Drift away
Reverend Barnaby told us last year at Christmas Mass when something tragic happens, it's often said that we lose a piece of ourselves.
I'm sitting here in the back of our family station wagon on a four-hour drive to Cape Breton Island and over the course of the last half of the drive, it's become clear to me that my older sister Marlee has been more affected by Nanny Iris’ death than I have. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Nanny and Marlee had a different relationship than she and I ever did, talking for hours in the summers on the creaky old porch swing about boys and gardening and other things that never interested me.
Maybe I just don't have feelings like Marlee does, or maybe it hasn't hit me yet. All I know right now is that Mom is crying into a used tissue, Marlee's listening to her portable CD player as loud as humanly possible, and Dad's clutching the car steering wheel so hard his knuckles are turning white. But me? I'm just along for the ride. It’s supposed to be my thirteenth birthday next week after all, and the last place I want to be is here. The only thing I have to show for the occasion is a little scarecrow doll from the shelf in my bedroom that I’ve been dragging around since my third birthday. It smells like a combination of fabric softener and hay, and Marlee thinks it’s too babyish for me to keep carrying around.
"She lived a good, long life, Patricia," Dad reminds Mom over and over again through the drive, his hand on her knee. Mom just nods and blows her nose.
The yellow line between lanes snakes along the bumpy road to Barrachois, the car zooming along and crashing into pothole after pothole. Normally Mom would say something about taking it easy on the car since 'vehicles are getting so expensive to maintain nowadays', but today she doesn't seem to care. I bet a tire could fall off and she would just take off down the Grand Narrows Highway toward the little cottage Nanny Iris used to live in, probably not even stopping to help Dad replace it. As I consider this, raindrops race along the windows and I trace them with my finger, even though I'm not supposed to because I'll leave smudge marks. Nobody seems all that worried to stop me.
Marlee's noisy discman switches over to another rock song as we pull off the road into the gravel drive, this track with a deeper beat that shakes the back seat. When I look over, she's crying just like Mom is, snuffling quiet tears onto her long sleeve shirt as rocks grind underneath the car and tap-tap-tap at the underside from us driving too fast up the steep hill. I don't know how long she's been sobbing like that--it's hard to tell over the music--but once Dad turns off the car engine and I catch a peek at my sister, her face is all red and her lips are raw and chapped from chewing on them. Mom calls it a nervous habit that Marlee will grow out of, but she's sixteen now and still gnaws on her lips so I don't think it's going away any time soon.
Mom breathes in a shaky breath before turning to us in the back seat. Marlee takes off her headphones for the first time the entire trip, and I notice her ears are a deep crimson too.
"Girls, take your things in to your room. Dad and I will unpack the boxes and bins from the trunk and get started with organizing. We'd appreciate if you gave us a little time to sort out some of Nanny's things on the phone. We'll need you later to help get her clothes ready for donation."
I grab at my backpack stuffed on the floor of the car, Scarecrow in my other hand. Marlee's knapsack is on the seat and taking up more space because she had to bring half her room with her. Pushing open the heavy door to the station wagon, I can't wait to get out of the car and stretch my legs somewhere along the grand expanse of Nanny Iris’ property. However, the rain becomes a torrential downpour the very second I stand amid the lumpy hills, and I squeal and run for the covered porch where there's a key hidden in a magnetic box underneath the swing. Letting myself in, the screen door slamming behind me, I kick off my wet sneakers and breathe in the smell of Nanny's empty house: lavender, cat fur, and overstuffed couches. Her cat's gone now, died six months ago, but there's still little bits of Misty's fur stuck in the fabric of the sofa.
Clomping my way up the stairs to the bedroom Marlee and I share whenever we're here, I push the door open to the scent of dust bunnies and more lavender. I throw my bag down on the bed before racing back down the steps with Scarecrow, nearly clobbering my sister on the way.
"Want to go run in the rain? We can go to the docks and watch for fish?"
Marlee stares at me as if I have three heads, two tails, and one whole batch of stupid, before shaking her head and squeezing past me before slamming the door to the bedroom. I thought that maybe twirling around in the grass like we did last summer might make her feel better, but clearly she's Going Through Something, so I'm stuck twirling alone.
Mom and Dad are in the kitchen as I pass through, shoving my squeaky wet shoes back on my feet.
"Where are you headed off to, Mariah?" Dad asks, placing a bundle of flattened boxes on the kitchen island. "And where's your sister?"
"I'm going outside. Marlee's locked herself in the bedroom with her CD player." I pull my second shoe on and right myself, looking over at my parents who are both busying themselves so much that I think they hardly notice I'm there. I say that because they don't actually respond to me, instead Mom pulls out some packing tape from a plastic bag and starts silently taping the cardboard together as she starts to cry again. Dad waves me out of the kitchen and the screen door slams again as I exit the cottage, leaving behind the lavender smell and the flowered chesterfield for long, green grass and the biggest trees I've ever seen.
Rain pounds hard against the tin roof, making music as I finally dive out from underneath the overhang with a whoop, crushing gravel under my feet as I traverse the driveway over the hill and down toward the Bras d'Or Lakes in the back yard. Droplets hit me all over, careening from the sky and soaking me through my T-shirt and jean shorts, and I spin around and around and around as I tumble through the wet grass toward the canopy of trees. I think this is what Nanny Iris would want us to do, not mope around in her house while listening to rock music or putting together boxes in the kitchen.
I stick Scarecrow up to my nose (a nervous habit if I were to say that I had one) and sniff in the smell of something different—raindrops and the lavender of the bedroom that’s already seeped into the well-worn face of the doll—before I turn toward the house as a peculiar feeling rushes over me. I swear I see my sister standing in between the lace curtains, watching me go, but when I go to show Scarecrow that she’s standing there probably wishing she’d come out to twirl with us, the shadow amid the frills is gone.
Stories grow best when shared.
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