No Great Mischief

One time, Alex and Catherine are together in her house in Calgary. They remember their grandparents and the stories they were told. They share a song together, the Gaelic words arriving hesitantly at first but then strongly. Songs, they decide, have had an important presence in the family, and they share memories of their relatives singing. Catherine shares a story, told to her by her Grandma, of the time when their grandfather—raising his daughter alone after his wife died in child birth—came to ask for help in explaining “the facts” to his daughter, who was rapidly approaching puberty. 

Catherine tells another story, this one about a time she went on safari with her husband at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. When looking at the animals, the tour guides apologize for the presence of the local Masai people, who are herding their cattle. When she looks into the eyes of the Masai people, she believes she sees a mixture of fear and disdain. The story drifts into another recollection of their grandfather and his loneliness. They notice the similarities between their own missing parents and his departed father, as well as the void he desperately sought to fill for their mother when he acted as a single parent.