I felt sad and angry with her. For months, she had hidden from me the lymphoma that would take her away. She had hidden it from everyone. I could understand why, but her silence was still an open wound.
She didn’t give me the chance to say goodbye. Or to tell her once again how much I loved her and how thankful I was for all she had done for me. She was the only one who helped me preserve my mother’s memory, helped me get to know her in a way, because I was soyoung when she had to leave us. She was the only one who didn’t forget her and who didn’t forget me.
I squeezed Frances’s hand and smiled back at her. Her brown eyes gazed into my blue ones, and I could see her broken heart. I couldn’t break down in front of her, though.
“She loved you, Frances.”
“I know. I loved her, too.”
“When are you going to leave?”
“In a few weeks. Three, maybe. However long it takes me to get the accounts up to date, pay suppliers, get our orders straight. Sophia was a disaster when it came to practicalities.” She touched my knee. “I’ll leave everything organized so you won’t have any headaches.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to stay.”
She stood and returned behind the counter with its piles of papers.
“I talked to Mr. Norris, your grandmother’s lawyer. He’ll help you if you decide to sell.”
Sell.That word made my mouth dry out and my spine stiffen. Getting rid of a place you consider your home goes against nature. But what else could I do?Stay, a voice in my head told me. I ignored it. I folded the letter and set it down.
My cell phone rang. It was probably my sister, reminding me again we were supposed to see each other that night. Hayley was a perfectionist, a control freak, and very punctual. Everything I wasn’t. We creative minds are unorganized by nature. Or that’s what I like to tell myself instead of admitting I’m a total disaster.
I reached into the back pocket of my pants and looked at the phone screen. My hair stood on end, and my entire body stiffened. My hand quivered as the phone rang and rang, almost as if I were being shocked.
“Aren’t you going to pick up?” Frances asked.
I shook my head.
“It’s Dad.”
She waited, observing my horrified expression.
“Don’t you want to know why he’s calling?”
I stood up and put the phone back in my pocket. We all have our complexities, our weaknesses, and our eccentricities. Not answering my dad’s calls was one of mine.
“I know why he’s calling. The same reason as last night and yesterday morning. And the day before yesterday.” I walked over to the wooden counter and leaned on my elbows in front of the cash register. It was a fossil, just like everything else there, and that’s why I loved it. “He wants me to sell the house and bookstore and leave my life in Toronto. He wants me to quit school and my internship and take a job at his firm. He wants me on a short leash. And I don’t understand why, honestly, since he can’t even stand me and never has been able to.”
Frances stuffed a pile of receipts in a box and wrote a note on the top.
“Did you ever ask him why?”
“Why what?”
“Why he can’t stand you?”
“No,” I replied meekly.
I had tried to, I really had, but at the last minute, the words always froze in my throat. I was scared he might answer. And that the answer might justify him always being so cold, so cruel with me. And just with me.
When I was little, I thought maybe I had broken or lost some prized possession of his. I always tried to imagine what it was. At home, I’d look all over trying to find traces of the mistake I’d made so I could repair it. Eventually I came to the conclusion that the fault lay with my wavy blond hair. His was black and straight, the same as my brother and sister’s. I thought he probably didn’t like people whowere different, so I cut it with garden shears and darkened it with shoe polish. He got so mad he wanted to send me to a girls’ boarding school in Ottawa. Luckily, my grandmother stopped him. When I grew up, I assumed the problem was me: I wasn’t smart enough, or pretty enough, or refined, or strong… I didn’t know how to do anything right.
Frances took a deep breath.
“Honey, you’re a grown woman. You’re twenty-two years old, and you’ve been on your own since you were eighteen. You need to stop being so scared of him.”
“I’m not…” Her look was so penetrating that I gave up my pathetic attempt to lie to her. “It’s just easier when I’m far away and don’t have to see him.”
