Olivia's Mine (34 page)

“Frank,” she cried. As drunk as he had been,
she knew he would not have awoken until it was too late, if at all.
“Oh God, no,” she screamed. “Frank!”

Sister Anne made her way over to her.

Olivia’s eyes were glued to the horror. She
watched her house flowing piece by piece into Howe Sound. She saw
the quilt that Frank had given her, which she had washed and hung
out on the line to dry, being carried out to the waters. She
wondered where Frank was and kept looking for some sign that he was
alive.

Anne turned her gently away from the
view.

“Why?” Olivia wailed.

There were some things, Sister Anne admitted,
that God did not provide an answer for.

Jimmy Yada noticed a small child in the
sound, hanging onto what had probably been the park picnic table,
afloat in the water. He ran from the roof.

“Jimmy!” Akiko yelled, “You get back
here!”

Jimmy sensed the worst of the flood was over.
It had happened in a flash, but now the waters were slowing. Within
seconds he was out on the street running towards the ocean. As he
swam out into Howe Sound and grabbed the little boy, he passed the
floating body of his friend old Mr. Li. He was face down in the
water, and Jimmy knew instantly Mr. Li’s time on earth was over.
Jimmy brought the boy back to the beach and safety. As he gave the
toddler back to his panic-stricken mother, he turned to the waters
once more.

“I can’t leave him out there,” Jimmy said to
himself, and wadded through the now shallow area where his friend
had drifted. By this time, Yan, who had been on top of the roof,
spotted Jimmy and his grandfather. His heart sank as he realized
his grandfather was dead. He went to the waters to help bring them
both back.

It was later estimated that the wall of water
had been from three to five feet in depth and over seventy feet in
width. Everything in its path had been taken with it into the salt
waters of the ocean.

Lara cried into her father’s arms, unable to
look into the street.

“It’s over,” McMichael said. “It’s all over
now.” He could see Christina waving at them from atop the community
hall. He said a silent prayer of thanks.

The young doctor, still confused, came down
from the tree and started tending to the injured.

He went over to Yan and took his
grandfather’s pulse.

“He’s gone,” he confirmed.

Yan broke down and cried. Jimmy looked
silently on.

“I need your help,” the doctor said.

“I know what to do,” Jimmy replied.

“Good,” said Alex, still shaken from his
ordeal. “Because I don’t.”

The flood had knocked out the power lines,
throwing the lower town into darkness, making rescue attempts
difficult. People started making their way slowly into the
street.

Christina, unable to find her boyfriend the
doctor, ran up to her home where McMichael was waiting for her. She
ran into his available arm, her sister refusing to leave her
father’s side.

“I am never getting married here,” Christina
said.

McMichael thought that would be just
fine.

Still up on the rooftop of the community
hall, Lucy began to cry as she noticed the Northern Mary, her stern
having been ripped apart by the force of houses crashing into
it.

“Frenchie!” Lucy screamed, fearing the worst.
She had not seen him at the wedding.

“God please,” Lucy begged. “Not
Frenchie.”

And then she remembered, Maggie had said she
was going to take care of Olivia’s little brother.

“Oh please,” she begged, “not the child. Not
again.”

Lucy turned around looking for Grace. She
found her. Daniel was in her arms, safe and sound. He had been
quite well behaved at the wedding and Grace had told Maggie it
would be okay if he stayed, but thanked her for her generous offer.
And then Frenchie and Maggie had left the reception.

“We’re gettin’ too old fer this,” he had
said, and Lucy had laughed in his face.

“Sur la pont, D’Avignon,” she had sung,
taunting him.

Jason held his new wife tightly as he looked
down the street from the rooftop. The movie theatre stood alone,
undamaged. He knew deep inside, that if the movies had been
running, at nine o’clock when the flood happened, many lives would
have been saved. Saturday night was always their busiest night of
the week. But of course it had been closed for the wedding. He
couldn’t help thinking that the flood had been selective in its
destruction, much like a tornado would have been. While the bar and
the general store were now demolished, Olivia’s store, the
Beachcomber, remained intact. So had the café.

Then as if Mother Nature had decided her game
was over, the rain stopped and an unseasonably warm wind began to
blow in from the south. But not before she had taken the lives of
thirty-seven people and injured several others.

McMichael sniffed the air. The worst was
over.

A week later, McMichael, rising early after
another sleepless night, saw Olivia sitting on the porch of the
Beachcomber as he was heading to the office. He could see she was
crying. There had been a lot of crying in the town since the flood.
But the steadfast community had picked themselves up once again,
and started rebuilding the town site. The mine itself was still
operable, so there was work to be done to help people get their
minds off the tragedy, but they were a long way from healed. A long
way from forgetting.

He brushed some dirt off the step and sat
down beside her.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he
asked her.

“I didn’t even get a chance to give him a
proper funeral,” she said.

Frank’s body had been claimed by the Pacific
ocean. They never found him.

Father O’Donnell had presided over a mass
burial at sea, and Sister Anne had indeed helped him.

McMichael could not find the words to try and
comfort her.

“I’m sure the Lord understands,” he said.

She nodded.

McMichael could see her nose running. He
handed her a handkerchief.

“So what are your plans?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “My family wants me
to come back to Seattle with them, but there’s the store.”

“Jason can look after the store for you,”
McMichael said. “Hell, I can look after the store for you; I don’t
have one anymore.”

Olivia smiled.

“Thank you John. I know you’ve wanted to get
your hands on it, but at least this time you asked,” she laughed.
“If it were just me, I’d stay. I love it here. But I’ve got the
baby on the way.”

“Oh and God forbid you be a single parent
bringing up a baby in this place,” McMichael said. “All these
people around to fuss over it, to love it. Akiko will have it
speaking Japanese before you know it.”

“I know it worked for you John,” she said,
patting his hand. “But I don’t think it’s in the cards for me.”

She hung her head in her hands.

“What am I going to do John?” she asked.

“You’re going to go put those darn overalls
on. You’re going to wear them during your pregnancy because they
were always too big for you anyway. They’ll remind you of Britannia
while you’re back in Seattle with your family. Then maybe one day,
after the baby is born, you’ll come back to Britannia for a visit
and maybe, just maybe, you’ll fall in love all over again.”

“I feel like I’ve aged fifty years since I’ve
been here,” she sighed.

“Yes, you feel like that now, I know. But
give it some time.”

“It’s been one disaster after another.”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it. But
it’s been one miracle after another as well. Lucy and Sarah each
found love. Christina and Lara survived the plague. Jimmy escaped
the fire, and Harry and Yan lived through the cave-in. If you add
them all up, I’m sure there will be more good times than bad. And
in less than a year you’ll have your own little miracle.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to say good-bye
to everyone.”

“Then don’t. Say, see you soon. It’s less
final. Or better yet stay.”

He looked at her for some time, but he knew
in his heart her mind was made up.

June 1924.

The mainsail was coming down on the sailboat
as it approached the dock marked Northern Maggie Charters, at
Britannia Beach.

“Are we there yet Uncle Frenchie?” the little
girl asked. Her curly auburn hair was in ringlets and she wore a
green sweater and light cotton plaid skirt.

“You’re always in such a rush to get places
lassie,” Frenchie said, “you’re worse than your mother is.”

Olivia came out from the cabin.

“It was a wonderful sail Frenchie,” Olivia
said. “It’s a beautiful boat.”

“Well, I’ve got your father to thank for
that. It was a blessing the Mary goin’ down that night. I was
getting too old for it anyway. This charter business, now that’s
the life for a retired married man like myself. Nobody wants to go
out when the weather is bad. It suits me fine.”

On the night of Sarah and Jason’s wedding,
Frenchie had proposed to Maggie. They had snuck off to see the new
house down the road that they were buying, which happened to be
Ruby’s old house. It had lots of rooms for Frenchie’s charter
guests to stay overnight, that’s for sure. And it had been far
enough up the road to be safe from the flood. They had been saved
that night.

“Nervous?” Maggie asked, coming out behind
her.

“A little. It’s been a few years.”

“Nothing’s changed much.”

But it had. Everything was new again.

John McMichael came down the dock to greet
the boat. He noticed the little girl.

“Lucy,” he said, picking her up and swinging
her around. “You’re just as beautiful as your mother.”

Frenchie pulled Olivia aside.

“Are you sure about dis? I can still take you
back.”

“No Frenchie, I’m sure,” she said. “My mother
says he’s nice.”

“And polite,” McMichael said. “She told me
so.”

“And good in a crisis,” Olivia added.

“Not to mention handsome,” he said.

“Of course my father says he’s arrogant.”

“Actually, I said that, if my memory serves
me right.” McMichael said laughing.

In the three years that Olivia had been
living with her family back in Seattle, McMichael had kept finding
excuses to travel down to the States. How he convinced Christina
and Alex to get married down there, she didn’t know. But he had,
and of course the Bowers had been invited.

“My rain check,” he said to her, after the
bride and groom had their first dance.

“I’m sorry?”

“You owe me a dance. I asked you to dance at
your brother’s wedding and you turned me down. I said I’d take a
rain check.”

They danced the night away, laughing and
talking about old times, and when the reception was over, McMichael
went over to William for a quiet little chat.

“I might as well tell you now,” he said, “I’m
going to wait an appropriate amount of time, maybe a week, and then
I’m going to ask Olivia out. And if I get my way, which I usually
do, I’m going to ask her to marry me. I will raise your
granddaughter. I will provide for them both. So get used to the
idea, DAD!”

“Oh really, “ William said. “And you think
I’m going to let you marry my daughter and put her to work? I think
not.”

“Do you really think I’ll have any say in the
matter?”

They laughed. Olivia and her mother joined
them.

“You know, you two are a lot of fun when
you’re away from business,” Olivia said.

“Olivia,” John said, “I’m not quite the
tyrant I’m made out to be. I have the welfare of several hundred
people on my shoulders. I have to make some rules and I have to
enforce them. That doesn’t necessarily mean I have to abide by them
myself, particularly when I’m out of town.”

“Did I mention he was smart?” Grace said.

And here she was again, back at Britannia. As
the smell of new growth Douglas Fir filled her soul, Olivia glanced
around the seaside, her memories reforming.

“That can’t be Jimmy,” Olivia said. She could
see him up the road.

“He’s Jim now. He’s off to University in the
fall. He skipped a grade. He also won a scholarship to the
University of British Columbia. He’s going to be a doctor. I
promised to help him set up a practice here if he still wants to
come back when he’s graduated. I somehow doubt that. That’s his
girlfriend Kim.”

“Kim? What happened to Lara?”

“Well, my daughter two-timed him and he
dumped her. She was heart-broken. I found myself saying to her all
the things I had said to Sarah.”

He tweaked little Lucy on the nose.

“So you just wait little one, I’m ready.”

“There’s Lucy! Your Aunt Lucy!” Olivia
squealed. “And Rudy. And Mark.”

Lucy and Rudy had eloped the summer after
Olivia returned to Seattle in a quiet civil ceremony in
Vancouver.

As she was running the Beachcomber in
Olivia’s absence, they spoke often, and Lucy had visited the Bowers
in Washington State a few times. She had also stayed in touch with
Sister Anne, who had told her about a beautiful baby boy who had
been dropped off on the doorstep at St. Theresa’s Shrine.

Lucy held Mark in her arms. He had flaming
red hair just like hers, and Rudy had been unable to say no when
Lucy asked if they could adopt him.

She ran and gave Lucy a big hug.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Lucy said. “Rudy,
grab her bags and take them home.”

“I am home,” Olivia sighed.

John McMichael took her by the hand.

“You’re coming for dinner aren’t you?” Lucy
asked.

“Are you cooking?” McMichael said.

“No. Rudy is.”

“Good. Then we’ll be there.”

Lucy and Rudy waved good-bye and left the
three of them alone on the beach.