If This Is Home Read online

  “Got time to hang out?” Kurt walks up to me as the last bell rings.

  “No, sorry,” I say. “I’ve got to get home.”

  “Right. Your grandma’s in town,” he nods, remembering our conversation after school yesterday. “Can I walk you?” he asks. I want so badly to say yes but a leisurely stroll isn’t really how I was planning on getting home. A marathon sprint was more like it.

  “Well, I’m kinda in a hurry. Another day?”

  “Oh, so you want to race again?” His eyes are dancing, his smile wide.

  “Not exactly, Kurt.”

  “That’s cool. I gotta get home, too.” He’s grinning at me from ear to ear. It makes me want to drop everything to spend some time with this guy, but I can’t.

  “Here’s my number,” he says, handing me a folded piece of paper. “Give me a call.” He seems so confident and self-assured, but not in an egotistical kind of way. It’s like he just marches to the beat of his own drum and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of him.

  I take the paper and nod. “Thanks. I will.” And I mean it. “Talk to you later,” I tell him, and then I turn on my heels to go. As I head out to the street, I spot Amanda, Danika, and Jenna. They are huddled close together, but they are staring at me. Amanda looks up and breaks the huddle as I get closer to them.

  “Well, well … who’s that?” she asks.

  “A friend,” I reply.

  “I’ve never seen him before. Is he new?”

  “No.”

  “He seemed pretty into you.”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  “What’s with the one-word answers?” Amanda’s eyebrows are knitted together, her lips pursed. I simply shrug.

  “What’s with his weird clothes?” Danika pipes in. And then the three of them laugh. So that’s what they were doing. Sizing him up when they saw us talking. I don’t think his clothes are weird at all. In fact, I love how he seems so comfortable in his own skin.

  “I know, right? Ever heard of a haircut? And who wears leather jackets anymore?” Amanda adds.

  “I gotta go,” I say. Not only am I anxious to get Ellie and get to the hospital, but this conversation is irritating me.

  “Oh, right.” Amanda rolls her eyes at me, as though whatever I need to do couldn’t possibly be important. Little does she know just how important it is. What is her problem? I feel like she’s a step away from losing it on me, and I’m not sure why.

  “See ya,” she says. She wraps her arms around Danika and Jenna and pulls them off toward the school. It makes me feel small, watching them walk off together.

  I sling my backpack over my shoulder and jog toward Mrs. Johnson’s house. When I get there, my heart is pounding, but I can’t tell if it’s as much from jogging as it is from wondering what Ellie might have said to Mrs. Johnson. I can’t let Mrs. Johnson find out what’s going on. She might call the police or something if she finds out that Ellie and I are on our own for too long of a time.

  “J.J.!” Ellie squeals and runs toward me. She’s been colouring. Markers and sheets of paper are scattered on the table.

  “Hi, Ellie! Did you have a good day?”

  “Yup. I coloured.” She holds up her ink-stained hands for me to see.

  “I see that! Can you get your things together now?”

  “Hello, dear,” Mrs. Johnson says to me. She’s about to wipe down the table where Ellie was colouring. “Is your mom working late tonight?”

  “Yeah,” I reply. Good. Ellie hasn’t said anything.

  Ellie’s eyes go wide. “Mom is at work?!” This makes her happy. I can see relief flooding her face. Too bad that I’m lying and she’ll soon learn the truth, that nothing has changed. Mom is still lying in that hospital bed.

  “Thanks for watching Ellie, Mrs. Johnson.”

  “No problem, dear.” Mrs. Johnson is busy tidying up Ellie’s mess, so I pick Ellie up and exit the house quickly.

  “Mommy’s all better?” Ellie asks as soon as we get outside.

  “No, Ellie, I’m sorry. Mom is still in the hospital. But we’re going to go and see her right now, okay?” She runs ahead of me toward our front door, anxious to get inside and drop off our things.

  I drop my backpack at the front entrance and tell Ellie to go the bathroom. As soon as she’s done, I grab our bus passes and we head back out the door. We walk quickly to the bus stop and we wait only a minute or two before the bus pulls up.

  When we get to the hospital, my stomach churns at the antiseptic smell that hits me as soon as we walk in. I grab Ellie’s hand, holding it a little tighter than usual. My heart pounds as we ride the elevator up to the oncology unit. When the doors of the elevator open, Ellie breaks away from me and sprints toward Mom’s room.

  Mom is sitting up in her bed, and there is a bit more colour to her face. She looks better than she did last night, and relief washes over me.

  “Mommy!” Ellie shrieks. She hops onto the bed and snuggles into her. Despite a string of erupting coughs, Mom lights up at the sight of us.

  “How was school?” she asks me.

  “Fine.”

  “Did you go to Mrs. Johnson’s house, Ellie?” Mom asks.

  “Yeah, but J.J. said you were at work.”

  I give Mom a pointed look, wondering how we should explain things to Joelle. She knows that I’m lying to Mrs. Johnson. She doesn’t understand why we are being secretive.

  Mom doesn’t miss a beat. “I don’t want Mrs. Johnson to worry, so we’re going to pretend that I’m at work.” Joelle seems satisfied with this, because the hospital is pretty scary to her.

  “Mom, I can’t find your address book,” I say. “I looked everywhere.”

  “It should be in my drawer.”

  “It wasn’t. Trust me.”

  “I’m sure that’s where I put it. Hmmm,” she pauses, clearly trying to backtrack. “You don’t need it though.”

  “What do you mean? I thought we were going to find Dad?”

  “Dad?!” Ellie exclaims.

  “Shh, never mind, Joelle,” I hush her, hoping we can just skip over this part of the conversation. When Joelle was old enough to start asking about who her dad was, Mom would launch into the famous rock star bit and how he needed to travel all the time to perform. I’d bristle at Mom’s explanation. Didn’t Joelle deserve more? And couldn’t we just leave the hero-worshipping behind for this child? It was bad enough that I had gone through it, only to be continually disappointed. Couldn’t we spare Joelle the same fate? But Joelle just seemed to accept that response and didn’t ask any more questions. Maybe Mom needed to keep saying it so that she could justify to herself why he’d chosen some kind of glamorous life over us, as though it would explain everything.

  The only picture Joelle had ever seen of him was one taken on my twelfth birthday. The photo had been tacked on my wall for years, its edges tattered from the number of times I’d reached out to examine it and then tacked it back up. He had a dazzling smile in that photo, and with his shoulder-length hair, his black T-shirt and jeans, and the rings adorning almost every finger, he looked every bit a rock star. To Ellie, I guess it just made sense.

  “I know the numbers by heart.” Mom’s voice is barely a whisper. Her eyes fill with tears, and then she coughs repeatedly before she is able to speak again. I look at her struggling to catch her breath. I can see how crestfallen she is. My heart feels like lead as I process her words. How many times had Mom tried reaching him? I thought it’d been years since she’d last tried, but her face tells me otherwise. Why else would she remember the phone numbers? I see the grief on her face, the years of loneliness. She always believed he’d be coming back, and that one day he’d settle in and stay forever.

  “Tell me them, then,” I say crisply. I don’t want her to hurt any longer. And seeing her like this, realizing what all of these years o
f waiting for a man who would never come has done to her, I’m livid. I want to shake her and tell her how ridiculous she was to wait. And I want to give him a piece of my mind. I grab the notepad and pen sitting on the side table next to her bed.

  I tap the pen impatiently while I wait for the numbers.

  “Nobody knows where he is,” Mom says.

  “Well, we gotta try,” I respond with pursed lips. This is no time for excuses, and even Mom knows it.

  “Maybe you’ll have more luck than I did. Not that it’ll mean anything.”

  “I know what he chose.”

  Mom looks at me with surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “The night he left. I know that you told him he had to make a choice. I was awake that night. I heard it.”

  “Jayce …” Mom seems startled. If she tries to explain herself, I won’t let her.

  “Let’s have ’em,” I say, referring to the numbers. I stare her down, hoping she can feel my frustration.

  “You’ll need to be prepared that things might not work out the way you hope,” Mom says gently.

  I smirk. “Are you kidding me? I’ve spent my whole life feeling that way when it comes to him.” And so has she.

  “Okay. We’ll try to find him.” Mom rattles off a series of phone numbers, some from different area codes, and tells me that he’s stayed at these places many times over the years. I write them out as carefully as I can so that I’m sure of what I’ll be dialing.

  “Maybe it’ll be different this time …” Her voice trails off as she closes her eyes. I reach for Joelle’s hand and tell her it’s time to leave. I’ve got some phoning to do. And I sure hope it will be different this time.

  Chapter 5

  The phone numbers that Mom gave me turn up nothing. Two of them are disconnected. On the third, a gruff-sounding man answers and hangs up on me before I can explain myself.

  “Joe who?” the man bellows.

  “Loewen,” I respond. He tells me I have the wrong number, and then the line goes dead.

  That night there’s a knock on the door, and Joelle and I are surprised to see my mom’s boss, Lou, and his wife, Freida. They come bearing a box full of food. There is lasagna, a chicken pot pie, a container of soup, two Styrofoam containers of fried chicken and salad, and a plate full of slices of pie from the diner.

  “We thought you girls could use this, seeing as your mom is sick right now,” Freida explains. My eyes grow wide at the sight of all this delicious food.

  “How did you know?” I ask, and Lou tells me that Mom phoned him to let him know what was going on and that she’d be missing more work. I wonder how much Mom has told them.

  “You be sure to call on us if you need anything at all, okay?” Freida says. They hand me a piece of paper with a phone number and address. “This is our home address and our phone number. Or you just come right on down to the diner. I mean it. Anything at all.”

  I thank them profusely. When they leave, Ellie and I dig into the pie slices first. We lick the apple filling that is sticking to our fingers with exaggerated slowness, savouring each bite. It tastes so good, its sweetness dancing on our tongues. For a moment, I forget about not being able to reach my dad.

  I decide to call Amanda to ask if I can go with her to her dad’s office for Take Your Son/Daughter to Work Day.

  “What’s up with you, anyhow?” Amanda asks, her voice tinged with annoyance.

  “Things are just crazy right now,” I say. Instead of pressing further, Amanda launches into a tirade about Luke again and how broken-hearted she is.

  “I love him, and I just know he loves me, too,” Amanda states. She manages to call him practically every name possible before telling me that she’s determined to get him back.

  “I’ll talk to my dad about Monday, but I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Amanda says before we hang up, and I’m relieved when we finally say goodbye.

  After I put Ellie to bed, I decide to search the house again for the address book. I look in every drawer in every room in the house. I even head back to Mom’s room and rummage through her underwear drawer again for good measure, and then every other drawer again, too. I head back to her closet, pull the few items she has hanging in there to the side and toss aside her work shoes and the worn, outdated dress shoes she has lined up on the floor. Nothing. Frustrated, I sit cross-legged on the floor and hold my head in my hands. Mom is counting on me to find Dad, since she can’t very well do it while lying in a hospital bed.

  It is in this position that I see a wooden panel attached to the side wall of the closet. It is held in place by two small finishing nails. Curious, I tug on the panel with my fingertips. To my surprise, it pops off easily. My eyes grow wide. Inside the wall cavity is a small metal box with a handle, similar to a cash box. I stare at it for a moment before reaching for the handle. It is dusty and cold. The box has a keyhole, but I’m hoping it isn’t locked. I turn the metal clasp without difficulty and the box pops open.

  Before I look inside, my stomach flips. There’s a certain thrill upon stumbling onto something unknown, hidden in the wall. Who does this belong to? Why is it hidden in the wall? How long has it been here?

  Inside I find worn pieces of paper, folded carefully. They are delicate and soft, I can only imagine the number of times they’ve been opened and read. My heart beats faster as I pull the items out of the box. There are photos as well. Some are yellowed and stuck together, but I peel them apart carefully.

  I gasp at the first image I come upon. It’s my mother. There is no mistaking it. She is just a younger version of herself; she has the same big eyes and long hair. She looks to be a teenager in this photo, perhaps my age. She is wearing a pretty blue dress and is standing by a yellow house, her arms in front of her with her fingers laced together. She looks happy and carefree.

  Why was Mom hiding these things? And why in a box in the wall? How come I’ve never seen them before?

  I study the other photographs. They must be from her childhood. There is a young girl standing in front of the same yellow house. There is a boy, only slightly taller than the girl, standing beside her. Two adults stand behind them, their hands on the kids’ shoulders. I look closer to make sure it’s still Mom, but it looks just like her, a miniature version. Are these her parents? And who is this boy? Mom has never mentioned having a brother. Although Mom really hasn’t mentioned anything about her family over the years. It’s something we’re not allowed to talk about.

  I turn over the photos and find the years that the photos were taken, written in smeared ink. 1987, 1989, 1992, 1997. The one of her in the blue dress was taken in 1997, and I imagine that it’s one of the last photos of her taken by her family. I study the yellow house for any clues as to where it is located. It looks like it’s out in the country somewhere, but I can’t gather anything beyond that. I see tall spruce trees behind the home and wooden trellises tacked onto the siding.

  I gently open one of the letters. The scrawl is messy and hard to read, but a few words in I realize it’s a love letter. I scan to the bottom and it is signed “With love, Joe.” A love letter from my dad to my mom? I start at the top and read it carefully, savouring every word. Maybe I should feel guilty for going through my mom’s private things, but I don’t. The letter is proof that my dad really did love my mom, and I need to see this proof. I open the next letter, and the next. Sure enough, all of them are from my dad.

  At the bottom of the box, I find an old report card with my mom’s name on it. She has perfect grades. I swell with pride reading the words of praise written by her teachers. This discovery makes we wonder what other dreams or goals my mom might have had back then. Did she dream of going to university? Did she have her heart set on a certain career someday?

  I see her birth certificate. Born in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, on March 18, 1980, to Elsa and Ernie Nichols. Elsa and Ernie. My grandparents. People whos
e names I’ve never known until this moment, let alone met. I wonder if this yellow house is in Meadow Lake, if this is where Mom grew up. Could my dad also be from there? Did they meet in Meadow Lake? All I know is that Meadow Lake is north of Saskatoon, the city I’ve grown up in.

  Then I come across one more photo, of Mom and Dad together. They look like they are at a party or in a bar or restaurant. The lighting is dim and there are other people sitting at the tables surrounding them. His arm is draped around her and she is leaning into him. Both of them are smiling wide. They look young, not much older than I am now. On the back is scrawled “Saskatoon, 1997.” The year they met. The year before I was born. Mom would have been seventeen years old.

  I keep the photos and throw the rest of the contents back into the box and shut the lid. Instead of putting it back into the wall and covering it with the panel, I leave it at the bottom of the closet for easy access. In just a few minutes, I’ve learned more about my mom’s past than what she’s told me in sixteen years.

  Ellie is fast asleep on the couch, so I drape a blanket on her. I realize how late it is and that tomorrow is Friday, which means that I must have my first journal entry in to Mr. Letts. I decide to call Kurt instead.

  He answers on the first ring, and I’m caught off guard because he’s answered so quickly. I start stammering.

  “J.J., is that you?” he says, chuckling. Great. How does he know? Could it only be me since I’m acting like such a blithering idiot?

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I say, laughing back. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem. How’s your night going?”

  “Uh, it’s fine,” I manage.

  “That’s what fine sounds like? Yikes.”

  “Just dealing with a lot right now.”

  “I get it,” he says simply. I hear someone calling for him in the background. “Can you hold on a sec?” he asks.

  “Yeah, for sure.”

  I hear the sound of grunting and heavy breathing for a moment, followed by a high-pitched whimper that sounds like it’s coming from a female. What the heck is he doing?