By the time Evelyn was sixteen, it was clear that her mother could no longer look after herself. In one of her rare lucid periods, Evelyn’s mother realized she had better return to the home of her own parents, in England. But first she arranged to have Evelyn boarded at St. Bernadette’s School for Girls in St. Boniface. “Of course you don’t want to leave home, dear. You wouldn’t want to leave your friends,” she murmured.
Evelyn didn’t have any friends, but her mother didn’t know that. She took Evelyn down to St. Bernadette’s and introduced her to the principal, Sister Theresa, who assured them both that Evelyn would be very happy there.
St. Bernadette’s was housed in an old convent that was no longer active, due to a lack of nuns. It was a beautiful old stone building, close to downtown, with spacious grounds, manicured hedges, and a soccer field. The dorms were clean and bright, and the girls they saw seemed happy, but Evelyn hated it. There was a yellow plaster Jesus hanging on a cross on the wall right above the bed that was reserved for her. His ribs stuck out, and he was bleeding bright red drops from the wound in his emaciated side.
“Don’t make me go there,” she begged her mother later when they were back at home. “I want to go with you.”
Evelyn’s mother patted her back and said, “I know, dear.” Then she had to go and lie down again, in Mark’s room.
Evelyn phoned her father in Vancouver and explained the situation, but he didn’t offer to rescue her. “Your mother’s right,” he said. “It’s not fair to uproot you. And her parents can hardly be expected to cope with a teenager at their age.”
Paul and Felix tried to recreate the event at the Li residence. Had Wendy been assaulted? Had she surprised a burglar? According to the locksmith, she’d been worried about someone trespassing in her house, but she hadn’t filed a police report.
Paul had theories. Maybe Alika had staged an earlier break-in to make it seem that his wife was being stalked, to throw suspicion off himself before he tried to kill her.
That didn’t make sense, Felix countered. Otherwise, Alika would have mentioned the break-in to the cops. He would have played it up.
Maybe Alika hired someone to kill his wife — someone whose previous attempt had failed, Paul speculated. For her money.
Felix shook his head. He doubted Wendy Li had any money, and he was pretty sure this wasn’t a case of premeditation. If Alika was guilty, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, the usual domestic violence.
When they finally caught up with Alika at the hospital and drove him downtown for an interview, the results were inconclusive. Paul took the aggressive role, firing personal questions about the marriage, the finances, whether there was a history of violence, whether Wendy was seeing another man. He was trying to rattle Alika, get a rise out of him, but as far as Felix could tell, Alika showed no guilt. He didn’t even seem to grasp the intent of the questions. Once or twice, a quizzical expression passed across his features. The question about Wendy’s possible lover provoked a wrinkle of the forehead and a sudden excess of politeness, as if Paul were inquiring whether she’d ever been abducted by aliens. But otherwise, Alika was passive — still stunned, Felix guessed, by the consequences of Wendy’s fall.
But had she fallen? Could such a thing happen? An ugly panorama of accident scenes flashed through his memory — chainsaws, automobiles, rifles, electrical wires, deep, deep water. Surely Wendy would recover. Felix couldn’t imagine anyone so young and healthy simply stumbling to her death in her own home.
I’d never really been religious, even though I’d been baptized twice. Once by Mrs. Keller, who was Catholic, and once by Mrs. Richards, who got born again one summer and had all nine of her foster children baptized at a revival meeting one Sunday just before they took us all away from her. I didn’t think Alika’s family was religious either. But it seemed that whenever I looked in on Rosa, she was praying for me. I guess she was trying to cover all the bases, and I appreciated it, though I wasn’t sure exactly what she was asking for. Watching her, I wondered what she hoped to accomplish. Did she want me to come back? Or did she want me to move on?
I knew I could move on, leave the earth. I had nearly done it that first day when I rose into the sky. But every time I flew too high, saw the earth so far away from me, I heard those other voices calling, and I grew uneasy. I came back to my home, my husband. I had responsibilities. I couldn’t leave Alika. And there was no way I was going to let Evelyn get away with this. So I stayed close to the old neighbourhood. I patrolled St. Catherine Street, roaming from house to house, checking up on my family and on Felix. With so much time on my hands, I realized there were a lot of beautiful things in my neighbourhood, things I’d passed by every day when I was alive and never appreciated, like the tree on the corner.
At the very end of St. Catherine Street, in front of Felix’s house, a huge silver maple spread out over the sidewalk, so that pedestrians had to push aside its lower branches to pass by. The first day I visited Felix at home, he was contemplating that tree from an upstairs window of his house. I could barely see him through the forest of poplars in his yard, so I rose higher, into the limbs of the silver maple. I saw a squirrel’s nest there, and a pair of squirrels running up and down the trunk with seeds and acorns in their mouths. I remembered reading that squirrels worked so hard because half the time they forgot where they hid their acorns. I’d found that funny once.
Felix looked very serious, almost morose, and I imagined that he was thinking of me, of my demise. I watched him rub a palm across his forehead, pondering the problem deeply. He seemed intelligent. Dedicated to his job. Upholder of law and order. I was confident that he would set things right. But I wished I’d mentioned Evelyn to him before she got me. I wished I could report her crime like a normal person would, sitting in a police station filling out forms, pointing her out in a line-up. I’d have to leave that to others.
The wind was growing stronger. Black clouds were filling the sky. Felix Delano turned away from the window and disappeared somewhere inside his house.
I rose above the silver maple and looked down upon its crown. Its leaves were dark as iron in the evening light, and when the wind passed through its branches, it swayed and tossed, revealing the underside of its leaves, shimmering like pale sage. I had never seen it it for what it truly was — a giant being, rooted to the planet, rustling and breathing. It bent its great body with the wind, bowing sometimes toward the grass and reaching sometimes toward the sky, but always it remained, anchored deep below the surface of the earth.
I envied it.
When she sat in the hospital room, watching Wendy’s chest rise and fall with the mechanical rhythm of the respirator, Noni couldn’t feel Wendy’s spirit at all. She could only sense it if she was all alone — like that first day in the cafeteria, when she felt Wendy so close beside her she imagined her breath on her neck. Or when she heard the low moaning at the window — summer wind, she told herself, she should buy weatherstripping. But she knew the summer wind didn’t sound like that, not unless there was a storm. And there had been no storms since the night that Wendy fell. At these times, Noni feared her sister-in-law had left her body. Had passed on.
Sometimes, early in the morning, Noni dreamed that Wendy was standing at the foot of her bed. Often the dream was so vivid it terrified her, and she woke trembling. One night she rented the movie Hamlet and afterwards dreamed that Wendy was spurring her on to avenge her death. Even after waking, Noni found it hard to shake the eerie sensation that Wendy was present in her apartment. She could hear Wendy’s voice in her head, whispering urgently, but she couldn’t make out the words.
Was there anything to avenge?
Detective Delano seemed to think so. He came to the hospital and questioned Noni about her brother and his marriage to Wendy. Noni answered truthfully. Her brother was a gentle man, he loved his wife, they all loved her.
He assured Noni that the questions were routine. It was just that it seemed unlikely, he said carefully, that W
endy’s fall had been an accident. He had examined the scene and doubted she could have tripped in the first place, he said, let alone fallen with such force, even if she’d been unconscious. He suspected Wendy had been pushed from behind, probably by a burglar.
Noni said she didn’t think anything had been stolen from the house. Alika hadn’t mentioned that anything was missing.
“Then is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to hurt her?” he asked. “Anyone at all?”
Noni started to shake her head. Then she remembered.
Almost as soon as Evelyn James opened her door for him, Felix decided that she was probably innocent. She was tiny, for one thing, not strong enough to have committed such an assault. And it seemed she knew nothing of Wendy’s fall or her coma. When Felix told her about it, she placed both hands over her mouth and stared at him with wide eyes, while the blood drained from her face. Felix thought she was going to faint.
But he still had to question her. Noni had told him about the stocking, along with some crazy theory about Evelyn breaking in and leaving it there. If Alika had his wife and his sister believing that, he was a pretty slick liar.
“Sit down, sit down,” he said. He ushered Evelyn into her own kitchen. A pot of tea sat on the table and a full cup steamed beside it. Felix guided her into a chair. “Drink your tea,” he said. “It’ll do you good.”
She drank the tea, holding the cup with two shaking hands.
“When did this happen?” she managed to ask.
“Last Thursday. August twenty-first.”
Evelyn lost her grip on the cup and it crashed down into the saucer.
Felix pulled out a chair for himself.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “The cups are behind you, there, on those hooks.”
He reached up and took one. “Thanks. Do you have milk?” He moved toward the refrigerator, but Evelyn jumped up and stood in front of it, blocking his way.
“I’ll get it,” she said. She poured the milk from the carton into a tiny pitcher and set it on the table.
“Did you see Wendy on the twenty-first?” Felix asked.
“I haven’t seen her for months.”
“You haven’t visited her house?”
“No!”
“Where were you that night?”
Evelyn glanced at the calendar on the wall. Thursday the twenty-first was marked with a circle to represent the full moon. “I worked the late shift until eleven and then I came home to bed.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing? Watching television?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you talk to anyone that night, on the phone, maybe?”
“I don’t remember.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
Felix looked hard at the girl’s pale face. She was definitely shocked by this news. Even if she was having an affair with the husband, she honestly didn’t seem to have a clue about Wendy’s fall.
“How is Alika taking it?” she asked.
“Not very well,” said Felix.
Alika stood at the living room window, watching the empty street. He often stood staring at nothing, and sometimes I used to stand behind him, trying to see what he was looking at.
I could never tell, especially when he was taking pictures. He’d hold the camera to his eye, look at the world through that one hole. What did he see?
This morning, he had dressed carelessly. His collar buttons were crooked, and I wanted to reach out and put them right. I wondered if he’d misbuttoned his shirt all the way down, and I moved closer to the window, trying to see his whole body. I pushed up close against the glass and then I found myself inside the house. I was right there in the living room with him. I was back!
“Alika,” I said. “I’m home.” But he didn’t believe me. He placed his right palm against the pane and leaned forward, gazing across the lawn, as if he were looking for me, waiting for me to return.
I pressed myself against his chest, the way I’d pressed against the window glass, but I could not enter him. I had never been able to enter him fully.
The pile of clothing next to Noni’s sewing machine remained untouched. She couldn’t face it yet. Like Alika, she was finding it hard to focus on the details of her regular routine. Gino had granted Alika a leave of absence from the studio, but Noni had no one to give her time off. Her work just sat there — bundles of torn dress shirts, jeans that wanted hemming, skirts that needed letting in or letting out. This morning, Noni barely glanced at them. She’d spent the night at Alika’s house and this morning she’d come home only to shower and change while her mother shopped for groceries. Then they were going back to Alika’s for brunch. Rosa was determined to keep on cooking. As if cooking would help. That’s what people did during disasters.
Alika seemed relieved to see them. Noni couldn’t tell what he’d been doing before they arrived, but he certainly hadn’t made any preparations for brunch. Rosa set to work cracking and beating the eggs, while Noni washed dishes and set the table. The kitchen was small and they bumped into each other as they worked. Still, the room seemed empty without Wendy. The whole scene felt artificial. Rosa chatted with forced cheer, suggesting that Alika pick some flowers from the garden. They would take a bouquet to Wendy this morning, she said. It had been a week, now. Surely Wendy would wake up today. Alika looked out at the garden. He made no move to go outside.
Rosa whipped up a mushroom omelette and served it with toast and jam. Nobody ate much, not even Rosa, though she made a pretense, pushing the food about on her plate. After an interminable silence, she rose and began to gather the plates. She briskly washed and rinsed them, scoured the pan, wiped the counter. Noni remained at the table, beside Alika. She tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t turn away from the window. She reached out and pressed his hand. He responded with a slight, distracted pressure.
“You need to take out the garbage,” Rosa told her son.
He didn’t move.
“Alika,” warned Rosa. “I’m talking to you.”
“It can wait, Mum,” said Noni gently. “The trucks don’t come until tomorrow.”
Rosa lifted the bag from the trash pail, twisted it shut, and held it toward her son. “They might come early,” she said.
Noni sighed. She took the bag and carried it through the garden. She dumped it in the can and placed the lid on firmly, to keep the dogs away during the night.
The storm clouds that had gathered the night before had blown over before it rained, and the garden was dry. Noni stopped to run her hand through the long stems of the poppies. They were long past blooming now, and their seed pods rattled in the morning breeze. She ripped one from its stem and held it in her hand. She could feel how frail it was, and it made her angry. She crushed it to powder.
The wind was gathering strength. It moaned through the neighbour’s elm trees, causing the leaves to murmur with the cadence of a human voice. Noni shuddered.
As she hurried back toward the house, she heard the grinding gears of a city garbage truck as it turned into the lane.
I could see Noni out in the back lane. She was bending over the tall stalks of the poppies, examining their round seed husks. She plucked one and crumbled it between her fingers, letting the half-formed seeds fall to the ground.
“Noni,” I said, and she looked up.
“They’re not ready yet,” I told her. “Wait for the fall.”
She turned away from me then and started toward the house, the wind whipping her short, dark hair across her face.
“Wait!” I called, but this only seemed to make her move faster. She limped quickly, awkwardly, up the back steps and then paused for a minute, listening nervously, before she went into the house.
I didn’t want to scare Noni, but I missed her. She was the only one who would understand about Evelyn. And she was a good friend, a sister. My only sister. I’d had a few foster sisters and brothers along the way, but they were
always coming and going. I’d learned pretty early that it wasn’t wise to get too close to them. One or another of them was always getting returned to their real parents. I knew that was never going to happen to me. My real parents had given me away. The trouble was, they hadn’t given me to anyone. I was sort of adrift.
So I had given myself to Alika and his family. I’d thought it was safe. But after one short year, Evelyn had taken me away from them.
The beauty of the Book of Changes was that Felix could never understand it. The verses were all about crossing the great water and foxes getting their tails wet, and who could make any sense of that? Every once in a while, he’d have a glimmer of comprehension, like the day he tossed a hexagram that warned him to pay attention to small, seemingly insignificant details. As a detective, he understood that. But mostly, Felix considered the tossing of the coins a kind of telling of the weather. It wasn’t a guide. It was more like a barometer.
A very stoned girl in a cotton dress had given Felix the Book of Changes at the first Winnipeg Folk Festival — the free one, back in the seventies. Felix was taking an Eastern philosophy course then, and he was interested in the book’s introduction. But he hadn’t been tempted to toss the coins to read the hexagrams. His mother used to perform a similar rite in times of crisis or indecision, using the New Testament and a bobby pin. When Felix was in college, he’d considered that to be primitive nonsense. He believed in logic and relied on his reason to guide him. When he decided to join the police force, he welcomed the chance to put those beliefs into practice. But once he got out on the streets, once he’d been spat on and sworn at and punched and finally shot in the chest, he asked his mother to pray for him once in a while. It couldn’t hurt. And now and then he tossed the coins, just to give himself something to meditate on for the day. The process had come to interest him more and more. For one thing, he’d never, in all the years he’d been reading the book, thrown the same hexagram twice. This was mathematically impossible, he knew. Yet it was true. Because every time Felix threw the coins, the wind was blowing from a different direction, the sun was shining from a different angle, and Felix was a different man.
In the First Early Days of My Death Page 6