Home to Christmas Island

Chapter 1

I’M ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES FROM home when I see them.

The flashing blue and red lights in my rear-view mirror.

My stomach drops.

Come on, I curse to myself. Not now.

It’s the last day of November and I’m on my way home for the first time in ten years.

I have enough to be anxious about: awkward family conversations, running into people I went to high school with at the grocery store, and worrying about what I’m going to wear to my best friend’s wedding—you know, the important things in life.

I feel a twinge of embarrassment as I realize I might have been going a little faster than the posted speed limit.

I pull over as much as I can, given the snow banks along the winding Cape Breton highway. Usually we don’t have this much snow until closer to Christmas, but thanks to last week’s nor’easter, there’s still a lot of it piled around the side of the road.

I sigh and reach over to get the vehicle registration from the glove compartment of my rental car. It’s just after five o’clock and already pitch black. I’d forgotten about the soul-crushing darkness of Canadian winters.

I glance in my side-view mirror, but I can’t quite make out the face of the officer getting out of his car. He’s tall, and for a split second I wonder if it’s someone I know from home.

As he gets closer, I can see he’s probably in his mid-thirties. His hair looks freshly trimmed, cropped shorter along the sides with longer, wavy dark hair on top. He has a short, dark beard, and I can tell even from here that he’s frowning. Definitely not someone from home. I’d remember that face.

I grin, some resurrected part of my old self rearing to life.

Between the ages of sixteen and twenty, I was pulled over at least half a dozen times for speeding in Cape Breton.

I can’t help it that I have a lead foot and know these roads like the back of my hand.

But I’ve never once gotten a ticket. I was always able to charm my way out of one.

If you ever get pulled over, you just smile, tell the truth, and be yourself Florence, and you’ll be fine—my mother’s voice comes lurching through my memory and I try hard to clamp it down.

She said this to me before I even had my driver’s licence, as if it was inevitable that I’d get pulled over for something.

But even with her suspicions about the kind of driver I’d be, it didn’t stop her from lecturing me every time it happened.

If I didn’t tell her myself that I’d been pulled over, she always found out. People talk in Cape Breton.

I’m so lost in my own memories that I jump when the police officer knocks on the window.

I press the button to roll down the glass and I’m a little startled by how handsome the face is that’s staring back at me.

Curious, dark green eyes assess me almost warily.

I take a deep breath and try to amp up the charm.

Heyyyyy officer, I say, flipping my long, red hair over my shoulder in an attempt to further channel that long-stifled version of myself. Wild, fun, carefree. I haven’t seen her in about a decade. I have to tell you, I—

License and registration please, he interrupts.

He doesn’t smile, which I find a little irritating.

Clearly, I’m out of practice. His voice is deep and rich with what I think is a Scottish accent.

I hand over my license. He glances at it, and I swear he jolts at the name, but it only lasts a millisecond.

He clears his throat. Do you know how fast you were going, Miss MacLeod?

My heart aches at that—that was my mother. Miss Margaret MacLeod.

It’s just Florence, and I don’t really know I’m afraid, I just—

You were just going over one-thirty, ‘Just Florence.’ This section of the highway has a speed limit of eighty kilometres an hour.

His frown only deepens as I attempt my best smile and try again, hoping to turn my level of charm up a few kilowatts, Well officer, I—

He cuts me off, speaking so fast that it takes me a second to realize what he’s said. It’s getting dark, there’s snow and these are unfamiliar roads to you. That’s quite the dangerous combination.

Now it’s my turn to frown. Unfamiliar roads? I’m sure I could map out this section of the island in my sleep. I almost want to laugh, but given how much he’s been interrupting me, my next words come out in a rush.

Officer, listen, I’ve been driving here since I was fifteen years old. Rain, shine, snow, I’ve seen it all. So I know I was going a bit fast, but, I’m anxious to—

Your license says Ontario, he cuts me off again and he’s smirking now, like he’s caught me in a lie.

It wasn’t my fault that someone stole my wallet while I was living in Toronto, and I had to replace my Nova Scotia license with one from Ontario.

I haven’t been back home in a long time, so I was never able to get a new one.

I can feel my face heating. My mind starts spinning, I’ve always been able to talk, okay flirt, my way out of a ticket. But he doesn’t stop there.

I’ve lived here for roughly nine years and I’ve never seen you, certainly never pulled you over. So even if you did grow up here, you’ve not been here in some time. Things change. And, might I add, it’s illegal to drive in Canada before sixteen years of age, is it not?

All the air rushes out of my lungs. He’s got me there. Before I can even start to think of a reply, he continues.

Where exactly are you heading? And don’t be— but his Scottish accent is so thick I can’t really make out what he’s saying.

Don’t be what, sorry? I ask, making a face that I hope isn’t a grimace. I feel so out of sorts, completely caught off guard by this entire interaction.

Don’t be telling me any lies, he drawls, slowly, in what I think is an attempt at a Canadian accent. Is he mocking me?

My blood starts to boil. Who the hell does this guy think he is? I realize he’s still waiting for an answer. Where am I going? The thought makes my heart sink.

I swallow. Christmas Island.

Christmas Island. It sounds like a magical place for a winter getaway, but it’s really best in the summer months.

That’s when you can swim in the Bras d’Or lakes—still salt water, but not quite as cold and with no threat of sharks.

The community comes to life when the weather gets warm, and is bustling with tourists well into autumn, as people flock here to see the changing leaves.

It’s quiet in the winter. Except at the post office.

That’s where my mother worked for more than twenty years. And she was certain she had the best job in the world. Every year in December, hundreds, if not thousands of letters make their way to the tiny post office to be marked with a Christmas Island stamp.

When I was little, I would look in awe at the letters from around the world: Bermuda, Alaska, Germany, Mexico, Wyoming, Ireland. I would study all the different colours and designs on the stamps, imagining what these places looked like. I told Mom that someday, I’d see them all.

And I had.

Where, exactly, in Christmas Island? He clears his throat, his eyes still intense but there’s another emotion on his face that I can’t quite read. He’s looking at me now, scanning my face for some kind of reaction.

I try to block it out. The image of the lake house that flashes through my mind. The pop of the fire; watching the sun dance along the water; the soft sound of the breeze through the trees. My chest actually hurts. I push it from my mind and answer him.

To stay with my cousin, Alba Landry.

His face gives away nothing. I’m sure he knows her if he’s as intimate with my hometown as he seems to be—and I wonder if he’s heard of me through whatever rumours are swirling around the island about me.

It registers that I don’t know who this guy is, either. I scan his stupidly handsome face. His dark beard is neatly trimmed, and he’s got a small scar near the crease of his left eye that makes him look almost rugged. No one from home has mentioned him to me before, that’s for sure.

He shakes his head with a sigh. Well, I’m sorry to tell you that because you were going fifty kilometres an hour over the speed limit, that’s more than speeding—you were technically stunting. So that’s a $2,400 fine, six points on your license and an automatic week’s suspension.

I’m gobsmacked. Speechless. Infuriated.

At thirty-two, I haven’t been home since the day of my mother’s funeral almost ten years ago.

This is not how I wanted my homecoming to start.

Fuming, I start to consider my options—I’m not above begging—when I notice him watching me closely.

For a beat we just stare at each other. Then he looks away, off in the direction of the water, before clearing his throat again.

But, he starts, then pauses. But. If you promise to slow down, I’ll give you the lesser ticket. He taps the hood of the car, his eyes glance back at me once more, I’ll be right back.

Is it pity that’s prompting this? The oily thought works its way through me. Does he somehow know who I am? Does he know that my mother died and I’ve been running ever since? I wonder what else people have been saying about me in the years I’ve been gone.

And I wonder what they’ll say now that I’m back. Back, and pulled over again on my very first day at home.

I think I hate this stupid Scottish cop.

What’s he doing here in Cape Breton anyway?

I wonder if he knows my uncle, or the guys who work down at the pub.

I wonder if he lives actually in Christmas Island, or one of the other surrounding communities that are knit together so tightly they all blur into one.

Maybe he lives all the way in town and only happened to be out here, patrolling this section of the highway, looking for speed demons like me.

I wait with my arms tightly folded across my middle and my heart hammers in my chest. This feels like a bad omen, and I can’t help but ask myself if I’ve done the right thing by coming back here after all this time.

But there’s no avoiding it. I would never hurt Alba by missing her wedding. My cousin and best friend rolled into one. I haven’t seen her in far too long. Again, I feel like I could crumble under the weight of my own guilt, but I mentally push it aside. I’m here now, aren’t I?

The brute of a man comes back a few minutes later, my license and a whopping $295 ticket in tow.

I hope you have a nice time at home, despite the unfortunate start, he says before adding sternly, almost under his breath, And for the love of god, ‘Just Florence,’ slow down.

I’m tempted to speed off, but I tamper down my rage and pull away just under the speed limit.