I smiled at that. Sereena had been my uncle's present to me. And what a wonderful gift she had turned out to be.
"Thank you," I croaked, my throat growing tight.
"Things are better now, yes?" He searched my eyes for the non-verbal answer.
I produced a wide smile. "Yes. My life is..." I stopped there, and even though I knew what the next word would be, I wanted to enjoy the great revelation of it, "wonderful."
Uncle's Lawrence's eyes sparkled, as they used to do before all this, and he exchanged a happy, paternal look with Maheesh. "I am so very pleased."
The servers brought in a fresh berry sherbet and aromatic coffee, and for some minutes we basked in the glow that follows a wondrous meal and the warmth of the mood surrounding the table. Yet although it was lovely, I hadn't all the information I wanted and eventually found myself breaking the spell. "So what's with the Alex Canyon-Grette Gauntlus show? Why did you send them after me now? Has something changed? Did something happen?"
My uncle's grey-streaked eyebrows rose high upon his forehead. "You happened, my boy."
Uh-oh.
"And Sereena," Maheesh added, shooting his partner a look. "To be fair, Lawrence."
"Yes, yes, and Sereena," my uncle agreed.
"What about us?"
"I suppose, in the end, it really is my fault. Ever since I 'died' and went away, I've been desperate to see your face, to make sure you're all right, to remind me of home. Fortunately Maheesh has plenty of money, which allows me to escape my Indian hideaway from time to time. It's a risk, but I do it. Over the years, Sereena has kept me up to date on your travels, and when I could, I followed you, just for a glimpse."
I was struck dumb, yet, if I was to be completely honest, this was not a total surprise. Somehow, somewhere in me, I suspected it all along.
"She told me about your cruise last year and it was I who arranged that our yacht, the Kismet, would rendezvous with yours. Unfortunately you spied me spying on you."
I recalled the fleeting vision of a man on the upper decks, looking down at me when I'd first arrived to come aboard the boat. "But I didn't know it was you."
"Still, you began your research. You found out about A&W Corporation."
How did he know about that? How di...oh maaaaaaan. "But why was that a danger? Why did Sereena have to disappear?"
"With Sereena's departure from India, suspicions certainly abated. At first. But some of the evidence we'd planted at the murder site was being re-examined by a private firm hired by the Batten family-some of whom never bought the story of someone unknown to them, me, committing the murder, committing suicide and the body conveniently disappearing. Although we've no concrete knowledge of what has been found, current rumours are not good. Maheesh has been threatened and it has been made clear that if ever it is discovered that he was involved in duplicity surrounding Akhilesh's death or if I was found to be alive, retribution against us and against Sereena would be swift and it would be severe."
I gave Maheesh a startled look. "Your life has been threatened? Are you in danger?"
He patted my hand and said, "It's nothing, really, nothing."
"Sereena began to worry that if you persisted in your research...after all, I've heard stories of what a great detective you've become," my uncle said with undisguised pride, "that eventually you would uncover her past and, by association, me and this entire story. If that happened, if we were revealed, we could easily find ourselves at the not so tender mercies of the Battens."
"So she decided to leave?"
"Yes. In the hopes of dissuading you." He chuckled then. "Of course, if only she'd known you as I do, she'd have realized that such an action would only serve to spur you on. But by then it was too late, she'd already made good her disappearance."
"So you sent Alex and Grette to stop me."
"At first more to see what you were up to, and to ensure that any leads you discovered were...dealt with. I imagined there would be no stopping you until you had answers as to Sereena's whereabouts. So, that is why I brought you here: to give you your answers."
"I'm sorry, Uncle Lawrence, to have caused you such trouble, but this simply is not good enough. There has to be another way. Now that I've seen you, know you're alive, I want you back. There has to be some way."
"No, Russell. There is not."
"But..."
"Never, Russell," he said harshly. "I will never come home."
Suddenly I was angry. "Why won't you even try?" My voice was a tortured, tearing whine. Why, why, why? I hated how I sounded, like a petulant child being denied, but the feelings were real and coursing through me like venom. He had abandoned me. I'd needed him so much. He was my guide in a strange and unfamiliar life I was just coming to accept and understand, the ruler by which I measured my success, the only person I could find comfort with when things got rough.
"Haven't you listened to a thing I've said?" Uncle Lawrence was visibly upset and the spark I'd seen earlier in his eyes was now but a faded glimmer beneath a dull, angered glaze. "This.. .this thing I've done.. .it has been the greatest achievement of my life! Why won't you let me have it?"
God, I wished I could better understand what he was saying, but it was as if he was speaking another language. He'd left me all alone, to hide. To hide from a crime he didn't even commit. At my expense!
Vet as soon as I heard the words reverberate through my feverish brain, I knew how wrong they were, how wrong I was. Uncle Lawrence had done a selfless deed, and all I could think about was myself, what I had lost. He'd found himself and those he loved in a disastrous situation and he made a difficult decision in the hope of making it better, in the hope of saving the lives and livelihoods of others. He had paid the ultimate price, not me, and maybe...maybe I would have done exactly the same thing.
He tried to explain. "I have enjoyed the greatest love of my life with Maheesh, and I have saved one of the dearest people I've ever known, Sereena. I am proud of both those things. I cherish that. I will not let it go. You will go home tomorrow morning, Russell, and I know I cannot ask you to forget me or forget this time together-and I wouldn't want that either-but I want you to never look back, and to never search for me again. To do so endangers all that I hold dear." His voice smoothed into gentler tones as he added, "So you see, it's just a selfish request from a tired old man, but perhaps, perhaps my boy, I have earned that from you?"
After many embraces and promises of a last farewell the next morning, we parted ways. I left the dining room as I'd come into it, at the sight of Uncle Lawrence and Maheesh, arm in arm, gazing out the window.
The knock at my door was so soft I almost missed it. I called out to whoever it was to come in.
"We'll be leaving at six tomorrow morning. That okay with you?" Alex asked in a tender voice I'd not heard from him before.
I was so tired, washed out like a year-old dishrag, feeling as if every bit of energy I'd ever had had been wrung from me. I nodded from where I was propped on my bed and told him I'd be ready.
"You look sad," he said.
I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess maybe I am. There's still so much I don't understand. And why won't he at least let me try to help him?"
Alex stepped into my room and closed the door behind him. His movements took me by surprise and my face must have said so.
"There are a lot of things about this you'll never understand, Russell. You have to accept that."
I was sick of hearing it, but too tired to argue. "I suppose so."
"But there is something more," he told me solemnly. "Something you don't know, and I think you should."
Chapter 14
Maheesh and Uncle Lawrence were fully dressed and in the kitchen sharing bagels with lox and cream cheese when I dragged myself downstairs at 5:30 the next morning. No sign of Alex or Mighty Aphrodite. Alex was probably warming up the plane or something, and Grette, well Grette was probably killing her breakfast down by the river's edge. The men rose when I entered the room, all s
miles and hugs.
"The staff prepared you a lovely breakfast picnic basket and thermos of coffee to take with you," Uncle Lawrence said and then, glancing at Maheesh, added, "I'm sure that plane you're on will be able to offer you the same and much more, but take it anyway, won't you?"
"Of course," I answered. I hadn't realized I was leaving quite so soon.
"No time to dawdle," Uncle Lawrence chirped gaily as he puttered around the kitchen cleaning off surfaces with a dishrag in his hand as though if he didn't do it, no one else would and the whole place would fall into disrepair. "Maheesh and I are off this morning as well."
"Oh," I remarked as casually as I could. "I thought you were staying on here for a while."
"Oh no, this was just temporary."
"So where are you off to?"
He stopped what he was doing and gave me a look. "I promised I'd say goodbye this morning, Russell, but I can't have it go on for too long. I just can't take it. Do you understand?"
After what Alex had told me last night I understood only too well. "So this is it then?"
We stood rooted to our spots, not quite knowing what to do next. None of us wanted this to end, to say goodbye forever, but we knew we must. Maheesh was the first to step forward. He embraced me like a father would a long-lost son. For someone I'd never set eyes on before yesterday, I felt inexplicably close to this man. My story with him I somehow sensed, was not over. Over his shoulder I laid eyes on my uncle who was watching us closely. Sadly, my story with Uncle Lawrence was over. I knew this goodbye would be forever. Final.
When Maheesh pulled away from me, his eyes were damp and with a gentle pat on my chest he walked out of the kitchen, leaving my uncle and me alone. We stood there staring at one another, trying to commit to memory every inch of each other, the colour of hair, the shape of hands, the curve of lips, the look in the eyes. For so long I had a memory burned in my mind of the uncle I'd lost. Now I had to replace it with this newer, older, different version, a version of a man who, as Alex Canyon had confided in me, was dying.
Why didn't Uncle Lawrence tell me himself? Even talkative-as-a-stone Alex thought I needed to know this before I left the Arctic, before I left my uncle for what would truly be the last time. He didn't think I should have to go through the frustration of believing I could have helped my uncle, saved him, brought him in some sense back to life, when that was impossible. Alex felt I deserved the truth, the knowledge that this goodbye...unlike the one at the Saskatoon airport six years earlier, truly was the last. How many people get that chance? But my uncle wanted something different. And I was not about to take that away from him, regardless of whether or not I understood his reasons. This would be my gift to him.
"I'm glad this happened," I said to my uncle. "I know it has caused you some grief, and I can't pretend not to be disappointed that this isn't the beginning of something more, but I feel so blessed to have had these hours with you."
"You are happy, aren't you, Russell?" he murmured with a contented look on his face.
"Yes. Truly."
"And Kay, your mother, and dear, dear Anthony? How I miss them both."
"They are happy too, I think. My mother has come a long way from-well, from when you knew her. She even spent Christmas with me, spoke to lesbians too." He laughed his wonderful, hearty laugh, for that moment just as I remembered it. "And Anthony is with a marvellous man named Jared Lowe...but of course you met Jared, didn't you."
"Yes, yes. Met him and most definitely approve. The perfect match."
Quiet.
"Russell...Russell you know you can't tell either of them about this, don't you?"
I nodded. I hated it. But I knew he was right.
For now.
"Can you tell me where you're going?"
"India, of course. Maheesh has many responsibilities there and I have much more hiding to do. It's not difficult to do: India's a big country and it's really quite glamorous, you know, the life of concealment, a recluse from the world. And every so often, I use a great deal of Maheesh's overabundance of money and sneak away, to places like France, New York, the Mediterranean." All places I had travelled over the past years, places where, wholly unknown to me, I'd been under the watchful eye of my beloved uncle. He gave me a raised eyebrow and let out a scallywag laugh. "So you must be ever vigilant of what you do when away from home, my dear boy, for you never know who may be watching." His face went serious and he laid a gentle hand on my shoulder.
"I'll always be watching out for you, son. I'll always be with you."
There it was. Now I understood. This was the reason Uncle Lawrence did not want me to know that he was filled with cancerous cells eating away at almost every organ in his failing body. He wanted me to believe that I would always be under his protection, his watchful eye. Wherever I went, whatever I did, he would be there.
And indeed, he would be.
We fell into one another as if we were two parts of one whole and stayed that way for many minutes. Like a warrior fighting against insurmountable odds, I barely held back the hard, back-shuddering sobs that threatened to overtake me.
When we parted, Uncle Lawrence looked deep into my eyes and said, "If you don't go now, my boy, my heart will surely break."
And so I did.
The Cessna rose swiftly into clear Arctic air at exactly 6 a.m. that Wednesday morning in July. Alex Canyon accompanied me the entire way. He read me well, as if he'd known me better and longer that he had; he knew I needed companionship, but little conversation. I asked only one question.
"Where is Sereena?"
I had fully expected, the first second I set foot aboard that small jet, that I was on my way to see Sereena Orion Smith. But that desire (wish? fantasy?) remained unfulfilled. I didn't know what I'd say to her if I did see her, even less so now that I knew so much more about her dramatic, shocking, sorrowful past. She had survived spectacular highs and terrible lows. I, and scores of others, had imagined them-half-believed her stories of fairy tale proportions-but in reality, doubted their veracity, only because they were too big, too bold, to fit into our own much smaller, regular lives. Sereena'd told us little of herself because she knew we, frankly, couldn't handle it. And as I sat there that day, next to the man who'd taken me to the end of the earth to learn the truth, I knew she might be right.
Alex Canyon did not answer my question.
Lowering myself into the cracked leather seat of my Mazda, which was patiently waiting for me in the West Wind Aviation parking lot, I felt as if I'd been away a month. But it had been less than thirty-six hours; thirty-six hours that, for now, I wanted to forget, for a little while. That is my habit with big things. I need to put them away for a time, let them percolate somewhere in the back of my head before I decide what to do with them. If I hadn't done that, my first impulse would have been to go back on my promise to Uncle Lawrence and immediately call my mother to tell her that her brother was alive. And Anthony: wouldn't he want to know that his former lover and greatest friend was not lost beneath a massive pile of snow on some unnamed mountain slope? Didn't my brother and sister have a right to know they still had an uncle?
Instead, I dug out my cellphone and called the Saskatoon Police Station. I was told Constable Kirsch had left for the day. I looked at my watch. Almost 7 p.m. I dialled his home number.
"Hello, this is Griffin Kirsch speaking." The voice of a wee boy, one who'd obviously been well trained by his parents on the social graces involved in answering the telephone.
"Hello, Griffin," I responded pleasantly. "Is your daddy home?" The words sounded funny in my head. Our playfully combative professional relationship rarely goes beyond the workplace, so to hear the voice of someone who calls Darren Kirsch daddy, sits on his knee, plays ball with him, is tucked into bed by him, was an unexpectedly odd sensation.
"May I tell him who's calling?" the youngster inquired politely.
This was always a problem. If Darren knew it was me, he might take my call, he might not, depe
nding on his mood. "My name is Russell." I gave it a shot.
I had to jerk the phone away from my ear when the little tyke, pleasantries dispensed with, yodelled for all of Canada to hear, "Daaaaaaaaaaddy, someone wants to taaaaaaaaaaaalk to you!"
I heard Darren's shushed voice as he approached the phone. "Grif, you don't have to yell."
"I'm not yelling." The petulant reply.
"Who is it?"
"Don't know." Good boy.
"Hi, it's Darren," he said pleasantly into the receiver.
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