12 Rose Street (15 page)

Brock seemed lost in thought when we met on the stoop for our Monday run. I handed him the dogs’ leashes while I did my stretches. When I took back Willie’s leash, Brock was still preoccupied. “Bad weekend on the campaign trail?” I said.

“No, actually it was a great weekend. We had to order more window signs and we’re getting a lot of positive feedback. All’s well on that front, but something disturbing happened.”

We started down Halifax Street. “Do you want to talk about it?” I said.

“Yes, because it’s something you and Zack should be aware of. I couldn’t get to sleep last night, so I brought my bike down and went for a ride. I’d been riding for about ten minutes when I sensed that someone was following me. I did a couple of those manoeuvres you see in thrillers …”

“Doubling back on yourself, running a red?”

Brock nodded. “It sounds like a B-movie when you describe it, but whoever was driving the car, a black
SUV
, stayed with me, and it was unnerving. I cut short my ride and headed for home. The
SUV
followed me and it stopped in the street, motor running, while I walked my bike up the ramp into the lobby.”

I felt my nerves twang. “A man on a bicycle’s an easy target,” I said. “So is a man in a wheelchair. Maybe you should tell the police.”

“No need.” Brock held out his hands. “I didn’t get a licence plate number, and nothing happened to me.”

“That doesn’t mean nothing could,” I said. “Be careful, Brock, and do me a favour, tell Zack what happened, and
don’t minimize the incident. I don’t want either of you to drop your guard.”

We had a good run. It was one of those blue and gold September days when the idea of being inside breathing recycled air was sacrilege. When we got back to Halifax Street, I turned to Brock. “What have you got scheduled for this morning?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m keeping three mornings a week free for politicking.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Why don’t you and I drop off the dogs and spend the morning knocking on doors. I’ll bring my camera. It’s time for a new brochure and we’ll get some heartwarming pictures of you as a man of the people.”

Ward 6 is the largest of Regina’s ten wards and it has the lowest voter turnout – in the last election, 14 per cent of its eligible voters came to the polls. That morning Brock and I drove to Broders Annex, an older inner-city neighbourhood of small but generally well-kept homes with pretty gardens. The residents of Broders Annex are a mix of retired people and young couples starting out, so our chances of finding people at home and open to a chat were good. Door-knocking is my least favourite part of campaigning, but on that bright day we were lucky. Many people were working outdoors, and it was rejuvenating to stand in the midst of the jewel tones of a fall garden, talking about the beauty of asters and exchanging ideas about how Ward 6 could share in our city’s growth.

It was getting close to lunchtime when we turned onto Toronto Street. A sandy-haired man who appeared to be in his seventies was raking his lawn. He was wearing a Saskatchewan Roughriders jersey. Brock and I exchanged a glance. “I think this one is for us,” I said.

Brock went up and introduced himself and me. I exclaimed over the lush profusion of an autumn clematis
climbing on the arch that led to the backyard. “This is such a great neighbourhood,” I said.

“And we’d like to keep it that way,” the man said. There was something in his voice that raised my hackles. “There’s been talk of building infill housing across the street,” he went on. “A lot of us are not too happy about the prospect of getting the wrong kind of neighbours.”

“What kind of neighbours are the ‘wrong kind’?” Brock asked mildly.

“Well, no offence,” the man said. “A lot of them are Indians. Not Indians like you. You’re the right kind. I remember when you played for the Riders. You’ve always been a credit to your people, but there are some who just don’t know how to take care of things.”

“There are all kinds of people who don’t know how to take care of things,” I said.

“True,” the sandy-haired man said, “and you wouldn’t want them living across the street from you, would you?”

“No,” I said, “I wouldn’t.”

The man turned back to Brock. “Our current councillor from Ward 6 paid me a visit the other day. We exchanged ideas. Councillor Trotter is opposed to infill housing and he hinted that it’s not going to happen here on Toronto Street. Where do you stand on that?”

Brock shrugged. “The city is already committed to purchasing the land in those vacant lots across the street from you and a number of other lots in the area. They’ve also committed to building low-income housing. All tenants in the new buildings will take a course in home maintenance as a condition of their lease.”

“That’s not good enough,” the man snapped. “They’ll still be living across the street from me. I’m voting for your opponent.”

“Your choice,” Brock said. “Thanks for your time.”

“Wait,” the sandy-haired man said. “I notice your friend has a camera. Maybe she could take a picture of you and me together and send it to me.”

Brock’s eyes met mine. For both of us the situation evoked the painful memory of the buddy photograph I’d taken of Cronus with Zack and Brock on Labour Day.

Brock was the first to recover. “Maybe Joanne could take a picture,” he said. “Incidentally, this is Joanne Shreve. She’s managing my campaign and her husband, Zack’s.”

The sandy-haired guy was philosophical. “A picture’s a picture, no matter who takes it. Right?”

“Absolutely,” Brock said. “The same way a touchdown is a touchdown, no matter who scores it. Ready when you are.” He put his arm around the sandy-haired man’s shoulders, and the older man put his arm around Brock’s waist. I took the picture and got the man’s email address so I could send it to him with a nice note.

I dropped Brock off at the Al Ritchie Family Wellness Centre, where he was having lunch with parents interested in coaching football.

The wellness centre wasn’t far from the houses on Rose Street that Zack and I now owned so on impulse I decided to check them out. I was hoping I’d run into Angela, and I was in luck. She was sitting on her stoop, smoking and watching her children. The oldest, who appeared to be about three, had a rusty metal sand pail. He was trying to dig up the hard-packed dirt of the front yard with a stainless steel soup spoon. Both the other children were staring incuriously at the soup spoons they clutched in their own small hands. When I parked in front of her house, Angela stood and limped towards the front gate.

She looked gaunt and ill. “Eddie says you sent me a letter and some money,” she said.

“I dropped off a note a couple of weeks ago,” I said. “I included my address and phone number in case you wanted to get in touch, but there was no money in the envelope.”

Her lips twitched. “Eddie found the envelope in the mailbox. He’d already opened it when he brought it into the house. He said you’d sent $500 cash, but he’d taken it because I wasn’t bringing in any money these days. Then he made me watch him rip up the card and flush it down the toilet.”

“Why would he do that?”

She shrugged. “Why does Eddie do anything? Anyway, thanks for thinking of me.”

Suddenly the youngest child grabbed the handle of the sand pail and pulled it towards her. The boy who’d been digging for dirt hit the baby hard with his spoon. The baby howled and Angela turned and limped towards her. She scooped up the screaming baby, then bent, picked up the sand pail, and flung it against the front gate. The boy who’d been digging the dirt started to cry and other child joined in. The gate had a padlock on it.

“Angela, if you’ll unlock the gate, I can give you a hand,” I said. “I have kids of my own and grandkids.”

She gave me a long, hard look. “And I’ll bet their lives are fucking perfect.” She limped up the stairs, put the howling baby on the porch, and then limped back, grabbed the other two children, and disappeared into the house.

I stood on the sidewalk staring at the sand pail lodged against the gate. Much of the paint on the pail had flaked away, but there were still enough patches of white, turquoise, ocean blue, and sandy brown to reconstruct the idyllic scene of beach life that had greeted the pail’s first owner.

Like my children and my grandchildren, that child was one of the lucky ones.

Zack was heating up last night’s borscht when I got home. “That smells good,” I said. “How was your morning?”

“Heartbreaking,” Zack said. “Debbie called. They’ve released Cronus’s papers. They’re already at Falconer Shreve, but Debbie had two files she thought we should see delivered here.” He wheeled to the butcher-block table, picked up a file folder, and handed it to me. “Take a look,” he said.

The folder was filled with booklets and computer printouts. The title of the brochure on top was
Living With
ALS
.
I riffled through the other material. “These are all about Lou Gehrig’s disease,” I said.

Zack nodded. “It was in Cronus’s desk drawer.”

I remembered the difficulty Cronus had typing out the message he sent with the photo of him with Zack and Brock. “Cronus had
ALS
?”

“Looks like it,” Zack said grimly. “According to Debbie, Cronus’s Daytimer lists an appointment he had on August 15 with a neurologist.”

I shuffled idly through the material in the folder. “And the neurologist confirmed that Cronus had
ALS
?”

“He’s out of the country. Debbie’s office is still trying to reach him, but apparently the pathologist who did the initial autopsy was very thorough. The relevant test results came in yesterday. Cronus had early stage
ALS
.”

Bright as a knife the memory of Cronus’s face as he made the decision that led to his murder flashed through my mind. “We only live once,” he’d said. “Might as well make it count.”

“He knew they’d kill him,” I said.

Zack shrugged. “He probably did, but he still sent out the picture.”

“He could have lived years,” I said. “They would have been difficult years, but still …”

“Cronus sacrificed them,” Zack said. “We’ll never know what Cronus was thinking that day, but he was prepared to
die.” Zack opened the second file and handed me a single sheet of paper. “These are Cronus’s instructions for his farewell to the world. Check out the date.”

“August 15,” I said. “The day he got his diagnosis.”

“And Cronus had Darryl draw up the will naming me executor and sole beneficiary right after the jury found him innocent of his girlfriend’s murder. That was over a year ago. As far as Cronus knew then, he was in good health.”

“So there was no urgency in leaving instructions for his funeral. But that changed on August 15.” I read the directions on the single sheet of paper. They were pithy.

1. cremation

2. private funeral

3. no religious crap

4. SHORT service – Zack Shreve delivers eulogy. Frank Sinatra sings “My Way.” Zack takes his wife and my ashes out for dinner at the Sahara Club, and we all go home.

The irony of choosing the Sahara Club for Cronus’s farewell hit me like a slap. “Zack, given the circumstances of Cronus’s death, do you think we should choose another restaurant for our meal with him?”

“Cronus always wanted us to go to the Sahara Club with him,” Zack said tightly. “Why the hell didn’t we go, Joanne?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Look, this second-guessing is just making us more miserable. Let’s go over to the couch and be close for a while.”

Zack and I were still big fans of what teenagers used to call petting. After ten minutes of semi-chaste lovemaking, we were both at the heavy-breathing stage, but Zack had an afternoon of meetings, and lunch was waiting, so with reluctance, we moved to the table.

By the time we started lunch, we were both in better spirits. “So how was your morning?” Zack said.

“Perplexing,” I said. “Brock and I went door-knocking together in Broders Annex and we met a man who was concerned that infill housing would mean he’d have to live across the street from Indians.”

“He said this to Brock?”

“He exempted Brock because Brock was a football player and a credit to his people.”

Zack turned down the gas under the borscht. “The dinosaurs still walk among us,” he said.

“Indeed they do,” I said. “And they vote, although not for Brock. Zack, the guy who doesn’t want Indians living across the street from him, says that he’s voting for Councillor Trotter because Trotter told him he doubted that infill housing would come to Toronto Street.”

“Trotter can doubt all he wants, but the city’s already committed to it,” Zack said.

I took sour cream and fresh dill out of the fridge and began chopping the dill. “Has the city bought the land?”

“They announced the project last year. They must have made their move by now. I’ll get Norine to check.”

Norine called back just after lunch. Zack’s face was impassive as he listened to the report, but when he hung up he was clearly both amused and amazed. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Despite the big announcement, the city never actually purchased the land. Guess who owns it?”