After I leave, we don't stay in one place for very long. My father has never been a settled man, always urged and driven to spread His word in pastures new, but now we move constantly, barely stopping to sing and preach. A few days here, a few there, and some excuse is found to pack up and carry on. My brothers think we are simply saving as many sinners as we could. My mother thinks we are looking for healing air. As for me, I try not to think about it, but sometimes I wonder, secretly, ashamedly, whether we are just running. New town every week, no fixed route or plan. Like invisible people, we'd be impossible to track or trace, the chances of a unwelcome encounter decreasing with every mile of icy, snowed-covered road.
As we travel, I look out of the window at the retreating road, and consider leaving a trail, a marker of my presence. Breadcrumbs, perhaps, like in the fairytale. Or a long piece of string, tied to my starting place, always connecting me back. But bread would be too quickly lost, and my starting place is already too far away to mark.
The winter drags, almost every evening spent singing on street corners, hunched into my seams of my coat. People are too cold to stop and listen, hurrying by without sparing us even a glance. Once, when nine solid days pass with absolutely no interest, my brothers begin to despair and even my father's shoulders slump in defeat.
"I have an idea," I say, pulling them into the shelter of a bus station. "I'll draw people in, make them stop and listen, and then you approach them." My father looks sceptical, untrusting, but my earnest nods and hand on his arm seem to sway him.
I position myself in the corner of the station, where people pass to exit, and start to sing. Not the hymns and exultations we normally sang, but jazz and the blues. I close my eyes, and think back to my time in the Tangiers, letting the music lift and swell in my throat, coming spilling out into the bitter air. I intend to sing without thinking, without feeling, but the words won't let me forget. Behind my closed lids, I can forget the nip of the wind, and the murmur of buses pulling in and out, and imagine myself once again on stage with the band, singing heart-to-heart to the best friend I ever had.
When I open my eyes my father is frowning at me, brows drawn black across his face, hand clutching at his Bible until his fingers turn white. I smile at him, drawing breath, and turn my face to the slowly forming knot of people at my feet. The cap in front of me fills with loose silver, and my father and the boys speak to more people, hand out more pamphlets than they had in weeks. I am expecting the beating that followed, but its savagery surprises me. After that, I make no mention of drawing crowds, and sing only the hymns and psalms my father dictates, watching as people scurried past, eyes averted, hands deep in their pockets.
By the spring, his wanderlust seems to have cooled, and we stop in a town in the middle of nowhere. We park the trailer on the edge of the road, backing onto corn fields, the green shoots just beginning to show through the heavy soil. My father has found a ministry nearby, covering for a man who is sick, and the boys go to work for butchers and grocers. The spring air blows through Mother's lungs, and day by day we watch as she grows ever stronger. Together, we walk into the town, arms linked, and peer into shop windows and plan for the summer, and an extended stay.
As I move around our home, cleaning and mending, repairing all the damage that winter and travelling has caused, I sometimes catch her looking at me. She smiles, the corners of her mouth turning down, lips pulling tight, and carries on with her jobs.
One day, a shirt I am hanging out to dry takes off in the wind before I had it pegged, and I chase it across the fields. I run and run, the wind carrying it unimpeded across the fields, and have gone quite some way, breathless and aching, unused to such exercise, when a foot stamps down across the flyaway cloth. He stoops down, and picks it up, wrinkling his nose at the large footprint covering one of the sleeves.
"I'm sorry, miss," he says, and rubs the back of his neck. I thank him, and turn to go, when his voice calls me back. "Say, you're the preacher's daughter, ain't you?" I nod, and clutch the shirt a little tighter. I take in the line of his shoulders, of his neck, the line of hair across his face, the way one hand rests casually in his trouser pockets.
"See you Sunday, then," he says, and turns away, climbing back up onto the running board of the tractor idling behind us. There's something attractive, recognizable, about his movements, that draw my eye, easy and strong and free, and I watch as the machine moves off across the fields. I wave, half-hearted, and set back out to the trailer, and wash the shirt again.
On Sunday, I look for him, surreptitiously, from behind my hymn sheets, eyes searching the congregation timidly. He's there, in the pews, on the end of a line of people who are clearly relatives. I smile at him, quickly, and he smiles back, lazy and slow, drawing a nudge from the woman beside him. His eyes move from mine back down to his hymn book, but I feel myself caught between the twin stares of my father, and the woman I assume is his mother.
When the service is done, my mother and I stand awkwardly outside the clapboard church, and wait while my father talks and preaches to his new parishioners. Then, in front of us, stand the man and his mother. She holds out her hand for a handshake, her grip tight and steady, and I see my mother wilt slightly under the force of her gaze.
"Mrs Rowley," she says, "Louisa McRae, and Stan, my eldest." She jerks her thumb at her son, who grins at me. My heart is in my mouth, and I force it down, willing myself to overlook the coincidence of name, and focus on the people in front of me. "We're from the farm up the road from you, thought we'd introduce ourselves, invite you over for lunch next week, after church." My mother smiles faintly, her eyes darting to my father, knowing we'll need permission. Silence hangs in the air between us, growing heavier as my mother fails to respond.
"Ma," Stan says, stepping into the void, "did I tell you I met Miss Rowley the other day?" I laugh, responding as I think Gladys might, and put my hand on his arm.
"He was very gallant, Mrs McRae, saved me from chasing any further after a runaway shirt." His mother smiles, and we chat for a while, the ice broken, disturbed only by my mother's occasional coughing. Eventually, my father and the boys join us, looking between me and these strangers for introduction.
"Vernon," my mother says, "this is Mrs McRae and her son. They've invited us to Sunday lunch next week." I wait for the boot to drop, for the name to filter through his consciousness and for him to refuse, but he doesn't. He smiles and agrees, shaking their hands cordially, jovially, like someone else.
On the walk home, however, his face is stern. When we are far enough out to avoid the interested stares of townsfolk, he sends the others on ahead and keeps me back, his arm heavy on my arm.
"Now Marion – you remember what we talked about." I know the conversations he's talking about, and nod. I do not think I shall ever forget them, how I quivered in a corner as he told me at length the dangers of desire, of unnatural lusts, of the temporary glamour of sin. "I saw how you looked at that boy. Don't let God down again." His grip is tight, painful, the band of his wedding ring pressing hard into the soft of my elbow. I shake my head.
"I won't, Father," I promise, and he lets go, shaking himself from me with disgust.
"See that you don't," he says, and walks on.
xXx
The week passes, as they all do, routine and untroubled. Stan and his gaggle of family are sat in the same pew again, and I during the sermon I catch his eye and he smiles. I find my gaze drawn back to their seats again and again, scouring their faces in search of a family resemblance I fear to see.
When we arrive the McRae's house is large, wooden, picture-book perfect. Chickens cluck across the lawn, and chairs sit comfortably on the decking. Mrs McRae stands at the door, and beckons us in. She ushers us through the halls to the table, and sits us down, chatting all the while.
The first thing I notice as we settle are the lines of pictures, photographs, tacked along the walls, showing each and every McRae child at various ages. Right opposite me, grinning lopsided out of the frame, is the person I had hoped and feared to find, the person whose name I haven't spoken, or even thought of in months, since that night in the bus station. It's Betty, younger certainly, and stuffed into a dress a size too small for her, but I'd know the face anywhere.
I barely make it through the meal, the generous portion on my plate hardly touched. Next to me, Stan leans over.
"Alright?" he asks, under his breath, and I nod, and take another bite, moving my eyes from their fixed stare. His sister's gaze watches me from multiple eyes, and I cringe, feeling reproach in that celluloid gaze. My father's attention is firmly on Mr and Mrs Rowley and I can only hope it stays that way, and that he never notices her face staring at him from every wall.
By some miracle, thank the Lord, the meal goes smoothly, without a hitch, and when the food is finished, the room empties and I am left alone with the pictures. There's one stood on the dresser, of Betty in her trousers, leaning casually against a doorframe, and I can't help but pick it up, run my fingers over the glass. I have squared away our life together, now, pushed her safely into Kate Andrews' memories, into Kate Andrews' feelings, and brought the dividing wall up between us. We are different people, Kate Andrews and I, and we can feel two entirely different things.
I do not know how long I have stood there and the voice in my ear makes me jump. The frame hits the dresser harder than I intended, with a thump.
"That's my sister, Betty," Stan says. I nod, and furiously fight the blush I feel creeping up my cheeks. "I shouldn't say this, but she's my favourite McRae." He laughs, and picks up the picture himself. I'm glad he keeps speaking, for I am not sure I could say anything sensible. "She's in Toronto, working in a factory. Just couldn't stay round here when there's folks out there that need her." I pull myself together, search for something to say.
"She looks….like a swell girl." It's a limp reply, and sounds more like something she'd say than words that would come out of my own mouth. Stan doesn't seem to notice, and grins at me.
"She sure is. You'll have to meet her, when she's next home. It doesn't happen often, but I'd bet she'll love you." I flinch at how unknowingly accurate he is, and I wonder whether Betty's family know of her leanings. I can't imagine they do, can't imagine her brother casually joking about her inversion. The voice of my father in the hallway spurs me to move, away from the pictures, back towards my family.
Every Sunday, Stan is there, waiting to talk to me outside the church, mother and brothers milling aimlessly behind him. I see him in the week, too, loitering by shops, or puttering across the fields in his tractor.
"That boy is everywhere," my mother says, "He's got to be following us, Marion". She smiles at me, and moves off down the aisle without a word the next time Stan is miraculously in the same shop we are. My father hardly approves, but makes no move to stop our meetings.
Stan is nice, handsome and charming, and I'm aware of his interest; he's blatant in a way his sister never was. Perhaps it's just that he's a man, and allowed to be interested, or perhaps I'm more aware of the way people look at me, these days. I know that he's working up to something, and in the evenings at home, I try to imagine kissing him, marrying him, living my life at his side. The latter two are easy to see, easy to plan. There's definable certainties in tradition, in the swing and cycle of farm life, in the routine of worship and family.
My daydreams of married life are simple, consist of cooking meals, listening to radio plays and music on long winter nights, discussing animals and children, and crop rotations. It's a dull but comfortable existence I imagine for myself, and I'm unsurprised to learnt that that's alright. It's what I want, what I have always wanted, a normal life with friends and family about, no need to deceive and disarm, living life in the shadows or on the fringe.
The imaginings stutter, however, when, alone in bed, I try to picture the intimacies of married life. I imagine kissing him, his stubble scratching lightly at my cheek, the feel of his shoulders beneath my hands. I have to stop and restart the scene over and over again, as his face shifts and slips, his hair growing and jaw softening. Eventually, I'll have his image fixed in my head, his name firmly behind my eyes, and then, sometimes, timidly, I imagine beyond kissing. I slide my hands down over my own thighs, across my stomach, skirting across the top of my chest, picturing, somehow, that I am him, caressing the body of my wife.
It occurs to me that this might be odd, might be strange and leaning. It can't be, I tell myself, as the girl in the dream is me. I am imagining my marriage bed, and if I want to tell the story from the other perspective, whose place is it to judge?
I ignore the fact that the body beneath my imagined hands is heavier muscled than my own, that the skin I reverently kiss is blemish free, clear of criss-crossing scars. I ignore the mark, high on her cheek, the shorter hair, or the eyes that hold me. This is the ideal Marion, I tell myself, a fantasy version, confident and beautiful, sophisticated, the world laid out at her feet. As imagined Stan, I lean down and kiss myself, feeling the softness of her lips, the little breathy gasp as our mouths meet, and my grip tightens against my nightshirt, and I stop, pulled from the dream back into reality.
As the sun rises and the business of living begins, I push my fevered fantasies away, concentrate on the mundane and everyday. I don't dwell, don't think too hard, just sing glorias as I go about my work, and try to forget the budding awareness of what my nightly dreamings mean.
xXx
By harvest, we're seeing a lot of Stan McRae. He's there at church, in the street, in the fields and even, now, standing out in front of the trailer, asking me out for a walk. One Sunday, after service, he wanders up, hands deep in his trouser pockets, and smiles lopsided.
"Do you fancy a walk?" he asks, and my mother answers for me, pushing me towards him, turning her back as we head down the street. Not far down the road and we're among corn fields, shimmering gold in the afternoon sun. We're unspeaking, as we often are, but he threads my arm through his elbow and the silence is companionable.
After a while he stops, takes my hand from his arm and holds it between his own.
"I really like you, Marion," he says, and I know what comes next. It's familial, clearly, this line of seduction, and this time I am not so ready to blithely reply. I bite my cheek, waiting. "There's something I'd like to ask you, and I think you know what it is." I nod, and still do not speak. He grins, then, and I think that he will kiss me. "But first, I'd like you to meet someone." He gestures down the road, and in the distance there's a figure walking towards us. Gold hair shines in the sun, like the wheat around her, and the blue of her coat and green of her trousers is instantly familiar. My breathes catches in my throat, and my tongue feels heavy in my throat, blocking speech. "It's my sister, Betty. She says you need the seal of approval before I make any move." His voice is light, joking, and his smile is lopsided, fond.
She's almost upon us now. I knew this day must one day come, but I had expected to be prepared, ready, to have had time to defend myself against her presence. Stan moves off to meet her, pulls her into a hug.
"Marion, this is my sister Betty, and Betty, this is –"
"Marion," she finishes for him, her voice flat and emotionless. Her face, too, is blank, a mask. She holds her hand out for me to shake and I take it. Steady and warm beneath my own, I find my fingers closing tight, and cannot let go. She pulls her hand away, wipes it on the cloth of her coat. "Stan's told me all about you."
The three of us turn, and walk back towards the town, towards the church and my father, and the silence now is tense. I know that this must seem odd to her brother, the air thick with things unspoken, and, as when I found her photo, I am left scrambling for something to say.
"You don't go to church, with your family?" I ask to break the silence. It's the wrong question, I know, and she shoots me a glare that causes my heart to skip a beat. Stan just laughs, and claps his hand to her back.
"Our Betty thinks the roof would fall in if she went to church," he says, "much to Ma's displeasure!" Betty smiles thinly, and her eyes linger when her brother tucks my hand back into his arm, lines forming between her brows. We talk as if we are strangers, asking politely about each other's jobs, family, hobbies, musical tastes.
The town draws closer, as my steps slow, prolonging the inevitable confrontation between Betty and my father. We are saved, if only shortly, when Stan leaves us to speak to another farmer ahead of us. We stop, stood a yard apart, and I watch her as she stares at the floor, grinds a cigarette into the concrete with her toe.
"Did you know," she asks, finally, tight and high, "that Stan was…" She pauses, looks up and then away. I nod, shrug.
"I saw pictures, in your house. They don't know I know you."
"And your father?" I shake my head, reach for her, my hand low on her arm, on her wrist, almost reaching for her fingers.
"He never said." And knowing my father, he would have. He'd have done more than speak to me, but I don't tell Betty that, don't need to burden her with that knowledge. "It's good to see you. I missed you, Betty." Her eyes come up to meet mine, then, and her face is disbelieving. She pulls away, moving out from under my touch, and my hand is cools as she goes.
"Have you given him an answer?" she asks, and bites her lip. I can see the blood rushing from under her teeth, leaving the skin white and pale. I think she will draw blood, and I want to stop her, to help her, but I do not know how.
"He hasn't asked," I say, truthfully. "He wanted your approval first."
"But when he does?" I take her by the fabric of her coat, and pull her out of sight between buildings. She follows unresistingly, and leans against the wall, still unable to meet my gaze. We're stood close, now, too close for propriety, for strangers who have only just met.
"Stan's lovely, and I wouldn't want to hurt him." She snorts, clearly imaging that I had wanted to hurt her. "I never wanted to hurt anyone," I continue, my fingers still twined through the twill of her coat, "but I don't think I can marry him." Her head comes up, and she pushes my hand from her, steps sideways, away from me, a question in her bearing. "You know why," I tell her, moving sideways myself, following her.
In the distance, I can hear Stan calling for us, and we move apart, Betty lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. Emerging from the siding into the main street, her brother hurries towards us and we part ways, Stan leading me back to the church and my family, Betty standing still on the corner. Her eyes burn my back with every retreating step.
He leaves me by my mother, and kisses the back of my hand, openly.
"Will you think about it?" he asks, and the startled gasp from my mother is all the confirmation anyone needs to know what we have discussed on our walk. I nod.
"I will," I say, and it's not a lie.
It's the only topic of conversation over lunch, and throughout the afternoon my mother continues excitedly. Even when my father is at his devotions, the boys kneeling beside him, I can see her mind planning, planning, preparing for the joyous occasion. I already know my answer, have given it to his sister, but I do not know how to tell them that, without telling them all.
In the evening, before the chill draws in, I set out for a walk across the fields, away from my mother's fervent excitement and my father's silent presence. I leave the roads, and wander across the fields, leaving a path through the corn. Finding myself under a tree, stood proud in the middle of the crop, I sit and lean on its trunk, enjoying my solitude. I lean my head back, face tilted to the sun's dying rays, and close my eyes,
I'm aware of someone approaching before she speaks.
"I saw you out here," she says. Her throat works, swallowing, and I watch her as she settles down beside me. She fiddles with her hair for a moment, before turning and capturing me in her stare. "So you wanna tell me when you had this revelation? About not being able to marry Stan?" She is unflinching, and I can see how the distance in her eyes is her protection, her defence against my particular brand of hurt. I wonder how much to tell her, how much to say. In the hallway, in a bus station, in your mother's dining room, in bed with my hand on my breast. They are all truthful answers, but none are quite the whole picture and lay me far too exposed.
"Not a revelation," I say. "That sounds like there was just a moment when I knew, and it wasn't like that." I reach out and take her hand in both my own, pressing it close between my palms. "It was more like, I was always walking towards this picture in the distance, and every step I took it got clearer, until one day, I looked up, and could see it, but found I already knew what the subject of the picture was." She looks at me, at our joined hands, and I know I'm not making things clear. But how can I, when nothing is ever clear in my own head? How can I explain the creeping, rising knowledge I felt within me? How can I explain the dreams of marriage, and kissing imaginary me-who-was-never-me?
I let her hand drop, take her face between my palms. I can feel her fear radiating through my hands. I pull her closer, press her face to mine. Her lips are soft and warm, as I had dreamed my own to be. This kiss is not disgusting, cannot be sinful or unnatural, when this simple touch fills me with such joy. I regret, under the shade of this tree, that we lost so much time, that my panic caused us both to hurt. Her hand tangles in my hair, keeping me close, and I feel my own hands slip from her cheeks along her jawline and fist in her shirt. The solid presence of her, holding me close, send shivers down my spine, pooling in the bottom of my stomach. I push myself closer and we tumble backwards onto the ground, my fall cushioned by the body I had dreamed.
We lie there together as the sun begins to set, exchanging lazy kisses and tender caresses. The wind picks up, and despite the warmth that leaps from her body to mine, I shiver. She rubs my arms, looking around at the darkening skyline.
"We need to get back," she says, and punctuates her words with a kiss. I know it's true, that my mother will be waiting for me to help serve the dinner. My father will be standing, hand on his belt, at the door, staring out across the crop, watching for my unblemished return. Yet I don't want to go, don't want to leave the shadow of this tree, in the middle of this field, and go back to my parents, without Betty.
"What do we do, Betty?" Where do we go from here? How are we both to leave Saskatchewan without my father following, or breaking her brother's heart? She pulls me close, and draws my head into her shoulder. My arms snake around her waist, slipping under her jacket and shirt. Her skin is warm, against the cooling chill of the air, and her breath ruffles my hair.
"Something, Kate" she says, "something."
xXx
And so it is, that three days later, I'm stood at the station in Tisdale, my case in Betty's hand, a black bruise forming over my eye. It stings when I move, when I screw my eyes against the light. It's the latest reminder of my father's love, and the last I intend to take.
I don't know what will happen next, or how our lives will go from here. But what I know is this – from here on in, I don't need a trail of breadcrumbs or the world's longest piece of string for, as Betty says, we ain't never coming back.