The Winners' Circle

by Gail Bowen

  Only Delia had yet to respond. The attention of everyone in the room focused on her, and for a moment it seemed as though she was shrinking under the weight of a grief I could not understand. Finally, she wiped away the last of her tears, took a deep breath, and straightened her spine. “Let’s do it,” she said. “Let’s bring back the laughter.” Her windbreaker was on her lap. She stood, shrugged into her jacket, pulled up the hood, and, without saying goodbye, walked into the rain.

  When a bolt of lightning split the sky, followed almost immediately by an earth-shaking boom of thunder, Kevin laughed. “I believe the dead just cast their vote,” he said. “And they approve too. It’s unanimous.”

  And so, on the front porch of the Hynds’ quintessentially Canadian cottage, with its squeaky screen door, permanently sand-dusted floor, and shelves lined with guest books filled with praise for Harriet’s coffee and Russell’s hospitality, the decision was made. On October 31, the families of the partners of Falconer Shreve Altieri Wainberg and Hynd would gather to remember and honour those we’d lost. Looking into one another’s faces, we smiled a little sheepishly, bent to sign the guest book for that year, and donned our rain gear. Then, believing our largest concern was what the rain was doing to the gravel road that led to the highway, we moved towards the door.

  I stopped in front of a photograph on the rustic end table that Kevin said had been in the cottage since he was a kid. The legs of the table were birch logs and the photo was framed in birch. Taken during the partners’ first summer at Lawyers’ Bay, the photo showed the new lawyers, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, in the lake up to their knees in water. Zack was in the middle: on one side of him were Delia and Chris, and on the other, Blake and Kevin. Two-thirds of Zack’s chair was submerged. It was a tender photo filled with the light of the sun bouncing off the water and the joy of five young people alive on a summer day with the future shining before them.

  Each of the partners had a copy of the photo. Zack’s was in a chased silver frame on his dresser. Delia’s, in a starkly modern metal frame, perched on the mantel over the Wainbergs’ fireplace; Blake’s, framed in cherry wood, was on the credenza in his den. Chris’s copy had been hung on a wall in the main reception area at Falconer Shreve, and Blake had once given Lily Falconer a copy too. That morning, obeying an impulse I didn’t understand, I picked up the photograph, and for a few moments I held it close, trying to imagine what it was like to be one of those five young people on that sparkling July day.

  Then, as we had countless times, we ran through the rain to our cars. Hurried and heedless, the Falconer Shreve partners and our families called out our rushed goodbyes and shifted our focus to our workaday lives. It had been a good Thanksgiving.

  CHAPTER

  3

  The ten-minute drive from Lawyers’ Bay to the highway was white-knuckle all the way, and I was glad Zack was behind the wheel. Taylor was going back to the city with the Wainbergs. Zack and I were alone, and as soon as we reached the highway I asked the question that I knew was on both our minds. “So, what have we signed up for?”

  Zack pinched the bridge of his nose, always a sign that he was troubled. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “But the girls are right. Something should be done. When Isobel said that after Chris died the laughter stopped, she zeroed in on something that none of us have acknowledged. The five of us were linked to one another. Chris’s suicide broke that link, but instead of facing the truth and forging a new link, we’ve been flailing.

  “Blake’s been killing himself working seventeen-hour days. He says the firm needs him, and he’s right. Before the energy bubble burst, the Calgary office was a gold mine. Esme could have run the place,” he said, signalling to the seat behind me where our bouvier snored contentedly. “But now our Calgary people are scrambling. They have to go cap in hand to companies that were beating down our doors a few months ago. Kevin’s doing his best, but we need to snag some very big clients, and, frankly, Kevin’s heart isn’t in it, so Blake has been stepping in.”

  “Stepping in and suffering for it,” I said. “Meanwhile, Kevin is living a life he doesn’t want because, like Blake, he’s trying to keep the group together. You’re all paying too high a price for something that died with Chris.”

  Zack didn’t respond. I gazed at his profile, trying to read his expression. My husband is a handsome man – strong-featured with deep-set green eyes and a sensual mouth. Years in the courtroom had taught him to present a face that revealed nothing, but I wondered if I’d pressed too hard. “You don’t agree with me,” I said finally.

  He replied slowly. “No,” he said. “I do agree with you. And you’ll be relieved to learn that I’ve chosen the perfect person to head the Calgary office and take some of the burden off Kevin and Blake. I should have taken care of this months ago. No excuses, but finding the right candidate was a drawn-out process.” He gave me a quick smile. “Anyway, a woman named Katina Posaluko-Chapman is joining the firm’s Calgary office. We’ll be making the announcement at the beginning of November.”

  I could feel my gorge rise. Zack had been elected mayor of Regina the year before, and he’d taken a leave of absence from the firm. There were significant changes to be made in the operation of our city, and Zack put in long hours making those changes. I tried to keep my voice even. “Delia is the firm’s managing partner,” I said. “Why didn’t she deal with this problem?”

  “Because we knew that if we were going to hire someone to head up the Calgary office, we’d have to offer them an equity partnership, and Delia has always balked at the idea of having anyone outside of the founding partners made an equity partner. It was simpler for me just to handle the situation and present it as a fait accompli – which is what I plan to do.”

  “Good, then let Dee know and let her handle the rest of it,” I said. “And the sooner, the better.”

  “Her court case in Saskatoon starts tomorrow – she’ll be gone a week, but as soon as she gets back I’ll talk to her.” Zack grimaced. “Not a pleasant thought,” he said. “Hiring a new equity partner is going to open a can of worms with other lawyers in the firm who’ve paid their dues and been waiting too long for a promotion.”

  Watching Zack as he drove, I remembered the pain in Taylor’s eyes when she’d spoken of her fear that someone she loved would leave her. My chest was tight. “Zack, you have a demanding job, a family that adores you, and two-week-old twin grandsons who need you to stick around so they can get to know you. You’ve already taken care of a problem that Delia should have handled herself. If what you’ve done opens a can of worms, let her deal with it. Just explain what you’ve done and walk away from the situation.”

  The wind had picked up, blowing the last leaves from the trees along the highway. The short, dark days were upon us. For the rest of the drive, locked in our private thoughts, my husband and I moved through the grey world in silence. Zack was planning to go to City Hall and work for a couple of hours before supper. When we pulled into his parking space, we unsnapped our seat belts and exchanged a reassuring kiss. “I’ll hand it over to Delia,” Zack said. “You’re right. There’s no point in sacrificing the future to something that no longer exists.”

  —

  I left Zack at City Hall and drove back to the single-storey house overlooking Wascana Creek that, apart from the accessibility ramps, was unexceptional to anyone but our family. This would be our first winter back in the house that Zack, Taylor, and I, our dogs, and our cats had moved into on the day Zack and I were married. We had planned to live there forever, until someone with a serious grudge planted explosives in our attached garage. Luckily, when the bomb was detonated we were at Lawyers’ Bay. Our house on the creek was destroyed, and had we been there we would have died.

  When we had the house rebuilt, we asked the contractor who had done its original retrofitting to make something that, in every possible way, was identical to the house we had all loved. He delivered. But by the time the Wascana Creek house was habita
ble again, we had become comfortable in a condo on Halifax Street, in the Warehouse District, where we moved after disaster struck. By a stroke of good fortune, more than two years later the house was for sale again, and we knew the time was right to move back to the property overlooking the creek. Now, we were finally unpacked and ready to experience the thrill of reclaiming our new old house.

  That evening the weather had continued to be miserable, so we turned on the gas fireplace, pulled our table over to the window, lit candles, and watched the storm from the warmth of our dining room. Our mood at dinner was light-hearted. Zack had brought good news from City Hall. Since the day he was elected mayor, Zack had been working to resuscitate the Saskatchewan Film Production Studios that had opened fifteen years earlier. For almost a decade the facility, built on the old University of Regina Campus, had flourished, producing B movies and TV series. When a new and conservative provincial government was elected, it scrapped the tax credit that had drawn the film community to our province. Seemingly overnight, the production companies decamped and moved to more fiscally hospitable climes, and the state-of-the-art Saskatchewan Film Production Studios became a white elephant.

  That afternoon Zack had received word that Caritas, a company that had once employed scores of people who worked in film production, had been given the green light for a major project and was moving back into its old offices on the first of December. It was an announcement worthy of a good bottle of wine, and Zack opened a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon that was just the ticket. Taylor’s boyfriend, Declan, had sent pictures of his cousin’s wedding and Taylor had them on her iPad. The reception had been held in a small inn just outside Gatineau, and the images of young love and Quebec’s breathtaking fall foliage provided the perfect coda to the weekend.

  —

  Taylor was too old to be tucked in, but she still liked Zack and me to come into her room to say goodnight. When Taylor was younger, her bedroom had been an exuberant bedlam of clothes, projects “in progress,” homework, art books, cosmetics, hair products, and, during a period when she, Isobel, and Gracie were creating personal-profile perfumes for their friends, dozens of tiny bottles of essential oils.

  Times had changed. Maturity had brought Taylor an affinity for order, and her bedrooms at the cottage and in the city were uncluttered and serene. They were also very similar: Wedgwood lavender blue walls, white wicker furniture, filmy white curtains, and a crisp pique bedspread, white with a print of blue allium. At the cottage, a glowing abstract by Taylor’s grandfather, Des Love, hung over her bed; in the city, the place of honour was given to a Sally Love painting of two black cats sleeping in a patch of violets.

  That night, as she often did, Taylor curled up with her own cats – Bruce, Benny, and Bob Marley. The scene was itself worthy of a painting. Taylor has the kind of looks that always make me think of Audrey Hepburn: clean-cut, boyish yet feminine. She was wearing the sleepwear she currently favoured, a white T-shirt paired with black-silk sports shorts. Her cats – two gingers and a tortoiseshell – had curved their bodies to fit the spaces around her and purred contentedly, but Taylor was in a more contemplative mood. As soon as we came into the room, she moved Bruce, Benny, and Bob Marley to the other side of the bed, sat up, and clasped her knees with her arms. “Declan texted me saying he had a great time,” she said. “But he wished I’d been there.”

  “Do you wish you’d been there?” I said.

  Taylor glanced at a photo on her iPad. “It would have been fun,” she said. “But I’m glad I was at the lake.”

  I pulled over the wicker bench that nested under the vanity table, and Zack wheeled close to us. “You, Isobel, and Gracie were pretty intense when you talked about the Day of the Dead,” he said.

  Taylor’s eyes, so deeply brown they were almost black, looked to Zack and then to me. “Isobel and Gracie need help,” she said. “Neither the Wainbergs or Blake will talk about their problems, and whenever Isobel or Gracie raise the subject, their parents shut down, so the situations just keep getting worse.” Taylor picked up Bob Marley and smoothed his ginger coat. “Blake still has pictures of Gracie’s mum all over the house, but when Gracie asked if she could put some away, her dad said he wasn’t ready.”

  “Everybody grieves at a different pace,” I said, remembering the days and nights that became weeks and months after my first husband, Ian, died. “It can take some people a long time.”

  My explanation didn’t satisfy our daughter. “But what if the way one person is grieving is hurting other people?” she asked. “Blake’s grief has already affected Gracie’s choices about what to do with her life. And Delia’s inability to face her problems is having a huge impact on Isobel. Izzie’s SAT scores were amazing. She had letters from universities all over Canada and the U.S. promising her the moon if she’d enrol, and it’s the same for Gracie. Tons of schools with great women’s basketball programs have offered her athletic scholarships.”

  “But both girls stayed here to go to university,” I said. “I’d wondered about that.”

  “There’s nothing to wonder,” Taylor said quietly. “Isobel stayed because she wants to be there for Jacob, and Gracie stayed because she’s afraid of what will happen to her father if she leaves.” Our daughter’s gaze took in both Zack and me. “Isobel and Gracie deserve their own lives,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “They do.”

  Taylor pressed on. “But they won’t be able to have their own lives until their families deal with their problems. We’re hoping that having everybody get together to talk about Lily and Chris and Abby will help Blake and Delia get over the past.”

  Zack frowned. “Delia will never get over Chris,” he said, and his voice was heavy.

  Taylor reached out to put a hand over her father’s. “I only met Chris once – that night at the fireworks when he taught me a riddle. The next day when I heard he’d killed himself, I kept thinking about that riddle. Do you remember it, Jo?”

  “I do,” I said. “What three words make you happy when you’re sad, and sad when you’re happy?”

  “And the answer is ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ ” Taylor said. “After you told me what happened to Chris, I wondered if he’d been using that riddle to try to talk himself out of ending his life.” She lowered her eyes. “It’s too bad it didn’t work.”

  “It is,” Zack said. “Because death is one thing that does last forever.”

  “I get that,” Taylor said. “But isn’t that why it’s so important to change the things we can change? We only have one life, and Delia’s failure to deal with her own issues is wrecking Isobel’s life. Why can’t Delia move on?”

  “Because underneath that terrifyingly capable lawyer the world sees is a wounded soul,” Zack said. He hesitated for a moment before going on. “The first time Chris introduced her to us, I wondered what the hell he was thinking. So did Kevin and Blake. We were four rough, cocky guys. And here was this waif of a girl who looked as if a stiff wind or a harsh word could flatten her. None of us had ever seen anyone that broken and vulnerable. It was like she was missing a layer of skin, and every nerve end was exposed.”

  Taylor cocked her head. “What had happened to her?”

  “The year before she started at the College of Law she had suffered a tragedy compounded by a cruelty,” Zack said, and I could hear the anger in his voice. “Delia took her kid brother out for ice cream. On their way home, a truck ran a light and T-boned their car. Miraculously, Dee wasn’t hurt. But her brother was badly injured. She and her father were in the waiting room at the hospital when the doctor told them that they’d been unable to save the boy. Delia’s father went berserk. When she tried to comfort him, her father turned on her. He said, ‘The wrong child died.’ Those were the last words he ever spoke to her. Until Dee met Kevin, Chris, Blake, and me, her life consisted solely of going to classes and working in the kitchen at her university residence during the day and studying by herself at night. That was it. She was absolutely alone.” />
  Taylor bit her lip. “And you gave her a place to belong.”

  “We did,” Zack said. “According to Delia, our friendship gave her an identity and a life, but Taylor, it was a fair exchange. Once Dee knew she could trust the four of us, she relaxed and we saw the woman she was – brilliant but also warm and funny and considerate.” Zack’s face softened with the memory of his friend as she had been. “Delia brought us alive in a new way. She strengthened the bonds between us. She made us recognize the possibilities that lay ahead if we stayed together. And she never stopped being grateful to Chris for being the first to see something in her that made her worthy of being accepted.”

  “But if being part of your lives gave Delia an identity and a life, why is she still unable to deal with her problems?” Taylor said.

  “I’m not a shrink,” Zack said, “but my guess is that, despite everything she’s accomplished, Delia has never believed she measures up. That cruel bastard of a father got through to her in a way no one has been able to since.”

  “She still believes that the accident took the life of the wrong child?” Taylor said.

  Zack sighed. “Something like that. Dee’s terrified of failing.”

  “Because a failure is proof that her father was right,” I said. “What a terrible burden to live with.”

  “It is,” Zack said. “And I’ve seen the toll that burden exacts on her. All lawyers lose cases. You feel like you’ve been sucker-punched, but you move along. When Delia loses, she’s devastated. Sometimes it drives me nuts. Her record of favourable Supreme Court decisions is stellar, but when a decision goes against her, Dee insists that the two of us review every step of the appeal so she knows exactly where she went wrong.”

  “I understand that,” Taylor said. “If a painting isn’t working for me, I can’t leave my studio until I’ve figured out the problem and fixed it.”