“You know we said we wouldn’t interfere with each other,” she’d said just as often, especially about riding. He stood aside, now, to let her go. He was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness, aware of the great gulf between them and a lack of understanding about what had happened.
When she was halfway to the barn, she turned. “Vivian wants to come out for the weekend.”
“Oh Lord,” he muttered.
Vivian now lived with her boyfriend in a condo in Toronto. He supposed Heather would find that sterile after living in the country. He conjured up an image of a fire in the wood stove and of warm cider. Perhaps one of the neighbours would come over to visit.
“Well, of course, you know I adore Vivian,” he said. “But don’t you think it’s rather lousy timing?”
“I figured you wouldn’t be here by then. I did ask you to move out.”
“I didn’t say I would do anything,” he said. “Maybe you could go and stay with Vivian.”
“You’re so predictable,” she said. “Forget it. I’ll ride now.”
“Be careful,” he said.
She was already moving toward the barn again and the breeze carried his words in the other direction. He looked up at the clear sky stretching away in the distance, a sky filled with stars and with none of the blinding lights of the city to mute them.
Life went on like this for a week or two, with Heather not saying when she would return to England. He spoke with his lawyer about what to negotiate. There were phone calls with Sue. He spent hours walking on his land, unable to imagine leaving it. Unable to imagine someone else sitting in the living room with the rolling hills extending beyond the windows.
When he went into his office, he felt he was merely going through the motions. And yet, once a client sat in front of him, he was able to focus on whatever messages he was getting.
“I’m not worried about you,” he said to one woman who had become somewhat of a regular. “But do you have something going on with your stomach?”
The woman hesitated. “Yes,” she said finally.
“Thank you,” he said. “I know you do and you’re going to have to see a doctor. Whatever it is, it’s something small. Don’t worry. It will be fine.”
After she left, his telephone rang. He did not expect anyone for half an hour, so he answered it.
“Hello, Mr. Jonker,” a male voice said. “A cheque is in the mail. I owe you an apology.”
“Who is this?” Hans asked.
“You told me I was going to move to the States. Well, you were right. When I went into work, the boss asked me to do the start-up on an office in Boston. I couldn’t believe it. And not only that, it was only a day after seeing you that I found out.”
“Yes,” Hans said, recognizing the man now. “I could have told you more if you’d stayed, but you know it now.”
They talked awhile and Hans learned how the man had felt about the move, given that at some level he had already prepared himself for something.
“Do you ever get it wrong?” the man asked.
“Oh sure,” Hans said. “In my own life. All the time. But not very often with clients.” He must pay more attention then.
“Well, thanks again,” the man said. “And I apologize for walking out without paying. At the time, I didn’t like what you had to say. But I did go to hear it.”
*
Overhead, a spider web stretched from one corner of the ceiling to the far wall. Sue thought that the ice patterns on her window as a teenager had resembled the filigree of the spider’s weaving. That time before, when her life had revolved around having to keep a secret, was fuzzy. A memory of a new boy coming across the schoolyard toward her crossed the threshold of her awareness. She had heard about him, knew his name was Peter Marshall, but she had yet to meet him. He would have arrived on one of the buses from an out of town property. She could no longer remember at which mine his father had worked. It might have been Golden Manitou where she had had a job in the assay lab in later summers. Or, more likely, it would have been East Sullivan, a mine that was closer to town. Peter used to ride his bicycle in along the highway in good weather. She did not think anyone from as far away as Manitou would have done that. They might have taken a shift bus if they had come at a time when they could not have gotten a lift any other way.
“So,” he had said, winking.
At first, Sue thought this new boy must be talking to Rosie, the blue-eyed blonde siren of her teenage years, who had been standing behind her, but when she turned around, she was surprised to find Rosie no longer there.
“My name is Peter,” he had said. “What about you?”
“Sue.”
“Hi, Sue.”
She did not know where his family had come from to arrive in Ile d’Or. Too shy to ask, she decided to ask her sister later. He was younger than Maggie so she might not have noticed him. As it turned out, he had an older brother in Maggie’s grade, so she knew that their father was a geologist out at East Sullivan and that they had moved from some mine in northern Ontario to work there. Maggie also knew before Sue did when they were going to move again. She had not bothered to tell Sue because there wasn’t any reason for her to think of it. She had not known that Peter was the one who got her sister into trouble. Anyway, everyone in the family knew they were not supposed to talk about that.
It was so recent that she and Maggie had finally opened that door that it was still sometimes awkward when they broached it. Nonetheless, they talked every time they had an opportunity. When it was not too late in Toronto, Sue would call her sister and on weekends, the rates were cheap enough that they could talk for as long as they wanted.
“Maggie, I found her,” Sue had said on their last phone call.
“Who?” Maggie asked sleepily.
“You know. I told you. She’s an adult now with a family of her own. Her name is Gwen.”
“Gwen?”
“Um.”
“Imagine. What does she look like?”
“Like she’s related to us. Like your kids.”
“That feels strange.”
“I don’t know what I feel. As if I’ve spent my whole life waiting for this, I think.”
Jerry, when alive, had thought a lot about his impact in the public sphere. Whereas, what she had been moving toward all of her adult life she now knew had been this, to know the child to whom she had given birth. Sue felt sorry Jerry never knew his, sorrier than she could ever have imagined. Was it any wonder her husband had, in his final hours, doubted he had done enough in his life when he knew out there was a son he had not even told her about. Another phone call to Maggie. “What is she like?” her sister asked now.
“She’s friendly. I can’t believe I didn’t look for her sooner. She’s going to come here in a couple of weeks.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. She could imagine Maggie trying to absorb what she was being told.
“Maggie,” she said. “She wants to find her father, too.”
“You haven’t told me who the father was, have you?”
“No. I will though. He never knew. The family left town and moved somewhere else the next year. I don’t know if it would have been different if they hadn’t, but I doubt it.”
“So who was it?”
Sue hesitated. The shame of it, her mother seemed to be muttering in her ear. “Peter Marshall,” she said. “And I need your help to find him. It’s something I have to do for her.”
“Peter Marshall?” Her sister’s tone suggested she was astonished.
“Would I lie to you?”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t know you even went out with him. He was always hanging around that sexy Rosie something or other.”
“That’s true, but all the boys were.”
“I wonder where the Marshalls went. There was an older brother, too.
I had a crush on him. They disappeared before I finished high school.”
So Maggie did not know. She must have thought her sister would be able to tell her and would call him for her. “Where do you suppose he’d be now?” she murmured. “Do you have any idea?”
“No, but I could ask Angus.”
“That was going to be my next question.”
“He’s away at the moment. He went up the coast to look at a property for Amarpec. He should be back early Tuesday. I’ll ask him then. I’m wondering what else you might do to track Peter down. Angus knows so many people in the mining world, but he could be anywhere. He could be doing anything. He could be a truck driver. Maybe a dentist.”
“Funny. I was thinking maybe a high-school math teacher.”
“Why?”
“He was good at algebra.”
Maggie laughed.
“He was a good skater, too,” Sue said. “And he skied to school sometimes on the highway, all the way from East Sullivan.” The mine where she had worked was on the same highway that ran through La Vérendrye Park and the Laurentians on toward Montreal. It had been a gravel road in those days and it had taken forever to drive as far as Mont-Laurier. Once there, the rest of the trip to Montreal had been smoother and faster. Her father had often asked Sue to take the wheel once she had her license because her mother never liked driving on highways — driving around town had been the extent of her comfort level. Sue thought that was likely why both her parents had been so keen for her to pass her driver’s test. Unlike Maggie, she had been excited about driving.
When she and Maggie stopped talking, Sue went back to sleep. She wanted to cocoon herself in the safety of the big bed, covered by her thick duvet. She did not want to talk to Hans, to Thomas, or to Florence. It felt as if she were on the verge of a discovery she was not ready to share with anyone yet.
It took only a few days to track down Peter Marshall in the Maritimes where he was indeed teaching math, not at a high school but at a small university. As fate would have it, the Marshall family had moved from East Sullivan and Ile d’Or to the mining town where Angus had lived. Likely, the only reason Sue had not known this sooner was because there had never been any reason for it to come up in conversation. After a few years, the family moved on from there as well, but not before both Angus, Peter’s older brother, and Peter completed high school. They had not kept in touch, but Angus had run into Peter on an airplane a few years earlier on a flight to Ottawa.
All that information made it easy to look up a telephone number. Sue did not feel ready to tell Gwen yet, but knew she would not be able to hang onto the information for much longer. Then, before she could and before Gwen asked, Thomas called. Could he spend the night on a trip he had to make to Toronto? Sue said yes. She also spoke to Florence who was by then staying with Kate and Thomas.
“How are you, my dear?” Florence asked.
“You’re the one who was in a car accident. How are you doing?”
“You know, my dear, these children have been so kind to me. As have you. I’m probably doing even better than could have been expected for a woman of my age. I won’t say for an old lady because I know you’ll disagree with me. But all the same. Now, you tell me how you are and what’s been keeping you so busy.”
“I found her, Florence. I found my daughter.”
“I thought that was likely,” Florence said. “I thought that must be what it was.”
“Her name is Gwen.”
“Have you seen her?”
“Oh, yes. Twice. And she’s coming here this Friday.”
“And?”
“Well, she’s lovely. She’s married with children I haven’t yet met, but she wants me to. And to meet her mother. She’s had a better life than I could have given her.”
“Only because of your age and the circumstances at the time. It’s just too bad you had to hide it for so long.”
“She wants to meet her father, too.”
“I hadn’t considered that, but it does seem logical. How do you feel about that?”
“Pretty uncomfortable, but I’ve managed to find out where he is. I haven’t told her yet, but I will soon. He doesn’t even know I was pregnant so how he will deal with her, I have no idea. I’ve never had any contact with him since I discovered the pregnancy and left town.”
“My dear, you have a lot of courage. I’m glad for you. And it sounds as if it’s already been worth it.”
“Yes.”
“You know how fond I am of you, child.”
“I’m almost sixty. I’m no child.”
“You could have been my child.”
Sue wondered if someone were to write a story how these pieces would go together. Maybe what these revelations were meant to teach her was something about the nature of love itself. There was a complex puzzle that was gradually clearer, but it never became clear enough that she could quite grasp it.
“Come and visit me as soon as you can fit it in,” Florence said.
“Yes, I will.”
The research Thomas had to do in the city was simple compared to the questions he asked her when he arrived that evening. He wanted to know about Gwen. This emerged over an after dinner coffee.
“You’re a gourmet cook,” Thomas said. “You make the best things.”
“How’s your cooking these days?”
“I’m learning,” he said. “Kate can’t eat all the same things now that she’s pregnant. So that’s another challenge. Not until after the baby comes, she says.”
“Are you excited?”
“Of course,” he said. “Although it’s a little mixed. I don’t dare say so to either Kate or Florence. I have all these feelings about never meeting my father, about my mother not being here to be a grandmother. I have this sense that I can’t give a child roots when I’m not sure I have any.”
“I can understand that.”
“That’s why I was angry when Gwen came along. I thought I was the child you’d never had and you actually have a real daughter.”
“Oh, my goodness. She has a mother, you know. I gave birth to her. That’s all I did.” She hesitated. “I want to know her, to try to give her something or to make up for all the years she looked for me. A mother who likely had, in her mind, abandoned her. It doesn’t change that you’re Jerry’s son and that I’m so glad you found me.”
There was a glint in his eyes, but then it was gone and she thought she had imagined it. All the same, she knew she had said something that touched him deeply.
“Did you love my father?”
“Oh, yes,” she sighed. “And I think he was trying to tell me about you at the end. I didn’t realize what he was saying was intended to open doors. Everything occurred so fast and I only got to reflect on it when it was too late. In the moment, it was like sitting on a train and seeing small figures in a landscape as you go by. Knowing you will never see the whole picture.”
*
Emily noted the signposts of another season: the darkness coming early, the leaves falling, the cooler breezes, all moving inexorably toward winter. She worried about Martin shovelling, especially since his blood pressure had been up at his last doctor’s appointment.
“It’s exercise,” he would probably tell her. “Shovelling is good exercise.”
“Maybe,” she would respond. “If you’re already in shape.”
Emily shook her head as if they were in the midst of this conversation. Martin was a good husband; his lack of concern about his health the only tension between them. He had run with Jerry when his friend was alive, but then, just as easily had sat and drank beer and consumed French fries as if that had no impact. She had not started to worry until pains in his chest had slowed him down while on their evening walks. At least he had seen the doctor and started to take the necessary medication. He even carried the nitroglycerine with him i
n the evenings now in case exertion caused some discomfort. Lately, he had started to watch what he ate and worked out more at the gym. While not consistent, he had, at least, started a sporadic regimen, which pleased her.
As she closed the front door behind her, Emily saw a pile of envelopes on the floor. On top was a small yellow one without a stamp, and only their names, “Emily and Martin,” written on it. Pulling up the flap, she extracted a card with a small watercolour painting of wildflowers. It was from Sue. Such a lovely miniature, she thought. The woman is talented. Inside, was a note and she was surprised to realize it was an invitation for dinner on Saturday.
By now, they had no longer expected Sue to follow through on the offhand invitation she had issued in Stratford, but there could be many reasons they had not heard from her till now. Emily had even suggested to Martin that they ask her to join them one evening soon.
When Martin arrived an hour later and dropped his briefcase in the hall, she went out to greet him with a hug.
“Look at this,” she said, handing him the card.
“That’s beautiful,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Look inside.”
“Well,” he said. “Are we free?”
Emily nodded.
“Why not call her then and say we’ll be there?”
*
On Saturday, they walked through the shadows of evening, punctuated by the hum of traffic and people’s voices on Bloor Street a block away, toward the familiar address on Walken Avenue. They passed red brick houses with open cedar steps and small neat front yards. When Sue answered the door, Emily handed her a blooming houseplant and Martin a bottle of French shiraz.
“Thanks,” Sue said.
“I’ll open the wine for you if you have a corkscrew,” Martin said.
Martin was likely the only person who could walk into Sue’s house and feel so at home, Emily thought. But it was two years since Jerry’s death. Sue had her own life now. Even a man who must come and go whom they might never meet so long as he was married. She did not suppose that married men planned to leave their wives. At some point, Sue might be devastated. Instead of feeling even a murmur of satisfaction, Emily felt sad for her.
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