“It will be.” I swing my hiking pack in front of me, worried I might be overstepping, but already committed. “Can I stay with you going forward?”
“Sure,” he says. I sigh and drop the pack on the floor. He raises a hand and points at it. “But only if you unpack. I’m not tripping over that every time I walk through my own room.”
“Back to putting conditions on our relationship?”
“Absolutely.” He steps around the bed and kisses me before opening the door. “You unpack, and we’ll get you that couch you want.”
“Really?”
“I’m mad at you too, Sid!” April’s voice careens against my ears as she catches sight of him in the doorway.
He shakes his head at me. “To be continued.”
The door shuts and I’m alone in his room.Ourroom. I collapse onto the bed, pressing his cotton shirt I’m wearing against my skin. It smells of homemade soap, a hint ofcigarettes, and nothing has ever felt so comfortable. We’re getting a couch. I need to unpack.
Holy shit.
I have a husband.
***
SID GOES INTOtown and buys the red couch from the exchange. He had to ask around, but luckily it was the only red couch on the floor, so he found it. It immediately brightens the apartment and makes it look like someone might live here by choice. He also surprises me by buying a small shelf, because he noticed April and I were keeping our books in piles on the floor. I’m stunned by the thoughtfulness of the gift for about two seconds, then I screech and fly into his arms. I’m kissing him all over again, this time in full view of my scowling sister.
I set the shelf up in the main living room, proudly arranging my small collection of books and the few knickknacks I considered worth dragging around with me for over eleven years. A handful of wave-worn sea glass. My mother’s old perfume bottle. Even the carved heart from Curtis. Sid has the nerve to call themdust collectors, but I think he secretly likes it.
We transfer my cooking equipment into the kitchen downstairs, including an old bugle from Port Alberni. April and I used it to signal to each other over long distances in the woods, but in its first life, it was used for announcing mess times. Carlos takes to blowing it around the acreage every time a meal is ready, until Dom and Albert forcibly wrestle it away from him, which escalates into a fight that Sid and Silas have to break up. After that, everyone is banned from touching the bugle, which is looking more dented after its foray into active duty. It hangs above the stove, out of reach.
The winter rains arrive in full force. Silas strings a tarp over the beehives to keep them safe from a typhoon that leaves the fields waterlogged for days. We trap as much of the rain in barrels as we can, and Sid starts working on a long-term budget to install catchment pipes along the roof of the homestead.
I teach Carlos how to identify wood blewits and a handful of other mushrooms that last past the first hard frost. When the foraging gets too lean, I hack into one of the cedar trees that came down during the typhoon to access its soft inner bark. With that, I start twining cordage, weaving baskets, and generally keeping myself busy. It’s amazing how similar it is to the winters April and I shared in the wilds, only she’s at school now and I’m on the acreage.
I tell Sid I went to the café; I’ve never seen him light up so quickly. He asks me when I think I might go in again, and I say that I’m waiting until Carlos has time to spare. That way, I’ll get a better reception when I ask Mrs. Buckerfield about classes. That satisfies Sid for now, but I know I’ll have to think up a different excuse eventually.
Spending my days surrounded by strangers in town is out of the question.
The acreage is different. The acreage is safe. Sid and the boys have total control over this place—if anyone from Astolia showed up, I’m confident Sid could squish their brains with his bare hands. But every time I approach the perimeter of the acreage, a choking grip seizes my throat and stops me from going further.
This place barely accepted me, yet the Grand Astrologue walks around freely. They took my knives and slingshot. They took every means I had of defending myself, then let monsters roam their streets. Sid and the boys have sentimental reasons to protect me and April, but the rest of Salt Spring Island can go to hell for all I care.
One day, I try to work up the nerve to bus into town to get new books from the library, but every time I load up my bag, I can’t breathe. It isn’t worth it. Instead, I wait until April has lost the will to be stony towards me, then hand her my overdue books. She turns them in after school. No one ever questions why I didn’t go myself.
When she comes home later that day, I check to see if she picked up anything good, but the only new books she has are on pre-Quake Canadian history and post-Quake Salt Spring Island. In the past couple of months, she’s managed to scrape her mathematical knowledge up to a passable level, so she’s moved onto another class she’s close to failing.
“They want me to memorize the capitals of the provinces. It’s so stupid! Who needs to know where Fredericton is?” she demands, cracking a book open and hunkering down on her bed. “I told Mrs. Patel that I’ve been to Victoria and it’s just some useless, fancy hotel that sunk into the ocean. No one needs to know where it was.”
“And what did she say?” I ask, thumbing through the handbound volume on post-Quake Salt Spring Island, my back against the wall of my old room.
“That I should respect the past.” April rolls her eyes. “You’re lucky you don’t have to go to school, Kayla. You’d be in trouble constantly.”
“Hmm.” I flip another page. “Can I borrow this? I should know something about history or whatever, in case Sid needs me to help him write something else for his campaign.”
“Sure, if you like.”
For a few minutes, I skim a section on how the island was remodelled to be more self-sufficient following the Quake. I wish there were pictures, but I guess those are tougher to print now that most illustrations rely onwoodcut blocks. Still, I would love to know what this place looked like four decades ago, when people lived in absurd, single-family boxes that cost a fortune to heat and cool individually and—
“Do you love him?”
April’s question jolts me out of my reverie.
