The Winter Wives

by Linden MacIntyre

  We held a small funeral that was, according to Mom’s instructions, non-religious. Afterwards, a brief gathering at a funeral home, a few memories shared among old friends.

  Shirley spoke of all the sadness that Mom had endured in her long lifetime. She was appropriately vague, but nobody was in doubt about her meaning. My awful accident. The barn mysteriously burning a few months afterwards. Dad’s sudden death. How Mom and I had bravely carried on the struggle to keep the little farm alive. Shirley only choked up once, when she mentioned Mom’s younger brother, Angus, so tragically taken so many years before.

  When she said his name, I felt the prickle of uneasiness that flashed around the quiet room—and knew, even though I didn’t raise my gaze from the glossy floor of the funeral parlour, that everybody in the room was staring at me.

  Late that evening, when we were back at home and the women had left us with our drinks, Allan talked about his business.

  –Have you ever wondered where you’d be now if you had taken me up on the offer I made when you came to visit me in Florida, years ago?

  –Pointless to speculate, I said.

  –Probably. But it’s all worked out. For me, at least.

  –Maybe we’d both be in jail. Maybe I’d have brought bad karma.

  He smiled, swirled his glass.

  –Byron, Byron.

  –Or we’d all be crazy wealthy. We’ll never know, right?

  –The secret, Byron, is in the accounting. I can sleep at night because I have two of the best accountants in the world.

  He sat back, studied my expression, then launched into what became a speech.

  He explained the basics. He owned part of an American casino, which was on tribal territory somewhere in the southwestern United States. New Mexico, I think. The location, he told me, was irrelevant. Unless I was interested in learning more.

  He smiled.

  He also owned part of a bank in the Caribbean. That bank had relationships with a couple of the big Canadian financial institutions. But again, the details were irrelevant in what was just a chat.

  –And the laundry business?

  He winced.

  –That’s pretty well behind me.

  –Pretty well?

  –I’m a full-time capitalist these days.

  He was busily turning cash into real estate.

  –Why am I still thinking laundry? I said, and chuckled.

  He frowned at me.

  –What are you getting at?

  –Just making a joke, I said.

  He wagged a finger.

  –Jokes, as you would know better than anybody, can be in bad taste.

  He sat back, sipped his drink, then, after a moment, resumed his recitation. He told me he was investing aggressively in housing estates, parking garages, condo buildings et cetera.

  –Shopping malls?

  –We avoid mall development. Too many…entanglements.

  –What kind of entanglements?

  –Don’t get me started. If you want to talk cutthroat, we can talk about mall development. Basically, we just buy rundown real estate, fix it up and resell. But surely you know all this from Annie. Don’t you two talk?

  –We don’t talk about work.

  –I admire that, he said, and drained his glass.

  And then he assumed the troubled frown I know so well from watching masters of negotiation, signalling the sharp turn toward where you want to take a listener.

  –I’m going to be straight with you, old friend. I want your wife in Toronto. Helping with the business. On the inside, with me and Peggy.

  I noticed that his right eye was twitching, probably a trick he had developed. I doubted very much that he was really nervous.

  I fetched the whisky bottle.

  –You?

  –I’m good, he said.

  I poured for myself and sat. And waited.

  –So, what do you think?

  –I think you should be talking to Annie.

  He smiled. He reached for the bottle. Paused.

  –I should know better than to fuck with you, Byron. I shouldn’t beat around the bush.

  He poured heavily into his glass. The cork squeaked as he jammed it back in place.

  –Here’s the situation. Life is getting very complicated thanks to 9 /11. The fucking wars on everything.

  –The war on drugs was going on long before 9 /11, I said.

  –Now it’s terrorism too. Anything transborder that involves the USA is a nightmare now. Drugs and crime and terrorism. It’s turning into a police state on a wartime footing down there. Half the country is in prison.

  –I thought you were out of there.

  –I am, more or less. But I still have financial interests. And that’s where you come in. I want out of there completely. Full stop. I need you now, more than ever.

  –Let me think it over, I said.

  * * *

  —

  Annie, predictably, was pragmatic when I told her the next morning.

  –He wants me to work with him.

  –Well, what’s the problem with that? I have no trouble working with him.

  –I guess there isn’t one.

  –He needs you. We all need you. We’re entering a highly sensitive phase of…growth. We need your steady hand and common sense.

  We, she said. It was kind of stunning, actually. Like I’d just walked in and discovered that I was way behind the action. Like coming home and finding the doors locked. And then a friendly stranger lets you in.

  She explained the details Allan had left unspoken.

  In a nutshell, he was repatriating money. Tons of money. He was hauling it home through a maze of offshore financial institutions and putting it in property. The kind of property people live in, work in, invest their hard-earned money in so it can grow more money to invest.

  –That’s all there is to it, Annie said.

  I studied her face for hidden meanings.

  –It’s how the world works, Byron. Allan has a lot of money stashed in safe places abroad. But he’s bringing it all home now, which is great for the economy.

  –I got that much.

  –Right. He’ll gradually roll it all into a dozen or so mid-size commercial properties. Eventually, it’ll all be consolidated in one big holding company, then reinvested through some kind of partnership he’s now working on.

  –Why does he need me to do that?

  –He needs a legal brain that he can trust. His secret of survival is to stay deep in the background and let other people do the hands-on work. He needs people he can trust absolutely. He trusts you, Byron.

  –He wants me to be a front man.

  –Isn’t that what lawyers do?

  –Annie, do you not worry about how Allan got so much money?

  –I don’t care how Allan got his money. He has already lined up a group of reliable people who will be company directors when the time comes. All respectable. Lawyers, a couple of doctors. A well-known ex-politician.

  –What do you mean by reliable?

  –They all owe Allan, one way or another.

  –So, Allan basically owns a bunch of power brokers who will provide cover for him.

  –That’s one way of looking at it, Byron. Another way is that they lend gravitas and respectability to a new business venture.

  –And we bring?

  –We’re family.

  * * *

  —

  I sat up alone that night, nursing the last drink of a long day. Allan and Peggy had spent the day in town, reconnecting with their distant past. Annie managed to avoid me. I knew it was all a strategy: let him stew; let him reach his own conclusions; life is short; we don’t often get new and interesting opportunities in middle age; let him think about the money.

 
; Allan and Peggy came home with Chinese food. Dinner was quiet, our conversation about how much town and the university had changed, how nothing seemed familiar anymore.

  When they briefly mentioned pressing business matters that needed to be dealt with, I felt like an outsider. It was clear that my wife had already gone into a world I could barely imagine.

  Allan’s world. Their world. Peggy’s world and Annie’s world. Now, for some reason, they needed me.

  Maybe it was time to leave history and all her secrets behind me. Mom was gone and I was free. But free from what? Free to do what? Free to make choices that are difficult, if not impossible. But what kind of freedom is that?

  And then I heard footsteps.

  –So you can’t sleep either?

  –Peggy?

  I was sitting on the sofa, watching the night sky through the front window. She came and sat beside me.

  –It’s a lovely night, she said.

  –It is.

  And it was. There was a high full moon, casting a bright stillness on the landscape.

  –I’m having a nightcap. Would you care for one?

  –I’d love to get some fresh air, she said.

  –You aren’t dressed for it, I said.

  –I’ll get a coat. Will you come with me?

  I stood.

  We walked up the lane toward the highway.

  –That moon. Those stars. In the city, you don’t notice, she said.

  There was no sound louder than our breathing.

  –I feel good just being here, she said.

  –Mom had a theory about crystals in the bedrock below the topsoil. She said they created positive energy.

  –I can feel it, she said.

  She took my hand and we just walked.

  –You talked to Allan?

  –Yes.

  –So what do you think?

  –I think I’m thinking.

  She stopped and turned to me, moving close.

  –I don’t think you’ve ever kissed me, Byron.

  –I think that I’d remember if I did.

  –Don’t you think it’s time?

  I was suddenly light-headed. Speechless. She placed her hands flat on my chest. I leaned down and kissed her lightly.

  –Don’t be afraid, she said, and cupped my face between her hands and kissed me long and deeply. Then she put her arms around me and nestled her head into my shoulder.

  –Maybe that wasn’t such a great idea, she said.

  –Sorry, I said.

  –Oh. The last thing I want is for you to be sorry.

  She stepped back, grasped my hands. Maybe it was an effect of the moonlight, but her face seemed to be illuminated from within.

  –Have I ever told you that you are perfect? she said.

  –Not that I recall. A perfect what?

  She laughed, and she wheeled away, running toward the house, shouting back at me,

  –You can’t catch me.

  And, with my bad leg, I knew I couldn’t.

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, just before they left Malignant Cove, Allan asked for my decision.

  I told him he could count me in, but with some conditions.

  –Anything, he said.

  –I will not move to Toronto. Annie and I can do from here anything you need, given the state of modern communications. Does that work for you?

  –Look, I mean it when I say Annie and Peggy are the heart and soul of the business. But I also need you. I need you more than I need either of them.

  –Why do you need me so badly, all of a sudden, Al? Why now?

  –Once you’re on board, you’ll get the picture. You’ll know exactly where you fit. Basically, Byron, I want you to be me.

  I really can’t explain why I agreed. Maybe it was the money. Or the death of my idealism about justice and the law. Or something simpler, like boredom. Or Peggy’s kiss.

  Or maybe, way down deep, it was what I’d always wanted. To be him.

  PART THREE

  DEMENTIA

  16.

  The house felt strangely empty after Allan and Peggy went back to Toronto. I told myself it was to be expected. Mom’s needs had kept the place alive. How often I’d craved silence, the luxury of idleness.

  I knew Annie felt the same. It wasn’t something that we talked about. But we had shared an unspoken understanding, throughout Mom’s illness, that after we reached the inevitable, predetermined ending, we’d have time to focus on each other. It didn’t work out that way.

  I now realize that Annie had been adrift for years. But it was only when the household was reduced to just the two of us that I understood it was Mom’s illness that had held the place together all along. Annie was physically present, but we were worlds apart.

  Is it really Annie’s absence that you’re noticing?

  In my mind, I replayed the moonlight walk with Peggy, the conversation. The kiss. And it opened up the memory to other moments, a flood of feelings from the past.

  * * *

  —

  At suppertime, maybe a week after the funeral, Annie suggested I fix something for myself from leftovers. She wasn’t hungry. And so, I asked,

  –Annie, what does all this mean for us?

  –In what way?

  –I was thinking, now that Mom is gone, there will be more time for us. It’s pretty well been all about Mom since day one.

  –So it matters to you? The “us”? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

  –It matters more than I can say.

  –Do you love me, Byron?

  Such a simple question. I guess she misunderstood the hesitation before I said, Of course I do.

  That was just a month before she left me. Left the farm to live in town.

  One quiet evening, after a week in which we’d hardly spoken to each other, she announced, in a completely normal tone of voice,

  –I can’t live out here anymore, Byron. It’s like living on an island.

  –An island?

  –Yes. A desert island.

  So, when did this brilliant insight sink in? That we’re off the beaten path here? That we’re nobodies in the middle of nowhere? That we’ve been living on a frigging farm?

  I let the words spin silently inside me until they lost momentum.

  –What are you thinking?

  I could only shrug.

  I understood. I gradually convinced myself that this moment, like Mom’s death, had been predetermined by circumstances beyond anyone’s control. It isn’t about me.

  Since she’d teamed up with Allan and her sister, everything around us in the country, on the farm, had become a reminder of her isolation. The Internet was slow. The couriers were always getting lost. Nervous about mail delivery, she’d opened a post office box in town. Didn’t trust the phones.

  I had noticed how happy she was when she’d return from business trips, how alive she seemed while Peggy and Allan were visiting.

  Eventually, we talked. Rationally. That is how it has always been with Annie. Reason over passion.

  –You’ll be fine, she said.

  –I’ll cope.

  –You’ll more than cope. You don’t need me, Byron. You don’t need me anymore, not since your mom died. Actually, my love, you don’t need anybody.

  How could I explain to her how wrong she was when I was unable to admit it to myself?

  We reached an understanding. The deal, after she’d decided to move out, was that we’d work from where we lived. Me on the farm, Annie not far away—a place in town, where services were more efficient. But, no matter what, we’d stay close. No static. Still partners.

  That’s how it was for years, I guess.

  It all changed, of course, halfway through a round of golf, the
day that Allan, the indestructible Great Chase, became physically dependent on everyone around him, and his sudden needs revealed the limits of our freedom.

  17.

  Allan was felled in mid-August by the stroke. It was now almost November. You could feel the early chill of winter in the evenings.

  I was in the backyard wrapping burlap around the trunk of an oak tree that Mom and I had planted just before she broke her hip, way back before she lost her independence and her mind.

  –Let’s leave something that’s more permanent than us, she said.

  –Something noble?

  –Precisely. Anything worthwhile takes time.

  I tried to remember exactly when we’d planted it. She’d dug the hole. She had researched how to plant an oak tree. She explained a taproot, how it was different from other roots.

  Our little oak was now three times as tall as I was. But now there were tiny fissures in the bark and the woman at the nursery suggested wrapping it before the frost. Water gets in behind the bark through the cracks, it seems, and freezes there. Over time it can do a lot of damage.

  It was worth a try. Anything to mitigate the wear and tear of growing old.

  Take a break, I told myself. Take a load off. I sat on the edge of the deck. My cellphone started jumping on the railing. I made a sudden move to grab it, but my tricky leg was uncooperative and I almost toppled.

  Fuck it. If it’s important, it will ring again.

  I put the phone beside me.

  A dozen years ago, when I first went to work for Allan, I’d be in a panic now. When the phone rang, it was almost always about something urgent. Allan or Peggy with a critical assignment. A company to be registered or dissolved, titles searched, property transferred, an affidavit to be sworn somewhere, dictated by some stranger, often in the middle of the night. A meeting, hastily arranged with a client I knew I’d never see again or with another lawyer or with Allan’s servile board.

  The meetings were usually just a few hours’ drive away, in Halifax, not so often in Toronto. Allan had kept his word, and never pressed me to relocate.