After twenty-three minutes, the cab turned down Angus Drive, maneuvering along the familiar twisting roadway under the bare branches of the maple trees. When we lived in Vancouver, we’d visited my grandparents once a week—except for last May, when Grandma broke her arm and went into the hospital, and Grandpa visited her there, so the house was empty and there was no one to visit.
The cab stopped at the curb. I opened the door and got out. The rain had stopped, but intermittent drips plopped from the trees as the wind rustled through them. One…two…three…
The air smelled of damp earth and moss. A For Sale sign hung to the left of the front path. A red Sold sticker had been pasted diagonally across it. The sign rattled in the wind.
“Money,” Megan said.
“Huh?”
“Money to pay the cab.”
I gave Megan my handbag, and she handed out two twenties and a ten, which equals fifty dollars. The taxi drove away.
We stared at my grandparents’ house.
“A light’s on,” Megan said. “So someone’s in.”
The light shone through the diamond-paned bay windows. I took a step toward the red front steps. They’d been painted three years ago. I’d wanted to help, but the paint had smelled.
I climbed the stairs now. One…two…three… My heart hammered, and my palms felt sticky. Usually when I visit my grandparents, my palms do not feel sticky.
The front door is constructed of golden oak with a brass door knocker and a doorbell that rings the Westminster chimes. We pressed the bell, and I heard the muffled, familiar chimes.
The door opened. My grandfather stood in the doorframe. He used to be tall—six feet and three-quarters of an inch. I do not think he is that tall now, although it is hard to tell because his back is bent.
“Thank goodness,” he said. “Lisa! Lisa! She’s here!”
Lisa is my mother’s name. It felt as though my heart had moved into my throat, which is biologically impossible, so maybe it was mucus.
My mom ran into the hall. Her hair is dark, threaded with gray. Usually it is neat, but today it looked wild, like she hadn’t combed it.
“Alice, I—we—we’ve been so worried.” Her eyes looked wet and shimmery, like she was going to cry. People cry when they are sad. I wondered if she was sad to see me. “Your father has been going out of his mind.”
“You didn’t lie.”
“What? No. No, never.” She stepped forward as though to hug me.
I moved back, bumping into Megan.
Mom stopped, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Your dad told me you thought I wasn’t coming back. That some dumb kid had told you that. But I am. Your father and I disagree sometimes, but I’m coming back. We wouldn’t lie about something like that. Ever.”
“Coming back?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Needed to know,” I said.
It felt like I could breathe again, like some huge weight had been lifted.
Mom put out her hand so that only the tips of our fingers touched. I don’t hug.
“I am so glad, so glad you’re safe,” she said.
“You two going to stand in the doorway all day, letting the cold air in?” Grandpa asked.
“I—no, of course not,” Mom said. “And I have to phone your father. And…and who is this?”
“Megan,” Megan said. “The dumb kid.”
“Oh,” Mom said. “I—we—come in. Look, I have to phone your dad and the police and Grandma in hospital and the neighbors, but then we can talk.”
“Police? Will—come?”
“No, no, I—I don’t think so. Not now that you’re found,” Mom said.
Mom is good at understanding, even when I can only grab one or two of those fast, slippery words.
Mom hurried into the back of the house and left Grandpa to close the oak door behind us. Looking around, I saw now that their front hall was different. The usual round rug had been picked up so that the oak floor was bare, and cardboard boxes lined the wall.
“Did you buy a lot of stuff?” I asked Grandpa.
The desk in my bedroom had come in a cardboard box, although the box wasn’t as big as my desk is now. This is because the desk was flat-packed, and Dad had to assemble it. I remembered that he’d used a bad word.
“We’re moving.”
“To Quebec?” I asked.
“What?”
“Claire Pardieu in my class moved to Quebec,” I said. We’d had a cake with cream-cheese icing.
“We’re going to a home,” Grandpa said. He spoke loudly, and his eyebrows pulled together. “Actually, your grandma’s already there.”
“You already have a home,” I said.
“That’s what I’ve been saying.” He turned and, leaning on his walker, shuffled past the boxes and down the hall.
We followed him into the kitchen. It also looked different. Grandpa’s clock had been taken down, and all that remained was the wallpaper with its familiar pattern of teapots and roses. I missed its steady, rhythmic tick. The spice rack had gone, as had the copper saucepans that used to hang from the ceiling. Everything—the ladles, the Henckel knives, the cookbooks and Grandma’s collection of silver teaspoons, which I’d always counted—gone.
I’d often counted the roses on the wallpaper too—thirty-six.
Mom came into the kitchen. “Your dad is very relieved you’re safe, and—uh—Megan—uh—thank you for getting her here.”
Mom spoke slowly and quietly, like she was being careful. Megan did not talk slowly or quietly.
“What a line of crap. You sound like a social worker.”
“She used to be a social worker,” I said.
“Should have known,” Megan said. She folded her arms across her chest, the chains at her waist jangling.
Mom flushed. “Look, Megan, I know you and my husband had words. And you said some stuff you shouldn’t, but the truth is that Alice would never have made it here safely without you. Vancouver can be dangerous for a girl on her own. And Alice—well—for her it would be worse.”
“Yeah? And that’s the dumbest thing you’ve said yet. Alice made it to Prince George just fine on her own,” Megan said.
Mom’s forehead crinkled. “But—I thought she left and you followed.”
“Other way ’round.”
“Oh.” Mom’s forehead puckered again. “Well, tell me everything later. Do you want something to eat or drink? I have orange juice.”
Mom gives me orange juice because I cannot drink milk.
“Yes,” I said, because I realized I was thirsty and hungry.
“Whatever,” Megan said. “I’m not staying long.”
Mom poured a glass for each of us. Then she stopped, her hand jerking so that the juice splashed onto the counter. “Oh. I phoned your dad and the police, but I must let the neighbors up the street know. I asked them to look out for you,” she said, speaking in hurried staccato sentences.
Even though she was wearing slippers, her footsteps sounded loud to me against the bare hardwood floor. Grandma and Grandpa had had a runner before, made in Persia. Persia is not called Persia anymore.
“Alice.” Megan circled her finger around the rim of her glass so that it made a high, thin whine. “I won’t stay.”
I wondered where she would go if she didn’t stay. But I couldn’t find the words. She looked down at her glass as though studying her finger as it circled the rim.
I did not like the high whine. I pressed my fingers to my ears, and Megan’s finger stopped. “Sorry,” she said.
“If you are not staying here, are you going back to Kitimat?” I asked at last.
She shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Oh.” I stared at the wallpaper. I could hear Mom on the phone, her voice echoing in the empty hallway. The hallway measures four feet by twelve feet.
“Why do you care?” Megan asked. “Why do you even want to be my friend?”
“Gold stars.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t do things for gold stars,” I said.
“Yeah, well, it would probably be better if you hung around people who do. They’d listen to the teacher. They wouldn’t have told you your mom wasn’t coming back. They wouldn’t be so stupid.”
I studied the thirty-six roses on the wallpaper. “And you don’t smell.”
Megan laughed. “I don’t smell?”
“I liked sitting on the bus with you because you don’t smell.”
“You’re my only friend, and you like me because I don’t smell. What does that say about me?” She started to laugh and then to cry.
Laughing means you are happy. Crying means you are sad. This made my head hurt.
And I also had a peculiar, squeezing, aching feeling in my chest that I hadn’t felt before.
Megan turned. She picked up her backpack, swinging it onto her back. “See ya.”
“But where are you going?”
“Just leave it.”
That is another phrase I don’t like. It is a pronoun, which stands in place of a noun, but I didn’t know what the noun was and I didn’t know what I was supposed to leave.
“Where—what—?” I managed.
She stared at me, her eyes shiny and her face pink. “Not home, that’s for sure. You can tell my stepfather that from me. I’m not coming home.”
But I didn’t know her stepfather. I had never met him, and I am not supposed to talk to strangers. “Can—I—write it?” I asked, because I can write to a stranger if I don’t give him my address.
Megan pushed her hand through the dark tangles of her hair and laughed again. “You know—you know why I like you? You don’t lie. You don’t promise stuff you can’t deliver. You don’t say everything will be all right when it won’t. You don’t say you’ll do something when you won’t. Or you’ll leave him when you won’t. Or—or crap like that.”
Crap is a bad word. And I didn’t understand a lot of what Megan had said, so I pressed my hands to my ears.
Mom came back. Megan straightened, so that she seemed even taller in the small kitchen. I saw Mom step forward, but Megan backed away, her glance darting about the bare kitchen.
“You can’t go,” Mom said so loudly that I could hear her even through my hands. “I need to phone someone—your family must be worried.” Mom put her hand out, touching the black leather of Megan’s sleeve.
But Megan swung around. Her backpack hit the counter with a thwack. “Don’t touch me.” Her hands balled into fists as she jerked her body backward.
“I can help—”
“No adult ever helped me.”
“I—I can try,” Mom said.
“I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone. Just leave me alone.”
Then Megan pushed past Mom and left. I heard her boots clumping down the bare hall. I heard the front door open and slam. The noise was huge in the empty house.