If You Live Like Me by Lori Weber

Author:Lori Weber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-77203-053-2
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2015-04-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Some Rock-Solid Place

JIM’S FAMILY SETS OFF for the hospital early the next day, piling into Nanny’s car. Nanny gets to ride up front, helped into her seat by Jim’s mother and sisters. She’s so tiny, they practically lift her in.

“I’m sure they’d take you with them if you asked, Cherie,” my mom says when she catches me watching from the living room window. She woke me up at the crack of dawn to try to talk me into going on the bird and whale tour at Witless Bay with them. When I said no, she urged me to at least come down and have breakfast with them, to see them off.

I couldn’t find a way out of it.

“No, they wouldn’t. They don’t even know me,” I respond, still sleepy, little pieces of my dream still heavy in my head, like bits of bone that need spitting out.

“No, but Nanny does. And the others must know about you by now.”

I guess she’s right, but I can’t be sure. And I can’t help thinking that if Nanny wanted me to come, she’d have found a way to ask me. I remember the way Jim’s family surrounded his bed yesterday, his mother fussing over him—peck, peck, peck, like a mother hen.

I don’t see how I’d fit into the picture. I’d probably just hang out in the background, plastered back against the wall, and that’s not where I want to be. I want to stand inches away from Jim and look directly into his brown eyes. I think back to that split second of our kiss, when I felt every cell in my body rush toward him. Neither of us are likely to forget the sound of that mother’s scream, but I hope Jim has some memory of what happened before it.

“It’s okay, Mom. Drop it,” I say.

My mother hasn’t said anything more about leaving Newfoundland, but I can tell she’s thinking about it by the way she keeps looking down at her hands and sighing. Even this boat tour is a sign. She says she wants to do it now because summer is almost over, but that doesn’t make sense. My mom usually acts like she has all the time in the world.

“You can almost feel fall in the air and see it in the light,” she says, sipping her coffee at the front window. “I’d really like to see the seabirds at Cape St. Mary’s, too, and drive around Trinity Bay.”

“Don’t worry, Ellen. We’ll get you there,” my dad replies, stressing the “we,” as if he and I have made plans to whisk my mother around the province. “Are you sure you won’t come see the whales with us, Cheryl?” My father is loading his knapsack with binoculars, camera, sun hats, rain capes, a map, and other boat tour essentials. “I’ve heard they’re spectacular.”

“I told you. I don’t want to go near the ocean for a while, after what happened Thursday.”

I know that’ll shut them up, even though it’s not the real reason I don’t want to go.

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