Betty Jane Hegerat's Blog

 Every book launch has been a special time with friends and family and writers and readers. My memory has taken me back to other launches and the file where photos are stored. In particular I look at the faces and honestly, I don’t think we looked any older in 2016 than we did in 2006. This time, I’m coming to you with a face that I tell myself is wrinkled with wisdom, memories of people who were there and the ones who won’t be at this party. In Edmonton next week, there will be empty chairs for a dear Aunt and Uncle, Frieda and Bill, who came to every Edmonton reading with huge smiles of the pride they told me my mom and dad would be feeling. I am looking forward to this special time when I know that I will be meeting new friends as well.

Edmonton Launch: “Audrey’s Books” 10702 Jasper Avenue,  Edmonton, December 2nd 7:00 PM

Fourteen jewel-like stories unveil the tender chaos of lives unlived and loves unspoken. In Elephants in the Room, Betty Jane Hegerat masterfully uncovers the quiet fractures of ordinary lives—the unspoken regrets, the buried griefs, and the fragile threads of connection that bind families across generations.

From a devoted son’s frantic dash to help his mother glimpse the Queen to a reluctant father’s stunned reunion with the daughter he never knew; from a widow, dressing her mother-in-law for an eternal rest, to a boy’s guilty reckoning with a bully’s untimely death, these unforgettable stories illuminate the elephants in our lives we ignore at our peril.

With tender wit and unflinching insight, Hegerat explores the weight of what we leave unsaid: the ache of lost chances, the solace of small mercies, and the stubborn grit that carries us through. As poignant as a stolen glance, as resonant as a half-forgotten lullaby, the stories in Elephants in the Room whisper the unvarnished secrets of family ties—where regrets loom large, and small acts of grace light the way home.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Writers’ Union of Canada.

When my first book, Running Toward Home, was published by NeWest Press in 2006, it was launched at McNally Robinson in Calgary. You may remember that fine store which, unfortunately, had a short life in Calgary.

A Crack in the Wall was launched in 2008 at Owl’s Nest Books. That beautiful store in Brittania Plaza became the launch pad for my next three books as well. I’m forever grateful to Michael and Susan for the warm welcome they extended, and that the current staff continue to extend . On November 27th we’ll once again crack open the bubbly.

Shadowpaw Press in Regina has turned my manuscript of stories into a beautiful book. Elephants in the Room will be released on November 17th and is available for ordering now. https://shadowpawpress.com/product/elephants-in-the-room/

I’m delighted that the Calgary Public Library lists the book as “on order” and reservations are open.

Launch is a fancy word, invoking ocean liners and cruise ships, not the vehicles I imagine when I think of my books going out into the world. Sail boats would be lovely, but I’m realistic enough to be happy with row boats that get where they’re meant to go. Or buses that know the road maps well.

At a book club where the members had read Running Toward Home, someone wanted to know “What happens next?” I seem to have a preference for open endings. My response was to ask what she thought was going to happen next. “Nope,” the woman said, it was my job to finish the story. Even when I cooked up a metaphor that I thought was pretty clever, she didn’t quite buy in. I told her that I imagined a bus—old school bus for that first book—driving away from my house, young Corey kneeling on the back seat, waving goodbye. Me shouting, “Good luck! I hope the world is kind to you!” The book was no longer mine. It belonged to the readers, wherever they were.

Elephants in the Room has too many passengers for a row boat. But the bus has seats for the fourteen narrators of the stories and some friends. Who’s driving? Charlie, Eldon, Justin, Erica, the whole messy bunch of them who’ve been living in my mind, as well some of their friends. Plodding along behind, of course, are the ghostly elephants.

I hope you’ll come help me open the doors to that bus. There are books in the luggage compartment.

Launch at Owl’s Nest in Calgary November 27th 7:00 PM

I’ll be in conversation with Lori Hahnel

Audrey’s in Edmonton December 2nd 7:00 PM

Astrid Blodgett has kindly agreed to introduce me

Mel trucked Louise’s hot meals over to his pal, Larry, for a whole month after Fran died.  When Larry protested, Mel held up his hand. “I know. You don’t want anybody fussing over you. But Louise sees this as a last favour to Fran. Humour her,” he said, “and you’ll make my life easier.”  

What he didn’t say was that Louise was raging about the unfairness of Fran’s sudden death. She seemed to think Larry had cheated by out-living the good woman who’d cared for him through two heart attacks and a triple by-pass.  Still, Louise was a good woman too, and she was determined to keep an eye on Larry, just as she knew Fran would have looked in on Mel had their fortunes been reversed.

            Louise’s attention was suddenly diverted, though, when her sister in Vancouver had a stroke. “Good thing we both have vacation time,” she told Mel. “I have a feeling this will be more than a weekend visit.” She’d made plane reservations and had the old brown Samsonite out on the bed.

            Mel could think of a hundred places he’d rather spend his holiday than installing bars beside his sister-in-law’s toilet. “Y’know,” he said, “we could both retire next year and we’d be on permanent weekends. Heck, you could quit now and stay out at the coast as long as Marge needs you.”

            Louise looked up from the shirt she was folding. “Mel, retirement is one of life’s bad jokes. Don’t we know at least three people who died within a year of quitting work?  And then there’s Larry.”

             She had a point. In the weeks he’d been dropping off the dinners, Mel had mourned the loss of the old Larry as much as he’d mourned Fran’s passing. All the early years Mel had envied Larry’s carefree bachelorhood were erased by the sad-sack image of his sick and grieving friend. Mel could’ve pointed out that Larry retired after the bypass surgery, not before. This retirement debate had started six months ago when two guys in Mel’s office took buy-outs. He knew that all he had to do was say the word and an envelope would be on his desk. The only thing holding him back was Louise’s prediction.  She had an irritating way of nailing the grim truth.

Louise snapped the suitcase shut and heaved it off the bed. “There’s a pot of chili on the stove. We’ll drop it off at Larry’s on our way out.”

            That was two weeks ago. Mel had hoped Louise would forget about feeding Larry after they were back, but tonight, as soon as he put down his fork, she shoved a foiled-covered dish across the table.

            He’d tried to call Larry several times, but the phone had been busy. When he pulled up in front of the bungalow, he was relieved to see the flickering ghost of television through the window. He stepped from the truck, plate in hand, and grimaced. Time to get his stiff knees back to the weight room and sauna.

            There must have been a thaw while they were away, because the sidewalk was a sheet of black ice. Mel slid the last few feet and caught the railing just in time to save himself an ass-over-tea-kettle. The plate slammed against the step, the cover flew off, and the chicken breast skidded over an icy crust of snow.  Mel retrieved the meat and re-crimped the foil before the door opened.

            Larry looked as though he hadn’t left the house in weeks. Green plaid pyjama bottoms pouched around his knees, and his Edmonton Oilers sweatshirt gave off a strong whiff of sweat when he stepped aside to let Mel in.

“You’re back! Why’nt you call? Hey, come on in.”   

            Mel held out the plate. “Your phone’s been ringing busy.” He followed Larry to the kitchen, stepping around a cereal bowl in the middle of the floor.

Larry turned from the fridge where he was rearranging jars to make room for the chicken dinner. “I’m gonna save this one. I ordered Chinese tonight.” He pulled a couple of bottles of Big Rock off the top shelf and handed one to Mel.

             In the living room, the La-Z-boy was pulled in close to the television. A glass-topped coffee table, usually aligned with the sofa, sat alongside the recliner like a buffet sidecar. There were pizza boxes stacked under the table and coffee mugs on the floor beside the chair. Cartons of food and a serviette full of bones clustered at one end of the table. Newspapers and bottles littered the other end. 

             Mel moved a pile of clothes, and sank onto the middle of the sofa. He shook his head when Larry motioned to the cardboard containers. “Ate already.”

 The clothes beside him looked fresh from the dryer. A knitted afghan hung from the back of Larry’s chair, and a sweater or scarf of some kind of ratty-looking black wool was crammed into the corner of the seat. When the black garment began to writhe, the hair on the back of Mel’s neck sprang to attention. “What the hell is that!” Yellow sparks flashed from the pile of wool.

            “Hey, Earl’s back!” Larry scooped up the black lump. He lit up like a kid who’s just spied skates under the Christmas tree. “Nine, ten days ago — the night we had the freezing rain — I’m watching the hockey game and I hear this scratching on the front door. Couldn’t be, I tell myself. I’m dreaming again.” His face went slack. “You know I hate falling asleep, because I keep dreaming about Franny and then I wake up…” He turned away, but the saffron eyes of the cat stayed fixed on Mel.

Even though the ears were now chewed-off stumps, there was no mistaking the belligerent pug face of Larry’s cat, Earl. Mel shook his head. “I thought Earl croaked,” he said.

“Me too. He’s been MIA for two years.” Larry stroked the cat’s head, running his hand over matted fur to a tail warped to a sixty degree angle and hairless from the bend to the tip. “Since I went to Winnipeg for my brother’s funeral. Fran let him out the night I left, and he didn’t come back.” He frowned. “We had a hell of a row over that.”

            Mel remembered the row. Fran had come to their house sobbing that Larry had accused her of killing Earl. She said she’d made a terrible mistake, marrying a man who loved his cat more than he loved her. That was the year Larry had the first heart attack, and turned into a senior citizen overnight.             

Mel took a swig of his beer. “Where do you figure the old guy’s been so long?”

            “I dunno, but when I opened the door, he streaked for the fridge like he’d only been gone since breakfast.” He fondled Earl’s mutilated ears. “Didn’t think I’d ever fill him up. Don’t tell Lou, but Earl finished off that pot of chili.”

            Mel shuddered. Earl’s flatulence was legendary in Larry’s bachelorhood when the cat could clear a smoke-filled kitchen in the middle of a poker game. That Fran had agreed to live with a nasty, malodorous cat amazed Larry’s pals. Ten years ago, Earl had looked like the next back-alley brawl would be his last. Fran probably assumed he’d be gone from her immaculate house within months. And here he was, resurrected and resting sphinx-like on Larry’s knee.

The cat dropped to the floor and wove a crooked path to the hallway. This was another story for Louise’s repertoire of life’s bad jokes. Not only had Fran failed to outlive Larry, but she’d lost the race to Earl as well. Fortunately, Fran would never know. 

            There was a thunk from the kitchen. “He’s on the kitchen table. Jumps up there and knocks the phone off the hook. Used to drive Franny nuts.” Larry draped the afghan over his legs. “Cold in here.” He rubbed his arms. “You want me to turn up the heat?”

            Mel shook his head. “I’m good,” he said. Christ almighty, Larry looked like an old man. 

            “How’s Margie?”

            Mel had almost forgotten that Larry and Louise’s sister were once a hot item.  What a pair they’d be now. Larry with his clunker of a heart, and Marge crying all day because the words coming out of the twisted side of her mouth didn’t match the ones her brain was screaming. Larry didn’t need any more sad stories. “Pretty good. A couple of months and she’ll be dancing again.”

            “Good for her. Me, I’m going on a holiday.”

            Mel set the bottle down too quickly on the coffee table and winced at the crack of glass on glass. “You’re kidding.”

            Larry shrugged. “What’s to kid about?  We’ve gone to Vegas every February for ten years. I was going to take off last week, but then Earl showed up. I couldn’t walk out on him after he’s been sleeping rough for two years.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “I still think she did it, you know. The day before I left she said she was calling a fumigator to get rid of the smell of cat piss in the basement, and Earl was going to have to sleep in the garage. I told her we’d talk about it when I got back — hell, I was getting sick of the stench myself — but I figure she decided to take things into her own hands and locked him out.” He fished a sparerib out of one of the cardboard containers. “Poor old bugger probably thought I was gone for good and decided to hit the road.” He gnawed the length of the bone and added it to the pile on the table.

            “You’re going to Vegas?”

            Earl reappeared at the door to the living room and began the wobbly journey to Larry’s chair. He crouched there, shoulders and hips twitching, eyes fixed on the footrest, but couldn’t seem to gather the strength for the jump. Larry reached down and lifted the cat to his lap. “That’s the plan.”                        

“What about Earl?”

            “I was hoping you’d drop in once a day to feed him. Earl always liked you, Mel.” 

The only sound was the faint beep of the phone from the kitchen. Mel’s daughter

and son-in-law and the three kids were coming next weekend, and the prospect of a few quiet hours in front of Larry’s television wasn’t too bad at all. He imagined himself in Larry’s chair with the warm weight of the cat on his thighs.  

            “You think you’re up to the trip? Jeez, Larry, you haven’t been out in weeks.”

            “I’ve been swimming every day since you left, and I’m on a new therapy.”

            “What kind of therapy?”        

Larry wriggled a little against the pillow, and Earl rose up, his back arched. “You ever meet Marla, the massage therapist down in the basement at the centre?  She does this thing with energy channels.”

            Mel groaned. “You had major surgery to open your channels. Don’t tell me you’re paying someone for mumbo jumbo.”

            “What have I got to lose? And for your information, Marla says I’m a perfect candidate for this therapy.”

            “Of course she told you that. To a hammer everything looks like a nail.” He tilted his head and squinted at Larry. “Marla with the energy isn’t by any chance planning a holiday to Vegas, is she?”

            Larry glared at him. “Shame on you. That sounds like something Louise would say.” He stroked Earl’s lumpy back. “I just want one last trip, is all.”

            “Jeez, Larry! Don’t go morbid on me. Fran, and then Marge with her stroke, and your brother two years ago, and my brother before that. We gotta slow things down here.”

            A funny sad little smile played across Larry’s five o’clock shadow. “Can’t turn time around, pal. I know where I stand, and the ground’s been shaky for a long time. But hey.” He slapped his hands on the arms of the chair and Earl leapt up in protest, then circled twice and settled again. “Much as Fran’s friends, your dearly beloved included, are pissed off with the arrangement, I’m not the one who died. And even though I’d have traded places with Fran in the blink of an eye if I could, I can’t. So I’m gonna make the most of what I’ve got. And I’m pretty sure Fran would approve. Will you look in on Earl?”

            Mel chewed on his lip, nodded, shrugged. “Sure.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get moving.” 

Larry stood up with Earl in his arms. The cat squirmed, and walked his way up Larry’s chest until he was sprawled over his shoulder. 

At the door, when Mel bent to tie his shoes, his knees creaked in protest. He straightened slowly and zipped up his jacket. “So when are you off to Vegas?”

            Larry ran his hand through his hair. Looked like he’d just had a haircut. A little longer on the sides than usual — a hint of the sideburns he’d sported back in the sixties — definitely trimmed and styled.

            “Soon as I can get a good seat sale,” Larry said. “Want to meet me at the gym in the morning? Sounds like the knee could use oiling.”

            “I’ll pick you up at ten…” But then Mel stopped. “You don’t need me to ferry you around, do you?”

            Larry shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

             Mel clapped a hand on his buddy’s shoulder, gave a quick squeeze, and stepped into the cold. 

On the way home, he imagined Louise meeting him at the door. She’d ask how Larry was doing. And he’d tell her it was hard. Damned hard. Then he’d tell her about Earl, and how Larry needed to get away and how he’d be going over there every day to feed the cat. But he wouldn’t tell her about Earl chowing down on her chili, or about Larry’s energy channels. And he’d wait until Larry was back to tell her he wasn’t delivering any more hot meals.

            Mel pulled into the driveway, parked, and stepped down from the truck. Damn knees. Maybe a little massage therapy would be just the ticket. Marla, eh? When he looked up, Louise was standing in the open door.

–published in A Crack in the Wall (Oolichan Books 2008)

In this month of May, it seems particularly appropriate that we celebrate the life of Alice Munro, whose name comes first to mind when we think of short story.

I am just an echo of the thousands who were inspired by the work of Alice Munro and the level to which she raised appreciation of short story as its own art form.

So for the Month of the Short Story–a story simply because.

Kick

Justin decides before he leaves the school at lunchtime that he’s not going to tell his mom about Will. She’ll find out soon enough. In the parking lot he spies a rock with a good edge. About the size of a Hacky Sack. A sweet kick sends the stone flying down the street and Justin panting after it. He can hear Amanda calling behind him, but he ignores her.

When he opens the front door, he can smell fish and green onion. In the kitchen, his mom, still in her housecoat, shuffles from the fridge to the counter, mixing tuna for sandwiches. “Stinks in here,” he says, and when she yawns, he asks, “Did you sleep?” She worked twelve-hour shifts all weekend, and now she has four days off. When Justin left for school, she was trying to decide whether to sleep or tough it out.

“Some,” she says. She whacks a sandwich into quarters and slides the plate in front of him. “Remember this when I’m old. Any mom who got up out of her bed after three hours of sleep to make lunch for a fourteen-year-old deserves big boxes of chocolates in The Home.”

She scrubs her hands under the tap like she’s at work. She’s a nurse, and Justin’s sure their kitchen is clean enough for brain surgery. He picks the bits of green out of the sandwich, then makes a tower of the four pieces.

His mom pours a glass of milk, sets it in front of him. Musses his hair, and then wrinkles her nose. “You didn’t shower this morning.”

“Sure I did,” he lies. His throat closes around the first bite of sandwich.

The same chokey feeling as this morning when Mr. Waters stood in front of homeroom blinking so fast it looked as though there were insects behind the lenses of his glasses. “Class, we have terrible news today.” Justin coughs the wad of sandwich into a napkin.

His mom watches his face for a minute and then puts her hand on his forehead. “What’s up?”

“My throat feels funny.” He glugs down half of the milk. “That’s all I want.” Swiping away the milk moustache with the back of his hand, he stands up. When she has that squinty look, she can read his mind. “I better go.”

Still squinting, she asks, “Did something happen this morning?”

Oh yeah. Something happened all right. He mumbles and stumbles through the stuff Mr. Waters told them. About Will and his mom and dad and his sisters in the van in California. And somebody came through that red light and Will’s dad couldn’t stop.

“Oh my God, Justin!” She grabs him and pulls him so close he can feel her heart thumping like it’s his own. His face is pressed to the nighttime smell of her housecoat. “How terrible for Will and his family! Are they okay? Was anyone else besides his dad hurt?”

He can’t talk because of that taste in his mouth. She’s got it wrong, but he doesn’t correct her. He just shakes his head and pulls away. With the tips of her fingers between her lips she looks like a little kid. He knows that as soon as he leaves the house, she’ll flop down in the rocker in the living room and stare at the wall. He wishes he wasn’t going to walk out the door and leave her thinking Will’s dad is dead. But she’ll have a worse afternoon if she knows it’s Will.

Halfway to school, still booting the rock, the inside of his foot starts to ache. A soft mushy hurt like pressing on an old bruise. A glance at his watch and he slows down so that he can time his arrival to the bell. There are clumps of Grade Eights standing around the door. Girls crying and holding each other the way they did this morning.

Except for Amanda, who swoops down on him at the edge of the parking lot. She hooks her foot in front of his and lofts his rock onto the playing field. “Why didn’t you wait for me, you dork? I was calling you.” She’s about four inches taller than he is this year. His mom says the boys will catch up in high school, that Justin will grow into his weight. But for now he still feels like a blimp, which is why he goes home for lunch. He doesn’t need anyone ragging him about stuffing his face.

Amanda says she goes home because the girls in Grade Eight are airheads and she doesn’t want to hang out with them. She says she can’t wait to go back up north for the summer. Jason and Amanda have been friends since kindergarten. She and her mom live across the street with Amanda’s grandparents. Every summer Amanda spends a month in Yellowknife with her dad and her other grandmother. At the end of August, she comes back acting like some kind of junior shaman with a new supply of bones and feathers and other stuff her mom won’t let her keep in their house. Most of it is in a box under Justin’s bed. They wait on the fringe.

“Sucks, huh?” she says. She’s chewing on her thumbnail, looking away from Justin whenever he glances toward her. “Will’s such a turd, but I never hoped he’d die.”

Justin feels like she kicked him in the gut. Maybe she never hoped Will would die, but she has to know that Justin did. Every time Will yanked the toque off Justin’s head and filled it with snow, snatched his backpack and threw it in the air and all his pencils and homework tumbled into the wind; every time Will puffed out his cheeks and grinned and said, “Justin’s got high cholesterol!” Every single time, he wished Will would drop dead. But there was always Amanda, helping him brush the snow off his stuff, stomping along beside him all the way home, shouting at him. “Justin, you have to be a bear! Nobody messes with Bear!”

Finally the bell rings, and they trail in together. They have Math with Mr. Waters first period after lunch, so back to their home room.

Justin slides into his desk and looks straight ahead, over top of the empty chair in front of him. Are they going to leave it there? Waters hands out a letter for parents. He says it’s about the memorial service for Will. The math test on Thursday is postponed because he knows that some of the students will want to attend. Justin folds the letter and crams it into his pocket. Mr. Waters is still talking. “For those of you who were friends of Will’s, there’s a counsellor in the office this afternoon.” He begins to point and call out names. And the first one out of his mouth is “Justin.”

Friends? Does Waters think he’s doing Justin a favour by including him? Amanda says thanks but no thanks when he calls her name. “I really didn’t know him very well,” she says.

Justin wishes he’d thought of that line, but more than anything he wants to get out of the room, so he shuffles to the door with everyone else. In the hall, he waits until they’re ahead of him, the girls whispering and sniffing, and then ducks into the washroom. Sits there on a toilet and watches the minutes click past on his wrist. He knows the routine with the counsellor. When his Grade Five teacher’s baby died, a counsellor came to the classroom. To help them “make sense of it” the principal said. Like there’s any sense in babies dying. Justin already knew from his mom’s job at the hospital that shitty things happen to kids. After half an hour, he peeks down the hall. Through the glass wall in the office, he can see a few of his classmates waiting in the chairs. Girls. The ones who probably never even talked to Will. Finally, Justin slips back into the classroom, into his desk. Amanda is looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

He closes his eyes and tries to drown out the voices. Since morning, he’s been afraid to think about Will. Afraid he’ll see him all mangled and bloody. But instead, he’s imagining Will in the chair in front of him. Will turning with that twisted grin, lifting a cheek, and polluting the air around Justin. Then holding his nose, and just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Ewwwww. Justin! Silent but deadly!” Justin gags. He swears he can smell the fart even though it’s a dream. He gets up without telling Mr. Waters where he’s going and runs for the washroom. After he spits into the sink, he rinses his mouth, and then hides in a cubicle until the bell rings for the next class.

At dismissal, the Hacky Sack guys hang out in the stairwell. Sometimes Justin spies on them from the top of the stairs after everyone else is gone. Pretends to be waiting for someone. Usually they’re playing “clock” and he fingers the knitted grey footbag in his pocket, knowing that he’s better than any of them. A guy like Will—if he did normal stuff like Hacky Sack instead of following Justin around—would kick in and join them, all jokey. But Justin’s not good at jokey, and he doesn’t need anyone telling him to get lost. Today, he races ahead, wanting to be first out of the school. The rock is in the soccer field—one bounce from a Slurpee cup, exactly where he marked it in his mind.

Kick, kick, kick, takes him halfway home before Amanda catches up. “So what did she tell you?” Justin shrugs. Lines up the rock with his toe and wraps his fingers around the Hacky Sack in his pocket. The dense weave has a comfortable scratchy feel.

“You didn’t go, did you? I’ll bet you sat in the can the whole time.” After the kick, she races beside him. Amanda is the only person he knows who can talk in a normal voice when she’s running full-out. “So are you going to the funeral?”

He stops and bends over to catch his breath. “Are you?”

“I dunno,” she says. “Maybe. If you go.” Then Amanda turns and races ahead of him. From behind, it looks as though she’s flying, one foot hardly back on the ground before the other rises. In front of her house, she waves without looking back.

His mom meets him at the door. Hands on his shoulders, she makes him look straight into her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me it was Will who died, not his dad? Oh, Justin, I would have let you stay home this afternoon. How sad. The two of you were such good friends when the family moved here.”

Yeah. Good friends. When Will arrived halfway through Grade Six, the other guys cut him out. Justin already knew what it felt like to be alone, so he talked to Will at recess and they started going to each other’s houses to play video games. They even had sleepovers. But in Grade Seven, Will started to make other friends, and decided that having Justin as his pal kind of got in the way. He started scoring points by joining a crew of the other guys who never missed a chance to make Justin feel small. Then he led the way with his “high cholesterol” taunts, and so much more.

“I did tell you it was Will. But you misunderstood. I didn’t want to talk about it, okay?” Her hands drift down his arms, squeeze his wrists and let go.

“Okay. I called the school. They said they had a counsellor talk to the class. How was that?” He hates lying to her. Most of the time, he gets away with half the truth. “Stupid,” he says. “They said it was for Will’s friends, and Waters made me go.”

“And . . . ?”

“I didn’t even like Will!”

“Oh. Oh, I see.” She has that look on her face. Like she understands everything, but she doesn’t. Not any of it. She heads for the couch now, leading him by the hand. “Sit down a minute.” Her eyes are shiny. She takes a Kleenex out of her pocket. There’s a whole wad on the floor beside her chair. “Know why I’m crying?”

“Well yeah. A kid died. It’s sad.”

“All afternoon I’ve been imagining how I’d feel if it was you. And feeling so glad that it wasn’t. Because maybe if it was someone else’s boy, then that means that particular tragedy is used up and it can’t happen around here again. Do you understand?”

Oh jeez, same as when they’re going to fly somewhere and she says she’s relieved if there’s already been a plane crash in the last few months because it decreases the chances. Statistics. And then she feels guilty for being glad that other people crashed. “Yeah,” he says. He’s tired, suddenly. He feels like putting his head on her shoulder. Instead, he pats her hand. And she smiles. “Guilt, right?” he asks. “You feel guilty.”

“Uh-huh. How about you? Do you feel guilty because you didn’t like Will, and now he’s dead?”

“No,” Justin says. “I feel guilty because I don’t feel guilty.” He’s afraid for a minute that she’ll think he’s trying to be a smartass, but she keeps on nodding. He pulls the folded paper out of his pocket and hands it to her. His gut is rumbling. He’d like to grate some cheddar and make nachos.

She reads the letter and looks up at him. “I think we should go to this service.” “Maybe,” he says. If he says no, the discussion will go on for much longer. She smoothes the paper on her knee and looks thoughtful.

“You know, funerals are for making peace, Justin. Maybe you could go and just think about what you’d have said to Will if you’d known he was going on a trip and it would end this way.” Whoa! Glad you’re leaving, but sorry you’re going to die, Jerk? Yeah, that sounds like something the counsellor lady would have suggested. Not. His mom is frowning, waiting for him to answer. “Justin?”

“Yeah, sure. If we go, maybe I’ll do that. Think about what I’d say to him.”

“So we’ll go to the funeral.”

“Maybe,” he says. “If Amanda comes.”

Amanda, all in black, looks like a raven. Black pants, black sweater, and her black hair loose on her shoulders. She barges into Justin’s bedroom on Thursday afternoon while he’s changing from school clothes into his khakis and button shirt. Ten seconds before, he was tugging on the pants, zipping his fly. His shirt is unbuttoned, his feet bare. “Crap, Amanda! Can’t you knock?”

She shrugs and spreads out on his bed, head on the pillow, arms wide. “I don’t think we should go,” she says.

“Well it’s too late. My mom won’t back down now, and your grandma and your mom said they thought it was a good idea for you to come with us.” The buttons seem too big for the holes. He works his way slowly to the bottom. When he looks up, Amanda is taking deep breaths and then exhaling as though she’s going to die. “What are you doing?”

“Justin,” she says in a squeaky voice that does not sound at all like Amanda, “I think I killed him.”

“What?” He stares at her. “That’s ridiculous. Their van got hit by another car. In California.”

“I know,” she whispers, “but I think I made it happen.”

“Aw man!” He can’t take this. Not one of Amanda’s visions. Not today.

She lurches up and swings her feet to the floor. “See, I made this amulet about a month ago.”

“You put a curse on Will.” His voice is as heavy as the stone in his stomach. “Amanda, that’s kid’s stuff and you know it.”

“I did not put a curse on anyone, you idiot. Shamanism is about communicating, not about evil spells. I made this amulet for you. To put you in touch with Bear. So that you would be strong and so Will would never bother you again. I think it may have backfired.” She swoops down beside the bed and lifts the corner of the mattress. Her hand emerges holding a cloth bag. With her teeth, she rips open the stitching at one end and tumbles the contents onto the quilt. Will kneels beside the bed and picks through the two chicken bones, a clump of orange hair, and a tiny translucent claw.

“You hid even more of this crap in my room?” He holds it between thumb and first finger. “And this would be . . . ? The claw of the sacred grizzly?”

“Right. Symbolically. Actually it’s one of Dandy’s claws.” The clump of orange hair was obviously donated by Amanda’s cat as well. Justin stuffs the bits back into the little bag and hands it to her.

“I don’t want any amulets, Amanda. I just want to get this over with.”

On the way to the funeral home, Justin’s mom tells them it’s not really a funeral, but a memorial service. There won’t be a casket. Amanda, who seems to have left her guilt in Justin’s bedroom, chats with his mom about cremation versus burial. Justin refuses to have an opinion, and stares out the window, wishing he’d been a bear instead of a rabbit when his mom suggested this.

When they park at the funeral home, he considers faking a sick stomach. Like that works when your mom is a nurse. He follows Amanda in black and his mom in her navy coat and high-heeled shoes into a lobby where clumps of people stand talking quietly. He can’t spot any of the other guys from school, but Mr. Waters glides over to say he’s proud of Justin for coming. Even Justin’s mom can’t think of a comeback to that one. Justin’s already told his mom that the deal is they leave right after the service. No standing around after, no talking to Will’s family. He figures the last thing Will’s parents need is to see other kids today. Live kids.

On a table in front of the chapel door, there’s a blown-up photo of Will in a baseball uniform. He’s winding up to pitch with a look of intense concentration. Justin doesn’t remember ever seeing that expression on Will’s face. With the blue eyes and the blonde Afro like a huge halo under the baseball cap, Will looks like a kid in a Disney movie. On the table a sign with flowery writing says, These were a few of his favourite things. Books: the whole set of the Black Stallion. DVD: Happy Gilmour. Pack of baseball cards. Bag of Doritos. Old acoustic guitar. Haki sack, grey, with frayed threads, X-Box and disks for Halo and Final Fantasy. He knows that Final Fantasy is his. He left it at Will’s the last time they played together. Justin wants to turn and run. He feels like he’s at his own funeral. These are a few of his favourite things, all things that he and Will shared.

Then the chapel doors open and while they wait to file inside, Justin sees Amanda slip a rock onto the table. He absolutely is not going to ask her about it later. The chapel is packed. They sit in the back row, which is not nearly far enough away from all those people who look like aunts and uncles and cousins at the front. There are at least two other kids with wild blonde hair like Will’s. He wonders if they knew what Will was really like. He wonders if he knew. Justin doesn’t try to sing along, but his mom and Amanda are right into the program. They’re both pretty awful singers. A few words from an uncle, then a man who was Will’s baseball coach, then a minister talks and then finally Will’s dad steps up and thanks them all for coming. He starts to say that he knows Will must be smiling down at this wonderful gathering . . . and then he chokes up and walks back to his seat and the music begins for one last song.

While everyone else is making their way to the room with the coffee and trays of sweets, Justin’s mom signs the guest book. Justin waits while she writes a message that uses up all the space beside their names and then runs down the margin of the page. He knows that on the way home she’s going to ask him if he thought about it. About what he would have said to Will if he’d known he wasn’t ever going to see him again.

Justin watches the murmuring guests in the reception room. Looks back at the kid in the picture on the table. At the plain grey Hacky Sack. A deep breath, and then he puts his shoulders back so that he feels much taller and walks through the doorway to stand in front of Will’s mom. “I’m Justin,” he says. “Will sat in front of me this year. And last year too.”

The woman takes his hand and holds on tight. “Of course I remember you. You were such a good friend to Will.” Will’s mom puts a wobbly smile on her face and turns to the person pressing up behind him. Amanda and his mom have followed him into the room, but he turns and leaves them there.

Outside in the parking lot, he squints in the bright sunlight. What would he have said? Nothing, he’ll tell her.

But then he takes out his Hacky Sack. “Hey, Will,” he whispers. “Wanna rally?” A couple of slow kicks, then heels and toes fly and he dances on his little patch of funeral home pavement. When his mom and Amanda finally come out the door, the hack still hasn’t hit the ground.

Delighted to have been part of Shawn the Book Maniac’s Friday “broadcast.”

The interview begins at 2:40 but do listen to the introduction to Book Tubers, John and Sierra.

What a delight to be able to go “live” and talk about books I love.

Earlier this year when it was even darker than cold, I read a lot of books. At least fifty. Some were standouts, the ones you know will be well reviewed and win awards. But a great many others have stayed with me—emotional impact, beautifully crafted, fine contributions to that Canadian canon of literature. These too, deserve attention.

In case they’ve slipped under your radar, or like me, you rush into the library and choose from the racks at the front, instead of browsing an indie bookstore and asking one of the staff to chat with you about new releases, here are some that I recommend.  Not in a particular order, except that the first on the list is haunting, beautifully written with a self-deprecating humour, and took me by surprise.

 Compass by Murray Lee

God Isn’t Here Today by Francine Cunninghan

Extinction by Bradley Sommer

When I Was Better   by Rita Bozi

In the Dark We Forget   by Sandra S.G. Wong

There Are Wolves Here Too   by Niall Howell

Not the Apocalypse I Was Hoping For by Leslie Greentree

Ezra’s Ghosts by Darcy Tamayose

Then I’ll Be Famous by David Loblaw

There are so many more that I should mention, or that I know many of you would mention, but here’s a small salute to the “mid list”.

Each time I do a massive culling of the “treasure” in our house, I come upon this relic; this 10×15 cm block of marble has a fountain pen attached with a magnet that allows it to rotate on the stand. At the bottom, a gold plate is engraved:

BETTY JANE HARKE

Presented by

Jr. Crest Lodge No.4

1962-1963

Exactly what honour was bestowed on me with this lovely piece? I can’t remember the words spoken when it was presented at John Russell Jr. High School in Camrose, Alberta, nor do I have a document with the proper citation. I believe, though, that it had to with high academic achievement or just being an all-round attagirl.

I am highly suspicious of “lodges” and “fraternities.”  A current IOOF website gives a long list of goals that seem to equip one for the business world, and a role as good all-round citizen. Still, I always think of rituals and secret handshakes and passwords…

The Independent Order of Oddfellows is documented as far back as 1730.

And —on September 20, 1851, IOOF became the first national fraternity to accept both men and women when it formed the Daughters of Rebekah. Not exactly a welcome to the boys’ club, but permission to be a subsidiary?

There are three linked circles in the IOOF icon representing Love, Truth, and Friendship.

The historic command of the Odd Fellow is to “visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan.”

An orphan I was not, but could it be that my timidity and what someone long ago described as “your constant expression of sadness” started that rumour?

There is no history in my family of membership in lodges, special orders, clubs, and I think I will divest myself of the Jr. Oddfellow affiliation, but I am keeping this fine desk ornament, and I’m quite sure that I can find a bottle of Parker’s Ink to get that pen moving again.

It has escaped the purge. How would one recycle this lovely piece? I will dust it off and let it stay on my desk as a talisman for my writing.

And I may send a photo of the award and a much belated thank you to the local order of the IOOF.

https://tinyurl.com/ywv6p7x6

I frequently get Google alerts directing me to piracy sites where my books are for sale at bargain prices. The physical book is reproduced in its entirety, printed and sold without permission, and with e-books, the electronic file is simply stripped of digital copy protection and uploaded. The author’s recourse—a feeble cease and desist, and the hope that readers won’t be duped into buying books for which the author receives no royalties.  

Most recently, though, I had an email from someone who, through a search for one of my titles, came upon an open access e-book of a collection of essays titled, Writing Alberta edited by George Melnyk and Donna Coates. I have been aware of this book since its publication in  2017.There is an essay in the collection by Tamara Palmer Seiler comparing “Strategies for Storying the Terrible Truth in John Estacio’s and John Murrell’s Filumena and Betty Jane Hegerat’s The Boy. I was honoured to have my book paired with the work of Murrell. I am impressed with the generosity of the University of Calgary Press in offering this access to read under the Creative Commons License.

It is a cold hard fact of the writing life that books frequently go out of print and disappear from library shelves in far less time than the years spent in the creating and publishing process. Perhaps it would be a better plan to consider the open access format and graciously offer some of our work as an alternative to the pirates.

Do look at the many books the U of C offers as open e-book access.

Open Access

In the past sixteen months of Covid-19 restrictions on where we go, and the small bubbles within which can meet in real time, my memory insists on traveling backward in time. Fear of looking forward? So much time in which to meditate, contemplate, that the mind goes wild? I find myself revisiting corners of my life that are filed so deep in my memory it’s astounding, and sometimes alarming, that the faded images become more vivid than recent events.

Most often journeys of this sort occur in my writing practice when a story insists on being told. For a particular purpose I have been re-reading, re-considering The Boy, which is a braiding of fiction, a true crime story, and a mix of memoir and meta-fiction. In this process, I’m finding examples of the backward time travel with the same clarity that’s come to the surface in my Covid-19 flood of memories.

From The Boy (Oolichan Books 2011) an excerpt from one of the chapters that comprise the memoir sections that are entitled, “Roads Back.”

“It impressed me so, at ten, to be living in a place that was measured in blocks, to have an address instead of a post office box. New Sarepta had no more than half a dozen streets when we lived there; a creamery, post office, service station, general store, church, school, and hotel. And a coffee shop, owned and operated by my parents. We had living quarters in the back, and my mom cooked and served meals, while my dad drove away early every morning to check well sites for Edmonton Pipeline. Oil pump jacks in farm fields were as much a part of the landscape as barns and fields of barley.”

“I was so shy about this business of feeding strangers that went on in our home, that I lurked at the side of the house rather than out front or inside where men’s dark green work shirts hunched like turtles over coffee mugs thick as bathroom sink porcelain. Their bums spread on the red shiny stools, where after the coffee shop closed, a child could twirl until she was falling down dizzy.”

To those who subscribe to this blog, a humble apology for the many many many emails you have received from me today with posts from my blog. My daughter has been restoring lost posts and apparently the recovering re-posts them and all you fine people get notification.

This is finished now! Please simply delete all the emails or other notifications you may have received!

Betty Jane