Wildwood. Elinor Florence
for the past twenty years suffering from Alzheimer’s, but she was very much alive until recently. In fact, she was 104 years old on her last birthday.”
Was this possible? After The Accident — I always thought of it with capital letters — the Arizona social services department had concluded that I had no living relatives. Surely the lawyer was mistaken — if he was in fact a lawyer.
The man spoke again. “When Mary Margaret made her will many years ago, she told me that she had a brother named Macaulay Bannister who emigrated from Ireland to Arizona, and he in turn had a son named Fergus Bannister. Was Fergus your father?”
“Yes.” I hadn’t heard my father’s name spoken for years. Just the sound of it gave me a pang.
“If you give me your mailing address, I’ll send a copy of the will by courier and you should receive it within forty-eight hours. Then you can call me back to discuss your inheritance.”
I couldn’t think of any way a scam artist could have come up with my father’s name, let alone my grandfather’s name, but I was still suspicious.
“Just a moment, please.”
I walked over to my computer and searched for “Franklin Jones lawyer.” Sure enough, a website popped up, belonging to a firm based in Alberta.
I reflected briefly, then gave him my mailing address. It wouldn’t be mine for long, anyway, so there was nothing to lose.
After hanging up, I searched for Alberta, a large province bordering Montana, and found the capital, Edmonton. I was surprised to find that Canada’s northernmost large city had more than one million residents.
We had learned little about Canadian history or geography in school. I knew only that Canada was enormous and sparsely populated, dotted along the border with a few urban centres, like Toronto and Vancouver. I hadn’t realized there was another large city so far to the north.
When I thought about them at all, I pictured Canadians as a hardy people who escaped to warmer climes whenever possible. From the local media, I knew that thousands of Canadian snowbirds bought homes in Phoenix, something that helped to bump up our real estate market. Michael Bublé, my favourite singer, had grown up in Canada before moving to Los Angeles. But overall, I felt slightly ashamed that I was so ignorant about this vast northern neighbour.
When the will arrived, we had nineteen days left in the condo, and nineteen sleepless nights. I had applied for another six jobs without success, including one as a server at a downtown coffee shop.
I didn’t know what I would do if an employer wanted to arrange a personal interview. When Gabby was here, I could leave Bridget at home. But now that there were just the two of us, she had to accompany me everywhere.
I opened the large brown envelope without much hope and scanned the contents. Most of the material was difficult to read, couched in incomprehensible legal language, but it concerned a farm in northern Alberta, “herein referred to as Wildwood.” But I could easily understand the accompanying letter. This was written in black ink, in a strong yet feminine hand, attached to the will as a codicil, signed and witnessed, dated June 4, 1988.
“My fondest hope is that one of my surviving relatives will come to know and care for my beloved home as I have done. To that end, I am leaving Wildwood to my nephew Fergus Bannister, and in case of his death, to my great-niece Mary Margaret Bannister, on condition that the heir inhabits the property for a full twelve-month period prior to the transfer of title. During that time, he or she will receive a living allowance in the form of the monthly rental income from the farmland.”
Well, that was out of the question. I had no intention of living on a farm, especially one that remote. And Bridget’s precarious mental state would completely unravel if she had to adjust to unfamiliar surroundings.
On the other hand, she was facing a very uncertain future here in Phoenix.
Where was this place, anyway? I went to my computer and googled Juniper, Alberta. It was two thousand miles straight north of Phoenix, a ridiculously long way. To put things in perspective, if I drove two thousand miles east instead of north I would find myself in the Atlantic Ocean. I checked the map again. It was farther north than Ketchikan, Alaska!
I tried Google Earth. The digital globe revolved, then zoomed into the town, a small settlement along the banks of a wide river, surrounded by a checkerboard of rectangular green fields. Apparently it didn’t snow there all the time.
I wondered if I could find the farm itself. I entered the legal description of the property, and Google Earth focused on a spot that seemed a long way from Juniper. Eighty-eight miles, to be exact. It wasn’t bad enough that the town was so far away, but the farm was even farther. Unfortunately the satellite image was blurry. The farm was no more than a dark blot on a green background.
I zoomed out. The farm stood at the edge of an irregular block of light-green and yellow rectangles that looked like they had been carved out of the forest. At the northern edge of the property, the landscape abruptly changed into flat, dark-green wilderness that continued — I scrolled north, farther and then farther again — practically into infinity. The forest, dotted with rivers and lakes, morphed into frozen tundra that finally ended on the banks of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Circle.
This particular farm was situated on the very fringe of human habitat.
I turned back to the will again. My inheritance, if I fulfilled my great-aunt’s condition, consisted of two sections of land, plus a dwelling, its contents, and several outbuildings.
What was a section, anyway? I did some more research and was pleasantly surprised to find that a section was 640 acres. So there were 1,280 acres. That sounded like a lot. But what could be grown so far north? Christmas trees?
I typed: “Value of farmland in the area of Juniper, Alberta.”
That was when I got the shock of my life.
According to an official-sounding report from Agriculture Canada, dated one month earlier, the value of land was $1,150 per acre and “trending upwards.” I did the mental math at my usual lightning speed. Two sections of land were worth $1,472,000.
I fell back in my chair, staggered. But then I remembered that the price was listed in Canadian dollars. With my luck, the Canadian dollar would be worth ten cents on the American dollar. Hastily I looked up today’s exchange rate. This time I was more than staggered; I was stunned. The Canadian dollar, at eight o’clock this morning, was worth two cents more than the American dollar.
One hour later I called the lawyer in his office. It seemed incredible that he was in the same time zone — just two thousand miles closer to the North Pole.
Franklin Jones was shocked when I told him the news. “Miss Bannister, when I sent you the will, I certainly never expected you to accept that ridiculous condition. Let me explain. The farm is in a very remote location, with no power or water, and the house hasn’t been lived in for years. I must urge you to reconsider.”
He sounded so convincing that my heart sank. If he was right, I was going to waste my remaining funds on a wild goose chase.
I couldn’t keep a quiver out of my voice. “Can you tell me how much rental income to expect?”
“It’s not much, I’m afraid.” There was a rustle of papers, and then a long silence. I thought we might have been disconnected, but finally he spoke. “I’m afraid it’s only $400 per month.”
That was less than I had hoped for, but at least we would have free accommodation. What would we need except groceries?
I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak firmly. “Thank you, Mr. Jones. We’ll be there in three weeks. I’ll come straight to your office when we’ve arrived.”
That evening after Bridget had her usual bubble bath and fell asleep, I stepped onto the balcony. The night was simmering, thick