His pupils become tight holes, a drain closing off, and he reaches along the rope. All around me there’s the roaring sound of a gasp as I pull in my breath. Then Jonah’s body arches very far back and I hear myself yelling and he flings his hands out in a line, one of so many lines that he is becoming, arms lined outward, legs lined downward, body lined between, neck line stretching, all lines crisscrossing and spreading and flying backward over the water, and still he looks through me, his face bright and brighter as he falls, his eyes gaping, no sound coming from his mouth, but only my scream filling the hollow of cavern and cliff and ocean around us.
Scotty leans his head against the window while he drives. His face is pale, his expression knotted. Marlie is crying, and the car is crunching over years-old gravel. It’s a clear night. I can smell spring.
The knapsack with the baby — Aidie, or Lindsay or Leah — is safe, resting on my lap.
A line of cars follows behind us. Headlights dot the bushes that edge the road. Like a star I might grab. The star splits, then multiplies. Now it’s a constellation. Now it’s a galaxy.
After a long while, Scotty’s voice drifts through the cab, thick with tears. “I am so sorry.”
I turn to look at him. “We can’t know everything.”
He will always be my friend.
Because everyone has heard what happened, they leave me to my silence. Doris doesn’t force toast and jam on me. She doesn’t make me drink the glass of milk. She offers her own bed for me to share, but then shows us to her spare room when I take Marlie’s hand and lean my head against her arm.
They tell me that Peg is getting better. That she’s in a hospital in Moncton and that she can’t wait to see me.
I don’t sleep much that night, but watch through the window as the stars wind up. When Cassiopeia is almost out of sight, Marlie’s voice whispers in my ear. “Did you say you went to see your family in Beachport?”
I lie with my back to her. Her arm is over me.
“And they didn’t take you in? They sent you back here?”
The blanket isn’t enough to keep me warm. Neither is Marlie’s body curled around me. I don’t let myself shiver. The shiver is deep inside me, forced into the bowl of my stomach.
Even though I don’t wish it, my mouth opens. All the things that happened to me tumble out. Running, hiding, Jonah’s rage, his pursuit. My mother, my family, my abandoned home. Aidie and Adria, two sisters I can’t ever keep. Danny and Connor, two brothers drowning in a river for me. My heart breaking over and over, so many times it’s just crumbs in my chest.
When the words stop, Marlie lifts herself up and offers quiet, soothing reassurances. Then she says with such tenderness it hurts me to hear it, “If you were stolen from your parents, Gemma, you need to be reunited with them. It will be the most important thing in their lives to find you.”
I can’t believe her. It’s just a crayoned picture of goodness.
“Maybe they had to give up on that possibility. But I promise you, they never wanted to. That’s a thing that’s forced on people. You never make a better life. You maybe — maybe — try to make peace with it.”
People move on. They turn into who they need to be.
“Gemma, there are so few things I can say with real certainty, but this is one of them: your parents want — with all their hearts — to know you.”
She puts her hand on my arm and holds it. “When we get up tomorrow morning, you have to promise you’ll let us tell your real family that you’re here.”
I just want to sleep forever.
“Promise me. Please.”
I stare out the window. She is right, she is right. Maybe she is right.
The ferry crosses the water fast enough to bundle me in the spring wind. I stand at the bow, wrapped in a quilt Peg told Doris to give me. It’s Peg’s most special quilt, edged in lace.
Marlie has her arms around me. Behind us, the rest of the islanders accompany us to the mainland. They say they want to be with me as long as possible. Doris has dozens of Thermoses of hot chocolate and coffee and she walks up and down the ferry’s hold pouring out steaming cups. Scotty checks with everyone to make sure they’re comfortable and secure, every five minutes checking in with me. He told me that Dr. Thomas is driving Peg back from the hospital in Moncton and that she’ll meet us on the mainland.
In the vehicles filling the hold, doctors and nurses and police officers and officers from the rcmp and Victim Services watch us but also give me privacy. For almost a week, they came and observed me. They ran tests to make sure I truly belong to the Birkshires. They asked me question after question. They brought news of Connor and Danny — two boys pulled from a car in a river and now recovering in hospital. Something to make a person hopeful.
My real family is waiting three hundred miles away at the border so Immigration can finalize my papers. Until everything is sorted, I’m a “ward of the court,” belonging to no one.
Marlie offered to go with me to Beachport and stay until I felt safe. But I said no, and she said she understood.
I slowly untangle myself from her arms and lean against the bow of the ferry. My hands spread along the rail. Peg’s yellow quilt spreads with them like wings.
I might never see Scotty or Peg or Doris or Marlie or any of them again. I am never going to drive the road from Keele’s Landing again. I am never going to explore the Rock Pit or climb the lighthouse. I am never going home again.
And now I am going home.
I will meet her. My mother. And I will meet my real father. And there’s a little brother, Derek, who might even be interested in superheroes.
The man who watched me grow up is gone. And so is Adria. And that can’t ever be changed. Aidie is gone, and she is always inside me.
I guess I’ll be Leah. In the newspapers, she’s the twin on the left.
First of all, I acknowledge that there are some areas of poetic license in this story. For example, the viability of certain forged documents and crossing certain borders, etc. I thank you for bearing with me. I thank you for reading.
A huge thank you to the literary team at The Rights Factory, especially my beloved agent Sam Hiyate and editor-at-large Diane Terrana. Without their astute insight and guidance, fierce dedication, and unflagging support, this book wouldn’t be here. Every writer should be so lucky. Thanks to everyone at Cormorant/DCB for everything they do, especially to Andrea Waters for her elegant precision and to Barry Jowett for believing from the start, for his warmth and gentle humor along the way, and for guiding me to bring the story to the next level.
Incredulous gratitude to Stefanie Ayoub for this brilliant, nuanced cover design.
Thanks to my readers for their invaluable feedback (there may be some missing from this list, and I thank you too): Amy Ayoub, John Batchelor, Daniel Clay, Michael Fahey, Angela Gei, Genrys Goodchild, Annemarie Kearney, Sherrie Lally, Lori Landau, Cheryl MacInnis, Colin Mochrie, and Annette Redican, and for above-and-beyond, Hollye Dexter and Gae Polisner.
To my cherished friends, please know you have been indispensible reinforcements and cheerleaders. Every one of you. Special mention to my BabyFesters, Briar Boake, Kate Ashby and the Broads, and the WBBC.
Immense gratitude for my necessary angels, Alex Appel, Josée Caron, and Lori Landau. And for the most amazing writing partners, readers, and soul sisters a person could ask for, Vickie Lavoie and Deb McGrath.
Thanks for guidance re science, psychology, trains, and rock climbing. Respectively: Rhiannon Batchelor, Ewa and Peter Kasinski, Petra Breiner, Steve Bokyo, and Michèle Duquet. Any mistakes or missteps (intentional/unintentional) are mine.
Thank you to my parents and sisters for reading and offering enthusiastic feedback, and for their unconditional love: Dieter Radecki, Brigitte Radecki, Nicole Radecki, Catrina von Radecki.
Words cannot express my gratitude for the best and truest of friends, Charlotte Sheasby. Without her tireless encouragement, endless readings of drafts, inspired comments and
advice, and regular porch visits, Gemma would be stuck on some little island in my imagination.
And thank you to my most precious circles of light. Always there, always curious, questioning, striving, celebrating, rejoicing, giving, loving: my husband, my rock, Philippe Ayoub, and my magnificent daughters Stefanie and Michele.
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