The Inquirer Read online

  “I’ve never known you to be quiet for so long,” he said.

  “You don’t know me, Michael Elliot Hayes.”

  “Not my middle name, too? Am I in trouble? Only you and my mother can instill fear in me with just three little words.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s been awhile, Miah,” Mike said, turning serious.

  I righted my suitcase, fighting the urge to run to my old bedroom. Better yet, to run back to Vancouver. His hand brushed mine as he took the handle. I jerked away, though he pretended not to notice. Did he recognize the ratty luggage? It was technically his. The weight of it didn’t slow him down. Empty-handed and feeling foolish, I followed him to the house from which he had once been banned. He knocked a pattern—rat-a-tat-tat—on the doorframe before stepping inside.

  Mom had some explaining to do.

  CHAPTER 3

  MIKE SLID OFF HIS WORK BOOTS AND STARTED OFF WITH MY SUITCASE.

  “Down the hall, it’s the—”

  “—second door on the left.” He winked over his shoulder. “I remember.”

  Annoyed and uncomfortable, I kicked off my sandals and followed him to my old bedroom. Inside was a wrought-iron bed covered with a purple patchwork quilt my mom had sewn and a big window with matching curtains. I found the childish treasures—a framed elementary award for being ‘most thoughtful,’ a poster of a forgotten boy band, teen vampire romance books—a little embarrassing. It appeared as though Mom had made the bed after I had left for school as usual … seven years ago. She hadn’t changed a thing. Not after our big fight when I announced I was moving in with Mike. Not even after I had left Kingsley without telling anyone. I suppose my parents hadn’t needed the space. Visions of a big, happy family had inspired the blueprints for the five-bedroom ranch house. After years of trying, my parents had their miracle baby: me. Just me. Some miracle.

  Mike set the suitcase down beside the rest of my luggage, where his eyes lingered a beat. My backpack and three ratty suitcases were lined up like Russian nesting dolls.

  “Moving back?” Mike asked.

  My mind raced through the things I could say and the reasons I couldn’t just as quickly. He was baiting me, and I wasn’t going to fall for it. Mike shrugged and crossed the room to the big window. He pulled up on the sill, and the window opened an inch. Not locked. I could see his lips curl up at that. He had entered through that window more often than the front door.

  “So you’re going to help my dad?”

  “Unless you learned to operate a tractor since you left me.”

  Mike shut the window a little harder than necessary. The thud made me jump. Then he turned to face me, leaning against the dresser. He opened his mouth to say something else, something I’m sure I didn’t want to hear, but his eyes flicked over my shoulder and he stopped. My mom was standing in the doorway.

  “Miah’s a city girl now,” she said.

  “Hi, Judith. How’s it going today?” he asked.

  “Oh, we’re surviving,” she replied.

  “Judith?” I repeated.

  They looked at me as if I was the one acting crazy. As if I didn’t belong.

  “That is my name. You don’t expect him to call me Mrs. Williams still, do you?” Mom laughed. “He’s almost thirty, not a kid anymore.”

  “Almost thirty, Mrs. Williams,” said Mike. “Almost.”

  “Oh, as if thirty is old.” Mom swatted the air between them. She was acting the way I remembered women acting around Mike. Other women, not my mom.

  “Thirty may not be old, but I’m not ready for it yet.”

  The disturbing scene was interrupted by a succession of thuds, a muffled dammit, and running water from the bathroom across the hall.

  “Oh, Ray!” Mom remembered why she was there. She clearly hadn’t come to rescue me, her daughter. Mike and I followed her to the hall, where I deliberately stood so Mom was between us. She knocked on the bathroom door. “Do you need a hand in there?”

  “I’ve got two hands. It’s a leg I need,” Dad grumbled. “Don’t know what you suppose you could help with in here.”

  The door opened inward. There was nothing someone from the outside could do to help with the wheelchair in the way, but that didn’t stop Mom from hovering. She guided the door on its fixed path. Once Dad had manoeuvred himself to sit in the open doorway, he spotted me.

  “There’s my girl!”

  Dad’s leg was wrapped in bandages and propped up on a wheelchair attachment. Dried blood darkened the area where the incisions were buried. Surgery had been a couple of days ago. Should there have been blood on the bandages? Shouldn’t his leg have been in a cast? I had expected hard plaster I could sign with Xs and Os like a sixth grader. I knew Dad’s leg would heal. He might walk with a limp, but he would walk. It was just that his face was so pale, his already wiry frame leaner. Slim and five foot nine, Dad had never looked big but had always been tough. Suddenly he seemed softer, wrinklier, greyer. I told myself the sudden urge to cry was from the two days of driving, the pressure of having no job, and the tension of being within Mike’s reach, on top of borrowed stress from my mom. I fooled no one. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced a smile on my face a moment too late.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said.

  “Don’t look at me like that. It’s just a broken bone.”

  “You’re going to hurt the man’s pride,” said Mike.

  Dad’s gaze levelled on Mike, who was leaning against the doorframe of my old bedroom. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

  A memory that had been safely buried made my stomach twist a little more. It had happened about six months after I had moved out.

  I burst through the front door of the red ranch house with mascara burning my eyes. Mom and Dad were on the couch, watching the Weather Channel. They were content watching the damn weatherman on a Friday night! My sudden appearance rendered them momentarily speechless. Sobbing, I threw myself onto the couch and buried my head in my mom’s shoulder. Then Mike’s headlights flooded the living room.

  “Make him go away!” I cried.

  Dad reached the front porch with his shotgun before Mike’s boots touched the ground.

  “You’ve got about thirty seconds to convince me not to shoot,” Dad called.

  I had gone back to Mike a couple days later. I just overreacted, I insisted as much to myself as anyone. That hadn’t fooled my parents, at first anyway. Mike had been banned.

  This time Dad didn’t have a shotgun in his hand. He seemed happy to see Mike and to escape this awkward moment with his daughter.

  “Heard someone might need an extra leg around here,” Mike said.

  “You’re just after more banana bread,” Dad replied.

  Mom started pushing Dad’s wheelchair down the hall, and Mike followed. I remained rooted in the hallway mumbling something lame about needing to unpack, but no one seemed to notice.

  “You know better if you’re after banana bread,” Mom told Mike as they rounded the corner to the kitchen. “I pick up the ingredients on Friday. Overripe bananas are Kingsley Grocery’s specialty.”

  CHAPTER 4

  MOM HADN’T BEEN KIDDING ABOUT DAD’S MEDICATION making him loopy. After he wasted his energy discussing chores and NHL draft picks with Mike, instead of visiting the daughter he hadn’t seen for over six months, he swallowed a couple of white pills for dinner. In less than twenty minutes, he was softly singing an old Waylon Jennings song. Mom helped him onto the couch and propped his leg on two pillows. When she finally stepped away from her drowsy patient and his over-fluffed pillows, I followed her to the kitchen.

  “How can I help?”

  “Just relax. You’re on vacation. Why don’t you give Danika a call?”

  “No, I came to help.”

  She went to the sink of dirty dishes and put her hand on the tap, but she stopped to stare out the window where the sun hung low over the fields.

  “He can’t get comfortable, but he’s not the only
one,” she said. Her whole body seemed to slump. “I’m scared I’ll bump him in the night, but I can’t sleep somewhere else. Instead of calling out, the stubborn man will hurt himself trying to get out of bed on his own. I’m exhausted.”

  “You need one of those video baby monitors,” I said. At least she was smiling when she turned to face me. “Let me help.”

  “Okay. You want to help? Keep an eye on your father while I take a nap.”

  Mom’s slippers made scuffing noises on the hardwood to her bedroom. An hour later, the supper dishes were drying and a news broadcast flickered on the muted TV while Mom, Dad, and the dogs slept. There was no one else around for a mile in any direction. The only sound was the loud tick of the grandfather clock in the corner, like time methodically poking me with its finger. I missed the traffic noise of the city and even the fat, hairy guy stomping in the upstairs apartment. Quiet country nights had once made me feel at peace but now felt ominous. When had it changed? I knew. It had changed when everything else had changed.

  Dad coughed and shifted on the couch.

  “Miah?”

  “Here, Dad. Do you have the remote?” I needed the noise of the TV.

  “Don’t forget, Miah,” he said, his eyes wide and glassy. Loopy. “Don’t forget the list.”

  “Okay, I won’t. Where’s the remote?”

  “It’s in the top left-hand drawer of the toolbox.”

  “What?”

  “The wolf list. It’s the key to keeping the farm running. Without the list, if we don’t do the things on the list, it’s over. All over. The wolf is howling at our door.”

  Dad’s eyes closed. Soon he was snoring. Even asleep and high on prescription drugs he looked like he was in pain. I looked all around the couch but suspected the remote was underneath him somewhere. My parents had only basic cable anyway. They couldn’t be bothered with any technology that wasn’t sold at John Deere. Their shared cell phone flipped open. Downloads and apps were to my parents like castrating and swathers to my friends in Vancouver.

  I wished I hadn’t forgotten to bring my latest piece of research for narrowing down my major. I could picture it on the kitchen counter in my one-bedroom apartment. Not another dreary textbook but a novel about a badass heroine challenging a corrupt multi-million-dollar company only a year after passing the bar. I was on Chapter 4 and already suspected corporate law was too intense for me, but the plot was entertaining.

  I thought it safe to slip into the study—one of the ranch house’s unneeded bedrooms—for something to read. The bookshelf was crammed with more knickknacks and photo albums than books. My eyes caught on a framed photo from my graduation banquet. Danika, her escort, me, and Mike. The only one in the picture I didn’t mind the sight of was Danika’s date, geeky what’s-his-name. I looked like cotton candy with curls and a tiara. I pushed the picture over, the cheap frame clattering against the shelf.

  I wasn’t in the mood for one of Mom’s historical romance novels or one of Dad’s sports hero autobiographies. Instead, I discovered a neat stack of the Inquirer.

  Dad was in the same position on the couch as I had left him. I settled back into the recliner and opened the first issue. The content was newsworthy as far as small-town news went, but written in a more entertaining way. Better than the Gazette’s ever-cheerful small-town drivel. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

  “What are you doing?” Mom exclaimed. I bolted upright, sending the Inquirers from my lap to the floor. It took me a second to realize she wasn’t talking to me. Dad was crumpled on the floor, trying with both hands to lift his injured leg, which was twisted and caught between the couch cushions. His face was contorted and flushed, and his breath hissed between clenched teeth.

  “Oh, Dad!”

  I took two steps toward him, but Mom held up her hand as if to say Never mind and set to helping Dad into his wheelchair.

  “Why didn’t you ask for help? I knew I shouldn’t have gone to bed,” she said as she hooked her hands under his armpits and heaved. She got him high enough that his injured leg came out from between the cushions at the same time as his backside slid into the seat of his wheelchair.

  “I just need to take a leak,” he grumbled.

  CHAPTER 5

  DAYS STARTED EARLY ON THE FARM, EVEN WHEN THE FARMER was broken.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” I sounded like a sulky teenager. I was tired and still felt guilty about falling asleep the night I had returned to Kingsley. Ever since, all I had done was read old issues of the Inquirer, write in my red notebook, and uselessly follow Mom around.

  “Why would I? You’re on vacation,” Mom said, sipping her coffee.

  “This is early for my girl,” Dad said.

  It wasn’t even seven a.m. From my elementary to university years, my alarm barely allowed time to get to school. In high school, the girls in my class had awoken at dawn to iron their hair and plaster on makeup. My ponytail, mascara, and lip gloss were enough for me if it meant an extra hour of sleep.

  I sat beside Dad and eyed his untouched oatmeal. I was glad to see him lucid, but the depth of his frown lines and the dark circles under his eyes showed the price he paid.

  “I used to help out around here as a kid.”

  “You followed your dad around after school, if it suited your fancy and the weather was right. Ray wakes the rooster half the time.”

  We never had a rooster. We had a grain farm and raised a hundred fifty head of cattle at most.

  “I fed the cats,” I said. Most farm kids didn’t get off so easily. “And I do have eight o’clock classes, you know.” Actually, I had only ever had one for one semester, and only because I had slept in and missed pre-registration for a mandatory English course. I would have rather taken Japanese at night.

  “It was my choice for life, not yours,” Dad said.

  “Ha! What about me then?” Mom asked. “I recall getting up with the rooster every morning to make breakfast, pack lunches, and feed those damn cats.”

  Dad twisted the childproof cap off one of five pill bottles on the kitchen table. He washed a blue antibiotic down with a sip of water, grinning over the glass at Mom. “You signed the marriage contract.”

  “There seems to have been a lot of fine print in that contract,” Mom said. She patted his hand on the table where the light glinted off her wedding set. She was also wearing her watch and a pair of gold earrings. Dad wasn’t wearing Wranglers because of his leg, but he had on a clean pair of sweatpants. No rips or flannel with checked patterns on either of them.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Your dad has an appointment with the specialist. Hopefully his little fall the other night didn’t tear anything.”

  Mom stood to put her breakfast dishes in the sink. When her back was turned, Dad slid his oatmeal toward me. There was no sense in it going to waste. As I took a bite, I wondered if I had time for a quick shower before we left.

  “I was thinking, if you have time, you could run some errands in town while your dad and I are gone,” Mom said.

  What? Before I could swallow my bite of oatmeal and respond, there was a knock on the front door. A rat-a-tat-tat leaving no doubt as to who had arrived. I felt like I had been slapped twice. Neither of my parents made eye contact with me before Mike was standing in the kitchen.

  “What’s on the agenda today, Boss?”

  “They’re going to a specialist appointment,” I said.

  “I know. I meant what’s on my agenda. I work here, remember?” Mike gave me another one of those annoying winks. “You’re up early. Not feeling well?”

  “I’m fine. Just leave the errand list on the table, Mom,” I said, retreating from the kitchen before anyone could see my burning face or watering eyes. Let Mike finish the damn oatmeal. I didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

  Everyone was gone by the time I re-emerged from my extra-long hot shower. I stalled some more by looking for ways to be useful around the house that Mom kept saying was ‘fil
thy.’ It looked fine to me. I would have probably cleaned it wrong anyway. I wasn’t ready to face town, but I reached for my keys and Mom’s errand list.

  Welcome to Kingsley, where little has changed since 1953. Okay, the big wooden sign didn’t actually say that last part. I turned off the highway, passing the truck stop. Most travellers only knew Kingsley for the truck stop. The attached Minimart was new. Big year for the town, 2013. I had moved out, and the Minimart had moved in.

  A couple dozen cars and a few bicycles were parked on Main Street. The hotel bar at one end was filled with old men discussing the prairie farm report and oil prices. The café at the other end was filled with grey-haired women complaining about the old men. In between, on either side of the road, were a bunch of little shops and offices: a hardware store, a gift shop, a hair salon, a pharmacy, and so on.

  I picked up the dog food from the vet clinic and the mail from the post office. Next on the list was a mystery novel for Dad. He wasn’t going to read it. The dreams he was having from those pills were probably twice as entertaining. Mom just wanted me to go to the library. Danika worked at the library.

  Danika Rooker—now Mrs. RC Miller—and I had become best friends as soon as the teacher sat us side by side at the blue table on our first day of kindergarten. We had bonded over our matching pink dresses—so, basically over the fact that her baba and my mom shopped at the same department store. Three years ago, I had been the maid of honour at Danika’s wedding. Now, Danika was a Facebook friend. We exchanged likes on status updates and posts on birthdays.

  Through the small square pane of glass in the library door I could see her. Barely five feet tall, she had bleached-blonde hair, manicured nails, and makeup like she was waiting to be discovered at any moment. We used to call her curvaceous, but now pudgy was a more accurate description. I thought of the cover of the previous week’s Inquirer and wondered if Danika was another yummy mummy who had paid to increase her cup size. Her chest was comparable to my backside in a push-up bra.