Chapter 8 - Across the Border-8
Three weeks later, against the explicit, furious protests of my cardiologist, my nephew Thomas, and every medical professional at St. Jude’s, I crossed the Canadian border into Nova Scotia.
I didn't go home to Evanston. There was nothing left for me there—only a borrowed room, packed boxes, and the suffocating pity of relatives who thought I was losing my mind in my old age. I had liquidated my remaining retirement accounts, rented a sturdy brown SUV, and driven north through the endless pine forests of New Brunswick and into the maritime expanse of Nova Scotia.
The city of Halifax was shrouded in a biting autumn mist when I pulled up outside the red-brick building of the Maritime Heritage Archive on Hollis Street.
My chest still ached with a dull, persistent throb, and every breath required a conscious effort, but the adrenaline of the hunt kept me upright. I carried Gwen’s letter in my breast pocket like a talisman.
Inside the archive, the air was cool and smelled of old paper, leather bindings, and floor wax. An elderly man with thick glasses and a tweed vest sat behind a mahogany reception desk, meticulously cataloging a stack of shipping manifests from the late 1980s.
“Good afternoon,” I said, stepping up to the counter and leaning heavily on my cane. “My name is Andrew Kingsley. I’m looking for information regarding the salvage recovery of the S.S. Meridian, wrecked off Sable Island in the autumn of 1986.”
The archivist looked up over his spectacles, his eyes scanning my tired face with polite curiosity.
“Ah, the Meridian,” the man said, adjusting his glasses. “A tragic piece of local history. Most people think it went down with all hands, but maritime historians know there was an unscheduled port stop in Yarmouth just twenty-four hours before it sank.”
My heart skipped a beat. “An unscheduled stop?”
“Indeed,” the archivist nodded, opening a large leather-bound ledger on his desk. “According to port authority logs recovered during the 2022 salvage operation, three passengers—an adult female and two young children traveling under aliases—disembarked the vessel and were transferred to a private vehicle registered to a provincial adoption agency in Halifax.”
I gripped the edge of the mahogany counter so hard my knuckles turned white. “An adoption agency? Do you have the name of the agency?”
“Let me check the secondary files,” the archivist murmured, turning a page. “Here it is. St. Jude’s Family Services for Children, operating out of Dartmouth on the eastern side of the harbor. Most of their records from that era were sealed under provincial privacy laws, but since you’re a direct family member...” He paused, looking up at me with sudden, sympathetic recognition. “Wait. You’re Andrew Kingsley? The father?”
I nodded, unable to find my voice.
May you like
The archivist closed the ledger gently, stood up from his chair, and walked over to a metal filing cabinet against the back wall. He unlocked the drawer with a small brass key, pulled out a thick manila folder stamped with a red confidentiality seal, and brought it back to the desk.
“Gwen Sterling contacted us three weeks ago asking for these exact files,” the archivist said quietly, sliding the folder across the counter toward me. “She told us you might be coming.”
