The Garden

Chapter 1-2

“Yeah, well, tell my pa that,” Cam murmured, picking up his fork again.

“Ya want some milk with that?”

“Yeah, please.”

* * * *

After Ani and Francine finished their dinner, Ani stepped out into the backyard to see if any new blooms had appeared in the garden while she was at school that day. Francine followed with her habitual evening cup of tea. “We’ve got some red columbine opening up.”

“Wow! But all the other columbine are finished, aren’t they?”

“Yes, the red ones are a bit late,” Francine replied. “I guess they wanted the stage all to themselves.”

“I didn’t even know we had red ones.”

“You chose them, remember? Last year when we went to that roadside nursery in Bluffton...”

“Oh yeah, I did. Well, how come they didn’t bloom last year?” Ani asked.

“I don’t know. A lot of plants won’t flower their first year, or if they’re planted a little late in the season,” Francine said, crouching next to her daughter. “Ya know, my mother told me if you crush the seeds of a columbine while making a wish and then blow the powder into the wind, your wish will come true.”

“Really?” Ani asked, her eyes filled with fascination.

“That’s what she said. Problem is the seeds are so tiny and so hard that they’re almost impossible to crush.”

“Then how do you make your wish?”

“That’s just it, I think,” Francine said standing up. “You work so hard trying to crush them that you forget your wish and you end up wishin’ you could crush the darn things.”

Ani laughed and rose from her crouch. Her smile quickly faded and she looked down at the ground thoughtfully. “Mom, is my chest too big?”

Surprised by the question, Francine gazed into her daughter’s face and saw that the day’s events were weighing very heavily on her mind. “No! Sweetie no, not at all. You’re just blooming a little early, that’s all; like this columbine is blooming late. I was just like you when I was a girl.”

“Well, none of the other girls have them like this.”

“Oh they will, you’ll see, I promise. Next year when you go back to school, all the girls will have them.”

“I hope so. I don’t much like these things.”

“Well, Cameron Keller sure does,” Francine teased.

“Mom!” Ani gasped, nudging her mother’s arm lightly with embarrassment.

* * * *

Cam pedaled home in the dark hoping beyond hope that his father was asleep. He coasted quietly up to the side of the house and leaned his bike on the old and weathered siding just under his bedroom window. He walked around to the front of the house and as silently as he could, pulled the screen door open and stepped inside. Jared was passed out on the couch and snoring loudly. The stagnant smell of his alcoholic breath seemed omnipresent in the house and an empty scotch bottle rested on his chest. The TV set was on, its blue flickering glow filling the otherwise darkened room.

He snuck past the living room entrance and into his own room. He closed the door without a sound, wedged a chair up under the handle, and then loosened the screen in his window for easy escape; his bike waiting ready for him just below. Still fully clothed — he even kept his running shoes on — he lay down on his bed and switched his walkman on, leaving the volume low and one headphone behind his ear so he could hear if his father was coming. His jaw hurt but not too bad and not nearly as bad as his heart did when the memories of his mother decided to start poking at him.

He remembered his mom, how beautiful and gentle she was and how things used to be sort of better when she was around, or at least when his father wasn’t beating on her. The memories came flooding back to him...

* * * *

Cam knew he didn’t like what was happening. It was scary to hear his father’s big, booming voice hollering at his mother. It was scary to hear his mother crying and begging for Jared to stop, and it was really scary to hear him punching her but it had been going on for as long as he could remember and it was all that he knew. It was just the way things were, scary or not. As long as he stayed in his room when the screaming started, everything was OK and he was safe.

It was one particularly frightening night two years earlier when Jared came home from work late and very drunk. Cam’s mother sent him to bed twenty minutes before his usual time, giving him her walkman and telling him to shut the door and listen to some music until she came to tuck him in. Cam did as she said, just like he always did, and then it began: the yelling, the sound of glass breaking, and the sound of his mother being slapped, punched, and kicked repeatedly. As similar as it was to all the other times, this night was somehow different. Usually it didn’t go on for very long and after all the anger and a short silence from his parents bedroom, his mother would come into his room, click off the walkman and kiss him goodnight. This night, it just went on and on. There would be some breaks in the storm outside his door when Cam would believe that it was over and expect his mother to come in, but just as he would drift off to sleep, it started up again, waking him.

It was very late when the sound of the screen door slamming and a car door shutting outside prompted his curiosity. He pushed the covers off and placed his mother’s walkman on the pillow, then quietly crept out of his bedroom and to the front door, peering out. A taxi cab was pulling away with his mother in the back seat. She looked out at him vacantly but made no effort to tell him where she was going, say goodnight to him, or even wave.

“Your mother hurt herself,” Jared informed from the living room, startling Cam. “She’s goin’ to get herself fixed up. I’d take her myself, but your pa’s real tired right now.”

Cam looked into the room at his father who was sitting on the sofa staring back at him. “Is she hurt bad, pa?” Cam asked, tugging up his pyjama bottoms.

Jared’s strong hands rubbed at his face. He sighed, letting his red eyes meet his son’s. “Nah. She’s OK. Go back to bed, boy.”

“How’d she hurt herself? Where’s she going?” Cam asked.

Jared’s stare changed quickly from tired to bothered, and burned right through Cam. “I told ya — she’s goin’ to get fixed up,” he said, his voice shaking slightly with his escalating rage. He sat up straight, his eyes not leaving his son. “And I told ya to go back to bed, boy! NOW!”

Cam backed away a step from his father’s thunderous command as if its force had pushed him, then he trotted back to his room and closed the door quietly behind him.

The next day, Cam headed off to school feeling exhausted and confused. His mother had not returned home and Jared just barked at him to wake up for school as he left for work, leaving all of Cam’s questions unanswered. He had taken a bath the night before like his mother had told him, but because she wasn’t there to greet him with juice and toast when he woke, he left for school with only the juice. Little did he know at the time that it would be only the first of many mornings without breakfast.

At school Cam took his desk and dug into his school bag for his arithmetic book. He pulled it out along with a piece of paper he didn’t recognize as his own. He unfolded it and began to read, realizing that it was a note from his mother. It was printed clearly for him...

Dear Cameron,

I have gone to visit a friend in BC for a while. I’ll be back soon.

Your pa will take good care of you.

Love Mom

Cam stared at the note for what felt like a long time. The rest of the class had already begun their lesson but Cam hadn’t even opened his book. He couldn’t quite understand why his mother’s note and what his father told him the night before were two completely different things. Why would his mother lie to his father like that? Or, why would his father lie to him like that? Why didn’t she say good-bye to him last night? Why couldn’t he go with her?

The teacher’s voice sounded as if it were under water and ages away. Cam’s attention was firmly adhered to his mother’s note and all of his questions began to overlap one another. Finding the whole thing to be too much and too scary, he shoved the note back in his bag, got up, and left the classroom. His teacher began calling out to him as he headed into the hall but Cam picked up his pace to a jog.

He rode his bike to his private thinking place down at the creek and sat by the edge, throwing rocks into the water and trying to figure out what was happening. He wondered if he had missed something that might explain why his father said one thing and his mother said another. He wondered about British Columbia. He knew it was the province beside his own and as big as any, but he had no idea how far away it was or how long it might take someone to get there.

After running over his questions so many times that his head ached, he wondered what time it was. He knew he must have been sitting there for quite a while because the sun was very high in the sky and unspeakably hot. He gave up trying to understand what had happened the previous night, electing to ask his father what it all meant. He would show him the note and just flat out ask him. Feeling firm with his decision, he hopped on his bike and rode home to wait for his father to return from work.

He fell asleep on the couch an hour before Jared walked in the house. It was late and he was drunk again, kicking the leg of the sofa to wake his son. “What are you doin’ out here?” his father asked, tossing his keys on the table along with his cap.

Cameron sat up, wiping the groggy feeling off his face, then reached for the note on the table and handed it to Jared. “I wanted to show you this. Mom put it in my school bag. She went to BC. That’s pretty close, right?”

“Well, well. Looks like your ma left us, boy,” Jared snickered. “That bitch.”

“Left us? Why? Where is she? When is she coming home?” Cam asked, beginning to feel a little worse than worried.

Jared checked the reverse side of the note, and continued to grin. “Vancouver, no doubt.”

“Where is that?” Cam asked.

“That’s where your stupid old cow of a grandma lives,” Jared muttered.

“Is it near here? Is Mom OK?”

Jared crumpled up the letter and tossed it back at Cameron. “No, it ain’t near here. Don’t they teach you this s**t in school? Don’t I pay taxes for them to teach you this?”

Cam uncrumpled the piece of paper and peered down at it again, struggling to comprehend. He looked up at his father, wanting nothing more than an answer. Jared’s unreadable smile beamed down on his son. “You ain’t too sharp, are ya kid? Go to bed, I don’t want to talk to ya anymore.” He turned and headed for the kitchen.