Read Online Adam's Peak by Heather Burt - Free Book Online

the pine tree in the middle of the lawn. Mrs. Fraser circles the tree, examining its branches, while Clare stares at the ground. Rudy squints at the thing cradled in Mrs. Fraser’s arm, craning his neck to get a better view. It’s a container of some kind, he guesses. Then, teetering into the shrub, he gets it: an
urn
.
    â€œJesus,” he whispers.
    He steadies himself then squats down, making his body as small as possible.
    Mrs. Fraser says something. Clare’s head is still down, her arms folded. If she answers, Rudy doesn’t hear it. He imagines her heavy-hearted but restrained. He knows the feeling. She wants the whole thing to be over with, he imagines—and, for her sake, so does he. But Mrs. Fraser, fondling a branch of the pine tree with her free hand, seems to be in no hurry. Rudy shifts his weight. His knees are complaining, but to get up now is out of the question. Waiting, he notices that the Fraser house is the only one on the block without Christmas lights. Though reasonably well tended, the place wears a vacant stare of abandonment, as if, despite Mr. Fraser’s grumpy manner, the house can’t manage to look homey without him. Rudy knows little about the circumstances of his neighbour’s death. Living in Toronto, he received only a sketchy account. But it occurs to him that even if he’d been living here on Morgan Hill Road, he’d not have known much more. For though the Frasers have lived across the street for as long as he can remember, the distance between their house and his own has proven itself, for no straightforward reason, to be unbridgeable.
    Holding the brass urn in both hands now, Mrs. Fraser offers one side of it to her daughter, but Clare shakes her head. Her mother turns to face the pine tree then takes a step back. Rudy’s eyes are fixed on the urn. He’s never seen ashes before; he’s heard there’s more to them than one might expect. And indeed, when Mr. Fraser’s remains spill out into the branches of the pine, onto the snow, upward in great, whitish gusts, their quantity is surprising.

    That’s what we amount to
, Rudy tells himself, though he doesn’t quite believe it.
    Mrs. Fraser wraps her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, and together they stand, facing the tree. It would be fitting, Rudy thinks, for the snow to start now. He searches the sky and in the absence of any climactic flakes tries to honour the Frasers’ small, quiet ceremony with a memory of his mother’s burial. It’s an event that should have stuck, but all that comes to him of that muggy August afternoon is the car ride from the cemetery to the house: he and Susie in the back seat with a large 7-Up to share, baby Adam screeching on Aunty Mary’s lap.
    His knees are killing him. Seeing Clare retreat, head down, toward her house, he straightens up painfully, extracts himself from the juniper, and tramps back across his own yard. He’s halfway to the steps when the front door opens a crack.
    â€œRudy! Lunch in ten minutes!” his aunt calls, loud enough to be heard several houses away.
    Rudy groans into his collar. He could carry on to the house without looking back—he’s almost there—but he stops and turns.
    Mrs. Fraser is looking in his direction, clutching the empty urn. He expects her to ignore him, or dismiss him with a friendly wave. But instead she starts walking toward the road, her free arm out for balance, as if she’s on a tightrope. Awkward and baffled, Rudy watches her for a few steps, then he backtracks across his yard.
    â€œRudy? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
    The Scottish accent is a surprise. He’d forgotten it, along with other quirky things about Mrs. Fraser that used to captivate him in a confusingly sexual way when he was a kid—the fiery hair, the makeup, the pretty clothes. Though he understood her relationship to Clare, it was always difficult to imagine Isobel