“You’re the definition of kind.”
“The magic of kintsugi, my girl.” I lean into her gentle kneading of my shoulder. “Until Theresa came along, I was daddy’s girl. We’d tinker on broken radios or go on hikes searching for fossils. Your mum was shockingly beautiful, gifted, too. I hated, hated, hated how Grandpa lit up when she entered a room. Did everything I could to keep her out.” I study the small lines around Mary’s eyes, iceberg scars running deep below the skin. “Theresa found a trilobite fossil once on holidays. A perfect specimen of something I can only describe as an ancient sea beetle. I snatched it, ran back to the campsite claiming I’d found it.” Mary stands, offering me a hand up. “We were eight and ten that summer. Instead of telling on me, she smashed Grandpa’s cherished ivory pipe, said she saw me do it. My act started a crack that, no matter what I did, spidered into more.”
All my life I’ve known Mary as creator. Mary as savior. It’s stabilizing, walking side by side with Mary, lump of clay. “You can’t fix another person’s fault lines.”
“But I—”
“Come on. Mum was suspended from kindergarten for chronic meanness. She had a piranha in her. If you’d given her an opening, she’d have moved in and consumed everything, then she’d have shat you out.”
“Still—”
“Listen here, ma’am, there was nothing as messed up as the sister competition with the Appletons. ‘Pick me.’ ‘Screw me.’ ‘No, me, Daddy, me.’” I bolster Mary’s shoulders for a change. “None of us blames the other. We just made what we could out of it.”
“When’d you get this wise?”
“Oh, as if you don’t know, great mother of the universe.” An ancient Wabi and an arthritic Cork welcome us with tail thumps. I fall to my knees and give thanks to the guardians at the gate. What a place for a dog and a boy to live, eh, Ari.
Shut the frig up.
“Aaron called again.” Nia looks up from her bench, searching my face. “Didn’t you call him back?”
“No.”
“Everything okay?”
“There’re just some words I don’t want to hear come out of my mouth.”
“Ari, don’t tell me you’re ending this. You need each other next year.”
“Not him, Auntie. Jake won’t or can’t be with me right now and I plain don’t want to be alone. I’m going back for a dirt year.”
“Are you going to show us what’s had you locked in the workroom before you do?”
“It’s almost done.” I pick up the phone and dial Aaron.
“Hello?” His voice gives my heart purchase. “Ari?”
“Sorry I didn’t call.”
“I heard there was a hurricane. Did you have much damage?”
“Maritimers are used to big blows and I got a treasure trove of driftwood from it.”
“Jake okay?”
“Huey got word he was battened down in a safe harbour.” Him asking about Jake makes my two-timing feel more like a threesome. “You at your parents?”
“Yep. Landed Tuesday.”
“Good adventures?”
“Amazing.”
“What’s Zodiac doing right now?”
“He’s tired from his walk. He’s in between my mom and dad on the glider.”
“You absolutely have to bring me a picture of that. Tell him he’s the best dog on Mother God’s earth and I love him.”
“What’re you saying?”
“How can I lock him alone in an attic all day when he could be chasing butterflies?”
“You sure?”
My words waver between longing and knowing that letting go is sometimes the best way to love. “Resolved.”
“Dad said Mom’s been crying all week.”
“Yeah, he’s that kind of dog. I’m going to need a mountain of comforting to numb this pain.”
“I’ll be there for you.”
“Your sails are rising right now, aren’t they?”
“See you in two weeks.”
“Barring mayhem.”
* * *
All my Skyfish summers have ended with a down-home party at Skyfish. This year the fiddles sleep. Huey and three strapping lads help me install Mikey’s surprise out by the newly planted dogwood trees. We cover it with a sheet and head inside. The gallery’s great room is a high-raftered expanse. Huey asks, “Shall we put it smack in the middle?”
“No. The floor needs to be open for when the dances start up again. The windowed corner, I think.”
The guys roll a giant slab of polished cedar into the corner. Seven pieces of precisely placed rebar stick up, waiting. The mummy-wrapped sculpture is positioned on designated spikes. The bars disappear and the piece stands rock solid. I give them each five bucks and Rusty complains, “Don’t we get to see it?”
“Not before Mary and Nia.”
They leave and Huey helps me unwind the wrap. “How’d that load of spit-up wood become this?”
“Piece by piece.”
The assembled driftwood is clearly two women, shoulder to shoulder, joyfully lifted by an ocean breeze. Rooty curls of hair flow from one. The other’s hair is a wind-blown ponytail. Every wood sinew is live with motion and, most beautiful, every crack is veined with bronze. One uplifted arm has a quarter-inch split studded with garnet chips and on the outstretched palm is a lump of clay.
From base to fingertip, it’s maybe ten feet. Huey shakes his head. “I’d say they’re dancing, but it’s bigger than that.”
“They’re creating.”
“Let’s gather everyone before light’s gone.”
Mikey verges on tears as he takes in the funky sea lion, nose lifted to commune with a dragonfly. TV pads over, lifts his leg, and christens it. Mikey laughs and cries in the same breath. “Todd loves this. He does.”
“Right he does.” Huey picks Mikey up, easy as a dime, easing the hurt with a mauling hug. “Now, let’s see what else we can see.”
I knew Mary and Nia wouldn’t burden me with tears. Their joy is electric and birthing with new ideas. “Do you have its name?”
“Earth mothers.”
Sixty-Two
Are dirt years counted in acres? Fields? Plots, perhaps. Plot, meaning a small piece of land. Plot meaning a storyline.
With how shit follows us, I’d say plot, a nefarious scheme.
I have a year off, remember.
I’m content in this small attic. Aaron studying while I sort through Babcia’s box of Zajac history. I read her journals, a life spanning two world wars, her losses equalling millions, compared to my ten pennies’ worth. On a card she writes:
Dear one: Jacquie told me you worry your pen cannot tell the Zajac journey with justice. As I near the end of my days, I can say, corka, there is little justice in this world, but there is great hope. Tell our story, that my brother, Ignatius, and my precious Leonek, your papa, will be known. I remember your delight at Iggy’s quotes to you. Begin with this one from me, Aurelia Zajac: history defines what we live, but it does not decide how we live. The ending is up to you.
I dig in, unearthing treasures, learning that after the war, Len shovelled through ruins to find the assets the Zajacs hid before the invasion. With them he procured sacks of flour, chickens, whatever else was needed to bake bread. From the rubble he cleaned bricks, built an oven, and opened a bakery, knowing bread was worth gold, jewels, art . . .
Huh, would’ve imagined Len finding desperate souls and giving away food.
Why do I feel more balanced knowing he grabbed all the dragon plunder he could and got his family here, Jasper?
Because cracked pots are more beautiful than perfect ones.
I sit at the old Underwood, tapping out the Zajac story until Aaron’s restless dolphin needs open water. We swim. Meet friends at the pub. Hike. Days, weeks, months stretch like sweet taffy. Then the cale
ndar turns to June.
* * *
The Dick’s blue sedan sits outside Jarvis with Ronnie stuffed behind the wheel in a pink velour track suit. Everything about the Dick is smaller, except for his nose. He leans out the window. “Where’s Mikey at?”
I remain an arm’s grab distance from the car. “Why?”
“Laura and me’s givin’ it another go.”
“Laura and—pardon?”
“Got a place over on Shuter. Mikey belongs with us.”
“I’ll send him to Australia before I let the two of you use him up.”
“Your nose got no place in our business no more.”
I bend. “Hi, Ronnie.” Her complexion is gray as smoke and her hair is a matted nest. “Where’re you staying?”
“Here and there. Was living with Carmie O’Toole for a time, watchin’ her kids.”
“How are they?”
“Went into care.”
“Them poor kids is without a father because of you.” The Dick’s face prunes up, exactly like his father’s. “You’re poison. One way or another, Mikey’s coming home.” His hand smacks the car in a let’s go command and Ronnie pulls away.
I head to Sam Lukeman. He reassures. “There’s nothing to worry about. Everything goes through me. They don’t know Mikey’s address and the courts would never—”
“Sure they would. They’re his biological mum and dad.”
“They can’t look after themselves. Why would they want a kid?”
“Likely want his liver.”
“Did Laura see Mikey at Christmas?”
“No. She cashed in the ticket.”
“Poor kid.”
“Mary and Nia brought him to Quebec. Aaron and Ellis organized a ski holiday. He had a blast.” I stretch out of the chair. “I’m just giving you a heads-up, so they don’t slip anything by you before I get things sorted.”
I head to Tino, a more hands-on, helpful kind of friend. “You want I should kill him?”
“Tempting, but . . .” I give him a photograph. “This is my Uncle Iggy. He was murdered in a robbery on the Danforth in 1968. I know the Dick set it up. Figure you can find things out better than cops ever could.”
“If the goods are out there, I’ll get ’em.”
“Thanks, Tino. You up for dancing this weekend?”
“You bringing that cowboy again?”
“Be nice.”
“He’s okay, but can’t dance worth shit.” He pinches my cheek. “Bring along Ellis and his lady, though.”
* * *
Aaron drives me to the basement apartment on Shuter. We sit, waiting for the Dick to go and get tanked. On cue, he struggles along the walk with two silver canes, then slides straight-legged into the car.
“Geezus, how does he drive?”
“On ethanol.”
We venture into a different place, same shit, especially the familiar craphouse stink. Laura welcomes the sugared coffee and iced doughnuts we bring. Her first words are “I’m clean. I swear.”
“That’s good, Laura. Mikey will be proud of you.”
“I need him with me, Ari.”
“He’s happy. Settled in school. I asked him. He loves you but he doesn’t want to live here.”
“We need him. I can hardly see straight with these headaches and Dick can barely get around.”
“Is this really what you want for him? Running to get you smokes and the Dick a bottle? For god’s sake, Laura, mother up, for once in your life.”
Her head bobbles. “I’ll talk to Dick. Can you spare a ten ’til the cheques come?”
I take eighty-five from my pocket, hoping it’s enough to kill her and the Dick.
Sixty-Three
Aaron lifts his head from the pillow to me packing lunches. “What time’s it?”
“Five thirty. Get up.”
He leaps like Zodiac at the possibility of a ramble. “Where’re we going? What’re we doing?”
“You’re bloody exhausting. You know that, don’t you?” I top the thermos with coffee. “Just hope Mina and I don’t kill you and Ellis today.”
As we drive north, Ellis asks, “What’re you two up to?”
Mina says, “Ari and I discovered that you and Aaron have the same wish and Aaron’s graduation warrants a big celebration.”
I check to make sure I haven’t made a disastrous miscalculation. “Are all the things on the list stuff you really want to do or were you just pulling ideas out of thin water?”
“Everything came out of dolphin jumps, though at the time I didn’t know what they were.”
As Mina pulls down a drive, little planes and a silver half moon building come into view. “Here’re your lunches. We’ll be back at three to catch it on film.”
“Skydiving?” We hardly get a kiss before they fly away.
Later, watching them tumble toward earth, I see first what I always see, Jake falling, his brilliance pickling with the herring, his sweetness turning to salt in the gray ocean. Aaron’s shoot opens and I imagine what he feels floating down into a world saturated with spring and I get why someone might want to jump—ah, no, I don’t.
Me either.
I expect Aaron’s four a.m. restlessness to have him nuzzling in, hoping for more graduation sex; instead I hear him slip out of the nest. Five a.m., I join him on the stoop. His face is lifted to the black sky, remaining there as he settles back against me. “You know that Lennon song, ‘Imagine’?”
“Yeah.”
“I lived that yesterday. Up there, I imagined one world, no religion, peace.”
My arms circle him. His heart beats under my hand and I know this nest won’t hold him, nor should it. “Oh, Aaron West, you are a dreamer.”
“Am I the only one?”
“About skydiving you are.”
“How do I let go of this?” His fingers tangle with mine. “Of you?”
“I’ll stay with you through summer if you want.”
“You mean it?”
“Pick something on that list of yours and we’ll cross it off together.”
* * *
June end, we drive my very own little truck to Pleasant Cove. The setting sun spills dragon treasure along the coast. So many times, Aaron was here in my dreams, now his knee beneath my hand feels less permanent than the ribbons of fog retreating to the ocean.
Late day, Nia drops us at the ferry in North Sydney. My eyes adjust to a man on the bench, reading Walden. I walk over. “William? What’re you doing here?”
“Meetin’ an old friend.” He stands up, smiles wide. “There’s something us shore creatures love about dolphins, eh, little miss.” He tips his hat to Aaron. “Quite the feat, diving into the Atlantic to surface in the Pacific.”
Aaron flubbers. “How . . . but . . . I . . .”
I push him past his bewilderment. “Don’t try to figure it. Walruses know secrets.” We board a ferry that’s more a floating hotel. “This is number twenty-one on the list?”
“A step toward it.”
Waiting for us in Newfoundland with Aaron’s jeep is Libby, my favourite person from his study group. “Please don’t tell me it’s a threesome. I really like Libby and I think lesbians are the best thing ever created, but I’m not up to it.”
“This is Libby’s hometown. Her driving the jeep home was a win-win.”
“Knew I liked that girl. There’s more east in her than in me.” Libby’s natural beauty, inside and out, makes khaki shorts and steel-toed hikers look better than a red carpet occasion, and Aaron, so true and straight, doesn’t see a speck how much she loves him.
Her dad pours over maps with Aaron while Libby shows me her shore. Jasper says, She’s a dolphin.
Shut the frig up. This storm hasn’t blown itself out. “So, Libby, what’re you doing with your shiny new degree?”
<
br /> “Got offered VP here but the thought of staying makes me crazy. My dad says it comes from giving me the name Liberty.”
“Your name’s Liberty?”
“Yep. I’m thinking of taking a post in Labrador.”
Ask her, ask her, ask her.
Shut your snout.
Aaron collects me and hugs her. “Thanks for everything. I’m sure going to miss you.”
Jasper weedles until I say, “Tell Libby she should check out teaching in Peru before deciding on the Great North.”
“Oh, it’d be great having a friend there. Would you come and check it out?”
She looks at me, eyes as wide as a kid face to face with a wish-granting Ari. I nod. “You should.”
* * *
Fitting that our journey starts in Conception Bay, the eastern-most point of Canada. Tomorrow we’ll head west until we reach the other side, Atlantic to Pacific.
I fail spectacularly as navigator because I’m so busy gawking at every little bit of story happening around me. “There. There. There. Down that road.”
Aaron turns right or left accordingly. Usually the road ends in a dump or a “No Trespassing” sign, but sometimes there’s something spectacular: a ridge, or a waterfall, or a silent lake where we pitch our tent, light a fire, catch dinner, skinny dip, kiss, and spark, then count meteors skating across the black sky.
On the road, he absorbs my sun-pink face whenever the moose threat is low. Today, he doesn’t ask me to read the map; he just veers south, looking sleeve-rolled-up relaxed. We stop at the end of a long driveway.
I read the name on the mailbox. “Aaron?”
“Zodiac wants to see you.”
“You’d let your parents meet me?”
“What? Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’m not the kind of girl you take home to a nice family.”
“Ori’s going to take you skydiving if you don’t smarten up. You’re the best person I know.”
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