The Gifted

by Gail Bowen

  “Fine,” Zack said. “But the sooner this is taken care of, the better. Racette-Hunter is on target to open Labour Day weekend. We can’t afford any stumbles.”

  When I called Mieka to tell her that we were all concerned that Riel’s health or personal issues were getting in the way of his job, her reaction surprised me. She seemed relieved. “Riel’s been insisting that there’s nothing wrong – that he’s absolutely fine,” she said. “If I can tell him that people he respects are concerned, too, he’ll have to listen, and if he knows his job is on the line, he’ll have to do something.”

  “Make sure he knows we’re on his side, Mieka.”

  “I will. I’m not looking forward to tonight, but whatever’s going on with Riel has to be dealt with. I’m relieved it’s finally come to a head.”

  ——

  Seemingly, it was a day for decisions. In mid-afternoon, Zack and I drove to our house on the creek to decide whether we were ready to sell. We had asked O’Neill and Son, the contractors, to restore the house to a state as close as possible to the way it had been before the explosion, and they had followed our instructions to the letter. When Zack pulled into the driveway, he was wistful. “Home again,” he said.

  “Is that how it feels to you?”

  “Everything looks just the same,” he said. “It’s tempting to believe that our old life is just waiting for us behind the front door.”

  “It is tempting,” I said. “But we both know it’s not that simple. I think the O’Neills may have an inkling that we haven’t completely made up our minds yet. You’ll notice the accessibility ramp to the front door is temporary.”

  “Let’s check the house out,” Zack said. “Reassure ourselves that one way or the other, we’re making the right decision.”

  As we moved through the silent, empty rooms, I experienced the Alice-through-the-looking-glass feeling that had enveloped me so often during the weeks following the bombing. Everything – even the colours of the paint on the walls – was the same, but nothing was the same. I gazed at the yard. Taylor’s old studio was there, but the girl who had made art so joyfully in that light-filled space had found another space in which to make art. We had all moved along.

  Our inspection was unhurried. We both wanted to be sure.

  When we re-entered the front hall, Zack took my hand. “Well, Ms. Shreve, as an old law professor of mine used to say, we’ve squared the circle. What’ll it be – the comfortable past or the uncertain future?”

  “I vote for Halifax Street,” I said.

  “This was our home,” Zack said.

  “And now Halifax Street is our home,” I said. “Everything’s temporary, Zack.”

  Zack drew me close. “We’re not temporary.”

  I stroked his cheek. “No. We’re forever. I’ll email the O’Neills and tell them they can forget about the accessibility ramps. I guess the next step is to put the house on the market.”

  “Nobody buys a house this close to Christmas,” Zack said. “Let’s wait till spring.” He checked his watch. “Perfect timing. We can pick up the girls’ stuff from Mieka’s and be at their school in time to canoodle awhile in the parking lot.”

  “It’s a Catholic school, Zack.”

  Zack raised his eyebrows. “Catholics canoodle.”

  Zack had a dinner to attend that night, so as soon as we got home we lit the fire and while I made the girls hot chocolate, Zack measured our martinis. We sat down and listened to Lena’s tales of the latest perfidy of her arch-enemy, Jade, and Madeleine’s account of her volleyball team shellacking the team from Holy Rosary. Then the girls put on old shirts and went upstairs to paint in their corner of Taylor’s studio.

  Except for the fact that Zack wouldn’t be with us, it was my favourite kind of evening. Taylor and the little girls and I had pot roast, and after we’d cleaned up, Madeleine and Lena had a bubble bath. Because the condo’s master bedroom was on the second floor, it was Taylor’s by default. The room was very large and had a northern exposure – a perfect studio for an artist. Taylor recognized its potential, and it became her studio. The second floor guestroom was smaller, but it was still spacious enough to accommodate the king-sized bed Taylor deemed essential for a truly great sleepover. That night when I tucked the girls in for stories, Taylor hopped in with them to listen to two of her old favourites: A Promise Is a Promise and Hide and Sneak, Michael Kusugak’s tales of Allashua, a rash but resourceful Inuit girl. When I started downstairs after lights out, I could hear the girls murmuring about the snow fort they were planning to build at the cottage during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and I sent up a silent prayer that they would remain close throughout their lives.

  It had been a long day and I was eyeing Zack’s and my own bed when the buzzer from the lobby sounded. Ours is not a welcoming neighbourhood, and even friends who know our security number don’t feel comfortable dropping in after dark. Nonetheless, it seemed we had a visitor.

  The voice was a man’s. “I need to see Zack,” he said. Even with the distortion of intercom, Vince Treadgold’s baritone was distinctive. I buzzed him in, ran a comb through my hair, and waited.

  When I opened the door, I stood aside to let Vince come in. I had never seen him looking anything other than immaculate, but that night he was dishevelled. “Zack’s not here,” I said. “He’s at a dinner. He won’t be home for a couple of hours. Can it wait?”

  “No,” he said. “I just punched my wife, and I need to talk to a friend.”

  His voice was flat, without emotion. I felt half sick, but I managed to keep my own voice even. “Is Lauren all right?”

  He nodded. “She’ll have a black eye, but otherwise, she’s fine.” He sounded as clinical as the surgeon he was, but his tapping foot showed he was anything but calm.

  “Let me take your coat,” I said. “I’ll call Zack.”

  Vince followed me into the living room and sat on one of the two reading chairs by the window. I dialled Zack’s cell, but the call went straight to voicemail. Vince’s eyes were on my face. I shook my head and left a message. There was nothing in the etiquette book to cover the situation in which Vince and I found ourselves. “Can I get you anything?” I said.

  Vince’s smile was wintry. “A lawyer,” he said.

  “I’m working on it.”

  I sat down on the edge of the other reading chair. The rain hitting the windows was soothing, and for a moment Vince and I simply listened. Then Vince began to talk. “I was supposed to catch the 7:30 plane to Calgary – a conference on cartilage restoration. I’d been at the hospital since 4:30 this morning. I had my overnight bag with me, and I called a cab to take me to the airport. Then I got a text from Lauren urging me to come home immediately. When I got there the house was quiet. So I went upstairs to our room to see if Lauren was ill.”

  “Vince, I shouldn’t be hearing this.”

  Vince’s laugh was short and sardonic. “And I shouldn’t have witnessed my wife being fucked by another man, but I did.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Vince made a quick gesture of dismissal. He didn’t want pity. “Do you know what the real shock was?” he said. “Seeing Lauren, who simply endures sex with me, writhing and moaning as her young lover shoved his cock into her.” Vince shut his eyes and rubbed his temples as if to erase the images flooding his brain. “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak. I could only watch. When she reached orgasm, she wouldn’t let him stop. By the time she came for the third time, she was sobbing, and he finally pushed himself off. Even then, Lauren wasn’t finished. She took his head in her hands and whispered something. He started to move down towards her genitals, and that’s when she saw me and screamed.

  “The boy – and he was just a boy – got out of bed, picked up his clothes, and sauntered past me. Lauren was angry at me. She said, ‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to be at a conference.’

  “When I told her I’d come because of her text, she just stared at me.” V
ince stopped and swallowed hard. “My mind was racing. Lauren’s text had been sent less than half an hour before I got home. Nothing made sense. Then I had this blinding insight. Lauren had sent the text because she wanted me to see her with her lover. When I told her that I knew what she’d done, she slid out of bed, told me she had no idea what I was talking about, and started to walk away. I grabbed her arm and pulled her so that she had to face me. When I saw the contempt in her eyes, something inside me snapped.”

  The room was incredibly still. Our bouvier, Willie, moaned in his sleep.

  Vince stood. “May I use your bathroom?”

  His question placed us both firmly back into the world of the commonplace.

  “Of course.”

  As I stroked Willie, waiting for Vince to return, my mind drifted.

  Years before I met Zack, Mieka broke her leg skiing. It was an ugly break, and Vince Treadgold had been the surgeon who operated on her. One of the nurses who cared for Mieka told me that I was fortunate that Dr. Treadgold was Mieka’s surgeon because he had gentle hands.

  I tried not to think about how Vince’s gentle hands had struck his wife. My cell rang. It was Zack.

  “I got your message,” he said. “So what’s going on?”

  “Vince showed up here about fifteen minutes ago. He found Lauren in bed with her lover. My guess is that the lover was Julian, but whatever the case, Vince hit Lauren and he wants to talk to you.”

  “What the hell?” Zack said. “Vince isn’t that kind of guy.”

  Suddenly I was very tired. “Zack, just come home.”

  “I will, but let me talk to Vince first.”

  “He’s in the bathroom – just come now, please.”

  “Okay, of course,” Zack said. “I have to say a couple of goodbyes and wait for my car, but I’ll be there ASAP. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay, but I don’t know how to handle this. Vince has already told me far too much.”

  “Tell him to put a sock in it.”

  “I did.”

  “Tell him again.”

  When Vince came out of the bathroom, he looked better. He’d clearly splashed water on his face, his hair was damp and gently tousled, and he smelled pleasantly of Dove soap. I knew Vince was a long-time member of AA, so I made us tea and we returned to our reading chairs in the living room. I tried to steer the conversation to safe territory, but Lauren’s presence hovered between us, and we finally gave up and retreated into silence.

  When I heard Zack’s key in the lock, I met him at the door. “Are you okay?” he said.

  I kept my voice low. “I’m fine, but I’m going to take the dogs up to the roof garden for a run and give you two a chance to talk.”

  Zack removed his scarf and handed it to me. “Keep your neck covered, and wear your jacket. It’s raw out there.”

  The scarf still held Zack’s body warmth. “You take good care of me,” I said, and then I kissed him and called Willie and Pantera.

  The dogs and I stayed on the roof until I saw Vince get into the Mercedes he’d parked in front of our building and drive off.

  Zack had more tea steeping when the dogs and I got back. “I thought you might be up for a hot toddy,” he said.

  “It’s been a hot toddy evening,” I said. “Can you talk about how things went with Vince?”

  “No reason not to. Vince says he told you everything.”

  “Did he recognize Lauren’s lover?”

  “No. Seeing his wife actually enjoying sex was enough to devastate Vince.” Zack rubbed his eyes. “Jo, why the hell would Lauren have sent that text?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She told me she feels trapped in their marriage, but Lauren has never struck me as cruel. Is it possible Vince misunderstood the text?”

  “No. He showed it to me. The message came from Lauren’s iPhone and it was clear and concise. ‘Come home as soon as you get this.’ ”

  “What’s Vince going to do?”

  “I told him to go to a hotel. I don’t believe Lauren’s the type to take an axe to Vince in the middle of the night, but violence begets violence, and I figure better safe than sorry.”

  “I wonder how Lauren’s doing?”

  “I wonder that, too,” Zack said.

  “I’m going to call her,” I said.

  “If Lauren brings charges, as she has every right to do, I’ll be representing Vince. I’m not sure calling her is a good idea.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, and I went to the telephone and dialled the Treadgolds’ number. I listened as the phone rang a half-dozen times, then turned back to Zack. “No answer,” I said. “Do you think Lauren went to the police?”

  “I don’t know,” Zack said. “For what it’s worth, after the incident, Vince apparently remembered his Hippocratic oath. He checked out Lauren’s eye, made her an ice pack, and told her to get medical help if her vision seemed impaired.”

  “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning,” I said.

  Zack poured the tea into mugs and added lemon, honey, and brandy. He handed me my toddy. “You do realize that a good lawyer will be able to get Vince off.”

  I sipped my drink. “Are you the good lawyer?”

  Zack shrugged. “How’s your toddy?”

  “Nice change of subject, Mr. Shreve. You look beat,” I said.

  “That’s because I am beat,” Zack said. “Let’s finish our drinks and hit the sack.”

  Most often when we were both tired, Zack and I just kissed, said good night, and moved in close, but that night we talked. Our topics were inconsequential, nods to the precious normal things in our lives. Zack passed along some intriguing anecdotes from the dinner he’d attended. I told him about Taylor curling up with Madeleine and Lena for stories. When I mentioned overhearing the three girls planning the snow forts they would build at the lake, Zack chuckled. “I’m not an expert on adolescent girls,” he said, “but it seems to me that Taylor’s more eager than most girls her age to hang on to her childhood.”

  “It’s a good place for her,” I said. “I’m sure Kaye has told Taylor what she told us – that the auction is going to change everything for her.”

  Zack pulled up the blanket. “I’m not exactly thrilled about Kaye’s prophecy.”

  I moved close to him. “Neither am I,” I said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it, so we might as well just tighten our skates and hope for the best.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  The art auction started at seven, so we were planning an early dinner. As I set the table, I was grateful that my enthusiasm for the evening ahead was no longer dampened by concern about Mieka and Riel. Mieka had called in mid-morning with a report about her night with him. They had decided to live separately until they had worked out their problems. The good news was they were both determined to do whatever was necessary to save their relationship. Riel was going to see his doctor and seek counselling, and he would be a frequent and welcome visitor to Mieka’s home. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was a first step, and I was optimistic.

  When we sat down to dinner, Taylor was in a strange mood. She was usually a hearty eater and a lively mealtime companion, but that night she picked at her food silently and excused herself before dessert. When she went upstairs to get ready, Zack wheeled his chair close to me. “Is she just nervous about the auction?”

  “That’s my guess,” I said. “But I’ll give her a chance to shower. And then I’ll see what’s up.”

  Fifteen minutes later when I knocked on the door of Taylor’s bedroom, there was no answer. I went down the hall to Taylor’s studio. The door was ajar. Taylor was in her robe, her hair damp from the shower, staring at the blank canvas on the easel in front of her.

  “Is everything all right?” I said.

  She whirled around to face me. “No. Nothing’s all right. What if my paintings are no good? So far, the only people who’ve seen my work are our friends, my teachers, and Darrell. Tonight, strangers are going to be l
ooking.”

  “Darrell chose to put two of your paintings in the auction,” I said. “He wouldn’t have done that if they weren’t good.”

  “He’s a friend of our family. He’s probably just being nice.”

  “Darrell’s a professional art dealer,” I said. “And he’s agreed to be Racette-Hunter’s link to the artistic community. He wouldn’t compromise his standards just to be nice. Besides, he cares about you. He wouldn’t let you show your work publicly if you weren’t ready.”

  “What if nobody bids on my pieces?”

  “They will. I’ve already told your dad that if we don’t come home with Two Painters, he’ll sleep in the garage for the rest of his life.”

  Taylor had inherited Sally’s wide and expressive mouth. I could gauge her feelings simply by looking at the line of her lips and at how the corners of her mouth turned. Now her lips twitched into the beginning of a smile. “What if somebody bids against him?”

  “Then your dad will have to bid more. He always says I never ask for anything. He’ll be relieved to know that I can be wildly extravagant when there’s something I really want.”

  “What about BlueBoy21? What if people just don’t like it? It’s pretty conservative.”

  “Conservative because of the connection with Gainsborough?”

  “No, because it’s not ‘cutting edge,’ ” Taylor said, flashing her fingers in furious air quotes. “BlueBoy21 is my take on the kind of art Gainsborough made, especially the way he used warm colours against cold colours to find the true face of his subject. For a lot of critics now, showing the inner life of the subject isn’t enough.”

  “Sounds like you’ve done a lot of research on this,” I said.

  “Julian knows a lot about the modern art scene. He warned me that some people might have a problem with BlueBoy21 because it doesn’t make a statement.”

  “But you still made the painting you wanted to make.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Taylor said, and I could hear Sally in her voice.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Now get dressed. I guarantee there will be heated bidding on your work.”