Crow Lake by Mary Lawson Read Free Book Online

image of that boy walking down the road. Flailing himself with his arms, his feet numb, boots stumbling on the frozen road. Darkness coming on. Snow drifting down.
    What haunted me most of all was the thought that three generations back, there was a Pye son who was prepared to risk freezing to death rather than face his father.

chapter
FOUR
    Aunt Annie arrived two days after the funeral. You need to know about Aunt Annie; she played a part in what happened. She was my father’s eldest sister, a worthy descendant of Great-Grandmother Morrison, and equal to most tasks. It was the first time she had left the Gaspé, and although Luke and Matt had met her—our parents had taken them “home” for a visit once, when they were small—Bo and I never had.
    She was many years older than my father, short where he had been tall, fat where he had been thin, and with a behind I’m glad I didn’t inherit, but she had something of him about her and she seemed familiar to me straight away. She was unmarried. My father’s mother had died some years previously, not long after Great-Grandmother in fact, and since then Aunt Annie had kept house for her father and brothers. I suppose the family might have chosen to send her simply because it was seen as women’s work and having no children she could most easily be spared, but I suspect there was a better reason than that. The message she had to deliver—the arrangements the family had made for us—was a painful one, and I imagine there weren’t many volunteers.
    “I’m sorry to be so long in coming,” she said when Reverend Mitchell had presented her to us—since the accident we had no car and he had picked her up at the railway crossing for us—“but this country is just too big. Do you have a lavatory? I assume you have a lavatory. Kate, you look just like your mother, aren’t you the lucky one. And this is Bo. Hello, Bo.”
    Bo regarded her stonily from Luke’s arms. Aunt Annie seemed unperturbed. She removed her hat, which was small and round and brown and did her no favours, and looked around for somewhere to put it. Everything was a mess, but she didn’t seem to notice. She put her hat down on the sideboard beside a plate with a dull white crescent of ham fat on it. Then she reached up and patted her hair.
    “Do I look a fright? I feel a fright. Never mind. Show me the lavatory and then I can get started. I expect there’s lots to do.”
    Her tone was cheerful and matter-of-fact, as if this were a regular visit and our parents just happened to be out of the room for the moment. But it seemed right that she should be like that. That was how they would have been. I decided that I liked her. I couldn’t think why Luke and Matt were looking so anxious.
    “There we are,” she said a few minutes later, emerging from the bathroom. “Now then. What’s the time? Four o’clock. That’s fine. We all need to get to know each other, but I expect that will look after itself. What I think we should do now is sort out what needs doing most—cooking, cleaning, washing, that sort of thing. Reverend Mitchell says you’ve managed marvellously, but there must be things—”
    She paused. Something in Luke’s and Matt’s expressions must have distracted her, because she didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, her tone a little less brisk and a little more gentle, she said, “I know we have matters to discuss, but I think we should leave all that for a day or two, don’t you? We’ll need to go through your father’s papers, and we’ll need to talk to his lawyer and the bank. Then we’ll know where we stand. There’s not much point in discussing things until then. Is that all right with you?”
    They nodded, and both of them suddenly looked looser, as if they’d been holding their breath and now they had let it out.
    So we had a couple of days of what I suppose you could call a honeymoon period, during which Aunt Annie restored order and gave Luke and Matt a chance to get