Chapter 9
IT’S THURSDAY WHEN I FIND myself idling in the rental, parked on top of the snow-covered hill of the cemetery.
We’ve had some fresh, powdery snow over the last few days and the sun is finally out this morning.
I can see clearly across the water, the light sparkling over the lake.
I try to focus on that, instead of what I’m about to do.
I decided that my punishment for not coming here on Sunday was running into Alistair on the beach. It took me a few days to work up the nerve to try again, but frankly I’m worried if I don’t do this today, that I’ll cross paths with him again—some kind of karmic joke from the universe.
I twirl the stems of the bright, red berries in my hand. I stopped at a winterberry bush on the side of the road and tried to make a little bouquet. My mother taught me never to show up anywhere empty-handed, so I’m not about to start now.
Despite my ability to find trouble wherever I could, Mom still fought tooth and nail to raise me into someone polite and courteous.
And she did have to fight for it. If I was going to a friend’s place, she would ask me what I was bringing.
Later, once I started to bake, this came more easily—but I wasn’t allowed to go to anyone else’s house without a little something to show my gratitude.
These people are opening their home to you, Flora, she’d say. This is the least you can do. Mom was also super involved in our community and volunteered around Cape Breton, often dragging Alba and I to be put to work wherever we could.
Look at how lucky we are, girls, look at all the help we have.
We should give that right back to our neighbours.
When I was a teenager, this was often the reason for the epic screaming matches my mother and I would occasionally get into: I wanted to go hang out with my friends, not hand out pamphlets or clean up at a soup kitchen.
I cringe now, thinking about the way I spoke to her in those moments.
The awful things I said. I can never take any of that back, but I believe on some level she understood it was the reality of the teen years.
She wanted to keep Alba and I out of trouble, I think, but also really wanted us to understand gratitude.
And that people here help each other out, in good times and in bad.
I hope she knows that I adored her. That I always wanted to be as level-headed and as gracious as she was. I still do.
I get out of the car and walk towards the rows of headstones, my stomach flip-flopping as guilt gnaws at my insides. This cemetery isn’t even technically in Christmas Island, it's a few communities over, and that’s never sat well with me.
I haven’t been here since the funeral, and the memories from that day are making me feel suffocated.
I had been so, so numb. I was aware that everyone in the church was staring at me, watching to see how I would react. Alba could barely walk into the church; her dad had to physically help her to her seat. I, on the other hand, remained stoic. I refused to shed a single tear with everyone watching.
But listening to Uncle Albie give the eulogy, talking about how marrying his late wife also meant gaining the world’s best sister-in-law, and about the strange, beautiful dynamic of co-parenting with my mother, my hands started to shake.
It was as though everything I was trying so desperately to keep bottled up was going to come out—one way or another.
The moment he finished speaking and started to walk back towards Alba and I in the church pew, I knew I had to leave.
Right that second. I remember hearing Alba call out to me, but I didn’t turn around.
I went back to the lake house by myself and the minute I closed the door behind me, it all came flooding out.
In this one final safe space, I could let myself unravel.
But the house was quiet. Empty. It felt like it would always be empty, from that day forward. Something about that thought shattered me completely. I started to feel suffocated again and frantically packed a bag, promising to never step foot inside that house again.
I couldn’t stand the thought of her trapped up here on this hill forever, six feet underground. I always liked to imagine her on the wind instead, blowing through the birch trees in the summer, rustling through the windchimes and making waves on the lake.
I stop walking towards the headstones. I stop breathing.
But Alba’s voice nags in my mind. I had promised her—promised her that I’d try.
She had tried for me, in the days and months and years after the funeral.
In the brief moments where I can push my own unrelenting will aside, I can admit that my cousin has always looked out for me.
That she’s tried to help me however she can, and that she’s right about me needing to do this.
I take a deep breath and keep walking.
Alba told me where to find her, since I left before the burial and have never been back to see her grave: go over the little hill and three to the left of the large headstone with a pair of children’s shoes on top. I shudder at that.
I find her headstone and wonder to myself if it was Alba, or my uncle, or someone else entirely who chose it.
It’s a beautiful, white marble. It looks clean and well maintained, and acid burns in the back of my throat.
I wonder who’s responsible for keeping it like this.
It certainly hasn’t been me, her only child.
I force myself to read the inscription: Margaret MacLeod—beloved mother, aunt, and friend.
I kneel down in the snow, trying not to collapse completely. I gently lay the bouquet of red berries in front of the headstone.
Hi Mom, I whisper—and immediately burst into tears.
This is not—to be clear—soft, mournful crying. This is ten years of running, full-on denial, complete and total ugly crying. I allow the guilt to wash over me. I feel embarrassed, sad, lonely. Ashamed for all of my choices since her death. And I miss her so much it hurts.
I’m sorry, I choke out, and think of how forgiving my mother always was. As long as you apologize Florence, and own up to it, you can make just about anything right. Any time I got in trouble, this was always her line to me.
And she’d make me do it, too. When I was eight, I pocketed some candy at the local corner store.
When she caught me eating it at home, she marched me right back there.
Tell them what you did Flora. I really didn’t want to, I kept trying to hide in the folds of her skirt.
But she made me fess up. Made me say I was sorry.
And made me help them organize their storage room every weekend for a month straight.
But once I apologized, her anger never lingered.
I’m so sorry, I say again, the words barely audible to even my own ears. I wonder if her disappointment in me now would dissipate as easily as it did after my brief attempt at thievery.
I really miss you, and— I take huge, gulping gasps between each word. And I should have come back sooner. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t be here without you. My hands are shaking, whether it’s from the cold or the sobbing or pure shock, I’m not sure. Maybe a combination of all three.
Would she understand why I’ve acted the way I have since she died? I torture myself with that thought, wondering if she’d accept my apology. If she’d forgive me. That tiny voice in my head says she would, but I don’t feel like I deserve it.
For the first time ever, I let the regret about the lake house really sink in.
Why, why, why did I tell Uncle Albie to sell it?
Why did I make such a stupid rash decision, in the midst of my grief, and then let my own stubbornness choke me into standing my ground?
I feel so angry with myself, and it occurs to me now that leaving here and being able to go back to the lake house would actually be of some comfort.
Yes, it hurt to be there without her—but it hurts even more knowing I can’t go back there at all.
And then I remember why I can’t go back to my childhood home and the anger I feel for myself shifts towards Alistair.
If he’d never come along, maybe the house wouldn’t have sold. Maybe I would have changed my mind after a year or so and taken it off the market. Maybe I would have decided to come home sooner. Maybe everything would have been different.
Oh Mom, I fucked up, I say, the bitterness apparent in my voice, talking to no one but myself and an empty graveyard.
I really fucked it all up. A boy lives at our house.
I’m hysterical again, the shame practically eating me alive.
Does he bake there? Does our beautiful lake house ever smell like fresh bread or chocolate chip cookies?
Or does it only smell like greasy take-out, or plain chicken, or whatever the hell men eat?
Something about this thought makes me cry even harder. I feel like the self-loathing and regret might knock me unconscious. Stupid, stupid Florence, you should have never sold that house.
I’m crying so hard I almost don’t hear the thud to my right.
It’s Alistair, who has sat down next to me in the snow.
He’s wearing his uniform, which means he must be working today.
He has his yellow and navy hat on this morning, the brim of it shielding his eyes from the sun, his gloved hands knitted between his knees.
He stares ahead, down the hill towards the water.
I’m not polite about it.
What the fuck do you want?
I can feel the rage that’s already bursting out of me start to sharpen into something mean.
You seem… distressed, he says, his accent seeming thicker somehow today. He doesn’t say more, only continues to look down at the lake.
Excuse me? I’m trying not to open my mouth, fearing what I might say to him. This perfectly nice man who stole our fucking house.
His tone is a touch softer when he says, I know, I know. I should probably leave well enough alone. But, he shrugs. I saw your rental car and then spotted you down here and, well, I felt like I needed to make sure you were all right.
I don’t need a babysitter, I snap, Of course I’m distressed, so can you just leave me the hell alone?
He looks over at me and I try not to have a reaction, I really do.
But holy hell. The sunlight is bouncing off the snow, making every colour pop—and his green eyes are so bright.
They’re quite a few shades darker than my own, like the leaves of a tree in the middle of summer.
They’d almost be hazel if you weren’t looking close enough.
For some reason, that I don’t care to dwell on, this finally stops my crying. I stare for a bit too long, my mind blank and my breathing ragged, and a slow, soft smile starts to work its way up his face.
I didn’t say you needed a babysitter. What I’m suggesting is that maybe you need a friend. He looks at me for a second longer before turning his gaze back to the lake.
His tone is almost vulnerable, and I can tell his offer is genuine, which sparks about twenty-seven different emotions at once. When I only continue to stare at him, he goes on. If that’s not preferable to you, I can go back and sit in my car, if you’d like.
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. What did you do to our house? I want to be mean; I want to pick a fight with him, but my question comes out quieter than I expect.
He doesn’t look at me, only continues to look down at the water.
He lets out a long exhale before saying, I’ve done mostly upkeep.
There were a few things I did have to change for safety reasons, as the house had sat empty for a little while before I got there.
My heart lurches at that, but he continues.
Honestly, I haven’t wanted to change much about it. There’s an expression my mother used to say: What's for ye'll not go by ye. Means if it’s meant to be, it’ll be. And I got goosebumps walking into that house, like it was meant to be, he says, looking at me again before adding, It felt like home.
Home. The word stings and I flinch. It’s like a movie montage starts playing behind my eyes: putting glow-in-the-dark stars on the wooden beams along the ceiling; Mom covering every surface in Christmas village figures each December; breathing in the smell of the house after being away; Alba, Uncle Albie, and my mom crammed around our small kitchen table, all of us reaching over each other for whatever we needed; Mom and I sitting out on the front porch no matter the weather, talking about everything and nothing.
I seem to have this problem where, when in Alistair’s presence, I either can’t think of one single decent thing to say, or the words are tumbling out of my mouth before I even realize what they are. The latter is happening today.
Can I come see it? I don’t know if this will make things better or worse, I just know I need to be there again. It’s the only way I’ll be able to feel like I’ve really come home.
He watches me now and I suddenly remember I must look absolutely wretched, given the full-body sobbing that was happening minutes ago. I can feel the blush creeping up my neck and I think he notices it too. The wind blows a strand of my hair covering my cheek and he moves it out of my face.
What’s weirder is that I let him.
His voice is gentle when he finally responds.
Any time you like, he says, then stands, dusting the snow off his pants. I’ll leave you be, ‘Just Florence.’
I watch him walk back to his car. And as much as I’d never admit it to anyone, I find myself wishing he’d stayed.