BELLA COOLA LAY DRENCHED and grey in the late morning light. Rain soaked a small white church, a faded totem pole and the paint-peeling houses of the reserve. We found a store and I went in and bought a can of beans, a loaf of bread, and a few barely ripe bananas. An older man was at the till. As he put my groceries in a paper bag, I said, “Do you know a Deschamps in town?”
“Alice Deschamps? I know just about everybody, darling. There might be a few names I forget now and then, but not too often.”
“Older woman, from the Prairies?”
“That’s her. Her house is the red brick-sided one over by the river.”
“Thanks.”
We found the red house by the river. It was small and neat, with fake brick siding, sheltered by lilacs and with catmint and daisies drooping in the rain around the front step. I knocked at the screen door. No answer. I knocked again. The front drapes were drawn, but I thought I saw them move gently. Just beyond the edges of trimmed lawn, a dense forest of cedars and firs towered. I knocked once more, then went back to the car where Vern and I sat, ate our lunch and waited.
When no one came after a couple of hours, we drove down to the docks. Rain pitted the water and soaked the cedars. Moss ate at the old silvered wood of a rotting pier. Blue, green, grey, greyish green, greenish blue, bluish grey. Only the orange, rusted tin roofs of the cannery buildings and the docked boats with blue and yellow and red trim interrupted the monochromatic landscape. A man in a pickup truck pulled over by the side of the road and sat with the engine idling. The cannery roof slanted at the same angle as the deep green mountain behind it and the snow-covered far blue mountains behind that. This was the end of the road. To go any farther, we’d have to get in a boat and wind our way along the river, through cloud-shrouded mountains and out to the ocean.
Vern and I decided to make phone calls. Vern called Uncle Leslie, but there was no answer. I called Sister Anne.
“She’s out of the hospital, Maggie. She’s staying here for now with Sunny. They’re both doing very well.”
“So she’s better?”
“She’s much better. They’re monitoring her medication, but she’s been clear-headed. She’s taking good care of little Sunny. Do you want her to call you?”
“I’m in Bella Coola,” I said. “She could call me at the pay phone, I guess.”
I gave her the number and we arranged for Jenny to call at five o’clock. The rest of the day, as Vern and I took muddy back roads and poked around dripping rainforest and fast-flowing creeks, I thought about what I could say to her.
But at five o’clock when the phone rang right on time, I didn’t need to say anything.
“Maggie, you wouldn’t believe how cool Sunny is. She’s got these serious brown eyes and she’s always watching everything. The nuns say she has an old soul. They don’t think she’ll give me any trouble. I’m so glad I named her Sunny—it’s perfect for her. And she smiled at me the other day, I forget what day that was, when she was feeding. And she’s growing like crazy. You’ve gotta see her. We’ve been out in the stroller. I’m starting to like Vancouver. You can just walk to the store and buy flowers and all kinds of fruit. What are you doing in Bella Coola?”
“Wow, Jenny, you sound really good,” I said.
“I feel so much better. That was pretty weird for a while there, eh? You must have been freaked out. But this is the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, not the freaking out part, but Sunny. When I think I almost gave her up, it makes me cry. I look at her and I just start bawling my head off, thinking what an awful thing that would have been. She’d never have known her mother.”
“That’s great, Jenny. So, I’ll call Sister Anne again in a few days, okay?”
“Wait. What have you found out about Mom?”
I hesitated. “I told you about the car.”
“Yeah.”
“Not too much more yet. But there’s someone in Bella Coola who might know something. That’s why I’m here.”
“Maggie?”
“Yeah?”
“Now that I’m a mother, I can’t believe she’d just walk away. I hope you know what I’m getting at.”
“I think so.”
“Okay. Well, see you soon then. You won’t believe how big Sunny’s getting.”
“I can’t wait to see her.” I hung up. I was glad that I had not said anything to disturb Jenny’s joy.
The next day, while Vern went to the docks to try some fishing, I walked over to the red house and knocked again. This time, when the curtains moved, I saw a cat poke her head around the fabric, her little white paws clinging to the window ledge. She looked at me furtively and disappeared. I tapped the window with my fingers. I wanted a good look at her face, but it couldn’t be a coincidence. It was Cinnamon.
I pounded on the door. No one answered. I felt the tears rising. My cat. Who was this woman who had my cat? I went around the house and tried the back door. I thought of looking for a screwdriver, popping the lock. I even checked the windows, after first making sure no neighbours were watching me. Then I sat on the step and waited until I got too chilled and wet to sit there any longer.
Vern and I had made a little camp down a logging road that night. We built a fire in the evening and watched the sky finally clear above the woodsmoke and trees. When I stood to stretch, Vern stood too and took my hands. I moved into him and felt him stiffen against me. He unzipped my jeans and slipped his hand inside. When my knees gave a little he caught me by the small of the back. It was glorious to be standing by the fire with the stars shining on us, the lonely road, the fragrance of the towering cedars and Vern’s hands moving over my body.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I know we can’t go too far.”
And so I didn’t worry. We opened the back door of the station wagon and stretched out on the sleeping bag, our heads hanging out to look up at the stars. Our skin was as moist as the air and dimpled with the pleasure of fingertips mapping muscle curve and nipple and smooth line of dark hair on belly.