The moths collected in thick batches that July, weaving a blanket over the trees in their backyard. Laura's grandparents ran a Christmas tree farm in Bay Roberts, where they would spend the summer - a "dry run," her mother called it. Her father stayed in St. John's. It was the summer that he was "not well," but the details of his condition were never made clear to Laura.

Laura itched with excitement during the drive, tapping the glass like a frustrated bumblebee. The summer seemed ripe then, graced with the plot of a grand adventure: the flight from the city, an escape from conflicted loyalties. The last year had been an uneasy mystery: his illness had involved much shouting, funny-smelling water bottles left in his gym bag and an unbroken tension that revolved around the missing key to the hallway cabinet. Also, a certain musk that followed him around, a sort of clean sweat mixed with the tawny scent of sawdust when he came in from his workshop.

Her mother rose early every day to drive into St. John's, where she was a lawyer's secretary. She worked from the front lines of Water Street in a bustling tourist season, coming home tired and wet-eyed, coated in a film of condensation from the journey.

On the weekends, her mother organized activities together, folding napkins or braiding hair. "I saw the prettiest little sundress on my lunch hour," she would report, "I'll bring it home for you, wouldn't you like that?" Laura could tell she missed the city; lost in the imagery of her stories, her mother always tugged Laura's fine hair too roughly.

Work and the life she made there was one thing her mother refused to give up. "Take away a man's reason to provide for his family and you take away the man," her grandmother would say, building on an ominous, long-running commentary. Laura came to sense the distrust between them - some kind of intimate betrayal that began with her mother and continued with Laura.

"You'd think Joe would be more of a help," Laura heard her mother say one morning, before anyone knew she was awake. Her mother had taken to rising early, sitting in the kitchen without any food. "After all, it's his brother. The entire family, they act like it's just a rough patch."

"His father was like it, too, remember. Goes through the father, you know. Sons learn those things from the top down." Her grandmother stopped puttering. "And you're not entirely blameless. You should have locked it up, like I told you."

"Mother, he'd be insulted. He's a smart man."

"Not smart enough to keep his mouth off a bottle, though."

Her mother changed the subject to Laura's schooling in the fall, displacing her grandmother's righteousness. Laura's invocation became a habit in these discussions: when the invitation to attend Sunday service came every week, her mother's polite refusal sent her grandmother's gaze directly to Laura. Laura stared back, wondering why she had suddenly become part of the conversation without saying a word.

*****

The farm was a car's ride away from the town proper, so Laura had to find her own entertainment. She spent long hours in the evergreens, keeping out of the way of the employees. She'd chip away at the bark, collecting sap on sticks, or set up camp in the thickest cluster, performing an elaborate soap opera with her hand drawn paper dolls.

Of the employees, only Peter was near her age, a neighbour's boy hired for the summer to pull weeds and push wheelbarrows. He was older than her, turning 15 in September, with the generous, off-kilter build of a melting snowman. She kept him company during his chores, whistling songs for him to guess and carrying a water bottle to pour over his head when he was too hot.

"Quit that noise," he said one day, as Laura sat humming under the tree he was pruning, reading an old typewriter manual she'd found in her grandfather's things.

"Oh, secretly, you like it. When I go away, you'll miss my songs."

"I won't. I guess you're leaving for school or something." He reached over to push a stubborn moth out of her hair, catching her unaware. She jostled at the attention. "How old are you, anyway?"

"I'll be 12 in November," she said quietly.

On the walk home, Laura took a bad step, her ankle jerking out underneath her. Peter, whose mother taught gymnastics in the town centre, diagnosed it as sprained. He unlaced her shoes. "You should be more careful," he said, pivoting her foot in a circle. "Your grandparents don't keep up this part of the farm."

The air had sharpened into a cool breeze, and the only heat she felt was between her skin and Peter's palms. A buzz formed in her stomach. Peter laid her foot down gently, fingers traveling unintentionally northward on her leg. Laura watched her ankle for an indicator: it looked exactly the same, but felt so changed. By the time they walked back, the evening had reached the pearly grey atmosphere of early night. Her grandmother was waiting.

"Peter," her grandmother said, "you may go."

Instantly, her grandmother's hand was on her arm, pinching the skin, and Laura was surprised: those fingers had always seemed so frail and brittle, liable to crack, rolling dough or holding teacups.

"Laura Pearce," she said, yanking the hem of Laura's dress up over her knees. "What a fine state you're in. Don't you have any sense? Out after dark, dressed like that, leaving it out so the boys can gawk." She took up the long, plastic shoehorn that hung by the door and slapped the back of Laura's thighs four quick beats in succession, making her gasp. "More like your mother than anyone knows."

Her grandmother sent her to change, though she could keep the dress on the condition it was let out an inch. She returned in blue jeans, hoping it passed inspection. Her grandmother was on the phone with Peter's mother, explaining patiently why he was not being asked to return in the morning.

She pressed the back of her legs against the cool kitchen wall, the skin nearly rubbed raw. Her cheeks flushed with the awareness of some mysterious transgression on her part. The evening was like a jumbled movie reel: Peter's thick fingers holding the moth, the fierce pinch of bony fingers on her arm, and an odd hum of excitement from causing such modest chaos.

*****

Peter was gone for good, which was just as well, because they left for home in the first days of September. Her mother said it would be too hard to commute in the winter and, as an afterthought, that her father was feeling much better. Her parents seemed eager to pretend that the summer had never happened.

Returning home was a vivid memory: her father a darkened sentry in the doorway, her mother laden with bags with eyes to the ground, and the unusual quiet that overtook the air as her father closed the front door, locking it tight. It was lovely, but a little strange, to fall asleep in her own bed.

Jillian Butler is a writer and editor who lives in downtown St. John's. She is currently planning her graduate studies and dedicates her free time to flights of fancy.