Excerpted: Little Spoons

Robinsons, Newfoundland and Labrador.

How do I even begin?

Thomas and I packed up our Subaru hatchback and drove to the ferry. He had no idea he had taken that ferry before.

“Mom, why don’t we take the boat more often? This is soooo cool! Think we’ll see whales?”

“Probably not, baby.”

All I see is the darkness the ocean provides; it has the power to feed us and the power to take life away. Having lost family to the sea is not a unique experience for most islanders but after learning how my nan had passed, I’m not as thrilled as my boy to marvel at the ocean’s strength. I’m not doing well financially by any means, but I knew to get a cabin for the crossing to make life easier. I kiss Tommy on the forehead and tell him I’m going to lie down and he can join me when he’s ready. Next thing I know I awake to the announcement that we have docked. Tommy has stayed outside watching the ocean the entire trip.

The drive from the boat isn’t long. I feel almost robotic the way I drive the TCH, turn onto Robinsons, and then stop just shy of Heatherton after the fork. It is just next to the head that I pull the car over.

Thomas asleep in the back seat.

I am careful to move silently as I get out of the car and walk the footpath to the top of the head. A tall peak among flat farmlands, its cliff steep, descending directly into the ocean below.

So, this is where she stood as she chose to take her life?

I look down at the crashing waves as my feet stand sturdy on solid ground. It just doesn’t make sense, but also, what a way to go, Nana.

Robinsons is one of those places that when you describe it to people they say, “That’s nice,” because it’s impossible to explain its significance and beauty. Growing up here it felt as though I lived at the edge of the world. There were even fences for livestock to prevent them from falling off the literal edge of the world into the ocean. Too bad Nan didn’t have one of those fences.

Too soon?

The land was flat and lush green for miles until it met the ocean, and across the shore you could see the cape. Cape St. George. All these small little communities made up what we call Bay St. George.

Don’t ask me who George is, I have no idea.

“Mom!”

Oh shit, he’s up. I quickly trot the footpath back to the car to find Tommy crouched in a ditch looking for tadpoles.

“Mom, this place is boring. There’s nothing here.”

“You’re right, sweetheart, let’s keep going.”

We hop back in the car and drive east into Heatherton to my mother’s house. It feels like the most logical place to go seeing as the funeral isn’t until tomorrow. Once again, the robot hands take over and guide me into her driveway as if it were an everyday function. The driveway is long and lined with hardwood trees, clearly planted as they stand out among the spruce. The driveway makes a U shape as the crest stops at the front door. A small house, two bedrooms and a wood stove. Hidden and well cared for, the front garden blossoming with roses and the lawn neatly trimmed.

Mudder was always a stickler for appearances.

That being said, I’ve made sure to dress well and have the boy clean. As clean as a twelve-year-old boy can be, that is. I dust off my pantsuit as I look into the back seat to see him smiling with those crooked front teeth.

God, he’s so handsome. I’m not ready for him to be subject to anything that may dim his shine.

“Baby, this is Gammie’s house.”

“Gammie?”

“Yeah, my mom.”

“Does she know we’re coming?”

He’s so sweet.

“Yes, baby, come on now.”

He hops out of the car and looks at me for reassurance as I lead us towards the front door of the tiny house. He has never experienced a place like this and suddenly I’m realizing that my child and I are from two different worlds. Now is his baptism by fire.

What an odd expression.

After Tommy’s birth we’d left so quickly he hadn’t had a baptism. This was unimportant to myself or my nan, but it seemed to bother my mother who was a strong adherent of tradition, raised in the traditional French Catholic way, meaning it was ok to sin as much as you wanted so long as you asked forgiveness later. She said if a baby wasn’t baptised, they’d never go to heaven, just be condemned to the fires of hell for all eternity. Or something like that.

Baptism by fire, but without baptism there is only fire and with baptism there is no fire.

What an odd expression.

“Mom?” Thomas stands hesitantly at the door as I dissociate on my mother’s front porch.

“Sorry, baby.”

I knock.

Nothing.

I knock again.

Nothing.

“What the fuck?” I mutter under my breath.

“Mom, is Gammie even home?”

“I don’t know, little buddy. Let’s take a look around the house, ok?”

I take the left side and Tommy goes right. The house is small with whitewashed wooden panelling. Some small areas are peeling but overall the siding has been well kept. Every inch of the perimeter is lined with some type of greenery, bushes and flowers and shrubs. I peer into each window for a glimpse of my mother.

Nothing.

The lawn spans half an acre until the property line meets the forest, a dense and dark mass of black spruce accompanied by the scattered tamarack or alder. I can’t see it, but I know beyond the trees are the cliffs that descend abruptly into the bay. As I stand at the back of the house, my endeavour fruitless, and wait for my boy, I stare off into the woods. Even as a child the woods scared me. I remember once trying to explore it for fun one day while bored—we didn’t have television or internet back then—but as I got deeper into the woods the scraping of the branches on my skin was stinging and painful. I didn’t get far before I looked up to realize I could no longer see the sky. Just emerald-green needles and dark brown limbs. Enveloped in darkness I began hearing things; I still have no idea if they were there or not, the scurrying of tiny feet among dried needles and leaves, the quick pace of a medium-size animal. Coyote? Or local dog, perhaps. A low hum, that was the noise that stays with me. A hum coming from the forest that could either be just a reverberation of the trees in the wind, or maybe the life of the woods themselves. It was distinct and it was haunting. Keep in mind, I was just a kid. Eventually I fought my way back to the glittering gold sunlight, then out onto the open of my lawn once more.

I never went back in there again.

“Mom, I don’t think she’s home.”

I’m once again startled back into reality.

“You’re right, why don’t we come back tomorrow?”

“Where will we stay tonight?” he asks, concerned.

“There’s a motel back in Robinsons.”

I kiss him on the forehead and pull my keys from my pocket as we walk together back to the car. Turning the corner to the front of the house I notice a figure at the curve of the driveway. Nan? It can’t be. I stop mid-step and focus. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her but she is standing there, hazy, still.

“Nan!” Tommy yells. My eyes focus and I realize he’s right, my mother is walking up the drive with a cloth bag in hand. She looks exactly as I remember, but also more like my nan in her older years. I guess the time apart has messed with my head a little. Her hair has thinned but still lies in a long dark braid thrown over her shoulder. She is dressed in a wool sweater and long brown pants with the ankles rolled up showing her rubber boots.

“Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you, I thought you were expecting us,” I call out as she approaches.

“Oh, no worries, love, I just went to grab some vegetables from the neighbour. Come on in now, door’s not even locked. Jesus Christ, no need for you to be out on the lawn like that, what would people say?”

My mom hasn’t changed one bit: still worried about small-town perceptions. We grab our luggage and walk into the house where everything is exactly as it always was. The decorations in the hallway. The old dirty rugs on the floor. The crisp white doily on the dining table. The burned and yellowed plastic sheeting atop the doily on the dining table. The Corelle kitchenware. The wood stove. The smell of sap and fresh bread. Grand Pré milk. Crystal sugar and butter dishes. A couch that’s seen better days. A television weighing a hundred pounds.

“You and the boy will have to share the room. Also, there’s no shower, just a tub,” my mother adds as we make our way down the hallway.

“Thanks.”

It’s late now, close to 6 or 7 p.m. at least. Mom wasn’t ever one for pleasantries or affection. She sets out a feed of moose stew and buns. At first Thomas doesn’t know what to think as he stares at the bowl of brown slop and white starch but he’s starving and soon can’t get enough. Is this the first time he’s had fresh moose? I wonder. How I’ve strayed so far from god’s path. I brush the dark hair from his forehead as he gorges himself on his meal.

“Good appetite, that one, he’ll be a hearty boy soon enough. He’s got farming in his blood,” my mother adds as she sits across the table drinking a glass of homemade wine. She only drinks her homemade stuff because she is convinced that store bought is full of chemicals and dead rats or something. She’s probably right about the chemicals but I’ll continue to take my chances.

“That’s not a thing, Mom. Besides, we don’t own the farm anymore. Pop’s family sold it. The only thing he’s farming is in Stardew Valley, ain’t that right, buddy?”

He smiles back at me. Some sweet.

“Kids need to work more. You and your sister always worked,” my mother adds. I sense disappointment in her tone. Sense is an understatement.

“Speaking of Izzy, is she here?”

“Not yet, tomorrow, or I don’t want to see her at all.”

My mother gets up and walks into the living room, indicating the conversation is over.

Good talk.

I immediately revert to daughter mode and begin clearing the table, doing the dishes. My mother’s house hasn’t been renovated since it was built. The counters are both porcelain and stainless steel and have wooden cupboards. The dish bins are deep and wide to accommodate the bathing of bread pans and babies, sometimes toddlers who are much too big to be placed in there and end up crawling out defiantly only to land on the hard wooden floorboards, naked and covered in suds. That one may have been me. The memories of this house all start coming back, both the good and the bad. Now is not the time to think of those things though. I tuck them back into the cellar of my mind and move forward with getting my son ready for bed. The house only has two bedrooms. One off the kitchen. That’s Mudder’s. The second, which my sister and I shared growing up, has no closets and is barely big enough for the bed, but it was comfortable and the window was at just the right location to allow the sunlight to peek in and wake us early every morning, and then fail to wake us early in the winter. I move the suitcases from the bed to the small real estate of floor and tuck in my boy.

“You’ll sleep good here, buddy. Tomorrow is a big day, ok?” I remind him.

“I know, Mom. I’ve never met Great-Grandma before. I hope she likes me.”

What an odd little feller.

“She loved you very much, baby. Now get a good night’s sleep. I’ll be here with you when you wake up, ok?”

I kiss him on the forehead and wrap the blankets up tight around his neck, the wood stove in the kitchen does its best but these old houses can get drafty. The bed still has the same old quilts that have been laid there for decades. I sure hope they’ve been washed. Once I shut the door behind me I go into the kitchen for an India before sitting down to watch CBC with Mom. She sits silently at the end of the stiff old couch, a glass of wine in one hand and in the other a piece of jewelry. A rosary?

“Was that Nan’s?” I ask, indicating the necklace.

“What? No. No, this was your poppy’s.”

My mother never spoke much of her father. He died when she was young, and his family pushed her and my grandmother out of the estate. I honestly didn’t realize she had anything left of him. My grandmother was not the type of woman they wanted in the family, nor were her kids. My mom had a sister as well, ironic how the dynamic repeats. Nobody ever explicitly said it out loud but the understanding was loud and clear. They didn’t want Native blood in the family. It took me an uncomfortably long time to realize it but it was true. The way they alienated her and shut her out was difficult to watch. I remember going to the grocery store and seeing family from that side and as soon as I was recognized they would turn and walk away. The moment it all clicked for me was when I came home from Sunday school—my mother’s insistence—and asked why the other kids called her a jackatar. I thought it was a weird name combining Jackie and guitar. No idea why that’s what came to mind.

“My mom says I’m not allowed to play with you ’cuz your mudder’s jackatar,” was what a boy, Bobby was his name (I’ll never forget), had said to me when I had asked him to stay after school to play tag in the fields.

“My mom’s name is Jane not Jackie,” I responded. Bobby suddenly had no comeback, realizing he also had no clue what the insult meant.

I know it broke her heart to hear that word come from my mouth. I never said it ever again.

“Why do you have it?” I ask her again, curious.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just—” She sighs. “I just do, ok, girl?” That’s a good enough response for me. I don’t pry any further.

We sit silently on opposite sides of the couch like strangers as we watch an old movie from the 80s. Something with Tom Cruise for Mom and something distracting for me as the experience of being back home is beginning to sink in its claws. The crackle of the wood stove, the clink of the brown bottles in the fridge. Everything is still here exactly as I left it, except one thing. My nan is dead.

In the morning before we head to the church, Tommy is dressed in a black dress shirt and pants I previously purchased for his school Christmas concert. He was a tree. I went to the Mumford mall and found a cheap black dress at Zara that made me look both well off and hot. The ideal combination when returning to your hometown as a single mother after a decade away.

I can’t let them know I’m doing terribly. God, why do I care so much about appearances? Oh my god, I’m becoming my mother.

“I can’t wait to meet Great-Grandma,” Tommy says quietly as we park the vehicle.

“What? It’s not an open casket, they had her cremated. I’m sorry. But you’ve seen her before. On the phone,” I remind him.

“Great-Grams is gonna be there, it’s for her. She wouldn’t miss it.”

I kiss him on his floppy head of hair. What an odd little feller.

The church doesn’t have much of a parking lot, just a dirt road with a patch of ground on the north side of the church for four, maybe six, cars. Never religious myself, I always found this church so ominous in the way it stood at the end of the line, such as how the land met the sea. I look at it now, the wood painted white and peeling from years of sun and wind exposure. The green of the flat pastures extend to the cliffs that drop off into the ocean. The church, much like the rest of the community, looks as if it is slowly being taken back into the earth. Houses crumbled, fields overgrown. There was no life in this part of the bay anymore, only death.

I can understand how some people would turn to god in a place like this, but my grandmother was never known to subscribe to organized religion. So why was her funeral here?

I can’t help but think as we enter the church to take our seats in the front that while the salt in the air is refreshing and the sounds of the waves calming, the people who were left behind to live here likely never feel truly at peace anymore as the evidence is all around that they are the people and places who have been forgotten. Left alone to take care of themselves and neglected by politics and progress. The government stopped caring about the Bay St. George area after the American army left. They left and took many of the women and children with them to work as housekeepers, nannies, and cooks in the States. My grandmother had grown up in the height of prosperity then watched as houses slowly turned to ruin and disrepair. I still can hardly think of why she jumped from that cliff, but being back here now I can see why her life was so bleak. It would be hard to continue to wake up each day knowing that it’s just going to be a little bit worse than the day before.

Mom is standing in the aisle with red eyes and handing out little pieces of paper to the few of us who have come. This is the most emotion I’ve seen from her, well ever, I think. No tears but this is close. Tommy and I slide into our seats and I’m met with a framed photo of Nan directly in front of me. She’s younger here. Much younger. Unsure if this is what she wanted or just the only formal photograph they had on hand, I observe her standing in the yard in front of her house, hands on her hips and smiling. Hair in dark bouncy curls, big thick rimmed glasses, a striped sweater and cargo shorts. She almost looks as if she’s staring straight at me. I feel uneasy. Guilty. I would have liked to at least have seen her one last time before she went. Now, in the quiet of the church, I’m no longer able to keep the dark thoughts at bay. Why would she kill herself without leaving a note? Why didn’t she say goodbye? Why couldn’t she have at least met Tommy? I can ignore these questions and the whole situation still doesn’t make any sense. Why, why, why?

“Great-Gram likes that picture,” Tommy looks up at me and says. “She said it makes her legs look good.”

I laugh at him. “Of course she would, that’s true. They do look good.”

Nan was not above vanity, and she took pride in her home and appearance, so the comment is pretty dead on for a boy who’s never met her. I squeeze his little hand for comfort as I turn to see who showed up, realizing now I don’t know anyone who lives here anymore other than my own family. There are two older women in the next pew over and back, their proximity to the front either a sign they were close with my nan or they want to give the impression that they were. Neither crying, I note to myself. Then behind them a woman my own age with a young boy, a few years younger than Tommy, but I’m impressed to see some youth still around. In the back is an older man, a worn grey suit and thick salt and pepper hair. He looks familiar in a way I can’t pinpoint. Perhaps he’s related somehow. So far I don’t recognize any of these people. In this moment the door opens and finally a recognizable face. Vera, she was my nan’s best friend, and at her side is a man, likely a new boyfriend—she was never one to settle down even in her bigger years. I smile and nod in her direction to indicate my appreciation. I notice her cheeks are wet as she sits down. Real, honest tears. The organ begins to play and the priest arrives to take his place and as he does so I turn to see my mother leading my sister up the aisle to sit beside us. I didn’t think she would make it but then again Mom said she had to, or else not come at all. Izzy is much younger than me, but reminds me of myself, if I had made better life choices. She’s wearing her hair in two long braids, just the way I’d always style them for her when I got her ready for school as a child. She shifts herself in close to me, close enough to lean in and whisper.

“I need to talk to you after the funeral, alone.”

No pleasantries, no asking how I’ve been, just straight to the point. This is serious.

“Why?”

“It’s Nan’s death.”

She pauses and I can see she’s unsure about what she’s about to say next. She looks around to see that the service hasn’t started.

“She didn’t kill herself, Mary. She was pushed. Anyone who knew her knows she wouldn’t do that. They all think it was an accident but I know the truth. Somebody did this to her. Someone who might even be here. Today.”

Excerpted from Little Spoons by Diedre J. Halbot © 2026.  Used with permission of Breakwater Books.

* * *

Order a copy of Little Spoons here on All Lit Up, or via your local bookseller.

For more Excerpted, click here.