by Lynn Thomson
NINE
LATER THAT SPRING, MY sister Laurie announced that she and her family were moving to Toronto. She came to town to look for a house and I went with her to see a few. It was fun having her around, staying with us in Danielle’s room. It reminded me of all those times I’d stayed with her family in London and Greenwich.
I felt welcome and safe in their homes, in a way I’d never felt anywhere else, except at this house I shared with Ben. Whenever I went to visit Laurie and Andy, it felt like coming home, and I’d lie in the guest-room bed immersed in that feeling of belonging.
Years ago, I stayed with them for six weeks in their four-storey walk-up in Chelsea in London. I was recovering from that bout of malaria that I’d picked up on my ill-fated trip to central Africa, and they told me I could stay as long as I needed to. It was just the three of us, before the kids or Ben, and surely the depth of security I always felt in their homes stemmed from that time.
I remember lying on the couch in their living room, under a skylight, reading The Mists of Avalon, a big, thick British paperback edition. Every so often I gazed up at the skylight, and once I looked up just in time to see the Concord fly over. I remember walking along the river or over to a place called Neal’s Yard, where I sat watching people go by. Bit by bit I recovered my strength and went farther afield, exploring the city. I needed a refuge. Laurie and Andy provided it.
They ended up buying an old house on a ravine in Toronto and planned to move in by the start of the school year. But the house had been gutted and needed to be internally reconstructed. So Laurie continued to come regularly to Toronto to check in on the project and make millions of decisions. I was ecstatic. I had my sister in my house! We rose early and had coffee at the kitchen table. Ben and I took her to dinner to meet some of our friends. I went with her to choose tiles for the bathroom floor and we had lunch with her designer, Christine, who was hilarious.
One morning at breakfast I said to Laurie, “How are the kids with this move?” Thomas was fourteen and Lauren was nine.
“Thomas seems fine. He’s very social, as you know, and looking forward to meeting new people. He can’t wait to ride the subway on his own, and go downtown with all the friends he’s going to make. Greenwich is pretty small.”
“How about Lauren?”
“She’s upset. She’s so shy. She doesn’t want to leave her friends in Greenwich. She’s really angry, so I promised her a new kitten.”
“Jumper will love that,” I said skeptically. “What about you? I’m so happy you’re moving here that I haven’t even asked you! Some sister.”
“That’s okay.” Laurie laughed but looked tired. “It’s a lot of work and I’m conflicted about moving back to Toronto. I haven’t lived here in more than twenty years. I don’t relish the thought of running into old high school acquaintances everywhere I go.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t be like that. We’ll take care of you,” I said. “I wonder if Yeats and Thomas will spend any time together? Their circles will be completely different.”
Laurie shrugged. Thomas was already enrolled in private school, while Yeats was still at Jarvis Collegiate.
“Yeah,” she said, “and Thomas is so into sports. Who knows? I’d like to think they’d keep their cousinly friendship going, but dynamics change. Besides, maybe they don’t need to see one another all the time to stay emotionally close. Yeats has only one year left at high school, then what? Will he go to university?”
I sighed. “I guess so. He says so. We’re going out West to see those schools, but I bet he stays here in Toronto.”
“One day, Lynn, you’ll have to kick that boy out of the house. He isn’t exactly champing at the bit to go, is he?”
Later that day, Yeats came home from school and said, “I hate school. It’s useless. They don’t teach us anything and there’s no point. Really — what’s the point? It’s not like I’m going to do anything anyway. I’m not going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a banker or anything. I’m not going to be an engineer. So what’s the point?”
I couldn’t believe I had to go through this all over again, but it was spring and exams were coming up and essays were due, so he was feeling more pressure. This time, I tried a different tack. “What about your friends? What do your friends say?”
“Say about what? I can’t tell them how I really feel. They’re all so into it. They want to be psychologists and brain researchers and stuff like that. They wouldn’t understand.”
“Well, is there an assignment that’s bugging you right now? Something you haven’t started that’s due?”
“There are assignments, but that’s not what this is about, if that’s what you mean.” He glared at me. “I just can’t see the point of school. It’s such a waste of time.”
“What would you rather be doing? You could take a year off and do something else.”
“Sure I could. That’s illegal. I have to stay in school. I have to finish high school and then I have to go to university and make something of myself and be just like everyone else.”
I resisted the urge to sing that Pete Seeger song about little boxes made of ticky-tacky. Instead I said, “You do have to finish high school. You’re right about that. But you know that you don’t have to go to university. You certainly don’t have to be like everyone else.”
He snorted. “Right.”
“And you don’t have to decide in Grade 11 what you’re going to do for a career.”
“That’s what you think.”
“Look at Rupert. He quit university after a month and has worked all this time. University wasn’t right for him, right out of high school, but he’ll go back. I think he’s gearing up to go back, actually. There are options. You could travel or volunteer or work.” I felt like a broken record.
“Maybe. But do you really think Rupert is happy working in the store?”
“I don’t know. Is this about happiness, then?”
“Of course it’s about happiness. What’s the point otherwise?” He turned away and mumbled, “Maybe I’ll end up on the streets.”
This comment alarmed me because it was new. I felt like breaking down as I watched him disappear upstairs and heard his door slam. I felt like flinging myself to the floor and screaming because I couldn’t make everything perfectly okay for my boy. I just couldn’t do that. And I knew that, in a way, he was right. If a person didn’t have a clear sense of direction, how did they find their path? It was a big, scary world out there, full of responsibilities and choices — would he be ready?
The conversation exhausted me. We had a version of it weekly, which, I suppose, nicely balanced all my otherwise good cheer.
When Ben came home that night I told him what Yeats had said.
He said, “I can’t believe you engage with him when he’s like that.”
“What am I supposed to do? Walk away? Tell him his feelings are wrong?”
Ben shook his head and stared at me. His mother had had three teenaged sons to deal with and I had a feeling she’d done it mostly at arm’s length. Or maybe her boys hadn’t brought their angst home the way Yeats did.
“I can’t imagine just ignoring him when he needs someone to listen,” I said.
“Yeah, but look how much it upsets you. You get all tied up in knots. It isn’t worth it.”
“Yes, it is.” Isn’t it? I was in the habit of listening to Yeats; I had been ever since he was small, when we spent so much time together. I’d engaged in all his activities, learning from him as he learned from me. But maybe it’s time to let go a bit more, I thought, thinking of that stuffed-animal dream.
While Ben and I were talking, Yeats was up in his room listening to Jesse Winchester. He was fine. He just needed to vent and I was the safest person to do it with, exactly as his mentor had said. My friends with older children told me that if I was able to keep the lines of communication open with Yeats, even when what he had to say was ugly, then I should count myself lucky.
And this was what
happened nearly every night: I brushed my teeth, changed into my pyjamas, and fluffed up my pillows in anticipation of a good read. Then I climbed into bed, made sure my alarm was set, and opened my book.
Somehow, no matter what time this ritual took place, as soon as I’d read two pages at most, Yeats came crashing into the room and flung himself across the foot of the bed. He demanded, simply by his presence, nothing less than my complete attention.
And always, I put down the book with an inward sigh and looked at my son. He was ready to talk, sometimes to vent anger or frustration, but always to talk. How could I possibly send him away?
Even on those evenings when I was dead tired and wanted only five minutes to read before conking out, I couldn’t ask him to leave. What if he decided to go to university in BC, or even in Guelph? No. I gave him my attention, listened to his stories, tried to calm his fears. I thought of those friends who considered me lucky that Yeats still talked to me, and if he was particularly upset about something, I clung to that thought. He felt safe with me because I’d been an emotional haven for him all these years, and now that he was a teenager, I couldn’t just send him away. These sessions seldom lasted very long, and I had a feeling that one day they’d stop altogether, and I knew I’d miss them. So I always, no matter when, listened patiently while he expressed himself.
I TURNED FIFTY THAT June. I decided against a big party and had two dinners out instead. The first was with Mom and several old friends. It was a low-key party, but some friends brought me flowers and others gave me small gifts. I felt loved by these special people.
The next night was dinner with all our four children and Greg’s family. It was considerably more raucous with the two little boys along, Taylor and Noah, and I felt blessed to be their beloved auntie and to be surrounded by the love of these people, too. Rupert and Danielle wrote me heartfelt messages about how special I was to their lives, which made me shed a few tears. How could I not? I’d always found solace in family life and although we didn’t express our love for one another all the time, I felt their affection deeply.
Turning fifty coincided with Yeats finishing Grade 11. He had only one more year of high school. Before I knew it, it was time for our BC trip. Yeats assured me he was looking forward to visiting UBC and UVic, to reconnecting with my friends up and down Vancouver Island, and to taking more bird tours with George the Birdwatcher.
Fear came up again, though. I didn’t have my usual pre-trip buzz. I felt a reluctance to get ready, an unwillingness to bring up the bags from the basement or to think about what to pack.
I’d already arranged everything: the rental car, the hotels in Victoria and Tofino, the campus tours at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria. I’d spoken to the friends who would be hosting us. Everything was ready but me. I didn’t want to go. I did want to go. I was dreading it. I was mad that I was dreading it. I dragged the bags upstairs — brand-spanking-new bags that replaced the ones we lost in the shipwreck — and when I opened them up and smelled their plasticky scent, the dread dug in a little bit deeper.
The short trip to Pelee Island had not prepared me for this longer trip after all. Even though I was going with Yeats, I was leaving Ben behind. I could see it in Ben’s eyes, too: he didn’t want us to go, either.
He said, “Come home to me, baby. Don’t forget.” I wondered if he was thinking of the shipwreck when he said this, or if he simply understood the pull of the West Coast for me.
I knew everything would be all right and I knew I’d be glad to be there and that, yes, part of me, the part that belonged in BC, wouldn’t want to come home. But I would come home.
I said, “How could I forget?”
I resented this new feeling of not wanting to travel. I kept repeating to myself, I love to travel, I love to travel, but the darkness at the heart of the fear didn’t dissipate.
We were in Vancouver for only two nights, staying with my old piano teacher and friend, Marnie Carter. We loved Marnie for her big heart and active interest in what everyone was doing. At seventy-five Marnie still taught piano, but only to adult students, and she was as busy and fit as any young person I knew and more so than most.
She picked us up at the airport, fed us dinner, and then took us down to Jericho Beach for a stroll along the boardwalk.
“I need to keep you two up tonight until at least 8:30, so you won’t be jet-lagged tomorrow,” she said, and she was right.
But I struggled to keep up with her as she strode past volleyball courts full of scantily-clad young people, families eating ice cream cones, zillions of dogs on leashes. It was a gorgeous night and all of Vancouver was outdoors. We decided on a meeting place because Yeats wanted to look for birds while I was trying to stay awake and catch up with Marnie. He was zonked, too, but couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see a bird species that wasn’t in Ontario.
Once Yeats veered off the path, Marnie said, “Now tell me all about what you’re doing. And how is your mother? How is the store? What are your plans in Tofino? Are you going to visit Martha and Dado?”
“I spoke to Martha and we’re planning on seeing them, maybe staying a night.” Martha, one of Marnie’s daughters, had been a friend of mine since Grade 9, the year we’d lived in Vancouver after we took that family trip across the country. “I guess Yeats is about the age now that Martha and I were when we met.”
“You girls were inseparable.”
“For a year, and then we moved again.”
“But you came back and went to Simon Fraser. Maybe Yeats will follow in your footsteps.”
“That’s part of why we’re here, to see about universities. I just want him to stay in school and if he decides to come here, I’m sure he’ll love it as much as I did.”
“If he moves out here, we’ll take care of him!”
Yeats saw four new birds that evening on the beach: bushtits, violet-green swallows, glaucous-winged gulls, and Brandt’s cormorants. All four of these birds are found only in the West.
Bushtits are tiny and completely grey. Unlike most birds, bushtit family members all sleep together during nesting season. Vancouver is the northernmost part of their range in North America, and we were fortunate enough to see a large group of them (I was there for that) hanging upside-down in low trees. Eating, perhaps: bushtits forage for insects and spiders while hanging upside down by one foot and using the other to push leaves aside.
The violet-green swallow is similar to our tree swallow in appearance and behaviour, but, like the bushtit, it is found only in the West. These birds are a joy to watch as they swoop and soar, catching insects in flight and gleaming green and blue in the sunshine.
“Glaucous,” according to some sources, means “light bluish-green.” I think you have to see these glaucous-winged gulls up close to believe their wings aren’t just grey, like those of most of our gulls. Or maybe the name just doesn’t fit. In French, actually, they’re called goélands à ailes grises — grey-winged gulls.
Gulls are among the most difficult birds to identify. We own a huge bird guide that is devoted to gulls of the Americas, and I go practically blind flipping the pages and trying to get them straight. I never will. These glaucous-winged gulls are quite large — around 55 centimetres compared with the 45 centimetres of the very common ring-billed gull that most Torontonians are familiar with — and their wingtips are not black or white, but of the same grey as their wings. Most gulls have black or white wingtips. That’s just one of the little facts I might never have known before I started reading bird books.
The Brandt’s cormorant, too, is found only on the West Coast, from Alaska to southern California, and exclusively in ocean environments, breeding where the California Current brings its favourite foods to the surface. The name “cormorant” comes from the Latin Corvus Marinus, meaning “marine crow.” Its scientific name, Phalacrocorax, is from the Greek for “bald crow.” Clearly, whoever named this bird was seriously reminded of crows, perhaps because of their black f
eathers and habit of perching in high places after a meal. They don’t sound like crows, though. The Brandt’s cormorant makes almost no sound at all, just a low quacking, audible at only a short distance.
THE NEXT MORNING, YEATS and I took the bus up to UBC and went on our campus tour. It was raining, which was too bad because I wanted Yeats to see the view of the mountains and the harbour from the university. A well-informed undergrad showed a group of us around, pointing out engineering and chemistry buildings and taking us to see a typical residence room. She told us they had regular maid service, something I sure didn’t have when I lived in residence! She took us to see Nitobe Memorial Garden, a traditional Japanese garden right on the campus. It was stunning, lush and serene. The tour took us only a few steps inside it, so we could get the general idea. We saw an arched bridge over a pond, stone statues, and pathways winding off into the trees.
I said to Yeats, “Let’s come back here once the tour is finished and have a proper look around. Maybe have lunch in the tearoom.”
He said, “No. This place is incredible. If I tour it, I want to be alone. Sorry, Mom.”
There it was again. I had to accept that there were places he really didn’t want to go with me.
I said, “But we may never come back here. Let’s just take this opportunity.”
“If we never come back, we never come back. This is a place I’d want to be by myself in.”
I couldn’t change his stubborn old mind.
Not much later, when we were standing beside an outdoor sculpture, Yeats leaned in to me and whispered, “See this tree?” He patted an enormous trunk beside us. I nodded. “It’s a cedar. Like those scraggly ones by the beach at the cottage.” I laughed out loud and the tour leader looked over at me. Yeats left his hand on the tree and mouthed at me, “Fantastic tree!”
Marnie drove us to the station to catch the bus that would take us to Tsawwassen and the ferry to Victoria. When she dropped us off she said, “You two are welcome back here any time. And Yeats, if you decide to come west to university, I’ll take care of you the way I took care of your mother, all those years ago.” She laughed.