The House on Creek Road. Caron Todd

Can’t it just be fun?”

      “Codes are fun.”

      “Right. They’re math, Jack.”

      “Not always. Sometimes they’re a silly rhyme.”

      “You’re hard to peg.”

      “Are you trying to peg me?”

      “Don’t look so pleased. It’s nothing personal. It’s what writers do.”

      “All in a day’s work?”

      “That’s right. In fact, I’m thinking of doing something with a pumpkin grower next, maybe a variation on the Cinderella theme. The hero could be a fairy king, incognito, or the modern version of a fairy, an alien. Instead of a carriage, the pumpkin could become a spaceship…no, I guess that’s too corny.” He looked horrified at the thought of having a character based on him. Most people liked it. “Don’t worry. You’re safe for a while. I can’t work here.”

      “Why’s that?”

      Because it’s a narrow-minded, destructive place. “Oh, I don’t know. Too many distractions. I’ll be gone soon, though. Grandma and I should be able to organize things in another week. If not, Emily could help.”

      “You’re eager to get back to Vancouver?”

      “The sooner, the better.” Trying to sound less vehement, she added, “A couple of weeks away from my own life is enough. Oh! I almost forgot. My grandmother’s hoping you can come for dinner tomorrow.”

      “I’m afraid not. I’ll be in Brandon until late.”

      “Saturday, then? Be warned—I’m cooking.”

      “Sounds good. What can I bring?”

      “Besides dinner?” She smiled. “Just yourself.” She put her mug down on the kitchen table. “I’ve kept you from your wires long enough. Thanks for the coffee.”

      Halfway to the trees, she turned to look at the house. Jack was still at the kitchen window watching them go. In spite of his tendency to raise the drawbridge without a moment’s notice, she felt good when she was with him. Was she doing what she always did? She tended to see more than was really there when she first met men. It was nice at first, but it led to disappointment down the road.

      JACK WATCHED LIZ DISAPPEAR into the woods. Even wearing jeans and running shoes, and with the dogs for company, she looked as if she belonged in the city. Her walk gave her away. You could see she was used to well-tended parks, not overgrown, twisting paths.

      He’d almost invited her to go to Brandon with him. A novel date, shopping for farm machinery. It was just that every time they talked, he didn’t want the conversation to end. Not because of her looks. Green eyes, fair skin, spicy hair, willowy body, that dreamy, off in the distance expression that made him want to go after her or pull her back…nope. He could resist all that without any trouble. Well, without much trouble. What got to him was how easily she trusted him, even though she hardly knew him. That, and the tenderness he’d seen between her and Eleanor.

      Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater. Now that the words had percolated for a few minutes, they sounded familiar. His grade one teacher was always making them play with their fingers, spiders going up spouts and dickie birds flying here and there. Maybe she had recited Liz’s rhyme. Miss…he couldn’t remember. She’d loved that stuff. Plums, candlesticks, clocks. No wonder Liz unsettled him. You shouldn’t be attracted to someone who reminded you of your grade one teacher.

      He picked up a Phillips screwdriver and tried to remember how far he’d got with the project on his table. Hardware wasn’t his specialty. Daniel’s penciled instructions looked more like directions to Pine Point than a system of electrical wires. “It’s as easy as pie,” Daniel had said—absolutely deadpan and professional, but Jack knew it was a crack about his baking.

      LIZ AND EMILY SPRAWLED on the living room floor surrounded by albums and boxes of photographs.

      “I won’t have room for all of these,” Eleanor said. “I suppose the rest of you would take some? I’d hate to throw them away.”

      “Of course we’ll all take some!” Liz exclaimed. “We’d never throw away photos.”

      “It’s the saddest thing—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this—someone’s family pictures in a secondhand store. A young man you don’t know in a fine mustache and straw boater, fishing. A row of children in their Sunday best, solemn before the camera. And people buy them for some reason.” Eleanor touched a picture of her brother in his RCAF uniform. “I’d hate it if that happened to these.”

      “No one will ever take your photos to a secondhand store,” Emily said. “We won’t throw them away, either, not even the blurry ones or the ones of strangers. And especially not ones like this.” She held up a picture of a young woman in an evening dress, satiny material clinging to her curves. “Don’t tell me that’s you.”

      “That’s me.”

      “You didn’t wear that, Grandma!”

      “I did! I saw a dress just like it in a magazine and set my heart on it. I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to have something so…well, sophisticated, shall we say? So I made it myself. From the lining of my bedroom curtains.”

      Liz and Emily laughed, trying to imagine their practical grandmother ruining curtains in an effort to look glamorous.

      Eleanor’s face was warm with the memory. “I went out the back door, wearing my everyday dress in case my parents saw me, and changed in the storehouse, if you can imagine that. Me, in my underclothes, in the storehouse! I was sure every sound I heard was my father coming to catch me. My friend waited in his car, just out of sight of the house and we went to a dance in Pine Point. The dress was completely wrong for the occasion. It would have been more suited to sprawling on a chaise lounge with a cigarette holder in hand, but I didn’t care.”

      “My grandmother, a wild, disobedient girl?” Liz shook her head.

      Eleanor looked pleased. “I wasn’t wild. I was an absolutely normal girl. It was the rules that were unreasonable.”

      “Who was the friend?” Emily asked. “Was it Grandpa?”

      “It was a while yet before I starting seeing your grandfather.” Eleanor’s face softened. “This was someone else entirely.”

      “Was he your true love?” Liz asked. Unthinkable if Grandpa wasn’t.

      “I don’t know about that. Certainly my first love.”

      “You’re being mysterious,” Emily said. “Who was it? Spill, Grandma.”

      Eleanor just raised her eyebrows and went back to sorting photos, smiling faintly.

      Who could it have been? Liz wondered. Some rakish stranger, chugging down the road in a shiny two-seater roadster? A movie star, or some English aristocrat, or even the Prince of Wales, on his way to his ranch in Alberta?

      It was clear Eleanor didn’t plan to tell them more, so Liz went back to leafing through the photo album on her lap. The Robbs took the same pictures every year. Children on ponies. Children leaning over cakes, blowing out three, then six, then eleven candles. The family sitting around the table at Christmas, everyone wearing new blouses or new sweaters, everyone with forks near their mouths.

      Her hand stopped. There, at the bottom of the page, next to pictures of herself and Tom, was a small shot of Andy. “Grandma?”

      “Hmm?”

      “You have a picture of Andy.”

      “Of course. He was a member of the family.”

      Liz took a deep breath to ease the sudden tightness in her chest. “No one else thought so. Mom and Dad thought he was a mistake.”

      “I’m sure they didn’t,” Emily protested.