4

BEFORE I HEAD BACK TO SOLACE RIVER, I DRIVE POPPY to get a month’s worth of groceries then hand the rest of the cash to Ma.

“That bastard!” She drops to her knees. “He had all that money all this time? What was he going to do with it? And us here with kids nearly starving to death and Bird needing a decent chair.” She slaps the floor a few times with her palm. “Why does he punish me like this? Why? After all the years I lied for him and cooked for him and acted as his goddamned whipping post.”

“Daddy is not right, Ma. He said so himself. He’s like that doll Poppy had that came out of the factory without ears or a nose.”

“I remember that ugly thing,” Poppy says. “What was her name?”

“Bernadette.”

“Bernadette!” she shrieks. She follows me to the bedroom, sits on the bed as I whisk a brush through my wet hair. “You’re going back to that man in those ratty jeans?” She goes to the closet and rummages around, grabs a dress from the back. It’s cornflower blue with tiny white flowers. “Here. This don’t fit me no more.”

It slides down over my curves like a glove. Poppy catches my eye in the full-length mirror hanging on her closet door and gives me a sad smile. She pulls a blow-dryer out of a drawer and offers to dry my hair, but her hands are shaking so bad she can barely hold on to it. She rips the plug from the wall, swearing under her breath.

“I bet you wish you never came back,” she says. “If I was you, I’d have been gone by now.”

“I’ll be back. Jackie’s going to sleep here every night until I am and Detective Surette has a cruiser driving by every few hours to check on things. I saw one go past this afternoon.”

She sits down again, knees and elbows vibrating slightly out of sync. “I feel like I don’t know a thing about my own sister.”

Sitting this close, I notice grey spots on her front teeth. The whites of her eyes are a dull yellow.

“We’ll have lots of time, you and I. And Jackie. I guess I’ll never know Bird.”

“I can tell you about him.” She perks up. “He loved playing cards like he does now, only nobody could beat him. Sometimes he’d let me win and pretend to be all pissed off, but I knew he lost on purpose. His friends were all half scared of him. He had a temper like Daddy. But I wasn’t scared of him. He was a good brother. Good father, too. At Christmas he would spoil those girls rotten. If one asked for ham and the other wanted turkey, he’d go out and get both.”

My smile sinks as I remember what Christmas was like at our house. I grab Poppy’s hand, but it’s so slight I’m afraid I’ll break a bone. I let go and it falls back in her lap with a soft thud.

“Poppy, you gave Janis and Swimmer the name Saint for a reason. You must have believed things would get better, that someday they’d be wearing it like a purple heart instead of a badge of shame.”

“It ain’t that.” She shrugs one sharp shoulder. “I just wanted them to be all mine, same name and everything in case anyone tried to take them.” Her eyes glaze as she wanders into some torture chamber in her head. “They shouldn’t even have let me bring Swimmer home from the hospital. I was so high, I don’t even remember him coming out of me.”

I look down at the bedspread.

“I’m so sick and tired of being who I am,” she says.

“Then start being who you’re going to be.”

She nods and grabs my hand this time, squeezes it hard.

WHEN WEST WALKS INTO HIS KITCHEN, I’M STANDING there in Poppy’s pretty dress, hauling a steaming pan out of the oven. His roast has all the trimmings: turnip, carrots and rosemary potatoes. He tosses his jumble of keys onto the table and circles me like I’m a new model car on the showroom floor.

“You’re making me nervous,” I say. “Do you like it or not?”

“I love it … all of it. The dress, the food. I feel like I just got out of prison or something.”

I set the pan on the stove and feel his breath on the back of my neck. He starts kissing my neck and I detach myself from the erection growing in his jeans.

“Come on now.” I push him into a chair. “You’ve been asking for this roast since I met you.”

I grab some plates out of the cupboard and serve him a heaping helping. When I sit down across from him, he’s got this lovesick look on his face.

“What?”

“I feel like we should say grace or something.” I think he’s joking, but he closes his eyes and says, “Dear Lord, thank you for this roast, finally. It looks goddamn delicious. And thank you for keeping hothead hicks out of my tavern and helping Tabby find her sister in Jubilant. Oh, and for her walking into my life and the good sex and all that. Amen.”

I hold my breath as he takes a bite. He must approve because he cleans his plate before I finish my roll.

“Where’d you learn to cook?” he asks after his second helping.

“Barbara Best. It was the only thing she did that interested me. I didn’t even know the names of most of the vegetables she had in her garden because I’d only ever eaten them out of cans. One day Barbara picked a pea pod, slit open the casing with her fingernail to show me where peas come from. It just about blew my mind.”

West goes quiet the way he often does when I talk about my past, and I wish I knew what he was thinking. After dessert, I come back from the bathroom and he’s got my homemade apron on, standing over a sink of soapy water scrubbing dishes. I grab a beer and hoist myself up on the counter.

“How’s the truck running?” he asks.

“Pretty good, considering it’s old enough to have an eight-track player.” I dangle his key chain in the air and he pulls my wrestling card out of his back pocket. We switch. “I’ve been wondering about our old house,” I say, examining Macho Man for creases. “Do you think the land still belongs to Ma? She says she never paid any taxes, but she’s still got the deed. Think that counts for anything?”

“I’ll ask around, see what I can find out.”

“Holy shit,” I say, pointing at the wall with my beer. “You flipped your calendar to the right month.”

“All by myself.”

I notice he’s been keeping the place a little neater. The afghan is neatly folded on the back of the sofa and it looks like he watered and trimmed the plants. I take a sip of beer and swallow hard.

“So now that you have your truck back, are you going to ask me to find another place to stay?”

West sticks his hands back in the suds and pulls up a fistful of cutlery. I watch him diligently clean each piece. Then he dries his hands on the apron, hangs it on the stove handle and takes me by the hand. I let him lead me down the hall to the bedroom, where he opens a drawer in the nightstand, removes some scented candles and lights each one with a Zippo. I watch as he starts setting them around the room.

“What’s all this?”

“A romantic gesture.”

“Oh. I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those. Someone spray-painted my name under an overpass once.”

“Tabby.” West tosses the lighter on his dresser. “Shut up.”

After all the wicks have burned down, I lie naked next to West trying to picture him walking around the general store sniffing different candles, dropping the ones he liked into a store basket.

“Thank you for the romantic gesture,” I whisper, and he murmurs, “You’re welcome,” even though I was sure he was asleep. Then he says, “Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Is there a tattoo of two horses doing it on your backside?”

“No.” I flip over.

“Are you sure?”

“They’re unicorns.”

“Oh, okay, then. Good night.”

He snorts into his pillow until I hit him with it.

THE NEXT DAY, WHILE HE’S AT WORK, I TAKE A WALK TO the old house. A couple of cars slow down to offer me a ride, but the drivers are both men in sunglasses who look like they have too much time on their hands. I’m in no mood for perverts, so I tell them I’m out walking for exercise. The one with the bumper sticker that reads SOLACE RIVER PRAYER AND COUPON CLUB yells, “Lezzie!” as he pulls away.

It’s a long way around the river and I have a lot of time to think. I’ve been dreaming about Raspberry lately. Two nights ago I dreamt that I got a notice in the mail saying I’d been selected at random to win an all-expenses-paid vacation there.

How I actually ended up there is no less ridiculous. I was on probation when I left Solace River for vandalizing the bus shelter, a small detail Ma forgot to mention to Barbara Best, so I was probably in violation for missing my check-ins with the lame hockey jersey–wearing probation officer they assigned me to. All I know is Barbara made some calls and went to meet with someone at the courthouse. When she came back, she sat me down and told me I had to go to a detention centre where they had some programs I might benefit from. Then she put me in her car and drove me out to the country like some feral animal she had to release back into the wild. She wouldn’t even pull over to let me pee. She’d decided Raspberry would be better for me than my own family and I have no idea by what channels of incompetence no one investigated that claim. Barbara knew about Daddy’s law troubles from Ma and she was certain I’d end up a career criminal if I went back. I guess no one told her juvenile homes are career criminal factories.

During the ride, she pulled out an envelope full of cash and said that, when I was a little older and out on my own, I should use it to get some therapy.

“Gee, thanks, Babs,” I said, stuffing it in my back pocket. “Just let me out in front, so you can get back to bedazzling bingo daubers or fingering yourself to Billy Joel or whatever.”

She insisted she had to escort me inside. In the lobby, she tried to give me an honest-to-goodness hug. That’s what she called it. I staggered back about six feet. There was no way I was going to let anyone touch me who was wearing peach heels that matched the buttons on her cardigan. She frowned and clicked away, back to the land of dry-cleaned underpants and stackable Tupperware.

They made me sign a contract as part of the admission process. I had to sit and read three pages of rules out loud until my eyes rolled back in my head. They left me alone to think about it “very seriously” and I took out the little pocket knife they hadn’t found in my inside pocket, sliced my finger and signed it in blood. No one there could take a joke. When they came back in, I was sent for a strip search and a psychiatric evaluation.

Barbara Best sent a few letters sealed with fruity scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers, but I chucked them out without opening them. I thought about writing to Ma with no return address, but all letters had to be sent through Raspberry and I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t add their stamp. I didn’t want my mother to know I was in there. She’d never sleep again. Plus, if Daddy ever found out where I was, he’d probably spring me just to make me sorry I’d left.

OUR ROAD STILL ISN’T PAVED. EVERYONE ALWAYS CALLED it the Old Solace River Road, but now it has a street sign. I never noticed this last week. Victory Road. I wonder what that’s about. The only victory I know of on this road involved a court battle over whether it’s sanitary to run a daycare out of a barn.

After ten minutes walking along the riverside, I hear voices. I round the bend and see a group of kids doing bottle tokes on the road near our house. They freeze when they see me coming, but as I start up the driveway, one of them calls out, “Hey! Do you know whose house that is?”

I turn to see a girl who’s about the age I was when I left home. She’s wearing a miniskirt, sitting on an anthill.

“Why?” I cross my arms.

“Everyone says they’re still in there, hiding in the walls.”

“Everyone should smoke less pot, then.”

I feel all their eyes on my back as I head up and around the side of the house out of their sight. I find a busted plastic chair lying on its side, drag it down the grass and plant it upright. It pinches my ass as I sit.

“Jesus Christ,” I say out loud. “We’re a goddamn ghost story.”

I turn my face toward the breeze, trying to block out the memories playing like little horror films along the outer walls of the house. Even with my eyes closed, I see my brothers throwing chicken bones at each other, setting fire to anything they could get their hands on, baby Poppy toddling out to the road in a dirty homemade diaper, Ma yelling at her to come back, Daddy gunning his truck up the driveway and almost clipping her. I see fights, broken glass, cold meals, all of us pissing into the wind any time we tried to spin our bits of straw into gold.

What a childhood. We had no books, no toys from our own decade. The only thing I owned that was truly mine was a little marble I found in the river reeds. I kept it on me at all times, rubbing it between my fingers trying to wear it down enough to free the colours locked inside.

I had one friend, but that only lasted a month. Kids at school normally kept their distance, but Summer’s family moved here from Prince Edward Island and didn’t know any better. One day she came over to play, and when her mother arrived to pick her up, Ma was coming out of the woods holding a rabbit she’d just killed, blood dripping all down one arm. At the same time, Bird and Jackie were showing off, playing a game where one of them would spit straight up in the air and the other would catch it in his mouth. Her mother looked as if she was going to have a heart attack. After that, Summer was only allowed to talk to me at school, and when she had a birthday party I didn’t get invited.

Ma said that birthday parties were no fun. She said all the little girls feel like shit if they aren’t wearing the prettiest dress or if the gift they brought isn’t the best one, and that I should be glad I didn’t have to go. I felt like shit anyway. I wanted to go to a party. I wasn’t even sure if I was crying because I wasn’t invited or because, if I had been, I wouldn’t have had a dress to wear or a gift to bring.

Soon after, I invented Tough Girl. I’d wear all black and scare kids at the playground by freezing my arms in the snow and putting out cigarettes on my wrists. I told them Summer had a restraining order on me and that was why we didn’t hang out anymore. They didn’t even know who Summer was. They barely knew who I was, except that I was dirt-road people. That’s how we classify people in Solace River: you’re either up the hill, across the bridge, before the bridge or dirt road. Whenever I told other kids that I lived up the dirt road, they took a step backward and looked at me like I probably ate my own shit for breakfast. If I added Saint onto that, they’d scatter like pigeons.

Not long after, I became Truck Driver. In the back field behind the garage we had an old pickup that didn’t run anymore, and I’d make like it was an eighteen-wheeler, put on one of Daddy’s mesh caps and go to Sacramento, Australia, Moose Jaw, any place I liked the name of. I’d make up stories about how I really had to gun it to save the day. Once, I was carrying a load of hay for a bunch of starving horses in Russia and showed up in the nick of time before they all dropped dead.

In my truck-driving days, Daddy had a friend named Terry Profit who used to come by to borrow tools. If Daddy wasn’t around, he sometimes slept on our sofa for a few days. One night I heard him try to go into Ma’s bedroom, but the door was locked. He knocked and knocked, but she wouldn’t let him in. The next day, he was going into the garage and saw me playing in the truck. He strolled up and tapped on the window, asked if he could catch a lift. At first he said I was a damn good driver and checked the map for me to be sure we’d make it into Paris by nightfall. He said we even had time to stop at the next exit for cheeseburgers, and when I pulled in at the truck stop, he said, “Paris is the city of love, you know. We better start practising.” Then he pushed his hand down my shorts. I started to scream, but he put his other hand over my mouth and held it there. It smelled like the compost bucket after it had been left steaming in the sun a few days.

Terry Profit’s the reason I didn’t get the red guitar Barbara Best promised me if I stayed out of trouble. She got me enrolled in school in New Brunswick and one of my new teachers had a paperweight on her desk shaped like the Eiffel Tower. It had Paris: City of Love written on it in pink cursive and I swiped it because I couldn’t stand looking at it every day.

Anyway, after what happened to Truck Driver, I went back to being just Tabby. I started drinking with the older kids down at the country club and walking home along the river letting the moonlight on the water mess with my eyes. I’d see all kinds of things swimming in there. Sea witches, lampreys. Once, when I was stoned, I saw Grandpa Jack floating by on his back, singing the executioner’s song. I said hi and he stopped, turned his head and looked right at me.

I GET UP FROM THE PLASTIC CHAIR AND WALK IN BEHIND the garage. That old truck’s still sitting back there, rusting away. I kick a path up to it through the scratchy brush. A crow sitting on the back fender doesn’t hop down until I’m three feet from it.

The weeds that barely tickled the truck tires have almost grown over the hood. I part them and haul open the door, climb in onto the dirty leather seats. As soon as I slam the door shut and place my hands on the wheel, I smell Terry Profit’s breath. I push down on the handle, but it sticks and I have to elbow it as hard as I can. The door flies open and dumps me onto the grass. I lay there cursing as the crow stares down at me from a crabapple tree.

“What the fuck are you looking at?”

It doesn’t flinch. I pick up a piece of pipe lying in the grass, scramble to my feet and smash out the centre of the windshield before busting the side mirrors and headlights. I spin around to swing at the crow, but the branch is empty.

From up here, the house looks even more wretched. The roof is shifted so far over to one side it’d slide right off if I blew on it. The rotted eaves are hanging off in sections where they haven’t already fallen. I wish the whole thing would collapse right now, sink into the ground and disappear forever.

I find a good throwing rock, run a few steps and whip it up at one of the broken upstairs windows. I miss, find another rock, and on the second try shatter the glass completely. Stray cats come flying out from all directions. I start picking up whatever’s lying around the yard and chucking it until I’ve broken every window on two sides.

Then I set my sights on the bottle tree. Various bottles that held various liquids are still shoved onto branches, stunting the growth of leaves. Ma said that soon after she moved in here Grandma Jean came over with a box of empties and a superstition about evil spirits diving down the bottlenecks, getting trapped in the glass and frying up in the hot sun. Too bad the demon was already inside the house with his gnarly, stinky feet up on the sofa. The tree’s no bigger than I am and I easily pick off the bottles. I line them up by the door then blast them one by one against it, christening the sinking ship.

I’m sweaty and panting as I stumble into the house, kick over some kitchen chairs, grab the rooster clock off the wall and smash its face into the cupboards. I put all my weight against the refrigerator that’s all leaned over in the hallway with its door hanging open, but it won’t budge. Finally, I give up and slump down on the floor next to it.

“Tabby? What’s going on in there?”

I spring to my feet as West pokes his head in.

“Don’t come in!” I trip over all the stuff I knocked over and push him back outdoors.

“I went to the house and you were gone, so I figured you might be here. I was just wondering if you might want to grab some lunch.”

I walk back to his truck and get in. He follows and we sit staring through the windshield at the house. After a while, some of the cats re-emerge from the bushes with their tails raised. One of them slips back inside through a hole in the side wall and the rest follow.

“I called the town office,” West says. “It’s still yours.”

I turn to look in his eyes and see the same copper swirls that were inside my marble. I focus on them until my fists unclench. Then I look back at the caved-in facade of the house, the wisps of curtains billowing in and out of the upstairs windows.

WHEN I TURNED EIGHTEEN, THEY KICKED ME OUT OF Raspberry and stuck me in a halfway house. The supervisor who was supposed to live with us only stopped in once a week to make sure we hadn’t burned the place down, which would have been easy since it was practically made of cardboard. If someone coughed in the next room, it sounded louder than if they were sitting right next to you. The carpets were stapled to the floor and the windows were covered by clear plastic curtains stained yellow from all the nicotine. There was only enough hot water per day for one person to bathe, and if you tried to be that person, everyone else would bang on the door and scream for you to get the fuck out so they could take a shit.

The women who lived there were harder than the hardest bitches at Raspberry. Especially Simone. Simone had four kids living with different relatives and she never talked about them, never visited them. She used to freebase at a flophouse and come back ranting about how the cops were the worst criminals out there, how they stole her fur coat and raped her in a paddy wagon. When she was in really bad shape, she pulled out her hair and carved up her arms and legs with knives. There were big clumps of dyed red hair all over the place. She flipped between being sickly sweet to me, almost motherly, and threatening to murder me in my sleep.

“You looking for a job, Tobey?” she asked me one night.

Sometimes I was Tammy or Abby.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“I know this motel owner. He only pays four bucks an hour, but he hires under the table.”

She took me straight down to meet Enzo. He showed us how the chambermaids emptied the ashtrays and wiped the pubic hairs off the toilet seats, where to dump the empty wine bottles and used condoms. He said he’d try us out for a day and see how we did. He gave Simone the room next door to clean and assigned me to another way around back.

I’d never been in a motel room. I poked around a bit, wondering what kind of people stayed there. The vacuum cleaner looked as if it was made in the 1800s and the towels were bleached stiff as boards. There was a Bible in the drawer that someone had taken a ballpoint pen to and made crazy notes in the margins. There were little doll-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner and I hid a few of them in my pockets.

As I was stripping the sheets from the bed, Enzo came in and shut the door behind him. I heard him unzip his pants, but before I could turn around, he got hold of my wrists. I tried to kick him off, but he leaned on me with all his weight and pinned me to the bed. I screamed and bit at his hand as he tried to cover my mouth with it and used the other to work my jean skirt up, yank my underwear to the side and jam himself inside me. Once he stopped thrusting, I told him I was calling the cops.

“You think they’ll believe you? Your friend, she lies to police all the time. Don’t be stupid.” He buckled his belt. “You clean rooms for me and, for a little while every day, you and I will have our time together. I’ll pay you seven dollars an hour, three dollars more than I pay the other girls.”

He left, and I wailed into the pillow until I was hollowed out. I stared at the small round bloodstain on the sheet and watched my arm reach out, rip the sheet off the bed and throw it in the trash. When Enzo came back an hour later, I was scrubbing the sink in the bathroom just like he showed me. I looked at both our faces in the mirror and, in a voice I didn’t recognize, said, “Ten dollars an hour.”

Once I’d made a hundred and sixty dollars, I ran away from the halfway house and Enzo. For a long time, I couldn’t look at a man when he took his clothes off. I’d close my eyes or stare at a wall. It even happened sometimes with Jared Smoke, who looked like a god when he was naked. The first touch of his skin on mine and my hands would clench into fists.

I TURN MY HEAD AND STARE AT WEST. HIS MOUTH IS parted just a little and he’s snoring as usual. I lift the sheet and see his penis slumped to one side, the skin of his scrotum comically darker than the rest of him. I reach my hand out and let it hover a moment. The trail of hair is soft and warm. He’s got a freckle pattern on his chest that looks like a bird sitting on a branch. I connect the dots with my finger. There’s a little scar on his jaw and another above his right eyebrow. I kiss it, and he opens one eye.

“You’re the best person I ever met, West.”

“Christ,” he murmurs. “You must have met all the wrong people.”

I roll on top of him and we lock eyes for a few seconds. Then we’re all mouths and limbs everywhere and my skin feels as if it’s melting into his as I let him inside me. I’m building up to a blinding orgasm when there’s a knock at the front door.

“The hell?” West cranes his neck, trying to see sideways out the window. He gets up on his knees for a better look. “Shit. It’s my cousin. Stay here.” He hauls on a pair of jeans, zips the fly and heads down the hall.

I don’t know what to do, so I just stay still and listen to his muffled voice say, “Hey, Danny, come on in.”

Danny is heavy-footed.

“What’s going on, West?”

“Not much. Did you get your bike running?”

“Tommy says you’re shacked up with some woman. Says you gave her your truck.”

“Tell Tommy to fuck himself.”

“Have you been talking to Abriel?”

“No,” West answers. “And keep your voice down.”

They turn as I appear half dressed in one of West’s button-up shirts.

“Tabby, this is my cousin Danny.”

Danny is tall with sandy hair, could be mistaken for West but for a wider face and small, bloodshot eyes.

“You look alike,” I tell them.

“Yeah.” West scratches the stubble on his cheek. “I don’t know who got the shit end of that stick.” He’s trying to look casual, but I can see him gripping the counter behind him. “Want some coffee, Danny? If not, I got stuff to do.”

“You kicking me out?” Danny asks.

“Not if I don’t have to.”

Danny picks up the salt shaker off the table and rolls it around in his fingers. “Abriel wants to talk to you.”

“Abriel has a phone.”

Danny smacks the shaker down, taps a smoke from his shirt pocket pack and sticks it in his lips. He lights it and blows a smoke ring that hangs in the air. He looks me up and down as he pokes his finger through the hole. “How about you let me have a go with her? See if she’s worth it.”

West pushes himself off the counter, but before he can grab him by the throat, Danny turns and bangs out through the screen door, slamming it so hard he almost knocks it off the hinges. West runs out in his bare feet. I follow and see him yelling something, saliva flying from his teeth, but the sound is swallowed as Danny starts up his motorcycle. West flips the bird as the Honda Shadow tears off down the street.

“What was that all about?” I ask.

West wipes the spit off his mouth. “I got something to tell you.”

He steers me back into the house and starts making coffee, which he never does. He pours us each a cup and motions to the table, sets the mugs down and sits across from me. He smooths his eyebrows with his fingers, takes a sip, places his hands on his knees to try to stop their bouncing.

“Tabby, I’m married.”

UNTIL ABOUT A MONTH AGO, I WAS LIVING IN A SORT OF commune making necklaces and key chains to sell at a weekend flea market. People paid a lot for them because the teenage boy who worked our table was irresistible. He was about fifteen years old with dimples and long, shiny black hair. He’d offer to try the necklaces on middle-aged women and their mothers, tying the leather ends around their saggy necks and tilting his hand mirror at different angles, whispering silky compliments in their ears. The women would walk away in their mint green slacks, smiling and stroking their new feather pendants while he counted their money.

I watched this happen over and over from where I was originally selling hubcaps at a table nearby. How I got doing that was, this tattoo artist I was living with had a buddy who offered to take me out to the countryside near the Miramichi. He said, “Come on, we’ll start a business together.” I imagined a little country store with quilts and pots of honey, but we wound up selling old junk and watching black-and-white Alfred Hitchcock movies all day. I can’t even recall the guy’s name. Victor, maybe. Vince? Everyone called him Scrounge.

Anyway, I’d been at the market for a few weeks when the necklace kid came strolling over. He brought me a hot black tea in a paper cup and asked me about the different hubcaps. He started telling me about the commune where he lived, and when I had a million questions about it, he offered to bring me out and meet everyone. I went with him after work and we got drunk on dandelion wine with ten or so others. They were living in a big old cabin and several outbuildings. The cabin was strung with patio lights and had a moose skull mounted over the door. They had a well and a few generators. Most of the people living there were potheads with university degrees. I couldn’t figure out why they’d choose this over sitting at a desk somewhere with free heat.

Still, it was better than what Scrounge and I had going on. We were staying at the tiny, low-ceilinged house of his grandmother’s sister. Every room was filled with her “children,” dolls of all kinds arranged into scenes of birthday parties, sock hops, chess matches—and, more disturbingly, hair-pulling cat fights, a funeral for a dead baby and what looked like the intervention of a freckle-faced boy standing with his head bent in shame before a semicircle of former friends.

I asked the old lady which doll was her favourite and she scowled. “I don’t play favourites.” I winked at her, said, “Sure you do.” She turned red from her neck all the way up to her forehead, hobbled quickly out of the room, slamming through the saloon doors into her kitchen, where I heard her pouring Black Seal rum into the measuring cup she used as a drinking glass.

So when the commune said I could stay if I didn’t mind making key chains and shitting in an ice cream bucket, I told them, “Making key chains and shitting in random places happen to be two of my God-given talents.” They thought I was joking.

The kid’s real name was The Kid. I didn’t believe him, so he showed me his birth certificate. His full name was Billy The Kid Billyboy, so I could see why he went with The Kid. He could shimmy up onto the roof in seconds. You’d be standing next to him then hear a whistle and he’d be up there grinning down at you. He could also do roundhouse kicks, burp the whole alphabet and get you to agree to just about anything. He was the only person at the commune who didn’t start every sentence with the word “when”: “When Robbie gets back,” “When I get out west,” “When I get my money.” He was an expert on hot-air balloons because his grandfather used to operate one for a tour company. The old man would take vacationers up and sail them over farmhouses and rivers, stand mute in the corner working the propane valves while couples kissed and snapped photos with expensive cameras. The Kid got to go up sometimes after hours on Sunday evenings. His grandfather would hoist him on his shoulders to get him up even higher, show him all their land being swallowed by pavement.

The Kid and I got along like river stones. When I told him about all the things that happened to me before and after I left home, he put both his arms around me and sobbed. Then, to cheer us both up, he tried to fart “O Canada,” but he never got past a sombre trumpeted O.

At the start of trout season, his uncle showed up with a van full of fishing gear and vinyl records. The Kid introduced us and the uncle said we could have the albums to sell at the market because he’d converted to CDs. While I rummaged through the stacks, he kept looking up the back of my shorts and talking to me about fishing, like I cared. He asked me if I wanted to come along on the trip. He was sexy as hell and had decent taste in music, so I said yes. After the weekend, he asked me if I wanted to come live with him at Blood Rain.

When The Kid and I said so long, I gave him my marble and made him promise not to lose it. He held it up to the sun, watching the light play through it. Then he came running after the van, leaping and hamming it up. The uncle and I watched in the rear-view mirror, laughing. His uncle told me The Kid had an identical twin who died at birth. “Imagine two of him!” he yelled over the engine.

I smiled, thinking one twin could burp the alphabet while the other burped it backward. Then the van hit a bump in the road. The water in the fish bucket slopped over and I looked back and saw a big ugly trout sliding down the metal floor toward us. The uncle managed to keep one hand on the wheel while he reached back, scooped it up, took aim and plopped that sucker right back into the bucket. That’s when I fell for him.

Jared Smoke was the kind of man who could screw three times in a row if you were up for it. And you would be. He had washboard abs and his hair was as soft as kitten fur. He lived on the reserve in a converted office with linoleum floors and fluorescent ceiling lights. The washroom was down the hall from his apartment and it still said MEN on the door. To bathe, you had to boil water and put it in a basin in the basement laundry room. He had musical instruments everywhere and I’d sing along whenever he picked one up. He said I had a pretty voice.

When I found out he was married, I locked myself in the bathroom and tried to loosen the knot in my stomach by making myself cry. I’d been deluding myself since we met that we were starting a real relationship. I even daydreamed we might fall in love and make little babies to sing to. He said, “I didn’t think you’d care,” and then, “Don’t worry, she’s not coming back.” So I stayed. About two weeks after I arrived, his grandmother called on the phone and they yelled at each other in their language. Then his sister came over and told us the band council was waiting down the road to talk to us.

Jared and I walked into the room together and when he saw all their faces, he dropped my hand and sat two chairs away from me. When they finally spoke, he didn’t translate even though he said he would.

Afterward, I grabbed my jacket and purse from his place. I was too embarrassed to go around collecting my other junk. Jared drove me to the bus station and gave me forty dollars. I sat on a bench inside and looked up at the electronic board to see which buses were arriving and where they were going next. The first one that lit up on the screen was headed to Halifax. Through the windows, I watched Jared Smoke fiddle with the radio station to find a good song. He pulled away singing and probably never thought about me again.

WEST RIPS UP A PAPER NAPKIN AND ROLLS THE SHREDS into a hard little ball. “I don’t know why she said yes when I asked her to marry me. Neither does she.”

I picture them tying the knot in a barn strung with white twinkle lights. I think back to the photograph I saw of her the first night I slept here. I bet she wore a dress short enough to show off the calves of those tanned legs. I try not to imagine the same legs twisted around West in the bed I’ve been sleeping in, but I do anyway.

“After the wedding, she wanted me to buy the tavern, so I did, and right after that she wanted me to buy the pawnshop across the street. She was furious that I wouldn’t do it. She hated my clothes, hated this house, couldn’t stand me breathing next to her. Some rich guy came to town a few years ago to buy horses, and five minutes later she was taking off with him. I haven’t seen her since.”

I finally get my vocal cords to work. “Have you talked to her?”

“She calls me once every three months or so to make sure I’m still miserable.” West reaches his hand across the table, but I draw my chair back. “If she walked in the door right now, I’d tell her to go to hell.”

“Why are you still married to her?”

“I guess I didn’t have a good reason to bother with the paperwork.”

I catch a glimpse of my homemade curtains hanging on his window and feel my stomach tie itself in that familiar slip knot. I look away to the shadows sliding like ghosts across the cupboards and wonder if there’s any hard booze behind their doors.

“I need a cigarette.”

West leaves the room and I hear him rummaging around in the hall closet, taking things down off the shelf. He comes back and hands me a frumpy-looking Peter Jackson.

“I quit ages ago, but I hid a pack on myself in case the world’s about to end.”

“Did your wife make you quit?”

He squats down beside my chair and clears his throat like he’s about to give a speech, but then he drops his head and sighs. We stay like that, me sitting, him squatting, neither of us speaking, until the afternoon sun starts to die on the linoleum. Finally, he stands back up, ankles cracking. “I guess I should start supper.” I feel him studying the top of my head. “Tabby, I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t see the point.”

“You didn’t think I’d care that you’re married?”

“I’m only married by law. It don’t mean shit. She left.”

“Your cousin said she wants to talk to you.”

“Her brother Tommy is a buddy of Danny’s. The little piss stain’s always trying to get her to come back to Solace to help take care of their mother. It ain’t going to happen, and even if it did, she wouldn’t be welcome here.”

I get up, walk down the hall and lie down on his bed, trying to decide if I should leave right this minute. I squeeze my eyes shut, picture this wife of his prancing around, lounging next to him on the sofa watching TV. For all I know, he’s using me to make her jealous. Why else would he let a stranger practically move in overnight and drive around in his truck? Maybe he even invited Danny to drop by, hoping he’d find me here

When I open my eyes, West is standing in the doorway.

“Hit me.” He taps his cheek. “Come on, give me a good whack so we can get past this and eat chicken strips.” He paws around in a drawer and pulls out a Halloween devil mask, yanks it down over his head.

“Why do you have that thing?”

The devil tilts his hideous mug closer and closer. “Hit me,” his voice insists.

So I do. I knock him right off the bed.

“Jesus fuckmongering ass witch. Was that just your hand?” He tries to laugh, but it makes him wince. “I’ve taken knuckle rings with less bite.”

I reach down, pull up his mask and gasp. There’s a mass of swelling already forming under his cheekbone.

“What?” He grabs his top lip and hauls it to one side. “Am I missing some teeth? Maybe you better hit me again to make sure.”

I tell him I need some time alone to think and he pulls himself up off the floor, closing the bedroom door behind him. After he leaves for work, I go out to the kitchen and eat a few of the chicken fingers he left for me on the stove. They’re pretty good.

I take a bath then sit on the sofa flipping through West’s cookbook. Finally, I shut it and dig through my purse looking for the phone number I wrote down. I dial the trailer and it only rings once before Ma picks up.

“Oh, Tabby. I thought you were the police.”

“The police? Why?”

“Swimmer’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean?”

“As soon as I went over to Bird’s, Poppy took off to buy drugs. She left the kids in the car at some dealer’s house and Janis fell asleep. Swimmer took off from the back seat and no one’s seen him.”

“Since when?”

“Since five hours ago.”

“Oh my God.”

I hang up and step into my boots, run down the road to the tavern. When I tell West about Swimmer, he kicks everyone out and snaps off the lights. We’re on the highway within five minutes.

“Floor it.”

“I am.” The engine rattles. “This is as fast as she goes.” West glances in the rear-view mirror. “Shit, did I lock the register?”

We arrive in Jubilant a few minutes after midnight. There’s a cop car parked in Poppy’s driveway. I hurry inside and find Ma sitting on the sofa with Jewell. A police officer is on the phone in the kitchen.

“No news,” Jewell whispers before I ask. “Poppy’s in the hospital having a nervous breakdown. Jackie’s out searching. We just got Janis to sleep.”

Ma looks like she’s been punched in both eyes, her lids are so swollen. I ask her if she’s all right and Jewell pats her hand, looks at me and shakes her head no. I go to the kitchen cupboard where Ma keeps a carton of Export “A”s, grab two packs, slip one in my jacket and tear the wrapping off the other. I remove the silver paper on the left-hand side the way she prefers, light one and bring it out to the waiting V of her fingers.

“West is with me,” I tell her. “We’re going to see what we can find out.”

“She was right off Wharf Road,” Jewell says. “We’ve already been up and down there fifty times.”

I go back out to the truck and tell West, “We need to hear what people in town are saying. Is there a bar around?”

“The Hug ‘n’ Slug,” he says, backing out. “The owner was ready to board it up a while back, but I guess he’s still turning the sign on.”

I chew a fingernail down to the skin, staring into everyone’s yards as we pass. We pull up in front of a square building with bars on the windows and a sign hanging over the door that says The Lighthouse. I’ve driven past it a few times. The paint used to be blue, but the salt air turned it a pale turquoise. It’s almost pretty in the moonlight.

An electric buzzer sounds when we walk in and the bartender’s hand darts beneath the counter where he probably keeps his weapon. There are six or seven people seated, a few more shooting pool.

“Lazlo around?” West asks.

“Nope.”

We sit at the bar and order a couple of drafts. The bartender relaxes a little and pulls down two glasses, keeps a steady eye on us as he pours.

“We heard there’s a kid missing,” West says. “Seen posters up at the Irving station.”

A man sitting at the bar turns to look at us. “It’s that little feller belongs to that stripper.” He fishes the straw out of his glass and tosses it on the bar, takes two quick sips. “I recognize you.”

“I run the tavern in Solace River.”

“The Punch ‘n’ Kick?”

West removes his coat and slings it a little too hard over the stool back. “The Four Horses.”

“That’s right.” The man taps his cheek then points to the shiner I gave West. “Looks like someone got the better of you.”

A woman clomps up and whispers something in the man’s ear. She leans down so far the ends of her peroxide blond hair dip into his drink. I look away from her saggy cleavage down at her leopard print pumps.

“Nice shoes.”

“Got these at Frenchy’s for four bucks.” She picks up one freckled foot in the air and rotates it. The blurry mermaid tattooed on her ankle gyrates its tail. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Tabby. He’s West.”

She catches her balance. “I’m Angela, this is Bernie, and over there are a bunch of shitheads not worth knowing.”

“We were just saying it’s a shame about the missing little boy.”

“They ain’t going to find that kid. That woman has enemies. They want her brother and all them gone.”

“Angela, quit your drunk talk.” The bartender snatches her empty glass.

“Smoke?” I show her my pack of cigarettes, hop off my stool. “Let’s go outside.”

The street is deserted. She sparks the cigarette I give her off the lighter dangling from her key chain. Her key chain charm is a leopard print pump exactly like the ones she’s wearing.

“Your man’s some good-looking, though, Jesus.” She inhales sharply and holds it in as she says, “You two walked in and I almost fell out of my chair.”

“Well, he’s not really mine. He’s married.”

“Fuck him, then.” She blows out. “It ain’t worth it.”

“I do fuck him.” I sigh. “And trust me, it’s worth it.”

She snorts and careens on her heels. “I like you. You should stick around. I’ll warn you, though.” She points at me with the burning tip of the cigarette. “This place is boring as shit. I mean, look at it.” She gestures up the drizzly street, flinging her smoke in the air. I watch her stumble back and forth trying to fish it from the sidewalk crack. She finally manages to pinch it between her fingers and brings it back to her mouth, coating the filter in hot pink lipstick.

“So, this missing boy,” I say. “You know something?”

“Troy and them were all up at his place yelling at each other, and it sounded like they were talking about where to stash some kid. I only go up there to buy grass off Kay, right?” She blows out a long stream of smoke. “They just ignore me.”

“You didn’t call the cops?”

“Fuck, no. They’re probably taking better care of him than his mother does. Anyways, I know better. Those assholes would bury me.”

“Why do you think they took him?”

“Probably to get back at somebody for something. Either way, the kid’s going to social services. I know, because it happened to me, right?” Her veined blue eyes drift away up the street. When she looks back at me, they’re shining. “They won’t even fucking let me see my own fucking kid.”

WEST AND I HEAD BACK TO THE TRAILER AND SLEEP IN the truck. In the morning, we drive to the truck stop for breakfast and I call Ma from the pay phone. Janis answers and says Swimmer’s still gone and Grandma can’t talk right now because she’s crying too much. I tell her to try to cheer Grandma up and we’ll check in later.

West parks outside the Lighthouse until the Open light switches on, then goes in hoping to catch the owner. Twenty minutes go by and I fall back to sleep on the sun-warmed seats. The door snaps open and I sit up with a start.

“Laz knows this Troy guy,” West says, sliding back behind the wheel. “Says he wouldn’t be surprised if that’s who’s behind this.”

“Okay. What do we do?”

He squints toward the dock railing where some boats are heading out to open water. Then he turns the key in the ignition. “We’ll have to send the cops up there.”

At the police station, we find out they have only one car out searching for Swimmer. The officer in charge gets winded just from standing up from his chair. The two middle buttons of his uniform shirt pop open. West gives him the address for Troy, but he tells us there’s nothing he can do without a search warrant.

“You got a woman in a bar saying she heard people at that house arguing about where to stash a kid.” West rubs the knees of his jeans. “Don’t you think it’s worth looking into?”

The officer picks some crud out of the corner of his eye with his pinky finger. “Sir, let me explain this to you one more time. Even if I wanted to check it out, I can’t enter private property without a search warrant.”

I cut in. “Shouldn’t you at least issue some kind of press release with Swimmer’s photograph?”

“Truthfully, we’re not considering this a missing person case yet.”

“What? Why the hell not?”

“Because it’s not the first time your sister’s lost track of her son. Last year, we got a call from some woman a kilometre away saying he just turned up on her lawn, playing with her dog.”

“He’s been gone overnight. If he was playing with somebody’s dog, they’d have called by now, for Christ sake.”

He shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. It could be someone who knows his mother and hasn’t got around to bringing him home yet.”

“Are you kidding me?” West looks about ready to put the guy in a headlock. “What if you’re wrong? What if this was your kid?”

“Sir,” the cop begins, but doesn’t continue.

I stand up. “Let’s go.”

West kicks the door on our way out and yells, “Fucking Keystone Cops!” He tells me about an RCMP officer in Solace River, the only one he trusts enough to call when a fight gets out of hand at the tavern. We find a pay phone and the dispatcher puts him through. He talks for a while and, when he hangs up, tells me the Mountie might have a jurisdiction issue but said he’ll see what he can do.

We drive to the playground for a quick look before we head back to the trailer. No one’s home when we pull in. I dig the spare key out of the swan planter and we go inside, try to make small talk, but we’re too drained. Our voices trail off and we just sit in silence. West’s eyes travel around the trailer and I bet he’s wondering where I get off making comments about his place.

Just before dusk, a Toyota Tercel rolls up the driveway. Jackie gets out, goes around and helps Ma out of the passenger seat. Janis climbs out the back and it takes her three tries to slam the door shut. Swimmer’s still missing. I can see it in their eyes.

“Janis, this is West,” I say once she kicks her sneakers off.

She stands there on the carpet, eyeing him from behind her sunglasses. “You’re him.”

“I’m him.”

“You can’t meet Swimmer, because he escaped.”

West nods. “That’s okay. I’ll meet him when he gets back.”

“He’ll be back on Tuesday because that’s when we watch the Muppets show.” She points at Jackie and Ma. “This is Uncle Jackie and this is my grandmother. Just call her Grandma.”

West shakes their hands, but they barely register him.

“We been at the hospital trying to get more information out of Poppy,” Jackie says. “She’s hopped up on something, trying to claw out the windows. They had to restrain her twice because she’s so goddamn skinny, she squirms right out of the straps.”

“Who’s Troy?” I ask.

Jackie flinches. “Who said Troy?”

“Some woman in the Lighthouse said Troy was out to get Poppy. Who is he?”

Jackie sniffs his armpit, says he needs to take a shower and walks away down the hall.

Ma sets her purse on the table. “Poppy said those low-lifes at the drug house wouldn’t let her leave, wanted to know why the cops were looking for her and whose names she’s been giving out. They closed the drapes and wouldn’t let her check on the kids, started forcing pills down her throat and asking her the same questions over and over. She doesn’t know how much time passed before she heard Janis screaming at her through the cat flap.”

“Oh shit.” I feel the blood drain from my face. “I made Lyle think the cops are after Poppy.”

“This ain’t Lyle,” Ma says. “It’s Troy. This ain’t the first time he used Poppy to get at Jackie. When she was just a dancer, he fed her drugs like candy one weekend, convinced her she could make a thousand a night doing what she shouldn’t. He’s the reason she got addicted in the first place.”

Janis lies down on the kitchen floor and doesn’t say a word while I boil spaghetti noodles and West chops up whatever he can find in the fridge. I have about ten questions for Jackie, but after he jumps out of the shower he heads straight down to the pay phone at Frosty’s to call Jewell. I ask him why he doesn’t just use the phone here and he says he doesn’t want to tie up the line in case the cops call.

“Use your head,” he snaps at me, jabbing his index finger to his temple.

I keep thinking about what Ma said. Troy would have to be one demented motherfucker to snatch a kid. I bet West is thinking the same thing. He’s been slicing the brown spots off the same onion for five minutes.

When Jackie finally comes back, he rigs up a police scanner in the kitchen and stays glued to it all night. The rest of us eat in the living room, staring blankly at the television while we chew.

“Is Swimmer eating supper?” Janis asks.

“Of course he is,” I say. “He’s got it all over his face as usual.”

“And on his arms,” she says.

“And on his shirt.”

She rips off a hunk of bread. “He’s wearing his Smurfs shirt,” she says with her mouth full. “I remembered that to the fuzz.”

AFTER SUPPER, WEST TELLS ME HE’S GOT TO HEAD BACK to Solace River and check on the tavern. He keeps his back to me as he puts his boots on and I get the feeling he’s had enough. Maybe he’s finally realized why people keep ten paces back from anyone named Saint. Part of me wants to jump in the truck with him and forget I ever found Poppy’s trailer in the first place. I take my coat off the hook.

“You should stay,” he whispers.

I peer around the corner at Ma slumped in a chair, Jackie resting his head on his arms at the kitchen table. West starts to say more, but Janis pops up between us.

“Can you look for my brother at Saw-liss River?” she asks West. “He might go fishing, so you should look for a kid sitting with a stick in the water.” She spreads her arms wide. “His head is this big.”

West tells her he’ll keep his eyes peeled and heads out. Janis follows me to the front window, waving to West as he starts up his engine. At the foot of the driveway he gives a weak honk, and then he’s gone. I still have my coat in my hand.

“There goes a good man,” Janis says.

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.”

The full moon is so low in the sky, it looks like the opening to a tunnel through the trees. Janis stares at it, nose pressed to the glass. “You think there’s wolfs out there eating Swimmer’s brains?”

“No, honey. They don’t eat humans.”

“They do too. I seen it on Uncle Jackie’s TV. They eat us raw. But I don’t think they’d want to eat Swimmer because he smells too bad.” She breathes a circle of condensation. “Some wolfs take real babies and make them into wolf babies. So when Swimmer comes back, he might walk like a dog and eat out of garbage cans.”

WHEN THE POLICE FINALLY PHONE, THEY TELL US THEY went up to Troy’s residence and no one was there. The doors were locked and the cars gone. They finally contacted all the Maritime police agencies and alerted the media, and I bet it’s only because West made that phone call to the Solace River detachment.

Ma goes to lie down and doesn’t come back out. I knock on the bedroom door to ask if I can borrow her car and she says fine, if I can get it started. She drives a hatchback with two missing side mirrors. I try the key, pumping the gas until the engine finally turns over. The safety inspection expired four years ago and there’s a hole in the floor so big you can see the gravel in the driveway. An air freshener shaped like a lobster hangs from the rear-view mirror. I sniff it out of curiosity, but the scent’s all worn off.

It’s been a while since I drove stick and it takes a minute to catch it in gear. I jerk all the way down the driveway but have it under control by the time I pass Frosty’s. Thinking about Poppy going to score after she was half clean gets me so worked up I almost take out a purple mailbox.

It starts raining as I pull into the hospital parking lot. I get out and stand in the drops, staring up at Poppy’s lighted window and grinding my teeth. She’s sleeping when I get up there, so I sit down in the hallway with my back against the wall and wait until a nurse goes in to check her meds. When the woman comes back out, she tells me Poppy’s awake. I walk in, keeping my distance. Poppy’s arms and face are scratched up and bruised.

“Someone beat you up before I got the chance?”

She squints at me. “I did. I hit myself in the face until they shot me up with tranquilizers.” She wrenches herself into a sitting position. “Where’s my baby?”

“No one knows.”

Her eyes are red slits. “Please kill me.”

She looks dead already or I’d seriously consider it. Her skin is so pale, she practically disappears against the sheets except for the black and yellow holes in her arms. Twenty-one years old and all washed up. I can’t stand to look at her.

“That’s the second time someone said that to me in this hospital. You both want the easy way out.”

I turn and walk out of the room to the stairwell, jog two stairs at a time up four flights to the top floor, push open the heavy door and march to the end of the hall. The door to 404A is closed, but I kick it open and barge in. Daddy’s rank breath makes it easy to find him in the darkness. I switch on the lamp, stand over him for a few seconds and listen to his chest whistle. I can only imagine what demented dreams slosh around his head.

It takes me a few minutes to unhook all the tubes. I figure out how to release the foot brake on his bed then guide it out into the hallway. He doesn’t wake up until the elevator doors are sliding open.

“The hell?”

A nurse comes around the corner and yells at us to stop just as the doors are closing. Before we get down to the second floor, Daddy starts struggling and demands I take him back to his room. I tell him to shut his trap just like he said to me a thousand times. The doors open and I wheel his bed quickly down the hall. When I’m almost to Poppy’s room, I break into a run and heave Daddy right through the open door.

“You deserve each other!” I yell.

A loud bang echoes into the hallway as his bed crashes into hers and slams it into the wall. Nurses come running, Poppy’s screaming like she’s being doused in acid, Daddy hollers, “WHAT IN THE FLYING FUCK?” and I turn and walk right out of the hospital.