Chapter 3
WE WALK UP TO THE pub twenty minutes later, Alba’s arm linked with mine in the chilly night air, and Rose skipping ahead.
When we walk through the door, it’s exactly the same as I remember it, although more cozy this time of year with the winter decorations.
The chimney, which goes all the way up the back wall to the ceiling, is adorned with stockings and pine garlands.
Crackling flames roar from the brick fireplace.
I feel both happy to be home and weighed down by the years I’ve been gone.
Above the bar, there’s a loft area with more seating.
It used to be one of my favourite places to sneakily watch the various musicians passing through.
There’s tinsel hanging from the railing up to the loft, along with nautical ornaments that someone’s grandmother no doubt made from shells and driftwood found on the beach nearby.
Alba points out that hanging above the entranceway is a sprig of mistletoe, so we don’t linger.
There are license plates from all around the world hung up along the back wall of the bar, and they each have pieces of holly tucked in behind them.
There are string lights along the bar itself, as well as wrapped around the big, wooden beam that sits right smack in the middle of the floor.
It’s so laughably inconvenient, that wooden beam—both for setting up tables and for dancing.
But the owner told me once when I was young, after I had pestered him incessantly about why it was there: What’s done is done Flora, sometimes we have to be like the ocean, and move around our obstacles.
The band is in full swing by the time we arrive. The MacNeils & The McNeils are playing a cover of Green Christmas as many of the bar patrons sing along merrily. The lead singer’s familiar voice sends a rush of annoyance through me.
Unfortunately, brooding in the corner of the bar was the last person I wanted to see.
Him.
He’s not in his uniform anymore, but he still looks put together—polished, even.
He’s wearing an olive-green button-up shirt, so crisp that I’d bet money he ironed it right before he got here.
His sleeves are rolled halfway up his forearms, which I can’t help but notice are toned toned.
And his freshly trimmed hair is movie star perfect, even after he runs a hand through it, laughing at something the guy beside him says.
He swigs on what looks like a craft beer. Of course he’s a craft beer drinker. My eyes are in danger of rolling right out of my head. But before I have time to throw a glare, or a dart, his way, there is a loud, booming voice calling my name.
There’s no mistaking Uncle Albie.
Do my eyes deceive me? I start to laugh, despite knowing what’s coming: the roasting of a lifetime.
Yes, yes, Uncle Albie, get it all out now, I lean down to where he’s sitting in his wheelchair and hug him tightly.
While I’ve noticed through our video calls that his salt-and-pepper hair has gotten greyer, it’s even more apparent in person.
The stubble on his cheek scratches my own cheek as I pull away and I can tell he’s trying really hard not to smile at me.
He rubs both of his eyes dramatically, as if I’m some kind of illusion or fever dream—and if he so much as blinks, I’ll disappear.
You look so familiar… he starts, and I groan again.
Alba is smirking at us, looking quite pleased with herself.
Since we were young, we’ve always had an uncanny ability to hold entire conversations with only our eyes.
Mine are currently saying, You’re dead meat, while hers are replying, You deserve it for being gone so long, asshole.
I know Alba’s right, and the weight of regret starts to feel an awful lot like a lump in my throat.
I once had a niece who looked like you, Uncle Albie goes on, breaking me from my mental conversation with Alba. But she abandoned me. He shrugs, trying to act like he’s hurt, but I can tell by the corner of his mouth pulling up that he’s delighted to see me.
I missed you too Uncle Albie, I say, laughing and leaning down to hug him again. I’m determined not to get caught up in the past and want to enjoy this time with him. Now, what are you drinking?
He is, of course, drinking a double rum and coke. I order him another, and another cranberry Moscow Mule for myself, delighted to see the drink listed up on the specials board.
The smell in here is so nostalgic I feel like I’m time travelling through the decades.
Alba and I at fourteen years old, sipping her dad’s drink while he was in the bathroom, giggling like idiots and refilling his glass with our own regular cokes so he wouldn’t notice.
Dancing like our lives depended on it at nineteen, the legal drinking age in Canada, and crashing into that stupid wooden beam in the middle of the dance floor.
Posing in front of the bathroom mirror for selfies and swearing we’d grow old together, hiccupping through our teenage mantra: Best [hic] cousins [hic] forever.
We wrote BCF on our school binders, carved it into one of the trees by the lake house and even scribbled it on the bathroom stall here at the pub.
I make a mental note to check if it’s still there.
I scan the room and see that Alba and Rose are now at the bar, cuddled up together and gazing—literally gazing—into each other’s eyes.
Alba must feel me staring at her, because she turns slyly and winks at me, her eyes only straying from Rose’s for a second.
The whole thing would make me gag if I didn’t love her as much as I do.
I feel a pang of something like jealousy seeing them so happy together, but it doesn’t last long as my uncle pulls me again from my thoughts.
So, how’s life on the boat? Uncle Albie asks and I turn back to him, trying to think of an answer that isn’t a complete lie.
When my mother died, I fled. I was about to graduate from the Culinary Institute of America.
It had been two years of literal bliss where I was living in New York and baking all the time.
I had been weighing up offers from bakeries across Canada and the U.S.
, secretly plotting to open my own bakery instead, when everything changed in a day.
It was my uncle who called me to tell me my mother had died.
After the funeral, I decided it was time to see the world—and get as far away from Christmas Island as possible.
I got a job working as a baker on a cruise ship.
Alba came with me, starting in the on-board gift shop and working her way up through the ranks.
It was great. Well, for the first few years anyway.
It’s good, I say slowly, trying my best to fake a smile with my reply. He doesn’t buy it.
Sounds terrible. He sips his drink, swirling his ice in the glass first. You should really just move home if you’re so miserable. Everyone’s happier in Cape Breton.
I don’t really know what to say to that, so I take a sip of my drink instead. But I don’t get a chance to reply, or even finish swallowing, before he’s back on me.
And what’s going on with that guy?
I nearly spit out my drink at this. I’m going to kill Alba.
That guy is my on-again, off-again boyfriend, Justin. He’s a chef with the cruise ship company I work for and while he’s extremely talented, he can be very critical. Alba cannot stand him, and I think he’s part of the reason she left the cruise-ship life for good.
There’s no guy, I tell Uncle Albie, and that’s mostly true. When the ship last docked, I told him I wouldn’t be around for at least a month—and I wanted nothing to do with him during that time. His hot and cold attitude was finally starting to wear on me.
Uncle Albie nods sagely, And when are you going to bake for me?
I smile at this, a real genuine smile. Baking is the one thing in my life that I never lost the love for when Mom died. It steadied me, calmed me, gave me purpose.
As soon as I can get my hands in a kitchen, I tell him. But the kitchen I picture is the one at the lake house: Mom at the stove, oven mitts on, grabbing something hot and delicious smelling out of the oven. I wonder what the last thing she baked was, and quickly brush the thought aside.
Well, I have a perfectly fine kitchen at my place, Alba’s got a kitchen, the bed and breakfast has a kitchen.
Actually, I’m sure if you asked Keith in the back, he’d let you use their kitchen to whip me up something.
He’s giving me a big goofy grin, then turning in his chair and calling Keith over from the bar.
It’s a change to see him in a wheelchair, but like everything that’s happened to him, he takes it in stride.
He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when Alba and I were in high school.
It was a scary diagnosis at first, and the four of us didn’t really know what to expect, since the symptoms can vary so much.
But it thankfully progressed slowly. Alba tells me that these days, he can usually make do using his cane.
Over the last year, however, he’s had to use a wheelchair more often to help him get around outside the house.
Keith comes over and ruffles my hair. I shriek, trying to smooth it back into place, while he and my uncle laugh.
Good to see you Flora, Keith says, and there’s warmth in his voice that tells me he means it. Can I trust you won’t be setting any fires in our fine establishment tonight?
It was one time, I protest, trying to forget that I did once, perhaps, sneak into the kitchen here to try and bake something. It was in the early days of my baking journey and, well, I’m thankful Keith had a fire extinguisher.
She might very well set another fire, but I think it’s worth the risk, Uncle Albie starts. I’m dying for one of her sweet treats, and frankly I’m hoping she can get started right this second.
Flora, as you well know, has a lifelong ban from our kitchen, Keith says, his pale blonde mustache twitching slightly.
He’s speaking with a mock sternness that tells me he’s teasing.
While the anger may be feigned, I’m pretty sure the lifelong kitchen ban is real.
I feel like I’m twelve years old again—slightly embarrassed, and trying desperately not to get defensive over the familiar jests from people who have known me all my life.
After Keith has been fully tormented with threats of me taking over the kitchen entirely, he claps my uncle on the shoulder and returns to the bar.
Soon I find myself surrounded by familiar faces, as people spot my recognizable red hair and come over to say hello. Word spreads through the bar like wildfire, and I feel a bit like a local celebrity on a homecoming tour.
Flora, it’s been an age! You must be here for Alba’s wedding?
How’s the big jet-setting life treating you, Florence?
Do you ever get seasick? Of course not—you’re a Cape Bretoner after all!
No fires here tonight, right Flora?
The fire joke gets made several more times before I’ve finally done my rounds of the bar and can get back to time spent with my uncle.
Did you see my ramp on your way in? Uncle Albie asks, puffing out his chest proudly as I nod, feeling a surge of admiration for him.
Alba told me this story over the phone right after it first happened. The pub wasn’t wheelchair accessible, with three steps leading up to the door. So when Uncle Albie began using his chair more regularly, he made quite the fuss.
The first piece of garbage they tried to have me use was too steep, he says, showing me with his hand what seems like quite a strong incline.
It’s all about the angles, little Flora.
All about the angles. Well, I wasn’t having any of that, I’m not one of those muscle heads who can use my feats of strength to get into the goddamn pub.
I laugh, feeling delighted to be here in my uncle’s company. So what did you do? I ask, pretending I don’t know this story. I’m happy to hear his version of it anyway.
Well, he says, leaning in closer to whisper conspiratorially. I think I could have gotten up the ramp if I really tried, but I didn’t want to put in so much effort every single time. My muscles get tired, you know. So, he says, sipping his rum and pausing for dramatic effect here, I made a scene.
You didn’t!
Oh, I did. You’ve never seen the likes. ‘Don’t they want my money? Don’t they care about a lifelong patron?’ That’s what I said. Thankfully, Alistair was there.
My stomach drops a little at that, and I feel my eyes narrow into a glare—not this guy again.
They didn’t quite know what to do with me, but thankfully for the lot of them, Alistair was back in twenty minutes with some wood and his tools, building me the perfect ramp—just the right gradient you see, he says, motioning the angles with his hand again. Not too steep.
At this, I can’t help but glance over at Alistair. He’s talking to the same man from earlier, who I don’t immediately recognize, and seems to be enjoying himself. He takes another swig of his stupid craft beer.
And that’s when Uncle Albie says one of the worst things I’ve ever heard.
He’s the one who bought the lake house.