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He’s in one of his moods this morning, she thinks numbly. Another long weekend ahead.

“Hurry up, will you Anne, my feet are cold.”

Anne bangs her head on the kitchen table as she stands up.

“You almost spilled the milk.”

“Sorry. Do you want the rest of your cereal?”

“I told you my feet are cold.”

“I’ll get your socks.”

“And my slippers.”

Anne leans against the bedroom dresser, sweat running down between her shoulder blades. Morning sun pours in, zig-zagging a crazy design on the delicately patterned wallpaper. Less than an hour ago, she lifted those lifeless feet squarely onto the foot rests; noticed his toenails needed cutting.

You’re in overload, she says to herself, pulling open the dresser drawer and yanking out a clean pair of socks. Things have been hectic all week at the Library and she hasn’t had time to recover. She grabs his plaid slippers from under the bed and hurries back to the kitchen.

The clock ticks out of sync with Harold’s raspy breathing. Friday, when Anne arrived home, Mrs. Forester, the housekeeper, beckoned Anne outside saying hurriedly that Harold’s breathing had been increasingly rough the last couple of days. Anne hopes they’re not in for another bout of pneumonia.

“My Corn Pops are all mushy now,” Harold snaps, “What took you so long?”

Anne inhales sharply; thinks of slamming the slippers down on the table beside him but doesn’t. She maneuvers the wheelchair back and toward her. Harold’s legs, covered with a wool blanket, hang passively in front. She’s sure, now, she imagined it.

She hasn’t.

Where his feet were, less than an hour ago, nothing. She lifts one pant leg to find the bottom of his ankle curved round, the skin taut and shiny. Shaking, she tries to pull the socks over each stump until she stops, gagging involuntarily.

“My slippers,” he reminds her, “When Mrs. Forester is here, she always puts them on before breakfast.”

“I didn’t notice holes in these socks,” she manages to say, snatching them up. “I’ll get another pair.”

“Well hurry, will you, my feet are like ice.”

Back in the bedroom, she sits on the bed and tries to stop shaking; wonders if she’s becoming delusional. As if it were yesterday, she remembers a particular Psychology class, all of them keen and much too arrogant, the professor talking about after-effects of unexpected trauma, how the mind in a state of disbelief uses coping mechanisms, one of which is to simply go along with the situation as if it were perfectly normal. She stands numbly and opens the dresser drawer. Another memory follows, a first aid course she took a couple of years ago where the instructor said amputees frequently have feeling in a missing limb. Steadying herself momentarily against the dresser drawer, she stuffs each sock with three other pairs.

Harold glowers when she returns to the kitchen. “I’ve changed my mind,” he says, “I want toast.”

“First things first,” she says brightly, reaching down to pull on the socks. “This will only take a minute.” Even though scrunching the socks into the slippers is tricky, the final result seems quite respectable. She feels like some other version of herself, tougher, unexpectedly resilient.

While making toast at the counter, she again eyes the two little piles of dust under the table. They look harmless enough, like something accidentally spilled. Sand from down at the beach perhaps.

“Isn’t it almost time for Oprah?” Harold asks. “Mrs. Forester always…”

“It’s Saturday morning, Harold, there’s nothing on but cartoons.”

“Well hurry up, I’m probably missing the best ones.”

Anne watches the back of his head in front of the blaring TV. Today Harold’s feet are the least of her worries. She’s not going to start feeling sorry for herself, for her life and what it’s come to, there simply isn’t time. Laundry first, then a dinner party to plan. This month it’s her turn.

Harold’s university colleagues have been more than generous since his car accident, a head-on collision coming around the curve. Three teens in a small sedan dead by the time anyone arrived at the scene, scattered like tossed luggage outside the vehicle. The Audi Sport had good air bags, resilient frame, otherwise it would have been four dead.

For the past year and a half, almost everyone in several departments have gathered for a monthly soireé, an event. Harold who had, and has, a wide circle of interesting and influential friends at the University, lives for these events. Conversation is always exhilarating. Post supper, after more than a few drinks and toasts, they all settle in to argue, josh, cajole. Harold has always been a great raconteur, a centre stage man, and the old spark still draws them in. It’s the only time he’s close to being himself again.

On a hot day early in July 1963, I sit nervously on a straight-backed chair in a narrow, airless foyer of the Coldsprings Hall. I’m waiting to be interviewed for a Hamilton Township teaching position in a one room school between Cobourg and Port Hope. My two previous interviews for Cobourg town school teaching jobs have been unsuccessful. My interviewers were not impressed that I had turned down teaching right after Teachers’ College to be with my new husband whose job posted him to northern Quebec.

Before applying for this job, I had no idea one room schools still existed, especially in southern Ontario. Teacher’s College, a one year course with only minimal classroom teaching has given me no practical preparation for such a job. I don’t care. I need to teach two years out of five in order to obtain my permanent teaching certificate and, as I have spent over two years travelling with my husband as his job moved, I know time is of the essence.

The most practical plan is to live in our home town, Cobourg, and stay with my kind mother-in-law, Rosemonde Manning who has offered to look after my one year old son, Bruce. This job interview is my last chance at teaching in the area.

The young woman beside me looks definitely younger, likely right out of Teachers’ College. She goes in ahead of me and my anxiety increases expeditiously as the minutes tick by. She is back out sooner than I expect and looks neither pleased nor discouraged. When I hear my name called, I stand, determined to be calm. The not too spacious Board Room is in dark panelled wood, a long table down its centre. Seated around, looking weathered, some still in their barn clothes, are the Hamilton Township Board Members.

“Mrs. Manning?” a man at the end of the table asks, a bit gruffly it seems to me.

“Sit down, sit down,” someone else adds.

I sit in the end chair, acutely aware of six or is it seven sets of middle-aged male eyes scrutinizing me.

“I see you graduated from Toronto Teacher’s College in 1961,” the man at the end begins.

“Yes,” I manage before my throat constricts. I know what the next question will be.

“And you didn’t teach for the next two years as you went with your husband, James Manning, to Northern Quebec,” another man adds.

I nod, feeling my face reddening. The town schools did not take kindly to this information, rather they seemed to hold it against me as some deficiency in my moral character.

“That would be Russell Manning’s son?” another pipes up.

I nod again.

“And what would this husband of yours be doing in the wilds of northern Quebec?” another Board Member asks.

I can’t help but wonder what this has to do with my teaching ability but dutifully reply.

“He was installing computers in Military Bases on the Pine Tree Defence Line,” I say.

They seem impressed by this nodding and making notes. I am beginning to feel a little like Alice and I know I have not fallen down a rabbit hole.

“Do you have any experience in a one room school?”

“Not directly,” I reply, “but I did attend Baltimore Public School from grade six to eight and was in the senior room of the two room school there.”

“Miss Hogg,” another man barked out, slapping his knee. “Now there was a cracker-jack of a teacher.”

“She taught in this very school,” another adds.

“She did that. 1957, I think it was,” someone else offers.

More note scribbling. At this point, I want the interview to end. I can’t see what this has to do with my suitability as a teacher for this school.

There is a momentary lull and I consider, for a second or two, jumping up and bolting. Am I so unsuitable that they are asking random general questions, nothing about how I would handle a given discipline situation or what approach I would take to a particular subject.

“Mrs. Manning?” The man closest to me is staring, tapping his index finger on the table. “Didn’t you tap dance at the Baltimore Community Centre?”

I nod, feeling my throat tighten again. This is beyond ridiculous. “A long time ago,” I manage to say. “The Judy Welch School of Dance.”

“You were real good,” someone else offers.

More scribbling.

I wait, feeling sweat running down my back, inside my Playtex girdle and, I’m sure, staining under my arms.

The man at the end of the table stands up. “That will be all,” he says. “Thank you Mrs. Manning.”

By the time I am in the car and on the highway, tears blur my vision. I blink furiously and pound the steering wheel. I don’t want to teach anyway. I’ll find something else. Another job. Who needs teaching?

A week later, a letter from the Hamilton Township Board arrives at my mother-in-law’s. I have the job. Duties the first school year to begin Tuesday September 3, 1963 and end Friday June 26,1964. Remuneration $3000 a year with an extra $300 because I will be both teacher and principal of this one room school.

After my initial euphoria subsides – I’m going to be a teacher with my own class, all eight grades of them – I refuse to be intimidated. I will figure it out. How to teach eight grades at the same time. How to prepare and organize lessons for umpteen courses starting with a lesson plan or plans. It has to be doable even in the eight summer weeks remaining.

Colleen, who has sweated it out at the hardware store for twelve hours straight, hopes to get in a little last minute shopping. Originally, she thought of waiting until tomorrow, beating the crowds and showing up at the seven AM opening but there’s not a chance she’d pull herself out of bed at that ungodly hour.

Now, trying to remember what it was that was on sale that she wanted, she’s sure she looks out of it, her polyester no-wrinkle Sears pant suit streaked with dust from boxes pulled from too high shelves, her finger nail polish chipped from gift wrapping parcels and counting out nails and bolts from bins. Why anyone would be buying the nails a week before Christmas is beyond her. She thought it was coal they put in stockings for a joke.

This morning at the hardware store, the week before Christmas rush started right at nine, customers pressing their noses to the glass door even before Art unlocked. In the rush, she threw her duffle coat on a chair in the back room. At noon lunch, employees not owners lunch, one of the part-time teenagers obviously dumped pop on it, with newspaper flyers piled on later. She didn’t notice this until, pulling on the beige coat at the end of the day, found a motley, orange-coloured newspaper pattern on one sleeve and part way down the front. As she said to Art when he pointed it out to her, “Frankly, Scarlet I don’t give a damn.“

Her arms feel like lead weights and all she has eaten since this morning is a chocolate bar and cream cheese bagel, gulped down in the back office during the two lulls when fewer than ten people were in the store at once. As she rummages through her purse for her precious list, she feels someone staring at her.

Hannah is rushing to buy a small Christmas tree to take to her mother in the morning. She left the staff party as early as she could diplomatically manouevre herself out and there were two accidents on the 401. Scanning shelves and walking too quickly, she almost ploughs into a woman head on. Someone tired and frazzled. And familiar? ”Colleen?” Hannah says, hardly believing it. “Colleen Miller?”

“Hannah?” Colleen gulps, snapping her purse shut. She pats at her half-grey hair, wondering if it, too, has store dust. “Hannah Norcroft?” Longish skirt, a suede outfit under a fancy cape-like coat, shiny straight brown hair flipped at the ends. And thin. My God she is thin.

They stare awkwardly at each other for a few moments.

Colleen, in spite of being totally whacked, comes to first. “A couple of months ago,” she begins,” Maureen at the hospital said she had seen you. I hope you don’t mind, I visited your mom a few times.“ Instant side track. Would Hannah have heard her dad yelling? Hopefully Maureen didn’t mention anything, his past sobering-up stints. Colleen flashes a theatre smile. “My dad was just down the hall.“

Hannah can’t hide her embarrassment. She has hoped, all along, that no one she knew would see her mother in such a pathetic state. Especially not someone she went to school with. “Yes, yes,” she says, as breezily as possible. “Mother had a little stroke but she’s better. And your dad?”

“He fell and broke his arm,” Colleen says, going into fast forward and edit at the same time. “My mom’s been gone for a while so dad has decided to hang out at the Lodge for a few months.“ Sounds good, maybe a bit general, not that Hannah will likely catch on.

My mother is there, too,” Hannah adds, trying to decide the vaguest way to word it. What if Colleen asks? What wing? What floor? Hannah feels sweat between her shoulder blades, anxiety creeping up from behind. Her mother is well on her way to senility. She is her mother’s daughter. She could easily follow in her mother’s footsteps. Someone at school has already suggested this. ‘It’s a joke, Hannah. I meant it as a joke’. Hannah didn’t and doesn’t see the humour. “We should get together for coffee,” she says to Colleen mainly as a diversion. “When do you usually visit your dad? Weekends?” Stupid question, Hannah. She’s right here in the same town. She can visit him whenever she wants.

“Sometimes.“ Colleen notices how up tight Hannah is. How could she forget? High strung and up tight, never standing still, talking too fast. “Dad will be at our place for Christmas, of course.“ Says it without thinking. This hasn’t even been decided, ye gods and why did she add, of course, making herself sound like a pompous ass.

“What about tomorrow? Hannah asks, seeming to ignore the comment. “I’m here, staying at mother’s until Boxing Day.” Make it sound casual, Hannah. Trapped at my mother’s; stuck in this time warp town. Christmas Day with mother in controlled access. Making the best of it. “Unless you’re too busy, that is.” Why did she say this? Some, once long ago we were friends and even though it’s obvious we have nothing in common now, let’s anyway, for old time’s sake? Not too rational. Misery likes company? Better but not realistic given the truth of the matter, or rather the deception of the matter. Mum’s the word. Monty Python irony.

Four days before Christmas. What can Colleen say? She works at the store ten hours a day? She has a trillion things to do with everyone coming home? She’s dog tired and never goes out for coffee. “I’ve been filling in at the store,” she begins, instead. “Christmas rush and everything.“

“We could wait until the New Year,” Hannah says quickly. A momentary exit sign flashing on and off. “I’m sure you’ll have family home for the holidays.“ Hannah turns to go.

“Hannah, no,” Colleen says in a rush. “I’ll tell Art we’re getting together for coffee, that we went to school together, worked together at the Britannia, that I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age. There are three of them at the hardware store besides me. The place won’t fall apart if leave for an hour. “

“Pinser’s hardware Store?”

“Art Pinser is my husband.“

Hannah grins, her face taking on a younger look, impish almost and she leans into the end of Colleen’s cart. “Mar-i-on, Madame li-brar-ian,” she whisper sings.

“The Music Man,” Colleen almost squeals. “And Moira Jackson. Remember her?”

“She was… doing props,” Hannah says,” among other things.“ She laughs. “Oh God, Colleen, it’s been a long time.“

The Music Man. Franklin Theatre Guild. One of those out-of-the-blue connections. Like yesterday. A nasal sounding voice cuts in on the PA. The store will be closing in fifteen minutes. Thank you for shopping at Zellers.

“Tim Hortons?” Colleen says quickly. “On Garland, just off the 401. Did you come in to town that way?” There are a couple of things Colleen really needs to buy.

Hannah nods. “Tomorrow at ten? You’ll be able to get away?”

Colleen nods back and watches Hannah march off, shiny hair swishing, coat flowing out behind.

He was catching on quickly and, today, Charlotte joined in on the silver flute. Gran was at the piano, thumping out grandiose chords while Jason stumbled through The Bugle Call. Charlotte was trilling an extra part, making it up as she went along, something she’d told him she had always been able to do.

They had almost finished their third run-through of The Bugle Call when a loud, rat-a-tatting echoed down the front hall stairs into the living room.

“Keep going,” Gran said, throwing in a few extra chords at the end of the last line.

“We’ll go through it one more time.”

Squid proudly marched through the doorway in perfect time, the drum on the yellow cord around his neck. In spite of the tinny loudness, Jason couldn’t help being impressed by Squid’s dexterity, the rat-a-tat-tats doubling and tripling in time to Gran’s chords. He had obviously done this before.

At the end of the piece, Squid, of course, kept up his drumming, marching around the couch, la-la-la-ing Jason’s bugle line at the top of his lungs.

“Time to stop,” was all Gran had to say. Squid plopped to the floor and pulled the drum’s cord off over his head. “It’s almost four,” she went on, “and Jean Barton will be here for her music lesson.” She opened one of the french doors. “How about a practice, outside? Like a marching band.”

“Gran still teaches piano,” Charlotte explained.

”A band, a band,” Squid echoed. He grabbed the drum again and hammered away.

“Oh boy,” Charlotte said. “This should be fun.” She rolled her eyes.

“Only for forty-five minutes,” Gran added, “and stay off the highway. One of those Lake Ontario fogs is rolling in from the lake. I noticed from the upstairs window a while ago. You won’t be able to see any further than the end of your nose once it hits the highway. She gave Squid’s nose a little poke. “Stay on the path by the fence and come back when you reach the Cobourg town sign.” Squid giggled and ran for the french doors.

“But we won’t have you on the piano,” Jason protested. “It won’t sound right without the piano.”

“Try it,” Gran said, literally shoeing the two of them out after him. “Just try it.”

Charlotte took over the melody line and, with Squid leading, they marched out the spruce-lined lane toward the highway and path.

“Hold it,” Charlotte commanded even before they reached the highway. “Hey, Squid, it won’t be any fun in the fog. Let’s go back up into the loft.”

“No way,” Squid said, stomping his foot and rat-a-tat-tatting. “I want to be a band.”

Charlotte took a deep breath and stared hard at her little brother. Jason could see a standoff looming. He stepped back and waited.

Charlotte grinned and snapped her fingers. “I know,” she said. “Why don’t we take Jason for a boat ride? You could row.”

”No, no, no,” Squid said defiantly, “and I’m going to tell if we don’t be a band. So there.” He started a drum roll and marched on the spot.

“Might as well try it to my house and back, then,” Jason suggested. “Forty-five minutes isn’t that long.” He checked his watch. It was three fifty-five. What he intended to do once they got to his house was make an excuse to call it a day. Sibling squabbles he could do without.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and started to play again, marching on the spot. “Okay,” she said between notes, and they turned onto a path Jason didn’t even know was there – Squid in front, then Charlotte, with Jason bringing up the rear.

Something happened then, something none of them clearly understood, even afterward. The fog Grandma Cannington warned them about started rolling in, a thick, wet cover, eliminating everything but a small section of the path ahead. Jason felt his playing grow stronger and stronger and he added extra notes.

Cars drove past, their headlights like two yellow spots dilating into solid discs, and disappearing behind. Each time, Squid paused and, in perfect time, twirled a drum stick in the air. Jason moved out in front, lifting his head higher so that his bugle notes poured ahead of him into the fog. Charlotte was following him now, with Squid lagging a bit behind. The sound wrapped around them, pulling them forward, bugle and flute notes growing louder and stronger, driven on by the urging of Squid’s relentless drum. They must have marched right past Jason’s house; none of them even noticed. They were good – they were better than good, professional, like his mom. He was sure of it.

Across the highway, the New Lodge Farm sign slid in and out of sight almost as if suspended in air. As they came close to the Workman’s chicken farm where his mom bought eggs, Jason thought he heard sheep bleating. He didn’t know the Workmans had sheep. The fog rolled back, momentarily, and instead of the house, Jason saw someone with a long wooden crook herding a flock of sheep across the road. He blinked and they were gone. Droplets of water formed in a ring on his bugle and the instrument glimmered almost like a beacon in the fog. Any minute now and they’d see the Cobourg town sign and it would be time to turn back. It was then it occurred to Jason that no cars were passing now, that it seemed very still.

The path had become a dirt road, a strange road and, as if by some signal, they all stopped, Squid’s drum playing dwindling down to an occasional nervous tap-tap.

What Jason noticed first was Charlotte’s white bonnet. She wore a long, full skirt and a blouse with puffed sleeves gathered in at the elbows and wrists. He and Squid had on knee breeches, homespun shirts and black peaked caps.

“I didn’t want to do this,” Charlotte said, staring down at her buckled shoes and white stockings.

“Don’t worry, Lottie,” Squid chimed in, stomping back and forth in his knee-high boots. “Where did we slip to this time?”

“I don’t have a clue. Germany again?”

“How about Luxembourg?” Jason looked questioningly at Charlotte.

“Why Luxembourg?”

“It looks a bit like the postcard.” Jason waved toward the fortification.

“I’ve still got my pack,” Squid said, banging at a brown cloth sack hanging from two ropes hooked over his shoulders. “I’ll still have my juice pack in there.”

They all still had packs but they were roughly woven cloth now. Hopefully, there might be snacks left, though likely quite different from what he and Charlotte had packed. Squid found a small flask and before Charlotte had time to check it, drank it down.

“Sweet Lottie, like grape juice.”

“I hope it was juice,” she replied.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Jason added, hoping he sounded reassuring. “How’s your flute?”

“Wooden like last time. What about the horn?”

“I think it’s a bit longer and shinier.” He undid the belt at his waist, securing the bugle. “Charlotte, I know you didn’t want to take off again yet. Are you sorry?”

” Not much point being sorry. I played too. Anyway, we’re here and whatever happens, happens.”

“Maybe we’ll be smarter this time,” Jason said.

“We don’t even know where we are.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“We have to find some place to spend the night,” Charlotte said. “I don’t want Squid getting sick like he did on our first trip.”

“We go march over the hill,” Squid cut in, giving his now wooden drum a few rat-tat-tats. “And find the castle again.” He grinned and marched off, pounding full force.

“Might as well do what Mr. Optimism says,” Jason replied.

They followed the river bank for a while and when it came out onto a road, they turned and crossed a solid wooden bridge toward the hillside. Near the top of the hill. Squid stopped. “Hot,” he said, pulling off his cap and sitting by the side of the road.

“Listen,” Jason said. “I hear voices. Quite a few of them.” They all froze.

” Down in the valley,” Charlotte whispered. “I don’t think we should play.” She listened again. “Even better, let’s hide the instruments in our packs.”