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Chapters (142)
  1. About the Author
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. NOTEBOOK 1
  6. Brukie’s Sandy
  7. April 1972
  8. 1
  9. May 1972
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. June 1972
  13. 4
  14. July 1972
  15. 5
  16. 6
  17. 7
  18. 8
  19. October 1972
  20. 9
  21. 10
  22. 11
  23. October 1972
  24. 12
  25. December 1972
  26. 13
  27. December 1972
  28. 14
  29. December 1972
  30. NOTEBOOK 2
  31. Brukie’s Sandy
  32. January 1973
  33. 1
  34. 2
  35. 3
  36. 4
  37. 5
  38. 6
  39. March 1973
  40. 7
  41. 8
  42. 9
  43. 10
  44. April 1973
  45. 11
  46. 12
  47. 13
  48. 14
  49. June 1973
  50. 15
  51. July 1973
  52. 16
  53. 17
  54. 18
  55. 19
  56. August 1973
  57. 20
  58. 21
  59. August 1973
  60. 22
  61. 23
  62. 24
  63. August 1973
  64. 25
  65. August 1973
  66. 26
  67. August 1973
  68. 27
  69. NOTEBOOK 3
  70. Brukie’s Sandy
  71. March 1974
  72. 1
  73. 2
  74. 3
  75. 4
  76. 5
  77. April 1974
  78. 6
  79. 7
  80. June 1974
  81. 8
  82. July 1974
  83. 9
  84. August 1974
  85. 10
  86. August 1974
  87. 11
  88. October 1974
  89. 12
  90. October 1974
  91. 13
  92. October 1974
  93. October 1974
  94. 14
  95. October 1974
  96. 15
  97. 16
  98. November 1974
  99. 17
  100. November 1974
  101. December 1974
  102. CODA
  103. Brukie’s Sandy
  104. 1
  105. 2
  106. 3
  107. 4
  108. 5
  109. 6
  110. 7
  111. 8
  112. 9
  113. 10
  114. 11
  115. 12
  116. 13
  117. 14
  118. 15
  119. 16
  120. 17
  121. 18
  122. 19
  123. 20
  124. 21
  125. 22
  126. 23
  127. 24
  128. 25
  129. 26
  130. 27
  131. April 1975
  132. Brukie’s Sandy
  133. 28
  134. 29
  135. 30
  136. 31
  137. 32
  138. 33
  139. Glossary
  140. Note
  141. Acknowledgments
  142. Works Cited

Times were different then. You’re rolling your eyes again, aren’t you, lambsie. That’s what old folk always say. But it’s true. Time matters. You will know this when you look it in the face. Isn’t a child alive today who could have survived back then. I don’t mean the hardships of those days—the meanness of the food, the idea that children should work for their keep. Those are things that can be endured, and if a child now were to be cast back through the years and flung into a but-and-ben in Roanhaven, the wee thing would learn. Learn and survive. People do when they have to.

No, the thing I venture would befuddle a child of today is this: in the scheme of the universe—your family, your village—you were one notch north of a hindrance and two south of a help. Loved you were, aye, in the way of those days, a careless kind of love that took all manner of things for granted. But if you had a thought in your head there was none who would stoop to hear it and none to say you mattered the peeriest thing. And if you were a girl, you’d to get used to that, aye. You would forever be the last, the very very last, in a world where the words of men and the ways of shoalfish and the direction of the wind were what mattered.

I canna imagine a child of today taking it into their head that they were not the centre of all else. That the world was not waiting for the next thing they might say.

May 1972

May 1972

Ach, all the nieces and nephews of mine there might be in the world somewhere, all the family I don’t know. Could be, lambsie, could be you are the first of the Neishes and Duthies to have your own special name, one that doesn’t belong to a long line of those who have gone before you. Laura—that was your mother’s choosing. Always a mind of her own, that one.

Maybe it seems I was going along with the past when I blessed your mother with a family name, but there’s a thought to make me smile. It wasn’t for tradition that I called your mother Kathryn, it was for someone I loved with all the beats of my heart. And because in the midst of so much forgetting, this I wanted to remember.

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