Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson (ebook voice reader TXT) 📗

“I’m sorry to hear about Phil. He was a good man. He used to fish with my husband, Henry Senior, when you all lived in Bella Bella.”

“Thank you,” Jared said.

“Did you eat, Gran?” Hank said.

“Yes,” she said. “There’s stew on the stove if you’re hungry. Barbie made tea biscuits, too. Oh, she’s a good baker.”

“Do you want a bowl?” Hank asked Jared.

“I’m okay,” he said.

“Sit, sit,” Agnetha said when Hank went to get himself some stew. “I’m not good company these days, but I like to see new faces.”

Jared sat in the armchair facing her. His phone buzzed in his pyjamas pocket. Kota, texting, asking how he was holding up.

Visiting your gran with Hank, Jared texted.

Hi Gran, Kota texted back.

“Kota says hi,” Jared said.

“How’s his new job?” she said.

Awful, Kota texted back.

She laughed when Jared told her that.

We’ve got a rush repair, Kota continued. Since I’m the new guy, I get graveyard shifts. I can’t come to meetings with you for a week. Okay?

“Did Greta go to Costco?” Hank yelled from the other room.

“No,” she said. “Her boy got kicked out of school for fighting and she had to go get him.”

“Okay, when the care aides come, I’ll zip down.”

“They aren’t coming tonight,” she said. “The agency said not enough showed up for work. The flu’s going around.”

“Damn it,” Hank said.

“I’m okay, Junior,” she said. And then to Jared, “He worries so. He’s going to have a heart attack like his grandfather.”

“I can sit with her,” Jared said.

Hank came in, shovelling stew into his mouth from the bowl. “I’m not supposed to leave you alone. Mave was really clear.”

Jared held up his phone. “Call me, text me, message me. As many times as you want. Go do what you need to do.”

Hank chewed, considering them both. “Gran?”

“We’ll be fine, Junior.”

“Maybe I can just pick up a few things from Safeway to get us by,” Hank said, putting his bowl down on the nightstand. “What’s your cell number?”

Jared read it out and Hank texted: it’s me Hank.

Hi Junior, Jared texted.

Hank gave him a light cuff on the head.

“Junior,” Agnetha said.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” Hank said.

“He’s normally not this rude.”

Jared grinned at her. “I’m annoying.”

“Then you are Anita’s grandson, all right,” she said. “My sister could make the angels weep.”

“Okay,” Hank said. “Okay, here I go.”

He didn’t move, though, until his gran cleared her throat. They heard the front door close and Hank lock it. His gran sighed. She shut her eyes, but opened them when Jared’s phone dinged.

I’m at the elevator, Hank texted.

You have to push the buttons to make it work, Jared texted back.

You’re a riot.

“Hank’s getting in the elevator,” Jared told her.

She shook her head. “That boy.”

Jared stared at his phone, wondering if Sarah and Mave were all right but not willing to be like Hank and text them every other minute.

“You can go watch TV if you want,” she said.

“I can’t really focus,” Jared said.

“I’m not very good company.”

He wondered if she knew she’d already told him this. “Me neither.”

Ding.

I’m in my car.

“Hank’s in his car.”

She laughed. Jared sent him a thumbs-up emoji.

“Do you want some tea?” Jared said.

“I’d love a cup.”

She had a tiny kitchen like a boat’s galley. He put the kettle on, and then rooted around for teabags before realizing they were in a canister on the counter labelled TEA. No heavy-machinery operating for me, Jared thought.

I’m at Safeway.

Jared sent another thumbs-up emoji.

“He’s at Safeway,” Jared called from the kitchen.

“Good grief, Charlie Brown,” Agnetha said.

Her fridge was clean but bare. The cream container was almost empty. When he sniffed what was left, he didn’t smell any sourness. The stew on the stove was on low. Jared turned the burner off and hunted for storage containers. He poured the stew into a glass bowl with a plastic lid and put it in the fridge. He covered the tea biscuits with a dishtowel. He filled the pot and let it soak in the sink beside Hank’s bowl. The kettle whistled.

He brought two mugs into the bedroom. She raised her bed so she was sitting.

“It’s hot,” he cautioned her.

“Good,” she said. “Tea is supposed to be hot. I get tired of everyone giving me lukewarm tea.”

Jared put the mug on the medical table and she warmed her hands on it. He turned on the lamp beside her bed and shut off the overhead light, the humming fluorescent one. He brought her mug to the sink. He was too tired to do anything else, so he went back and sat beside Agnetha. She sipped her tea.

“Did you put up the protections around Hank’s apartment?” Jared asked. “They’re pretty strong.”

“When you wrote Anita, she cried for days,” she said.

He felt confused at the sudden change of subject and couldn’t figure out what she was getting at. “Okay.”

She smiled. “She read me your letters. All of them.”

He felt embarrassed and couldn’t look at her.

“Such a gentle heart for a Trickster,” Agnetha said. “You must be a trial for your mother.”

He felt exposed, and then alarmed, but she didn’t seem to be saying it with any fear or distrust. Maybe Mave had told her what he’d said. Or Hank. Or maybe she could see it.

Jared said, “If annoying someone was an Olympic sport, I’d be a gold medallist.”

“But Maggie still has her protection on you. It shines like sunlight on the ocean.”

He saw himself through her eyes for a moment, but it came with her pain, and a fatigue so heavy it was like being crushed by a compactor. He gasped, and then she was gone. She put her tea on the nightstand and said she was going to rest for a bit.

—

Eventually, Hank unlocked the door and came in loaded down with grocery bags. He poked his head in the bedroom, scanned the situation then left again. Jared listened to him hum as he put the groceries away. Jared would never have pegged Hank as a hummer. His cousin couldn’t carry a tune to save his