she saw her father sitting at the kitchen table in the bay window staring out at the waves etching white on the waters. Butterflies frolicked around the late dahlias on the deck. The rich and savoury smell of her father’s premier dish filled the room. Shogun was lying on a plush cushion by the counter, looking like a baby rajah. His paws held a large rawhide chewie. Down the stairs to the solarium, the sound of Patty Page singing “Old Cape Cod” drifted up like a balm.
From his posture, she could see that he was looking at a picture on the wall. Then she remembered. September 30th. The anniversary of her mother’s disappearance. How could she have forgotten? Slowly she came forward, trying not to disturb him. The picture had been taken at Bonnie’s graduation from UBC. This was as formal as Holly’d ever seen her, black gown, hair rolled under just touching her collar. What did they call that style? A shag? Hadn’t her mother once joked that she had worn rollers to bed like a thorny crown? Soon after, Bonnie had adopted a no-nonsense short hair cut which required a quick brush kiss. “Ready to wear,” she had called it.
Bonnie Rice had gone on to law school at Osgoode Hall and met her father while he was doing his doctoral work at the University of Toronto. They’d married and followed his job to Victoria, not far from her family in Cowichan. Holly ran through her memories like a bittersweet movie. Bonnie had never been the pie-baking, stay-at-home kind of mother. They’d laughed over her effort to make rice pudding like her grandmother’s. But she’d never parked Holly in a day care. Despite the awkwardness, she had taken Holly to work whenever possible. Content in a small law firm arranging simple wills and real-estate transactions, she made little money. Then when her own mother died from tuberculosis just after Holly was born, the special needs of native women and children began to claim Bonnie’s attention. Remote areas had unique challenges due to the isolation. First a safe place, then healing, education and goals for the woman and her children. Finally a job to maintain independence. Bonnie had fought long and hard for funding, appeared before the legislature, spoken until hoarse on television and radio. “Pro bono” must have been tattooed on her heart.
Her gift was an ability to assess needs, then locate and funnel resources where they would do best, interfacing with literacy people, doctors without borders, prenatal care, shelters for the homeless and especially for battered women. She had worked for Victimlink, Cherie’s House and the Sexual Assault Centre, stirring many well-guarded pots on the way. There wasn’t a millionaire she hadn’t approached to sponsor a room, or buy furniture or business machines. As her profile grew, so did the number of people who wanted women kept in their place. Countless times, she’d fielded threatening phone calls from abusive husbands.
Often she was gone for weeks, but she never forgot her daughter’s birthday, April 1st, a family jest. A brown paper package would arrive in the mail, a beaded jacket, an eagle feather carefully wrapped, a polished agate. “I’m sorry not to be with you, darling,” she’d say on the phone, when she could find one. “A word of birthday advice. Modern wisdom has it that a woman should never learn to type. It will enslave you. But I’ve found it handy. And your father’s such a good cook that you should get his recipes before you go off to school. Those two talents should sustain you. If you need guidance or are in trouble, call on your spirit animal, the deer. And don’t tell me how helpless they are. An antler in the heart can kill a man.”
Holly could still recall how Bonnie had arranged for a huge divorce settlement for a woman whose arm had been broken and her vision compromised due to beatings in front of her young children. Her husband, owner of a large car dealership in Nanaimo, had avoided jail by agreeing to the terms.
“I should have shot him when I had the chance,” Delores Ash had said behind dark glasses as she’d sat in their living room. Ten-year-old Holly had just brought her a cup of coffee and made sure it was safe in her shaking hand. She wasn’t sure if the sad lady was joking, but her mother’s face seemed serious. “I know you would have gotten me off, Bonnie. Probably with a gold medal.”
And her mother added with a wry smile, “You have my number if you change your mind. But the bastard’s better off alive, where he can continue to pay for his crimes. Being dead is far too good for him.”
Holly shook off the memory. Sometimes she imagined her mother by her side, offering advice, but she knew it was her own conscience, however shaped by the lost woman. Her career had taken a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn when she might have been out saving stands of Garry oak. Much though her mother loved nature, she put people first, and she would have applauded the change.
Her father’s shoulders gave a slight heave, and she heard him whisper, “Holly’s home. You’d like the woman she’s become. But where, oh where...” He wore a gift from his wife, a thick and warm Cowichan sweater in muted browns and greys.
Holly backed up and closed the French doors behind her as she passed through the TV room to the kitchen. Disturbing his thoughts without warning would be like interrupting a prayer. “Hey. What’s for dinner?”
Norman seemed to slip something into a folded newspaper. When it came to emotions, he was a very private man. Some thought he was oblivious to matters of the heart. She knew otherwise. Even though her parents had drifted apart, something golden and good had brought them together to usher her into the world.
“If I’ve made it right, your nose should tell you.” He grinned and tucked the paper under his arm.
She lifted her chin to the ceiling and moved it back and forth like a flavour-seeking sensor. “Mac and cheese. Am I ever glad I found you in the Fifties. Hardly low-cal, but simple and comforting.”
She saw Shogun roll over for a belly rub and obliged. His slanted eyes fluttered shut as if drugged. All men led with their groins, in honest fashion but often against their own interests. Perhaps even her father when he was young. “Did you get out with the dog?” she asked.
“Soon as you left for work. Took him up Randy’s Place to the old gravel pit. Short and sweet.” He looked at her as he stirred a pot of Harvard beets. “But he wouldn’t mind another go, so to speak. If you’re not too tired.”
She recognized the gentle blackmail. The old man was trying to get her to bond, not to forget her shepherds, but to move on, something he still couldn’t do with her mother. She gave him an arch glance to indicate that she was wise. “Let me get out of this combat gear, and we’re in business.”
“No hurry. You’ve got half an hour.”
A short time later she came down the stairs in capri pants and a CourtTV T-shirt, grabbed a leash, and whistled to the dog. They left the house and headed for the turnaround. A covey of quail, tiny, coroneted busybodies, were flushed from the blackberry bramble hedgerow. Holly made a note to collect some late berries for their dessert. Her Salmon Kings ball cap would serve for the collection.
The turnaround at Otter Point Place led to an old path downhill through bushes, across from a small public access for Gordon’s Beach. This historic strip often attracted wind surfers and ocean admirers bearing the island signature cup of coffee. Her father’s home and others dotting the uplands had once been part of the Tugwell, then the Gordon farm. The family’s salmon trap had sat offshore at this point for many years. In December of 1912, the Gordon family awoke to a roaring sound. The barque County Linlithgow from London had mistaken the new Sheringham Point light for Race Rocks fifty kilometres east. Instead of turning into snug Victoria harbour, the captain found his four-masted vessel gone aground. Accorded the best of hospitality from the surprised Gordons, the sailors refloated their boat at the next tide. Now an award-winning meadery occupied part of the property, with tastings and tours during peak season. The hives were often relocated into the clear-cuts in summer when fireweed was in bloom.
But slenderly trusting the obedience of the young dog, Holly latched
