It was still dark when the two children were shaken from their sleep and hustled downstairs to eat breakfast. The car was packed. Sandra and David moaned as they reluctantly stuffed their mouths with whatever their mother had set in front of them. Everything in the house was unplugged. The light over the front door was put on to ward off intruders although it occurred to David that no one in the neighbourhood ever put on their front door light unless they weren't home. It was, to his mind, an advertisement to thieves.

As they traveled north on Airport Road, David's mother sat in the front seat with a map in her lap. David's father drove. Sandra and David lay in the back seat, their feet dangling out the windows, sleeping. The highways were empty for the first hour of daylight.

"Slow down, Gerry!" David's mother urged, her teeth clenched, her foot pressed against the floor to brace herself for the inevitable accident that she was sure would wipe out the entire family. Although she was a nervous wreck after each of the trips they took by car, David's mother would never sit in the back seat. She was convinced that without her constant attention, tragedy was a certainty.

Hours slipped by. Sandra and David passed the time counting out-of-province license plates, yellow cars, and mobile homes. The scenery rushed passed in one direction. In the distance it appeared to move in the opposite direction, making David feel somewhat nauseous. Sandra read. When David picked up a book, his mother scolded him. "Don't read, David! You'll get car sick."

David leaned against the window, feeling the vibrations of the car rattling through his brain. He stared out the window trying to imagine the landscape looking any different. It was difficult to believe that 200 years ago this had all been trees, beavers and Indians. David turned to Sandra and whispered in her ear. "What do you think the Indians used to wipe their asses?"

"Mom," Sandra cried, "David's being gross!"

When they finally reached the provincial park they found a long line of cars waiting in front of them. Their parents were anxious. You could never be sure that there would be enough open campsites.

"I shouldn't have slowed down," David's father muttered. "We should have left earlier."
"If we had left any earlier," his wife bit back, "we would have had to leave yesterday."

Only when the tent was set up, the bags unpacked, the Coleman stove brought out, the first meal cooked and eaten could they relax. "I'm bored," Sandra said.

One summer they brought their cousin, Michael, along. Michael, a small sensitive boy with a James Dean face, was uncle Leonard's adopted son. Sandra and David couldn't get over Michael's soft skin.

"It's like a baby's bum," Sandra giggled.
"Is not!" Michael cried out.
"Quit teasing your cousin!" their mother demanded.

But Sandra and David couldn't help themselves. There was nothing else to do. At every opportunity they teased their young cousin, even under the constant threat of a beating by their mother.

One afternoon, Sandra and David took Michael for a walk. They headed toward the camp canteen to buy some marshmallows for a roast that evening. Sandra insisted that Michael take her hand. He wouldn't.

"You're my responsibility!" Sandra insisted.
"You ain't my mother," Michael replied.
"You don't have no mother," David said, immediately regretting what he had said.
"Do so!" Michael cried.

David nudged Sandra in the ribs and the two children ran off down the road. When they turned back to see if Michael was following them, they didn't see anyone.

"It was Sandra's fault," David claimed when the two children reported Michael's disappearance.
"Was not," Sandra cried. "It was your idea to hide on him."
"You two wait until later!" their mother swore as she and their father ran off down the road toward the canteen.

David and Sandra were frightened. They had never been in this kind of trouble before. They knew whose fault it was.

"It was Michael's fault!" Sandra declared.\

"Why didn't he follow us?" David cried. \

"You said that awful thing about his mother," Sandra responded.

David was about to argue with his sister but stopped. They were in enough trouble.

"What if they don't find Michael?" Sandra began to cry.
"They'll find him," David replied.
"But what if they don't!"

A massive search was conducted by the Park personnel. Michael was found huddled in one of the stalls in the bathhouse. Their mother hugged the little boy, weeping softly, and assuring him that she would never let him out of her sight again.

"Someday you children will pay for this!" she cursed David and Sandra when they returned to the campsite.

David and Sandra were banished to the tent. Their parents made a fire with Michael and roasted marshmallows. Sandra couldn't stop crying.

"I hate you," she said to her brother.

Michael was a troubled boy all his life. Teachers suggested psychiatric treatment but uncle Leonard would have none of it. "No son of mine is going to see a shrink!" Michael began to steal. One day he stole a box of tools from a local hardware store. When asked why, Michael said they were intended as a father's day present.

In his teens Michael's activities graduated to cars, and beer and drugs. Still David's mother felt a great affection for her nephew which both David and Sandra found annoying.

"He has such a sweet face. Like an angel's," their mother declared. "He's a criminal," Sandra swore under her breath.

Years passed. Michael was in and out of jail. One evening, drunk, he stole a car and killed a man standing at a bus stop. Asked why he stole the car, Michael had no explanation. Found guilty of manslaughter, Michael spent time in prison. David's mother carried thoughts of Michael around like a cross. She had periodic masses said for him. When she learned that Michael had found Jesus in jail, she was overjoyed.

After Michael was released from jail, he returned home. Uncle Leonard tried to get him a job. Michael could not hold down a job, always seemed restless, unable to discipline himself to a regular schedule of habits. Everything he touched, he lost. Soon Michael returned to his old friends and to his old habits. One weekend David's mother phoned up David who was now living downtown with friends, to tell him that Michael was dead. He had drowned in a friend's swimming pool under suspicious circumstances.

"He was murdered," uncle Leonard had confessed to David's mother. There was such sadness in his mother's voice that David was afraid for her health.

"That dear boy never had a chance," she cried into the phone. "It breaks my heart."
"I thought he had found God in jail," David said.

His mother was silent for several moments. David hadn't meant to sound so callous but he had over the years secretly resented his mother's attachment to his cousin.

"Like he did with everything," she sniffled, "Michael must have lost God too."

^