“You’ve read the signs?”
“Yes, and I—”
“Well, that’s my plan. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He steps back into his house and closes the door in my face.
I stand there staring at the door for a few seconds. I turn to go down the steps, but then I see the chain-link fence. With my great-grandmother’s apple tree behind it. My family’s tree. My apples. I turn around and bang on the door again.
Victor glares at me. I talk fast, trying to say as much as possible before the door slams again. “It’ll be a few months before you get permission to develop the land, right? So I thought I could keep working on Uli’s garden until it goes to seed. I want to plant those seeds somewhere else next year because they’re rare, and—”
“I don’t care if they’re the last seeds on Earth,” he snaps. “I know how this works. Your grandfather kept a toehold by living there. Now that he’s gone, you want to keep a toehold by gardening there. But the law is on my side. I bought the land fair and square. I’ve got the papers to prove it.” He points to the fence and the large No Trespassing sign. “I intend to enforce that to the fullest extent of the law.”
The door slams in my face again. I blink at it. Toehold? The law on his side? All I asked for was the plants, not the soil beneath them. What is Victor talking about?
“How was your day?” Dad carries two water glasses to the table, but along the way he glances back at his laptop on the kitchen counter and bumps into a chair. Water splashes onto the floor. Dad swears as if it’s a really big deal.
I frown, not sure what he’s so worked up about. If he knew about my chat with Victor this afternoon, I’d have found out already.
“Your mother’s supposed to call around now,” Dad says. “We have a supper date, the three of us.”
“Oh?” I don’t know what to make of that. My parents have been talking on the phone more since Mom was here. Dad goes into his room and closes the door whenever she calls. I’ve been thinking it’s a good sign, but Dad’s too jumpy tonight for this dinner date to mean anything good.
I bite into my burger, Dad sits down with his, and an awkward silence stretches between us. The laptop rings, and Dad lunges for it. He places Mom in the center of the table.
“Hi there. Bon appétit!” It’s almost ten in Montreal, but she’s sitting on our couch with a bowl of stir-fry that she shows off to the camera. For a moment, I’m impressed—Mom cooked!—but then she says, “Mongolian hot pot. A new place opened up where Película used to be.”
“I know.” I sound annoyed, even to myself. Annoyed that our neighborhood is changing without me. Annoyed that Mom and Dad have something big to announce, yet here we are, talking about Mongolian food.
My parents look at each other. Dad sets down his burger and clears his throat. “Chloë, there’s something we need to tell you.”
I hold my breath.
“We’ve decided to sell the house.”
I look at him, and then at my mom, who starts blinking really fast. “I’m sorry, Chloë. I know this is hard for you, but your father and I have to face facts. We just—”
“What facts?” I ask. “We’ll be there next month. We don’t even have to come back here after that, right, Dad? We don’t need to sell Uli’s house because it belongs to someone else, and Dad won’t need his job here anymore now that Uli’s—”
“Chloë.” Dad puts a hand on my arm. “Your mother and I have been talking a lot lately. We both need different things in our lives right now. Your mom wants to stay in Montreal, and I want to stay here. I’m not a big-city person. I never belonged there. I see that now.”
“But what about me?” My vision goes blurry, but I will the tears away. “Where am I supposed to live? Saskatchewan? Halfway between the two of you?”
“That’s what we want to talk about,” Dad says. “You’ve got choices.”
“What do you mean, I’ve got choices?” I’m shouting now, and my face is wet. “You two decide to sell our house and live on opposite sides of the country, and you call that a choice?”
“You’ll have a home with either of us,” Dad says. “Both of us. I’ll be right here. Your mother wants to move to a condo closer to campus.”
“It’s lovely, Chloë.” Her voice is soft, like she’s coaxing a kitten out from behind a sofa. “Just a few steps from great bookstores and a block from the metro station.”
“You already bought a place?” I croak.
“I put in an offer. I find out for sure next week.”
I’m up and out the door before I even realize what’s happening. I can hear Mom calling me back as I run down the hall and push through the back door. I take off across the parking lot and down the street. My only destination is Not Here, and I run flat out until breathing feels like knives between my ribs. Somewhere past the elementary school, I wish I’d brought my phone. It’s next to the dinner table, recharging so I could finally arrange a time to talk to Sofia.
Sofia who tried to warn me. The night before we left Montreal, she was crying, saying I might never come back. I said I’d hitchhike home if I had to, but I meant it in the same way I’d promise to cut off my arm if it would save her from being abducted by aliens. I never imagined having to choose one place over the other.
Or hesitating about the choice.
But that was back when Montreal included a house where I lived with my parents, right next door to my best friend. That Montreal doesn’t exist anymore and will never exist again. The closest I’ll get is a bedroom in a condo that I share with my mother in a neighborhood I don’t know. Sofia will be a forty-minute walk away. Dad will be on the other side of the country. That’s not my idea of home. But a small apartment thousands of miles from where I grew up isn’t home either. Home doesn’t exist anymore.
I wander along the beach and through the park until dark. Then, without really thinking about it, I head back to our street. I stop next to Uli’s hedge and find the spot where a big, frilly cedar branch blocks a clearing behind.
I push the frond aside, just to test it. I have no intention of going in, of course. Victor’s words—to the fullest extent of the law—are booming through my thoughts. From here I can see the chain link and its No Trespassing signs gleaming in the moonlight. I’d be an idiot to break into the garden. The same way Uli was an idiot to plant everything—even his mother’s apple tree—on land that didn’t belong to him, as if home could be carried with you like seeds in your boot. As if gardening on a patch of unfamiliar earth could bring back everything that had been taken away.
I push the branch aside, look both ways and squeeze through. Until I find that seed collection, I need to keep these plants alive. I’m not letting go of this garden until I can take what’s mine.
TWELVE
Maybe Uli thought the end of the world was coming. That would explain the stockpiles in his basement and the two giant rain barrels next to the house. Whatever he was thinking, the rainwater and his plastic-bottle irrigation system mean I can still save the heirlooms.
I push open the greenhouse doors, letting out a rush of hot air into the cool darkness. The tomato plants are growing fast. So is the corn. In just a few weeks, the little stalks have grown as tall as my hand.
The watering bucket is right by the door where I left it. On the way to the rain barrel, I spot the lettuce—an entire row of blue-green leaves, ready to eat. Uli showed me how to pick the outside leaves so that the middle of the plant keeps growing and goes to seed. I’ve been doing that, eating as I garden. I also took lots of peas and favas to Nikko because Dad wouldn’t want me bringing them home. But soon this garden will produce way more than Nikko’s family and I can eat.
As I fill each plastic water bottle, I think of Uli growing up in bombed-out cities, eating whatever he and his mom could scrounge. He would have hated food going to waste in his own garden.
That’s when I remember the soup kitchen. I smile as I hurry around with my bucket. The last thirsty bed is the spinach. Wate
ring done, I find some plant pots and dig out a few of the big Scottish blue kale. I read online that kale doesn’t mind being transplanted. I hope that’s true, because I want to plant these in a place where I can look after them. I grab four potted tomato plants and the corn. Then I fill a bucket with ripe produce and push all of it out through the hedge onto the sidewalk, like an eat-your-veggies version of Robin Hood. I wish I could bring more, but I have to be realistic. It’ll be all I can do to ferry this load across the street without being spotted.
Nikko answers the door as soon as I knock. It’s late, but I saw from the street that his lights were still on.
“What happened to you?” he asks. I’ve stashed the plants and the veggie harvest in Dad’s tool shed. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with them, but they’re safe for tonight. And I did the whole transfer without a soul finding out. I think. No one saw me from the street. No one was watching through the building windows, not even the cat. I met Estelle on the way in, but maybe she thought I was coming back from a walk.
Nikko frowns. “You’ve got dirt on your cheek and…cedar bits in your hair?” His eyes widen. He calls back into his apartment to say he’s going out. Then he lowers his voice. “Follow me.”
We hurry down the hall, past Estelle’s door, into the stairwell and up to the top floor. He points to the metal ladder that leads to the roof. “We can talk up there.”
I’ve been on a few rooftops in Montreal, windswept gardens above twenty-story buildings with a view from Mount Royal to the St. Lawrence. I’ve never been up here though. It never seemed worth the bother. What can you see from a little four-story building?
As my head pokes through the hatch, I look into a sea of stars. By the time I’m standing on the shingles, I feel like I’m in a wraparound movie theater, watching a documentary about constellations. Except this is real. And I’m here.
Nikko tiptoes to the far end. I follow. We sit in the darkness with the open hatch casting up a cozy glow. “The good thing about living in a building full of seniors,” he says, “is that no one ever uses the stairs anymore, never mind the ladder to the roof. No one knows we’re here.”
I decide right now that I’m not going to tell Sofia about this. She’ll turn it into a romantic adventure and will never believe me when I say I don’t feel romantic about Nikko at all. “I got into the garden,” I whisper.
He laughs. “Yeah. No kidding. The cedar in your hair gave it away.”
His fingers are warm and light on my scalp as he tries to get the tree bits out. (Definitely not telling Sofia about that either.) I tell him everything that’s happened today, from the conversation with Victor to my parents selling our house to me stealing plants. He listens and frowns in all the right places, but he’s silent until I say, “I got some produce for you to bring to the soup kitchen too.”
“Perfect. What have you got? And what does it taste like?”
“It’s blue lettuce, and it tastes like…well… lettuce. If I had the seed collection, I’d be able to tell you exactly where it came from.”
“Uli would be glad you didn’t let it go to waste,” Nikko says.
I’ve already told him we’ve got kale, corn and tomato plants in the shed. “But most of the plants, like the lettuce, can’t be transplanted once they’re in the ground. I’ll have to wait for them to go to seed.”
“But that’ll take months!” he says. “How will you get in to do the watering with Slater living next door and Estelle-the-Eye living across the street?”
It does sound crazy when he puts it that way. “Slater can’t see over the hedge from his house,” I offer. It’s the best I’ve got.
“But anyone on the street can see you breaking in.” He leans back on his hands and stretches out his long legs. “What if we could save the plants in a legal way? Involve the local media or get people in the neighborhood to sign a petition? Victor owns the local grocery store. He won’t want the whole neighborhood against him.”
“How do you come up with this stuff?”
“My parents are always writing letters,” he says. “To the newspaper, the mayor, the provincial government, you name it.”
I think about that for a moment, but it’s not going to work. “Uli said he refilled the water bottles every day in the summer, and it’s hot already. The plants could die while we’re gathering signatures.”
“Oh yeah. I guess that’s true,” he says. “But you know you’re going to get caught, right?”
I nod, even though I don’t want to. This was the moment where he was supposed to say, I’ll help you with the watering every few days, and after you’re gone, I’ll take over, watering, harvesting—
Who am I kidding? This whole thing is nuts, but it’s the only plan I’ve got so far. I have to go with it, because if the plants die now, it won’t matter how many amazing plans I come up with later on.
“I’ll help you plant the stuff you’ve already rescued,” Nikko says, “if you want.”
It’s a start.
THIRTEEN
I smooth my hair. Nikko assured me that I didn’t have a speck of plant life in it anymore, but I feel like Dad’ll take one look at me and know where I’ve been. I take a deep breath and push open our apartment door.
Dad jumps up from the couch, his knotting cords falling to the floor. “Thank goodness.”
He doesn’t need to say he’s been worried. I can see it on his face. I feel a twinge of guilt for being out so long after dark. “Sorry, I—”
“I know. You needed to get out. To think. Are you—?” He hesitates. “Are you feeling better?”
I’m not furious anymore, like I was when I flew out of here. Mostly because I refuse to think about my parents splitting up. I’m focusing on the garden now. “Yes, I’m better.”
“I’ll text your mom and let her know you’re home.”
This is how it’s going to be from now on, I realize. I’ll be living either with Dad or Mom, and they’ll text each other about what I’m up to. My eyes feel hot, and Dad comes over to hug me. “I’m sorry, Chloë. I know this is hard for you.”
No kidding. I bite back the words and rest my head against his shoulder. When he lets go, I kick off my shoes. One of them hits a cardboard box on the floor. “What’s that?”
“A few of Uli’s things that I set aside for William. He looked through and took what he wanted but left the rest for us.”
I open the box. Albums. A whole stack of photo albums. I crouch down to open the first, and there’s my grandmother, smiling, under the apple tree, with my child-dad up in the branches. “You didn’t want the photos?”
“Please don’t open those now,” Dad says. “You can look at them later. Right now I need to talk to you about the house. Our house. In Montreal.”
I step away from the box and flop down on the couch, but I’m not giving up. Not this time. “Why did you hate him so much?”
“I didn’t.” Dad picks up a cord again and begins another knot. “We had a troubled relationship. It’s not the same.”
I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t.
“Will you ever tell me?” I ask. “Because I still don’t get it. Why did we move across the country to be here when you could barely stand to be in the same room? Why are you staying now that he’s gone? None of it makes sense.”
He’s got tears in his eyes when he turns to me. “I came back for a lot of reasons, Chloë, and I brought you with me for a lot of reasons too. But the main one is I love you, and I couldn’t stand the idea of not seeing you every day.”
“But Mom—” My voice is barely a whisper. I don’t know what I’m trying to ask. If Mom wouldn’t miss me as much maybe? How did they decide this?
“She misses you terribly, but she wanted you to get to know your grandfather. That was always important to her. She said you needed to know where you came from, even if you didn’t want to stay.”
I think about that for a moment. “Did you know then that you’d stay?” Please say no
. Please say that you weren’t lying about that when we came here.
“I didn’t have a clue,” Dad says. “I knew I wanted you to have time to be a kid without two parents fighting every night. I wanted to give you a chance to throw rocks into the ocean. Go for bike rides. Live a simpler life for a while. I didn’t plan to stay for very long. But then William found me this job, and—”
“William?”
“He mentioned it to my father, who mentioned it to me. Everything was set into motion after that, and here we are.” He waves a hand at our furniture and the wall he transformed to lively orange.
It takes me a while to process this. “I didn’t know Mom cared about Uli so much.”
“She didn’t know him well,” he says. “They only met a few times, but family is family. She cares about us, so she cared about him.”
Kind of like how I care about my great-grandmother because Uli cared about her. Enough to plant that tree and tell me about her years and years after she died.
“I wish Mom lived here.” I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help it. How do I choose between my parents and between two completely different lives?
Dad smiles. “Can you imagine your mom living in Victoria?”
I can’t. Mom’s a big-city person. She loves her university, meeting friends after work for a glass of wine, finding vintage clothing at the fripperies and going to concerts. Some weekends, we’d drag her up Mount Royal for a walk in the woods, but she went because Dad and I wanted to. It’s not something she’d ever have done on her own.
“I loved Montreal when I first got there too,” Dad says. “But I missed the ocean—and the trees, and the lakes, and hiking. I left Victoria to get away from my father, but this place never stopped feeling like home. I wanted to come back.”
“Even if your father was still here.”
The Vegetable Museum Page 8