The Sandbox Theory

  He pulls in to Barney’s Border Gas just as it opens, hoping for any distraction to stay awake. An older fellow shuffles across the gravel in worn out cowboy boots and a beat up old felt hat.

  “Fill ‘er up please.”

  The old guy nods, not saying a word as he unscrews the gas cap.

  “Any fishing around here?” Sid needs conversation, any stimulation.

  “At the river.” The old fellow points across a field, and Sid follows his tranquil eyes. Sid can’t help but wonder, thinking of Ryan’s trip down south, if this could be Pepe’s twin of the north. Sid hands him the cash and he ambles back to the station.

  In spite of the northern twin, staying awake isn’t going to happen. Sid struggles to make it to the Rosetown schoolyard. A familiar place could be great for a lifesaving nap.

  There’s no one around the school today. He pulls up beside the steel bicycle rack by the entrance. Leaning the seat of his Subaru wagon all the way back, he turns on his side to curl up. The image swirl takes him back to schoolyard days. He is six years old when a seven-year-old taunts him to touch his tongue to the mid-winter steel. His choice as an individual is blatantly tested. Another lesson of life. To never again be caught like a fish on a hook; tongue frozen to a bike rack. Make your own choices the sore tongue memory reminds him as he drifts off.

  The beep beep of his wristwatch alarm brings him back. Deeper in dreamland, the sultan has now finished the long and arduous journey, listening to the wisest of the wise. Reams of wisdom and endless stories now must be filtered through his inner sieve to find what might fill his own empty well. Riding his horse slowly home, the sultan mulls over his choices carefully, designing the new kingdom that will be his.

  Sid clicks the lever to pop the seat upright. The nap is revitalizing.

  Another hour. He’ll recognize Andrew easily this time. It’s Andy’s mother, Auntie Lola who will be new. Finally, Sid will meet the one who left so many years ago, the one from the far off mansion. Cruising past the potash operation, he watches a loaded train pulling away from the mines to parallel him.

  It’s been over five years since Sid first came to meet Andy. Things can change with time, but things can stay just as they were. He watches the train catching up with him on the flat. He races with it into the city, triggered to relive more carefree days.

  Walking into the airport, Sid sees a clock reading ten minutes to touchdown. The polyester chairs invite him back, still firmly bolted to the ceramic floor. Sid plops himself gratefully into one, feeling secure in the unchanged. He waits.

  Andy first appears following the trickle of passengers coming through customs. He looks different somehow, the golden glitter now more subdued. A well-dressed woman walks with him, a mystery of the family’s past sauntering through the long-cloaked doors of distance and decades. Sid’s eyebrows rise. The two follow the guiding cloth ribbons connecting chromed poles.

  “Andy.” Sid raises his hand.

  “Hello Sid.” Andy’s eyes look early-morning. “Meet Mother.”

  Her hair, dark like that of her son, is pulled back, while high cheek bones, full lips and a delicate nose grace her well-proportioned face. She’s a stunningly attractive version of a Mirchuk woman, dressed formally in a black and white. An auburn sash graces her collar, highlighting her face in a sophisticated manner. Despite her mature beauty, her eyes look worn, carrying the signature of life’s betrayals. She presses a tight smile Sid’s way.

  “Hello Auntie Lola. I’m your nephew Sidney, Frank’s son.” He introduces himself with a cautious smile.

  “Hello Sidney.” Her voice sounds deep and raucous. “Well, Teresa called, so here we are.” Her smile fades as she looks down over her nose.

  Sid glances at Andy, then back at his aunt.

  “The car’s outside.” He smiles at the formidable and he points a thumb back over his shoulder. “You guys have some bags I see. We’re on our way to the lake and it’s a fantastic fall day.”

  They wheel two large suitcases out into the gathering heat. The two bags barely fit into the back of the wagon. Before Sid can say more, Auntie Lola gets into the back seat, her son opening and closing the door for her.

  Andy looks at Sid across the roof of the Subaru. “She’s quiet sometimes. It’s cool.” He winks, speaking softly.

  Sid raises an eyebrow at his cousin, smiling bravely as he gets in.

  “So Andy, how are things?” Sid asks carefully as they pull away. “And how about you, Auntie?” He glances backwards in the rear-view mirror.

  Andy stifles a yawn. “Hey, we watched the sunrise from the airliner window this morning. So beautiful. And I’ve been reminding Mother of the good times on my last trip to Sahiya.” He looks hopefully at Sid. “Are we going fishing?”

  “Yah, if you want. How about tomorrow morning?” Then Sid turns playfully to Andy. “And just how early?”

  Andy rolls his eyes, shaking his head.

  They pull out on the highway, starting their northward trek past the fields of grain, mostly cultivated now. The sky shines with a promise of the lake lands ahead.

  “You still got that 911?” Sid asks. “Or you upgraded?”

  “Actually, I sold the Porsche. Just last year. I have a car kind of like yours now, only it’s a Toyota.”

  “Really?” Sid frowns. He notices Andy glancing into the back seat. In the rear-view Sid’s aunt seems lost in a glassy eyed stare out the window.

  Andy looks back at the road, listening.

  “The truth is we’re having some family problems back home, Sid. Something of a shake up.”

  “Is losing your Porsche is part of it?”

  “We’re not living at John’s house any longer. Mother and I live up in Inglewood now.” Andy speaks seriously. “No more life at the beach. We rent an apartment and I sold the Porsche to help pay rent for a few months.”

  “No shit.” Sid wishes he could be silent more often. “I mean I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “No big thing. Mother and I talked about it on the plane and we have nothing to hide.” Sid sees his aunt’s reflection looking directly at him.

  “So you sold the big house?”

  “No, well, John still lives there. He has a younger woman of course but she doesn’t live there. That wouldn’t be to his advantage in court.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Yes, Mother has an attorney and John has one too. The next court date is in November, right Lola?” He looks back over the seat.

  Auntie Lola nods, as her eyes drift across the fields.

  “John and Robert are cutting us out of the finances as much as they can. There’s Mother’s alimony, but that’s based on John’s personal income. They keep most of the assets in the business. We’ll work things out I guess.” Andy continues. “And then there’s the other court case, when does Robert’s court date come up, Mother? In October?”

  “Robert’s?” Sid frowns.

  “That’s criminal court. The police found some cocaine derivative in one of the shipping containers, so the company has charges pending. Robert has a criminal attorney. He appeared in front of one judge already.”

  “That’s a lot of court dates.” Sid says gently.

  The ritual of silence settles in. They float down the highway into the Saskatchewan River valley, crossing the long steel bridge over the constant brown flow of water on its way to Hudson’s Bay. They all look away, each with their own view up or down the tree-lined valley.

  “Have you been out fishing …” Sid catches himself, wondering about the family boat, “… on the Pacific?”

  “Yes.” Andy rubs his nose as he speaks. “Quite a bit recently. My friend Screamer has a boat, so we’re dropping the Marlin and getting out on the ocean more. I love it out there.”

  Sid thinks of the Ronny’s Rentals party last reunion. He looks away, out over the fields in their progressive stages of harvest. Swaths of golden grain stitch a pattern together like some kind of fabric. A combine gathers the real returns o
n another year of investment in fields like Grandpa’s.

  Sid glances in the rear-view again. The vastness of Auntie Lola’s home province seems to reflect back a flicker of softness on her now. This very same highway would be the one she drove down with Uncle Harry in the ’55 Chevy. And then with the speed boat guys and her cousin Ksandra on their way to the city. A highway driving her forward from adolescence towards the colliding decisions of later times.

  “Blaine Lake is just a couple miles.” Sid says. “You guys wanna stop?”

  “Yes, Sidney. Please let’s stop, just for a minute.” Auntie Lola speaks unexpectedly. Sid pulls over into the parking lot, recalling the time when he imagined the Fairmont as a Porsche.

  Andy hops around to get the door for his mother. She steps out, her high black leather shoes wobbling on the gravel. She stretches up to her full height, and takes the deepest breath. It kindles a flame within her, one that ripples down her cheeks, raising a tingle of colour. The glow holds for a moment, but a flicker of disillusion starts in one eye to uproot the vitality, scattering it wide. Her head falls and her lips begin to quiver. She walks firmly past the car, forcing her way across the parking lot.

  Sid looks over hopefully at Andy. His cousin peers back, with a resigned look. Sid leans his chin on his hands draped over the car door, like a dog patiently waiting for the return of a disgruntled human. His eyes droop and he’s almost grateful. Tiredness helps him with patience.

  “Will Franco and Ryan be coming?” Andy asks.

  “That’s what I hear. Ryan’s married now.”

  “Really.”

  “Yah. He met her when he went to visit Uncle Nick.”

  “Cool.”

  Auntie Lola comes strolling slowly back, her sash fluttering. She turns her face, eyes reddened, into the drying breeze. Now the corners of her lips spread into a tiny calm smile. She gazes silently at her son and nephew. They sense there is nothing else but to get back in the car, and carry on.

  They cruise into the rolling green bush north of Blaine Lake. The unchanged green nature of this place gives Sid hope, a small peace sermon from the church of his choice.

  “Where did all these hills come from?” Andy looks over with a spontaneous twinkle. “They’re almost mountains.”

  “This province is flat as a board.” Sid grins.

  Andy’s burst of wake-up energy continues and he talks of the types of people that would come to live in such a place, something he’s learning about at UCLA. Not a surprise to Sid that his cousin, it turns out, is taking social science classes, studying people like Grandpa.

  They make the turn at Shellbrook. As the rodeo grounds fade into the dust cloud behind them, they drive by the Witchekan Lake house with its stone balcony view of the swamp. Sid asks Andy if the name ever came up.

  Andy thinks back. “We were sitting around the pool one afternoon and the wind shifted to offshore. The yellow air came rolling in over the hills and I told everyone I learned a little native language up in Canada.” He looks back at Auntie Lola. “You remember Mother? You laughed.”

  A new smugness spreads across Auntie Lola’s face. “Witchekan Beach. Yes, it did smell bad that day.” She speaks through the wrap and trap of fine attire, as a girl from Saskatchewan now. “It’s a stinking house anyways and it was time we got out.”

  “You remember the thunderstorm when we came through last time?” Andy asks. “You should have seen it, Mother, we drove right into it. Serious lightning and a real downpour.”

  “It cleans up the air when it comes down like that.” Sid says. “You can smell it after. Good for the grain in the spring.”

  “The crops look good this year.” Auntie Lola’s country days speak. “The ones I know. Wheat used to be the only thing growing here. What are some of these crops?”

  “Things can change, hey Auntie.” Sid says.

  “They sure can, Sidney.” Auntie Lola stares around.

  Grandpa Pawlo’s dreams came true with fields of wheat, but those dreams are now replaced by other grains – new specialty crops mature in old wheat fields. New dreams creep in on the old.

  “You wanna pop in at the graveyard?” Sid asks cheerfully.

  “I wouldn’t mind, Sidney.” Auntie Lola answers smoothly.

  They almost skid to a halt just short of the Debden corner.

  Carefully they walk among the gravestones. Sid spots Grandpa Pawlo’s stone peacefully passing its day in the sun beside Grandma’s. Sid winks at them and can almost see his grandma’s wave as she comes back in from her garden. Oh, to ever remember flowers, Sid chastises himself. Auntie Lola seems to know of another stone, and they follow her. Ksandra Mirchuk is chiselled into the granite marker, the dates showing her short time. Auntie Lola bows down, her eyes washing over the spirit of her long gone cousin and friend. She pulls forget-me-nots growing there, gently holding them in her hand as a young girl would. Sid wonders which spirits mingle now.

  “Let’s pull in at the farm.” Auntie Lola looks at Sid.

  “The farm …?” Sid asks. “Oh, like you mean where Ksandra lived …”

  “Yes, it’s just a couple miles.” She replies.

  “Sure Auntie.” Sid starts to feel even more peaceful.

  They wander back to the car. Auntie Lola carries the tiny bouquet from the grounds of eternal resting places. She sticks the wild flowers through one of the buttonholes in her blouse just below her sash, her jacket now removed in the afternoon heat.

  A large friendly dog chases them along the entrance road. An older fellow is just walking out of the house, maybe on his way back to harvest after lunch, and he stops on the veranda when he notices their approach. They wave, and he turns to call back into the house. A woman appears.

  “I’ll just be a minute.” Auntie Lola gets out, slowly walking over to the steps.

  Andy and Sid look at each other as they see recognition replace the questioning furrows in the old couple’s faces.

  Auntie Lola walks rapidly up the steps to the railing. Two full rolling tears gain momentum down her cheeks. She embraces them both, holding each for a moment. The three of them gaze at each other across the winds of time, almost as if it’s enough, or even too much. Then, quite suddenly, Lola comes back down the steps, almost as quickly as she climbed them.

  Sid looks at his aunt, understands, and turns the car around, waving apologetically behind. They drive out, back onto the secondary.

  “She drowned in the lake Auntie?”

  “Yes Sidney, Ksandra drowned in Sahiya.” Auntie Lola looks straight into the rear-view.

  “Uncle Nick said it was more than just an accident.” Sid grasps a bubble of courage. “Uncle Harry said she had all her clothes on …”

  “We’ll have to talk, Harry and Nick and I.” Auntie Lola continues to meet his reflection squarely. “We’ll have to talk.” Sid sees a flash in her eyes. Anger?

  He turns his attention to the road, leaning into the smooth curve veering right, back onto a true north heading that leaves the last of the grain fields behind. He glances left, knowing Grandpa Pawlo’s field of dreams are but a few miles. He vows to make his own stop on the way back to the city. It has to happen this time.

  As they come off the curve, the sandy lake country waves a swaying branches greeting. The bush, yet to be conquered by people, envelopes them in an endless chapel of pews the ones at least Sid’s eyes see stretching out all around.

  They pull in to the dry grass ditch beside the cabin, where the huge puddle of water stood five years back. September is too cool for thunderstorms, a warm dry month, and good for harvesting crops of grain. Auntie Lola steps out to greet the lake air, opening the door herself.

  Chapter 17

  Sid and his California cousin promise Lola they’ll come back, when she finishes her visit with her one brother. They leave Frank and Lola in a whirl of catching up. Walking out the cabin door, they overhear Uncle Harry’s name … over at the hall helping his sisters. The next Mirchuk reunion is coming to town.


  They drive the Subaru along Sahiya Lake’s September waters, past the boat launch, and pull in to park between two trucks by the community hall sign. Sid swears one of them looks like an Uncle Francis truck, but it’s the cleanest farm truck he’s ever seen. The yellow door in the side of the hall greets them with its jangling return chain, as they step into the cool interior.

  Uncle Harry is in their faces right away, like a politician on a campaign trail, coming over to pump Sid’s hand and quickly introducing himself to Andy. He wears an ear-to-ear grin, so wired Sid suspects amphetamines. Teresa and Anna are happy, as it turns out Harry is overflowing with service work energy. He wants to help everybody with everything and the aunties don’t mind having someone to assign to details.

  Sid looks long at Uncle Harry. This same man who was drinking his life away such a short time ago. The change in the guy is dramatic, surely a net increase in social value … a red-letter dividend for a long abandoned human stock on the spiritual trading floor.

  “You need any help Uncle?” Sid asks.

  “Yah, sure … hey we’re trying to get this sound system working. We got the tables and chairs set up but we want excellent communication from the stage. ‘Cause we want to really hear the music, man. It’s gonna be the greatest family get together ever.” He raises peace sign hands up towards the ceiling in a salute of victory. “So we want everything to be juuust perfect.” He adds in a loud whisper.

  “Right. What can we do?” Sid glances at Andy, raising an eyebrow. Andy looks back, rolling his eyes as he nods. “By the way, we’re talking about fishing tomorrow morning Uncle, if you want to come along.”

  “Yah, sure that could be an idea.” A non-committed vague reply. “Now we have to get this sound system working right, and not just that, we need a video image on the TV screen. Marlene’s over in the office, starting with what we have.” Uncle Harry bounces over towards the kitchen.

  “Who’s Marlene?” Andy asks after him.

  “My daughter.” Uncle Harry turns back, face beaming with pride, then slipping into a tinge of shame. “Yah, she is my daughter.” He repeats himself in a softer voice. “Come on, you guys have another cousin.”

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