“Even if, and because. I wanted to put some things to rest with him,” he says. “You’re right. I owe you an explanation. I’ll give you one soon, I promise, but I need to figure out how to tell the story respectfully, in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m judging him. He was a good man. He just took too many risks. I guess he didn’t know how to be any other way.”
I don’t say anything. One wrong word, and my dad might change his mind. He’s never promised to tell me soon about what happened between him and his father. I don’t want to push it. Luckily, we have no shortage of huge, life-altering events to talk about, so I change the subject. “You told Mom you wanted to move back to Victoria, and she thought it was a good idea?”
He shrugs. “We weren’t getting along. I’d lost my job. My father had just had a stroke. Coming here felt like the best thing to do at the time.” He watches my face for a moment. “Neither one of us wanted to hurt you, Chloë. I hope you know that.”
I nod. That, at least, I’ve known all along.
FOURTEEN
I don’t recognize the grocery store right away. The photo is black and white, the parking lot is edged with flowers, and the painted wooden sign says Gwen’s General Store. Not Smith’s. Two people stand in front of the store, a tall man with a bushy beard, and a boy a little younger than me with thick glasses and shaggy hair. My dad. Uli is beaming and has his arm around Dad’s shoulders. Dad looks uncomfortable, like he feels the way I do about photo ops.
Uli Becher’s popular local store provided Thanksgiving dinner for 180 people at the St. John’s soup kitchen this past weekend, the caption says.
I frown. Uli’s store?
It was late. Dad had already gone to bed, but I’d known I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I’d looked through the photo albums. So I’d brought William’s cardboard box into my bedroom and closed the door. Most of the albums were labeled by year (Our Family 1977–1983) but some had specific titles. I turned the pages and saw Dad as a chubby baby, a serious toddler and a smiling boy. His mom was almost always with him. I guess Uli was behind the camera. Below each photo was a small white tag with the date and usually the place, written in a graceful handwriting. The last date was in 1988, the year before my grandmother died.
Garden began the year after she died and had fewer photos—one of Uli’s yard, all lawn like at Victor’s place; my father at about twelve, crouched down among seedlings; both him and Uli with an enormous pumpkin. It must be the one that Dad talked about at the memorial. I set the photo aside to show to him later. After that the photos were more random. None of them were labeled with dates.
I hadn’t known what to expect from Sailing. The first pictures were close-ups of docked boats and dotted horizons, all labeled with dates in the early 1970s. A few pages later, the photos were from the mid-eighties. Every one was of my grandmother, steering, raising masts or relaxing on the deck in the sunshine. Most were badly composed and out of focus, but near the end of the book, they got better. She was paler and thinner though.
At the bottom of the box was a stack of photos and newspaper clippings held together with an elastic band. I flipped through. Vegetable pictures, an apartment building I didn’t recognize and the clipping about the grocery store.
“Dad?” I’m out in the hallway and knocking on his door. I don’t care that it’s late and I should be asleep and that he probably already is. A few hours ago I was fine waiting until Dad was ready to tell this story, but now I have too many questions. I’ll never fall asleep with all of them flying around in my head. “Dad, wake up.”
I hear a loud snort from behind his door. “Huh? What? Chloë?” He opens the door, blinking in the hallway’s brightness.
I hold up the newspaper article. “Uli owned the store?”
He passes a hand over his face. “Chloë. It’s the middle of the night.”
“But I don’t understand. How did Uli go from owning the store to not setting foot anywhere near it?”
He squints at me for a few more seconds. “Okay, I need a coffee. Let me at least get a coffee first.”
I sit in the living room and wait. When he sits down with his steaming mug, he takes a deep breath. “You know part of the story already. Your grandfather grew up very poor. He came to Canada an orphan, his uncle was an alcoholic, and his aunt was crazy, so after a few years, he took off and hitchhiked west.”
I tuck my knees under my chin. “Yup, Uli told me that part.”
“By then, he spoke English well, but he didn’t have any skills that could earn him money—nothing except what he’d learned on the farm with his uncle. He got a job with a landscaping company and started gardening. He also started gambling. And he was lucky at first. By the time he was twenty-one, he had saved enough to buy a house. He learned about investing. He knew how to stretch a dollar.”
He always drank tea from old, chipped mugs as if he couldn’t spare a dime, even when he had pots of money, William had said. I guess when you grow up with nothing, saving every penny becomes a habit. But then why gamble? It doesn’t make sense. “At some point he bought the grocery store too?”
Dad nods. “Eventually he owned a lot of things—that store and all three houses across the street.”
“The entire block?” Just like Victor.
Another nod. He knocks back the rest of his coffee. “He got the first house and the grocery store before he married Mom. Then he stopped gambling. He didn’t start again until she got sick.”
“What?” I ask. “She was dying of cancer, and he went out gambling?”
He lets out a long, slow breath. “It’s an addiction, Chloë. Addictions are hardest to resist when we’re scared and trying to cope. When Mom got sick, he was terrified, and he did what he’d always done when he was scared. He played poker. She died, and then he gambled even more.”
“Until he lost it all.” It’s weird to know the beginning and the end of the story before hearing the middle.
“First he lost the grocery store. He wagered it. In a poker game.”
No way.
“He was drunk that night, and he wanted to win an apartment building. For me.”
This is making less sense all the time.
“He knew I wanted to sail around the world, and he figured that if I owned an apartment building and everyone in it was paying me rent, then I wouldn’t ever have to worry about money again. He was trying to help me live my dream. I see that now, but I didn’t see it then because that poker game is when he lost the store. Without that income, he had to start selling off other stuff. Like my sailboat.”
What? “You had your own sailboat? How old were you?” I can’t believe I never knew these things about him.
“It was my mother’s first, but Dad hated being out on the water. So after she died, he gave it to me. Mom had been taking me out sailing since I was a few months old. We were going to sail down to Mexico someday, but then she got sick.” He looks down at his hands.
I feel like everything I thought I knew about my grandfather—and my father too—is shifting. Like the kaleidoscope I had when I was three. I used to love looking inside, twisting the end and watching the bright little pieces shift to form new shapes. But I hate this changing image of Uli. How do I match my gentle gardener grandfather with this drunken gambler who risked everything? I guess that’s why Dad never wanted to tell me this story. Would I have wanted to spend time with Uli if I’d known what he was like before?
“Dad hired someone to look after the boat. He paid for sailing lessons too, and it wasn’t the same as being out on the water with Mom, but I still felt close to her out there. Everything—her death, Dad’s gambling—was easier to handle when I was sailing. I told Dad I was going to Mexico someday, just like Mom and I had planned to, and I started saving every cent. I even started racing. There was serious money in that.”
“But then he sold the boat.”
“Exactly.” Dad pushes up from the sofa and takes his mug back to the kitchen.
“W
ait,” I say. “How did Victor wind up with everything?”
“He won the store. Then Uli lost a few bets with other people. Victor offered to buy one of his houses. After that, each time Dad had cash-flow problems, he went to Victor. One day, when he had to sell his own house to make ends meet, Victor bought it but agreed to let Dad stay there as a tenant until he died.”
I know how this works, Victor had said. 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. It makes sense now. “But at some point he stopped gambling, right? I mean—”
“Yes,” Dad says. “He went to some program or something. It worked, but by then he had lost everything. He never had much money again after that.”
“Did you ever talk about it with him?” I can guess the answer, but I still want to hear what he says.
“I think he wanted to,” Dad says. “He sent me a pamphlet about the addiction program he went through. It said that part of the healing process was to talk with family about the problems that the addiction had caused in everyone’s life. I think that’s why he came to see us in Montreal. He probably saved for ages to afford that trip. But I didn’t want to talk. It felt like too little, too late. I still remember the look on his face when we said goodbye at the airport that time. Like he was a little boy trying not to cry.”
And now Dad’s crying. He sits down on the sofa with his head in his hands. I put an arm around him. “He knew you loved him,” I say. “You came here when he needed you, didn’t you?”
“I hope he knew,” Dad whispers. “I really hope so.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“I’m sorry, Chloë,” he says. “I wish things had been different.”
Back in my bedroom, I pin the newspaper clipping to my wall. It’s a picture of a man who would eventually sell his son’s sailboat, but it’s also a picture of a man and a boy who planted a garden—a garden that I’m going to save.
FIFTEEN
“You look ready for anything.”
Nikko is standing in our parking lot, wearing long sleeves, gardening gloves, long pants, socks and boots, despite the June heat. I can smell the citronella from here.
“You look like you’re ready to go hiking in the Amazon,” I say. “How did you explain your outfit to your parents?”
“The same way I explained to Estelle why I was poking around in the tool shed.” He lowers his voice dramatically. “Scientific experiment.”
We climb onto our bikes. His is hitched up to his dad’s bike trailer, but instead of pulling a double bass, he’s got a trailer full of plants. “Onward!”
A few minutes later, we’re flying down Vancouver Street to Beacon Hill Park. When Nikko first suggested it as a new home for some of Uli’s plants, I thought he was nuts. As much as I’m tempted to plant kale in the middle of the putting green, or a tomato plant on the cricket pitch, or squash between the rosebushes, none of them would last more than a couple of hours before some paid caretaker ripped it out. But Nikko said he knew a good spot.
Nikko and I pedal toward the ocean, veering left to a tiny forested patch that I’ve never paid much attention to. Nikko says it’s the only area that’s still wild-ish, and you’re more likely to see a barred owl in here than a parks employee. So chances are, no one’ll spot our plantings. That’s our theory anyway.
We stop on one of the trails and lock our bikes. I grab the pots of kale, remembering how Uli said these bluish-green leaves are fantastic with sausages. Or as kale chips. (Ugh. That still sounds horrible, but I’m determined to at least try it once, in Uli’s honor. Nikko says his parents have a recipe. Apparently, the secret is massaging the leaves. Who thinks up these things?) Stepping over fallen logs and roots, we tiptoe between the trees until we’re far enough into the woods that no one will see us from the path.
“What if they reseed themselves and this spot becomes a local legend?” Nikko puts on a deep documentary-narrator voice. “Every summer, families from all over the city set off into the woods in search of feral kale.”
I laugh. Sofia would too. Kale-hunting parties. You can’t get more west coast than that.
“Let’s hope the deer don’t get it first.”
“Deer?” I ask.
“From Government House. They have a big patch of land to roam on there, but they always get out and eat people’s gardens too. I hope they like kale about as much as you like asparagus.”
I groan, but there’s nothing to do but keep planting. Once every kale plant is in the ground, we head back to the trailer. Nikko consults his list of destinations. “Next stop, Fernwood. I found an empty lot that’s begging for corn. The subdivision permit will take months to go through. Plenty of time for a harvest.”
“Let me guess,” I say. “You looked it up online?”
“No, someone from the homeschooling network told me.”
I frown. “How did that topic come up?”
“I’ve been getting the word out about our little garden project,” he says. “My homeschooling friends are all over the idea. They even offered to help.”
“What?” I drop my voice to a whisper. “You’ve told the homeschooling network about this? Are you completely nuts?”
“Don’t worry, Chloë. No one’s going to find out that—”
“Are you kidding?” My voice is too loud now, but I can’t help it. “Victoria is the size of an anthill. The school bully is the son of my grandfather’s enemy. My teacher’s wife is my dad’s barber. Someone farts and it’s on the evening news. Of course they’re going to find out who’s stealing the plants and relocating them!”
“Chill, Chloë,” Nikko says. “I didn’t say Please join Chloë Becher as she illegally enters the property of one of Victoria’s richest and most bitter landlords. I told them about an empty lot I always pass on my way home from the soup kitchen. I said I wished the city made landowners plant gardens until they started building. We’d have way more fresh food that way.”
“Oh.” My heart slows to a normal pace.
“One of my buddies lives across from an empty lot—the one in Fernwood—and he said he’d help work on a garden there. A bunch of other people said the same thing. That’s all.”
“This is crazy,” I say. “The kale is going to be deer food. The landowner’s going to rip out the corn. I’ve got a garden full of plants that I need to water every few days, and Victor—”
“We’re doing our best,” Nikko says. “Uli would be grateful.”
I keep pedaling and try to believe he’s right.
“So what’s the deal?” Sofia says. “Are you moving back here or what?”
I’ve told her everything, from Slater attacking Nikko to guerilla gardening in Fernwood. She was quiet almost the whole time, a rare thing for Sofia. Now I’m silent too, because she’s just asked a question I’ve been thinking about for days now. Every time I imagine moving back to Montreal to live with Mom in a condo in an unfamiliar neighborhood, I feel sad. Sure, it would be great to see Sofia again, but we’d still live too far apart for things to be the way they were. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Sofia this though.
“I’m going to miss you,” she says.
“But nothing’s decided yet, and I—”
“I’m going to miss you,” she says again, “but you can’t get rid of me by moving to the other side of the country, you know. I’m coming to visit. I’ve already looked up flights. I can come in the first week of August. I want to meet Nikko and see your garden and dip my foot in the ocean and watch you actually riding a bike.”
I don’t protest this time. If I moved in with Mom, I’d be saying goodbye to all that stuff to live in a tiny condo in a neighborhood where I know no one. “I think you’ll like it here,” I say instead.
I need to find another way in to Uli’s garden. Every time I walk past the hedge, I can see the hole I squeeze through. I’m sure everyone else can see it too. The branc
hes aren’t straightening to cover it up the way they used to. But maybe I’m just being paranoid. Most people aren’t looking for secret passageways when they walk past a hedge. The same way they’re not looking for fruit on the cherry blossom trees. I look up at the tree on the boulevard. The flowers are long gone—it’s all green leaves now—but at the ends of the lower branches are small green fruits that make me smile. In a few more weeks, the cherries will be ripe. I can’t wait to taste Uli’s public art.
The moon isn’t as bright as it was two nights ago, but I have Dad’s headlamp with me this time. I’m trying to water without a sound. I know exactly where my feet must fall on the path to avoid tripping. I’m extra careful by the concrete pad under the rain barrels, worried I’ll trip or knock a lid off by mistake. I’m jumpy tonight, hearing noises that don’t make sense, like footfalls on the sidewalk outside, again and again, as if someone’s out there pacing at two in the morning.
Focus. I grab the watering bucket to dip it in the rain barrel, but this barrel’s almost empty. I have to tip the whole thing toward me to reach the water. For a moment I consider uncovering the full one, but I’ve never done that before. What if I fumble, and the cover goes crashing to the ground?
I lean farther into the almost-empty barrel. Half a bucket. It’s as much as I can get. It’ll have to do for now. I lower the tilted barrel back onto the ground, and that’s when I hear it: a small clang, not coming from outside this time, but from right under the barrel. I train my headlamp onto the ground. The light falls on a little metal plate built into the concrete. I roll the barrel carefully to one side. In the middle of the plate is a small, circular hole. I could stick my finger in and lift it right out. My heart beats faster. Only one thing mattered enough to Uli for him to build a special hiding place for it.
I lift the plate and pull a large, red metal box from its secret spot. It doesn’t weigh much, but then again, neither did the shoebox full of seeds that Uli showed me in his greenhouse all those months ago. It’s the right size. It’s also locked. I have no idea how I’m going to open it, but that hardly matters right now. I’ve got the seeds—I’m sure of it. Victor can set fire to the rest of this garden for all I care!
The Vegetable Museum Page 9