Chapter One

Nothing looks the same.

Pastoral images glide by my window as we continue our journey. A rabbit emerges from a distant cloud, and my daydream quells my anxiety. Queer how a grown man can float back to the familiarity of a treasured childhood memory. One of my favorite pastimes as a youngster was lying in the tall grass, watching the world go round. Actually, I knew the clouds moved across my stillness, but this game allowed me to go to just about anywhere I wanted, any place but here.

Why would I expect anything to look the same? I haven’t set eyes on my childhood residences for more than two decades. Yet this absence doesn’t diminish the importance of my return or the discomfort it causes me. I’ve raised a thousand excuses why I shouldn’t visit the past. Many of them originated with well-meaning friends and acquaintances.

“Forget the past. Look ahead, not behind. With time you’ll forget.”

But is it possible to forget the past? And if so, is forgetting the healthiest course?

I have recollections of events, of dreams that never lie, of written evidence that the past did indeed occur. For the most part, I experience my past through a series of flashbacks, phenomena that occur frequently. They permeate all facets of my life: a walk in the country, a sound, a smell, or a voice triggering the movie reels in my mind. Instantly, and without warning, I’m catapulted into a familiar incident or scene, back to a time and place far away. Lasting anywhere from seconds, minutes, to even an hour, flashbacks can be interrupted by present-day activity, yet resumed without breaking their rhythms. I have learned to control their duration by creating diversions.

Because I am not connected to their reality, they seem foreign to me—as though I am experiencing someone else’s memories. At times, these flashbacks paralyze, shock, frighten, or sadden me. Sometimes they make me laugh. Only a trained and knowing eye can see through my controlled exterior. The Donald I was in my life with Father is alien to me and alive only in my flashbacks. The world surrounding me assumes any public disclosure translates into a personal reality. However, in my case nothing could be further from the truth. The more I speak or write about my family history, the more unreal it becomes. Those listening to or reading my words may well experience an emotional response to my story I can only envy.

And so my companion’s spontaneous insistence that we travel back to the past to make my memories real takes me by such surprise that I consent. I respond before I can muster an objection. While the quest is frightening to say the least, the attraction of the unknown beckons me. It is now or never.

Maurice is driving so I can absorb the sights and sounds of our trip. I would prefer the distractions of driving but he insists. It seems I have barely blinked and we are literally traveling down memory lane, in this case, a twenty-minute ride from our home in London, to just south of a small, quaint village named Belmont.

I know this will not be a dull trip for either of us, considering I lived in fourteen houses, attended seven schools and five houses of worship all before I reached my sixteenth birthday. Most were located within a forty-kilometer radius of Aylmer, a town in the southwest of Ontario, population 5,000. Some dwellings were pleasant enough as I recall, while others were nothing more than glorified shacks. None were homes. Each was my father’s house—a statement that seems part of a dream to me now, an acknowledgement that I had a past, a reality that flows between dream and imagination.

Other than the numbing hum of the engine, only the occasional directions I provide my companion break our silence.

“Turn right, Maurice . . . go straight...veer left. Wait! Slow down a bit, eh. Something looks familiar."
At first I don’t fully recognize this place, yet it compels me to question if I’ve been here before. Twenty-five years of renovations nearly disguise it. Signals from certain structures—a house on top of a hill, a barn, a silo, and the chicken coop—tell me to not pass by without a second glance. As I view the surroundings, I wonder why neighboring homesteads appear smaller than they used to be. Not that they are tinier now, they just seemed to be, well, bigger in my childhood. Do all children magnify their perceptions ten-fold?
“Go up to the next road and turn around.”
Sensing my discomfort, Maurice obeys without hesitation, heading east on Concession 7.
I glance in the side view mirror. Reading its small print leaves me cold: Objects are closer than they appear.
“I’m pretty sure that was it.”
Is he really here?
My stomach rebels and I become lightheaded.
Maurice eases the car onto the gravel shoulder, a few meters from the road leading to the house.
I open the door slowly. I deliberately focus on the physical—the sound of every cam, latch, and lever. I extend one leg over the edge and downward. Heel, arch, and tip. My sole touches the ground.
He is here.

A brisk March wind repels the steady flow of warmth from the dashboard, causing the beads of sweat on my forehead to evaporate. I can feel him.

My mind becomes still, my breathing shallow. Ears no longer hear. Concentrated beats cluster in my throat. My body throbs with each wave rolling over me, control eclipsed by celluloid reels. A montage of black-and-white home movies plays across my screen. Silently, they flicker, dancing within my disconnected self.

I can see him.
Dust particles float in a sunlit stream through the window, hitting the floor, disappearing. I wonder where they go once they vanish from sight. I try to catch them as they fall, following their flight to the wooden floor beneath me. The blazing sun burns through the windowpanes. The floorboards are particularly warm. The humidity in this tiny room is suffocating. I am enveloped in the heat.
This is his room.

“Donald, where were you?” asks Maurice.
“What?”
“I was calling you but you were on another planet.”
“Just for a moment, I really remembered. See those trees over there?” I point to the foremost parcel of property. “Daniel planted some of those, right from seedlings.”
“Your father did leave his mark, didn’t he?”
"Even though it sure looks different, this is the right place. This is his place."
 Today, we’re going to play a new game.

Gone are the unfinished coats of pink and green painted siding, replaced by horizontal rows of rich dark-stained wooden clapboards. Windows, probably the double-insulated kind, have replaced the thin glass panes better suited for the sunshine states. The house on the hill looks more like a fortress than ever, as evergreens and maple trees buttress its privacy.
“Listen, Maurice.”   Play quietly, because you do not want to get your Papa angry.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s what I mean. It’s so quiet. Unbearably quiet. You know, when we were kids, we’d hear faint noises from the farms around here—a tractor plowing, cows mooing—they’d echo in our silo.”
Each winter, I tell him, only an old kitchen stove warmed the entire house. I can still hear the wood crackling in the frozen silence. And, there were times I would get so excited listening for the mailman driving up the road, I’d run down the lane trying to beat him to the mailbox. Sometimes I’d even win.

Although I keep busy describing harmless memories, the emotional struggle continues. You’re my favorite.
“Donald, you’ll be okay. You’re not alone anymore.” Maurice’s soothing words are challenged by a vicious bark. The resident dog making his presence known brings us back to reality.
“He doesn’t look too friendly, Maurice.”
“Ah, bet his bark is worse than his bite, but the owners might be wondering what we’re up to. Let’s get outta here.”
As we travel down the country road, the house on the hill recedes in my memory and with it, I pray, any trace of my father.
But one quick last glance in the mirror couldn’t hurt, could it?

“Quit sitting there wasting your time!” Papa bellows.
I love all my animals. I spend long afternoons in the chicken coop studying the hens. I watch them as their chicks hatch, fighting their way out of their darkness. The mama hens protect their young. Suddenly a juvenile rooster is attacked by the larger Rhode Island Red. Provoked, he battles gallantly—and wins! Mesmerized, I cheer the little rooster in his victory. All of my friends have a name that complements their personalities—Duke, Snowy, Bruno. I love them because they don’t hurt me. 

“Come on Donald, let’s feed the rabbits. I’ve already picked the lettuce,” Papa continues. “You love those fluffy bunnies, don’t you? Do you want a new one?”

Is a new rabbit worth it? I wonder.