Summer, 1940

It was a dusty hot summer afternoon, and Kelly Larimer turned to take a whistling kettle off the stove. She returned to the window. She could see her son Stephen’’s best friend Danny coming down the lane with a few friends. Stephen was not with them. Stephen was always with them. And she noticed that they were quiet, not the usual for this group of 9 year olds. She wondered if there had been a falling out.

She wiped her hands on her apron, opened the screen door with a smile and a wave. “ Hi Danny, is Stephen with you?”

“No Mrs. Larimer he isn’t with us.”

The kids looked from Danny to Mrs. Larimer as if they were waiting for something to happen.

Kelly felt a small twinge. “Do you know where he went Danny?”

Danny looked at the other kids, and hesitated. ”I’m not sure where he went Mrs. Larimer. We were at the river, and when we went to leave he wasn’t there.” Some of the other kids nodded. Two looked down at the ground.

The twinge became a jolt. “What do you mean he wasn’t there when you left?”

Danny looked guilty, and shrugged. “He was with us at the river, but he just wasn’t there when we were ready to come home. It was getting late so, you know, we just left.”

Kelly ran down the stairs and across the road to the garage where her husband Donald was working. Stephen was not allowed to go to the river without his older brother, or an adult. He would never go off and leave the river without his friends.

Kelly told Donald with tears welling what the kids had said. Donald took one look at his wife, dropped his tools, wiped his hands on an oily rag, and said “ Kel I’ll go to the river. You go home and stay there. Send David or Lizzy to the river to get me if he comes home.”

Donald got in his truck, and Kelly ran back to the house. She found Lizzy, 10 and David, 12 in the kitchen. “Have you seen Stephen?”

Lizzy and David looked at their mum and realized she was frantic and crying. “No mum, said David, what’s wrong?”

“Stephen didn’t come home with the other kids, and they were at the river. I think something happened. Dad has gone in the truck. Stay here. “

Kelly ran down the stairs to the lane for a second time, and proceeded to run 2 miles to the river.

Kelly stopped. She was crying, and breathing heavily, and her feet were bleeding in her kitchen shoes. She could see that Donald had parked his truck and walked down to the shore of the river. Several other men were with him. They had been searching the bank where the kids liked to swim. Kelly ran towards them crying her husband’s name. Donald looked up and started to move towards her.

”Looks like his clothes, Kel, here on the Bank. His shoes and his shirt, the blue one that used to be David’s.”

It was now dusk, Kelly couldn’t speak. Donald and the other men were scanning the shoreline and the river calling Stephen’s name. Mr. Martin, Danny’s dad, had joined the search when Donald passed him on the road on the way to the river. He now said quietly that he was going to get his older son Tom. Tom was a good diver. And some other neighbours to help in the search.

That night 7 neighbours and the local police officer parked their cars and trucks, headlights facing the river, while Tom dove. It was dark and quiet now. Still hot. The murmuring of neighbours was interrupted by the odd splash as Tom surfaced for air, and dove again. Tom brought Stephen to the surface at about 10:25 p.m..

Later that night, the police arrived at the Larimer home. They quietly talked to Donald in the front room. The conclusion was that there had been some kind of accident. There was a bump on Stephen’s head. The kids’ story hadn’t changed much. He was there, then he wasn’t there, and they came home without him. The police had spoken with all of the parents. The feeling was that the kids were traumatized by whatever had happened, and that it wouldn’t help to press them on specifics at that time.

Kelly was in the kitchen with David and Lizzy. David had left Lizzy at the house and run to the river to help find his brother. He had returned with his parents and was now sitting on the stairs in the kitchen. Kelly was repeatedly saying “You would never have left without him David” and David was quietly responding “No mum, I would never have left”. Lizzy was silent. She was 10. She wondered if she would now have to sleep alone. She normally slept with her little brother.

On the day of the funeral, Kelly would not come downstairs. She sat on a chair on the landing and said she would not be going to the funeral. The Minister had been called. He implored Kelly to come down. He implored Donald to bring her down. The Doctor was called. He talked softly to Kelly and Donald, and told them that she needed to go to the funeral. She would not get over this loss if she did not go to the funeral. Lizzy and David, in their best clothes, waited quietly in the front room. Maggie, 19, home from nursing school, nervously watched the Doctor talking to her parents.

As the Larimer family finally made their way to the Church, Kelly spoke to her children. “There will be no crying today. We will be strong for Stephen, and we will not cry at the church”. Yes mum said Lizzy. Ok said David. Maggie smiled sadly at her mum and nodded.

Lizzy leaned over as she passed Stephen’s coffin. She didn’t think of him as Stephen, she thought of him as McGuire - his nickname for as long as she could remember. He had been a tough little brother, and had been called McGuire by her dad after a famous Irish boxer. She couldn’t remember a day in her life without Mcguire. She didn’t know why the Minister hadn’t called him McGuire. Nobody called him Stephen. He wouldn’t have liked it. She leaned over and kissed McGuire’s forehead. She was surprised because he was so cold. She wondered about that. He was never that cold before. She wondered if they should put some blankets in for him. She did not cry because her mum wanted her to be strong. It was hard for her not to cry. Her mum and David weren’t crying either. She looked over at her dad. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Maggie was crying too.

McGuire was seldom mentioned after that. Occasionally someone set one too many places at the dinner table, and when Kelly removed it silently, everyone thought about McGuire.

At her brother David’s funeral, Lizzy, now 77, sat next to Joan Larson. They reminisced about old times. Lizzy had married and moved to the city when she was in her twenties. But she loved coming back and re-connecting with the old friends. Joan quietly said “You know Lizzy, I was there the day that Stephen died.” Lizzy was quiet. Then she said “ We never really knew what happened that day.”

Joan looked across the room at the neighbours and friends, and said quietly “ Stephen was out on a raft, he was playing the Ferry man. You know he would ferry someone around then come back and go out again. He was making us laugh. McGuire always made us laugh. Anyhow” Joan paused “He was out there, we were all on the bank watching him do a stupid sort of jig. We were all laughing. Then he fell in. He didn’t come up. At first we thought he was just trying to scare us. Then……it was too long. Danny swam out to the raft. But. We couldn’t ….I don’t really know. Maybe he came up under the raft. I don’t really know. I have thought about it so often.”

Lizzy reached over and took Joan’s hand. She thought about MacGuire. A tear rolled down her cheek. ”Well it was a long time ago Joan”. She smiled at Joan, and Joan’s tears spilled down her own cheeks. She squeezed Lizzy’s hand.

A kettle whistled in the Church Hall.