Billy wandered down the empty hallway. The mural was almost done. He’d put Cathy and George in the rowboat, sketching their faces from a photo that Cathy had sent. In the photo they were picking saskatoons off an overgrown bush, dropping the berries into ice cream buckets strapped around their waists with pantyhose. He stared at that photo for a ridiculously long time before he picked up his brush. He tried to capture their goodness with his brush strokes and hoped they wouldn’t freak out when they saw it.
He should haul out his gear and add more shading around the oars. With the hallway so quiet, he’d be done in fifteen minutes. His grandma was on the other side at the birthday party with everyone but Clement, who was locked in his room again with the runs. Cathy and George were at a property manager conference in Canmore. Leo was gone too, camping with his grandparents without cell service. Nick wouldn’t be home from work until late, and there was nobody else. He was sick of his dumb, sloshing brain.
Everything got taken away. His old house. His old town. His old grandma. Sarah and Carter. Gone. Even Rachel, who wasn’t all bad. She’d skipped town, leaving behind the pile of shit she’d created, in her house, in their heads. The staff hated her. Nick kept telling him to put her out of his mind. Rachel is not right, not fit to breathe your air. At least she’d come clean to Sarah and returned the stuff she stole, saving him from turning her in. If the police were after her, a part of him hoped she’d never get caught, that she could hole up with bunnies and stay out of trouble.
Nick had helped Sarah and Carter with their rush move to Edmonton (We can get a hotel, scream on the rollercoaster at West Edmonton Mall), but Billy wanted none of it. He figured the drive would be too sad, only now he wished he’d said yes. He wished he’d said a real goodbye.
He’d been mean to Nick for days, giving him the silent treatment. A part of him was sorry, but a bigger part couldn’t help it. Maybe he’d been testing his dad, seeing if he’d disappear too. Except he didn’t. He hovered. He kept bringing out the crib board. Bringing glasses of milk to his room. Making him bacon and eggs for breakfast. Calling him every day from work. The more Billy pushed him away, the more Nick stuck. It was weird. He wanted to be alone; he wanted not to be alone more.
School started next week, and he didn’t know what to call the heat rising from his stomach and landing in his throat. Legitimate jitters? White-hot terror? His past school days had been less than glowy. He’d managed to avoid the mean kids’ radar for the most part, but it took diligence, and it had required avoiding everything else too. Raising his hand, opening his mouth, making eye contact. This year he’d have to change tactics. For one thing, he was the new kid, bigger than he used to be, and easier to spot. For another, he’d have Leo and Ben beside him, and they were about as inconspicuous as a pair of braying donkeys.
His heart wasn’t into working on the stupid mural. He might as well go home. Evie wouldn’t miss him when the party was over. She’d taken to mothering the others—pushing their wheelchairs, holding their hands, buttoning their sweaters—her laugh ringing down the hallway whether he was beside her or not.
He trudged into the staff room to get his helmet. There was Dorothy, a pencil in her mouth, glaring at the papers scattered over the table. He pictured lunging at her, pulling out great clumps of hair, hurling every swear he could think of.
She turned and stared. “Billy. I’ve been expecting this.”
Expecting what? A war? His fingers curled into fists.
“Will you sit down with me for a minute?”
“No,” he croaked, all that would come out.
She sighed. “There are things I’ve wanted to say to you.”
There were things he wanted to say to her too. You are nasty and ugly, and everyone hates you. He couldn’t get his mouth to work. Or his legs or his arms.
She pushed out the chair beside her and pointed for him to sit. He didn’t move.
“Well, never mind,” she said. “I can say what I need to with you there. Let’s start with Evelyn.” She opened a file folder and scanned a page with her finger. “I’ve been studying her charts, and I’m so pleased. Her vitals are excellent. The vitamin D has certainly helped. Did you know she’s gained ten pounds this summer? Another ten and she’ll be at an ideal weight. And she’s healing remarkably well after her fall.”
Billy’s face burned. He didn’t need a lecture about how to take care of his grandma. Prairie View had her, what, a couple of months? He’d had her his whole life.
She snapped the folder closed and stared, not pleasantly. “But mostly, I wanted to thank you.”
And he wanted to punch her face.
“I was skeptical at first,” she continued, oblivious. “But you have done good work. Your walls have made a difference.”
He didn’t need a lecture about his good work. Not from her. “You fired Sarah,” he hissed.
She nodded slow motion.
He kept going, spitting loud. “You fired Sarah. You are horrible and you wrecked her and you’re worse than Rachel. You were so wrong. About everything. And now she’s gone, and Carter’s gone, and they’re not coming back.”
She crossed her arms. “Are you finished?” she asked without barking.
“You’re an asshole,” he said, hot and dripping.
She studied him so long he wanted to run. Finally, she spoke. “I like you, Billy. And your father. And Evelyn. Yes, I was wrong, and I’ve had my . . . regrets. And I’ve tried to make it right.”
“How?” he yelled. “She’s gone.”
Dorothy leaned back, the flimsy chair squealing. “I’ve called Sarah and apologized. Recorded the incident on her file. Gave her new employer a glowing reference. All the stars.”
Billy stood there dumbly.
“As Sarah said herself, she’s gone to something better. Better pay. Better work. More than we could offer her here.” She looked at him sternly. “You want her to be happy?”
He nodded, reluctantly. He wanted Sarah to be happy. Here, not far away.
“Then be happy for her. And be happy for your grandma.” She leaned forward, laying her palms on the table. “Have you heard of the Rigsbee Terrific Teen Award?”
He shook his head. Leo had told him about the teen maze and teen pool nights, nothing else.
Dorothy continued, not a whiff of emotion. “It’s an award given by the town for young people who have made outstanding contributions to the community. Outstanding potential. I nominated you. You’ve won. It’s a cash prize. Five hundred dollars to spend as you like. You’ll be getting a letter. And the paper will want to talk to you. And get photographs of you and the murals. We’ll have an ice cream social in September to celebrate.”
She turned back to her papers, all business. “Well, I have a busy day here. I’m glad we’ve had this little chat.”
He grabbed his helmet and fled.
Nick turned off the highway and onto the lake road. September, and the hottest day of the year, the sun searing bright, bleaching the colour from the sky and fields. Not a breath of wind. Even the birds had gone limp.
He crossed the cattle-guard gate and inched the truck up the winding gravel driveway towards the abandoned farmhouse. There was promise for this place, this land, a conservation easement to be slapped on the title. No more dredging or draining or damming or decimating. Front page news in the Rigsbee Globe. Ducks Unlimited were in talks with Alberta Environment to purchase the old Ackerman Campground property, and other parcels around Goose Lake. All part of their wetlands conservation program. Nick wanted to believe he’d played a part.
He didn’t know why he’d come. Why he’d stepped out of the truck or walked up to the front door or jimmied the old lock. He found himself standing in his childhood kitchen, remembering his mother at the sink, an apron tied over her bathing suit, her bare brown foot tapping to the tinny country music on the radio with the snapped-off antenna. There was the ancient bread box, cinnamon rolls stacked under the cracked glass lid. Lemonade in the happy-face pitcher behind the fridge door. His father, beyond the open window, heading out of Campers Hall in coveralls and his UFA ballcap. The ringaringaring song of crickets in the tall grass, the pulse of the campers’ voices rising out of trees, the lull of waves washing over sand and rock.
It was everything he’d known. The sweat-soaked skin of summer days. Hard work and hard play. But when he’d come clean at last—his trembling confession in his parents’ living room—things weren’t as he’d known. So much had been kept from him.
He had driven to Edmonton that morning after he dropped Billy at Leo’s place. Billy seemed to be coming out of his funk and had canoeing and a sleepover, a last hurrah before classes started. He wasn’t sure who was more nervous, father or son, about the new school year.
Nick wore his best shirt. Slicked his hair back. He found his parents’ place with GPS. The towering apartment complex sat at the mouth of a quiet cul-de-sac, big willow trees out front, a red bench with the painted words Live With No Regrets in his mother’s lettering beside the main entrance. When she opened her door, she gasped before she grabbed him close. His father and Bear rushed in from another room.
Nick was put on the couch between his mother and the dog, his dad in the old recliner that used to be in the side room in the farmhouse. (The parlour, they’d joked.) He handed her his offering, the paper bag that had been clutched in his fist. She pulled out the framed photo he’d kept hidden in his drawer for the past decade. He’d taken the shot from a distance, a wide view of Goose Lake, an explosion of apricot orange from the setting sun, his parents floating together on a giant rubber tube. She held it like it was precious, brushing her fingers against the glass. When she finally passed it to his dad, he said, “You looked mighty good in that bathing suit, Cathy.”
They ate chocolate chip cookies and drank coffee and talked about the wonder of Billy. How he ate seven meals a day, could do jumps on his bike, could follow the “How to Make Fudge” YouTube video. His boy: Rigsbee’s Terrific Teen. Five hundred bucks for being himself.
For a brief moment he thought, why not sink into the couch fold and carry on like this? Why not simply erase the fault line and pick up where they’d left off? But he’d come for a confession. His voice faltered as he started. It was hard to explain. The stolen beers. The fire. How he hid it. Why.
By the time he was finished, his mother was in tears, his father’s cheeks ashen and sunk, hands clasped over knees. He’d broken their hearts. He wanted their anger, but his mom’s stifled sobs and the dog’s incessant whimpering and his dad’s stony silence were worse.
When he could no longer stand it, he said feebly, “I screwed up. Screwed up all of it. I’m so sorry.”
His mother leaned towards him, cupping his cheeks in her hands. “You have carried this inside all this time,” she said shakily. “This is why—”
He could see the reel play out in her head. All their unanswered calls, all his no shows. He sat perfectly still, held upright between her hands, unable to look at her wet eyes.
She blinked away her tears. “You’re not angry with us? It wasn’t anger that kept you away?”
Angry at them?
She finally let go, Bear scrambling back into her lap, licking her face to make things right. Then his parents both talked at once. That place had become too much for us, he thought he heard his dad say amidst the flood of spilled words, his mother jumping in about the lapsed insurance, how they couldn’t afford it.
What were they saying? Their family had everything before he’d ruined it. They’d been doing great.
His dad finally cut through the mud. “Things were falling apart, son, long before the fire. Do you understand?”
Nick shook his head.
“We were holding on by a thread. We wanted to see you off. See you launched before—”
His mother cut in, “We knew how much you loved that place.”
“But you loved it too,” Nick insisted. He knew that much was true.
“We did.” His father looked wistfully at the trees beyond the window. “But its time had passed. The world had changed. We didn’t want you to witness the messy business of letting the campground go. That fire just moved up the timetable a bit.”
They made it sound as if the fire had been part of a predestined plan, a miracle, a clean break between the old and the new. If Nick had kept things hidden, well so had they, each trying to protect the other.
“You’ve had your reasons to put up a wall,” his dad said, head bowed. “We’re just glad you built a door and that you’ve chosen to walk through it.”
They’d been prolonging their goodbyes at the front door when Sarah’s name came up again. He’d told them how she’d found a duplex with big windows, nobody above her. A miraculous find. The landlord’s new tenant had backed out last minute, which allowed Sarah to slide right in. A boy Carter’s age next door. Plenty of worms in the garden out back. He’d helped her with the move, got her cable working, hammered Billy’s painting on the wall, put her bed frame back together. He didn’t share the part about coming home without her, draining a bottle of Jack Daniels, waking up in the yard beneath the moon. Or about how she called him the next night and said, “There you are. I needed to hear your voice.”
“Here’s to new beginnings,” was what his dad had said.
“Yeah, Sarah deserves this,” Nick had agreed, mustering his best self.
His father tipped his head back, eyes drilling into him. “That’s not who I’m talking about. This is your new beginning. Hope, son. He who has hope has everything.”
Nick stared out the kitchen window of the old farmhouse, skin tingling. How many times had he stood at this very spot, swiping away milk moustaches with the back of his hand? How many dishes had he washed at this sink? How many times had he run out the door and pounded through the tall grass, a bevy of campground kids hollering in pursuit?
Things had come so easily for him once. He didn’t have to struggle for high marks or winning goals or packs of friends or summer girls.
But Billy was no come-and-go campground kid. And Sarah was no summer girl. His former self would have run to her and made her his, consequences be damned. But Billy had real friends, a real chance in Rigsbee, and Evie had lost that gaunt look and could find the way to her room by herself.
Things had to be different this time. He had to be different. Sarah and Billy weren’t his for the taking. It would require all kinds of hard work and heartbreak to earn their love.
The long hot day had slipped by, confessions taking considerably longer than he’d imagined, his stolen time in the farmhouse more a meditation than a break-in. In disassembling the years, he’d lost track of the hour, the fevered sky now awash in pink. He walked out of the old farmhouse, shutting the door firmly behind him.
His feet led him down the path to the shoreline. The setting sun had drawn a long red carpet across the water, inviting him back in, the same wet he’d worn those hundreds of nights.
What was it his dad had said? This is your new beginning. Hope, son. His mom had promised pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, with Sarah and Carter at the table too.
He stepped out of shoes, first left, then right, and stripped off his shirt and jeans. He felt as fragile as a just-laid egg in a precarious nest. Any number of tragedies could befall him before he’d learn to fly.
Yet the water was warm, the mucky lake bottom squishing between his toes.
What had he done to deserve hope?
Seagulls circled above, squawking in applause as he waded towards the depths. Maybe that was the thing. It comes to you anyway.