by Alison Bruce
“You need to come straight home after school. If Nate or I happen to be walking in the same vicinity, it shouldn’t bother you. Lots of people are out walking that time of day.”
Hope gave a nod. Apparently, she could live with that.
“You can invite your friends over here,” I continued. “Or, you can talk to me about visiting them, but you’ll get an escort to and from your destination. We’ll all do our best to balance safety with living something like a normal life.”
Rick redeemed himself within the week by starting self-defence classes in our backyard on Mondays and Thursdays after school. Hope and Boone were allowed to sign up a couple of friends each—and I do mean sign up. Even though the class was informal, he made sure permission forms with contact information were filled out by the parents.
Nate countered by taking the kids to the after-school swim twice a week, persuading me to go along to swim lengths. He said it was excellent exercise, especially for older, less fit people like me.
I swatted him for that.
Rick overheard and offered to be my personal trainer. I would have swatted him too, but he added that he was organizing a women’s self-defence class at the university and he’d like me to join it because I had real-life experience. Coincidentally, the class was Wednesday nights, the same evening that Nate took the kids to cadets.
If the competition between Rick and Nate wasn’t awkward enough, Walter started showing signs of jealousy. I suppose he was always used to me being available for coffee and a chat whenever he felt like dropping by. Now, I was too busy most days. Even if I wasn’t too busy, I was almost never alone.
“Your life has been turned upside-down,” he said, as we had coffee on my deck. He glanced over his shoulder at Nate doing his homework at the kitchen table.
It was early October, but it felt like August—hot and sunny, with a threat of rain in the near future. I was in shorts, a t-shirt and I’d pulled my sandals back out of the closet. At the moment, I had slipped them off while I stretched my legs and wiggled my toes. Hope had given me a pedicure the night before and my toenails were hot pink with a glitter top-coat. I was paying attention to the new look and maybe the new muscle definition in my legs, not to Walter’s statement of the obvious. I didn’t catch the bitter undertone at first.
“I don’t understand it,” he continued. “Opening your home to near strangers, hosting a kiddy karate class—you should be concentrating on your writing.”
“Nate’s not a stranger,” I said. “Rick’s a cousin—albeit on Seth’s side. As for the self-defence class, I consider that a perk, not an imposition.”
“They’re ruining the garden.”
“Ah.”
I didn’t think they were ruining the garden. They hardly ever stepped into the flower beds. When they did, it was by accident. The lawn was a bit scuffed up, but grass is hardy.
“The yard is for playing in, Walter,” I said, feeling around for my discarded sandals. “But don’t worry. They’ll have to move inside soon.”
“Then they’ll be thumping around your living room, shaking the pictures off the wall—off my wall too I’ll bet.”
I pursed my lips, taking a moment to ensure I sounded calm. “No. They won’t be thumping around the living room. Your pictures are safe. Rick is trying to get the school gym—or part of it—for one afternoon a week. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try for a room at the community centre.”
Walter wasn’t stupid. He understood that I was put off by his remarks. He backpedalled, assuring me that he never minded the sound of the kids playing. I waved off the explanation as unnecessary, but made moves to get back to work. Finally, he excused himself.
“I hope Merrick appreciates what I have to put up with,” I told Kallas the next time we had coffee. “Nate, Rick, and Walter all seem to be vying for my approval and if that’s not enough, Seth and Sarah have invited my mother, me, and Rick to join the kids when they go over for Thanksgiving. I think Sarah intends to join forces with my mother and play matchmaker.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Perfectly serious. Even though Sarah got the wedding and Seth and I were only common-law partners, she has always worried about me. Seth says she wants me safely married off.”
Kallas laughed.
“Okay, maybe that’s what Seth is reading into the situation, but my mother wants to marry me off.”
“Doesn’t every mother? I stopped introducing her to my girlfriends way back because she’d grill them to find out who I was dating. I never introduced her to my boyfriends.”
I couldn’t imagine hiding anything from my mother, even when she started losing her sight. “My mother hates that I have to deal with being a single parent like she did. And she hates that Seth didn’t marry me.” I shrugged. “I’m not her and our situation isn’t the same. Seth is a part of our kids’ lives. He provides a generous amount for child support. I don’t know who my father was, but I damned well know he never gave my mother a cent.”
“Bastard!”
In contrast to Kallas, Merrick was unsympathetic when I mentioned my problem to him during one of his phone calls.
“Hartley, from what I know of your mother, I don’t think the presence or absence of Nate and Rick will affect the situation. Your mother will continue to be worried about you and Seth’s wife will continue to feel threatened by you.”
I blew a raspberry and then grabbed a tissue to wipe the phone. I heard a huff that I was pretty sure was a laugh.
“How about this situation, Merrick? How are we going to draw out these couriers if I’m being watched all the time?”
No laughter this time. No answer either. I was starting to get impatient.
* * *
November 11. Remembrance Day.
Rick was taking part in a memorial service in Toronto. I saw him before he left and almost swooned. It was the first time I’d seen him in uniform and I had to admit he looked damned fine. After staring at him, slack-jawed, for a minute or two, I sternly reminded myself of Jane Austen’s warning about falling for a man in uniform—something about seeing them out of uniform before making any decisions about them. That got me thinking of Rick out of uniform, which stirred up another Star Trek connection. In uniform and at Seth’s wedding, Rick was like Commander Riker. Otherwise, he reminded me of the Riker doppelganger that joined the Maquis in rebelling against the Federation. The dark Riker, if you will.
I stored the thought away for later.
Normally I went to the service held by the school. Because of joining cadets, Hope and Boone were expected to march with their company through downtown to the Sleeman Centre. Of course, Nate was also going. I invited my mother too, but she, to my surprise, refused. Just in case she changed her mind and wanted to go along for the ride, I called again while I cleared away the remains of breakfast.
“Honey, I don’t need to be that sad. Anyway, I’ve got a date tonight and I’ve got to prepare. Billy is taking me to a movie.”
I wracked my brain trying to remember which of the residents might have been called Billy. I came up blank. “Billy?”
“He’s the guy who drives the ‘Out and About’ bus. He’s hot stuff—and only a few years younger than me. He’s got that ‘Brian Keith, chunky maleness’ thing going. Well, you know how much I like Brian Keith.”
I knew and never understood it.
“Reminds me of your father,” she said wistfully.
“My father?” My mother never admitted to knowing who my father was.
“Well, one of the two candidates for your father,” she amended.
I knew one of the likely candidates was an anti-war activist, draft-dodger from Brooklyn. Mom had pictures from the time and I was almost positive he was her boyfriend. On the other hand, he looked too tall, too dark, and too handsome to be my biological father. He also bore no resemblance to Brian Keith.
“Who was this candidate?”
She blew out a long sigh.
“Well, I
suppose I can tell you now.” She made a sound scarily like a giggle. “It might explain a lot.”
“Explain what?”
Nothing but silence for several seconds.
My mother could be so exasperating. All that time she kept quiet about my father, answering cryptically when I asked as a child, drumming into my head that I should learn from her example when I was a teen. All that time and she decided to spill the beans today.
“There was this American soldier—a draftee . . .
Holy shit, my mother the peace activist had sex with a man in uniform.
“We went to Washington for a big rally. Obviously Vinnie couldn’t go with us.”
Vinnie was the draft-dodger.
“While I was there I met Johnny. I’m not positive that was his name. I just called him that. Anyway, he looked just like a young Brian Keith.”
I could see where this was heading.
“I wanted him to come back to Canada with us, but he said that was desertion.”
Yuh-huh. That would be desertion. He could have been shot. Well, maybe not shot, but imprisoned. I think you had to desert on the battlefield to get shot. In any case, it was one thing to dodge the draft. It was another thing to put on the uniform then cut and run.
“What happened to him?” I asked, doing my best to sound normal. I wanted to scream. I had to get the kids to the armory in fifteen minutes. Why couldn’t she have told me this, years before? Or waited until tomorrow? My mother could be such a drama queen.
“He went overseas. I never knew if he came back. I think he died. But maybe I just wanted that to be the case, since he never wrote me.”
I felt sick. Did my mother just say what I heard her say?
“I know that sounds terrible,” she said.
Yep, she said it. I decided I needed to sit down.
“It’s just that I had this fantasy about Johnny coming home to me. I’d given him my name and address, told him if he wrote, I’d write back. I imagined him coming to the door, sweeping me into his arms and telling me he hadn’t stopped thinking about our night together. He’d fall in love with you at first sight and marry me and we’d live happily ever after.”
I will always love my mother. I will always respect her ability to hold things together and raise me on her own. However, at that moment, I feared for her sanity.
“You still there, Prudence?”
My hands were the only thing keeping my head from flying apart, but I was still there.
“Yes, Mother. What about Vinnie?”
“Oh, him.”
I took a deep breath and expected the worst.
“He couldn’t have been your father, honey. He had a vasectomy. He didn’t think it right to bring any more children into the world, what with it going to hell in a hand basket. If it wasn’t Johnny, it was probably Vinnie’s best friend Jean-Luc. We made out on the bus back to Toronto. I would never have married him, however. He was a separatist.”
My mother had finally succeeded in driving me crazy. I had to get off the phone before I started laughing hysterically.
Nate found me staring at the table, making little whirly shapes on its surface with my finger. It just about described how my mind was spinning.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
I looked up at him, sharply outfitted in his ceremonial dress uniform. I wondered if my supposed father looked anywhere near as handsome when my mother met him.
“What’s wrong, Pru?”
I forced a smile and pushed myself out of the chair.
“I’m okay. Or I will be.”
“Uh, Pru, about you and Rick . . .”
“Not now, Nate. This isn’t the time.”
He looked hurt and I felt lousy for being so sharp.
“I know it’s not my business. I just wanted to apologise for being difficult about him.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said, heading out the door.
He didn’t let me off the hook. As soon as we got to the armoury, Hope and Boone rushed out to muster with their company. Nate waited in the car.
“You know I love you, and I love Boone and Hope. If I could believe it would work, I’d like nothing better than to have you as a stepmother. When I warned you away from my father, it was for your sake, not mine.”
“But?” There had to be a but or the subject wouldn’t have come up again.
“But, it’s been pointed out to me that it’s not up to me to protect you from Rick or my father or even your neighbour Walter. They aren’t the bad guys.”
I straightened up in my seat.
“You’ve been protecting me from Walter?”
Nate gave a guilty shrug.
“Not exactly protecting you so much as discouraging him from just walking in whenever. He seems to have a proprietary interest in you and he thinks that just because you share an adjoining wall, he can treat your house as his.” He made a face. “Okay, maybe not quite that, but—”
I cut him off.
“Walter is a good neighbour. When he moved in, I was having a lot of problems with the house—plumbing, furnace, correcting bad home repairs made by the previous owner. It all came up at once. I couldn’t afford to take care of it all. I’d already spent a small fortune replacing the broadloom with laminate because of the kids’ allergies.
“Walter used to build houses for a living. Since he had his place the way he liked it, he offered to help me with mine. I wasn’t always at home when he was available to work, so I gave him my back door key—that was before the lock broke.”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize—”
I waved my hands to stop him.
“That’s not my point! The work was done ages ago and we’re friends and everything but I was trying to figure out a polite way to stop him from just walking in.”
Nate gave a bark of laughter.
“Zeke took care of the problem by changing the locks,” I continued, “but the kids are used to the back door being open, so they forget to keep it locked . . . and so do I. What I’m getting at,” I said, cutting off my own rambling, “is that you are welcome to protect me from Walter.”
“How about Rick and my father?”
My turn to laugh. “Unnecessary. Now go. I still have to park and you have a parade to join.”
CHAPTER 11
A week later, I got to meet Billy. Zeke was in town and my mother decided that I needed to host a dinner party to celebrate. In addition to Zeke and Billy, she invited Billy’s niece who was coincidentally around Zeke’s age. She also called Paula and asked her to bring her ‘young man’ with her. As an afterthought, my mother told me to expect six extra people for dinner Sunday night.
Billy did look a little like Brian Keith in a general shape and colouring sort of way—which is how my mother would see him. I didn’t hold it against him. He announced that he had put Mom on the list for a guide dog. That made him my new best friend.
Tom escorted Paula to the party. Zeke was called away on another case, but Merrick was there instead, which made my day and annoyed my mother. I think Zeke had confided in her about Merrick’s confirmed bachelorhood.
The real reason for my mother putting together the party was clear. She wanted to suss out Rick as a prospective son-in-law.
“So, Richard, how long will you be staying in Guelph? More than a semester, I hope.”
“Maybe as much as a year. That’s the time I’ve taken off to pursue my Masters.”
“Oh, you’re an academic like Seth.”
“No, not like Seth.” Rick flashed her one of his bright smiles. “I would never have let a catch like your daughter get away.”
This pleased my mother and made me suddenly remember something I’d forgotten in the kitchen. Since I could still hear her giving Rick the third degree, I decided to step outside.
Big mistake. Walter was on his deck sipping a coffee.
“Hi Pru. Getting away from the madding crowd? I’ll bet you’ll be glad when your boarders go home—that s
hould be anytime soon, right?”
“Nate’s moving out at the end of the term. He was only here to take a few courses he couldn’t get at Charlton.”
“And your cousin is only here for a semester too, right? Then he goes back to work?”
“Actually, I’ve just found out he’s completing his Masters first. He’ll be hanging around for at least one more semester.”
Walter’s disappointment was patent. I was almost sympathetic until he made an issue about it.
“Surely he’ll find his own place then. He’s a cop, for heaven’s sake. He can afford it.”
I gave myself a five count to make sure my voice only betrayed some of my irritation. “I don’t mind him staying here. He’s family.”
“Well . . .”
He was going to backpedal. I didn’t need to hear it. I turned to go back inside and ran into Merrick coming outside. He was even more effective at getting Walter to go. One look did the trick.
“Thanks. Do you think anyone would notice if I skipped out on my own party?”
“Your mother would send a posse after you.”
I gave a theatrical sigh.
“I guess I’ll have to go back in then.”
Merrick’s mouth twitched in a tiny smile. He held the door for me and I felt his hand at my back as I passed him. I leaned against it for a moment while I gathered strength.
My hero. I was even more appreciative when Merrick organized a clean-up crew after Mom, Billy and the niece went home. He then sent Paula and I off with a mug of tea each so we could have a tête-a-tête before she and Tom had to drive back to Toronto.
“This is all right,” Paula commented, flopping down on the couch. “I’d throw more parties if I could get a clean-up crew.”
“You throw lots of parties. You’re just smart enough to throw them at restaurants.”
“True,” she agreed.
“Now you have to tell me something earth shattering to justify taking me aside when I should be helping.”
“Tom asked me to marry him.”
Okay, that was close enough to earth shattering to work.