The Big Dig Read online

  She headed outside, the screen door slamming behind her. Colin wasn’t going to be at the hole. He had to babysit the twins while his mom went to the Co-op. And because Lucy didn’t have anything better to do, she had agreed to help him sort and hang all his photos in his room. His mom had been nagging him and threatened that he wasn’t allowed to leave the house again until it was done.

  The twins were running around in circles and waving bubble wands through the air when Lucy entered the yard. Their faces were already covered in chocolate and it was only nine thirty.

  Colin was waiting for her on the front step. “Oh Henrys,” he explained. “Breakfast of champions.”

  Lucy laughed and followed him into the house and up the stairs. “Don’t worry about Kit,” she said, knowing full well he hadn’t given her a thought. “She went into Truro with her mom.”

  “What?” He stopped on the stairs and turned. “Oh, right. Kit. Yeah, I was worried.”

  She gave him a shove.

  “Wow,” she said, entering his room. “You’ve got a lot of stuff.” Piles of framed pictures lay on the floor and a bunch leaned against the wall. “How do you want to do this?”

  “I dunno. Hang them on that wall?” he pointed.

  Lucy shook her head. “We can’t just hang them willy-nilly. Let’s at least map out some kind of arrangement.” She knelt down on the floor.

  He sighed heavily and crouched beside her. “Can’t you just do it? Hang them any way you—”

  “Hey. Is this you?” Lucy picked up a picture and looked at it closely. It was Colin on a sailboat.

  “Yeah. And my boat. We had to sell it before the move,” he said wistfully. “Dad promised to put the money towards a new one. Won’t be until next summer, though.”

  “You sort of look like you know what you’re doing,” she joked.

  “I did. I do. I can teach you if you want,” he offered. “Like, if you come back next summer.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Lucy that she might come back. “Maybe.” She spread out some more of the pictures. “Wait. What’s this?”

  Colin frowned. “Oh, that one shouldn’t be here; it goes in the den.”

  It was a large black-and-white framed photo of a huge, elegant building. There were a ton of people in assorted uniforms lined up on the sweeping front lawn. “Is it a hotel?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s the resort my parents worked at out west.”

  Lucy’s eyes scanned the picture, picking out bellboys, maids, cooks, waitresses, even a tennis instructor. “Your mom and dad are in here?”

  Colin leaned over her shoulder. “Yeah. There’s Mom”—he tapped his finger on the glass—“and there’s Dad.”

  Esther looked younger, but pretty much the same as she did today, except for a different hairstyle and cat-eye glasses. His father looked like a tall gangly kid. “Gosh. How old were they?”

  He shrugged. “It was right after high school, I think, so I guess they would have still been teenagers. I’m getting a Popsicle, want one?”

  “Sure.” Lucy continued to study the picture. How old are you when you finish high school? Seventeen? Eighteen? She couldn’t imagine picking up and moving so far away from home just a few years from now. There was a bit of silvery writing at the bottom of the photo, but it was partially covered by the frame. She could see the tops of numbers. Bet it’s the date. Placing her hand on the back of the picture, she slid it up slightly. Yup. October 1, 1961. Lucy’s mom was born in 1943, so assuming Esther was about the same age, that would make her only eighteen. That’s young! Lucy set the photo by the door to go back downstairs. But maybe not in those days.

  “Here.” Colin stuck an orange Popsicle in her face.

  “Thanks.” She broke it in half and pulled one stick out of the paper sleeve. “Your dad’s a chef, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s he going to do when he gets here?”

  “Not sure. Pictou Lodge is the only sort of fancy place around here. Actually, I think he and Mom want to open their own place.”

  “In River John?”

  “That’s their big plan.”

  “You could work there part-time. That would be awesome.” Lucy was jealous. “All I’ll ever get to do is babysit.”

  “I’d rather be sailing.”

  Lucy turned her attention back to the pictures on the floor. “This one’s a perfect square,” she said, picking it up. “Maybe it should go in the middle.” She peeled off a stray piece of packing paper. It was a picture of Colin’s family posing on a wharf beside his boat, but there was an extra person in the photo. Lucy kept blinking as if her eyes were playing tricks on her. “Is that…my mom?”

  “Yeah. I took her out sailing.” He said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Lucy leaned back against the bed. “What?”

  Colin was trying to suck some Popsicle drips off his shirt. “I think she was really keen on learning.”

  “You sailed with my mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “Well…in the summers. First time was in a pram though, so it hardly counts.”

  Why don’t I know this? Where was I that—those—summers? “Hold on. You said summers, plural.”

  “She hasn’t been for a couple years, but yeah, she visited in the summers.”

  “How many summers? Since when?”

  “I dunno.” Colin scratched the back of his head. “Since I was a kid?”

  “Since you were a kid? Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

  “I did.”

  “No, you didn’t!” Lucy said sharply.

  “Oh.” He looked at her blankly. “Well, didn’t you know? It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.”

  Lucy racked her brain. Her mom did used to travel a bit. She went to writing workshops, retreats, stuff like that. But she never said anything about visits to Esther, or sailing with Colin. How could there be another thing she didn’t know about her mom? Was it possible her mom had said something, and Lucy just hadn’t paid attention? Lucy hoped so.

  Colin balled up his Popsicle wrapper. “Are you okay? You look kind of weird.”

  “Uh, yeah. She, um, just, I don’t think she ever mentioned it. Visiting you guys.”

  “They were best friends,” Colin said, lobbing his wrapper into the garbage can. “Your mom came to visit. No big deal.”

  “You’re right.” Lucy swallowed down some orange goo stuck in her throat. “No big deal.”

  So why hadn’t Esther ever come to visit them?

  Chapter 16

  Lucy found herself slumped against the same tree she’d slumped against the last time she’d left Colin’s. Maybe she should seriously reconsider any future visits to his home. She didn’t know how many more surprises about her mom she could handle.

  She stayed there, the bark digging into her back, and thought about what Colin had just told her. She tried taking his view, that it was “no big deal.” Was he right? Was she making too much of it? But it almost felt like her mom was living a secret life or something. After her mom died, Lucy had let herself briefly live in a sort of fantasy world where her mom hadn’t really died. She was in the witness protection program. Or sometimes she was super-secret spy for the government. She had faked her own death because she had to, and she was alive and well…somewhere. Lucy had never seen a body. The casket had been closed. And who knew what was actually in that urn? Of course, Lucy knew it wasn’t true, wasn’t possible—but if it were, maybe some of this other stuff would make a bit more sense. Maybe.

  Too bad her dad was travelling. She really wished she could talk to him.

  Josie was hustling across the front lawn as Lucy came around the bend in the lane.

  “I left you a note,” Josie said, not slowing down. “I’ve got to go help Muriel put
a rinse in her hair. She’s got terrible arthritis. Don’t forget supper with Ellen.”

  “We’re having supper with Ellen?” Lucy called after her.

  No response.

  Lucy sighed, ran up behind Josie, and touched her shoulder. “We’re having supper with Ellen?”

  “Yes. Didn’t I tell you?”

  Lucy shook her head.

  “Hmph. Well. We’re having supper with Ellen.” And off Josie went.

  Lucy made a list of things to do for the afternoon, mostly to keep her mind off other things. She wrote a letter to Sarah, touched up her toenail polish, finished the latest Harlequin she’d been reading, the one with the shirtless guy on the cover (which pretty much referred to every cover), ploughed through half a sleeve of Ritz crackers, and was working on her butterfly DoodleArt when Josie returned from Muriel’s.

  “Just let me change,” Josie said, jamming her cigarette into an old tobacco can filled with sand that she kept by the front door. There was one at the back door too. And by the garage, the root cellar, and the gardening shed. “Need something a little more snazzy for a dinner out.” She gave Lucy a good once-over. “Wouldn’t kill ya to snazz yourself up a bit, either.”

  Lucy smiled when she saw Kit standing at the front door. She was back in her Princess Leia outfit. Wish I’d worn a bedsheet instead of this itchy blouse. It was new, and the elastic on the puffed sleeves was a bit too tight.

  “I decided to dress for dinner,” Kit explained.

  “You’re not the only one,” Lucy said, gesturing over her shoulder at Josie.

  “Wow. Not everyone can pull off that shade of blue eyeshadow with an orange dress.” Kit nodded approvingly. “And a matching hat, no less.”

  “Don’t bother offering to take it from her,” Lucy said. “There’s about six cigarettes stuck in behind the plastic flowers.”

  In the kitchen, Gordon, Kit’s dad, was standing at the stove. “Lucy! Hope you like lobster!” he boomed, dangling a giant greenish-brown crustacean over a boiling pot of water. “Fresh off the boat today!”

  Lucy’s eyes widened and she sucked in her breath. It was still moving as Gordon plopped it in.

  Ellen looked over at her and said, “Honey, would you like me to throw some extra knackwurst on the barbecue? That’s what Kathleen’s having.”

  Lucy blinked a few times. It still caught her off guard how much Ellen reminded her of her mom. After a second, Lucy said, “Sure,” even though she didn’t have clue what knackwurst was.

  Knackwurst turned out to be like super-fat hotdogs. Lucy smothered them with ketchup and Ellen’s homemade bread-and-butter pickles. The pickles must have been a family recipe; they tasted exactly like Lucy’s mom’s. It was like being reunited with an old friend.

  “Good, huh?” Kit said.

  Lucy didn’t know if she was referring to the knackwurst or the pickles. It didn’t matter anyway. “Delicious!” she answered with her mouth full.

  “They’re from the Sausage House.”

  Lucy remembered the drive up, how when she and her dad passed that place with the “Homemade Sausages” sign, she’d thought it was gross. She couldn’t have been more wrong. “Does anyone want the last one?” she asked, her fork hovering over the platter.

  It didn’t take long for Lucy to figure out where Kit got her offbeat sense of humour and her passion for Star Wars. Through the whole meal, Gordon acted out scenes from the film using the cooked lobsters. When he picked up one lobster and made it say to the remaining pile of lobsters, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” Lucy laughed so hard she choked on her potato salad. By the time she finished her strawberry shortcake, her face hurt from smiling.

  When it was time to go, Ellen put her arms around Lucy and gave her a tight hug. “We’ll do this again,” she promised.

  “We can’t let you starve to death,” Kit joked as she slapped Lucy on the back.

  “May the Force be with you!” Gordon hollered from the porch.

  When they got back to Josie’s, Lucy sprawled out on the porch swing like a beached whale. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be full. She’d hoped the walk home would help. But it hadn’t. Not a bit.

  She stared up at the peeling paint on the porch ceiling and smiled. She may be in pain right now, but it was worth it. Everyone around the table, the food, Gordon’s lobster skits…they all kept her from thinking about the things that were bothering her. The things about her mom.

  Lucy could see the giant frown on Colin’s face even before she got to the hole. He was standing there, arms folded, like he was waiting for her.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “I am? I didn’t know there was an official schedule.”

  He shrugged. “I was sort of thinking you were still mad about yesterday.”

  “Oh.” She sat on the edge of the hole and let her feet hang over the side. “No. I just wish you’d told me that you knew my mom.”

  “I figured you knew. How was I supposed to know you didn’t?”

  Lucy stared straight ahead and didn’t answer.

  “And, like, how well do you know your mom’s friends, anyway?” he added.

  “Couldn’t you tell how surprised I was when you said you were at the funeral?”

  “No,” he said simply.

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “Plus you made it sound like you didn’t know why you were there. Obviously you were there because you knew her. You made it sound like you were dragged against your will.”

  “I was! No offence, but funerals, even your mom’s, are not my idea of a good time.”

  Lucy loudly flipped her flip-flops against her heels and didn’t say anything.

  “Look,” he sighed. “Like I said the other day. Our moms were friends. She came to visit. I don’t get why you’re so cranky about it.”

  She kept flipping. “Why didn’t your mom ever come to visit us?”

  “I dunno. Maybe she didn’t like you guys.”

  “What?”

  “I’m joking.”

  “Ha ha,” Lucy said, folding her arms. “Well, didn’t you think that was weird? Like, how you knew my mom, but I didn’t know yours?”

  “Guess I never really thought about it.” He sat down beside her. “You know, my mom had a couple little kids at home, maybe it was just easier for your mom to visit my mom. And it’s not like we had a ton of money for travelling.”

  Lucy fell quiet again, thinking. That made a bit of sense. After a minute, she said, “It’s hard to explain. You’d think being here, I’d feel closer to my mom. But I don’t. It’s the exact opposite.”

  He opened his mouth, looked like he was forming a word, then clamped it shut. She wondered what he was going to say. Was he trying to think of something helpful, but couldn’t come up with anything? Suddenly, his face brightened. “I bought jujubes.”

  Jujubes are helpful in their own way, I guess. “Can I have all the green?”

  “Sure.” He got up and rooted for a bag he had stashed under a tree.

  “Whatcha got there?” Kit said, appearing from nowhere.

  Colin straightened too quickly and whacked his head on a branch. “Stop sneaking up on us!”

  “I didn’t. You’re just completely unaware of what’s going on around you.”

  Colin snatched up his bag of jujubes, holding them close to his chest so Kit couldn’t see. He turned his back to her and tossed the bag to Lucy. “Don’t eat any red.”

  Kit craned her neck. “Oh. Jujubes. It’s okay. I don’t like them.”

  “Goody for us,” Colin muttered under his breath as he jumped into the hole and picked up his shovel.

  Kit dropped her beach bag onto the grass next to Lucy. “I brought my mags again.”

  “Cool,” Lucy said, pulling out the stack.

  Colin looked up. “Aw. Not those
again.”

  “Wait.” Lucy quickly thumbed through the pages of one. “I saw something last time. Here. Horoscopes. That’s not junk. When were you born?”

  “October thirty-first,” he replied grumpily.

  “Halloween? No way! Lucky bum!” Kit exclaimed. “What year? How old are you, anyway?”

  “Nineteen sixty-one.”

  “Wow. Almost sixteen,” Kit said sideways. “You’d never know it. He acts about ten.”

  “Shush,” Lucy said to Kit, then called out to Colin, “Scorpio. Okay, listen to this. Your horoscope says, ‘Your popularity will increase over the next month, but don’t let it go to your head. Keep an open mind and accept advice from close friends. Also remember it is important to take breaks.’” She turned to Kit and whispered, “I made that last part up. I want to go for a swim later.”

  Kit choked back a laugh. “Hey, Colin. That’s a pretty good one. At least it’s not saying there’s anything bad in your future.”

  “Yup,” he said popping the p. “Made my day.”

  Lucy decided to pass on Josie’s latest concoction from the Campbell’s Soup recipe book. It had canned tomatoes in it, and she hated canned tomatoes. Thankfully, Ellen had sent them home with all the leftovers. Lucy had been living on them for a couple days. Luckily there was still strawberry shortcake left. Lucy got down a big plate, built herself two giant shortcakes, and squirted on a giant mountain of whipped cream. That’s a perfectly fine supper. There’s even fruit in there, so that makes it healthy, right?

  If her dad were here, he’d be having a cow about right now.

  As she struggled to finish the last few bites, she began to question her choice. But then she saw Josie tear open a packet of Alka-Seltzer and knew she had chosen wisely. She was pretty full, at least. That made four nights in a row. All she wanted to do was grab a book and lie flat somewhere. Bed sounded good, even though it was only seven-thirty.

  She went to the bookcase in the dining room and pulled a Harlequin out of the middle of the row. The Reluctant Bride. She was pretty sure she’d already read it—it was getting hard to keep track. Probably a good idea to choose a couple more for backup. As she set The Reluctant Bride on top of the cabinet, she accidentally knocked over a silver picture frame. Crossing her fingers, she bent to pick it up. Please let it not be broken. She inspected it for damage. All good. It was a wedding picture, black and white. The bride was wearing one of those fringy flapper dresses. Wait. Is that Josie? Lucy squinted. It is Josie. Amazing! She was beautiful. So elegant. Wait. Are those birds on her headpiece? Lucy held the frame closer to her face. Yup. Definitely birds. Her eyes moved to the bridesmaids. There were five. She was pretty sure Gran Irene was the maid of honour. The bridesmaid dresses were pretty, a shorter version of Josie’s. But the picture was in black and white, so it was hard to tell what colour they were. Knowing Josie, they were probably bright green or bubble-gum pink. Lucy was just about to put the picture back when something caught her eye. All the bridesmaids were wearing the exact same necklace, a chain with a small oval locket.