CHAPTER 18

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MAMMA WOULD HAVE been very suspicious of a strange car acting strangely, but she wasn’t around when the old station wagon rolled up as Elena walked home from school. Elena had to turn her head fully to see the car that crawled up beside her; her hood was pulled up against the biting wind. It was blue-ish with wooden panels on its sides and crumbling rust patches along the bottom. Instead of passing, it matched her stride.

Elena picked up her pace, keen to get inside her safe, warm home. As the car crept alongside her, she heard the window being wound down. The driver leaned across the passenger seat and stared at her. The woman looked like a witch; smiling but snarling at the same time.

“I heard you like stories,” she growled. Elena struggled to place this unfamiliar person who seemed to know her. The driver smile-snarled again, revealing a mouthful of wandering teeth.

“I got a couple to tell.” The woman nodded toward the back of the car. “Get in.”

Elena knew better than that. She was only a couple of houses from home. She bolted.

She flew into the driveway and the car pulled in right behind her. Bursting into the house, she slammed the door shut and locked it.

“Rob! A stranger followed me home.” She was out of breath and red-faced when Rob came into the hallway. He looked concerned, but he spoke through a mouthful of sandwich, breadcrumbs dotting his shirtfront. “Is he out there now?” He moved towards the door as if investigating but stuffed another big bite into his mouth so his jaw had to work overtime to get through it all. He was always eating. Mamma said it was his age.

“It’s a she. She told me to get in her car.”

Rob frowned. A hard rap on the door. They looked at each other. He would have to deal with it since Mamma wasn’t home. He shooed Elena behind him and opened the door a crack. Elena stayed close enough to listen.

“What do you want?” he said with a grunt, trying for tough.

“I’m your gramma. Don’t leave me standin’ out in the cold. Lemme in.”

It wasn’t Nonna. It couldn’t be. Mamma said Nonna had died. Anyway, Nonna was a lady, Elena could tell by the photographs. She wore elegant dresses. She spoke Italian. Her teeth were straight. Rob was suspicious too; he didn’t budge.

“What’s your name ... gramma?” he asked.

“You think you’re a smart one, do ya? Audrey Reid. Let me in before I freeze my ass off.”

That was Dad’s mom’s name. That’s about all they knew. Rob looked back at Elena and opened the door, slowly. Audrey stepped inside and looked around the little hallway. Elena kept a safe distance between herself and the stranger. Rob walked ahead into the living room, but Audrey wandered around the house as though she had come to inspect the property. She opened doors and peered into their bedrooms. She made a small sound as she peeked into their tiny bathroom. Elena couldn’t tell whether or not she approved. Audrey marched straight into the kitchen and looked out the window at the river. Elena wanted to ask if she was here about Dad, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to ask questions. Rob was shifting his feet uncomfortably. He didn’t know what to do either. They’d never had family come to visit.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked Audrey.

“Whaddya got?”

“Water.”

“Generous of ya.”

Audrey strode to the living room and sat on the sofa. Elena sat in the chair opposite and watched her curiously. Mousy brown hair was pinned back above her ears and the rest hung to her shoulders. She wasn’t old old. In fact she looked quite young for a grandma. Her face was tight and serious but fat bulged out around her waist. Dad had light brown hair but a lot of people had brown hair. Audrey was also quite short and Elena wondered if her own shortness came from her grandma and not Mamma. Luckily, she hadn’t inherited her teeth.

Rob put a glass of water on the table. Audrey ignored it and he wouldn’t sit down. The two of them were engaged in some kind of stand-off. He folded his arms and stared at her as though waiting for an explanation.

“You kids aren’t very friendly, are ya? I figured you’d be pleased to meet your gramma.”

Elena wanted to try out a smile, but she decided it was safer to follow Rob’s lead. They needed to stay united. She might be their grandma, but there was a reason Dad never wanted her around. If she was a normal person, they would’ve visited, the way other families visited each other.

Rob tried for a stony look as he stared at Audrey. “We don’t know anything about you.”

“Well, now’s your chance.”

Elena did want to know about her, even if she was a bit scary. “Dad said you live up north.”

“That’s right.”

Audrey didn’t elaborate, which stumped them both. She got up and picked up a photograph from the bookshelf. It was a picture of their family taken a few years earlier. They were camping. Dad had set the camera on a tree stump and then rushed in so he was a blur in the photo and it looked like he was about to bowl them all over. Most people smiled when they saw that photo. From Audrey, nothing. She put it back on the shelf.

Elena opened her mouth and she caught Rob’s scowl signalling her to remain silent. She ignored him.

“Why haven’t you ever come to visit us before?”

“We live far away.”

“You and Dad’s dad?”

“That’s right.”

“But you could’ve come once.”

“Me and Jim run a farm. We don’t travel much. We got the animals to look after. And Curtis decided a long time ago that we weren’t welcome.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, old family drama. Doesn’t even matter now.”

Rob was growing impatient. “Why are you here?” he asked in his best manly tone.

“The cops got ahold of me,” she said. “They thought I might know where my son’s been hidin’ out.”

Rob shot Elena another warning look; one that meant Elena shouldn’t get her hopes up.

“My son? I thought to myself, now who do they mean? I got three sons. They said they were after Curtis. I told ’em they must be mistaken. Curtis is a good boy. It must be one of the other two. But then I figured maybe he’s changed now he’s got himself a wife with a pole up her ass. Maybe he has to find other ways to let off steam.”

That got Rob’s back up. Redness flooded his cheeks. “You should leave.”

Audrey wasn’t intimidated by him. She didn’t even acknowledge what he said or the way he’d puffed out his chest like he was a tough guy. She just kept talking. “But then they told me it was serious. They told me about this explosion and I told ’em no, none of my boys would ever do a thing like that.”

Audrey settled back into the sofa, getting comfortable. Rob didn’t do anything. He just kept scowling, and Audrey kept talking.

“I don’t know where Curtis is, but I’ve come here to find him and I will find him, so if there’s anything you kids wanna tell me, now would be a good time.”

Elena wondered if it was weird to feel so uncertain about your own grandma. Weren’t they supposed to love each other? She wasn’t sure if that was possible. In any case, it was a relief to finally hear somebody else say it was about time they did something. “How are you going to find him?” she asked.

Rob glared at Elena as though she’d switched sides.

Audrey smiled. “You leave that part to me.”

Audrey looked at Elena curiously, and then at Rob. “What did he tell you about me?”

Elena piped in before Rob could stop her. “He said his family were dinks.”

“Well ... now you get to decide for yourselves, don’t ya?”

“Do you miss him?”

Audrey stared at Elena again and then looked away. Audrey wasn’t as tough as she liked to make out. “Course I do. He’s my son.” She looked out of the window. “But we never had what you’d call a good relationship.”

“Did you ever meet my mom?”

“Once. At their wedding.”

“Did you meet Nonno?”

“Who?”

Rob sighed. “She means Mom’s dad. His name is Massimo.”

“No. I didn’t meet your mom’s folks. Curtis and Giulia got married after ...”

Elena desperately wanted Audrey to finish her sentence, but the front door opened. Audrey stood as Mamma came in. Mamma’s jaw dropped.

“Giulia, good to see you. It’s been a while.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m concerned about my son. I’ve come to help,” Audrey said gently, much more nicely than she’d spoken to the two of them.

“We don’t need your help. Please leave.”

Mamma rarely spoke so abruptly, to anyone. Even when she obviously disliked someone, she found a subtler way to get rid of them. Mamma’s reaction to Audrey only made “gramma” more mysterious.

“Don’t worry kids. I’ll find him,” Audrey assured them. She moved slowly out of the living room and through the hallway as though she were a fragile old lady, but Elena knew it was an act. She was putting it on for Mamma, just like she put on the niceness. She wanted Mamma to think she was a harmless old woman, but it wasn’t working.

Mamma closed the door behind her and leaned against it. Elena stood in the hallway and watched her recover. “Don’t open the door to that woman again!” Mamma said.

When Dad talked about his family, rarely and using few words, they seemed distant and barely real. Mamma treated Audrey, the only other family member Elena and Rob had ever met, as though she was dangerous. Elena decided there and then that she would find a way to speak with Audrey again. At least she would answer questions, unlike Mamma.

Elena went to her room and lay down and thought about it for a while. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got—not with Audrey, but with Mamma. Audrey said she was going to do something. Mamma didn’t even pretend she was going to try. Mamma was too scared to try.

“Frank offered me a job at the Inn. Part-time.” Mamma made the announcement casually as the three of them sat around the table.

“Frank?”

Rob dropped his fork on his plate and Elena leapt out of her chair.

“But you hate Frank!” she said. “And he lied about picking up those guys in the forest.”

“I don’t hate Frank. We just don’t have much in common, that’s all,” Mamma responded defensively. “You can’t keep accusing him, Elena. The police are doing everything they can ...”

“The cops think Dad’s guilty! But they’re wrong and you know they’re wrong so why don’t you do something about it?”

“Don’t talk to me like that!”

“Maybe he’s scared! Maybe if we tried to find him ...”

“I’m doing my best to keep this family together, Elena. We have bills to pay. And what exactly do you expect me to do that the police aren’t doing?”

“You just have to listen! Nobody is listening.”

Elena left her food and ran to her bedroom. There were lots of clues, Elena could see that, so why couldn’t Mamma? In the middle of everything that didn’t make sense, there was Frank offering Mamma a job when he could’ve hired anyone in Stapleton. Why did Frank want to help Mamma out? Most people were avoiding them and blaming Dad for the explosion. She still couldn’t figure out if Frank was on their side or not.

Mamma started her new job on a Tuesday evening. She left them at the house with popcorn and pop. Rob was in charge. It was alright. They watched a movie and he didn’t care when Elena went to bed as long as Mamma thought she was asleep when she came home.

Sometimes Mamma allowed Elena to come to the Inn while she worked. The Inn was full of fossils, not like Mary’s fossils, but still, everything Frank owned was old. The TV in the breakfast room had a fake wood casing and went snowy a lot. The kitchen microwave was probably one of the first microwaves ever made; a white box with a dial that looked like it belonged on a safe. But Elena didn’t get a proper look in there because the cook shooed her out.

She recognized the embroidered armchair occupying the reception area. Frank had sunk into it after she accused him of being in the forest. She settled into it and picked at the faintly smelly fibres but it offered up no clues.

Elena was not successful in uncovering Frank’s secrets, but each time she visited he seemed more himself and his place felt more familiar, like Ken’s café. Mamma seemed more relaxed about working there too, and she treated Frank differently, not as a friend, but not like someone she’d cross the street to avoid. Rob would usually show up whenever there was a meal on offer and Mamma popped into the breakfast room on her breaks to make sure they weren’t causing any trouble. One thing that Elena liked about spending time at the Inn was that everyone seemed content just doing what they were doing. It was harder at home because Dad was supposed to be there and he wasn’t.

Father Craig gave the briefest sermon he’d ever given and most of the congregation rushed home without bothering to exchange words over coffee and cookies. Today was Game Day. BC Lions versus Baltimore. Dad’s team had reached the Grey Cup Final and someone else would be watching it on his fancy TV.

Elena couldn’t stand being in the house. Their little living room overwhelmed her brain with memories of him sitting alone or with Ken, tuned into the games so intently that the world around them didn’t exist. Cheering. Cursing. Shouting players’ names and criticizing poor decisions.

Mamma agreed to let Elena hang out at the Inn, as long as Rob came by to walk her home after the game ended. The cook switched the TV on for her in the breakfast room but Elena got up and switched it off again. She tried reading a book but the noise from the bar made it hard to focus on the words. She flicked through the images in a fashion magazine that someone had left in the lobby.

The Inn was packed and Elena wondered how Mamma could bear it, surrounded by TVs blaring Dad’s game. The roars and disappointment moved in waves through the thin walls.

The Lions won and the excitement turned into a cacophony. Elena laid her head on the table and let her dark hair fall over her face so no one could tell she was crying. Dad said they would win. She wasn’t sure why it made her feel so sad.

Saturday. Mamma had time off and apparently Frank had some free time too because he drove them into Stony Creek so they could get some shopping done. Rob got very quiet when Mamma mentioned it, but they hadn’t had a chance to get out of town since the mill explosion, so he came with them.

The whole trip made Elena think of Dad. It was the first time they had driven past the sawmill since the explosion. Frank sped up as they went by it, but she had time to see the black and broken core of it fly by her window. It looked just like it did on the TV news and nothing like the place she remembered. The main building was a twisted skeleton coated in black.

Some of the surrounding buildings had survived, but even they looked weirdly out of place. They no longer had any purpose. They were as useless as the piles of untouched, stacked timber. Mamma brushed her eyes but no one said anything.

They drove in silence until they reached the scummy little pond by the edge of the highway—another landmark that reminded her of Dad. Crusted white soda deposits edged the pond, and every time they drove by it, he used to threaten to stop the car and throw her in. He said if she touched the white crust trying to climb out she would turn into a Sasquatch. Rob was staring intensely out the window—Dad said the same thing to him when he was younger.

“You’re turning into a Sasquatch!” she said, pointing at the fuzz that was building up around Rob’s upper lip and the sides of his face. He batted her hand away angrily. Then he leaned between the front seats.

“When are we getting our truck back?”

Mamma turned and looked at him. “Whenever the police are done with it.”

He sat back again and sulked.

As they neared the city, they could see the river winding through the houses below, blue and still. The roads widened and got busier until cars were flying all around Frank’s old truck. He pulled into a parking lot.

It was weird, walking around the mall with a man Mamma had always avoided, just like they used to walk around the mall with Dad. Rob hung back, not wanting to be seen with any of them.

Rob needed new shoes because his toes were about to burst out of his Air Jordans. Mamma said she couldn’t afford to buy him another pair of those, so they trailed around the budget shoe shop until Rob finally caved. They went back to the sports store and he bought himself a pair of Nikes with a chunk of his paper route savings.

Frank didn’t get involved; he just stood around until they were ready to go home, which was exactly what Dad used to do. As they were walking out of the mall, Frank told Rob he was becoming a man now, spending his own hard-earned money. Rob just huffed at him, and then said: “If you didn’t want to buy anything, why didn’t you stay in the truck?” Mamma told him to stop being so rude.

“Is Mamma dating Frank?”

It took Elena a while to ask him. She was worried Rob might get angry with her just for bringing it up, and she was also worried about what his answer might be. It wasn’t that she believed the gossip, it was just that the idea of it, Mamma with someone else, didn’t feel right at all. It was a stupid thing to ask. Mamma would never do that. Anyway, Dad was coming home soon.

“Who said that?” Rob said.

She had his attention. They were eating dinner together because Mamma was still at work.

“Some kids at school.”

It was Kathryn who’d said it, not directly to Elena but to her girl gang when Elena was close enough to hear. “I heard Frank and Elena’s mom are doing it!” The other girls shrieked and chorused “eewww!” and stared at Elena. She pretended not to hear them.

“Don’t listen to them,” Rob said. “People are pissed because Mom’s got a job and they don’t.”

They heard the key in the front door. Mamma had come home. Rob let his forkful of mac and cheese sit halfway between his plate and his mouth. He put his fork back down and left the table and went into his room and slammed the door.

Mamma came into the kitchen. “What was that all about?”

Elena shrugged.

Elena missed the warm weather. Shortly after the explosion, she’d gotten into the habit of wheeling back and forth along their lane, stopping outside their house to imagine Dad was in the living room looking out at her as though he’d been in there all along, hiding from them, and every time they left he’d pop out of the walls with a can in his hand and lie back on the couch.

It was too cold for that now. Her bike had been stored in the shed. There was a thin dusting of snow on the ground, but sometimes she still wanted to be outside because the coldness helped to push out bad thoughts, so she walked up and down their lane in her thick winter jacket, hat and gloves, and she imagined he was walking ahead of her. She could see his big silhouette in his black jacket, hat and blue jeans moving almost out of sight. However fast she walked, he was always too far ahead to catch.

She turned back towards their house to see a real person approaching. It was Rob walking home from somewhere, scowling at the pavement with his backpack swinging from one shoulder. He spotted Elena and gestured for her to come with him. Whatever he was up to would be more exciting than what she was doing. It might even involve looking for Dad.

They walked up the hill to where the houses ended and gave way to the tall grass and ranch land where Elena had got lost the night of the explosion. When they were younger they used to come up here to play. Dad got them a kite once, and they tried to run through the knotty roots of the sagebrush with it, waving it this way and that to catch the wind. Elena fell and grazed her knees and chin, and that was the end of that.

Rob pulled an oily rag from one of his baggy pockets.

“Where did you get that?”

“Frank’s.”

He took out a lighter and lit the rag. It burst into flames that reached up to grab his jacket. He dropped it quickly onto the dirt where it flickered and grasped at the long grass and died in the little scrap of snow. He stomped on it, just to be safe, and they stared at the blackened rag.

Rob lit a cigarette. Elena didn’t know he smoked. She tried to look at him casually, like it was no big deal.

“You’re not having one,” he said.

Elena shrugged. “I don’t like smoking anyway. Give me the lighter.”

He threw it to her. She lit the ends of the sagebrush and quickly blew them out before they caught properly. She loved being close to that sage smell, but the burning made her think of Brandon collapsing in their doorway and everything going dark.

“What else burns quickly?” she asked Rob.

“Your hair. Don’t lean over it like that. Give it back.”

Elena threw the lighter back, too short, deliberately, so he had to dig around in the sagebrush and wet snow.

Rob said they were going to get revenge on Frank. “For what?” she asked. But Rob had already moved on to the next phase of his plan. Frank had an ancient record player and a few dusty albums he liked to play, but they skipped and crackled and drove Rob crazy. Rob pulled a few of them out of his backpack and dropped them onto the dirt.

Elena stared at the first album cover; the sun shone bright pinks and oranges above a man with many arms, with people fanned out behind him. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was written on the sun. Rob slipped the record from its sleeve and threw the cover on the ground. “That one’s yours,” he said, pointing at another album. On the cover was a frizzy-haired woman with round sunglasses sitting on a motorbike.

“The rules are, you have to stand here and see if you can throw the record over the fence. Whoever throws it the furthest wins.”

“Won’t Frank be angry?”

“He’ll never know it was us.”

“What did he do?” she asked again.

“He tried to dance with Mamma,” Rob said. “I saw them.”

“What did Mamma do?”

“She told him she didn’t like dancing. But he shouldn’t have asked her in the first place.”

Elena didn’t think it was the worst thing in the world, considering everything else that had happened, but it was more important to be on Rob’s side, and anyway, she had to agree with him on one thing. There was no way Frank could ever replace Dad, and she didn’t like the idea of him even trying to, if that’s what he was doing.

They both knew she had no hope of beating her brother at this game, but she threw Janis as far as she could and she landed in the sagebrush not even close to the fence. “Good try,” Rob said kindly, before swinging his arm back and hurling Jimi into the air. He went really high and sailed right through the barbed wire on the way down. It was a great throw—Elena jumped excitedly and clapped her hands. She was happier about Rob’s genuine smile than his throw. He pulled out two more records and Elena got the next one a bit further than her first attempt, but Rob really nailed it this time. It went so far over the fence they probably would never find it.

Rob piled up the empty sleeves on a patch of dirt and snow and set them alight. The yellow flame melted the bright colours into a pile of wrinkled, black paper shavings. Eventually the flame ran out of things to eat and it shrank until Rob stamped it out.

Elena didn’t have much to do now that she didn’t have any friends to hang out with, so she visited the museum most Saturdays and Mary filled her head full of stories about “the olden days.” Mary gave her some window cleaner and cloths, and she squirted blue liquid onto smudgy fingerprints and gently rubbed the glass clean. In one display case were Native artefacts: old arrowheads, moccasins with delicate beadwork, a thick beaded belt and a painted drum. On the wall beside them was a blown up black-and white-photograph, and the message beneath identified it as the Stapleton Reserve in 1910. Men—Elena guessed granddads, sons and grandsons—stood outside a wooden hut. To somebody really old, she thought, these photos were like the ones of Mamma’s family standing together outside their home. Maybe someone still knew who those people were.

“Are those people related to Brandon?”

Mary was digging a packet of cookies from her desk. She came over and handed one to Elena. Gone in two bites.

“Brandon who?”

“I don’t know his last name. He lives on the reserve.”

“They might be.”

Elena pointed at the photograph. “That old man is his great-great-grandpa.” And then she moved on to a couple of arrowheads. “And his great-great-great-great-great-grandpa made those.”

“The maker of those arrowheads and the people in that photo probably weren’t related.”

Elena was annoyed. She liked her theory. “How do you know?” she asked Mary.

“Historical evidence,” Mary answered. “There’s a ridge just out of town with a meadow on it. You can see depressions in the ground where pit houses sat a long time ago.”

“So Brandon’s great-great grandpa lived in that meadow?”

“I don’t know where Brandon’s great-great grandpa lived, but those arrowheads came from that meadow and the people in the photograph didn’t. When the gold miners arrived, the people that were here, the ones who built the pit houses, had most of their land taken away from them. They were forced to move to a very small area that became the Stapleton Reserve. Because they lost their fishing and hunting territory, they began to starve. Then a terrible smallpox epidemic wiped them out. They all died. For a few years, nobody lived on the Stapleton Reserve.”

Elena wondered how many people had died, and who was last to go, who was there at the very end to see everything and everyone disappear. It made the sawmill explosion sound like a minor incident, like comparing a heart attack to a nosebleed.

“Some years later, a group of people from a neighbouring nation took up residence on the Stapleton Reserve. We know, approximately, when the new group arrived. The men in the photo were most likely part of the later group and were not related directly to the creators of the arrowheads.”

Elena looked up at a picture of the family, people that only lived on here, in the village museum.

“There must be a lot of ghosts on the reserve,” Elena said.

“You don’t need to go chasing any of them.”

Elena agreed. This town has been cursed for a long time. Everything that existed now had a before, and sometimes before was so different it was barely recognizable anymore.

She looked over at Mary. “Maybe whatever happened with my dad didn’t start with the explosion. Maybe it had a before. Something happened that led to something else that led to the explosion that led to my dad going missing.”

Mary nodded. “Makes sense.”

“What do you think happened before the explosion happened?”

“I think somebody built on land they should have left well alone.”

Mamma stood on the grass by the riverbank, without moving, for a long time. A thick frost and a heavy mist hovered over the water. Mamma must have been cold, especially standing still for so long. Elena peered through the kitchen window and willed her back inside. It scared her when Mamma behaved differently. It meant Mamma was worrying again.

On good days, Mamma told them it would all be okay. The cops would locate Dad and help him, or he would find his own way home. He would be alright on his own for a while, Mamma said. He was a survivor. He knew what to do in any situation. Elena agreed with her completely, except when Mamma behaved strangely. In those times Elena knew Mamma didn’t really believe it herself.

“Why did he do it?”

A younger kid in a hockey jersey approached her as she zigzagged aimlessly around the playground. His friends were lingering nearby, waiting to hear the daughter of a murderer’s answer. “He didn’t,” she replied, before drifting away.

The kids at school remained fascinated by the story of the explosion and her dad’s supposed connection. They treated her like they didn’t know her, in that cautious way that wasn’t mean but wasn’t friendly. She was learning how to be an outsider and it was getting easier. She kept her head down and tried to put her mind to mysteries that didn’t matter, like whose initials were scratched into a heart on the school gatepost, or how Mamma put on her mascara without poking her eyeballs, or why Frank made jokes that Mamma refused to laugh at when he obviously wanted her to like him.

For the last hour of every day, Elena waited for the school bell to sound. She would be ready, one hand clasping her bag strap so she could fling it over her shoulder the second they were allowed to leave. She liked to be first out the door to avoid questions and the sideward glances.

The buzzing sounded freedom. Elena made her move but Miss Meyer put her hand on Elena’s bag. “Take a seat, Elena.” She wasn’t usually so abrupt. She usually said things like: “Why don’t we have a quick little chat?” As if it were optional.

The other kids stared at her as they pushed their way out of the classroom. Miss Meyer closed the door. Elena listened to the clock ticking above the blackboard. Her teacher brought a chair over to her desk.

“You haven’t seemed like yourself recently, Elena. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

Elena shook her head. Miss Meyer studied her face and Elena realized she was going to have to say something if she wanted to leave the classroom.

“I’m worried about what happened to my dad.”

“Of course, you are. That’s natural.”

“The police say they’re looking for him, but they haven’t found him yet and I want to help look but Mamma says there’s nothing we can do.”

Miss Meyer hummed gently. Elena waited for a little pearl of wisdom about leaves floating down a river, or winter always leading to spring, or perhaps the fabled sagebrush and its taproot, but her teacher seemed to have run out of advice.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, Elena, so this is just between you and me, but I’m leaving at the end of the year. I’ve decided to find somewhere that’s a better fit for me. There might come a time when you have to do that, with your family. Try to prepare yourself for that.”

“But you said things would get better here!”

“Well, none of us really know ...”

Elena wasn’t listening to any more of this. There wasn’t anything else to say. She got up and walked out of the classroom. She thought Miss Meyer might try to stop her but she let her go. Elena was grateful.

Outside, she heard the honk of a car horn. Across the street sat the old station wagon, blue-grey with wooden sides, Audrey’s face peering out of the window.

“Get in,” Audrey barked.

“Why?”

“Jesus Christ, I’m not going to kidnap you. Just get in, will ya?”

Elena glanced around. Mamma had confirmed Audrey’s identity but had also made it very clear that she was off limits. No one else was going to help Elena. Maybe Audrey would understand.

Elena yanked open the heavy rear door and climbed in. “Slam it or it won’t close properly,” Audrey said. Audrey looked at her in the rear view as she put on her seatbelt. “Why are ya sittin’ back there anyway? I’m not your frickin’ chauffeur. Sit up front.”

Mamma said she was still too small for the front seat. Rob teased her about it. He offered to get her a booster seat for his car when he got one. He said he’d be driving before she’d be big enough to sit up front.

Elena hesitated. She glanced around the quiet street and climbed into the front, landing in a heap.

“So where’s a good place to eat around here?”

Elena shrugged.

“Where do they sell candy or cookies or whatever you like?”

“Ken’s Café. It’s on Main Street.”

“Seatbelt on. No arguments.”

Audrey put her foot down and drove like there was no one else on the road. She didn’t bother with turning signals, nor did she stop for pedestrians, not even the old ones. Audrey went where Audrey wanted to go. Elena was amazed they didn’t hit anything. They got honked at a couple of times, and Elena shrank down in her seat so no one would recognize her. At least it was only a short distance between the school and the café.

Audrey told Elena to run in and get something while she parked. Audrey didn’t offer to pay, so Elena broke the last five-dollar bill of her pocket money. Pocket money had been officially suspended, Mamma said, until things got back to normal. A few hours at the Inn didn’t pay what Dad made at the mill. She forgot to ask Audrey what she wanted, so she ordered a chocolate chip muffin and a double chocolate cookie. Ken didn’t even try chatting with her. Mamma wasn’t around so he didn’t have to pretend to care.

Audrey wasn’t outside the café. Elena found her at the entrance to the park. Audrey took a cookie without even looking first. She did say “thanks” and Elena thought maybe she could get used to her grandma. Maybe she wasn’t all that bad.

They ate their treats as they walked because it was too cold to sit. There wasn’t much snow but the cold day had hardened the grass. Elena left a trail of crumbs and Audrey did most of the talking.

“Before all this happened, before the cops got ahold of me about Curtis, I didn’t even know you existed. I knew about your brother a’course. Your mom was pregnant at their wedding. I figured that’s why she stayed with Curtis.”

Elena didn’t like a lot of the things that came out of Audrey’s mouth. The more Elena thought about it, the more she thought Dad was probably right about his relatives. Still, family was important and this might be Elena’s only chance to connect.

“Do you like school?” Audrey asked her.

“It’s okay.”

“Who’s your best friend?”

Elena was too embarrassed to say she didn’t have one anymore. “Mary.”

“Is she in your class?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“What about your mom?”

The question confused Elena.

“Does she have someone else? You know, a piece on the side?”

Elena shook her head.

“What about this Frank guy I’ve been hearin’ about?”

Audrey had obviously been doing her research, which wasn’t difficult in Stapleton. The whole town had been gossiping about Mamma and Frank since Mamma started working at the Inn.

“I asked you a question.”

Elena didn’t appreciate Audrey’s pushiness, particularly because she didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “Why don’t you ask Frank what it’s all about?” she said.

“Maybe I will. But right now I’m askin’ you.”

“There’s nothing going on.”

Audrey relented. “Alright, fine. Whaddya wanna know about me?”

Elena studied her grandma; deep lines around her eyes and a thin mouth. All this time wondering about who her relatives were and now she couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted to know about Audrey. She didn’t want to be rude though. She had to ask something.

“What’s Grandpa like?”

“Jim? I asked what ya wanna know about me.”

Elena thought about it. “What kind of things do you like?”

“I like the quiet. Early mornings up on the farm. Sayin’ good mornin’ to the dogs and the cats and the chickens and the goats.”

Quiet moved in between them, neither of them really knowing what to say next, and the silence quickly became uncomfortable.

“What does Jim like to do?”

“Jim likes to come and go whenever he feels like it. But he’s gettin’ on these days. He doesn’t go off so much now there’s no kids in the house to look after. He just sits on his ass in front of the TV mostly.”

Elena tried to imagine her dad as a kid and wondered what it was like for him growing up with Audrey and Jim. Some of the news reports said Dad had a “troubled upbringing.” Did that make the other things they said about him true as well? No. Mamma said journalists exaggerated everything to sell more newspapers.

Audrey stared at her. “You’re always listening, aren’t ya? I bet you know things other people don’t even realize you know.” Elena was pleased by Audrey’s words but wasn’t sure how to respond. Audrey didn’t leave her much time. “D’you think you and me can be friends?”

“Yeah,” Elena told her, hesitantly.

“Good.”

Elena didn’t particularly trust her, but Elena wanted friends. She wanted family. She wanted a grandma she could spend time with and tell other people about.

“Why doesn’t my mom like you?”

“She thinks I’m a bad person.”

“Why?”

“I used to drink a lot. And I said a few things she didn’t wanna hear at her wedding. Curtis told me to stay the hell away from them before I wrecked his marriage.”

“Why didn’t my mom’s family go to her wedding?”

Audrey stopped and stretched her back and eyed a bench but it was icy. She turned to Elena.

“If I tell you what I know about her family, we have to make a little deal. I help you out, you help me out, okay?”

“Okay,” Elena said, not sure what she was agreeing to.

“I only know what Curtis told me before they got hitched, and he only told me about it because he didn’t want me sayin’ things that might upset your mom, which I ended up doing anyway ... but it is what it is. Your mom was born in Italy and her family moved to Canada when she was a kid.”

Elena nodded. She knew that much.

“Then, when your mom went off to college her dad ... whadd’ya say his name was?”

“Massimo. And her mom’s name was Angelica.”

“Massimo wanted to move back to Italy and the doctors told him your gramma, Angelica, was too sick to travel. But Massimo decided he was goin’ back, so he put his wife on a plane. She died a few days after they arrived in Italy. Your mom never forgave him. That’s why they don’t talk anymore.”

Elena knew Nonna was dead, but Mamma never wanted to talk about it. Just like she didn’t want to talk about anything difficult. She was beginning to understand, finally, why her family was so different from everyone else’s. They didn’t stick together like the cowboy brothers in the poem. They fell apart. That’s how Elena, Mamma and Rob came to be so alone.

“I figured that’s why your mom married Curtis so quick. He wasn’t good enough for her, but suddenly, the people closest to her were all gone, just like that!” Audrey snapped her fingers. “That’s gotta change a person. I made a few comments at the wedding ... after a few drinks, y’know. But what’s done is done.”

Audrey didn’t seem very sorry about her past behaviour. She moved right on to the next thing. “And that’s all I know, so now it’s your turn. You need to tell me everything you know about the explosion.”

“It’s a big mess. I don’t know what happened,” she said.

“This is very important, Elena. What you know could help me find him.”

“How?”

“Whaddya mean, how?”

“How are you going to find him when the cops can’t find him?”

It was Mamma’s line but it was relevant. Audrey seemed very confident even though she hadn’t seen Dad for years. She didn’t know how he spent his time or who his friends were. What made her think she could figure out where he was?

“The cops don’t care about finding him. They just sit around all day in their cop cars with their coffee and doughnuts. It’s you and me, the people that know him, we’re the ones that will get to the bottom of all this.”

“But how?”

“Well, first I gotta know what you know. Howd’ya expect me to come up with a plan when you’re keepin’ secrets from me?”

Elena went quiet. She watched Audrey move stiffly with the cold breeze. Luckily, Audrey had had enough of waiting around.

“Alright fine. You think about it and tell me the next time we meet. I’m gonna be in town for a few days.”

Elena agreed. She waved goodbye to her grandma, who didn’t offer to drive her home. It was for the best. Elena didn’t want Mamma to know she’d been in Audrey’s car.

Elena walked home with a loneliness she couldn’t shake. Information-trading wasn’t the relationship she’d hoped for and Audrey wasn’t the kind of grandma she’d imagined having. But she was family, Elena reminded herself, which was better than nothing.

Sunday is a day of rest, Elena told Mamma on their way home from church. That’s why it wasn’t a good day to clean the house. Those were God’s rules and they had to be obeyed. Mamma said Elena did not need to remind her of God’s rules. Honour Thy Mother was one of God’s rules.

They halted their conversation to watch a real estate agent from Stony Creek shove a FOR SALE sign into someone’s front lawn. “A bit optimistic,” Mamma murmured. Houses weren’t selling but people still had to leave, so their homes were being boarded up. Mamma had explained that those houses belonged to the bank now. Before the explosion, Elena didn’t know banks took people’s houses. Kathryn’s big house was boarded up and, when it snowed, the white stuff stayed piled up on the driveway until it warmed enough to melt. On Kathryn’s last day at school, she told the class excitedly that they were moving east to be close to her grandparents, but Mamma said the bank had taken their house, too.

“We need to keep our house,” Elena explained to Mamma as they approached their front door. “Otherwise, how will Dad know where to find us when he comes home?”

“I’m doing my best.” Mamma’s voice shook. It could have been the cold.

Elena didn’t argue about the chores when she got inside. They all had to do their best until he came home.

Elena heard the old station wagon belching behind her as she walked home from school. The snow had returned and the wind was stinging her face. It was mostly for the warmth that she got into the car. They didn’t drive anywhere.

Audrey didn’t waste any time. “Are you ready to tell me what you know?”

Elena shrugged.

“Who’s heard from him?”

“No one.”

“Are you lying to me? Cuz I’ll find out. And we had a deal.”

Elena hated being accused of things. She wanted to tell Audrey to go away but she wanted even more for someone to listen. “I haven’t seen him. No one’s seen him.”

Audrey squinted at Elena. “Okay. But you know something. I can tell. I got a sense for these things.”

Elena wondered again whether she could trust Audrey. At least she didn’t pretend he was going to show up any time soon and surprise them all, like Mamma did. Plus, Audrey was actually looking for him, unlike the cops.

“I overheard Mamma and Brandon talking. The cops told Brandon to change his story about seeing Dad just before the explosion or he’d get into trouble too.”

Audrey nodded. “Never trust a cop,” she said. “What else?”

“My mom said I shouldn’t spend time with you.”

“Listen, Elena, your mom thinks she’s doing what’s best, but she doesn’t have the balls for this kinda thing. You know she doesn’t. You and me are gonna have to work together to get your dad back.”

Audrey was right. It was time to take a risk and tell her everything: how she had seen Dad’s truck in the forest, her suspicions about Frank and Ken based on the fact they’d both lied about events following that day, and how a security guard had approached her and Mary at the camp, which Mary said used to be a military base and that seemed to be somehow connected to everything else.

“It’s got to be a cover up,” Elena said finally, though she didn’t fully understand the term. She’d heard it on one of Mamma’s cop shows.

When she’d finished Audrey said: “I knew you were holding out on me.” But she didn’t seem happy about it. It was almost as though Audrey didn’t want to hear what she was hearing. Elena wondered if she might have done something wrong by telling her.

The silence became awkward so Elena said goodbye and got out of the car. Audrey barely looked at her before gunning the old car forward.