Like the morning ride, eggs are also part of her new routine—two over easy with two slices of toast and two cups of tea. At lunch she’ll have a sandwich, usually grilled cheese, and for dinner she likes chicken or beef with potatoes and any vegetable that isn’t brussels sprouts. She only likes surprises at dessert, so I try to make sure she doesn’t have to deal with them at any other time. But Mary Anne had been a surprise even to me this morning, and I was lucky things had gone so smoothly with Grace.
“She likes her perms tight,” I reminded her.
“And her tea with milk and sugar. I remember.”
I glanced over at Mary Anne. Her tea was still untouched. I had served it clear. Damn.
Grace slipped bread into the toaster, then carried milk and sugar over to Mary Anne and lifted a few strands of that salt-and-pepper hair. “You need conditioning.”
Mary Anne nodded and poured milk into her cup while Grace went back to her eggs. They were settled and happy. I could leave, confident things would go well. Grace loves Mary Anne and she was born to do hair. When she was little, she was always with me at my shop in the city, Chez Ruby on Queen, playing with dolls in the waiting room, coloring pictures by the shampoo sinks. Unlike Liz, she loved being at Chez Ruby and she loved being with me.
Some people think I was wrong to start training her when she was only thirteen, but the girl was going to need a trade and time to learn it. Why pretend? Why put off the inevitable? And look at her now. She’s a good hairdresser and the clients love her, especially the seniors.
I always thought Grace and I would work together at Chez Ruby on Queen forever. But after that trouble with Liz a few years back, I moved the shop here instead, bringing the barber’s chair and some of the other equipment with me. I lost a handful of customers at first. But when I lowered the prices to reflect the savings in overhead, more and more of them started coming across the bay in all but the very worst weather to join us at Chez Ruby on the Island. As I say to Grace all the time, that’s what comes of good service.
The horn blast from the dock reminded me that I had five minutes before the ferry left. Grabbing my notebook, I read Find Liz again, then stashed the book in my purse. “I’m off,” I said, giving Grace a hug on my way out the door.
The morning was already hot, the air close. In the garden, the lilac still needed pruning, the rich purple faded to brown weeks ago and waiting patiently for me to get busy with a different kind of shears. My grandmother planted that lilac bush in 1943, the year she built our home. It’s now fifteen feet tall and the pride of a property that has been nurtured by Donaldson women ever since. On any other morning, I’d pause to inspect the daylilies, the climbing roses, the pots of geraniums. Taking time to breathe in the perfume that is unique to this garden, this Island. But not today. Today I have to find Liz.
Kicking back the stand on my bike, I gave Grace a quick wave as I pulled away, still grateful to see her at the window, to have my girl home again.
I pedaled carefully along the narrow lanes, dodging cats and kids, giving way to the bikes moving faster than mine. With the exception of emergency crews and park staff, motorized vehicles are prohibited on the Island. No cars, no Vespas. Definitely no golf cars. Bicycles get us where we need to go, with carts on the back and baskets on the front to help us carry groceries, liquor, tired kids, and anything else we need from the city because there are also no stores on the Island. Life can be hard in the winter when the wind cuts your face and heavy snow makes the going impossible on two wheels. But Islanders have always been a different breed. Urban misfits the lot of us, happy to sacrifice a few comforts for a life apart from the push and shove of the city.
There used to be five thousand of us here, with houses and businesses spreading from Hanlan’s Point to Ward’s Island. Everything from hotels to corner stores and a milkman who came to our doors every morning. Life was good until the late fifties when the city decided the Island should be a park. Year after year they came with their sheriff and their bulldozers, pushing us back farther and farther until we finally took a stand in July 1980. Banded together and said no more. We would not be moved.
There are only seven hundred of us left, but instead of chasing us away, the hardships make us stronger, more determined to hold on to the homes and the life we love. Which is why another blast from the ferry had me pedaling faster. I could not afford to miss that boat.
My bike is a black 1946 Schwinn. Brand-new when my grandmother brought it over after the war and in its prime when my mother claimed it as her own in the fifties. But now, just like me, the poor thing is well past its best before date. There won’t be anything worth passing on, so I never bother with the lock when I leave the bike at the ferry dock. If some kid pitches it over the wall into the eastern channel, I won’t mind. In fact, I can’t think of a more fitting tribute for the old girl than to be laid to rest among the other bikes at the bottom of the gap.
Jamming the Schwinn into the last available spot, I raced aboard the Ongiara, the small ferry that trundles back and forth between Toronto and Ward’s year-round—the one meant for Islanders. The 8:30 A.M. serves mostly commuters, and I moved through the crowd as I used to every morning, calling hello to people I knew, nodding to those I only recognized. There was a time when I missed my daily commute. Missed the small talk, the gossip updates, and the money that came with working in the city. But like Grandma Lucy, I’ve come to prefer the pace and freedom of working from home. And I have always known how to stretch a buck until it screams—something Liz’s father used to admire about me.
“Ruby, darlin’,” he’d say. “There is nothing sexier than watching you clip those coupons. Gets me all hot and bothered just sittin’ here.” That much was true. Doubtless because I was building a healthy sum in the coffee tin we were filling for our future together.
His name was Gideon, he hailed from Oklahoma, and he was just another draft dodger who found his way to the Island during the sixties and seventies. I was no child when he arrived in 1974. No breathless virgin waiting to be wakened to the joys of sex, but the day that man stepped off the ferry, I stood perfectly still on the dock, barely breathing while I watched him come down the ramp.
Gideon may have been a hayseed back home, but to me he was a dark and exotic mystery. A man who smiled easily, knew every sensitive spot on a woman’s body, and played a mean guitar. Grandma Lucy warned me about him from the start, but I fell in love anyway. Made us a nest in my room and gave birth to his daughter a year later. I even thought about marriage every time I clipped a coupon or stashed another bill in that tin.
Liz was almost two years old when Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to all the artful dodgers in January 1977. I left Chez Ruby early that day, heading home to celebrate. Mary Anne met me at my front door, told me Gideon and my money had hopped on the ferry an hour earlier, bound for the city and a train to warmer climes. She knew because she caught him packing the coffee tin into a duffel bag when she dropped by to check on Grandma Lucy.
“I have spent long enough on this godforsaken spit of land,” he’d said. “And I am sick to death of leaving my balls at the dock.”
She tried to stop him, ending up on her backside in a snow-bank for her trouble. I haven’t heard from him since and don’t care to either. He was just another man I have loved. Another man who has a daughter who looks just like him. And Grandma Lucy was right again.
I made my way to the front of the Ongiara where old Benny Barnes had taken up his position at the railing. Benny’s family has lived on the Island as long as mine, maybe longer, but I don’t remember him aging. As far as I can tell, he has always been old, which must have been easier than coming to it the way I did—head on and without warning.
He nodded and moved his bike over so we could stand together, watching the harbor come closer and closer. The skyline has changed dramatically over the past few years. More office towers, more condos—nothing that means anything to me. I prefer the view at night when the lake reflects the lig
hts and the city looks like a fairyland from my bedroom window.
“Gonna be a hot one,” Benny said.
I smiled and turned my back on the city, watching the Island recede while he made small talk. Special on pork chops at Sobeys. Another damn rock festival coming. And finally, “Poor Mike lost another bicycle. Kids dumped it in the Eastern Gap. Someone ought to do something.”
“Indeed,” I said, not mentioning my thoughts about my own bike and the watery graveyard at the bottom of the gap. Some things you kept to yourself on the Island.
The Ongiara began to slow. The deckhands readied the ropes for docking and Benny raised the kickstand on his bike. “You shopping today?”
“Not today.” I left it at that, joining the pack heading down the ramp before he got his bike rolling. No one needed to know why I was in the city. Not even me.
I stood for a moment at the traffic lights on Front Street, checking my notebook, reading again the first few lines. Find Liz. Go to 100 King Street. Look up Mark Bernier.
King Street wasn’t far from the harbor and I found the address in under fifteen minutes. But since when were community legal clinics located in bank towers? Worried I’d taken down the address wrong, I ventured over to the directory and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the sign for Fleming, Hitchcock, Romney and Bernier, Barristers and Solicitors. Thirtieth floor.
So much for community legal work. And I couldn’t help smiling as I walked into the elevator, wondering if Mark ever missed his principles.
I met Mark in 1979 at a Save the Island Homes rally. I was with Eric then, the one with the blue eyes who would be Grace’s father in a year but never know it. Mark was big—six foot four—with a handshake that made my teeth rattle and an openness that took me off guard. Both Eric and I liked him right away, and Liz adored him, but she was only four and based her judgment solely on the fact that he always brought treats, so hers was not a fair assessment.
Even then, he spoiled that girl, but I was pleased when he kept coming to the meetings, grateful he was there the day Eric took the ferry into the city for the last time, and shocked he didn’t run for the next one after I confessed in a drunken slur that I was pregnant.
Mark stayed with me through everything. The pregnancy, the birth, those first horrible weeks, trying to keep Liz from lugging that baby around like it was her own. I was surprised to find him still with us when Grace turned one. I’m not sure when we decided we were officially living together, but if you were to ask Mark, he’d say it was the day Grace was born.
A pretty redhead looked up from the reception desk and smiled. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Mark Bernier.”
“Do you have an appointment?” She frowned when I shook my head. “I’m afraid Mr. Bernier is tied up in meetings for the day—”
“Tell him his ex-wife is here. And tell him she’s pissed.”
She was on her feet at once. “I’ll be right back.”
I have never been anyone’s wife, but I knew the line would work better than, “A situation has come up and I could use his advice because I’m very confused right now, but I can’t afford a lawyer and I’m hoping he’ll be a sweetie and help me out, you know?”
Sure enough, she was back within minutes, escorting me along gleaming hardwood to an office furnished with leather chairs, a rosewood desk, and modern art, undoubtedly expensive, on the walls.
Mark looked up from that desk as I stepped past the secretary. “Ruby, good to see you.”
I paused, suddenly flustered. “It’s good to see you too.”
He rose and approached, hand outstretched, face collapsing into a minefield of wrinkles when he smiled. My God, but the man had aged. I couldn’t help wondering if he was thinking the same thing as he took my hand. My God, Ruby’s looking old.
But he said, “You look fabulous,” and I smiled back, wanting to believe him. He may have been older, but his handshake hadn’t changed and my teeth were still rattling when he said, “Have a seat,” and led me to the desk.
“I assume you’re no longer in the legal aid business,” I said, taking in the floor-to-ceiling view of the city before sitting down. “What made you change your mind?”
“Debt mostly. Drink?” he asked, indicating a bar on the far side of the room.
I was still curious about his leap into the world of big law, but nothing about him indicated a willingness to chat about that chapter in his life. So I said, “Not right now,” and stashed my purse under the chair. “Thanks for seeing me.”
“I always make a point of seeing a pissed-off ex.” He sat down and folded his hands. “What can I do for you, Ruby?”
And suddenly I had no idea. Not a clue as to why I was there.
“I need to talk to you,” I said, because it made sense.
“About what?”
“It’s hard to explain,” I said, and waited, hoping it would get easier. Or at least clearer.
He tipped his head to one side. “Do you want to try?”
“I hardly know where to start.” I rose and walked around to his side of the desk because it felt like the natural thing to do. The picture in the frame by the phone made me pause. Mark and a little girl in a tree house. Same brown hair, same green eyes. His daughter? Possibly, but where was the mother? Why no shots of her?
“Ruby? Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course.” I smiled harder and did the only thing that came to mind. I moved in closer, making him roll his chair back to accommodate me. Those green eyes flicked up and down my body. He let out a long controlled breath, inched his chair back a little farther, and I could have cried. The child’s mother aside, he still found the ex tempting.
I perched myself on the corner of his desk. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately,” I said, which was probably true. Why else would I be there? “And I’m happy to see that life has been good to you.”
He rolled his chair back farther still. “What do you want?”
“A chance to get reacquainted? Let bygones be bygones?”
“Ruby, you can’t—”
“Can’t what?” I leaned forward slightly. “Stoke an old flame? See what flares up?”
He leapt up, knocking over his chair, and flattening himself against the wall. “For God’s sake, what are you doing?”
“Trying to stir up some memories,” I said, which was definitely true. I moved closer, pressed myself against him, ran my hands over his chest. “I see it’s working.”
“It’s not working.”
“You never could lie to me. Not about this.” Cupping his face in my hands, I brought his mouth down to mine, kissed him lightly, once, twice. Third time and he was on me, dragging my mouth closer, covering my lips with his and trying to get his tongue inside. He might have been older and out of shape, but he was hard in a hurry and he still wanted me.
“Oh, Mark,” I said, feigning breathlessness, hoping the real thing would overtake me while I tried to pull him to the floor.
Halfway there, he stopped, dragged me back to my feet, and stepped away from me. “What the hell are you doing? What is this about?”
“Reconciliation?” He looked doubtful and my shoulders slumped. “All right fine, I don’t know what it’s about right now. Let’s assume it’s about sex. Let’s just do it and I’ll leave.”
He held a hand over his belt buckle. “Ruby, stop. I’m not going to let you screw up my life again.”
“I screwed up your life?”
“For years and years to come.” He moved me around to the other side of the desk, sat me in the chair. “I need a drink. Do you want one?”
“Something red. Something I wouldn’t buy for myself.” I flopped back in the chair, told myself to concentrate. There was a reason I was there. I was sure of it. I crossed my legs and my foot nudged a purse under the chair. My purse. The one with my notebook inside.
While Mark poured us both a glass of something red, I took out the notebook, read the first line. Find Liz. Of c
ourse. Find Liz. I gave myself a mental slap. Stay on track, Ruby.
He set a glass on the desk in front of me. I raised it and sniffed. Pomegranate juice. Definitely red. Definitely something I wouldn’t buy for myself. I should have known.
He carried his own glass around to his side of the desk. “Okay, be honest. What has gotten into you today?”
“Today, nothing. But last week …” I closed the notebook and set it on my lap. “Last week was another story completely.”
“Go on,” he said more gently than I’d expected. But then he had always been gentle, hadn’t he? Even on the day I threw him out. If only I could remember why I’d done that.
“Ruby,” he said. “Tell me what happened last week.”
“Last week. Yes. That’s why I’m here.” I drew in a quick breath and said the words out loud for the first time since the diagnosis. “I have early onset Alzheimer’s.”
If I’d hoped for a feeling of relief, a lightening of the load perhaps, I was sorely disappointed. The telling had only made it more real, more frightening, more final. It didn’t help that Mark’s face drained of color. Or that he shook his head and moistened his lips. I watched the horror leave his eyes, saw comprehension take its place, and in a flash, I became something new in those eyes, something dreadful. An object of pity.
He tried to say something, but his first attempt failed. He couldn’t find the words, sounding much like I imagine I’ll sound in a year or two. “Are you sure?” he managed at last. “Have you been tested?”
“Extensively. The actual diagnosis was a year ago. I’ve been on medication since and it seemed to be working fine until a few weeks ago. So I went back for a checkup, thinking all I needed was an adjustment on the meds. It hadn’t been that long, after all. But apparently I have the form that progresses rapidly. This time next year, I probably won’t know you.”
“This makes no sense. You’re too young.”
“Like I said, it’s early onset.”
“But no one in your family had it.”
“My mother died young. Who knows what might have happened later? And I’m sure now that Grandma Lucy had it, but no one knew. We just thought she was old and doddery.”
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