Finding Home (19 page)

“Tell her what else you do, Walter.”

But he just grinned and reached for a
cookie.

“Oh, he’s so humble,” Vera said. She poured
more tea, her liver-spotted hands shaking slightly. “I’ll just have
to tell you myself. He visits.”

“Visits?”

“Oh yes! Three nights a week and on weekends
too.”

Walter poured some slopped tea from his
saucer back into his cup. “Seems there’s a lot of folks we know
ending up in hospital these days,” he said. “Getting on, all our
old friends are. Need cheering up now and again.”

“But he visits others too, Lucy. Not just
people we know. Tell her, Walter.”

“Well, there’s some that don’t have any
friends or relatives, so I drop in on them, have a game of cards or
checkers.

“How kind!” I bit into a cookie. The
after-school taste made me think of Gordon Clark and West Grove
High, and then of Nick and how I’d avoided him. How strange that
after all these years I should be sitting here in the Wembles’
kitchen, pregnant with his child, pretending to be married to
him.

“Funny thing is,” Walter said, “some of them
forget they didn’t know me before.” He chuckled, took another
cookie. “Then they start calling me by their brother’s or their
uncle’s name, thinking that must be who I am.”

“And there’s more,” Vera said. “He goes to
their funerals too, just so someone will be there.”

“Walter! That can’t be much fun.”

“He’s just so dedicated!” Vera clasped her
hands as if about to pray, or burst into song, which would be a
hymn, of course. “But let’s not talk about funerals. Tell me Lucy,
are you looking for a boy or a girl?”

I almost choked. How dense of me not to have
anticipated this question. “Oh, well, um, I guess I don’t really
care, just as long as the baby’s healthy and normal.”

“That’s a good plan, dear. Then you won’t be
disappointed, either way.” Vera added hot water to the pot, then
smoothed the cover back into place, a gesture so familiar I felt I
might start to cry. How cruel I was being, leading them into
thinking they would have a grandchild, just to fulfill my own
needs.

“Yep, boy or girl, we won’t care,” Walter
said.

“I can’t wait to start knitting,” Vera said
happily. “Millie Gleason has the sweetest patterns – bonnets and
booties and the dearest little sweaters. She’s got seven
grandchildren, you see. You remember Millie, don’t you Lucy?”

“Yes, of course.” I tried to smile. I’d
rather not have remembered Millie, Vera’s closest friend, another
faithful member of the U.C.W. She was a pious woman with doughy
arms whose righteous children I couldn’t stand when I’d met them at
church or youth group.

“Well, her oldest daughter, Lydia, you’d know
her of course, she still sings in the choir and she’s president of
the U.C.W. now. Well, she has three boys, and the next daughter,
that’s Sarah, she has two girls, and, well, why don’t you come
along tonight Lucy, it’s euchre and dessert, and Lydia will be
there, she’d be so happy to see you.”

“Thanks, Vera, but I really couldn’t. I’m far
too sleepy in the evenings to go out.” I yawned widely, to prove my
point. “Sorry, but I just can’t seem to stay awake much past eight
o’clock.”

“Well, if you change you mind ... but anyway,
what do you think, should I start with yellow or green?”

“What?”

“For the sweater sets. Yellow or green?
They’re the best colors, good for a boy or a girl. Or maybe you’d
prefer white, that can be nice too, especially with pretty colored
ribbons.” Vera sighed, her fingers twitching as if she were already
working the needles. “But then white is so hard to keep clean on a
little one, isn’t it, dear.”

Walter picked up his newspaper and started to
read.

“Just make whatever you like, Vera. I’ll be
thrilled with anything, any color, you know that. So you have the
fun of choosing.” Guilt threatened to overwhelm me then, but I told
myself, Vera likes to knit, she’s been waiting ages to make baby
clothes, why deny her the pleasure? She wants the doing of it more
than anything. Worry about what to tell her later.

That whole first day in Middleford I absorbed
the peaceful ordinariness, the calm, secure feeling of being with
the Wembles, as if I were a dried out sponge. In the evening we
watched TV, and I felt as comfortable and cared for as I had all
those years ago. For the Wembles life was simple: have a strong
faith in God and use one’s time and energy in good works. Go to
church, visit the sick, help the poor, spread good will. Their
belief that whatever happens is meant to be, that attempts to
understand fate are useless, restored me.

On my second day I set out after a lunch for
a long walk. The dreary February weather cleared like a bursting
bubble, scattering clouds in ragged wisps across a sky of lusty
spring blue. The temperature rose, and a warm wind teased the bare
trees with fresh green promises. Vera had insisted I wear my heavy
wool cape, but it suffocated me and I let it fly open and flap
about me like wings.

I didn’t want to walk in Greenham Heights –
the area reminded me too much of my repressed teenage years.
Instead I headed downtown. I wanted to see my old group home, which
had been fondly called the Castle by the kids who lived there. As I
sauntered along, memories of my childhood rushed to fill my
mind.

Except for the Wembles, my foster home
placements had always ended in disaster. Apparently I was a colicky
baby, a tyrannical toddler, a bossy and willful child. A
bad
child. Anyone could tell that I wasn’t normal just by looking at my
mismatched eyes, some foster parents even claimed. And besides, I’d
helped myself to a foster mother’s lipstick and used it to crayon
my name on her walls. I’d spent my bus fare on soda and fries
instead of going to my piano lesson. I’d shoplifted – a tiny blue
notebook for phone numbers, a red chiffon scarf, a rhinestone ring
- not even anything I needed! How evil I was! How ungrateful!

“You’ve got to try harder to behave,” the
Castle staff would say, as they made up a bed for me yet again.

“But I didn’t like that family, and they
didn’t like me.”

“Nonsense. Of course they liked you, they
just didn’t like what you did.”

But I knew better. It wasn’t really a matter
of like or dislike. In the end it all came down to my not being
grateful. Some foster parents took me out of pity, some just for
the board money, but they all expected me to be grateful. Which I
wasn’t, because they weren’t. The Wembles were the first foster
parents ever to seem glad to have me, to be pleased with me just
for myself.

And so, before the Wembles, I’d always made
sure I got sent back to the Castle right away. Eventually my
workers gave up trying to place me. That suited me just fine. At
the group home none of the other kids had parents they could live
with either, for whatever reason. We made our own family. I wasn’t
particularly attached to any staff, as they came and went with a
high burnout rate. It was the place itself and the other kids that
made the Castle home.

I might have stayed a Castle kid until I
turned eighteen, if it hadn’t been for Nick. Whose child I was now
carrying. As I crossed the bridge over the Richmond River, my steps
grew quicker and quicker. And there, high on the hill above the
river park, just as I remembered it, stood the Castle.

It was surrounded by urban shops and
restaurants that hadn’t existed in my time, but the house itself
looked just the same. A three-storey, century mansion of
yellow-brick, once part of a private estate, it had been converted
in the early 1970s to accommodate kids like me. How I had loved the
oak staircases and leaded windows and turrets. No wonder I found
Malagash so appealing. Funny, until seeing the Castle again, I
hadn’t really made that connection. But now it struck me how
similar the two houses were, not so much in features as in
feeling.

From the look of things, the Castle was still
a group home. A sign on the double driveway warned:
Staff
Parking Only
. A couple of teenage kids with scruffy clothes and
dyed hair sat on the wide front verandah, smoking. I watched from
the street as an obviously pregnant girl with multiple piercings
flounced out the door and down the steps.

As we passed on the sidewalk we eyed each
other. Besides all the hardware she had a spider tattooed on one
cheek. What shocked me though was how young she was. But I smiled,
not wanting her to think I judged her in any way. So she was a
child having a child – what was I? Was a surrogate mother any
better?

I wondered if she’d keep her baby and decided
she probably would. She looked proud of her pregnancy. The way she
walked said loud and clear:
Fuck you, this is my body and my
baby
. She wasn’t ashamed, as I had been that first time I got
pregnant. But I could also tell from her eyes that she felt alone.
And scared. Just like me.

Behind the Castle a small woods still covered
the hillside above the river. I followed the public path down into
the trees. Once I’d known this park by heart, the way I now knew
the land around the lodge. As a kid I’d spent hours playing hide
and seek and building forts here. The path led to wooden steps
providing access to the flats below. I climbed down, slowly and
carefully so as not to slip, feeling like I was going back in
time.

I rested half-way down. Before high school
I’d also spent a lot of time here on the landing. It was a natural
gathering spot for kids, a meeting place away from adult eyes. A
first cigarette, a first kiss place. Now I looked up and down the
railing, searching for a carving I’d made with the little
jack-knife I always carried.

Layers of dark gray paint had been applied,
but the letters could still be seen. I traced the initials with my
fingertip.
L.S. & N.T.
I’d encircled them with a
lopsided heart.

Nick Talbot. My first real boyfriend. I could
picture him lurking in the woods with his long hair and flared
jeans, showing little kids how to start a leaf fire with a
magnifying glass, smashing beer bottles with stones. Because he so
often hung around the Castle we’d always been friends. I’d watched
him for years with the older girls. But the year I was fourteen we
started going together. Which meant we’d share a joint and talk for
hours in the dusky April evenings here on the landing, the air
heavy with the scent of pot and spring.

Nick wanted to know all about living at the
Castle. He hated living with his alcoholic father. His parents had
married at sixteen because his mother was pregnant and then she’d
run off when he was three. His father blamed Nick. He also blamed
him for his drinking and unemployment and whatever else was wrong
with the world. But mostly he just beat him up.

I’d felt so sorry for Nick. Abuse was not
something I’d had to deal with. Nobody loved me or wanted me, but
at least nobody had physically hurt me. I wanted to make everything
better for him, to kiss his pain away.

And kiss we did. First just in the privacy of
the woods, then as spring warmed into summer, Nick begged to come
to my room. But I shared with a girl called Brandi, who also had a
crush on Nick. No way was she going to get lost so we could make
out. Finally, to be alone, Nick and I skipped school one day in
late June. We’d planned it for a time when we knew the Castle staff
would be at a closed meeting in the office off the dining room.

We sneaked upstairs easily. My room was on
the third floor at the back of the house, with a sloped ceiling and
a gabled window. Brandi’s rock star posters covered the walls. We
sat on my narrow bed and started to kiss. It felt different from
being down on the landing or in the woods, almost as if we’d passed
into some other time and place. From the open window a balmy breeze
blew over us like a blessing.

Soon Nick pulled off his T-shirt. His
shoulders were broad already, the hair on his arms and chest
golden. I’d dressed for the occasion in a patched denim vest,
skimpy T-shirt and cutoffs, which I slowly slipped out of. And then
we were somehow lying down together, kissing and touching all
over.

But Brandi must have figured out our plan,
because just before things went too far, staff came barging in.
Nick was forbidden to come near the Castle and I was grounded for
inappropriate behavior. By the end of the week they’d found a new
placement for me. With no say in the matter, I was shipped off to
live with the Wembles.

I’d been dead set against the move, but after
a few days I changed my mind. I’d never lived in a foster home
without other children. The Wembles, who’d given up trying to have
a baby, really wanted me. They acted like they felt privileged to
have me. They doted. They indulged. I had lovely clothes sewn by
Vera or chosen with care from a department store downtown. I had an
allowance. I had a room of my own.

I wanted to stay.

And so for once I really tried to make things
work. The time with Nick had frightened me. I’d been helpless. I’d
given myself up to him completely. I knew if I was with him again
I’d do anything he asked. And I didn’t want to end up like I
imagined my mother had. Living with the Wembles I was safe, back in
control.

The Wembles wanted me to attend the school in
their area, West Grove High. Nick and all the Castle kids went to
the technical high school downtown, where I’d been registered in a
business program. But the Wembles insisted I take the academic
route. They dreamed of sending me to college. I agreed to try.

I didn’t know anybody at West Grove High,
except for Gordon Clark. I’d met him over the summer at a church
youth group the Wembles sent me to. When we started dating in the
fall of grade nine, I gave up smoking and swearing, began to do
homework and study. For the first time in my life, I fit in. Only
with the other geeks, of course. But suddenly the kid from the
Castle was smart, popular and respectable.