This was the image used on the original cover. It was followed by the image below, which is the current cover image.
I use Microsoft Designer to create cover and other images. I’m not particularly good at editing AI images, so I have to describe what I want very thoroughly to get a decent image. Luckily, I know talented Megan who does know what she’s doing and has offered to be my cover-graphics resource. Thank you, Meg!
Margie and Tanya strolled slowly up the beach toward Margie’s seaside sofa, mugs of coffee in hand, while Scabby tore ahead, chasing seagulls and phantoms. In days gone-by Tanya and Margie drank their coffee thick and rich with 18% cream and two heaping teaspoons of sugar. It was their thing, a habit they had formed while Tanya studied law at Dalhousie, and later while she prepped for the Bar exams: Margie brewed cup after cup and brought them downstairs to Tanya, ensconced at the desk in her warm and messy den, unwashed, disheveled, smoking and thrumming with nervous energy and caffeine; Margie would hover a moment in case Tanya needed to tear her eyes from the computer screen for a while and have a chat; if she didn’t, Margie would go upstairs to watch Netflix until her internal timer told her it was time for fresh coffee. She’d ignore Bill’s ever more insistent “Get your ass to bed and let that girl get her own damn coffee.” Fuck you, she’d think.
Later, Tanya bought markers in bright colours and decorated her straight A transcripts with hearts and flowers. She presented them to her mom with a grin and an extra-large double-double from Timmie’s.
Tanya had arrived at the cottage at about noon on Tuesday, having spent the time since her expulsion from McGraw & Partners simplifying her life: making arrangements to sublet her apartment for the balance of her lease term, cancelling unnecessary apps and cancelling utilities, scouring her apartment for anything that could conceivably relate to McGraw and couriering the paltry catch to the attention of Elsa Henderson. She checked Mason’s progress with the painting and, reassured he was on schedule, set up a start date with the carpet-layer, started considering colours. She wasn’t ready yet to exchange the shiny red car for something duller and cheaper and so she had it still. It looked incongruous, now, parked behind her Dad’s beat-up old half-ton in the cottage driveway.
She had kept in touch with Jane daily, worried that Jane’s impulsive resignation might endanger her in some striking or obscure way – professionally, economically, psychologically – all of that was possible, really, for a young person hitting a bump in the road while building a career. But Jane was contented with her choice, had no regrets, and no doubts whatsoever that whatever she chose to do, she would succeed. Tanya felt the same way, but it did occur to her sometimes that they might be mutually delusional.
Over dinners and coffees, Tanya and Jane had sketched out a plan to work together and build a practice from scratch. Jane, the apple of her Daddy’s eye, had no doubt he would house both her and the business. And cheaply. Tanya thought she might be able to move back into her old digs in Margie’s basement. But she couldn’t assume. That’s why she was here, at her Mom’s haven on the shore, reluctant to intrude but needing to feel her out in person, read the unspoken vibes that she’d been able to read unerringly since she was a toddler.
Reaching the log, they plopped their rumps into its smooth indentations and stretched out their legs. Margie’s knees cracked in protest. She lifted her feet and rotated her ankles to limber them; Tanya bent her knees and tucked her toes into the cool sand. Scabby sauntered back from the water’s edge where he’d been yelling at a floating seabird just out of reach and sat on Tanya’s feet, humming with kitty pleasure.
They sipped and contemplated the blue/grey horizon, lifted their faces to catch the cool breeze off the water.
“It’s lovely, Mom” Tanya said. “I can see how you could be contented here. Do you miss home at all?”
“I miss you guys” Margie replied. “I can’t think about the house yet – makes me, I don’t know – edgy, I guess.”
“Are you worried you won’t feel any better after the re-decorating?”
“Yes. I mean, I guess so.” Margie said. “I’m afraid, I think, that it won’t feel any different, that it will feel empty, but full of your Dad and the way we were, the heaviness, the sorrow, you know?”
“Yeah, I do know, Ma.” Tanya hugged Margie around the shoulders with her free arm, the other held out to balance her coffee so it wouldn’t spill. “Would you prefer to put it on the market, do you think? The new paint and carpets would sure be a plus. You could buy a nice little condo downtown. Try a different kind of life. You might really like it.”
“I don’t want to give up the house. That house was for you kids, it’s where our memories are, your joys and your fuck ups and your refuge from stuff when you needed refuge. I just need to find a way around this mass of grey concrete that sits on my heart when I think about it. Nobody can budge that for me.”
“You could take up drinking,” Tanya suggested, with an exaggerated wink and a nudge. “I can help you with that.”
“No doubt you could, you hopeless young souse.” Margie laughed and put her mug down and twisted it into the sand for balance. She turned to face Tanya. “You’ve given notice at your apartment, right? Have you found anything else yet?”
“Nope. Haven’t looked too hard, though.” Tanya answered.
“Well, I’m hoping you’re not looking too hard because you’d really prefer to move back home. Can I possibly be right?” Margie asked, gazing hopefully into her daughter’s eyes.
“You can and you are, Mom. I just didn’t want to corner you with a request that might not be welcome. How can a Mom say no to her daughter, right? Especially a hopeless souse like myself.”
“What if I infect you with my leaden worldview?” Margie asked. “I’m not even joking, Tanya.”
“Mom, didn’t I grow up immersed in that worldview? Honestly, did it ever stop me? Have I stuttered once?”
“God, no.” answered Margie. “You never shut the fuck up, as I recall. Blisteringly clear, every word.”
“D’accord,” Tanya chuckled. “Allons-y. What colour carpet would you like in your bedroom and can I have shag in mine?”
Margie laughed, remembering the fight she and Tanya had had over the teenaged Tanya’s lust for a bedroom with purple shag carpet and black walls. It went on for weeks, shrill and loud, with banging doors and stomping feet, on Tanya’s part, and solitary walks around the block, cigarette clenched in jaw, on Margie’s part. Margie had been appalled but impressed with Tanya’s mastery of imaginative profanities. (Tanya insisted, wide-eyed and deadpan, that she had learned every word from her brothers and didn’t really have a clue what she was saying.) Eventually they compromised: purple shag with lilac walls. The colour scheme prevailed until Mason came to work his magic this summer.
“Actually, Mom, I think I’d like nice wooden laminate and some of those distressed-looking area rugs. I’ll pay for them – it’s sure to cost more than wall-to-wall. And I’ve got to have your ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ watercolour for my bathroom.”
“I thought you might like that one,” Margie chuckled. “Seriously, Tan? Those rugs look like they’d been shoved into someone’s attic after 50 years of hard usage. They’re missing half their pile, or flocking, or whatever the hell you call it!”
“Oh, Mom, they’re charming! Cottagey.”
“Hmmph. Cottages are where people send their old shit to die. They don’t bring it back home for another go-round.” Margie retorted. “Sure you don’t want to dig up that iron bedstead planter from the garden for your bedroom?”
“Remind me to text the carpet guy later and ask him to measure for the laminate. I’ll check out Home Hardware and a few other spots for rugs when I get back. Are you sure you wouldn’t like an area rug in the living room, Ma?”
Suddenly, Margie could see it: The textures of antique-ey carpet and the rough grey stone of her living room fireplace. Of course, the rug belonged on a floor with warm wood tones. “Oh shit, Tanya. Tell him to measure for laminate in the living room and dining room, too. Scope me out some of those phoney antique rugs when you get back. Dammit.”
“That’s the spirit! Come home for the weekend – we’ll shop and hang out with Darren and his fam and Jason. Do BBQ, have beverages, play cards. They can be our beasts of burden when we shop. What do you say?”
“I think you’re dreaming,” Margie laughed. “When’s the last time we had them both in the same room at the same time?”
“Dad’s funeral, Mom, remember?”
Margie nodded, shaken. She realized that her mind had skipped right over that date, this fact: Bill’s death. Is this what healing means? she asked herself.
Canadian Stories 