helloooo, we've made it to the end everyone! thank you all SO MUCH for reading, it is a joy to finally have finished this :))) will post some special DVD bonus features on my tumblr (freyafrida) as well...soon. haha.
title from "carry" by tori amos.
epilogue: you will not ever be forgotten by me
july 2014
The roads really are red on Prince Edward Island.
Not the main streets, obviously — those are paved, just like at home in Vancouver. But even from the bridge, Laurie could see red dirt lining the island. There are little piles of it in gopher holes along the road, and it's already stained her sneakers when she crossed some grass to get into Aunt Diana's car.
That's the first thing she can think of to say when Aunt Diana asks her if she remembers any of this, from the first and last time Laurie had visited — more than ten years ago, before Fairyland became Encounter Creek (and then closed down), after Gran had died but before Mom did, and before Dad remarried.
Laurie hadn't remembered that the roads are actually red — she'd known it in the abstract, because of iron in the soil or something; something she'd had to memorize for a geography quiz in school. But looking at them now, she finally remembers what they look like, properly — the way the red dirt peeks out from the gravel lining people's driveways and carves deep valleys in the green bluffs.
The letter had come in the mail in January, with Aunt Susan's Christmas stamp on it. Inside had been an invitation from the Prince Edward Island Heritage Society, inviting Aunt Susan — and any other living relatives of the poet Walter Blythe — to come to the Heritage Society's commemoration of the centennial of World War I.
I think they'd like to have you there especially, Aunt Susan had written, as you're his only great-grandchild.
Laurie doesn't think of herself as being descended from anyone famous — and she's not, not really; nobody particularly cares that her great-grandfather was the guy who wrote "The Piper", which everyone has to memorize in grade five. They don't even have the same last name — he's her maternal great-grandfather — so no one can tell that she's related to Walter Blythe of the Walter Blythe Memorial Library in Charlottetown, or the Walter Blythe Secondary School (in Saskatoon, of all places).
Every now and then, though, some historian manages to trace birth records and obituaries to her name and asks her if she might be interested in helping them with a project, or passing their information along to some of her older relatives. Walter Blythe has something of a cult, as far as Laurie can tell, among people who go in for Canadian poetry and history. From the dozens of emails that Laurie's skimmed and left unreplied, they think "The Piper" is, quote, misunderstood in the context of First World War poetry and Blythe's later pacifism, unquote.
I would love to see you, too, Aunt Susan's letter had continued. My home is always open to you, and your father and Helen if they'd like to come, too.
She hadn't mentioned Laurie's little half-sister, Zoe. Laurie's not sure Aunt Susan knows Zoe exists. Aunt Susan sends cards and emails to Laurie, and Laurie writes back, but it only just occurred to her that she doesn't know if Dad talks to Aunt Susan — or anyone on Mom's side of the family, anymore. It hadn't occurred to Laurie, at the age of fifteen, to announce Zoe's birth.
She tells Aunt Diana about Zoe now, and about her studies at university, and how she's glad to be back in P.E.I. again. She leaves out the stuff in the middle — about how she doesn't really even remember the year after Mom died, but Dad says she cried every day; she had to go to school counseling (did not help at all, although looking back, it was sweet that they tried) and Dad sent her to an equine therapy camp one year (helped much more in retrospect, although with the side effect that it turned Laurie into a horse girl for most of middle school).
She leaves out the part where, the older she gets, the more she finds herself grasping for little bits of Mom — the music she liked and clothes she wore, notes that she wrote and photos she took. She'd been so young when Mom died — it's only now, sometimes, that Laurie realizes that her parents are people, and she knows Dad pretty well but not Mom, not really, and sometimes…
Well. She thinks about these things, sometimes, and more often, recently.
Laurie doesn't think of herself as having a famous family, and she doesn't usually think of her family as being small, either. A lot of her friends growing up were only children, too, or had just one or two siblings; their cousins and grandparents living far away in another province or another country. Most of Dad's family is still back in Ireland, too; Laurie never felt like it was strange among her friends back home.
She feels very small, suddenly, in Aunt Susan's living room, five cousins bearing down on her. It helps, at least, that there's a row of angel figurines on the mantel with all of their names: Persis Alexa ("Please call me Alexa"), Parker Gilbert, Alexander Kenneth, Matthew James, Kayla Anne. Alexander grumbles that he'd rather go by Alex, but everyone in the family calls him Ken anyway. Their hair is all shades of red and gold, not dark like Laurie's, and they all have the same freckles and wide smiles.
The boys don't seem overly interested in her, drifting back outside to do — whatever they were doing — before Laurie arrived. Alexa and Kayla hover near her, smiling, asking how the flight was and what she thinks of the Island.
Laurie drifts around the living room, looking at the family photos on the mantel and the walls, letting her cousins tell her who everyone is. There's a wedding photo from a cousin in Nova Scotia; Aunt Susan's own wedding to her husband, who passed away several years ago; Alexa's graduation photos; Aunt Susan's 80th birthday party with all the Island family in attendance. Laurie swallows, wishing she recognized any of the people in the photos.
Laurie knows Mom had never liked the Island much — they had only come back once after she was born. Mom had always said the same few things, when Laurie was young: the Island was too small. She liked the rain and fog in Vancouver (Mom was weird that way). She wanted to put an entire continent between herself and her mother (that one was probably closest to the truth).
All of Laurie's memories of Gran are sweet — Gran holding her on her lap, buying her her first ice cream, singing her old showtunes. She thinks Mom and Gran mostly got along, but she doesn't really know. There are a lot of things she doesn't know, that she didn't think about much as a kid, when she still had them.
There's a piano in the corner, painted white with little pink flowers all over its case. A flowering vine has been painted on the lid in an attempt to cover up a deep gouge. Propped up on the lid are a framed set of military medals. Idly, Laurie presses a key, but it doesn't make a sound.
"Oh, that piano is terribly old," Aunt Susan says, bustling out of the kitchen. "I don't think anyone's played it since my girls were little. But it's pretty, isn't it? Do you play?"
"A little."
"Just like your great-grandmother. Here — " She motions at the frame. " — I brought out Uncle Walter's medals. I thought the Historical Society might like to look at them."
The only medal Laurie recognizes straightaway is the Distinguished Service Cross. It's placed in the center of the frame, flanked by a bronze medal with a winged figure on it and a silver one with a profile that says Georgivs V Britt.
"We had them framed — oh, gosh, it must have been when your mother was little — the last time there was this big to-do was the fiftieth anniversary of the war. Your grandmother donated most of his papers and letters to a university ages ago, but we kept a few things. The Historical Society would probably like to see them this time, too…"
She puts a box on the piano, and Laurie peeks inside, hoping for a photo or some letters, something that might…make him more real, give her some kind of thread to follow back to her grandmother, her mother, herself.
Her wish is only granted on one count: there's a black-and-white photo of a young man in uniform, cap tilted on his dark hair. He's handsome, with high, sharp cheekbones, and something delicate and almost beautiful about his eyes and lashes. Jeez. Her great-grandfather looks like this, and Laurie used to get called "Chipmunk" in school for her round face and she still has acne at twenty-one. Life is so cruel.
He's unsmiling, staring into the camera. Even through the old photograph, it feels like his stare is going through her, like he knows what she's thinking.
There are a few old coins in the box, a pack of ancient playing cards, a notebook that has some scraps of poetry written it — "Not 'The Piper'," Aunt Susan says. "That went to the university, too." Some papers are at the bottom — a service record, enlistment papers, a notice of a pension for a soldier wounded in combat.
Laurie shuffles the papers around, landing on the enlistment record. Walter Blythe is written on the name lines in big, swooping script, swallowing the neatly typed lines of the form. Hair: Black. Eyes: Grey. Place of Birth: Glen St. Mary, P.E.I. Date of Birth: May 25 '93.
She blinks at the date. It's familiar to her: she's filled it out a thousand times, at the doctor's office and at school and now that she's old enough not to need to lie about her age online. 25/05/93, 93-05-25, May 25th, 1993. Her own date of birth.
Something tugs at Laurie, something trying to push its way to her surface. Her friends tease her for being superstitious, for seeing signs in names and dates and people who share her initials or her bus route. Laurie knows it's silly, but she can't help but think — the world is so vast, so crowded and sometimes ugly, it must mean something when things align so perfectly, beautifully.
Then again, the childhood grief therapist would probably have something to say about Laurie's need to find meaning in the meaningless.
She looks again at the photo, at that serious gaze boring into her. Would he have been surprised to know that she exists, that they're connected by such a simple thing? She can't even picture herself having a great-grandchild, someone who might look at photos of her a hundred years from now and wonder about her.
"Oh, yes, that's him," Aunt Susan says, her voice startling Laurie. "You look quite a bit like him, you know — that whole side of the family had dark hair; no one knows where it came from."
"Did you know him, Aunt Susan?"
"Oh, yes. I used to visit him and Aunt Una often, and they would come to visit us. He liked all us children — he was always letting us sneak candy and he'd send us all sorts of things from Toronto — new magazines and clothes. I was quite the envy of the girls in my class, in our little town in Nova Scotia!"
Aunt Susan's smile fades a bit as she looks down at the photo. "He would've adored you, you know. Your great-grandmother did. She…"
A crash in the backyard cuts her off. "Sorry, Aunt Susan!" Parker-or-Ken calls from the yard.
"Oh, Lord," Aunt Susan mutters, turning to the back door.
"We'll start on dinner, Auntie," Alexa offers. "Come on, Laurie. Have you ever had P.E.I. potatoes before?"
Dinner had been loud and chaotic. All of the cousins were talking over each other, gossiping and teasing each other about people they knew from school.
"Can I have the car to go into town later?" Kayla had asked. "My friends are going to the movies."
Ken had smirked at her. "Is Keith Sloane going to be there?"
Kayla's face turned bright red, but she'd lifted her chin. "Don't know. Don't care."
Eventually, they'd all left, promising to be back tomorrow to visit and drive Laurie around to see the Island sights.
"We can go to the beach!" Alexa had chirped. "Oh, and there's a really good ice cream place around here — and the potato museum — stop laughing, Kay — "
"Alexa works at the potato museum," Kayla had said. "If you're wondering why she's so obsessed with them."
"They're more interesting than you'd think," Alexa had said primly, tossing her red curls over her shoulder. "And I get a discount on guest tickets, so."
The house is finally quiet now. Laurie sits cross-legged on the bed in the little room at the back of the house, looking through a stack of boxes she found in the room's closet.
Aunt Susan really never throws anything away. When she was putting away her toothbrush and shampoo, Laurie found bandages in the washroom cabinet that expired in 1991. It had made her curious what else might be in the house, frozen in time. Maybe it's creepy to be going through the closets and looking under the bed like this, but — she can't help it, she wants to know, wants to press her face to a window and peer inside at everything she's missed.
The first box is big and shallow, filled entirely by a gray dress wrapped in tissue paper. Laurie lifts it halfway out, eyeing its ruffled collar. She can already tell it's too small for her, just from the length of the sleeves and the width of the shoulders. She doesn't want to pull the whole thing out for fear she won't be able to fold it as neatly again.
The first box is full of photos from the '60s and '70s, based on the hair and clothes. There's a photo of a girl who is clearly a younger Aunt Diana on a bike, along with another girl Laurie doesn't recognize. The back of the photo says Di and Una, '68.
It is the photo underneath that makes her breath catch. This girl is very obviously her mother — she has dark hair and her face is still recognizably the same, though with some childish softness about it. She's maybe fourteen, fifteen. She's sitting on a couch, accompanied by Gran and an even older woman, with snow-white hair and large glasses. Mom is hugging the older woman, smiling in a way that scrunches up her eyes, like a cat.
"Dear, I was wondering if…oh, what do we have here?"
Laurie looks up to see Aunt Susan in the doorway, one hand grasping the door frame for support, the other holding a sheaf of papers. She jumps up to help escort her aunt to the bed, where Aunt Susan sits down with a heavy sigh.
"Thank you, dear. Ah, you found all the old photos. I had completely forgotten they were here."
Her eyes go soft, seeing the photo of Mom in Laurie's hand. "And there's your mother. That's my Aunt Una at the end, with the glasses — your great-grandmother."
Laurie regards the photo for a long moment, tilting it slightly as though she might be able to see through it. "Why did Mom leave the Island?" she asks softly, finally. "She never really said why. I mean, except that she thought it was too small."
"Well, now, that's probably the whole truth. That's why all the young folk move away — for more work, more excitement."
"And she used to say she wanted to get away from her mom," Laurie adds. "I never thought she and Gran didn't like each other, but…"
Aunt Susan surprises her by laughing. "Oh, they were just too much like each other. They argued all the time. Romy was a little older than me — she was my favorite cousin. I just worshiped her as a girl; I thought she was so glamorous, being from Toronto and wearing makeup and all of that. And she was always very headstrong. Very brave. She always wanted to do things her way, and your mother was just the same. It's funny — you'd think Romy would have recognized how similar they were, but you know, it's different when it's your own child. She used to worry terribly over your mother."
It's somehow not what Laurie wanted to hear. Headstrong. Brave. She's not at all like either of them.
"But they did love each other," Aunt Susan hurries to reassure her. "They just couldn't live on the same island together. Things were much better once your mother moved away."
Laurie hums, turning the words over in her head. She has more to ask, but she can't quite form the words yet, isn't sure what she wants to know. So instead she asks, "Whose dress is this?"
"Goodness me, I don't know." Aunt Susan leans over to look at it. "Look at that collar — it must be very old. Older than my own mother, even. Come, let's see what's in the rest of the boxes. I haven't looked at these in years."
The photos in the next box are even older, almost all black-and-white, although there are a couple more color shots of Laurie's mother and Aunt Diana. Aunt Susan gasps in delight when they get to one showing a pretty, light-haired woman holding a baby. Ilse Susan is written on the back of the photo.
"That's me," Aunt Susan says, beaming. "Everyone called me 'Ilse' as a girl, but then it was too German, you know, during the war. So I started going by 'Susan'. I never really went back."
The next photo: Aunt Susan as a girl, standing on the lawn of a house, her arms linked in a line of several other boys and girls, and a few older teenagers.
"That was 'the big house' — Ingleside," Aunt Susan says. "My grandparents lived there. Let's see — there's your grandmother, Romy. That's Johnny and Diana — they were the oldest — twins. Diana moved to the States to work at a magazine — she was very fashionable, very clever. Poor Johnny. He was — what do you call it — an alcoholic. He drank something terrible after the war. When he wasn't drinking, he was the loveliest man, so kind, but, well…anyway, and that's Wally and Jemmy. Jemmy died in the war. Wally moved to New Brunswick. He has family there still, I think.
"That's Gilbert. He flew planes in the war, just like my father. All his family still lives on the Island, we'll invite them over one day…and there's Bertha; she died before you were born. She was only a little older than I was, and we used to write back and forth all the time. She liked to paint — that painting of the lighthouse in the living room is hers."
The next photo: Aunt Susan and Bertha, on the Ingleside porch, an elderly couple in wicker chairs in front of them.
"Grandmother and Grandfather," Aunt Susan says fondly. "Grandmother loved to tell us stories. Grandfather was funny — he liked to joke a lot. Grandmother sang a lot — well, her mind started going when I was about fifteen, and that's all she could remember, old Victorian songs and things. She always recognized Jemmy and Wally, though — I think they were her favorites, even though she never said. I don't know if she really understood, you know, when they lost Jemmy…but perhaps it was better that way."
The next photo: Two couples, maybe in their thirties or early forties, at a table in a dark room.
"These are my parents," Aunt Susan says, her voice brightening. She points at the couple on the right. The man is handsome, his smile a little wry and knowing; the woman to his side is caught in a laugh. "I wonder where they are — they were always getting invited to dinners and things…but hm, Dad's not wearing his uniform. He didn't like going to all those fancy dinners, but Mum would make him go because she wanted the free food, she said. They would sneak food out in their pockets for us. Dad brought home an entire box of cookies once; he was so proud…
"And that's Aunt Una and Uncle Walter," Aunt Susan adds, unnecessarily. Walter — Uncle Walter? Great-Grandfather? Laurie doesn't know what to think of him as — is recognizable from his army photo, although he's clearly older here. He and Una have the same sort of calm, serious gaze, smiling only faintly, as though they're keeping something from the person behind the camera.
"Let's see — oh, here it is."
The photo underneath is a wedding portrait. It's Walter and Una again — again with just faint smiles on their faces. Their heads are tilted towards each other, as though they might be leaning on each other just out of the frame. Una's brows are dark and heavy over her face, almost worried.
"They look so…serious," Laurie says.
"Oh, they were both like that. They didn't laugh and joke as some of my other aunts and uncles did — I did love them so for it, you know, children always want to be taken seriously. It was always a great thing to make Aunt Una laugh. I remember Gilbert and Wally used to try and prank her quite often. But she was very sweet."
Laurie traces their faces in the photo, her fingers just brushing the paper. She supposes Aunt Susan wouldn't really know if they were happy together, if they loved each other, all the things Laurie wants to believe.
"That reminds me," Aunt Susan says. "That's what I was going to ask you. One of those historians wants to visit me and talk about Uncle Water. Such a nice young man. I think he said his last name was McAllister; I wonder if he's related to the McAllisters in town…well, anyway, my eyesight and hearing aren't what they used to be. Would you be a dear and help an old woman answer his questions? I'm sure he'd love to meet you, too."
Right. The centennial, the ceremony, everyone wanting to meet the last link to Walter Blythe, as though she might be carrying him with her still. Well, at least she knows what her great-grandfather looks like now. Maybe Mr. McAllister knows more of him, too, can give her more pieces to hold.
"Sure," she says quietly. "I'd like that."
"Splendid," Aunt Susan says. "Well — these old bones are quite tired, so I'm off to bed. Do you need anything, dear?"
How funny that Aunt Susan is asking her that. It's so kind that Laurie's throat swells, her eyes blurring. "I'm good," she manages. "Here, let me walk you down the hall."
"So lovely to see all those old photos again," Aunt Susan muses as Laurie helps her to her room. "I'd almost forgotten we had them. We can look through them more tomorrow, if you'd like."
Laurie deposits her into her room with a kiss on the cheek, then returns to the boxes. She picks through the photos slowly, not wanting to come to the end.
Most of the photos are of Aunt Susan's parents — posing in front of a plane, laughing on a lawn. There is Aunt Susan's father's army photo, wings pinned to his collar. Shirley Blythe, 1918 is typed neatly at the bottom of the army portrait. One photo shows Shirley with Walter and another man, their arms slung over each other's shoulders: Jem, Walter, Shirley, '31.
A color photo slips out from the bottom of the pile, and Laurie freezes as she picks it up. She recognizes this: the yellow walls of the hospital room, the pink blanket swaddling the baby. Several photos just like it are framed at her own house, showing her mother holding her just after she was born.
Her mother isn't in this photo. Instead, baby Laurie is being held by a tiny, wizened woman with snow-white hair. The date the photo was taken is printed in orange at the corner: '93 05 25.
She turns the photo. Her mother's handwriting is on the back, in pencil: Grandma Una & Lauren Cecilia.
Gingerly, she lays the photo down, that strange feeling in her chest, as though she's being pulled towards something — a door, maybe, where she does not know what's on the other side. So for a minute, she and her great-grandmother had been together, here. Her great-grandmother had known her, had seen her face. How strange to think of it.
The last box is nothing but papers, and disappointment pricks at Laurie, though she already knew that finding another photo of herself was too much to hope for. She flicks through the box anyway, still curious. They're mostly letters, some addressed to Aunt Susan, some addressed to other aunts and uncles. She opens a letter that starts with Dearest Faith, but quickly folds it back up when she sees the phrase longing to feel your arms around me and your lips on mine. She doesn't need to know that about her great-aunts and uncles.
Idly, she slides another sheaf of papers out of an envelope. Her head is starting to hurt from trying to parse all the old-timey cursive in the dim light of the bedroom. She'll stop after this one, she thinks, flipping open the bottom half of the letter.
…Romy is talking of going away again, to document the state of Europe after the war. It feels so cruel, after we've only just gotten her back. Do you notice that I write "we", still? It's such an impossible habit to break and perhaps I don't want to break it.
But back to Romy — I suppose I must let her go, just as I did before, and let her make her own choices, though it's breaking my heart all over again.
I am trying to be brave and not sad, and it's only in these letters that I let myself say what I really feel. You've always understood things so well, Rilla, and I feel I can tell these things to you. I had Walter ever so much longer than I thought I would and it is a miracle that Romy came back, too. I've had more than my share of joy when there is so much hardship everywhere else — that is what I am trying to think…
On the second page, the letter is signed Una.
I am trying to be brave and not sad. Laurie inhales, breath rattling. She thinks she is trying, too.
Her phone buzzes. hi Laurie, this is Kayla! my mom gave me your number :) want to come to the movies? i can pick you up
Laurie cradles her phone in her hands. All of Kayla's friends might be there — she'll probably say something awkward and embarrass herself. She'd rather stay in and wrap herself in the past.
I am trying to be brave. She could let herself grow again here, let her roots sink into the red earth — if she wants to. If she doesn't want to forget again.
I'd love to :) she writes back.
She turns back to the photos and letters, all that's left of the world gone by, of everyone who came before her. Laurie wonders if they ever thought of this distant future, if there is anyone who will look back at the bits and pieces of her life and wonder who she is, too.
"I'll come back," she promises, then goes out to be here, now.
damn guys we're done! and it only took me 11 years! i am fastest writer. thank you so much to everyone who read this fic and stuck around for so long, i hope you enjoyed it :)
notes n fun facts:
- i used "mom" because that is what 2/3rds of my canadian internet friends say, although some claim they write it "mom" and say it like "mum." i have written it "mom", pronounce it in your head however u want.
- i based the modern names off the SSA name popularity lists, since stats canada didn't go all the way back to the 1890s (the name trends are basically the same, however). i picked the names based on their ranking: "lauren" was the 13th-most popular girls' name of the 1990s; "walter" was the most 13th-popular boys' name of the 1890s. some other combos were: carl/alexander (#25), kenneth/keith (#125), alexa/anne (#110), gerald/parker (#195), and bertha/kayla (#12). (kind of funny, "matthew" was the 1990s counterpart of "james", so no need to update the names there.)
- while we're at it, kind of funny that LMM chose a lot of uncommon female names for her characters (most of the boys' names were on the SSA list, but diana, faith, una, and marilla didn't rank at all, which made finding counterparts kind of tricky!).
- technically i think may 1893 doesn't work as walter's date of birth (i think 1893 is a possible birth year for him, but he'd have to have been born later in the year to jive with jem also being 21 in rilla of ingleside). buuut walter has always read as a may baby to me and i've been using his birth year as '93 based off the AOGG wiki for so long that changing it to '94 felt weird to me, so lettuce all just chalk this up to AOGG's wonky timeline and keep it moving, shall we?