It had been nearly two years since Amanda had last spoken to her, but time slipped away the moment the woman answered the phone. The same brisk, no-nonsense voice, with just a hint of Newfoundland.
“Hi, Sheri, it’s Amanda Doucette. How are you?”
A pause, a drop in tone. As if the air had gone out of the room. “Amanda. It’s been a long time. You’re back in Canada for good now, I hear.”
“I am. I just arrived in Port aux Basques.” She paused, listening to the silence. Feeling the chill through the airwaves. Not forgiven, then. “Is Phil there?”
“How could he be? He’s with you.”
“No. I’m supposed to meet him, but I don’t know where.”
“Well, he’s already gone. I imagine he’ll call you, in his own sweet time.”
Bewildered, Amanda plowed ahead. “When did he leave?”
“Two days ago. I’m surprised you haven’t heard from him yet. Well, not exactly surprised, but …”
“Did he say where he was going?”
There was another long silence. Sheri’s voice lost its chill, became uncertain. “He … we … I was out when they left. He didn’t actually say goodbye.”
“They? Who’s with him?”
“Well, Tyler. Our son. He’s going with you.” She paused again. Amanda heard a small intake of breath. “Isn’t he?”
Amanda felt her own small quiver of alarm. First, Phil’s manic excitement about the trip, followed by the days of silence. What was he up to? “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” she forced herself to say. “You know Phil.”
“Indeed I do.”
Amanda rushed on. “He’ll probably be in touch any minute. Meanwhile I’ll head up toward your place.”
“Why?”
Amanda floundered in the heavy silence. “In case he comes back. Or we can at least figure out where Mr. Unreliable has disappeared to.” She hung up before Sheri could object and glanced outside to reassure herself that Kaylee was still there. The early morning fog was lifting, curling off the scoured coastal rock in pale, wraithlike swaths. At this rate, she could reach Grand Falls by afternoon. To what purpose or reception, she wasn’t sure.
Her attempt at levity on the phone was fooling no one, least of all Sheri, who must know how close to the edge Phil could stumble. Indeed, she’d been the one to drag him back more than once over their twelve years together.
Amanda had heard it in her voice at the end. Sheri was angry and fed up, but she was also afraid.
Chapter Two
As the bleak tundra of the southern tip gave way to the canyons of the Humber River valley, Amanda felt the tug of this extreme, unforgiving land. Over the centuries, countless explorers had been lured to the soaring cliffs and dark, secretive forests, but its storms were too fierce and its terrain too barren for all but the most intrepid to settle. The first nor’easter to come through blew most of them off the island, leaving only a few stubborn and contrary fishermen clinging to its sheltered coves.
But it was this primal challenge of nature that excited her. She was in search of a toehold in something pure and timeless, beyond the struggles and cruelties of man — a sense of awe and inspiration that would lift her above the quagmire of her life and help her see further down the road.
Because she knew she could not go back to Africa.
She leaned into the wind and felt the engine throb as she accelerated down the empty road. The bike chewed up the kilometres effortlessly, leaving her thoughts free to return to Phil. She hadn’t seen him in nearly a year since they had both managed to reach the capital of Nigeria. Like her, he’d been a feral shadow of himself, scrawny with hunger and fear, his blue eyes hollow above his matted, black beard. It had taken her three hours in the hotel bath to soak the pain and filth from her body, but Phil had barely tried. He’d just wanted to go home.
Home at the moment was Grand Falls, Newfoundland, where Sheri had lived until her university years and where she and their son were waiting for him. Tyler had been born in happier times when they were all working together for Save the Children in Cambodia, but Sheri had wisely refused to bring him to unstable West Africa and had moved back home instead to live with her parents until Phil’s return.
Nigeria was supposed to be a quick stint, four months at most to help the northern villages cope with the influx of refugees fleeing Boko Haram, but when the violence intensified and their replacements did not arrive, the posting had stretched to nine. Despite repeated entreaties from Sheri to come home, Phil had stayed on with Amanda. The makeshift refugee village in northern Nigeria had seemed so much more real and needy than the cozy Canadian town he barely knew.
Since their return to Canada, his emails to Amanda had been sporadic — crisp two- or three-liners about his latest joe job or his repair work on the little house they had bought on Sheri’s teacher’s salary. His determinedly upbeat emails skimmed the surface of his days, bouncing gaily over the pain of lost jobs, the empty hours, and the lingering wounds of Africa.
Just what was his state of mind? Amanda wondered now, as the afternoon shadows lengthened and the desolate expanse of black spruce continued to unfurl. Phil had never been a talker, unless it was to share a joke or a tall tale. Even now, he had couched this trip as a great adventure, not as the pilgrimage toward healing that she knew it to be. Not just for her, but for him. I can deal, he’d always say. Canadians have no right to complain. Unlike those we help, we have a warm, safe country to go home to.
But warmth and safety, she knew, was not a place. It was a state of mind.
The city of Grand Falls came up unexpectedly out of the rolling emptiness of interior Newfoundland. Unlike most of the rough-and-tumble fishing villages that had cropped up like barnacles along the rocky ocean coves, Grand Falls had been built as a pulp-and-paper company town, prosperous and orderly. But according to Phil, the closing of the mill after a hundred years had left it bruised and struggling for a new source of purpose and jobs. He’d been lucky to land seasonal work during the Christmas holidays and the mid-winter festival.
Amanda knew it wasn’t about the money, for both of them had received modest compensation for their ordeal through the NGO’s medical plan. It was about having a reason to get out of bed and a goal to aim for, preferably mindless and light. Amanda had spent her year focusing on her mind and body— yoga, meditation, and a rigorous fitness regime, all designed to make her feel in control again. Sometimes it even worked.
Phil and Sheri’s house was a small bungalow in the older section of town down near the Exploits River. The clapboard siding was painted a vibrant yellow, and purple asters and miniature white roses spilled onto the slate path leading to the covered porch, complementing the large, hand-painted welcome sign on the door. The place had an optimism that belied the worn treads on the steps and the peeling paint on the siding. Like Phil, it was making the best of lean times.
She rumbled gratefully into the gravel lane that ran up beside the house. There was a white Cavalier parked against the house, and the door flew open just as she was easing her stiff body off the bike. Sheri appeared in the doorway, her lips a tight slash of red.
“Any word?” she asked before Amanda could even say hello, sending her hopes crashing. She studied Sheri cautiously. Neither woman had ever been a fashion plate; in the places they’d worked, comfort and availability in clothing trumped any thought of style. But the woman had obviously done herself over. She’d lost the residual mommy fat and clothed her now curvaceous body in skinny jeans and long red sweater. She had cut her long brown hair to a fashionable shoulder length and added auburn streaks. Oversized gold hoop earrings danced in the sunlight.
Amanda