Sunny Dreams by Alison Preston

thought he had drifted off to sleep.
    My dad shook his head slightly from side to side. “We need to contact your mother, Jackson She at least needs to know what’s happened to you.” He spoke in a louder than usual voice.
    “She’s not well,” said Jackson.
    When he saw the look on my dad’s face he quickly added, “She has lots of help.”
    “I’m afraid I’m going to insist, Jackson. You’re only seventeen.”
    “Yes, all right.” He recited the Montreal telephone number. My dad scrambled for a pencil to write it down. He had one in his shirt pocket, along with a tiny leatherbound pad of paper with his initials on it.
    “I should mention that my mother wasn’t there when I left.”
    “What do you mean she wasn’t there?” asked my dad.
    “She sometimes goes to the hospital for extended stays.”
    No one knew what to say to this, but finally Jackson continued. “She’s mentally ill, my mum. She goes to a sanitarium sometimes when she gets really bad.”
    “I see,” said my dad. “Do you have any older brothers or sisters, Jackson?”
    “No, sir.”
    A nurse came in to plump Jackson’s pillows and ask him if he needed anything and that gave us all a chance to partially digest this new information. When she left, Aunt Helen began to present her case for Jackson staying on with us in the house.
    My dad leapt up from his chair.
    “Stop, Helen!” he interrupted. “At least till I’ve spoken to…someone in Montreal.”
    He left the room then for a few minutes, maybe to talk to someone at the nurses’ station, maybe just to cool down; I don’t know.
    Helen kept on.
    At first Jackson argued against staying with us.
    “I couldn’t,” he said.
    “Nonsense!” said Helen. “What else are you going to do if you won’t go home? Stay in the hospital? They’re likely to insist that you go home.”
    The reality of what it would be like must have sunk in as the nurses bustled around him taking care of his every need.
    “Would you feel more comfortable if I hauled my nurse cap out of storage?” Helen asked.
    Jackson smiled. “No, you don’t have to do that. But…”
    “Don’t worry, Jackson,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
    “What about Mr. Palmer?” he said.
    “You leave him to me,” said Helen.
    Whatever situation Jackson left behind must be seriously untenable, I thought, for him to entertain the idea of staying with us and allowing Aunt Helen to help him with his private business. And any worries he had about putting us out and withstanding my dad’s judgments also seemed to pale in comparison. He was very definite about his mission away from home. Whether it was something he was running from or running to, was impossible to say.
    It occurred to me that he might be more comfortable with a man looking after him, like, say, Benoit, but he blanched when I suggested it.
    The last thing he said before we left him was, “I’ll pay board. I insist on paying room and board.”
    When we got home my dad called the number Jackson had given him. A woman answered the phone. She introduced herself as Mrs. Dunning, the housekeeper, and said that Mrs. Shirt was not at home. When my dad said he had news about Jackson, the housekeeper kept my dad waiting while she went to confer with someone. The butler? The cook?
    Talking on the telephone all the way to Montreal was not cheap. My dad grew more impatient by the second. Finally he started shouting, “Hello!” down the line and Mrs. Dunning finally came back.
    “Is Jackson all right?” she asked.
    Dad explained about his situation at our house and Jackson’s broken arms and he left our number with her. Mrs. Dunning confided that Mrs. Shirt was in a “rest home” indefinitely. She said that she would convey the message to the family lawyer.
    “Thank God it’s just his arms,” she went on.
    That struck Helen and me as odd when my dad related what she’d said after he’d hung up in frustration.
    “Maybe she’s glad it’s just his arms