Catching the Light Read online

  “Oh, Cathy, I know how hard it is—I felt the same way. But your parents will want to know. They’ll want to help. And they’ll be so hurt if you don’t tell them. Why don’t you tell them now?” She offered Cathy a ride home but Cathy wanted to walk, wanted to give herself time. But she promised to give her parents the letter.

  In the Middle

  The teacher was wedging the main entrance open and some of the girls were taking their time, like it was any old day. Hutch didn’t mess about: he flew out those doors and down the steps with a big whoop. Two steps at a time, three at the bottom. He was in the air before he noticed the puddle. He tried to jackknife himself beyond it, but didn’t quite make it. Muddy water sprayed over the nearest girl and she yelled “Hutch Parsons!” in an I’ll-get-you kind of voice. He looked over his shoulder—Phyllis Barnes. He hollered a sorry but didn’t slow down.

  The guys were shouting, “Wait up, Hutch!” and “Where you going, Hutch?” He called back, “Bald Head!” and they clattered into the yellow school bus behind him.

  He was wearing his old jean jacket because it was the easiest way to carry it, but it was wide open to the wind. His backpack hung heavy on his shoulders, bulging with binders, loose-leaf, exercise books, the dregs from his locker, and oddments that always showed up on the last day of school when the grade nines brought round the boxes of lost and found. In an outside pocket was his report card. It would be the same old same old: straight As except for English, which might be a C or a B minus. Grammar was such a pain in the ass. There’d be comments about not using his potential and occasional disruptive behaviour and could use his leadership qualities in more constructive ways. He’d open it later.

  As they reached Bald Head he could hear the screech of Jack’s father’s sawmill even over the roar from the bus. The screech died down as they piled out, and there was a wooden clatter as Mr. Sheppard dropped a finished four-by-four on the stack.

  “Boys.”

  Jack called out, “Got a B plus in math, Dad,” and the two of them got into the back-slapping bit while the rest dropped their bags inside the shed door. Hutch hauled off his jacket. He breathed in deep through his nose, smelling the wet spruce on the hill, new-cut lumber, and fresh sawdust. There was always sawdust round the mill, squeezed into every crack, clumped in corners. It got in the grooves in your sneakers and stuck to your laces and socks.

  The boys raced each other up the track next to the gully, letting loose all their done-with-grade-eight steam. They ran flat-out lower down and slower and slower up the long steep curve until they were doubled over, gasping. Hutch and Andy made it the furthest. Hutch had a stitch in his side, sweat running down inside his shirt, and his legs burned. But it felt great. He was so sick of being folded up at a desk, half dead. Sometimes he would ask to go to the bathroom just to stretch his legs. Then he would walk fast up and down the corridor, run on the spot, do jumping jacks. He’d sneak out the door for a breath of fresh air when there was nobody around.

  Hutch stretched up tall, spread his arms wide, and the wind knifed through him, chilling the sweat. He didn’t care. He could feel his blood pumping into the furthest corners. The cold air scraped in and out of his lungs, scouring out the stale stuff. All the guys had caught up now saying wow and doing high-fives and they did the last lap at a walk. Next time he’d run all the way up.

  Above the trees from the scrubby top of the hill you could see all around, even though visibility wasn’t the best today. Over there they’d go trouting—and there, and there. Clouds hid the start of it, but over on the left was his favourite trail round the cliffs. Out of sight the other way was Uncle Em’s pond, where Hutch and his dad had taken Hutch’s boat last weekend; a sea kayak he’d built all by himself over the winter: Dolphin. They would put it in the water to test it. Maybe tomorrow. There was the harbour, and beyond that the bay, with all the ins and outs and sunkers and little islands with places to stop for a picnic and places to avoid because of the current. They’d check out every inch, maybe right out past the last buoy and along the coast on a good day. Couldn’t wait.

  Hutch chose a flattish bit and flopped down on the weedy, stony slope and lay back, looking up into all that space. Freedom. All summer. He watched a gull bank and glide.

  Yesssssss.

  The Letter

  When she left Mrs. Brooks, Cathy walked home the other way, more out of sight. The track dove through the woods down the steps and sometimes she stopped and stared out through the trees. A leaf in front of her nose suddenly popped open. Didn’t know they could change so fast. Her dad made videos of those nature things—flowers growing and opening. They were a bit jerky but she had always thought that was because of pieces of film being joined together, thought flowers just kind of unrolled and stood up straight.

  This leaf was a bud, all sticky on the outside, with the sticky stuff keeping everything tucked in. Then something popped and now it was like a little hand. Still hadn’t opened all its fingers but it was a leaf now, not a bud. It must have built up such a need to grow that it just burst through the glue in one big jerk. Cathy reached for her drawing stuff but it wasn’t there. Frig.

  ***

  She gave her father the letter while they were still at breakfast and he read it out loud. It said she’d failed, that she couldn’t read. He stopped and there was not a sound in the house. When Cathy sneaked a look, her mom and dad were staring at each other, not at her. Her father looked…well, the same way he looked when he saw the weather outside and knew for sure his hunting trip was off. And her mother’s chin was wobbling and she jumped up and gave Cathy such a big hug that the chair creaked.

  “Never mind, my love,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  And the hug was wonderful and Cathy felt comforted, but it did matter. It did.

  Dad shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew she’d failed last year. And Cathy always had to ask him the names in his bird books, although maybe he just thought it was the Latin—she’d never made herself tell him she couldn’t read any of it. If he’d said, Cathy, can you read? she’d have told him, but he never did.

  Cathy stared at her knees, rubbed at a mark on her jeans. Now the letter was going to say she was the dumbest kid in the school. Dad leaned over and put his hand on her shoulder and said they’d work on this over the summer. Oh, god. Should she tell them about Mrs. Brooks? But her throat was too tight to say anything.

  He started reading again and there was a load of stuff about children learning at their own pace and having special help when needed—yeah, right—but at least it made it sound as if there were other kids like Cathy. And something about schools in small communities, but they would do what they could when Cathy moved to grade eight in September.

  Grade Eight. September.

  Cathy stopped breathing. Then she let out a big yell and leaped up so her chair fell over and her mother said eek and her father said shit, Cathy, and he never said shit. She ran out of the house and charged up the track and back down again because she couldn’t keep still. She’d be in grade eight and Mrs. Brooks was going to help and look what she nearly did. Look what she nearly did.

  Come From Away

  The doorbell rang a hundred times that first day. Sarah Brooks kept saying don’t take off your shoes but they all did, and piles of footwear and jackets mounted in the porch because she still hadn’t found the box with the coat hangers. It was mostly the housewives, all looking much older than Sarah’s thirty-three years except for two with toddlers in tow. And one brought a garrulous old man for an outing—grandfather or uncle or neighbour. He had trouble with his top teeth so now and then a guillotine would drop down and chop off a sentence.

  Sarah would never sort out who was who. This is my aunt on my mother’s side. I’m married to her husband’s cousin. Not Browne with an e now, they’re over on the west coast.

  Names were so different here: not the familiar Eastern European
names of Saskatchewan, but Powell and Parsons and White and all those red-headed Sheppards who flickered through the crowd at a barbecue the following week like a fire run amok. Stephanie Sheppard waltzed high-piled dishes round unpredictable elbows, pointing out her son Jack who stood with a group of youths. Not that he needed much pointing with those transparent eyebrows and electric orange hair.

  May Parsons’s son, Hutch, was in the middle of that group with Jack. Less noticeable at first: brown hair, brown eyes, medium everything. But as he turned towards her, Sarah saw the animation in his face, the one-sided grin that widened and narrowed constantly like an electronic line measuring energy, ending in a pothole in his left cheek. Paul Wilson, next to him, was handsomer, a real Viking, but she’d bet Hutch would cause more trouble in the henhouse.

  Now and then there would be a wave of laughter from outside, the kind of big-hearted laugh that made you join in even if you hadn’t heard the joke. Eugene, they said. That was Eugene. Next one up in age from Jack. Six Sheppard brothers and only one girl! Yes, the Hills have all the girls. You met Cathy up at the lighthouse? Her mother’s a Hill.

  They all introduced Sarah as the doctor’s wife and maybe that was natural. At least teaching Cathy would give her another role. It would be easier when she was a mom. A mom would fit in. Everyone was so welcoming here, with doors wide open from Day One, but the space they made for you inside was a Mariners Cove shape.

  Step One

  Cathy told her parents about Mrs. Brooks the day after they saw the letter—at least Cathy said about her wanting to come over for a chat. Her mom was pleased. She’d been upset with Cathy that other time, back when the doctor first arrived.

  That had been the Victoria Day long weekend, and Cathy was out at her pictures on the rock face behind the house. She liked to start early because of the light, and because the wind picked up in the afternoon. Mid-morning Mr. and Mrs. Brooks parked their Bronco on the hill near the track and walked off, must have been all round Mariners Head. When they came back they stood looking her way, then walked up the track and asked if they could look at her paintings, asked had she done the pictures up at the lighthouse too. They both said how great they were, especially the people pictures.

  When Cathy wandered into the kitchen her mother was lifting pies out of the oven, hands in those big green oven mitts with black cat faces.

  “Was that the new doctor and his wife you were talking to?” her mother said. “You should have invited them in.” There was a pause and Mom looked at Cathy as if she was waiting for something. “So what did they say?”

  The warm fruit-and-pastry smell was making Cathy’s mouth water. The pies looked pleasingly plump, as Mom liked to say, only she was more than plump now—too many pies. They wore off-the-shoulder frills like that dress of her cousin Annie’s, and one pie looked end-of-winter pale. Missed it with the egg white.

  “Cathy? Answer me.”

  “Liked my paintings.”

  “Is that all you talked about?”

  Yes. Well, the woman said their names. Brooks. Cathy couldn’t remember the rest.

  Mom sighed.

  ***

  Wednesday, Mom knew all about them. She’d been down to see the new doctor. Not that Mom was sick, she just liked an outing. She always went to old Dr. Powell on Wednesdays, before he had that stroke.

  “He’s Dr. Timothy James Brooks. Nice. Big and quiet. Nice smile. And he listens, doesn’t rush you out.”

  She rattled around in the cupboard for her mixing bowl and grumbled about not being able to reach things because she was so short. Ten times this week. Hundred times this month. “And his wife’s name’s Sarah. Came in for a few minutes. Little scrap of a thing with wrists like wishbones. She’ll be gone over the cliffs in a good blow. And all that dark hair.”

  “Beautiful hair,” Cathy said. “Black, but not dead black. Loads of life in that hair. Love to paint it. Colours in the black: blues and reds, even green.”

  “Oh, Cathy,” said Mom and sighed again.

  They all sighed like that, ’specially her teacher. Like the day of that big thunderstorm when Cathy was watching the clouds—beautiful, how the light through that crack in the cloud split into lines and spread out. Strong to travel all that way, but could be gone in a blink. The lines spread out like the sounds Mom’s best glasses made when you dinged them with a spoon, each sound a bit different, so if you dinged them quickly enough they all rang together like a…like a tune. Each line of light had its own voice. One line touched a spiderweb wobbling in the corner of the window and lit it. Now, that she could paint—or try to, anyway. She wished she could paint the out-of-this-world light. Was there a way to do it? Did someone out there know? Could—

  “Cathy.”

  It was Mrs. Elliot standing over her. “Cathy, I’m going to move you away from the window because it’s too much…you’ll never learn if you don’t listen.”

  Mrs. Elliot sighed. Cathy dragged her stuff over to the empty chair under the blackboard, flopped down, and stretched her legs out in the aisle.

  “And tuck your legs under the table please, out of the way.” Another Mrs. Elliot sigh.

  They all did it: the teachers, her mom, the aunts—the Big Sigh. Like part of her name, Cathy-Sigh-Russell.

  ***

  Cathy saw Mrs. Brooks arriving but kept out of the way until Dad showed up—hung around the kitchen door. She could hear her saying what a lovely house and Mom telling her about how Dad had to knock it down, all but the chimney, and start over.

  “Poor old Mrs. Stuckless lived here with the place fallin’ down round her. The family tried to help but she wouldn’t let anyone in with a hammer. Said leave her alone, she’d be gone by next week. Said it for years.”

  Mom brought out her partridgeberry muffins, said she bet they didn’t have these in Saskatchewan. The cat got interested then, all lined up towards the plate, ready for a quick snatch but looking off to the side just to fool you. Didn’t fool Mom. Mom swatted her down off the chair some fast and the cat screeched, then got huffy, and took her time leaving with that stiff walk, tail up, nose in the air. Cathy’s pencil fingers twitched. Better not.

  Then Dad came in and parked his great boots next to Mrs. Brooks’s tiny things by the door. One big gulp and they’d have them gone. Cathy wanted to draw the boots with their tongues hanging out, lining themselves up like the cat, but Mom called out, “Cathy. Where are you?” So she had to go in and be polite.

  Mom kept right on talking and the rest of them just sat there. Did Sarah like old Doctor Powell’s place? Such a nice big house to have children in and she’d always thought that old maple out the back was a great spot for a swing and there weren’t as many children around now as there used to be but Mariners Cove was better than a lot of outports where there was nobody under fifty. Any other time Cathy would have switched off, only she was waiting for Mrs. Brooks to say something. Waiting and waiting.

  Finally, Mom stopped for a drink of tea and Mrs. Brooks said, “When I bumped into Cathy the other day we got talking about school and studying and reading and things.” Mrs. Brooks was looking from Dad to Mom and back again. Dad sat up straighter. “I said practicing reading might make schoolwork easier and Cathy asked if I’d help her. And I said I would. I hope you don’t mind. In fact I’ve come to ask your permission to coach her over the summer.”

  Dad went all stiff like the cat and Cathy held her breath. He looked over at her mom but she was staring down at her hands, turning her rings round and round, then he looked at Cathy.

  “Would you like that?”

  Cathy nodded. Dad kept looking at her as if he really wanted to make sure, but she couldn’t make any words come out so she nodded again, harder.

  “I’ll be around more this summer so I could help?” Dad said.

  Oh, god. He was upset she hadn’t asked him.

  “I know I wasn�
��t around much last summer, what with trying to finish the house and moving and starting at Memorial. This summer will be easier.”

  “Dad would be real good. He used to…” Mom’s voice trailed off and the rings were flying round now and she was scrunched down smaller in the chair and Dad was looking over at her, all worried.

  “I don’t want to interfere,” Mrs. Brooks said. “I’m sure you’d be a lot better than me at this. And I studied English, not education. I only agreed to try to help because I have loads of time on my hands and…well, Cathy is so talented and I’d love to help if I could.”

  “What do you think, Cathy?” That was Dad.

  “Both.” Cathy looked and looked at her dad, trying to make him understand how much she wanted this. “I want both of you to help. Please?”

  Dad nodded and got a bit less stiff. He turned to Mrs. Brooks again and said, “And what would you charge for this?”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Mrs. Brooks went red in the face and her hands came up as if someone had thrown something. “Nothing at all. I don’t want…. Just something worthwhile to do.”

  “Just thought I should ask,” Dad said. “It’s very kind of you.”

  Mom got up and passed the muffins round again and the plate was shaking and they all slid sideways. Mrs. Brooks took one and said how delicious they were and she would love the recipe and Mom got even more fidgety and said she didn’t have one and you just added a bit of this and that but you needed two cups of berries. They were no good if you were stingy with the berries.

  Mrs. Brooks said they must have had a lot of whatever to pack up when they moved out of the lighthouse. She and Tim had had such a lot in their little apartment in Toronto. She couldn’t imagine the amount you must whatever in a whole house after a hundred years or so.