Right now, things would be worse without them. Hopefully, heâd make some changes in his life, and then they would become unnecessary.
âYouâd find far more facilities for your father in a city,â sheâd said, âand more opportunities for you to fulfil your potential. Itâs not too late. Why stay here?â
âHe wonât go. Says heâll die here, where Mum died.â
âDonât tell him. When he sobers up, present it as a fait accompli .â Fate what? He couldnât. Why? He didnât know. He couldnât pull a trick like that.
Co-dependency was the other phrase sheâd used. Meaning, he depended on his father wrecking his life so he wouldnât have to actually live it?
âSomething like that,â sheâd said.
âLike itâs my fault?â
âI am trying to help,â she said.
Lauren, sole proprietor of the Mountain View, was also the president of the Chamber of Commerce. She had known Scottâs mother, hence his job, hence her tolerance of his poor time-keeping, her willingness to overlook the times when some emergency of Macâs meant Scott had to leave, and even the time Mac had turned up and passed out on the picnic bench out front. Recently, Lauren had persuaded the Chamber to hire Scott to create a website.
Two hundred dollars was about a tenth of the going rate â but heâd gone beyond money, way beyond what was normal, what the people you saw on TV or passed on the road looked to be getting, what statistics said people earned and lived on. It was something , it might lead to bigger things. He was free to work on the website while on duty (which now included cleaning reception and the breakfast room) so long as there was absolutely nothing else to do.
Lauren had sent Scott out with her camera to get pictures: of the forest, the mountain, water rushing over stones in the river, sunrise over the ocean, of the old post office and these, the carvings that marked the edge of the reserve. Ravens, or crows, depending whom you spoke to. Big beaks, either way.
âThey should put events on up there in the reserve,â Lauren had told him. âDrumming or dancing or pole-carving, something.â
âWhy?â he grinned at her, âjust so we can list it under Attractions ?â
âYes,â sheâd said. âWhy not? Bring people in. Weâre all in the same boat, except they donât pay tax.â Not exactly willing passengers, Scott thought, though what heâd said, with a slow grin, was Jealous? and sheâd said no, far from it, but how come they wanted it both ways?â Then sheâd blushed, and said of course, she had no intention to give offence. She wasnât prejudiced, she took people as she found them and she really admired how his mother had tried to make a different life, and what had happened to their little family was just a tragedy all round.
Tragedy? The word made him uncomfortable. And even if she hadnât been taken from us , as Mac put it, his mother must have known, by the time her story came to its sudden end, that sheâd married someone from a culture that had its own problems, just as bad, and also someone very like her father â that her bid to escape the rough side of reserve life had failed. If sheâd had more time, would she have returned home? Escaped again? Gone elsewhere? Or would she have continued to wait, endlessly, for the right moment? There were worse possibilities, too.
Scott resized the image of the raven carving, cropped out some of the trees, but left it as it was.
Fuck the big questions, he thought. Do they help any? The Door to the Universe had survived the flood and he could go anywhere a webcam went, from some kidâs bedroom in Nebraska to the Great Barrier Reef and he could have e-sex with a person called Chryssie Liz (even though he didnât know who the hell she or he or it really was) and he could know any
âYouâd find far more facilities for your father in a city,â sheâd said, âand more opportunities for you to fulfil your potential. Itâs not too late. Why stay here?â
âHe wonât go. Says heâll die here, where Mum died.â
âDonât tell him. When he sobers up, present it as a fait accompli .â Fate what? He couldnât. Why? He didnât know. He couldnât pull a trick like that.
Co-dependency was the other phrase sheâd used. Meaning, he depended on his father wrecking his life so he wouldnât have to actually live it?
âSomething like that,â sheâd said.
âLike itâs my fault?â
âI am trying to help,â she said.
Lauren, sole proprietor of the Mountain View, was also the president of the Chamber of Commerce. She had known Scottâs mother, hence his job, hence her tolerance of his poor time-keeping, her willingness to overlook the times when some emergency of Macâs meant Scott had to leave, and even the time Mac had turned up and passed out on the picnic bench out front. Recently, Lauren had persuaded the Chamber to hire Scott to create a website.
Two hundred dollars was about a tenth of the going rate â but heâd gone beyond money, way beyond what was normal, what the people you saw on TV or passed on the road looked to be getting, what statistics said people earned and lived on. It was something , it might lead to bigger things. He was free to work on the website while on duty (which now included cleaning reception and the breakfast room) so long as there was absolutely nothing else to do.
Lauren had sent Scott out with her camera to get pictures: of the forest, the mountain, water rushing over stones in the river, sunrise over the ocean, of the old post office and these, the carvings that marked the edge of the reserve. Ravens, or crows, depending whom you spoke to. Big beaks, either way.
âThey should put events on up there in the reserve,â Lauren had told him. âDrumming or dancing or pole-carving, something.â
âWhy?â he grinned at her, âjust so we can list it under Attractions ?â
âYes,â sheâd said. âWhy not? Bring people in. Weâre all in the same boat, except they donât pay tax.â Not exactly willing passengers, Scott thought, though what heâd said, with a slow grin, was Jealous? and sheâd said no, far from it, but how come they wanted it both ways?â Then sheâd blushed, and said of course, she had no intention to give offence. She wasnât prejudiced, she took people as she found them and she really admired how his mother had tried to make a different life, and what had happened to their little family was just a tragedy all round.
Tragedy? The word made him uncomfortable. And even if she hadnât been taken from us , as Mac put it, his mother must have known, by the time her story came to its sudden end, that sheâd married someone from a culture that had its own problems, just as bad, and also someone very like her father â that her bid to escape the rough side of reserve life had failed. If sheâd had more time, would she have returned home? Escaped again? Gone elsewhere? Or would she have continued to wait, endlessly, for the right moment? There were worse possibilities, too.
Scott resized the image of the raven carving, cropped out some of the trees, but left it as it was.
Fuck the big questions, he thought. Do they help any? The Door to the Universe had survived the flood and he could go anywhere a webcam went, from some kidâs bedroom in Nebraska to the Great Barrier Reef and he could have e-sex with a person called Chryssie Liz (even though he didnât know who the hell she or he or it really was) and he could know any
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