Little Yellow House by Carissa Halton

Author:Carissa Halton [Carissa Halton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781772124279
Publisher: The University of Alberta Press

Sometimes when the children are at school and the house is too quiet or dirty to work in, I take my laptop and sit at one of the dining-sized tables at Sprucewood library a block from home. It’s a busy place with Wi-Fi and a bank of computers people can use for free. Natural light floods the children’s section complete with touch screens, books, games, and an electric train that circles on a track hanging from the ceiling. The usual collection of books, CDS, and magazines flank the north and east walls while the bank of computers set in the centre of the library are always full. On the south of the building, a community meeting room hosts weekly programming where Lily learned to sing Twinkle, Twinkle and Ali saw his first puppet show. This library is one of the few places outside of downtown where people without homes can go when temperatures dip like high divers into a pool now that the Sally Anne’s winter warming shelter is closed.

One November afternoon I sat down at the table with three women who had stripped from their wet winter gear and sat reading old copies of British gossip rags. A middle-aged man entered the library and quickly made his way to our table.

“Dale gave all his blankets away,” he said with some urgency to the matriarch sitting across from me. He literally steamed from the temperature change. “Did you hear me?” the man asked his friend. “Dale gave away all his blankets so I have to walk back downtown to get him some more.”

He stood with a slight stoop and focused on the woman who occasionally acknowledged him with a nod into the pages of her Hello! Canada. Princess Kate was having another baby and her morning sickness was awful. “Oh no,” she said at the same time as she turned the page. Her slender brown fingers, short nails and slightly swollen knuckles turned the next page to reveal a spread of another European royal family.

Next to her a younger, heavier woman read Majesty. She didn’t respond to Dale’s plight at all because just then a wracking cough took her breath away and forced a spray of spit across the article. I wondered if she had tuberculosis and whether I would be wise to move.

“Don’t you go out until later, okay?” He had a hand now on the Hello! pages and the elder finally gave him her full attention. “The library’s open until nine. So stay here until then, okay?”

“Yes.” Her voice was low and slightly muffled by the high collar on her sweater. She rubbed her hands. “Your arthritis,” he said, patting her hands. “This cold must be hurting you. I’ll try to be back before nine, but I’ve got to go downtown. Dale gave away all his blankets.”

“Now why’d he do that?” she asked as though her tongue had thawed.

“He said the other guy needed them more.” He kissed her. “Stay warm.”

I left before he got back, passing a couple of cars in which drivers sat accessing the free Wi-Fi.

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