LITMIR.BIZ

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wonder what it’s like.”

      “You’ve never been there?”

      “I’ve never even met my great-aunt,” Mom answered. “I remember seeing pictures of her at my grandfather’s house, though. It seems she was something of a recluse.”

      “What’s that?”

      “A recluse? Someone who doesn’t like to be around other people. I vaguely recall hearing the story of how she went to New Brunswick when she was around twenty, which was quite a thing for a woman on her own in those days. I don’t think anyone ever saw her again after that. The only contact was an occasional letter.”

      This aunt was sounding more and more like a weirdo, if you ask me. I could picture her, old and alone, petting her stupid animals and talking to herself.

      “I don’t care where she went or what she did,” I said, “she doesn’t have the right to force people to live somewhere they don’t want to go.”

      “Now, Sarah. This is hardly the worst thing in the world, you know. You might even like living in New Brunswick.”

      “I’ll hate it,” I said firmly. I added “and I hate her” to that, but only in my head.

      “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to the idea, and fast.” Mom sighed and stood up. “I’ll be calling the lawyer tomorrow and making arrangements. If everything goes well, we should be moving by the end of next week.”

      It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d be leaving so soon. I mumbled something about waiting until the end of the school year, which was a few months away, but Mom just gave me a look. It was one of those looks that tell you there’s not going to be any more discussion on the matter.

      I stomped off to my room and lay on the bed sulking. The more I thought about the whole thing, the angrier I got. What gave this old woman we’d never even met the right to decide where we were going to live? It wasn’t fair!

      Mom came in later to say good night but I pretended I was already asleep.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Itried to keep sulking over the weekend but it was just about impossible. Mom was all excited and happy and some of her attitude started rubbing off on me. She’d quit her job as soon as she’d talked to the lawyer and was flitting around packing and singing little snatches of songs. After hearing her talk about our move as some kind of fun adventure, I was starting to feel a bit differently about it.

      I found I was looking at our apartment a lot differently, too. It had seemed okay before, but now it was starting to look pretty shabby. My room, with its worn carpet and its yellow rose–patterned wallpaper that was cracked in several places, suddenly seemed uglier than I’d ever noticed.

      The whole place was dingy and badly decorated. It was easy to see that the landlord had bought whatever was on sale when he was choosing flooring and wall coverings, regardless of whether anything matched or not. I wasn’t sorry to be moving out of the dreary place we’d called home for the last three years.

      Saying goodbye to my friends was going to be the hardest thing. Mom pointed out that we could probably afford a computer once we got settled into our new place, and then I could keep in touch with everyone by email. It was a small consolation, but at least it was something.

      It was all happening so fast that I hardly had time to think. We had a lot to do, deciding what to take and what to sell or give away before we left. Mom made up handwritten signs advertising everything that was too big to take along, and before I knew it our beds were sold. We slept on the floor the last few nights, which wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I’d expected.

      There were a few things left by Wednesday of the next week and Mom called a goodwill organization that sent a truck around to pick it all up. We spent that night in a hotel since we no longer even had blankets or pillows and the power had been turned off in our apartment.

      I’d been hoping we might fly to New Brunswick, since I’ve never been on a plane. Money was too tight, though, and the cost of tickets was more than we could afford. Instead we boarded the train early Thursday afternoon and settled in for the overnight ride.

      “It was a lucky thing that this came along so close to the end of the month,” Mom said as we ate a light meal in the dining car late in the day. “I don’t know how we’d have managed the trip if I didn’t have the rent money for April put aside. As it is, we’re going to have to watch every cent until things are settled.”

      “Can’t we move right into the house?”

      “I don’t know. But I’m sure we’ll manage until the legal business is all taken care of.”

      That got me thinking. What if something went wrong and we were left without anywhere to go for a while? Even with the rent money and what we’d made from selling our furniture, we only had a few hundred dollars left after we’d paid for the hotel and train tickets.

      Mom seemed optimistic, though, so I decided not to worry about it. Back in our seats, I soon found that the darkness outside and the steady rocking motion of the train made me sleepy.

      The next thing I knew I was waking up, startled to see a man in a blue uniform standing beside me. It took a few seconds before I remembered where we were. Mom was already awake and she smiled as I blinked and looked around.

      “Almost there,” she said cheerfully. “I have your toiletry bag ready so you can tidy up before we get to Miramichi.”

      It’s not easy to brush your teeth while the train is swaying back and forth but I managed it. I washed my face and combed my hair, too, scowling at what I saw in the mirror. I’ve never been too happy with the way I look. Mom says that’s normal for girls my age. She insists that I’m pretty, but then, she is my mom.

      I don’t look much like my mother. Sometimes someone will say we look alike, but I don’t see it. My hair is dark brown while hers is fawn coloured, and her skin is lighter than mine. My lips are a lot fuller than hers, too. Sometimes she jokes that I was born pouting, because my bottom lip is so full it seems to stick out.

      I guess I look more like my father, though it’s a bit hard to tell from looking at the few pictures we have of him. Mom always says he was the most handsome man she ever saw. His name was Shane Gilmore and he’d come to Canada from Ireland three years before Mom met him.

      She was working in a coffee shop and he started dropping in on his way home from his job with a construction company. After he’d been going there for a few months he asked her out and she broke her rule of never dating customers.

      “I was so taken with him, his good looks and charm,” she told me often, reliving the happy time in her life when she’d been in love. “Shane loved excitement and we went to a lot of places that I’d never gone before. It was a whole new world for me.”

      When they’d been seeing each other for about half a year, he asked her to marry him. Mom says that was the happiest day of her life, up until I was born.

      “Your grandparents didn’t approve of Shane.” She’d frown, remembering. “They thought he was a bit too wild. But they were wrong. It’s true that he liked to have fun but he was a good man.”

      Then, only seventeen short days after their wedding, there was an accident. I never got a lot of details because Mom didn’t like to talk about it. All I know is that my father was hit by a driver who was high on something. He died three days later.

      Mom still gets upset when she talks about that. It must have been so horrible. One day she was a brand new bride and the next thing she knew she was standing beside her husband’s coffin.

      A few weeks later Mom found out that she was going to have a baby. Me. It really makes me sad that my dad never knew anything about me. Not even that I was going to be born.

      As a young child, I used to pretend that my father might come to the door one day and explain that it had somehow all been a terrible

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