The Bottom of the Sea

Part 28: Get Ready

Barney's funeral took place on a grey, lonely Monday. Jake surprised me by offering to go with me. There weren't many people there, which made me sad and sent me down a grim path, thinking about how many people would go to my funeral if I passed suddenly.

I had to stop thinking like that, there was the baby to consider and no time to be morbid. The whole experience of interviewing Barney and being there the night before he died shook me to the core.

I placed the crucifix necklace on the wall above my bed, as instructed. Did they actually take it from her neck when they found that Elva had passed? It was awful that assumptions were made about her in death, when she had endured so much in life. I was highly emotional anyway, but every time I thought about Elva, I would tear up. When I heard the creak and groan of the stairs at night, I no longer coward in fear. I imagined the dark-haired woman at the kitchen sink, looking for her babies.

I couldn't get the story Barney told me out of my head. The callousness of her family shocked me. From my research, the family patriarch was a minister — was that why they shunned her when she died? I felt so awful for this woman who lived a century ago, first losing her children to a terrible disease, and then being treated so horribly in death. What if she had taken her own life, she still would have been deserving of respect and care after she'd passed. The more I found out about her, the more my heart ached.

I would lose track of whatever I was doing and catch myself staring out the window, thinking about Elva and all she went through, and it was bringing back awful memories of Shane. Once, he convinced me to go fishing with him and one of his cop buddies. It was a terrible day with the two of them getting drunker and more vile on the boat, while I wished I was anywhere else. At one point, I remember peering into the murky water and wishing I had the guts to just slip down, all the way down to the bottom. There were moments with Shane that were more horrible, but that one was my lowest point.

"Sarah, you're too quiet lately. Get out and have some fun today." My phone beeped, dragging me out of my reverie. I smiled when I saw the text was from Jake. I decided to take him up on his suggestion, quit work for the day and check out the farmer's market. He had good ideas sometimes, ones that usually involved abandoning work to have some fun. It occurred to me more than once that he didn't really like the job he was in, or the paper he owned.

Jake and I had been hanging out more and I was enjoying it. I kept checking the door while I worked that day, waiting for him to come through the front door, and felt a tiny twinge of disappointment each time I remembered he was out in Halifax on a mysterious errand.

He was usually an open book about his life but didn't say much about this trip. I noticed that it filled him with a nervous excitement and I'd never seen him like that — if ever there was a guy who told you exactly what was on his mind, it was Jake.

I headed out into the late-fall sunshine when I got the second text from him offering to take me to dinner in that fancy new place at the edge of town. Sure, I texted back, curious.

One by one, people kept saying hi and calling my name. I wasn't used to it.

Word got around in a small town, and I was starting to be recognized for my stories. People seemed to like them, but the brush with minor notoriety made me anxious, given that I was still trying to keep a low profile.

"Hey! Great issue. Love that Colin kid!" A guy on a bike yelled out and gave me a friendly wave as I crossed the street. Community journalism was an unexpected career for me, but despite my misgivings, it was one that I was starting to really like.

Brightly coloured tents were set up in the parking lot of the church and I wandered from stall to stall, looking at the produce, homemade trinkets and flowers. I bought a vibrant fall bouquet thinking about how lovely it would look on the old, Formica table in the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone familiar. I couldn't place her at first but when I did, I started walking towards her.