Northward to the Moon (9 page)

“Dad died?”

“You haven’t exactly been in touch, have you?”

“Wow, Dad died,” says Ned, and sits down right there on the steps.

“Well, John doesn’t think so. He thinks that your
father just decided to disappear on a more permanent basis. He thinks he’s in Alaska somewhere and didn’t want to leave a trail so he faked his own death.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Well, there wasn’t a body, Neddie. He left a suicide note saying he was going to drown himself in the Fraser River and even though they never found his body the police said they had no reason to doubt him so they probated his estate—is that the word I want?—and I got it all and so I wasn’t going to argue.”

“Oh jeez, why disappear? He was never in contact with anyone anyway.”

“ ’Cause that’s what people in this family like to do, Ned. Look at you. Look at John. It’s in the blood. Anyhow, John said there was some talk that your dad had a new girlfriend and they staged the disappearance for her sake or something. Said they’re off together in Alaska having a nice ripping old time of it. Hope they freeze their butts off.”

“Mom,” says Ned.

“So there are kids with you,” says Ned’s mom,
looking down for the first time at the four of us. We all have sleep creases on our faces and the boys are wrapped in their blankets. She sighs again. “All right, come in, the lot of you. I’ll make breakfast. Take your shoes off outside.”

“Mom, what’s with the horses?” asks Ned.

“Like I said, Ned, you haven’t been in touch,” says his mother, and disappears inside.

We follow her into the house. In the kitchen we all stand around awkwardly while she goes to the fridge and gets out eggs and bacon. She puts an apron on and silently begins the production of food for seven people. “I don’t know, Neddie, I don’t know what to think about you showing up like this twenty-some years later. When I saw you last you were a boy. Now you look so old.”

“Gee, thanks, Mom,” says Ned.

“I’m Felicity,” says my mother. It’s been hard to know where to jump in through this whole conversation.

“Well, good for you,” says Ned’s mother. “I’m Dorothy.”

“I’m Ned’s wife,” says my mother.

“OH LORDY!” says Dorothy, and leaves the skillet where she has been turning bacon. Her apron is already scatter-shot with grease but she throws her arms around my mother anyway. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Forgive me, dear. I thought you were just another one of the boys’ women. Seems like they’re always bringing them around like lost animals. Last one John brought around wore sequins and I could see she was going to come to no good end. So all these children are yours and Neddie’s? So I’m a grandmother?”

“I had all these children already when Ned married me,” says my mother. “Of course, you can be their grandmother if you like.”

I notice that this doesn’t really answer the question of whether Ned has fathered any of us. But I suppose now would not be the time for my mother to start revealing bloodlines.

“Well, thank you, I believe I’ll take you up on that. Four instantaneous grandkids. And I don’t care what happens to you and Neddie. If you divorce. If you separate. If one of you gets yourself shot or jailed. Don’t matter. These grandkids are
going to be mine forever. That’s that.” She claps her hands together for emphasis.

Her zeal is a little frightening. We all take a step back but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Now, this is worth celebrating. Never mind eggs, let’s have PANCAKES!”

“Yay!” says Hershel.

“Yay!” says Max.

“Want to see the Viking bone?” asks Hershel. I think the idea of celebrating with cake, even pancakes, reminds him of the first time Ned brought out the Viking bone. When we were having cupcakes on the beach in Massachusetts.

“Maybe later, dear,” says Ned’s mom. “Now, I want you all to call me Dorothy, okay? You can even call me Grandma Dorothy.”

“Nobody had children?” asks Ned.

“Not a one,” says Dorothy.

“Not even the girls?”

“Feh.” Dorothy spits in the direction of the sink. “I don’t know where things went wrong with this family but no one seems to have the slightest interest in procreating. Okay, boys, you can take turns stirring this batter. And you”—
she points at me—“what did you say your name was?”

“Jane,” I say.

“Good name. Like a plain name. And the other one?” She points at Maya, who pulls her blanket closer so it is almost over her face.

“Maya,” I say.

“Yeah, you two reach up on those shelves and set the table. Now that we’re family we can all pitch in. Isn’t this cozy?”

My mother has already grabbed a spare apron off a nail by the stove and is turning bacon and scrambling eggs. Soon we have everything on the table, the enticing smells of fried foods and maple syrup enveloping the warm farm kitchen.

“Now,” says Dorothy when we all sit down. “What’s this about John?”

“Aterlay, Mom,” says Ned.

“That’s ‘later’ in Pig Latin,” says Maya to Dorothy.

“Abokabay,” says Dorothy.

Maya furrows her brow. “That’s not Pig Latin,” she says.

“It’s Abenglabish,” says Dorothy. “You put ‘ab’ at the beginning of the word and between syllables.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” says Maya.

“Who cares?” says Dorothy. “Have some more pancakes.”

Maya frowns at Dorothy even harder. No one has ever talked to Maya this way. Particularly when she has on her fierce face, as she does right now. She doesn’t seem to know how to deal with it. The best she can do is glare menacingly and when this has no effect she shrugs and takes more pancakes.

After we eat, everyone helps to clean things up except Max and Hershel, who want to know if they can go out and pet the horses. Dorothy says that is fine but they must get one of the young men out there to go with them. She says there’s Ben and Leeron and Hank.

“You girls want to go too?” asks Dorothy.

“I don’t like horses,” says Maya, although as far as I know she has never been around one before. “Do you have a television?”

“Up in my bedroom,” says Dorothy.

“MAYA!” I say. “At ten o’clock in the
morning?”

But Maya runs upstairs.

“Okay, Mom,” says Ned. “I got a duffel bag of
money in the car. John left it up with the Carriers in B.C. If I leave it with you, you can give it to him next time you see him.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. I expect I’ve seen the last of him for a while, now that I won’t let him launder his money here anymore. I said I’d take his money once but no more.”

“Do you know for sure he was laundering it?” asks Ned.

“What do you mean laundering the money?” I ask him.

“It means that John sort of hides the illegal way he got the money by giving it to my mother to buy a ranch. People lose track of the money and then when my mother sells the ranch, if she does, she can just give John a gift of the money and no one suspects it was his in the first place.”

“That’s confusing,” I say.

“It’s meant to be,” says Ned. “That’s how people hide money—by confusing everyone.”

“Well, how did he get it illegally to begin with?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Do you know, Mom?” asks Ned.

“Gosh no,” says Dorothy. “I don’t even know for sure that it is illegal. John says it isn’t. He says he won it gambling.”

“But you don’t believe him?” asks Ned.

“If he won it gambling, why not just put it in the bank?” asks Dorothy.

“Exactly,” says Ned. “Which is why I went to Las Vegas to give it back to him. I don’t want a bag of illegal money.”

“Well, I was willing to give John and his money the benefit of the doubt the first time. People do win big sometimes. But if he’s dropping bags of the stuff in the woods, then I think we gotta think the worst. So how’d you find me if you couldn’t find John?”

“I ran into his magic assistant,” says Ned.

“Oh, Miss Sequins,” says Dorothy.

“Right. She told me.”

“I’m surprised she remembered. She didn’t strike me as real smart.”

“Well, no,” says Ned.

“Anyhow, let’s talk of happier things. So, I take it you’ll be spending the summer here,” says Dorothy. “Let me get to know my grandchildren.”

“When have you ever been interested in children?” asks Ned, gnawing on some bacon.

“We’re family,” says Dorothy.

“You don’t even know where any of us live.”

“Well, you boys may make a point of disappearing but I’ll have you know I get Christmas cards regular from the girls. I don’t know why you say such things.”

“You didn’t know our whereabouts when we were growing up,” says Ned.

“I did too!” says Dorothy.

“Nelda took off for six weeks once when she was thirteen and you didn’t do anything about it until the social worker came by.”

“Well, you can’t keep track of everyone all the time, Neddie.”

“And Maureen took the bus all the way to the Maritimes the summer she was fifteen and you didn’t even ask her what she wanted to do there.”

“I assumed she wanted to see the Maritimes!”

“Didn’t it occur to you it was a little dangerous, a girl that age traveling alone with hardly any money?”

“Well, life’s a dangerous business, Neddie. I expect you know that by now. You can’t really keep anyone safe. So how about it? Stay here. I bet the boys would love a summer on a real horse ranch.”

“Naw, we’re heading back to Massachusetts, Mom,” says Ned. “Maybe we’ll spend a day or two to rest up. I don’t know what to do about the money.”

“Well, me either,” says Dorothy. “How about we take it to the sheriff and tell him we found it by the side of the road?”

“They’d still want to know where we got it. Then they’d start investigating us. I think it’s asking for trouble. Besides, suppose, and I know this is unlikely, but just
suppose
we’re wrong and John earned it legitimately? What if he’s become one of those people who don’t trust banks and want to hide their money in their mattress or something?”

“I’ll tell you what I think about that,” says Dorothy. “People who got their money legit want to hide it in their mattresses. People who didn’t get their money legit want to hide it in other people’s
mattresses. What I think I got here, in this ranch, is a mattress full of someone else’s money.”

We all go out and sit on the porch and rock in rocking chairs and on the porch swing.

“Well, we’ve got a little time to think about how to handle the money,” says my mother.

“Sure you do,” says Dorothy. “Look at that red-tailed hawk, Felicity. My, my. I do like the red-tailed hawks. You got as much time as you want. Stay and work on that novel, Ned.”

“What novel?” asks Ned, his eyes working back and forth. He is starting to pick up the pace of his rocking.

“That novel you said you were always going to write,” says Dorothy. She’s rocking slow and easy now with a little smug smile on her face.

“That was years ago,” says Ned, really working the rocker now.

“Ned writes pieces for CBC. That’s the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He writes essays about all kinds of things, and travelogues,” I pipe up.

“Really? People pay for that?” asks Dorothy.

“Yes,” says Ned.

“Well, wouldn’t you like to do some real writing
instead of that fluff?” asks Dorothy. “And now you can. It’s lonely here on the ranch, you know, with just Ben and the boys coming to help out. Nothing but a lot of tumbleweed.”

“So move into town,” says Ned. His rocker slows down, hers speeds up.

“I like horses,” says Dorothy. “I’m staying put. Easier for you all just to stay here.”

Ned starts rocking more quickly. “I already said we can’t.”

“I didn’t hear from Felicity,” says Dorothy. But she doesn’t turn to my mother, she’s still looking at Ned.

“It’s Felicity’s house we’re going back to,” says Ned. “Of course she wants to go home. Nobody in their right mind would want to stay in Nevada.”

Dorothy rocks faster. Ned slows down. Then Dorothy slows down a little.

“Foolish,” she says. “Well, if I can’t convince you, I can’t. No one could ever convince you to do anything you didn’t intend to do in the first place. So, come on, Jane. I’m going out to ride Satan and you can watch.”

Frankly, I’m surprised she gave in so quickly;
things seemed to be building to a great explosive logjam and then, pffff, nothing.

“Sure,” I say politely.

“Ben!” she calls in the direction of the stable. “Saddle up Satan, I’m going to show Jane how to ride.”

“You don’t want to do that, Mrs. N!” calls a voice. A young man emerges from the barn. He’s short and muscular and lithe. “He’s in a mood today.”

“I don’t care,” she says. “I’ll knock some sense into him. Come on, Jane, gotta get my riding boots on, they’re in the tack room.”

“I never envisioned your mother as a cowgirl,” says my mother to Ned as we leave the porch.

“A real Annie Oakley. You know she’s got a shotgun in the china cupboard? I saw it when I put the platter away.”

“Not loaded, I hope,” says my mother.

“Don’t worry, Felicity,” calls Dorothy over her shoulder. “I keep the shells up top of the cupboard where kids can’t reach, and the shotgun’s never loaded. But I like knowing it’s there.”

I follow her into the tack room and she changes
into riding boots. “Satan was my first horse. I knew nothing about buying horses in those days and just got him because he’s a magnificent-looking beast. But he’s a stallion and he’s mean. I should’ve known better than to buy a male. Never had any luck with males. Ben thinks I should set him free. He says horses like that ought never to be kept.”

“Huh,” I say, because I have no idea really what she is talking about. She seems full of opinions, not the way I pictured her when Ned described how she was kind of vacant after his dad left. I thought she was going to be one of those hollow long-suffering women with dark haunted eyes and a victimish manner. Instead she seems perfectly capable of taking care of herself and getting what she wants.

We go to the riding ring, where Ben is holding the reins of a huge black snorting beast.

“You see what I mean?” asks Dorothy, mounting him. “You stay outside the ring, Jane. You too, Ben. He’s meaner than a snake today.”