Some People's Children by Bridget Canning

Author:Bridget Canning [Canning, Bridget]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781550818123
Publisher: Breakwater Books Ltd
Published: 2020-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

During the days, Maggie and Imogene go on excursions, to the Royal Ontario Museum, the zoo, the Art Gallery of Ontario. She learns acronyms: the ROM, the AGO, the TTC. They eat in a Greek restaurant on the Danforth that douses cheese in liquor and sets it on fire. They go to the top of the CN Tower and gaze at the sprawl, like someone unrolled a giant sheet of graph paper and piled buildings on it. Maggie complains about smog and traffic, how it’s too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer. But Imogene loves it. A big friggin’ city, vast and abundant. Lots of people who don’t know you. Whatever you want to do, you can do it. She thinks of things she’s wanted to try but can’t in St. Felix’s. Take dance lessons. A pottery class. See a rock concert. Things which don’t exist at home and so nobody mentions wanting them.

At night, the Markham dark is full of movement and industry. When cars pass the house, their tires pause before mounting speed bumps. She likes the sounds of activity and strangers. People doing their own thing. One night she watches out the window as a patrol car lazily lumbers down the street and realizes she does not miss Nan at all. She has not missed anyone. She remembers Aunt Trudy and Uncle Eli sending Rita off to church camp when she was in grade five and bringing her home early because she was homesick. Couldn’t do a week at summer camp. What is it like, to pine for home like that?

She and Maggie walk around the Eaton Centre and poke through stores. Oversized garish Christmas decorations dangle from the ceiling, choral music blares. Maggie makes her try on clothes, consistently picking out shiny or tight things for her, but Imogene can’t imagine where she would wear any of it. They walk into a store with leather everything: skirts, dresses, pants. While Maggie idles through a rack of leather skirts, Imogene sees the jacket. Black leather, blazer style—no major details, just a slick shape. She slips it off the hanger and tries it on, the zipper sighs up her chest. It rests at her hips and gently hugs her waist, making her taller, slimmer. The leather like velvet. Maybe this is what new cars smell like.

“That looks great on you,” Maggie says. “Really smart. You have decent posture—all Mom’s nagging must have worked on you. Oh, $200 of course. You’re like me, whenever I really like something, it turns out being the most expensive thing in the store.”

“I’m…I have money for it, actually,” Imogene says. The words feel like they came from the reflection in the mirror, the slender girl in the sharp coat.

“Oh, honey, no. Save your money for school.”

“It’s okay. I—” Imogene’s mind flits through possibilities—“I actually won a bit of money through a raffle. Nan doesn’t know about it.”

“She’ll know about it when you come home with that coat.”

“I—we can tell her it was on sale.

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