ROBYN
Topic: - robyn
Robyn exploded from her grandfather’s cottage. The Muskoka door crashed behind her. She gave a slight glance up and down the road for traffic, then crossed to the shore.

The crunch and grind of the shoreline rocks felt good underfoot. She pounded a straight line down to the water’s edge and just stood there. The sky was the fantastic pinky orange colour Sunset Point had earned its name for. But that old trick of nature wouldn’t work on her tonight. What she needed was the water. The gentle shupp shupp and clatter of the tiny waves tugging, urging the little stones at the water’s edge to come back with them. Shhhhhhh.

It always worked for her. The water sound lapped into her ears and head and drove out all other thought. It carried her hot prickly anger away. She took a few steps to the right and picked out a big rock to sit on. She wedged herself into the east corner of this tiny bit of beach, feeling safe with the tall berm of huge jumbled rocks at her back. Shupp shupp, shhhhh.

Sky darkening to grey with orange streaks. Shhhhhhh.

Now navy blue with wisps of orange. Shhhhhhh.

Slowly she eased her mind toward the problem. Her grandfather. John Wilson.

It was Labour Day. Command appearance at Grampa John’s cottage in Hens & Chickens. She didn’t know why her father always had to run and jump for that horrible old man. She liked their home in Hungry Hollow. It was lovely this time of year — they could take walks along the river, where the pods on the sumachs were just turning harvest red. Or they could pick apples just like here. Or they could drive up into the hills. It felt so good just driving around.

But no. Another holiday weekend up in Hens & Chickens. Under the dark looming shadow of old John. John Wilson was a big man in town, a permanent fixture on council. Robyn knew he had lots of money. "Oh, millions probably," her father had said once like it didn’t matter. John owned many buildings in town. He had built several subdivisions. Yet this tumbledown damp drafty dingy brown waterfront shack was what he called home.

He was a strange old man with rugged elegance. Tall, with very short silver grey hair. His face was slightly pockmarked and he had quick pale grey eyes. His voice, usually soft and woolly, took on a distinct scary edge when he turned mean, which was often.

About town, he behaved like a true gentleman, courteous, ready with a kind word for the many people who stopped and spoke to him. Always dressed simply but cleanly, often in a crisp pressed shirt and trousers or uncreased T-shirt. He had a housekeeper, Elizabeth, who took care of these things. No one in the family could figure out how she had managed to stay so long with the old tyrant. Elizabeth must be responsible for the few gardening touches that civilized the property. There were trimmed but overgrown white lilac bushes at the break in the high cedar hedging, and a few thick patches of white and yellow daisies. Must be Elizabeth.

John’s behaviour at home was just plain rude. He would insist on these family events, and her father would always just go along with it, like some kind of dim puppy. Once they were trapped at the cottage, John would make everyone miserable.

There was never any food. The old man survived on dry toast, coffee and bacon. He didn’t drink, but was so miserable maybe he should. Robyn’s dad would have to do a big shopping trip as soon as they arrived. Often the place was locked when they showed up — that meant waiting on the porch with bags of groceries in the gloom of the high cedars, summer or winter, until John decided to make his appearance.

He had no concern for suitable sleeping arrangements either. There were no beds except John’s. Dad always slept on the pullout couch in the sitting room. The girls laid out their sleeping bags in the loft. That way at least there was some distance between them and John.

If they were really lucky, Uncle Ray wouldn’t show up again. Too bad today hadn’t been one of those days. Uncle Ray was her dad’s younger brother. He thought he was such a rebel. He thought he was so cool, with his balding head and long dirty hair in a ponytail, his shapeless bulk squeezed into his stupid little purple truck with ridiculous gigantic wheels. He was always trying to impress John with tales of shady business deals or casual cruelty. Sometimes John gave a small appreciative chuckle. Her dad sat through them silently.

A cold nose stuck itself between her hand and her knee. She scratched its head in greeting. "Hey, Muffin," she crooned. Muffin belonged to Bob a couple of doors down. A black lab mutt, she was only visible because of the bleached summer stones she stood on. Robyn stroked the white blaze down Muffin’s nose. She had never seen Bob walking the poor thing. Since she was fat and her coat glistened, she most certainly thrived on the good will of neighbours. "Watch yourself, Muff. You’re just an old dog," Robyn warned her. A double flash of headlights split the darkness. Muffin loped toward the shiny objects. Robyn’s stomach tightened.

Ray got himself some dogs. John had told everyone how Ray had his two babies now — his granddogs he called them. Omar and Hogan were Rottweiler and Mastiff pups under a year old. Thanksgiving again. Mother had begged John to promise Ray wouldn’t bring the dogs. The girls were only eight, six and four. Ray couldn’t be trusted to restrain the dogs, she told John. They would terrify and trample the girls. John promised.

The then-new purple truck with black cap pulled up. Ray jumped out and flipped down the tailgate. The dogs bounded out and like heat-seeking missiles went right for the girls. They chased them around the back yard. They had the girls pressed into three separate corners of the cedar hedge shrieking in terror. The dogs raced between them and leaped up puppy-like with their great black bodies high over the heads of the children.

Mother screamed, tears streaming, and ran to each corner one at a time to pick up each child one at a time and carry them up to the screened porch. She was screaming, "Dale, get Jenny. Dale, get Daisy. Go get Robyn." But Dad could not move from his spot, like a deer frozen in the headlights.

Crack. Crack. Two gunshots. John stood on the back step with his hunting rifle smoking in his hand. "Ray," he roared. "Get rid of those damn dogs."

Ray was never seen to waddle so fast. He grabbed the dogs by the collars, threw them roughly into the back of the truck and slammed the tailgate. He glowered at Mother and John, squeezed back into his purple truck, spun gravel and sped off.

Robyn went over her blurry eight year old memories of the incident — the black shapes, the screaming, the sharp sound and smell of the rifle, her heart throbbing painfully in her chest behind the tiny wires of the porch screen. And the deep wide pit of emptiness. The next morning her mother was gone.

This time it was a parrot. A tough old bird with ratty red and green feathers. Mr. Clint, Ray called it. ‘Make my day,’ was one of the bird’s more civilized lines.

The quiet of the afternoon was peppered with, ‘Go f--- yourself.’

‘Make my day.’

‘F--- off.’

It was unsettling to say the least. At dinner Mr. Clint sat perched on Ray’s shoulder and added tasteful conversation to the meal.

"Uncle Ray, please pass the butter?" Daisy asked.

‘Go f--- yourself,’ to which Ray sat smiling. Daisy shrank.

"Ray, can you do something about the bird?" her dad asked.

‘Shut up, you f------ whore.’

Earlier in the day John had snorted quietly at the bird’s antics. But it now had become boring even for him. "Ray, get rid of the bird," John said meaning business.

‘Up yours, motherf------.’

"Please, Uncle Ray. Can’t you stop him?" Robyn had asked. At that, Mr. Clint lifted off Ray’s shoulder, dived bombed her head and began beating brutally on her scalp with his beak. "Dad! Help! Help me!" she screamed, trying to swat the nasty creature from her head.

John stood sharply, knocking his chair down and said, "Ray. Get rid of that damn bird now."

Ray whistled the bird back to his shoulder, smiled smuggly, stood and left.

Robyn was shaking with fear and rage. She had grabbed her sweater and the small pack she always carried, and crashed through the cottage. Now here on this rock she could hear a voice calling from the darkness across the road.

"Robyn? You okay?"

"I’m okay, Dad," she said loudly still facing the harbour.

"You coming in soon?" asked the voice.

"Yes Dad, soon."

The double flash again from the parking lot by the concession stand down the shore. Her boyfriend, Rod. That was the signal. Tonight they were going to do it. Run away together. Say good riddance to all this. She was just 16, but she couldn’t take it anymore.

Rod often bugged her about it. He was bossy and pushy, but some part of her liked him for that. So different from her father. Rod was 23 and he liked to play the old fashioned gentleman, opening the passenger door of his truck for her, sounding like he knew something when he talked about his plans for them. He managed a donut shop by an on-ramp to the 401 outside Hungry Hollow. He had big plans to buy his own franchise. She didn’t mind the talk. She really liked his truck, a slightly beat up turquoise older model Ford half ton. It felt pretty good to be sitting up high with him in the truck just driving.

Of course the whole sex thing crackled over the relationship like a thundercloud. She told him she wasn’t into sex before marriage. She really didn’t know why it mattered to her. Maybe it was because she didn’t have her mother around. Her dad would be no help on this. She had given in to kissing and cuddling and nuzzling naked body parts, but the whole thing left her cold. Maybe it was the company. She knew Rod was pushing the elopement idea because the pressure was building for him. Lately there were tiny flickers of resentment in the way he talked to her. She clung to the knowledge she could break out of this fantasy world any time she wanted to. But right now, it was so tempting. Lighthouse beam. Shhhhhh.

She felt ready now to re-read the letter. She opened the small leather pack she always carried and pulled out a pocket size Bible. She took from between the pages a triple folded, much handled paper. It was now as soft as well worn cotton from so much unfolding and reading and refolding.

My beloved Robyn,
Please remember first above all how much I love you. And Daisy and Jenny. I have written a letter like this for them too. It’s because I love you girls so much that I have gone. I feel if I stay in this situation with your dad and your grandfather, I will be providing you with a terrible role model. The damage would be great and your futures would be bleak. Your dad loves you and will take good care of our girls — of that I am as certain as the sun rising in the morning. I know this will not make much sense, but I honestly believe it’s best for you. You will always be in my thoughts and I can only hope to leave you with a strong independent spirit. With love as boundless as the stars, xoxoxoxo Mom.

Robyn had read this letter so many times, she didn’t cry anymore. A big shapeless spirit was about all she had left of her mother. Robyn had been eight when she left, and remembered her voice and her eyeglasses. Of course she was beautiful. Didn’t all kids think their mothers were beautiful?

Jeannette — vibrant, clever, high spirited. That’s how friends of her mother described her. Robyn knew her father adored her mother. But what good was she? Robyn wished she had stayed for her.

Jeannette’s letter had been stuck in the book of Ruth in this little Bible that Robyn barely remembered, left by her pillow in the night. She had woken up to find her mother gone forever and this little book. Robyn had always stuck the letter back in the same spot. She wasn’t sure if her mother placed it there on purpose. Her mother had never been a particularly religious person, her dad only went to church if someone led him, and John dragged the family out at Christmas and Easter, probably for show.

But Robyn had become very attached to Ruth. So much loyalty to stick by her mother-in-law after all the men had gone. Slipping under Boaz's blanket just because Naomi told her to, yet losing no dignity. Was Robyn’s mother trying to tell her, let Ruth be your mother instead of me? Or be more like Ruth than me? Or she herself wasn’t strong enough to be as loyal as Ruth? Robyn had read the book of Ruth many many times. Always the same line stuck in her ears — "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay."

Rod and his stupid lights again. She really shouldn’t be so irritated by him. She had gone along with the dream too. She looked back at John’s cottage. A little light shone in the loft window. Likely Daisy had turned it on for her.

Rod would have to wait, she decided. She knew she was a cute enough kid with the dark unruly curls of her mother, people said. There would be other blankets to share the corners of, maybe with a man who would make her skin tingle and her belly burn a little more.

Then she did a thing she had never done before. She cast a tiny tender prayer out over the plush black star speckled water — "Dear God in heaven, please let my mother know somehow I’m thinking of her tonight."

She listened through two more surges then stood up. The sun bleached stones and crayfish bones glowed in the darkness. They rolled and crunched underfoot as she climbed back toward the cottage, gingerly touching the parrot pecks on her head.