Caroline 4

When you are a child, some factors you are totally unaware of. Others, only vaguely so. It's later in life, looking back, you understand better.
To me Grandma's two bedroom condo is nice, roomy, not too old, a friendly building.
Only looking back do I realize a $200,000 condo in James Bay area makes you poor kid on the block. Yes there are still some older buildings, but they've largely given way to the super luxury crowd.
Still, Grandma has clear title. Between her late husband's portfolio, Old Age Security (universal after 65), Canada Pension Plan (contributory) and the Veterans Affairs allowance to cover me, she's doing ok.
The Wolners live in the land of luxury, the cheapest condo in their building going for over a million dollars, and they don't have the cheapest.
This helps to explain why Elaine's weekly allowance is generous and mine modest.
Still to clarify, I do not feel envy nor inferior in the material sense. My sense of inferiority comes from seeing her vastly greater knowledge of the world.
Stands to reason, Grandma is less well read and travelled, gets basic cable and one monthly publication only, Chatelaine.
Elaine's parents get super duper everything cable and probably 25 monthly periodicals.
So Elaine is more than just a friend, also a window on the world.
To be fair, she never once puts me down as poor.
Still, in her household I sense an undercurrent, which leads me to believe the parents have some large and stressing secret they aren't telling her.
Her Mum is a stockbroker. The mood of the times has changed from fast trades to buy and hold, causing her commissions to nosedive.
The Provincial Department of Health, facing up to the budgetary black hole, announces radical changes. These include a cap on how many visits a doctor can allow in a day. After all, they bill the Province per visit. Some of the them (though I rather doubt Dr Wolner) are guilty of churning.
Only in retrospect do I realize how loose the financial standards were. To write mortgages on 1% down strikes me as the superhighway to Perdition.
And, with incomes drastically reduced for both, the erstwhile friendly banker shows his teeth, as in foreclosure.
The news comes as a horrendous shock to Elaine. They will now be renting an apartment at Sidney, not too far from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal.
I groan aloud hearing this. I'd hoped they'd be closer in, so I could take the bus.
Sidney, forget it, Grandma owns neither car nor drivers license.
Meaning I only get to see her if they come pick me up.
Then it hits me, I'm part of the reason they wish to leave some distance. Her Dad knows and disapproves of my family background story. Reasoning that, if they have to move anyhow, they may as well get rid of me in the process.
As Elaine cries and I hug her, I feel like the world's biggest heel. How can I be so selfish? How can I think of myself and not my friend? I feel a hot sense of shame.