“Anything of interest at Marvin’s?” her mother would say the moment Chiyo returned home. The question—posed in a way that demanded an answer—set Chiyo on edge, an edge she willed herself to control.

Her mother had become thin and weak during the last months of her life, and she was unable to walk more than four steps on her own. Caregivers came and went. Despite her weakness, she’d been resolute about keeping up with happenings in the community and news of the world. The TV in her room was permanently set to the CTV news channel. She also wanted “Marvin’s store news,” even while expressing shock that the citizens of Wilna Creek freely posted personal information in a public place. Chiyo teased about this, knowing that her mother bristled. Mock anger, Chiyo thought now. Maybe I couldn’t tell the difference between real and mock. Real anything. Mock anything. Maybe I still can’t. My mother filled herself with anger, or others did this for her. Old anger from way back, long before I was part of the scene.

As a young girl, Chiyo’s mother had been forced to move, with her parents and more than twenty thousand other Japanese Canadians, to one of the many inland camps in the mountains of British Columbia, close to the Fraser River. This had happened in early 1942, several months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Her mother had carried her childhood anger about this betrayal of democracy, this injustice, into adulthood. The anger had never been resolved. Too late for resolution now. Or maybe, maybe she was at peace.

During the final three months of her mother’s illness, Chiyo carried paper in her backpack so that she could copy out some of the notices on Marvin’s board. These gave her mother something to think about, or rail against, or laugh at—whatever mood happened to fit. There were always notices about some guy supplying his own tools, but Chiyo ignored those. On days when she couldn’t be bothered stopping at Marvin’s, she invented notices in hopes of satisfying her mother’s curiosity.

Rare-looking snake with colourful markings rescued from apartment toilet. So far unidentified. Ophiologists? Care to advise?

Will babysit your child for $25 per hour, with the proviso that I am permitted to use your sewing machine during work hours.

Learn twenty-one ways to cook with stale bread.

Will add an excellent recipe for head cheese.

(My recipe does not use head of a pig.)

Found: Wedding dress, hacked to pieces, Booth Street, corner of King.

The last was a jibe at her mother. But really, Chiyo’s inventions did nothing more than set her own trap. Day in, day out, her mother lay in bed with the door ajar so that she could see into the kitchen. From there, from her sickbed, she was aware of the outside door opening and closing. Her dulled eyes watched, no matter how quietly each person arrived and departed. She monitored Chiyo as she left in the morning and returned in the evening. Before Chiyo could remove her shoes, she heard her mother’s voice, weakened from the effort of straining against illness. The hoarse whisper rasped across the kitchen: “Anything of interest at Marvin’s?” Gradually, to conserve energy, the question was reduced to “Marvin’s?”