Dreamer's Daughter: Surviving My Childhood and Raising My Father

I felt a tug. My father was gathering me and my little brother into his burly, tattooed arms. The three of us were silent—a rare event. I stared at the pile of charred planks until I could make out the clump of metal that must have been our freezer, filled with butcher-paper packets of moose meat, and fish from Kenogami Lake. Beyond, my room with the princess bed was now all cinders and collapsed beams from the attic, where my father and brother used to sleep on mattresses on the floor.

“Maybe we took a wrong turn.” My nine-year-old brother’s voice ached with wanting—wanting to believe that our house was still standing down some other country road. Skinny but with chubby cheeks, he held on to our father like he would crawl inside him if he could. Being younger, he had it harder, but I didn’t try to make him feel any better. I had my own shit to worry about. Like guilt, because more than anything, I’d wanted to get the hell out of Kirkland Lake. My desire alone could have set that house on fire.

The whole place must have ignited as sparks to tinder. Like most homes in the North, it was made of wood; even the red bricks were papered on. We’d been down south when it happened, so the fire had burned undetected. Neighbors raised the alarm only when the flames climbed high enough above the scrub pines to lick the sky like Northern Lights.

Our farmhouse had already gone up in smoke by the time the town’s fire truck peeled out past the Mile o’ Gold.

Suddenly, I heard a crackle. Brad and I jumped back as something settled in the remains of our kitchen. Just the week before, a long wooden table had been right there, its vinyl tablecloth partly melted where someone—probably me—had left a hot pot. Now it was all gone—along with a pile of letters, and one large brown envelope from the insurance company, stamped in red: FINAL NOTICE.

Remind me to pay that, won’t you, Lor?

I hadn’t reminded him.

“Dad, the fire insurance!” I said, like we still had time to pay it.

I watched the realization dawn across his face: No insurance. No nothing.

My father surveyed the pile of rubble and ash that used to be our home and then turned back to us with a bright look in his eyes. He stretched his arms out, thrusting them skyward.

“Well, kids,” he said, “now we’re free!”

Brad and I exchanged a look of panic. Where our father saw free, we saw homeless.

“Come on. Don’t wear that face.” My father poked me with his elbow. “We still have each other. We only lost stuff.”

“But it was our stuff!”

Brad grabbed hold of our father’s hand. I didn’t. I was damned if I was going to admit to needing anyone. I crossed my arms over my chest, resentment growing with every breath of that scorched air.

“So, where are we supposed to live now?”

“Anywhere we want.”

“Sure, Dad.” It seemed so simple, if you could just forget the part about our family having no money.

Behind us, the engine of our Volkswagen van was clinking as it cooled down. My father cocked his head in the direction of the sound.

“Lucky we still have our clothes, eh?”

“Yeah, Dad, so lucky.”

He raised his eyebrows at me.

Our things in the van’s back seat were all we had left now; the clothes we’d gone away with, plus some of my books, my brother’s chessboard, and my father’s war medals, saved only by being mixed in with my jewelry. I wished I’d thought to pack my grandfather’s poems. But how could I have known that our house would burn down?

My father shook his thick finger at me. “You worry too much.”

“Well, you worry too little.”

“Dad, Dad!” Brad, his long hair falling over one freckled cheek, was tugging urgently on our father’s sleeve.

“What is it, son?”

“If we don’t live here anymore, how will Mom find us?”