“It’s from Gran. It says if I’m reading this, she’s dead.”
TWO
“I, Catherine Amanda Gale, being of sound mind…”
“That’s always been debatable,” Auntie Jane snorted.
“… and body do hereby leave all my worldly possessions to my granddaughter, Alysha Catherine Gale. These possessions include the building at 1223 9th Avenue S.E., Calgary, Alberta and all its contents.” Allie set the handwritten sheet of paper down and took a deep breath. Then a second. “That’s all there is. She signed it on the 28th and had it witnessed by a Joe O’Hallon. I think it’s O’Hallon. I mean his penmanship sucks, but I just spent eighteen months reading some pretty hinky documentation, and field archaeologists have remarkably crappy penmanship and…”
“Allie.”
She snapped her mouth shut and turned to her mother, reaching out to touch her shoulder. The soft nap of her sweater was still cool from walking down the lane to get the mail. Was it possible that so much had changed in such a little time? “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry. Here I’m all thrown by losing my grandmother, and you’ve lost your mother.”
“She isn’t dead.”
“But…” Frowning, Allie tapped the letter. “She says she’s dead.”
If you’re reading this, Alysha Catherine, I’m dead. Don’t make a fuss—it’s a state we all come to in the end. Except possibly for Jane who may be too mean to die. Now that it’s happened, I need you to do me a favor. I have a small business in Calgary that’s become crucial to the local community, and I want you to take it over. There’s an apartment upstairs. I’ve left the keys with Kenny in the coffee shop next door. He’ll hand them over when you settle my tab. Don’t dawdle.
“She lies.” Auntie Jane unplugged the kettle and filled the old brown teapot with boiling water. “She’s always lied when it suited her.”
When warm fingers closed around hers and squeezed gently, Allie turned her attention back to her mother—whose expression seemed caught halfway between comforting and exasperated. “If she was dead, sweetie, the aunties would know.”
“But she didn’t make it home this weekend.” If she could have come home, she would have. Allie knew that. They all knew that. Rituals brought the wild ones home, even if they never stayed.
“We’re not saying she isn’t up to something,” Auntie Jane pointed out, setting the teapot on the table. “We’re just saying she isn’t dead.”
“Who isn’t dead?” Auntie Ruby asked, shuffling into the kitchen and lowering herself carefully into one of the chairs.
“Catherine.”
“Has she been buried?”
“Of course not, you old fool.”
“Then what difference does it make? Pour my tea now, Jane dear. Off the top. You know I can’t drink it when it turns to tar.”
“Hey, Allie-cat! What’s new?” Michael sounded just like he always did—happy to hear from her.
She clutched the phone a little tighter and concentrated on breathing. Her reaction was always more intense when she hadn’t spoken to him for a few days.
“It’s like the little mermaid,” she’d told Charlie once, lying curled on her bed and emphatically not listening to Michael and his date through the suddenly too thin walls of their student apartment. “Only instead of walking on razor blades, it’s like they’re filling my chest.”
“She gave up her tail for feet.” On the other end of the phone, Charlie sounded merely curious. “What did you give up?”
“Michael.”
“You didn’t so much give him up as you never had him and, if you’ll recall, no one forced you to share an apartment with him.”
“He’s my best friend. I love living with him.”
“Have I told you lately that you’re an idiot?”
“Allie?”
“Sorry. Got distracted.” She never let it show in her voice; that wouldn’t be fair to him. And his stupid perfect relationship. “It seems Gran’s left me a business in Calgary.”
“Left you? What do you mean, left you? She died?” He knew the family well enough to delay his reaction, but Allie could hear shock and grief waiting to emerge. Michael adored Gran, and she felt the same way about him. Of course, everyone felt the same way about him.
“The aunties don’t think so.”
His relief was palpable. “The aunties are usually right.”
She felt almost sorry for those few seconds he’d believed the worst. Almost. She’d had to live through them, too. “Suck up.”
“Hey, sucking up gets me pie. Auntie Jane has mad skills with blueberries.” Memory provided a perfect shot of dimples flashing as he leaned back and stretched out long legs. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. They want me to go out there and figure out what she’s up to.”
“Calgary’s a lot closer to Vancouver. Makes it easier for us to see each other.”
She’d thought of that. “So I should go all the way out to Calgary just on the chance I’d see you more often?”
“Pretty much, yeah. Oh, crap. Allie, I’ve got to go. I’ve got an outside elevation I have to finish before the client arrives, and he just walked in.”
“You’re still at work?”
“You can rearrange the world for your convenience, and you can’t remember a three-hour time difference?”
“I can’t rearrange the whole world.”
“So you say. Let me know what you decide. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” But she was talking to a dial tone.
“What did Michael say?”
“How do you know I called Michael first?”
On the other end of the phone, Charlie made a rude noise. “You always call Michael first, Allie.”
Michael had received a family phone the same day Allie’d got hers—the day they left for university. Although the phones began as the cheapest pay-as-you-go handset available, by the time the aunties got through with them, they provided free, reliable cell service. There was a strong suspicion among the younger members of the family that the aunties were using the technology to eavesdrop, but—given free, reliable cell service—no one tried too hard to prove it.
Michael’d accidentally flushed his down the toilet during the first party they’d thrown in their shared apartment. Four days later, it had arrived in the mail; plain manila envelope, no return address, still working if a bit funky smelling.
“He said if I moved to Calgary, it’d be easier for us to get together.”
“For what? Cappuccinos?” Charlie snorted, sounding frighteningly like Auntie Jane.
“For…” Sitting cross-legged in the tree house, Allie waved a hand, knowing Charlie’d get the intent even if she couldn’t see the motion. “Why do you think she left her business to me?”
“Because you’re unemployed with no emotional commitments that have any connection to reality.”
“You think she saw that?”
“I think your mother called her when your grant ran out and, as your grandmother, she’s understandably concerned about your creepy obsession with your gay best friend and thinks you should get a life. And I’m on the phone, dipshit!” Charlie’s volume rose. “Keep your pants on, I’ll be right there.”
“I’m interrupting something.”
“Not really. Just a prima donna who’s sucking all the life out of this track by insisting it be perfect!”
Allie didn’t quite catch the prima donna’s answer, but it seemed to involve inserting instruments where they clearly wouldn’t fit.
“This,” Charlie added with a weary sigh, “is why I hate session work. So what are you going to do? You’ve never been that far away from home.”
“I know.” Allie picked at a piece of splintered wood; swore as it drove in under her nail. “I think I’m going,” she mumbled around the taste of blood as she sucked at her fingertip.
“You think?”
“I am.” Staring across the moonlit pasture at the dark line of the woods, she wondered if Granddad was still hanging around. “You’re right, I don’t have anything better to do, and I’d like to know what Gran’s up to as much as the aunties.”