I awoke the next morning to a room still in semi-darkness and the sounds of my grandma making breakfast in the kitchen. I lay quietly for a moment, listening to her humming what I knew was her favourite song of all time, “A Little Help From My Friends”. She loved the Beatles and knew every one of their songs by heart. I was suddenly glad I’d come to spend the summer with her.
I jumped out of bed and rustled around in the drawers for a sweater to put on over my nightgown. The one I pulled out was an emerald green cable knit that hung to my knees. My grandmother had knitted it for my mother when she was a teenager. It was pretty worn-looking, with the odd snag, but I liked wearing it just fine. Happily, Grandma didn’t have a mirror in the room, so I didn’t have to look at my grumpy morning face. I knew my blonde hair must look like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. It was down past my shoulders and longer than I liked to wear it.
As I entered the kitchen, Grandma met me with a glass of orange juice and a hug. She motioned for me to sit where she’d laid out a bowl of cereal and a homemade bran muffin. Neither of us was much for talking first thing in the morning, and we gladly ignored each other until we’d eaten. Still, I kept an eye on her when she didn’t know I was looking. It troubled me that she only nibbled at a piece of toast and sipped a weak cup of tea. Her hand shook a bit when she held the cup to her lips, and I had to look away because Grandma wasn’t someone who ever wanted sympathy or to be fussed over. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from worrying that she was sicker than she was letting on.
I cleared our cups and bowls from the table and filled the sink with soapy water. I was rolling up my sleeves to do the dishes when Grandma put her hand on my shoulder.
“Leave those for now. Come sit with me and tell me all about your foolish mother and father and my darling Leslie,” she commanded, walking into the living room and stretching out in her old leather chair. I followed and half-lay on the couch so that I was facing her. I began to fill her in on the details of life in Springhills.
“Leslie has discovered the ballet, and next to her guinea pig Puffball, it’s all she talks about. Mom is getting a lot of shifts at the hospital, and Dad . . . well, Dad’s busy with his garage. He still needs to build up his customers, but I know he will. He’s a really good mechanic.” I didn’t want Grandma to think badly of him.
Grandma said, “So, she’s going to marry John Putterman.” She shook her head back and forth a few times. “I never could tell that girl anything. Your father hurt her, you know, and Alice just doesn’t get over that kind of thing easily. She’s got my stubborn streak, I’m afraid.”
I’d wondered if Mom had told Grandma her engagement news. Now I knew. “Do you think there’s any hope for Dad? I mean, he’s really trying to make up for hurting us, but Mom keeps getting mad at him. It’s like she can’t stop punishing him.” I bit my bottom lip and looked at Grandma to see if she thought I had it all wrong.
Grandma reached for my hand and rubbed it between her own two. “Oh, my Jennifer. You are beginning to understand the workings of the wounded. Your mother can’t forgive your father, because her pride won’t let her.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to forget about pride and let us be a family again?”
Grandma’s eyes were gentle, but her voice was matter-of-fact. “Alice never takes the easy road.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to talk about my parents any more. It was easy to get Grandma to change the subject by asking her about the Musquashes. “What’s Jimmy’s family like?”
Grandma let go of my hand and leaned back in her recliner. “Well, they moved in late last summer, a few weeks after you and Leslie went back home. I have an artist friend who lives further north in Pike Lake, and she said there was some unpleasantness there concerning the Musquashes. The police were involved, and things got ugly. Seems there was stealing going on and . . . well . . . you know how people are. They like to blame people different from themselves. The mom, Connie Musquash, is aboriginal, and her husband Ed is white, so that makes the kids a mixture of races. I’ve heard some of our nastier neighbours call them half-breeds. I’m afraid I sometimes despair of the human race.” Grandma reached down and pulled her knitting from a bag beside her chair. It looked like she was halfway through making a sapphire blue sweater, but it was too small for me or Leslie to wear.
“Who’s that for?” I asked.
“Oh, little Doris Musquash. I’m making both of the younger Musquash girls sweaters for their birthdays.” Grandma looked thoughtful as her needles settled into a steady rhythm of clicks.
“If Mr. Musquash is white, why does he have an aboriginal last name?” I asked.
“Oh, I hear he was adopted by a native family when he was a baby. I’m not too sure of the facts, but Jimmy once told me that his father grew up in the far north. Jimmy is eighteen and has been helping me out. Did you see the dock he built this spring?”
I nodded.
Grandma continued, “He’s quiet, but sometimes he brings Marilyn and Doris over, and he’s as kind with them as anything. I’d hate to think he was the one who got the family in trouble. Then there’s Audrey . . .” Grandma’s knitting stopped for a moment. “She’s a hard one to pin down. I’ve seen her around a bit, and she seems kind of lost. The neighbours say she’s trouble through and through. I don’t know.” Grandma gave me a smile. “Well, that’s enough gossip for one day. I hate repeating things others say, but I guess you should be aware of the state of things. Anyhow, make up your own mind about people and don’t listen to gossip. I’d like to see the community give them a chance.”
Grandma had always encouraged us to be open-minded and to speak up for ourselves. You always knew where you stood with her, which I can’t say about too many other people.
“Grandma, is that old hermit guy still living back in the woods?”
Grandma nodded. “Joe—that’s his name, by the way—has taken to building bird feeders and birdhouses, and his property is covered with them. You might have noticed I have a few on the pines out back.” She paused for a second before changing the subject. “Oh, here’s something of interest. The Randalls have been back and forth from town, and Kerry’s been asking for you.”
Kerry was my age, and she had a little brother Freddie, who was ten. Leslie and I had spent a lot of time with them when we were visiting in past summers. This news cheered me somewhat. “Grandma, I think I might go for a walk down the road. Can I do anything for you before I leave?”
Grandma shook her head. “I’m just fine here with my knitting. You run along and get some exercise before the weather turns bad.”
It was a grey kind of day, and a little chilly with the clouds threatening rain. After doing the dishes, I dressed in shorts, sneakers and an oversized sweatshirt. I managed to pull my hair back into a ponytail and put on a Yankees baseball cap that I found hanging on a hook by the back door. I knew it wouldn’t take me long to warm up once I got running.
I jogged down the dirt road, heading away from the main highway. Mr. Jacks, my volleyball coach, had told us to cross-train over the summer to be ready for fall tryouts. He said that nobody should consider their place on the team a sure thing. I guess I hadn’t gotten through my mind that I wasn’t going back to Springhills. It was going to take a major shift in thought patterns. Still, I felt as if I was waiting for some sign from above to let me know what I should do. Maybe Grandma’s heart attack was a sign that she needed me. Then, there was Pete inviting me to the fall dance. Maybe that was a sign I should go home. I was beginning to think the higher power was messing with my mind.
I slowed my pace and started to notice the woods around me. Brush began near the road—what appeared to be raspberry bushes mixed up with thorn bushes and sapling alders. Behind were spruce and pines with their lower branches looking like spindly arms that hadn’t grown properly. I raised my eyes above the tree line and saw a hawk circling overhead. Picking up my speed again, I rounded a bend. I had my head down, watching that I didn’t step in any potholes. The dirt road was more rutted and uneven than I remembered and would probably need a road crew to fix it up before much longer. I glanced up.
At first I thought I saw a dark shadow rising up from a big rock some distance away from the road, but my heart leapt in fright when the shadow gradually took on the form of a person. I thought about turning around and making the hundred-yard dash home, but figured that might be just too paranoid. Instead, I slowed my jog to a walk, still thinking I could get away if I had to, while trying to see, without looking obvious, who was sitting on the rock. That’s hard to do when you’re alone on a dirt road with nothing much else to look at. I came alongside just as I happily realized that the person was a girl, a little older than me, with straight black hair to her waist, large black eyes and brown skin. She was dressed in tight cutoff shorts and a white T-shirt. I thought she was quite pretty, but when she spoke, her mouth and eyes mocked me. She threw out her words like a challenge. “You must be that old lady’s granddaughter here from the big city.” She pulled a flattened pack of cigarettes from her back pocket. “Come join me for a smoke, city girl.”
I stopped walking and shook my head. Mr. Jacks would kick me off every school team forever if I took up smoking. Thinking about going back to Springhills was like a habit I couldn’t shake. “You must be Jimmy’s sister, Audrey. My name’s Jennifer. My friends call me Jen.”
Audrey said, “Aren’t you scared of being a social outcast talking to a half-breed like me, Jen?” She took a long drag on her cigarette and watched me with narrowed eyes through the smoke as she exhaled.
“I guess that doesn’t bother me much.” I kept my eyes level with hers, “if it doesn’t bother you.”
Audrey stared at me without blinking for a few moments. Then she jumped off the rock, throwing down her cigarette onto the road and grinding it out with her sandal. “Do you want to see a beaver dam?”
I felt like I had passed some kind of test. “That’d be great.”
I followed her along a narrow path through the bushes on the other side of the road. Insects buzzed around our heads and followed us into the undergrowth like a parade. We had to clear branches from the path as we went, and Audrey was careful not to let any snap back into my face. She was sure-footed and led me around fallen tree limbs and over rocks as effortlessly as if she were walking down a city street. I felt awkward and tried to keep pace, breathing harder than Mr. Jacks would have liked. I was definitely going to have to start working out more if I was going to make that volleyball team.
After about fifteen minutes, and just as I was beginning to wonder if Audrey was leading me on a wild goose chase, we reached a clearing of rocks and bulrushes opening into a greyish-brown pond. She pointed to a dark, muddy mound at one end where the pond narrowed. Brown branches and twigs stuck out of the pile like a bad hair day. “Watch closely, and we should see a beaver.”
We squatted down in the dirt. Sure enough, before five minutes had passed, a huge beaver swam towards the middle of the pond, holding a tree limb in its teeth. The water parted like a triangle in its wake. Audrey sat absolutely still and watched with intense concentration. The warmth of her bare arm rested against my own where I’d pushed up the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I saw her smile and glance at me to see if I was pleased with the gift she was offering me. At that moment, I decided that I liked her.
“Are you happy living in Hawk’s Creek?” I asked her softly, not wanting to ruin this moment of closeness. Audrey didn’t move except to pull her arm away from my own.
“It’ll do.” She breathed out the words tonelessly, without emotion. After another moment, she said, “Jimmy is leaving tomorrow for a job in the bush. He says he’ll be back on the weekends.” She pulled her hair away from her face in a swift motion.
I thought a flicker of fear crossed her face, but at the time, I thought I must be mistaken. She stood up quickly, tossing back her hair and said, “Come on, city girl. I’ll get you back to the main road.”
I stood from my crouching position and stretched my cramped legs. Audrey was already disappearing into the woods.
Our trek back seemed quicker than our walk to the pond. Before long, I could see the road through the brush.
“Thanks for taking me, Audrey. I hope we can do something together again,” I said.
She half-turned and her black eyes brushed over mine. “I might see you around,” she said. “You never know.”
She left me at the end of the path and started running the opposite way down the road. Her long black hair was like a stream of ink behind her. She ran like a gazelle with strides long and fluid, but she ran so fast that it looked like she was being chased by demons. I watched her for a long time, and she never once looked back. For some reason, a shiver of loneliness travelled up from my belly. Why were Jimmy and Audrey so difficult to get to know? What was the secret of the Musquash family? It was too bad Ambie wasn’t there to talk things over with. She would have understood how I was feeling without being asked. Maybe I’d break tradition and write to her after all. I sighed. Ambie was probably having a great time at computer camp and had hardly noticed that I was gone.
As I turned for home, the first drops of rain began to strike the leaves of the trees, and before I reached the turn in the road, the whole world was alive with the music of the storm. I too started running, only I felt like I was running towards some place warm and safe. As for Audrey, I wasn’t so sure.