Two glasses of red

“Mornings, when I type my dreams, my mouth is bitter and clogged with dead cell detritus. It floats in the air.”

Douglas Glover, Bad News of the Heart

1.

Cruising eighty along Highway 102 north out of Halifax towards New Brunswick, and up to the Confederation Bridge, all because ten year old Paige has it in her head to visit the potato museum. What would that even entail? Planting and harvesting equipment, or the history of how the famed local crop has shaped the Prince Edward Island cultural and economic landscapes. The red shade of soil, of course, the result of oxidized soft red sandstone and mudstone, formed on the island from iron-rich sediments. Paige explained this to the whole family as part of her PowerPoint presentation, during which she made her case for the trip, earlier in the spring, another facet of information they aren’t sure where she garnered.

Malcolm has the car radio set to the local CBC affiliate, classical music and hourly news updates, as the girls share earphones, listening to music from Amelia’s phone. The Linda Lindas, perhaps, or Conan Gray. They drive without speaking, but for Malcolm’s indistinct chatter, or the occasional point at which something catches Paige’s eye and she demands that they stop. Moira doesn’t even know where Paige would have heard of a potato museum. All they had was a destination, the Canadian Potato Museum in O’Leary, the westernmost corner of the island. They drive.