3. Mila
three
Mila
We find a bench at the edge of the grounds, near the vendor row. Macie sits between us, eating a piece of string cheese from the snack bag I carry everywhere, and I tell Colm the timeline.
I keep it clean. Just the facts in order, the way I've been telling myself the story for two years, because the facts are easier to hold than the feelings.
The pregnancy test in a gas station bathroom in Kamloops, six weeks after Silver Ridge.
The decision, which wasn't really a decision — I was keeping her, that was never the question.
The months alone, the apartment I found in Kelowna, and my cousin who let me stay until I could afford my own place.
The search I ran in the second trimester, when I finally had enough mental space to try: Timber Festival Silver Ridge and nothing, nothing, nothing.
The birth. Macie, who came out screaming and red and determined, who had my mouth and my forehead and, as soon as her eyes opened, someone else entirely looking out of them.
The second search, the third. The choice to come back to Silver Ridge during this year's festival because it was the only lead I'd ever had, the only thing I'd been sure of: he's connected to the festival.
Colm listens.
He sits with his elbows on his knees, hands laced together, looking at the ground in front of him and occasionally at Macie. His jaw is tight enough that I can see the muscle moving. But he doesn't interrupt. He lets me finish.
When I'm done, there's a moment of quiet. Macie finishes her cheese and holds the wrapper out to me. I take it and put it in my bag and give her a cracker. She accepts this and goes back to watching the festival grounds, narrating in the low self-absorbed murmur she uses when she's content.
"I believe you," Colm says.
I didn't know how much I needed that.
"It still happened," he says. "I'm not—" He stops and shakes his head, trying to find the words. "I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm saying the thing happened and I can be angry about it and also understand why."
"That's a reasonable position."
"It's the only position I've got that doesn't make me into someone I don't want to be."
I look at him. He's looking at Macie with an intensity that I recognize as the same thing I felt the first time I saw her face after the birth. The irreversible thing. The freefall.
"She likes making faces," I say. "If you make a face at her, she'll make it back."
He looks at me. Then at Macie. He pulls a deliberate, exaggerated expression — wide eyes, puffed cheeks.
Macie watches him for exactly one second and then mirrors it with perfect, gleeful precision.
He does it again. She does it again. He adds raised eyebrows.
She adds raised eyebrows. He sticks out his tongue and she sticks out her tongue and then she laughs — that full-body toddler laugh, head thrown back, completely unguarded.
This is exactly what I wanted. This is why I drove eight hours. This exact laugh.
Better than I imagined.
Worse, because of the two years.
"She's funny," he says. His voice is softer than it was on the platform, the roughness gone or pushed down.
"She's terrifying. She has no fear of anything."
"Gets that from somewhere."
I think about that. Whether it's him or me. Probably both.
"Where are you staying?" he asks.
"The motel on Highway 3. The one with the blue sign."
Colm nods. He knows this town the way you know a place you've always lived in.
He knows the motel and which rooms are quiet and probably the name of the woman who runs the front desk.
This is his territory. He belongs here absolutely, and I drove into the middle of it with his daughter and his eyes looking out of her face.
"I should get back to the grounds," he says. He doesn't move. "I'm running the competition schedule today. The log-rolling heats start at two."
"We'll watch," Macie says authoritatively, without turning around.
Colm looks at her. "Yeah?" he says.
"Yes," Macie confirms. "Log."
"Big log," he agrees.
She turns then, and points at him, and says: "Man. Log man."
"Log man," he repeats with a chuckle.
"His name is Colm," I say. "Can you say Colm?"
She considers this. "Colm," she tries. It comes out Kom, the L swallowed.
"That's close enough," he says.
He stands up from the bench, and he looks at Macie for a moment longer. Then, he looks at me and the anger is still there, a low even presence under everything else, but it's not the only thing anymore.
"Two o'clock," he says. "The viewing platform."
"We'll be there."
He walks away. Macie watches him go.
"Log man," she says again, satisfied.
I watch the set of his shoulders as he crosses the grounds — the particular stillness of a person holding something very large very carefully. I know that feeling. I've been holding it for two years.
The difference is I've had longer to get used to the weight.