Title: the people, the weather, the land
Fandom: Wilby Wonderful
Rating: R, for use of a slur + general themes, I guess?
Length: 5478
Content Notes: Child abuse, domestic violence, (<--heavy on those two) homophobia (including a homophobic slur), sexism (including an implication of someone making a sexual joke about a child, though it's not shown in text)
Summary: the course of Buddy French's life changes when he's seventeen in a locker room after gym class; when he's thirteen at the supper table; when he's fourteen, fifteen, sixteen in the wilds of Wilby.


It is November of 1975 when Buddy French is thirteen that Jill McKenna gets called out of class and doesn't come back, and Buddy finds out after school that it's because her family's been evicted from the home they've been living in since January, which was two months before her father drowned in the Bay saving a tourist who'd got caught in a storm in a rented jon boat.

It's Harry Sanders who's done the evicting, because Mrs. McKenna's two months behind on her rent and he wants to rent the house to a mainland couple over the summer so they can open up a spiritualist retreat for tourists.

Buddy tells his mom about it after school, and his mom tells his dad about it over supper, and Jacob French skips dessert and finds Harry Sanders and has a little talk with him, and the McKennas go back home that evening.

Jacob's kind of a big guy--over six feet, broad shouldered, still carrying himself the way he learned when he served in Korea--and he knows his position in the hierarchy of Wilby; and he's not too shy about using it when something needs to get done.

Doesn't matter if people think you're arrogant, he tells Buddy on Tuesday, after Buddy gets home and finds Mrs. McKenna crying in their living room, bringing an apple pie and leaving with two hundred dollars in a loan that Buddy's pretty sure his parents won't ever let her pay back.

It's about doing the right thing, his dad says. By you, by Wilby. It's something a man should know how to do. And Wilby's been so good to the French family, he says, it's only right that they try to give back.

That Friday Buddy comes back from school and drops his backpack on the floor by the stairs on his way to the bathroom, and when he gets back out his dad's holding it in his left hand, and he grabs the collar of Buddy's jacket with his left and slams Buddy up against the wall so hard he stumbles when Jacob lets go, and the skin just above his neck breaks and bruises and bleeds so he's still holding a towel to it when his mom gets home from work.

You know he hates it when you leave your things all over the place, is what she says, fingers steady even if her voice is soft. Vivian was in Korea, too, nursing, and got her MD before she agreed to start a family. It was the one bone of contention between her and her husband for years, and on nights when it's hard, like when Buddy is fifteen and his dad gives him a black eye and he spends the night panicking that it'll show the next week--because Coach Linklater's been giving him funny looks when he thinks Buddy isn't watching ever since Buddy's shirt rode up and showed the edges of a greening bruise on his stomach--on nights like that, Vivian'll talk to him, sometimes, and tell him all about how it was, all about how his dad was so happy when he was born, about how it's the war that does it, about he's only bad, really, when he drinks.

He really loves you, you know, she'll say, and she'll smooth her hand down the side of Buddy's face and kiss him softly on the forehead, like that'll fix him up.


Buddy ends up getting assigned a science fair project with Jill McKenna early the next year, their first of high school; Buddy gets them permission to dig through Mr. Hardison's junk closet, and they end up building three different parabolic microphones and testing for sound volume and quality based on design variations. It's actually fun, though Buddy has to skip a hockey practice and a dinner with his Uncle Andrew from the mainland to fit their work around Jill's shifts at the grocery store.

She should pull her weight, Buddy's dad says, and when Buddy says, But she does, she needs the job to help out her mom, Buddy's mom says, Part of growing up is learning how to manage your time, Buddy, she'll have to figure out how to manage if she wants to have a good future. Which Buddy thinks is ridiculous, but of course he doesn't say so, and Jill's really nice about it and works really hard when they do get together, and when they work at her house her mom always insists Buddy stay for supper, and she tells Buddy several times that she appreciates that he can schedule around Jill's work; and one time Jill's mom gets called in for an extra shift on an evening when they're working in the kitchen and Buddy and Jill end up watching the younger kids, and they end up skiving off after half an hour and teaching the kids how to play Prisoner's Base, and it's GREAT, it's a blast, and Buddy thinks, like he does sometimes when he ends up in charge of the cousins at the family reunions his mom's side has every two years in Quebec, he thinks that maybe someday he'll have kids, for a second he thinks that, and then just like always he goes and thinks, Oh God No, I'd be terrible at that, and then one of the littlest kids, Brian, trips on a rock and gets a bloody nose so Buddy has to take him in to wash him off so it doesn't matter just then, and then Mrs. McKenna gets home while he's still showing Brian how to draw a dinosaur to cheer him up and takes over putting all of them to bed; and she's sweet about it, says Buddy didn't need to stay, stops him at the door when he heads out and tell him, You really are your father's son and hugs him good night and tells him to come back any time.

He and Jill place first in the science fair, anyway, so his dad and his mom never find out about it, and nothing ever comes of it except that little Brian McKenna starts asking him for piggyback rides after church sometimes, which Buddy's mom pretends she thinks is cute, once Moira Simpson says Buddy's such a sweet boy for humoring the kid, so that's fine.


Duck MacDonald comes to school with bruises, too, sometimes, except he also sometimes leaves with more, some days. Buddy doesn't know him well, not really; Duck's a year below him, and quiet, and Buddy's Captain of the hockey team; and Duck lives in a rundown house on the edge of town with his mother and sometimes his dad and had to take a week off one time when Gabe Smithson tore up his jacket until Mrs. Barry with the church jumble sales gave him one, because his mother couldn't afford to buy him a new one; and Buddy lives with his mother the doctor and his father the lawyer in one of the nicest houses in the nicest part of town, and they him a car for his sixteenth birthday.

But they know, the both of them.

Everybody knows about Duck, of course, though nobody says anything. But Duck's the only one, Buddy's pretty certain, who knows about Buddy, at least until Coach Linklater. Duck finds out because he's walking through the woods one time, all quiet like he usually is, when Buddy and his dad are fishing and Buddy breaks his dad's new fishing rod by mistake. He doesn't know that Buddy's there until later; had been grateful no one had come by, though he knows his dad wouldn't have done anything if they weren't in a secluded spot, because his dad's always careful that there's not a chance of anybody finding out.

But Duck comes up to him that evening, when Buddy's heading into town to buy some milk, and he doesn't think he's holding himself really stiff, but Duck, who's just turned thirteen and finally hit his growth spurt, lopes across several parking lots from the drug store and calls out to him.

It's good for bruises, he says, holding out a little jar of cream. Homemade, arnica and something else, Buddy doesn't know. It smells kind of nice.

He freezes at the time, but Duck explains, sort of, without explaining, that he'd gone fishing earlier, and that he'd thought Buddy could use it from when he fell, and Buddy flushes and says he's fine, thanks, but Duck says, You should use it, and he hands it to Buddy and runs off again, waving when Buddy says, Okay, see you around.

So they know, and sometimes Buddy will move too hard and wince, and sometime Duck will show up with a bruise, on his face and his arm and his collarbone because his dad doesn't need to worry about keeping it to where it'll be covered, and they'll notice, the two of them, and they won't say anything but they'll know.


I'm so sorry, his dad tells him the first time it happens, the first time he loses his temper when Buddy's being disrespectful and smacks Buddy across the face.

I'm so sorry, Buddy's dad says, I didn't mean to, I'll never drink again; and he kneels by Buddy's bed that evening and asks, Will you forgive me?, and he means it, he does, Buddy can tell and Buddy's mom was crying and he thinks his dad was crying too, because his eyes are red, and Buddy says, It's okay, it's okay, I'm sorry I made you mad, and his dad doesn't touch a drop of alcohol for two and a half months until he has a bad day at the office, and then he comes home and screams at Buddy's mom in the kitchen until she's sobbing and yells at Buddy that it's none of his business when Buddy comes down, to shut the hell up and stay in his goddamned room.


Buddy takes up running when he's sixteen or seventeen or something like that. He doesn't join the track and field team--because he doesn't have the time and he doesn't have the speed but mostly because he doesn't want to--but he runs all around Wilby Island, starts close to home at first but goes farther and farther afield the older he gets.

He runs and runs and runs, sometimes, sun or rain or snow or dark, books it, sometimes out his backyard like a fox let loose from a trap, he flings himself up to the forest and in, to the dense green thicket of the woods by the shore through the clearing at the back of the mill, over the bridge and across the rocks and past the rickety little house where Duck MacDonald and his mother move to when Duck is fourteen-and-a-half, into the woods again and roundabout back home (or out and out as far as he can go), until his hands are shaking and his legs are aching and he's learned the taste of all the seasons on Wilby in his lungs. He learns to watch for the geese heading south in early October and to mind the patches of snow in April for the rabbits and to listen for the calls of the piping plover in June and July, and he starts wearing a string of bells round his neck when it's time for the black bears to be out and about, and he does set a fox loose, one time, when it's gotten stuck in a trap that hasn't hurt it, and sometimes when it's hot he'll strip down to his shorts and cool off with a dip in the water, will float on his back when it's calm, when he's calm, will let the sun warm his face and will kick his legs, lazy, and float round in circles and once in a while bump into a fish, and his hair will dry back on the long walk back all curly and wild, and sometimes he'll stop for a pop or some pie at Iggy's before he makes it all the way back home, and when he does that Ms. Pamela, who works the counter when Iggy himself isn't there, will smooth her hand over his hair and tell him he's too skinny and he should eat more and will let him come in to pay later, once he's showered and changed and grabbed his wallet.


The second time Buddy's dad hits him, he hits him harder than he did the first. He apologizes that time, too, and Buddy again forgives him, and Jacob stops drinking for three weeks, after that time.

He apologizes the third time, too, and the fourth, and Buddy stops counting after that.


Buddy's thirteen, again, when Julie Kendall loses her job at the middle school when she gets pregnant in the middle of the year and everyone knows who the father is, including his wife; and Ms. Kendall gets her power cut off in the middle of a late spring snowstorm and she ends up spending two nights sleeping in the reception hall at the Methodist church, and Buddy's dad says, She'll be fine, she's got a brother out west she can go live with if she needs to, and Buddy's mom says, There are consequences for your actions. And later Vivian tells Buddy, when he says that it doesn't seem fair, how everyone's talking about Ms. Kendall behind her back but nobody's saying shit about Mike Randall--Vivian says, Yeah, sometimes women get the raw end of the deal, but that's just the way things are, that's the way they've been for thousands of years, and that's the way it is now, and that's why women have to be extra careful about what they do with men and who they get involved with.

What was Dad like when you met him?, Buddy asks instead of all the other things he wants to ask after she says that.

She makes him a hot chocolate instead of answering him, but later on that night she says, Your dad and I met a long time ago, Buddy; and Buddy doesn't bother asking again.

Ms. Kendall ends up getting a job as the receptionist at the Anglican church, which the Frenches go to, even though some of the members object. But Father John quotes a verse about redemption and makes a reference to the woman at the well and says, aren't we all entitled to a second chance? And some of the members still object about the sort of example she's setting for their daughters, or in one case at least to their son, but Father John says, Well, she's a really good receptionist, and even though people are upset none of them are upset enough to write to the bishop about it. So Julie doesn't go to her brother out west, after all, though he visits with his family now and then and sends birthday presents for his nephew every year; and she ends up becoming very religious and gets confirmed in the church and two years later marries Steve Barry, who's a deacon and whose father's been on the city council for years. This means, of course, that the Frenches have to have them over for supper now and then; the last time, Buddy's nineteen and visiting home for Easter break, and he offers to look after the kids while the adults have dessert, and Mrs. Barry says, He's always been such a thoughtful kid--you both must be so proud.

Jacob says, We are, that boy's my pride and joy.

But that, of course, is in mixed company.


Now the good thing is he's careful, Buddy's dad, so Buddy doesn't have to come up with excuses to explain everything away; nobody sees, so nobody knows, except for Duck, and Duck doesn't count, not really. It gets awkward one time when Buddy turns fifteen and gets a girlfriend and they're necking, one time, and she sticks her hands up under his jersey and he hisses in the wrong sort of way. But she believes him when he tells her he tripped when he was hiking, so that's all right.

And nobody else sees, so nobody else knows.


And then Coach Linklater comes to the school, teaching history to the sophomores and the juniors, and one month in he pays a visit to Odette MacDonald; and Odette doesn't want to go to the police, but she wants to do right by Duck; so he gets Odette's permission and pays a visit to Jacob French.

Buddy doesn't know what his dad says, mostly, except when Coach is leaving his dad says, He's a handyman, Fred, what did you expect?, loud enough that Buddy hears it in the hallway upstairs.

But Coach Linklater goes back to Mrs. MacDonald and talks with her again, and then he goes himself and drags Paul MacDonald out of the Loyalist one evening, and one week after that Paul MacDonald leaves Wilby Island and never comes back.

And that's good, that's fine, except that a couple of weeks after that Buddy's shirt rides up during practice, and three weeks after that he's changing in the locker room, after all the other guys have gone, and Coach Linklater walks in looking for his clipboard and sees Buddy's shoulder, where Buddy's dad grabbed him when he wasn't listening, and Buddy says it was from playing football with his cousins from Digby when he went to visit them, but it's the next month that his dad socks him in the face when he gets drunk again and Buddy gets upset about it. And the day after that Buddy catches Duck walking away from Coach's office, even though he's not in any sports, and Duck won't look him in the face.

And Coach Linklater says, Hey, Buddy, my office after school?, when Buddy passes him in the hall the next morning, and Buddy gets a nervous pit in his stomach and he feels sick, but he heads out towards the gym resolute, because it's going to be fine, he can talk his way out of it, everyone knows he hikes through the woods and rides a bike and plays street hockey every Friday night, and you can get all bruised up with those so there's no reason for anyone to ever think it's something else.

Except when he gets to the office Coach Linklater is gone, and Shauna, who's putting the freshly-washed cheerleader's outfits in the storage closet off of it, hasn't seen him since she got there.

Buddy waits a while before he heads on home, and his mom and dad are there early, but they just say they had some errands to take care of so they took the afternoon off.

Coach is back at school the next day, but he doesn't meet Buddy's eyes for a week; and when school lets out for summer two months later he packs up quietly and takes a job at a high school in Calgary.

And Buddy knows that's good--he knows it's for the best--and it's not like it's an always thing, it's not like his dad comes home drunk every night and beats him, it's not like that at all, and it's usually not too bad even when he does get into it, it's usually not more than a hit or two, or a hard shove, or just some yelling or a fist banging on the table or an open-handed slap, one time or two or three, or sometimes he gets the belt but that's normal, that's something that happens in all sorts of families and it's never too bad, it's not that much and it's not more than Buddy can handle, and it's not like he's a little kid like Duck MacDonald was when Duck had it really bad--but when Buddy sees the moving truck drive by he runs, and runs, and runs all the way down to the Watch, down to the bay, down to the spot where he can wade out to the rocks and see the mainland if he wants, and he slips the last few steps and lands on his back in the water and smacks his fist down on the rocks, again and again, and he busts his knuckles open on the pebbles and screams and squashes sand against his palms until it oozes out between his fingers and sits back up and finds out that he's crying, and he stays cross-legged in the water and watches the geese fly in back home and tastes salt on his lips until he starts to shiver from the cold.

You didn't have to say anything, he tells Duck later, when they run into each other at the grocery store.

And Duck shrugs, but he says, Yeah I did, and then he doesn't say more and they don't talk about it again, and nobody else ever tries to do a thing to stop it.


Because he realizes, when he is seventeen, that it isn't just Duck who knows, and it wasn't just Coach; because when he is seventeen his father gets behind the wheel drunk and drives into a tree, and Jacob's still sobering up when Buddy and his mom drive to the hospital. The chief of police is there, and so is Mr. Curtis, whose tree it was that Buddy's dad drove into, and Buddy leaves his mom chatting to the doctor on duty and walks in nervous, hands twisting fingers sweaty, but all that happens is the chief laughs and says, Just call Buddy for a ride next time, won't you, Jake?, and Mr. Curtis pats Buddy on the back and chuckles and says, Yeah, Jake, I've only got so many trees, and it's funny to them, this whole thing it's funny to them when Buddy knows several people who lost their jobs because they lost their licenses because Chief Powell wanted everyone on Wilby to know that he was serious about Making Wilby Safe and that he didn't take excuses, it's funny and Buddy bites his lip and grabs the railing on his dad's bed, hard; and his dad must notice from the look on his face, because he says to Mr. Curtis and Chief Powell, Give me a minute to get dressed?, and the two of them go out.

And Buddy knows--Buddy knows--that his dad is still tipsy even if he isn't all the way drunk any more, and he knows what that means (it means DANGER DANGER DANGER be quiet be careful and avoid him as you can)--but they're in public, in a hospital, so Buddy doesn't think but the curtains are drawn like he should, so he's not expecting it when his dad grips the collar of his shirt in his fist and yanks him down so Buddy's off balance and has to rest his hands on the bed to keep from falling over, and his dad puts his other hand on Buddy's chin and squeezes it hard and says in a low, quiet, and very calm voice, Now listen, Buddy, this isn't the time or the place for any of your

Oh, gosh, sorry, the nurse who yanks open the curtain says, and Buddy hears the low murmured conversation of the two men waiting down the hall, which had faded into background noise, disappear entirely.

I'll come back in a sec, the nurse says, and fumbles with her clipboard and doesn't look within three feet of Buddy or his dad until the curtain's good and drawn again.

The conversation down the hall picks up, and Buddy trips out a few seconds later rubbing his jaw to find Chief Powell and Mr. Curtis have gone to find some coffee.


He does a line on conservation for his Eagle Scout Service Project; he spends hours in the woods looking for the nests of barn swallows and Canada warblers and rusty blackbirds and piping plovers, marking the areas so no one disturbs them, charting the fledglings as best as he can from a distance, noting the patterns of hikers and tourists and people at work in the woods that disturb them the most and making up a presentation all about it that winter.

You should be proud of yourself, Mrs. McKenna tells him just before he heads home after, because she's just started dating Buddy's scout leader so she came to see the presentation. That was really well done, Buddy, she tells him, and pulls him in for a hug.


Well done, is what Buddy's dad says, on the drive home. That was a good talk, son, he says, and there's no trouble that night--because it's just another night, and most nights, if you count them out in a calendar, there's no trouble at the French house, and if Jacob drinks more than is good for his liver that night, like most nights, he does it on his own, in his study, and doesn't bother anyone at all.

And it feels nice, and it feels good, and Buddy's mom takes him out for lunch the next day to celebrate, and everything is fine and nice and good for several nights again until, again, it isn't for one night, and then that night passes too, the same way that it always has.


Buddy doesn't talk to Duck much, still, not out of malice or uncare but only in the same way that Duck doesn't talk much to him either, because they're not very close friends and they don't overlap very much, at school, though they nod at each other in the halls and say Hey, how's it going?, when they run into each other out of school when they don't expect to.

They go on like that until the year that Duck is sixteen, when one day Joel Robinson says he saw the way Duck was looking at Josh Sanders and that they don't want fags like Duck in Wilby and it spreads around the school, and Buddy thinks about punching Joel in the face but doesn't really want to, so instead he sits with Duck and Sandy Anderson at lunch for a week; and that works well enough, at making people shut up about it, and Duck says, Thanks, all quiet at the end of it, after he and Buddy have talked about a bunch of other things, after Buddy's friends have done a confused and haphazard migration to the back leftmost table all week, like the two of them sit together and chat every day.

Sure, Buddy says, and he says it quiet, too, and he doesn't say a thing to Joel Robinson, pretends he doesn't exist for weeks until Joel says the thing that he says in the locker room about Laura Stacey's little sister the week after Chief Powell resigns from the department.

Not that the chief's resignation has anything to do with what Joel Robinson says--or with anything that happens in the locker room at all. But it's the start, obliquely, of the conversation that leads to it, because Blake Collins says, My dad says he was caught embezzling and several other people were involved, and Shea his brother says, They usually don't make you resign like that for shit like that, though, not unless you've been indicted, and Oliver Wilson says, Yeah, usually if you quit with a letter like that it's something like a thing with a girl our age; and that's when Joel Robinson says the thing that he says about Laura Stacey's little sister Joanie, who is best friends with Jill McKenna's younger sister Anne.

And it's a crude enough, cruel enough thing that Joel says that only one or two of the other guys snicker right off, and Buddy jerks up from his locker where he's been putting his deodorant away, and he doesn't think before he says, Jesus Christ, Joel, the fuck is wrong with you?

And he doesn't say it angry--hasn't thought far enough ahead for anger, yet, says it in the state of one who is genuinely appalled--but the anger boils up in him right after, makes his jaw set and his hands snap the door to his locker back good and hard, and Joel Robinson whips up straight from where he's bending over the bench, shirt rucked up, and he says, What's it to you, Buddy?, all angry, too.

And he walks over to Buddy, Joel does, and Buddy says, That's a disgusting thing to say, and you should apologize. And it sounds arrogant, even to him, even though he doesn't mean it like that, and he sees Joel's nose twitch right away, and Joel comes right up close to him, so close Buddy can make out even the lightest of the ginger-brown freckles on the sunburned skin of Joel's nose, and Joel says, God, you're such a French, walking around like you own the whole island. Going to be just like your dad, huh?

And Buddy says, without thinking, without waiting, No, I'm gonna be better than him.

And this is where Buddy's life changes, sort of, maybe, because this is the spot, when he traces it back, that he realizes: first, that he wants to mean what he just said, more than maybe anything else in the world; second, that Joel wants him to fight; and last, that Buddy's big now, compared to Joel, about six feet and broader-shouldered, and that he knows how to carry himself for a fight, if he needs to, that if he stands up straight and throws the first punch he'll win it.

He leans back against his locker and crosses his arms over his chest and doesn't look away.

She's eleven years old, he says, and pitches his voice so everyone hears him. That's fucking sick, Joel.

You self-righteous asshole, Joel says, and huffs, and takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair and turns away. Yeah, fine, it was a fucking stupid joke, he says, and he walks away and heads back to his bench and starts taking off his shirt again to shower.


It's not the last time Joel says anything off-color like that again, of course, but it's a long, long time before he says anything like it in front of Buddy. Just about seven years, in fact, and when it happens again Buddy's wearing a uniform with a badge, and he raises his eyebrow and Joel flushes and says, Sorry, too far, and shuts up.

And seven years is a long time--like it's after Buddy leaves home to study biology and conservation and switches in his second year to criminal justice, and it's after Buddy graduates and works a year on the mainland and comes back home, and it's after Jacob French drives his Cadillac drunk into the bay and rolls it several times in the water and drowns, and it's after Buddy stands in the receiving line at the funeral and looks everybody straight in the eye when they shake his hand and tell him what a good man his father was and finds it a relief that he doesn't enjoy it when some of them squirm and look away, shame-faced.

But it comes before a lot of things, too; like when Duck MacDonald comes back home from out west and bumps into Buddy at the grocery store, and Buddy smiles and says, Hey, Duck, and Duck nods and says, Hey, Buddy, and they talk about the weather, and whether Duck made good time on his journey back, like they do this every day; and it comes a long time before Buddy's mom tells him she's so sorry, one day over lunch, and he shrugs and says, It wasn't your fault, and he says, He used to hurt you too; and it's an even longer time before Buddy's out on the beach looking out for piping plover nests and he runs into an artist finishing a painting of the bay and looks at how she's dabbed the geese onto the canvas, heading down south to the winter, and he says, I didn't know anyone else had noticed them today, and the artist introduces herself as Carol, Carol Yoon, and some hours later he asks her to supper at the Loyalist; and it's a long, long time--so long you could say it's practically another lifetime--before Buddy and Carol decide to go with it when Carol gets pregnant; and it's even longer after that before Buddy starts taking the kids out with him on Saturday mornings when he heads down to Iggy's and gets coffee and pancakes with Duck MacDonald, who chats with him, as much as Duck does, about work and Carol and Dan and the kids, and how Emily Anderson's doing at college and, always, about where the birds are nesting this year, so Buddy can make sure they're as safe as he can make them.