The Better Mother

THE CITY

1946


About two months later, Val started to dream again. One night, she saw herself dressed in a fine, floating white gown, standing at the edge of the river, overgrown bushes and trees behind her, blocking her view of the house. The surface of the water sparkled, catching light on the edges of waves. Val saw a salmon leap and twist in the air before disappearing again, its return to the river making barely a ripple.

She stepped onto a passing barge, a fantastic barge, decorated with blue velvet and painted paper lanterns. As she floated away, she could see past the bush and into the attic window, where Joan’s face was twisted, whether in pleasure or pain, she couldn’t tell. Joan’s eyes watched as the barge drifted downriver, as Val arranged her skirt to billow more gracefully in the breeze. Her lips moved and Val could swear that she was saying, A curse, a curse.

Then, a voice: “Across the river, Val. We have to get across that river.”

Val struggled to open her eyes, groped for the wall, something solid to bring her back to waking life. “Joanie?”

Joan’s back was resting against the headboard. She turned toward Val, who could just see her glimmering hair in the dark. “You remember your plan, don’t you? We have to get out of here, go across the river and get to Vancouver somehow. Val? Are you listening?”

Val sat up and shivered as the cold air hit her shoulders. “I didn’t think you liked that idea.”

Joan shrugged. “I didn’t. But what else is there to do? Either we run, or we stay here and watch Mum and Dad crumple and die and dry up.” Her voice cracked a little and she paused, waiting, Val thought, for inconvenient feelings to evaporate. “Come on, Val. We’ve always done everything together.”

Val had a vision of her and Joan, high-kicking on a stage with a dapper man dressed in a top hat and black tails between them. How beautiful they would be in their sequined costumes, their high-heeled shoes, their curled and set hair. She wanted to hear new music. The only popular songs they heard were on Mr. Ladner’s radio when they went to buy supplies at his general store; that is, when they had enough money to buy anything at all. She wanted fast music, the kind that made you stand up and dance, by yourself or with a partner, it didn’t matter.

She knew that if they stayed, they would grow older and stranger, like a pair of mad and isolated witches. They would pace through the damp, silent rooms, each keeping her eyes averted for fear of seeing evidence of their own slow disintegration—liver spots, dark circles, caved cheeks—in the other’s face.

Val turned to her sister. “We’ll go. Tomorrow.”


They left a note for their parents, waiting until their mother had gone to the Ladners’ big square house, looking for some housekeeping work. Their father, whose industrious streak had fizzled, was still asleep, cocooned in his own particular cloud of stale beer and tobacco.

The note, written on the back of a circular that had come in the mail, sat on the kitchen table, propped up against the sugar bowl.

Dear Mum and Dad,



We’ve gone to Vancouver to look for work. We’ll write when we get settled. Don’t worry and take care.



With lots of love, Val and Joan



Joan quietly slid a cracked soup tureen from the top shelf in the hall closet. Inside was a small roll of bills, which she stuffed into a brown leather pouch that Val held open. Along with the money they’d made selling eggs, it was all they had.

As they walked down River Road, glancing behind them for a car, any car, to flag down, Val’s stomach contracted with a rush of guilt as her mother’s money grew hot in her dress pocket. She knew that, without them, the house would be perennially silent, filled with only the sounds of eating, defecating or working. She tried to imagine the rooms without Joan or herself and saw nothing to take their place, just bare walls and limp linens, a smear in the air that could be the ghost of baby Warren. If left to its own devices, the bush would creep slowly toward the house, eating up the garden, then the dingy, muddy lawn and finally, the back porch. Soon, no one passing would even know that a house and a little boy’s grave existed under the thorns and dead leaves and birds’ nests. And inside, her parents would suffocate, helpless to do anything about their darkening lives. Her parents rarely talked to each other, and she couldn’t remember the last time she saw them touch or smile across the table. How could she leave like that, sneaking away with the household money? At least, she thought, they no longer have to feed us.

She looked at Joan’s small body trudging beside her, her right shoulder drooping under the weight of her carpet bag. When Val saw Joan’s face, she stopped thinking about her parents altogether. There was Joan: bright and smiling and so glitteringly happy that Val was afraid anything doubtful she might say would shatter this thin veneer of joy, and Joan would be nothing more than tiny shards of brittle skin and bone and hair.

The road twisted around a corner and, finally, their old house was hidden by a group of thin black cottonwoods leaning dangerously over the embankment, their branches almost grazing the surface of the river. She could hear the clang and hum of the canneries to the southwest and the distant horn of a tugboat, sounds that receded as they walked inland. Val took Joan’s free hand and squeezed it. Behind them, she heard the faint growl of a car. Val turned and waved. The faster they were gone, the better.


In Vancouver, soldiers who had returned from the war wandered the streets, differing levels of trauma on their faces and in the way they held their bodies. Some were straight and tall and so, so thin. Others wilted under the weight of normal life: their almost-forgotten livelihoods, girlfriends who were no longer girls but women grown tough with waiting. Some drank in the pubs all day and then spilled onto the sidewalks at night, where they seemed to carouse only with one another. The well-adjusted ones offered their services to shops and businesses or allowed their families to lead them around to see all the changes in the city—the new mall across the inlet, even the new supper club downtown.

“They’re everywhere,” said one waitress they met at a diner. “If you’re looking for a husband, you’re in the right place at the right time.”

The soldiers reminded Val of her father, with his ill-fitting pants, the expression on his face that was half empty, half lost. She wondered if the Depression might return now that the war was over. Perhaps a new generation of children would have to wear underwear sewn from old flour and sugar sacks, as Joan and Val had done, the fabric scratching and scratching until they cried.

The girls found a boarding house not far from the water, on the south side of the Burrard Bridge. They shared one room, with one bed, but they loved it all anyway. The carpeted floors were clean and dry and the hallway smelled like cinnamon and Sunday roasts. Through their window, they could see the lights of downtown winking at them. From here, the aimless soldiers were too small and too far away to be seen.

On their first full day in the city, they ventured across the bridge, writing down the names and addresses of the top theatres, taking note of the kinds of shows they were playing, examining the posters glued to the windows. They ate in a café, carefully counting out the coins from Val’s leather pouch. Joan had coffee and a glazed doughnut, while Val limited herself to a bacon sandwich. After lunch it rained, and the people around them hurried from awning to awning, ducking into buildings with their dripping umbrellas and hats. Val and Joan continued to walk the streets with their faces turned up, their eyes fixed on the limestone lions perched on the tops of buildings, the street lamps with their carved iron bases, even the streetcars that snapped and rumbled as they sped past. The ghostly soldiers faded into the shadows.

They spent their whole second day trying to decide what to wear and how they should fix their hair. The next morning, they walked into the Orpheum, the most important theatre on their list, and asked to audition.

A man emerged from a back office and looked them over, head to toe. “Do you girls have an agent?”

“No,” Joan said. “We moved here a few days ago. But we can dance really well. You just need to see us.”

The man smiled and stroked his moustache with one hand. “I’d love to see both of you, sweetheart, but the shows aren’t doing so well. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s all movies these days. No one cares about live entertainment anymore.”

Joan stared, wide-eyed, at the manager’s face. He looked away and bent down to tighten his shoelace as her chin trembled.

Val stammered, “So you won’t even let us audition?”

“Listen, I’ve got plenty of experienced dancers coming by every day looking for work. I’ve got agents calling me every other minute, begging for a show, any show. To be honest, even if I did have a spot for you two, which I don’t, there are lots of other dancers I would choose first.” He reached past them and opened the door to the street. “Thanks for stopping by, ladies. Good luck.”

As the girls walked past him, he whispered in Val’s ear, “Burlesque is still going strong, I hear, especially now that the soldiers are back. You look like you’ve got good legs and a strong stomach, so if you’re willing to show a little skin, you can try the Shangri-La in Chinatown.” She gasped and stared at the man’s round, red face. “It’s a suggestion, honey, that’s all. You don’t have to take it if you don’t like it.” He nodded at Joan’s retreating body; her arms were wrapped around her chest. “Don’t take her along with you, though. Stripping can kill a girl who isn’t cut out for it.”

They tried every respectable theatre in town. Each manager said the same thing. Shows were closing; the theatres were converting their stages to movie screens. When Val looked into the managers’ faces, she saw limited sympathy. They would continue to have jobs, even if all they did was screen movies. Dancers and comics were the ones who would have to find other ways to pay the bills. It was too bad, but what could the managers do about it?

One evening before dinnertime, they walked by the Palomar Supper Club. They saw through the open door that it was full and that couples and single men waited in the lobby to sit at the bar. Val heard the music—clear and fine with a pitch like ice cubes rattling in a glass—and thought that dancing to that backdrop would be magical. If she could just keep her clothes on. She glanced at Joan’s body, which seemed even thinner in the city, and kept her mouth shut.

Joan cried when they got back to their room, her shaking hands fingering the blisters on her feet. When their landlady called them for supper, Joan refused to go, even though Val reminded her that they were paying for the food as part of the rent, and she should eat it. Val went to the dining room alone and sat in the only empty seat, between two young men. They said they were students at the university, and brushed her breasts with their hands while passing the dishes. She forced herself to eat the roast potatoes and ham, the soup with crackers, even the sponge cake—as much as she could. Later, she lay on her side of the bed, her hands cupped around her too-full and distended belly.

The day before their weekly rent was due, Val walked through downtown, stopping at every restaurant, shop and hotel to see if they had any work for her. Nothing. The managers and shopkeepers looked at her faded, floral-print dress and her scuffed shoes and simply said, “No.” As she walked down street after street, she thought of Joan, lying in bed in her nightgown, refusing to move even when Val grabbed her ankle and tried to pull her to the floor. Despite the February drizzle, Val began to sweat, and her face flushed with hot, angry blood. She kept blindly walking, bumping into men and children as she went. When they first arrived, both she and Joan had examined the face of every stranger they passed. Now, Val didn’t want to look.

Maybe they should have never left their parents’ house. At least there they didn’t have to pay the rent.

The streets began to change around her. Buildings were narrower, with balconies on the second and third floors. Red- and green-painted pillars rose from the street. Val, her eyes misted over with anxiety and rage, noticed none of it and plowed forward. When she spotted another restaurant, she took a deep breath and plunged inside.

In the dim, she saw vinyl booths, a few loose tables and chairs and a lunch counter. The smell of coffee and frying pork surrounded her and she felt hollow. They had run out of money for breakfast and lunch two days ago and had been eating only the supper that their landlady prepared. She put her hand to her stomach and heard it rumble. Embarrassed, she looked around at the customers to see if anyone noticed.

Chinamen. Sitting in almost every booth, at the counter, in the chairs. Some methodically ate their food, while others chatted to men at their tables or yelled across the room. So angry, thought Val. Why are they shouting like this? A man wrapped in a white apron stood behind the counter, wiping it with a damp cloth. Through a window in the kitchen door, Val could see more men cooking in the back. She looked behind her at the rainy street, at the purposeless soldiers huddled under awnings and in doorways, wearing coats inadequate for this biting late winter.

A girl, a few years older than Val, with tightly curled red hair, walked toward her, a tray in her hand. “Here for something to eat?” she asked, her head cocked to the side.

“I came in to see if you need any help. Maybe you need another waitress?” Val stumbled over the words, unsure if this was appropriate, if a restaurant run by Chinamen expected different things from girls and women.

“Well, as a matter of fact, Marge quit this morning. Mr. Chow,” she shouted to the man behind the counter, “this girl’s looking for a waitress job. You want to talk to her?” The man nodded and the girl pointed to a table by the window. “Sit over there. He’ll be with you in a minute.”

Val rubbed her hands together under the table. She sniffed deeply, smelled butter and eggs, toast and doughnuts. How could a place like this smell so familiar? Her stomach rumbled again.

Mr. Chow wiped his hands on his apron before sitting in the chair across the table. “What’s your name?” he asked.

Val was confused; she had expected this man would barely be able to speak English. But he sounded like everyone she had ever known, like her father, like the young men at the boarding house. “I’m Valerie.”

“Do you have any waitressing experience?” He looked over her face, narrowing his eyes to a squint. His thick black hair was brushed away from his forehead and neatly parted on the side.

“No,” she said, “but I can do the job. I used to help out a lot at home, you know, with the dishes and getting meals.”

“Hmm,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I don’t know. A lot of girls have more experience than you.”

Val’s eyes started to water, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to answer calmly. “I know that. But I really need this job, Mr. Chow. My rent is due and my sister isn’t feeling well and,” she paused, “it smells really good in here.” She blushed and looked down at her lap, readying herself for the rejection.

Mr. Chow stood up, pushing his chair backward. “You look hungry.”

Val stared. “I’m sorry?”

“You need something to eat, don’t you? I’ll get you something right now and a bag for you to take home to your sister.” He disappeared into the kitchen.

The waitress put her hand on Val’s shoulder. She was covered with freckles, all the way down her arm to her fingers. She nodded and shifted her tray so that its edge was balanced on her hip. “He’ll hire you, don’t worry. He only feeds people for free if he likes them.”

Val smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Val.”

“My name’s Suzanne. Welcome to the Chow family.” She patted Val on the head and walked off, swinging her tray in time to the music coming from the radio behind the counter.

Mr. Chow brought her an egg salad sandwich, brown beans and a small bowl of carrot soup. He set a paper bag on the table. “This is for your sister.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, staring at the food.

“When you’re done, I’ll take you around and introduce you to everybody. You’ll start tomorrow morning at seven thirty, for breakfast. We’ll see how it goes from there.” He looked at her hesitating, his brown eyes (lighter than Val would have thought; everything here was a surprise) lingering over her hands as they lay on the table, waiting. “Go ahead, eat. I’ll come back when you’re done.”

When Val returned to the boarding house, Joan was sitting at their small table, looking out the window at the boats on the inlet, some simply floating in place, some sailing through the rain as white-crested waves tossed them back and forth. Silently, Val set out the food and watched as Joan, with her thin, pale hands, brought the sandwich to her mouth and ate, faster than Val had ever seen her.

Before Joan could speak, before she could ask where the food came from, or why Val looked so pleased with herself, Val smiled widely and said, “A Chinaman has saved us.”


The mornings were busiest. Val buttoned up her blouse and scratchy wool skirt in the darkness, her fingers cold with the damp air that accumulated in the room overnight. She filled the wash basin with water and scrubbed the sleep from her face, shivering the whole time. As she laced her shoes, she looked at Joan, still asleep, a line of dried drool on her cheek. When Val left, she didn’t try to be quiet.

The café hummed with activity. Omelettes, bacon and oatmeal went from kitchen to Val to customer. She poured coffee after coffee. Suzanne nodded at her from across the room, sometimes whispered in her ear when they passed, “Make sure you smile. They tip bigger if you’re pretty.” Val noticed the Chinamen’s hungry eyes that lingered on her body as she walked away, that measured the distance between her and them, watching to see if she would move closer, drag her fingers on their shoulders. At first, she was shocked and nervous, wondering if one of them would wait for her to finish her shift and jump on her in the street. But she saw, soon enough, that these men were afraid of her—of the whiteness of her skin, the kind of man her father might be, the riot she would inspire if she ran out into the street screaming.

And so she let them watch her, knowing they would take her image into their beds with them.

A barber whose shop was down the block became her favourite customer and he talked to her as much as he dared. “Where are you from?” he asked, stopping her rush to another table with a thin, lifted hand. “A small town like me?”

Val balanced her tray on her hip and smiled. “Not even a town, just a string of houses by the river. It was pretty quiet. Not like this.”

“Yes, living here is sometimes very hard. So many strangers. And so few friends. It makes people old before their time. Did you know”—he leaned forward and pointed at his greying, receding hairline—“I’m actually twenty-one?”

Val let out a belly laugh and walked away, looking back at his strangely crooked yet handsome face. She smiled again, over her shoulder, almost coy. When she turned her head back, she saw that Mr. Chow, a roll of dimes in his hand, was watching, his forehead heavy like a thundercloud. She looked away, confused, but when she saw him again, counting the change in the till, he seemed to be his everyday self.

Sometimes a returning Chinese soldier came into the café, and the men would crowd around him, asking him if the stories were true, if the Canadians and British used them to infiltrate enemy lines, if they were spies in the wilds of Burma.

“Was it exciting, Jack? Like in the movies?”

“Those mosquitoes are vicious. Look at my scars.”

“Things are changing, brothers,” said an older man who had been listening to the soldier all afternoon. “I can smell it.”

Val could hear them arguing over the influence these new veterans could wield in Ottawa, parlaying their loyalty to the Commonwealth into the right to vote.

After work, if it wasn’t raining, she walked north to the waterfront, through the smells of wet lumber and salted fish, so she could stand as close to the waves as possible. As the evenings grew lighter, she could see across to the shore of North Vancouver, the mountains looming, blue in the fog, green in the sunshine. To the west, she knew that the inlet opened into the ocean, which led to Japan and China, places she knew nothing about but created in her mind. Lacquered red. Gold dragons. Ancient pagodas somehow untouched by war. Rich incense that smelled of cinnamon and cloves. The feel of silk on bare, clean skin.

When she arrived home, Joan was dressed and waiting. Not once did she go down to the dining room alone. If the bell rang before Val came home, she didn’t eat at all.


It was a gloomy and drizzly Monday morning one month later, and the men were grumpy. One or two smiled at her as she poured them coffee, but the rest either nodded or didn’t acknowledge her, staring at the newspapers in front of them or the scratches on the tabletops. It’s understandable, Val thought. I don’t like this weather either. Earlier, as Joan slept with her white hands folded over the quilt, Val had had just enough time to run the comb through her hair once, button up her plain cotton dress and shove two bobby pins over her ears. Now, as she half ran to the kitchen to pick up an order of cream of wheat, she put a hand to the side of her head and swore under her breath when she realized the pins had disappeared. She hoped they hadn’t fallen into somebody’s scrambled eggs.

Outside, the city had woken up, startled out of sleep by car horns and the beat of footsteps on the sidewalk.

Val rushed past Mr. Chow on her way to the kitchen, carrying a tray piled high with dirty dishes. He stood beside the door, his checked shirt free of food splatter, his apron tied precisely at his waist (never crooked, never bunched or wrinkled) and drummed his fingers on the wall. Val wished he would pick up a rag and clean something, or perhaps make a fresh pot of coffee; he was taking up precious space with his tree-like body. As she kicked the kitchen door open, Mr. Chow turned his wide head and said, “You look pretty today.”

She walked to the sink as if he had never spoken, acted like his smooth and quiet voice had never launched those words. Her shift continued, her wrists aching like they always did at lunchtime, the curls in her hair drooping in the humidity that blew from the stoves. That night she listened to Joan chatter about the young couple who had walked by their window in the afternoon. And then she bathed and lay down in bed, eyes closed.

But she did not sleep. All she could hear were those same four words, breathed to life by Mr. Chow’s barely moving lips.


Night air. She remembered the hiss of cold wind that used to sneak in where the walls of her parents’ house didn’t quite meet, those gaps that grew wider every year until Val and Joan slept with their arms and legs twisted together for warmth, even after every girlish fight. Even after the baby died.

Late one day, she walked home from Chinatown through the side streets, taking unpaved lanes, sometimes walking through vacant lots choked with tall grasses, wildflowers that might have been yellow last summer but were now brown and mouldy from months of winter and early spring rain. She followed narrow trails, carefully placing one foot in front of the other and swaying through the tangled weeds.

When she came within sight of the boarding house, she saw a slight figure fifty feet ahead. She squinted through the darkness at its directionless walk; two steps to the left were followed by one step to the right, and then a jolting hop forward.

Val looked up at the sky and saw a break in the clouds. There, the moon.

The awkward, marionette-like figure wore a pale dress and dark shoes. Val knew that cornflower pattern as well as she knew the sharp point of that nose. It was Joan wandering through this cold, damp night—coatless, with her face turned up toward the lit windows of the houses around them. For a second, Val wondered how little Warren might have fit into this picture if he had lived, whether they would have stayed at their parents’ house, whether he would be holding his mother’s hand and toddling down River Road, his round eyes searching the night for owls and mice, or whether Joan might carry him, her narrow spine buckling under his weight.

Val took a step toward Joan, and then stopped. Joan had ventured outside alone, had decided it would be a good idea to explore without the help of anyone else. Val’s lips tightened. Fine. Let her do something on her own steam for once.

But as Val turned to walk through the boarding house’s gate, she craned her neck to see where Joan was headed. Her slight form stood at the corner as she looked up and down the street. To the right, a steep hill leading south. To the left, the beach and Burrard Inlet. She seemed to quiver, like a nervous sparrow. Just when Val thought she was going to turn left and follow the sound of the ocean, Joan spun in place and began walking back to the house.

Val slipped past the front gate and hurried through the double doors. When she arrived in their room, she pulled off her coat and shoes, then ran to the bed, where she sat, breathing as slowly as her heaving chest allowed. As she waited for the sound of Joan’s shoes in the hallway, she closed her eyes and saw her sister’s face from two minutes before: teeth held stiffly in her small mouth, her nose twitching, testing the air for impending danger or a whiff of her next prey, her eyes focused on a point. Val had seen that look before, in a similar pool of moonlight, under those blackened attic rafters. She pressed her closed fists to her eyes. The doorknob turned, and she was sickeningly afraid.


Two weeks passed and Val never mentioned seeing Joan wandering the street. She left her alone, talking only when necessary and avoiding her eyes whenever possible. It was when she reached the narrow sidewalks of Chinatown that she finally stopped clenching her fists.

One evening, Val arrived home from work and could hear music playing through the door to their room. She wondered if perhaps the window was open despite the spring rain and the teenaged boy across the alley was playing his radio too loudly again. As she opened the door, she saw, in the middle of the room, Joan twirling and dancing, her left foot first in the air and then tapping on the floor. Joan laughed, held her arms out in the fading grey light.

In the chair by the window sat one of the university students, his hand resting on his own radio. He smiled and nodded at Joan’s dance, watched her skirt as it ballooned above her knees.

“Joan?” Val said, quietly.

“Val!” Joan stopped dancing and ran over to her sister, taking both her hands. “I was showing Peter our old routine, from when we were children.”

Val nodded at Peter and pulled off her coat. She couldn’t bear to look at his smug face, which was wide with a broad, lumpy nose. As she turned to hang her hat on the hook behind the door, he stood and walked over to her, his long legs covering the distance in three steps.

“I’m glad you’re here, Miss Nealy. There’s something I would like to discuss with you.”

The politeness. Val was confused, but began to feel angry at his carefully worded greeting. He wants something I won’t want to give him.

“Joanie and I were talking, and we think we would like to get married. I’ve got two months of school left, and I’ll be going to work for the Crown. We could have a wedding this summer. A small one, of course, but Joanie will ensure that it’s nice. What do you say, Miss Nealy? What about giving us your blessing.”

Val leaned against the wall, the damp hem of her skirt sticking to the backs of her legs. She felt insubstantial, like she might dissolve into a puddle of jelly. She looked to her left and saw Joan smiling widely, her hands clasped in front of her.

“My blessing? Do you need it?” Val stammered.

Peter spoke again. “Yes, of course. We would like you to be the maid of honour too, if that’s all right.”

The silence from Joan was unnerving. Val wanted to run across the room and shake her out of this act, this pretend innocence that seemed to have materialized out of the crumbs and shards of their past. But she felt pinned; Peter’s pale, sharp eyes locked her to this spot beside the door.

“My blessing is yours. I’ll do whatever you need.” Val looked past Peter’s looming body at Joan. “Congratulations, Joanie. I hope you’ll be happy.”

That night, as Val lay beside Joan, she felt Joan’s cool hand on her shoulder. Val opened her eyes, felt rather than saw the presence of the white ceiling, the moulding that cast shadows in streetlight, the crack that ran westward in the plaster.

“Is this what you want?” Val whispered.

“Of course. Why else would I do it?” Joan sounded impatient and tired.

Val turned on her side and stared out the uncovered window. “Do you love him?”

She felt Joan fidgeting beside her. “He’s nice enough. He’ll have money one day and we’ll be as happy as anyone, I guess.”

“What about children?” Val held her breath in this moment of silence.

“I’ll figure something out before he needs to know.”

Before Val fell asleep, her body anticipating the work and hustle of the next morning, she imagined what little Warren might look like now. An unruly thatch of black hair. Long fingers. Eyes that seemed far too innocent for a real human face. A reluctant smile that grew slowly and could disappear in an instant. He’d be the sort of boy who’d feel embarrassed every time his shoelaces dragged in the mud. She could see him seeking her out in a crowded room and, when he found her, reaching for her skirt, his face opening up with relief and contentment.

Even now, with Joan breathing heavily beside her, she could feel the weight of his small body in her hands. Reaching through the blankets, Val gently touched Joan’s neck, but Joan grunted and rolled away.


Val stood at the rocky shoreline, kicking pebbles with the toe of her shoe. Seagulls circled, their small black eyes on the shallow hole she was inadvertently digging. The piles of sulphur on the opposite shore gleamed weirdly. Val wanted to fling her coat into the frigid water. She wanted to scream until blood bubbled up in her throat. She wanted to pull out each of her fingers, one by one.

The sound of crashing waves pounded at her ears, seemed to stir her thoughts into a teeming, brackish swamp. She was the one who cared for Joan, whose body was once broken. Each day that Val had gone to work at the café, it had been for Joan, so that her little blond head would have somewhere to sleep. It was Val who kept them from starving, from having to take jobs that traded on their young skin and narrow waists. Their escape to Vancouver had been a plan for both of them; they were supposed to dance together, live together, share everything they had. And now Joan was leaving to marry a man who looked like a cauliflower on legs.

A sharp rain began to fall, but she didn’t feel it. Anger, at least, was warming.