The Tree

It’s the afternoon at the cottage. Brianna lies on the grass in the shade of the maple, lording it over the backyard. There are five days left to climb the tree before she turns thirteen. She doesn’t want to become a teenager knowing that her younger sister, Stéphanie, has climbed the tree, but she hasn’t. Brianna is taller and stronger than Stéphanie but less daring.

Brianna spends the afternoon staring at the pale undersides of the waving leaves and the kaleidoscopic patches of sky peeking out between them. She had a kaleidoscope once, but the tube was made of cardboard. Stéphanie left it out in the rain. When Brianna found it on the porch, it looked OK, but when she picked it up it collapsed in her hands, except for the glass part, where the light comes in.

Brianna plans her route up the tree. She needs to get to the big branch to be as high as Stéphanie climbed. Two Pileated Woodpeckers pecked out a hole nest above it this spring. The Woody Woodpecker birds, noisy and gaudy with red crests, were easy to spot, unlike some other birds her mother expected her to recognize. They had two baby birds and by June they were gone.

Brianna tires of thinking about the long stretch from the lower branch to the big upper one. She opens her book. It’s about an orphaned girl whose parents died in India. Her favourite stories contain sad orphans trapped in icy orphanages where coughing skinny girls spray droplets of blood as they die. Sometimes she wishes she was an orphan, but it makes her teary when she imagines her parents dying.

She’d also be sad if Stéphanie died. Brianna is a good big sister. Last summer, when she was ten, Stéphanie fell out of the tree and broke her arm. Brianna scratched under Stéphanie’s cast with the metal barbecue skewer and spent hours playing checkers with her when she couldn’t go swimming.

This morning at breakfast, her parents had another fight over the barbecue. Last week’s fight was Stéphanie’s fault because she hadn’t waited a whole week before asking again about going to Disney World. Dad was for and her mom was against. Brianna changed the topic of conversation to the new Black American president to stop them from arguing. Her grandmother, Nan, taught her how to do that.

After breakfast, while Stéphanie was canoeing with Dad–she always sits in front and never dips her paddle properly into the water–Mom insisted that Brianna sit down at the kitchen table for a talk.

“It’s time to explain menstruation,” she said, arranging samples of napkins and tampons on the kitchen table like it was science class. Brianna already knew that stuff from school. Most of her friends were allowed private computer time and knew tons of things. Her mom skipped the important stuff, the stuff they talked about at school—cramping, forgetting supplies and accidents. The girls monitored each other’s bums in case there was a leak on someone’s pants or skirt. Anyone carrying a purse always had extra supplies. Her mom finished her lecture with “Don’t tell Stéphanie. She’s too young.”

Where was Brianna meant to hide those boxes of pastel-coloured items wrapped in their noisy crinkly plastic? Stéphanie would find them for sure. And why shouldn’t she find them?

The next morning at breakfast, Mom is talking with her mouth full of cereal.

“Bricks and cement all over the place. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing. Go and buy a barbeque.”

Dad says nothing.

Brianna gets up from the table and hugs her mom. “It’s OK Mom. I can help him.”

She spends the morning helping him stack the red bricks into shapes like the diagrams of the barbeques in the library book. The bricks are heavy and scratchy, so she quits. She’ll be more interested when Dad gets to the cementing part. He says cement will hold the bricks together into a barbeque that will last forever, but Brianna knows that nothing lasts forever.

It’s the afternoon now and Mom and Stéphanie are reading on the dock. Brianna’s inside the cottage rummaging in Stéphanie’s dresser drawer looking for her new stretchy leggings. There they are—blue and shiny like a superhero’s outfit. Stéphanie won’t know she’s borrowing them if Brianna’s careful not to snag them. She squeezes her feet into her ratty sneakers. She’ll have to persuade her mom to get her some Nikes for back to school.

She stows her book, a baggie of Goldfish crackers, and a juice box in her backpack. It’s hotter than yesterday so she gulps some water from the kitchen tap and then pees. She doesn’t want to have to pee during her climb. The screen door slams behind her as she springs off the kitchen porch. Her legs flash with metallic blue as she tears across the back lawn.

But now she is stuck—rigid and sweaty, straddling the second largest limb and clutching the tree trunk. The leaves grab at her face and the smaller branches tug at her arms. Everything is difficult. She can’t go up and she can’t go down and worse, she’s not as high as Stéphanie was last year before she fell and broke her arm.

At first, Brianna didn’t believe she was stuck. She tried a few moves but was too scared to stretch the bit to reach the big branch below the woodpecker nest. The soles of her dangling feet tingle. What if she falls? She imagines the thud of her body landing on the grass and wonders if she’d break an arm or a leg. Maybe she’d need an operation or a wheelchair. She’d want her parents to wheel her around, but she wouldn’t want to be paralyzed. That would be too much.

She turns her gaze toward the woods. The sun has moved across the sky and is hanging above the hills where the gravel road winds its way to the store. The horrible feeling in her feet is growing. She’s hot and her mouth is dry but worse, she has to pee.

She looks out over the shingled roof of the cottage towards the lake. Stéphanie is sprawled on the dock, reading comic books. She doesn’t care if they get wet and wrinkled and must be thrown out.

Each weekend when they drive up from Montreal, Dad always stops at the village store and lets them choose new ones. The lady there is nice with a big smile. She gives them gummies. But even though she’s young and pretty, she wears an old-lady perfume that makes Brianna sneeze.

On the dock, Mom, wearing her swim goggles and her saggy old suit, is set for her afternoon swim to the island. Stéphanie isn’t wearing her sunhat like she’s supposed to. Her curly red hair is blowing about her face. Mom doesn’t make Brianna stay on the dock to watch Stéphanie. Her swimming is stronger this year, so Mom doesn’t care.

No, Brianna won’t call her mom for help. If she calls her mom, she’ll get that harsh what-do-you-think-you-are-doing look. Brianna will have to say she’s checking out the woodpecker nest. Then, she’ll have to listen to a lecture on woodpecker nest holes, even more boring than yesterday’s period talk. Nope, she won’t ask her mom for help. She’ll wait for Dad to return from the store. He won’t panic. She mustn’t panic.

When he left, she was resting on the lower big branch. She saw the quarter-sized bald patch on his head that she’d never noticed before. He was wearing his favourite T-shirt, black with Tragically Hip printed on it. Once, he told her the T-shirt was older than her and, because he likes the T-shirt, she likes it too. Her mom hates the T-shirt. She says an old girlfriend gave it to him.

Brianna hums “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” to distract herself, but she can’t get enough breath to finish the chorus. She’s going to burst.

By the time she sees the ribbon of dust from the road expanding above the trees, she’s wet her pants. She’d leaked a bit as she squirmed about on the branch. And then with a warm wetness, everything gushed out all at once. The liquid shadow crept over her crotch and her thigh and pee dripped from her calf into her right runner. She hasn’t wet herself in years. It’s Stéphanie who sometimes wets the bed.

Brianna hears the car crunching on the gravel, the engine stopping and the door slamming.

“Dad, up here,” she calls.

He shoots her a crinkly smile and Brianna wonders if he knew she was stuck up here before he left. Well, she hadn’t asked for help then.

“That’s high up,” he says, pulling his fingers through his hair and brushing the tip of his nose.

“I’m stuck.”

“I see that,” he says, placing the sack of milk on the grass and resting his hands on his hips.

This is what Brianna expected. Dad doesn’t panic. And even though her belly is churning and her feet tingling, she won’t panic either. But she’s cold, her butt is soaked, and she smells of pee.

“Let me put the milk away and I’ll get the ladder.”

Brianna doesn’t trust the ancient wooden ladder. It’s been in the shed forever, from before the cottage was theirs. What if it breaks? What if she slips? Dad drags the long ladder to the tree, leaving deep gouges on the lawn. Mom’ll be mad about that. He extends the top bit and props it against the tree trunk. His hands rest on the sides of it. She focuses on his bald patch.

“One foot, Bree. One foot on the top rung.” His voice is calm and smooth.

He isn’t going to come up and get her. She’ll have to get down by herself. Her whole body tingles. Gripping the trunk with her sore arms, she scrapes her belly down the ridges of bark. For sure, she’s wrecked the leggings. Her foot gropes the air until it finds the solid surface of the top rung.

“That’s it. Now the other foot.”

Her foot lands on the rung. Her arms soften.

“Don’t look down.”

Dad’s voice is soothing. “I won’t.” She loosens her grip on the trunk a bit more.

“Nice and easy.”

Her runner squelches as she lands on the grass. She leaps up and wraps her legs around his waist, hugging him.

“Brianna, you’re soaking wet,” he says, pulling back.

“I peed myself, Dad.” Her voice is all choky.

“Let me go. You’re wrecking my T-shirt.”

He pushes her but Brianna doesn’t let go. Not yet. She burrows her nose into the skin behind his ear and breathes in. But it’s wrong—not like he should smell. It smells like sushi and she doesn’t like sushi. Her dad stiffens. She looks at his face. His eyes flicker with a fierceness that doesn’t match his smile. It’s a look she hasn’t seen before.

“Won’t tell Mom if you don’t,” he says in his sing-song voice. 

Brianna needs to run, to get away from her dad, away from the smell and his smile. She peels her sticky body off his chest and without looking back, races toward the kitchen door. Crazy energy flows through her body. There’s a tightness in her chest. She races up the steps and flings open the screen door. It bangs behind her. She runs through the cottage and out the front door. She skips down the steps and across the grass to the dock, towards Stéphanie. Brianna cannonballs off the dock into the lake, yelling like a Samurai in battle. She splashes about in the water, her clothing dragging at her arms and legs. The frantic feeling washes away.

“What’ya do that for,” Stéphanie screams. “I’m drowned.” She holds up a soggy comic book. “I wasn’t finished this.”

“Jump in,” says Brianna. “Let’s swim.”

Stéphanie cannonballs into the water beside her.

Twenty minutes later, Brianna, naked underneath an orange beach towel, lies on her stomach beside Stéphanie on the dock. Her clothes are in a dripping heap beside her. The pressure in her chest has lifted.

“I climbed the tree and didn’t break my arm,” she says.

Stéphanie is trailing her fingers in the water, sending circular ripples from the dock.

“You climbed the tree?” She lifts her head and looks at Brianna. “How high?”

“To the big limb below the woodpecker hole. But I wrecked your new blue leggings.” Brianna pushes her hand through the tear in the butt.

“Leggings, smeggings. I don’t even like those anymore. I want the pink tie-dye pair I saw at Simons last week.”

Stéphanie points towards the island. Their mother swims towards them, smooth stroke after stroke like a mechanical toy. She pulls herself onto the dock in a single strong movement and shakes like a wet dog. Scattering droplets make mini-rainbows in the afternoon sun.

“Is your father back yet?” she asks and without waiting for an answer, she strides away toward the cottage.

“Do you ever wonder about Mom and Dad?” Brianna whispers.

“What do you mean? Why are you whispering?” Stéphanie rolls off her stomach, sits up and looks at Brianna. Her hair hangs in dripping ropes around her shoulders.

“Whether they still love each other?” Brianna says softly, twisting the corner of the beach towel between her thumb and forefinger.

“Why do you think that?”

“They don’t tell each other everything.”

“Mom sure was straight with him about Disneyland. And the barbeque.” Stéphanie takes her hair in her hands and wrings out the remaining water.

Maybe Stéphanie’s right, there’s nothing to worry about. A few minutes later, Brianna hears her mother’s voice, tinny and fast, shouting at her father from the cottage.

“Three hours. Long time to be gone for milk. You didn’t have your cell phone?”

Her father’s reply is a low rumble of words she can’t make out.

“Then why do we even have them,” her mother says.

Does she mean the cellphones or us, Brianna wonders.

“I know what you’re doing, Michael.”

And then silence.

Ten minutes later her dad walks down the stone path to the dock in his flamingo bathing trunks. He’s carrying a brown paper bag.

“Brought you guys a treat from the store,” he says, holding up the bag.

Stéphanie grabs the sack. “Yay. Two new Archies.” She pushes a fistful of candy toward Brianna. “And jelly babies. Want some?”

“Nah. Gotta get some clothes on,” she says pulling herself up from the warm planks of the dock and wraps the towel around her body. She’s cold and it feels wrong to have a treat from the store when Mom is so mad at Dad. When they’re at the store, Dad and the lady laugh too much at stuff that isn’t even funny.

“Gonna see if Mom needs help with dinner,” she says.

“I’ve already sorted it, Bree. Like I always do,” Dad says. “Lighten up. Have a jelly baby.” He holds one up between his thumb and forefinger. “A red one. Your fav.”

“Don’t want one. Stéph can have them.”

Brianna dawdles towards the cottage door. The tail of her towel drags in the dirt between the stones, but she can’t be bothered to pick it up.

Brianna’s parents mostly tell her the truth about stuff, but sometimes they lie. Sometimes, it’s a tiny lie. No biggy. Can’t hurt anyone. Might even be kind, like when Dad says you’re good at baseball, but you know you suck. Sometimes, lying to keep a secret is fun, like Nan’s surprise birthday party in June. Sometimes, lying to keep a secret is stupid, like hiding tampons and pads from Stéph or being rescued from the tree. But it doesn’t feel right not telling Mom about the sushi smell in Dad’s hair.

Brianna slides open the front door and blinks her eyes to adjust to the darkness. It’s cooler inside and she pulls her towel closely around her. Her mom, in her wet bathing suit, stands in front of the kitchen sink. Her hands grip the metal edge of the counter. She’s staring out the window at the tree. There is a fine quivering at the edge of her upper lip. Brianna wants to hug her mom, but her mom’s body is shouting “Go Away.” She waits shivering beside her. Their shoulders are almost at the same height. She wants to help her mom, to help rinse her anger away. 

After a few minutes, her mom speaks. “I’m worried.” She lifts an arm towards the tree, “Remember in the spring when those Pileated Woodpeckers nested up there.”

“Sure I do. See the hole, there above that big branch,” Brianna says, relieved that Mom is talking. She points at the branch above the one that Dad rescued her from.

“They only make nest holes in trees that are rotting.”

“Our big maple is secretly rotting?” Brianna asks.

“The tree looks healthy from the outside, while it rots from the inside. It’s so sad.” Mom sighs and lets her arm drop.

Brianna reaches over and wraps her mom in her arms. She feels smaller and bonier than when she hugged her this morning. They’re both shivering. “I know how much you love that tree, Mom. I do too. When it’s time, we’ll find another tree to love.”

Alterations

Yesterday afternoon, with only a week’s notice, Adélie’s daughter, Claire, came home from Victoria. “I’m bringing the baby,” she’d said. The baby was eleven months old. It had been seven years since Claire had returned to the three-story walk-up in Verdun where she’d grown up.

Adélie worried about the stairs. Some of her clients (as they caught their breath) complained about the climb up to her studio. Eventually, she’d have difficulty with those stairs and have to move, maybe into a home.

Claire’s hair hung limply around her neck. A grey sweatshirt clung to her bony shoulders and her jeans were baggy. As she lugged a blue, rectangular sack and her suitcase up the stairs, the baby, Brianna, worrying her soother, waited at the bottom in an umbrella stroller.

“What is that thing? A tent?” Adélie asked, pointing at the blue sack instead of running down the stairs to hug the baby.

Claire dumped the sack on the landing and shot a disdainful look at Adélie. “It’s a portable crib. It’s a lot of work travelling with an infant.”

When she was a young mother, travel was a luxury. Those days had overflowed with worry, making do, and exhaustion.

Claire and her husband, Michael, hadn’t told her about the baby until a week after the birth. She and Claire weren’t close but surely, she deserved to hear about the arrival of a grandchild sooner than that. Adélie didn’t send a gift and now that feels mean. She was a seamstress and could have made a quilt for the nursery.

“I’ll need you to babysit while I’m interviewing for the job at McGill,” Claire said catching her breath.

“I’ll do what I can,” she replied. Her daughter had left for university on her swimming scholarship when she was eighteen. Other than the occasional birthday or Christmas card, she’d rarely contacted her. Her life was busy and her scientific work important, but when would she trust her enough to tell her what was going on? 

Adélie’s concerns, the dressmaking business, and the losses with aging didn’t interest her daughter. But maybe, now that Claire was a mother herself, this was their chance to be kinder to each other. At times, Adélie had been unkind. She was ashamed of it and could see now that it hadn’t always been necessary.

She was designing a copper velvet dress like the one Juliette Binoche wore at the Academy Awards in February for her client, Mme Gavreau. Adélie had to cancel the appointment. She’d moved her sewing machine, her serger and the mannequin out of the spare room and into her bedroom. She’d vacuumed the carpets and brushed them with a magnet to find any stray pins or needles lost on the floor. She’d worried constantly bringing up Claire. What would it be worse than being a grandmother? Claire wouldn’t forgive her if she made a mistake and the crawling and toddling Brianna was hurt.

It was nine o’clock, a sticky June evening. Claire was out at a dinner, and Adélie was babysitting Brianna. At bedtime, she’d sung “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.” Her voice was reedy now, and she couldn’t hit the top notes of the Hallelujahs the way she’d done when Claire was an infant. “Should I stick to “Fais Do-Do?” she asked the glassy-eyed baby as she rocked her to sleep. It was a sticky and noisy night like this one when Adélie’s first child was born. The moans and wails of the labouring unwed mothers mixed with the sounds of traffic and sirens pouring into the open windows of the grey building.

Adélie was sixteen when she moved from Québec to Montreal. She worked at the glove counter at Olgivy and met a man who was buying a present for his wife. She’d believed him when he’d said he loved her. When Adélie got pregnant, he stopped calling. Her parents disowned her.

The Catholic sisters took the baby away from her the moment he was born. She remembers the emptiness as she sat on the gurney while the sisters bound her breasts and massaged her lower belly. A few years later, she married Alain and they had Claire. She hadn’t told Alain or Claire about baby Daniel. There was never a good enough time. Alain was killed in Cypress leaving Adélie, only twenty-six years old with two-year-old Claire.

Adélie had tried to shield her young daughter from her worries but there was no disguising that money was tight. Saturday evenings at the laundromat—five-year-old Claire, swinging her legs over the edge of the stainless-steel folding table, watching the TV mounted to the ceiling. No TV at home. Simple things, like new swim goggles, needed a shuffling of the grocery budget.

That Christmas when Claire had wanted an Easy Bake Oven. “These are nice too, Mom,” she’d said, patting Adélie’s shoulder when she opened the flat package containing the baking pan set. Eight years old and she already knew how to hide her disappointment. But if it could be sewn—Adélie smiled, remembering the ten-year-old Claire spooking the neighbours in her Bride of Dracula Hallowe’en costume.

She didn’t dare to wish that she might be included in moments like those with this new baby. This grandchild was a chance to love a child fully. A chance to love, unblurred by grief. Her daughter might forgive her for her mistakes and let her love this grandchild.

Earlier that evening, Adélie made a pasta salad for dinner–it was too hot to eat anything else. Brianna’s corkscrew curls had bounced about as she played on the kitchen floor among the Tupperware and yogurt containers. Claire hadn’t brought any toys for the baby. Adélie didn’t ask why. Things were too fragile between them.

Adélie met Claire’s husband, Michael, when they came to Montreal, the July before they married. He reminded her of a male model in an Eaton’s catalogue—neat khaki pants, collared golf shirt. He smiled when she made him a coffee and offered him a Peak Frean. Along with his “Thank you very much, Mrs. LeBlanc.” she couldn’t tell what his all-purpose broad smile meant. 

Adélie hadn’t gone to the wedding. It was on an island his family owned in Georgian Bay. She’d worried about getting in and out of tippy boats, bumpy waves and splashing water. She didn’t swim. She was afraid of water.

At dinner, Claire and Adélie sat across from each other at the cracked Formica kitchen table. A gold barrette held Claire’s hair tidily at her neck, and makeup brightened her face. Adélie approved of the tidy French-blue blazer she wore over a white linen dress. Maybe Claire had taken in some of her advice over the years, despite her insensitive way of dispensing it.

Claire traced her fingers on the kitchen table, her nails still bitten to the quick. “I remember this pattern. I imagined that each gold starburst contained a spot of happiness.” She sighed. “I pretended we lived in a big house with a father, and you didn’t have to work. You drove me to school in a shiny car and cheered for me at my swim meets.”

“This kitchen table was the first thing that your father and I bought together,” Adélie said, hoping the moment would continue, maybe lead to a hug.  But Claire’s mouth was full, her fork loaded with spirals of rainbow pasta, so they sat opposite each other, neither speaking.

Claire swallowed, “Today’s interviews went well. It’s a great department with access to a statistician and a scientific writer. I’ll get a job here beginning in September for sure. I might be able to start teaching summer courses in July.” 

Claire spoke at the wall, like Adélie wasn’t even there. “What’ll you do?” Adélie asked, wondering if Claire’s certainty was bravado—bravado to mask the terror of whatever was happening with her marriage.

Claire lowered her fork and fused her arms across her chest. “You never listen. I told you this morning.”

 “It’s hard for me to understand,” she said, staring down at the wrinkles and dark spots on her hands. “I didn’t finish high school.” But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid, she thought. Will she ever trust me enough to tell me what’s going on?

Claire’s eyes narrowed. “I’m a migratory bird researcher. I’m known nationally and internationally. I’m in demand.”

Adélie watched the flashing of Claire’s teeth as she spoke. Had Claire noticed how yellowed her teeth had become? Dental care was expensive. Had Claire noticed she could barely thread a basting needle even with her stronger glasses?

“I need your help. I can’t go back to Victoria. I want to stay here.” The edge of Claire’s upper lip trembled. 

Her help. After years of ignoring her, Claire wants her help. 

“I need to stay here. For a few months. While I get set up.” Claire stood back from the kitchen table, her lips pressed into a tight line and looked down at her. “I wouldn’t ask you if I had a choice.”

Adélie’s heart skipped a beat. It happened on occasion. It started up again, without hurrying after a sickening pause. She swallowed and spoke slowly. “There’s no room here, Claire. I need the spare room for the dressmaking. It’s what I live on.”

Claire’s plate clattered into the sink. “Can’t be late. I have a meeting tonight with the folks from UDM. Casting my net with the Francophones. Be back around ten,” she said, grabbing her bag. The front door clicked shut.

UDM, the University de Montreal. Claire hadn’t spoken French since she left for university in Ontario a decade ago. Adélie admired her fearlessness.

Fearless and stubborn. That’s both of us. She’d refused Mme DeMarchie’s request for alterations on the dress she needed for an upcoming wedding. More income lost and maybe even a client. But maybe she could get by for a few months. She could do small projects that didn’t need the fitting room and use her bedroom if necessary. Things might be gentler with the delight and wonder of the baby. But could she manage around Claire’s anger or deal with all the issues they’ve avoided?

Adélie tip-toed into the spare room to check on Brianna. Her knees cracked as she lowered onto the carpet and peered into the portable crib. Brianna’s smooth face shone in the soft glow of the night light. Her eyelids fluttered and her bowed lips quivered as she dreamed. Her smile was the same as Claire’s was when she was a baby. Such a precious thing. Such a precious moment. Adélie didn’t remember feeling this tender with Claire. Most of the time, she was tired and scared.

The buzz of the doorbell jerked Adélie awake. She groped for her glasses and pulled herself up off the carpet where she’d fallen asleep beside the baby’s crib. She peered through the peephole in the door and saw the distorted fish-eye view of Claire’s face.

“Sorry, forgot the key,” she said as Adélie opened the door.

Claire looked grey in the parlour light as she collapsed into the worn velveteen armchair. Adélie had comforted Claire in that same chair when she was a baby. And two years later, she’d sat there, frozen after Alain’s death, unable to hug her bewildered toddler.

Claire scuffed off her strappy sandals and flung her bare legs over the arm. The sandals were too flashy for a business meeting.

“When I was a girl, I loved reading books in this chair,” said Claire, picking at the worn fabric on the right arm.

“You were a good reader. I kept a few—The Secret Garden, A Wrinkle in Time.” 

“We didn’t have many books, Mom. Most were from the library. I’d get so broken up over a sad one. What about the chess set?”

“In the spare room closet.” 

The set of battered wooden pieces was Alain’s. Neither Adélie nor Claire knew how to play so they fought pretend battles with the pieces until Claire decided she was too old. Swimming and getting into university took over everything.

“How’s the baby? Claire asked, sinking deeply into the chair.

 “Beautifully asleep. What a treasure.” If Claire allows her, she’ll do a better job this time round. She’ll do a better job of loving a child.

“You keep Dad’s photo out?” said Claire, pointing to the mantel shelf at the picture of him in his uniform with its blue beret. 

When Adélie knew Claire was coming, she’d taken it out of the drawer, dusted it off and put it back in its place.

“It’s all we’ve got of him isn’t it?” she said.

But it wasn’t. Claire’s eyes were identical, steel-blue and she had the same tenacity.

Claire unfastened her barrette and loosened her hair. She looked at her painted toenails as she spoke. “Mom, I can’t go back to Michael.” She swallowed. “He’s having an affair with an undergrad.”

Adélie pressed her hand over her mouth.

“I was five months pregnant when it started. If the university ever finds out…” she trailed off.

“His first?” Adélie asked. Such an unnecessary question. She wanted to take it back.

“No.” Claire tugged on the stuck zipper on her bag bulging with papers.“It’s been happening for the whole marriage.”

Adélie rummaged through her horrible thoughts.

“Did you hear what I said, Mom? It’s been going on…”

“You knew and you went ahead and got pregnant?”

Claire sat up. Her voice was flat. “His dad died. Michael got his inheritance. The money from their pharmaceutical business.”

“Money’s no reason to have a baby.” Adélie winced as the words dropped out of her mouth.

“What is the right reason to have a baby?” Claire asked, her gaze hard.

Adélie lowered her eyes. “I’m the wrong person to ask.” The moment to be honest with her daughter, to tell her about baby Daniel, flitted past.

Claire picked up her bag and turned towards the hall. “I’m off to bed. See you in the morning.”

What Adélie did know was how she was after Alain died in 1964. He’d volunteered for the peacekeeping force in Cypress and died in a stupid accident—a rolled-over truck on the highway to Nicosia.

After Alain’s death, she’d been a bad mother groping her way through shifting fogs of desperation and helplessness. And even sadder taking the Valium that the doctor had prescribed. She didn’t laugh or say, “I love you,” to her toddler daughter. Claire had a right to be angry with her.

The next morning, Adélie woke to the sounds of babbling. She and Alain had held each other in this bed, listening to the same sounds from Claire. She got up and gently opened the spare room door. Brianna’s two oversized eyes begged Adélie to pick her up. Her expression was the same as baby Claire’s.

“Na-na. Na-na. Up. Up.”

Adélie’s body flushed with joy. “That’s right, Brianna. It’s me. Nana,” she whispered. She snuck the wriggling bundle past her crumpled daughter, snoring on the pull-out couch.

Adélie strapped the baby into the portable seat hanging off the kitchen table. Brianna’s little fists clenched the spoon as she smeared her porridge over the plastic table mat. She was humming and happy in her fresh diaper. Did Claire allow the baby to have juice? The rules were different now.

Adélie glanced into the parlour at Alain’s photograph. He’d been a competitive swimmer. They’d met after he’d failed to qualify for the Rome Olympics in 1961. When he was fourteen, only fourteen years old—Adélie liked to emphasize this part of the story—the police in St. Foy let him drive his father’s car to the pool for swim practice. That would never happen nowadays. Adélie didn’t drive and neither did Claire as far as she knew. There wasn’t enough money for lessons or cars.

It was ten o’clock when Claire arrived at the kitchen table interrupting Brianna’s snack-time. Claire’s muted floral blouse went perfectly with her French blue suit and her eye makeup was tastefully applied. Adélie tightened her worn, quilted dressing gown around her body.

Claire outlined her schedule for the day—more interviews and meetings for her, more babysitting for Adélie. “You could bring the baby to the university?”

Adélie wondered how many buses or how much taxi money that would take.

“It’s your birthday next week. So, lunch?”

Claire remembered her birthday. Adélie sat back from the kitchen table. She’d be sixty-one—widowed for thirty-three years. Baby Daniel would be turning forty-three. He’d started with blue eyes too but then all babies do. “Thanks Claire, but it’ll be difficult getting there with the baby.”

“True. And I might not be able to get away.” She got up from the table flicking her second piece of toast into the bin under the sink.

A thread dangled from the hem of her daughter’s skirt. Adélie forced herself not to snap it off. “It was lovely of you to think about my birthday,” she said.

Later that evening, Adélie knelt on a towel on the tile floor in the bathroom and sang “Row Row, Row Your Boat” while Brianna splashed about in the foaming bath water. Now, she sat in the armchair in the parlour with the baby’s soft body pressed against her chest, nuzzling into the baby scent of Brianna’s hair.

The rhythmic snuffles and sighs soothed her. This little thing, her granddaughter—this was love. She wanted to love Claire this much.

The chinking of the key in the door startled her. Claire was back already. It wasn’t even eight o’clock.

“The baby isn’t in bed yet?” Claire said as she pushed past the door.

“We were having a moment—a moment I wish I’d had more time for when you were this small.”

Claire stiffened.

“How was it?” Adélie asked.

“Got it. Starting as an Assistant Professor at McGill in September. But with my experience, I should be an Associate.”

“Sometimes you have to make do, Claire,” said Adélie, her arms sheltering the baby.

“I am making do.”

The eyeliner and mascara from the morning had smeared around her eyes. She’d been crying. Adélie wanted to reach out and comfort her, but it was too dangerous—too much of a chance she’d be pushed away.

“There’s a summer posting too. I won’t have to go back to Victoria tomorrow, back to Michael. I’ll live here for the first few weeks. I’ll need your help with the baby ‘til I get settled.”

Adélie wanted to help, to do everything for this baby that she hadn’t done for Claire, but it was impossible. It had taken years to establish her business. She’d been thinking about the collar style for the copper velvet dress. “Claire, I can’t. I’ll end up hating you. Resenting the baby.”

“What do I need to do to get help from you?”

The rising voice startled the baby. Adélie rocked and cooed at her to calm her. After a few minutes, Brianna softened in her arms.

“I love you Claire, but you’re not my responsibility anymore. You have a job. You can get a loan. I’ll help when I can, but you can’t stay here,” she said gently, swaying the baby. She’d done as much as she could for Claire. It was Brianna she could help, to love her in the way Claire wouldn’t.

“Fine. Just fine.” Claire dropped her bag and plucked the baby from Adélie’s arms. She cast Adélie a stony look as she walked away down the unlit hallway. The spare room door clicked shut.

Adélie was surprised at the emptiness she felt. She heard Claire chatting to the baby about the people she’d met during the day and the birds they discussed. Then she heard Claire’s clear voice singing Fais Do-Do, as Adélie had sung it to her all those years ago.

It was too hot, too humid, and too early to go to bed. Adélie sat in the parlour in her shift, remembering the soothing pressure of the baby on her chest. Claire and the baby would leave tomorrow. She’d contact Mme. DeMarchie and do the alterations to her dress. She’d confirm the cut of the collar with Mme. Gavreau. Tomorrow evening, she’d visit her friend Marjory, whose breast cancer had spread.

It was dark now. Tomorrow, she’d put the picture of Alain back into the bottom drawer of the corner cabinet. When Brianna was old enough, Adélie would tell her the story of her grandfather. She thought about a pattern for the quilt for the baby. Brianna would need her. She’d need her love, all the love that Adélie could give. It would take more time for her and Claire to find their way. They needed to agree on what they owed each other.

Webbed Feet

It was a Saturday afternoon in July. The bedside phone rang. Claire didn’t want to pick up. Had to be Michael, her husband, calling from Toronto. For the last five days, she’d been tripping over the jeans and T-shirt he’d dropped on the floor in the bedroom before rushing off to Ontario. Two weeks ago, his father had been found dead on the floor in his cottage, his favourite place in the world. He was in his late sixties. He’d had a second stroke, lethal this time.

After the tenth ring, she gave in and picked up. “How was the service?” she asked, slumping to the floor against the bed frame, beside the backpack she’d been loading. She flicked her damp hair from the back of her neck. Claire was going on a field trip to Carmanah-Waldran Park. Her summer student had seen a marbled murrelet nest there last spring. It was a rare opportunity to see if a pair had nested there this year.

“Dreadful.” Michael’s voice was small and distant.

The celebration of life was yesterday. She imagined him scrunching up his face, not to cry. If he cried, she’d cry, and that would be awkward. “Tell me,” she said.

“I’m at Uncle’s. I signed the papers to give the company over. I’m off the hook. He’s buying me out. And he’ll sell the house too.”

His father and uncle had built a generic pharmaceutical business from nothing. The family’s expectation was that Michael would join the company and run it. They ignored his zoology degree, his masters, his doctorate, and that, like Claire, he was faculty at U. Vic. But now his dad was dead, and Michael was free.

“When it’s all settled, we’ll have more than enough money for a house. A big house with a garden.”

There was a long pause.

“Money to start a family.”

Claire winced. They’d had that discussion. They’d had it before they married and again before they moved to Victoria. No kids. They’d confirmed it when they’d set up their apartment, a shared office and one bedroom. She’d replaced her IUD three months ago.

“I’ve got to go, Michael. Meeting Gavin in an hour. Remember the marbled murrelet nest?” 

Gavin, her summer student, was an actual logger but was completing his zoology degree in chunks. He and his dad, a retired logger, had spent many summers working in the forests of the Carmanah Valley. Last year, after large-scale environmental protests to preserve old-growth acreage, the Upper Carmanah was made into a provincial park. With the spiking of trees and the sabotage of heavy equipment by the preservationists, he’d decided to switch teams. Less dangerous, he’d said.

“Gavin. Right. Sorry to miss it.” Michael cared about the nest sighting as much as she did. The murrelet was an endangered, webbed-footed shorebird. It nested in moss-lined tree bowls in the branches of old-growth trees. Claire’s group was collecting data on the locations and characteristics of the nesting sites. Shrinking old-growth habitat made the nests even harder to find.

“Gotta go, Michael. Gotta finish packing.”

“Claire, I mean it about a baby…”

Claire pressed the off button on the handset. She was thirty-three and didn’t want a genetic surprise package complicating her life. Michael’s biological clock was shrieking like a smoke alarm with a low battery, but would Michael be doing the childcare?

Her stomach tightened as she considered her responsibilities in the next few weeks—fieldwork and teaching a summer course. A research grant application was due in two weeks. She wanted an early promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate. “Having money isn’t a good enough reason to have a child, Michael,” she shouted, kicking his T-shirt against the wall. “Kids don’t fix things, they make them more difficult.” And when she’d calmed herself, she did what she should have done five days ago. She picked up his clothes and put them in the laundry hamper.

Three hours later, Claire and Gavin bounced along a logging road in the biology department’s Land Cruiser. This was the first time they’d gone on a field trip together.

Claire was relieved that Gavin had agreed to drive. She’d be useless if they got a flat on the rutted road studded with jagged rocks. Claire imagined the momentum of a truck loaded with giant logs hurtling down the narrow road towards them. There was an occasional pull-out but otherwise it looked like they’d end up in the ditch. “Think we’ll run into a loaded truck?” 

“No logging on Saturdays, and even if it was mid-week, logging can’t be done late in the day in a dry summer like this. Too much risk of sparking and fires. Wish the tourists and campers in the parks were as careful as loggers are in preventing forest fires,” he said, wrenching the steering wheel to avoid another deep pothole.

“Tourists use this road?”

“Sure, they do. Tree huggers. Windsurfers on Nitinat Lake. Where we’re camping tonight.” He glanced at her with his gold-speckled brown eyes before darting his gaze towards the next pothole.

He was a big man, fuller than Michael, with dinner-plate-sized yet dexterous hands. Gavin had the muscular physique earned by working in the forests, where strength mattered, and carelessness could kill a friend. Claire figured he was forty-ish. Seen a lot and done a lot more than she had.

They pulled into the crowded campsite, dotted with a neon rainbow of tents, sails and boards. Not what Claire was expecting.

“The Pacheedaht First Nation runs the campground. It’s their land. We’ll set up camp away from the lake, fewer windsurfers but maybe more tree-huggers.”

Gavin pitched his dome tent at the southern border of the campground. Had he winked at her when they decided that pitching her tent wasn’t necessary for one night?

Beside them was an old-fashioned canvas cabin tent belonging to a family of two hippie-looking parents and two nearly naked toddlers. Camping with two kids in cloth diapers—a nightmare. They were mycology researchers from the University of Oregon who’d come here to catalogue some of the rare fungi and lichens of the old-growth habitat.

“How do you do it?” she asked, gesturing at the kids.

“You need a sense of humour about everything,” Arthur, the guy, said.

“You make do. You run out of stuff, and nothing ever goes as planned,” Amy, his wife, added as she smeared the grime off the eldest kid’s face with an already soiled cloth. 

“But hey, what a cool place to be tired and dirty in,” Arthur said, scooping up the younger kid. “Off to bed. This big bear is taking you to his cave, ” he growled. The kid shrieked and giggled.

Hmmm. Not how she liked to do things. 

Gavin warmed up the chili he’d brought on his well-used camp stove. Claire had mentioned that she was an unreliable cook, and he’d volunteered to bring dinner. Her fork clinked against the enamelled metal bowl as they ate sitting on a bench overlooking the lake.

“Tomorrow, I’ll take you to the hemlock that Dad and I saw last fall. It’s at the edge of the Walbran preserve beside the logging company setting,” Gavin said, scraping his plate.

“Setting?”

“Setting or opening. It’s what the logging industry calls a clearcut.”

“Got it.” Claire felt stupid, but he’d seen her confusion and was kind.

“Brought my climbing gear. If we find a nest, I’ll climb up and take pictures.”

“It’s illegal to climb trees that are potential nesting sites during the fledgling season,” Claire said.

“Yup, and each time you climb an old giant in spurs, you gotta have a good reason. They can be unstable, full of hidden rot. Not something I ever do lightly. But if we think we’ll learn something valuable, it’s worth it.”

Less than two hundred nests had been described, so finding another one would be valuable.

 “It was 1975, and I was eighteen, starting to spend the summer with my dad in the forest, when the first nest was found in Northern California. Been crazy about the little guys ever since,” Gavin said.

The absurdity of being a webbed-footed shorebird nesting fifty kilometres inland. She pictured the large moss-covered branch where the murrelet pair would incubate a solitary egg.

As they watched the sunset, Gavin told her about his four-year-old daughter, Anna. His ex-wife had custody. A wife. A child. Divorced. Another broken family. Claire had a thousand questions. When to keep or stop a marriage? How to risk having a child? She said nothing.

The next morning was cool and damp, the tent-fly dripping with a heavy dew. They left the campsite in darkness, tiptoeing past their sleeping neighbours. They had an hour to hike to the tree before sunrise at five-thirty. With any luck, they’d spot the adult murrelets leaving the nest or returning to it. The parents fed the fledglings the small fish they caught at the shore.

Claire’s research group was preparing a report to petition the BC government to protect the old-growth habitat. The marbled murrelet wasn’t the only species of concern. There were lizards, banana slugs and others dependent on these ancient forests. As the path narrowed, her headlight flickered on the rough bark of the elderly giants.

“Headlamp off, Claire. Let your eyes adjust to the dark. You’ll see more, and we won’t disturb the critters.” She scrolled through the strobe function and all the rest before she found the off button. Smooth. She wanted him to think of her as capable, a respected teacher and academic who was comfortable with being in the field. She panted as she scuttled along the spongy forest floor behind Gavin’s sure strides. Past the huckleberry and the salmonberry bushes and past the sword ferns. Her hiking boots felt flimsy as she sank into the decaying debris with each step. The distant gurgle of a stream penetrated the silence. She inhaled the earthy smell of the decaying forest.

Had she and Gavin had a moment last night? She’d been too buzzed to fall asleep curled up in her sleeping bag on her side of the tent. And when he rustled into his bag beside her, his shoulder brushed against her upper arm. She’d lain awake, listening to his breathing, her skin vibrating where he’d touched her. There was the musky scent of dope. A secret nightcap. But if he’d offered, she’d have refused. She disapproved of smoking of any sort. She carefully maintained the space between them. Finally, she sank into sleep accompanied by the drone of the mosquitoes and the scent of her bug spray.

Shadowy strands of lichen drooping from the trees lined the narrow path. Gavin led her along a narrower deer path where the undergrowth thinned to a few ferns. The mosses muffled their footsteps.

Gavin paused in a clearing by the creek bed they’d been following. The forest was studded with massive, moss-covered cedar trunks, fallen warriors who’d served their time. The rotting trunks nursed new tree shoots, ferns, and strangely striped and rippled fungi. He looked back at her. “Not much farther. You can make out some hemlocks just south of this debris.”

Claire strained to hear the short, sharp keer-keer—the call of the murrelet. She’d first heard the call during the banding project in May on the coast—pairs of chubby, mottled birds bobbing on the surf, their webbed feet paddling beneath them. She took a gulp from her Nalgene bottle, wishing she’d brought more water. Her thighs were burning, and sweat dripped down her back. She inhaled the thick, moist air. Gavin looked relaxed, carrying all his climbing gear as if he was cruising the mall to buy a birthday card.

“How can you be so sure?”

“The angle of the slopes and how high we are in the valley. The species adjacencies–cedar, hemlock, spruce, and the mighty Doug fir, the tree of ship masts.” He held up a wax-paper-wrapped sandwich he’d pulled out of his pack. “Peanut butter and honey?” The smile on his toffee-coloured face was broad and inviting. 

“You’re a saint. Was about to gnaw off my arm.” She’d been so distracted when Gavin had picked her up, that she’d forgotten her sack of granola bars and trail mix on the kitchen counter. She leant forward, grazing her lips against his fingers as she bit into the sandwich. Her lips burned as the rest of her shivered in the dampness of her sweat.

She hadn’t had sex in over a month. These days, she and Michael got the job done but it had become an occasional and boring morning ritual. Michael was as bored as she was. How did the couple with the two toddlers manage their sex lives when making do is the norm? Gavin’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

He pointed upwards. “About twenty-five meters up this slope.”  He squatted down and gathered up his gear. Claire scurried after him, breathing heavily as they climbed up the valley from the creek bed. Dim columns of amber light filtered through the opening canopy. The mossy carpet of the forest floor was a thousand shades of green. But she was struggling, falling behind as she clambered over or squeezed under the large, fallen trees.

“Stop. Picture time.” She fumbled with her camera and focused on a wavy coral fungus glowing in the breaking dawn. So beautiful. So complex.

“Up there. Look.” He pointed at a gnarled giant.

The tree was too tall to identify the distinctive tilted crown of a hemlock. She didn’t dare ask. High up was a large horizontal branch, separate from the others. An easy landing pad for those webbed-footed fliers. How high she couldn’t guess, but all the papers said typically one hundred and fifty feet.

They drew closer to the deeply furled bark of the massive trunk. The broad, moss-covered branch was perfect—like the nest locations her colleagues described on the Sunshine Coast. Gavin stopped at the base of the tree.

“There, Claire. Look.” He pointed at the spongy ground.

She startled. The stiff body of a fluffy ginger-coloured fledgling lay there, its webbed feet sticking up into the air. Her heart crumpled in her chest. Gravity, thought Claire, staring at the precious thing. The chick was a few weeks old, the plumage too immature for it to have made that crucial first flight to the ocean. Were grieving parents watching them from the nest, or was this baby already forgotten?

Gavin touched her shoulder. “Want me to climb up?”

“Don’t. We’d be trespassing. It’s their home.” Her voice was quiet but pleading.

“I can get up there in minutes.” He was holding her shoulder more firmly. And she liked it.

“No. It’s wrong. Get the GPS coordinates. We’ll come back next year.”

“Easy enough, but I’m disappointed not to have you watch me climb.” The fine lines around his eyes deepened as he smiled at her.

“There’ll be another time.” She moved out from under his touch. What chance did that little bird with its stupid webbed feet have? Without rehearsal, the fledgling had to fly from its nest to the shoreline, miles away, to fish, to eat, to live. The expanding patches of clearcuts were encroaching on its home. And if the crows and jays didn’t destroy the egg or fledgling in the forest, plastic fishing debris or oil spills could kill it in the ocean. “It’s all so unlikely. Improbable that any chick survives.”

“You have to believe in the wisdom of Mother Nature,” Gavin said. He looked up at the trunk of the massive tree. “I’ll take some pictures, and then we’ll collect the specimen,” she said.

Claire fumbled with her camera. relying on the autofocus as she took the requisite photos of the bird and the tree. Gavin knelt beside the corpse and pulled a plastic bag out of his jacket pocket. He cradled the chick in the palm of his massive hand for a second before depositing it into the sample bag.

“Mother Nature’s a real bitch,” she said.

“You’re mad because you expect things to be fair.” He got up and reached forward to touch her shoulder. It would have been comforting.

“Guess you found out about unfairness with your daughter,” she said as she pulled back.

“Ouch. Low blow.” He stood still with an indulgent look on his face, like he was used to petty swipes from angry women. “Yes. Unfair. I had to move on. Need help with your pack? ”

“No, I’ve got it.” Her shoulders were tight, and her skin chafed. She’d have loved his help.

It was harder hiking out than it had been hiking in. Claire struggled to keep up with Gavin’s unwavering stride and her mouth was dry. She’d run out of water but didn’t want to let him know. She lost her footing several times as they picked their way back down to the valley floor. Next time, she’d bring hiking poles and extra socks.

The image of the still, stiff fledgling, resting on the forest floor, distressed her. A dead baby. All that breeding and brooding for nothing. And the harsh necessity of the fledgling’s flight to the shore for survival. Gavin had been disappointed when she’d insisted he shouldn’t climb the old hemlock. Maybe he should have. She could have published a brief report if she’d taken a picture of the nest. She’d been cruel to bring up Gavin’s separation from his daughter. They reached the camp in time to drive back out along the logging road and home. They didn’t talk much.

It was late on Sunday night when Claire got back to the apartment in Victoria. She had her summer course to teach in the morning. She took a cool shower and crawled naked into bed. It was too hot for a T-shirt. The phone rang.

“Can’t sleep. You.”

“We just got back. It was so sad, Michael. We found a dead fledgling. All that energy and effort of the parents to end up with a dead baby, fallen out of the nest.”

“It’s Mother Nature, Claire.”

“She’s a right bitch. I don’t think I could ever do it.”

“Do what Claire.”

“Risk it all. Pregnancy, delivery and then raising a child. I don’t get how my mother ever did it.”

“Couples find a way. It’s done out of love, Claire.”

“Easy for you to say, Michael. It’s me who’d be stuck with the consequences—physically, professionally.”

She imagined being pregnant at work, overhearing vulgar asides about Michael’s virility, and unpleasant expressions—showing and expecting. She’d have to endure unwanted advice, touching and worse, unwanted side-lining at work. Did her contract even have maternity benefits? Neither of her two female colleagues had children.

“I can’t argue with that, Claire. But only we can decide if it’s right for us to have a baby.”

How do couples decide the right thing, the right amount, or the right time for either partner to be giving or receiving? Did she owe Michael? And there wasn’t anything—not her research, not her colleagues and not her students—that she was willing to give up. “I’m just upset about the murrelet and life. It’s not fair,” she said.

“I know. Let’s talk in the morning.”

As she hung up the phone, she glanced at the bedside table. Ten o’clock. Not too late to call Gavin and make sure he’d put the fledgling in the correct research freezer. She’d get a PCR—DNA analysis on the specimen. This could be a publication.

Chapter 1: The August Regatta

The August Regatta

Claire stood on the granite outcropping overlooking the rippled bay and tugged at the bottom of her bathing suit. Her boyfriend, Michael, had insisted she compete in the Pointe-to-Pointe swim of the club’s August Regatta. A small breeze had come up. Goosebumps erupted over her arms and legs. She’d have brought her warm-up coat, but was already too conspicuous with her swim team cap and suit.

This morning, just after sunrise, she’d plunged off the cottage dock into the glossy water and swum for herself—no coaches, no clocks, no competition—only her body slipping through the velvet cool.

She swung her arms to loosen her shoulders and surveyed the cluster of young women milling around—a patchwork of bikinis, sturdy one-pieces, sleek wet suits, even a flashy tri-suit. Claire had trained hard these last three years to stay on the swim team. If she got cut, that would be it for university. Did any of these chittering ladies have that kind of pressure? No, they likely lounged about in unpaid summer internships, took gap years and yoga retreats in Bali.

The morning sun lit up the jagged points of the pines on the opposite point. She scanned the string of orange buoys marking the two-kilometer distance. If she got out in front, she expected to win and in a big way.

When Claire was nine, her mother insisted she join the local swim club. “You’re better than all those girls,” her mother said, pushing her out the door. But those girls were kind to her, sharing their fruit leather snacks with her and lending her goggles when hers were lost. She knew not to tell her mother how hard she struggled to get the best times. Instead, she concentrated on not losing her bus pass or the plastic wristwatch her mother had given her for her birthday.

On the July morning of her first meet, she shook more from fear than cold as she waited on the edge of the outdoor pool. She came first in her one-hundred-meter freestyle heat and then, surprising everyone especially herself, placed second in the final. A series of wins in high school led to the swimming scholarship from Guelph. Despite all those early mornings, all that training, she hadn’t been fast enough for Toronto or UBC.

“You got into university. No one cares which one.” her mother said.

Claire cared. The best swimmers were in British Columbia, and she hadn’t made it. 

But that was how she met Michael, in third year by the water fountain on the pool deck. Most mornings, he splashed away with his awkward cross-over stroke in the recreation lane. And when he didn’t show up, she missed him.

“You’re here a lot,” she said.

“My only good habit. Helps me think.”

Michael was scrawny like a crow in winter, unlike the muscular varsity swimmers. The week before, he’d offered Claire his spare towel without asking why she’d forgotten hers. It was obvious to her that he must have more good habits.

A few weeks after that, Claire skipped practice to go on her third-year ornithology course field trip. They piled out of the van at Long Point, on the shore of Lake Erie and Michael recognized her. “Hello, you.”

“Dryland workout today.” She pointed at the rutted puddle full of rotting leaves at her feet. He laughed. She zipped up her jacket and pulled her toque further down against the yowling wind. “Why are you here?”

“TA in ornithology. Doing my Masters. Kathleen, my mom, was a mad birder. I caught her obsession.”

Claire grinned. She hoped she hadn’t caught anything from her mother, especially not her fierceness or cruel criticisms. They tromped through the muck to a viewing platform overlooking the marsh. Despite wearing her thickest wool socks, her feet were freezing in her gumboots. Her assignment was to identify species of duck. Simple, but she didn’t know a Gadwall from a Wigeon. Other than a few gaudy drakes, the markings on most birds were confusing shades of brown.

“Look. Look there.” Michael grabbed her arm and shoved his binoculars at her. “Two Sandhill cranes. They’ve no business being here yet.”

Claire located the pair of prehistoric-looking birds in the grass stubble: two overfed grey-scale flamingos except for the crimson slash along the top of their heads—the biggest birds she’d ever seen.

On the drive back, Michael plunked down beside her in the van. Her hands and toes were freezing, and warmth radiated from his body. She wished he’d move even half an inch closer so their forearms might brush against each other. As Michael burbled on about the different crane species, Claire worried about her paper due in three days. How to get it done without sacrificing another practice? She needed to start taking her courses more seriously if she was going to get into grad school.

Michael walked her back to her dorm. “My binoculars. I must have left them at the platform,” he said searching his pack.

“Should we go back?” she asked.

“They’re waterproof. They’re excellent. Some lucky birder will pick them up.”

And for days afterward, Claire thought about it. The privilege of being able to abandon an expensive item like binoculars. No consequences for carelessness other than the hassle of shopping for new ones. 

In Grade Five, she’d left her soggy swimming bag on the bus. Her suit, her goggles and towel, lost. Her mother’s punishing silence for three days until a man phoned to say he’d found it.

Michael wasn’t afraid of losing things. He could afford to be good and generous. Claire wanted to be good and generous too, but even if she could afford those binoculars, she could never afford to give them away. She had to protect the little she owned: her fitness, her discipline, her determination.

After Friday afternoon dryland practice, Claire trudged to her usual carrel on the library’s second floor. Her Ecology professor had given her an extension on her paper. She was scribbling away on a yellow legal pad when she heard a rustling. She looked up. Michael.

“This is where you said you like to study.” There was an eagerness in his voice. “I’ve brought you a coffee.”

Their hands touched as he passed her the Styrofoam cup. She was almost twenty-one and this was the first time anyone had bought her a coffee.

Four months passed and last Tuesday they arrived at Point-au-Baril. She was marooned on a four-billion-year-old chunk of red and charcoal granite. But she’d befriended the waters of Georgian Bay and swam in it several times a day.

A mosaic of islands dotted the bay. Wind-tortured white pines gripped the pockets in the rocks with their gnarled roots. Each granite mound was capped with a weathered clapboard shack fortified by nostalgia and bug-spit. It didn’t make sense to Claire that these wealthy people loved their ramshackle huts. Boat-only access and hauling propane tanks energized them.

When they first arrived, Claire stood in front of the memory wall in Michael’s family cottage. Regatta photos from the past years covered the knotty pine. Gold and silver medallions dangling from faded red and white ribbons hung in clusters from crooked nails. Claire peered at the one framed picture–Kathleen, at the 1963 Pointe-to-Pointe swim of the annual regatta, standing beside by a laughing, toddler Michael. She wore a broad smile below her Jackie-O sunglasses, a vertically striped one-piece and her gold first-place medal. Claire learned that Kathleen won in her age-group every year until she got sick. 

Kathleen had passed away three years ago from ovarian cancer. Michael spoke of her as though she’d just gone outside to pick tomatoes from her summer garden. When she was too sick to travel to the cottage, Michael brought her pinecones, rose-speckled pebbles or a hawk’s feather to the hospice. He’d held the scraps up to her nose and she’d inhaled the scents of the bay. Claire loved how devoted he was to her memory. She wanted to love her mother that much.

Michael slipped beside Claire and took her hands. He grazed his lips against the soft skin behind her ear. “Tomorrow’s race is the third regatta without Kathleen,” he said. “You should join in. The Sumners have always come home with a medal or two.”

Claire ran her tongue across her teeth and swallowed. Join in? She wasn’t a Sumner, far from it. She didn’t belong. The Pointe-to-Pointe swim was not her tradition, it was his mother’s. She’d be trespassing. Trying to replace Kathleen. Trying to please Michael. Swimming was a job. She swam to win and to keep her place on the team, so her tuition got paid. “You do the swim if it’s so important to you?”

“Claire, you’ve seen me swim. One of Kathleen’s great disappointments.”

Claire squeezed her lips together. Michael and his regatta. Michael with his token summer job at his dad’s pharmaceutical company—a career waiting for him no matter what. He could afford to play all summer and fret about his goddam traditions. “I’ll think about it, Michael.” 

She needed to swim. She ran down the dock, dove into the smooth water and struck out toward the neighbouring island. A cascade of criticisms flooded her brain–too selfish, too stubborn, too insensitive. Her arms and legs moved rhythmically. With each stroke, her anger trickled from her body into the vastness of the bay. She thought about the unknown depths beneath her, so unlike the rigid dimensions and hard bottom of the pool. In the golden-green light, swirling bright bubbles trailed away from the tips of her fingers. She stopped, glanced back at Michael’s shrinking figure on the shore and waved to him. He blew her a kiss. Maybe he did understand how often she felt like she was underwater, holding her breath for too long.

She paddled back lazily and pulled herself onto the rocks, rocks as ancient as the oxygen she was breathing. She flattened her dripping back against the sun-warmed granite and stared into the sky. High cirrus clouds swept inshore from the expanse of Lake Huron, and rising swells smacked against the stone. A yellow maple leaf crinkled past her and tumbled into the waves. She pressed her hand onto a seam of rose-speckled quartz. The warmth and a benevolent hum from the rock penetrated her fingers. An unfamiliar relaxation seeped into her body. She woke when Michael called from the steps of the cottage, “Lunch is ready!”

After lunch, Claire found a dusty pair of binoculars on the windowsill. Probably Kathleen’s. She focused on a bird perching on a tree on the island she’d swum to.

“What do you think?” Michael asked as he placed his arm around her waist, careful not to disturb her view.

“Yellowbelly. Crested. And pointed beak.”

“Has to be a Great-Crested Flycatcher,” he said.

“Too bad we can’t hear the call from this far off.” She passed him the glasses.

“Yup. Totally a Flycatcher.” He picked up his notebook from the kitchen table to record the sighting. His notebook was the same as the scruffy, buff, field journals she’d seen on the bookshelf beside Kathleen’s battered Audubons. “Let’s take the canoe out later and see what else we can spot.” 

“Yes, the canoe. Quiet. Perfect.” She’d never been in one. And she could have told him that. He wouldn’t have minded. She was the one who cared that she’d never had the opportunity.

That night, they walked to the neighbours, the Wrights. Michael had chosen one of Kathleen’s flowered sundresses from the closet that still contained her things. “You’ll look great in this.”

The silky cotton swirled about Claire as she faked a pirouette. She’d never owned such a beautiful thing. “Will I need one of those?” She pointed at the jewel-coloured, woollen shawls hung neatly beside the dresses.

“Nah. It’s not that cold.”

They flip-flopped across the furrowed rocks to a long trestle table set with linens and china. An elderly stick of a woman in a billowing, embroidered caftan offered her hand. “Do call me Alice, dear.” She pointed Claire to a seat between two ruddy-faced men. Too far from either Michael or his childhood friend whose name she’d forgotten.

Claire thought about May, her best friend. She hadn’t heard from her since first year. After high school, May went straight to work in a Verdun credit union, got pregnant and married the father. In that last Christmas card, she’d announced she was pregnant again–twins. Even if they did get together–what would they talk about–that one summer they went to the YWCA day camp together or the nail polish they’d shoplifted from the Rossy?

The voices of her two bulky neighbours collided in front of her as they argued about a boating accident—rye, propellers, and rocks. She compressed herself into the chair and stared beyond their pantomiming arms at the deepening plums and indigos in the western sky. She regretted not grabbing a shawl.

Alice’s voice chimed over them. “Claire dear, where do your people come from?”

“Montreal. Verdun.”

The men pushed their folding chairs back and continued interrupting each other behind her.

“Then how on earth did you and Michael meet?” Alice Wright said, her unnaturally white teeth flashing in the candlelight.

“Birds. Zoology at Guelph. Michael is my TA.” She wasn’t going to get into the swimming scholarship bit.

Alice bent over and dropped a piece of her steak into the maw of the greying black lab collapsed over her Birkenstocks. “Good Blackie. Good dog.” She straightened up in her chair and fluttered her hands over the chunky amber necklace that drooped from her thin neck. “Birds. Of course, Kathleen was an expert birder, wasn’t she?”

A flitting bat distracted Claire and when she looked back over the weeping candles, Alice was talking to her neighbour.

Claire gulped her wine and thought about the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. She hadn’t made the cut, but her teammate Anne had. Anne was a breaststroker and Claire was freestyle, harder to qualify in. Claire had never been invited to Anne’s place on Lake Joseph in the Muskokas but imagined it was like this but with grander homes and bigger boats.

With her times, Claire should start thinking less about swimming and more about the Masters in Ecology. She’d written letters to Waterloo, Dalhousie and even Concordia, where she could live with her mom. The summer job researching monarch butterfly habitat would help her application. But even with a TA position, she’d have to rely on pool jobs—teaching, coaching and guarding—to afford it.

It was darker now and the faces around the table were softer in the candlelight. Claire hugged her arms around her chest and tried not to shiver. Mrs. Wright announced it was time to change seats and that Claire would sit beside her. Her gold bracelets jangled as she served each of the twelve guests, a piece of berry pie meticulously topped with ice cream. She snapped off a piece of the piecrust from her plate and the slobbering dog snatched it out of her hand.

She turned to Claire. “You know dear, it was thirty years ago, Dennis brought me to this island and presented me to his parents at this very table.” The amber of her necklace glowed in the candlelight. “I was a spoiled, horse-mad, foolish girl with Olympic ambitions.” She gestured down the table at her husband, seated at the other end, but didn’t catch his eye. “Our marriage works because Dennis and I agree that he’s very good to me and that I’m very good to him.” Her voice hitched. She paused and sipped her seltzer water.

No wonder they agreed. They could afford cleaners, dog walkers and cooks. There was nothing left to argue about other than the dinner menu.

The chiming of the forks on the porcelain plates competed with the chorus of the crickets. Mrs. Wright cleared her throat. “Would anyone care for more pie?” 

Then Michael stood up and announced to everyone. “Claire’s swimming the Pointe-to-Pointe tomorrow. She’ll be awesome.”

Michael had promised that after dinner, they’d stay up and watch the last of the Perseids’ showers. He fetched sleeping bags from the cabin, and they lay down on the rock with a gap between them. Overhead, the Milky Way smeared itself across the sky and flaming arrows of asteroid fragments streaked passed them. Finally, she spoke. “I didn’t agree to swim.”

“It’s nothing for you.”

“You don’t know what’s nothing for me.” Once more she was being asked to perform but this time for her boyfriend’s satisfaction. “Let’s go back.”

Their headlamps flickered on the fool’s gold in the granite and the chirping insects. Slapping waves filled the silence as they walked to the cottage.

Claire and Michael lay back-to-back in bed, without touching. After a while, she burrowed her wet cheek against Michael’s back. Was she being unfair? Maybe it should be nothing for her? She swatted at the mosquito droning by her ear. “OK. I’ll do it. I’ll do it, but only if we agree that I’ll never have to do it again.”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“I mean, if we’re still together next summer. Let’s not come here. Let’s go somewhere different.”

Michael rolled over and pulled her towards him. They lay there, arms and legs entangled in their familiar way. The dry summer smell of the cabin mingled with the scent of his skin.

“I’ve always come here,” Michael said.

“I know.”

He straightened his limbs and turned away. She didn’t reach for him but wondered if they would be together next year. She almost said something, but his breathing had become deeper and more regular.

The sun was higher now and the swimmers formed a line along the edge of the dock at the start line. Groups of spectators congregated at various points to watch the race. She searched for Michael and found his green canoe in the spotting flotilla—volunteers in canoes, kayaks and rowboats that kept track of stragglers and swimmers in trouble. 

Sparkles of light reflecting from minerals in the granite on the far point winked at her. She wished her mother had seen her race, even once. It was nearly nine o’clock. The muscles in the back of her neck stiffened the way they did at every event. She reminded herself of the promise she’d extracted from Michael last night. Her arms coiled into readiness as she strained to hear the starter’s pistol over the thudding of her heart.

Immediately, Claire was ahead, in front of the milling legs and arms behind her. She was alone with her body in the lake–no chlorine, no flip turns and no echoing shouts. The soapy touch of the water welcomed her arms and legs as she parted its rippled surface. It whispered to her. “You’re OK. You’re OK. You’re OK.”

And she would be OK if things didn’t always depend on winning. If she didn’t have to worry about floundering or drowning.

She glanced up to mark her position in the course and saw another swimmer accelerating past on her left. One hundred meters remained. Claire fired up every fibre of her muscles and sprinted forward. Water foamed around her as she gasped for breath, but the girl was stronger. The gap widened. Second place. Damn. Damn. Damn. Second.

She hauled her shaking body onto the rocks. No strength to stand. Cheering and clapping sounded around her. Michael wrapped the beach towel around her shoulders and helped her to her feet. “Kathleen would have been so proud…”

She stole a glance at the winner. “Who’s that, Michael?”

“Joanie K. From the North Islands. Did not expect to see her here. She trains at UCLA, likely to qualify for the L.A. Olympics.”

Claire clutched her arms tightly to her sides as the club president placed the ribboned medal over her head. She forced a polite smile and muttered a thank-you. She shook the hand of the winner and didn’t cry.

That afternoon, Claire led Michael to the place on the rocks where she’d been the day before. They lay down together and stared up at the scudding clouds. She took his fingers and flattened them against the seam of pink-speckled quartz. “Can you feel the hum, Michael?”

“Sure I can.”

But Claire could see that he couldn’t. He was just being agreeable. And she did love that part of him. Her heart slowed as the vibrations from the corrugated granite percolated through her body. The granite would endure on this shore, changing imperceptibly, for millennia.  She didn’t want that sameness. She was obliged to navigate onwards, like a migrating bird, to follow her instincts, her own way.