by Gail Bowen
“I hope to God we are,” I said. “But we can’t dismiss the possibility. This has been gnawing at me, Maisie. We may not have anything concrete, but we do have a timeline that could be a red flag. Warren told Zack that just before Christmas something happened to Patti Morgan. At that point she and Mike had been married three years. Mike told Warren that he had hoped the marriage would lift Patti out of her depression and give Thalia a stable life. That hadn’t happened, but Patti was making an effort. She’d volunteered for a couple of charities; they’d begun to entertain some of Mike’s friends, and Patti was getting to know their neighbours.
“Mike was optimistic, then everything changed,” Maisie said. “The Braedens had planned to have a celebratory holiday meal at the Scarth Club with another couple. According to Mike, Patti arrived very late and drunk, and that was the beginning of the end. Since then, Mike has been extricating Patti from ugly situations with men Patti picked up when she was drinking and people who Patti believed had been condescending or insulting.”
“And the pattern culminated in Patti’s attack on Mike with the broken liquor bottle,” I said.
Maisie raised an eyebrow. “You do understand that I can’t say anything more about that.”
“I do, but I can say more. The morning after she attacked Mike, Patti showed up at MediaNation. Kam Thau said she hadn’t been in the building since Sunny Side Up went off the air. He also said her behaviour was unnerving.
“Kam came to Lawyers Bay because he knew Zack was Mike’s lawyer. He was aware of Patti’s attack on Mike the night before, and he was afraid Patti might strike out at Mike again. Kam said Patti was obsessed by the fear that Mike would spread ugly lies about her son and that he was going through her things trying to find something about Nicholas that a therapist could use against her.”
“Zack and I have talked about this,” Maisie said.
“I know that subject is off the table,” I said. “But it seems to me the picture might be clearer if we knew what happened to Patti in the period just before Christmas, when her behaviour changed so radically.”
Maisie raked her curls with her fingers. “Okay,” she said. “We may have something to go on here. It’s time Zack and I leaned harder on Mike. If he knows what sent Patti off the rails before Christmas, we’ll at least have a starting point.”
“And there’s something else,” I said. “Jill Oziowy mentioned that Thalia had always been her father’s favourite. Why didn’t Joseph Monk send Nicholas to Patti and keep Thalia with him? Warren says Thalia blames her father for Nicholas’s suicide.”
Maisie shuddered. “So, Thalia lost her brother and was sent away by her father. The only family she had left was a mother who hated her.”
According to the Colby notes, Joseph Monk suffered too. The MediaNation snitch said Monk went through hell after Nicholas died, but he came out of it determined to salvage what was left of his family, and that meant getting his daughter back.”
“Patti Morgan worked at MediaNation for twelve years. There must have been someone besides Rosemary Morrissey with whom Patti was close. I’ll call Jill Oziowy.” I picked up my phone and speed-dialled. My call went straight to voicemail, and I left a message.
* * *
At noon, the mariners returned, rosy-cheeked from the wind on the lake and hungry. Maisie and I prepared the perennial favourites for a crisp fall day: tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches and Maisie’s chocolate chip cookies — by her own admission the only recipe she’d never managed to screw up.
By the time they’d polished off their milk and cookies, Charlie and Colin’s eyelids were beginning to droop, and so were Zack’s. We all had busy afternoons ahead, so the Crawford-Kilbourns, Chris-Craft manuals in hand, headed for their cottage; Taylor headed for her studio, and Zack and I headed for our bedroom.
Zack was buoyant as he related the highlights of the twins’ boat-driving lesson, and I didn’t darken his mood by sharing Maisie’s and my theory about the relationship between Nicholas and Thalia. The exhilarating adventure on the water with his grandsons, his daughter and his son-in-law had erased the worry lines from Zack’s face, and our ninety-minute nap restored us both. Zack was facing an afternoon of heavy slogging, but dressed in khakis and a blue cashmere pullover I was particularly fond of, he appeared up to the task.
“You look as if you’re ready to take on the world,” I said.
Zack wheeled closer to me. “We live in hope,” he said. “Now, give me a quick smooch to get me through the afternoon.”
* * *
As soon as we left the cottage, Taylor, Charlie, Colin and the dogs ran ahead of Peter and me, eager to start their tour of inspection. It was a great day to be outdoors. The sun was bright, the air was clear and the sky was the shade of cerulean that makes September on the prairies such a heart-stopper. These days, Pete and I seldom spent time alone together, so we were content to move at a leisurely pace and savour the pleasure of talking about nothing in particular. Pete had inherited the Kilbourn men’s good looks: wavy black hair, pale complexion, chiselled features, but his temperament was closer to mine than to Ian’s. My eldest son was not ambitious. His aspirations were within reach: a degree in veterinary medicine, a family, a quiet life, and he had been willing to make concessions along the way to make his dream a reality.
“I’m always sad to see summer go,” I said. “But autumn is glorious at Lawyers Bay. As are winter and spring. It doesn’t matter what month we’re in, it’s always a wrench for me to leave the lake. Zack says if I want to sell the house in town and move here permanently, I should just say the word.”
“And?” Pete said.
“A thousand years ago when I took Psych 101 at university, I learned about approach-approach conflict,” I said. “I love being here, but I also love being a brisk ten-minute walk from you, your sister and your families when we’re in the city. Now, you and I better step it up. We don’t want to miss Taylor’s lecture on how to build an inuksuk.”
“When did Taylor, Gracie and Isobel decide to build the inuksuit?” Pete asked.
“The summer before Zack and I were married — so, seven years ago.”
“And they dug up all those rocks from the land around the cottages?”
“It wasn’t that simple,” I said. “Every rock except those saved for ornamental groupings had been removed from Lawyers Bay before the girls were born. We had to go into Fort Qu’Appelle to a business called Peter’s Rocks to get what they needed. The weather was miserable that day: cold and windy with rain that seemed to be coming down in sheets, but the girls were determined to choose the perfect rocks. It took them at least an hour to make their selection.”
Pete gave me a quick admiring head nod. “You’re a trooper, Mum.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said. “I got to explore the collection of lawn ornaments Peter offered his customers, and the ladies and I all enjoyed watching the buff young guy in the tight jeans load the rocks onto his pickup.”
Pete laughed. “Are those magic moments included in Sisters and Strangers?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve had more than my share of joy, but the great parts of my life get short shrift in Sisters and Strangers.”
“Are you disappointed in the way the series turned out?”
“No. Not at all. Telling the truth about Sally’s life and mine mattered to me, and now the truth will be out there.”
“MediaNation is certainly pulling out all the stops to make sure viewers know when and where to tune in.”
“No complaints on that score,” I said. “The corporation’s been behind the series from the beginning, and their publicity department has been in overdrive since Canada Day.”
“Mum, does it bother you that starting tomorrow night, millions of people are going to be watching your life unfold?”
“No, I’ve made my peace with that. It’s Taylor I’m concerned about,” I
said. “Zack and I could have seen the final version of Sisters and Strangers, but we decided to wait. Even in the rough cut, Vale’s performance as the young Sally Love is astounding. Unless she stumbles — and Vale never stumbles — she’s destined for a long and very successful career.”
“Maisie and I caught an interview with Vale on one of the late shows last week. She’s certainly a charmer, and the host was obviously smitten. After they showed a clip from Sisters and Strangers, he said that when he was prepping for the interview, he’d only planned to look at a few scenes from the series, but once he started to watch, he couldn’t stop until he’d seen all six episodes. He told Vale her performance as Sally was flawless, and that it brought him to tears.”
“MediaNation will be jumping for joy,” I said.
“No doubt,” Pete said. “Mum, I’m not sure you’ll be jumping for joy when you hear how Vale responded to the host’s compliment. She said that Sally Love’s sister, Joanne Shreve, and her daughter, Taylor, had been invaluable in helping her discover the key to Sally’s character, and she would always be grateful to them both for welcoming her into their lives.”
Suddenly I felt weary. “Taylor is hoping that now that she and Vale are no longer together, her private life will be private again. Zack and I are hoping for that too.”
“So are Maisie and I,” Pete said. “But I think you and Taylor should be ready for an onslaught of media interest at least for a while.”
“As long as we’re here, we’re safe. This is a gated community. Nobody in our family is on Twitter, and we can monitor texts and email.”
Peter’s expression was grave. “I wish this wasn’t happening,” he said.
I took his arm. “So do I, but it is happening, and we’re lucky we have options.”
Chapter Eighteen
I awoke Friday morning with my stomach in knots. When I told Peter that I’d made my peace with the production of Sisters and Strangers, it was the truth. The genesis of the series was an anecdote I’d told writer Roy Brodnitz about the story behind Sally Love’s painting, Flying Blue Horses. Through a sequence of events that could be viewed as either purely coincidental or fated, Roy Brodnitz had received incontrovertible evidence that my biological father was not Dr. Douglas Ellard, the physician who I’d grown up believing was my father, but his closest friend, Desmond Love, the visual artist and the father of my lifelong best friend, Sally.
Roy had come to our home to tell me the news in person, but before we’d talked, he’d noticed a painting of Sally’s on the wall facing the door. Sally had been twelve when she made the painting, and it captured a moment of magic that she and Desmond Love had shared. He had taken her to the Saugeen First Nation reserve on Lake Huron to see the workmanship on the decorative boxes the women there made out of birchbark and porcupine quills.
One of the women suggested that Des and Sally climb to a place where they could take in the beauty of the land and the water. They’d been sitting on a hillside overlooking the lake when a band of wild horses streaked down the hill, heading for the water. The horses were only a few metres away from them. Sally said their hooves barely touched the ground, and their coats were so black they were almost blue.
When I told Roy that Sally and Des had brought me back a birchbark box with a pattern of a loon family on the lid, a fleeting shadow crossed his face, but as I showed him the art Taylor had made as she was growing up and talked about my years with her, his expression of concern faded. As he was leaving, Roy said that when he heard that Des had taken Sally to a place where they saw flying blue horses but brought me back only a token gift, he was concerned that I might feel life had cheated me, but that when he saw my face as I talked about Taylor, he knew that the sister left behind was the lucky one.
Working with the writer on the scripts for Sisters and Strangers had been painful but cathartic for me. Many lies had been told about Sally’s life and about Izaak Levin’s relationship with her. Now their stories and the stories of the tangled relationships between the two families who shared our island on McLeod Lake would be told honestly. The sister left behind had been the lucky one, and she was grateful she’d been given the chance to redress the balance and tear away the veil of rumours and falsehoods that had clouded Sally’s life and Izaak’s.
That said, I was glad that there was plenty to distract me in the hours before Sisters and Strangers aired. Taylor was working in her studio, but the rest of us spent a lazy morning wandering along the shoreline skipping stones, throwing sticks for the dogs and testing the water periodically to see if it was warm enough for a quick dip. It never was, but like every child before them, Colin and Charlie wheedled an agreement from their parents that they could roll up their pants and walk out till the water was knee-deep. Also, like every child before them, both boys accidentally tripped, so the wishes for quick dips had been granted.
At noon, Zack and Maisie took a plate of sandwiches and a thermos of tea into the sunroom where they would be working on eventualities if Mike Braeden was charged, and Pete, Taylor and I took the boys over to Standing Buffalo for an adventure.
Friday was a day of firsts for Colin and Charlie. Rose Lavallee, who had lived with the Falconers and raised Gracie since the day she came home from the hospital, was a member of the Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation, and Gracie, whose mother was also from Standing Buffalo, had often stayed with Rose in her house on the reserve. Taylor had been a frequent guest there too, so when Rose and her sister Betty invited us to attend Mass with them at the historic and beautiful Sacred Heart Church in Lebret and go back to Betty’s for a lunch of venison and corn that the boys could pick from the sisters’ shared garden and then shuck themselves, we didn’t have to be asked twice.
Betty loved to entertain, and that afternoon as she greeted us, fragrant with her favourite Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds cologne, and stunning in her newest stilettos and a scoop-necked red satin dress that hugged her curvaceous body, we knew she was pulling out all the stops. As always, Rose was trim in ironed blue jeans and a crisp cotton shirt, and she welcomed each of us with a firm handshake and the hint of a smile.
The sisters were very different women, but they both loved and were great with children, so Colin and Charlie were in their element. After lunch, Taylor drove Pete, the twins and me over to the house on the hill where Ol’ Man Pilger, a tall, lanky scarecrow of a man, shared his home with the distressing number of animals that had been abandoned at the end of summer by cottagers who believed their pets, like the Muskoka chairs Taylor had reclaimed, had no part in their real lives back in the city.
I wasn’t surprised when Peter, a veterinarian, talked privately with Ol’ Man Pilger about bringing the twins out in a week or two to check over the animals’ health and talk further about placement. After an hour with the pups and the cats, we went back to the Lavallees’ to help Rose dig potatoes.
The afternoon was as close to heaven as an afternoon could be for the twins. When we returned to Lawyers Bay, Charlie and Colin, muddy but blissful, were each carrying a sack of potatoes they had dug themselves. The afternoon had been tonic for Taylor too. Her smile was once again coming easily, and her laughter was unforced. Our daughter was starting to look like her old self again, but Vale’s words haunted me. I knew when Vale said she was grateful to us for welcoming her into our lives, the words came from her heart, but a tie that Taylor believed had been severed had been publicly acknowledged. It seemed that particular chapter wasn’t closed after all.
Zack and Maisie came out to greet us. They both looked careworn, but when Colin and Charlie barrelled towards them, spilling potatoes as they ran, and held out their now depleted potato sacks for approval, Zack and Maisie rose to the occasion. They each grabbed a muddy boy and demanded to hear every detail of the afternoon. When the boys began to fade, Pete said, “We’ve got to get these guys cleaned up, fed and into bed ASAP. If they fall asleep now, they’ll be bouncing off the walls when Sist
ers and Strangers starts, and nobody wants that.”
I squeezed Zack’s shoulder. “This is where the advantage of being a grandparent kicks in. Getting those two rapscallions clean, fed and into bed is a parental responsibility; you and I get to go home and have a martini.”
* * *
Taylor had decided not to watch Sisters and Strangers with us. It was the right decision for her, and that night as Zack and I moved along the path towards the guest cottage, I wondered whether watching it would still be the right decision for me.
Zack sensed my hesitation and stopped. “We don’t have to watch this with Pete and Maisie,” he said, and his voice was deep and comforting. “In fact, we don’t have to watch it at all.”
I shook my head. “We promised, and if we back out now, Pete and Maisie will be worried that I’m falling apart.”
“Are you?”
“No,” I said.
Zack held out his arms. “How about a smooch for courage?”
The smooch was lovely, but as it turned out, it wasn’t necessary. During the pre-production stage, I had attended table meetings — gatherings where the heads of all the departments met for what was essentially a session of show and tell, discussing and showing sketches or mock-ups of what each of their respective departments was planning.
Before I went into my first table meeting, I was approached by a towering broad-shouldered man with dark eyes, a mellow brown complexion, a shaved head and a winning smile. He introduced himself as Hal Dupuis, the costume designer for the series, and he thanked me for sharing the home movies that recorded our summers in the years between my birth and my sixteenth birthday.
I was taken aback. I had given the movies to Roy Brodnitz who was writing the script, but I hadn’t realized they’d be distributed to other departments. Hal Dupuis picked up on my apprehension and apologized. “Once you see the ways in which we’ve used what you’ve given us, perhaps you’ll forgive us,” he said.