Mother Love

by L. R. Wright

  Shit, thought Hamilton, and he made the call.

  Twenty minutes later he burst out the door of his apartment building and hurried down the block to the corner and up to Marine Drive. He strode past the health food store and the drugstore and a couple of boutiques and stormed through the door of Green Parrot Books. He found Everett perched on a stool behind the cash register, thumbing through a furniture store catalog.

  “I didn’t get the grant,” said Hamilton. He felt as outraged and humiliated as the day he’d gotten arrested for embezzlement, back in the seventies. “That goddamn son-of-a-bitching Canada Council.” He wanted to sweep the shelves bare of their books. He wanted to set a bonfire here in the middle of the store; he’d feed it books until all the books were gone, destroyed, burned, dead.

  Everett was clucking his sympathy. “Did they give you a reason?”

  “No they didn’t give me a reason. They don’t give reasons—they don’t have to give reasons.” He moved restlessly up and down the aisles, shouldering aside space, air; giving some attention now to the pain in his gut. He stopped and rubbed it. “Jesus. Shit. It actually hurts.”

  Everett put aside the furniture catalog. He got up from the stool and came out from behind the counter, a man of fifty-five who was wearing a plaid vest over his shirt and tie. His face was droopy, with eyes that sagged at the corners and cheeks whose flesh bent downward. He had a full head of hair, dark brown with plenty of gray in it. Hamilton had got talking to him a year or so earlier, when he’d first moved to West Van and had gone in search of a bookstore. The store Everett managed was an independent, so it actually had some good books, including even some poetry. Everett was familiar with most of the stock, too, and kept himself informed about what went on in the local writing community. It was Everett who had told Hamilton about the guy giving the writing course at UBC.

  Everett leaned against the counter and folded his arms. Hamilton noticed that his pants were gray, with knife-edge creases in the legs, and his shirt was white, and the tie was also gray: the vest had been given top billing.

  “Most people don’t get a grant the first time they apply,” he said.

  “Ah, to hell with it,” said Hamilton, rubbing his belly. He’d had his heart set on getting that grant. Maybe he should take up crime again.

  “Give yourself the day off,” said Everett, throwing an arm around Hamilton’s shoulders. “Do only things you feel like doing.”

  “I feel like sending a letter bomb to the fucking Canada Council,” said Hamilton.

  Everett ignored this. “Maybe go to the track,” he suggested.

  “You’re the gambler here, Everett, not me.”

  “See a movie.”

  “Seen them all.”

  “How about a massage parlor, then?” said Everett. Hamilton threw him a disgusted glance.

  A well-dressed man carrying a briefcase hurried into the store. He greeted Everett absentmindedly, picked up a Vancouver Sun from the pile by the open door, and dropped change on the counter.

  Hamilton, hands in the pockets of his jeans, gazed, disconsolate, out at the street. “I’m going over to Flora’s for some breakfast.”

  “That’s a good start,” said Everett.

  Hamilton picked up a newspaper. Before he could pay for it Everett said, “My treat.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” said Hamilton. He left the bookstore and headed across the street toward Flora’s Place.

  Chapter 29

  MARIA CALLED THE man who was her father a few days later. “I’d like to see you.”

  “Fine,” he said. “When?”

  “Today. This afternoon. I’d like you to come here this time.” He didn’t like that, but he didn’t argue.

  She went carefully through the front and back yards and the main floor of the house, removing all visible traces of Belinda. Then she tidied up the place, but not too much. She didn’t know why she wanted him to see where she lived. It was a modest house in a modest neighborhood—nothing to be ashamed of, and she wasn’t.

  ***

  When he arrived she was struck by his size, probably because in this house she was used to Richard, who was medium-size verging on small. His own house—Alan Stewart’s house—didn’t have many rooms, but the ceilings were high. She wondered how long he’d lived there and asked him.

  “Thirty-five years,” he said, and Maria marveled at this, thirty-five years in the same house. “It’s been done over several times,” he added. He looked awkward, sitting on her sofa, hands dangling between his knees. She offered him coffee. He looked as though he wanted to refuse, in the hope that she’d let him go earlier if he declined refreshments, but he said yes.

  She brought it to the living room on a tray, two cups and saucers, cream and sugar, and as she served it she noticed him regarding the piano at one end of the room. “It was my mother’s,” she told him. “My adoptive mother. Now it’s mine.”

  “Do you play?”

  “No.”

  There were two sofas in the room, facing each other, with a long, low coffee table between them. In the wall opposite the piano a large window overlooked the front yard.

  “Tell me about my mother,” said Maria.

  He looked uncomfortable but resigned. Today he was dressed in tan. A monochromatic man, her father. Tan pants, tan jacket, tan shoes and socks. His shirt was white, though. He was rumpled and rheumy-eyed, out of his element. Maria wondered how good a doctor he had been.

  “Well, let’s see,” he said, setting his coffee cup carefully back in the saucer. “She had dark hair, like yours, and dark eyes, like yours. She was shorter than you, though. She had a beautiful laugh.”

  Maria waited. He picked up his cup and took another sip and then held the cup for a moment, staring into space, before replacing it. Maria became aware of a murmuring sound and realized she had left the radio on in the kitchen. The old man sitting opposite her smoothed his thick gray hair and glanced at her from behind his spectacles.

  “Didn’t she love Ira?” It was something she’d forgotten to ask her mother. It seemed important now, and she grew tense, awaiting his reply.

  “Oh yes, I think she did,” he said softly, looking away. “I can’t explain...”

  “Try,” said Maria. “Tell me about the two of you.”

  “We—it was hard to get together,” he said. “I had a car, but there were only three in the whole town, so everybody knew them. So mostly I went out to the farm. With kids, you can always find something to worry about, something to call the doctor about. And she was known to be a worrier anyway.” He got up and went to the window and stood there looking out, one hand on the sill, the other in his pocket. “Ira and the hired hand would be out working in the fields,” he said, “and we’d—sometimes we’d do it in the barn. Sometimes in their bed.”

  Maria, incredulous, stared at him, this aged accomplice in adultery, this baggy-fleshed stranger who had fathered her. “For heaven’s sake,” she said.

  “I don’t know what you want to know.”

  “Well, I don’t want to know about your damn sex lives, that’s for sure.”

  “What, then?” He turned around and half sat on the wide windowsill. “What?”

  She had expected to love him, she realized.

  “Why didn’t you take me?” Her throat ached, and her chest was full of pain. “Why did you let strangers take me?”

  He lowered his head and shook it slowly—she saw his jowls quiver. But he said nothing.

  (...Maria sees it happen, down the street where a clutch of girl children are playing hopscotch, sees the play stumble to a halt, and sees Belinda, hands on her hips, lecturing. The girl called Annette reaches out and slaps her, and Belinda staggers back, stares, turns, and sees Maria out in their front yard, working in the garden. Belinda pelts down the street toward her, crying. Belinda flies toward home, toward Mother, crying, her braids bouncing, arms outstretched, crying. Maria wants to go inside and lock the door against her, lock out this wailing child..
.)

  ***

  They met for a third time at the end of August, in a café in West Vancouver, a little place above a health food store. They sat next to a window and ordered lunch. Maria had a glass of wine, but not her father—coffee again, not even decaffeinated.

  He pulled something out of his inside jacket pocket, several sheets of paper, folded lengthwise. “This is for you.” Maria unfolded it. “It’s a copy of my family tree,” he said. He reached into another pocket and retrieved a notebook and a ballpoint pen. “My sister put it together. The one you remind me of. It only goes back to 1754. She planned to go to the U.K. to research back farther, but she died last year.” He opened the notebook and rested his elbows on the table. “We need to add you,” he said.

  Maria studied the tree and its many branches. All those names marching backward. Connections. A strong foundation for Maria’s life. And this was only one side, too. Her mother had said there was nobody left in her family, but Maria couldn’t believe that. It wasn’t possible, she thought, gazing at the pages that were Alan Stewart’s pedigree and one-half of her own—all those names, all those people—it couldn’t be possible that the other side of her family was entirely dead. But did she really want to know them, the family whose genetics had produced a child killer?

  Her father, who in thinking to give her these pages had showed that he was at last getting the point, clicked his ballpoint pen, preparing to write. “You’re married, aren’t you? Do you have children?”

  The waitress deposited lunch in front of them, a salad for Maria and an omelet for her father.

  “Let’s not talk any more for a while,” said Maria. She wasn’t ready to let this man have his granddaughter. He had yet to earn her trust. She put the pages he’d given her in her handbag, and they began to eat.

  The window was open, and Maria smelled the sea, which swept upon the beach a block away. She lifted her face to the breeze and took a deep breath: it would be nice to live next to the ocean. She picked up her fork, glancing out into the restaurant. Her eye was caught by a man standing at the top of the stairs, scanning the tables. Her father turned to see what she was looking at. He saw the man and looked back at her, his face suddenly smooth and empty.

  The man had seen him and was approaching their table. He slid onto the empty chair next to Maria’s father. “Thought I might find you here,” he said. He looked at Maria. “Who are you?”

  “This is Maria Buscombe,” said her father. “My travel agent. I’m thinking of going on a tour. Maria, this is my son, Harry.”

  Chapter 30

  SHE HAD KNOWN he’d been married, of course. He was described in the city directory as a retired doctor and a widower. But the city directory hadn’t told her that he had children, and now Maria felt like a complete fool, gazing across the table at her father’s son. She was suddenly alienated from the old man who was her father, a person for whom she had begun to feel an incipient—something. She wasn’t sure what. Not tenderness or affection...perhaps a kind of comradeship, a feeling that someday maybe she’d be able to ask the things she couldn’t ask now, and that by the time she got the questions out, he’d be able to answer them. Trust—that was it. Perhaps one day there could be trust between them: that’s what she’d been thinking.

  And now this. He didn’t want her in his life, that was obvious. At least not publicly.

  But then, she hadn’t let him into her life, either, she reminded herself. Neither Richard nor Belinda knew yet that he existed, and he didn’t know about them, either. Maria felt a thrill of excitement: it could be said that she was leading a double life. And as she studied this person opposite, she decided that at least for the moment, until her father had had a chance to explain himself, she would cooperate. But he’d better be prepared to do all the talking. Maria knew nothing about travel agents and tours to foreign places.

  His son had the face of an overweight ferret, she thought.

  “Where’s he thinking of going?” the son asked her.

  “He’s considering several destinations,” she said, and was pleased with herself.

  “Where’s the brochures?” said the ferret.

  “Oh, we’re past the brochure stage,” said Alan.

  Harry sat back on his chair and watched his father eat. The waitress came over and asked if he wanted to order anything, but he waved her away.

  Maria hugged to herself her secret knowledge. It made her feel powerful. He was nibbling on the inside of his mouth, this man who didn’t know he was her half brother, while he examined his father’s profile. Maria was exceedingly curious: what could he be thinking about so furiously?

  “When are you planning to go?” he said.

  Alan shrugged and bit into a piece of whole-wheat toast. Maria thought that at least some of his teeth weren’t his own.

  “When’s he planning to go?” Harry asked her, swiveling his head to inspect her with his black ferret eyes.

  “Soon,” said his father sternly.

  Harry leaned close to him. “How come you didn’t tell me, Dad?” he said with the echo of a whine in his voice. Alan made an impatient gesture, and Harry’s right hand shot out to grip his left shoulder. Alan froze. At first Maria thought that Harry had hurt him, but it wasn’t pain on his face, it was anger.

  “Get your hand off me.”

  Harry waited a moment, to make a point, then sat back.

  He glanced across the table and winked at Maria, who turned away from him to look out the window.

  Harry knew that something was off kilter. Something was definitely being kept from him. Could the old man be having it off with the travel agent? He could feel many things in the air, beams of various kinds, like silent alarm systems, and he was the receiver. His dad’s chin was ducked into his chest, and his shoulders were hunched; the whole body was shored up against something, and Harry knew it was shored up against him, against him finding something out.

  She was looking at her watch, the travel agent. Harry was a bit surprised that she wasn’t younger. A rich old guy like his dad ought to be able to attract some gorgeous chick, mid-thirties, max.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, and picked up this big purse thing from the floor. Harry got up and scooted around to pull the chair out for her. She looked surprised but thanked him.

  “Let me have one of your cards,” he said, smiling at her. “I might want to go on a trip myself, one day.”

  “I don’t have business cards,” she said, and if he wasn’t mistaken, a little blush was spreading across those aging cheeks.

  “I wonder why?” he said, delighted, with a smile so huge that it hurt his face. He listened busily to the exchange that took place then, his father half standing up, clutching his napkin, stammering something meaningless, and the travel agent assuring him airily that she’d be in touch. Which Harry thought odd. He would have expected the old man to say that. Maybe he’d been trying to but couldn’t get the words out. Harry looked at him swiftly, hopefully; maybe his father was finally starting to fail. But the travel agent left, and the old boy settled back onto his chair and started eating again; he seemed A-OK, unfortunately.

  Harry’s mind kept going back to the woman. He couldn’t remember what name the old man had said when he’d introduced them, but it probably wasn’t her real name anyway. His father was going to make damn sure they never met again, he was pretty sure of that. Harry hadn’t worked out yet how this situation could benefit him, but he was damn sure that if his father didn’t want him to know something, there was going to be something in it for him, once he found out whatever it was that he wasn’t supposed to know. And then he suddenly had an idea.

  “You’re not fit company today, Dad,” he said, and stood up to leave. “Take it easy,” he said, waving, and hurried across the restaurant, down the stairs, and through the health food store.

  He looked frantically up and down the street, and there she was, a cherry red dress weaving and bobbing through the crowd. He couldn’t follow her—it was
too late for that—but he’d try to catch up to her and get the number of her license plate. But shit, she was getting into a damn car now. He was running along the sidewalk—trying to run, but too many people were in the way. Finally he stood still, huffing and puffing, watching her car pull out into traffic. Damned eyesight, Harry fumed, squinting.

  He’d have to follow the old man instead, he decided. He’d follow him everywhere he went, for a while. Find out what was going on here. What was up.

  THE PRESENT

  Chapter 31

  “IT WENT ON FOR six months,” said Alan Stewart. “Then she told me she was pregnant. And that the child was mine.”

  “Maria,” said Alberg.

  The old man nodded. He was sitting on a rocking chair, looking toward the ocean. Alberg noticed a hearing aid in his left ear.

  “Did you believe her?” he asked.

  Alan Stewart looked at him in surprise. “Of course. There was no reason not to. She didn’t want to leave him—Ira. She just wanted me to know.” He turned back to the window. “Murdered. It doesn’t seem right. It’s as if her fate just got postponed.”

  “I don’t believe in fate,” said Alberg.

  They were sitting in Stewart’s living room. Rain fell steadily from a silvery sky, erasing the horizon, streaking the window glass, drumming on the roof.

  “Did you meet her family?” Alberg asked.

  Stewart shook his head. “I went to her house once. But she was alone there. She had a husband, I know. Children?”

  “A daughter.”

  Stewart shook his head. He looked suddenly thin and frail, as if Alberg’s news had exhausted him.

  “You must have been surprised,” said Alberg, “when Maria turned up in your life.”