by Gail Bowen
Zack raised his hand, palm out. “Enough tripping down memory lane,” he said. “Time for us to get to work. You have papers to grade, and I am not prepared for court tomorrow morning.”
Willie and Pantera led the way to the office Zack and I share and took their places beside us as we settled in. I picked up an essay; Zack opened his laptop, found what he was looking for, and sighed. “This is worse than I thought. Ms. Shreve, if you’ve ever had a hankering to see your husband step on his joint, be in Courtroom B tomorrow morning.”
I circled a misspelling of Afghanistan on the student’s title page and kept on marking. “Smoulder with rage,” I said. “If the jury’s waiting for you to erupt, maybe they won’t notice that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It was the kind of morning I like best. We turned on the gas fireplace and moved methodically through the piles of work in front of us. When Debbie Haczkewicz called, Zack gave me the high sign. A judge had agreed to hear Delia and Noah’s petition at noon. The news was good, but as Zack headed off to change, the glance we exchanged was tinged with regret. Once again, external events were intruding on our small and pleasant world.
After Zack left to meet with the Wainbergs, I put a pan of bacon in the oven, and the dogs and I hiked across the yard to let Taylor know that toasted BLTs were on the way.
Taylor’s studio was a space for a serious artist and she spent hours there. On gloomy days, when I saw its lights and knew that Taylor was making the art that she loved and that she was safe, I realized that while nominally the studio had been a gift for Taylor, it had also been a gift for me.
I never entered her studio without knocking. Often she would invite me in and we’d talk about what she was doing, but if she was working on a piece she wasn’t ready to show, she’d grab her jacket, jam her feet into her boots, and slip out the door. On those days, when her mind was still focused on the images she’d left in her studio, our walk back to the house would be silent. That blustery morning, the dogs swam through the snow, barking and chasing one another, exuberant with the sheer joy of being off leash, but Taylor was preoccupied.
While she was cleaning up before lunch, I made our sandwiches and placed a plastic zip-lock bag beside her plate. Every Christmas, when my oldest children were young, I bought them each an ornament to hold a photograph of themselves as they were that year. The tradition I’d started with Mieka, Angus, and Peter I continued with Taylor and the granddaughters, and every December Taylor took great pleasure in arranging these miniatures of her changing self. That day, she shook out the contents of the bag listlessly and picked up the ornament that held the most current picture – her first from high school. “I’ve been monitoring a couple of forums about Sally Love on the Internet,” she said.
My nerves tightened. “There’s that retrospective of her work coming up,” I said. “I imagine the interest is pretty intense.”
Taylor’s gaze was steady. “Do you know what Sally was doing when she was my age?”
It was as if by telling Zack that morning about Izaak Levin and Sally’s relationship I’d opened Pandora’s box. “I know some of it,” I said carefully.
Taylor dangled the ornament by the thin red ribbon that would loop it to the tree branch. “She was in New York City,” my daughter said. “Experiencing life.”
“You’re experiencing life,” I said.
Taylor’s laugh was short and derisive. “Not the way she was. One of the people on the forum said Sally was… sexually active. She was my age, and she was sexually active.” Taylor’s dark eyes were accusing. “Did you know that?”
“I knew.”
“But you never told me.”
“No.”
“Were you afraid that if I knew what my mother… what Sally did… I’d do it too?”
I pulled a chair close to her and picked up last year’s ornament. Fittingly, it was an antique frame. In her photo, Taylor’s glossy hair was still long and her smile was without shadow and a mile wide – a reminder that in a girl’s rich and turbulent life, a year can be an eternity.
“Taylor, we’ve talked about this. Sex has consequences.”
“To the way I feel about myself,” she said.
“And to the way the boy feels about himself.”
The mixture of resignation and defiance in her voice was pure Sally. “Being with me isn’t going to make any boy feel worse about himself,” Taylor said. She slammed the ornament on the table. “And for your information, this isn’t about boys. This is about my work. There’s nothing there.” Taylor drew a breath. “On the forum, the man who’s devoted his life to Sally Love says that artists have to live large to paint. He says that even when she was fourteen, Sally knew that she had to experience life to be a great artist.”
“And this man equates experiencing life with having sex?”
“Sally did,” Taylor said coldly. “If you’d seen that self-portrait she did when she was my age, you’d understand.”
“I have seen it, Taylor. I saw it in the living room of the man who owned it.”
Taylor’s eyes were brimming. “Then you know how amazing it is.”
“I do,” I said. “I also know that by the time your mother was fourteen, she’d suffered more than any child should ever suffer.”
“Because her father died and her mother didn’t have a good relationship with her,” Taylor said. “But she had Izaak Levin. You told me that when there was no one else, he took care of Sally. He gave her the chance to travel and the freedom to paint what she saw.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But there was more. Taylor, Izaak used your mother. He used her beauty, and he used her talent.”
“Whatever he did, it worked.” Taylor’s voice quivered, but her message was unequivocal. “When she was my age, Sally was making great art, and that’s worth everything.”
I picked up the ornament Taylor had slammed on the table. It was impossible to take a bad picture of Taylor, and this one wasn’t unflattering, but it was revealing. In it, for the first time since she’d come to me, there was uncertainty in her eyes and her smile was guarded. I stared at the photograph for a second too long, and Taylor noticed. “Do you think I look geeky?”
“You don’t look geeky,” I said. “You look as if you have a lot on your mind, which, clearly, you do. Taylor, I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to make the kind of art that you and Sally make, but I do know that the life experience you bring to your work doesn’t have to be harsh. Angela Cheng says that when she plays certain pieces, she thinks about the way the light shines on her child’s hair.”
“Angela Cheng is a pianist, not a painter.”
“But she’s found a way to live that feeds her art. If you’re lucky and if you make the right choices, that can happen to you.”
Taylor leapt out of her chair and bounded onto my knee. The leap was as unexpected as it was sweet. “Everything’s changing,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “But you’re going to be fine. Taylor, you are fine.”
Taylor was as tall as I was. Sitting on my knee was no longer easy for her, but we held on, united by our awareness that while there were battles ahead, we had been granted a reprieve. As we watched the snow fall, it seemed we breathed in unison.
Zack’s inability to do any but the most rudimentary jigsaw puzzle was a running joke between him and our granddaughters. That afternoon when Mieka and the girls arrived to help get our family dinner ready, both girls had puzzles jammed in their backpacks. Taylor was at the choral concert; Mieka and I had cooking to do; so, by process of elimination, Zack was on puzzle duty.
After the girls threw off their coats and boots, they descended on him. “The one I brought is so easy,” Lena cooed. “It’s a caterpillar, and even the littlest kids in junior kindergarten are bored with it.” “Mine’s a piano,” Madeleine said. “The box says it’s for ages five to eight, but you play the piano, Granddad, and there’s a picture, so you should be able to do it. If you ge
t stuck, I’ll help you.”
Zack wheeled his chair close to the table. “Thanks for the offer, Maddy,” he said. “But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. I’m going to tackle these puzzles all by myself.”
Maddy looked at her mother and me and rolled her eyes. Lena opened the caterpillar box and shook out the puzzle pieces. Zack groaned when he saw them. “There must be a hundred pieces there,” he said.
“There are ten,” Lena corrected, “and they’re big.”
Mieka and I went into the kitchen to put the finishing touches on what she called our duelling chilies: mine, con carne; hers, vegetarian. We stirred, grated, chopped, and listened to Zack trumpet his success with the puzzle as the girls chortled. When the caterpillar was complete, my husband called me in. “Ms. Shreve, I’d like a picture of this.” The girls posed with him, and I snapped. “You’re a madman,” I said.
“Victors always look a little crazed,” Zack said, then he slid the completed caterpillar into its box and turned to the girls. “We are now cooking with gas. Bring on the piano.”
There had been plenty of groans and giggles from the dining room by the time Peter, our older son, and his girlfriend, Dacia, arrived. They said hello to Zack and the girls, then carried the plastic storage bins of lights and tree ornaments from the garage through to the family room. They popped off the containers’ lids and began unwinding the lights from their newspaper cones, unwrapping the ornaments, and setting everything out on a trestle table by the tree. Mieka and I had just put Zack out of his agony by announcing that we were setting the dining room table so he had to either move his puzzle or scrap it, when Taylor and Isobel came bounding in, back from the concert. They were beaming, and the source of their pleasure was apparent. Delia and Noah were behind them, and Noah was holding the baby.
“The girls thought you’d like to see Jacob again,” Noah said.
“You bet we would,” I said. “May I take your coats?”
Noah and Delia exchanged glances. “I think we’ll make this a quick visit,” Delia said. “We should get Jacob home. The sooner he knows where he belongs, the better.”
Noah unzipped Jacob’s snowsuit, took off his toque, and carried him around so Jacob could inspect us as we inspected him. Isobel took Jacob’s small hand in hers and followed her father. “He’s a handsome baby, isn’t he?” she said.
Indeed, Jacob was handsome, and in the natural light of the living room, his kinship with Delia and Isobel was even more obvious than it had been the night before in the gym. Jacob’s eyes were brown, so dark they were almost black, but he shared the Wainberg women’s milky white skin and their thick springy hair. Like Isobel and Delia, he was preternaturally alert, tense with the need to take in every detail and assign it a place.
Jacob gave Zack and me a solemn gaze then, apparently finding us satisfactory, he smiled. The dimple Jacob displayed was winning and my husband was easy prey. When Zack held out his arms and Noah handed him the baby, Jacob settled right in.
Noah held out a warning finger. “Hey, don’t get too comfortable there, Jacob,” he said. “There’s serious bonding to be done and it’s supposed to be with Delia and me.”
“Better get used to sharing him,” I said. “He’s a charmer.” I turned to Taylor. “Your sister’s in the kitchen. You know how she is about babies. If she doesn’t get to hold Jacob, we won’t hear the end of it. And Peter and Dacia will want to get acquainted too.”
The girls came back, and Mieka was right behind them, drying her hands on a tea towel. “Peter and Dacia are walking the dogs,” she said. “But I’m ready for this baby. Hand him over, Zack.”
When she bent to take Jacob, Mieka’s face clouded. She held him out, examining his face, then, still unsmiling, turned to Taylor and Isobel. “Would you two take Maddy and Lena into the kitchen and help them put some cookies on a plate for dessert?”
“We can do that ourselves,” Lena said.
Isobel placed her hand on Lena’s shoulder. “I think your mum has something to say that will be easier to say if we’re not around.”
The four girls disappeared into the kitchen and I caught my daughter’s eye. “What’s up?”
Mieka took Jacob and sat down in the wing chair by the fireplace. “Where’s this child’s mother?” she asked.
“You know her?” I said.
Mieka shook her head. “I don’t know her, but I know who she is. She and this little guy have been at UpSlideDown every day this week.”
Delia’s face was strained. “Did you talk to her?”
“I tried,” Mieka said. “But we’ve been crazy busy. A lot of parents promise their kids that if they behave while they’re shopping, everybody gets to come to UpSlideDown for hot chocolate and a playtime afterward. Anyway, it’s been hectic. The kids are wired, and the parents are wired, but everybody’s in a good space. I guess that’s why the woman who brought in this little guy was so noticeable.”
“Her name is Abby Michaels,” Delia said bleakly.
Mieka slid the baby out of his snowsuit. “So you’re taking care of Jacob for her?”
“It’s complicated,” Noah said. “Yesterday afternoon, Abby Michaels went to the Luther Christmas concert. When the concert was over, she handed Jacob to Isobel and disappeared. It was just before the blackout, so there was a certain amount of confusion.”
“Why did Abby give her baby to Isobel?” Mieka’s eyes travelled across our faces, searching for an answer.
Noah glanced at Zack, and my husband picked up the thread. “We’ll fill you in on the background later, Mieka. Right now, our concern – everybody’s concern – is Abby Michaels. The police are looking for her, but they don’t have much to go on. Do you know anything that could help?”
“Not really,” Mieka said. “The woman – Abby – would come in around three and stay till we closed at five-thirty. She was so alone. She never connected with the other parents – and she never connected with her baby.”
Delia tensed. “Abby Michaels neglected her child?”
Mieka smiled at the little boy. “He was never neglected – at least not physically. His mother – Abby – cared for him. When he whimpered, she gave him a bottle, and when he turned it down, she took him to the space where other mothers breast-feed.”
“He was breast-fed?” I said. “It’s pretty difficult for a woman not to connect with a child she’s breast-feeding.”
“His mother was trying to wean him, and Jacob obviously wasn’t ready. He knew what he wanted, and it wasn’t a bottle. A lot of women have had that experience, and I’m sure some of the other UpSlideDown regulars would have been only too willing to trade horror stories, but Abby didn’t encourage conversation.”
“So you left her alone,” I said.
Mieka lowered her eyes. “Yes, and it was hard because she was clearly desperate – not just about the weaning, but about everything. I tried, Mum. I’d linger with the coffee pot when I refilled her cup, but Abby didn’t let me in, and I didn’t push.”
Jacob grabbed at the necklace Mieka was wearing; she smiled at him and loosened his grip. “Once she asked me about the big holiday blast we were having before Christmas.”
“Did she want to bring Jacob?” Noah said.
“No, she’d just noticed that people were stopping by with presents and leaving them under the tree, and she wondered what was going on. I told her parents were supposed to bring a gift for a child who might not be getting many presents.”
“Did Abby bring a gift?” Noah asked.
“I don’t know,” Mieka said. “There’s a mountain of presents, but we ask people to put the toys in gift bags, so that we can make sure the presents are new, safe, and age-appropriate.”
The room was silent. Jacob had found Mieka’s necklace again, and she began uncurling his fingers from the chain and play-biting his fingertips. The game made him chuckle.
Delia watched with a half-smile. “And that’s all?” she said, finally.
Mieka colo
ured. “Not quite. There is something else, but it’s embarrassing to talk about because it makes me sound like a stalker.” She inhaled deeply. “On Friday evening when Jacob and his mother left, I tried to follow them.”
Zack had often remarked on Mieka’s solid common sense. He was genuinely gob-smacked. “Whatever made you do that?” he asked.
“Impulse? I don’t know. I was just… uneasy,” Mieka said. “It was closing time and Jacob and his mother were still there. Maddy and Lena had their jackets and boots on and were chomping at the bit to go home, so I went to Abby and said I was sorry but I had to close up. She got herself and the baby ready to leave and came over to pay her bill. She seemed very tired, but after she paid me, she didn’t leave. She gave me this… penetrating look and asked me if I believed in God. When I said I did, she asked how I could reconcile my belief with the cruelties of the world.”
“The unanswerable question,” I said.
Mieka nodded. “Except Abby was so intense. It was as if she had really hoped I might provide an answer. When I didn’t come up with anything, she thanked me and said that I shouldn’t feel badly because there was nothing anyone could do to help her. Then she left.”
Noah put his arm around his wife’s slender shoulders.
“It was so sad, and so final,” Mieka said. “I locked up. When the girls and I started towards our car, I saw that Abby was parked close to us. She was getting Jacob in his car seat and strapping him in. That always takes a while, so I hurried the girls and, when Abby left, I followed her.”
“Where did she go?” Zack said.
“I don’t know,” Mieka said. “She drove down 13th, but when she got to Albert, she ran the light and turned left. There was a car coming across, so I had to stop. By the time the light changed, there must have been twenty cars between us, so I went home. All I know is that she was driving a Volvo – same vintage as yours, Mum, but black. I did manage to get her licence. It was an Ontario vanity plate that spelled out the word LECTOR – easy to remember because of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.” Mieka’s eyes were both sad and puzzled. “She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would pay money to have the name of a cannibalistic serial killer on her licence.”