The Trust

Prologue

July 2011

In the end, his death was as small and shabby as his life. Does that sound harsh?

My therapist says I should confront negative thoughts when they arise instead of suppressing them. It's an ugly thought; it sticks like food caught in the back of your throat. I turn it around in my mind and examine it, decide it's fair and let it stand.

I'm up to my knees in cold ocean water.

My pant legs are rolled up, and I'm holding a large Ziploc bag in my trembling fist. The bag is filled with my father's cremated remains. I know he didn't have much, but surely to God someone could have found a better receptacle for his final journey home than a plastic fucking bag designed to freeze leftovers.

I try not to look too closely at the contents, I have never been this close to cremated human remains before and I really don't want to see what they're made of.

This task fell to me because I'm his oldest child, as if that makes any difference. As if he could tell one abandoned child from the other all these years later. Or remember that he had two. My sister and me, now young mothers with busy, unfulfilled lives. My sister is on the beach with her husband and confused-looking teenaged kids; she shoots me a reassuring look and I wince. 

How am I supposed to do this?

I turn to the relatives on the beach, as if I can find the answers on their solemn faces. Do I open the bag, like I'm taking out some frozen chicken for dinner, and dump it all in at once? Or grab a fistful of ashes and sprinkle them around? Either thought is horrifying.

The beach is just south of the town hospital, where they all swam as kids. It's a special place and my father spent many hours here with his siblings when he was a loved and loving child, long before addiction stole his life. It's July, but the ocean is so cold just standing in it is giving me a headache. You can't really swim comfortably in this part of Cape Breton — Grey Harbour, a splinter of land jutting into the freezing North Atlantic — until the hottest days in August.

I feel the weight of the plastic bag and its contents, and I want this over with. Unsure of what to do, I continue to scan the faces of my relatives back on the beach. Relieved, I see my uncle Rob rolling his pant legs and taking off his socks and shoes. They are expensive, I noticed them earlier. Dark burgundy Italian leather, they probably cost more than my mortgage payment. He carefully sets them to one side and wades in slowly until he's close to me.

He's my dad's youngest brother, the one that got out from this little coal mining town — all the way to New York where he lives comfortably after making a fortune as a computer engineer in the 90s. Like all of my Dad's siblings, he is kind, family oriented and deeply ashamed of his heroin-addicted brother who left us when we were small. None of them could ever do such a thing. I don't know Rob well, but I've met him a few times when he came back home for a visit, and we always had nice talks. Sometimes he brought us gifts, like the gold locket he gave me for my 16th birthday. I still have it.

"Mom, why didn't you marry any other Douglas boys," I used to ask when we were kids, when the loss of my father was a fresh and persistent wound. "There were three other brothers to choose from, and they all have good jobs!" I envied my cousins with their large, cozy homes, cars parked in the garage and luxuries like cable TV, curtains on the windows, doors with doorknobs instead of a string tied through the hole to pull them closed in our drafty, half-finished house. Most of all, I envied them for having a father who returned home from work each night, who took them shopping or out for drive on Saturdays and fixed things around the house when they broke.

Mom would roll her eyes in exasperation. "I fell in love with your father, I didn't know he would end up having a problem with addiction! And besides, your uncle Jack was already married, Peter Tom lived away, and Rob was too young for me."

"Here, kid." I shake myself out of my memory. Rob has reached me where I stand shivering and holds out his hand for the grim package. I pass it to him, grateful to be rid of its weight.

"Should we say a few words?" I ask. A moment passes as he thinks about this and then he begins to sing quietly.

Nach truagh leat mi am prìosan mo Mhàili bheag òg.
Do chàirdean 'gad ionndrain, mo chuid de'n t-saoghal mhòr
Bean na dosan mine, 's nan gruaidhean dearga lionta i
'S tu nach fhàgadh sios mi fo mhì-ruin do bheòil.

The knot in my stomach spreads upwards and tightens my throat. The Gaelic song my father used to sing to us when we were kids; the one his mother sang to him. Do you not pity me in prison, my little young Molly?

Uncle Rob's voice is soft but strong, and he pronounces the Gaelic expertly. Their mother was a Gael, and while they couldn't speak the language, they could sing and understand it. My father loved the tragic song with its imprisoned hero and little Molly with the silken hair, the 'full, red cheeks.'

Everyone watching on the beach is in tears. I didn't want to cry today but I am, and so is my uncle who is finding a way to do this impossible thing.

Without any further thought or ceremony, he tears the bag open and dumps the contents into the sea in one fluid motion before folding it up and putting it in his jacket pocket. I sigh in relief. I didn't know what I was going to do with the bag.

Fragments of my father dissipate on the soft waves. After a few moments, there is no sign of him. It is done.

I give Rob a grateful smile and we turn to head back to shore when a blast of frigid water slams into my back, pushing me forward. I nearly fall on my face until he grabs me by the elbow and guides me to shore. He is also drenched, sea water dripping from his hair and hanging like tiny raindrops from his blond eyelashes.

"Rogue wave," he coughs, wiping his bright blue eyes with his hand as we reach the family on shore. They help us in from the water; my aunt Eve covers my shoulders with her sweater and wipes my damp hair from my face. "Here, get warm. You'll catch your death," she says. Audrey runs to my side and throws her little arms around my waist. She's laughing. "Mommy got wet. That was funny."

Everyone is talking about the wave. It came from nowhere on an otherwise calm, cloudless day. It rose above us from behind, engulfing us when we least expected it; nature's perfect prank.

"It was funny, wasn't it?" I hug my daughter tight to me.

"I swear to Jesus, that was your father," Uncle Jack says, looking up at the sky. "He was always a trickster, that one."

"I wouldn't put it past him," Rob says, reaching into his pocket and taking out a flask. His booming laugh is contagious, and then we are all laughing and taking turns swigging from it. I hate scotch as does my sister, but the occasion calls for it and I'm happy for the warmth in my belly. It's Balvenie Reserve, 10-year-old single malt, $500 a bottle, Rob says.

"Jumpin' Jesus, I could buy a used car for that," Peter Tom mutters as he drinks.

"I wish I met my Grandpa before he died," Aud says, looking up at me with her wide, green eyes so much like my own. There was no way that was ever going to happen, but I say, "me too, honey." I want her to think of her grandfather as loving and respectable. She's too young to know the truth.

I scan the beach for Clive, hoping to catch his eye for a reassuring look. I did this, I think with a tiny bit of pride. This difficult thing is done.

I see him further back from the crowd, alone by the parking lot. He's looking down at his phone and smiling. Sadness and suspicion twist in my belly like twin snakes. But then he looks up and gives me a reassuring nod. I'm just being foolish. Clive isn't perfect but he loves me. I know it.

I catch the eye of my uncle Rob and smile, and he winks in return. I look out to where we put my father in the ocean, expecting to see a dark smear on the sea, now calm again. But there isn't any trace of him.

"If there's one thing I know about my big brother, it's that he always had to have the last word," Rob says. His siblings wipe their eyes, nodding. We drink.