ELEVEN

“Sure you don’t want to come out kayaking?” Dad asks for the millionth time. He’s sitting on the couch with that box of cords, practicing knots. Every few minutes, he shows me a new one. “This one’s a fireman’s chair, for rescues. See, they slide the body through these loops, and they can lift a three-hundred-pound man this way, no problem.” Then he undoes the whole thing, tries another knot and asks me about kayaking again. What happened to my homebody Montreal father?

“You go ahead, Dad,” I say. “I’ve got a book report to finish.”

But even when he’s gone, I can’t concentrate. I keep thinking about Uli. This afternoon would have been perfect for gardening—not too cool, not too warm. I call Sofia, but she doesn’t answer. I wander into the kitchen and open the fridge, then close it again. In the end, with my book report only half done and the sun already going down, I put on my shoes and head across the street.

Technically, I’m not trespassing, because Uli’s rent is paid until tomorrow, but I know Dad wouldn’t want me here. I relax once I’m through the garden gate. The hedges are high, blocking even the windows of Slater’s house, and I’ve got enough light left to see the paths between the beds. I wander along them, pulling out a sprig of bitter cress here and a creeping buttercup there. Sure, I can name all the weeds, but I still don’t know if I’ll be able to save the plants Uli cared so much about. Tomorrow I’ll talk to Victor, but I have a feeling it won’t do any good.

“Chloë! Are you in there?” Nikko is pounding on our door.

I open up, breakfast smoothie in my hand. “Where else would I be at this hour?”

“Have you seen the fence?”

“What fence?”

“The one that went up around Uli’s place.”

“What?”

“It must have gone up early this morning.” He tells me about the huge No Trespassing sign and the big official notice saying that the entire block is up for redevelopment.

“The entire block?”

“Victor owns it all,” Nikko says, “the houses, the grocery store, everything. I checked. City Hall has a whole list online of who wants to develop what. And this street isn’t the only place where he’s got property either. His company—it’s called MacIntyre Holdings—owns land all over the city.”

My head hurts. None of this makes any sense. Victor owns the grocery store. Uli and Dad both hate that store…because of Victor? If they hate him so much, then why did Uli keep renting the house from the guy? Why not move to a different neighborhood altogether?

“I thought you’d want to know,” Nikko says.

I shake my head. “So much for asking Victor about working in the garden. If he’s paranoid enough to put a fence around the whole property, he’s never going to—”

“Not the whole property,” Nikko says. “Just the front. You could still get his permission and then go in through the hole in the hedge. I read up about development permits. It takes months to get one. It looks like no one will be doing anything with the land in the meantime, so why wouldn’t Victor let you look after the plants until they go to seed, right?”

Something tells me it’s not going to be that easy.

I wait until Thursday, when Slater has soccer practice after school. Victor’s silver BMW is parked in front of the house. I take a deep breath and climb the steps.

I knock. Nothing. I knock again, louder. The door flies open so fast that I jump backward. Victor doesn’t look happy to see me. His obviously dyed black hair is greased back like Elvis Presley’s. He squints at me through thick-framed glasses. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Chloë. My grandfather used to live next door.” I’m sure he knows that. We’ve lived across the street from each other for months now, but he doesn’t nod or anything, just stands there waiting for me to explain why I’m on his front steps. “I used to help Uli with the garden. I wanted to ask about the plan for—”

“You’ve read the signs?”

“Yes, and I—”

“Well, that’s my plan. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He steps back into his house and closes the door in my face.

I stand there staring at the door for a few seconds. I turn to go down the steps, but then I see the chain-link fence. With my great-grandmother’s apple tree behind it. My family’s tree. My apples. I turn around and bang on the door again.

Victor glares at me. I talk fast, trying to say as much as possible before the door slams again. “It’ll be a few months before you get permission to develop the land, right? So I thought I could keep working on Uli’s garden until it goes to seed. I want to plant those seeds somewhere else next year because they’re rare, and—”

“I don’t care if they’re the last seeds on Earth,” he snaps. “I know how this works. Your grandfather kept a toehold by living there. Now that he’s gone, you want to keep a toehold by gardening there. But the law is on my side. I bought the land fair and square. I’ve got the papers to prove it.” He points to the fence and the large No Trespassing sign. “I intend to enforce that to the fullest extent of the law.”

The door slams in my face again. I blink at it. Toehold? The law on his side? All I asked for was the plants, not the soil beneath them. What is Victor talking about?

“How was your day?” Dad carries two water glasses to the table, but along the way he glances back at his laptop on the kitchen counter and bumps into a chair. Water splashes onto the floor. Dad swears as if it’s a really big deal.

I frown, not sure what he’s so worked up about. If he knew about my chat with Victor this afternoon, I’d have found out already.

“Your mother’s supposed to call around now,” Dad says. “We have a supper date, the three of us.”

“Oh?” I don’t know what to make of that. My parents have been talking on the phone more since Mom was here. Dad goes into his room and closes the door whenever she calls. I’ve been thinking it’s a good sign, but Dad’s too jumpy tonight for this dinner date to mean anything good.

I bite into my burger, Dad sits down with his, and an awkward silence stretches between us. The laptop rings, and Dad lunges for it. He places Mom in the center of the table.

“Hi there. Bon appétit!” It’s almost ten in Montreal, but she’s sitting on our couch with a bowl of stir-fry that she shows off to the camera. For a moment, I’m impressed—Mom cooked!—but then she says, “Mongolian hot pot. A new place opened up where Película used to be.”

“I know.” I sound annoyed, even to myself. Annoyed that our neighborhood is changing without me. Annoyed that Mom and Dad have something big to announce, yet here we are, talking about Mongolian food.

My parents look at each other. Dad sets down his burger and clears his throat. “Chloë, there’s something we need to tell you.”

I hold my breath.

“We’ve decided to sell the house.”

I look at him, and then at my mom, who starts blinking really fast. “I’m sorry, Chloë. I know this is hard for you, but your father and I have to face facts. We just—”

“What facts?” I ask. “We’ll be there next month. We don’t even have to come back here after that, right, Dad? We don’t need to sell Uli’s house because it belongs to someone else, and Dad won’t need his job here anymore now that Uli’s—”

“Chloë.” Dad puts a hand on my arm. “Your mother and I have been talking a lot lately. We both need different things in our lives right now. Your mom wants to stay in Montreal, and I want to stay here. I’m not a big-city person. I never belonged there. I see that now.”

“But what about me?” My vision goes blurry, but I will the tears away. “Where am I supposed to live? Saskatchewan? Halfway between the two of you?”

“That’s what we want to talk about,” Dad says. “You’ve got choices.”

“What do you mean, I’ve got choices?” I’m shouting now, and my face is wet. “You two decide to sell our house and live on opposite sides of the country, and you call that a choice?”

“You’ll have a home with either of us,” Dad says. “Both of us. I’ll be right here. Your mother wants to move to a condo closer to campus.”

“It’s lovely, Chloë.” Her voice is soft, like she’s coaxing a kitten out from behind a sofa. “Just a few steps from great bookstores and a block from the metro station.”

“You already bought a place?” I croak.

“I put in an offer. I find out for sure next week.”

I’m up and out the door before I even realize what’s happening. I can hear Mom calling me back as I run down the hall and push through the back door. I take off across the parking lot and down the street. My only destination is Not Here, and I run flat out until breathing feels like knives between my ribs. Somewhere past the elementary school, I wish I’d brought my phone. It’s next to the dinner table, recharging so I could finally arrange a time to talk to Sofia.

Sofia who tried to warn me. The night before we left Montreal, she was crying, saying I might never come back. I said I’d hitchhike home if I had to, but I meant it in the same way I’d promise to cut off my arm if it would save her from being abducted by aliens. I never imagined having to choose one place over the other.

Or hesitating about the choice.

But that was back when Montreal included a house where I lived with my parents, right next door to my best friend. That Montreal doesn’t exist anymore and will never exist again. The closest I’ll get is a bedroom in a condo that I share with my mother in a neighborhood I don’t know. Sofia will be a forty-minute walk away. Dad will be on the other side of the country. That’s not my idea of home. But a small apartment thousands of miles from where I grew up isn’t home either. Home doesn’t exist anymore.

I wander along the beach and through the park until dark. Then, without really thinking about it, I head back to our street. I stop next to Uli’s hedge and find the spot where a big, frilly cedar branch blocks a clearing behind.

I push the frond aside, just to test it. I have no intention of going in, of course. Victor’s words—to the fullest extent of the law—are booming through my thoughts. From here I can see the chain link and its No Trespassing signs gleaming in the moonlight. I’d be an idiot to break into the garden. The same way Uli was an idiot to plant everything—even his mother’s apple tree—on land that didn’t belong to him, as if home could be carried with you like seeds in your boot. As if gardening on a patch of unfamiliar earth could bring back everything that had been taken away.

I push the branch aside, look both ways and squeeze through. Until I find that seed collection, I need to keep these plants alive. I’m not letting go of this garden until I can take what’s mine.