THE YEAR HE AND IDA MET and decided to marry, 1963, they were twenty-four years old and had nothing but each other. Ida had moved to Ontario from the West. She’d earned a science degree, but the only work she could find in Wilna Creek was a job as typist and desk clerk for an independent laboratory. Tom had a brand-new degree in history and English and was employed by what was, at the time, the town’s only bookstore. He wanted to set up some sort of business of his own, but he hadn’t figured out what that might be. His job at the bookstore began in April; the wedding was planned for June. He and Ida found a partially furnished apartment in an old three-storey house that had been divided into units, one per floor. Their unit was the least desirable because they had last choice, the others having been rented out. After the wedding, Tom and Ida moved in, sandwiched for almost three years between upper and lower. The couple below thumped their ceiling any time he and Ida played a record on their turntable after nine thirty in the evening. The couple above had twins who tramped like a pair of perpetually roaming bison, up and down the outside stairs that led to the top apartment.

Tom and Ida loved the place because it was their first. The landlord had left in the unit several pieces of furniture original to the house before it was divided: a tall pine cupboard with narrow doors; an oak bookcase that had belonged to a judge; a Duncan Phyfe–style dining-room table, which Ida covered with patterned oilcloth and converted to a kitchen table; a bronze sculpture of a pair of geese about to take flight. The geese, modelled after the Canada goose, were almost life-size and were set on the floor in one corner of the living room. Tom bought a second-hand bed and a new mattress, and Ida’s parents contributed a rug. When Tom and Ida entertained, they sat with their guests on throw pillows scattered about the rug in the living room. On his days off from the bookstore, Tom attended auctions and began to visit second-hand shops in villages and towns surrounding Wilna Creek. He found a sturdy set of Bavarian dishes with a fawn-coloured rim, a chimney cupboard, an Eastlake-style chest of drawers for the bedroom. Before long, he and Ida had all the furnishings they needed and more. Nothing matched, but they didn’t care.

Ida liked greeting people and didn’t mind typing lab reports. She also liked her colleagues. She stuck with the job for three years, until just before Will was born. By then, she and Tom had scraped together enough money for a down payment on a house. They found one that had been built in 1898 on a corner lot, purchased it without fanfare and decided to take their time fixing it up. Before they moved out of their apartment, Tom negotiated with the landlord to buy the judge’s bookcase and the pine cupboard. The landlord threw in the bronze geese as a housewarming gift.