Brett Lancaster walked in the door after a long day. The new guy, Dante Mendoza’s replacement, wasn’t half bad. The problem with him was distance. It meant almost daily treks to Vancouver. Not that money was a problem, especially considering how much Dante had brought in on his last day. It was an almost fair trade, although Brett still planned to make Dante pay for even thinking he could stop crime and just live a normal life. There was always a price and Brett thought that price might come through Dante’s cute little girlfriend. He was just letting Dante relax and let his guard down. Meanwhile it was business as usual. Closing the door behind himself, he put his keys back in the pocket of his jeans and walked into the kitchen. He leaned against the counter and looked at the stove. “Whatcha cookin, Mom?” The final word was filled with derision and sarcasm, as his mother wasn’t home yet. But it was almost seven and if she was on time, for a change, she would be there any minute. Despite his sarcasm, his stomach grumbled a bit. It smelled good. He was in new jeans and a new tshirt with new trainers on his feet.
Nolan Lancaster had been in the kitchen for the better part of an hour now. Dicing and searing and boiling. He’d taken on cooking a few years ago, trying to give his mother a break. She worked hard and usually came home too tired to cook a proper meal, so Nolan started doing it for her, teaching himself with help from cable television and the internet. Now he was a pretty good cook and actually enjoyed it, because his mother seemed so grateful. Nolan was glad to be a ray of sunshine in her life. One less thing for her to worry about. He got good grades, kept the house clean and cooked the meals so his mother wouldn’t have to worry. Granted, he didn’t get out to socialize with the kids in his age group, but it was worth it. Considering how stressed his mother had been before their father had gone to jail, almost anything was worth it to see her relax even a little. He only wished she didn’t feel like she had to work so hard. Inhaling deeply as his brother came in, he didn’t turn right away, adding a little more dried rosemary to the pot. “A sort of a rosemary chicken stew.” he replied, not taking the sarcasm personally. Brett was an ass hole. Finally turning, he looked at his brother, noting his new clothes. Nolan was wearing faded jeans, an old tshirt and old sneakers. That wasn’t the only contrast between them. Nolan had light brown hair and dark blue eyes like their mother, while Brett has ‘perfect’ blonde hair and ‘perfect’ blue eyes like their father. “Mom said she’d be home on time today, so I made one of her favorites.” he announced. “She should be home any second now.”
Sharon burst in the door in a whirlwind of the stress she always carried with her at the end of the day. She was juggling a large file box, her purse and her laptop bag and had her keys in her teeth since she just didn’t have another free hand. She teetered and kicked off her shoes. She was a middle aged woman, a little on the heavier side but tall enough to carry the weight gracefully. She had once had light brown hair like Nolan but as it greyed she had started dying it and now had that obvious darker brown almost maroon tone that was clearly from a bottle, on her tidy chin length professional bob cut. She wore a woman’s business suit with a matching navy blue jacket and skirt and a printed multicolor blouse under. She had dark blue eyes like Nolan’s too and her eye makeup was running at the end of her work day a bit. “Helllllp…” She said as all her carried objects threatened to fall from her at once. She could smell rosemary chicken and was immediately grateful for her culinary inclined son.
Brett rolled his eyes at his brother. “A family dinner. How cute.” he heard his mother at the door and moved in that direction to help her, taking the large box out of her hands. “Hey, Mom.” he greeted her with a smile. The move had stressed her and he knew she had done it in an attempt to get him away from his father and the trouble he'd gotten into there. Crime, drugs, and the wrong sort of people. He let her think he was just another bored teenager. Even that he was towing the line. Friends like Dante helped, since he could keep his mouth shut and the rumor mill hadn’t ground as much as he thought it might in a town this small. But he was good at keeping his head down, for the most part. That and most of his customers were on the very mainland he’d been moved from. The ferry kept him connected so … besides distance … not much had changed for him. “How was work? Nolan’s made another great dinner. Take a load off. It’s ready, right Nolan?”
Nolan tightened his jaw a bit when Brett sneered about the family dinner. It only got worse when Brett greeted his mother and helped her. It wasn’t that he wasn’t glad he didn’t have to do it, it was that from Brett it was all fake. He couldn’t prove it, but his brother was as slick as his father. He got out the dishes and started setting the table. Then he put the stew in a serving dish and put it in the middle of the table. “Only bagged bread. Sorry.” and he was sorry. Soon the three places were set. “It’s ready. Come on. Rest and eat, Mom.”
Out back in the treed space between the houses two of the Girards were attempting to film a video. Stefan and Elise were laughing and chatting. Elise was filming him “Stef, hold the flag higher. Ok...3...2...1..” She was wearing her usual toque over her long dark hair and an oversized Calgary Flames t shirt over leggings. Oversized on her because Elise was just petite.
Stefan was wearing a Calgary Flames sweatshirt and black track shorts and holding a team flag “Be proud and cheer loud! Go Flames go! The Jets are gonna BURN!” He had the same dark hair as his sister but shorter and under a baseball cap not a toque.
This display of hockey team loyalty was after Sasha Beaulieu had climbed to the roof of the building that houses his family’s dental practice, the eye doctor and his girlfriend’s apartment and screamed “Hockey is back!” over and over at about 7 am a few days ago, waking up half the island. Followed by “Go Jets Go!” A Twitter storm followed between Calgary Flames fans and Winnipeg Jets fans with Sasha leading the Jets tweets and Elise slinging right back at him with burns in favour of Calgary. Clearly Elise was now using a younger sibling to take the fight to YouTube.
Sharon looked grateful “Oh Brett, thank you.” She slid her laptop bag to the floor and hung up her purse on a hook “Mmm I can smell it! My boys, taking such good care of me. You two are my heroes. Don’t even worry about the bread. Goodness. I’m so spoiled.” She walks through the kitchen looking out the back door window “Oh...the hockey feud goes on. My tellers were talking about this.” She laughs a bit and comes through to the table after washing her hands. Sharon sits down “What a day. Head office wants to send me to Denman Island next weekend to help a credit union open over there smoothly that next Monday morning. I hate to leave you boys. Do you want to come away with me? I’d be working but you two could have some quality time together. They have so many lovely parks I’m told. We could rent you some sea kayaks….oh Nolan this smells delicious. My favourite!”
Brett sat and smiled once the table was set. He heard the commotion outside, but he was not much into sports. That was Nolan’s thing, really. Brett feigned interest to appease their father, and had played for exactly that reason. But it didn't make him money and his father was more interested in working with Brett than Nolan. He ignores the hockey talk and half stands, taking his mother’s plate and giving her a generous portion. “We’ll be fine, Mom.” he says about being left alone while she goes out of town. “We can have quality time right here and not be in your way. Right, Nolan?” he serves himself and looks at his brother who had better answer that question right.
Nolan turned and looked out of the window at the sounds of voices talking hockey. There was a pretty girl videotaping her brother and clearly supporting Calgary. He grinned a bit, but it was dinnertime, or he’d have gone to introduce himself. Maybe after dinner … and dishes … and cleaning up. Turning back to the table, he saw Brett serving their mother. Brett’s brown nosing was getting on Nolan’s last nerve. “Well, hockey coming back is a big deal, Mom. I might try out for the local team here.” he didn’t know if he would have the time, but suddenly the talk turned to his mother going out of town for the weekend. The last time she’d done that there was a big party, with alcohol, drugs and sex. Nolan participated in none of it and had locked himself in his room until it was over, then emerged to see how bad the mess was. He cleaned it up and their mother never knew. Brett tells their mother they can bond here and he knows what that means. Another party. “Yea. Sure.” He agrees. “You go … and try and have some fun. Go out for a drink or something. Relax. All work, no play.” he smiles as he serves himself and sits down to eat.
Sharon looks appreciative of her plate being served to her and then looks hopefully between her boys “Thank you Brett. I know you can spend time together here. I’m glad you boys seem to like it here. People are so kind. Maybe there are kayaks down at our beach. I’ve never looked.” She turns to Nolan “You should try out here. And yes I think it’s great that hockey’s coming back, complicated but it will make people happy.” She sighs “Oh I suppose I could take a bit of down time on Denman island…..” She digs into her food and chews and swallows “Nolan this is truly wonderful. I do hope you’re making some friends here too and not just spoiling me with a clean house and good food. You should go out with Brett sometime” She has noticed Brett seems to have a social life of sorts even though she doesn’t know all the details. Teenagers were different creatures after all.
Brett digs in and has to admit his brother can cook. He encourages his mother about the down-time. “You should.” he looks down at his place and lowers his voice a bit. “You’ve been so stressed this last year … and that’s my fault. Now we’re here .. away from the mainland and I feel a lot better about things.” he sounds contrite. “I’m really trying, Mom. I mean … I don’t want you working so hard because of me, but I appreciate it.” he looks at Nolan quickly. “I’ll make sure we have some fun this weekend, Mom. I promise.” at least one of them would have fun.
Nolan eats while his mother talks and nods about trying out. “I might. We’ll see.” he almost chokes when Brett starts talking about how guilty he feels about her having to work so hard to bring them to Alexandra away from the bad influences of the mainland. She’d brought one of those bad influences to this island and didn’t want to admit it. He knew she was convinced that the answer was just getting them away from their father before he got out of prison, but their father was only part of the problem. But he doesn’t say anything, because what can he say? It’s too late to move again and his mother would just feel defeated if moving hadn’t worked. “I’ll get out more, Mom. I promise.” he tells her instead. “Make some friends if I can.” he looks at Brett and then quickly puts his attention back on his plate, because he can’t control his brother. The only one who could was Flynn Lancaster, their father.
Sharon puts a hand on her heart as she listens to Brett “Oh Brett honey, I’m so glad to hear that. I know I ripped you boys away from our old life but we needed this. And it’s always hard work starting up a credit union. I’ll leave you boys some fun money. Order a pizza. Go to a movie.” She looks between them both “This island is our opportunity, for all of us to reconnect, to find ourselves. I have a really good feeling about that school too. An alternative school like the academy might be just the thing.” She eats some more and then looks out the window seeing another mother lean out a door and call to two the two teens that were filming the hockey fan video “You know there are so many kids your age right in these two blocks. It’s wonderful.”
Brett eats eagerly and nods as his mother talks. “It’s OK Mom.” he finally swallows and smiles when she mentions leaving them money, which she does when she leaves town. “Cool .. thanks Mom. Time to check out that ice cream parlor down by the beach, Nolan!” he listens to his mothers words of hope and does his damndest not to roll his eyes. He looks at Nolan while his mother looks out of the window and silently scoffs, then makes short work of the food, pausing to wash it down with water.
Nolan eats and narrowly avoids rolling his eyes at his brother. Of the money and ice cream parlor he tries to look eager, because his mother was trying so hard and being so hopeful. “Cool … and maybe we can catch a movie at that local theatre.” he makes it sound like he and Brett had ever really hung out. Once they had tried, but when their father started taking Brett after school and Brett begged him to lie about it … that was the last time, especially when Brett got in trouble with their father. Since then there had been a divide between them. “I like it here, Mom. I really do.” and that was actually true. He also had a good feeling about this place, but he couldn’t place it really. Just sort of hopeful, at least for he and his mother. He had no hope for or faith in anything positive coming from his brother.
Sharon looks so hopeful. Her boys were getting along and safe on this island. She had done the right thing moving them here. She just enjoyed the family dinner, finished up her food and then started to stack up plates “I insist on doing the dishes. You boys go do something. Take your bikes out or even, play a video game together?” She worked so much she was out of touch with her kids. “Do you guys still do that?” She laughs “Clearly I’m old and uncool now. Or you could play scrabble, you boys used to love to play that.” It was so much easier when they were young, Scary with their father but easy with her kids. She should have taken them this far away as babies.
Brett finishes up his food and looks from his mother to his brother. They hadn’t done anything together in years, unless you counted him telling Nolan what to say to their mother or coming close to a fistfight. “We can … go to Perkatory.” he decides. “Yea. Why don’t we go have some coffee, Nolan?”
Nolan blinks at his mother and quietly says “OK, thanks.” about the dishes. He still played the occasional video game, but not much because he got busy taking care of the house and covering for Brett’s fuck-ups. Then Brett suggests they go to Perkatory, a place Nolan hasn’t managed to get to yet. “I …” he watches his mother and makes himself smile. “Yea … coffee sounds good.” and he tries to figure out how long it will be before Brett ditches him to buy or sell drugs or roll an old lady in this new town of theirs.
Sharon beamed at her boys making coffee plans and looking like friends. It was all she had ever wanted. No Flynn and happy healthy boys. “Oh my boys…..you go have coffee. That sounds just lovely. I bet you’ll find some other kids your age down there too. I’m going to load the dishwasher, put on my pjs and dig into some binging on Netflix. But you are both making my day and all my days here so much brighter. As our futures will be on this sweet little island of Alexandra.”
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