Sep. 10, ’88: C and J discharged. Emergency placement at the Tindalls’.
Sep. 14, ’88: Girls silent during placement visit. Peggy Tindall seemed distracted by the two boys I placed with her three weeks ago.
Jessica had been looking for Donna, for traces of her mother in these notes, but there was very little—only one sheet of paper with five handwritten lines.
Sep. 21, ’88: Dropped C and J at home of Donna Campbell. Clear that the older boys at the Tindalls’ were mistreating them. Donna’s experience is necessary here.
Sep. 27, ’88: Phone conversation with D. Girls acting out. D admits this is hardest placement so far. Needed some reassurance that she was doing a good job.
Oct. 1, ’88: Girls ran away to Stanley Park overnight, although this may be a fabrication. Returned to D the next morning and slept 10 hours straight. D feels she needs to watch them 24 hours a day.
Oct. 17, ’88: D phoned office. Sounded tired. Inquired about mother’s housing application. Reports that C and J are unhappy with placement.
Oct. 21, ’88: Home visit after phone call from D. Girls have run away again. Police are investigating.
Jessica knew how the social worker was feeling. She had dozens of files, dozens of children to track and find homes for. If she started caring, or spending more time on one particular family, her whole system would collapse and then she would be unable to keep all those kids in order. She had wanted Casey and Jamie to stay with Donna because she was capable. Donna always said yes. She didn’t need handholding. Donna was the foster mother she counted on. If there were problems, the social worker always said she needed to know. But that didn’t mean she wanted to know. There was only one way to walk with a responsibility so weighted and omnipresent. You needed people you trusted. People who could be independent and make their own decisions. You needed Donna.
And once the girls had disappeared, as so many girls and women did back then, the police took over and the file was pushed to the back of the social worker’s drawer.
Jessica could smell Trevor’s chili through the glass balcony door. Her belly churned and she sat, crunched into a ball against the cold. Still, she didn’t want to go in. Eating with another human seemed blasphemous. She should suffer out in the early spring air because Donna needed help and didn’t get it. Because the girls needed an adult who knew more. Because the social worker needed a lighter workload. Because everyone cared, but wrongly, or not enough. In the alley, a cat darted from car to Dumpster to hydro pole, its skinny body twitching with hunger or longing or rage. Jessica couldn’t tell and she wanted to cry for her own ignorance.
The door slid open behind her and the cat sprinted into the shadows, gone. “Jess? Hon, come inside and have some dinner. I used chipotles this time.” Trevor’s voice squeaked in the cold, like the first time she heard him say his own name.
The day they met, it had been sunny and warm, the kind of afternoon where light thickens and pools as it pushes its way through windows and cracks around doors. Jessica lay in Trevor’s bed, toes in a square of sunshine on the sheets. Three hours before, she had been on her way to a blind date. Now, she held his thin, nervy body in her hands and he said, “Tell me what you want.”
And she did. She told him how she wanted him to run his fingers gently down her skin, and how long she wanted him to move beside her. When she wanted him to kiss between her thighs, she breathed, “Now,” and he knew what she meant. She told him, and he did exactly as she said. He replied with almost nothing, only murmuring into her, “So beautiful.”
Afterward, she rested her head on his shoulder and stared at the cheap, round light fixture mounted on the ceiling. She knew that Trevor would always do what she asked. He would whisper in the mornings before she was awake, reshape her bras when he pulled them out of the washer, pack her lunch the evening before in an insulated bag. She felt the hair on his chest against her cheek. It was like down.
There were no secrets. He was skinny and the muscles under his skin moved in full view. When he smiled at her for the first time in that coffee shop, she felt she could read his entire life in his face. His mother was a nurse. His father was a printer. His childhood bicycle was green. And he never lied.
In his bed, warm and damp with twisted feet, she felt certain. This was it. Trevor kissed the top of her head and asked quietly, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” she said. “Safe.” And she felt his chest fall with an exhale, as if he had been holding his breath the entire time, waiting for her to say those precise words.
Out on the balcony, Jessica shook off the memory and stood, arching her back in a stretch before stepping inside. As they sat at their small pine table, she could feel Trevor watching her. He was observing her as if she were a skittish, endangered goat clinging to the side of a mountain. She refused to look up and instead stared at the mess of beans and peppers and tomatoes in her bowl. Maybe if she was quiet, he’d get the hint and be quiet too.
“Did you find anything interesting?”
She lifted her head and looked at his face, so smooth and boyish that the stubble lining his jaw seemed like an accident. He was still cute, still politely attractive in a way that was reassuringly inoffensive. But if she lived with a real man, one who knew how to fix a garbage disposal and carved animals out of wood, she would be sitting down to a meal of steak and good red wine and listening to classic rock. Instead, she had Trevor, soy cheese and Bon Iver.
Jessica shrugged. “Lots about the girls and their mother. But hardly anything about Mom.”
Trevor put down his spoon and picked up a piece of cornbread. “Is that what you were looking for? Stuff about your mom?”
“What else?”
Trevor chewed for a minute before answering. “I thought you were trying to figure out how the girls died. I mean, you knew your mother. What else do you need?”
Jessica sighed. “But only she knew what happened. She’s the missing link. Don’t you see?”
“I guess,” he said, slightly shaking his head in a way that made Jessica want to push beans into his eyes. “What are you going to do next?”
“Well, I could talk to the police again. Detective Gallo might tell me something if I pass him the files. You know, like a trade.”
“You’re going into business with the police?”
Jessica frowned. “You make it sound like I’m a snitch or something. God.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Trevor looked up at the ceiling and exhaled before going on. “Why don’t I help you? Maybe we can brainstorm another way you can find out what went on.”
She stared at the apartment door behind his head. “This is my thing, Trev. She was my mother. If I find out something awful,” Jessica paused and rubbed her eyes with her hand, “I need to just deal with it alone, even if I get scared or overwhelmed. Besides, you’re used to pushing people and playing the system to get what your clients need. This has to be done my own way, in my own time.”
Trevor left his chair and kneeled down on the floor beside her, his hands on her lap. “Jess, I want you to take a break. Take some time to breathe. You’re still grieving your mother. Maybe it would be better if you left the investigating to the police. Or let me help you.”
She could feel the blood behind her eyes—hot and insistent. “Would you stop helping a client just because it was someone you cared about? Do you think I would?”
“That’s different, Jess. That’s work. This is personal.”
“Exactly. All the more reason for me to keep going.”
“You’re a social worker. You know how hard it is for families to be impartial.”
“So? I’m not those families.”
Trevor rested his head on her thigh. Jessica put her hand in his hair, separating the wiry, light brown strands with her fingers. She used to kiss him, holding him by the hair, just like this. After a moment, he looked
up. “Those girls were your family. Your mother is your family. You’re the ones everyone else is investigating.” He looked up and patted her hand. “You should worry about yourself and leave the detective work alone.”
Jessica slapped him away and stood up. “Stop treating me like one of your clients,” she snapped as she grabbed her coat from the hook in the hall. “You have no idea, Trevor. None.” She pulled on her boots and opened the door. “And for future reference, I hate vegetarian chili. Eat a hot dog, for fuck’s sake.”
As the door closed behind her, she started to turn to see the look on Trevor’s face, but then stopped. It was better to leave blindly.
—
By the time Jessica pulled up to her parents’ house, the rain had stopped. She looked up at the sky—a swirling grey, clouds reflecting the city lights across the inlet. Everything on and around her felt damp. The still-dripping stand of bamboo by the front walk, her jeans, the wooden stairs leading to the front door. No rain, but the evidence of it had soaked in everywhere.
She walked in, leaving her shoes on the mat in the hall. Lights were on in the kitchen and living room, but Gerry wasn’t there. Traces of his meals littered the surfaces. Jessica ran her finger through a line of crumbs on the counter. A pile of unopened mail sat on an armchair, half-covered by an afghan.
After the police had left the house, Jessica had asked her father if he wanted to stay with her or go to a hotel, but Gerry had simply repeated, “This is still our house. That hasn’t changed.” At first, Jessica argued with him, but now, standing at the foot of the stairs, she understood. There had been dead bodies here, but here was also where Gerry’s smell was, where his oldest slippers skimmed the carpet as they always had. There was no comfort in a hotel room, no cocoon of his softest, favourite things. The basement door could be closed. His shape in the mattress was only here.
Upstairs, it didn’t look any better. Gerry’s clothes were in piles, and some seemed cleaner than others. It smelled musty, as if her father had been showering and pissing for days without opening a window or turning on a fan. The only thing that wasn’t covered in Gerry’s mess was her mother’s desk in the nook at the top of the stairs.
She found her father in the master bedroom, sitting on the floor in front of the big window that looked north up the mountain. He was wearing his old flannel pyjamas, the ones Donna had sewn for him out of fabric that had been left over from all the clothes she had made for the foster kids over the years. The top, baggy and worn around the collar, was printed with white, fuzzy lambs. The pants featured Big Bird. Jessica knocked on the open door.
“I heard you pull up,” Gerry said without turning. “Your brakes sound like shit.”
“What are you doing?”
“I was trying to clean up a little, but I got distracted with these.” Gerry waved his hand at a pile of photo albums on the floor beside him. “They were in your mother’s desk. That’s all I got done, you see, her desk. Everything else is still a disaster.”
Jessica sat down on the carpet and pulled an album into her lap. Her mother’s handwriting on the cover said 1996. She flipped through and found the awkward photos of her high school graduation. She wore a crushed velvet baby-doll dress and a black and gold choker that cut into the flesh on her neck. Her date stood in a baggy tuxedo, holding her by the waist as if this pose were the most natural way for teenagers to stand together. We should be slouching against a wall, looking at each other’s shoes, she thought.
Gerry leaned over. “You look nice there.”
“Are you kidding? Look at my hair. I think I used a crimping iron.”
“You’ve always been much prettier than you think, you know.”
Jessica leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’re just saying that because you’re my father.”
Gerry chuckled. “Maybe. But it’s still true.” He put his arm around her. “What are you doing here this late?”
She scratched at the stain on the knee of her jeans. “I don’t know. I just didn’t want to stay home anymore. Misery loves company, right?”
“If you say so. I suppose it’s a cliché for a reason.”
For a few minutes, Gerry and Jessica said nothing, only stared at the lights at the top of the mountain, waiting for the rain to return and batter the metal roof. She wasn’t thinking or moving or trying to find anything out. She was just there with her father who asked no questions. Finally.
Rain landed on the roof in heavy drops. Jessica shook her head and traced her finger on the window, invisibly connecting the water now dotting the glass. Gerry coughed and met her eyes.
“The police were here today.”
“What?” Jessica sat up straight. “Why?”
“They want me to go to the station for an interview.” Gerry laughed. “I suppose that means I’m a suspect.”
“That’s ridiculous. Chris should know better.”
Gerry stared. “Chris? Oh, Detective Gallo. Since when have you two been so friendly?”
Jessica turned so she was no longer facing her father. She told him all about her own interview with Chris, how he hadn’t told her anything, and how she resolved to find out what had happened on her own. And then she told Gerry about the files.
Gerry scratched the top of his head. “What did you do with them? Have you returned them yet?”
“I haven’t had a chance, Dad. I just finished reading two hours ago. Actually, they’re in the car.”
“Jess, you have to return them. The police will be looking.”
“I will, I will. I just want to keep them for a little while. There was so much there and so much that wasn’t.” Quickly, Jessica told her father about Bill and Wayne and Ginny, about how their lives had all collapsed around them.
“Wait—do the police know any of this?”
Jessica paused. “I’m not sure. I mean, they must know about Wayne and Bill because it was a police incident. But I don’t know how much they know about the abuse, or Casey’s state of mind.”
Gerry stood up and began heading to the hall. “I’m going to get those files right now and bring them to the station tomorrow. They have to know about the abuse. There are other suspects they haven’t even thought about yet.”
“Dad, come back here. It’s pouring out.”
He turned around, one slipper on his left foot, the other in his hand. “They have to know, Jess. What if Wayne had something to do with it? Or Bill?”
Jessica stood up and held her father’s arm. “The bodies were in our freezers, Dad. How could someone else kill them and put them there?”
“Well, maybe one of them snuck in when your mother wasn’t home and put them there without her knowing. Or maybe she came home after the girls were already dead and just hid the bodies. She might have panicked.”
She put her arms around Gerry and sighed. “Do you hear how crazy that sounds? You know and I know that it didn’t happen that way.”
His body slumped against hers and she could feel him breathing deeply, inhaling and exhaling against the urge to sob. “How could she leave us with this, Jess? Why did she do it? Why didn’t she just ask me for help?”
Her father quaked against her, as if his sadness was a hard ball deep in his gut, shaking and shaking to find its way out. He cried silently and she wondered what would happen if he opened his mouth, if he let the beastly sounds escape—hurtling, wild. She wept too. The two of them, arms tangled, the dark expanse of sky on the other side of the window. Crying and crying and crying. When she opened her eyes again, she felt knifed from the inside out.
Gerry’s breathing steadied. Jessica wanted to tell him that Donna didn’t do it, that they would soon find out it had just been a tragic accident. She wanted to tell him that he had always been a present and committed husband and father, and that Donna had trusted him with even her ugliest secrets. But she knew these things weren’t true. And she
knew that if she said them out loud, her father wouldn’t believe her anyway.
For a moment, she wanted to ask him if he remembered. One night when she was thirteen, she had been staying up late, watching The Kids in the Hall, when she heard the car pull up in the driveway. Quickly, she ran upstairs to her bedroom. The front door unlocked. Someone stumbled and there was a crash on the floor.
By the time Jessica stepped off the stairs and into the hall, Donna was on her hands and knees, picking up the pieces of the broken pot and ficus plant that lay in a heap. The skinny table was on its side. Donna’s one fancy purse had been dropped in the pile of potting soil.
“What happened?”
Gerry came striding down the hall, a broom in his hand. “Your mother had too much to drink. She tripped and fell, as you can see.”
Donna looked up and smiled, but her eyes were unfocused and filmy. “I shouldn’t have had that last Tom Collins.”
Gerry snorted. “No kidding. But it was a bad party. What else could you do?”
They were talking like Jessica wasn’t even there. She thought that she should say something, remind them of her presence, but then she thought that if she stayed, half-hidden by the shadows in the dimly lit hall, they might say something she wouldn’t hear otherwise. She willed herself to be still, to breathe as lightly as possible.
“It was bad. So bad. Your friends’ wives are just awful human beings,” Donna said as she wiped her dirty hands on her skirt.
“They’re just unhappy, Donna. I can’t even tell you how many of those guys are sleeping with their secretaries. And have been ever since we left law school.”
“Then they’re overcompensating for a hell of a lot. I think Marge has had three facelifts since the last time I saw her.”
Gerry laughed, then shook open a plastic bag. “Put the sharp pieces in here.”
“And what about you?”
“What? Hon, stop picking them up by the edges. You’ll cut yourself.”
Donna stared at a tiny piece of glass in her hand, glittering even in the hallway in the dim light. “Have you slept with any of your secretaries? You can tell me the truth.”
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