Kin

Her Mother's Daughter

Crewe's talent lies in rendering characters that readers can actually care about. They have been hurt and they have hurt others, but their essential goodness shines through.
—Atlantic Books Today

Hit & Mrs.

If you're in the mood for a cute chick-lit mystery with some nice gals in Montreal, Hit & Mrs. is just the ticket.
—Globe and Mail

Crewe's writing has the breathless tenor of a kitchen-table yarn. …a cinematic pace and crackling dialogue keep readers hooked.
—Quill & Quire

Ava Comes Home

She expertly manages a page-turning blend of down-home comedy and heart-breaking romance.
—Cape Breton Post

Shoot Me

Possesses an intelligence and emotional depth that reverberates long after you've stopped laughing.
—Halifax Chronicle Herald

Relative Happiness

Her graceful prose…and her ability to turn a familiar story into something
with such raw dramatic power, are skills that many veteran novelists have
yet to develop.
—Halifax Chronicle Herald

LESLEY CREWE

Kin

Copyright © Lesley Crewe, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5.

Vagrant Press is an imprint of
Nimbus Publishing Limited
PO Box 9166

Halifax, NS B3K 5M8
(902) 455-4286

nimbus.ca

Printed and bound in Canada

Cover art: Deanne Fitzpatrick (www.hookingrugs.com),
courtesy of Donna Hutchinson

Cover design: Heather Bryan

Author photo: Sarah Crewe

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Crewe, Lesley, 1955-

Kin [electronic resource] / Lesley Crewe.

Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55109-926-2

ISBN 978-1-55109-926-2

I. Title.

PS8605.R48K56 2012 C813'.6 C2012-903648-X

Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

For Paul Alexander, my kindred spirit.

And my grandparents, Kenzie and Abbie Macdonald

* * *

Annie's breath was hot against her hands as she covered her face and kept her eyes tightly shut. She leaned against the rough wood of the shed at the back of the house while counting to one hundred. It wasn't easy. A housefly kept on buzzing around her head and the back of her checkered dress was sticky with sweat, she'd been standing so long in the noonday sun.

“Ready or not, here I come!”

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, and then she was off like a rabbit, bounding around the neatly stacked woodpile to the middle of the dirt driveway. There she stopped and studied the situation. She knew her brother David was clever, so he'd be the hardest to find, but his two friends were dumb. They were probably somewhere obvious, like under the back porch or crouched down behind the old cart next to their neighbour's vegetable garden.

The screen door creaked open and her mother, a petite woman with sharp features and soft brown hair hidden by a kerchief, stood there with a basket of wet clothes. “Put these out on the line, please, and don't hang everything up with one peg.”

“Can't! Gotta find Davy.”

Annie tore off into the field towards the rock pile so her mother wouldn't be able to catch her.

“Leave your brother alone, Annie!”

Her mother's voice faded with each swish of the tall grass flying past her stick legs. She loved plowing through the field, but more often than not she got distracted by small wildflowers and stopped to pick them. Once she was so intent on her bouquet gathering that she didn't see the bush of nettles near the small creek that ran through the field. The new sweater her grandmother had knitted for her was instantly covered in small burrs. David found her rubbing her eyes so she wouldn't cry. He picked them off for her, but the sweater was never the same, and her mother wasn't pleased.

Annie ran up to the rock pile and sat on the highest flat stone, which served as the lookout for her pretend fort. As she peered around, watching for any small movement, she smacked her dry lips and fidgeted to keep the heat of the rock from pressing through her play dress.

Annie's world in Glace Bay was a good one, bounded by home; the neighbourhood triangle of South, Blackett, and Water Streets; Central School; and the Baptist church. She didn't know it was the dirty thirties and a lot of men were out of work. Her father was a mechanic in the machine shop of the roundhouse. They even had a maid, a girl from Newfoundland looking to make some money to pay for her way to the Boston States. There was always good food on the table, a clean house, and a peaceful atmosphere. No one drank and a good time was when family came over to play cribbage or a game of cards. The Macdonalds were good-living people.

She watched her mother hang out the last shirt. Soon she would be inside and Annie would be able to continue the game, but at that moment Mrs. Butts appeared from around the corner of the house and made a beeline for her mom. Even at the age of seven, Annie knew that Mrs. Butts talked a lot. Once she cornered them at Milne's Meat Market and by the time she walked away, Annie knew her mother was annoyed. Not that she said anything. Her mother always said that if you didn't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all.

That was difficult when David's stupid friends were around.

While Annie waited, she lay on her stomach and peered into the rock crevices beneath her. Maybe a snake would appear. She loved snakes, especially when their tongues flicked. The two little girls up the road always screamed whenever Annie tried to show how nice snakes were, so she decided it was much better to play with boys.

When a snake didn't appear, she looked up and saw David and his two friends carrying fishing poles, headed for the shore.

“Hey! Hey! Wait up!”

Annie scrambled down from the rocks and ran like the wind, catching them four houses down.

“What are you doing?” she panted.

“Get lost,” said the bigger of David's friends as they kept walking.

“But you said…”

“No one wants you around,” said the other one.

Annie stopped and they kept going. She held her breath until David turned around and ran back to her. “We'll play after supper. Just you and me.”

Then he shouted loud enough for his friends to hear. “Now scram!”

Annie grinned and skipped home. Her dad and maternal grand-father had built the house themselves; a four-square white home near the corner of Blackett and South Streets. Mom's brother, sister, and two cousins owned four houses a little further along the road and her paternal grandparents once lived on Water Street, just across the big field. That was the house where Annie was born one morning in the summer of 1928, just as the seven o'clock whistle blew for the men to go to work in the mines. The midwife told Mom not to push until the doctor got there, but Annie never did listen to a thing anyone said.

Back then Annie's parents lived on Water Street with her paternal grandfather, because he needed looking after. The house was large, or so Annie thought, with a long lane leading from the main street, high trees on either side. Her father built a swing for her, and there was a picket fence around the garden in the front and a big vegetable garden at the side.

Annie knew her mother hadn't been fond of her grandfather. She said he'd call her a snippet because she didn't scurry around like his daughters did when he slammed the table with his fist. Annie wasn't sure what a snippet was, but it didn't sound very nice, so she was glad she couldn't remember him.

Hunger told Annie it was lunchtime, and since it was a Saturday, her maternal grandma would be making a huge pot of soup. All the grandchildren would be sent over with pots to take back to their own households. Annie didn't mind going, as long as her cousin Blair didn't try and trip her going down the back stairs of her grandma's house.

The only time Annie did mind going over was when she had to dust for her grandmother—a thankless and boring job that always seemed to take forever, with all her knick-knacks and china.

The minute she stepped into the kitchen, her mother handed her a covered pot and pointed out the door. “Your father will want his lunch. Make sure you don't spill it all.”

Back out she went, running the entire way. She spied her younger cousin Dorothy rushing towards the house too, so she made sure she was first up the steps. “Beat you!”

“Did not!”

Annie walked into the very warm kitchen first. Her grandmother turned from the bubbling pot on the coal stove. “How are my girls today? Do you have time to stop and have a cookie?”

“No, but thank you,” Annie said.

Her grandma reached for a still-warm molasses cookie and placed it in Annie's pocket before ladling several scoops of thick vegetable-beef soup into the offered pot.

“I can have cookies,” Dorothy piped up.

Annie managed to carry the pot of soup home without spilling a drop. By the time she got there, her dad was already at the table buttering his roll in anticipation. Annie loved it when her father was home for lunch. The kitchen felt cozier when he was there. The smell of baking coming from the coal stove and the pans of bread rising in the warming oven made it even better.

They ate in the kitchen every day and in the dining room on Sundays or special occasions, but even in the kitchen her mother set a good table, complete with napkin rings.

“Wash your hands before lunch, please.”

Annie bolted to the sink and lathered up the hard piece of soap there. Then she slipped back to her chair as her mother handed her a bowl of soup.

Her father, Kenzie, was a tall man with big hands who wore round, wire-rimmed glasses and had a large, bald head, full lips, and a very quiet manner. He only talked when he had something to say. Her mother said he was very bright and read everything he could get his hands on. She said David was like that, too. Annie never had time to read, so she guessed she wasn't bright at all.

Her mother, Abigail, took off her apron before she sat down.

“Why doesn't Davy have to come in for lunch?”

“I wrapped up a couple of sandwiches for him.”

“Would you say grace, Annie?” her father asked.

Annie bowed her head and clasped her hands in front of her. “God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food. Amen.”

Her mother sipped a few spoonfuls of soup before she spoke. “Bertha Butts told me today that they're having a little girl come to live with them.”

“How old is she?”

“Your age, I believe.”

Her father shook his head. “Mrs. Butts doesn't strike me as the maternal sort.”

“It can't be helped, apparently. The child is a distant relative whose father ran off long ago and whose mother just died of TB. It's a tragic story.”

Annie's eyes got big. “Her mother died? Can mothers do that?”

“Sometimes, but don't you worry. I'm as healthy as a horse.”

Annie dropped her spoon. “Mr. Tutty's horse died last week!”

“Your mother is fine.”

This was something Annie had never considered. How did you survive without your mother? Then she started to think of the brother she'd never met, the one who died before she was born.

“Were you sad when Coll died?” she asked.

Her parents looked up and exchanged glances. “We were very sad,” Mom said.

“I bet he'd be as nice as Davy.”

“Speaking of David,” Mom said, “I want you to stop pestering him when he has friends over. He's allowed to do things without you. He's ten now.”

Annie frowned and fiddled with the butter knife. “Is it true that Grampy's hair turned white the day after Coll died?”

Her father cleared his throat. “Eat your lunch, please.”

“And is it true you lost your hair in the war?”

“I'm not going to ask you again.”

Annie finished her soup and the thick piece of bread with molasses on her side plate, and drank all her milk. Then she reached in and pulled out the remains of the crumbled cookie in her pocket and put it on her plate. “I forgot.”

“I have some ginger snaps and sugar cookies in the pantry.”

“No, thank you. May I be excused?”

Her parents nodded and Annie took off upstairs, but instead of going to her small room at the back of the house, she slipped into her parents' room. For some reason she was always a little nervous to go in there. It felt funny to know that her father slept in pyjamas. Not that she ever saw him wear them. He was up long before she was in the morning and she went to bed at 7:30 every night. When she was five she asked her mother why parents never slept. It became a family joke.

She sidled over to her mother's side of the bed and reached for the picture of her brother Coll on the bedside table. He was a year old, sitting on a little white bench, holding onto a toy dog and wearing a white jumper with a Peter Pan collar, knee socks, and black patent-leather shoes. His hair was neatly brushed into place and he had big, dark eyes, a button nose, and cupid's-bow lips. He was the prettiest baby Annie had ever seen.

She kissed his picture. “You can play with me when Davy isn't around, but I can't say Collie because that's a dog's name.”

Annie put down the picture and picked up her mother's hand mirror to look at herself. She tried to see if she looked like her brothers. She had brown eyes like Coll, whereas Davy's eyes were blue. Her hair was darker than Davy's and her page-boy haircut always looked like it was ready to spring into action. The damp was her enemy, so living near the ocean meant that Annie was perpetually at war with her hair. Davy had only a slight wave in his hair, which she always thought wasn't fair.

The day Lila came to live next door was a Sunday. Sundays weren't Annie's favourite day, despite the fact that she got to eat leftover yellow-eyed beans and steamed brown bread for breakfast. The whole day was taken up with church, and Annie never could sit still for very long. In the morning Mom would take them for the eleven o'clock service at the local Baptist church, and then Annie and her brother trooped back to church at three o'clock for Sunday school, both of them still in their good clothes. Sometimes they accompanied their mother to the seven o'clock service as well, after a tasty roast beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding, but David was good at convincing their mother that they'd listen to the church radio broadcast instead. Their father usually didn't go to the evening service and sometimes even got out of attending the morning one as well. He was lucky.

On Sundays Annie and David weren't allowed to play cards, swim or skate, play ball or hockey, ride a tricycle or bicycle, or use a cart. Annie complained every chance she got, but her parents never changed their minds. David told her to stop asking because she was annoying. Annie wanted to know what annoying meant.

School was going to start that Monday, so this was the last day of freedom for Annie after a long and glorious summer. She tried not to get sick at the thought of being cooped up all day in a classroom. It seemed no matter how hard she tried, she always got into trouble with the teacher.

Now
that
was annoying.

Annie raced outside to wait for her mother and David. She headed for the new swing her father had made for her in the backyard, but out of the corner of her eye she spied a young girl sitting on Mrs. Butts's porch. This was something she should investigate, so she turned around and walked up to her.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“What's your name?”

“Lila.”

“That's pretty. I'm Annie. How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“Me too!”

Lila smiled the nicest smile Annie had ever seen. She was a real-live china doll, despite her old and mended clothes and scruffy shoes. She had reddish-gold hair that fell in waves down to her waist. She didn't look like a stick either, which is what everyone called Annie. And she had dimples. Annie had always wanted dimples.