for you, it will all be okay.”
Elspeth, I decide, is crazier than bat shit. One pink hair short of wigged out. Get me out of here.
As I bolt up the stairs, I hear Elspeth heading out the door. In minutes, the putt-putt of her moped fades down the gravel road.
“Mom?”
She’s propped up on her pillows, all bones and pale skin. I breathe in the reek of lavender. What would Dad make of what she has become? If he had known what it would do to her, he’d never have gone into Swallow Canyon that day.
“Can you close the window, Tristan? It’s chilling me.”
“Sure, Mom. How are you today?”
She shrugs and offers a wan smile. “Did you get my pills from the drugstore?”
“Yes.”
She smoothes the old, shabby quilt that smells like it should’ve been washed three loads ago. I perch there and take her hand, my throat catching.
“Elspeth says you washed the dishes and mopped the floor this morning, but forgot to fix the kettle. She had to boil water in a pot to serve me some special herbal tea.”
“Poor, poor Elspeth.”
“I know you’re not fond of her, Tristan, but she has been so helpful since — since our tragedy.” Her voice is pleading. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
Her gaze drifts toward the closed window; she’s on the edge of crying, as usual. But it no longer rips me up, I remind myself. No more feeling small and helpless and useless. I have moved on — and filled my father’s shoes pretty well, haven’t I? Someone had to.
So why does Mom just lie here, numb and wasting away?
No body to grieve over. Recovery process delayed.
“I got food today, Mom, but the money tin is empty now.”
She nods vaguely. “Ask your uncle, darling. You’re a good boy. Any luck with the washing machine?”
“Only if the goal was to drown the mouse population in the basement. I mopped up the mess and tried duct-taping the hose, but it didn’t work. No worries — I’ll ask Uncle Ted.”
She smoothes my hair. “What will you make for dinner?”
“Lobster mornay? Just kidding. Hamburgers?”
She shakes her head. “Something lighter.”
“Okay, the usual.”
She smiles blandly. “Sounds good. Scrambled eggs.”
“Can I get you a magazine or something? Or read to you from my joke book?”
“Thanks, Tristan, but I’m feeling rather sleepy.”
“Maybe a little walk would wake you up? It’s a nice day, Mom. We could go sit in the grotto.” The grotto is a cool fake cave Dad and I built by the stream at the foot of our property. It’s where we used to spend lots of fun family time.
Oops, mistake. The tears start down her cheeks.
… patience for now. Then, when you return with what your father left behind for you, it will all be okay.
“No!” I say out loud.
My mother’s body jerks in alarm. “Tristan?”
“Sorry, Mom. Sorry, sorry.” I lean across the bed and wrap her in my arms, absorb her sobs. The more I absorb, the better she’ll get, right?
If only her shrivelled body didn’t feel like a clutch of bones. Soon I leap up and run down the stairs, two at a time. I snatch the eggs and crack them so hard against the mixing bowl rim that the shells disintegrate into a thousand sticky pieces.
Embrace calm.
The bowl, suddenly gone blurry through my tears, is the one in which Mom, a former bakery manager, used to make brownies, cookies, and cakes, including special birthday cakes for me resembling things like fire engines, and later, anime action figures. And giant chocolate-coloured hearts for my dad. We were a real family then.
Maybe flinging pans around will drown out the memory of Elspeth’s words.
“She — will — get — better,” I declare to the moped tracks still visible out the kitchen window. “With or without your psycho-shit.”
My negatory detect-o-meter is screeching. But at this moment, I don’t have the energy to care.
CHAPTER 3
I roll up to the shop, lock my bike, and banish the guilt trip that hitched a ride over with me. I really hate asking my uncle for money.
“Hey, Uncle Ted.” My mother’s kind but ever-anxious brother, dressed in jeans and a wrinkled flannel shirt, is hunched over accounting books in the backroom, as usual.
“Tristan! Good to see you.”
Except that he knows why I’m here. He knows it rips me up to come into the shop for any other reason.
“Mom says hi and to remind you about picking her up for the doctor’s appointment.”
“Hey, have I missed one yet? How’s she doing?” He says it mechanically, like he doesn’t really expect an answer.
I paste on a smile. “I don’t like to bug you, Uncle Ted, but we’re —”
“— out of grocery money already?” He wipes beads of sweat from his balding head and frowns at the columns of numbers in front of him.
“And one of the hoses to the washing machine thinks it’s a fountain. I tried to fix it, but we might need a plumber.”
“A plumber.” The frown deepens.
“Sorry, Uncle Ted. I’m working on being a washer repair whiz, but I’m not there yet.”
He leans back in the leather swivel chair, which squeaks just like it always did when my dad sat in it. I tamp down the longing for my father to step in, slap Uncle Ted on the back, muss up my hair, and tell us how business is booming and all is right with the world, even though things weren’t great the months before he disappeared. We were struggling when it came to money, for sure. But he was Mr. Positive, Mr. Happy, Best Dad Ever.
Except for when he closed himself off in his study to read all those dusty books about the gold-rush days or spent hours at our creek with his gold pan.
“Time-warped 49er,” the neighbours used to joke.
“My precious prospector,” Mom teased him.
But everyone needs a hobby, and I loved the gold-rush stories he told, and the musical chime of flowing water when I joined him by the creek. I miss him, every piece of him. Just imagining his presence now warms
