Again, I hear the longing in her voice.
“He was the only parent I ever knew. After he died, they tried to find out about my dad. They never did. I bounced around between foster homes for a few years. Landed up where I am now. Shitty, but hey, that’s life, isn’t it? I’m doing fine. I get by just fine.”
Like you did yesterday, I think, but I keep it to myself. She is so young. There may be time yet.
It is so like him to raise the girl. He would have been good with children, just like he was good with Emily. Most people never understood Emily, and what they couldn’t understand, they mocked or feared. They refused to look past her muteness, her fixations and trances and peculiar ways. But not him. He loved Emily just like I did. And in the end, it ruined our love for each other.
“He wasn’t a murderer.” I hope this consoles her some. “But it is a long story.”
She settles back, gathering my quilt around her, the quilt Emily and I made. “I’m listening.”
30
Elizabeth
Emily wandered no more that winter.
By March, soaring temperatures created havoc as the mountains of snow that had fallen during the worst winter on record melted. Ice-choked rivers burst their banks, bringing an end to the cold with horrendous flooding. It was the beginning of what was to be the hottest summer on record. In a paradox of nature, a heat wave stretched across the Americas, stealing back all that moisture, sweeping the fertile land of the prairies into the air in the peak of what became known as the Dirty Thirties. We read all about it in the newspapers my father hoarded, mercifully spared as we were from the heat, fanned by the cool breezes off the Lake—temperate offerings drawn from the water’s icy depths.
Only Charlie came back to the island for the summer, once school let out. Pa made sure to keep him busy at the light, saying a boy of fifteen should be working, not gallivanting about in boats or running carefree through the forests. He was grooming him for the life of a keeper. Peter, Peter was destined for bigger things, but Charlie was at home on the Lake, and Pa knew that. Emily and I were put in charge of the chickens and helped out in the vegetable patch, but the chores of the lighthouse, which my mother and I shared during the months of April to June, shifted to Charlie. He would spell my father off overnight, especially when the foghorn sounded and the light swept across the darkness, conversing with the captains of passing ships, repeating, “We are here, we are here, we are here.” He was tasked with whitewashing buildings, tracking the levels of kerosene in the fuel tanks, helping to unload provisions and supplies when they arrived. On days when the sun shone, the chores were complete, and the foghorn sat silent, I was able to convince Charlie to slip away and take Emily and me out in Sweet Pea for a little adventure.
Charlie was always a good sailor. He took to it naturally, like gulls take to soaring on updrafts, high above the water, swooping with the gusts and tacking with the shifting breeze. He could read the wind and the waves and seemed happiest with the boat’s tiller in his hand and the Lake air filling the canvas sails of the little gaff-rigged vessel. And while I possessed enough skill to navigate the waters around Porphyry, Charlie took us farther, across into Black Bay or down past Shaganash toward Swede Island. We sought out and found bigger and better berry patches and spent hours picking the plump, juicy fruit to be dried or preserved for the long, cold months of winter. Or on days when the wind was still and the sun blazed down, we drifted aimlessly, the sail flopping, while Charlie worked the sheets, easing them off and then bringing them back in again, trying to tease any speed at all from the boat, enjoying the challenge of it. Emily and I lounged lazily, our fingers dragging along in the cool water.
Early that summer, he took us to Silver Islet for Dominion Day, to celebrate Canada’s confederation nearly seventy years before.
The end of school always heralded the arrival of families at Silver Islet who settled in for the summer months, and it felt like civilization moved just a little bit closer to our island home. For a season, the place flourished. The shelves in the general store were stocked with dry goods and an assortment of penny candy, the beach at Surprise Lake on the edge of the community was raked and opened for swimming, and evenings saw the shoreline dotted with bonfires. The impending celebrations for Canada’s birthday only made the adventure even more appealing for me. Charlie had gone the year before, and he had told Emily and me all about it—the games, the food, and the fireworks—especially the fireworks. Even then, when half the country struggled to put food on the table, someone had managed to furnish fireworks.
After fastening Sweet Pea to the wharf, we headed to Arnie Richardson’s place. Charlie and Arnie had become good friends at school, and his parents had invited us to stay with them, assuring us that they had plenty of room, since Arnie’s brothers would not be there. Mother eventually conceded. Pa didn’t want us sailing home after dark, and I was not about to forgo seeing the fireworks.
Arnie was the youngest of five kids, all boys, with his nearest brother almost six years older. His father often came out to the island during the winter, but the family moved out officially when his mother stepped off the tugboat onto the wharf in June and set up housekeeping for the summer.
“You going to win this year?” Arnie asked. We had collected a group of kids as we wandered along the dirt road from Arnie’s toward the beach at Surprise Lake. Charlie had just missed out winning the hundred-yard dash last year to Doug Owen from Fort William. He was determined not to do so again.
“Yup,” said Charlie. “I’m taking home that trophy.”
“Doug’s here again,” Arnie said. “Staying with his cousin.”
Charlie kicked a pebble, sending up a cloud of dust. “I can beat him.”
I knew he could. He had been practicing and was the fastest in his class, training all winter in the gym at Port Arthur Collegiate Institute.