A Killing Spring (20 page)

My son Peter was too thin and too pale, but I knew what the problem was, and I knew there was nothing I could do to help. From the time he was little, he had wanted to be a veterinarian, but he had no more aptitude for the sciences than his father or I had had. The genetic pool he needed to draw from to get a degree in vet medicine was shallow, but Peter was determined, and so year after year he soldiered away. I watched him grab a football and follow his brother outside for a game of pick-up and wished, not for the first time, that babies came with individual sets of instructions: “Teach this one to ease up on himself”; “Give this one the chance to find her own way.”

I didn’t need a set of instructions to understand Taylor’s problem that weekend. As talk about the new baby and about a past that she hadn’t been part of claimed our attention, Taylor became first clingy, then bratty. “Pay attention to me,” Angus said witheringly as his little sister whirled giddily around the table where Mieka and I were poring through a book of baby names.

We all tried to reach Taylor. Mieka showed her the kiska and dyes she’d brought from Saskatoon and offered to teach her how to make Ukrainian Easter eggs. Peter admired her art and told her that in the summer he’d help her transform the sunroom into a studio where she could get some serious painting done. Angus told her to shape up or ship out. Nothing seemed to help. Saturday night I awoke to discover Benny on my pillow with his purr mechanism on full throttle, and Taylor beside him, eyes filled with tears, lower lip trembling.

I stroked her hair. “T, can you tell me what the problem is?”

She made a sound that was half sob, half hiccup. “No,” she said, miserably.

I put my arms around her. “How about building a box and putting that problem in it till the morning?”

“It’ll still be there.”

“I know, but maybe spending a little time in a box will make it smaller.”

“Jo, would it be okay if I stayed here tonight?”

I kissed the top of her head. “Absolutely,” I said. “But you and I have a lot to do tomorrow, so you’re going to have to ask Benny to put a silencer on that purr of his.”

As it always does when life is at its best, the time went too quickly. Easter dinner was planned for mid-afternoon. Julie Gallagher arrived early with two mile-high lemon pies. She was wearing an outfit in jonquil silk, her hair was back in its careful coif, and her makeup was fresh. She looked like the old Julie, but there was uncertainty in her eyes, and as she followed me into the dining room her manner was diffident.

“I thought I’d come early, so I could give you a hand now and leave you and your family to visit after we’re through eating.”

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want to, Julie.”

She set the pies carefully on the sideboard. “I know that, and I appreciate it, believe me. But this is a family occasion, and I’m not family. I’m not even a friend.”

“You could be,” I said.

“Could I?” she asked. “You’d have to forget an awful lot, Joanne.”

“I’m fifty years old, Julie. My memory isn’t nearly as sharp as it used to be.”

She gave me a quick, dimpled smile. “Thank God for that,” she said. “Now what can I do to help?”

Julie was quiet during dinner, but it was obvious she was
enjoying herself. Besides, we’d already had our conversation. When she’d arrived, the big kids were in the park with Taylor, throwing around Frisbees. Julie and I had had twenty minutes alone together; oddly enough, we had used them to talk about love. Our conversation was surprisingly light-hearted, but one of Julie’s reminiscences was poignant. She told me that on their wedding night, Reed had said his greatest dream was to grow old with her. Then she had touched my arm and said how grateful she was to me for allowing her to believe again that when Reed died, that was still his greatest dream.

True to her word, Julie left early, but, as I watched her get into her car, for the first time since I’d known her I was sorry to see her go. Peter left early too. He had a lab test the next day, so he caught a ride back to Saskatoon with a friend as soon as we’d finished dessert. After Peter left, Greg started clearing the table.

“It’s been great, Jo.” he said. “But we’d better take off, too. Mieka’s got a lunch for fifty oil guys tomorrow, and I’ve got a squash game with a client at seven a.m.” He grimaced. “Sounds like a page out of Lifestyles of the Young and Upwardly Mobile, doesn’t it?”

“Store up those golden memories,” I said. “Come September, the oil guys and squash games are going to get nudged aside for a while.” I turned to my daughter. “Mieka, I can help Greg get organized for the trip back. Why don’t you drive over and tell Jill about the baby? I promised her you’d stop by. You don’t have to stay – just a quick flying trip.”

Jill’s apartment was on Robinson and 12th, an easy five-minute drive from my house, but even so, I was surprised at how quickly Mieka was back, and at how downcast she seemed.

“Nobody home?” I said.

She shook her head. “No, they were home. It just wasn’t a good time for a visit.” She slipped her coat off and sat down at the kitchen table. “It was so weird. I knocked and knocked, but nobody answered. Finally, a man came to the door. He introduced himself as Tom Kelsoe, Jill’s boyfriend, and said she was sleeping. I guess Jill must have heard our voices. Anyway, she came out of the bedroom. Mum, she was a mess. Her face was all bruised and she could hardly talk because her jaw was swollen. She’d been mugged.”

“Mugged?” I repeated. “Is she all right?”

“You know Jill. She’s tough. She kind of laughed it off – said the most-lasting damage had been to her vanity.”

“But she
is
okay?”

“She says she is.”

“Where did it happen?”

“In the parking lot behind Nationtv. Jill was working late. One of the men on her show had offered to walk her to her car, but she turned him down. She says the mugger just appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed her shoulder bag. Apparently, Jill put up a fight, and that’s when she got hurt.”

“That doesn’t sound like Jill,” I said. “She always said if somebody was willing to risk jail for a purse full of old Cheezie bags and maxed-out credit cards, she wouldn’t stand in their way.”

“I guess no one can predict what she’ll do in a situation like that,” Mieka said. “I’m just grateful it didn’t happen to you, too. Tom Kelsoe said there’ve been several incidents in that parking lot lately. Apparently, there’s some sort of a gang – they’re after video equipment that they can pawn for drug money, but they’ll take anything.”

I was beginning to feel uneasy. “It’s odd that I’ve never heard a word about any of this,” I said.

Mieka gazed at me thoughtfully. “I guess all that matters is that Jill’s going to be all right.”

“Of course,” I said. “That
is
all that matters.” I started for the phone. “I’m going to call her.”

“Why don’t you wait?” Mieka said. “Tom wanted her to get some sleep. I volunteered your services, but he told me he had everything under control.” She rolled her eyes. “He said he was going to find the man who did this to Jill and beat him to a pulp. I must have looked kind of shocked, because he backtracked pretty quickly. When Jill asked me to stay for tea, Tom suddenly became Mr. Sensitive and said he’d make a pot of souchong.”

“Retribution and Chinese tea,” I said. “He certainly is the Renaissance man.”

The sterling flatware we’d used for dinner was on the kitchen table, clean and ready to be put back into the silver chest until what my old friend Hilda McCourt always called “the next high day or holy day.” Mieka began sorting through it, placing the pieces back where they belonged. “You don’t like Tom Kelsoe, do you?” she said finally.

“Not at all,” I said. “And he doesn’t like me. But I still think I should go over there.”

“Jill seemed fine, Mum. Honestly. And they made it pretty clear they didn’t want anybody else around.” Mieka aligned the salad forks carefully and dropped them into their slot in the chest. Then she gave me a sidelong glance. “Aren’t there times when you and Alex don’t want other people around?”

“What do Alex and I have to do with this?”

Mieka reached over and squeezed my hand. “Nothing,” she said. “But I’m leaving in ten minutes, and we haven’t talked about him all weekend. What’s going on there?”

“I told you,” I said. “Alex went up north for a few days.”

“But you two are still together?”

I didn’t answer her. Instead, I turned so I could look out the window into the back yard. Sadie and Rose were lying in
what would soon be the tulip bed, catching the last rays of spring sunlight. They were old dogs now, fifteen and sixteen respectively, and I felt a pang thinking about what inevitably lay ahead.

“Penny for your thoughts, Mum,” Mieka said.

“You’d be wasting your money,” I said.

Greg came in from outside. “No wasting money, Mieka. We’ve got to act like grown-ups now. Speaking of which, it’s time we hit the road.”

“Give me five minutes, would you? Mum and I have some unfinished business.”

He shrugged. “Sure, I’ll go in and say goodbye to the kids.” He picked up the plate with the last of Julie’s lemon meringue pie. “I might as well take this with me.”

When he left, Mieka turned to me. “Are you and Alex having trouble, Mum?”

“Yes,” I said. “We are. Something happened.” I told my daughter about the incident on the Albert Street bridge. I didn’t gloss over the ugliness of the words the driver of the half-ton had hurled at me, and I didn’t hold back the fact that I’d run from Alex.

Mieka has the kind of translucent skin that colours with emotion, and by the time I’d finished her face was flushed. “That’s just so sick,” she said. “How can be people be like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’d give anything to have handled what happened with a little more courage.”

“Did Alex go up north because he was angry?”

“No,” I said. “He was very understanding. He always is. I don’t think what happened that night would have been a huge problem except it was so obviously a sign of things to come. Alex is afraid that having to deal with that kind of bigotry day after day would change me, change all of us.”

“Is it that serious between you two?”

“I don’t know how serious it is, Mieka. I think that’s part of the problem. For a long time, Alex and I were just going along, enjoying each other’s company, doing things with the kids. He’s so good with them. When they talk, he really listens to them, and he tells Taylor all these terrific Trickster stories.”

Mieka raised an eyebrow. “And, of course, he did teach Angus to drive. It must be love if he let a fifteen-year-old with a learner’s permit drive his Audi.”

“Alex would do that for any fifteen-year-old who wanted to get behind the wheel as much as Angus did. That’s the kind of man he is – generous and decent. And he’s an amazing lover.”

Mieka reddened and looked away.

“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot that mothers aren’t supposed to have sex.”

Mieka gave me a small smile. “They can have it; they’re just not supposed to tell their daughters about it.” Her face grew serious. “Alex isn’t much like Daddy, is he?”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not as long as Alex makes you happy.”

“He does. And I make him happy. But there are things that have to be considered.”

“Such as … ?”

“Such as the fact that he’s nine years younger than I am and his experience of life has been very different from mine.”

“And those things matter?”

“I don’t know, Mieka. In the long run they might. I guess that’s what Alex and I have to figure out.”

When Greg and Mieka left, Taylor and Benny and I walked out to the car with them. We watched the car drive towards the Lewvan Expressway; as it disappeared from sight, Taylor tugged at my sleeve.

“Are you going to love that new baby, Jo?”

“You bet,” I said. “And I’m going to keep on loving you.” I knelt beside her. “Taylor, when you first came to live with us, I didn’t really know you, but I wanted you with us because I loved your mother. Now I know you, and I want you with us because every single day in this house is better because you’re a part of it.”

I didn’t call Jill that night, but the next morning after I came in from my run with the dogs, I phoned her at home. There was no answer, but I left a message on her machine. When I got to work I called her office at Nationtv. Rapti Lustig answered and said Jill was working at her apartment that day.

“Isn’t that kind of unusual?” I said.

Rapti sighed. “Tell me one thing that’s usual around here these days.”

Jill phoned me at the university around noon. I’d just come back from a particularly rancorous department meeting, but when I heard her voice, I forgot about my colleagues’ crankiness.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“You don’t sound okay,” I said.

“My jaw’s sore. It’s hard to talk.”

“Is there anything I can bring you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Mieka said Tom was taking good care of you.”

“He’s right here,” she said. “That’s wonderful news about the baby, Jo. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Jill, are you really all right?”

She tried a laugh. “You should see the other guy.”

“I’d like to do more than see him,” I said. “But I guess that’s why we have a legal system. Look, I don’t have any
classes around lunchtime tomorrow – why don’t I bring you over a crême brulée? That’s easy to eat, even with a hurt jaw.”

“Good old Jo. Food for every occasion. But something sweet and soft does sound tempting, and it would be great to see you.” Despite the painful jaw, Jill sounded warm and welcoming.

“I’ll be there at noon,” I said, and as I hung up, I felt as if I’d scored a major victory.

When Kellee didn’t show up for the Politics and the Media seminar at 3:00, I knew the time had come to do what I should have done at the outset: find her and give her a chance to tell her side of the story. Neil McCallum had been vague about the name of Kellee’s aunt, but if his family had lived next door to Kellee’s all those years, his parents might remember hearing something about Kellee’s relative in British Columbia. As soon as class was over, I’d call him, but first I had the seminar to get through.