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Almonte, October 29
4:45 p.m.
Time hasn’t done much to change the face of Almonte. Fifteen years away, and everything is as I remember. Only it all looks smaller for some strange reason. Maybe it has something to do with living in Burlington for so long.
Almonte used to be a bustling mill town. The woolen industry was its lifeblood, providing lasting jobs for people to raise their families around.
But times change. Cheaper imports from Asia started taking over the markets. The mills in Almonte couldn’t compete. One by one, they began shutting down.
The Rosamond Mill No.1 was the last to close its doors in the 1980s. My grandparents had worked there until they retired. Shortly after its closure, the old mill was transformed into condos. Adaptive reuse to the tune of two, three, four hundred thousand dollars a pop, depending on how many bedrooms you want.
I drive up Mill Street, Almonte’s main drag. I see downtown has kept much of its old-world charm. It resembles a lot of other small towns built during times of prosperity. Brick and limestone buildings. Antique stores. Gift shops. Art galleries and bistros.
I hang a right at the lights. A block farther, I turn left onto High Street. It takes me through a residential area to John Street, where I hang another left. As I cross the railroad tracks, I lift my foot off the gas.
My hands white-knuckle the steering wheel. I feel a quiver in my stomach, a prickling of my scalp.
Wesley Street looms ahead.
I don’t know if my parents still live there, but I feel them nonetheless. The power of nostalgia surprises me.
Turning the corner, I see our old house. It looks the same, right down to the turquoise front door. The place is a boring Georgian. Red brick. Gable roof. If my parents had installed some window shutters, it would at least dress the house up a little, make it more appealing.
No one looks to be home. If my parents do live there, Mom could be inside. Dad could be at work. He’s sixty-two, so I doubt he has retired from Mannion Petroleum. I always pictured him working well into his golden years.
I see that the paved drive and single-car garage are new. The backyard has gone through a major transformation. It’s nicely manicured, with a few ornamental cedars and boxwood. The massive oak tree is gone. So is the picket fence Dad had put up to keep Joshua and me away from the railroad tracks.
As a kid, I used to love the shriek of the whistle as a freight train approached the crossing on John Street. That clickity-clack of the metal wheels rolling over the tracks. You could feel the rush and speed and unstoppable force of the train shake the whole house as it passed.
The tracks are still there, but it doesn’t look as if a train has rolled over them in some time. The track bed is overgrown with weeds.
I turn my car around at Stanley Sanitation and park across the street. Wesley is a short street. Four houses on one side, three on the other.
I sit there for a while. I don’t know why. Curious, I guess.
At 5:15, a red pickup appears on the street. I know right away that it’s Dad. I’m not sure if you call it brand loyalty or blind loyalty, but Dad always drove a Ford. Never mattered if the company put out a lemon, he stuck with them as long as I can remember. It’s probably a matter of tradition—his father always drove a Ford too.
My guts become jittery. My knee bounces, hitting the bottom of the steering wheel.
I watch the pickup turn in to my parents’ driveway. It stops in front of the garage. The driver’s door swings open, and he steps out.
I must say, the fifteen years haven’t been kind. The old man is sporting a chrome dome and a white beard. He’s also packed on some weight.
He reaches into the cab and produces the same metal lunchbox he carried when I was a kid. It makes me smile. The thing looks like a relic.
I wonder if he or Mom ever thinks about me. Ever wonder what I became. Where I ended up.
Dad, maybe. Mom, probably never. I was her pariah. Her demon spawn.
As Dad shuts the driver’s door, I pull my car into the street. He’s walking toward the garage when I pass. On impulse, I toot the horn at him. He half-turns, lifting a hand.
I laugh to myself. The old fool doesn’t even know who the hell he just waved to.
I decide to stay the night in town. The seven-hour drive up from Allegheny did me in. I’m exhausted, and it’s another five hours back to Burlington. Too much for one day.
I plan to grab a room at the Riverside Inn then find a good place to eat. Maybe that bistro I saw on Mill Street.
But there’s somewhere I want to go first. I’ll be remiss if I don’t.
I find a flower shop downtown and buy a ground vase with a bouquet of blue peonies, white lilies, and orchids. The pretty blonde behind the counter gives me directions to Auld Kirk Cemetery. I must’ve been twelve when I was last there, twenty-one years ago.
Lanark County Road is a scenic drive past open fields and scattered farms. The trip is shorter than I remember. The cemetery is only two to three miles from town. I see it up on the right.
There’s an old church just inside the gates. It has the same Gothic Revival architecture as other churches in the area. Box-shaped. Rubble stone masonry. Lancet windows in the front and sides.
Mom and Dad buried Joshua among the family plots my grandparents bought several decades ago. I know the grave is at the back of cemetery, but it takes me a few minutes to find it.
Kneeling down, I brush aside some leaves covering the marker. The inscription is simple. “Joshua James,” it reads. “May 16, 1975—July 29, 1984.”
It’s strange to have forgotten his middle name.
Mom and Dad obviously visit often. The pillow floral arrangement looks new. Purple flowers outline Son, which is spelled out in white flowers.
I set my vase down beside it.
I’m not sure why I came here. Joshua doesn’t know. He’s dead. And the dead don’t see us. They don’t hear us.
The dead are just dead.
I guess coming here seemed like the right thing to do. I may never return to Almonte again.
Tomorrow, I’ll head back to Burlington. I’ve made up my mind about Heidi. I’m not going to be run out of my own home by her.
The girls are going to make this hard. I feel sorry for them.
How will they cope with the loss of their mother?
