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“Don’t be calling me a liar, Ellen,” Da said, his voice taking on a warning note.
“No? What should I call you, then?” Her hands bunched into fists and she heard her voice, a screech in the stillness. “How can I call you Da when you’re leaving me as surely as Mam did? Except she didn’t have a choice! You do!”
“I couldn’t be happy here, Ellen. I thought I could.” Da turned to her, his face full of sudden desperation. “I thought I’d help in the store, or perhaps even get our own bit of land. I thought there’d be a way.”
“There is—”
“No, Ellen, not for me. Don’t you see? I didn’t sweat my soul in Springburn to live the same stifled life in a town with a different name.”
“But it’s so different here!” Ellen cried. “There’s fresh air, and trees, and school—”
“For you...”
“You breathe the same air as me!”
Da chuckled, but it was a sad sound. “It doesn’t feel the same.”
Ellen was silent for a moment. She felt the sting of tears and forced herself to blink them away. She could hardly believe Da was telling her this, that he was planning to leave her with two strangers. For in a moment of stark honesty, she knew that’s just what Hamish and Ruth were. Two strangers she barely knew, wasn’t even sure she liked. And she didn’t think they liked her, not even Hamish. He looked like he didn’t know how to act around her, even though he seemed at ease with every other child in Seaton. “Why can’t I go with you?” she finally asked, her throat aching.
Douglas shook his head. “A rail line is no place for a child.”
“I’m not a child!”
“Nor a woman.”
“Then...” Ellen swallowed past the aching tightness of her throat. “Will you come back?”
“Sure I will,” Da said, but he sounded too hearty and his gaze slid away from hers just as it had when Hamish had asked him to come to America, when Ellen asked about the money in the tin. “Soon as I can.”
“And then what?” she asked, her mind already racing painfully ahead. “Where will we live then?”
He lifted one shoulder in something like a shrug. “Who knows what opportunities might come our way?”
He might as well as told her he was never coming back, that he intended to leave her forever. She felt a terrible tightness in her chest, as if a hand were clutching her heart. He still wasn’t looking at her. “When do you go?” she finally asked dully.
Da didn’t meet her eyes. “There’s a train pulling out tomorrow, heading west.”
“Tomorrow?” Ellen felt another lightning bolt of shock streak through her. “Were you ever going to tell me?” The tears were close again, blurring her vision, and the tightness in her chest made it hurt to breathe. “Or were you just going to sneak off?”
“I planned to tell you!” Da looked both angry and abashed. “I was just thinking about how to go about it. I’m sorry it came out like this, Ellen, truly I am. I’m not a man of words, you know that.”
But he was, Ellen knew. He had been once, a man of charming, easy words. Shallow, false words. She took a deep breath. The sun was rising in the sky, causing Ellen’s dress to stick to her shoulder blades. She didn’t dare speak; her throat ached too much.
“You’ll wish me off?” Da asked. “I’ll write. I’ll come back. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she managed, her voice no more than a scratchy whisper. Da put a hand on her shoulder, and she shook it off.
“Ellen—”
She shook her head, backing away, tears spilling from her eyes that she swiped at angrily. “You lied to me,” she choked. “Everything you said, everything you promised, was a lie.” At her words her father only looked more grimly resolute, and with an anguished cry Ellen turned and ran.
FOUR
“You want some paper?” Hamish looked at Ellen’s small, determined face and gave her an encouraging smile. He was glad the girl was showing interest in something at last. She’d found out about Douglas leaving this morning, and even Ruth had possessed enough heart not to rail at her for her sodden dress.
“She’ll make herself sick, crying like that,” she said with pursed lips as they both listened to Ellen’s stormy tears coming from behind her closed door.
“Let her be,” said Hamish. “It’s hard for her, poor mite, coming all this way only for Douglas to hare off again.” Although in truth Hamish felt relieved that his brother was going. Douglas didn’t fit here, it was plain for anyone to see. Ellen might be a strange child, but she could learn their ways. Hamish didn’t think Douglas wanted to.
