Ten Thousand Truths (5 page)

After swimming, Rachel had picked ten boxes of raspberries and Amelia had put most of them in the freezer for the winter. Rachel had eaten a bowl of berries with milk and sugar for dessert and she could still almost taste the sweetness. She'd grabbed the last two peaches from her basket to eat at the lake. As she finished them, she pitched the pits out into the water as far as she could throw them. Neither of the dogs had come with her. Bud had been in the house when she left and Sam had been chewing on a hambone in the front yard.

It was different being here at this time of the day. Everything seemed calmer and more peaceful. It seemed like a long time had passed since she was at the market this morning. She had stashed her money in the pocket of her winter coat and stuck it at the very back of the closet. She didn't think the other kids would steal it, but you could never be sure. She really had no clue what they were like or what they would do. Chelsea and Crystal still hadn't said one word to her. Raymond had grunted a few words but he generally didn't acknowledge that she was even around. He talked nonstop to Zac, though. He was over the moon to be going up to Zac's to work on the David Brown, which Rachel now knew was a tractor.

At least she had seen the school she would be going to. Before seeing it, Rachel had pictured a one-room schoolhouse with an outhouse. But it was a big, normal-looking school and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It did feel like a different century here, though. She wasn't sure if they had the internet here and she hadn't even seen a computer. Normally she would be freaking if she hadn't gone on Facebook in a couple of days, but she hadn't really even missed it for some reason.

Two loons flapped loudly as they rose out of the still water and took flight. Rachel stood on the dock and watched them until they disappeared out of her sight.

Chapter 3

Turkey Feet, Fireflies, and The Last Swim of Summer

The sound of the rain hitting the tin roof woke Rachel
up on Sunday morning. She shifted in bed to look out the window. It was raining really hard and the sky was dark. She had no idea what time it was, but she couldn't hear any sounds coming from the kitchen below. She got up quickly and headed down the back stairs to the kitchen. She saw Amelia in the pantry as she passed by, but didn't say anything as she headed toward the washroom. As she passed through the dining room, Rachel could see that the large table was set with seven places. The dishes were white with red roses around the edges. There were birthday napkins at each place.

Amelia was setting two cake pans into the oven when Rachel re-entered the kitchen. A box of cereal, a carton of milk, a bowl, and a spoon were on the table.

“Top of the morning to you, Rachel. I don't cook breakfast on Sunday mornings, so help yourself to cereal or make yourself some toast. On Sundays we get up whenever we want to and I put all my cooking energy into supper, though I will have to cook up and bottle those pickles today. Did you see our fancy table? We're going to celebrate your birthday since you weren't here in July. Zac and his friend Roger are coming for supper. Did you know that the proper response to the Irish greeting “Top of the Morning to You” is “And the Rest of the day to Yourself”?

Even with the steady rain, the hour at the lake rotation was still discussed when everyone gathered in the kitchen at around ten o'clock.

“Raymond's birthday is in January, almost a New Year's baby if he had come a few hours earlier,” Amelia explained to Rachel as she went through the birthday months that determined the order of choosing time at the lake. “Crystal and Chelsea were born on March 29, with Crystal making her entrance two minutes before Chelsea. You were born in July and my birthday is in November. So we start with Raymond and go in that order for five days and then start over.”

“I'm going to take my hour right now,” Raymond said as he grabbed a raincoat that was hanging by the back door. “Zac's going to start teaching me to drive the David Brown this afternoon,” he hollered, shutting the door behind him.

Rachel got the fourth choice and chose the hour right after Raymond's. She went back upstairs and lay on her bed to read and wait for her turn. Later she heard Zac's voice in the kitchen below and headed back downstairs thinking an hour must have almost passed. She looked out the window on the landing and could see that the rain had stopped and the sky looked a bit brighter.

As she entered the kitchen, she saw that Amelia had just finished frosting the layer cake at the kitchen table. Zac was licking the frosting from one of the beaters and offered the other one to Rachel. The sweet white frosting was still warm and it tasted wonderful. Rachel turned the beater slowly, taking her time to get every last bit of frosting, before setting it in the dishpan. Then she put on her sneakers and headed out the door.

The wood of the dock was dark and wet, but Rachel sat down anyway. She kept her feet propped up on a large rock near the part of the dock that wasn't out in the water. Sam and Bud had followed her down today. Sam got wet chasing his stick into the water, and then settled himself close enough to Rachel to soak her pant leg. Bud jumped up on her, leaving his muddy footprints on her other leg. Rachel just watched the choppy water as each wave rippled into the shore. The warm damp air made her feel a bit drowsy.

When Rachel got back up to the house, there was a small red car in the yard. Bud and Sam sniffed it a bit and Bud let out a quick bark as if to cover himself if confronted with the fact that he was supposed to be a guard dog. He settled himself on the veranda and watched without interest as Rachel entered the house.

When she walked into the kitchen, Rachel saw a young woman sitting at the table.

“Rachel, this is Jodie,” Amelia said. “She brought us lunch. Grab a plate and help yourself. There's another pizza in the warming oven so don't worry about taking the last piece in this box.”

“Nice to meet you, Rachel,” Jodie said. Rachel sat down and began eating a piece of pizza. “Remember when I first got here, Amelia?' Jodie continued. “You had your hands full that winter. Between me, Travis, Jason, and Emily, we sure kept you busy.”

“You and Jason got to be good friends that winter, once you decided not to kill each other.”

“Oh yeah, I remember the fights we had when I first got here. Remember the time you caught us in the chicken shed throwing eggs at each other?”

“Jason called on Wednesday night. Megan is expecting again in May. Can you believe Logan is going to be three on his birthday?”

Rachel got up for a second piece of pizza, relieved that Amelia and Jodie were talking about stuff that didn't have anything to do with her and that Jodie wasn't asking her questions. She had no intention of telling this person anything about herself.

“You can stay for supper, can't you, Jodie?” Amelia asked. “We're celebrating Rachel's birthday tonight.”

“I'll stay if you let me help with dinner,” Jodie replied. “Do your part, right? I hear that in my head almost every day. But what better mantra could a person have than that? I wish some of the lazy people at work had been taught it.”

“Oh, and Zac and Roger are coming, too, so you'll have a chance to catch up with them as well.”

“That's great. I always love to see Zac. When I was your age, Rachel, I had a huge crush on him.”

Rachel was not allowed near the kitchen while the others were getting supper ready, so she went into the chicken shed and collected the eggs. One of the eggs was still warm and she rolled it around in her hand, feeling its smooth shell. She set the basket of eggs on the veranda and then walked out to the end of the driveway. Zac and Raymond were there. Zac was walking beside Raymond as he drove the big white tractor slowly along the road.

Zac saw Rachel standing at the end of the driveway and motioned for her to catch up. “Put it in third gear, Raymond.”

The tractor sped up a bit and Rachel ran to meet Zac. They walked a little ways before either one spoke.

“You live in that house with the green roof, don't you?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah,” Zac replied. “Do you want to walk down with me and get the truck? I drove the tractor up to give Raymond his lesson. He's a natural. Once he got the hang of the clutch he did just fine. By the time we get to the house, get the truck, and come back, it will almost be time for your birthday supper.”

“That girl Jodie is staying for supper. Did you live here when she did?”

“No, I was already gone when she came. I went out west to work for a couple of years and when I got back Jodie had been here for a year I think. She stayed until she graduated from high school four years ago.”

“What about the twins and Raymond? How long have they been here?”

“Chelsea and Crystal have been with Amelia since they were five years old, so four years. Raymond came two years ago. Travis just left in June. He was on Hampton High's five-year plan, but he finally graduated from high school. Social Services only pay until kids age out at 18, unless they are still in high school, but Amelia has been known to keep them long after that.”

Rachel could see Raymond turning the tractor onto Zac's driveway.

“I never did graduate, but Amelia kept me long after social services cut me loose. She helped me buy this land, too. It belonged to an uncle of hers and when he decided to sell it she got Terry Fullerton to lumber her land for three winters so she could lend me the money to be able to buy it.”

By the time they were halfway up the driveway, Rachel could get a good look at the house she had only seen the roof of from the road. It was two storeys high and shaped like a barn. It looked like a stone house, but as she got closer she could she that what she thought were stones were actually the round ends of wood. There were several other buildings around it and she could see some sheep in a fenced-in field over by where Raymond was getting down off of the tractor.

“This is my little piece of paradise,” said Zac. It took me about five years to build the house and it is far from finished, but it's all mine. It's nothing fancy, but it's more than I ever dreamed of owning.”

“Do you have a job?” Rachel asked, realizing as soon as she said it that it wasn't any of her business.

“I make my living doing a bit of mechanical work for people, cutting and selling firewood, and keeping a few animals,” Zac answered.

Rachel looked ahead to see Raymond making his way toward them. His wide smile looked like it might swallow his face.

“You did great, Buddy!” Zac exclaimed. “I'll have you driving for me in the woods in no time. We'll have to teach Rachel to drive sometime, too. Once you can drive that old David Brown, you can drive anything.” He nodded toward the sheep pen. “Let's throw a bale of hay in to the sheep, and then we'll head back up the road for supper.”

“If a native Hawaiian woman places a flower behind her right ear, it means she is available,” Amelia told Jodie. “The bigger the flower, the more desperate she is.” She laughed as she handed Jodie the sunflower from the vase of flowers that she had just set in the middle of the table. She turned to see Rachel, Zac, and Raymond coming through the door.

“You guys are just in time. Supper is ready. Roger's been here for a few minutes. The girls have kept him busy trying to catch one of the new kittens in the barn. Raymond, give them a holler to come in. Let's get the birthday girl seated. I'll get the food on the table.”

The roast beef dinner was delicious. Rachel drenched her vegetables with rich brown gravy and heaped mustard pickles beside her meat. Every bite was wonderful.

Zac, Jodie, Roger, and Amelia had a great time reliving old memories over dinner. “Remember when I had to use my own money to buy a sheet of gyprock when Matthew Comeau and I kicked a hole in the bathroom wall at school?” Zac said.

“Oh, I remember,” answered Amelia. “I remember you asked the principal if you could have the rest of the sheet because the janitor only used part of it to fix the hole.”

“He brought it home on the bus,” Roger added.

“I gyprocked one wall of my tree house with it,” Zac laughed. “I was getting my money's worth.”

After dinner, Jodie and the twins cleared off the table while Amelia served the tea and coffee. When everyone was seated again, Amelia got up and brought out the cake, setting it down in front of Rachel. Zac stood up and lit the thirteen candles that were sticking out from the wavy white frosting.

In July, for Rachel's real birthday, Margaret had bought a cake at the Superstore that was three days past its best-before date, and the memory of the sawdusty taste put a lump in her throat. In her head she could hear Bob's loud voice singing an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” He had followed up his singing with an unsuccessful attempt to give her a pinch to grow an inch and then he had almost fallen flat on his drunken ass.

Rachel blew out the candles, cut the first piece, and passed it to Zac. She didn't bother making a wish, though.
What's the point of making wishes when what you most wish for could never come true?
she thought to herself.

The next week went quickly, each day filled with lots of chores. On Monday morning Rachel and Amelia had to cut up another batch of mustard pickles. On Tuesday Amelia got Rachel to cook them, watching while she stood over the hot stove, stirring the heavy bubbling pot so the contents wouldn't burn. Rachel had poured the thick yellow mixture into the bottles all by herself, and she had actually felt pretty proud when she'd finally tightened the hot lids to seal them. On Wednesday afternoon Rachel had helped everyone fill the shed with the rest of the kitchen wood. On Thursday, when Zac came to bushwhack part of the lower field, he got Rachel to drive the tractor. She'd stalled it a couple of times, but he'd gotten her to try again. She had gotten it into second gear and stopped it without hitting anything. On Friday they picked squash, dug potatoes, and pulled some carrots, putting them in bags for the market. On Saturday, while the twins were at the market with Zac, Rachel, Amelia, and Raymond had spent the morning cleaning the basement so that there was room to put the furnace wood in. Rachel had also helped Amelia roll out and bake molasses cookies. The egg money this week had been Rachel's and she'd added that money to what she got last week.

It was now Sunday morning and Rachel was sitting on the dock. It had been early when she'd come downstairs to the dark kitchen and no one else was up. She'd grabbed a couple of cookies from the jar in the pantry before heading down to the lake. The sun was just rising in the sky as she walked down the path toward the water.

Rachel had spent a lot of time at the lake over the last few days. They had gone swimming every day and even Amelia had gotten in the water on Wednesday. Rachel was swimming underwater with no trouble now and she was also getting better at staying afloat in deeper water. Zac said he bet she would be jumping off the raft before they had to haul it in for the winter.

Last night, Rachel's hour alone at the lake was at dusk and she hadn't wanted to come up when Amelia had called her in. It would have been amazing to curl up in a sleeping bag on the shore and stay in this beautiful place all night. The way she felt at the lake was not something she could put words to. She could think here, and it didn't matter if she thought about things that made her want to cry, because there was no one here that she had to hide from. Last night she had cried and Sam and Bud had looked at her with their big eyes and squeezed up to her on either side. She still couldn't believe she had actually let herself cry.