Enter, Night

ahead of them to Parr’s Landing and whatever waited for them there.

They were on the road within an hour and a half. Morgan and Jeremy were awake, showered, and packed up by the time she got back to the motel. Christina was surprised but pleased. Getting Morgan ready in the morning had been an ordeal more or less from the day she’d turned thirteen. The waitress at the diner smiled at her when the three of them trooped over and sat down at the booth she’d left twenty minutes before.

Christina said, “A couple more hungry customers for you before we get back on the road this morning.”

“Couldn’t get enough of our good country cooking, eh?” The waitress beamed at Morgan and Jeremy. “Is this your hubby and your little girl? She looks just like her handsome daddy. You want some hot chocolate, honey?”

Christina felt Morgan flinch beside her. She opened her mouth to tell the waitress that Jeremy wasn’t her father but her uncle, but before she could say a word, Morgan smiled at the waitress and politely replied, “Just some orange juice, please.”

When the waitress returned to the kitchen with their order, Christina turned to Morgan and said, “That was very nice of you, sweetheart. It was very considerate.”

Morgan shrugged. “It’s not her fault. She didn’t know. And I do look like daddy and so does Uncle Jeremy, so she wasn’t all wrong.”

Jeremy said, “Your father had all the looks in the family. Ask your mother. He was so handsome when he was your age that everyone was in love with him. Your mom was the only girl in Parr’s Landing who’d ever caught his eye. It was like Romeo and Juliet with those two.”

“Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy,” Morgan said. The previous year, her class at Jarvis Collegiate had studied Shakespeare’s play in English Lit. The teacher, Mr. Niven, had run the Franco Zeffirelli version of the film on the reel-to-reel projector in the classroom and Morgan had fallen in love with Leonard Whiting. “Mom and Dad weren’t a tragedy. They ran off and got married. They had me. They got out of Parr’s Landing. Romeo and Juliet never got out of Verona.”

“You’re right, they did get out of Parr’s Landing.” Jeremy’s eyes met Christina’s over the table. “They did. They got away and they met their destiny. And the best part of their destiny was having you.” He reached over and put his hand over Morgan’s. “I’m so very, very glad they did.”

Morgan allowed Jeremy to hold her hand for a brief moment, and then pulled it gently away as though to avoid hurting his feelings. Her love for her uncle was unquestioned. The question for Morgan seemed to be how much of that love she could show without feeling disloyal to her father, at least for now. Christina observed their interaction and saw that Jeremy understood. She sent a silent prayer of thanksgiving for Jeremy’s presence to whichever divinity took under its wing the families of fatherless girls and husbandless wives.

When the food arrived, Morgan took a bite of her toast and asked Jeremy, “Isn’t it weird having a town named after you? I mean, I’m going to see my name everywhere, aren’t I? That’s going to be weird. Wasn’t it weird for you and Daddy?”

“It was weird,” Jeremy admitted. “But you get used to it. Your dad and I never thought twice about it. You won’t either, after a while. And the town wasn’t named after us, it was named after our great-grandfather- your great great-grandfather. He founded the town in the late nineteenth century. That was a long time ago, and nobody thinks about it anymore. We’re just like anybody else.”

“Then why did you leave? Why did you move to the city? If it’s so great, why didn’t you stay?”

Jeremy glanced around the diner, which was slowly filling with people. He lowered his voice slightly. “Morgan, you know why I had to leave. There were… problems. I know you know what those problems were. Your dad and mom and I have told you about them. We don’t need to discuss it again here, do we?”

Morgan looked chastened. “I’m sorry, Uncle Jeremy,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

“It’s fine, Morgan. But we have to remember that we’re not in the city anymore. Things are a lot different out here. There are things we can talk about in public and things we can’t talk about.”

Time to nip this one in the bud, Christina thought. “Sweetheart, I know you’re nervous about today. I know you’re nervous about meeting your grandma for the first time, especially after everything we’ve told you about her. Try to remember that the bad things we told you about happened a long time ago. Your dad and I were very young and your grandma and grandpa were very mad at us for running away together and having you.”

“They didn’t want you to have me?”

“Morgan, we’ve talked about this before. They didn’t think it was right for us to have you since we weren’t married.”

“But you did get married. You are married.”

“They wanted your daddy to stay in Parr’s Landing, go to university, and take over the mine. When the mine shut down, they blamed him for not being there to help save it. They were mad at both of us, honey. But they weren’t mad at you.”

“I don’t think we should go there. I think we should go home.”

“That’s all in the past,” Christina said, ignoring Morgan’s last comment. “Your grandma Parr was very nice to invite us to come and stay with her for a while.” Christina saw Jeremy wince. She pursed her lips to signal to him to keep quiet. “We need to get back on our feet.”

“Why couldn’t we get back on our feet in Toronto?” Morgan’s bottom lip began to tremble. “Why did we have to come here? Daddy didn’t want us to come back here. He hated it here. He told me so. And now you’re making us move here. It’s not fair.”

“I know, Morgan. But we have to make the best of it when there’s no alternative. And believe me, there’s no alternative. It’ll be what we make of it.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jeremy said. “It’s a beautiful part of the country, Morgan. And your grandma’s house is very old and very big. There are wonderful log beams on the ceiling and lots of paintings on the walls. It’s on the top of a hill with a great view of the town and the river below it.”

She brightened. “So, are we rich? I’d like to be rich.”

Christina and Jack had never been the beneficiaries of any part of the Parr fortune after they’d left the Landing together, so there had been no reason to inculcate Morgan with any illusions of wealth. As a result, it had simply never occurred to Morgan that her new life in Parr’s Landing would be any less hand-to-mouth than her old life in their house in the Cabbagetown district of Toronto.

“Morgan-” There was a warning edge to Christina’s voice.

“Your grandmother is rich,” Jeremy corrected. “Well, she’s not as rich as the family used to be before the thirties. But yeah, she’s rich.” Jeremy looked across the table at Christina. This time, she was the one who winced. “But she’s very stingy, so it doesn’t matter if she’s rich or not. It doesn’t matter to us, anyway. But you’ll get to stay in a beautiful house, one that’s so big you won’t hardly have to see the rest of us unless you want to.”

“Beautiful, beautiful,” Morgan said sullenly. “I always know when you’re lying because you say things like ‘beautiful’ instead of describing them properly. It’s not beautiful at all, is it? It sounds like an old witch’s castle or something. Daddy said she was an ogress. He said she ate her young. I bet it’s a horrible house.”

Jeremy smiled. “I think your father was speaking metaphorically, sweetheart. Did he really say that she ate her children?” He laughed. “Did he actually use that phrase-that exact phrase?”

“Yeah, he did. Why?”

“Because that was my line. That was something I said to him once about your grandma. I was kidding, of course. I don’t think she literally eats her young. Although, she might want to eat her granddaughter. You never know. You’re delicious.” Across the table, Christina felt Morgan relaxing. Jeremy had succeeded in distracting her from her fretfulness. She’d started to giggle. Jeremy continued, his voice ominous. “The winters are very long up here and Parr’s Landing is in Wendigo country.”

“What’s a Windiggy?”

“Not ‘Windiggy,’ Wendigo. It’s an Indian legend. The Wendigo was a cannibal spirit that possessed men and made them eat human flesh.”

“That’s disgusting,” Morgan said, her nose wrinkled in distaste. “I bet it’s fake anyway. There’s no such thing.”

“When we’re settled in, I’ll take you up to Spirit Rock,” Jeremy said. “I’ll show you the Indian paintings on the