The Hummingbird

It’s the middle of September. I’ve been locked up here on the Eating Disorders Unit of the hospital for three weeks. There are nineteen sad-looking girls with ugly plastic ID bracelets on their wrists walking out around this long ward with the alarmed doors at each end.

I did some stupid stuff this summer, like starving myself. But the best stupid thing I did was getting a tattoo. A black outline of a hummingbird sits on my right shoulder. Nan, my grandmother, took me to the parlour around the corner from her place in Verdun and signed for me. It didn’t hurt that much. No one else knows, not Mom, not Dad and not my older sister, Brianna, who is sixteen. I love it and I’ll have it forever. I got it in May, the week that Mom threw Dad out. He was screwing one of his graduate students. Now he’s in Victoria, teaching at the university and I’m locked up here.

You can tell who’s new here on the ward. Until the staff trust you, you wear pink scrubs with the hospital initials, HSJ, printed on them in sulking black letters. The twill polyester fabric grips the thighs of the fat girls and sags from the shoulders of the skinny ones. Everyone here is too something—too fat, too skinny, too needy, too boring, too sad, too hopeless. The fat girls hate the skinny girls, and the skinny girls hate them back. I can smell it. The one thing we all agree on is don’t trust the workers. Any second, somebody might grab you and force a piece of bread or a pill down your throat.

I’m not even the skinniest girl here. The week I arrived Genevieve was transferred to the ICU. Emélie stayed out of ICU by allowing them to insert the slender yellow feeding tube that dangles from her nostril during the day and feeds her at night while she sleeps. A stale milk odour lingers ‘round her.

I told the nurses I smoke so I can chew Nicorette like a few of the other girls do. It tastes terrible but I get a bit of a buzz and something to do besides folding origami cranes and journaling. This journaling is killing me.

I love to read and write but here, I’m supposed to write down the good things about my mom—determined, smart, industrious, and so on. If I think of a bad thing, I change it to a good thing—bossy to organized, away-all-the-time   to committed-to-her-work. Like that. The therapists help me find good ways to think about her. I’ve scribbled a lot in this book and today I wrote kind and loving because that’s what I want to be. I mean I’m making this stuff up anyway.

And the whole time I’m doing all these exercises, I’m thinking about what I did in June. And every time someone asks, “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” I shake my head and say “I don’t think so.” But here’s what happened.

It was the first week of June. I was walking to school past the grand houses in Westmount with their green velvet lawns, tidy flower beds filled with early blooming roses and the scents of lilac and wisteria. But it was a sad time for me because Dad had left for Victoria the May long weekend. And that week, Brianna, who was nearly sixteen and in Grade Ten, ditched me to walk with her friends. All they talk about is the movie that Mom won’t let me see, The Hunger Games.

A wolf-whistle startled me. Who whistles like that? I jerked my head around. A gardening guy in a green T-shirt and cut-offs standing beside the rose bed, grinned at me from under a darker green ball cap. The green leafy curling La Scène Verte logo on his hat matched the one on his t-shirt. His lips were pouty and his smile lopsided to his right. His tanned calves bulged above his work boots.

He raised his arm and waved. Flustered, my thumbs stuck beneath the shoulder straps of my backpack, I flickered my fingers in his direction. My heart was whirring. My face was burning. He was staring at me, my legs. I tugged my uniform skirt down to cover my legs and shoved my thumbs further under my backpack straps. I wanted to run but that would look too lame. And right away, I knew I wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened, especially not Brianna. 

For the next two weeks, I walked the long way to school, past the apartments. It wasn’t as pretty but I didn’t have to think about running into that guy again. But that wasn’t true. I was thinking about him a lot and why he did that. Did he think I was cute? The guy was maybe twenty.

Had Dad ever whistled at girls like that when he was that age? My stomach clenched as I imagined that grad student with him in Victoria.

I’d been rolling up the waistband of my uniform skirt after I left the house each morning. I stopped. I wanted it to cover my knees. The other girls would have teased me if I didn’t hiked it up when I was at the school gates. I had the longest skirt of all of them.

It was the day of my English final. I was late and took my old route. When I turned the corner, I saw a truck with La Scène Verte painted in large, pale green letters on its side parked in front of the same house. What would I’d do if that guy was there. I walked faster and pulled Dad’s tattered Expos hat down over my brow.

“Hey you,” a low voice called out.

I kept my head down. “Got an exam. Gotta go.” He walked toward me but stayed on the grass. I backed away to the far edge of the sidewalk.

“Meet me after? Coffee?”

He seemed nice with his crooked smile. My heart was racing like the last time. The oldest boy I’d ever spoken to was in Grade Ten and now here was this guy, all muscly and big-jawed, trying to get my attention. “I have to go.” I turned and ran the five blocks to school without stopping. At the iron railings, I bent over, sucking in deep breaths, and waited for the pounding of my heart to stop. I didn’t notice the pain from my shoulder strap rubbing on the skin of my tattoo until I was sitting in my exam.

I knew Lord of the Flies, inside-out so even tho’ my brain was fizzing with confusing thoughts—he was interested in me, a skinny Grade Eight kid—the exam went OK. I was chatting with my girlfriends by the school yard railings when I saw him. He’d followed me. He waved that same wave and smiled that same smile.

“Do ya’ know that guy?” my friend Becky asked as we gathered by the railing.

“Not exactly.”

“Why’s he waving at you?”

Becky wrapped her arms around her chest so her hands clutched her back like she was being hugged by a guy. “Stéphie’s got a boyfriend,” she chanted.

“Do not. Don’t even know him.” Idiots, I thought as I spun about and stomped off toward the school gate. But he tracked me from the other side of the railings.

“Hi. Wanna go for coffee?”

That husky voice. My stomach fluttered. “I don’t drink coffee.” My voice was squeaky, and I knew I must be blushing again.

But that was how we got started. He bought me a Coke from the dépanneur and we shared it on the bench in the park near the school. He held my sweaty hand. His fingernails were dirty, his palms rough. My hand felt fragile inside his grip. He put his arm around me. I smelt the salty sweaty scent from his day’s work. He was way taller than me and meaty against my boniness.

We met every afternoon for the rest of the week. He told me his name was Roy. I think I told him mine, but he only called me Babe. I never learned his last name or where he lived or anything important about him.

He held my hand and touched my lips with his fingers. He said he loved my long thick hair and ran his hands through it. He touched my neck and held my face in his hands. We hadn’t kissed yet, but I’d decided that he could be my boyfriend. Brianna had a boyfriend so why shouldn’t I? I wasn’t going to tell her yet. I imagined us hugging and kissing on the couch in the basement like Brianna and Marc did. Maybe even French kissing?

The morning after my last exam, he picked me up in his friend’s rusted-out Honda Civic. We’d planned to drive to his friend’s cottage in the country for a swim in the lake. It was a steamy June day. For sure there’d be a thundershower later.

“Come on. Get in.”

I climbed in and untangled the seatbelt. The car stank of tobacco and maybe even dope. “Where are we going exactly?”

“My buddy’s cottage. Lac-Brome.

I didn’t think he knew people rich enough to have a cottage, but I was curious.

“Got your suit?”

“Sure, I do.” I fished out my bikini top from the plastic carrier bag and dangled it in front of him. He laughed. I put my bare feet up on the dashboard. Last night, Brianna painted my toenails Barney purple. They looked pretty cool. I wore my cut-offs and my favourite stretchy orange tube top. I checked my watch. It was ten-thirty. As long as I was back by five, Mom, who had already left for work, wouldn’t even know I’d been out.

It was hard for me to hear what he was talking about because of the screeching of his heavy metal CD. Somebody leaving some band to join another or overdosing or something. He said such dumb things, it was easier to like him when he didn’t speak. He kept one hand on the steering wheel and reached over and touched my left thigh with his fingers. I wanted him to take those rough fingers away but I did nothing.

“Nice thigh babe.”

I didn’t have a cellphone. Brianna would’ve asked too many questions that morning if I’d tried to borrow hers. Dad had gotten her one in May just before he left. It wasn’t even her birthday. I wished I’d pushed Dad harder to get me one too.

“You just turned fourteen. What do you need a phone for?” Dad said as he gave Brianna the box.

“You know, emergencies,” I’d said.

“How about not having any emergencies,” he’d said, patting the top of my head.

I should have kicked up more of a fuss before he’d gone off to Victoria. I could have said that if I had a cell phone it would be more convenient for Mom while he was away. And now Dad was gone, there was no point in asking Mom for one. And even if I’d had a phone, would I have done anything different?

We turned off the autoroute and drove past farms and white clapboard churches with metal roofs. I’d been out here before on a Grade Six school trip to a cabane à sucre. It had been early spring then. Snow was on the ground and the maple sap was running. Only three years ago, but what a goofy little kid I’d been then—a sucky little Daddy’s girl.

Roy stopped at the Boni-Soir in Bromont. I waited in the car, smoothing the place on my thigh where his hand had been. He strode out carrying a brick of cheese, some pepperoni sticks and two big bottles of beer. I wasn’t hungry and I didn’t drink beer. Dad liked to tell the story of when I was three and had tasted his beer. I’d scrunched up my face but had insisted on another sip.

“Where are we going again?”

“Lac-Brome. Soon. Change that CD, eh?”

I peeled my back off the plastic upholstery and slipped in a different disc—more whining guitar solos and pounding bass. I like the music that that Mom and Brianna like—Arcade Fire, Great Lake Swimmers, Cowboy Junkies. 

After a few miles of rattling along the washboard gravel road, he pulled into a dirt driveway. A white trailer perched on blocks overlooked the lake. Somebody was into gardening and had planted geraniums and marigolds in the two small beds in front of the steps. The lake was still, maybe resting before the weekend invasion of jet skis and wakeboarders.

“Let’s go!” He pulled off his green T-shirt. Did he only have one? And his cut-offs. No undershorts, just his muscled white ass charging down the dock. He cannonballed off the dock and into the water with a messy splash.

“Come on Babe. Jump in.”

I’d skinny-dipped a thousand times before with Brianna and the other kids at our cottage, but this felt more dangerous. I pulled off my top and wiggled out of my jeans but kept my underpants on. I wasn’t that crazy. I hardly knew this guy. Would he notice that my right nipple was a bit larger than my left one or that I didn’t shave my legs yet. I grabbed my towel and ran down the dock, clutching it to my chest.

Later, inside the trailer, he stood naked in the kitchen. His feet were white and pale against the cracked brown linoleum floor. I’d made a mini-dress with my towel. He gnawed at the pepperoni stick and slugged back a beer. “Want some Babe?”  He pressed me against the metal edge of the kitchen counter with his hips.

“Not hungry.” I pushed the strings of wet hair off my face and wished that I’d brought a scrunchy. I looked past him at the yellowed square plastic wall clock. It was 12:30. The red second hand jerked clumsily past the black minute markings.

He leant over me. “I want you.” His lips were greasy, and his breath stank of beer. I felt sick. He grabbed my hair and tipped me further back against the counter. He pushed his tongue into my mouth. He put his arm around my waist, steered me into the living room and pressed me onto the couch. The fabric was scratchy and sticky. He flopped onto me like a panting dog. He was heavier than I’d imagined. “I want you,” he said huskily as he tugged at the towel ends tied above my chest.

I wasn’t sure what to do but I was certain that Brianna had already done it with Marc. So why shouldn’t I? It’d be like a science experiment. I swallowed the acid taste in my mouth.

“Touch me, Babe.” He took my hand and folded my fingers around his erect penis. It felt dry and rubbery in my hand. He pulled my hand up and down. I didn’t want to look.

“Harder.”

It felt silly but he was gasping and groaning like it was something. I didn’t want to disappoint him or upset him. I had to stay curious.

“Babe, I need to fuck you.”

I nodded and squeezed my eyes shut as he pushed himself inside me. It hurt.

He whimpered and finished with a shudder. And then I knew what all the fuss was about. For guys anyway. But what I hadn’t expected was that after he had that nap, he’d want to do it all again. And the whole thing took longer this time and I was sore. Was what it had been like for Brianna with Marc?

Afterwards, I squirmed out from underneath his limp body, grabbed my towel and tore down the dock. I splashed into the lake. The cool water rushed against my battered parts and rinsed away the stickiness from between my legs.

When I got home, I went to Mom’s mending basket and found Nan’s second-best, brass shears. I locked myself in the upstairs bathroom. I shook as the thick chunks of hair fell onto the floor. The rasping of the sturdy scissors calmed me. I thought of the fragile crepes and organzas that Nan had cut with these scissors. I stood in the middle of the tangled mess on the floor and cut and cut and cut until my fingers were hard against my scalp and the scissors were hard against my fingers.

When Brianna saw me, she brushed her fingers through the remaining tufts on my head and said, “I know you’re sad. We’re all sad. It’s hard with Dad gone.”

And I hugged her and cried but I didn’t tell. 

The next day, when we went to the salon, the stylist squeezed some minty lotion onto my scalp and promised when I came back in September, I’d get the best cut.

Nan, who was looking after us while Mom was away in Costa Rica with her bird people, said nothing. She made chicken for dinner. That was when I stopped eating.

Mom went away again to Costa Rica in August with her bird people and Dad stayed out in Victoria. Brianna had her lifeguarding job and her cell phone. They were all too busy that summer to notice I was melting away under the baggy T-shirt I wore all the time.

I concentrated on getting down to one hundred pounds. I liked the tidiness of the one and the two empty zeroes. I believed I’d feel better at one hundred. It felt so good not eating. I felt so powerful and I loved it. I was the skinniest one. And then my gums started bleeding when I wasn’t even brushing my teeth.

It was the morning of the first day back to school after the Labour Day weekend. I reached up into the kitchen cupboard for a drinking glass and my uniform skirt slid off my hips. I grabbed the waistband and hauled it up but by then Mom had seen.

“Why are you wearing Brianna’s skirt?” she snapped.

“It’s mine, Mom.” I don’t know why I didn’t lie.

“Oh my God. Look at you. You’ve stopped eating.” Her voice softened and she touched my shoulder in the tenderest way I’d ever felt. She was crying. “Oh Stéphanie, how is this family going to find time for this?”

And I felt bad for her that I was causing trouble. I dropped my gaze and asked, “Are we still a family, Mom?”

So that’s my story. That’s how I ended up here. And what do I think now about what I did these three months later? What I feel is mostly stupid. Careless.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” they still ask me. 

And why would I let some stranger barge in on my shame? No. It’s private. It’s mine. It’s my regret. 

He never used my name. I can’t even say for sure whether I told him what it was. I was Babe. A toy. Roy was a boy and I was his toy. And I still can’t name what I felt—scared, curious, excited or disgusted. All of those things? All at once? But mainly ashamed—ashamed I’d feel better than Brianna.

It’s the last week of October. Dad has flown in from Victoria to see me. I haven’t seen him since the May long weekend. Ha! Victoria Day weekend, the weekend he went to Victoria. He’s at his old teaching job at U. Vic. where Mom and he lived before they moved to Montreal. He’s in the Environmental Studies department— more bird stuff, a climate change researcher.

Mom told us her side of the story in May when he left.  “Your father made a terrible choice that has devalued our relationship. I’ve asked him to leave.”

“Will he come back?” I asked.

“That depends on him.”

And tho’ Mom sounded harsh, I could tell from her cracking voice that she was about to cry. 

That graduate student Lucie, the one with the thick brown hair, who hung around him all winter, was the one. She’d even come up to the cottage in St Sauveur last February for a weekend of snowshoeing. Each time I was at the lake that summer, I’d find those long, wiry hairs in the shower, on the bathroom floor and behind the toilet.

There’s a private room on the ward where patients can meet approved visitors. Mom isn’t one. The doctors decided that Mom shouldn’t visit for the first few weeks. I don’t miss her, but I worry about how she’s doing without Dad. Probably working too hard.

The room has a barred window, covered with a set of battered, yellowed blinds and overlooking the parking lot. There are two gaudy re-covered couches that despite all reds, yellows and oranges are still saggy and uncomfortable. Dad looks tired; he’s lost weight too.

“Thanks for coming Dad.”

“I’d have come sooner but it would have upset your mother. We’re both worried about you.”

“I felt so powerful not eating. I loved it.”

“You sound like a drug addict.”

“It’s the same thing, Daddy. I think about food all the time.” My voice is squeeky. I might cry.

“I need to say I’m sorry for…” he started.

“Stop it. I don’t want to hear about it.”

He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me until I can barely breathe. “I’m not supposed to mention your weight, but this is like hugging a skeleton,” he said.

“I’m fixing it Dad. I’ll get better, I promise.”

It’s after Halloween when Brianna brings me the chocolate. She puts the wafer-thin bar down on the scratched Formica surface of the coffee table in the lounge—Swiss, dark with sea salt. Each of the ten squares has exactly fifty-four calories. The delicate foil makes a crinkling sound as Brianna unwraps it. She tries to snap the bar along the lines, but it breaks into ten uneven pieces. I study the foil surface covered with the dark chocolate puzzle pieces. 

“Would you like a taste?” Brianna asks.

I do. I imagine the chocolate melting inside my mouth, the taste of the bitter cacao and the velvety texture coating my tongue. My rules about food seem too harsh, too nasty and too tiring. But if I do take a piece, what could I avoid eating later without upsetting the nurses?

“You don’t have to.”

“But I want to.” My hand shakes as I reach for the smallest fragment, the size of my baby fingernail. I hold it between my thumb and forefinger close to my face and inhale the chocolatey smell. My mouth moistens. I place the piece of chocolate on my tongue and close my lips. It feels dangerous and sacred like the time I took Holy Communion at Nan’s church when I wasn’t even confirmed.

Brianna sighs and I know from the way she is scrunching up her face that she might cry. The chocolate melts on my tongue. There is a zing as the sweetness enters my body. “I need a drink of water, Bree.”

She rushes away to get the plastic cup of water from my bedside table. When she gets back, I gulp down the whole thing.

“Do you want another piece?”

“Not at the moment. I need to think about it.”

I start to get better like I’d promised Dad I would. Maybe I would have gotten better anyway with all that counselling and those anti-depressants. I finish all the yogurt in the container. I eat all the tuna in the sandwich. My muscles get stronger. The boney ridge on my shoulder blade where my hummingbird lives softens. I want to take care of that hummingbird. I want to go back to school. I want to see my friends. I want to grow up and have a real boyfriend. I want someone who’ll love me.

It’s the end of November. The doctors say it’s safe for me to go home but I don’t want to go home. It’s not home with Dad away in Victoria. They let me go to Nan’s. She’s always kind to me.

I slouch on Nan’s tiny couch in my pajamas watching Saving Hope, Jeopardy, and Disney princess videos. Brianna and I know all the words to every song in the Little Mermaid. It’s our favourite. Nan explains what she is doing as she sets a sleeve in a blazer, tacks interfacing on a collar or covers buttons. She turns flat bolts of fabric into jackets and dresses and coats like a good sorceress with a magic wand. Sometimes Nan lets me do the basting or if the fabric is not too fine the hemming. Nan doesn’t barge about grabbing misplaced things or talk about how she is late or tired all the time. She doesn’t interrupt me when I’m reading or drawing.

We eat properly at the kitchen table. And unlike Mom, Nan likes to cook. Lunch today was real chicken noodle soup. Tonight, at bedtime, we’re having hot chocolate. And if there are any left, ‘cos we’ve been snacking, a chocolate-covered digestive biscuit. Tomorrow, I’m learning to make an omelette.

In the therapy sessions they explained that my problem is wanting to be perfect. But that’s not it. They’re mixing me up with those other girls—the dancers, the gymnasts, and that cellist. It’s Mom who wants me to be perfect—top marks, tidy room, swim team, which I hate. I drop whatever I’m doing to help her find her keys or papers so that she can get her precious stuff done—saving migrating birds and the planet. And they never explained to me why Brianna didn’t get sick? We have the same mother.

Brianna visits me at Nan’s most days after school and brings me homework. My pills help me concentrate. I might catch up on one course, maybe English. Will I ever tell her about Lac-Brome? Not yet, for sure.

“Mom misses you, Stéphanie,” says Brianna this afternoon.

“I miss her sometimes too.” And it’s true. Mom is so energetic and knows so much about migration and light pollution and climate change and how to run a meeting and circulate petitions. She travels to Central America for weeks with only a carry-on.

“She wants to visit, maybe this weekend for Sunday lunch?” 

The whirring of Nan’s Singer stops. I tug at my new haircut. 

It’s Sunday lunch. I helped Nan by chopping the carrots and potatoes for the pot pie. She made the pastry. Mom looks tired. She kicks off her runners and throws her jacket on the couch. She’d go crazy if I did that at home. She scans all the sewing stuff crammed into the parlour. “Well, this is cozy.”

Nan glares at her.

“If you’re serious about this vegetarian thing, Stéphanie, this pastry better not have any lard in it.” 

“It’s Crisco, Claire,” Nan says.

“I won’t be having any. You know, the calories. Work’s been crazy. Finishing my book.”

Mom always says that. She always says work’s crazy. and she is too tired. Nothing’s changed.

“I hope you’re pulling your weight around here Stéphanie.”

I winced.

“Well, I know how easy it is for you to sit back. But running a house doesn’t happen by magic.”

“Stéph’s a great help to me, Claire,” Nan says.

Brianna interrupted. “It’ll be great when Stéph’s ready to come home.”

I’ll never get used to calling the house “home” if Dad isn’t there.

“Why don’t we try a weekend together at the cottage? Go snowshoeing,” says Brianna.

“I’m not up for that,” says Nan. “Too cold. With Christmas and New Year’s coming, I’ve got three gowns to finish here, all velvet, taffeta and silk. Nightmares to handle. You three go.”

And I imagine the cottage, the roof blanketed in pillowy snow, the glistening frozen lake and the creaking under my snowshoes as I pack down a path to the porch steps. But I can’t imagine being there without Dad.

The car crunches to a stop at the edge of the snowplowed gravel road. The outline of the empty driveway is filled with fresh snow. Brianna and I bundle up in our down jackets. I’m wearing three other layers. We put on our mitts and hats and hatch out of the car into the cold. The snow squeaks under my boots. It’s the first time I’ve come to the cottage since the Labour Day weekend.

The silhouettes of the naked maple trees darken in the twilight. A full moon is rising over the rounded peaks of those worn-out Laurentian mountains; the receding glaciers having ground them down. I miss Dad’s ritual explanation of the whole glaciation thing.

“Shush. It’s an owl.”

I turn in the direction that Mom is pointing and hear a throaty hollow questioning. “Whoo, Whoo, Whoo,” repeating through the woods.

“It sounds so lonely and sad,” I say.

“Shush up. Listen,” she says.

I stand still and watch the moonlight strengthening the skinny dark shadows of the bare trees on the pale snow. My fingers tingle and my feet are freezing.

“Sounds like a Great Grey Owl. So rare.” Mom puts on her snowshoes, turns off her headlight and tramps away in the direction of the hooting.

“Bye Mom,” I whisper in her direction.

Brianna and I Bungie-chord the two snap-top containers of supplies to the toboggan and strap on our snowshoes. We take turns stamping out the trail or dragging the toboggan across the powdery snow. Although I’m stronger than I was a month ago, I’m breathless with each step. Brianna does all the work.

Brianna lights the fire in the wood stove with the first match and we stare at the flickering flames. Last fall, Dad and I split maple pieces and stacked wooden kindling. “Weird to be here without Dad,” I say.

“We’ll be OK. He taught us how to do everything we need to,” says Brianna.

I cuddle up against her warm, solid body and re-arrange the blankets on the couch. We watch our breath evaporate into the room. Soon it will be hot enough to take off our coats and mittens. I adjust the toque on my head. It’s staying on no matter what. Nan’s vegetarian chilli warms on the top of the stove and smells good.

“What’s it like at home, Brianna?”

“Trying to keep Mom happy. She’s pretty mad.”

“Except she can’t figure out that she’s mad. She thinks she’s just busy.”

“I’d like it if you came home. It’s easier when there’s two of us.”

I could stop being so mad too. I’m so tired of being angry and sad.

The next evening Brianna and I sit on the couch in T-shirts in the roasting cabin. Mom is out tracking the poor owl. “Who? Who?” it calls wondering who is tracking it. Or maybe it is “Whew! Whew!” because Mom hasn’t found it.

“Disgusting to think of Dad and Lucie doing it, right here on this couch,” Brianna says.

“Any moment, we’re gonna find another one of her hairs. Think she’s with him in Victoria?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it didn’t work out. That happens.”

“Will Mom forgive him?” I ask.

“Nope.”

We rearrange ourselves among the pillows and blankets on the couch.

“I’ve got a secret. I’ve been meaning to tell you all month,” Brianna says as she smooths my toque and takes my face in her warm hands.

“Go.”

“Marc and I finally did it.”

“And…” I try to look pleased but turn away. I feel sick.

“It was OK. I think it’ll get better.”

“Were you safe?” After being locked up with all those other girls, I know enough to ask that question now.

“We figured it out.”

I was wrong about her and Marc, having already done it. I was wrong to have gone a guy I didn’t know. Such a stupid, stupid, stupid thing. “I have a secret too.” I say. I turn towards her, pull the neck of my T-shirt off my shoulder and show her my hummingbird. 

“When? How?”

“With Nan. In May. I was so sad when Dad left. She wanted to help.”

“It’s beautiful and it’ll be there forever,” Brianna says as she traces her finger along the curving outline.

“Yes, it will,” I say, straightening up my shirt. “It will be there forever.” Along with everything else I did. And one day I’ll be able to trust Brianna enough to share my secret.

The End

The Tree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dad says nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dad, up here,” she calls.

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

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

“I’m stuck.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s it. Now the other foot.”

Her foot lands on the rung. Her arms soften.

“Don’t look down.”

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

“Nice and easy.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stéphanie cannonballs into the water beside her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why do you think that?”

“They don’t tell each other everything.”

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

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

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

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

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

Does she mean the cellphones or us, Brianna wonders.

“I know what you’re doing, Michael.”

And then silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alterations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“In the spare room closet.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adélie pressed her hand over her mouth.

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

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

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

Adélie rummaged through her horrible thoughts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Na-na. Na-na. Up. Up.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Claire stiffened.

“How was it?” Adélie asked.

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

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

“I am making do.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Webbed Feet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a long pause.

“Money to start a family.”

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

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

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

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

“Gotta go, Michael. Gotta finish packing.”

“Claire, I mean it about a baby…”

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

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

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

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

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

“Tourists use this road?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmmm. Not how she liked to do things. 

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

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

“Setting?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How can you be so sure?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can’t sleep. You.”

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

“It’s Mother Nature, Claire.”

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

“Do what Claire.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know. Let’s talk in the morning.”

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