Pru Burbidge lives a simple life on the family homestead on Dalhousie Road in 1940s rural Nova Scotia—until her father abandons the family and her mother falls ill. Her life is turned upside-down by these events, and she is forced to take on the role of primary caregiver to her siblings, Jessie, Flora, and Davey. Things go from bad to worse when Pru’s mother dies, leaving Pru and Jessie, her older brother, to care for the family in secret so they are not separated and sent away to foster homes, or worse—the orphan house. Pru and Jessie do everything they can to hide the fact that their mother has passed away and keep the family together, but their situation becomes increasingly dire as their money and food supplies begin to run out and their neighbours start getting suspicious. When the situation comes to a head and they are on the verge of being found out, Pru and her siblings must work together to save their family from being torn apart.
Laura Best has lived in the small community of East Dalhousie her entire life. She was a contributor to Christmas in the Maritimes: A Treasury of Stories and Memories and A Maritime Christmas: New Stories and Memories of the Season, and her fiction has been published in literary magazines across Canada, including The Antigonish Review, Grain, and Room. In 2003, her short story “Alexander the Great” was nominated for the Journey Prize. This is her first novel.
Excerpt
That has to be the law, thought Pru Burbidge the day a strange car stopped in front of the house. It was late January and bitterly cold, even with a fire burning in the kitchen stove. The bottoms of all the windows were decorated with sheets of frost frozen so solid that Pru had just a small patch of glass to see through. An icy wind had whipped across the crest of the snow all that morningand shut the house completely off from the main road. Although a wide white expanse separated the house from the driver of the car, Pru was frightened. She wished Jesse were here. She had considered this exact situation many times in her mind, wondering what her reaction might be if the law came calling while she was home alone with Flora and Davey.
The car was sitting just a few feet past the row of maple trees and it might have been completely hidden had it not been for the fact that one of the trees had snapped in twoduring a big windstorm late last summer and had needed to be removed.
***
Reese Buchanan helped Jesse cut the tree up for firewood— they worked all day cutting and splitting. The air was cool and a light breeze rustled through the treetops. Mama said it was perfect wood-splitting weather and it couldn’t have been more perfect for working than if they had ordered the weather up special. Then she said they would have to celebrate the firewood later when she was feeling less tired.
“Reese has been a good friend to us, Pru,” Mama said as she sat beside the window watching them work up the wood. “I don’t know what we would have done way out here in Dalhousie without him.”
Reese stayed for supper and Mama sat at the table with her housecoat wrapped around her because she didn’t feel up to getting properly dressed. She kept thanking Reese, and Reese kept saying, “Oh, it was really nothing,” looking more bashful each time.
***
For a time no one got out of the car, but it made Pru nervous all the same. Pulling the curtain back just far enough to get a clear view without being seen, Pru gestured for Flora and Davey to keep quiet. The two youngest Burbidges were playing a game of go fish, laughing whenever one of them called for a card that the other was holding. Reese had brought the deck of cards over last week. They were old and worn and twice their normal thickness, but every queen and king and ace was accounted for. The cards had been a great distraction, and with the all the snow outside and not being able to make it out to the schoolhouse most days, they’d spent much of their time shuffling the deck of cards back and forth.
Davey laid his cards down and joined his older sister at the window, stretching up on his tiptoes to see out. “Who’s that, Pru?” he asked, as if sensing her apprehension.
“It might be the law or someone from Children’s Aid,”she said, knowing that both were equally serious.
“The law?”
“Take Flora and go upstairs,” said Pru in her most authoritative voice, the one that she’d been practising since Mama got sick.
“Come on, Flora,” said Davey, not bothering to argue with Pru, which his older sister was most grateful for.
“You be quiet as mice. And watch out for that broken step!” Pru called out as she heard them shuffle up the stairs. There was a small cubbyhole at the top of the staircase beneath the attic steps; this was the place they were supposed to hide if ever they were told to, the place both Pru and Jesse knew they could fit in as well. There was a small latch on the inside of the door that could be hooked if need be. Pru had always hoped that need would not arise.
Pru had no reason to believe that the police had been sent for them, but it had been the first thing that came into her mind when she saw the strange car parked out by the road. Besides, Mama had warned them that this might happen.
“You be careful what you tell them,” Mama had said. “Don’t tell them any more than they want to know. And no matter what, don’t look like you’ve got something to hide. They’ll send you all away and that’ll be the last you’ll see of one another. You’ll end up in foster homes or at the orphan house.”
Pru knew her brothers and sister looked up to her; all of them did, including Jesse, even though he was the oldest. Jesse rarely made any important decision without first consulting her. But they had decided it would have to be that way right from the start. A united front. Mama had said that the most important thing was that they stick together.