<\/p>\n
The light on the answering machine\u2019s blinking again, and I know it\u2019s a call from my father. He\u2019s kept after me because we\u2019ve been sloppy with our message: Hi, it\u2019s Claire,<\/em> [then Brad says], and Brad, and <\/em>[our sons say together] Christopher and Thomas, <\/em>[then we all chorus], leave a message!<\/em> We should have left nothing but the number, in Brad\u2019s voice, You\u2019ve reached, four-one-six… <\/em><\/p>\n At first, Dad would just hang up. I hoped it was because he didn\u2019t recognize my voice. There are two and a half million people in Toronto, and I\u2019m not the only Claire Burford in the phonebook. I checked. I breathe in and press play. His monotone is measured as always.<\/p>\n Hi Claire, if this is you, which I\u2019m pretty sure it is… It\u2019s your father. Please call me.<\/em><\/p>\n I should have taken Brad\u2019s name.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n I left home a little more than ten years ago, 1976, which was about 1956 in Currie Township years. I had just turned eighteen and gotten my licence, and though Mom and Dad thought sixteen was too young for a girl to drive, they did let me work, at the MacKinnon County Public Library branch in Currie. Dad would drive us in from tiny Waubnakee and he\u2019d putter around town for the length of my shift \u2013 except for the time he followed me inside and spent the four hours proving wrong what I\u2019d said on the ride in. We had been speeding along County Road 17 in his Nova, running late because I\u2019d gotten caught up in a book again.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll lose your head in those things,\u201d Dad said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut they take you places you\u2019d otherwise never go,\u201d I said. \u201cThere is no frigate\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n He snorted.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s a frigate?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a boat, Dad \u2013 there is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away, nor any coursers like a page of prancing poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t go anywhere unless you can afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n My small laugh slipped out and I continued.<\/p>\n \u201cThis traverse may the poorest take, without oppress of toll…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBooks are a waste of time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n He took his eyes off the road and turned to me.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you know: time…\u201d<\/p>\n I finished his sentence: \u201c…is money.\u201d But Dad wasn\u2019t a stock trader or in business of any kind. In fact, as a cop, I doubt he\u2019d ever had reason to say this. He must have heard it on TV. I\u2019d never seen him read even a magazine.<\/p>\n \u201cO.K.,\u201d I said. \u201cIf books are so bad, why are there so many in schools?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t know,\u201d he said, smiling. \u201cI was never much for school, either.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI bet you can\u2019t even read,\u201d I snapped.<\/p>\n He leaned over the steering wheel and narrowed his eyes. I slid toward my window. The engine\u2019s pulse quickened and Dad said, \u201cI\u2019ll show you.\u201d He brought the car to a jolting stop at the library, and instead of idling and letting me out on the street he swung into the parking lot and chose an angled spot. He opened his door and slammed it and led the way to the building. As I followed him in I gave a sheepish smile to Lori-Ann, my supervisor. As usual she didn\u2019t look up from her reading, The Collected Emily Dickinson<\/em>, again. I edged behind the counter while Dad walked to the first shelf he saw; alphabetically last but closest to the door. At random he pulled a hefty book from the middle and brought it to Lori-Ann.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like this one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n She sniffed and said, \u201cAlright,\u201d then marked her place with the checkout card \u2013 a practice she discouraged among patrons. She stood up and set the Dickinson on the chair. As she walked to the counter she said, \u201cI just need to see your library card, please.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have one,\u201d Dad said.<\/p>\n Lori-Ann reached beneath the counter for a form. She handed it to him.<\/p>\n \u201cFill this out,\u201d she said. Her eyes darted back to Emily.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n She sighed. \u201cSo you can check the book out. You can borrow it for a week, and you can renew it once if no one else is holding it.\u201d I stifled a laugh. Other than Lori-Ann and me no one requested specific books. Even the schoolteachers made straight for Romance and Mystery, making off with armloads of books identical to each other, right down to the full-cover author photos on the backs.<\/p>\n \u201cNah, that\u2019s O.K.,\u201d my father said. \u201cI\u2019ll just read it here.\u201d He held the book up so that I could see it past Lori-Ann: The Grapes of Wrath<\/em>. \u201cThis one any good?\u201d he asked, too loudly. Lori-Ann swallowed hard and glanced back at me before answering.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n My father leaned to one side to see past her. His smug eyes met mine.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, what do you know,\u201d he said. \u201cYour ol\u2019 Dad\u2019s not so dumb after all.\u201d He sat down at a table in the centre of the room and he stayed there long after Lori-Ann left, flipping the pages furiously until I told him it was time to shut the lights off. He was halfway through, at least. On the way home he asked if I had read it.<\/p>\n \u201cGrade Eleven English,\u201d I said. \u201cEveryone has to.\u201d<\/p>\n He smiled and said, \u201cI must have missed that day.\u201d<\/p>\n A silent moment passed before he asked, \u201cHow\u2019s it turn out?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll have to get to the end,\u201d I said. When my shift ended he picked me up and as we drove home he told me about his parents living through the Depression, and about his father and his Grandpa Burford and jack drives, these mass hunts for rabbits in the woods behind their fields. Southwestern Ontario didn\u2019t seem so different than Oklahoma, he said \u2013 everyone in Currie Township grew vegetable gardens and hunted or raised the meat they needed, planning always to sell the excess though there never was any and no one had money, anyway. He exhaled at the end and said, \u201cI wonder why my parents never went west.\u201d I looked at him as he went quiet and I didn\u2019t know what to say. \u201cIt just seems like so many people put so much into getting out there…\u201d He trailed off and thought a moment. \u201cBut Burfords, we just stuck around here. I mean, there must have been work somewhere we could have left for \u2013 the forests up north, or the mines in Quebec, or…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid your parents speak French?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cMaman did,\u201d he said. \u201cHer family was from Pierre \u2013 you know, just up the river.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I know.\u201d Pierre<\/em>. Another go-nowhere town in the empty triangle between London, Sarnia, and Chatham, only this one was settled by some Tremblays. At five hundred, its population was twice Waubnakee\u2019s and nowhere near the five thousand in Currie. All the towns were shrinking as people left for London, or Toronto, or beyond, and though my older sister Susan still lived at home, she was already working twelve-hour days at Vaughan\u2019s Bakery. Her future was sealed and mine seemed to be, too, with sixteen hours a week at the library and a promise from Lori-Ann of more when I graduated. I had the marks but no one expected I\u2019d go to college. The few times I mentioned it I was asked the same questions: \u201cSince when do you need a degree to speak English?\u201d or \u201cOh, yeah \u2013 and what are you going to do with that<\/em>?\u201d People read only in brief stretches in Currie Township, on benches outside structures bearing Centennial plaques that commemorate the one year there was federal money, the granting program that built the ball diamonds in Waubnakee and the hockey arena in Currie and come to think of it, the county libraries, too. You\u2019d say you were waiting for a ride if someone asked, and when the inquirer left you\u2019d race to the end of your paragraph and sneak away so no one would think you\u2019d been stood up.<\/p>\n Sitting in one place too long could be dangerous, as I found out one time when Dad forgot about me, and Art Matthews, the boys\u2019 Phys. Ed. teacher at Currie High School came by and offered to drive me home. He insisted \u2013 No trouble at all<\/em> \u2013 and took backroads the whole way. He told me how beautiful I had become, that I was a woman now and this town was too small for me, lingering at every yield sign where two dirt roads met and placing his hand on my thigh. There was nothing but farm fields in sight, and both of us knew no other cars were coming, but Art stared extra long in the passenger direction anyway. When he finally dropped me off it brought Dad to the front door, where he presumed the worst as Art\u2019s Monte Carlo pulled away. After that, suddenly, it was time I took my driving test.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Lori-Ann was actually waiting for someone to come ask her hand: a visiting agricultural engineer or even a hockey dad from a town where books mattered. My ticket out was Scott McLaren, who was finished high school \u2013 or finished with it, anyway \u2013 and three years older than me. He worked at Mueller\u2019s Garage where the owner Herm paid him mostly in parts for his rusty VW bus. I don\u2019t remember exactly how it started with us, but there\u2019s always been just one bar in Currie and it\u2019s always let you in well before you were of age.<\/p>\n We spent most of our time just driving around, I was the new accessory for his Kraut Kan, but this didn\u2019t mean I hadn\u2019t learned. On trips to the library, Dad was my passenger, and he followed me into the building on every trip to make increasingly flirty small-talk with Lori-Ann about Steinbeck. I had read East of Eden <\/em>and Cannery Row<\/em>, Of Mice and Men <\/em>and even The Moon is Down<\/em>, but Dad never asked me what I thought of them, he just went on and on in the car about how well-written<\/em> the books were, an observation he was incapable of elaborating on and which didn\u2019t actually mean anything \u2013 and how would he<\/em> know? The victory for him was just in getting to the end, book after book after book, never talking about the story or the characters and the things they did. Did he sympathize with them? Question their motivations? Did the story even seem believable? The whole charade was just so that I\u2019d see him reading, or so I thought.<\/p>\n It got worse the day he brought home a typewriter.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The police station in Currie was on a corner lot, with ten parking spaces and a two-door garage. Dad\u2019s had long been the only cop car in the township, and the second bay was occupied by Gord MacIntyre\u2019s junk shop, a trinket heap the poor fool had mistaken for antiques. The typewriter had sat atop the front pile for years, in plain view when the door was up, which was almost all the time \u2013 and on a day when crimeless Currie had Dad just bored enough, he bought it. He started coming home at irregular hours in the evening, stopping first for a coffee or three while he read at Don\u2019s, and after dinner he\u2019d retire to the garage and peck away. I honestly think it was about the noise for him, a payoff for every little movement of his fingers. I never knew what he was writing, or if he even had paper.<\/p>\n It got to be six-thirty, seven, seven-thirty on the night that Scott and I left. Dad had promised me the Nova but he hadn\u2019t come home yet. Tonight was my first turn to drive Scott anywhere, and Dad had seemed excited for me. I closed the book I was re-reading, Huck Finn<\/em>, and I got off the porch swing. I called Don\u2019s from the kitchen. Though she seemed to always be at the counter, it wasn\u2019t crotchety Marlene Simmons who picked up, but Don himself. In his gruff voice he told me that Dad wasn\u2019t there. I slammed the receiver down then picked it up again to dial Scott. Afterward, I started packing my suitcase \u2013 Mom\u2019s suitcase \u2013 with as many clothes as would fit and of course, my favourite books.<\/p>\n When Scott pulled in he still wore his greasy work clothes. I climbed into the passenger seat and tossed the bag on the bench behind. I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, you\u2019re going home to shower,\u201d I said, touching my index finger to the tip of his nose. \u201cAnd then, I reckon, we\u2019re lightin\u2019 out for the territory.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Huck Finn<\/em> was the only school book Scott had read. He was proud of it, though not as proud as he was of his van. He had never been into sports or the trivia team or students\u2019 council. Shy in all the right ways, he was an ideal first boyfriend \u2013 everything was on my terms.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t have much money and we didn\u2019t buy a map, we just crossed into Michigan from Sarnia and took I-75 south all night and into the next day, expecting we\u2019d hit Sixty-Six for California somewhere. We finally stopped to eat at a dingy diner outside Knoxville, Tennessee, fourteen hours east of the road we were looking for. I weakened before we left and called home from a payphone. On the other end Mom\u2019s voice quivered.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you alright?\u201d she asked. \u201cWhere has he taken you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m alright,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n Deep breath.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m far away, and I\u2019m never coming home.\u201d<\/p>\n Mom sighed.<\/p>\n \u201cWell. I didn\u2019t expect you would,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her dismissal stung.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, you don\u2019t have to live there, either,\u201d I said. \u201cWhere does Dad even go in the afternoon? He wasn\u2019t at Don\u2019s last time I called \u2013 and neither was Marlene.\u201d<\/p>\n She exhaled.<\/p>\n \u201cI took a vow, Claire,\u201d she said. \u201cI took a vow.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Scott and I ran out of money in New Mexico, mercifully in Albuquerque and not on some stretch of desert road, out of gas, too. We spent the last bit on a motel room and two bottles of cheap wine, and that night we made love three times. In the morning Scott walked until he found a service station, and he struck a deal almost as good as the one at Mueller\u2019s: work till you drop, parts at cost, and cash under the table.<\/p>\n In the motel office was a Help Wanted<\/em> sign, so that was the job I took. We got a one-room apartment and I went to secretarial school for a while. The weather was always warm and convertibles always passing through, their drivers whistling and yelling about my legs or my skirt or promising not to pull my long brown hair. Some even did this with their wives in the front seat. I still haven\u2019t quite dropped the weight from Thomas, but Brad says I\u2019m the same sight for sore eyes I was when he checked into the Pueblo Motor Inn, just out of med school at the University of Toronto, confident he had passed his exams and driving to meet an old friend in Vegas to celebrate. I counted my week\u2019s pay from the till the morning he checked out of Room 204, after I\u2019d snuck away from my night shift to see him, and I handed my key ring to my supervisor, Manny, before leaving in the shiny red convertible. We stopped a block from Scott\u2019s garage and I walked the rest of the way, finding him staring baggy-eyed and pale-faced as I approached, obviously worried after waking up and finding me not home yet. He opened his arms and strode toward me but I showed my palms and stopped him. He was covered in grime.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks for everything,\u201d I said. \u201cI won\u2019t forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n He tried to hide them, but tears welled in his eyes. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. I reached into my purse for my dog-eared Grapes of Wrath<\/em> and handed it to him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt won\u2019t be different when you get there,\u201d I said. \u201cJust go home.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Susan mails me pictures every Christmas of her and John and their kids Mike and Nancy, with a letter noting somewhere near its end that Mom and Dad say Hello. I call in the morning after the boys open presents and though they\u2019re still too young to know who they\u2019re talking to. Brad and I make them say Merry Christmas into the phone. Susan tells me all about Mom and Dad\u2019s year, and about Dad still banging at his typewriter, writing his life story and looking forward to retirement. She asks if I\u2019ll get home next year and I say I\u2019ll think about it. Then I put it out of mind for three hundred days, until the phone rings and corners me again the next fall and messages start to pile up on the machine. Lucky for me, Brad closes his practice every year and takes care of gift shopping while I drink wine, for the most part, and ask myself why I don\u2019t pick up. When I weaken I think of Dad at the library, grabbing at the bookshelf the way dogs piss on fences, and it strengthens my resolve for another year.<\/p>\n I know. I could call him and everything could be normal, but that would mean adopting and civilizing. I\u2019ve been there before, and I can\u2019t stand it. We\u2019d have to talk every second Sunday or once a month or something; to stop him calling all the time, I\u2019d have to let him call all the time. Today is Thanksgiving, and here goes the phone again. I snatch up the handset and scream, \u201cWhat do you want?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Susan,\u201d the voice on the other end says. \u201cI\u2019m at Mom and Dad\u2019s.\u201d She clears her throat. \u201cHe died.\u201d<\/p>\n I set the receiver down. My throat lumps, my eyes burn, but no tears come. Susan sounds far away.<\/p>\n \u201cClaire…?<\/p>\n \u201cHello? Claire…?<\/p>\n \u201cAre you still there?\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t say anything. Her shuffle-click-hang-up takes forever. Silence, then beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep\u2013 I re-cradle. My shoulders slacken and my jaw relaxes and I hate myself for feeling a release. I lift the receiver again and push the first digit tentatively. I gain force with each one until I pound the tenth. I hold my breath and listen to the rings. Susan answers but she doesn\u2019t speak. Her breaths are short gasps.<\/p>\n \u201cSo when should I come home?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Territory The light on the answering machine\u2019s blinking again, and I know it\u2019s a call from my father. He\u2019s kept after me because we\u2019ve been sloppy with our message: Hi, it\u2019s Claire, [then Brad says], and Brad, and [our sons say together] Christopher and Thomas, [then we all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1060,"parent":148,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-605","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1023,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/605\/revisions\/1023"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nI didn\u2019t leave home because my father didn\u2019t read \u2013 I left because he started. He followed me into the library again the next Saturday and he signed up for his card and checked out The Grapes of Wrath<\/em>. He finished it at Don\u2019s Breakfast, where all the retired farmers went for coffee. I can only imagine how many times he was asked, \u201cWhat the hell you readin<\/em>\u2019 for, Tom?\u201d<\/p>\n