Chapter Twelve

Alex woke to find her mom already up. She looked agitated and was talking to herself. “It’ll be all right,” her mom said. “Everything will be all right.” She was balanced on the edge of the chair, rocking back and forth.

“Mom, I feel fine.”

Her mom stared at the wall.

“Mom!”

“What? Oh, sorry, honey. Yes, of course you’re okay.”

“Are you sure?” Alex watched her mom’s clenched hands.

“The doctor should be here any minute.”

The hospital room was stifling. Her mom obviously didn’t feel like talking. Where was everyone? “How come Dad’s not here?”

Her mom stiffened in the chair. “Oh, he’s…away. We’ll call him later, okay?”

Alex slumped back against the pillows. “Where did Aunt Soph go?”

“She’s visiting one of her Brier Island neighbours whose son is in the cardiac unit. Mr. uh, R…something or other.” Her mother went back to staring at the wall and kneading her hands.

Alex picked up a pen and a newspaper from the bedside table. In no time, she had completed all the word puzzles. Her hand automatically started doodling. She often made designs out of names.

Alex sketched a lion mane and a boat around Gus’s name. Then she printed Eva’s name and drew flowers around it. Eva…something tickled her brain. Eva…she looked at the boat around Gus’s name again. Evania, she doodled. Wasn’t that what Gus had named his boat? The Evania Rose? Could the similar names be a coincidence? Maybe.

The rest of the morning passed by so slowly, it was torture. Aunt Sophie returned around ten with coffees and juice. Alex got poked and prodded a few more times. Then they waited, and waited, and waited some more.

Finally, after twelve, the doctor returned and said she could leave. Other than the cut on her head, he pronounced her on the mend. “Now, just keep an eye on her, like I told you,” he said to her mother. “If she shows any symptoms, bring her back in. Everything you need to know is in the pamphlet on concussions I gave you. But she should be fine.”

Free at last, Alex sucked in a deep breath as she, her mom, and Aunt Sophie walked across the parking lot. The fresh air smelled extra sweet. As soon as she got in the back seat, she rolled the window down and rested her chin on the frame. Her stomach growled.

“Mom, can we get a donair at Pizza Corner?”

“Not a chance.”

“C’mon, please?”

“That stuff will rot your stomach!”

“Aunt Sophie, help.”

“Barkin’ up the wrong tree here, kiddo.” Aunt Sophie winked at Alex in the rearview mirror. “I’m with your mother on this one. Donair meat? Come on! I raise my own chickens, for Pete’s sake.”

“I was in the hospital. Don’t I get, like, a mercy meal or something? I’m starving.”

“For heaven’s sake,” her mom huffed.

But she looked like she was wavering. A guilt trip can be a beautiful thing. “Mom…” Alex whimpered.

“Oh, fine,” her mom relented, “but only a small one.”

Aunt Sophie scowled as she veered down Spring Garden Road. “This traffic is insane,” she muttered, slamming on the brakes as a blue SUV cut in front of them.

“Bogs!” Alex yelled and waved her fist. “Watch where you’re going!”

“Bogs?” her mom said. “What’s that, some new kids’ slang?”

“More like an old dog’s slang,” Aunt Sophie smirked. “I think my island’s rubbing off on you, Alex.”

Alex frowned. “Yeah, rubbing off like a virus,” she muttered. She pictured Gus and Eva being shocked at her words and bit her lip. It didn’t seem to matter what she did; guilt was never far behind.

Swearing again, this time at the lack of parking, Aunt Sophie dropped Alex’s mom off and circled the block.

“I miss home,” Aunt Sophie lamented as she leaned back against the headrest. Having given up on finding a legal parking spot, they were now double-parked in front of the pizza shop.

Alex watched the pedestrians scurrying along the sidewalks as they chatted into cell phones, at the same time balancing lattes and lugging briefcases. The women were the most amazing—some of them doing all those things while teetering on three-inch heels.

For some reason, she thought of Aunt Sophie’s friend Henry, the old parchment-paper guy riding the museum bike on the quiet dusty road. Brier Island and Halifax—they were so different. It was hard to believe they were in the same country, let alone the same province.

“Do you ever miss the city? You know, shopping and movies?” Alex asked her aunt.

“Not even for a second.”

Alex thought of Daredevil.

“Maybe you and your mom can come back with me.”

“What about Dad?”

Aunt Sophie didn’t answer, instead turning on the radio and then rooting through her bag.

“Did Mom talk to him?”

“I think she left him a message.”

Her mom opened the door and eased into the front seat, balancing an enormous platter covered in aluminum foil.

“Jeez, Mom, that’s humungous!”

“I know…I got in there and it smelled so good—”

Aunt Sophie’s mouth was hanging open. “You didn’t!”

“I did.” Her mom giggled self-consciously. “I couldn’t help it. I got an extra-large one…and three forks.”

“Three forks? Don’t drag me into this. You two are on your own.” Aunt Sophie looked disgusted.

The hot, spicy smell of the donair filled the car. Alex’s stomach rumbled louder. “Pass it back!”

“It’ll get all over the seats. Soph, drive to Point Pleasant.”

At the park, they walked past Black Rock Beach and onto the grass to a picnic table by the water. With the feast spread out in front of them, Alex and her mom loaded up their forks with the warm donair meat, pita bread, chopped tomatoes, and onions lathered in sauce.

Aunt Sophie apparently grew tired of the moans of pleasure and reached across the table to stab the smallest piece of meat. Wrinkling her nose, she nibbled it delicately. “Mmmm, not bad,” she said, gulping down the rest in one bite.

It was a feeding frenzy.

Forks flew and mouths chomped. The gulls squawking nearby were out of luck. Within minutes, all that remained was a slab of soggy pita sitting in a puddle of sauce.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” her mom said. “I haven’t had one of those since I was a teenager.”

“It was my first,” Aunt Sophie said, then burped. She slapped a hand over her mouth.

Her mom hooted. “Ha! Your first? You used to scarf them down too! Remember, back in the days before you got into all that organic stuff?”

“I don’t recall—must have blocked it out,” Aunt Sophie snickered.

The two sisters doubled over, their shoulders shaking with laughter.

Suddenly, the warm taste of the donair turned sour in Alex’s mouth. It was wrong—wrong to be sitting here by the ocean like normal people, laughing in the sunshine.

“Donairs were Adam’s favourite.”

Her mother gasped and looked like she’d been slapped. Aunt Sophie’s laughter broke off as if the mute button had been pushed on the remote.

Alex immediately regretted it. Why had she said that? It just popped out.

No one spoke.

The circling gulls’ screams filled the silence.

Her mom eventually stood up and headed back the way they’d come. Without saying a word, Aunt Sophie picked up her bag and followed her.

Walking as slowly as possible to delay returning to the car, Alex stopped halfway to the parking lot and glanced back at where they had been sitting. Two gulls had landed on the picnic table. They were fighting over the pita bread, ripping it apart with their long, sharp beaks. The huge brown speckled one nipped at the other, making it drop the pita, then snatched up the bread in its beak. It took off, soaring over the trees.

Alex tilted her head back and watched until the gull had disappeared, then slowly made her way back to the car.