ALL MORNING I worked on the deck at the Oland cottage. Usually I like this kind of work. It helps pay the bills, and I get to work by myself, out in the fresh air. But today I couldn’t stop worrying about Steve. I wished we hadn’t argued. I wished I’d told him to stay. I wished he hadn’t gone off half-drunk to visit the O’Tooles. God only knew what he had said to them.
At noon I packed up my equipment and headed home, hoping to see his truck in the lane. No such luck. I checked my mother’s bedroom and his gear was still there, clothes neatly folded and shoes lined up under the bed. You could bounce a dime off the bedspread. I drove into town to check the Lion’s Head and Aunt Penny’s. Steve was nowhere to be found.
I figured he hadn’t given up and headed back to Calgary. He didn’t own much stuff, but he couldn’t afford to leave it behind. That left only one place to check.
My grandparents’ house.
I knew where they lived, but I hadn’t talked to them in several years. My grandfather had come to my mother’s funeral, but he’d left without saying a word. For a few years after, I would drive over to their farm and park down the road. I’d watch my grandmother hanging out the wash, and my uncles drinking beer on the front porch. I tried to see myself in them, but they were all built like gorillas, squint-eyed and dirty.
The O’Toole place was over in the next township. It used to be a farm, but they’d let most of the land grow wild except for a couple of fields rented out to a farmer down the road. The house looked in better shape than I remembered it, and a fancy new sign was posted by the drive: The Tool Guys. My grandfather had started the business, but now Uncle Tommy ran it. I knew he was doing well because he got some of the big jobs in the county, and he drove a shiny new pickup with The Tool Guys on the side.
The truck wasn’t out front when I arrived. Neither was Steve’s truck. I tried to decide what to do. I wanted to leave. But I had to know if Steve had been here. After a few deep breaths to calm myself, I got out and started up to the house. The whine of a power saw stopped me. I headed instead to the workshop behind the house. Unlike my jumbled-up sheds, the place was big and bright. Stacks of lumber and half-finished cabinets lay on the floor. Tools and supplies filled the shelves. Three worktables sat in the middle.
An old man was standing at one of them, his legs planted wide apart for balance and his head bent over the two-by-six he was cutting. The saw was so loud he didn’t hear me coming. I waited until he’d finished before speaking. He spun around, losing his balance and grabbing the table to stop his fall. He pushed his visor up and peered at me. His face was carved with wrinkles, and his eyes were sunk so deep they all but disappeared. Not a flicker of surprise or pleasure showed in them.
“I figured you’d come,” he said. His voice was like chains being dragged over gravel.
My heart pounded. My damn tongue was in knots. “Hello,” I said. Since I didn’t know what to call him, I decided on nothing.
He grunted and walked past me. Scanned the yard before turning back to me. “What do you want?”
“You figured I’d come? So you’ve seen Steve?”
“Who’s Steve?”
“Steve from Calgary. He says he’s my half brother.”
“You should know if he is or isn’t,” the old man said. “Far as I know, your mother only made that mistake once.”
“I mean from my father.”
We stared each other down. He swayed on his feet, so I reached out my hand. He jerked away and turned toward the porch. I joined him on the bottom step.
“What did you tell Steve?”
“I didn’t see him.”
“Then who did? My grandmother? Tommy?”
He shrugged. “You’ll have to ask them.”
“Granddad”—I forced myself to say the word—“I’m not a kid. I’m thirty-four years old. I can handle the truth. I want to know who my father is. I want to know if I have a brother.”
My grandfather said nothing. An old mutt limped around the corner of the house, wagging its tail wearily. It flopped at his feet, and he leaned over to scratch its ears.
“Steve and I did some digging. There’s a guy who died in a snowmobile accident just before I was born. He was visiting Tommy from Calgary. His name was Wes.”
My grandfather bent his head and scratched harder. I thought his hand shook, but maybe he was just old.
“Why won’t you tell me?” I said. “Mom and him are both dead. I don’t have any family. You never wanted me. You cut my mother off like she was dirt.”
“She did that to herself.”
I could feel the heat building inside. Anger untied my tongue. “She was sixteen! She lost everything. It broke her heart!”
“And she broke her mother’s heart.”
Damn you. “I don’t want anything from you. It’s too late for that. But to know I have a brother…”
He was now shaking so hard that he clamped his hands between his knees. Finally he blew out a long breath. “I don’t know, Cedric. Wes was a friend of Tommy’s from the oil fields. He was a good-looking fella—all the girls in town were after him. This was when we lived out in your place. He stayed with us, and your mother…she took a shine to him. Begged him to take her on rides. Dirt bikes, snowmobiles, anything fast. Tommy laughed it off, said Wes was just like a big brother. But your grandmother was worried. She wanted Wes to leave. When your mother…well, when she came up in a family way, we told him to go. He said it wasn’t his, but next we knew, he was gone.”
“When was this?”
He didn’t look at me. Pretended to be thinking. “Winter sometime? Same year you were born. We figured he’d run off back to Calgary.”
“He was dead. You must have known that.”
He shrugged. “Rumors. The cops never said a name.”
“What was Wes’s last name?”
“My memory’s not what it used to be. But Tommy’ll know. If he’ll talk to you.”
Something still didn’t make sense. Why had my mother been blamed instead of the older man who had taken advantage? I asked Granddad that, and he turned red.
“Your grandmother’s a good woman, but she’s strict about the church and that. Your mother was turning out a bit of a wild one. Makeup, music, dancing. Sneaking out at night. When your grandmother told her it was you or us, she chose you. Broke her mother’s heart.”
I hid my surprise at this new twist. I thought of all the times my mother had hugged me tightly, saying I was all she had. I backed up to safer ground. “Did you tell Steve any of this yesterday?”
“Like I said, I didn’t see him.”
“But he was here.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was in town.”
“Who was here then? My grandmother? Tommy?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he turned to look at me. “Cedric, you’re doing okay. I hear things. Folks talk. You’ve got the family touch.” He held up his scarred old hands. “If this fella is your brother, I’m glad for you. The rest, the ancient history…let sleeping dogs lie.”
It was almost like he was trying to be nice. It should have made me feel good. But behind the sad look on his wrinkled face, I thought I saw fear.