“Um, it turns out he isn’t gay but we’re really just checking each other out. And whatever happens, he has step-daughters and a horse and a place of his own he’s very attached to.”
“Near Lac Ste-Anne,” Dad says, nodding.
“You were paying attention.”
He shoots me a don’t push it look. “I like him,” he says. “It’s not that.”
“But it is a very small house.”
He nods, frowning down at his pipe bowl. The wind blows out two matches and his lighter. I stand up to block it and make a cup of my hands. He nods, drawing the flame into the bowl.
Doug’s come back to join us. “Look,” he says.
The wall of clouds to the west is fraying. The peaks reappear, reflecting the light of an invisible sun, while overhead the cloud quilt is a dense, unbroken mauve. The band of sky between cloud above and cloud below is a luminous, limitless pale blue.
Dad’s head’s thrown back, the beak of his nose sharp as a mountain ridge. After a while he says, “I haven’t seen one like this in years.”
“Maybe it’s a sign,” I say.
“Do you believe in those things? Signs and portents?” He looks at me, eyebrows raised, face a map of wrinkles.
“Not really.” I shrug. “But ...”
He nods. “I was thinking earlier how right it felt, you showing up here. A gift. It wasn’t just Polly who felt that.” He glances at Doug. “I never asked myself the question you asked, whether it was too much of a coincidence. It’s a very good question. If it wasn’t a coincidence, and ruling out divine intervention, there is only one person who could have brought Meg here.”
“Except,” I say, “as you pointed out, I felt safe in Moira’s cabin. That’s one of the few things I actually know. And I can’t see how I would have if she was the one who kidnapped me and scared me into silence.”
Doug nods. “Even if she was rescuing you from a terrible home, a child wouldn’t experience that sort of abrupt dislocation as safety.”
“So,” I say.
“But ...” Doug says. He stares of into the middle distance, the wind tugging at his hair.
“But what?”
“Okay, bear with me. During the Vietnam war—” he looks at Dad—“I was in the US and I became involved, in a very minor way, in helping draft dodgers and deserters escape to Canada. Under cover of a hog transporting business. We went to great lengths to keep a low profile but, near the end, we had the feeling the feds were closing in on us. We suspected there was an informer. So a couple of us laid a false trail. I talked about growing up on the Alberta/Montana border. The other guy cut his hair and started wearing straighter clothes. Just before the hog transporter arrived we went and bought a big old van. Paid cash.”
“A red herring,” Dad says.
“Exactly,” Doug says, “to cut a long story short.” Amusement glints in his eyes.
Dad actually looks embarrassed.
“Go on,” I say.
“Okay, so we think there were two adults who were concerned about that child’s welfare.”
“Moira and her brother-in-law, the child’s great-uncle.” Dad’s leaning forward.
“Let’s assume the abusive guy was the girl’s father and let’s assume Moira and the great uncle found out something about him. Something bad. The kind of movies he made, for example.” Doug glances at me.
My mouth is dry. “Go on.”
“Say the mother’s liver fails and she dies. The great uncle could try for custody but if the father is an American citizen, all he has to do is take his daughter across the border. They’ll never get her back. Perhaps they suspect he’s getting ready to do that anyway. So they take her. To get her to safety, they trick the father into following one of them while the other hides the girl.”
“You’re saying the great uncle could have been the one who took the girl, not Moira. Took the girl and, perhaps, scared her into silence.” Dad pokes at his pipe then draws on it until the tobacco glows.
“So I might never have seen Moira,” I say slowly, “until the day you took me to her cabin.”
“That’s right,” Dad says. He looks at Doug. “Moira phoned within a few days of Meg arriving here. Ostensibly to tell me she was going away but perhaps she reckoned—correctly—that I’d tell her that Meg had shown up as planned.”
“And if I hadn’t?”
“I don’t know. My guess is that the great uncle would have been watching from the other side of the river.”
“So, what, he carried me across the river, up the bank, popped me over the top and set me on my way like some wind-up toy?” I shake my head. “Sorry. It’s just so weird that I can’t remember any of this. It can make all the sense in the world but I’m never going to know if it’s true.”
“Would you be sure if you did remember?” Doug’s voice is gentle, his eyes on my face.
He’s right. The story is so outlandish I’d still be wondering if I’d made it all up. Just so I could have some kind of explanation. Doug turns to Dad. “Meg made an interesting point. About how exactly she was brought to the farm.”
“The way she just described it sounds right,” Dad says, “if you wanted to make sure no one saw a strange vehicle approaching the farm. One with BC plates, for example. He’d have parked on one of the forestry roads on the west side of the river then carried her across.”
“Would that have been hard to do?”
“No. It had been a dry year and this is a wide, shallow stretch. She could probably have made it across on her own. With help it would have been easy.”
“Will you describe it to me, where she was when you first saw her? What happened?”
“I was ploughing the field you walked across to get here. Mostly I was looking back over my shoulder. I noticed Moss staring at something. My dog. I followed his eyes. At the edge of a chokecherry thicket, a little figure was standing, completely still. In that strip of shrubs and trees between here and the field.
“I shut off the tractor, climbed down. Made my way across the field. It was a child. A girl, I thought. I stopped well short. Way she was standing, she was ready to bolt. I greeted her. She didn’t say a thing. Flimsy clothes, shoes but no socks, filthy dirty, hair a tangle. I moved slowly, spoke slowly. ‘Are you lost?’ I couldn’t tell if she understood or not. ‘What’s your name?’ She didn’t seem to register my words but every creature knows a gentle voice.
“I started moving slowly toward the house and after a moment she drifted along with me. She had a strange look. Not dreamy exactly—she had that wariness—more as if she were watching herself walk across the field.”
Doug looks at me. “Where does your memory begin, exactly?”
“On this side of the river. I remember pushing through bushes to where there was more light. I could hear the sound of an engine. When I got to the edge of the field I stopped. I watched an orange tractor turning over the earth. A man with gold hair was driving it. Mostly he was looking back over his shoulder. I didn’t think he could see me. Then I saw a dog off to the side of the field. He was staring at me. He wasn’t growling or barking, he was just staring.”
“Were you afraid?” Dad asks.
“I don’t know. I felt cold all the way through. The tractor stopped and the man got down. He walked toward me. The dog followed him. The man reached one hand back behind him, his fingers spread out, and the dog stopped. The man was wearing a faded blue shirt, a faded red bandana, tan pants. The way he stepped across the field, he was like an animal. A deer. Wild and curious. He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever seen before.” I look at Dad then at Doug. “He asked me questions. I didn’t have any words. My legs were ready to run but I didn’t. I followed him when he started walking. He went around the edge of the field. After a while I could see a roof. A red roof.” I stop.
Mum told this story a hundred times. How she watched us walk toward her. How her heart filled with joy and she knew this was God’s work. She told it so many times it was smooth as a st
one in the river. And I’ve certainly told enough therapists my version, but Dad and I, we’ve never told each other.
They’re both watching me. Dad’s eyes are a lighter turquoise now. Back then a chalky almost green. Doug’s eyes are amber with dark flecks. He asks, “Was it significant, the roof being red?”
“I felt something when I saw it. Relieved?”
“As if you were expecting to see it?”
“Maybe. The house had a red door too. It opened and a woman stood there. A woman with dark hair. She held her hands out a few inches in front of her, palms up. She was wearing a pale blue apron over a skirt, a blouse buttoned to her neck. We were sliding toward her, the man and the dog and me. She stood completely still. When I got close enough I saw her eyes stood out like a frog’s.
“‘She’s thirsty,’ the man said.
“‘Come in.’ The woman turned and went back into the house. I followed her. Behind me I heard the man stamp his boots. I looked down at my shoes. The left shoe, the leather had cracked by the toe joint. The right shoe the lace must have broken. It only reached through two of the holes. I didn’t have any socks on.
“‘Come in,’ the woman said again.
“I pushed off the right shoe with my left toes. Had to bend down and untie the left one.” I look at Dad. “It was simple. I don’t remember thinking anything. Mum gave me water and a blanket. You asked me more questions. We ate stew and Mum gave me a bath. It didn’t feel strange, the house. I don’t mean I felt safe. At one point you moved your hand and I flinched.”
Dad nods. “I remember that.”
“But there was something. Maybe someone did describe it to me.”
“Moira, you mean? She’d never been to the house.”
“That you know of,” Doug says.
“You mean she would have come and ‘cased the joint out?’”
“So she could give the great uncle directions. One of them could have described the house to Meg. The outside at least.”
“Perhaps,” Dad says, “but I’ve recognized places I’ve never been. In the mountains sometimes. I used to wonder if I’d dreamt them.” He turns to look at me. “The other week, when you talked about putting down the drink, you said”—he squints into the distance—“you said it was as if a door opened in front of you and you walked through it. Your exact words were, ‘You could say it was a decision but it felt like an acknowledgement. Of something that was somehow already true.’ That’s how it was. A girl with no name, no voice, walked out of the bush, walked across the field, walked into our home and we welcomed her. It seemed right. Fitting. I can’t explain it but it did.”
Doug’s nodding. “That feeling of familiarity. You recognize something—a place, a person, a moment—even though you’ve no reason to. You know it’s yours somehow. But don’t you always have a choice? It’s always about courage. Whether you have the courage to do whatever it is that is yours to do. You know. And you’re known.” Doug’s eyes find mine. “But that doesn’t mean it’s destined to go a certain way.” He’s looking at Dad now. “You could have decided it was too risky to keep Meg with you. Because it was a risk, wasn’t it?”
Dad nods.
“There’s something I used to tell the clients at Dreamcatcher, about the difference between what’s probable and what’s possible. It’s probable that an addict will pick up again, destroy themselves and damage everyone around them. But it’s possible they’ll stay clean. However improbable it is, you can choose the possible.”
Dad says, “I know quite a lot about the improbable, actually. When your life crosses that line. It can happen in a minute. The probable is reason’s territory.”
“And the possible?”
“Belongs to imagination. To instinct.”
Doug’s nodding. At ease. Like Dad. Two cats on a sunny windowsill. Then they’re both looking at me.
“I’m all right,” I say, “and look.” Like cotton worn so thin it parts and parts again, the clouds that hid the mountains are in tatters. The sky behind is the pale blue-green of a bird’s egg.
Dad looks at Doug, “How would you feel about playing a tune or two?”
“I’d be happy to.”
“I’ll get it,” I say, standing up.
“I could come with you,” Doug says.
“No. Stay here. I’ll be back. Anybody want anything else from the house?”
They shake their heads.
Chapter Ninety Two
KNEELING TO REACH under the bed upstairs, Mum’s at my side. Hands folded, eyes firmly closed. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those ... Her nose tilts up, almost a snub nose, wide mouth, little lines fanning out from the corners, dimple in her chin. The gravy smell of her. The first night she showed me how to pray by the chesterfield where I was to sleep. The words to the Lord’s Prayer unfurled inside my head as she spoke them. I stole glances at this stranger with her froggy eyes. She thanked Jesus for answering her prayers. She asked Him to bless me. Her fervour confused me.
Mum before she cut her hair and started getting it permed into a steely helmet. Back then glossy black curls framed her face. Another face swims over hers. With a flick it’s gone. Grief grabs me. Squeezes my heart until I’m gasping. I push my forehead down into the bed but I can’t make it come back. That other face.
Tears are pouring from my eyes.
They stop as suddenly as they started. I wipe my eyes on the blanket. After a moment I reach under the bed. My fingers find the stiff, rounded end of the case. I pull it out, wipe dust off the domed black cover with my sleeve.
In the bathroom I wash my face then meet my eyes in the mirror. The face looking back at me is serious.
Trust the shadows.
I nod and turn and go out into the Chinook, fiddle case in hand.
Chapter Ninety Three
“SO HOW DID you do it?”
Doug’s voice carries on the wind.
When I come out onto the bluff he’s standing next to the bench. They’re both staring down at the ground. Dad reaches for the cane. He draws something in the grit at his feet. I set the fiddle down.
“The house is 20’ by 24’. I cut both dimensions in half which made it 10’ by 12’. I couldn’t see any reason why I couldn’t half the rafter lengths too. That way the pitch of the roof stayed the same, and all the angles.”
“But when you cut through the existing rafters, which you had to do ...”
They’re completely immersed in their manly talk. I must have laughed out loud because both heads swivel my way.
“Meg,” Dad says, “do you remember the day Jimmy and Russ came over and we cut the hole in the roof?”
“Yes. I thought Mum was going to be sick.”
“She didn’t,” Dad says to Doug, “have complete faith in my carpentry skills. And in truth, without the original plans and the example of the house in front of me, I’m not sure I’d have tried it.”
“So who built the house?”
“I did, but from a kit.”
“From Eatons?”
“Aladdin Mills. From the forest to your home. Eatons had stopped shipping by then. Same idea though.”
“So that’s why it looks familiar. If I picture it without the addition.”
“The Whitehall. Introduced in 1930. Floor plan G.
“There are a good few around, aren’t there?”
“None quite like this,” I say.
“Here.” Dad leans forward, holding out the knife he always carries in his pocket. There it is again, the gentle swell.
Doug opens the smaller blade and trims off the broken hairs. He passes the knife back to Dad, his straight square tipped fingers almost but not quite touching Dad’s twisted ones.
Doug sets the bow down and lifts the fiddle out of the case. He puts it to his chin, tries a note or two.
Dad winces and shakes his head. “It’s a crime, to leave an instrument un-played. I should have passed it on.”
His voice is matter of fact but there’s a creak o
f sadness. He’d come and play here, by the river, when he was learning a new tune. Or sometimes just when the weather was good, late on a summer evening. Chores done, Mum and I would walk out to listen in the twilight, owls hooting in the pines. Later, when I came back, I used to get out of my car and listen. I’d listen to the silence after the roar of the city. Sometimes, when my ears had adjusted, I’d catch the lilt of a tune across the fields.
Eight or nine years ago I realized I hadn’t heard him play in a while. When I asked he held up his hands. His fingers looked like the roots of a tree growing on rock. I didn’t know what to say. It’s a one way ticket, old age. The thought of it scares me, how loss follows loss. Life pries your fingers loose, my first sponsor used to say, trying to explain the concept of letting go. She seemed ancient then. She was probably in her late sixties. The age Dad was when I came here. He’s watching Doug, eyebrows curling out over hooded eyes, alert as a hawk on a fence post. Doug’s standing there, hair half hiding his face, tightening knobs and plucking strings. He starts into a tune then stops again for no reason my ear can detect.
Eventually he nods and looks at Dad who nods too. He swings into what even I can recognize as a waltz. Dad leans back and closes his eyes. Doug segues from one tune into another. His eyes are open but they’re fixed on something far away, or perhaps inside. I remember this look on Dad’s face, sombre, inward, however lively the tune was. I pictured him reading the music as it spooled off some reel inside his head but he said no, it was his hands that knew the tunes.
Doug’s hands are bigger than Dad’s, same length but broader in the palm. Steady, competent hands. Dad likes him. He fits easily here. The way I did. I fit right in. It brings the lump back into my throat. Hearing Dad say what Mum said a thousand times in her way. I wish I could have trusted that belonging. But it wasn’t mine by right and I couldn’t forget that. I suppose it’s what teenagers do, but I tested it to the max. Waiting for one of them to say, ‘We didn’t have to take you in.’ They never did, either of them, ever. I don’t know what more they could have done. They could have told me the truth. Would that have helped? To know their secret. Or would I have thrown it in their faces? Used it whatever way I could to drive them away. Because it hurt too much to want what I was sure I couldn’t have.
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