Escape Velocity (13 page)

Once Zoe has gone to bed, I pull the file out from beneath my mattress and lay it on my bed. I want to race through it, to see what is there, but I force myself to go slowly and examine everything, being careful to keep it all in the right order. A small faded color photograph: two children, both blond, a boy and a girl. Another picture, this one black-and-white: a young woman with long fair hair, holding a baby. There is a Christmas tree in the background. At first I think it is Zoe, with me, but this baby isn't a newborn. I study the picture and turn it over. Neatly inked on the back is the date:
Christmas
1975.

So the baby could be Zoe. With her mother, Heather. I study the woman's face. She is smiling, pretty, young. Maybe twenty or so, not much more than that. She doesn't look much like the clapping woman at the reading, but I can see that it's her.

I wonder what went wrong.

Another picture, this one a school class photo. A sign at the front of the group says
Fessenden Elementary School, Grade Three, 1983
. I scan the rows of children and pick out a small blond girl in the front row who could be Zoe. She's smiling, but her smile looks tense and forced. I try not to read too much into that. Half the kids in the picture have the same unnatural grimace. Maybe they were all saying “Cheese.”

Under the class photo is a letter. I pick it up and try to read it, but the ink is faded. I skip to the end to see who it is from: Garland. My father. I didn't recognize his writing; I guess it used to be a lot neater. My hands are shaking a little as I move the letter under the bright bedside light and start piecing together the sentences.

Dear Zoe,

I know you said you didn't want to hear from me but… something something…should know that the baby is doing well. I named her Lou, and she is a beautiful girl. She is only…I think it says five months…can sit up all on her own. Lots of smiles. I miss you like crazy and still hope you will change your mind. I guess you will be graduating in a few weeks. Congratulations. What are your plans? At least let me know your new address when you move off campus. I'm sending a photo of Lou so you can see for yourself how sweet she is.

Love,
Garland

There's no baby picture of me. Maybe she didn't even keep it. And I bet she never wrote back.

I place the letter back in the file and pick up a newspaper clipping. It's a newspaper article.

LOCAL TEEN DEAD AFTER DRUNK
DRIVING ACCIDENT

A local teenager is dead and two others seriously injured
after their vehicle crashed into a hydro pole on Jerseyville
Road
.
According to friends, the trio had been at a party and
were on their way home. The driver of the vehicle, seventeen-year-
old Thomas Jonathan Summers, was pronounced dead
at the scene. Two other teens, whose names have not been
released, remain in hospital in serious condition. Police say
that alcohol and excessive speed may have been factors in
the collision.

The article has been cut from the middle of a page, so I can't tell when it is from. But if the driver was a Summers, he must have been a relative. I've always thought Zoe was an only child, like me. I'm sure that's what Dad told me. I look back at the first photograph in the pile. The two blond children, the girl maybe four or five and the boy still a toddler, round-faced and pudgy.

I look at the photograph for a long time, but the pieces stubbornly refuse to fall into place. I am more confused than ever. Finally I slide the photograph back into its place in the file, turn over the newspaper clipping and flip through to see what else is in the file. Another photograph, this one of a family I don't recognize. A bearded man; a heavy woman in a brown flowered dress and one of those stiff-looking eighties hairstyles; five children, ranging in age from toddlers to teens. I turn it over, but there is nothing written on the back except a year:
1989
. Zoe would have been fourteen or fifteen. I look at the photograph again. The oldest is a girl, her hair as blond as Zoe's but curly, her face unsmiling and partially turned away from the camera so only one heavily made-up eye is visible. It doesn't look like Zoe, but I suppose it could be her. The age is about right. There is a blond boy, maybe a couple of years younger, his hair long and his expression sullen; and three younger children, one in the woman's arms. If the girl is Zoe, who are the others?

I look to see what else is in the file, but there isn't much. A series of postcards, all in my dad's handwriting. It looks like he sent one every time we moved, making sure Zoe always had our current address. The early ones include a few sentences:
Lou just started kindergarten and
she can already read
;
Lou is eight now and swims like a fish
;
Lou won a prize at the science fair.
They get shorter and shorter, the most recent ones just a signed card with the change of address on it. Then one from three years ago:
Lou has had a lot of questions about you lately and I really
think it would help if she could meet you. Please think about
it, Zoe. It'd mean a lot to her.

That must have been when she got in touch. I had always wondered why she decided to, after all those years of no contact at all. Still, it surprises me. From what I've seen, Zoe's decisions aren't usually influenced by other people's needs. I stare at the file, leaf through the pages again, but that's it. There's nothing else in there. I roll onto my back and stare at the oil-spill painting on the wall. None of this makes sense. None of it explains my mother, why she left me, why she won't talk about the past.

Every little clue leaves me with more questions.

Fifteen

T
he next day, I ask Zoe if I can stay home in case Dad calls, but she says no.

“Sitting around here worrying isn't going to help you or him,” she tells me. “You can call him after school.”

“Will you be home?”

She shakes her head. “I'm meeting someone for coffee this morning. A man I met at Brian and Richard's place.”

“Oh.” A new boyfriend, I guess. I can tell by the way her eyes linger on my face that she wants me to ask about him, but I don't care.

“He's a writer,” she volunteers. “A journalist. Simon. Nice name, isn't it?”

“Uh-huh.”

She sighs. “What about that boyfriend of yours? Tom? Have you heard from him lately?”

I shake my head, tired of the lie. “We split up.” I shrug. “By email. I guess, you know, me being away and all. I don't know.”

“Men,” Zoe says knowingly. Like we're bonding. “Is that why you seemed so tense last night?”

My father just had bypass surgery, and she thinks I'd care about some boy dumping me? She is insane. “Not really,” I say. I pick up my backpack and sling it over my shoulder. “I have to go or I'll be late.”

Zoe wouldn't even know if I skipped school, but it's cold and raining and I don't know what else to do so I end up going anyway. I'm at my locker, hanging up my wet jacket and thinking that the corridor smells like feet, when I hear my name.

It's Justine, all in black again, except for her earrings: two red plastic dinosaurs. I tell her I like them. “You know, in Drumheller, we have these dinosaurs on all the street corners? Like, made of fiberglass or something, all painted?”

She nods. “Victoria has whales. Orcas.”

“Huh.”

A silence. Then she clears her throat. “Did you find that woman you were looking for?”

I shake my head. “I got a name though. Heather. Heather Summers.”

“Well, that helps.”

“Yeah. It's something, I guess.”

She hesitates.

“What?”

“You want me to help you look for her?”

“Why? I mean, why would you want to?”
What's in it
for you?
is what I mean, but I don't want to sound rude or ungrateful.

She shrugs. “Something to do.”

“Well, I guess you can.” I look at her. “I don't have much to go on.”

“Come over to my place,” she says. “I bet the staff will know some places you could try. They pretty much think they know everything.”

“Now? Won't they care if you skip classes?”

She shrugs. “It's not really that kind of place.”

Justine's group home looks like an ordinary house from outside, but as soon as we are through the front door, I can tell that it isn't. Too much furniture, for one thing. The living room is a large square space with three couches and a bunch of chairs, and the furniture is all pushed back against the walls in a totally institutional way. Plus the pictures on the walls are all matching and generic, like in a hotel room or hospital, and there's no personal stuff anywhere.

I follow Justine up to her room. It's tidy and bare-walled with two single beds, two dressers, a low shelf, a bulletin board. She gestures to the bed closest to the door. “That's mine.”

“And the other?”

“My roommate. She's hardly ever here though. She'll probably get kicked out soon.” Justine dumps her bag on her bed. “Nicole's on the evening shift today. She's one of the youth workers. Ms. Been There, Done That. She drives me crazy, but she'll be the perfect person for you to talk to. She can't ever resist a chance to show off how much she knows.”

I follow Justine back down the stairs and into the small office where Nicole is typing away on an ancient computer. Justine introduces me, and Nicole closes whatever she was working on. She has long dark hair, acne-scarred cheeks, a pierced nose and too much makeup. And Justine is right: she loves to talk.

“I lived on the streets in Vancouver for years,” she says. “Justine probably told you.”

“Mmm,” I say, noncommittally.

“Let me tell you, Victoria's like Disneyland compared to that. I'm always telling the girls, if I can get out, so can you.” She nods. “Right, Justine?”

“Lou's looking for her grandmother,” Justine says. “We thought you might have some ideas.”

Nicole turns to me. “Your grandmother?”

“Yeah. I think she's maybe homeless, but I don't really know.”

“How old?”

“Maybe fifty or sixty?”

Nicole purses her lips thoughtfully. “Do you have a picture of her?”

“No. Not a recent one anyway.”

“There's a lot of lodging houses, you know. Boardinghouses, that sort of thing. You could try some of those.” She shrugs. “She have a drug problem?”

“No idea. I don't really know much about her.” I wonder if it is as simple as that. Maybe my mother doesn't want her around because she's a meth-head. Maybe she's even trying to protect me. But if that's it, why wouldn't she tell me? Anyway, Dad used to have a couple of friends who were junkies. It's not like I was going to start shooting up just because I knew some addicts. The opposite, really. I don't even like to take Tylenol when I have cramps. Nicole picks up a pen and starts writing down some names. It takes ages because she stops and free-associates about five stories for every place she tells us about. Justine catches my eye and winks. I try not to laugh.

“There you go,” Nicole says. She hands me the paper and pats my arm. “You know, she could be couch surfing, or living in her car, or on the streets. You're looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I know.”

“Stay out of trouble.”

Back in Justine's room, I sit down on the edge of her bed and make a face. “That wasn't exactly encouraging.”

She shrugs. “What've you got to lose?”

“Nothing, I guess.” I take the cell phone she holds out and start dialing the number for the first place on the list, Bedford Manor. “Wish me luck then.”

“Good luck.”

A woman answers on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

“Hi. I'm calling to talk to someone who might be living there.”