Somewhere I Belong Read online

  “Ma-tha, my de-ah,” he said, trying to mimic a New England accent, “you don’t look a day over fo-tee.” His high-pitched voice carried through the crisp air.

  Ma’s face lit up for the first time since Dad died. All the tension that had sat over her for the past two weeks seemed to fall away as she laughed and swatted my uncle with her scarf. For a moment, I thought she was coming around to her old self. But she still moved in the same tired, deliberate way she had since Dad’s funeral.

  Uncle Jim turned to where we kids stood. He looked at Larry and smiled the same smile I had seen, over and over again, on the people at Dad’s wake in Aunt Mayme’s parlour. I saw the same sadness in his eyes and heard the same hesitation in his voice when he held out a hand and gripped Larry’s in both of his. “So you’re the man of the house now, aren’t you, Larry?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Larry said, in the same polite way he had since Dad died. He smiled briefly, then backed away and stared at his boots.

  Uncle Jim turned to Helen, took her hand, and raised it up. “You’ve become quite the little lady, Miss Helen.”

  Helen stared up at him, trying to figure him out. If I didn’t remember Uncle Jim, she sure as heck didn’t. Before he had even let go of her hand, he tilted his head and smiled down at me. “Well, this must be Pius James. We’ve heard all about you.”

  I tossed him the same blank expression Helen had and wondered what it was he’d heard about me. My only memory of my uncle was from Ma’s stories of him and that single family photograph with him standing stiffly amidst Ma and a bunch of uncles and aunts, most of whom had since dispersed across the continent. They looked serious and tight-mouthed. The men wore dark suits, white shirts, high, stiff collars, and neckties that looked tight enough to strangle them. The women had tied their hair loosely back in buns. Their skirts brushed the floor. And they all stood crammed up against each other and glared at the photographer, which made me wonder if he had just said something wrong.

  There was something about Uncle Jim that seemed rehearsed or a little nervous. His forced cheerfulness reminded me of some of my friends who had come to see me at Dad’s wake. They shuffled past Dad’s closed coffin and bit their lips when they smiled and shook my hand. Some of them even repeated the same line we had heard from most of the adults, “I’m sorry for your loss.” It made me realize that it must be hard to talk to someone who had a dead person in the family, especially a dead husband or dad. Uncle Jim sure was trying hard.

  “We’d best look after your baggage,” he said. He turned to move down the platform to where a porter was already piling it onto a trolley. Ma shooed me and Larry along to help.

  Uncle Jim took the handle of the trolley from the porter. Larry and I moved in behind it to push. The wheels stuck in the snow and our boots slid on the ice as we urged the trolley across the platform. It was tough going. The harder we pushed, the more we slid. We passed a snowy embankment and moved onto flat ground that had been partially cleared of snow. Then we saw two magnificent horses waiting patiently in their traces in front of an old box sleigh.

  “Hey, Big Ned,” Uncle Jim said. “Hey, Lu.” He eased the trolley beside the sleigh, grabbed a burlap bag from the front seat, and retrieved two apples. “They’re real beauts, ain’t they?” He circled back to the horses. “Genuine Perch’ens. Eighteen hands, the both of ’em.”

  Lu nickered softly and gently bit off a piece of apple with her huge teeth. Big Ned just snorted like the mini locomotive he appeared to be and devoured the apple whole. The two horses made a beautiful pair. They were huge, exquisitely built, and perfectly aligned. Their barrel chests held up the heavy wooden shafts with apparent ease. Their hooves were the size of dinner plates. Big Ned had a more muscular build. His brown coat and black mane and tail shone, even in the dull afternoon light. His forelock partially covered his large brown eyes. Lu was chestnut all over, with a blond mane and tail. She seemed more wary than Big Ned. She watched me as I stepped cautiously toward them. She waited momentarily, then turned her head toward Uncle Jim. I wondered at the strength these two horses must have had to pull such a large contraption, loaded down with all of us and what remained of our belongings.

  Uncle Jim placed the last of Lu’s apple in my hand. “Hold it out flat,” he said, hardly giving me a sideways glance. “She won’t hurt you, will you, old girl?”

  I eased up to her, the way I had seen Uncle Jim do it. I balanced the apple on the flat of my palm, held my breath, and feared she would bite off my hand or crush my foot under an enormous hoof. Lu hesitated, then lowered her huge head and sniffed the apple. Then she plucked it up and left a trace of saliva on my mitt. When she had finished, she looked down at me and snorted a soft snort that was almost a purr. I reached up and stroked her huge neck, while Big Ned nodded his head on the other side of the shaft. These were the biggest animals I had ever seen, and they were as trusting and gentle as kittens.

  Uncle Jim’s box sleigh was a large, rectangular, wooden contraption that sat low off the ground on two sturdy runners. The front bench had a backrest and a slab of wood directly beneath it for the feet. A second bench, behind it, appeared to be temporary; it tilted forward and lacked a support for the back. Uncle Jim and Larry tucked boxes around it to hold it steady. They loaded on Ma’s trunk and we all climbed aboard. Alfred sat up front between Ma and Uncle Jim. Larry, Helen, and I perched on the crooked backbench and pushed our feet to the floorboards to hold it steady, boxes to our backs. Uncle Jim handed Ma a buffalo rug and another one to us. We spread it out around our ankles and pulled it up to our chins. Then he slapped the reins and hollered, “Gee-up.”

  Big Ned and Lu lowered their heads, straining in their traces; the box sleigh creaked and groaned and glided over the frozen ground. Peaked-roof houses lined both sides of a narrow, snowy road covered in ruts. Grey clouds gathered and slowly darkened the sky. We turned up a hill and soon left the tiny town behind us. We passed isolated farmhouses and fields that lay fallow under a thick, white blanket. Snow began to fall as we headed east. The cold slowly seeped through the floorboards and turned our feet to ice. Everything around us appeared to be stuck in a snow-covered deep-freeze. The wind picked up and blew directly at us. Larry, Helen, and I huddled under the heavy buffalo rug for shelter.

  Adults have a way of talking about you as if you aren’t even there. Ma started the minute we pulled away from Montague Station. First, she complained about the constant clacking of the train and the whistle that had blown as we approached every town. Then she went on and on about the passengers that had clobbered up and down the aisle, jabbered outside our compartment, and kept her up all night. When she had exhausted all that, she started in on me.

  “You should have seen it, Jim. Dear little Alfred, just sitting there, minding his own business, and Pius James hauls off and smacks him.”

  Ma always took Alfred’s side, even when he started it. And her blabbing on to Uncle Jim about me was just another example of the same old crap I had to put up with because of the little bugger. It took me right back to the day Dad died. It seemed like yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at the same time. Alfred had got into my stuff, like usual. And when all I wanted to do was get it back, he threw another one of his stupid fits. Naturally, Ma blamed it on me.

  I was walking home from school with Larry and some of the guys that Friday. We were planning a hockey game at Glendale Park’s outdoor rink. Larry and I were keen to go. Our plan was to hurry home and grab a quick snack. Then we were to gather up our sticks and skates and Dad’s, and wait for him to get home from work. Dad always played hockey with us on Fridays. The plant’s siren sounded in the distance, announcing the end of his shift. The sun sat low in the mid-afternoon sky. We knew we still had two hours of good light.

  I could smell Ma’s baking as I ran up the front steps of the house and in through the front door. I took my jacket off and unlaced my boots by the front closet. The lights
were on in the hallway and in the kitchen. The floor lamp glowed in the parlour, where Alfred sat cross-legged on Ma’s hand-hooked rug. He had my baseball in a hand and was tossing it up and trying to catch it. The baseball I had put on the kitchen table that morning. The one I was supposed to bring for my school project. Ma had taken it from me and forgotten to give it back. Now Alfred had his grubby hands all over it and was dropping it on the floor—my Babe Ruth baseball!

  “Hey Alfred,” I hollered. “Where’d you get that?” I rushed across the hallway, leaving a trail of snow on Ma’s newly waxed floor. Alfred was a quick little bugger, so I fell onto him, held him down fast, and grabbed my baseball.

  “Yow! Ma, P.J. hit me!” Alfred screamed.

  I barely touched him. God, he was loud.

  Larry threw off his jacket and boots and dashed into the parlour. “He’s only playing with it, P.J.” He grabbed my baseball and held it away from me. “Get off him or you’ll upset Ma.”

  I climbed over Alfred and reached toward Larry. Alfred raised his head up and screamed again, not quite getting Ma’s name out, before I pushed his face and his mouth back into the rug.

  Ma stormed down the hallway. She caught me sitting on Alfred’s head, his hand grasping through the air. Larry still stood over me, holding my baseball out of reach. Ma hauled me off Alfred. “You just wait ’til your father gets home, young man.” She always left the scolding for Dad. And I always caught it for upsetting Alfred, even when he took my stuff without asking. I got the feeling that Alfred liked setting Ma against me. That he enjoyed watching her send me to my room with the point of a finger and a hand to a hip.

  I stormed across the hallway, plotting revenge on my little brother, thinking of the one thing that belonged to him that I could mangle or smash. But I would wait for the right moment to do it. For when Dad was still at work and Ma had her ear to the telephone yakking with Aunt Mayme. I was sick of listening to Alfred’s screeching and everyone taking his side.

  I approached the banister and raised a hand up to grab it, feeling the heat of Ma’s anger and my own burning rage. I imagined how I would take Alfred’s new 3-D viewfinder—the one Aunt Mayme had bought him for his fourth birthday. Alfred loved looking at the pictures Dad took when he was away working with Uncle George. Now I saw myself dangling it over him, just out of reach. Making him grasp and jump and squeal. Letting it drop to the floor, then smashing it under my foot. I hated Alfred at that moment and I wanted to see him cry.

  Just as I gripped the banister and placed my foot on the first step, the sky cracked overhead and the house shook. It was like huge hands clapping above us. I fell onto the banister and dropped to the bottom step, feeling the hardwood bite into my thigh. I rolled over and watched, in horror, as the kitchen window blew in and shards of glass flew across the grey linoleum floor. Down the hallway, Alfred reached for Ma. His mouth was wide open, but he wasn’t making a sound.

  “Pius James is always picking on his little brother,” Ma said. “Sometimes I wonder if he even likes him.”

  Just for the record, I do. Most of the time, anyhow. But the way Ma went on, you’d think Alfred was one of those tortured martyrs we studied in school, and I was on a sure road to hell. According to her, Alfred’s every squeak and holler was always my fault. Now she was setting Uncle Jim against me too.

  “That’s what boys do, Martha.” Uncle Jim looked at Ma and laughed. “Remember Ed and me? How we used to get into it? We’ll just have to keep ’im busy is all.”

  Uncle Jim reined Big Ned and Lu into a slow turn up a narrow drive. The sky was gloomy. Snow lay in a thick, white blanket and blew in swirls all around us. It stuck to our buffalo rugs and coated our luggage. It banked up on both sides of the drive, higher than the wagon.

  Ma turned stiffly under her buffalo rug. “We’re home, everybody.” The wind nearly swallowed her voice, but I could still sense her excitement.

  Uncle Jim tugged on a rein and urged the horses across the yard toward a gabled house that was barely visible. I stomped my aching feet against the frozen floorboards, looked at the desolation around us, and wondered how Ma could ever call this home. Home was a two-storey wooden house painted yellow and trimmed in white. Home had a backyard twenty skips long, according to Helen, neighbours you could talk to over a fence, and houses that lined up for blocks on both sides of the street. Granny’s was a place we had travelled through a near blizzard to get to. Drifts covered the yard like a rolling sea. The lantern that hung over the back door tilted in the wind. Snow blew horizontally against the house. Everything beyond it was a dull haze over a blank canvas.

  Big Ned and Lu stood quietly in their traces, heads down, eyes shut against the falling snow. The back door opened and a rambunctious border collie bounded toward us as we piled over the side of the sleigh. A man who was fumbling with the buttons of a plaid woollen jacket followed the dog down the stairs, then a boy who looked to be a little older than Alfred. His jacket matched the man’s. Its sleeves were rolled up at the cuffs, and his dungarees bagged over heavy gumboots. The man rushed toward Ma, arms wide open.

  “You made it, Martha,” he said. Then he hugged her. “Good to see you.” He had the same pale-blue eyes and ruddy complexion as Uncle Jim. But he didn’t have his forced eagerness. And I was relieved when he didn’t use that fake New England accent.

  Before Ma could answer him, the dog bristled and circled Helen. He crouched and growled at her, exposing a menacing set of teeth.

  Helen shrieked and edged toward Ma.

  Ma put a hand to her face. “Ed!”

  The man stepped toward the dog and waved him off. “Go ’way with you, Dodger.”

  Dodger slinked toward him, eyes pleading, tail tucked between legs. Then he sat and cowered.

  “Take this here.” The man pulled a biscuit from his pocket and handed it to Helen.

  “Easy now—make ’im work for it.”

  Ma introduced us to Uncle Ed and Cousin Thomas. I remembered my uncle from Ma’s photograph album back home and the stories she had told us about him. He was two years younger than Uncle Jim. And according to her, he was the quiet one. But Thomas was just a name Ma had mentioned from the occasional letter we had received from Granny. He edged beside Uncle Ed, mumbled out a greeting, and stared at my laced-up leather boots.

  “Welcome to Northbridge Road,” Uncle Ed said, smiling. He turned toward the baggage piled high over the sleigh. “You get yourselves inside. Thomas and I’ll look after this.”

  Uncle Jim unharnessed the horses and led them toward the barn. Larry and I each grabbed a piece of baggage and followed Uncle Ed and Thomas through the back door. We entered a mudroom and then a kitchen and a blast of warm air. The familiar smell of baked ham and roast potatoes—my dad’s favourite meal—was a relief after the long, cold ride. It reminded me of how hungry I was. We unbuttoned our jackets and piled them over hooks that lined the mudroom wall. I tugged off my boots and felt a sharp pain as I put my frozen feet on the hard wooden floor.

  A woman in a white apron loosely tied over a heavy woollen cardigan moved toward us, Ma’s bright blue eyes set in her wide-open face. She threw out her arms and lowered her hands to my frozen cheeks.

  “Well, Pius James, haven’t you grown?” she said. “You’re the image of your father.”

  “Thanks, ma’am.” I looked up and searched her soft, creased face. There was something familiar in the way her grey hair was tied neatly in a bun, in how wisps of it hung over the white collar of her floral-print dress. Still, she felt like a stranger.

  She turned to my older brother. “What have you been feeding him, Martha? Why, he’s got to be taller than….” She stopped and put a hand to her face. “Well, you’re big now, anyhow.”

  Ma introduced us to the two women who moved up beside Granny: her younger sister Gert—Aunt Gert—and Uncle Ed’s wife, Aunt Kate. Aunt Gert said a friendly hello, then bent down and
helped Alfred off with his jacket. Aunt Kate smiled shyly, then returned to the cookstove.

  Thomas and Uncle Ed carried in the rest of our baggage and piled it below the stairway in the front hall. Just as they turned to go back outside to help Uncle Jim with the horses, a grumpy looking man entered and slammed the door against the cold. He gripped the doorframe, stomped snow off his boots, pulled a scarf from his neck, and tossed a crooked grin across the kitchen.

  “You made it, Charlie,” Uncle Ed said. “We weren’t expectin’ you ’til later.”

  “Let them go early,” the man said. “What the heck—I needed time to get here, didn’t I?” Still gripping the doorframe, he unbuttoned his jacket and pulled it over an outstretched arm.

  “That was nice of you, Charlie,” Uncle Ed said. “You feelin’ all right?”

  “That Daley boy’s acting up again.” He dropped onto a stool and tugged off a boot. A hand lifted a pant leg, exposing a thick, metal brace. “I figured I had to get him out of there or I’d have clobbered him. So I sent the lot of them home. Little buggers.”

  “Now, Charlie,” Granny said. “What way is that to talk about the little dears?” I couldn’t tell if she was joking or half-serious.

  “Those scallywags would be the death of me if I didn’t take a firm hand,” the man scoffed.

  This was my introduction to Mr. Charlie Dunphy. He was the sole teacher at Northbridge Road School—the one-room schoolhouse that sat at a crossroads about a mile from Granny’s. I was later to find that he boarded with the Daleys—a rough-and-tumble family that lived near the school. Mr. Dunphy dined around the community in the evenings. Tonight it was Granny’s turn to feed him. There were other things I was soon to learn about him too, like his chameleon nature and that you could get into his bad books without even trying. His jovial, offhand manner at Granny’s, that evening, caught me completely off guard. I had no idea what I was soon to encounter at my new school.