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“What’s up with you and Duck, anyway?” Emily asks her mom, haphazardly stacking glasses.
“What do you mean, honey?” her mom responds absently, scrubbing at a particularly persistent stain on the inside of one of their large stockpots.
“You guys were friends in high school, right?”
“Mhmm.” She pauses a moment to look up, smiling slightly. “Duck was my first kiss,” she continues.
“Oh, god, Mom. Gross. I didn’t need to know that. Why would you tell me that?”
“Wasn’t half bad either,” her mom says, winking at her.
“Moooom.”
“Well, sweetheart, you did ask. If you’re not going to be useful, go on and take that package on the table over to Dan Jarvis at the hospital,” her mom says, and Emily rolls her eyes, huffs out a loud sigh, but she grabs the package, carefully bundles it into her backpack.
Duck is sitting in the hospital waiting area when she gets there. It’s visiting hours, but Duck nods at her and says, “He’s still asleep.”
She takes out the package and gives it to him, says, “From Mom and me. Mostly some books, but I think she snuck in some chocolate, too.”
Duck quirks a smile and says, “Thanks. Tell your mom thanks as well.”
She goes over to Duck’s small, squat house, one cool Thursday afternoon, a week after the night at the motel and a week before school starts, a bag of pastries from the bakery clutched in her hand.
“I don’t think I ever said thank you. For the other night,” she says, handing Duck the bag.
Duck accepts it and gives her a considering look. “You know you can always—if you need anything,” he says quietly, seriously.
“Yeah,” she says.
“Tea?” he asks, after a moment, and she shakes her head, says, “I have to get back to Iggy’s to help my mom.” Duck nods.
“We should have Duck and Dan round for dinner one of these days,” her mom says; even though Dan has since moved into his own place after initially staying with Duck, word still gets around.
Her mom calls Duck the next day, but doesn’t get an answer. She tries him periodically throughout the afternoon, then finally huffs in exasperation. “Honey, can you go on over there and ask him? That man is allergic to phones, I swear.”
Emily knocks on the door and doesn’t get an answer, but she hears some hammering from the backyard and walks around the house.
Duck’s working on repairing the siding. She surveys the grounds. “Is that—your garden?” she says, eyeing what could generously be called a patch of raked dirt.
“It’s a work in progress,” Duck says around the nails in his mouth.
“It’s—it’s kind of really sad.”
“Hey now,” Duck says.
“Anyway. Mom wants you and Dan to come over for dinner. She also wanted me to say, and I quote, ‘Tell him to pick up his phone, for christ’s sake; we live in the twenty-first century.’”
Duck gives a small smile. “Dan’s on the mainland for a few days, but how about Wednesday?”
“Oh, drat,” her mom says, when she notices the kitchen sink leaking. She calls up Duck, and when he arrives half an hour later in his dirty, paint-stained work clothes, Emily watches him bring in his tools and kneel to evaluate the damage, thinking.
“Hey,” she says, “can you show me how to fix it?”
Wednesday arrives; her mom makes a simple dinner, and Duck and Dan bring a strawberry and rhubarb pie. Dan’s quiet while they eat, and Duck tries to help in his own way, but he’s not too chatty himself, so the dinner conversation mostly turns into her mom gently grilling Dan on the video store and how he’s been doing and how odd the weather has been.
They eat the pie on the back porch after dinner, and it’s a beautiful evening, fireflies dotting the cooling air. Emily impulsively grabs a glass jar from the pantry, carefully captures a few.
“Remember when we were sixteen and we were going to run away,” she hears her mom say to Duck.
“Oh?” Dan says.
“It wasn’t like that,” Duck says.
Her mom laughs. “No, but we were going to drive across the whole country. Maybe even venture into the States.”
“Car broke down right outside of town,” Duck says.
“And then, I suppose, life happened,” her mom says, slightly wistful, but she’s smiling.
Emily thinks some more, and then one day after school, she heads over to Duck’s. She finds him in the backyard again, fixing the fence.
“Hey kid,” Duck says.
“Hey. So. I have a proposal,” she says, and Duck looks up at her. “I was thinking—could you maybe show me how to do some stuff? Like, fix things. Just so I can help my mom around the house and the cafe.”
“Oh?” Duck says.
“And in return I’ll help you with your, um. Dirt-garden.”
“Dan helped me make some raised beds, so it’s a dirt and wood garden now.” He looks at her for a moment. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but don’t you have more interesting things to do?”
Emily shrugs.
She loses track of time one night at Duck’s; he had shown her how to recaulk the bathtub earlier, and now he’s trying to teach her how to play chess, and failing pretty miserably. They talk about kids at school, how Emily hates her English class, how well the carrots are coming in. She glances over at the clock on Duck’s mantle, a small, squat owl figurine with the clock face set in its body, and says, “Crap.”
Her mom’s on the couch when she gets home, a glass in her hand.
“Out with a boy?” she asks, too casual, and Emily feels a knot tighten in her chest.
“No,” she says, curt, and watches her mom clutch the glass tighter.
“You don’t have to tell me the details, but please at least promise me you’re being safe,” her mom says, and Emily realizes she’s furious.
“Can’t you ever have any expectations of me?” she says. “More than, ‘don’t get pregnant, don’t get drunk and let a guy take advantage of you, don’t do anything stupid’—I’m more than just a collection of potentially bad life choices!”
“Sweetheart,” her mom says, voice breaking.
Emily can feel her eyes prickling. “I have to go,” she says, and turns and runs out the door.
“Hey kid,” Duck says, “you’re back soon.”
He hugs her close, lets her cry all over his shirt, rubs her back and says quietly, “This is getting too familiar for my taste.”
“It’s just—my mom.”
“No kidding,” he says, kindly.
“I just wish—the only advice she ever has for me is, ‘Wear a condom. Don’t let him pressure you. You can go on birth control if you want.’”
She sits back and takes the tissue Duck hands to her.
“You know your mom—she loves you,” Duck says.
“I know. It’s not that. I just want her to expect more of me.”
Duck shrugs. “We know what it’s like to be that age.”
Her mom is still awake when she gets back, sitting on the couch in the dark. Emily goes to sit next to her, and she turns to look at Emily.
“I know you’re more than—I just worry, I worry so much about you, with what I went through—”
“I know, Mom.”
“And I have hopes for you—I just want you to have room for your own dreams. I was never anything but a disappointment to my own parents, and I never want you to feel that way, sweetheart.”
Emily realizes suddenly that her mom is scared, more than anything, and she leans in and hugs her, feels her mom relax, the tension leaving her shoulders.
“I love you so much, baby girl.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“There’s—someone,” Emily blurts out, halfway through the school year. They’re in the kitchen, making a batch of preserved herbs in oil with Dan’s green star-shaped ice cube trays.
“Oh yeah?” Duck says.
“She’s, um, a girl,” Emily says, blushing.
“Does your mother know?” Duck asks, and Emily deflates a little.
“No,” she says, hesitating. “I don’t know how to tell her.”
“Do you think she’d take it badly?” Duck asks, voice neutral.
“No. Yes? I don’t know. I don’t think so?” Emily drops her face into her arms. “I think it might be a little bit out of left field for her,” she says, voice muffled.
Duck slides the trays into the freezer. “Give your mom a chance,” he says.
It takes her a few weeks, but then she’s trudging through the snow to Duck’s house with some leftovers her mom had insisted she bring.
Duck raises his eyebrows expectantly, and Emily knows what he’s asking about.
“You know, you’re not very subtle,” she says, then sighs. “Mom hugged me and started crying and then said, ‘Thank god I don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant,’ so, all in all, it went better than expected.”
It isn’t in Duck’s nature to say, ‘I told you so,’ but the way his eyebrows shift conveys the same sentiment. Emily rolls her eyes.
“Soph doesn’t want to tell anyone,” Emily says. “I don’t get it. It’s who we are.”
Dan’s out back, checking on the garden; they’d had a particularly cold couple of days. Duck puts down the dishes he was drying, looking out the window.
“Some people,” Duck says slowly, watching Dan, “some people just aren’t ready. It doesn’t make them cowards. It just means they’re—” Duck pauses for a moment, “human. Sometimes it’s harder to be yourself in a place like Wilby.”
“You manage to do it okay,” Emily says.
Duck shrugs. “I’ve had practice. It wasn’t always easy. And I had help—people like your mom.”
“Sometimes Wilby really sucks,” she says.
Duck sighs. “Yeah.”
“Mom, I want to go to university,” she says, slightly nervous.
Her mom turns; she has the biggest smile Emily has ever seen on her, and says, “That’s wonderful, honey.”
“It’s—I want to go to Toronto.” Her mom tries to hide the way her smile dims a little.
“I know you want me to stay here,” Emily says quickly, “but I know, with my grades, with my school clubs, I can get in, and—I really want to go. They have a really good engineering program.”
Her mom’s face softens, and she says, “Of course, Emily. What can I do to help?”
The letter comes on a day she doesn’t expect; she’d broken things off with Soph, and there had been tears and harsh words exchanged, but it wasn’t that she didn’t love her, it was just—she was okay with who she was, and didn’t want to hide it.
She sees the large envelope, the embossed emblem, and she blinks in surprise for a few moments. Duck’s place is closer than Iggy’s, so she runs over, finds him painting out in the back, and shows him the acceptance letter.
He hugs her and say, “I’m proud of you,” into her hair, and she sniffs and says, “Thanks.”
Her mom cries and cries and says, “I’m sorry, I’m just so happy for you, darling,” and she hugs her mom tight. “Oh my baby girl, all grown up and leaving me forever.”
“Stop it, Mom, you know I’m going to come home.”
Her mom pulls away and looks at her. “What was that now?” Emily’s never called Wilby home before.
“I’ll be back,” Emily says, quietly, but sure, certain. “I’ll come home.”
Dear Duck,
University is ridiculous. I’ve met so many cool people, not just Canadians. Can you imagine that non-Canadians actually want to come here? Who’d have thought. City life takes some getting used to. I miss everyone back home. Mom doesn’t want me to worry, but I still do—keep an eye on her? Say hi to Dan for me, too.
See you at Christmas.
Love,
Emily
P.S. Please don’t kill my celery. Dan will rat you out if you do.
She gets a return letter, in Duck’s careful, cramped and slanted handwriting.
Emily
Good to hear from you. I’m glad you’re enjoying your time there. Your mom is doing okay—Dan and I still go over to your house every Wednesday night. The celery is coming along well. Here is a photo from the town fair.
Duck