Page 43 of The Last Stars in the Sky
A sudden, terrible thought occurs to me. “Do beavers hibernate?”
She laughs. “I hope not.” I can’t tell if she’s joking or not, and she must see my apprehension because she laughs again, not unkindly. “Relax, I’m pretty sure they don’t. They swim under the ice.” She starts setting the trap, her movements brisk and efficient, while I watch.
“Did you ever see your boyfriend butcher a beaver?” I ask, and she looks up.
“No, that stuff grosses me out. You’re on your own there. Sorry.”
“Fair enough.” I take a breath. “I want to build a greenhouse,” I tell her. “We’ll need fresh vegetables.”
Kerry straightens, dusting her mud-speckled hands on her jeans. “A greenhouse in Ontario in winter?” She sounds more curious than incredulous, and that heartens me.
“Why shouldn’t it be possible?” In Ruby’s book, there was a two-page spread on greenhouses, and the author wrote about using them year-round. “If there’s a heat source, it can work,” I add, and Kerry raises her eyebrows.
“What heat source is strong enough in below-zero temperatures?”
“Well…we have the chiminea out on the deck,” I say, wincing a little at how lame it sounds. “If we built a greenhouse against the cottage with the chiminea inside…the deck is south-facing and gets a lot of sun. Maybe…”
Kerry nods slowly. “So, how do we build a greenhouse?”
“Your mom had one in her yard. I thought maybe we could…shift it somehow.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Shift it?”
“Yeah, take it apart in pieces? Panes, I guess?” I wish I could search how to on the internet; Ruby’s book did not include advice on how to move a greenhouse, just what to put in one.
“It’s possible,” Kerry allows after a moment’s thought. “Maybe. We could maybe keep it in big sections, rather than take it apart completely.”
I’m grateful she hasn’t completely shot down my idea; it sounded ludicrous to me. “Okay. Let’s do that.”
She sighs, shaking her head, but with a small smile twitching at her lips. “You know I used to want to getoutof the woods?I was going to move to Renfrew.” She speaks of it as if it is a big city, rather than a town an hour away with a population of about eight thousand. Still, I certainly understand about broken dreams.
“What happened?” I ask.
“My dad died, and my mom’s health wasn’t so great.” She shrugs. “It didn’t feel like the right time to go, and then somehow it never was. I worked in Corville until my mom needed more care, and then I moved out to be with her.” She sighs again, the sound one of both sorrow and acceptance. “That’s life, I guess.”
Fifteen years ago—Kerry would have been about eighteen, on the cusp of everything, or at least Renfrew, which probably felt like a lot. I feel sad for her, although that old heartache is nothing compared to what we’re facing now.
“Anyway.” Kerry turns back toward the cottage. “We should head over to my mom’s place before it gets dark if we want to get that greenhouse.”
Twenty minutes later, we are in the truck bumping down the dirt road. I feel apprehensive at leaving the cottage again, even though we’re only going four miles away. Mattie insisted on coming, saying we’d need the help, and Ruby stayed back with Darlene.
“I’ll look out for my sweetheart,” Darlene said, putting an arm around my daughter. “She’s great company. Will you read to me, darlin’?”
Ruby nodded, and I tried to hide my surprise.Read to Darlene? The way Darlene spoke, it sounded like something Ruby had done before. How much had I missed, worrying about everything, bustling around, making lists and plans? And yet I was glad; if Darlene could be an honorary grandma to my daughters, all the better.
We drive in silence to Darlene’s place, but when I turn in the little dirt drive, I inhale sharply, and Kerry lets out a groan.
“What’s happened?” Mattie clambers forward, craning her neck over the seats.
“Someone’s taken a baseball bat to my mom’s house,” Kerry replies flatly, shaking her head. She gets out of the truck slowly while I hesitate, alert to dangers. “No one’s here,” she calls back, her tone weary now, and then she steps over a jumble of broken glass, inside the house. After another second’s pause, Mattie and I follow.
Inside, the house has been comprehensively and pointlessly trashed. The windows are all knocked out, the TV that we left smashed to pieces. Everything that could be wrecked—and there wasn’t that much left—was. The mattresses have been shredded with a knife; even the bathroom mirror is shattered. Glass crunches under our boots as we go through the house—all four rooms of it—in silent dismay.
“What a waste.” Kerry stands in the kitchen, her gaze distant as she looks around at the mess. “I don’t think they even took anything, just trashed it all. Probably some nutjob out of his mind on fenty.”
“Look.” Mattie points to the window, and Kerry and I both turn to look out at Darlene’s once neat yard; the chicken coop has been kicked down, and the greenhouse is nothing but a frame with shattered shards of glass clinging to it.
Kerry sighs again. “Well, so much for that.”
