The Heart Begins Here

by Jacqueline Dumas

  Before the beginning of the service, the solicitous young man had been the object of much speculation, as was the older man beside him. Some surmised the young man to be Freddie’s brother, or Cindy’s, but I knew for a fact that neither of them had a brother. I even overheard someone suggest he was an old beau of Cindy’s. Since the relationship with Freddie was reputedly her first with another woman, it was plausible that Cindy would have had a few old boyfriends rattling around in her closet. But this particular young man looked to be in his early twenties, which was too young for Cindy. (Although granted, judging from the affair with the much older Wanda, Cindy wasn’t hung up on age differential.)

  So, not her brother then, but quite possibly a relative. The blue eyes, for one thing, and the thick blond hair suggested a family resemblance. And what about the man beside him? He looked to be in his late fifties or so. Earlier, it had looked like he was trying to catch Wanda’s eye, as if he knew her.

  With Freddie safely in her seat, surely I wasn’t the only one curious to see if she would acknowledge Wanda. They were separated only by Alice and the narrow aisle between them, but so far Freddie hadn’t so much as cast a glance Wanda’s way. Nor had Wanda looked at Freddie, not even when she had stumbled.

  Alice’n’Peggy, however, were doing enough gawking to make up for both Freddie and Wanda.

  The choir was on the last verse of “There You’ll Be,” but still no sign of the Reverend Rosie.

  “The sopranos are a touch strident today, don’t you think?” said a familiar voice to my right.

  “Cindy carried the soprano section,” replied another. “They’re missing her.”

  “Do you suppose she was right there for both Freddie and Wanda?” The first voice snickered as she paraphrased the song.

  I turned to frown at the snickerer. It was Midge, with her colleague from the post office. Midge was one to talk. Women passed through her like a defective sieve. She was a good friend of Freddie’s and was probably speaking out of nervousness, but I glared at her anyway, on principle.

  When finally Reverend Rosie made her entrance, holding a cordless mic before her like a processional candle, she took her place at the front of the stage. Her confident gaze swept the room, then she closed her eyes and swayed until the choir reached the end of their song.

  “Now there’s an imposing presence,” whispered Simone.

  “Actually, she’s not all that tall,” I said, uncertain why I would bother to correct Simone.

  “She doesn’t look short”.

  “The poufy red hair makes her look taller.”

  A shush and a glare from retaliatory Midge.

  The singers left the stage and wedged themselves together on the floor below Reverend Rosie, who thanked them, and on behalf of Cindy’s family, all of us for coming. She then invited us to reflect on the tragic events south of the border.

  “Those of you my age or older probably know exactly what you were doing when President Kennedy was shot,” she said. “Unhappily, September eleventh is destined to become one of those dates for most of us here. We will not forget where we were when the two planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.”

  Reverend Rosie asked for a minute of silence to commemorate the victims of 9/11 and our friends and neighbours south of the border.

  Wanda’s previous self would have scoffed at the gratuitous mention of 9/11. I focused on the back of her head for the entire minute, but of course she didn’t turn.

  Reverend Rosie continued.

  “For me, September eleventh will hold a double significance, for it was while sitting in front of my television set, already stunned by those images from New York City, that my telephone rang and I learned that my good friend Cindy Lottridge had been killed. My first reaction was shock, disbelief, soon to be followed by anger and outrage. How could something like this happen?”

  Reverend Rosie paused, then continued.

  “We have come together today with sorrow in our hearts, and yes, anger and outrage. But let us put aside those feelings and focus instead on the love we shared for Cindy. Let us celebrate the person she was.”

  What’s to celebrate? The woman is dead. That’s what the old Wanda would’ve said.

  Reverend Rosie went on to extol Cindy’s deep spirituality. But the stories of selfless contributions to Reverend Rosie’s fledgling church left me cold. What kind of spirituality sanctioned cheating on your life partner to go chasing after another woman’s lover?

  “Cindy had become like my little sister, especially during the last few months,” Reverend Rosie said. “She liked to claim I was her mentor, but the truth is, I learned far more from her than I ever had to teach her. She was a diligent person who inspired by example. Some of you probably knew her as an avid cyclist. Would you believe one day she actually persuaded me to join her cycling group. Me? Cycling? I hadn’t been on a bike in years and was terrified I wouldn’t be able to keep up. However, due to Cindy’s unflagging support, I spent some of the most enjoyable afternoons of my life on those trails with her and the other members of the cycling group.”

  Another unbidden memory caused a wrench in the pit of my stomach.

  ONE RAINY FRIDAY EVENING in July, Wanda had come home with a new mountain bike. Assuming it was an early birthday present, I smiled as she wheeled the dripping bicycle into the back porch. My own bike was almost rusted out. But no, she had bought the bike for herself.

  “You’ll give me a lesson or two, right?” she said.

  Seriously?

  Wanda had professed such an aversion to her sister Danuta’s “complicated” three-speed hand-me-down that I had long ago stopped offering to teach her how to ride it. Now she wanted to learn on a twenty-one-speed?

  By next morning, the rain had stopped and Wanda was eager for her first lesson. Saturday was my busy day at the store, but I agreed to go with her before showering and heading off to work. I pulled on a pair of old shorts and we hurried to the bike trail.

  By crazy coincidence, just as I was explaining the gearshift, who should glide by at the head of a group of spandexed cyclists but Cindy. She circled back, beamed at Wanda, and tossed a polite hello my way. I was instantly aware of my appearance, just like that first time in the garden. Sweat settled in the wrinkles above my lip.

  “Great-looking bike,” said Cindy to Wanda. “Am I impressed or what? Before you know it, you’ll be leaving the rest of us in the dust.”

  She winked at Wanda and pedalled off to rejoin the others.

  I sprinted away, leaving Wanda to wheel her own damn bike home.

  Had Reverend Rosie been in the group that day? Already in the know about Wanda and Cindy? Had Reverend Rosie known about Cindy’s plan to leave Freddie?

  “SHE HAD SUCH A profound passion for life,” Reverend Rosie was saying. “That’s the Cindy I’ll cherish and keep in my heart. The Cindy who lived every moment to the fullest. By honouring and commemorating that all-too-brief life, we repudiate her death.”

  Reverend Rosie extended condolences to Frederica Coyne—Freddie—thereby acknowledging her as Cindy’s partner. She glanced at Wanda, but did not acknowledge her.

  “Freddie, there’s a lot of love in this room right now,” said Reverend Rosie. “Take that love into your heart and store it so you can draw on it in the difficult times ahead.”

  She then called on Cindy’s cousin, Vinny Betemit, to speak. “Vinny’s come from all the way from Toronto to represent the family.”

  Necks craned to see which of the two men next to Freddie was Vinny. As I suspected, he turned out to be the younger one.

  The streaked wave that dipped across his forehead, the measured steps up to the stage, the easy strides, and the tidy way he’d tucked himself into those snug black chinos, just so. He was a blond Ricky Martin, our cousin Vinny, obviously one of us.

  Reverend Rosie proffered
the mic, and Vinny waved it off perfunctorily.

  “I’m fine without it.”

  A surprising baritone voice.

  He paused in the face of his audience, sniffed, took a deep breath, and raised his gaze to the back of the room.

  “I’d like to begin by first saying how touched I am to see so many of you here. It’s incredibly meaningful to witness how well-loved my cousin was.”

  Vinny thanked us from the bottom of his heart and extended a special thank you to the Reverend Rosie Superstein, his cousin’s mentor and friend. Reverend Superstein had taken care of the important things, such as the hotel accommodations, and she’d even warded off the press.

  He pulled out a folded piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket, unfolded it, and then repocketed it as if he’d changed his mind. He would speak off-the-cuff.“My dear sweet cousin Cindy,” said Vinny. “What can I tell you about her? While growing up in Toronto, we spent very little time together. There was the age difference, for one thing. She was nine years older than me. But I looked up to her. She was gutsy. She always spoke her mind. And she was generous. She touched my life in ways that now…. That now, she will never come to know.”

  Vinny’s face reddened. He looked as if he were about to cry, but regained his composure. Despite myself, I was moved.

  “Were we close? On the surface, you wouldn’t have thought so. We rarely talked on the phone. We never wrote. We didn’t even exchange Christmas cards. Yet we were connected in a way that many of you here will understand. During my difficult teen years, I had the sense that I was going through the same inner struggles, the same search for authenticity that my cousin Cindy had gone through before me. And often, in my darkest moments, it was this sense of a shared journey that kept me going.”

  Vinny took what looked to be a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes. He looked at the older man, his lover, I now assumed.

  “You know, a few weeks ago, I made travel arrangements to come out here to visit Cindy. You can appreciate that this is not the visit I had planned. My plan had the two of us talking and laughing over a bottle of wine like I had always dreamed we would one day. The fact that I didn’t make it out in time to tell her what she meant to me will haunt me forever. Now, she will never know what an inspiration she was to me. She will never know that it was her own example that gave me the courage to accept myself regardless of what others might say. Who I am today is a reflection of the person she was, but I never had the chance to tell her that. I’d give anything for that chance, anything to hug her one last time.”

  People were sniffling and tearing up. Simone wiped her eyes.

  He continued.

  “In spite of the challenges she faced, Cindy remained a loving person. She cared deeply about her family, I know she did, even the ones who did not support her life choices. Sadly, her mother died without reconciling with her daughter. I can’t imagine the pain this must’ve caused Cindy, but in typical Cindy fashion, she transformed that rejection into love and joy for her own son, Adam. She loved Adam more than life itself, as she proved in that final, fatal struggle. It’s heartbreaking to realize that just when Adam was about to be reunited with his mother, he lost her forever....”

  Vinny looked upward and heads swivelled to follow his gaze to the back of the hall and out the triangular window to the autumn-blue sky beyond.

  “Cindy, if your death can teach us anything, it’s that no matter the weight of our burdens, a love that is strong can lift them away. Cindy, my dear, sweet, loving cousin, you are part of me. You are in my bones. Your essence courses through my veins. You will live forever in my heart.”

  Even I was sobbing now. Simone blew her nose and put her arm around me.

  Vinny left the stage. Reverend Rosie waited while he made his way to his seat. On the way, he stopped by Wanda and placed his hand on the nape of her neck in a gesture of sympathy.

  Wanda sat rigid, head down.

  As he passed Freddie, he also stopped to acknowledge her. Freddie took his hand and held it for a moment.

  The older man, Vinny’s presumed lover, seemed very emotional, his ears red and his shoulders heaving. Vinny appeared to whisper something to him.

  So how had Vinny come to know of Wanda, and by inference, her relationship with Cindy? Like everyone else and his dog, had he been in the know before I was, all the way from Toronto? Why would I still care?

  Reverend Rosie asked us all to stand and join the choir in “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which helped shift emotions. Then, who should make an entrance in the middle of the last verse but Griselda Woods, clicking her way up the centre aisle in three-inch heels and a slitted black dress, eyes darting from side to side, searching for a seat. And the seat presented itself. A young woman (a doting student?) offered up her place in the middle of a row. People stepped aside and chairs scraped as Griselda jostled her way in and the young woman joined the group leaning against the wall.

  Typical, I thought.

  No sooner had the song come to an end than Reverend Rosie announced that Griselda Woods would say a few words, which precipitated a renewed disturbance as she exited the row she’d just entered. You’d have thought it was her funeral, the way she managed to make herself the centre of attention.

  Griselda reminded us all that one more murdered woman was one more too many. We were instructed not to give in to violence; nor were we to be intimidated by the events of the past two weeks. Rather, we were to keep foremost in our minds the love we shared with family and friends. For many in the community, friends were the only family we had. Like Cindy, many of us had been abandoned by our birth families, and we’d had to recreate new ones. If this tragedy could teach us anything, it was never to take love for granted.

  Simone squeezed my shoulder.

  “As those of you who know me are aware, I worship no gods,” said Griselda. “However, I do believe in love. Love is sacred.”

  Right, like Wanda’s Sacred Sundays, I thought.

  But I did agree with Griselda about one thing. Our community needed to stick together.

  When Griselda had finished, Reverend Rosie invited anyone else who wished to share memories, anecdotes, thoughts, or feelings about Cindy, to do so.

  Alice’n’Peggy got up, putting an end to the intent gazing-at-hands-in-laps that had met Reverend Rosie’s invitation. They recited, in tandem, a jointly written poem about an ocean journey under cloudy skies turned sunny. I had heard worse in the bookstore.

  “Thank you. Anyone else?” said Reverend Rosie.

  To my surprise, Simone stood and spoke about how she and Cindy Lottridge had worked together on the Intercity Antiviolence Initiative. Cindy apparently had had an all-embracing vision that involved the police, the community leagues, and the churches. Simone had every confidence that Cindy’s work would live on and that some of her ideas would be implemented in the near future. She suggested Cindy’s death be used as motivation for each of us to get involved in our community, to care for one another, to at the very least be kind to one another.

  “Let’s use her life as inspiration to live a consequential life, one that includes concern for the person sitting next to us, the person across the street from us, and the person on the other side of the world from us,” she said.

  When Simone finished, no one else had anything to say, and Reverend Rosie invited us all to the wake, which was to be at Virginia’s Bar on the coming Saturday.

  I was relieved. No coffin, no cemetery.

  21.

  TWO DAYS FOLLOWING CINDY’S memorial service, a man from the bank’s central office phoned the bookstore.

  “We’re calling in your loan,” he said, in a tone not unlike that of the kneecapper from Dustycan.

  Before these experiences, I had pictured bankers as rather civilized types with trim haircuts and pinstriped suits.

  After promising th
e man I’d go to my local branch first thing in the morning, I called the bankruptcy trustee to draw up the necessary papers. That afternoon, I went into his office and signed over control of my life for the better part of the next year.

  “Those calls will stop now,” the trustee said. “If they don’t, let me know immediately. And you should talk to your lawyer.”

  The advice from my lawyer? “Lock the door and walk away. Don’t look back.”

  So, there was to be no public announcement, no giant closeout sale, no fanfare to mark the occasion.

  I put up a sign on the door and did as the lawyer suggested, and Carmen and I spent the rest of the week packing up the remaining stock of books for charity. Most of the books would go to the women’s shelter for their next fundraiser.

  Before the bank account was closed, I managed a small bonus for Carmen.

  The bookstore had devoured most of the divorce settlement from Dan, yet my main feeling was one of relief. Apart from the daily worries, I didn’t like what the store had done to me. An exciting, optimistic venture had turned me into a pessimistic, cranky old crab. The bookstore had been Wanda’s idea, and I had failed at fulfilling what I thought was her dream. It hadn’t worked for either of us.

  That said, the bookstore had been, in the end, my decision, and I was grateful for what it had taught me. I may have entered the venture with rose-coloured glasses, and I may have been coming out of it with a good jolt of reality, but in the process, I had discovered a community that I wanted to stay part of.

  SIMONE PICKED ME UP for the wake. Although we were still in the same house, and things had settled down somewhat, it felt awkward to ask Wanda to go with me.

  On the way to Virginia’s, Simone told me the ex-husband had been picked up earlier that day. The stolen SUV he was driving had run out of gas on the highway just the other side of Brandon, Manitoba, and when the RCMP had stopped to check it out, they ran the licence plate number and promptly arrested him.