rush of water — noisy in their way, but different from the city’s restless pulse.
His impressions of splendour in the dark had been right. The house sat perched on an incline, surrounded by soft fernlike branches of green and rust. From the walkway he could see the harbour between the trees and catch an occasional glimpse of Pender Island’s dark cliffs through the mist.
He crouched along the steps leading to the drive, his fingers trailing the wires that connected the garden lights. By the time Trevor called him for breakfast, he’d repaired the short.
“Anything else need fixing?”
Trevor’s eyebrows rose comically. “Besides me?” He smiled. “Seriously, can you build a wood shed? My firewood gets wet out on the porch, even with the tarp. The damp gets into everything here.”
“No problem,” Dan said, glancing around. “It looks like there’s no shortage of lumber.”
The mist stubbornly clung on all morning and refused to part for the sun while they ate and put the dishes aside.
“Come on,” Trevor said. “I want to take you someplace special.”
“More special than this?” Dan said, looking through the windows at the canopy of trees dropping to the ocean in the distance.
After twenty minutes of walking they reached a turnoff. Trevor stopped to look over the backdrop of Western Redcedar. It was the clothes, Dan thought. And the uncombed hair — a little windswept. Trevor wasn’t exactly dressed in full-lumberjack garb, but he had an outdoorsy look, different from how he’d looked in the city. In a good way. Not a J.Crew posed-for-effect way. Then again, he was a man who would look good in almost anything.
Trevor turned, as if he’d heard Dan’s thoughts. “Want to stay here with me and grow old together?”
“You make a compelling case for it.”
“It’s paradise here. Or it would be. But every Adam needs his Steve.” Trevor smiled. “Just a suggestion.”
A family of deer crossed the road and stopped to regard them with big liquid eyes.
“Pretty fearless, aren’t they?” Dan said.
“No natural predators,” Trevor said. “That’s the best thing about living on the island. There was a wolf once. It used to swim from island to island and eat its fill of deer, but it was shot over on Pender when it attacked a dog.”
“Any bears?”
“None that I’ve heard about. There are a lot of cougars, but only the human variety.” Dan looked at him curiously. Trevor was grinning. “Single, middle-aged women hunting for men.”
“Oh!” Dan laughed. “I’m out of practice with straight humour.” He paused and looked around. “Speaking of, is there much gay life on the island?”
“I know a few couples. No single men that I’ve come across. There’s not much gay life here, but then there’s not a lot of anything other than retired straight couples and me.”
“Must get lonely.”
“All the time.”
A car passed. “Wave,” Trevor commanded.
Dan waved and someone honked. “Who was that?”
Trevor shrugged. “Just people. Doesn’t matter. Everyone’s friendly here.”
The sign pointed down the path: Japanese Memorial Garden.
“We’re here,” said Trevor.
The garden had been built to honour the Japanese-Canadians who settled the islands and were incarcerated during the Second World War. The scant quarter acre surrounded by forest was inventively landscaped. Unobtrusive signs identified shrubs and trees planted strategically throughout the space, gingko living beside yews and plums and flowering cherries. Everything centred around a green-encrusted pond. At the far end, a giant rhubarb with leaves the size of small satellite dishes drooped gently down to the water.
“I’m still amazed that I live here,” Trevor said. “I guess I’m not convinced I deserve it. I’ve always lived in cities — Calgary, Edmonton, and before that in Vancouver for a number of years. That was a long time ago, in another life.”
“How did you end up here?”
Trevor stepped carefully over a patch of emerald moss. “The truth?” he said.
“If it’s appropriate.”
Trevor smiled. “Very diplomatic — but I don’t mind saying. I had a breakdown.” He shrugged, as though to say it was over and there was no use going through it again. “Afterwards, when I realized I was going to live — and that I might one day even want to live — I knew I needed to disappear.”
“So you came here….”
“For years I had a job that paid me a lot of money but gave me absolutely no joy. My life — what I called a life — was spent in a box in the sky that smelled like Febreze. I had a nice view and all the right friends and everyone said I was a success, but the truth was I got no pleasure from anything. I wasn’t even alive.” He smiled ruefully. “So I gave it all up and moved here. It’s lonely but much easier on the nerves.”
“You can be lonely surrounded by millions of people. Cities aren’t what they seem,” Dan said. “Most days I can barely stand Toronto. It’s become so greedy and aggressive and uncaring.”
Trevor laughed. “Isn’t that what people always say when you tell them that? Cities aren’t supposed to care — they’re too busy being cities.”
“I’ve never known what to do about it.”
“You can do whatever you want — including nothing. I think that’s what most people do. They just live with it and never figure out that it’s killing them.”
The Queen of Nanaimo edged into view, a giant white swan against the green-black of the water. They watched the boat manoeuvre the coastline and head into harbour.
“So here I am,” Trevor said. “Alone on my island retreat, lonely as hell, but with my peace of mind intact.” He paused. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”
They made their way around the pond to a fence where dozens of small brass plaques had been affixed at regular intervals.
“Joe meet Dan. Dan meet Joseph.”
Dan bent closer to read the inscription: Joe Wilkinson 1968–1999. He looked to Trevor for an explanation.
“My ex. The one thing I couldn’t leave behind when I moved here. I scattered his ashes in the forest over there.” Trevor pointed past the far side of the gate. “And some in the water over there.”
“I’m sorry,” Dan said.
“Don’t be sorry, he’s happy here.” Trevor smiled and looked along the length of the fence. “Here with all the others who nobody really remembers except
