by Gail Bowen
That meeting had been a revelation for me. There were twenty-five departments represented, and as each department presented, I realized that the elements of my life had been parcelled out and, in Hal’s word, “used” to make something that was not my life, but the starting point for a piece of art that the people around the table would co-create. Georgie Shepherd, who ultimately replaced Roy as writer and who became my friend, alerted me to the fact that everyone at the table felt intimately connected with my family and Sally’s, but for them, we were all characters to be dressed or lighted or moved in and out of a scene. Then she’d laughed and said that even if this was the story of my life, I shouldn’t take what was said personally.
At the meeting that day, there’d been a discussion about whether the music in the series would be used to foster a mood, evoke an era or as a Greek chorus with lyrics commenting on the story. The question was still unresolved when the rough cuts were made, and the music used was generic.
That night, when Pete turned off the lights, and I heard Joni Mitchell’s shimmering, vibrato-laden, mezzo-soprano singing “Circle Game,” I knew the music director had gone for music that would not only foster a mood and evoke an era, but would also throw into sharp relief the truth driving the series: that we can’t go back; we can only look behind at where we’ve come from.
When I was on the cusp of adolescence, I had tried to impress Desmond Love once by saying that I knew his paintings were abstracts, but I wanted to know what they were “about.” His answer was thoughtful. He told me his work was about the magic of paint. He said, “I start with a blank canvas, and then gradually where there was nothing, there’s colour and movement and life.”
There had been a blank page, and for over a year, everyone connected withsSisters and Strangers had worked towards filling the emptiness with colour and movement and life. As soon as I heard Joni Mitchell’s sweet voice hitting the pristine high notes, I knew the stories in Sisters and Strangers had been shaped by capable and caring hands, and I relaxed.
Ainsley Blair had convinced MediaNation to show the first two episodes in a block. In the final scene of the second episode, Joanne is standing alone on the dock. She has watched as Izaak Levin carries the Loves, one by one, down to the motorboat and now she is listening numbly as her father tells her that Des is dead and that he is uncertain of Nina’s and Sally’s chances of living.
As Douglas Ellard readies himself to start the motor, there is silence, and then the quiet of the early evening is shattered by the roar of the outboard motor, and the boat, low in the water from its terrible cargo, begins to move across the lake into the brilliant gold of the sunset. Joanne is watching intently, and even as the boat disappears from sight, she continues to watch and watch and watch.
When the credits began to roll, Peter came over to me. “Mum, was that the way it really happened?”
“Yes, that’s exactly the way it happened.”
Zack moved his chair closer to mine, and Maisie joined Peter. “How did you ever get over it?” she said.
“I didn’t,” I said. “But that was forty-six years ago. There’ve been a thousand other memories since then. Most of them have been good, but good or not good, that night at McLeod Lake will always be the figured bass that runs beneath them all, the bass note that anchors them and gives them context.”
I glanced at Maisie. I knew that the death of Maisie’s twin sister four years earlier was never far from my daughter-in-law’s mind. “I’ll never get there,” she said tightly.
“You will,” I said. “I was watching your face this afternoon when the potato farmers came home with their bounty. You’re on your way, Maisie. Just give it time.”
* * *
The next morning as soon as I left the house, I heard Taylor calling me. She was standing in front of her cottage. “Want some company on your walk?” she shouted.
“Love some.”
Taylor’s cottage was a fair distance from ours, and she was pink-cheeked and breathless from running when she joined me. The day was cool, and like me, our daughter was wearing a windbreaker over her shirt.
“Thanks for texting us last night,” I said. “When your dad and I walked past your place, there were no lights on, and we didn’t want to disturb you.”
The sound Taylor made was somewhere between a moan and a chuckle. “No worries on that count,” she said. “Vale phoned as soon as Sisters and Strangers was over, and I took the call, so I was already disturbed.” Taylor didn’t elaborate, and we continued to walk, her eyes remained firmly on the path ahead. I waited. “Vale wants us to get back together,” she said finally. “She pushed all the right buttons, and she knows my vulnerabilities. When we were a couple, there were times when I believed she knew me better than I knew myself. That might have been true then, but last night I realized it wasn’t true anymore. Ever since I came home, I’ve been thinking about myself 24/7. That sounds awful, but I needed to do it, and I’m glad I did, because last night when I told Vale that we didn’t have a future together, I knew it was true.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I am sure. I was hurt and confused about Vale’s affair with Etienne, but I’ve had time to think about that and some other issues.” My daughter took my hand, the way she had when she was very young. “I understand now that when Vale said having sex with Etienne didn’t meet anything more to her than sitting in the makeup chair for three hours in the morning, she was telling the truth. Vale had sex with Etienne because she knew she wasn’t getting the balance between Sally and Izaak right. It was something she had to correct to get her performance right, and she corrected it.”
Taylor fell silent, her eyes fixed again on the path ahead. The dogs had been ambling along twenty metres away, still in our line of vision. Suddenly she turned to me. “Esme’s got a squirrel,” she said, and she grabbed one of the leashes I was holding and took off. Esme had already headed down the hill towards the beach, but Pantera hadn’t moved. When I called his name, Pantera looked around, then lumbered towards me. My lucky day.
Bouviers are gentle, but they have problems with anything that comes at them suddenly from above. This wouldn’t be Esme’s first squirrel, but she never knew what to do with them, and Bouviers have a soft bite. If we got to her in time, she’d drop the squirrel; the squirrel would scamper back up the tree, shoot Esme a look of triumph and disappear into the foliage. When Taylor and Esme reappeared on the path, I felt a wash of relief. Esme was on the leash, and she was squirrel-less. Seemingly our luck had held.
When Taylor returned, I greeted her like the hero she was and then I looked her over. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, “but Esme wrecked my big moment — the moment when I was about to share my life-changing insight.” Taylor’s lips twitched into an endearingly crooked smile. “I hate when that happens. Don’t you?”
“It’s the worst,” I agreed. “But the dogs are leashed now, so if you want to take another shot at it, I’m here.”
“Remember telling me how Roy Brodnitz’s relationship with an actor ended because the actor was in rehearsal for a play and he felt living with Roy was interfering with his clarity of thought about the character he was playing?”
I nodded. “I also remember that Roy’s husband, Lev-Aaron, explained that while Roy’s ex seemed ruthless, he was simply desperate. He’d put all his eggs in one basket, and he had to do whatever it took to protect the basket.” I paused. “Taylor, do you think that’s why Vale didn’t understand that you’d be wounded if she had sex with Etienne Simard?”
“I know that’s why.” Our daughter’s voice was calm and assured. “Vale has an incredible talent, but she’s invested everything in it, so she has to protect it. The only way our relationship could survive is if we both lived Vale’s life, and I need to live my own life.” A tang of skunk wafted by.
“Mother Nature appears to be out in full force today
,” I said.
Taylor’s focus was elsewhere. “Jo, do you think I’m making a mistake?”
“No. You made the right choice. When you said you didn’t make any art during the year you were travelling, I knew you had to find your own way. Now, let’s go home and tell your dad about Esme’s great escape. After that, Pete, you and I will take the twins to the farmers’ market, and they can have one of those huge cookies with the neon icing that you always loved.”
Taylor cocked her head. “I wouldn’t mind one of those cookies myself.”
“You saved a squirrel’s life today,” I said. “The cookie’s on me.”
Chapter Nineteen
Charlie and Colin loaded up on pumpkins at the farmers’ market. Although both boys had gifts, wrapped and ready for the birthday party they were attending, they were both determined to take the birthday girl a pumpkin. The twins’ own birthdays were three days away, and the boys chose small pumpkins for all their birthday-party guests and then a pumpkin each for their cousins and a medium-sized pumpkin for me because the 29th was also my birthday and a large pumpkin for Zack, so he wouldn’t feel left out. Zack’s pumpkin and mine were warty. We both noticed the warts, but fearing the answer, neither of us asked why. When the Crawford-Kilbourn station wagon pulled away, its cargo area was a sea of orange — the change of season was now official.
It had been a great visit, but keeping up with Charlie and Colin was exhausting, and I was in bed before the sun went down. I slept well, and the next morning when I put on my running clothes and came into the kitchen, Zack was already at the breakfast table. “You look chipper,” he said.
I kissed the top of his head. “Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep will do that.”
A pitcher of orange juice was on the table, and Zack poured me a glass. “Fresh squeezed, again,” I said. “You spoil me.”
“Just trying to cushion the blow,” he said. “Jo, we’re going to have to go back to the city after breakfast.”
I pulled out the chair next to my husband. “What’s up?”
“Maisie called after you went to bed last night. A flaming shit bag has been thrown at our case.”
I grimaced. “A graphic image but I get the point. To save your case, you and Maisie have to stomp on a shit bag — not a pleasant prospect. So, what’s happened?”
“Some low-life Patti had been dating got in touch with Maisie and told her that ‘on numerous occasions’ Patti said she was afraid of Mike Braeden. The low-life was prepared to forget Patti’s words if we slipped him five thousand dollars.”
“I take it that no money changed hands,” I said.
“Our daughter-in-law doesn’t like to be jerked around,” Zack said. “She gave the guy directions to the cop shop on Osler Street and thanked him for his time.”
“And he called Maisie’s bluff and went to the police,” I said.
“Maisie did the right thing, but now we’re going to have to establish the context of Patti’s words, and that means doing exactly what our client did not want us to do.”
“Bring Mike Braeden’s relationship with Patti and her daughter into this.”
“Warren, Annie and Maisie are going to meet us at our house later this morning to discuss next steps.” Zack had been watching my face carefully. “Jo, if you want to opt out . . .”
“No. We’ve been together on this from the day Charlie told us how shamefully Ellen Exton had been treated. I was furious about what had been done to Ellen, and I’m still furious about not having any answers — not just about what’s happened to Ellen, but also about what happened to Rosemary Morrissey and about who’s behind the Concerned Friend messages to our daughter. I want answers as much as you do. If I seem reluctant, it’s only because I’m worried about leaving Taylor here alone when she’s still finding her way to a future that does not include Vale.”
“You can put that worry to bed,” Zack said. “After I talked to Maisie last night, I called Noah Wainberg. He, Rose and Jacob are coming to Lawyers Bay this afternoon. Noah said they have a number of winterizing chores that are three-person jobs, so with Taylor around, he and Rose can get started.”
Knowing Noah Wainberg would be with our daughter lifted the weight of worry from my shoulders. Noah, a gentle giant of a man, was the husband of Zack’s late law partner, Delia Wainberg, and the father of Isobel, the third member of Taylor’s trio of best friends. The Wainbergs had been a part of Taylor’s life since Zack and I met. With the help of Rose Lavallee, Noah was now raising his grandson Jacob, a winning six-year-old, whom Taylor had known and adored since he became part of the Wainberg family.
“You chose the perfect company for our daughter,” I said. “So much has changed in Taylor’s life; she needs a reminder that the people she values and who value her are still here.”
“Not all of them are still here,” Zack said, and the silence that suddenly enveloped us was heavy with my husband’s grief and the heart-stab I felt at knowing there was nothing I could do to allay it. Delia Wainberg had been only eighteen when she joined the study group that Zack and three other students formed in their first year at law school. Ultimately, the five friends became the founding partners of Falconer Shreve Altieri Wainberg and Hynd. For over twenty-five years, they had been more than colleagues; they had been family — living in houses that were within blocks of one another in the city and spending weekends and holidays in their summer homes at Lawyers Bay. Zack, who was at home with a serious case of the flu on the grey November day of the tragedy, was the sole surviving member of the Winners’ Circle, and he had never forgiven himself for that.
That morning, I did what I always did when the darkness swallowed Zack. I went over, stood behind his chair and embraced him. Zack remained silent, but he reached up to stroke my arm. After a long while, I kissed him and said, “I’m going to eat something, give Esme and Pantera a quick run, then we can load them up and head back to the city.”
* * *
By the time we were ready to leave Lawyers Bay, Zack was quiet, but he no longer seemed unreachable, so as we drove towards the highway, I massaged the back of his neck and waited.
When Zack was working on a case, I left it to him to decide how much, if at all, he could talk about what was going on. As we drove towards Regina that morning, my husband was in need of a sounding board, and he knew I’d give him straight answers about the validity of the strategies he was considering.
“We have anecdotal material for establishing that Mike did everything he could to protect Patti from herself,” Zack said. “Warren told Maisie he could come up with a dozen people who saw Mike step into situations where Patti was risking her reputation and her safety.”
“Make that a baker’s dozen,” I said. “I told you how sensitively Mike handled that incident at the firm’s Christmas party when Patti had been drinking and her breast slipped out of her dress. I know Mike doesn’t want to publicly shame Patti, and neither do you, but if the need arises . . .”
“I don’t think it will,” Zack said. “When I went to the Webers’ the night Patti attacked Mike with the broken bottle, I thought an acrimonious divorce might be in the offing, so I made recordings of both Mike and Warren recounting what happened and I took photos of Mike’s hospital discharge papers and close-ups of his face.”
“What would we do without smartphones?” I said.
“We’d rely on Bob Colby’s guys whose hourly rate is just about the same as mine.”
“But you’re not charging Mike Braeden.”
“No, if it gets to a place where the firm is formally involved, Maisie and I will have to charge, but we’re not there yet.”
“When Kam Chau told us about Patti’s meltdown at MediaNation, he said that Patti accused Mike of going through her personal things, searching for something incriminating about Nicholas that he could use to force her to see a therapist. Did Mike mention Patti making that specific accu
sation on the recording?”
“He did. Mike also said Patti and Thalia had both suffered enough, and he didn’t want anything made public unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“And now it is absolutely necessary. Zack, I think we may have been too quick to dismiss what Patti believed was going on.”
Zack turned to me abruptly. “Surely you don’t believe Mike was rummaging in Patti’s things looking for something he could use against her?”
“No. Not for a minute. But it’s possible Patti possesses or did possess something that, in her words, could ‘taint’ her son’s memory. Kam told us that when he was trying to soothe Patti, he told her that no one was going to say anything about Nicholas because he’d been dead for six years and what happened was in the past, and Patti said, ‘People always leave something behind.’
“What if Nicholas really did leave something behind that could damage his memory? You and I agree that Mike Braeden wouldn’t have been looking for something he could use to force Patti into therapy. But it’s possible that Thalia believed that her mother had something that might cast a shadow over Nicholas’s reputation. Given what everyone says about how close Nicholas and Thalia were, if Thalia thought her mother had something that reflected badly on her brother, she would have searched for it.”
Zack shifted in his seat, an unconscious gesture to protect his skin against pressure ulcers. “Jo, you know I can’t raise that possibility with Mike.”
“I realize that. I think we have to work from the premise that when Patti said she was afraid of Mike, she wasn’t afraid he would harm her physically; she was afraid he’d find something he could use to force her to go to a therapist.”