Chapter 13
I FEEL LIKE I’M GOING to puke.
We’re sitting in the driveway of the lake house, where we’ve been idling for ten minutes now.
Well, we can’t sit here all day, Alba says. We have to make a move. Either we leave, like assholes, or we go inside.
Am I going to hate it, Albs? Does he have sports jerseys hanging around or dart boards? Does it smell like boy? My voice is getting higher and higher with each question.
She looks at me like I have six heads. No, you idiot, really not that much has changed. He’s spruced it up. There are different paintings hanging on the walls, but no dart boards, I promise.
Wait, when were you even in here? This thought makes me feel a little sick.
She shrugs. He’s had some barbecues over the years I guess, and the first one after I moved home, Dad dragged me along.
I could tell he didn’t want to come here by himself for the first time since…
her voice trails off, but I don’t need the end of her sentence to know what she means.
It makes me deeply sad to think of my uncle, of all people, not wanting to face the ghosts here by himself.
Even being in the driveway is enough to make me feel unbalanced. I’ve been staring at the pathway to the water, our sign still there that reads, Lake this way, followed by a big blue arrow. It looks more faded than I remember, a sharp reminder of all the time that’s gone by since I was last here.
Alba and I both jump as the front door opens. Alistair comes out to stand on the front porch. His Santa suit is gone, replaced with black track pants and a grey hoodie. He’s holding a coffee mug and wearing green plaid slippers, and I wonder if that’s Campbell tartan.
Are you two ever going to come inside? He calls out to us, holding up his free hand in surrender. I promise I won’t bite.
Alba looks at me and her eyes ask, Well, what’s it going to be then?
Okay, I say, nodding. Yeah, okay, let’s go.
Don’t make this weird, but I’ve brought our stockings.
This is another thing on our Countdown—hang our stockings with care, like the line from ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas. We’ve only ever hung them up together at this house, since Uncle Albie’s doesn’t have a fireplace.
I feel both annoyed and touched that she brought them.
We won’t leave them here, don’t worry, she says, trying to reassure me that this isn’t such a big deal, We’ll hang them up, take a picture, and be on our merry way.
With that, she climbs out of her truck. She goes right up to the house, not giving me time to hesitate.
Within seconds, she’s already inside. Alistair watches me, holding the front door open.
He looks at me in silent question, his gaze direct but open.
He wouldn’t invite me over if it was awful, I tell myself.
He also wouldn’t lie about what changes he’s made here.
Sometimes it’s just one foot in front of the other, Florence. My mother’s voice chimes in my head, something she said to me many times over the years, as a memory bubbles up.
She once put Alba and I in a dance class as kids, when we were probably about six or seven years old.
Alba hated every second of it, but the choreography came to her naturally, and she never really got stage fright.
But I was so nervous for our first recital and confessed to my mother that I couldn’t remember any of the steps.
Do you really not want to do it Flora, or are you a little bit afraid? I was terrified, and told her so. All those people will be looking at me, I managed to tell her through sobs. I wanted to do a good job.
It’s okay to be scared, she soothed. We’re going to do the first step.
Do you remember how it starts? I did the first step in the routine.
Good, and what comes next? We did that over and over again and when our recital day came, I searched in a panic for my mother in the crowd.
She held up a single finger and mouthed to me, One foot.
I shake off the memory and step out of the truck. One foot. Another foot.
When I look down at the porch steps, I feel like I’m going to faint. I trip on the last step, because of course I do, and fall right smack into Alistair.
I’ve got you, he says quietly, not even spilling whatever drink he’s holding, but I pull away. I don’t want him to notice how badly I’m shaking. I also don’t want to notice how good he smells—like bergamot and something spiced that reminds me of gingerbread—but I’m only human.
I try to dissociate from what’s happening here; try to pretend that I’m walking into any old house. Yeah, you’re just going to see Alistair’s house, for no particular reason, it’s fine. He just wants to prove to you he’s not an axe murderer, or an evil home renovator, or something.
It doesn’t exactly work, but it’s enough to get me inside. I notice Alba from the corner of my eye, standing in front of the fireplace. It looks exactly the same, only like it’s been given some TLC.
Well, I certainly hung my stocking with care, Alba says, putting her hands on her hips. We could never decide what with care actually meant.
Uh, why are you hanging up— Alistair starts, but Alba cuts him off.
You just worry about yourself. We have some things to do while we’re here, so never you mind. She nods at me in solidarity before saying quietly to me, Hanging our stockings and checking for dartboards.
Alba has a look on her face that says, Don’t mess with me, and Alistair seems to read it. He only nods at her, not daring to ask any more questions. I finally let myself look around.
The house looks the same—warm and inviting.
The wooden beams along the ceiling look almost polished.
Fresh coats of paint brighten up the walls, and there’s a watercolour painting of another lake that I don’t recognize, but I guess is somewhere in Scotland.
There’s new furniture, but it’s arranged in a similar way to how Mom and I had it.
There are no creepy leather chairs, or piles of empty beer cans, or anything else you might find in a bachelor pad.
It’s all tasteful, really.
Does it meet your approval, Johnny Miles? Alistair’s voice pulls me back to reality.
Who? Alba and I ask him at the same time.
He looks at both of us like we should know better. Johnny Miles? Come on, don’t you two know your history? He’s a famous Cape Bretoner. We stare at him blankly and he goes on, looking exasperated, He won the Boston Marathon twice? There’s a run every year in his name?
His tone is playful, but I still don’t get the reference.
He’s fast, Alistair says, as if this should be obvious. He nods towards me, Like you, except with his feet instead of behind the wheel of a three-thousand-pound car.
I sigh in irritation, as Alba snorts behind me. His tone gets serious when he adds, He lived in Florence, actually, referencing the Cape Breton community about forty minutes northeast from here. Is that where your name comes from?
I feel a little too raw to have this particular conversation, in this particular setting, and I know Alba can tell. So I’m grateful when she answers instead.
Yeah, my Auntie M and my mom, Beth, their whole family came from Florence originally. She clears her throat before continuing. Auntie M used to say she always associated it with something that was hers—that was home.
Alba looks at me then and I can feel my heart cracking open.
Come on then, Cousin, Alba says, adjusting her tone into something much lighter and beckoning me over to the fireplace. The Christmas magic awaits.
I go over to hang up the stocking, my hands still shaking slightly. Alba’s mom, my Auntie Beth, knitted these stockings the year we were born. Uncle Albie and my mother have matching ones, too. Had, I silently correct myself. Mom had a matching stocking. I wonder where it went.
Alba asks Alistair to take our picture in front of the fireplace. She makes us pose holding up peace signs, our hips jutting out to the side, like we would have done the last time we took a photo here. Alistair smirks from behind the phone.
He lets me poke around the house. It’s a little cabin surrounded by trees, tucked in off the highway. There’s a small loft for extra sleeping and storage, but everything else is all on one level. My former bedroom has been converted into what looks like both an office and a guest bedroom.
I don’t linger here, or anywhere for that matter—I can’t.
It’s so easy to picture my childhood bedroom: the pink walls we later painted a soft green; the spot where the Spice Girls posters hung, later replaced by cut-outs from Tiger Beat magazines of whatever boy I had a crush on at the time; the purple flower rug, forever covered in glitter after Alba knocked over a container of art supplies; the picture of me and Mom dressed up for a re-enactment at the Fortress of Louisbourg, which always sat on my dresser; the drawers where I’d take my dolls for pretend sleepovers (and years later, hide alcohol in); and the curtains that I never, ever closed because I always wanted to see the water, even if it meant the sun woke me up.
This room in particular looks a little empty, but that’s only because I remember how chaotic and full it once was. But it’s clear to me from the care he’s taken that Alistair loves this house.
I poke my head into my mom’s bedroom. His bedroom, I silently correct myself.
The bed is made, and everything is tidy, which was definitely not the case when I was growing up here.
There are dark wood end tables on either side of the mattress, and I wonder if he made them himself.
There’s also a candle on one of the nightstands that I really want to smell, but I don’t dare go inside.
I spy a photo on one of the nightstands. Alistair and a man that’s clearly his younger brother, what was his name? Finn. Finn who fell off the ladder. I can’t bear to cross the threshold, but I lean into the room and squint, trying to see the picture more clearly.