Waiting for Unicorns Read Free Page A

that space. Maybe it only existed from my side and he couldn’t feel it. Or maybe it was all in my head, like that warning on the side-view mirrors of a car: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” But that space certainly felt real, and I didn’t know how to close it up. Especially now that we’d be apart for most of the summer.
    We were renting two rooms in a house right on the edge of town. Dad had stayed there before. He was friends with the Inuit woman who lived there. And while it was nice of her to welcome my dad and me into her house, I wasn’t exactly excited about spending my summer with a stranger while Dad was out on the ice.
    â€œI’ve been friends with Sura for a long time, Tal,” Dad said. “Your mom, too. We came to Churchill together a couple of times before you were born,” he said. “She and Sura knew each other. She never told you?”
    I shook my head. Mom had told me things about Churchill, but she never told me she’d been here herself. I just figured she knew things because of what Dad had told her, same as me. It was a new thought. My mom had been here, sat beside my dad as they drove along these roads. She’d seen these same trees and glacial rocks, the same sweep of the shore, ice-locked and covered in snow.
    I held that thought, clung to it as we pulled up next to the house, the back of the Suburban loaded with our boxes. Instead of clapboard siding, the house was covered with blue asphalt shingles from peak to porch. The whole structure seemed to sag a bit, as if it were leaning into the wind whipping shoreward off the frozen surface of Hudson Bay.
    â€œSo what do you think?” Dad asked, reaching over and patting my knee.
    â€œIt looks good,” I said, and I scrunched up my mouth into what I hoped looked like a smile.
    He studied my face for a minute and sighed. Then he nodded once like he’d made up his mind, and got out. The cold air whooshed into the warm cab as he slammed the door behind him.
    The engine ticked quietly, cooling in the arctic air. My breath fogged up the windows, making everything seem calm and far away through the cloudy glass. I sat in the car, waiting for just the right moment, taking in the sight of the place that would be my home for the next few months. I wasn’t ready to jump right into this new life just yet. So I took that pause. The same one Mom used to take before she began a story. Then I took a deep breath and opened the door. It screeched wide on frozen hinges.
    The wind whipped around me, stinging my face and bare hands. I dug into my pockets for my mittens and tucked my chin into my coat collar. Anything to protect myself from the cold.
    Dad didn’t seem to mind it, though. He was waiting, one hand stuffed deep into his pocket, the other ready to land on my shoulder. I dodged his arm, and we walked to the front steps with a Mom-sized space between us.
    A dark-haired woman in a yellow sweater stood on the porch. She was a splash of color in that cold, drab world, like that jar of saffron in the pantry.
    â€œWelcome back, Thomas,” she said to my dad, taking his hand in both of hers. I stood behind him on the steps, one hand pressed against the railing to steady myself.
    Her voice was surprising. Deep and rich and smooth as chocolate. She was nothing like what I’d expected. She was quite pretty. Her skin was darker than mine, and her eyes were smaller. Her hair was black and shiny and fell thick just past her shoulders. And she was younger than I thought she’d be, not much older than my mom, actually. In my head she’d been old and gray haired, her skin wrinkled like the paper we’d packed around our belongings from home. All of a sudden I had to rearrange some of the things I’d been imagining about her.
    â€œSura, this is my daughter, Talia Lea McQuinn,” Dad said, gesturing awkwardly as I joined them on the porch. She knew who I was, of