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  SARAH’S LEGACY

  SARAH’S LEGACY

  Valerie Sherrard

  Copyright © Valerie Sherrard, 2006

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Editor: Barry Jowett

  Copy-Editor: Jennifer Gallant

  Design: Jennifer Scott

  Printer: Webcom

  National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Sherrard, Valerie

  Sarah’s legacy / Valerie Sherrard.

  ISBN-10: 1-55002-602-X

  ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-602-3

  I. Title.

  PS8587.H3867S27 2006 jC813’.6 C2006-900508-7

  1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books , and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard , President

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  www.dundurn.com

  Dundurn Press

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  To Mom and Dad with much love

  I pause to think of years gone by

  (A child can’t know how time will fly)

  And moments that will never fade

  That live in memory’s parade.

  The many times Dad read to me

  Those wondrous words of poetry

  (Of moo cow moos and master’s hands)

  Transporting me to made-up lands.

  And Mom, in endless, countless ways

  You cared for me through childhood days

  You mended clothes and hearts and knees

  And taught me so much — patiently!

  Within my heart to hold, to stay

  The gold remains. The dross? Away!

  What live — and shall live ever after

  Are memories of love and laughter.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Parents who read to their children give them something that cannot be equalled by any other means. My parents, Bob and Pauline Russell, to whom this book is dedicated, shared their love of poetry and literature with my brothers, Danny and Andrew, and me from the time we could barely walk. Some of my fondest childhood memories are centred around stories and poems, and I can still hear their voices, one soft, one deep, but both delivering the words with feeling and passion. For their love and support, then and now, I thank them. For many other things, I thank:

  My husband, partner, and best friend, Brent.

  My son, Anthony, his wife, Maria, and daughter, Emilee. My daughter, Pamela, and her fiancé, David Jardine. My brothers and their families: Danny and Gail; Andrew, Shelley, and Bryce. My “other” family: Ron and Phoebe Sherrard, Ron Sherrard and Dr. Kiran Pure, Bruce and Roxanne Mullin, and Karen Sherrard.

  Friends: Janet Aube, Jimmy Allain, Karen Arseneault, Dawn Black, Karen Donovan, Angi Garofolo, John Hambrook, Sandra Henderson, Jim Hennessy, Alf Lower, Mary Matchett, Johnnye Montgomery, Marsha Skrypuch, Linda Stevens, Ashley Smith, Pam Sturgeon, and Bonnie Thompson.

  At The Dundurn Group: Kirk Howard, Publisher, as well as very special thanks to some of the awesome team: my editor, Barry Jowett; director of design, Jennifer Scott; and assistant editor Jennifer Gallant.

  My fabulous agent: Leona Trainer of Transatlantic Literary Agency.

  Teenagers! Hearing from you is the best part of writing, and I love getting your letters and emails. In recent months, the following readers have taken the time to get in touch: Avalon Borg, Victoria Briggs, Laura Graziano, Melissa Harms, Vanessa Hesse, Samantha-Louise Landry, Samantha Lo, Andrea Lucchese, Chelsea Purdy, Bailey Tait, Kelisha Villafana, and Veronica Williston. Also, Fiona To has shared many words, as well as work that holds tremendous promise.

  You are on these pages and they belong to you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  You know how it is when you get a feeling that something big is going to happen? Like when you wake up in the morning and everything inside you somehow knows that there’s a good thing coming, and then you find out that your essay won a pizza party for your class, or your best friend invites you to her family’s cottage for a whole week, or something else really cool happens.

  Well, it wasn’t like that for me. In fact, that Thursday started out like any other day.

  I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, made a sandwich for lunch, and headed off to school. The day passed as normal as you please, with nothing out of the ordinary at all.

  I checked the mail on my way in from school that afternoon. I always did that, seeing as I got home before Mom. She worked over at Pete’s Diner and didn’t get home until after seven. Some days it was even later. She always brought our supper home in a brown paper bag. Usually it was the special of the day. Sometimes they ran out of the special and we had hotdogs and fries or, if the tips had been really good that day, a piece of chicken. Whatever it was, it was always almost cold because the diner was a fifteen-minute walk from our apartment. But by then I’d be hungry enough not to care, even if I’d had a snack after school.

  Anyway, I was mentioning the mail. I never paid much attention to it, although I knew some people did. They probably got more interesting mail than we did. We never got any mail worth getting excited over. At least, we didn’t before this particular day. Mostly, the only thing we got was bills. Mom tried to look cheerful when she opened them. She’d usually say something like, “Well, this isn’t too bad. We can pay this.” Once in a while, though, she didn’t say anything and she couldn’t quite hide the worry. Then I knew not to ask for money for a Saturday matinee or any of the other little extras that we could usually afford.

  On this Thursday, there was a letter for Mom. I hardly glanced at it before I put it on top of the fridge, except to see that it had some kind of business return label in the corner and that Mom’s name and address were typed. I figured that meant it was probably a bill of some sort. I hoped it wasn’t an overdue notice. We got those once in a while and they always upset Mom.

  I guess most people would consider us poor. Well, I suppose we were, in a way. But we had enough to eat and a place to live. Mom always said that if you had those two things you were doing okay. She said there were more important things in life than fancy houses and cars and stuff and I guess she was right. Still, there were times when I wished I had some of the things other kids at school had.

  Most of all, though, I wished that my mom didn’t have to work long shifts at Pete’s Diner. She worked six days a week but Pete didn’t pay her any overtime. He said he could always get someone else to work the extra hours at regular pay if she didn’t like it. I guess that was true, but it’s hard to see your mom tired all the time and looking a lot older than her thirty-
four years.

  When she got home that evening everything was still going along the way it always did. She brought Styrofoam bowls with chili and thick slices of whole wheat bread and we sat at the table to eat. It was wobbling a little, like it always did, because the floor wasn’t even and one leg didn’t quite touch.

  Mom asked me about my day at school and I asked her about work. She didn’t eat much of her supper, which was pretty normal too. She always said that after looking at food all day her appetite was gone.

  Our television hadn’t been working since about a month before, when it had just died in the middle of Corner Gas. Mom thought it was the picture tube and she figured it would cost more to fix it than the set was worth. We’d started a TV fund, but I wasn’t expecting we’d get another one anytime soon. We had a cookie jar, the old-fashioned kind, and we’d put spare money into it when we were saving up for something special. Somehow, other things always came up and we had to borrow from the jar. Well, we called it borrowing, but the jar never seemed to get paid back.

  I didn’t care much about the TV. Most evenings I did my homework and read for a while, or Mom and I sat around and played rummy and crib and just talked. That night was no different.

  We’d gotten out the crib board and cut the deck to see who’d have the first crib hand. Low card always wins that, and I’d cut a three to Mom’s seven, so it was my turn to deal. I was just shuffling the cards when I remembered the envelope for Mom.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” I said. “There’s a letter for you.” I jumped up and fetched it from the top of the fridge, hoping it wasn’t anything that would upset Mom. Then she might not feel like playing cards. I passed it to her and sat back down, waiting.

  She looked at the return address for a minute and her face got puzzled and a bit worried.

  “This is from a lawyer’s office,” she said slowly, sliding her fingernail under the flap and tearing it open. “What could it be about?”

  It was the kind of question that isn’t looking for an answer so I stayed quiet, feeling almost angry at whoever had sent the letter. We sure didn’t need any bad news.

  Mom’s mouth was moving then, the way it does when she reads something to herself. Sometimes I’d try to read her lips but this time I just sat there crossing my fingers. I’ve never found that this helps, but I still did it just in case.

  “My great-aunt Sarah passed away,” Mom announced when she was partway through the letter. Her shoulders kind of sagged with relief and I thought maybe crossing my fingers had finally worked. Not that I thought someone dying was good news or anything, but it was better than an overdue notice we couldn’t pay. And I couldn’t remember ever hearing of this aunt before, so it was pretty hard to feel sad.

  “Sarah?” I asked, curious because that’s also my name. “Am I named after her?”

  “Yes and no,” Mom said distractedly. I hate it when she says that, like it’s supposed to tell me something. I said nothing, though, because she was reading again and the expression on her face was changing. “Wait,” she said, “that’s not all.” Pink spots appeared in her cheeks and she looked shocked.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “What is it?” I asked anxiously. Mom looked dazed, which made her face hard to read. I couldn’t tell if the news in the rest of the letter was good or bad.

  “Wait,” she said in a hushed voice. She was reading the letter again, as if she wasn’t sure she’d really understood what it said. When she finished going through it for the second time her fingers loosened and it fluttered to the table. Her hands were trembling.

  “Oh, Sarah!” she whispered. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or referring to her great-aunt. Either way I was getting a bit impatient to know what it was all about. Then Mom took a deep breath and looked across the table at me. It seemed as if she was having a hard time focusing her eyes, the way she stared almost without seeing me.

  “My aunt,” she began in a faltering voice, “has left us everything. Everything.”

  “You mean money?” The first thought that came to me was that Mom wouldn’t have to work all those long shifts anymore. Then, I had a vision of us being rich and me being able to have all kinds of things we could never afford now. I felt a twinge of guilt for thinking so quickly about what I was going to get out of it.

  “It sounds as if there’s some money,” Mom answered, “though I don’t know how much. But the big thing is her estate. She’s left us her home and all its contents. And her pets.”

  “Her pets?”

  “Apparently there’s a variety, though it doesn’t say exactly what. Probably a cat and dog or something. One of the conditions of the will is that we take care of them.”

  “How will we get them here?” “We won’t. That’s the other condition.” Mom seemed to be working things out in her head and took a minute to continue. “In order to inherit the property, we have to live in the house at least until you complete your education. After that we’re free to sell it if we want to.”

  I thought that was kind of weird, then realized there was a lot more at stake than this aunt’s oddities. “Where is it?” I asked quickly.

  “A small city in New Brunswick called Miramichi.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said, as if I could wish the place away like that. “Anyway, I don’t want to live in New Brunswick. I like Ontario.”

  Mom looked cross then and told me I was being selfish. I could feel a lecture coming and I was right. She told me that this was a chance for us to have a house and for her not to have to kill herself working just to keep us going and there I was complaining at the idea of moving. Still, we’d lived in Ontario my whole life and the thought of going somewhere else made my stomach feel kind of sick.

  “But all my friends are here,” I said sullenly. “I don’t want to move.”

  “I see,” Mom said. Her lips had gone into a thin line, which always means she’s really angry. “So, you want me to write to this lawyer and tell her we don’t want the house?”

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said, though I could see how it sounded as if that was exactly what I’d meant. “But I don’t understand why we can’t find a way around that part. If she left the place to us we should be allowed to do what we want with it.”

  “As I’ve already told you, there are two conditions to the inheritance. One is that we live there, the other is that we take care of Sarah’s pets. If we aren’t prepared to do that, the house is to be sold and the money from the sale will be used to provide for the pets. When none of them are living, the remaining funds will go to a charity.”

  “That’s stupid. It sounds like she cares more about her dumb animals than she does about us. Why’d she bother leaving us anything if that’s how she felt?”

  “Well, Sarah, I imagine she loved her pets. Perhaps they were her only companions. But she obviously cared about us, too, or she wouldn’t have left us her house. Do you think we were ever going to have a home of our own on the money I make as a waitress?”

  “I guess not.” It was starting to sink in. We were going to be moving, all right. I can’t say I was happy about it.

  “Our own house,” Mom said. She had a faraway look on her face and seemed to be talking to herself again. “I wonder what it’s like.”

  “You’ve never been there?”

  “I’ve never even met my great-aunt,” Mom answered. “I remember seeing pictures of her at my grandfather’s house, though. It seems she was something of a recluse.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A recluse? Someone who doesn’t like to be around other people. I vaguely recall hearing the story of how she went to New Brunswick when she was around twenty, which was quite a thing for a woman on her own in those days. I don’t think anyone ever saw her again after that. The only contact was an occasional letter.”

  This aunt was sounding more and more like a weirdo, if you ask me. I could picture her, old and alone, petting her stu
pid animals and talking to herself.

  “I don’t care where she went or what she did,” I said, “she doesn’t have the right to force people to live somewhere they don’t want to go.”

  “Now, Sarah. This is hardly the worst thing in the world, you know. You might even like living in New Brunswick.”

  “I’ll hate it,” I said firmly. I added “and I hate her” to that, but only in my head.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to the idea, and fast.” Mom sighed and stood up. “I’ll be calling the lawyer tomorrow and making arrangements. If everything goes well, we should be moving by the end of next week.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d be leaving so soon. I mumbled something about waiting until the end of the school year, which was a few months away, but Mom just gave me a look. It was one of those looks that tell you there’s not going to be any more discussion on the matter.

  I stomped off to my room and lay on the bed sulking. The more I thought about the whole thing, the angrier I got. What gave this old woman we’d never even met the right to decide where we were going to live? It wasn’t fair!

  Mom came in later to say good night but I pretended I was already asleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Itried to keep sulking over the weekend but it was just about impossible. Mom was all excited and happy and some of her attitude started rubbing off on me. She’d quit her job as soon as she’d talked to the lawyer and was flitting around packing and singing little snatches of songs. After hearing her talk about our move as some kind of fun adventure, I was starting to feel a bit differently about it.

  I found I was looking at our apartment a lot differently, too. It had seemed okay before, but now it was starting to look pretty shabby. My room, with its worn carpet and its yellow rose–patterned wallpaper that was cracked in several places, suddenly seemed uglier than I’d ever noticed.