by Vicki Delany
To top it all off, we had barely arrived home from the courthouse when Shirley announced that she and Al are expecting another baby.
I wanted to cry, although I’d suspected as much. They are still living with Mr. and Mrs. Smithers and Al is spinning big tales of moving to Toronto and getting a good job and moving into one of the new houses that are springing up around the city, acres and acres of them. Bob looked stunned—at least he was surprised. Mr. and Mrs. M. were over at our house, (when is one of them not?). He smirked, of course, and slapped Al on the back as if it were something he’d managed all by himself, and invited Al into the kitchen, and we could all hear the fridge door opening. I don’t think Mrs. M. quite understood.
I am going to be a grandmother for the second time. And here I am scarcely thirty-seven.
How did I get to be so old?
Chapter 42
Shortly after dinner I made my excuses and, to my dad’s amusement, headed for bed. I set the alarm for two o’clock, but I needn’t have bothered—I hardly shut my eyes. When I slapped the buzzing alarm off, everything was quiet. I left Sampson in the house (stealth isn’t her strong suit), but closed the door without locking it in case she was needed in a hurry. Creeping down the road to check out the police car, I managed to startle the constable on duty as much as he scared me. My head popped up from behind a rock the very moment he lowered his zipper to take a pee in the bushes.
“Couldn’t sleep. Out for a walk. Sorry.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment. It must be a great deal easier to be on surveillance in the countryside than in the city. How do female officers manage in the city anyway? I wondered, scurrying backward through the brush.
It was thoroughly dark. Thick clouds obscured any trace of moon or stars. And quiet. Only the distant swamp was awake with the nighttime chorus of deep-throated frogs and high-pitched bugs. I carried a flashlight but kept it switched off. No need to attract any notice. If anyone should be out here to notice me.
I crept up the dark, peaceful road to check on the big house. Every outdoor bulb had been left on so that the yard was as ablaze with light as an Olympic stadium during the running of the 200 meters. But all was quiet. Returning to my father’s house, I got my dog and my car (into which I had earlier stowed a blanket, a thermos of coffee, tuna sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a handful of dog biscuits, a bottle of water, a book, and the tiny reading light I use when traveling) and drove up the road without headlights. I pulled over at the side of the road, switched the engine off, and there we sat.
Not even a deer or a raccoon broke the silence of the night. The frogs had all gone to bed. As we settled into our watch, the clouds abruptly scattered, leaving the sky clear. A full moon washed the big house in white light. It probably washed my car as well, but that didn’t matter. The best I could do would be to scare troublemakers away if they came up through the woods, avoiding the police on the road. If they thought I was another cop car, that would be all for the good.
Four o’clock. I started up the engine and drove back to the little house. I certainly wouldn’t have deterred any professionals from doing what they came to do, but if a gang of drunks from the bar had been hiding in the woods waiting for me to leave, they would have given up after ten minutes and staggered off home.
***
The next morning I was sound asleep when Dad knocked on my door and told me that Jimmy wanted to see me. I staggered into the kitchen still in my pajamas to find my brother making coffee and toast. He turned his full-wattage smile on me.
“Good morning, Rebecca. Up late last night?”
“Not her,” Dad said. “Hardly finished dinner before she was off. Had to let the dog out myself.”
“Hard day,” I said.
“Well then, you sit right there and I’ll get breakfast.” Jimmy pulled margarine and jam out of the fridge. Dad smiled at us both. He loved to have his children around. A touch of guilt shuddered through me at the thought of my thirty-year absence, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and took a seat. My father could have come to visit me in Vancouver anytime. And when we were children he didn’t seem to much care whether we were around or not. As I remember, he usually nodded goodnight to me from behind the bottom of a beer bottle.
“What’s it like outside?”
“Raining. Looks like an all-day drizzle.” Jimmy poured coffee. “Funny noises in the night. Did you hear anything, Dad?”
“Nope. Slept like a log.”
“I thought that a car was watching the house, but I might have been mistaken.”
”Didn’t see nothing like that.”
“I must have dreamt it. There was a woman, a really great-looking woman, with a dog in this big car. Drinking coffee and reading. The woman, that is, not the dog. And even before the car arrived someone or something was creeping around in the bushes. Not a dog though.”
“A deer?” Dad suggested. “They’ll sometimes come pretty close to the house this time of year. Hungry, been a long winter.” Jimmy had brought the newspaper up with him. Dad flipped it open to the sports section.
“You’re probably right.” Jimmy smiled at me. “Toast, Rebecca?”
“I’m only trying to help. Someone needs to be on watch.”
“Someone was,” Jimmy said.
“Oh.”
He poured the coffee. He’d brought his own beans, previously ground.
“However, even the omnipotent someone has to go to work. Fortunately my big job right now is for out-of-towners. They haven’t heard the latest news, so haven’t called to let me know my services won’t be wanted for the foreseeable future.”
“Leafs lost again,” Dad mumbled from behind his newspaper, while reaching for a slice of toast and jam. “Can’t they ever do anything right?”
“Aileen’s determined to go to Huntsville. A new line of jewelry arrived at the store yesterday, and she insists that only she can unpack it and arrange the pieces on the shelves. And I would rather she didn’t go alone. In case unexpected customers drop into the store, you understand.”
“Nice coffee,” I said.
“Good idea,” Dad said. “All this rain, the roads are gonna be bad.”
“Rebecca?”
“I’d be happy to go with Aileen. Her shop is a wonder, and I’ve been intending to buy some gifts to take home.”
“A full day of shopping and girl talk and you might even sleep the whole night through.”
That comment deserved only a growl in response. “You okay to look after Sampson for the day, Dad?”
“Course I am. She’s a nice dog. We get on real well. Don’t we, Sampson?” He tossed her a piece of toast and scratched behind her ears. She threw back the toast and thumped her tail in agreement.
***
Jimmy was managing the stress of recent events with an almost unnatural calm. Aileen, on the other hand, was as jumpy as Sampson at a porcupine convention. I offered to drive.
Aileen didn’t talk a great deal on the road down to Huntsville, merely twisted her hands together and stared out the window at the passing rocks and trees and lakes. Which were followed by even more rocks and trees and lakes.
Aileen grunted without much interest when I told her that the arrangements were settled with Maggie for the housekeeping job. I said that Maggie would use Shirley as her contact, because they were old friends. (I lied.) I would send Shirley money to cover Maggie’s wages. Did she think Shirley would be offended? Aileen grunted again.
The rest of the trip passed in silence. When I turned off Highway 11 to Huntsville, I mentioned that I was thinking about getting some gifts. Something nice for Ray’s mother, something fun for Jenny. A token for the neighbor who was bringing in the mail and watering my plants.
She twisted in her seat and turned slightly to face me, for the first time in the long, boring trip. Her hands stopped moving. They were shockingly red, angry, the skin raw, tortured with worry. Her fears come out on her body.
“The heartache that flesh is heir to.” Hamle
t. One summer, so very long ago, before we were married, Ray dragged me to Bard on the Beach, an annual summertime outdoor production of Shakespeare. Nice, but I hadn’t given the play another thought. Until now.
“What sort of thing does your mother-in-law like?” Aileen asked, a small, very small, spark of interest flickering across her brown eyes.
“Glass. Stained glass, sculptures of glass, light-catchers. She loves glass.” That might have been a mistake: Jack had destroyed the glass duck. But Aileen appeared not to make the connection.
“We have some things like that.”
“Good.”
The silence hung between us until we pulled up into the alley behind Cottage Art and Design.
Like an ice sculpture sitting out in the sun on a too-warm day, Aileen began to thaw the moment she set foot into her perfect shop. A handful of customers were scattered about, but Chrissie greeted us with much enthusiasm. Her thick hair had been swept off her face and held back in a loose ponytail.
She held up her right hand and made a signal, a code of some sort, something about the customers. Whatever it was, it had Aileen actually cracking a grin.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “Is the shipment in the back?”
“Yup.”
“Rebecca, I’ve some work to do. You’re welcome to browse through the shop for your gifts, or if you’d rather you can look around town. I’ll be at least an hour, probably longer.”
One of the shoppers, a tall, thin woman, exquisitely dressed in a tan raincoat hanging open over a crisp navy pantsuit, coifed in soft, perfect waves of blond hair, exclaimed over a quilted wall hanging. It was one of my mother’s. The forest in winter.
“You do what you have to do, Aileen. I can manage by myself.”
She disappeared into the back, and I slid closer to the woman with the perfect hair as she called her companion over to have a look. They oohed and aaahed in unison. If the shop weren’t so small that they likely saw me enter with Aileen and exchange greetings with Chrissie, I would have rushed forward to try (unsuccessfully) to snatch it out of their hands.
I wandered through town, in and out of a few shops. There were some that matched the quality of Aileen’s. But nothing to better it. A newspaper rack standing at the entrance of a convenience store held the latest copy of the Huntsville Forester. A picture of Jennifer Taylor figured prominently, beside a smaller photo of the swamp, taken from some distance. Hope River Murder, the headline proclaimed. I didn’t bother to read the copy.
I let an hour and a half pass before returning to Cottage Art and Design. Aileen was in the front, carefully arranging her new purchases. The jewelry might be described as “creative” and “edgy.” Much too heavy for my taste. Other than Aileen and Chrissie, the shop was empty. My mother’s wall hanging was gone.
“I’ll be about another half-hour, Rebecca,” Aileen said in greeting. She held up a necklace in front of her face, turning it around and around, examining every angle. It was pewter, sort of representative of a wolf head thrown back against a vague forest background, howling at what was probably supposed to be the full moon. Perfectly hideous.
“No problem. Take all the time you need.”
Ray’s mother would have adored the duck’s bottom, carved so delicately in glass and destroyed so senselessly by Jack Jackson. I avoided anything even remotely like it and selected a sun-catcher, one to join the profusion hanging over her kitchen window. No matter how many she owned, there would always be a place for one more. For the neighbor watering my plants and bringing in the mail I settled on a tiny painting, an original, in watercolor. A boathouse, gray with white trim, an antique wooden boat pulling in at sunset. For Jenny I selected a T-shirt with a picture of a giant mosquito, primed and ready for battle, above the slogan Huntsville Fighter Squadron. I pulled the wolf-howling necklace off the display rack. “This would be perfect for someone I know.”
Aileen beamed at me. “I wasn’t too sure about this artist. Her work is somewhat heavy, too arty, for most of the people who come in here. But if you like it, I’m sure the line will be a run-away success.”
“It’s different.” No point in telling her I hated the stupid thing and was buying it for an incredibly efficient woman whose taste I wouldn’t trust to judge tinned soup.
Chrissie wrapped my purchases in tissue paper and rang up the bill. Gifts for only three people. And one of them someone who worked for me. Ray had friends, Ray and I had friends, but once Ray’s funeral was over and the suitable period of commiseration came to an end, I had been left with no one.
Sampson and I had spent the last year in isolation. I went to work; we walked the beach or drove to Pacific Rim Park for long walks in the rainforest. She ate out of a can and I ate out of a microwaved cardboard box. We watched TV together or she snoozed while I worked on papers brought home from the office. Not much of a life. For neither dog nor woman. But then I wasn’t looking to have a good time.
Chrissie handed me my packages with a warm smile. “Your friends will love these, I’m sure,” she said. Without warning a tear slid down my cheek. “Are you all right? Can I do something? Shall I call Aileen?”
I shook my head. Her concern made it worse, and before I could stop it the tears were out of control. “I’ll wait outside till Aileen’s finished.”
Of course she told Aileen. Jimmy’s wife met me on the sidewalk in front of the shop. “I’m finished here,” she said. “Would you like to get a cup of tea, some pastries maybe? A much-deserved indulgence after a difficult few days?”
“No. Thank you. If you don’t mind.” I kept my head turned away from her. The tears were finished, and I furiously rubbed their traces off my face. But my nose still ran and my breathing was deep and uncontrolled.
“I don’t mind. Thank you for buying your gifts in my store. That was kind of you.”
“Not kind,” I said, honestly. “You had the best selection.”
“Time we’re heading home, then. Shall I drive?”
“No. I’m fine. Besides, it’s a rental car and the insurance is only good for me. But thank you anyway.”
She slipped her arm through mine. “Thank you, Rebecca.”
Chrissie stepped out onto the sidewalk to say goodbye. “See you on Friday, Aileen.”
“Friday it is. I’ll have lunch ready.”
“If I don’t see you again, Rebecca, have a safe trip home.”
“Thank you.”
A woman stopped to peer into the window. Frail, elderly, well dressed, every strand of silver hair sprayed into place. Liking what she saw, she came into the store. Chrissie grinned goodbye and followed the customer.
We reversed our mental positions on the way back to Hope River. Aileen put up a pretence of chattering happily while I huddled behind the steering wheel wallowing in my misery. I told her how lonely I’d been since Ray’s death, and she muttered words of understanding. I popped Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits into the CD player, and before too much longer we were both swaying to “Dancing in the Dark.” How can you not sway (and sing and tap feet and all that fun stuff) to “Dancing in the Dark”?
I dropped her off in front of the big house. “I’ll wait here for a few minutes,” I said, “to make sure everything is okay.”
“But who will care for you, if everything is not okay with you?”
“I will,” I said. “Check the house out and wave with your left hand if it’s okay.”
“Left hand?”
“Yeah. In case someone is holding you hostage and forcing you to wave. Then you can use your right arm and I’ll know someone is there.”
“You have seen way too many spy movies, Rebecca McKenzie. No one’s hiding in the house. I’m well aware that no one’s after me.” She sighed. “I almost wish they were, then I could strike back. But I’ll wave with my left hand if it will make you happy.”
“It will.”
She disappeared for several minutes, enough time to do more than a superficial inspection of the hous
e. She wasn’t as confident as she tried to make out. But soon, there she was at the door, waving enthusiastically with her left hand and smiling brightly.
***
Regardless of Jimmy’s scorn, I resumed my post the next morning. Two a.m. on the dot. This time I was so tired the alarm had to really struggle to drag me out of bed. I considered throwing the clock across the room and rolling over, snuggling up against Sampson’s warm furry body. But the thought of the overwhelming guilt if something bad actually did happen propelled me out of bed. Coffee was in the thermos, cheese sandwiches made and wrapped, and dog biscuits packed.
Except that I didn’t stumble across an embarrassed officer taking a leak in the bushes, this night was a replay of the one before.
It was only 3:50 when, thermos empty and bladder full, I started up the engine of the SUV and coasted back to Dad’s house. The lights of the big house might have winked off and on for a moment, but if they did it scarcely registered in my weary brain.
***
Thursday and Friday were to be my last full days in Hope River, so Thursday morning I forced myself out of bed at the crack of dawn. Sampson tossed me the evil eye at the early hour.
Dad seemed to be particularly cheerful that morning. I threw bacon into the frying pan, bread into the toaster, and eggs into a bowl for scrambling.
“Starting Monday morning, Maggie Kzenic will come in around nine. Fix yourself some cereal when you get up, and then Maggie will get you a nice hot breakfast when she arrives. That sound good to you?”
“Waste of money. Any fool can cook up a bit of bacon and eggs.”
“Humor me, Dad. I’ll feel better knowing that you’re looked after.”
“For you, then.”
I kissed the top of his head. His hair was still thick, the envy of men a third his age, but slick with oil; loose flakes of white skin blended into the gray strands. “Thank you. Any plans for today?”
“Thought I’d get some work done out in the shed till lunch, then go on up to the Legion. You’re still leaving on Saturday?”