Weirdos are Living in My House

Chapter 23 The End

The End

Dad came home from work one day and said he had to talk to Dan and I about something serious, so he was taking us out to dinner. Just us. Hatty was going to spend the night with Mom. I'd had about all the serious I could take for one lifetime, but I didn't get to go out for dinner very often, so at least I had one thing to look forward to. I put on a dress.

We went to The Keg in New Westminster, which was where we'd gone last year for Dan's birthday dinner. We'd all got to pick where we went for our birthday dinners that year. Even Hatty got to pick. She picked an expensive seafood restaurant, because she loved oysters and crab and fish. When Dan and I had been in Dawson Creek, she had gone on a fishing trip in a boat on the ocean with Dad. After driving to Ontario and back the summer before, Mom said she didn't want to go on any more vacations with Dad, so he took Hatty. He went with one of Mom's uncles, who had worked on the tugboats and knew how to operate a boat in the ocean.

Hatty's birthday dinner was before Mom moved out, and she got a sour expression on her face, but Dad said a deal was a deal, and if she didn't want to have a party for Hatty's sixth birthday, then we'd go out for dinner, and he didn't want to talk about it anymore. Mom said he didn't want to talk about anything anymore, and he said who's fault was that? Then he said that this was Hatty's day, and she should try to remember that and make it a happy one.

They didn't know I was listening. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop that time, but I'd needed to get a towel from the linen closet next to their room, and their door had been open. It was before Mom moved to the downstairs bedroom, but not much before. I thought it would be a horrible dinner, but it turned out nice. All of the waiters came and sang Happy Birthday to Hatty, and brought her a piece of cake with a sparkler in it. They didn't get many children in the restaurant, and said they didn't have a children's menu, but Dad said that was okay, because she was going to have the lobster. They thought Dad was joking, but he wasn't. Mom put on a happy face and didn't complain about anything, not even when I ordered something that I didn't like and wouldn't eat it. How was I supposed to know that Sole Oscar was white fish with nasty goopy sauce on top? The waiter had made it sound like it would taste good.

Now we were at the Keg, and Dad said we could order anything we wanted. The waiter came and crouched by the table and said his name was John, and he'd be our waiter, and Dad said his name was Pete, and he'd be the customer. The waiter laughed as if he hadn't heard that one before, but I bet he had. Dan and I ordered steak. At The Keg that was about all you could order, but there were different sizes and cuts, and we had fun deciding which would be the tastiest, and what we wanted to eat with it, like potatoes or rice and mushrooms or vegetables. Dad just sat back and smiled, and didn't say, "are you sure you can eat all that?" and "do you have to order the most expensive thing on the menu?" like Mom would have. He ordered a small carafe of wine, and we even got to drink some, but not very much.

When we had finished eating, Dad said: "I've had a job offer. It would mean leaving Vancouver and moving to a small town in the interior of the province."

Time did one of those freezy things. I just stopped and stared. Dan was talking but I didn't hear what he was saying. He snapped his fingers in front of my nose, and said: "Lights are on, but no one's home." I blinked, and Dad said: "Sarah, what do you think?" I said, "Do you mean we'd all go?" I wanted to make sure he didn't mean he was going to move and we'd be stuck in the house with the weirdos if Mom didn't want us. And he said: "Well, Dan and Hatty and I would go, but Mom wouldn't."

I asked when we could leave. He said maybe we should look the place over first to see if we'd like it, and Dan thought that was a good idea, but I didn't care what it looked like. If it wasn't Vancouver, I wanted to live there.

Two months later, we were loading up a U-Haul truck, since we were leaving Vancouver with more stuff than we'd come with. The house was sold, the weirdos were gone, and we were off to a new life. 

Mom didn't seem happy about it, but I figured it wasn't any of her business. If she didn't want to live with us, why did it matter where to her where we lived?

Dad drove the U-Haul truck and Dan, who had his drivers licence, and Hatty and I followed in the car.  

I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, swept away from black and white Kansas and into a world of colour.

And my feeling was right.