Mothers and Other Strangers

by Gina Sorell

  I pulled my hand back from him. “A death on her conscience. Tell me, Henri, what kind of karmic price tag does that carry?”

  “Your mother did everything she could, but in the end it was clear by the way she died that her work wasn’t done.” He stood and walked back to the other side of his desk.

  “You mean broke and alone?”

  His eyes widened, scrunching the lines in his forehead. “I mean how she died. Cancer. We tried to cure her with diet, aura cleanses, and intensive karmic unburdening sessions, but she was still sick. It was clear she’d be back to try and make things right in another lifetime.”

  He spoke as if he was trying to explain it to a child, as if it was an answer as obvious as the color of the sky.

  “Is that when you tried to get a down payment for her next lifetime’s worth of karmic cleansing classes? Or did you just ship her back to Canada, where no one could see how you failed her?”

  “She left us, not the other way around.”

  “She had cancer, she shouldn’t have been alone.” I grabbed the arm of the chair, digging my fingernails into it.

  “Cancer was just a manifestation. She had unresolved issues.”

  “Sure. And what did you need her for anymore anyway? I’m sure you got everything she had.”

  His face turned hard, and he clenched his jaw as he spoke. “Is that what this is really about? Money? Because I’m afraid it was her wish to leave her estate to us, so there’s no point in fighting it.”

  Henri reached into his desk and took out a file with my mother’s name on it. He pulled out a faded document and handed it to me. I looked at the signature on the bottom of the first page; it was my mother’s handwriting. I checked the date. She would have been twenty-five years old at the time of her initiation.

  “It says she promises to give the Seekers twenty-five percent of everything she makes.”

  “Yes, and it says here,” he said, flipping the page and pointing hard against it, “she willingly agrees to leave her estate to us.” It was my mother’s “marriage contract” to Philippe.

  “Well, I can tell you that she made a new will just before she died, and according to her lawyer, it trumps any other preexisting wills or promises, this one included. But, really, Henri, what’s the difference? Everything she owned came to me, and I promise you, you’d have little use for what I inherited. Her entire estate consisted of a heavily mortgaged one-bedroom apartment and a pile of debt.” I shook my head. I don’t know why I was surprised—my mother had been telling lies her whole life, doling out pieces of the truth to different people, but never enough so they’d have the whole picture. Had she lied to the Seekers too, to make herself more valuable to them, more interesting?

  “Don’t play games with me, Elspeth. Your mother was a very wealthy woman, and we both know it. She obviously wasn’t of sound mind when she wrote the new will. She always intended for her fortune to go to us.”

  “Are you even listening to me?” I threw my hands up, exasperated. “There is no fortune—my mother conned you just as much as you conned her.”

  He smiled as if he didn’t believe me and suddenly stepped forward and wrapped his hand around my waist and pulled me closer.

  “It’s not a coincidence that your mother’s death has brought us back together. This was always meant to be. We can be your family. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? A family, a place to belong?”

  I stumbled as I pulled myself away. “Stop it. You don’t mean any of it.” I felt physically ill and was shaking. “I want to talk to Philippe.”

  “You can’t. He’s on leave.”

  “When he is returning?”

  “I haven’t decided.” He ran his hand through his hair and then reached for me. “Elsie, please.…”

  “Touch me again and I’ll scream. I want to talk to Philippe.”

  “Listen to me.…”

  “Tell me where he is and I’ll give you something.”

  His eyes widened and he bit his bottom lip. “Don’t do it for me, do it for Devedra.”

  I reached into my pocket and took out the gold and ivory ring.

  “Where’d you find that?” He leaned forward and stared at the ring.

  “Not where you were looking.”

  His eyes met mine and he nodded slightly. He was caught. I’d been right, the Seekers had ransacked my mother’s apartment, and now we both knew it.

  “The ring is sacred, and it belongs to us.”

  “So you say.”

  “That ring was a gift and is supposed to go to the spirit wife of our leader. Whoever wears it has the blessing and respect of every member of the Seekers.” He stared at me for a moment and spoke softly, “Why don’t you try it on? I bet you already have. I bet it fits you perfectly.”

  “Give me Philippe,” I said, tightening my fist.

  Henri tore off a piece of embossed stationery from his notepad, wrote out the address, and handed it to me in exchange for the ring.

  “He can’t protect you Elspeth, only I can. Whatever assets you’re hiding from us, we’ll find them.” Henri slipped the ring on his pinky finger and looked up at me, his mouth a tight line. He inhaled deeply, and his eyes were hard as he spoke. “No matter where you go. We’ll find you.”

  I met his eyes and stepped forward until only a breath separated us. “Knock yourself out,” I said, and turned and left.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I shuddered out loud once I was on the street. To think that the man I’d shared all my firsts with had turned into that. Were we all so easily corruptible? Or had Henri just grown up like he said he had, while I’d stayed stuck in the emotional landscape of my youth, yearning for a family that I didn’t have, longing to be happy and loved but struggling to get there?

  After Ted and I had divorced, I’d often daydreamed that Henri and I would find each other, and he’d be as fucked up as I remembered him, and all my failures and shortcomings would mercifully pale in comparison. He would look at me and know, just as he once had, where I was at and what I had been through. He’d wrap me in his arms, and I’d lay my head on his chest and wordlessly transmit all my heartbreak. And I wouldn’t have to worry about disappointing him as I had Ted.

  Instead Henri had become his father, and who knew what would become of me if I didn’t get the answers I was looking for. I wasn’t prepared to wait and see.

  The landlady opened the door and let me into the flat to wait for Philippe. “Please, please come in,” she said, pulling me inside and closing the door behind us.

  It was an average-size home by North American standards, which made it large for the French. What cosmopolitan cities like Paris and New York sacrificed in terms of living space, they made up for with culture and vibrancy. People in big cities didn’t expect to live in places where each room had a singular purpose and there were more bathrooms than inhabitants, and so even though this was clearly the home of a wealthy man, it wasn’t the gilded mansion I had envisioned for a charlatan as gifted as Philippe. It felt more like a family home, a place where children once gathered around the big kitchen table and where guests lounged on the sofa reading from the stacks of books that lined the living room walls. The floors were made up of large wooden planks, and the white plaster walls were adorned with prints of flora and fauna that matched the heavy green and white toile curtains. It was obvious someone had spent a lot of time decorating this living room, and I doubted that person was Philippe.

  “He doesn’t get many visitors. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you,” she said.

  “I think I should just wait here,” I replied, tugging my sleeve from her bony little grip and hanging back in the entrance.

  “Nonsense. What did you say your name was again?” She wiped her hand on her apron and flashed me a big, toothless smile.

  “Elspeth.” I leaned back toward the door and wondered if this was a mistake. Just being in the same house as Philippe made my legs feel wobbly. The old woman standing before me clearly wasn�
��t all there. Her blue eyes shone in her wrinkled face, milky and blank as if I had just appeared before her a second ago.

  “What did you say your name was again, dear?” she repeated.

  “Who is it, Marie?”

  I stopped and held my breath as I heard the voice coming closer.

  “Um, she said her name was, um.…”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, hang on, I’m coming.”

  I closed my eyes and exhaled as slowly as I could before opening them again.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I.…”As he came into view, my mouth dropped open and my knees went weak: Philippe in a wheelchair. I hadn’t been prepared for the sight of him as an old man, whose once soul-piercing eyes now rested behind thick reading glasses. Age had caught up with him, and his once-trim physique now curled and sagged beneath a ratty cardigan that hung off his sunken body. Marie shuffled over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “I’ll go put the kettle on, monsieur.” She tapped him a few times, flashed me a gummy smile, and shuffled off back down the hall, leaving us alone.

  “Philippe,” I said, my mouth feeling like it had gone numb as I tried to find his eyes.

  “Yes, who are you?” he asked, leaning forward.

  “It’s me, Elspeth. Rachel’s daughter.” My whole body deflated as I spoke, and I leaned against the doorway to help me stay upright.

  “Elspeth,” he said, settling back against his chair. “Oh. Elspeth.” He hung his head and wrung his hands. “I am so sorry about your mother. I loved her very much, you know.” He wheeled his chair into the living room and parked it next to the window.

  I didn’t know what to say. I was sure he did, but that didn’t take away from the fact that this man raped me twenty-three years earlier, then called me a liar and cast on me a shadow of shame that I had spent years trying to undo. I wanted to believe that I deserved the kind of happiness Ted dreamed for me. As far as he was concerned, I could have thrown myself at Philippe and it still wouldn’t have excused what he did to me. He’d remind me that I wasn’t much more than a child, only sixteen, and I had a right to feel safe, and nothing I could have said or done meant I deserved what happened. I knew Ted was right. I knew it, but never really felt it. It was why I could never fight as hard as he could for my happiness.

  “What happened, Philippe?” I asked, following after him and standing next to the couch. If he really loved my mother as much as he said, then why did she die alone? People who were loved weren’t supposed to die alone. It was a fate I expected for myself, but not for a woman who had willingly been the mistress of the same man for decades.

  I wanted him to stand up and look me in the face, but instead he was so small in his wheelchair, with his curved spine and his skinny legs resting on their pedals. He fished into his cardigan for a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  “I had a bad fall and never recovered properly.”

  “Not to you. To my mother.” It came out harshly and I was glad.

  “Of course. Devedra.”

  “Rachel. Her real name was Rachel. You don’t get to abandon her and still call her that.”

  He took a deep breath and turned to face me. “Rachel.” He said it deliberately and waved for me to sit down.

  “I’m fine right here, thank you.” I gripped the back of the couch and stood up straighter.

  “You’ve come all this way. Sit. Please.”

  I sat on the couch, in the spot farthest away from him, folded my arms across my body, and waited.

  “We did everything we could, but she was very sick,” he said.

  “I know, cancer. I found out after I returned to Toronto to clean up her affairs. What I don’t know is, if she was such an important part of the Seekers and you loved her so much, why she was all alone when she died?”

  “Why, indeed.” He looked me in the eyes, and I felt the hair on my arms stand on end. “Where were you?”

  “I had no idea she was ill. She never told me, but then again, I think we both know that she chose you over me a long time ago.”

  “Here you are, some tea for the mademoiselle and for you, monsieur,” said Marie, returning with a tray. She set down a cup before me, placed some pastries in the center of the table, and took the other cup to Philippe. She waited until he tasted it, his age-spotted hands rattling the china as he did, and then she left again, humming to herself.

  “Your mother wanted to make a difference. She was a smart woman who’d been trapped by circumstance and was full of so much potential that was just being wasted when we met. She had lost someone she loved very much and was trying to—”

  “Make amends, I know. Henri told me she blamed herself for the accident.”

  “Your mother wasn’t just some blind follower, Elspeth. She used to be a believer.”

  “Used to be?” I asked, leaning forward in my chair.

  “Your mother stopped believing in me long before she died.”

  “What happened?”

  “She learned the truth.” He sighed heavily and continued. “That she wasn’t the only one.”

  “I thought your group allowed that kind of thing.”

  “We do. But Rachel didn’t. Just because it was allowed didn’t mean she was okay with it. Still, I think she would have forgiven me almost anything. We went a long way back.”

  “To Africa.” I stared at Philippe, wondering if he would deny it.

  “Yes, to Africa.”

  “You knew her all that time and you never said anything.”

  “Some secrets aren’t mine to tell.”

  “Not if they pay your way, right?” Philippe’s eyes met mine and for a moment neither of us looked away. I was right, we both knew it.

  “I loved your mother. I didn’t plan on it. She was young and heartbroken and rich when we met. Like the others. But Rachel didn’t need direction, she needed redemption. And she would have given anything to get it.”

  “And judging by the state of her affairs when she died, she did.”

  “She may have lost faith in me, but she hadn’t lost faith in the group’s teachings. She still believed in karma, still believed that she could right the wrongs she’d done, but she was running out of time; she was sick, and I didn’t want to see her suffer anymore. She needed to see a real doctor. I didn’t want to be responsible for her death; I was already responsible for so much of her suffering. You were a part of that suffering. I begged her to go, but I knew the only way she would was if she lost total faith in the group, and so I told her about that day…in your room.”

  His voice cracked, and he reached for his handkerchief and gripped it tightly.

  “I went to Henri first and told him I was to blame for what happened. I told him I was sorry and that I needed to tell Rachel before she died and it was too late.”

  “And?”

  “He said it didn’t matter anymore, and there was no point in drudging up the past. He said I should think about what was best for the group. He said Rachel had dedicated her whole life to the Seekers and learning this now might make her have second thoughts.”

  “Second thoughts about leaving you the money, that is.”

  “Yes. Your mother promised the organization a lot of money. She had property and assets, and she wanted us to have them. She had always been loyal to us, to me, even when I didn’t deserve it. But after she learned about what I did, and that Henri knew but didn’t want to say anything, any faith she’d had in the group was gone. But by the time she saw a doctor in Canada, there was nothing they could do, and I never saw her again.”

  “That’s some karmic debt you have, Philippe—or don’t you believe in that anymore?”

  Philippe continued to stare out the window at the bare rose bushes. “I’m not sure it matters what I believe anymore. I have seen the future of the group, and it doesn’t look anything like I pictured.”

  “You mean Henri. So he’s punishing you for telling Rachel the truth, is that it?”

  “I
t’s my fault he is the way he is. I was young when I started the Seekers. I loved to talk, and people loved to hear me speak. And it felt good, discussing philosophy and religions and creating something that people could believe in. As long as I could give hope and answers, people would pay my way. And what’s wrong with that? I was providing a service, and everyone wants to believe in something. We all need that. And they believed in me. And the more they believed, the more I believed.”

  “That you were more than a con man.”

  “That I was what your mother saw…special. But Henri saw it differently; he said I was small-time, that I was missing the potential and power of the group. He believed there was real money to be made. Classes and counseling fees, lifetime commitments and inheritances. He said the Seekers needed a real leader, that he’d been chosen to lead them. And as a devoted leader, he was entitled to the group’s wealth. Your mother saw the changes coming long before I did, and was torn. She’d already invested so much. The center was a dream of hers, a place the Seekers could call their home. But it’s not a home. It’s a business. And I’ve been replaced.”

  “Karma’s a bitch.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “You can confess all you like, Philippe, but I’m not here to forgive you. I’ll never forgive you.”

  I knew how much my forgiveness would mean to him, especially since my mother had denied him the same thing, but I couldn’t do it. I’d had to live with what he had done to me, and he would have to do the same.

  “I know,” he said, looking at me for a moment before turning away again and wiping his eyes. “Neither did your mother. That’s why she left everything to you.”

  “An apartment the bank owned most of and a stack of debts and aliases to contend with. Some inheritance.”

  “Nothing else?” he asked, looking back to me.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Nothing but a box full of pictures and newspaper clippings. It’s like a bunch of clues to a puzzle that I have no idea how to put together.” I saw him smile and nod. “But you knew about that already, didn’t you, Philippe? You gave it to her. Another place to bury the past.”