Catriona was struggling to open her sticky locker door when she felt a tap on her back.
“So, hey, Catriona, there’s something I want to ask you.”
She swung around and came face to face with Seamus, grinning from one side of his mouth. His hands were in his jeans pockets, but his shoulders were raised. “Yeah?” She was almost late for third-period English and hoped he’d get right to the point.
“Prom’s coming up. Wanna go together?” He now swung his long arms by his side.
It wasn’t a big showy prom-posal, but heck, it was an invitation, and Catriona hadn’t had another. Many seniors were already paired up, and all the talk in the cafeteria these days was who was going with whom and what they were wearing.
“Sure. Why not,” she replied, leaning her back against her locker to put an arm’s distance between her and Seamus.
“Cool. We’ll have a blast.” Both corners of his mouth were raised now. He did look a little cute. A few of his buddies walked past and one thumped him on the back, vaulting him into Catriona’s personal space.
“Me and the boys are drinking rum, but I can also get us a bottle of bubbly. Sound good?”
Seamus was backing away from her down the hallway now, his face lit up.
She’d sensed a shift between them on their bus rides lately. He looked at her a second longer than he used to when he sat down. Sometimes he pressed his muscular shoulder against hers. Lots of girls would’ve been happy if he asked them to prom, but he’d asked her instead. She wished she felt some of the giddiness she’d seen on other people’s faces when they’d just been asked to prom.
“Sure. As friends though, right, Seamus?” She was practically shouting as he was halfway down the hall by then. What was wrong with her? She would like to have a boyfriend, and he’d be considered a catch for a nerd like her. Maybe if she just hooked up with him then she’d start like-liking him…but maybe she wouldn’t and then she’d have ruined their friendship.
“Whatever you want. No backing out, k?” He slipped into the boys’ bathroom.
Catriona nodded to no one and headed toward English class. With that one question settled, she felt a measure of relief. It was temporary. She picked up speed as she walked past the guidance counsellor’s door, but he poked his head out just as she was passing by.
“Catriona! Come into my office for a minute.”
“Can’t. I’ll be late for English,” she replied without missing a step.
“I’ll write you a note. No more excuses. You’ve missed our last two meetings.”
Catriona grimaced and entered his office. He pointed at a chair, which she lowered herself into.
“So talk to me. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.” She tried not to sound hostile.
“Your mom called me. She’s worried about you and frankly I am, too.”
It pissed her off that her mother had called the school. She was always up in Catriona’s business. “Why? I’m not doing drugs or flunking out.” Her own rudeness surprised her. She was so bad at controlling her emotions lately.
“No, you’re a smart girl with good grades, but you missed all the college and university deadlines. What’re your ambitions?”
Therein lay the problem. She had none, as far as she could tell. She didn’t feel a strong interest or pull toward anything. Maybe she’d never figure it out and would live a meaningless life. “I’m taking a gap year to figure them out.” Catriona came up with that on the spot and it sounded decent rolling off her tongue. She’d use it again the next time someone asked.
Her guidance counsellor sighed. “Don’t squander your life away. You’ll be letting a lot of people down—most importantly yourself.” He wrote her the late note and dismissed her.
The next day was Saturday, and Catriona had made a date with her grampie at their favourite bench. It faced west, just between the Flyer Trail and the harbour. It was simple in form and function, with four pine planks for its seat and four more for its back. It greyed and warped a smidgen more each winter but was still a comfortable place for a rest or a conversation, or to quietly watch the tide pull in and out of the cove.
Behind the bench sloped rolling hills thick with maple trees. Though it was a warm day for April, their leaves were still furled buds on otherwise bare branches. Clear streams ran down from the hills, coalescing into waterfalls and feeding nearby brooks, rivers, and apple orchards. After a prolonged winter’s sleep, many things were finally waking up and charging forward into the future. Not Catriona.
She allowed her arms to languish across the width of the backrest, extending her long legs in front of her. “Did you used to come here when you were my age, Grampie?” Catriona asked.
“Sometimes. I’d watch the fishing boats leave the harbour if it was daybreak, or watch them return in the early afternoon. I wondered if fishing was my destiny, too, like most of the other boys my age.” Bob pulled a couple of butterscotches out of his pocket and handed one to Catriona.
“But it wasn’t. How come?” Catriona asked, sucking on the candy and twiddling the gold wrapper in her fingers.
“I wanted to be a doctor.”
“Did you always know that?”
“I suppose I did. The same way my best friend Tinker always knew he’d become a fisherman, I always knew I’d become a doctor. I don’t remember either of us ever considering anything else.”
Catriona envied their certainty. “Was it hard work?”
“Yes, but I liked helping people.”
“Why’d you stop being a doctor if you liked it?”
Bob’s eyes scanned a thicket. “After forty-five years of long and erratic hours, I owed it to your grammie. It was hard retiring, though, knowing there’s no longer a doctor in town.” Bob stopped talking and put his index finger to his mouth as though to keep Catriona from speaking. A faint “kak kak kak” could be heard in the distance. Bob pulled binoculars from his jacket pocket and scanned the nearby trees to their south. “It’s a bald eagle. Here, Catriona, take a look.” He passed the binoculars.
Catriona held them to her face and soon found the regal bird perched a few hundred metres away. Its yellow eyes spooked her, but she found its grumpy face comical when it cocked its head to the side, and she laughed out loud.
“Unlike me, a bald eagle sighting never gets old. Now what about you? Any plans yet for next year?” Bob asked. “You’ve got plenty of options.”
“Not if I want to stay here. There aren’t any jobs or universities in town, but I’m not sure I’m ready to leave home,” Catriona answered truthfully. Even though it felt like all she and her parents ever did was fight lately, she still wasn’t ready to move away.
“Well, that’s okay. No one says you have to leave right away. And if you do go, it wouldn’t have to be forever. Look at me: I left and came back. Some people leave and fall in love with a new place. And other people come here from away and fall in love with this place and stay.”
“Like who?” Catriona had never known anyone to move into Falkirk Cove. All they seemed to do was leave.
“Well, my parents—your great grandparents—immigrated from Lebanon. Can you imagine what a culture shock that must have been? But they made this place their home and loved Cape Breton dearly. Anything’s possible.”
The “kak kak kak” sounds resumed and the eagle took flight, circling the blue sky. They both watched it plunge suddenly into the water and snatch a wriggling mackerel with its sharp talons. Its broad wingspan cast a shadow over the bench as it flew away. The sudden aggression startled Catriona, and she turned and buried her face into her grandfather’s shoulder. She started shaking and messy crying, streaking snot on her grandfather’s jacket. Couldn’t she ever have even one nice afternoon without wrecking it?
“Catriona, what is it?” Bob asked.
She kept her face buried in his jacket and her voice was muffled. “Nothing. Everything. Why is life so hard? And mean?”
“Aw, my love, life is all kinds of beautiful, too. This situation you find yourself in is temporary. You’ll see.” He wrapped his arm around her back and waited for her to be the first to pull away, then wiped the tears off her cheeks with the bent knuckle of his index finger.
Catriona managed to smile. “I want to be wise like you, Grampie.”
Bob laughed. “It’s the only perk of old age, m’dear.”
As they walked back to Bob’s car, they passed Roger shuffling by in the other direction. Both nodded and said hello, but he passed briskly without acknowledging them.
“What’s wrong with him, Grampie?”
Bob started the car and waved to Roger as they drove past him. “Wrong? Nothing. Roger’s exceptional.”