Ten Thousand Truths (15 page)

Falling Rocks

Rocks on Road

Wildfire

Trucks Turning

Curves

Blasting

Road Construction

One Lane Bridge

Elk

Bighorn Sheep

Stock at Large

Watch for Crime

Wind Gusts

Rachel and Amelia passed eighteen signs of warning as they drove through the mountains toward Golden. For some reason she couldn't explain, Rachel had started writing them down as they appeared on the roadside. It seemed comical to her that the road held such dangers. Beneath her list, she wrote a few signs of her own for the road they were taking:

Caution

Family Ahead

Watch for Disappointment

Broken Promises

“Did you ever try to find out who your father was?” she asked as she closed her notebook.

“No, not really,” Amelia answered. “It never seemed that important to me. I guess I put all my energy into thinking about my mother. She was such a mystery to me and I had magnified her in my mind. It was my mother's love I craved, not my father's. And the more I craved it, the more I blamed and hated myself for not getting it from her. I never blamed her. In my mind, she was perfect. I thought I was the damaged one. I think I am only just now coming to terms with the falseness of that.”

“What if my dad and I are damaged?” Rachel asked. “Too damaged to deserve anything better?”

“I doubt that either one of you are as damaged as you have convinced yourselves,” Amelia said, looking over at Rachel. “Take it from me: most of the beliefs in our shortcomings are spoken much louder from within than from anyone else.”

As they rounded a curve in the road and headed down the steep decline, the town of Golden came into view. Whatever dangers or pitfalls were ahead, Rachel was finally coming to the place she had been obsessing about for months.

Rachel and Amelia drove down the tree-lined cul-de-sac and pulled into the driveway of a cedar-shingled bungalow. Before they even had time to get out of the Jimmy, what seemed like a never-ending stream of people of all ages filed out the front door of the house.

One woman rushed toward Rachel and before she said a word Rachel knew it was her grandmother. Audrey Anderson extended her arms, and without even thinking about it, Rachel allowed herself to be enfolded into her grandmother's embrace.

When she finally let Rachel go, Audrey had tears streaming down her cheeks. “You are just as beautiful as your picture,” she said. “I've dreamed of this day for fourteen years. I can't believe I am finally meeting you!” Then, turning toward Amelia, she added, “I can't thank you enough for bringing my granddaughter to us, Miss Walton.”

“You're very welcome,” Amelia responded. “But, please, call me Amelia. And there's no need to thank me. I'm very happy to be here, but it was Rachel's determination that made this trip happen.”

A tall man with shoulder-length hair and a short beard edged his way through the others standing on the front lawn. He wiped the tears from his cheek and approached Rachel, waiting for her to make eye contact with him.

“Hi,” was all he said.

Rachel knew who this must be, but she just nodded her head. She couldn't bring herself to give the father who'd abandoned her so many years ago much more than this.

“She's beautiful, Donald,” a young woman who was very pregnant said as she walked up beside them. “I'm your Aunt Victoria,” she told Rachel, giving her a hug.

“Happy Birthday, Rachel,” Donald said as he awkwardly moved closer and gave Rachel a quick hug.

“My birthday is actually tomorrow,” Rachel said blankly.

“I know. You were born on July 15, 1996, at six-thirty in the morning.”

Rachel stared at Donald, not knowing what to say. He may have been there when she was born, but that didn't mean her knew her. He knew nothing about who she was, and spouting out her birth details didn't get him off the hook for not being around for the rest of her fourteen years.

“Let's go into the house,” Audrey called out to everyone. “Rachel, we're having your birthday dinner tonight. The food is all laid out—there's enough of it to feed an army! We'll make all of the introductions inside.”

The eighteen people who made up the welcoming committee were quickly categorized and introduced to Rachel and Amelia when they entered the house: Rachel's dad, Donald; his girlfriend, Penny; Patricia, her husband, Tom, and two little boys, Elliot and Liam; Victoria and her husband, Malcolm; Great Aunt Alice, her daughter, Janet, and Janet's three kids, Chad, Emily, and Stephen; Audrey's best friend, Ruth Shannon, and neighbours Owen and Winnie Johnston; another neighbour named Laura Mac Dougall; and, of course Audrey, who everyone seemed to be calling Nanny A.

Everyone headed straight for the kitchen. The table, the countertop, and the stovetop were covered with heaping dishes of food. After instructions from Audrey, everyone began to line up and start filling their plates. Penny passed Rachel a plate and motioned for her get in line, and Donald followed behind them. Rachel filled her plate, trying in her mind to put the names and faces of her new family in place.

After supper, Audrey carried out a huge birthday cake with “Happy Birthday, Rachel!” written on it in orange icing, and everyone sang the birthday song. Rachel blew out the candles. The wish that came immediately to mind was for all of her new family members to like her. She carefully cut the cake, passing the slices to her Aunt Patricia, who topped each one with a scoop of ice cream.

Once everyone finished their cake, Audrey and Ruth headed to the kitchen to clean up. Amelia and Rachel offered to help, but were told to join the others outside and relax. Amelia sat on the porch swing beside Winnie and Laura, and was quickly caught up in their friendly chatter. Rachel sat down on the back step to watch the older kids and some of the grown-ups playing a game of washer toss.

Donald came over and sat on the step beside her. They sat, not saying anything, for a few minutes before Donald finally broke the silence. “Do you want to take a walk?”

Rachel looked around, hoping that someone else would want to come with them. Taking a walk with this perfect stranger, even if he was technically her father, was not something she wanted to do. It wasn't like they were going to catch up on the last fourteen years of their lives over a twenty-minute walk. Even if they could, she wasn't even sure she wanted to get to know him.

She didn't know what to say, so she got up and followed Donald as he led her down a trail towards the woods. After walking for a long time without speaking a word, Rachel and Donald came up to a small wooden bridge. A sign nearby told Rachel it was called the Kicking Horse Pedestrian Bridge.

“I helped build this bridge in 2001,” Donald told her, stopping in the middle of the bridge and leaning against the railing to look down at the stream below. “It's a timber-framed Burr Arch design. I was sober and clean for the month I was working on it. I was saving money to go back to New Brunswick when I finished, to try to convince your mother to take me back. It didn't work out that way, though. I got into the cocaine real bad and all I could think of was how I was going to get my next line.”

“Mom used to tell us that you would be back when you got better,” Rachel said, taking a place beside Donald. She could see the rocks glistening in the streambed below as she leaned out over the railing. “She said that when you got better you would be a good father to us.”

“That was very generous of her,” Donald said. “It makes it sound like I chose to leave so that I could get better. The truth was she kicked me out and I didn't go easy. She always said that you kids came first and she wouldn't let anything hurt you or your brother. There was no way she would let me be around you guys as long as I was using. All those years when she was raising you alone she knew that I wasn't making any effort to get clean and I know things weren't easy for her.”

Rachel started walking again. When she reached the end of the bridge, she sat down on a concrete slab that sloped toward the riverbank. Donald caught up to her and sat next to her.

“This bridge doesn't actually go anywhere,” he said. “There isn't much to see when you cross it. The town is planning on developing this area to make it more appealing to tourists. I like it the way it is, though. I walk here a lot. It was on one of my walks here that I finally convinced myself I was ready to make a change in the way I was living.”

“How did Mom meet you?” Rachel asked.

“In the nineties I travelled all around the country, building post-and-beam timber structures. In 1995, I was building a big hunting lodge in the Miramichi. One Friday night after work, a few of my buddies and I headed to Fredericton for dinner and some drinks. We ended up at a place called the Diplomat Restaurant, and your mom was our waitress. For me, it was love at first sight. Though when I used to tell that to your mom she always said it was a miracle that I could even see that first night, I was so drunk. She wouldn't give me the time of day that first night, so I sobered up and came back the next night and asked her to go to the Hilltop Pub with me when she got off work. She wouldn't go then, either. But I came back every weekend for the next few weeks, and finally my charm won her over. When the hunting lodge was finished a short time later, I got a job in Fredericton working for a local contractor so I could be closer to her. A couple of months later, she got pregnant with you. We were both really excited to have a baby, but I was an asshole and was drinking a lot and getting into some drugs. I spent all of my money on booze and drugs, and your mom had to keep working right up until she gave birth. After you were born, I smartened up for almost a year. I kept asking her to marry me, but she wouldn't. She said that when I was sober and clean for two years she would consider it. Then she got pregnant again. I didn't make the two-year point, but she put up with me until after Caleb was born. I was so messed up by that point that she had to tell me to leave. I didn't take that very well and she finally had to get a restraining order against me.”

“What were you doing that was so bad she had to get a restraining order?” Rachel asked. “Did you ever hurt her?”

“I almost did once,” Donald said quietly, focusing on his feet as he dug a hole in the dirt with the toe of his boot. “I kicked the door open to her apartment one night when I was really wasted. I was going to make her take me back, no matter what I had to do, and God knows what I would have done. But when I got through the door, you were there, crying and hanging onto her leg. You were wearing a fuzzy pink housecoat and your hair was still wet from your bath. I remember freezing in my tracks, thinking what a monster I was to make my baby girl so afraid of me. I turned around and left. The next day I headed back out west. Your mom was kind enough to write to me every once in a while, though she always made it clear that as long as I was drinking or doing any drugs she did not want anything to do with me.”

“I remember that housecoat,' Rachel said. “The sleeves were up to my elbows when Mom made me stop wearing it. I used to sleep with it after that.”

Donald stood up and turned toward the bridge. “I should get back to Mom's now,” he said, heading back up across the bridge. “I only get day passes from the centre, so I have to be back every night at ten, and it's a long drive to get there. I only have one more month of that, though, and then I start getting week passes so I only have to check in on weekends. After that I go to full discharge, with just a weekly counseling session. It's great that you're staying for a whole week. Penny and I want to take you hiking and maybe even white-water rafting, if you're up for it. I've been with Penny for almost a year. She's like your mom: she won't take any shit from me.” He paused and turned back to her, giving her a shy smile. “I wish I could have done this years ago. Your mom deserved so much better. So did you, Rachel.”

Audrey greeted Rachel the next morning as she entered the kitchen. “Happy Birthday! How about just you and I go out to breakfast? We have a diner downtown that makes the best French toast ever.”

“Sounds good,” Rachel answered. “Where's Amelia? She's usually up with the sun.”

“She's gone to see Ruth's vegetable garden. Yesterday Ruth was telling her about the raised bed garden she planted, but it isn't anywhere near as big as the one you've got growing, from the sounds of it. I would love to hear all about Amelia's farm. I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, you know.”

“Really?” Rachel said as she pulled her sandals on and followed her grandmother outside. “That's so cool. I saw a whole bunch of farms when we drove through Saskatchewan, but they didn't look anything like ours.”

Audrey and Rachel talked nonstop as they walked to the Eagle's Eye Diner.

Rachel and her grandmother spent their hour at the diner lost in conversation. Audrey did most of the talking, though she was interrupted here and there by people stopping by the table to say hello. It seemed everyone in Golden knew Audrey Anderson. She proudly introduced Rachel to everyone who spoke to them as they sat and ate their breakfast.

“I have been so concerned about you, Rachel,” Audrey said as she picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip. “I know it must seem like none of us have given you a thought, especially since your mom and Caleb died. You must have felt so alone. I am so sorry I didn't find you sooner. I hope you believe me when I say I have thought of you every day since you were born.”