Last Summer in Louisbourg (11 page)

Chapter Seventeen

At first none of them knew what to say. These three women, who all had eyes the same shade of blue, and various shades of brown hair, could only smile at one another and go through the motions of perfunctory hugs. The mother of both Jackie and Andrea was the first to speak.

“I'm Doris. Doris Marie Goodyear Baxter Osborne,” she announced, reciting her given names, her maiden name, the name of her dead husband, and the name of her living husband. Andrea had never heard her mother introduce herself that way to anyone before. Couldn't she simply have said, “Hello, I'm your mother,” or something like that?

“I'm Jackie…” Jackie began, and then lost her voice and couldn't finish saying her own name.

“You're Eleanor Jacqueline. I've wanted to meet you again, well, all of your life and a big chunk of mine. I didn't know your name until a few months ago. I can't tell you what it means to me that I've found…” Then she lost it. She couldn't finish the sentence as tears began to stream down her face. Andrea hunted through her pockets for a tissue but didn't find one. This was so unlike her mother, who had never been at a loss for words. Jackie got a box of tissues from the bathroom and handed it to the distraught woman who had not seen her since she had given her up twenty-six years earlier. Jackie looked shaken too. She hadn't had time to prepare for this. She had to wipe a tear from her eye too. That was when Andrea noticed how much Jackie's eyes and eyebrows resembled those of her mother. Maybe that was why she had warmed to Jackie right from the start. There had been something familiar about her expression, something reassuring about her attitude, characteristics she couldn't have identified until this very moment.

Jackie finally managed to say, “Why don't I put the kettle on, and we'll have a cup of tea?”

“That would be l-lovely, th-thanks,” stuttered Doris in a weak, little voice that Andrea wasn't accustomed to hear coming from her in-charge mother, a woman who had been a level-headed schoolteacher for many years.

“Andrea, you could take your mother…ah, Doris…um, our mother…” suggested Jackie, who didn't quite know how to address her newfound parent, “down the hall and have a look in at Kenzie. He's asleep now, but when he wakes up in the morning I'll tell him his new grandmother came to see him.”

Andrea was jolted again. It hadn't crossed her mind until that very moment that her own mother was somebody's grandmother. Grandmothers were old. Her mother was far too young for this.

The prospect of seeing her grandson improved Doris's composure. She stopped crying and blew her nose. She walked down the hall with Andrea to stand in the doorway of Kenzie's bedroom. The little boy was sleeping soundly beside his teddy bear. Doris didn't say a word; she just fixed her gaze on his face. Andrea wanted to say, “Wait till you see him when he's wide awake. He's not the little angel he looks right now.” But she said nothing. There would be plenty of time for her mother to get acquainted when Kenzie was awake the next day. And the next. And the next. Jackie and Kenzie were family now. From now on they would be part of one another's lives.

Andrea, Jackie, and Doris sat down around the kitchen table, glancing uneasily at one another. Jackie, who had not been expecting company, apologized that all she had to offer were store-bought cookies kept in the cupboard for Kenzie. Nobody cared.

At first it was not easy for Jackie and Doris to talk to each other, so Andrea, the one person they had in common, became the focus of their conversation. Jackie began describing what a fine young person Andrea was and how she put such energy into her summer job and how well she had accepted the challenge of acting in the film. Andrea squirmed. This sounded too much like a school report. The phone in the hall rang, and Jackie went to answer it.

“Hi, darling,” they heard her say. It was her husband calling from some distant place in Labrador. Steve seemed to be doing most of the talking because all they heard from Jackie was an occasional “Sure…great…mm hmm…okay.” Then, “Steve, honey, I'd better go,” they heard. “You see…my mother's here.” There was a pause. “No, not Mom. My birth mother.” There was another pause while Steve, who must have been as astonished as Jackie had been, tried to digest this startling news. “I'll tell you all about it when you get home. Lots of love, hon. Bye now.

“That was Steve,” Jackie explained unnecessarily as she returned to the kitchen. “And guess what? He figures he'll be home in a couple of weeks. Winter comes early in northern Labrador and the job he's on is gearing down for the season, so his work is nearly over. He's a helicopter pilot, working with a team of geologists.”

Andrea hadn't thought about Steve at all. She knew he existed, but Steve was just a name and a face in photographs in Jackie's house. An absent husband. Now, abruptly, he had become a relative, some kind of brother-in-law.

Jackie sat down and sipped her tea, looking very serious. “There's one thing we haven't mentioned,” she said quietly. “Who was my father?”

There seemed to be no end to revelations on this extraordinary day. Andrea didn't really want to hear any more. She didn't want to think about whoever he was, the man who had been her mother's long-ago boyfriend. But she realized Jackie had a right to know.

Doris pulled herself up in her chair, cleared her throat, and spoke in a small but calm voice. “He came from Quebec, Jackie. He was third mate on a ship bringing iron ore from Sept-Îsles to Sydney. I met him at a dance in a union hall. After that we went out on dates whenever his ship was in port.” She hesitated.

“Go on,” urged Jackie, eager for more information.

“Well, there isn't a lot to tell, except that I thought I was in love…at the time. It turned out neither of us were. After a while he quit his lob on the ship, and he never came back to Sydney. He had often talked about moving to Montreal. I guess he did. I suppose I could have written to him, tried to find him somehow, but I…well, I didn't. He never knew about you.”

Jackie didn't say anything for quite a while. Neither did Andrea. She sat there trying to imagine her mother's terrible situation all those years ago. What must it have been like, finding herself pregnant and having her boyfriend sail away and never return?

“What was his name?” asked Jackie.

“Pierre Bélanger.”

“Bélanger,” pronounced Jackie slowly. “Bélanger,” she repeated. Then her expression brightened. “So it turns out I'm actually French after all. Wait till I tell Steve!”

“Only half French,” noted Doris with a cautious little smile. “The other half comes from Newfoundland.”

“Maybe I'll find him someday,” mused Jackie.

“Maybe so,” said Doris sadly. “But I was in Montreal on a holiday once and I looked in the phone book and, well, you can't imagine how many people there are named Bélanger in Montreal.”

“I suppose it's like all the MacDonalds in the Cape Breton phone book.”

“Yes. So you'll probably have to settle for just me. And Andrea.”

Jackie stood up, came around the table, and gave them each a kiss.

“You'll do.” She smiled. “You'll do just fine.”

Chapter Eighteen

RRl, Trillium Woods

Ontario LlA OXO

Dear Jackie,

Mom and Brad and I are really happy that you and Kenzie and Steve are coming here to spend Christmas with us. I thought I'd drop you a line to bring you up to date on everything.

As you know, I went home with Justine for a few days when our jobs were over. I had a fabulous time! I learned lots of things, like how to milk a cow, how to collect eggs, what you feed to a pig (anything at all, they're not fussy).

The last night I was there we had a bonfire on the beach. Cory came all the way from Louisbourg to be with Justine. It was Marc's idea for the four of us to have a beach party before I had to go back to Ontario. Was it ever romantic! There was a full moon that night. We toasted marshmallows. We sang Cape Breton songs. Marc told me he wanted me to come back next summer. I told him I hoped I could. Sometimes I wish I could live there.

When I got back to school in September, everybody wanted to know about my summer job and what it was like, etc., etc. Mrs. Greenberg (my history teacher) suggested I write an article about it and read it to the class. I described how the Fortress of Louisbourg got built the first time and then I explained how it came to be built the second time. I described my job and responsibilities. (I mentioned that I liked my boss!) Then I went on to tell about the film that was being made because I knew the kids would want to hear about that. At the end of the piece I said that the most wonderful thing happened to me in August when I learned that I wasn't an only child after all, and that I now had a sister.

Do you know what my teacher said when she heard that? She said, “Congratulations. I didn't know your mother had had a baby.” Well, for a minute I couldn't stop laughing, and she gave me a strange look. It wasn't funny. It just sounded funny the way she said it. So finally I said that, yes, she did have a baby, but it was a long time ago. It was simply that I didn't meet her until last summer.

She still looked puzzled, so I told her the whole story. Well, not absolutely everything because that would take too long. She told me that this was a special experience, and she was glad I wanted to share it with others. And you know what? It turns out I'm not the only person who found out they had an unknown brother or sister. Two other kids came up and told me their stories of how their families were reunited. We are planning to form a club called the Secret Sibling Society. We're including you as a member. What do you think of that?

Love from your sister,

Andrea

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Anne O'Neill and to Roseanne Poirier of the Fortress of Louisbourg, who led me behind the scenes where I learned so much; to RCMP Corporal Dave Tricket, who explained how police procedures work; to Mary Elliott, for her tireless attention to detail and her sage advice; to Robin Long, who provided me with a place to work; and to Farley, who, as always, encouraged me.