Left

by Theanna Bischoff

  Sylvie waves her hand. “If you believe the post really came from one of the nurses, then you should be running identification analyses. Check writing samples, like running notes; did you notice the poster failed to use proper punctuation in the word didn’t?” Reuben hadn’t. But before he can retort, Sylvie continues. “Even her family and her best friend don’t have any evidence of Morgan getting physical with her. They all think he killed her, too, but they can’t come up with any examples of him being aggressive. Not one.”

  “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t. And DV isn’t just physical.”

  “Of course,” Sylvie concedes. “But even if Morgan has motive, you’ve still got to consider other possibilities, especially this long after. Think about Chandra Levy. The congressman was the obvious perpetrator—older man, position of power, secret affair—”

  “I know the case,” Reuben says. Does she think he wouldn’t know the details of such a prominent murder? What kind of detective does she take him for? Levy’s body had been discovered in May, 2002, only months before Reuben’s own vic went missing. Police had ultimately arrested an illegal immigrant who’d waited in the park for victims and then assaulted them.

  “Or, if you want a Canadian example,” Sylvie continues, rambling off the details of a case of a woman who went missing out east in 2005. Reuben’s obviously familiar with this case, too. Cops had leaned heavy on the boyfriend, especially after he refused to take a polygraph and was arrested for DUI in the days after the disappearance. But then a wildcard had confessed—the next-door neighbour.

  “These cases aren’t the norm,” Reuben argues. “I could give you a hundred examples where an intimate partner snapped.”

  Sylvie smiles, shrugs. Like, she just can’t help herself. “I know,” she says. “But what if this is the one in a hundred?”

  JOSIE

  THE METAL FOLDING CHAIR UNDERNEATH HER IS THE MOST uncomfortable chair Josie has ever sat on, and the church basement is so drafty. Josie shifts her weight, crosses her arms, cranes her neck to see around the six-foot something blond man in front of her. Man is a bit generous—he can’t possibly be much older than twenty. Between his chair and the chair of the girl beside him dangle their intertwined hands, the female’s adorned by a single solitaire bauble, probably less than a carat. Josie rests her hands in her lap, twists her own engagement ring and wedding band around on her finger until the diamonds—a set of three—face the opposite way. She clenches her fist and feels the gems press into her palm. Three diamonds chosen by Solomon to represent the sanctity of a true Christian marriage—husband and wife on either side with the Lord in-between.

  At the front of the room, Solomon paces as he talks. Josie hasn’t attended one of his sessions in awhile, but because this particular talk is focused on marriage, he asked her to come. The audience is made up of recently engaged members of the congregation. Why do they look like teenagers? Josie was in her late twenties when she and Solomon tied the knot and she’d felt like an old maid at the time, but when she looks at her wedding photo, she and Solomon standing on the front steps of the church, her chapel-length veil lifted by an errant wind, she thinks they look so young. She is over thirty-five now, which puts her in a higher risk category for fertility. She can practically feel her eggs shrivelling up. Can she still refer to herself as “mid-thirties?” Or, now that she’s crossed the halfway point, is she “late thirties”? These couples have so much more time than she does. It isn’t fair.

  Solomon reminds the audience of Ephesians, Chapter five, reads aloud from his worn Bible with the dark green cover. “Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour.” Josie stretches both legs, tries to distribute her weight across the chair’s stiff seat. Solomon paces as he talks. “Set concrete boundaries about your physical intimacy during this time, and discuss a plan for helping you maintain your purity.”

  He passes around a role of scotch tape, tells each participant to tear off a strip. He then asks the participants to approach members of the opposite sex and stick their tape to their bodies, remove it, repeat the process. Josie takes this opportunity to stand and walk, observing the exercise as the couples whisper and giggle, pressing the tape against each other’s shirtsleeves and chests, peeling the strips away. Solomon then asks them to find their own fiancé or fiancée and to try to make the tape adhere one final time. The blond who had obscured Josie’s view presses his strip against his fiancée’s shoulder and runs his palm up and down its length several times, determined to get it to stay.

  The exercise ends, and Josie reluctantly returns to her seat as Solomon explains how the tape represents their own purity, and how choosing to give away one’s heart and body prior to marriage can leave one with less virtue, could lead to divorce. The couples hold their ruined strips. The blond fidgets with his, while his fiancée lets hers dangle limply from her open palm.

  Solomon returns to his Bible. “He might present the Church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Josie can’t see the faces of the audience members in front of her, but several bob their heads, nodding along. Amen.

  Solomon had proposed so quickly into their courtship that Josie had not yet confessed her prior relationships—in particular, her tryst with Natasha’s cousin. She hadn’t felt guilty about it at the time. Dustin was still, if she’s being honest, the best sex she’d ever had—from a purely physical standpoint. Since their wedding night, she has, obviously, told Solomon that he is the best she’s ever had, which is technically true because of their emotional connection and commitment.

  Josie had chosen to begin attending Mass regularly as an adult. The mistakes she made prior to fully committing herself to Christ were not entirely her fault. Her parents did not guide her appropriately. She’d been planning to tell Solomon when the time felt right and when she could muster the courage, but he’d taken her out for dinner, and then back to his apartment and, just inside the front door, by his shoe rack, got down on one knee. Her first thought was, I’m not worthy. He stood up and began sliding the ring onto her finger before she’d had a chance to speak, and then from inside the apartment, his parents appeared, and then her parents, and their remaining grandparents. He’d even flown her Nana out from Saskatchewan. Her Nana, a Catholic, and the most religious of all her relatives, had always attached a plastic, coloured rosary with each gift or card she’d ever given. She and Solomon aren’t Catholic, but Josie still keeps a pink rosary in the console of her car, fidgets with it at red lights.

  Maybe most of the audience members are virgins, maybe not—but, either way, none are without wrinkle or blemish. All have certainly made mistakes in life, sexual or otherwise. All have likely yelled at their partners in the heat of the moment, turned away from a hug because of busyness or distraction, fallen asleep without saying I love you, forgotten a partner’s birthday, shared too many details of their partner’s personal life, disagreed with their partner about the number of children to have or who to invite to the wedding, drank too much alcohol and behaved inappropriately.

  To say that Solomon had been disappointed by her previous sexual encounters would be an understatement—but he’d already known about how late in life she’d come to find Jesus, and she’d been twenty-eight when they started dating, he a year older. She would not have faulted him for being intimate prior to having met her. But Solomon insisted that he had certainly not done anything of the sort and told her to go back to her own apartment, said he’d needed to think. Because she had had premarital sex, or because she had insinuated that he might have? She wasn’t sure. They’d planned brunch with Natasha and Greg the next day to celebrate the engagement—Josie had considered calling Natasha to tell her about their argument, but what if that made things worse? She fell asleep on her couch only to wake up at five a.m., at which point she felt too upset to go back to sleep
, but it was also too early to call and attempt reconciliation.

  She had sorted through her kitchen for ingredients to bake cookies. Stirring raisins into the thick, oatmeal dough made her feel temporarily better. She brought the still-warm cookies on a plate and drove back over to Solomon’s, rang his doorbell. When he answered, wordlessly, she felt at once so childish, so small. She’d had so many things she planned to tell him but couldn’t remember any of them. She held out the still warm plate, blurted, “Do you want your ring back?”

  He’d shaken his head. “I’ve decided to forgive you,” he said, but his face still looked angry, his features contorted into a scowl, even as he took the plate of cookies from her and pulled her roughly into a hug. He could forgive, she surmised, but probably never forget.

  Up against the right side of the church basement room stands a folding table, upon which sits various platters of squares and cookies. The smell makes her stomach coil, makes her regret not eating one before sitting down. It would be impolite to get up and take one now in the middle of his talk. She should make herself wait.

  She had waited so long for a husband! When the boyfriend Josie dated through university had broken up with her just before finals, Natasha had feigned an illness to get out of a family obligation and had, instead, taken Josie to the bakery in Parkdale where the two sometimes studied and shared a single dessert. Josie blotted her tears with a stiff white paper napkin while Natasha returned with a tray. Two mugs of steaming chamomile tea—Josie preferred coffee, but Natasha said tea would be more calming for her nervous system—and two generous pieces of chocolate cake. “Devil’s food,” Natasha had said, setting down the tray and offering Josie a metal fork. “Some days, we need two.”

  Josie has replayed their argument in her head so many times since Natasha went missing. She’s probably blown it way out of proportion. Natasha probably wasn’t that upset, Josie tells herself. Just sleep-deprived from her two back-to-back shifts, stressed about Summer’s impending birth, which had already stretched her both emotionally and financially.

  Solomon concludes his lecture. Josie stands, claps limply, and wanders over to the dessert table. Mini cinnamon buns, flaky croissants, lemon squares. A carafe of coffee, probably cold by now. Will Solomon care if she skips out on the socializing before he can show off his wife, brag about their seven year marriage? Probably—but these days, he’s usually annoyed at her about something already anyway. She interrupts a young couple thanking her husband for his wisdom, tells him she is not feeling well. The young couple make concerned faces; the man pats her on the arm, and Solomon, thankfully, tells her to go home and rest. Genuine benevolence? Or just because they are in public? She offers to return and pick him up if he calls her when he’s ready to go, but the young couple volunteers to drive him home and he accepts.

  The bakery she and Natasha frequented in university closed down years ago. Josie parks the car at the Co-op grocery by their house and makes her way to the cool glass display case that contains the baked goods. There—chocolate cake by the slice, whorls of icing on top so dark it is almost black, gritty the way Natasha liked it. Josie orders two slices, takes them to the register and pays with cash, crosses the parking lot back to her car. Opens the first plastic container.

  She forgot to ask for a fork. Oh well. She reaches in with her bare, unwashed fingers, plucks a generous glob of cake and frosting and stuffs it into her mouth. The icing feels slippery. She consumes more of the confection, crumbs falling down her blouse. She wipes her fingers on her black skirt, where the stains won’t be detected.

  She could bring the second slice home for Solomon. Her husband has a sweet tooth—she remembers going to various bakeries to choose their wedding cake together, linking arms and feeding each other small cubes. She’d wanted that silly, uninhibited moment at the reception of shoving cake in each other’s faces, kissing it off—but Solomon thought it was cheesy. He’d chosen strawberry shortcake, which reminded him of birthday cakes his mother had made for him as a little boy. Since their wedding, she’s learned to make Solomon’s favourite shortcake with cream cheese icing and concentric strawberries on the top, cut in half, like hearts.

  Maybe she should go back to the library and check out The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. She read it about a year ago, but could probably use a refresher. If she bought it, she could refer to it any time she wanted, but every little bit of savings counts for their budget. The first time she read it, Solomon was away on a mission trip in Uganda with his church youth group. Alone in their marital bed, Josie had felt awash with guilt as she devoured the chapters on turning towards each other, making sure to respond to bids for attention and affection. More than once, Solomon has accused Josie of being preoccupied with her work, uninterested in sex, unenthusiastic about his ministry, obsessed with her blog about Natasha, obsessed with timing intercourse to achieve a pregnancy.

  Now, her fingers sticky with chocolate cake, she thinks she should have stayed at the church. Truly turning towards her husband would mean listening intently to his lecture instead of fussing about the chair, letting her eyes wander to the snack table. Turning towards would have meant standing beside him afterwards, putting her hand on his lower back, smiling and nodding as he spoke to the young couples. This is just a slump—the seven-year itch. All marriages go through slumps every now and then, but theirs doesn’t have to. She should drive home, put the second piece of cake on a plate, fill a glass with milk, and put it on his bedside table. She should run a warm bubble bath, put on her white cotton nightgown with the spaghetti straps. And when he comes home, if he turns to her in the bed and initiates intimacy, she should turn towards him, even though it is too late in her cycle for it to count—and if he doesn’t initiate tonight, she should offer him a back massage. Maybe God is making her wait all this time for a baby to teach her a lesson. She needs to focus on more physical expressions of love for her husband. Maybe if she relaxes, she will get pregnant. Children will be a natural expression of their love. She pictures herself rubbing Solomon’s tense shoulders, feeding him the cake, kissing his mouth, tasting the chocolate on his lips.

  But how will a detour to the grocery store fit with her story of feeling ill, of going home to rest?

  She pops open the second container and reaches in. Places a generous mound in her mouth and lets it sit there, on her tongue.

  When both slices are gone, Josie opens the car door, takes the plastic containers and crosses the parking lot again to the nearest trashcan. Her tongue feels tingly and her head suddenly aches with the onslaught of sugar and selfishness. The bin overflows with trash, but she stuffs her own garbage down until she cannot see it anymore.

  GREG

  GREG HEARS THE VACUUM BEFORE HE UNLOCKS HIS apartment door. He should not have given his parents a key. And he should have known better than to let two phone calls from his mother go by without at least a text back. His parents had completely freaked out over the message board post. His father said he’d thought Greg should have asked for a lawyer on day one, and his mother just kept repeating, “Why would somebody write this? Why?” His father had actually suggested doing a press conference to “set the record straight.”

  “No,” Greg had insisted. “Please, no.” Good God, what if his lawyers actually thought a press conference was a good idea? His father had been the one to hire the lawyers in the first place—Cooper and Lau, two females, a good strategy, his father insisted, given the domestic violence accusations. He needed to have women on his side. Who knew what the cops were going to try to pin on him next? Greg has started having diarrhea, and yesterday he noticed a speckled rash in the crook of his right elbow. He will not mention these things to his mother, because she will undoubtedly drag him back to the doctor. The other day she practically tried to force-feed him perogies—she’d actually lifted a forkful dripping with sour cream to his mouth.

  Now, as he opens the door, the vacuum powers down, and his mother ambushes him with a hug. She’s gained wei
ght; the buttons of her navy blouse strain over her breasts. Greg can see the chain of the pendant she’s worn around her neck ever since Natasha went missing, a single silver cursive letter N, but the letter itself hides under her shirt.

  “I made dinner,” she says, releasing him. He smells something hearty. The toilet flushes, and his father emerges, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Pork casserole and garlic bread.” His mother moves into the kitchen and opens the oven, releasing a waft of heat and garlic into the apartment. Larkin has occupied the Poang chair, curled herself around a blue pillow Greg’s mother brought over on one of her last visits in an attempt to make the apartment more homey.

  Greg kicks his shoes off. “You know, I have a bunch of papers to mark—”

  “What’s the topic?” Greg’s father rummages through the cabinets. “Do you have any salt?”

  “You’re too busy to eat?” His mother wraps the vacuum cord around its base. Greg doesn’t actually own the vacuum. So little of his condo is carpeted, and also, he doesn’t care. His mother must have hauled his parents’ vacuum over herself. “Do you know how much cat hair this thing picked up?” she asks. Was it reasonable, he wondered, for his mother to expect that, on top of keeping up with his work deadlines, keeping Larkin alive, dealing with his lawyers, dealing with Reuben, and remembering to take all his meds, he should also keep a clean and homey house as well? Sometimes, during a panic attack, he stares at the vials on his nightstand and imagines unscrewing the childproof caps, emptying the pills into his palms like candy, gnawing the capsules into fine white powder, sharp and vile on his tongue. Chewing would get the drugs into his bloodstream faster, and then he could just go from sleep to nothingness. The quicker the better.

  “What’s the topic?” his dad asks again.