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father until he appeared one night like a ghost—starved, crazy. My grandfather found us a ship to take us out of the country and gave us money.
    â€œMany weeks later, we are here and you find us. We are very far from our home but we must be very careful. My father would kill himself before being sent back. I cannot let that happen.”
    I felt swallowed up by all the sorrow of their lives. I thought about all the happy, carefree days of my own, sailing around Lake Ontario, while Tamara and her family suffered. It almost didn’t seem possible. It didn’t seem fair. And then my feelings for my own father came back.
    â€œWhen
my
father died,” I told her, “I wondered why there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I would have done anything to help him, to keep him alive. So I think I understand.”
    Tamara put her arm around my neck. I leaned over and kissed her for the first time. I felt like one of those gulls below me along the cliffs, just floating through the misty evening sky.
    Tamara convinced me they would be okay for one night alone in the wilderness. Theywould not let me stay with them, but I did make one more trip to the house and back to bring them food, a tent and warm clothing.
    At home in my own bed, I had a hard time sleeping. Tamara’s story kept me awake for a long time. I kept wondering if I had done enough to help this family that seemed so strange yet so familiar.

Chapter Nine
    I woke not long after dawn with an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. My first thought was that something had happened to my mother, that someone had taken her away. But it was just a fragment of a nightmare I was having. When I looked in her room, she was still asleep.
    I threw on a coat and ran out the door. It was a gray, damp morning and the sky seemedfull of ghosts as I climbed the slippery path back to where Tamara’s family had spent the night. As I got higher up, I broke clear of the fog bank that was hugging the cove and I could see the morning sun break through the clouds higher up … a good omen.
    But it was not enough. When I reached the place where I had left Tamara’s family, they were gone. I frantically raced about, looking for some sign of the direction in which they might have gone, but there was nothing.
    A terrifying sense of loss swept over me, a feeling of powerlessness and defeat. I’d like to say I was worried about Tamara’s family, that I was feeling bad for them, but it wasn’t that at all. I was feeling sorry for myself. I was thinking that I had lost Tamara for good.
    There wasn’t a clue as to which way to go so I scrambled back down the hillside, slipping, bruising myself on the rocks along the way.
    The fog had begun to clear a bit in the cove. From the hill, I saw a car pull up in frontof the house. It was white with a light bar on top. The Mounties were back. My mother was right; she was a lousy liar.
    I wanted to scream at them—it was all their fault. Why couldn’t they just leave people alone?
    My feet finally found the gravel drive that led to our house. A cop was standing by the car. He gave me a curious look. But before I could get out a single insult, I was face to face with my mother.
    â€œGreg,” she said to me. “Something’s come up. Something about some foreigners in a lifeboat.” Her acting was bad, real bad. “There’s probably some misunderstanding, but this officer says I have to go into St. John’s with him. They just want to ask me a few questions.”
    I looked at the hulking Mountie. He had a gun on and a face like I’d seen on some bad guy in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. “You can’t do that,” I said. That fear of losing my mother crept back into my skull.
    â€œIt’s just standard procedure,” he said ina voice cold as steel. He held up a piece of paper. “This court document says we can do this.”
    Things began to blur before my