I realized I’ve written once in “Breaking News” about how I received the news of Patty’s murder. This is another iteration. I am so hard at work trying to finish off the book, I am too exhausted to generate something new. The next blog will be on letting go. This journey is coming to a close, and I have to come to terms with that. It will be a relief, but also not something I’ll be able to completely put behind me.
Taking vacations was an oddity when I was growing up. We were the smallest family unit possible, a party of two. Time off for my mother meant immersing herself in the sagas of royalty: Edmund, Duke of Suffolk, Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots. The unduly beheaded. I longed to get away. Vacation for me meant a more literal escape, from the confines of our apartment, from San Francisco, from California, preferably from the entire country.
The summer after I turned eighteen, I got my wish. An airline ticket arrived in the mail, and I hightailed it to Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada. Up until I turned seven, until I left for America, Sheridan, my aunt, filled in for her absent brother, my father, and tried to compensate for his spotty parenting. But she was more overbearing sibling than nurturing parent.
This trip was a reunion of sorts, a way to reconnect with my aunt. Our family had roots in PEI, relatives and property. A great aunt, Leili, owned a quaint, well kept house in Charlottetown. But rather than sharing quarters, we rented a two bedroom cottage set back from a red dirt road, and facing the rolling, grassy hills.
It was a tradition among the islanders to hold a clam bake, so on the second week after we arrived Sheri dragged me out of bed to help shop. Hours later, we pulled up the driveway. The last item on our list was the order of eight pounds of quahogs. The meat market wrapped them tightly in butcher paper, and bagged them in plastic, but by the time we arrived home the tangy smell filled the cab of the car. My stomach groaned.
Sheri piled the paper supplies on a picnic table bench. I lugged the other paper bags one by one from the car. My uncle, Don, spotted me headed up to the porch. He butted out a cigarette and popped a piece of gum into his mouth. This was our little secret. He dug into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out an envelope folded in half.
“A letter from your mother.”
My mother could easily fill pages of yellow legal paper. The envelope was thick. I locked myself in the smaller of the two cabin bedrooms and threw myself down onto my bed to read the letter.
This was how I received the news of my friend’s murder.
I dug myself down under the covers, buried my head in the pillows. Patty and me. How to explain us? At thirteen we were playing a version of Russian Roulette, our crazy antics escalating to danger, snowballing until they seemed out of our control. I hadn’t expected such news, but I also wasn’t terribly shocked.
For a number of reasons, I struggled to process my feelings. My emotions went haywire, flat lining one day, hysteria the next. I resolved to burrow as deeply under the bedsheets as possible and stay there forever.
My aunt pounded on the door.
“Get your lazy ass out here,” she blurted through the keyhole.
She wanted me to sit by the steamer pot, to track the cooking time. I waited until she walked away before emerging. I got as far as the porch stairs. My uncle was stooped over our camp stove, mother henning it over the cooking quahogs. I figured I could slip away into a stand of trees or behind a bush without being seen.
The neighbors had filed out of their cabins and the picnic area was a small hive of activity.
I wandered off by myself as far I could to get away from the buzz of people. I slumped at a table further down the hill. The wind off the Gulf of St. Lawrence pushed my hair off my face. Nothing beat steamed clams dipped in melted butter. I didn’t get why people balked at the thick necks, why the comparison to chewing rubber. What better taste than sea salt and sweet butter? The mouth feel never bothered me.
Don moseyed over, a frisbee tucked under his arm.
“What’s the matter? You look like you’re sulking.”
Don played the mediator role in our family; he was grounded, down-to-earth, we were uptight, neurotic.
“Nothing.” He knew I was lying.
Crying in one leg of our family was considered weak. Sulking, the height of self indulgence. Don would understand, but I wasn’t ready to talk. He was sure to tell Sheri, and I didn’t need her bombarding me with questions right then.
“Want to play?” He waggled the Frisbee.
“No.” I kept my eyes squarely on the horizon.
Don knew me well enough to know if I refused to play, something was amiss. But he also steered clear of me if I was too moody. And this was a new low, my insides felt cored out, images of Patty in a coffin looped in my head. Still I couldn’t cry. Patty would probably say “don’t cry for me.” She never abided pity. Yet what sort of friend was I that I remained dry-eyed after hearing of her murder?
Don turned on his heel and beckoned me to join the party. Normally Don could cheer me up. Not this time. He headed back up the hill, boomeraging the Frisbee in the air. I willed myself to follow, but couldn’t budge.
Dusk was settling. The sun dipped behind the mounds of hills and the sky turned lush orange then gray. Up the hill the din of voices grew louder. I was usually first to heap my plate, but celebration and bounty felt inappropriate. After an hour, I trudged up the hill and served myself a plate of clams. It was like eating pencil eraser. I choked down two and slid the rest back into the pot.
Three days later, sick of my brooding, my aunt packed a picnic and dragged us to a stretch of red sand beach. It was a short walk from my grandfather’s cabin, a two mile drive north. Sheri and Don spread out a blanket. I floated on my back beyond the surf then lay on the beach until I got sun burned. The volume was turned up on my senses, the wind against my skin stung, the red and blue of the sand and sea blinded me. I half enjoyed myself, alternately suspended in water or sunk into the sand. I couldn’t feel completely happy. It didn’t seem right. Had I moved on in the course of a few days? Was I cold blooded? Lugging around an old grievance? Had our estrangement made tears impossible? I wanted to feel something, anything.
