Lost on Brier Island (6 page)

After a silent ride home, Alex was the first out of the car, barely waiting for it to stop. She w
ent upstairs. There was no way she could look at her mom right now.

Her room was the same dark tomb. The curtains were pulled tightly closed, like she had left them. It was the
complete opposite to Aunt Sophie's airy, sunlit rooms.
She pulled back one of the curtains, letting in a sliver of sunlight.

It didn't help. Alex stepped back out into the hall, her eyes drawn to Adam's door. Automatically, her feet padded along the corridor towards it.

Passing by her parents' room, she stopped. There were hushed voices coming from inside. Her dad must be home.

Alex grabbed the doorknob and was about to open it when she paused. Something wasn't right. Their voices sounded strange. She pressed her ear against the space along the frame.

“Douglas, what are you doing here? I thought we agreed—”

“I'm only picking up a few things.”

“She's here!”

“What? I thought she was at your sister's for the month.”

“Something happened. She's okay now, but—”

“What do you mean, she's okay now?”

Her dad's voice was getting louder. Alex winced—another fight.

“Watch the tone, Douglas. She had a little accident and hit her head. We ended up at the hospital overnight, but—”

“You should have called me, Colleen!”

No wonder Dad wasn't at the hospital. Mom didn't even call him!
Alex couldn't believe it.

“I'm sorry, but I had other things on my mind, all right? Anyway, I thought you were in Toronto at your brother's.”

Her mom's voice had risen too. Alex knew where this was going. They'd be yelling at the top of their lungs any second.

Alex knocked and turned the knob at the same time, stepping into the room. “Dad?”

Her mother and father were glaring at each other from opposite sides of the bed. Her dad was holding a shirt and there was an open suitcase on the bed.

“Munch, are you all right?” He grabbed her in a fierce hug. “I'm so sorry I wasn't there.”

“Dad, you're squishing me!” Alex wiggled in the stranglehold. It was good to see him. She decided not to remind him, for the hundredth time, to stop using the munchkin nickname he'd called her since she was a baby.

“Sorry.” He released Alex gently. “Your head…” He touched the bandage, inspecting her wound. “What happened?”

“Kind of a long story. But I'm okay, really.” Alex gestured to the suitcase. “You never told me you were going to Uncle Raymond's.”

Her dad glanced towards the doorway. “You heard that?”

“Yeah. How come you didn't take
me
?”

“It was a last-minute thing. Plans were already made for you to go to your aunt's, so…”

“That's right,” her mom said.

Her dad tossed the now crumpled shirt on top of the pile in the suitcase.

“You're packing, not unpacking? Are you going away again?”

“Uh…I thought I'd do a Yarmouth run. I've missed so much time at work…”

Alex brightened. “Yarmouth? Then you can come back down to Aunt Sophie's with us tomorrow. It's on the way, right?”

“I have to work, sweetie. It's probably best if you both go back like you planned.” Her dad avoided her gaze as he bent down to zip his suitcase closed.

“Dad, tomorrow's Saturday. You never work on the weekends.” Alex plunked onto the bed. “You can come for the weekend and work on Monday.”

Her dad stared down at her upturned face. Finally, he cracked the teeniest of smiles. “All right, Munch, if that's what you want.”

“Douglas, I don't think—”

“It'll be fine, Colleen.”

“Fine…yes, I'm sure.” Her mother's lips were pressed tightly together.

As her parents stared wordlessly at each other, Alex felt a shiver run through her. Things didn't seem fine…not at all.

Late in the night, Alex woke from a restless sleep. Her alarm clock glo
wed two A.M. She felt uneasy, the remains of sleep still holding on to her.

Getting up, she roamed through the silent house. Adam's room was just as she had left it, too. It would have been a surprise if anything had changed. No one else went in there. Alex was careful to step over the squeaky board inside the doorway, preferring her late-night prowl to go undetected.

She sat at Adam's desk by the window and clicked on his computer. Waiting for it to boot up, her hand automatically searched the top drawer, pulling out one of the bags of sour candies she kept there.

Adam had set the computer to automatically sign in to one of his games. The first time she'd come in here after the accident, she'd noticed he was still logged on. There were pages of chat from gaming buddies all over the world. She'd watched it for a while, wondering what Adam used to say to them. Then, on an impulse, she'd replied to one of the blinking “Hey dude, what's up?” messages on the screen.

“Nothing,” she'd replied to Gustavo from Chile.

“Adam, where ya been? Try that new move I told you about?” Another chat buddy popped up. Taine from New Zealand.

“Not yet,” Alex typed.

“Cool. Remember to flip from the tail…” And so it went.

Every night after that, Alex would come to Adam's room and chat with his online friends. They were from all over—Brazil, Germany, Australia. There was some guy at a research station in Antarctica, another working at a diamond mine far up in the North. They never suspected it wasn't Adam chatting with them. Why would they? None of them were local, so they wouldn't know what had happened.

For some reason, it had made her feel…connected to him, or something. In a weird way, it was as if she was talking to him, like people did when they visited the graves of their loved ones. Only she never went to Adam's grave. She tried once, but couldn't go through with it.

Tonight, she watched the chatter back and forth, but didn't feel like joining in. Instead, on a whim, she searched “Brier Island whales.” Gus's site came up first. She clicked on it and started reading the blog. There was a bunch of entries from this summer already. She saw a few mentioning Rooftop with her calf, Gus talking about the new boat, the count of how many calves had been spotted so far, along with all the humpbacks identified.

She clicked on another whale watch site for the area—it had a similar daily blog. She read the entry for that day and sighed with relief. Rooftop had been sighted with her calf. So Daredevil was all right after all. It must be like Gus said—he just strayed from his mother now and then.

Alex realized she was looking forward to seeing Eva and Gus, and especially Daredevil. Her day had been so bizarre, even Rachel didn't seem so bad now. Alex flicked off the computer monitor. As she was returning the open bag of candies to the drawer, a few fell. She reached under the desk to get them and noticed her brother's pack on the floor.

Alex looked through the compartments. Adam's Swiss Army pocket knife was tucked in the front pouch. Dad had given it to him on Alex and Adam's twelfth birthday. She had wanted one too, but got a new easel instead. She tucked the knife into her pyjama pocket.

There was also a half-filled bottle of iced tea and a partially eaten granola bar. She smiled for just a second—Adam always had food with him wherever he went.

She dropped the knife off in her room, then went downstairs. She tiptoed past the family room, where her dad was slumped sideways, asleep on the couch in front of the television. That seemed to be his bed these days.

“For just $39.95 and from the comfort of your chair, you'll have rock hard abs in no time!” a voice blared from an infomercial.

In the kitchen, she fished an ice cream sandwich out of the freezer, and continued her nighttime prowl. Aunt Sophie was sleeping in the office on the hide-a-bed. The door was closed, but Alex could clearly hear her rattling snore in the hallway. She'd gotten used to it at her aunt's place on Brier Island. It amazed her that such a big sound could come out of such a tiny person.

Opening the patio blind, she gazed out into the backyard. Light reflected on the surface of their in-ground pool. No one had put the solar blanket on. Alex punched in the code to deactivate the alarm, flicked on the switch for the underwater lights, and slipped quietly outside.

She sat down by the stairs going into the pool. A drip of melting ice cream splashed on the water. Alex quickly took another bite of the sandwich and licked the drippy parts. Her head was throbbing. She felt the bandage, her fingers running over the big goose egg on her forehead.

Leaves and twigs bobbed on the pool surface. The automatic pool cleaner was meandering along the bottom.

Adam and his friends used to swim almost every day in the summer. Ghostly images of bathing-suit-clad boys and girls splashed and shimmered in front of her as she continued to nibble her ice cream.

Adam was scrambling up the ladder and running as fast as he could down the board.

“Cannonball!” he bellowed, crashing into the water and sending a tidal wave over everyone.

“Nice one, man!” his friend Mark yelled.

“Oooh, Adam, you soaked my new bikini!” Chelsea, the boy-crazy girl from next door, squealed.

Alex remembered grumbling as she brushed water drops off her book, telling them to stop messing around.

Sighing, she gazed up at the diving board. Adam had tried to entice her up there a million times. She never had gone. Not once. No wonder he called her a wuss. Alex took a deep breath and slipped her toes into the water. It was cool. On impulse, she slid into the pool. The water came up to her waist. The legs of her pyjama shorts billowed out around her like two little umbrellas.

She slid her feet along the bottom towards the drop-off. Adam used to try to trick her into going over when they were younger. But it didn't matter what games they played, she always instinctively knew where the drop-off started and would turn back before going over it.

Alex had never lost that uneasiness in the water. Not like Adam. Of course, he swam like a fish. She had managed to learn a puttering form of the dog paddle, but still remained scared of deeper water. According to Adam, that wasn't really swimming.

Her toes felt the downward slope of the concrete. She gulped, tightening her grip on the pool edge. Her heart raced as she gazed up at the high diving board. What would it be like to climb up there?

Suddenly, her foot slipped and she was sliding into deeper water. Waves lapped at her chin. She tried to gain traction on the concrete bottom, grasping the side of the pool.

Gripping the edge, Alex quickly returned to the stairs and stepped out of the pool. Her sopping bottoms fell down past her waist to the ground. She kicked them off and flopped into one of the loungers.

Her head was throbbing worse than ever. Leaning back on the cushion, she closed her eyes. Why had she panicked like that? She hadn't even tried to swim.

Why was she always so afraid of everything?

“You're not taking those shoes.”

“I have to—they're my only ones.”

“Alexandra, these are your brother's skateboarding shoes.” Her father scooped them up off the floor. “Where are your sneakers?”

“I can't find them.”

“Well, time to look again. These,” he said, tucking them on the top shelf of the hall closet, “are staying here.”

“But—”

“No buts. Sophie said you tripped in the blasted things and that's why you fell. They're too big for you!”

“But I like them…” Alex's voice trailed off as she stared up at the backs of Adam's skate shoes.

Her father sighed. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I know you do. But I don't want you hurting yourself. I'm sorry. You'll have to stick to your own from now on, okay?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“That's it?” Her father looked surprised. “No arguments?”

“Would you change your mind?”

“Well, no.”

Alex shrugged and went up to her room.

What she didn't tell her father was that she hadn't looked all that hard for her own. After a few pokes at the clothes piles in her closet, she found them. Slipping her feet into the snug sneaks, she tightened the laces. It felt good to wear shoes that fit.

Adam had always been bigger than her, even when they were born. His shoes were too big. At first, wearing them had made her feel as if he was close by—like he had just kicked them off and if she turned the corner, she'd see him eating out of the fridge, or see him sprawled across the couch watching
TV
.

Lately, it hadn't been like that—just her tripping everywhere she went. But she'd felt disloyal at the thought of not wearing them. Even now, part of her wanted to sneak downstairs and get them back. But she didn't.

Alex grabbed her pack off the bed and took one last look around her gloomy room. Walking over to the window, she pulled the curtains wide open. Sunlight beamed in, lighting up the dark space.
That's better
, she thought. She strolled out, leaving the bedroom door open this time.

“I think you and I should go with Sophie. She needs the company. It'll be fun—the girls' car.”

“No way, Mom,” Alex cried. “The three of us have to go together—you, me, and Dad. Aunt Sophie can come in our car too, if she wants. She can leave her car here.”

Alex and her mom were standing in the kitchen by the door to the garage. Her dad was loading the luggage into the trunk.

“Your father needs his car for work, so we have to take both cars.”

“She'll be okay. Won't you, Aunt Sophie?”

Aunt Sophie was just coming through the doorway into the kitchen. “Okay with what?”

“Driving in your car by yourself.”

Aunt Sophie raised her eyebrows as she glanced over at Alex's mom. “Hmm, both of you are going with Douglas?”

“Apparently.”

“That should be interesting,” Aunt Sophie said.

“Knock it off, Soph.”

“Right, sis.”

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Never mind, Alex. It's fine. We'll go together.” Her mother looped her purse over her shoulder. “We should get going.”

“It's only 8:30. What's the rush?” Aunt Sophie held up the empty carafe. “No coffee?”

“Hit the drive-through on the way,” Alex's mom said.

“Drive-through?” Aunt Sophie shuddered. “I really miss my island. One of Eva's warm ham and cheese rolls and a piping hot cinnamon coffee would sure hit the spot.”

“You'll have to suffer. Alex, you can sit up front with your father. I'm going to read.”

“Really, I can have the front seat?” Alex said.

“Absolutely.” Her dad smiled at her mom. Only it was a hard smile, like he gave to Frank the Crank, the neighbour none of them liked. Then he slammed the trunk so hard, the car shook.

Her mom and Aunt Sophie exchanged glances before going outside.

Both cars were soon on the 101 highway, heading towards Windsor—and Brier Island.

“Mom, how come you didn't go to Toronto with Dad?”

“What, dear?”

Alex turned sideways in her seat, so she could look at both her parents.

“Toronto—how come
you
didn't go?”

Her mom was staring at the back of her dad's head, as if waiting for him to say something. He didn't. “The flights were too expensive.”

“I thought Dad had, like, a gazillion frequent-flyer miles from his last job?”

Her dad didn't answer. With his eyes hidden behind wraparound sunglasses he looked like a statue.

“Dad?”

“Good grief, enough with the twenty questions. Your dad just wanted to visit his brother—end of story!” Her mother huffed and opened her book.

Alex looked from one silent, stone-faced parent to the other. “Well, this was a great idea,” she mumbled. “I should have gone with Aunt Sophie!” Putting on her headphones, she cranked her
MP3
player.

So much for family time.