Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Grandparents are the Best Parents -The Mermaid and Other Mysteries & Summer of Stars

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

“And then one night … there were shooting stars.”  Today on the pod, two stories set in Dave’s hometown of Big Narrows, Nova Scotia, stories where the grandparents step in to help, and to work their quiet magic.Ad-free listening is here! Listen to the pod ad-free and early, PLUS a whole bunch of other goodies – like virtual parties, Q&As, listener shout-outs & more. Subscribe here: apostrophe.supercast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the apostrophe podcast network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. This week's episode title is deliberately provocative. I know I'll hear from you about it, and I'm ready. Bring it on. I can already hear the emails. They almost write themselves.

Grandparents are the best parents? Really, Jess? Yes, really, or at least sometimes, and definitely in these stories. We've got two tales today where the grandparents step in, not just to help, but to work their quiet magic. You'll see what I mean in our first story. This is Stuart McLean with Summer of Stars. Dave's mother, Margaret, and Smith Gardner, retired fire chief, married more. than a year, but barely more than a year. We're sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch.

Campbell's tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and butterscotch pudding. They made it to the pudding, and Margaret was telling Smith one of her favorite stories, the story of Puccini's last opera, Turandotte, which happened to be one of her favorite operas. It was part of an ongoing campaign to educate Smith, not in the ways of the world. Smith Gardner was always already wise in the ways of the world, in the ways of her world. Campaign wasn't going as well as she would have liked. Smith was a sweet and kind man. She loved having him around her.

She loved cooking for him. She enjoyed his company. They enjoyed each other's company. Yet there was no denying it. This business of a second marriage, all these little adjustments, it was surprisingly tough. He didn't finish the final duet, said Margaret. Who? said Smith, putting down a spoon and staring at her earnestly. Puccini, said Margaret, a little peevishly.

Right, said Smith. First, said Margaret, he was sick, and then he died. So he couldn't finish, said Smith, showing her that he could keep up. So his friend finished it for him, said Margaret. Is that allowed? said Smith. Not against the rules? there are no rules, said Margaret. This is Art Smith. So his friend finished it. Then the great Toscanini agreed to conduct the world premier, Las Gala. Smith raised his spoon in the air as if he were conducting an orchestra, and Margaret smiled.

But when Toscanini reached the last scene, she said, the scene the friend had written, he put his baton down and he turned his back on the orchestra and everything ground to a halt. The two of them stared at each other for an uncomfortable moment. Smith lowered his hands and then he said, why did he do that? Well, said Margaret, this is a very famous moment. Toscanini turned to the audience and announced that the maestro had not completed the opera. And then he said, death is stronger than art. And that would be as far as they would go that night.

Margaret looked exhilarated. Smith looked puzzled. Smith said, did everyone boo? There was dead silence, said Margaret, until someone in the audience yelled out at the top of their lungs. I know what he yelled, said Smith. He yelled, I want my money back. No, said Margaret.

He yelled, Viva Puccini. And they all stood up, gave a big ovation. This made no sense to Smith at all. You'd think they'd want their money back, said Smith. Smith had a fiercely pragmatic heart and Margaret loved him for it but she wasn't used to it her late husband Charlie loved her story

about Puccini loved it of course Charlie loved everything about music Charlie kept a ukulele in the truck played it while he drove used his knees to steer Margaret and Charlie fit together so easily sometimes it felt that there was

it's hard to put in words like there was an unanswered question hovering between her and Smith. And like any unresolved question, it kept coming up, demanding her attention. There in June when she told them about the opera, and then when her grandson Sam and his best friend Murphy came to spend some of the summer with them, and Margaret had to hustle the boys off each morning before Smith could get to them. She made them sandwiches and pushed them outside to play before Smith could push them

them into the garden and get them pulling weeds or laying down mulch. Boys should be working, said Smith. Boys should be boys, said Margaret. There was no doubt about it. Margaret and Smith were still getting used to one another's ways. But Sam was her grandson, so she held Trump. And Smith was wise enough not to make her play it. So instead of working, the boys played. Margaret never asked where they had been or what they were up to.

It was summer. knew what they were up to. They were up to nothing. And could anything be more perfect for two boys from the city than to drift around Big Narrows Cape Breton in July and August? It was the summer of corn, cobs and popsicles of dandelions and frogs, ice cream cones, and the old wrecked car on the mountain road. And then one night there were shooting stars. It was a night Sam and Murphy will never forget. They were in the backyard lying on the soft grass. The sky couldn't have been black or the stars couldn't have been closer or further away. It was hard to tell. Close and far at the same time. A constellation of confusion. They'd been lying there for maybe half an hour, lying on their

backs head to head, lost from the world of words. When Murphy's head, did you see that? like a flash from a camera except longer and streakier from one side of the sky right across to the other the two of them sat up abruptly and stared at each other and wonder it was there and then it was gone and whatever it was had flared into the atmosphere of their imaginations like a galloping horse

the wave of a hand a blink of the eye and they would have missed but neither of them blinked. Oh yes. Sam had seen it all right. What was that? said Sam. Murphy's eyes were bulging. But he didn't say anything.

It was like he was in a trance. Murphy? Said Sam. Aliens. It was aliens. And then there was another. And then another. And Murphy said, it's happening.

The boys ran inside. Inside it was an August night like any other. Margaret was sitting on the couch knitting, and Smith was sitting beside her in his big green chair the television was on. They were watching the news, oblivious that the biggest news of all was just outside. We saw a UFO, said Sam. Three, said Murphy. They were hardly the first boys from the city to stare up into the night and be fooled by a shooting star. ah said Smith smiling sitting up Margaret knew what was coming these were the sort of moments Smith loved

he was about to explain he was about to say something about comets and meteors and cosmic hoo-ha ah said Smith but he didn't get any further than that because Margaret didn't let him before he said one more word Margaret shot him a look

what said Smith And Margaret shot him another look And then she turned to the boys And she said Tell us what you saw Right across the sky said Murphy Right over town

Three of them said Sam One after the other Like a flash from a camera said Margaret Except faster and streakier Exactly said both boys together How did you know? said Sam

What else said Margaret you're not the first ones around here to see something like that. And then she glanced at Smith. Smith was frowning at her. Margaret frowned back. An hour later, the boys were upstairs. They were lying in bed, but they were light years from sleep. Did you see your grandfather? said Murphy.

He didn't like her talking about it, said Sam. She didn't tell us everything she knew, said Murphy. You could tell. Did you see the look she'd. gave them? They talked for over an hour, lying on their beds under the sloping roof, feeling smaller and smaller until they felt so small they felt like they were floating. In the living room, Smith turned off the television. Why didn't you want me to tell them, he said? Margaret was folding up her knitting. What, she said, that it was just a shooting star? A meteor, said,

Smith, not a star. Probably no bigger than a grain of salt. Margaret stared at him. That's the truth, said Smith, she said, what sort of fun can a boy have with a grain assault? But those are the facts, said Smith. Smith Gardner, said Margaret. Life would be tedious of all we did was stick to the facts. Sam couldn't remember falling to sleep that night, but he slept deep. But he slept deep. and he dreamed of the golden flare from a monstrous spaceship. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Murphy, already dressed, sitting by the window, staring out. How long have you been up? said Sam.

Maybe they didn't land, said Murphy. Maybe they crashed. And so they had breakfast, and they crashed out the back door and onto their bikes. We'll start at McCauley, said Murphy. start what said sam the search said murphy as they paddled over the green iron bridge on the edge of town sam said why macaulies because said murphy macaulay has the only cows in town there are almost always mupilated cows macaulay's cows were fine you're sure said murphy all of them they were standing in the farm yard in front of the barn, the boys straddling their bikes, old man McCauley, leaning on his

tractor. I only have the one cow, said old man McCalloy. It isn't hard to keep track. The boys found the piece of spaceship two days later, in the woods on McCauley's mountain, a piece of shiny metal about the size of a cookie sheet. In fact, if you didn't know better, you might have thought it was a cookie sheep. It was half buried under some old leaves, not far from McCauley's sugar shack. This could be from a wing, said Sam. Or a tail stabilizer, said Murphy. It could be radioactive, said Sam. They collected soil samples from beside it.

They didn't want to touch it, so they used a stick to push it into the backpack. They showed it to Margaret as soon as they got home. Do you think it's radioactive? said Margaret. Smith, who was reading the paper at the kitchen table, snorted derisively. They thought about selling it on eBay. But they decided against that it was too valuable for eBay. Besides, said Margaret, you wouldn't want it falling into the wrong hands. Exactly, said Murphy.

Then Margaret looked at Smith and said, maybe you should take the boys down to see Chief Kavanaugh. Smith stared at her in amazement, and then he nodded at her slightly as if to say, I'd give up. Chief Kavanaugh was sitting at his desk at the police station with a morning crossword in front of him when the boys arrived. He looked up and smiled, said, you're the lads who found the spaceship. Murphy let out a long, contented sigh.

Sam said, piece of a spaceship. Chief Kavanaugh pushed the paper aside and examined the piece of metal carefully. Do you think it's radioactive, he said. Then he reached for a pen and wrote in his logbook. It was Chief Kavanaugh who suggested they send it to the government. It was Margaret who told them that the government, was a mansion of many rooms and they should choose their room carefully.

She sent them to the Big Narrows Library. They spent three hours huddled over the library's single computer. They argued about where they should send it. To the RCMP, the Space Agency, the Department of Defense, foreign affairs? What about the Dairy Commission, said Sam? What? said Murphy.

Because of the mupilated cows, said Sam. How about, tourism, said Murphy. They couldn't be tourists. They narrowed it down to three. Citizenship and immigration. The Refugee Board. And CBDC. What's that? said Sam. Cape Breton Development Corporation, said Murphy. Perfect, said Sam. They left with an address written on a tiny scrap of paper. That night they sat down to draft a letter. Murphy dictated. Sam wrote. Murphy said, okay. Murphy said, start with this. We found this in Area 27. Area 27, said Sam. That's just the way governments talk, said Murphy. So Murphy paste and Sam sat at the table trying to keep up. Wait, he said not so fast. How do you spell, mutilated? I don't know, said Murphy. M-E-W. Sam wrote, there are no dead cows. Murphy added as far as we have seen.

Sam added, but McCauley's cow seems cranky. There are no dead cows as far as we have seen, but McCauley's cow seems cranky. Good, said Murphy. They placed the letter and the piece of metal along with some of the dirt they had dug up into a cardboard box, and they wrapped the box in brown paper, and they took it to the post office,

and they used their allowance to mail it to Ottawa. That night after supper, the boys washed the dishes. As they worked, they argued about some of the things they had been arguing about all summer, whether gerbils were more fun than hamsters. If Sasquatches existed in Canada or just in Russia. And what it would be like if Martians landed and they barked like dogs. And only dogs could understand them, but not humans. When they finished, they walked to town.

They said they were going for ice cream. down the hill in front of the house, as lost in their conversation as two rabbinical students. As he stood on the porch and watched them go, Smith felt a pang. His boyhood summers seemed so close and so far. When she heard how much the package had cost a mail to Ottawa, Margaret began to wonder if Smith was right. Sure they were smart boys. Sure they would figure things out in their own time,

but maybe it was a small treachery not to tell the truth always. Maybe I was wrong, Smith, she said one night. The two boys were already up in their room reading. Charlie and I, she began, and then she stopped and she started again. Maybe Charlie and I didn't think these things through enough. Smith set his tea towel down and put his hand on Margaret's arm. Smith said, I think it's me who doesn't think things through.

I think you have things just about right. I just enjoy stories, said Margaret, more than facts. I like the mystery and the tension. Aha, said Smith, that's why you married me. Margaret laughed too. But she didn't contradict him. She went into the living room and saddled into her chair with her knitting. Smith disappeared upstairs.

He rooted around at the back of the bedroom closet. He was looking for his old binoculars. When he found them, he crossed the hall and knocked on the boy's bedroom door. Come on, he said. Once he got them downstairs, he handed them the binoculars. It's a beautiful night, he said. Don't waste it. They lay down on the lawn and he laid down beside them.

They laid down and looked up. August stars. Margaret saw them out the kitchen window. Her three boys sprawled on the grass. She made hot chocolate. When she took it out, Sam handed her the binoculars. Look at the moon, he said. Look at the moon.

They stayed until it got cold and the boys began to yawn. Margaret took them in. When she came back out, Smith was sitting on the porch stairs, still staring at the sky. She stood beside him for a few minutes. The two of them quiet until Smith said, a penny for your thoughts. I was thinking of Charlie, said Margaret.

He would have loved this summer. Did you miss him? said Smith. Seemed so long ago, said Margaret. Another life. And Smith patted the stair beside him and said, sit down. And she sat beside him and then she shivered and Smith stood up and took off his cardigan and draped it around her shoulders. When he sat down again, she leaned into him and they sat there staring up at the sky together. There's plenty of time for them to learn that there are

no mysteries left in the world, said Margaret. There's not close enough time for that, said Smith. there are more mysteries than time will ever give us. Another star flew across the sky. How long do you think I'll get? Said Smith. Like a flash from a camera, said Margaret. Except brighter and streakier. Smith laughed.

His laugh rose up into the night sky. Up to the window where Murphy was sitting. His book abandoned up. upside down on his bed. But the sound of the old man's laughter barely made an impression because up in the attic, Murphy was looking up too.

He whispered to Sam. Come and see. It's happening. That was the story we call Summer of Stars. We recorded that story in Windsor, Ontario. It's no accident that these types of things happen under the watch of grandparents. Grandparents come from a time when parenting

wasn't a full-time performance. You had five kids. You just did your best. You let them loose a little, not because you read about it on Instagram, but because you had no choice. You had to. Your husband was at work for 12 hours every day, and you had to watch five kids, do the laundry, and make dinner. There wasn't time to supervise everything, and the kids didn't need it. They'd figure it out, and they did. And yes, there were problems and accidents. Bad things can happen, but so can magic. Magic needs room.

It needs idle time and wandering and a little bit of trouble now and then. I used to think this was generational, that it was just how things were done back then. But the older I get, the more I wonder if it's something else. Maybe it's about confidence. about having lived long enough to know that most things do work out, that scraped knees heal, that mistakes make really good stories, that curiosity is more valuable than control. Maybe that's the real gift of grandparents. They know how to let go, not out of neglect, but out of trust.

And that trust, more than anything, is what kids remember. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another story. So stick around. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is Stuart McLean with The Mermaid and Other Mysteries. Sam is spending the weekend with his sister. They're sitting at the kitchen table in her second floor apartment.

They've just finished dinner, pasta and a reddish sauce, salad and dessert. They've been sitting there talking about their parents since dinner was over, about Dave and Morley, about their father's record store and why he is still doing it, about the theater where their mother works. They've talked about Arthur, their old dog, and now they're talking about their old dog. and now they're talking about their grandfather, Dave's father Charlie, from Cape Breton, who Sam has never met. I remember his smell, says Stephanie. He smelled like plaid. Sam says that's not helpful. It's hard for her to remember more. She was so young when he died. The memory she had. The memory she has are moments without context, like photographs in an album. There's one where she is sitting on his

shoulders, ducking so she won't hit her head on a tree branch. But those could have easily been her father's shoulders she was sitting on. There's another about a boat, a lobster boat, probably, she says. At least you met him, says Sam, reaching for another helping of dessert. At least he knew you. They don't do this often, these two. Reminise. It's not that they're too young for it. Everyone likes to reminisce, young and old. What is it to reminisce but to share stories that you star in? Sam says, do you remember when I broke my arm? That summer, says DeFine. That summer that Dave and Morley left the two of them in Cape Breton with their grandmother. Stephanie was 11, which means Sam was what? Four?

Grandpa Charlie had, of course, already passed. Dave wanted to take Morley to some festival in New York State, so they all drove down to Big Narrows together. They stayed a few days together with Margaret, and then Morley and Dave took off, leaving Sam and Steph with Margaret. it was the first time their parents had left at them. Dave and Morley thought it'd be good for Margarne and for them, quite frankly, they needed some time too. It was a bad break, said Sam, meaning his arm. And just like that, this little after-dinner communion, which has been rolling along

so happily is in danger of derailing. The broken arm, which Sam has just remembered, comes, you see, with certain complications. You want some tea, says Steph, getting up from the table and walking over to the stove? What she's doing right now, she's playing for time. She is trying to decide if she is going to tell her brother the truth about the broken arm. Steffie has a history of this, of truth, shall I. Over the years, she has delivered numerous truths to her brother, many of which would have been better left withheld. If she was here to defend herself, staff would argue that she was only being honest.

Others might argue she was also being mean. The spring he was only five, for instance. Sam believed, with his heart and soul, that the beans his mother had planted in the garden were going to grow into a giant beanstalk. Don't be stupid, said Stephan. This is after watching a week of careful watering. They are wax beans, she said.

They're the ones we have for dinner, the ones you hate. True? Certainly it was true. But another truth was that Stephanie was bored of her brother's cute cordulity, or more to the point, perhaps, jealous of the attention it was earning him. When Sam earnestly told her that their father could remove the tip of his thumb and then reattach it, it's from a wound he had in the war. Stephanie said,

Give your head a shake. To begin with, he was never in a war. Then she removed the tip of her thumb. See, she said, wiggling her fingers in his face. It's a trick. There were others, of course. Some of them of significance.

All of this truthfulness delivered with such moral righteousness meant Sam had navigated the world to his childhood with a certain tentativeness. There's a difference between coming upon the truth of things in your own time and having truth thrust upon you by others, especially if by others, we mean you're sometimes impatient and often insensitive older sister. It's the difference between living in a world you can trust and one where reality, as you know it, can at any moment, be pulled from underfoot.

This reached its apotheosis, the spring that Sam was eight, a Friday night in June. Stephanie was babysitting. She invited some friends over. One of them brought a copy of the Exorcist. They made Sam watch it with them. When little Regan projectile vomited onto the priests, Sam threw up too. It was essentially the end of his childhood. Which brings us back to the broken arm. There is Sam sitting at his sister's kitchen table, reminiscing.

I fell off the swing, he says. And there is Stephanie standing by her stove, mulling which way she should go with this. Let me tell you the truth of it. He did fall off the swing, and it was in Cape Brue. at their grandma's house that summer their parents left them that much is true the swing's still there if you want to see it's been there forever in the old maple tree the ropes that hold it go way up and out of sight so you can really get that swing going if you want Stephanie was pushing Sam and okay in the passive aggressive way of older siblings she was pushing way too hard

So when he fell, the trajectory of the swing launched him surprisingly far. His little arms and legs windmilling as he sailed over the yard. When he landed, he landed on his funny bone. First time in his life, the electric jolt that ran down his arm stunned him. He lay in the dirt for a second as the swing spun silently above him, not moving. He didn't dare move. Because even though he was only four, he knew what had happened. He'd just broken his arm. He lay there soundlessly without moving. And then he began to scream. A bit of showboating, perhaps. Stephanie would certainly say that.

their grandmother ran out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Sam, she said, sweetheart, whatever's the matter. Stephanie answered for him. Nothing's the matter, said Stephanie. He's okay. My arm is broken, says Sam. I broke my arm. Standing there by her stove in her apartment all these years later,

Stephanie can remember that moment perfectly. her grandmother bending over and scooping her brother up. And she can remember following them inside her grandmother's house, morosely. Now, it was quickly apparent that telling Sam he was going to be all right was only making matters worse. He was dangerously close to falling into outright hysteria when Margaret changed taxed. She picked up his arm, wiggled it a bit and said, oh my goodness, It's no wonder you're crying. Your arm is broken. He stopped crying on the spot. Stephanie recalled that moment as if it was yesterday. Her brother turning to her across their grandmother's kitchen. See? Then looking back at Margaret, he said, do I need a cast? Without a second's pause, Margaret said, oh yes. And that's when Stephanie started to cry because, well, because she had just broken her brother's arm, hadn't she? And they were going to have to go to the hospital. And the truth would inevitably come out about her pushing too hard and she'd be sent to reform school.

Do we have to take him to hospital, she said? Margaret, who was operating at a very evolved level of child care, turned and winked at her granddaughter and said, I think we can handle this ourselves. It was all very confusing. Stephanie sat there watching as Margaret got out an old half-empty bag of plaster from the shed, and she watched her wrap Sam's arm in gauze and set the gauze with the plaster. I broke my arm, said Sam, to assist her. The bone snapped. Right through, said Margaret, who had begun

to clean up. She fashioned a sling out of a pillowcase. How long will I need the cast, said Sam. Oh, it's a very bad break, said Margaret. That cast's going to have to stay on overnight. Then she made popcorn. And they sat by the stove and they ate popcorn. We went to the hospital to get the cast, said Sam, interrupting Stephanie's reverie. No, Stephanie is thinking, as she stands by her stove all these years later, we didn't go to the hospital. She picks up her cattle and carries it to the counter. Now, you might wonder what harm there could be with her saying something right.

now. Sam, after all, clearly didn't break his arm. They cut the cast off the next morning. The whole exercise was rather sweet. But consider this. The tapestry of our lives is made up of little bits of faded cloth, each worn piece stitched to another on the frame of memory. Is it so horrible that in the mirror of his mind, Sam believes he fell off the swing and broke his arm and they put on a cast and it healed overnight. One day the contradictions of that might occur to him, but for now, for now he soared through the air in an awful acrobatic falling. And when he landed, he snapped his arm and got a cast like so many of his friends. It may be a curation of memory, but it was, after all, a magic two weeks living there with their grandmother in that rambling old house without their parents for the first time in their lives.

It was a time that should be mythologized. It is no coincidence, I would put forward, that that that was the one and same son. that Stephanie had her own encounter with myth. For that was the summer, the summer Morley and Dave left them with Margaret, the summer that Sam broke his arm, that Stephanie saw the mermaid. Let me tell you about it. Margaret's friend Mildred used to watch Sam in the afternoons while he napped. And while Mildred babysat Sam, Margaret would take Stephanie off on her own, to town, to the post office, to carrigans for groceries, or to the Maple Leaf Cafe for ice cream. Margaret was still driving Charlie's truck that summer, and sometimes on the way home from town, they would park at Rock Beach, way Charlie used to. Margaret would sit on the big flat rock at the back of the cove where Charlie used to sit.

Stephanie would sit beside her, and they would stare out at the lonely gray ocean. One afternoon, Margaret started to cry as she sat there. When Stephanie asked her why, instead of answering, Margaret said, did your father ever tell you that if you shed seven tears into the ocean, a ferry will come out of the water? Staffie had never seen a grown-up cry before.

She'd been staring at her grandmother with concern. The tears were virtually running down her grandmother's cheeks. But now she finally summoned the courage to speak. Can we try, she said, to get a fairy? Margaret shrugged. No harm in that, said Margaret. So they took off their shoes and sat them down on flat rock and they picked their way over the stones to the edge of the water.

Stephanie walked right in. But Margaret knew how cold that ocean water was. Margaret stopped at the edge. Stephanie tugged on her arm. Come on, said Stephanie, trying to be as encouraging as possible. You cry and I'll count. Moment Margaret put her feet in the salty cold ocean, she stopped crying. It was just too cold to cry.

Instead of crying, she started to laugh. She was laughing at the foolishness of it, standing in the ocean trying to summon fairies. Grandma, said Stephanie. Why aren't you crying? Is something wrong? That was the day Margaret began telling Stephanie the old stories. They'd sit in the kitchen in the evening when Sam had been put to bed. The kettle would be hissing on the stove.

Margaret's knitting would be in her lap. And she told the stories that her mother had told her when she was a girl. Stories about all the sea spirits. The little blue men who lived in the shallows looking for boats to sink. The Selkies who looked like seals when you saw them in the gray roll. ocean, but who could come onto the beach, shed their skin, and take human form. If you ever marry a selke, said Margaret one night with great seriousness, you've got to burn the skin. Why, Grandma? Because of all you do is hide his skin, that Selke, you'll find it.

And when he finds it, he'll leave you and return to the ocean and never come back. I'd never marry a Selke, said Stephanie. Margaret shrugged. Anyway, said Stephanie, how would I know? Woman always knows, said Margaret. Probably by the smell, said Stephanie. Probably they smell like seaweed. Margaret told her about lepracons.

A lepracons, said Margaret, and she's leaning forward with great seriousness when she tells her, is not a little person the way they say in the books. A lepracon appears to us, in the form of an old man. She said it twice, just like an old man, she said. And then she said, if you ever catch a leprechaun, he has to grant you three wishes.

And once he's done that, you have to let him go. Steffie said, was grandpa a leprechaun? God spare me, said Margaret. I never thought of that. But it's well possible. Stephanie said, did you ever ask him for three wishes? I never had to, said Margaret.

He was always granting me my wishes before I could ask. Maybe that's why he died, said Stephanie. Maybe he ran out of wishes. Margaret said maybe he did. One afternoon, Margaret took Stephanie to Ellen Burnett's house so Ellen could read her cup. Ellen has a gift for the cup. better than anyone in town.

On the way back from Ellens, they went for a walk on Logan's Beach. They took their shoes off and left them by the wooden sidewalk where the seagrass ends and the sand begins. The tide was out. The beach was wide and flat. And the fog was rolling in. It wasn't an afternoon for a walk. But they walked all the way to where the sand ends at the rock point.

It was just after they started back that Stephanie looked over her shoulder and saw the girl on the rocks at the point's end. Just as she looked, the girl slid into the water, her hair, a flash of green, and in Stephanie's mind's eye below her waist, she would have sworn on a stack of Bibles, a flippered tail. Grandma, she said, tugging on Margaret, its hand. It was foggy. It was hard to see the point from where they'd stopped. Probably it was a seal. Possibly it was someone swimming. A girl from town, maybe. Maybe a girl from town who had told a boy

to meet her on the beach and he didn't come. Grandma, said Stephanie. Did you see it? That night as they were going to bed, she said, Grandma, do you believe all those stories you told me? Margaret leaned down and squeezed Steph's hand. She said, don't you? And these are the moments that Stephanie is remembering as she stands by the stove in her kitchen waiting for the water to boil. Her little brother, still sitting at her table, is lost in his own dreams of that long ago summer. Did we go to the hospital to get the cast, he says suddenly? And she makes up her mind. She turns and she says, no, Sam, we didn't go to the hospital.

The kettle begins to whistle. And she turns off the stove and carries it to the table and she pours the boiling water into the teapot. The steam rising in her kitchen for a moment like Kate Breton fog. We didn't go to the hospital, she said. The doctor came to the house. He put the cast on right in the kitchen. I was so young, said Sam. It's hazy.

I think I remember we made popcorn. I remember that, said Stephanie. We ate it at the table. And she sat down and smiled at her younger brother. She is remembering the rotten smell of seaweed, the raucous call of the seaweat. birds, the gray roiling sea that rolls on and on, the little blue men who wait in the shallows to make mischief with boats, the seals that can shed their skin and turn into people,

and how fairies come out of the water if you shed seven tears. And she is remembering, too, the way the waves run up at your feet and suck the sand away so you feel as if you are sinking. and the way tea leaves lie in the bottom of tea cups. She filled her brother's mug, and she smiled. Here's to Grandma, she said. That was The Mermaid and Other Mysteries. We recorded that story at the Yukon Art Center in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, back in 2015. All right, that's it for today, but we'll be back here next week.

week with another Dave and Marley story. Someone had the idea they'd tear down the old schoolhouse and build a community hall in its place. In those days, if you had an idea like that, you could just go ahead and do it. I think they got a little money from the town, said Dave. They used it to hire an architect from Glace Bay, but I don't think they followed his plans. Mostly they just did it themselves. They were miners and fishermen and farmers and they knew how to do things with their hands. There was no question of fixing up the old schoolhouse. The schoolhouse was done in. First thing they had to do was demolish the school. The whole town gathered to watch that. They had four tractors with chains attached to each of the four walls. The moment they

they started pulling the roof smack down. Big cloud of dust and suddenly there was an empty lot where the school had been. It was every school kid's dream. All the kids thought it was fantastic. Everyone who had gone to school watched with tears in their eyes. The kids cheering and the old folks crying, isn't that the way of the world? Then they set to building the new hall. Sam said, did you help? Of course, said Dave. Everyone pitched in. The kids had come home from school

and the parents had come home from work and they'd gather at the hall, start in the late afternoon and work until 10 at night, five nights a week, then all day Saturday. People would bring supper and they'd sit around the picnic table out back and eat together. Mostly, the kids did things like cleanup, sweeping nails and dead bits of wood and burning them out back.

I hammered in the sub floor, said Dave. His little sister Annie hammered in the window frame at the back of the kitchen, the one to the right of the sink. If you examined it, you could see the dents around each nail. Like they had blindfolded her before they gave her the hammer. That's next week on the podcast. I hope you'll join us. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the apostrophe podcast network.

The recording engineer is the mupilated Greg DeClute. Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeClute, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.