EVENING SONG

The next morning's drizzly, cold weather didn't deter Connie from her ravine walk. Having spent countless hours traipsing around archaeological sites as a child, and later living in the north woods with her grandparents, she wasn't put off by a little inclement weather.

Connie didn't own a car, so was pleased when she discovered that an entrance to the Taylor Creek ravine was a short walk from her house. The ravine hooked into the vast network of meandering trails and parkland that snake through Toronto. The woods and wetlands surrounding the creek created a lush, verdant escape from city sights and sounds.

The first few times Connie walked on the ravine trail, she noticed dirt paths wandering off into the trees and assumed they were short-cuts perhaps made by teenagers, or homeless people taking up residence in corners of the ravine in warmer months. Coming upon the pond was an unexpected discovery. The dirt path ended at a small, natural stone and earthen jetty that poked out in the water and afforded a wonderful spot for viewing the wetland wildlife. Turtles lazed on rocks, mallards paddled around, and a heron, probably the one that led her to the pond, was tiptoeing through the tall grass on the far side.

One benefit of this morning's lousy weather was that few people were out walking, and no one was back at the pond. She would not hold back today but let it happen. Her breathing slowed and deepened. The tremor started in her hands. She held them out, palms up and gently tipped back her head, all her senses opening up to take in the pulse of the place. The mesmerizing vibration washed over her, enveloping her, as familiar and comforting as she remembered, though it happened an ocean away. She braced herself against whatever seemed to be drawing her from the far side of the pond.

She'd only experienced the trances a few times before, and only in Ireland. The first time she was nine, accompanying Ida and Findley to the dig where they went in the summer. Wandering around, Connie came upon a spot where she felt a soft, comforting pulse. She kept returning to stand longer and longer in the place that triggered the sensation. Findley dismissed the trances as a weird, quirky kid thing Connie was doing to get attention. At first, Ida left her alone, but got uneasy about Connie's behaviour and finally forbade her from going to the spot.

The second time Connie felt the trance was the summer after she got her BA in archaeology. Findley took her to Ireland as a graduation present. Toward the end of their visit, Findley became eager to have Connie show him where the trances happened when she was little. This perplexed her, given how dismissive he had been before. After some wandering around, she located the spot for Findley but felt awkward and held herself back from going in too deeply.

Connie didn't know how much time passed when she heard a scuffling noise behind her. She dropped her arms and turned around.

Milo stood on the trail.

"Oh, Milo." She stuttered, "I...I guess I looked a little odd. It's just a sort of – meditation - I do."

"That's nice. I'm sorry I disturbed you again. Do you come here every morning?"

"Most days. Are you a nature lover, too?"

Milo laughed, "More like a big city hater. But while I'm here, this is a nice escape, isn't it?"

"It is. I'll leave you to get some peace and quiet. I've been here for a while." Connie moved toward the trail.

She was struck by how she didn't feel embarrassed about Milo finding her deeply trancing by the pond. Would she feel the same if Grayson or one of her other friends saw her like that? Probably not. It was curious; as with her general appearance and quirkiness, Milo seemed out of Connie's normal realm of acquaintances. Not that she had much of a realm.

And the trances. What was going on? Why now? At the pond? Would they keep happening? Maybe it was some weird coping mechanism, somehow triggered in her subconscious to deal with the recent upheavals in her life. Whatever, she liked the way they felt and had no intention of making them stop.

It was too cold and rainy to sit on the patio. After coffee and newspaper, Connie went to work editing the geology textbook in the office she'd set-up in the small, second bedroom that faced the street. One positive consequence of avoiding Findley's boxes was that she was making good progress on the tedious project. Mid-afternoon, she closed down the computer and forced herself to go to the basement.

Connie leafed through one of the notebooks that fell out of the Irish dresses. It was solid with the crabbed hieroglyphics and shorthand Findley'd developed over the years, both for expediency and as a measure of security. An esteemed specialist in Late Neolithic cultures in Ireland, he chronically worried about someone stealing his theories and ideas.

When Connie moved from her grandparents back to Toronto to attend university, Findley hired her to transcribe his notes into some semblance of understandable English. Connie kidded him about having to develop a decoder ring to transcribe his notes. Over time, she created a sort of Findley/English dictionary binder. Unless Grayson had spent a lot of time with Findley's notebooks, he'd have a hard time making sense of it. She'd hung onto the binder as a sentimental reminder of Findley before he unravelled.

Maybe tomorrow, she would decipher the first page or two of the notebooks. If they were from Findley's last years, the notebooks could end up being an upsetting journey through his increasing incoherence and the repetitive nonsense he uttered as the Alzheimer's took hold. The Irish linen dresses brought back warm memories of the early years with Findley when her mother was still alive. Those were the times she wanted to remember.

Connie stared down at the notebooks, placed her hand on top of them, a wave of sadness washed over her. For all her complicated relationship with Findley, and those increasingly difficult last months of his life, she missed him. Terribly.

She set the notebooks aside. Again. Enough for today. Maybe she should hand them straight to Grayson, give him the Findley/English binder, and wash her hands of the whole business.

After supper, she bundled up to sit outdoors with her tea. Shortly after settling in on the little patio, Connie heard the neighbor on the other side come out her back door, talking on the phone. That side too had a tall fence dividing the yards.

So far, she'd had little interaction with the stout, tough-looking older woman, only brief introductions and had now forgotten her name. The woman's bungalow and yard looked worn, but tidy. She went off to work most days. Connie had noticed her cashiering at the nearby supermarket.

Connie heard the flick of a lighter and decided to stick it out and not make any noise while the woman finished her cigarette, which meant listening in on the phone call.

"Hey Ang. She still awake? Sorry. Had to work late. Yeah, I'm smokin'. Please don't get on me tonight. At least I'm not smokin' in the house anymore....I know you mean well. I'll put it out before she gets on the phone. She won't hear me smoking. I'll keep it short." She took a final drag.

"Hey Kami. Hi sweetheart. It's Gramma Jean. You're right, who else would it be? Who's in bed with you tonight...Brown Teddy...and Blue Doggie...Are they friends?...Oh, best friends, and today your best friends? And you're all snuggled up together. That's nice...It's late, honey, we shouldn't talk long. Should we sing? What do you wanna sing?...Okay, sweetie, but without waving our arms around." She chuckled, "Here we go..."

The neighbor quietly sang 'I'm a Little Teapot' in a gruff contralto. Though not meant for her, Connie was warmed by the small concert. Gramma Jean. She'd remember, Jean.

"How's that Kami? Hello? Kami?... Oh, hey, Nicole. She fell asleep? Sorry I'm so late. Thanks for keepin' her up. It's always so nice hearing her little voice. I'm doin' fine, I really am. Just a little tired from work. You take care. I'll let you go. Love ya too, Nicole. 'Night."

Jean flicked her lighter again. She smoked another cigarette and went back in her house. Connie waited to hear Jean close and lock her back doors before going inside. She was shivering by now, but at the same time, hadn't felt so cosily put to bed since the last time her mother tucked her into the Winnie the Pooh sheets.

SAWHORSES

The next morning, Connie had the sheltered pond to herself. At one point, a heron flew overhead, but it didn't land where she could see it. She was churning up inside. Finding the Irish dresses felt like the carefully secured band-aide on her grief had been ripped away. Her whole life, she had worked so hard to overcome losing her mother. But she never thought that losing her chronically self-absorbed, and later uncomprehending stepfather would unmoor her again so badly. She didn't understand why the ravine and the trance and tremors were so strangely calming. But, once again, held out her arms to absorb the serenity it gave her.

After she got home, she sat with the copy-editing project. The office window looked out over the front yard. She saw Jean leaving for work with an empty shopping cart, and not long after, Pria and Milo also left their house. It seemed like a good opportunity to putter around in the backyard. Even if Eneko was at home, she doubted he'd make any overtures to talk.

The houses on her short street had unusually long, narrow backyards. The first time she came to view the house at the beginning of January, the yard was covered in snow, and she couldn't explore it closely. She assumed that all the lumps were untended bushes and masses of weeds run amuck. On one side, a tarp covered a pile of wood, probably left over from some project. The main recognizable points of interest were a large bur oak that straddled her and Milo's yard, and two tall white pines at the very back.

Once the snow disappeared and shoots began popping up from the ground and buds spurting out of bushes, it became evident that someone, at some point, had put thought and effort into the backyard. Right now, there was a large swath of bloodroot doing its brief herald of spring flowering. It did not seem accidentally placed.

A flagstone path revealed itself meandering down the middle. One side-path branched off to the left, ending in a small stone patio under the shared oak tree with her neighbors. Another path, a little farther back to the right, came to a small stone patio encircled by some low bushes. Connie wanted to tell Eneko that, no, she would not be giving the back yard a 'good cleaning' but let the plants emerge and see what the yard had to offer.

What she could do now is start building some simple outdoor furniture and put that pile of old wood to good use. Her grandfather taught her basic woodworking skills. He was retired when she lived with him and her grandmother. He passed his time making bird houses and simple furniture that he sold in local stores. After he died several years ago, Connie hung onto some of his tools. The last years she lived with Findley, Connie turned his garage into a modest workshop and sometimes puttered around making wooden boxes and toys for the personal support workers that came in to help Findley.

Connie's only outdoor furniture were a few old folding chairs. She planned to make a couple of benches and a table for under the oak tree so she could work outdoors sometimes.

After putting in some hours of copy-editing work, Connie sat at the kitchen table and sketched out basic designs like those she'd made numerous times with her grandfather. She retrieved his tool belt and old circular saw out of the basement, trying her best to ignore the boxes from Findley's house.

Connie pulled a few of the old boards from under the tarp onto the small concrete patio. There was nothing at hand to use as a sawhorse. Leaning the boards against the back step seemed like the best option. Connie marked off where she wanted to make her cut, fired up the saw, and bent down to saw through. As the noise of the saw petered off, Eneko's ball-cap shaded head popped up over their shared fence.

"You need a couple of sawhorses," he said with his usual gruffness.

"I know. But I think I can manage like this. I'm not doing anything fancy."

"I've got a couple in the basement. I'll go get'em."

She waited. In a few minutes, Eneko was back at the fence, lifting over a collapsed sawhorse. "Here. You'll find them an improvement over what you're doing."

Connie reached up to take one and then the other. "Thank you. Do you mind if I keep them for a couple of days? I'm good at returning things."

"I'm sure you are, Connie," Pria's lilting voice came over the fence, along with something being dragged to stand on, and in a second her head popped up. "I'll bet conscientious is your middle name."

Eneko shook his head at Pria's prattling and went back in the house.

Connie began setting up the sawhorses, "My grandfather's influence. He had strict rules about borrowing and lending tools, which he drilled into me: Be gracious about lending anything to anyone and be careful with and promptly return the things you borrow."

"Good rules. What did he do if he lent something and didn't get it back?"

"He'd just go get it after a while or find out what happened. He was a pretty affable guy. It generally worked out. And when it didn't, he wouldn't lend them anything again unless they managed some kind of atonement, you could say, like a choice cut of deer meat, or a load of split wood."

"Oh really. Where do your grandparents live?"

Connie rested her hand on one of the erected sawhorses, "A town way up north. They both died a while ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's all right, they were pretty elderly and neither wanted to linger on in any sort of incapacitated way."

"Did you visit them a lot?"

"I lived with them from age 12 until I came down to Toronto to go to university."

"Oh, wow. You're a sort of a small-town girl. Don't you miss it?" Pria wondered.

"I do - some. It beautiful and it's still pretty pristine. But I also like Toronto. Once my grandparents died, there wasn't so much for me there. No jobs to speak of, and it can be a tough life."

"And your parents?"

While Connie was enjoying what was the longest face-to-face conversation she'd had with anyone in her new neighbourhood, she wasn't ready to start a big sharing about her mother, or Findley, or her sperm donor father. She laid one of the boards on the sawhorses.

Pria stuttered, "I'm so sorry, Connie. I didn't mean to pry or anything. Sometimes I get overly curious. You seem like a really nice person, and it sounds like you've had an interesting life. Plus, I haven't met any other women here who are so comfortable wielding a power saw."

"It's okay. I enjoy talking about my grandparents. I haven't done that with anyone for a long time."

Pria left and Connie spent the remainder of the afternoon sawing and hammering. She made good progress on the benches and thought about the conversation with Pria. Connie'd mainly talked about herself. Next time, she'd make a point to ask Pria about her family. 'I haven't met any other women here...' she said. Did that mean she wasn't from Toronto or not even from Canada? Though she sounded like she was.

Later, back at the textbook project in the little office, Connie saw Jean coming home from work. The shopping cart she left with this morning was now filled to the brim. Jean pulled the cart to the house that looked like it had once been a corner store with the first floor boarded up. She went inside without knocking and came back out in a few minutes with a largely empty cart.

While Connie washed up her few supper dishes, she opened the back kitchen window a crack in case Jean stepped outside to sing to her granddaughter, but it started to rain.