To The Island

It’s Sunday afternoon on the dock. Claire stands on the dock, ready to swim to the island. Brianna, in her navy one-piece bathing suit, hands out triangles of watermelon from the metal bowl. Stéphanie, in an aqua polka-dotted bikini, poses beside Fischer, her boyfriend. With each bite of the watermelon, his neck darts out like a turtle’s. Beside them is a rumpled copy of the weekend Toronto Star open to the real estate section.

Claire can’t remember how Stéphanie and Fischer met and she doesn’t know if Fischer can swim either, but he has a truck. He helped move the better furniture from Michael’s old apartment on Nun’s Island last November.

Michael, her husband, wasn’t even sixty when he died two years ago. And although they’d been separated for longer, she’s puzzled by the abandonment she still feels. It hurts most when she’s here at the cottage. It’s a pain she doesn’t share with Fiona, her partner and workmate. But there’s no financial pain. She has a good job and he left all his money to her, along with fat gifts to the girls. They have choices now, choices she didn’t have at their age.

Fischer, lying on his back, is glued to the dock, laughing his oversized laugh and smearing zinc cream over his nose. When he does get up from the dock, his face is always in his cell phone as he wanders up to the road to find reception. The one time she saw Fischer in the canoe, he looked like a strange insect, the faded orange life jacket his carapace. The cedar strip canoe had belonged to Michael’s father.

But Fischer hadn’t flinched when he took the dead bird out of the wood stove. In June, he got into the water and helped Brianna to put the dock in. And he and Brianna will decide when to take it out this fall. But it won’t be done in the same way or when Michael did it. Claire hates relying on them. Lately, there are more and more things that she doesn’t have the strength to do, or, even more shameful, things she doesn’t know how to do, like changing the filters in the pump house. Things Michael had always done to keep this forty-year-old cottage running.

Yesterday, Claire overheard Fischer and Stéphanie making plans to upgrade the shower and repair the planks on the dock, the two places where Fischer spends most of his time. She should be included in the conversation. It’s Michael who’s dead, not her.

At times, Claire catches herself listening for the crunch of Michael’s tires on the gravel, expecting him to walk out from behind the dying maple tree on the lawn.

And when is Stéphanie going to tell her she’s pregnant? Since the Canada Day weekend, the sharpness of her cheekbones has softened and her breasts are fuller. Her stomach pouts outwards.

“Mom, that bathing suit’s older than me,” Stéphanie teases hooking her pinky under the sagging bum.

Stéph’s right. Her old swimsuit is stretched out and baggy on her middle-aged frame. “It works. I can’t bear to toss it and go to the trouble of finding a new one.” Another thing she’s said goodbye to is her youthful, muscular body. 

“We wouldn’t know what to do if you showed up in something flashy,” Brianna says.

Claire inspects the untanned band of her skin on her wrist where she wears the fancy watch that the girls gave her last Christmas. She’s forgotten it. All that timing stuff seems unimportant when she’s at the lake and not in the university pool. She folds her favourite green and white towel into a rectangle and places it on the corner of the dock. With a tidy dive, she stretches her arms into the warm water. Her body lengthens as she pulls away from the crowded dock. The silky liquid lake parts before her.

Her island, granite, covered with weather-stunted pines, is a kilometre away. Claire is fifty-nine and has been swimming to it every summer since she and Michael bought the cottage, over twenty-five years ago.

Who cares if dinner is late tonight? The kids have been slurping their watermelon and drinking their cans of kombucha on the dock all afternoon. They can wait.

Last night, they gathered at the picnic table on the screened porch to celebrate Brianna’s twenty-seventh birthday. Light-drunk moths flapped about the porch door lightbulb, battering their powdery wings against the metal screen.

Fischer, his long legs folded under the table, laughed in loud brays at things that weren’t that funny. Brianna, wearing Michael’s old Hip t-shirt, barbecued the chicken in the rusting metal barbecue. Michael brought that shirt back from a concert in Kingston in 1995. He was supposed to have been in Montreal for a conference. Claire was in Victoria doing fieldwork. It was her seabird phase. “Yeah. Me and Nigel cut out on Saturday afternoon once we heard about it. Took the train down. They were amazing,” he’d said. She hadn’t believed his story for a minute and guessed he’d met somebody, again. She could have left him then. They hadn’t had the girls yet.

And then again, much later, the summer the girls were sixteen and fourteen, he’d had an unignorable affair with a grad student in their department. Claire had tossed him out. The girl, Lucie, had gone with him to Victoria. Claire called it his un-lucid summer and refused to let Michael move back in when he crept back to Montréal. But she found a way to share the cottage with him, allotting him the junk room with the built-in bunk beds.

And that year, before she and Fiona became serious, after too much wine, she’d allowed Michael to crawl into their old bed. They had sex, wordless and regrettable on the lumpy mattress that had been their marriage bed. But she never trusted him again. The day after, they slunk about the cottage avoiding each other. He left earlier than usual, careful to take all of his things. Brianna and Stéphanie must have figured out what happened. Claire smirks thinking about it.

She’s grateful she has Fiona as a partner now, someone who knew Michael too. Fiona saw how Claire struggled at the cottage with her memories of Michael. “I don’t belong here,” she said the one time she visited.

Last at the dinner, Stéphanie’s face had glowed in the candlelight. She sipped soda water from a goblet that had been Nan’s, her grandmother’s, while her hand rested lightly on Fischer’s thigh. Brianna thumped the platter piled with chicken on the table. These days, Stéphane was eating—no chicken of course, but a mound of potato salad and the lettuce, tomato, and basil salad that Claire made. No salad spinner. She made the salad the way her mother used to, whirling a tea towel full of lettuce leaves over her head.

“I’ll open another bottle,” said Fischer, bumping the table with his knee getting up.

That was new. Fischer didn’t do much in the kitchen other than pour himself a coffee or get a beer in the fridge. The bench of the picnic table felt harder on her butt than it did last year. She shifted about uneasily.

“There’s no cake and I love cake,” Fischer called out from the kitchen. 

“Didn’t want a cake,” Brianna said.

“Don’t believe you. Someone forgot,” Fischer shouted back.

“Birthday cakes were Michael’s department,” said Claire. All those years of ice cream cakes, last-minute cake-mix cakes, and the angel food cake that Stéphanie would eat. “That last triple chocolate mousse…”

“What I’d like for my birthday is some help finishing that brick barbecue he started,” said Brianna, her eyes glistening in the candlelight.

Fischer broke the silence by announcing that he and Stéphanie were considering moving to North York to be near his family, but not until next year. Why weren’t they telling her about the more obvious thing? And even if Stéphanie left, Brianna would stay in Montreal. She was too broken to fly away, still struggling with Michael’s death. Fischer and Stéphanie giggled over a private joke. The yodel of a loon sounded across the darkening blue surface of the lake. And the sadder call of its partner echoed back. The dinner hadn’t felt like a birthday celebration, and they all went to bed early.

Claire’s feet touch the muddy bottom in front of the rocks on the shore of the little bay at the island. She sits on the largest rock, hugging her bony knees, and stares at the break in the trees on the shoreline where the dock is. It’s too far away to make out any figures. The afternoon sun hovers above the maples on the hill behind the cottage.

She doesn’t want to swim back right away, so she pads along the worn dirt path following the southeastern shore. The fine soil seeps up between her toes and sandpapers her heels. She arrives at the cliff-jumping place where the bronze plaque is fixed to the granite wall at the bottom of the cliff.

Gerard Maillon Badeau 

March 15, 1981

August 25, 1997

The poor kid died the summer she and Michael moved back to Montréal from Victoria. By then they’d been married for eleven years. Brianna was one. Claire got pregnant with Stéphanie the same August that that sixteen-year-old boy jumped off the cliff and drowned. She’d never met the drowned boy, Gerard, or his mother. She traces her fingers along the letters and numbers on the memorial. She thinks of the grief of losing a beautiful teenage boy, his perfection preserved in the amber of his mother’s memory. But then again, that mother didn’t have to deal with the realities of children becoming adults.

She never worried about her kids drowning. Michael had done all the worrying for her. Before they learned how to swim, Michael had kept the girls zipped into their life jackets every time they were on the dock. She remembers the squealing and shrieking from across the lake, knowing they were safer with Michael than with her. She was too distracted with work.

Michael had smoothed her way financially and academically. She’d dashed about the globe researching flyways and lecturing, and he’d taken the back seat, teaching oversubscribed undergraduate classes. He hadn’t competed with her career for her love or attention. But several times, he’d found some outside love and attention. She smiles wryly to the listening pines.

It’s time to go back. Shadows creep across the path and she’s cold. She’s afraid that if she stays longer, she’ll be too tired to swim back to the dock. Goosebumps rise on her wet thighs and upper arms. On the shore of the shallow bay, the last of the afternoon sun warms the rocks. She squints to see the trio waiting on the dock but can’t. It’s too far. She slips into the warm velvety water.

After a few minutes of purposeful crawl, she catches the outline of a solitary loon swimming. Gavia Immer, the Common Loon. One of the pair calling last night? It watches her warily with one ruby eye. She’s so close she can make out the thin white vertical stripes of its collar and the checkerboard pattern of the plumage on its back. It does not startle. It holds its ground. There must be a nest nearby. She’s disturbed a roosting parent with her splashing. And where’s its mate? On the nest, she hopes. She imagines the newly hatched chick and its parents making the long migration to the Atlantic shorelines for the winter, abandoning what will become a thickly frozen lake for raging coastal winter storms. The loon dives and disappears.

She begins to swim again. All the things she’s done poorly in her life so far. Too tied up in the importance of her bird migration research. Not spending enough time with her daughters or Michael. Allowing her personal pack of fear-of-failure dogs to hound her. No matter how hard she works, there’s always more to do and to do better. Those famous feminist promises. Have it all. Raise children, have a career and have a life. She couldn’t have done it at the level she did without Michael and her mother’s help.

She’s crying now, her tears dissolve into the lake. Her underwater exhalations muffle her sniffling and snorting. She won’t stop swimming until the sadness passes through her. She creates a slash of churning foam, kicking more violently and pulling her arms more forcefully through the water. She resolves to be different—a better partner for Fiona and when the time comes, a good grandparent. And if they’ll let her, more loving with her daughters.

She looks up beyond the dock and above the cottage where the sun is touching the tree line, exactly where she’s watched it touch countless other August evenings. The lowering sun distorts the outlines of Brianna, Stéphanie, and Fischer sprawled on the dock. For them everything has continued without Michael and will continue without her. They have their own lives to live.

Her pace drops as though her body has decided that she shouldn’t go back to the dock, her daughters, the possibility of a grandchild and the absence of Michael. There is an emptiness in her that it’s unfair to expect Fiona to fill. She switches to a gliding breaststroke, quieter and slower. She could haul herself onto the dock, dripping wet and proud that she’s completed her swim, but instead she swims to the red granite shelf beside the dock where she can press her body into the sun-warmed rock and be alone and still.

As she hauls herself out, she feels a sharp pain over her right knee. Pink liquid trickles down her shins from the slash across her knee cap. She licks the tears from her upper lip.

“Mom, are you okay?”

Stéphanie, clutching the green and white striped towel, runs towards her with Brianna close behind. Don’t trip. She wants to tell them about the loon protecting its nest. How close it was. The fine markings. Her legs collapse underneath her. She doesn’t have the strength to walk.

Stéphanie sits her down on the grass, dabbing at her knee with a corner of the towel. Her blood marks it with angry blots. 

“Quite the gash.” says Stéphanie. “Lots of blood.” 

Claire’s throat is thick, her words trapped. She swallows. She feels her face muscles screwing up around her eyes and mouth. All that comes out is a moan. She sobs like a child who’s fallen while learning to walk.

“You’re crying,” Brianna says as both girls reach around her shoulders and hug her. They peck at her forehead and cheeks leaving scratchy little kisses.

Claire rubs her chest and she catches her breath. “It’s been hard for me. For us. Hard trying to carry on like nothing has happened.”

Stéphanie nuzzles against her. “It’s OK Mom. We’re here.”

A warmth rushes through her body. Yes. Her daughters are kind, beautiful people. And she has Fiona. “My towel.” She points to the bloody spots ruining the towel.

“We’ll wash it.” says Stéphanie. “A good cold-water soak with a cup of salt.”

“Like Nan would have done,” says Brianna. 

Yes, they’re her family and although the pain in her chest is lessening, she starts crying again.

“Oh Mom,” says Brianna wrapping her arms around her and Stéphanie.

Claire’s wet hair drips onto her cheeks mingling with the tears. “I love you guys,” she sniffs, promising herself to say it more often.

Moving On

Stéphanie and her older sister, Brianna, were at the family cottage in the Laurentians for Thanksgiving weekend. It was a perfect autumn day—the leaves of the deciduous trees in full flame. Warm enough to roll up their shirt sleeves. The smell of woodsmoke from the chimney of the Anderson’s cottage next door. The sisters had planned a picnic Sunday lunch on the cliff overlooking the lake. Stéphanie bent over and laced up her worn leather hiking boots. Brianna, who was twenty-six, stuffed her feet into the rotting pair of canvas sneakers she found on the back porch.

“You’re wearing those, Bree? Where are your hikers?”

“Forgot them. I’m not wrecking my new boots on a stupid hike.”

It wasn’t like Brianna to forget things or not to want to go for a hike. Was she feeling guilty about moving out last month? But it was Steph’s turn. Brianna had done most of the heavy lifting with their mother, Claire, when they were growing up.

On Friday morning at breakfast, Stéphanie had pleaded with her mother to come with them. “It’s Thanksgiving, Mom.”

Claire had avoided the cottage since their dad’s death two years ago.

“Can’t. I’m chairing the bird re-naming committee this weekend. We’re changing any eponymous or offensive names. Audubon himself was an anti-abolitionist. Can’t use his name anymore.”

Stéphanie spread her fingers over the hummingbird tattoo on her right shoulder. Eponymous. Why not say “named after people” like Anna’s Hummingbird? Her tattoo was changing too—the fine lines on the wings less sharp than ten years ago, when Claire threw Dad out. The time when Stéphanie had sex with that gardening guy. Her heart still sped up when she thought of it like she could outrun the memory.

“Is Fiona going with you?” she asked re-stacking the dishes in the dishwasher to make room for her cereal bowl.

Mom didn’t answer. Her gaze was locked on the screen of her tablet. Fiona and Mom were good friends. She liked to tease Stéphanie that Fiona had known her since before she was born. And since Brianna had moved out, Fiona hung around the house more often.

Maybe it was better that Mom hadn’t come to the cottage. Stéphanie wanted to tell Brianna about the gardening guy—tell her she’d chosen to go with a guy she barely knew. Now, she knew that no fourteen-year-old was ready to decide that—to consent to sex with a guy in his twenties. She’d been raped.

If she told Brianna maybe things would get easier. Brianna might say it was OK that Stéphanie made a mistake—she wasn’t to blame. She’d been so young. She’d have fewer panic attacks. She’d feel lighter. She wouldn’t be exhausted pretending to be happy all the time.

Thirty minutes later, Stéphanie crunched through the leaves on the trail staring at her father’s ancient knapsack on Brianna’s back. Her sentimentality about their dad’s things was irritating. She’d been his favourite. When she wasn’t in her airline uniform at work, she lived in his ratty, band T-shirts with their cracked logos and his pilled sweaters. She refused to wash his navy velour dressing gown and buried her face in the sleeve when she thought no one was looking.

Stéphanie was carrying two other secrets. She should tell her sister that she was seeing Fischer, a purser with the airline and stationed in Toronto. She spent a lot of time wondering where he was, if he was thinking about her and when he’d text again. The spotty cellphone coverage at the cottage made her more anxious.

She should also tell Brianna that she knew about their half-sister, Sophia. She’d seen Brianna’s wide eyes and slack mouth as her mother pointed to Fiona and her teenage daughter with gingery hair like hers at Dad’s funeral. They should have told her about Fiona and Sophia but instead, they’d excluded her. How could she not know? It was so obvious. What was the point in pretending that people didn’t know? People had a way of finding out secrets no matter what. Maybe Brianna already knew about her rape.

Brianna stopped and looked back at her. “This old backpack’s heavy. We’re lucky the canvas hasn’t ripped. Your turn, Stéphanie.”

“Sure. give it to me now we’re at the steep part of the trail,” she said, pointing at the tree-root ladder up the small rise ahead.

“What’s in here anyway?” Brianna asked, sliding the felt-backed leather straps from her shoulders.

“Water, tuna fish sandwiches. Like Nan used to make.”

“Ever think about Nan?” Brianna asked as they trampled the sandy soil between the pines.

“Sure, I do.” When Mom was busy blaming herself for not noticing the weight loss, Nan’s unquestioning love saved her. “All the care she gave me when I was sick after Dad left with that graduate student he was fucking that spring.”

It wasn’t their dad’s first affair, but it was the one when their mother threw him out. And then the rape. Ten years without sharing her secret with anyone. Not Brianna, not Claire. Not therapists. And now never Dad or Nan. No one. Could Brianna understand? Be sympathetic? Not blame her? If there ever was a time to tell Brianna it had to be soon.

“How weird was that road trip with Nan last year?” Brianna asked.

Stéphanie laughed. “Other than crossing back into Canada in the RV with her dead body in the back. Not so much.”

“Dad would have loved that Nan’s Last Wish was a road trip to Disney World.”

Oh, Brianna. Always wondering what Dad would have thought. Stéphanie was taller and prettier than her now. Mom liked her better because she was more agreeable. Last November, she’d even helped Stéphanie with her mature student application for Concordia. Journalism school. She didn’t get accepted, but she’d try again next year. If Dad hadn’t left, if she hadn’t gone with that guy, if she hadn’t lost a year of school with her anorexia, would things have been different?

The root ladder led up a five-foot cliff. Sometimes, there were ropes that hikers had left to help with the climb but that day the worn roots of the trees were the only handholds. Stéphanie clasped her hands and bent over to give Brianna a foot up to the first waist-high root.

Brianna waved her foot in Stéphanie’s face as she clambered over the lip of the cliff. “Look at me. These beat-up sneakers are perfect for finding footholds.”

Stéphanie stood on her tiptoes and passed the pack up to Brianna. She hauled herself onto the rise. “So much for these leggings,” she said inspecting the rip over her right knee as she stood up. She wriggled the straps of the pack back on.

They fell into a gentle pace and wound their way across the ridge to the viewpoint. At the grey granite rock overlooking the lake below, Stéphanie slipped the pack off her sweat-soaked back. They stretched out on the warm expanse of rock.

“Brianna, I’ve been thinking more about secrets,” Stéphanie started.

“Like what? Nan’s dying wish? Not to tell Mom she has a half-brother?”

“That’s the thing, choosing to tell a secret. You gotta’ figure out why you’re telling it—are you doing more harm than good,” said Stéphanie. Nan, as she was dying, had told them about her illegitimate baby, making them promise not to tell their mother. Another burden to carry. Could Claire somehow have already figured out her mother had given away her first baby as a teenager? Something Nan said or did? Something like the way that Stéphanie knew about Fiona and Sophia?

“What would Mom do if we told her?” Brianna asked.

Stéphanie didn’t want to see Mom hurt again. She was struggling—widowed and then the death of her mother. “She’d wonder why Nan didn’t trust her enough to tell her when she was alive. She’d be mad that Nan told us but excluded her.”

“So why do you think Nan told us?” Brianna asked. “She didn’t need to.”

“She was dying. But right now, it’s not important. If an old man in his sixties turns up at the house claiming to be Claire’s half-brother—we’ll talk about it then.” She offered Brianna a drink from her scratched-up, pink Nalgene bottle. Mom had brought it back for her from a conference—Harvard logo and motto, veritas. “Meanwhile, we’re stuck carrying a secret we don’t want to.”

“That’s my water bottle,” said Brianna, grabbing it.

“Nope, it’s mine. Yours was blue. You lost yours.”

“But if we told Mom about Nan’s illegitimate baby, she’d understand why Nan was such an unloving mother and—”

“If Nan wanted her to know, she’d have told her herself,” Stéphanie said flicking the clumps of dried mud off her thighs. “Mom doesn’t need to know she has a half-brother.”

“So, you’re not sending your cheek scrapings away to some ancestry company to try and find him?” Brianna asked.

“I’m keeping my DNA to myself. I’m not looking for more crazy relatives.” She should tell Brianna she knew about Sophia. She wanted to tell Brianna about the rape. But what if she blamed her? Was disgusted? What if she told Claire? 

The sisters bathed in the glow of the autumn colours as they lay on the granite outcropping. Stéphanie handed Brianna her sandwich.

“I love tuna fish sandwiches,” Brianna said, pulling the bread off the filling and inspecting it. “You remembered the celery. And the right amount of mayonnaise. Wasn’t expired, was it?”

“What about the view of the lake from up here? The trees turning. I love how different each season is. There’s the dock and the island we swim to,” Stéphanie said, stretching her arm. She remembered the afternoon of the rape—cannonballing off the dock into Lac Brome—the warm water scrubbing the place between her legs. Even now, she thought about it almost every time she jumped into the lake.

“I love this oily, WD40 smell of Dad’s pack,” Brianna said rummaging inside it looking for the napkins. “Wonder when he used it last?”

“Before we were born. It’s ancient. Probably his mother’s.”

“What would make you tell Mom about her half-brother?” Brianna said, wiping the mayonnaise from the corner of her mouth with a poinsettia-covered cocktail napkin. “I feel bad for knowing something so private that she doesn’t.”

“Give it up Brianna,” said Stéphanie irritated that Brianna was withholding what she knew about Sophia. “It’s not lying unless you’re asked directly. It’s a kindness. Mom’s still adrift—cut off from that energy she got from constantly being furious with Dad. And still grieving for Nan.” Stéphanie shuffled her hips on the rock, thinking about Nan and Claire’s relationship

“It’s harder for an unloved daughter to lose a mother. There are no more chances to make things right.”

“You’re saying Nan didn’t love Claire,” said Brianna picking at the crust on her sandwich.

“No. I’m saying Nan didn’t love Claire enough.” Since Nan died, they’d had this conversation a thousand times. Brianna always choked on it. She refused to accept Stephanie’s idea that the damage done to Claire had affected her love for them. 

“And what about fathers? Clever of Dad to die suddenly so we couldn’t be angry at him for cheating on Mom,” said Brianna.

“We had a lot of years to be angry but we’re adults now. Don’t you think we deserved more of an explanation, an apology from him?” Stéphanie’s righteousness surprised her. She sounded like Claire, insisting that people are owed things. Did she owe Brianna honesty? To tell her that she knew about Sophia? To tell her about the rape.

“Oh Stéphanie, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Dad was careless with us, Brianna. Very careless.”

“Did you pack those brownies?”

Stéphanie pulled the flattened plastic bag from the bottom of the pack and tossed it at her.

“You should have put them in a Tupperware,” Brianna said.

Stéphanie stuffed a mashed brownie into her mouth. “Still tasty though.” She packed the lunch things back into the knapsack. There was no space today for her to share her story. It would have to wait. Brianna was too busy fussing over whether to tell Mom about Nan’s baby when she should be worrying about telling her about their half-sister, Sophia. But she won’t, she’s protecting Dad.

“Race you back,” yelled Brianna as she took off down the trail.

Stéphanie was near the top of the rise when she heard the thud and Brianna’s scream. She peered over the edge and saw Brianna writhing on the ground and clutching her left ankle. “My leg. I’ve broken my leg.”

Stéphanie scrambled down the rise and knelt beside Brianna on the hard soil of the narrow trail.

“GD sneakers. Caught my foot on that last root.” Brianna’s ankle was expanding, the canvas tongue of her sneaker shrinking into the swelling.

“I’ll go and get help. The Anderson twins are up.”

“Try phoning?” Brianna’s voice was jagged.

Stéphanie looked at her phone. “No reception. No 911.”

Tears dripped down Brianna’s cheeks as Stéphanie pulled out their puffy jackets and propped her foot on the knapsack. “I’ll make you a pillow with one of these jackets. Cover up with the other one.” She offered her the water bottle. “There’s some water left.”

“Don’t leave me.”

Stéphanie’s heart clenched. Her sister never pleaded like that. “Bree, this is exactly what Dad would want us to do. It’s not far. I’ll be back in less than an hour.” Brianna’s tear-stained cheek tasted salty as she kissed her goodbye. “Soon. I’ll be back soon with help.” As she started running, Stéphanie glanced at her watch—four-thirty. The sun was low and it was cooling down. When she glanced back, Bree had buried her face in her orange puffy.

Stéphanie was breathing heavily when she hammered on the Anderson’s kitchen door. A tall young man with floppy bangs and a snug black T-shirt pulled back the screen door. Behind him, the teenaged Anderson twins slouched at the kitchen table, playing cards. He smiled at her, showing his large white teeth. “Running away from a bear? I’m Josh. You?”

“It’s my sister. She broke her ankle on the Viewpoint Trail,” she said.

In a few minutes, the Anderson boys, their cousin Josh and Stéphanie were jogging up the trail. Brianna’s pale face lit up when she saw them. Her flannel shirt was open at the neck, clinging to her skin. She was shivering.

Josh took charge while the Anderson boys, freckled and goofy, stood back. He knelt beside Brianna and leant over her. He spoke softly. “We’ll lift you onto my back and carry you down the trail.”

Oh my god, thought Stéphanie, he’s checking out her chest. For a second, she was jealous. Guys flirted with her, not Brianna. Her face burned at her selfishness.

Brianna grimaced as they helped her up. “Somebody, please, my ankle.”

They set off down the trail, the guys taking turns carrying Brianna on their backs and supporting her leg. Stéphanie carried the pack. Florid streaks of pink stained the sky as the sun lowered behind the ancient mountains.

At the cottage, Josh insisted on driving Brianna to the local hospital. He helped Brianna arrange herself in the back seat, propping her leg on a folded blanket. Stéphanie opened the passenger door to join them.

“We’re fine. Wait here,” Brianna said pointing at the cottage. When Stéphanie moved away from the car, she saw Josh patting Brianna’s thigh. Definitely, hitting on her.

Stéphanie wandered into the empty cottage and slumped on the couch. It was strange to be alone in the quiet and dark. Excluded. She’d take a shower and clean up. She’d wait. All those secrets, Nan’s baby, her half-sister and even her rape weren’t important now. What was important was Brianna. Was she coping with the hospital smell, her pain, the waiting, and the strangers prodding her?

It was ten o’clock when Brianna called. Her ankle was broken in three places. She’d need surgery tomorrow. A temporary cast would be put on overnight. They’ll be back in an hour.

Josh guided Brianna up the porch steps. Her crutches thumped on the wooden cottage floor as she made her way to the couch. Stéphanie tiptoed around her plumping up the cushions and covering her with the faded quilt Nan had made for her when she was a baby.

“I hope you ladies have a good night,” Josh said, grinning as he waved goodbye from the door.

“Did he just wink at you?” Stéphanie asked.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Brianna sighed.

“Want a White Claw?” Stéphanie asked, offering her one of the cans she’d found in the fridge. “It’s lime.”

“Better not. I’m stoned on the pain pills from the hospital.”

Stéphanie pulled open her can and took a gulp. “So, who is he? What’s he like?

“Kind. Funny. He’s Rory and Dave’s cousin. He’s here from Ottawa for the weekend. An engineer. Something to do with building acoustics.”

“You two got along pretty well,” Stéphanie said. It was weird but they were cute together.

“He did haul me off the trail.” Brianna shifted her hips. “Hurts when I move, even a little.”

“Want me to rearrange the pillows under your leg?”

“No thanks. That hurts too. Josh’s coming back tomorrow morning to check on me.”

“Guess you’ll have to move home for a bit after your operation,” said Stéphanie. She’d cancel some shifts at the airline. She’d help Brianna up and down the staircase to her old bedroom. She’d cook the meals and tidy up the kitchen even better than Brianna had done for all those years. She’d manage Claire’s daily dramas—lost car keys and misplaced chargers. She’d be kind to both of them—accommodating all the directions and advice.

“Actually, no. I’ll be mobile enough with the crutches and happier at my place,” said Brianna, turning her face away.

Stéphanie took a slug of her drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She’s made an arrangement with Josh. Brianna’s moving on. She pitched her empty can into the garbage bin by the door. It rattled against the metal as it landed.

“Nice toss, Stéphanie.”

“You going to be OK here on the couch?”

“I can’t bear the thought of moving again. Might need help to pee later.”

“‘K. Call if you need anything. Night.”

Stéphanie crawled under the comforter in the dark bedroom and curled up. All those times, she and Brianna had lain here, nestled together like spoons in a drawer, sheltering each other from all the crazy things in their lives. Well, not all the things. She sniffed. The story of her rape was hers. Heavy. Not for sharing. Not now anyway.

The Road Trip

Nan shuffled around inside the RV, staying upright by grasping the counters. She was eighty-three with newly diagnosed, incurable pancreatic cancer. Two days ago, she declared her wish to go to Orlando. She’d refused to fly, so Brianna, her granddaughter, had rented the RV to drive the two thousand kilometres from Montreal to Florida. 

Nan’s flowery toiletries bag was plump with vials of her painkillers and sleeping pills. “I’ve hidden the best meds under the cushions. You never know what will happen at the border,” she said to her two granddaughters.

Two days before, Stéphanie, Brianna’s younger sister, completed the online Blue Cross forms on the computer in her mom’s office. “What about health insurance, for you, Nan?”

“Cancer. They won’t approve me. I’ll do without. But don’t tell your mom. If I get sicker, we come home.”

“I’m not on board for that, Nan,” said Stéphanie.

“Chill!” Brianna said pushing Stéphanie back into her chair. “Finish our forms. Don’t worry about Nan’s.”

“Mom will kill us if she finds out we didn’t get insurance for Nan.”

But Mom wasn’t coming with them. She’d be at her migratory bird meeting in Ottawa. That was why Brianna knew about the Hudsonian Godwit, a shorebird that migrates from the Mackenzie Delta to Tierra del Fuego, much further than an RV trip to Florida. 

Dad would have been up for the whole adventure. The thought of him caught Brianna off guard. He’d died suddenly nearly a year ago. He’d been her ally. He’d taught her how to split wood as soon as she could manage the half-axe and to drive his jeep when she turned sixteen. He would have been proud of her for taking on this adventure with Nan.

Nan pressed her face up against the office window. Outside, the purple asters at the edge of the brown lawn bloomed. Her voice was quiet and frail. “When your mom, Claire was little, we were so poor I told her that Disneyland was only for sick kids, kids with cancer.” Her thick, pewter braid swung over her rounded back. “Well, I’m not a kid but I’ve sure got cancer. Let’s go before it’s too late.”

By the time they’d driven through Brossard, Nan, nestled under the lilac waffle blanket on the pull-out bed, was snoring lightly like a snoozing cat. Her sallow skin sagged from her jaw. 

Brianna drove, glued in the right-hand lane of the freeway. She couldn’t depend on Stéphanie to check the left-hand mirror for traffic. Transport trucks whizzed by them. Changing into the righthand lane scared her. When she dared take her hand off the wheel, she tugged at her cut-off shorts that were creeping up into her crotch. Her body was grimy and sticky. She should have paid more attention when the guy at the rental place showed her how to work the A/C. 

Stéphanie sat with her long legs folded underneath her nodding to the music from her earbuds. Her tanned chest was wrapped in a violet tube top. “Would Nan notice if we drove around the townships for a while and camped near Sherbrooke?”

Brianna flashed a dark look at her. “We said we are going to Orlando and that’s what we’re doing.”

“Sorry. I’m in. We’re in this together.”

Even before Stéphanie was hospitalized with anorexia when she was fourteen, Mom and Nan had always given Stéphanie more attention. She was the sunny, more beautiful one. Brianna’s A’s, swimming ribbons and mom-yessing only added up to her having more responsibilities. She’d been the one who walked Stéphanie to school, made sure she had her lunch and, in winter, didn’t lose her hat or mittens.

Yesterday at dinner, Brianna made the macaroni and cheese, filled the dishwasher, and scraped the sticky pan, while Claire, seated at the kitchen table, carried on about her work stuff—The Conservation Trust meeting that night and her keynote speaker engagement in Ottawa on the weekend. Stéphanie nodded like she was listening but was texting her friends.

Two hours later, they pulled up to the American border. They inched past the flashing sign indicating a ten-minute wait and towards the booth. The officer was a young woman, intimidating in her uniform and likely armed. “Purpose of your trip,” she asked, scanning their three faces and the interior of the RV.

“We’re taking our grandmother to Disney World for a week. It’s a last-wish trip.” Brianna forced a smile. She was pretty sure Nan had brought along her THC gummies and it would be a drag if they got searched.

“Rental Vehicle? I’ll need the papers and your passports.” The officer’s expression remained stony as she examined the passports, the RV rental contract and whatever was on the computer screen in her booth. They waited in silence. Finally, she said, “Have a safe trip, ladies.”

“Hello U.S.A.,” Stéphanie exclaimed as the RV lurched away from the crossing into New York State.

After a long day of interstate freeway driving, they arrived at the Walmart Super Centre in Emporia, Virginia, where the camping and Wi-Fi were free. RVs and long-haul rigs clustered about the parking lot like prairie wagons.

Brianna squinted into the evening sun as she carried twelve Corona in an insulated bag and the two salad kits across the tarmac. She’d left Stéphanie in the RV in charge of their snoring grandmother.

Brianna yanked open the flimsy door of the RV. The smell of stale Dominos, Subway and of Nan’s Depends wafted out. She knelt on the worn linoleum floor and opened the mini-fridge door. It stank like a bar at closing time. Brianna understood the spilt beer but who kept cigarettes in the fridge? She stuffed the salad kits inside. Mom would have been disgusted by all the plastic. She’d have figured out a way to make a salad from scratch.

“More fun than dating, eh, Stéph?” Briana asked, showing the Corona cooler to her. They were both between boyfriends, so the idea of a road trip seemed even more like fun.

“No kidding. Beer please.”

“First let’s get Nan to the Walmart washroom.”

Nan was curled up asleep on the bed contraption. Brianna woke her up.

“Come on Nan, put your arms around our shoulders. Let’s get you to the restroom before it closes.” Brianna braced her left hand on her right forearm and gripped Stéphanie’s left forearm with her right hand. Stéph’s hands were moist. She crossed her arms in the same under-and-over pattern and grasped Brianna’s arms. “Check?” said Brianna.

“Check,” replied Stéphanie.

They scooped Nan onto the solid square of their arms. Her near weightlessness startled Brianna. Were they holding Nan up or stopping her from floating away?

Brianna’s nose wrinkled at the dense ammonia odour that cancelled out Nan’s familiar Noxzema scent. They see-sawed through the doorway and inched her down the steps of the RV.

Nan blinked into the glaring light. “Careful girls!” She giggled and kicked her legs in the air as they floated her across the shimmering asphalt. Their flip-flops slapped beneath them.

“Everybody OK?” Brianna asked.

“I need to pee too.” Stéphanie laughed. 

Brianna wondered if she understood how sick Nan was.

The September sun was setting over the Walmart sign when Brianna had finished setting up the three camp chairs in the shade of the pull-out canopy. The girls lowered Nan into her chair.

“Mom’s gonna take this Corona bag and label it with her fat Sharpie the second we get home, so re-usable, so collapsible,” Stéphanie said. She lowered herself into the chair beside Nan and pulled out three beer.

They sat bathed in the white hiss of the traffic on the I-95. The scent of honeysuckle from the garden centre of the Walmart wafted over them. If Claire were here, she’d be identifying the chirping birds roosting in the potted shrubs.

“You know girls, your mom and I weren’t very close,” Nan said, the beer fizzing over her fingers and onto the tarmac.

Brianna leaned towards her to hear her better.

“Your mother never knew her dad.” Nan picked at the seam on her new stretch pants. She’d given up sewing her clothes because of her back pain. “I know your mom is having a tough time since your dad died. But I raised Claire alone for years. She wasn’t even two when Alain got killed in Cypress. I never understood why he volunteered for the Peace Corps.”

The girls nodded indulgently at the well-worn tale. Nan fiddled with the folds in the streaky orange chiffon scarf tied about her head. Brianna cracked open a second beer.

“But look at how happy she is now, with two beautiful daughters. Saving owls and caribou. Does she do polar bears?

“I don’t think so, Nan. She’s into migrating creatures,” Brianna said. And happy? Nan had left out the part about Mom’s seven-year separation from Dad before he died.

“All that travelling—Costa Rica, Argentina, the Arctic. She left you girls with me all those times. But she took my advice and married a rich man. Remember that girls, it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man.”

That hadn’t worked out so well for Mom. Despite inheriting his father’s fortune, Dad had hated spending money. As far as Brianna knew, since her dad had moved out, Mom had supported herself on her university salary. They’d never separated legally.

That night, the towering parking lot lights burned through the flimsy curtains of the RV casting shadows over Nan who was snoring like a logger at a sawing competition—knocked out by pain pills or sleeping pills or gummies or whatever else she’d taken.

“So glad you broke up with Pascal,” Brianna said to Stéphanie, recalling his glassy, bloodshot eyes and his goofy walk.

Stéphanie looked up from painting her toenails. “Yeah, we were stuck. What was I doing with a thirty-five-year-old, smoking, gaming, baggage handler who lived in his mom’s basement? But he did have a great sense of humour.”

“Like the time he brought over that stuffed owl for Mom?”

“How was he supposed to know it was endangered? It had been in his basement for years.” Stéphanie readjusted her toe-separators. “I’m thinking of going back to school. There’ll be money once Dad’s estate is settled.”

“Jesus, Stéph, convincing Mom to pay for tuition is going to be tough. Imagine explaining Journalism school to her. Nothing we’ll want to study will ever be as important to her as the science stuff she and Dad were into.”

Stéphanie reached her arms around Brianna and nuzzled her nose against the skin behind Brianna’s ear. “We’ll be fine.”

“But everything seems so exhausting and chaotic. When Mom was my age, she’d finished her master’s. All I have is a high school diploma and flight attendant training.”

“Lighten up Bree. We have a lot of responsibility at our jobs. We’re both bilingual. Dealing with difficult passengers. Great first responder skills. We’ve seen lots of Canada and Europe. I’m bidding for Delhi next.”

“I guess,” said Bree.

“Have you ever thought that it’s because of you, Mom gets to be who she is? It’s you who does all the caring around here. You mother me, you mother Mom and you have to mother yourself. It’s made you fierce.”

Fierce? The word clanged inside Brianna’s head. Fierce. No. She was exhausted. It was exhausting remembering the things that Stéph didn’t and worrying about what would upset Mom next. But there were places inside her hardening up, becoming more brittle, like if she tripped, she’d shatter into a spiky mess of unfixable fragments.

“Stop being my mom, Brianna. You don’t have to take care of me anymore. Let me help take care of you.”

“Like let you drive?”

“Ouch. I didn’t fail my road test on purpose.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m the only one who can drive on this trip.” Brianna was tired of making excuses for Stéphanie like Mom and Nan did. Ever since her anorexia, she got a pass for everything while Brianna got dumped on. But even now, Brianna still worried about Stéph’s eating.

“Well, you can barely work your phone.” Stéphanie said.

“Not while I’m driving.” But it was true. Stéph was better at working her phone.

“Can we please stop fighting? We’re going to wake up Nan.”

The next morning, Brianna steered the RV onto the I-95 heading south. Another day of tarmac, white lines, and guardrails. She was desperate for a coffee. Even if they drove all day, it would be midnight before they reached Orlando.

“I didn’t think it would be like this. I figured it would be more fun,” Stéphanie said from the front passenger seat. She yawned and stretched her arms above her head. “It stinks in here. I feel sick.”

“Oh Stéph, you always got car sick. You’d get pale and quiet, then whammo. Remember that trip to Gaspé Bay—the day you pucked all over your T-shirt and Mom made you ride with the dog towel wrapped around your bare chest? And since you’re not driving, you’ve gotta’ keep talking to me and watch that right-hand mirror. Either change the radio station or put on some of your music.”

“Nah. Let’s play Alphabet Disney Princesses. A to Z. You start.”

“Ariel,” she said checking the rearview mirror.

“Belle, whoops no. Aurora,” said Stéphanie.

Bree’s thoughts drifted. She was nine and Stéph was seven. They’d gone to the park on an unexpected sunny March day and met a girl with three genuine Disney princess dolls. They’d played until dusk but left their puffy jackets on the picnic table. Mom made them go back in the dark to find them, but they were gone. Because Brianna was the eldest and should have been more responsible, Mom had confiscated her piggybank money to help pay for new ones. 

“Stéph. Remember that day, we met that girl with the princess dolls in the park?”

“Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty—so special in their sparkling tulle and lamé gowns and those little glittery shoes.”

“And how badly we wanted to have dolls like that.”

“I tried to give Mom my money—to help pay for those puffies,” said Stéphanie. “She refused it and told me not to tell you.”

Brianna sighed. “What about the year you were sick and moved in with Nan. We’d curl up on the couch.” Brianna remembered wrapping herself around Stéphanie’s bony body as if her warmth could make her better. They soothed themselves by watching those happily-ever-after princess movies.

Nan poked her gaunt face between the two captain’s chairs. “Good morning girls. How are we this morning? I’m starving.”

Brianna hadn’t seen her eat as much as a popcorn kernel yet.

“Where’s the nearest pancake house?”

“Hold up, Nan. We can’t stop for pancakes if we’re going to make it to Orlando today.”

“I want to get pancakes like we did when you girls were little.”

Even when Mom was home from her trips, she dumped them at Nan’s on Sundays, and they’d go to that pancake place on Sherbrooke Street. 

Stéphanie pulled out her phone. “There’s a place near here. Two more exits.”

Thirty minutes later, they slid onto the cool red plastic seats of a booth at the Pancake Palace, surrounded by the smells of coffee and bacon. Folk snuck glances at them—a jaundiced crone accompanied by two frizzy-haired, rumpled young women.

Stéphanie and Nan giggled, flooding the stacks of pancakes in syrup. One order would have been plenty for all of them. Brianna slurped three cups of coffee and constructed a gently curving tower out of the nine empty plastic creamers.

“Why don’t we go to Myrtle Beach?” Nan said, bouncing her finger on the cartoon map on the paper placemat.

“Four hours away,” said Stéphanie. “Google says we’ll be on the beach for sunset.” She held up her phone showing Brianna the route. “I’ll book a campsite at the state park.”

The burning in Brianna’s neck eased a bit. She wouldn’t have to drive for sixteen hours straight.

Nan woke up as the RV crunched onto the gravel driveway of Myrtle Beach State Park campground. “Let’s get your hat on Nan, it’s bright out here.” Brianna stuffed the water bottles and the blanket into the backpack. Stéphanie strapped the folding camp chair on her back and locked her arms onto Brianna’s. They lifted Nan onto the seat made by their arms.

“Check?” said Brianna.”

“Check,” replied Stéphanie.

They carried Nan’s scrawny body along the gravel path, between the swaying beach grasses. They kicked off their flip-flops and their feet sank into the coarse sand. Stéphanie unfolded the chair where the ocean lapped against the shore, and they lowered Nan into it. Wavelets licked at her ankles.

The stout timbers of a long fishing pier, silhouetted by the setting sun, paraded into the ocean. The rippling periwinkles and quicksilvers of the water fused at the horizon where the sky was stained with flaming streaks.

“This is heaven,” Nan sighed. “Myrtle is a symbol of love. You can never get enough love.”

Brianna and Stéphanie wriggled their toes, magnified and wobbly under the water.

“I was eighteen, with smooth skin and strong arms like you two.” Nan paused to catch her breath. “When I got pregnant.” She let out a rattling sigh.

Brianna glanced at Stéphanie. Pregnant—this was a new story.

“I was a counter girl in the glove department of Ogilvie’s, my first job. I loved him. It was my first time and I didn’t know any better.”

Married man I bet, thought Brianna recalling her ex-boyfriend, the pilot.

Nan leaned forward and drew in a breath. Her headscarf billowed about her neck. “I was sent away to the nuns—Les Soeurs Grises.”

Brianna pictured the nuns in their dismal grey habits with their dull Catholic minds creeping about their granite fortress on Sherbrooke Street.

“They said my baby needed a proper family, a family that would give him a better life.” A raspy spasm of coughing interrupted her.

Stéphanie stroked her back while she caught her breath.

Nan hunched forward and sipped in some air. “He was a boy, but I never got to see him. I named him Daniel. His birthday was June 24^th.

“You’re kidding, right,” Stéphanie interrupted. “Does Mom know she has a brother out there? I have an uncle I haven’t met?”

Brianna launched her shut-up-for-now look.

Nan’s eyes glistened. Her breathing was laboured. She fussed with her scarf. “Your mother doesn’t know. I meant to tell her. There was never a good time.”

“That was the early sixties. No Morgentaler, no pill, no Plan B,” Stéphanie said, running out of steam.

Brianna snapped her eyes at her—this is where we need to listen.

“Promise me you won’t ever tell her she has a brother out there.” Nan stopped. The screeching of gulls drowned out the sound of her gasping breaths. “I know I held back some love from your mom, just in case…”

Fragmented thoughts darted around Brianna’s brain. Nan had rationed her love for her daughter, so she’d have some for her son? What had that done to Mom? Or to her and Stéphanie? They’d received only carefully limited love? What about her right to be a loving daughter when her mother didn’t allow it? 

Nan would go ahead and die. She and Stéphanie would be saddled with this unfair promise. She stared up at the circling, screaming gulls. The sun accelerated as it plummeted from the sky and sliced through the ocean’s edge. The air filled with the scent of pine and creosote.

It was after midnight when Brianna woke to the sound of the surf from the beach. She and Stéphanie were spooned together in the darkness. Brianna, ‘tho she was shorter, was always the big spoon, her body thicker and softer against Stéphanie’s angular one. When they were little, this was how they had waited, whispering, and wondering if Mom would come and kiss them goodnight—all that waiting.

She strained to hear Nan’s irregular gasping and snuffling. Nothing. The sighing surf crowded into the space that had been Nan’s breathing. She counted for two full minutes. Still nothing. She touched Stéphanie’s shoulder and whispered, “Wake up Stéph. I think she’s dead.”

“How can you know that?” Stéphanie’s body stiffened against hers.

“I can’t hear her breathing.”

“Should we check her pulse?” Stéphanie’s voice cracked.

Brianna sucked in a breath. “She’s dead, Stéph.” The words dropped into the darkness. They lay together, rigid and silent in the unwavering rhythm of the surf. And then Stéphanie’s fingertips brushed against hers.

“Think she knew she wouldn’t make it to Disney World?”

Brianna tightened her hand around Stéphanie’s. “I’ve heard that. Dying people deciding when they leave.”

“Maybe tonight was enough—the beach, the sunset, the three of us? Better than Disney World.” Stéphanie said in a whispery, wet voice. 

Brianna blinked into the grey shapes developing out of the darkness. She let go of Stéphanie’s hand and groped for the light. “We should check Nan,” she said dully.

Nan was lying on her back. A slack smile creased her mottled face. Her crêpey eyelids draped over her closed eyes. Her arthritic hands were warm but there was no pulse at her wrist. Stéphanie touched her index finger to her lips and then placed it lightly on Nan’s blue ones. She arranged the blanket around her face. “It’s like she did this on purpose, passing away on this narrow bed with us so close to her in this tiny RV.”

“She wanted to avoid seeing Mom again. Mom wouldn’t forgive her if she told her about Daniel. What would that be like, to be judged for something that happened so long ago?” She reached over and hugged Stéphanie. Neither cried.

“You don’t know that, Brianna.”

“I don’t know what I know right now.”

“We should call Mom now,” Stéphanie said.

“It won’t change anything. We need to figure out what to tell her. Let’s go home.”

“Are you crazy? We can’t drive across the border with a dead person in the back of an RV. We should go to the police.”

“Think of all the questions. The paperwork. Let’s do it this way.” And Brianna thought about her dad, that he would do the same thing.

“What if it doesn’t work? We’ll end up in jail,” said Stéphanie but she was already moving into the passenger seat.

They stopped at the first rest station to get ice. “Can’t do it Stéph. You have to,” Bree said.

Stéphanie positioned the weeping blocks of ice around Nan’s body and arranged the blanket over them. Her fingertips tangled in Nan’s coarse hair. She reached over and patted the loose tendrils of grey hair back into place against her forehead.

Brianna tested ways to tell her mother that Nan had died—Mom, sorry, we should’ve turned around after the first day. She imagined her mother’s granite face. And what if she told her mom about Nan’s baby? Would that fix anything? Would her mother wonder why Nan hadn’t told her before? And then, as they buckled up their seatbelts, Stéphanie started crying, a noisy, messy crying.

“Stéphanie, not now. I can’t worry about the border, figure out how to tell Mom about Nan, listen to your crying and drive. We’ll cry when we get home, when it’s not night and I’m not driving on the Interstate.”

Stéphanie reached out and touched her hand.

They reached the border crossing in Vermont after midnight the next day. The RV smelt like sweaty old T-shirts. The lilac blanket shrouded the still shape of Nan’s body. Don’t panic, please do not panic, Brianna intoned silently as she licked the soft pearls of sweat from her upper lip.

The Canadian border officer was older, older than her dad. Blinking in the fluorescent glare of the overhead lights, Brianna passed him the three passports, the navy jackets fingerprinted with her sweat. Brianna’s cheeks burned. Stéphanie sat quietly, her hair falling over her face.

“How long have you been away?” He smiled and his tone was pleasant.

“Two and a half days. We took our grandmother to Myrtle Beach. She’s been ill and wanted a short holiday.” The false tone of her voice scared her and inside her chest, her heart was exploding.

“Anything to declare?”

“No,” she squeaked, her lips tightening around the O.

“Where are you heading?”

“Home, Montreal, our mother’s house.” She braced her vibrating hands on the steering wheel. The beam of his flashlight flooded the back of the RV illuminating the bundle huddled on the small couch.

“She’s sleeping, sir.”

He panned the flashlight around the rest of the interior. And slowly, he stowed his flashlight and turned to the computer screen in his booth. The blood rushing to Brianna’s brain drowned out all other sounds. What was he doing that was taking so long? She wiped her hands on her thighs and re-gripped the steering wheel.

Finally, he looked up, tapped the passports together on the counter and handed them to her. “OK girls. You get her home safely now.”

Brianna turned the key in the ignition, but the engine didn’t start.

“Put your foot on the brake. Then start it,” Stéphanie whispered.

After the choking stall, they lurched forward into Canada.

“I’m calling Mom now,” Stéphanie said as she pulled out her phone. “I‘ll do the talking.”

Brianna glanced at the orange glow of the border crossing shrinking behind them in the rear-view mirror. A long sigh whistled out of her mouth.

It was two weeks after Nan’s death. Mom was slouched on a stool at the kitchen counter. Her eyes were rimmed with red. The counter was strewn with aluminum trays of partially eaten casseroles, empty wine bottles and an untouched fruit basket. 

Stéphanie, her face in her laptop, was distracted, checking out journalism courses. “Don’t tell Mom about the baby,” she’d insisted. “Some secrets are necessary. Less pain for everybody.”

Brianna made her mom a cup of tea. “Darjeeling, you like it,” she said as she placed the mug in her mom’s hands.

“I was a terrible daughter,” Mom said starting to cry for the third time that morning. “I was selfish. I took Nan for granted.” Tears plopped into the mug.

“You did your best. We’re all doing our best.” Brianna rested her hand on her mom’s forearm and considered the cost of keeping Nan’s secret. Which sorrow would linger longer—the loss of Nan or the pain of not telling Mom about baby Daniel? Her Mom pushed her hand away.

“I was afraid of her the whole time I was growing up. The whole time when she was doing so much with so little.” Mom straightened her posture.“Is there any sugar?”

Brianna heaped two spoonfuls of sugar into her mom’s mug. Would it help Mom to know that Nan had withheld her love in the hope of finding her first baby? Could Brianna console her mom while omitting the one thing that needed to be said?

“I could have been a better daughter.” Mom sipped her tea noisily.

“It’s a two-way street, Mom. It’s hard to love someone who won’t receive it,” said Brianna.

She saw the gap more clearly—the space between Nan and Mom but also the gap between her mom and herself. Brianna’s fixing and striving didn’t narrow the gap—wouldn’t make her mom more loving. And neither would be telling Mom about Nan’s baby.

Brianna saw that she was a good enough daughter—the best one she was allowed to be. She deserved as much care and kindness as she gave her mom. She’d continue loving her mom knowing she’d never receive much in return.

But for now, she’d clean up the mess on the counter and make lunch. “How about I make some grilled cheese sandwiches?” she said, collecting the take-out containers and pushing them into the garbage bin.

Saving Things

Yesterday, the department chair, Charles Sully, threw Lucie under the bus again, giving her two days’ notice to organize a recruiting talk for the Marine Biology undergraduates. Now, he’s insisting on another meeting this morning.

Despite Lucie’s recent promotion to Associate Professor, Scully treats her like a post-doc. And it’s petty, but when the new slide-in plastic nameplate for her office door finally arrived, her name was misspelled. Her name, her grandmother’s name, is Lucie, not Lucy.

She’s reviewing the slides for her lecture when an email from the department secretary at McGill lights up her inbox. Her ex-partner, Michael Sumner, is dead. Fifty-nine years old. Beloved husband of Claire and father of Brianna and Stéphanie. Humorous, collegial, and an outstanding mentor to his students. What else could they say? Irresponsible, philanderer, abuser.

The affair was a tragedy but not as terrible as her father dying of mesothelioma—all those years working with asbestos insulation. If her father hadn’t died that spring, if she hadn’t been so full of sorrow, would she have run away with Michael that June, seven years ago?

The alert on her phone rings. Time to get to Sully’s office.

“You’re late,” he growls. His shaggy beard and high forehead remind Lucie of the portrait of Melville in her copy of Moby Dick. She perches on the low folding chair before his desk like a schoolgirl in the principal’s office.

“First things first. The news about the death of Michael Sumner this morning. Sorry. I didn’t know him as well as you did…”

She flushes. Sully knew about Michael here at Dalhousie? Well, departments are small, and people gossip. She shouldn’t be surprised but the way he is staring at her is off like he’s making some kind of decision.

“But that’s not why you’re here. I’m assigning you the first-year biology course starting in January. Your teaching portfolio is thin for an Associate Professor.”

Thin. Really. Since she began to teach five years ago, she’s picked up more lower-level courses than any other staff. Endless batches of first years bullying her for higher grades. “That’s not fair. I’m more than qualified to teach 300 and 400 series courses.” Her tone is high-pitched and whiny, the opposite of how she wants to sound. 

“It’s not for discussion and what about tomorrow’s lecture? You’re prepared?” His lips tighten as though he’s suppressing a smirk.

“Of course.”

She feels the same uneasiness she had around Michael—all those edgy criticisms. She sits up straighter in the chair and stares past him at the pretentious painting of the fully rigged, tall ship hanging above his desk. Be agreeable. “The sooner the undergrads consider graduate work the more likely they are to commit to further study. A postgraduate program is essential to advancing the research of any department.”

“You’ve been enjoying the advantages of having PhD students,” he says steepling his fingers under his moustache. “All those first authorships.”

Her heart slams about inside her chest as he scans her face for a reaction. “I stand by the roles I’ve had in all my publications,” she replies coolly. But is she missing something? Has someone complained?

“It’s my responsibility to ensure the ongoing academic integrity of all the members of this department. You’ve been warned,” he says waving his arm towards the door.

She gets up, forcing herself not to run, not to trip over her self-doubt.

“Expect to see me at your lecture tomorrow. I’ll be evaluating the presentation for your teaching file.”

The news of Michael’s death and Sully’s insinuations have shaken her. That afternoon at coffee, she confides in her older colleague, Deborah.

“I’ve worked so hard. Teaching. Research. I deserve a medal for running all those 100 and 200 series courses.”

“Patience, girl. How old are you, mid-thirties? Already an associate professor. I’ve been here for two decades, stuck in an adjunct position,” says Deborah. “Undergrads around here get more respect.”

Lucie nods. “The Canadian abstract deadline is coming up. I’m behind with the analysis of my Bottlenose cortisol data. And I got stuck with that last-minute lecture at lunch tomorrow. Did Sully ask you to present?”

“Yes, and I told him no. I’m not at the stage in my career where I need to impress anyone. He’s not bullying me.” says Deborah, applying lipstick.

Lucie stares at the tan lipstick smudged on the corner of Deborah’s upper lip but doesn’t know her well enough to mention it. She’d sound paranoid if she mentioned Sully had implied she was stealing her PhD students’ work.

Lucie picks up her coffee cup and papers. “We’ll be late for the staff meeting.”

It’s evening and Lucie meets her boyfriend, Sam, at the local pub. He’s a speech therapist, who works with hearing-impaired kids. Sam is five years younger than her, newly thirty. But at least he isn’t one of her students.

They share some french fries. She nibbles four of them—Michael’s voice in her head—Don’t want to get fat, do we? But all his controlling didn’t work. He’s dead. She hasn’t told Sam about Michael or the hold he had over her during the nine months of their affair. The house band starts.

“Come back to my place. We’ll talk?” Sam signs as he licks the foam from his beer off his upper lip. “Friday night sleepover?”

He’s teaching her American Sign Language and Lucie loves it when they practice. She shakes her head and signs back, “I love you.” He’s allergic to her cat when they sleep together, they go to his place.

Her signing vocabulary is fragile and she must think more carefully before she signs. When flustered, she forgets the gestures but she likes the idea of another way to communicate, to be better understood. “I have that lecture to give tomorrow,” she says, emptying her glass of house white. “I’ll come over after.”

“Walk you home then,” he says, frowning below the brim of his toque.

They walk past the flickering neon sign of their favourite restaurant to her apartment. Would Sam be more insistent that they move in together if she didn’t have the cat? For now, Pattie protects her from such a decision. Since Michael, she’s afraid of commitments, even to a sweetie like Sam.

Lucie lies in bed, watching the shadows playing on the dimly lit ceiling. Pattie’s purring competes with the clamouring inside her skull—thoughts of Michael and the vague threats from Sully.

She remembers the department’s December drinks party when Michael approached her. It was four o’clock, wet snowflakes slapping against the windows of the seminar room. 

“Hello there, Beluga-Girl,” he said. “Did your cortisol stuff get published yet?”

An electrical thrill buzzed through her. He knew her work. 

After glancing around the room, he ran his fingers through her hair. “Magnificent,” he said.

After that, nothing else mattered—the differences in status, their ages or his marriage with two teenage daughters.

Lucie oscillated between her infatuation with Michael and the misery of her father’s incurable mesothelioma. She had nothing left for her belugas, so that January, she quit her PhD.

Nobody tried to stop her from quitting. If one of her grad students wanted to quit, she’d do something. But nobody helped her. Not Michael. Not her thesis supervisor. Not her parents.

But her brother, Jake, did try. “Dad’s death is messing with your mind. Michael is a middle-aged, stagnant academic looking for a thrill. You’re a striving PhD student starved for attention. Don’t quit. Don’t go with him.”

It was June when she moved with Michael to Victoria where his former Ecology department welcomed him back. He promised Lucie there’d be orcas and humpbacks to study. He promised her she’d be more successful than she could ever be in Montreal. She believed him.

The weeks passed in Victoria and the relationship soured. She couldn’t find an academic job and worked as a server. She was clumsy and forgetful—the wrong temperament for the job. Michael mocked her stories of spilled drinks and broken plates. “Get a real job.” But she failed to find one.

That summer, on her birthday, he gave her expensive sunglasses from MEC—cool and perfect for ocean research. But then, he told her that his first affair was when his wife, Claire, was pregnant with their eldest child. Lucie yanked off the glasses, stunned by the satisfied look on his face. “Joy robber.”

Since she left Michael, Lucie’s resisted an urge to contact his wife, Claire, and the two daughters he’d abandoned—to apologize for the shabby adventure. Instead, she found the courage to approach a Dalhousie prof, a kind man now retired in the desert. She begged him to supervise the final two years of her PhD. The Beluga data set and her publication saved her sorry ass. She was lucky to get back on track and she’s not going to let a creep like Sully push her off.

She’s thirty-five now, too young for a full professorship but getting old for other things, like having a family. Since Michael, it’s difficult to trust anyone, even Sam.

She takes a sleeping pill and crawls into bed. She rubs the special place behind Pattie’s tufted ears as he burrows under the comforter beside her neck. Eventually, she falls asleep.

At the auditorium, Mary Cosset, the department administrative assistant approaches her. “Sully’s cancelled the usual dinner for the presenter—too expensive for an internal speaker. And he’s grumbling about the cost of the sandwiches and coffee I ordered for lunch.”

“I’m on Sully’s shit list. Hope this lecture will get me off it.”

Mary smiles as she reaches over and straightens the collar of Lucie’s blouse under her blazer.

This morning as Lucie made her latté, Michael was right there, his voice in her head. He’d been a jerk but taught her how to make a great coffee.

“Good job, Lucie.”

You’re dead, Michael. Leave me alone. I’ve got a presentation to give.

“Sure. But Sully’s on to you.”

What does he mean by that?

Lucie scans the auditorium—about seventy-five students, more than she’d expected. For sure, they know about the free food. She’s skipped more of these lunch lectures than she should have. She could have learned more about the department’s dirty details at these events. 

Sully’s chatting in the front row with his deputy, Winchester—ignoring her and everyone else. 

After his introduction, she adjusts the height of the microphone and begins. “First, a bit about belugas from my McGill years.” She starts the video of her research team in orange survival suits in a Zodiac tracking a beluga pod in the St Lawrence River. There’s the clip of her launching the blubber biopsy dart from the crossbow. Her first time. There’s a gasp from the students at the thwack of the strike and the dark blush of blood washing out from behind the dorsal fin. She’d been terrified she’d hurt the whale.

“Now on to the big guys. North American Right Whales are critically endangered. Less than three hundred and fifty left.” Michael’s voice interrupts her. “Tackling Sully’s research, eh? Bad choice Lucie.”

Lucie highlights the summer when seventeen Right whales died in the Gulf of St Lawrence from entanglement or ship strikes. “Our group’s research convinced the government to close the snow crab fishery and enforce slower shipping speeds. Cruise ship routes were changed. The docks at Charlottetown were deserted.”

She senses the students’ interest and describes the acoustical tracking buoy network monitoring whale calls, showing their location in real-time. “You can’t protect whales if you don’t know where they are.”

Lucie licks her lips and clears her throat as she finishes. “Thank you for coming. I look forward to meeting you on campus.”

Sully presses his lips together in that weird way again. He is smirking. He approaches the microphone. The students are fidgety, looking at their phones—likely eager to get out to the lobby and into the food.

“Dr LeBlanc, thank you for your presentation.” He continues. “We’re a small department, small teams cooperating in the labs, in the field and on the research vessels. I’d have appreciated a little credit for the Right Whale research you’ve presented today but nevertheless, I look forward to your next contribution to this lecture series.”

Lucie squeezes her fingers into fists at her sides. She had referenced his research, but she hadn’t agreed to more lectures. She needs to escape before she does something regrettable. She glances at Mary.

“I’ll bring a sandwich to your office,” Mary says pointing her down the hall.

It’s six o’clock and dark outside. Lucie is at her computer combing through her presentation. Had she forgotten to mention Sully? Everyone is attributed even that pre-med student who showed up for one week that summer. She’d included pictures of all the team members—the vessel crew, the technicians, the students, the lab assistants, everyone. For sure, Sully was the Right Whale guy but all the stuff she presented was after his time. It wasn’t his work.

A text. Sully. Meet me in my office, now. Is he going to apologize for embarrassing her at lunch? She’s afraid of what she’ll say to him.

Sully gets up from behind his desk. He must know how rattled she is. “You’ve had a bit of a free ride here so far.” His pointy teeth flash below his moustache. “I’m wondering how we can get along better. Help each other out.”

She stops just inside the doorway. He reaches behind her and closes the door. Everything feels wrong.

“You think you would have been awarded that MEOPAR grant without my endorsement? Or your promotion would have happened without my influence?”

“Think about it Lucie. Both the promotion and the grant, with your experience.” Michael’s voice again. 

“Yes to both. I exceeded all the criteria,” she says staring at Sully’s piggy black eyes. But Michael did have a point. It was extraordinary.

“My girl, that’s only part of it. You do the bare minimum of committee work, cherry-pick the simplest research projects and ride on the backs of your students’ work. You’re not fooling anyone.”

“He’s on to you, Lucie.”

Lucie steps back as he approaches even closer. It’s not true. Or is it? There’s always more work to do in an academic department.

“Without my advocacy, the committee would not have approved your promotion.” He reaches and grips her forearm with his thick fingers. A worn leather belt slung below his belly is holding up his baggy jeans.

Her eyes water.

“You need me. You need to appreciate my support.” He leans forward squeezing her shoulder with his other hand.

He was too close—the smells of pipe tobacco and drug store aftershave. His shirt is untucked now, falling over his belly. Disgusting.

“Get. Your. Hand. Off. Me,” she says in her deepest voice. “I’ll scream.”

“Go ahead. Everyone’s gone. It’s just us.”

Rage strengthens Lucie. He steps forward to brace her against the door. She lunges forward and knees him in the groin.

He pulls away, staggering and groaning, “You bitch,” he gasps.

She yanks open the door and bolts down the empty hallway.

Lucie’s boot heels strike the pavement as she strides home across the poorly lit commons. She shivers in the wind blowing up from the harbour. She texts Sam. She’s not going over. She doesn’t want to explain why she’s upset.

She’s confused. She hasn’t done anything wrong but a person in Sully’s position could ruin her career in a moment.

At home, she showers, swallows another sleeping pill and crawls into bed beside the cat. As she drifts off to sleep, she hears Michael. “Being smart isn’t enough Lucie. It’s a complicated system.”

It’s Friday morning. Lucie strides with her head down through the crowded, blue-glass atrium of the Marine Biology building. She crashes into Deborah.

“Whoa, girl. What’s up with you?” Deborah asks.

Lucie bursts into tears as Deborah steers her into her office and sits her down on the small couch.

“Sully,” says Lucie wiping her eyes with her coat sleeve. 

“His name was on the work he’d done, and it wasn’t on anything he hadn’t.”

Deborah looks unsurprised as Lucie, trembling, describes the assault.

“We need to go to the human rights office,” says Deborah powering up her computer. “I’ll get the contact info.”

“It’s he said, she said,” Lucie says. “Sully’s the one with all the power here. They won’t believe me.”

“What he’s doing is wrong and there may be others, Lucie. You have to.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You know he’s wrong.” Deborah pushes the tissue box across her desk. “Think of all the shit we’ve survived so far.”

“I don’t think I have the energy to start over again. To go where? Memorial? Back to McGill? Lucie snorts into the wad of tissues.

“When this is cleared up, it’s gonna hurt Sully more than you. The allegation of harassment is enough to stall his career.”

Maybe Sully knew Michael better than she thought. Deborah must know about her affair with Michael too.

“Sully’s, not a nice man. It takes courage to go up against this stuff.” Deborah hands her a mug of instant coffee.

Lucie’s teaspoon clinks as she stirs the clumps of Coffee Mate. Courage. The last time she summoned that amount of courage was the August afternoon in the apartment, the day before she left Michael, the day he found her plane ticket.

Michael pushed up against her and backed her against the window blinds. He spoke, massaging each syllable as though he expected her to repeat what he said.

“Go ahead. Leave. Try to pick yourself up. It won’t work.” He tapped his finger on her breastbone. “You’re unconnected. I’m the one who’s connected. He pulled his finger back and locked his eyes on hers. “I’ll make sure you never get an academic job again. Ever. Anywhere. I’ll make sure of that until I die.” 

Shaking, she wrenched her gaze free from his. The bare-branched ficus tree stood in the corner, dried leaves littering the parquet floor around it. She left him the following morning.

No One Will Be Looking At You

Brianna’s first funeral was her father’s. She stood with her mother and sister, Stéphanie, on the steps outside McGill Chapel in the amber light of the late October afternoon. On the sidewalk below, students rushed past on their way to class.

The Holt Renfrew shopper had chosen the matching outfits—their mother’s idea. The itchy fabric of the V-necked dress gaped at her chest and strained over her bum and thighs. Her panties were cutting into the flesh of her buttocks. She’d have been better off wearing her flight attendant’s uniform. At least it fit her.

“Stand up straight, Brianna,” said her mother, Claire.

“And stop tugging at your hem?” Stéphanie added in her new irritating up-speak. Everything she said sounded like a question. 

“Stop picking at me. It’s hard enough already.” 

Nan, her grandmother, stood beside them in her black crepe, Chanel-style suit, the same one she’d worn at her husband’s funeral fifty–odd years ago.

The death of Brianna’s father was unexpected. Two weeks ago, one of the night cleaners found him slumped over his desk in front of his computer. The doctor explained it was a heart attack. He’d have turned sixty in November.

Dad and Mom had been separated for years. Brianna was sixteen when he had an affair with a graduate student, and Claire threw him out. He’d moved to Victoria with his fling, but six months later, after she’d left him, he slunk back to Montreal, to his teaching job at McGill and them. Mom refused to let him move back into the house, but Brianna was convinced her parents still loved each other—always asking her and Stéphanie sneaky questions about how the other one was doing.

Brianna and Nan made their way into the chapel behind Stéphanie, whose hand rested on their mother’s shoulder. With her hesitant steps, Claire looked like a crow with a broken wing.

Claire took small, careful steps along the flagstone floor of the chapel. The light touch of Stéphanie’s hand guided her to the front pew. At any moment, she’d lose her balance and fall over. It wasn’t the hangover from the sleeping pill she’d taken last night; it was the unexpected grief—grief for her unfaithful husband.

Last week, she’d met the rector, Anglican, a gentle person, who hadn’t known Michael. Claire sat quietly in the church office as her daughters described him; a sporty, funny, loving father. They’d left out his untidy infidelities.

Claire left out some things too—that Michael had fathered a child with their friend, Fiona. The girl was sixteen now. She’d also left out that she and Fiona were much more than friends but that was still hard to say. It was complicated, the three of them working together, being friends and at times, lovers.

A few years later, there was that incident with the graduate student.  She didn’t let Michael move back in. But she’d allowed him to come to the family cottage, to be with their daughters and to pretend that they were a normal family.

And now Michael was dead. The sense of unfinished business distressed her. Perhaps he was getting to the place where he was willing to make amends. They could have apologized to each other.

Two evenings ago, Claire and her daughters tried on the outfits she’d ordered for the funeral. Despite refusing to participate in Claire’s wardrobe plan, her mother had joined them.

“I have a suitable outfit, Claire,” Nan said. “I sewed it for my husband’s funeral. Ready-to-wear on an occasion like this?”

Oh Mom. A seamstress. A snob. Uncompromising. But she was enjoying the pizza that Claire had ordered.

Nan dabbed tomato sauce from the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin and spoke softly to Brianna, who sat beside her on the couch. She gave Brianna’s hand a purposeful squeeze. Her daughters shared their secrets with their grandmother. Claire didn’t have the patience for their dramas about boyfriends or unfairness at their jobs.

Had her mother ever told the girls that, in the beginning, she didn’t like Michael? She’d warned Claire not to marry him. Said Claire was marrying too far up, overreaching. It would only lead to trouble. But over the years, her mother and Michael became allies. They’d teamed up against her in a shared resentment of her accomplishments. After all, she was an internationally recognized, tenured professor with hundreds of publications. But truth be told, Michael and Nan had done most of the work raising the girls so Claire could have her career. Everything has a cost. And then Fiona. But that was after Michael had let her down so badly.

Claire watched Stéphanie slide into her dress. The jersey fabric of the wrap dress clung to her jutting hip bones. She looked fabulous. Claire still watched what Stéphanie ate. Her eating disorder was a lifelong condition, but she’d gobbled down an entire slice of pizza. 

“Your turn, Brianna,” Claire said, pushing the garment bag toward her.

Brianna struggled as she wriggled the dress up over her hips. “It doesn’t fit.” She slid her hand into the gaping front. “The jacket won’t fix this.”

Nan nodded. Claire felt the corners of her mouth tightening. Brianna wasn’t pulling her weight. “No one will be looking at you, Brianna.” No, they won’t. They’ll be looking at Stéphanie.

But now, they were in the chapel, seated in the front pew—Nan beside Stéphanie, then her, and Brianna on the aisle. They looked unified, dignified—a sort of solidarity against the shock of Michael’s death.

Claire’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. Her chest felt tight, and it was difficult to breathe. She interlaced her fingers with Stéphanie’s and let out a long sigh.

Brianna stared at the pewter urn containing her dad’s ashes resting on the altar table a few feet in front of her. Beside it was the picture of him smiling, his curly chestnut bangs draped over his forehead. It was Stéphanie who’d taken the photo—the final weekend they’d been at the cottage. She’d also chosen the pointed, patent shoes crushing Brianna’s toes. She gripped her tongue between her teeth and wriggled her heels out of them. 

Last week, Brianna had met Stéphanie at Dad’s apartment on Nun’s Island to choose a suit for his cremation. Mom had refused to come.

She found Stéphanie standing in his bedroom, her fists on her hips, gazing through the streaky windows at the view of the swirling waters of the St Lawrence River.

“We walked across the river on the Escalade with Dad?” Stéph said.

More annoying up-speak—must be nerves. Brianna sniffed. “I remember. That Minke whale swimming upstream. It died.” She felt her face screwing up tightly in the way that was supposed to stop her crying. She retreated into the tiny bathroom, shut the door, and slumped onto the toilet seat. Abandoned on the edge of the spit-splattered sink were Dad’s worn-out toothbrush and a chubby tube of toothpaste squeezed in the middle. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue, flushed it down the toilet and went back out.

Stéphanie slid back the mirrored closet doors. “Not much here, Bree?” 

The hangers scraped as she pulled each one across the metal rod.

“What about this?” she said, holding up a navy-blue pinstripe suit.

“That’s not him,” Brianna said. 

“This tie?” Stéphanie held up a brown tie, patterned diagonally with dark blobs. If you looked closely, you could see they were perching birds. “Mom gave it to him. Birds, it’s how they met.”

“Never saw him wear that either,” Brianna said.

Stéphanie pulled his camel hair jacket off the mangled wire hanger. “The tie’s perfect with this?”

Brianna stepped closer and pushed her face into the lapels of the jacket. “That’s his scent, that oaky scent. She held up the sleeve. “Remember?”

Stéphanie sniffed the sleeve. Brianna saw that she didn’t. “No tie. The cream turtleneck he always wore,” Brianna said, her voice muffled in the fabric of the jacket.

Stéphanie found the crumpled turtleneck stuffed in his bottom dresser drawer. Her nose wrinkled as she held it up.

“Doesn’t matter Stéph, it’ll be fine,” Brianna said too sharply.

 “I’m just as sad as you are, Bree. He was my dad too.”

“Sorry.” She hadn’t meant to be mean, but she’d been closer to him. She’d understood him better than Steph.

But none of that mattered anymore. Dad and his clothes had been cremated. What was left of him was in that urn. She sat on the hard oak bench, tugging at her sweaty polyester dress and wishing she could hug him.

Claire glanced back at her friends and colleagues, murmuring among themselves as they filed into the pews. The air was thick with smells of polished wood and dusty hymnals. The organist was playing a mournful Bach piece she couldn’t name, the one the rector had suggested. What would Michael have chosen if he’d had the chance?

Nathalie, the department chair, caught her eye, making a warm half-smile. Claire spotted the cleaner who’d found Michael. And there was his uncle, Fred, ninety-four now, bent over his walker and shuffling up the aisle with his caregiver. 

And despite their argument last night, Fiona had come. She sat in the final row beside sixteen-year-old Sophia. Claire had begged Fiona to come, to help her get through the day.

“Sophia never knew Michael. He wasn’t in the picture.” Fiona said.

“Come for me.” Claire replied. 

Claire recalled the kerfuffle in the department seventeen years ago—Fiona announcing she was planning to get pregnant and raise a child single-handedly. Michael agreed to donate his sperm. Claire should have anticipated that Michael would get involved with Fiona after the baby was born. After all, he did have a history.

Sophia was two years old and in daycare. Claire and Fiona had resumed their weekly habit of coffee on The Main. The single parenting had been rough on Fiona. She had no other family and Claire and Michael helped when they could. At eight and ten, the girls were too young to be of any use babysitting. But they should have let the girls meet their half-sister—be included in raising her.

Claire was sipping her cappuccino, her mouth stuffed with apple torte when Fiona reached across the café table and gripped her arm.

“I can’t sit here chatting with you like nothing’s going on,” she said, more huskily than usual. “No more lying for me. I’ve been screwing Michael since before I got pregnant. I’m sorry.”

Claire choked on her pastry and lowered her cup. So obvious now. His willingness to father the baby. His attentiveness to Fiona. She lifted Fiona’s hand from her arm and stared into her moistening eyes. “And now?”

“We’re done now.” Fiona rubbed her eyes. “I was blinded by wanting a child and then so grateful. I needed him.” Tears flowed. “I was a project,” she whispered between sobs.

Fucking Michael. Again. With Fiona. Michael needing to be needed—then, the usual, he loses interest.

“I was using him to get what I wanted but …”

Claire took Fiona’s hand. “He has a way of getting what he wants, when he wants, Fiona.” Claire was angry but not at Fiona. Claire had helped set Fiona up. She was the victim—postpartum, single mother, home alone for those first nine months. Claire should’ve seen it coming. 

Fiona’s phone alarm rang. “Gotta go. Daycare’s gonna fine me if I’m late.”

“I’ll need some time, Fiona,” Claire said as she got up and hugged her tightly. “Let’s talk again tomorrow and all the days after that.”

They did talk more. They became a couple. But now Michael’s dead and the girls still haven’t been told about Sophia or even harder, Fiona.

The organ was quiet now. If Brianna thought of only breathing in and then breathing out, she’d get through this. Gregory, her dad’s childhood friend, delivered the eulogy, telling his favourite story, “He Just Wouldn’t Leave.” Dad had loved describing casting his father’s ashes into Georgian Bay, the horror of the greasy pile refusing to sink or drift away. What would they do with Dad’s ashes?

Her mother, who was not religious, had insisted on a reading of the 23rd Psalm from the King James Version. Brianna wanted to read the lyrics of a Tragically Hip song.

“It was Dad’s favourite song, his favourite band,” Brianna said. “Ahead by a Century.”

“It’s a rock song.”

“It’s a love song, Mom.”

Brianna refused to read anything else, so Stéphanie read the psalm in her stupid up-speak. “The lord is my shepherd” is not a question, Brianna murmured under her breath. Her brain brimmed with messy feelings–annoyance with Stéphanie for being such a show-off, sorrow for her mother and fury at her father for dying.

As Brianna squirmed on the bench to adjust her panties, she glimpsed of a tall woman sitting on the aisle in the last pew. Her oval face was strangely familiar. From Mom’s work? And beside her, looking like she wanted to bolt out the door, was a slender, white-faced teenager. Her hair was frizzy, ginger like Stéphanie’s but tugged into a bun. They had the same almond-shaped, emerald eyes.

A memory flashed through Brianna’s mind. She was seven. It was a summer Sunday afternoon, in a small park with wilted geraniums in the window boxes of the row houses surrounding the square.

She and Stéphanie, who was five, were playing on the swings near the fountain. Brianna glanced back to check for her dad and saw the woman with the oval face sitting beside him on the park bench. Her long legs were stretched out in front of her, and her hands were clasped over her pregnant belly.

“Hey, Brianna. Come here.”

Dad was smiling, drumming his fingers on the back of the bench.

The woman looked at her with shining green eyes. “You’re noticing my belly.” Brianna nodded. “Would you like to touch it?”

Brianna did but she squeezed her hands together behind her back.

“Take your sister. Get some ice cream,” Dad said, handing her a five-dollar bill.

“By ourselves?”

“By yourselves.”

But when Brianna was in the variety store, Stéphanie disappeared. “Dad, I’ve lost Stéphanie,” she panted as she ran towards the couple on the bench in the park.

He grinned and pointed towards the fountain, where Stéphanie was trailing her fingers in the water. Brianna worried that Dad would tell Mom that she’d lost Stéphanie. She worried that she’d forgotten to close the freezer in the store.

“Bree, you worry too much for someone your age,” Dad said.

“The Day Brianna Lost Stéphanie,” became one of his favourite stories. When he told it, he never mentioned the woman, Fiona. But the worst part was that Dad hadn’t understood how frightened she’d been.

The rector’s voice hummed in the background. Brianna twisted on the hard pew considering what Nan had whispered to her the other night on the couch.

“Well, your dad can’t harm anyone anymore, can he?” 

Brianna wasn’t sure what Nan meant. He’d hurt her on the ice-cream day and that summer he went to Victoria. And why did that woman, Fiona, and the girl with the hair like Stéphanie’s belong at his funeral?

The service was over. Claire, flanked by her daughters and mother, made her way down the aisle and out of the dim chapel into the afternoon light. They stood in a line at the top of the steps. Claire exchanged kisses and hugs with Michael’s colleagues and friends. She and Fiona shared a long embrace.

“Sorry about last night,” Fiona whispered in her ear. “Of course, Sophia should be here.” She patted Claire’s bum when they moved apart.

“Who was that woman?” Brianna asked rubbing her hands on her thighs.

“My colleague, Fiona. And her daughter, Sophia.” 

Fiona’s arm was draped around Sophia’s shoulder as if to shelter her from the day’s sadness.

“Her hair’s just like Stéphanie’s. Same green eyes,” said Brianna.

“But her posture’s terrible. So slouchy and sulky,” said Claire, relieved her daughters were through the sloppy teenage phase and concerned at what lay ahead for Fiona. “Fiona works in the department. And yes, Sophia’s hair is just like Stéphanie’s. They’re both lucky.” 

Claire stopped. There’s never a good time. She took Brianna’s elbow and guided her away from the remaining guests. “Brianna, this is important. I should have told you years ago.” She pulled her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath.  “Michael fathered Sophia with Fiona. Sophia is your half-sister.”

“A half-sister? said Brianna. “Is this a joke? Does Stéphanie know?”

“Not a joke, Brianna. And let’s not tell Stéphanie. Not today. And please close your mouth.”

Claire saw Brianna’s confusion. Deaths and funerals make you do reckless things. It was the wrong time and the wrong day to tell her, but there was no going back. She glanced at Stéphanie, swaying in her high heels and flicking her flaming hair about in conversation with Michael’s soccer buddies. “Come on, girls. Let’s get to the reception.”

Claire hurried the girls past the brass-handled doors and into the faculty club. The flowers and linens did look elegant. The two-tiered cake was beautiful—royal icing decorated with tiny marzipan birds like the ones on that tie she’d him bought years ago. She’d resented the extravagant catering costs, but the girls had insisted. Her lawyer assured her there was nothing to worry about. Michael’s wealth would come to her. But she’d never stop worrying about money. She’d inherited that from her mother.

And now Michael was dead, she’d have to re-examine everything. Re-examine her anger, her disappointment and her contempt for him. To find what—sorrow or maybe even forgiveness? But if she was being truthful, she wished for a different ending; for another chance to tell him that she had loved him, at least in the beginning. But she didn’t forgive him for abusing her love with all those infidelities. Would he have forgiven her if she’d told him about her love for Fiona?

Brianna leaned against the wall of the reception room. Waves of chatter washed over her. Claire tilted her head to signal that she should join her and Stéphanie in welcoming the guests. Not yet. She hadn’t caught her breath. She wasn’t sure if she could walk. She was drowning in disbelief and anger. Today was supposed to be about Dad. The loss and the grief. Not the day to find out about a half-sister. Claire. So cruel. Questions churned inside her. Had Dad loved Sophia as much as her and Stéphanie? 

Claire had misjudged the situation. She hadn’t meant to be cruel. Poor Brianna propped up against the wall. So serious. Misunderstood. Her life would be so much easier if she’d lighten up. Claire should have spoken to Stéphanie first. She might have been amused at the situation, after all, they did look alike. It had been a mistake not to tell the girls sooner. Claire and Fiona told them the same day they told Sophia about Michael. But she and Fiona weren’t ready to come clean about their relationship. The girls would have seen it. Muddy water under a rickety bridge. 

Brianna made her way over to join them. Good girl. She’s recovering. They’d stand together for the remainder of the reception to receive condolences about Michael.

But in the future, it would be up to the girls to learn how to manage life’s tough truths. Like fledglings being forced from the nest, they needed to grow up. She wasn’t responsible for their happiness. It was hard enough to find her own happiness. But she’d begin by ensuring she got a slice of that expensive cake before it all disappeared.