Chapter 29

Maggie

Through the glass doors, Maggie can see Artie at the front desk and Austin dusting. She’d left school as soon as the dismissal bell rang, not bothering to go to her locker in case Brianne and Lexi were waiting for her.

“What are you doing here?” Austin blurts when Maggie steps inside. “I mean, it’s Monday.”

Maggie shrugs. A blush creeps up her neck. “I wanted to know what happened with the puppy,” she admits. “And to help Mrs. Fradette. Or work in the library. If that’s okay?” She looks past Austin to Artie.

“No argument from me,” he says. “Hey, guess what Mrs. Fradette did earlier this afternoon?” He chuckles as he tells them. “Hijacked the bridge club and taught them Texas Hold’em!”

Maggie grins thinking about sweet Mrs. O’Brien scooping up poker chips from Mrs. Kowalski and Miss Lin.

“Who won?” Austin asks.

“Mrs. Kowalski. She made out like a bandit. Mrs. O’Brien is baking her muffins for a month!”

The phone at the front desk rings and Artie answers it, leaving Austin and Maggie alone.

“Any news about the puppy?” Maggie asks.

“The lady at the shelter said she was lucky Harvey found her when he did.”

Maggie leaves Austin to his dusting and heads to Mrs. Fradette’s suite. She knocks on the door. “It’s Maggie—Margaret,” she corrects herself.

“Come in,” Mrs. Fradette calls out. “It’s open.”

Mrs. Fradette is standing at the kitchen counter. “What good timing you have. I was just about to make some tea.” Without asking, she pulls a cup out for Maggie. “I hope you like orange pekoe. My daughter-in-law sends it from England.”

Mrs. Fradette brings the cup of tea to Maggie and sets it down on the kitchen table, which is covered with photos. “Still working on your collage?” Maggie asks.

“I haven’t gone through these photos in years,” Mrs. Fradette says, picking one up. “Remember I told you about my grandparents in Laurier? This is them.”

Maggie looks closer at the small black-and-white photo of two unsmiling old people. They are sitting on the veranda of a clapboard house.

“My grandma, Mémère we called her, struck the fear of God into all of us. She refused to speak English and had a wooden spoon hanging on a hook in the kitchen. We all knew what it was for. That spring in Laurier she used it a fair bit on Michel!” Mrs. Fradette grins. “Mémère thought Mom was too easy on us, I think. But Pépère was kind, very soft-spoken.” She sifts through the photos and finds one to show Maggie. “That’s him.”

Her grandpa was tall with a long face and dark hair. Mrs. Fradette looks at the photo for another moment and adds it to a small pile. “And here’s one of him with his car. It was a dark green 1942 Plymouth.” The car in the photo has a domed roof and curved wheel wells. It reminds Maggie of a larger version of a VW Beetle. “Ronny and I used to climb in and pretend to drive it. I think we flooded the engine a few times, but Pépère never got mad at us.”

“He didn’t use the wooden spoon?” Maggie asks, half joking.

Mrs. Fradette cackles. “Oh no! Not Pépère. He never even raised his voice. He was a mechanic. His shop was across the field from the house. It’s because of him my life took the turn that it did. Well, him and the flood, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asks. She takes a sip of her tea. It is bitter and strong, but Maggie kind of likes it.

Mrs. Fradette finds the photo of the garage again. “You see, this side”—she points to the side with the closed door— “was filled with old cars. There was a pickup truck with a Model T front and flat back. Oh, and there was another brown car I remember, from the 1930s. And a powder-blue Ford. Now that was a beauty. Everything smelled like diesel fuel and rust and I loved it.”

Mrs. Fradette’s face glows as she talks about it. “I’d scramble around exploring, imagining what it would be like to bring the cars to life again. When I was younger and we visited in summer, he’d let me help him in the garage now and then. He called me his assistant.

“Over breakfast on our first morning of the evacuation, I asked Pépère if I could go with him to the garage. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck at home with Mémère and Mom. I’d be given chores, or worse, told to look after my little brother and sister.

“Pépère grinned and took a long sip of his coffee. ‘’Course you can,’ he said. Mom raised her eyebrows at him, but didn’t say anything. She knew I was looking for any excuse to get out of the house.

“When we got to the garage, Pépère set me up on a stool. I watched while he laid out his tools. My cousin Alphonse arrived for work at nine o’clock. Alphonse was sixteen and the oldest of Aunt Cecile and Uncle Joe’s boys. School was done for him and he’d chosen to work at the garage with Pépère. I’d never had much to do with Alphonse before. I remember he didn’t look too happy to see me hanging around. ‘What’s she doing here?’ he asked.

“‘She’s learning,’ Pépère answered.

“‘She’s not going to learn much, just sitting there,’ Alphonse muttered. He probably hoped I’d get bored and scamper away, but that garage had always fascinated me and now that we were in Laurier for a while, I wasn’t going to let him scare me off. Besides, I adored Pépère. When I was little, Mom called me his shadow because I was always following him around.

“Pépère stood up and scratched his head. ‘That’s a good point.’ Pépère walked over to me and put a wrench in my hand.

“I stared at it. I’d never even held a tool. It was heavy. ‘That’s a crescent wrench,’ he said. ‘Come here and I’ll show you how to use it.’ Poor Alphonse turned away muttering, curse words probably, but too low for Pépère to hear them. My clothes were covered in grease by the time lunch rolled around.

“Mom’s eyes turned to saucers when Pépère and I walked into the kitchen for lunch. ‘Josephine! What have you done?’ she said.” Mrs. Fradette breaks off with a laugh. She slaps her knee and cackles. “Oh! My poor mother! But Pépère didn’t miss a beat. ‘She’s helping in the garage.’ As if it was the most natural thing in the world. Pépère was a kind man, but he had a steel will too. There was no budging him when his mind was made up. Mom didn’t even argue. She just shook her head. ‘Go wash up, then.’ But under her breath she muttered, ‘Wait till your father hears about this.’”

“Did your dad find out?” Maggie asks.

“Oh, of course! He called every day to give us an update on the house. We still hadn’t flooded, but things hadn’t gotten any better. Ronny was staying over at Uncle Wilfred and Aunt Winnie’s, so Mom called them every other day to check in on him. He and some of the other Scouts had been taught to drive motorboats. They’d patrol the banks of the dikes looking for breaks, or help with evacuations if needed.

“The men were getting tired after weeks and weeks of working almost twenty-four hours a day. Dad had taken to sleeping on the couch in the living room with one arm dangling off the edge. He figured he’d wake up if he could feel the water.

“I guess I should have thanked the flood for preoccupying Dad. He was so busy trying to save our house that when he found out later that night that his daughter was working at a garage it didn’t bother him half as much as it should have.”

There’s another photo of Mrs. Fradette, standing beside an old truck. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she’s wearing overalls. She’s got her hands on her hips, head tilted like she’s asking the photographer a question. “I was so free up there,” she says. “It wasn’t like at home.” She looks at the photo wistfully. “I could just be me.”

Maggie is filled with a sudden longing. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but she’d like to know what “just being me” feels like.

 

 

When it’s time for Maggie to leave, she finds Austin is at the entrance. He’s moved on from dusting to washing the windows. No wonder he likes it when Harvey comes to visit. He does more chores in a week at Brayside than Maggie’s ever done at home. “How’s Mrs. Fradette?” he asks.

“Still working on her collage,” Maggie says. “It’s taking her forever, but I think she likes looking at all the photos.”

“Old people aren’t big on rushing. Except Mr. Singh, but that’s just because he has his Cobra GT4.”

Maggie smiles. “She still has things in boxes, but every time I go to help her, she starts telling me stories.” Maggie glances at the front window. Her dad had texted that he would be there in a few minutes.

“Mr. Pickering was like that too.”

Outside the dining room, Maggie notices a wreath of flowers, the kind you order for a funeral. “Is that for Mr. Stephens?” she asks.

Austin shakes his head. “No. He’s out of the hospital. It’s for a different lady. Someone from the third floor. I didn’t know her.”

Before Maggie came to Brayside, she imagined it as a place where death hung in the air like a bad smell. But it isn’t like that at all, at least not on the first floor. All the old people are so lively. Especially Mrs. Fradette. “I thought being around old people would make me sad.” Maggie gives the wreath a meaningful look. “But it doesn’t. At least it hasn’t so far.”

Austin nods. “I couldn’t come to Brayside for a while after Mr. Pickering died. But when I did, everyone here understood. They all missed him too. He was ready though, when he died. And it was because of Harvey.”

Maggie frowns, confused.

“Meeting Harvey reminded him of his dog, General. That’s why he started talking to me. I know I should have done more to find you. It was wrong to keep Harvey, but giving him back meant—”

“The end of talking with Mr. Pickering.”

For a year, Maggie has let her anger over Harvey’s disappearance fester. But she sees now, she had it wrong. Austin wasn’t trying to hurt her when he kept Harvey, he was trying to help an old man.

When her dad pulls up outside, Maggie is once again reluctant to leave. There’s something she needs to say to Austin. “I’m glad it was you who found Harvey,” she says.

Any remnants of guilt that had been hovering between them disappear. “Are you coming back tomorrow?” Austin asks.

Maggie thinks for a minute. Why not? “I’m going to try,” she says, and waves goodbye.