finally quieting for the day. He was laughing and playing backgammon the last time she saw him. Maybe he will be okay. Maybe he just needs to think about it for a bit until he realizes that he and Delilah should stay in Yellowknife and let Annie do whatever she wants. The pillow under her head smells of must and oil and faintly of old fish, which is strangely soothing. Red has gone to get a drink, but he will come up and check his course again in a minute. He has been sitting at his captain’s chair quietly, letting them lie there in peace. Delilah’s eyes drift shut as she focusses on the drone of the engine, the laughter below, the lightness all around her.

  THE ISLAND IS A chunk of rock with small stands of trees, surrounded by nothing but water as far as the eye can see. They manoeuvre into a spot by the jumbles of boats moored offshore. Delilah and Jones are standing on the deck as they come to a full stop. The party is in full swing. There are tents scattered all along the beach, but a large space has been left clear for a giant bonfire, which is roaring and sending sparks flying. Children are running and screaming in the shallow water, and the adults are dancing and laughing. Delilah has seen photos of Woodstock, and this looks like a mini version. The sun still shines on as the adults take trip after trip in the dinghy to bring the gear to the island.

  Delilah points to the boats moored near them. “Look at them all,” she says to Jones.

  He yawns. “I know. My dad said there would be like a couple hundred people here. Some Giant guy might even come by helicopter.”

  “Helicopter? Where would it land?”

  “Don’t know. I think there’s a clearing on the back of the island somewhere. It’s just rock.”

  They watch Louise carry a sleeping Dusty onto the beach. Maggie guides them to the dinghy when it’s their turn, and they join the throngs on the island. There are bongos going, and with this strange tribal soundtrack, Delilah feels like she’s just landed in the Amazon. She scans the crowd for Will and spots him farther down the beach with City Jane, smoking, Laska by his side.

  She tells Jones she’ll see him in a bit and goes to look for her dad. She finds him putting up his small bush tent by a grove of trees. She dumps her pack on the rocky ground. “Need some help?”

  He pounds a peg into the dirt and wipes his forehead. “All done. You tired? You can go to bed any time.” He doesn’t seem angry with her. Just a little distant. He hasn’t mentioned what she told him. Hasn’t asked her any questions, which she finds confusing. Why wouldn’t he want to know?

  “I’m not tired,” she says. There’s too much excitement to sleep. She helps him drag in the foamies and sleeping bags and sets up her bed.

  Float planes come in and people stream from them. Muddy’s plane appears around midnight, just as the sun is starting to fade. He buzzes the beach before landing what seems to Delilah too close to the shore, then dives off the float and swims in with the rope in his teeth. The crowd applauds him as he rises shirtless from the lake, his long hair and beard dripping down his chest, his eyes wild.

  The music goes on for hours, adults dancing on the beach, singing at the top of their lungs. Will plays a Scottish drinking song on the guitar that has them all roaring with laughter. Jones and Delilah eat charred hot dogs, corn from a barrel of boiling lake water. They drink Coke after Coke and wander through the crowds. They are chasing the twins and Dusty in the shallows when the helicopter with the Giant official appears overhead, whirling and roaring, and the children run after it as it hovers over the far end of the island before touching down. She keeps an eye on her dad, and he seems committed to having a good time, drinking and dancing and singing along wildly to the music.

  Later that night, Delilah goes into the deep bush to pee, and when she comes back, she finds her dad and Will and Muddy by the dinghy on the shore, talking intently. They aren’t shouting, exactly, but their posture is tense. It’s mostly her dad and Muddy speaking, gesturing while Muddy sways on his bare feet, a bottle in his hand. Delilah can hear knew it was a risk, give it a chance. Muddy says ever heard the word “traitor?” Will responds so quietly Delilah can’t catch a word. He looks up and sees her standing by the trees, and she holds his gaze for a minute before turning away and heading back to the crowd. This is it. Whatever has created the silence between her father and Will, this is it. She stumbles along the beach, splashing ankle-high in the sun-warmed water. It must be about the mine, she thinks. The Barrens, maybe. But what? She spots Jones by the bonfire and goes to join him.

  By two in the morning Delilah is exhausted, lake mud dried on her feet and ankles, her hair tangled and damp, the Coke churning in her stomach. She crawls into her tent and falls into an instant deep sleep, the sound of the bongos still echoing in her ears.

  She wakes up to a raven cawing outside the tent. He is insistent, low and throaty. She waits for him to fly off so she can sleep in peace, but he doesn’t stop. She rolls over and covers her ears with her wadded-up sweatshirt, but still all she can hear is the rave
n. Finally she crawls past her snoring father and unzips the tent.

  Outside, the offending bird is sitting on a small stump, a half-gnawed ear of corn by his feet.

  “Thanks for waking me up,” she whispers.

  He croaks in return and pokes at the corn.

  She wanders through the tents in the early-morning light. They are set up at awkward angles, like they were put together by drunk people, which they were. There are clothes scattered on the lichen, beer bottles everywhere and paper plates being picked at by birds. The lake is still and smooth, morning sun reflecting in the blue black. The boats bob peacefully offshore, their owners probably fast asleep on board. She wonders how the argument between her dad and Muddy and Will ended the night before.

  Delilah walks to the end of the beach, imagining she is the only survivor after a nuclear meltdown, kind of like The Chrysalids meets On the Beach. Her days are numbered. But then she can hear a baby crying, a mother shushing it. There is a small green tent at the farthest tip of the beach, and just as Delilah gets close, the front rustles and a woman comes out. It’s City Jane. She’s wearing cut-offs and a thin camisole, and when she sees Delilah she crosses her arms across her chest. Her hair is a mess.

  “Hi, Delilah,” she whispers and clears her throat.

  “Hi,” Delilah says, her eyes flickering back to the green tent. There are heavy mine boots outside it, and a pair of work socks. They look like Will’s boots. Did Jane sleep in his tent with him, or did he sleep somewhere else?

  City Jane stands there a second in her bare feet, hugging herself. “I have to pee,” she whispers. “See you later.”

  “See you.” Delilah’s nuclear aftermath imaginings dissolve, and she’s transported back to reality. She slept in there with him. Delilah can tell from Jane’s embarrassment. She rolls this over in her mind. Does this mean they’re together now? Dating? Behind her, one of the boat engines starts up. She can smell woodsmoke from a breakfast fire. Children have started trickling to the beach behind her.