“We have children to think about.”
A second of silence hovered. The children.
They hurried to the back door. The yard was empty. Jack put on his shoes and followed a few little footprints in the mud heading toward Main Street. He foraged his way through the mud puddles in the back lane and made his way to Pebble Drive, which bisected the clapboard homes from the school, church, and library on top of the hill. Jack waited for a few cars to pass. All of the drivers waved and honked at him, slowed down and teased him by pretending not to let him pass. Jack smiled and played along, waved and gestured as he thumbed his nose at his co-workers. When the few cars had gone by, he ran nervously up the incline just as two little yellow coats with flapping arms and faces obscured by big floppy hats disappeared down the slope of the small ravine.
He ran after them and yelled at them to come back right now. They turned in unison, small mouths agape with pleasure, wide eyes framed by moist eyelashes. They ran the few feet over to him and grabbed his legs, their yellow raincoats and hats dribbling water on his blue jeans. He knelt down and encircled them.
“Where were you going?”
“To find the gold the end of the rainbow,” Katie answered and pointed at the arc in the sky.
“Can we go get the gold?” Maggie asked.
“Oh my darlings, there’s no —” Jack said, sighed, and lowered his head. He lifted his gaze to meet their innocent yet expectant eyes. “Of course there’s gold at the end of the rainbow, plenty of it, especially for little girls just like you, but the rainbow chooses who gets the gold, and when the rainbow falls over your house, it’s all yours.”
“Really, Daddy?” Maggie asked and watched him with tear-filled, accusatory eyes, her tiny lips pouting doubtfully.
“Yes, of course.”
Refusing to be soothed, Maggie continued to cry. She wanted the gold right now. Jack picked her up and held her tightly in one arm. He grabbed Katherine’s hand.
“Someday the gold will be all yours, I promise. But right now, Mommy is worried about you, and it’s time for your bath.”
Maggie curled into his chest like a water-drenched weed. He crossed the street, and his stomach grumbled. He hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Weary with the knowledge that he was about to be unemployed with four mouths to feed, a wife insistent on leaving home, a mortgage, overdraft, and credit at the bank to pay, and no savings whatsoever, his stomach contracted. I can go without supper tonight so the girls can have leftovers tomorrow. I’ll find work in Newfoundland somehow or another. There’ll be something for me to do. Like it or not, we may be one of the families that have to leave Brighton. If we do, we’ll manage. I won’t want to go, but Angela does. I know that now. I knew that yesterday. I’ve known it since the first layoffs began.
Jack whistled and the children skipped home. His mind raced with worry, fatigue, and that awful sense of dread as the knowledge of what he’d have to do, pull himself away from this town and uproot himself, became clear. Jack’s heart sank, the sky darkened, and more heavy rain fell, as if they were already aboard a sinking ship.
At the top of the hill Jack’s mouth dropped in surprise and widened into a grin at the man who stood on his front step waving wildly.
Chapter Two
“When did you get home?” Jack asked.
“A few minutes ago,” Peter said.
“Katherine and Margaret,” Angela wailed and unravelled the children from his arms, “you know you’re not supposed to leave the backyard.”
“We were almost at the end of the rainbow, but every time we moved, it moved too,” Maggie told her before she whisked them inside the warm house.
Jack and Peter shook hands briskly. Peter stood over six feet tall, bulky and hairy, with thumbs as big as the head of a hammer, one of the largest miners on the underground crew. He had a self-satisfied air about him; he’d regained his easy swagger, the comfort in his own skin that the layoff had stolen.
At Brighton Catholic School Peter had convinced Jack to skip countless classes. Peter would always get caught and was harshly punished by the nuns. Burly Pete would cry but wouldn’t squeal on anyone under the sting of the thick leather whip the nuns used liberally. Nothing could make Pete cry now; he was beaming broadly, and his muscular chest was bursting with pride.
“I didn’t find anything in St. John’s, but I got a letter yesterday, an offer of employment for a small town on the mainland, in Northern Alberta at a gold mine.”
Jack gulped. “Gold?”
“Yes, they’ve been developing this for years, and they’re finally ready to let some of us boys at her.”
“I bet there’d be a lot of jobs.”
“Yes, and homes, stuff for the kids to do.”
“You’d go?”
“Of course. There’s nothing, I’ve looked everywhere.”
“When are you leaving?”
“In a month. When your time’s up, let me know, I can help you out —”
“It happened yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, buddy. Why don’t you apply, then? Here, here’s the address.” Peter ripped the return address from the corner of an envelope he’d pulled from the back pocket of his jeans. “Call them, send them an application. You can stay with us for a while until you get yourself together.”
“Peter Fifield,” Wanda yelled from her door, “I haven’t seen you in a month, get home right now.”
“I’m coming,” Peter yelled. “Think about it,” he urged.
“Go easy on him, Wanda.”
Wanda winked. “He’s in good hands.”
The next morning Angela bundled the girls up in their fall clothes while Jack fumbled with a warm black turtleneck and an old pair of scuffed blue jeans. Combing his black hair flat, he squirted a dollop of thick white hair crème onto his open palm and fingered it gently through to his scalp. Angela hoisted a plaid wool skirt over her slender hips and wrapped a white blouse, with a bib-like ruffled collar, around her waist, tying both ends of the cloth at her side. She tied her thick black hair in a low ponytail, securing the wisps tightly behind her eyes with a tortoiseshell buckle.
A travelling theatre group from St. John’s had come to Brighton for the weekend to put on a children’s play for the Fall Community Festival. The children were excited and couldn’t wait to see the performance. It wasn’t often something like this came to Brighton; the people of the community usually did it themselves, putting on their own shows with amateur talent, lacking in virtuosity but not without enthusiasm and playfulness, so much so that they inevitably ended up laughing at themselves, which made the show more enjoyable for the adults.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?” Jack asked as he slowly ran a razor blade across his cheek.
“At
