Cloudy forecast

There were soft gaps in her life we knew nothing about. She would come home on the weekends and resume her presence in our lives, only to vanish again come Sunday evening. The little girl who’d once chased Frisbees through the park had become a woman who drank and dated and studied and fretted over grade point averages in St. John’s. Back in the outports, things were different now.

Carrots. Carrots in cheese sauce. She was trying to impress us with what she’d learned, the tendrils of the outside world reaching into our sure, quiet, secure lives of cod and beef and potatoes. Carrots and cheese? We humoured her. As though adopting this little change would mean she wouldn’t make a life in Toronto or Calgary or Vancouver or New York someday. Close at hand. Carrots in cheese would be cosmo enough.

“It’s different,” I allowed.

She smiled. “Velveta’s kind of junk cheese, I know,” she said. “But it’s got its uses.”

“Kinda like snot,” Dylan said.

Myra sneered. “Fish and bubblegum more your speed?”

“Up yours.”

“Hey. Hey. Enough. Both of you,” Alice warned.

I brushed the cap off Dylan’s head. “You like cheese. You like carrots.”

“I don’t like carrots.”

“You like carrots.”

Myra said, “There’s no hope for him. He’ll be a small town nobody the rest of his life.”

Her mother growled, “There’s nothing wrong with small town life. It’s the backbone of this island. This country.”

“There’s more to life than this,” Myra told us, as if we didn’t know. “Dad, you were in the Navy. You remember Halifax. I love Halifax.”

Halifax was sure a hell of a lot closer than Toronto. “Halifax is a good town. Solid folks. Good Atlantic folk. Good bars, too. You could do well there.”

Myra waved her fork around like a wand, like she was casting pictures for us. “Dave’s from Truro; he has an uncle in Bedford. We could get jobs at MT&T.”

Alice looked up while Velveta oozed onto her rib-eye. “Dave?”

Myra’s fork was still but her smile was a little too animated. “This guy I know…”

My head was swimming. If Dylan had opened his mouth then, I'd have exploded. Dave… Halifax… carrots in cheese. Jesus Christ. I needed a drink.