by Mary Lawson
Luke shook his head. “ ’Fraid not. Half an hour’s her limit. After that her mouth snaps open like it’s on a spring.”
That night, just as he was sinking into sleep, there was a knock at the front door. It wasn’t loud, but nonetheless it jolted him awake, almost as if he’d been waiting for it. He heard his father answer the door, heard voices faintly. He knew it was Reverend Thomas. He stayed where he was, lying on his back, staring at the darkness, until finally he heard the front door open and close again. Then he got up and went downstairs.
Afterwards, when his father had told him what Reverend Thomas had said, he went back up to his room. He didn’t go to bed straight away; instead, he went over to the window and stood for a while looking out at the night. The wind had picked up and it was snowing again, the snow creating a shifting, swirling halo around the light at the end of the drive. For a moment he saw Rob and himself staggering down the road in the wake of the snowplough, laughing like idiots, Rob clutching the hubcap he’d found in the snow.
He thought about Robert’s death—allowed himself to think about it, for the first time didn’t try to suppress it.
A car went by, a cloud of snow whirling up behind it. The wind caught it and sent it spiralling upwards and then it paused and drifted down.
He thought about Reverend Thomas, coming out on such a night, driven by the unendurable need to unburden himself to another mortal soul. And also to absolve him, Tom, of blame. Grateful though he was, Tom wasn’t sure the Reverend was right that no one could have prevented Rob’s suicide, but he could see now that it was possible; that someone might be in so much pain they couldn’t even hear what anyone else said, far less be comforted by it.
You’re never going to know, he said to himself, watching the snow. You’re going to have to live with that. There’s nothing you can do but face it, and accept it. That’s all. Just let it be.
Late the following evening there was another knock on the door and when Tom opened it Sergeant Moynihan was standing on the doorstep.
“I need to speak to you and your dad,” the sergeant said. You could see by his face that it was bad news. Tom took him through to his father’s study and the three of them sat down.
The sergeant spoke heavily, directing his words at the floor. He told them that earlier in the afternoon he’d been driving along Whitewater Road. As he passed the turnoff to the ravine he saw a glint of metal through the trees and decided to investigate. The glint of metal turned out to be Reverend Thomas’s car, stuck in a snowdrift. Reverend Thomas was inside.
“Wasn’t carbon monoxide poisoning,” the sergeant said, “ ’cause the engine was switched off. The doc says it could have been a heart attack. He can’t say for sure until the post-mortem. He says it could have been just the cold. Got down to minus eighteen last night.”
When he stopped speaking there was no sound in the room. Tom watched snowflakes hitting the windows, spearing out of the dark. The snow had been heavier still last night. He thought of it drifting silently down around the car, the old man watching it, perhaps even marvelling at its beauty, as the cold crept in.
The sergeant had been studying his boots but now he looked up.
“Haven’t found a note,” he said. “So could have been an accident. But he hasn’t been lookin’ too good lately. My guess is he just couldn’t make sense of things anymore. Couldn’t find a reason to go on.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Megan
Struan, March 1969
When she arrived, Tom was standing in the middle of the kitchen eating cornflakes. His shoulders were hunched in order to shorten the distance the spoon had to travel and he looked thin and dishevelled, just as he always had. The unexpected rush of gladness at seeing him was so great that for a moment Megan didn’t notice that he was eating out of the upturned lid of a saucepan. Then she noticed and, looking beyond him to the kitchen counter, saw why he was eating out of the lid of a saucepan and she almost turned around right then and there and went back to England.
“Why are you eating out of a saucepan lid?” she asked.
Tom turned and saw her and his face lit up.
“Well hey!” he said. “It’s Meg! Hi! You came! How are you? How was the trip?”
“Long. Why are you eating out of a saucepan lid?” She wanted to hear him say it. She was floating in a haze of fatigue—the Toronto airport had been closed by snow and the plane diverted to Montreal, adding many hours to an already painfully long trip—and she was not in a tolerant or forgiving frame of mind.
Tom said, “There aren’t any clean bowls. It’s really good to see you, Meg. No kidding, it really is.”
“You look terrible,” Megan said, because that was the next thing she noticed. There were bruise-like shadows around his eyes and he looked about forty.
“Yeah, well. You don’t look too great yourself but I imagine we’ll both survive.” He tipped his head back and shouted, “Adam! Come see who’s here!”
Adam appeared in the doorway. Megan forgot about the saucepan lid and being tired. He had their mother’s eyes and soft fair hair, and no photograph could possibly have done him justice. She forbade herself to scoop him up in her arms—he didn’t know her and it might frighten him—but she knelt down to be on his level.
“Hello, Adam,” she said.
“Hello,” he said. He studied her gravely. “Are you Meg?”
“Yes,” Megan said. “I’m Meg.”
He held out a car. It was the silver Mercedes. “This is my favourite,” he said.
Next she went up to see her mother.
“Hello, Mum,” she said from the doorway. “How are you?”
“We’re fine, dear,” her mother said, rubbing the baby’s back. “We’re both just fine. How are you?”
“I’m fine too,” Megan said, though a chill went through her. She crossed to the bed and took a look at her youngest brother (he looked exactly like the rest had at that stage), kissed her mother and sat down on the bed beside her. She wanted to hug her but her mother looked too fragile.
“I’ve been away a long time,” she said. “Did you miss me?”
Her mother looked down at the baby.
“Mum?” Megan said.
Her mother looked up. There was bewilderment in her eyes. She searched Megan’s face as if for clues.
Megan wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She looked away, fear like a taste in her mouth. Then she smiled at her mother, leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “It’s okay,” she said gently. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
She went downstairs, phoned Dr. Christopherson and made an appointment for a house-call the following morning. When she’d hung up the phone she sat down stiffly on a kitchen chair and tried to talk some sense into herself. Don’t start imagining things, she said silently. It could be something quite simple. Something to do with her hormones, maybe. Probably in the morning Doctor Christopherson would give her mother a pill, and she’d be fine.
From the living room came the sound of a mini pileup. For some reason Megan found it comforting. She drew a deep breath, stood up and surveyed the kitchen. Now then, she thought. From an untouched pile in a kitchen drawer she dug out two clean tea towels, summoned Tom and Adam, gave them a towel each and together they washed every dish in the house. Then she made out a shopping list and gave it to Tom.
“This is just to tide us over till tomorrow,” she said, steering him towards the front door. “I’ll do a proper shopping then.”
Then she went down to the basement to put in a load of laundry and then she came up and gave Adam a bath.
“Do you have any clean clothes?” she asked him, towelling his thin little body. Not dangerously thin, though, she thought. He’s okay. He hasn’t actually starved.
“I don’t think so,” Adam said.
“We’ll put on dirty ones for now, then.”
Downstairs the outer door slammed and then the inner door.
“Who do you think that is?” s
he asked Adam, listening to the ruckus.
“Peter and Corey,” Adam said.
“I think so too. Let’s go downstairs and surprise them.”
Peter and Corey had fought their way through the living room to the kitchen and were locked in mortal combat on the floor.
“Hello, boys,” Megan said, standing in the doorway. “Remember me?”
“We need to talk,” she said to her father, “but not tonight.”
That was the second thing she said to him. The first (apart from hello) was that she was flying back to England in two weeks minus a day. “I’m tired and I’m going to bed now. But Dr. Christopherson is coming to have a look at Mum at eight thirty tomorrow morning and you’re going to need to be here. Can you manage eight thirty or should I change the appointment?”
“I believe I can manage that,” her father said. He had trouble meeting her eyes and Megan hoped it was because he was ashamed, because if he wasn’t he should be.
“Megan,” he said as she turned to go. “It’s very nice to see you. And very good of you to come.”
So he was ashamed, which was something. “It’s nice to see you too,” she said, because strangely, in spite of everything, it was.
“I’m sleeping in here with you,” she said to Adam, unpacking her exceedingly small suitcase. “Is that all right?” They were in the twins’ room.
“Yes,” Adam said. He was looking anxious, though. She guessed it was the diaper question.
“It’s your bedtime too,” she said, “so we can both get ready. Do you know how to fold your diaper? I put them on the chest of drawers.” She said it as if it was a perfectly normal thing for four year olds who had been dry for some time to suddenly need to wear diapers again, and it seemed to do the trick; the anxiety cleared.
“Yes,” he said.
“Show me, then.”
He took a diaper from the pile, spread it out on the bed, took two of the corners and folded them in, then folded one of the folds in on itself, then the other.
“Um …,” Megan said doubtfully.
“It’s aerodynamic like this,” Adam explained. “These are the wings and the air blows over the top of them like that and lifts it into the sky.”
“I see,” Megan said, forgiving Tom all sins past, present and still to come. “Fair enough. But how do you put it on?”
“You have to pull it apart a bit at the front and fold it down and then bring the back around and pin it, but I can’t do the pinning.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
In the night she heard the wind and the creaking of the house and she was back where she started. Andrew, Peter, Annabelle, the Montrose, her much-loved bedsit, her lost suitcase, the trip to England—all ghostly figments of a dream. She went back to sleep and Andrew was there but she couldn’t touch him and every time she tried he disappeared.
When she woke she washed and dressed and supervised Adam doing the same and hammered on Peter and Corey’s door and went down and got breakfast on the table and took tea and toast up to her mother and hammered on the boys’ door again and went down to make their lunches for school.
As the boys were leaving, Dr. Christopherson arrived. He stayed for an hour. He was very kind and very gentle with her mother, and then very kind but very honest with Megan and her father. When he had gone Megan and her father sat on in the kitchen for some time, not speaking.
Early-onset dementia, he had called it. Megan had never heard of it.
“Have you heard of it?” she said to her father at last.
He stirred himself and rubbed his hands over his face. “I think it’s what used to be called premature senility,” he said. “Though I’m not sure.” He looked very strained.
Whatever it was called, Megan couldn’t reconcile it with the person who was her mother. But maybe it was something else, something less serious. Dr. Christopherson had said they’d know more once they’d seen a specialist in Toronto.
Megan pulled herself together. “We need to talk about the practical side of things. Can we do it now or do you want to wait until tonight?”
“Now will do.”
“Dr. Christopherson seemed to think that she could stay at this stage for quite a while,” Megan said. “If the specialist agrees, then that’s really good, especially for Dominic’s sake. But you’re going to have to get someone reliable to do the housework and the cooking and keep an eye on Mum. What happened to Mrs. Jarvis?”
“Mrs. Jarvis?”
“She used to come in to help Mum.”
“Ah. I believe she was ill.”
“Oh. Well, would you like me to make some inquiries?”
“That would be good of you, Megan.”
“All right, I’ll ask around. Now, regarding Peter and Corey …”
Her father visibly flinched.
“You are all they’re going to have,” Megan said.
Her father picked up his pen, removed the top, put the top back on, set the pen down. Megan waited. Finally he met her eyes.
“You’re all they’re going to have,” Megan said again, because he had to understand that, and accept it, or nothing was going to work. “They need a firm hand, they need routine and they need supervision, and you can’t expect someone who comes in to cook and clean to do that. Which leaves you.”
She waited for it to sink in. Then she added, gently but very firmly, “And, Dad, you won’t be able to do it from your study.”
She felt like the executioner with red tights in the painting of Lady Jane Grey.
“And then there’s Adam,” she said that night after Adam was in bed. She and Tom were in the living room. Their father was in his study while he still could be.
“Yes.”
“Are you all right, by the way?” she asked.
“Yes. Things have been a little rocky. But yes.”
“You said on the phone you were leaving soon. Where are you going?”
He hesitated. “There’s a guy, Luke Morrison, out in Crow Lake who makes furniture—he’s got the contract for this swanky new hotel they’re building out along the lakeshore, so he’s taking people on. He asked if I’d like a job. I might do that for a bit.”
“Why?” Megan said. It was just plain ridiculous. He’d been mad about planes for his entire life; he’d just made a flying diaper, for goodness sake.
“Why not? He’s a nice guy.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? You’re a … whatever it’s called, an aerodynamic engineer.”
“Aeronautical,” Tom said. He shrugged and looked evasive. “I might see if Boeing or de Havilland have any vacancies. I’ll see how it goes.”
Megan decided that meant he was going back to planes, he just wasn’t going to say it out loud yet. He had always hated committing himself. He’d keep saying “I’ll see how it goes” until he had his suitcase packed and one foot out the door.
“How about you?” Tom said. “You’re sold on England, are you?”
“I love my job.”
“You run a hotel, right?”
“Yes.”
“You’d be good at it.”
He scraped at a spot on his jeans with a fingernail. Shifted in his chair. Cleared his throat. “Look, I’m not saying what I’m about to say with any ulterior motive. I’m just telling you because it happens to be true. Okay?”
“Just say it,” Megan said.
“Right. The guy who owns this new hotel is up here at the moment recruiting staff. There’s a list of the jobs in the Temiskaming Speaker today and one of them is for a hotel manager. I’m just telling you, okay? It was in the paper and I saw it and I’m telling you, that’s all.”
Megan forgot that she had forgiven him all his sins. “I looked after this family for fifteen years!” she said. “And I’m not coming back!”
“Okay. I know. I don’t blame you. Though it’s a live-in job, so you wouldn’t exactly be back, you’d be a couple of miles away. But I don’t blame you.”
There was silenc
e apart from the sound of the wind.
Tom said, “The boss-guy of the hotel is a bit of an idiot but he seems pretty nice, pretty flexible. He might not mind if you had Adam with you.” He lifted his hands. “Okay, okay. I was just thinking out loud.”
“Well, stop!”
“Okay. I’ve stopped.”
He arched his back stiffly. “I’m going to bed. I have to be up at five fifteen.”
The wind was making whooping noises in the chimney, which meant it was from the west. Strange, Megan thought, the things you remember and the things you forget.
Tom stood up, hesitated, sat down again.
“Have you met someone over there, Meg?”
She saw Andrew. He’d be at his desk now. Fretting over a word, a comma. In a while he’d get up and stretch and wander across the hall to her room, but she wouldn’t be there.
“I think that’s a yes,” Tom said after a minute. “That changes things all right. If you’ve found the right person, well … that’s the rest of your life you’re talking about. Obviously you have to go back.”
He went up to bed shortly after that. Megan tidied the few things that needed tidying and listened to the wind and the creaking of the house. The sounds of her childhood. Sounds she had known long before she knew there was a world out there beyond the frozen North.
When she went upstairs to get ready for bed she left the bedroom door ajar a few inches rather than switching on the light, but Adam woke up anyway. He sat up in bed, looking at her, eyes wide.
“It’s all right,” Megan said quietly. “It’s just me.”
“I didn’t know if you were real,” he said.
Megan smiled at him. “I’m real. Are you real?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Megan said. “I’m very glad about that.” Once again she resisted the urge to pick him up and hold him to her because if she did that she’d start to cry and she didn’t want him to see her cry. She closed the door and climbed into the bed beside his and reached out across the space between them and took his hand. “Let’s go to sleep, shall we?”