The Gift

1

May 1988

The thought of moving out of Colorado filled Mary Abrams with uncertainty. Having barely even left the state before, the news that her family was moving to Canada came as a shock, to say the least. Having finished school the year before, her only consolation was that she wasn't leaving much behind. Her only commitment was to a part time job and she didn't have a lot of friends to speak of. Mary had always been very reserved and more often than not, preferred her own company to that of other, which made saying her goodbyes a lot simpler. And so, they had packed up and left. Mary, her younger sister and her dad had sold their house in Montrose, Colorado in favour of a cabin in the small town of Val-d'Or in south-west Quebec. They had jumped on a plane and left behind their American lives.

As if moving internationally didn't make her anxious enough, multiple flight delays meant that the three of them were stranded in Montreal Airport for a number of hours. To pass the time, Mary left her bag with her dad and took her sister Betty for a walk.

"How are you feeling about the move?" Betty asked.

"I'm..." Mary sighed, trying to solidify her thoughts. "I don't know, honestly. It's such a big change that I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it."

"I know what you mean," Betty nodded. "I think it'll be for the best though."

"You aren't worried about how it'll affect your schooling?"

Betty frowned. "What do you mean? Why would that be affected?"

"Because Canada is a different country."

"Well, what does that mean for me?" Betty panicked.

"I guess you'll find out once we get settled in," Mary grinned, enjoying watching her sister squirm.

Betty groaned and her shoulders slumped. "And suddenly, I'm less excited about this whole idea," she muttered.

Mary tousled her sister's multi-coloured hair. "Try to stay positive, sis. We've gotta be supportive of Dad."

A few hours later, once the delay had cleared, Mary and her family were seated on their second flight for the day. The last leg of their journey would take them from Montreal to Val-d'Or, where their new lives awaited them. The Abrams family patriarch, Wayne, had, after years of loyal and studious work, been offered a promotion within the company he worked for. To Wayne, the job looked to be a significant improvement over his current position and also promised a hefty pay raise. But of course, the position didn't come without a catch, and that catch came in the form of a relocation two thousand miles north. He had spent a little under a week in deliberation, contemplating the massive lifestyle change but, eventually, Wayne opted to take the promotion for the sake of his daughters. Being that he was a single father, supporting two nearly college-aged daughters, Wayne knew that a greater income would make a definite impact on their standard of living. So with his daughters' futures in mind, Wayne had taken the position and set to work making the necessary arrangements. As Montreal shrunk far below the plane, Wayne kept telling himself that he'd made the right decision for Mary and Betty's sake.

From the plane, the three of them hailed a cab and rode out to their new house in awed near-silence, taking in the new scenery. It wasn't cold enough for snow to be forming on the ground, but the peaks of the distant mountains were capped in its serene whiteness. While it wasn't an especially long drive, the culture shock turned minutes into what felt like an hour. As she left the relative warmth of the cab, Betty gasped and pulled her coat tighter around her, immediately feeling the icy bite that the gentle breeze carried. She quickly dropped her bags on the porch and pulled a white knit cap over her blue and blonde hair, covering her ears. Betty hugged herself as she waited for Wayne to unlock the door, eager to get out of the cold. She rushed into the barren, unfurnished house and frowned in panic at the lack of warmth inside the house. She was still freezing.

Being cold was a familiar feeling to Betty. Elizabeth Waverly Abrams had been born on the 29th of March, 1971, a full five weeks before she was due. She had been a tiny baby and her small stature had followed her into adolescence. Now, at seventeen, she stood at only 5"2' and weighed a meagre 112lbs. In the winter months, she was rarely seen outside the house in anything less than jeans.

"Where's the heater?" she called out.

"There should be a few radiators around." Her dad replied, "There's also a fireplace in the living room, if you're patient enough to get a fire going."

"I am not."

Betty scouted around until she found a radiator and then started it and sat a foot away from it until she was warm. Only then did she stop to take in her new house. It was more of an oversized log cabin, made largely of wood and two storeys tall. The fireplace that Betty's dad had mentioned was at the centre of the house and there was a staircase that climbed around it, leading to the girls' bedrooms in the back corners of the upper level, with Betty on the left and Mary on the right. Betty breathed it in, enjoying the woody musk. Despite the house being bereft of furniture, Betty had no trouble picturing it as her new home.

That first night, the family slept in sleeping bags on the floor around the fireplace. As the days passed, their furniture arrived and they began setting up their new lives. Wayne got started in his new position, Betty went on a shopping spree for more climate appropriate clothes and Mary dedicated her time to meeting the locals.