“I like your swimsuit,” I told the girl in the yellow bikini with orange polka dots. “It’s very summery.” It felt nice to have an instant friend to play with on the beach that day. Together, we collected shells and played Marco Polo in the water and did handstands on the sand. The sun crawled across the sky toward the dunes at West Lake on the far side of the bay. Gus wanted to wait on the beach until Howard came back. But the sun started to set, and everyone packed up and headed back to their campsites. Even the girl in the summery bikini left with her family. Gus was being stubborn. She was mad that Howard was gone so much this trip. She was trying to make a point. I didn’t see it but when Gus was in a mood, I knew it was better just to go along with it.
It was weird having the beach all to ourselves. We were like two castaways. Like the world had ended and someone forgot to tell us. And in a way, it had. We just didn’t know it yet.
I was doing cartwheels across the beach when I found a blue-and-green string bracelet in the sand. Someone’s lost treasure that was now mine. I put it on my wrist and haven’t taken it off since.
Right after it happened, all I would dream about was that last camping trip. In some of my dreams, Howard kept his promise. He heads across the sand with a cone in each hand, the chocolate mint ice cream dripping down his knuckles.
I’d also dream about real things—like the sweet taste of the apple cider from Waupoos. Like the snap and crackle of the campfire. Like the sting of marram grass on my ankles as I climbed the dunes. Sometimes I’d dream about running on the beach with my kite or skipping along the boardwalk over the marsh at Cedar Sands Trail. Howard would be naming all the plants we saw along the way. Spike rush. Jack-in-the-pulpit. Sweet flag. Gus would be holding his hand. I would look back at the two of them just in time to see Howard lift her hand to kiss it. At the last second, he would kiss his own
hand. It was one of his silly jokes. And even though she kept a lot of herself inside, Gus would burst out laughing. He knew how to get her to crack.
I’d wake up from those dreams with a full heart. And for a few seconds, I’d forget. But then I’d remember he was gone and my heart would empty and hurt all over again. I’d twirl the woven strings of my bracelet, trying to go back to how I felt when I found it in the sand.
Before everything changed.
It’s been almost three years. I was just a kid back then. I’ll be a teenager in a few weeks. Practically a grown-up. It’s up to me now. I can’t believe it was only eleven days ago when Gus read that stupid obituary. That’s what brought us back to the county. And now that we’ve come all this way, I can’t give up and I can’t be lost. Not after all we’ve been through. I have to do this for Gus and Howard. Even if it means heading straight into a dead zone.
I keep moving. Suddenly I hear voices up ahead. I pull the knife from my back pocket and move into the low brush, inching closer. I spot them a few feet in front of me. I freeze. I can see their faces. If they look this way, they’ll see me too. I hold my breath and grip the knife. I steady myself. Ready to fight. Or even kill if I have to. I’ve changed in eleven days.
I am still Bly Monet. Augusta Monet’s daughter. Howard’s daughter.
But I can also feel some of that bad blood pumping through my veins.
I grip the knife and move slowly toward them.
Gus is nose-deep in her section of the newspaper when she gasps like she’s been shot. I don’t look up. She’s being dramatic as usual. Chewing words under her breath. Huffing. She’s sitting right across from me in the breakfast nook, but I keep my eyeballs glued to my section. I try to focus on the daily word scramble. It’s my morning routine. Dress. Breakfast. Coffee and word scramble. Floss. Brush teeth. Comb hair. Pack lunch. Go to school. In that order. I have to solve the scramble before I can do anything else, but she’s messing up my concentration. She lets out another big sigh and tosses the paper on the table.
“They finally did it,” she says through clenched teeth. “Those fucking fucks.”
I give up. I look at her even though I don’t want to.
Her cheeks are hot pink. She picks up the paper again.
It comes alive in her trembling hand like the words printed on it are electrified.
I abandon the scramble and slide around to her side of the nook to see what’s what.
I lean in close, my shoulder touching hers. I scan the newspaper.
She’s reading the obituaries.
I spot his name and the electricity goes through me too.
BAYLIS, Howard George. Missing and presumed dead, at the age of 34. A kind and loving son, Howard is survived by his parents, Vivi and Kirk Baylis. A friend and colleague to many in the National Capital Region, Howard was a talented freelance journalist. All are welcome to attend the celebration of life at the Stone Chapel in Glenwood Cemetery. Sunday, June 26 at 4 pm, 47 Ferguson Street, Picton, Ontario.
All the air leaves the room. This is bad. Life is about to go sideways and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I down my coffee, slide around the bench, and slip out of the nook. I can’t feel the kitchen floor as I walk to the sink. My throat is dry, my chest tight. I look back at Gus.
We have the same green eyes and red hair. Strangers go out of their way to point at our red hair like we don’t know it’s on our heads. Like they’re surprising us with the news. People say I’m a mini version of Gus.
Only what they can’t see is how different we are.
I like neat rows. I like making homemade soup from leftovers and organizing my T-shirts from lights to darks in my closet. Gus doesn’t do rows or color coding or cooking meals from scratch. She barely does dishes. She only does laundry when she’s got nothing left to wear. I like to be early and I hate when people get angry. Gus is always late and she likes a fight.
I know why she is how she is. Life’s been really, really mean to her. She lost a lot of people along the way. Both her parents. Then her last living relative, her great-grandmother. Some friends. Even Levi, her dog, got old and died. I think all that loss has messed with her insides. She never cries. She barely eats and if she does, she never eats vegetables. And even though she just turned thirty-five, I don’t think she’s ever really grown up. She didn’t have anyone to show her how. Her dad died before she was born, and her mom was killed when she was just a kid. She mostly raised herself.
Then Howard came along. He was sort of geeky and a bit silly, but he was always kind and sweet even if he could be embarrassing sometimes
He was a journalist for a local paper when she met him. He wasn’t really her type. At least not at first. He was awkward and skinny and way too romantic for Gus. But he liked her a lot. They grew close and he helped her when she was pregnant with me. He took care of her when she didn’t take care of herself. He showed her a new way of being in the world. A lighter way.
And then out of the blue, he wasn’t there anymore. The loss was huge for both of us, but she couldn’t handle losing someone else so she acted like he’d be back any second. Like he was out running errands and he’d come home any day now. No one could tell her different. She searched for Howard for months. It was like she could see this faraway flicker that no one else could see. It gave her tunnel vision. All she cared about was keeping that flicker alive because it meant Howard was still alive and out there somewhere.
Eventually, we had to come home without him. Mostly because the entire town of Picton was pretty much done with her. But even when we got back to Ottawa, Gus still lived in that tunnel. I think she was afraid to come out. Afraid that if she walked around in the light of the real world, she’d lose sight of the flicker.
I turn my back to Gus and place my mug in the sink. I look out the back window at Howard’s flower garden. I’ve kept the weeds from taking over. The pink toad lilies have bloomed early. The lilac tree has grown much taller than it was on the day we planted it together when I was six. I’ve been pruning it like Howard showed me.
I wash my mug, dry it, and place it in the cupboard next to Howard’s. His mug has his name painted on it. I made it for him on his thirtieth birthday. I tap the side of his mug with my middle knuckle, like I do every morning—the same five-part rhythmic knock that reminds me of him because it was his favorite way of knocking on doors when he entered a room or tapping on a table when he got one of his bright ideas.
Rat-tat-tatat-tat.
I open the fridge, grab the lunch I made the night before, and shove it into my backpack. My morning routine is all wrong now. I can’t bring myself to floss or brush my teeth or comb my hair and I’m already dressed so I hoist my backpack over one shoulder and leave the house.
Howard’s house.
ard and skinny and way too romantic for Gus. But he liked her a lot. They grew close and he helped her when she was pregnant with me. He took care of her when she didn’t take care of herself. He showed her a new way of being in the world. A lighter way.
And then out of the blue, he wasn’t there anymore. The loss was huge for both of us, but she couldn’t handle losing someone else so she acted like he’d be back any second. Like he was out running errands and he’d come home any day now. No one could tell her different. She searched for Howard for months. It was like she could see this faraway flicker that no one else could see. It gave her tunnel vision. All she cared about was keeping that flicker alive because it meant Howard was still alive and out there somewhere.
Eventually, we had to come home without him. Mostly because the entire town of Picton was pretty much done with her. But even when we got back to Ottawa, Gus still lived in that tunnel. I think she was afraid to come out. Afraid that if she walked around in the light of the real world, she’d lose sight of the flicker.
I turn my back to Gus and place my mug in the sink. I look out the back window at Howard’s flower garden. I’ve kept the weeds from taking over. The pink toad lilies have bloomed early. The lilac tree has grown much taller than it was on the day we planted it together when I was six. I’ve been pruning it like Howard showed me.
I wash my mug, dry it, and place it in the cupboard next to Howard’s. His mug has his name painted on it. I made it for him on his thirtieth birthday. I tap the side of his mug with my middle knuckle, like I do every morning—the same five-part rhythmic knock that reminds me of him because it was his favorite way of knocking on doors when he entered a room or tapping on a table when he got one of his bright ideas.
Rat-tat-tatat-tat.
I open the fridge, grab the lunch I made the night before, and shove it into my backpack. My morning routine is all wrong now. I can’t bring myself to floss or brush my teeth or comb my hair and I’m already dressed so I hoist my backpack over one shoulder and leave the house.
Howard’s house.
His parents own it now. At least that’s what their lawyers told Gus. When we left Picton, Kirk and Vivi Baylis said we could stay in the house until we got ourselves set up somewhere else. They said it like we were guests who didn’t belong here anymore now that Howard wasn’t here. They said it like they thought he was never coming back. Gus ignored them. She never looked for another place for us to live and they never pushed.
Until maybe now.
I shiver even though the June morning is warm. I roll my bike out of the shed.
That obituary means only one thing. Howard’s parents have really given up. They think he’s dead. Why keep a house he’s not coming back to? But I don’t want to live anywhere else. This is my home and it’s the only place where Howard is. He’s everywhere. He’s in the pencil marks on the doorframe where he measured my height every year. His initials are even carved into the wood armrest of the back porch swing. I know Howard isn’t my flesh and blood, but he was my dad for almost ten whole years—thirteen if you count the ones he’s missed.
We can’t leave. We just can’t.
My backpack feels loaded with bricks. I don’t bother poking my head in the back door to say have a nice day or see you later. There’s no point. And I don’t want to see that look on Gus’s face. The one she gets when she’s about to do the one thing the universe is screaming at her not to do.
I put on my helmet and head down Ossington. I pedal faster and faster, trying to put as much sidewalk between me and my worries as I can. At school I can’t concentrate. I fail a pop quiz on algebra. I can’t eat my lunch. I get scolded by my French teacher, Madam Spicer-Pilon, for daydreaming. I only wish this was a dream. But it’s not. My mind won’t stop going around and around—spinning and rolling over and over and over—wondering how bad it will be when I get home. And what kind of bad it will be. That’s what haunts me all through French class.
Quel genre de mal?
Will it be the kind where Gus is sitting frozen in time, right where I left her in the breakfast nook? Or will it be the kind where she’s standing in the dining room with her head tipped to one side, staring at the evidence that’s covered the walls for the last two
years? Those newspaper clippings, photographs, police reports, interview transcripts, and maps have become our wallpaper. It’s not like we use it for anything else.
I hate that room. Every time I walk past the dining room, it reminds me that not a single piece of evidence has ever been found to explain where Howard went.
The end-of-day school bell startles me and I almost fall out of my chair.
Madam Spicer-Pilon shakes her head and purses her lips. She thinks I’ve been sleeping.
I pedal home. Slowly. Weaving back and forth down the road. Killing time.
When the house comes into view, I spot Gus at the far end of the driveway.
That’s when I know.
It’s another kind of bad.
The kind she does best.
Gus is not letting this go. She’s not retreating or hiding or crying or calling or begging. She’s going to fight. This is the kind of bad that makes my neck break out in hives because it’s the kind I can’t predict or understand or reason with or sometimes even detect at first. But I know her too well. She looks like a normal everyday mother loading suitcases into the trunk of Howard’s old Honda, like we’re going on a road trip to Disneyland. Like everything’s hunky-dory.
“Hey, Boo,” Gus says when she sees me.
Boo is the nickname Gus gave me when I was little because I couldn’t pronounce my own name. I kept trying but it always came out sounding like Boo instead of Bly so it stuck.
“Gus,” I say flatly.
“Just about ready to hit the road,” she says, keeping her voice light as if the trip’s been planned for weeks.
I know exactly where we’re going. Back to Prince Edward County for Howard’s funeral. What they’re calling a celebration of life. Back to the place where he was last seen and where his parents still live in a big house next to their winery in Cherry Valley just outside the town of Picton. Back to where we used to camp every August until that summer three years ago. The summer when he went missing and our search began. But after nearly a year in Picton, Gus said we needed to go home to Ottawa so she could get
sleeping.
I pedal home. Slowly. Weaving back and forth down the road. Killing time.
When the house comes into view, I spot Gus at the far end of the driveway.
That’s when I know.
It’s another kind of bad.
The kind she does best.
Gus is not letting this go. She’s not retreating or hiding or crying or calling or begging. She’s going to fight. This is the kind of bad that makes my neck break out in hives because it’s the kind I can’t predict or understand or reason with or sometimes even detect at first. But I know her too well. She looks like a normal everyday mother loading suitcases into the trunk of Howard’s old Honda, like we’re going on a road trip to Disneyland. Like everything’s hunky-dory.
“Hey, Boo,” Gus says when she sees me.
Boo is the nickname Gus gave me when I was little because I couldn’t pronounce my own name. I kept trying but it always came out sounding like Boo instead of Bly so it stuck.
“Gus,” I say flatly.
“Just about ready to hit the road,” she says, keeping her voice light as if the trip’s been planned for weeks.
I know exactly where we’re going. Back to Prince Edward County for Howard’s funeral. What they’re calling a celebration of life. Back to the place where he was last seen and where his parents still live in a big house next to their winery in Cherry Valley just outside the town of Picton. Back to where we used to camp every August until that summer three years ago. The summer when he went missing and our search began. But after nearly a year in Picton, Gus said we needed to go home to Ottawa so she could get her head straight. She would keep investigating from a distance, and I’d go back to school. It was time for us to get back to our normal life and our normal routine. I do love routines, but there was nothing normal about being back at the house without Howard. Gus began taping her evidence to the dining room walls. Sometimes she’d add a new piece of research—an article or a document. Sometimes she’d take everything down and tape it up a different way. Hoping the new way would spark something. She’d stare at it for days before drawing a line or circling a picture with her red marker. But after two years, her head wasn’t any straighter than when we’d left Picton.
She tried normal. She made tuna casserole every Friday night because it was all she knew how to cook. We went to the movies on Tuesday nights, and on Sundays we’d go walking in the Dominion Arboretum. All the trees were marked with these tiny metal plaques etched with the Latin names of the trees. We’d each choose a name, then spend the rest of our walk calling each other things like Fagus grandifolia and Gymnocladus dioicus. We’d almost pee ourselves laughing. But even on good days, I’d still go to bed with a hollow feeling in my chest, knowing nothing could ever really be normal without Howard.
Gus places my olive-green suitcase next to hers in the trunk. I know she hasn’t packed the right clothes or arranged them in the right order, but I bite my tongue.
“I did my best, Boo,” says Gus.
She knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“So, we’re going back?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
Gus slams the trunk shut.
“Fucking right we are, kiddo,” she says.
I remember when we finally walked back to our campsite and left the deserted beach that day. Gus made us grilled cheese sandwiches in a frying pan over the campfire. There were bits of ash in the cheese. Some of our cooking stuff, our cooler, and our water jug were still sitting on the picnic table. Left behind when Howard drove off in the camper van with most of our dishes and clothes inside. We had nothing to change into except for a couple of his T-shirts that were drying on the clothesline. We put those on over our swimsuits. It was still warm even though the sun had just set. Gus sent Howard a text but got no reply. There were no voice messages from him, either. It wasn’t like Howard, and I could tell she was getting more and more worried.
I wanted her to say that she was mad as heck at Howard. That he probably ran into someone he knew and went for a beer or stopped by his parents’ place and lost track of time. I wanted her to say it was just like him to get caught up chatting with someone. Or that he was forgetful or that he had blinders on when he was working. He loved doing research. He loved chasing leads. He was excited about his latest story. That’s why he was late. I wanted her to say all those things or at least one of them. But mostly I wanted her to say she wasn’t worried.
Instead, she said she was going to take a shower.
Gus walked over to one of the stalls at the comfort station across from our site, her beach towel around her waist. I settled into the hammock and tried to read until it got too dark to see the words. Gus sat by the fire after her shower and let the heat coming off it dry her long red hair. I fell asleep as the wind rustled the sugar maples, listening for the sound of the wheels of the camper crunching on the gravel road.
The sun woke me the next morning as it poked through the trees, already too bright. A beach blanket covered me. Gus was sitting in the same camping chair she’d been sitting in last night next to a smoky firepit, sipping coffee from a tin mug. I don’t think she slept. I felt bad that I did.
“Want a cup?” she asked when she heard me yawn.
I looked around for the camper. All that was there were grooves in the dirt where it used to be parked. Two tracks snaked across the sandy site where the camper had driven away, fading at the gravel road.
We sipped black coffee. The smell of bacon from other campsites made my stomach growl. Gus didn’t say much. Later that morning, we got a lift into town from the man who checks the water quality at the park pumps. We’d seen him around all week. He had friendly eyes and he didn’t talk much. He dropped us on Picton’s Main Street in front of a used clothing store called City Revival. We were still wearing flip-flops and swimsuits with Howard’s T-shirts overtop. We looked like tourists who’d gotten lost on their way to the beach.
Inside City Revival, we picked out some clothes to tide us over until he gets back, Gus said. I was happy they were used. I don’t like new things. Newness makes my skin itch. I picked out a pair of purple cords that were too big for my almost ten-year-old body, but the second I saw them, I had to have them. I loved them more than I’d loved any piece of clothing I’d ever owned. Circa 1970 was what the woman at the counter told me, nodding in approval. She offered me a belt to hold them up. Gus picked out a pair of jeans. She was tucking Howard’s T-shirt into the waist when she spotted a jean jacket. It reminded her of one she used to wear when she was
young, so she bought it.
We walked down the street and got pancakes at Gus’s Family Restaurant. We ate there at least once every summer. We sat in our usual booth. I remember the first time Howard saw the sign out front, he stopped the car and pointed.
“Gus, look, it’s your place,” he’d said with a laugh.
Tears ran down his cheeks he was laughing so hard. The car behind us started honking. Gus didn’t get why he found it so funny, but Howard’s funny bone was easily tickled. From then on, anytime it rained, he would say, How about we head on over to Gus’s, Gus? Then we’d drive into town for pancakes and bacon. Most campers didn’t, but I loved rainy mornings.
But this morning everything was different. The sky was as blue as a robin’s egg and the sun was so bright it hurt my eyes. And Howard wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t with us. We ate without talking. When we walked out of the restaurant, Gus finally called his parents. I’d been wondering why she hadn’t done it last night, but I didn’t ask. Gus did things her way, in her own time. I think maybe she was afraid that he might be there and she didn’t know why or what she’d done wrong.
But he wasn’t there.
His father, Kirk, drove into town right away to pick us up. He took us to their place in Cherry Valley about a ten-minute drive from Picton. Howard’s mother, Vivi, busied herself getting rooms ready for us. She fussed over me, made peach cobbler, let me play around on her piano, and when night came, she started knitting and humming to herself. She reminded me of a hummingbird hovering and twitching.
We were all in it together at first, united by worry and hope and love. They insisted that we stay with them until he was found, like it was only a matter of time. After a while, time was all we had. Days went by. Then weeks. When the school year started, I was enrolled at Marysburgh Public down the road. Gus spent her days driving around the county. Kirk and Vivi helped when they could, but the winery kept them busy. After months of searching and asking questions and handing out flyers and posting missing person signs and coming up with theories and tracking leads and arguing about what to do next, everyone was exhausted and sad and angry and lost. Vivi cried at the drop of a hat, which made me cry. She didn’t like that Gus
never shed a tear. But Gus didn’t have time for tears. She didn’t want them blurring her vision. Vivi thought she was coldhearted.
Summer turned to fall, then winter, then spring. And as warmer weather came, a chill set in. There was no more peach cobbler. Vivi and Gus barely spoke except through Kirk or me. Pretty soon, we all stopped talking. In that silence, a space opened up. At first, blame filled it. Then an ice-cold emptiness seeped in. Kirk tried to warm things up with lame jokes or predictions about the unseasonably hot weather. But in the end, he sided with his wife. It was time for us to go. We’d been living at the winery for almost a year. They’d been patient and generous, but they couldn’t do it anymore. They said they had a business to run.
I knew the real reason they wanted us to go. ...
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