Dale Synnett-Caron

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

photo credit Allyson Latta

Exposure

A dusty station wagon pulls into our gravelled driveway. Five kids, first cousins from Toronto, tumble out, visiting us for the first time. My aunt is pretty, like my mom, but with a wizened bird look to her. A big man steps out from behind the steering wheel, says he’s our Uncle Dave.

The grownups hug and shake hands while us kids eyeball each other. We two girls and our little brother are country: skinned knees, summer-bleached hair, only two channels on the black and white TV set. These cousins are older. And they smell different. Like cement and cigar smoke.

The adults head into the house. Mom calls over her shoulder to show our cousins the country life.

We stand around, shy with each other. The drone of insects, the wind in the trees louder than usual. The cousins look at us expectantly. The oldest boy, Jamie, kicks the dirt. His eyes remind me of my best friend’s beagle dog—big, brown, kind of sad looking.

The youngest boy says his name is Bobby. He holds up a shiny brass lock to a twinkling blue eye and snaps his finger down repeatedly. “Click! Click!” “This lock’s also a magic camera—smile!” I feel like an animal at a roadside zoo, but I’m intrigued too.

My brother picks up the reins. “Wanna go fishing?”

The city cousins look at each other. Smiles burst onto pale faces.

We grab shovels from the shed and show them how to pull fat, pink worms from the earth of the vegetable garden. Bamboo fishing poles are slung over slim shoulders. We head to the creek that runs dark, like steeped tea, behind our house.

I show them how to bait a hook, not letting on that I feel sorry for the worms. We teach them how to cast a line; to watch the red and white bobber, and to pull hard when it dips underwater.

Before long, fish dangle like jewels from bent poles—catfish, pickerel, sunfish. The air vibrates with the buzz of bees and excited banter. Slimy hands are wiped on clean city clothes.

When Dad calls across the field that it’s time for supper, we walk back to the house, family now—bound not just by blood, but by that bucket of fish—handed over to our elderly neighbour who says she’ll chop them up to feed to her barn cats. Bobby dances around us, snapping more photos with his magic lock camera. He says it’s the best day ever.

He and Jamie are up early the next day eager to return to the creek. I get the gear ready and the three of us leave the sleeping house. Mist swirls above the still water like a spell cast for the promise of fish.

My cousins awkwardly release their lines into the water, but they’ve cast too close to each other. When Bobby gets a bite and pulls his line up on shore, both become impossibly tangled. We crouch on the dewy grass, backs bent to the task of separating them.

A shadow looms above, making me jump. It’s Uncle Dave.

“What happened here?” He sleepily scratches the hair on his belly that’s exposed below his undershirt.

“We messed up the lines Dad, but we’re fixing it,” says Jamie.

Uncle Dave crouches and grabs the lines. “Here, let me do it.”

The two boys step back. I make my way to a fallen log and sit down to watch. I know my dad’s good at untangling fishing lines. Maybe city fathers are good at it too.

“Sorry, Dad,” says Jamie.

Uncle Dave stands, the jumbled fishing lines in his big hands, working at the knots.

“Sorry, Dad.” Jamie’s voice sounds shaky. I feel like saying he doesn’t need to be sorry. Their dad isn’t having much luck with the lines, but we can always string up new ones.

Uncle Dave frowns and turns to the boys. “How did this happen?”

“I caught a fish, Dad—a big one!” says Bobby. “He got away when I tried to pull him in, but he was a big one, Dad!”

It happens fast. The jumbled lines dropped from beefy hands; Bobby’s shell-pink ear, grabbed and squeezed—hard; the boy dragged by the ear, like a hooked fish, across the field.

Startled, I look at Jamie, but his back is to me. I know boys cry but it’s best not to notice.

He whispers, “I wish I could live here.”

“Me too,” I say softly, although I don’t think he was talking to me.

We string new lines and try to keep fishing, but it feels different, like the fish all swam away. On our way back to the house I spot something sparkly in the grass: Bobby’s magic lock camera. It must have fallen from his pocket when his dad dragged him away. I stoop and pick it up.

My parents are in the kitchen getting brunch ready. I finger the lock in my pocket thinking maybe it will give me the power to say something. But no words come out.

They pack up to leave that afternoon.

Standing in the driveway for goodbyes, I reach into my pocket and pull out the lock. I had thought about keeping it but now change my mind.

“Here Bobby, you dropped this.” I gently hand it back to him. A grateful smile lights his face.

We wave as the station wagon pulls away. I see Bobby in the wagon’s rear window snapping photos of us. His eyes look all shiny.

If I had a magic camera, I could have taken photos of what Mom and Dad must have missed during that visit: the dark circle under my aunt’s eye covered with makeup; the wary look on my cousins’ faces as Uncle Dave lit a cigar and told them to get in the car. My parents would have done something to help my cousins, and my aunt too. Maybe they could have stayed and lived with us.

But something else comes into focus then—developing slowly, like those photos Dad sometimes takes with his new instant camera; Mom hanging her head and walking silently back to the house; Dad, looking serious, grabbing my hand and gently squeezing. They know.

That night, I dream of sad worms threaded onto hooks and cast into the creek; of faded fish in a tin bucket; of cats swirling their tails around thick ankles waiting to devour the silent. And how seeing something yet not saying something doesn’t make it less real – it just gets locked away in your heart until it gasps for air.