Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
We were all at home together when the phone call came. For that, I will always be thankful.
I was unpacking my backpack in a feeble attempt to find the permission slip needed for my parents to sign. It was for our upcoming 8th Grade class trip to go watch salmon spawning at Weaver Creek. There was part of me who wanted to forget the permission slip so I would not be cramped like a squishy bag of marshmallows into a stale-smelling school bus. Trekking out along the woods for the promise of seeing salmon struggling to achieve their final destination and ultimate purpose did not impress me much. The smell of final victory for these fish permeated the nostrils almost as bad as my older brother’s basketball uniform after an intense game.
My hands searched blindly through my pack. When was the last time my bag had been cleaned out? I was finding things at the bottom which bordered on being classified as UFOs (unidentifiable furry objects). Stuck to a half-eaten granola bar was my missing earbud. I set it aside to wipe the stickiness off. A few runaway M&M’S were hiding at the bottom. Oops! There was my missing house key I had accused my older brother of taking. What was that? A cap from my lip balm. EWW! The gooeyness now coated my fingers and my overdue library book. Guess I’ll need to research how to remove goo from a book cover. Our librarian would not be impressed. Finally, my hand felt a crumpled paper wadded into the far corner of my bag. Victoriously, I pulled it out, waving it above my head as if I’d found some lost hidden treasure.
Dad was getting supper ready in the kitchen. It was Friday, so that meant his famous meatball subs. He has a “secret sauce” recipe he uses, passed down to him from his Italian nonno. It calls for San Marzano tomatoes as the base. Dad said he would tell us the remainder of the ingredients when we were ready and “worthy” (whatever that meant). Family secret. A hoagie loaded with so much tomato sauce it oozed down your chin in the first bite. Not a meal you would want to eat without a stack of napkins. In fact, it had at least a four-napkin requirement.
Mom sorted through the mail on the counter and muttered to herself about the house looking “like a tornado went through it.” I did a quick glance around our living space. Two laundry baskets of wrinkled clothes were dumped, taking up space on the sofa. We would probably need to do the sniff test to see if they were clean or dirty. The tangled vacuum lay in the middle of the floor with the best of intentions, but for the last three days we all stepped over it. Our family’s popular game of “who would put it away first” usually ended in whoever was the one that stubbed their toe on it. A pile of shoes by the front door was steadily multiplying over the week. How many shoes did we all own, anyway? The jumble of sneakers and boots looked like it belonged to a crowd instead of our little family.
On the dining table was a partially completed puzzle of a bookstore with a couple of calico cats snoozing among the books. My Aunt Jess and I had been working together on it last week. I promised her I would wait until she returned home to finish it. There were a few pieces that taunted me all week to fit into the perfect spots, but, so far, I was keeping my promise. She was supposed to return late next week from her adventures. I was counting down the days.
By the look of frustration on my mom’s face, the house mess had hit her “unacceptable” limit. Even I had to agree things had gotten a little out of hand. One thing I was sure of: First thing tomorrow morning there would be a long list of chores stuck to the front of the fridge for us to tackle.
Mom wasn’t really talking to anyone in particular. Her words regarding the mess were just floating out there in the open for any one of us to receive. Yep, I was definitely a culprit this week. I would own my share of the chaos. But as I surveyed the room, it wasn’t just me who should be feeling a slight bit of guilt. My brothers and dad also had their fair share of mess lying around.
“Brandon!” my dad called out from the kitchen. “Your turn to set the table.”
My older brother did not look up from his phone where he had been endlessly scrolling since arriving home from basketball practice an hour ago.
“Give me a sec,” he muttered. His “sec” usually turned into at least three more calls of his name, each growing in frustration and volume from my father.
I made my way over to Mom with a pen in hand, stopping briefly to catch a glimpse over Riley’s shoulder at the photos he had recently taken while on a walk through the forest with Aunt Jess. My younger brother’s photography was getting better every day. He had photographed some beautiful shots of the leaves changing colours on the maple trees and brilliant evergreens of the giant western redcedars. Some photos were of our neighbourhood, but the ones I loved most were of the forest trails down the road. A Douglas squirrel perched on a stump caught my attention. Riley really had an eye for capturing the moments in his photos.
“Great photos, Riley!”
“I know,” he beamed. “Jessie is gonna take me when she comes back home to find the special birds again.” Riley has called our aunt “Jessie” since he was little.
“Mom . . . ”
I was cut off by the ringing of her phone.
There was a pause of silence after Mom said hello, and I glanced up with slight curiosity. Probably just another telemarketer or the latest phone scam. Something didn’t feel right though when Mom’s face went pale as if all colour had been drained from her. I’d never seen that look before; I knew something was wrong. A chill and unease grew in the air. It was as if time stood still for a moment and then began to move at a painfully slow-motion speed. Dad must have sensed it too because he stopped what he was doing, wiped his tomato-stained hands on a towel and walked over to where mom was now leaning against the wall, still listening on the phone. The moment he placed his arm around her, his brows came together in a questioning look. My mom held her phone to her chest, crumpling into him and began to sob uncontrollably. He took the phone from her and spoke to the person on the other end. I was unable to read Dad’s face. Normally, my dad was a man full of expression. You knew what he was feeling at any time just by the way his eyes looked. When he was teasing, he had a little crinkle in the corners. If he was mad about something, his eyes became so narrow it looked like he was squinting while looking right through you. And when he talked about my mom, his eyes absolutely came alive. But at this exact moment, there was nothing; absolutely nothing in his eyes. Blank.
“Yes, I see.” He now was gently running his free hand over my mom’s hair in a comforting way.
“We will make arrangements to get there immediately.”
My mom cried harder now.
“Thank you for your help.”
My dad’s voice caught and sounded strangely scraggly.
The conversation ended. Dad put the phone on the counter. Brandon and I just stared at our parents. We dared not utter a word, afraid to find out what was wrong. My gut told me whatever it was, it was bad. I’d never seen my mom fall apart that way before. It scared me.
Riley kept looking at his photos, unaware of what just happened, how all our lives were about to be changed forever.
