Gillingham Wylie

A mother and her two teenage daughters head to the city where she grew up to arrange for her grandmother’s funeral and of disposal of assets.

They give themselves lots of time for traveling and for everything they need to accomplish while they’re there, fully expecting to be back at home living their normal lives within a month.

But it doesn’t work out that way. Within a couple of weeks, they are thrust into a new way of living, along with everyone else they meet. Can they survive?

＂Margret smiled and leaned her head back against the headrest. I got this. She wasn’t sure of how she managed to raise such independent daughters.

She could never remember a time when she truly felt like she could say, I got this and mean it. Maybe they had skipped back a couple of generations and taken all their genes from their grandmother.

She glanced to her left again at Marisa. How thankful she was that she had insisted that she be allowed to try out for her driver’s licence as soon as she was old enough to have one. It was so much easier to make this trip with two drivers instead of one.

Margret closed her eyes and allowed her thoughts to drift back over the events of the past week. The tortured hours of pacing the floor after they had returned home from the school, waiting for John to call. Finally, his face appearing on the iPad: solid, dependable and comforting, her sobs as she begged him to come home on the next flight, his promise to her that he would try.

The night of fitful sleep filled with dark images of men grabbing her daughters and driving off with them in a black van, only to have them reappear at her side with her grandmother.

A much younger and more vibrant grandmother than she had seen in years. John’s call the next morning when he asked to speak with Marisa. The agonizing minutes in the next room, biting her fingernails, as she waited to hear what they were talking about.

And then finally, the family call in which John carefully explained that he could not leave right away. He wanted them to drive to Grande Prairie in the Dodge Caravan, taking as little with them as possible.

He would join them in Grande Prairie by air as soon as the Super Bowl was over. When Margret resisted, it was Marisa who took over the conversation, insisting that she would help drive and make sure they got to her grandmother’s in record time.＂