It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead (3 page)

The sun was low on the horizon but
sparkling bright in a cloudless sky. It promised to be another warm April day.
A perfect day. Weather-wise. The rest of it could bite her well-rounded ass.

A cool breeze, ripe with wet grass, dirty
snow, and mushy dog shit — the perfume of springtime in the Rockies — swirled
around her and blew hair into her face. She brushed it from her eyes and tucked
it behind her ears.

The neighbourhood was still quiet at this
hour. Every neighbour was retired and pushing seventy, eighty, or more. She’d
grown accustomed to being the young one on the block. Why Gerald thought this
was the perfect place to raise kids was beyond her. It triggered one of their
pre-psychotic arguments. She lost. She usually did. But in the end, he was
right. A young neighbourhood full of screaming brats would have driven her to
join him on the crazy train.

The engine turned over and she let it idle
while she sipped strong coffee and fingered the pack of cigarettes she’d tucked
into her pocket. She tossed it on the dash, pulled away from the curb and turned
towards downtown.

The drive was easy. The early risers made
their way along the city streets, content to get up at the crack of dawn to
avoid rush hour traffic and guarantee a daily spot to park. A challenging task
after eight.

The mountains glowed purple and orange in
the distance. One of the beauties of living in this city, they could be seen
from almost anywhere. The wilderness and craggy terrain not so close that her ears
popped just driving a few kilometers, but not so far that families of deer
surprised her on the front lawn a few times each year. And the rabbits. So many
jackrabbits. She always let them nest in her yard. Over the years they learned
to trust her enough to perk up and be ready to bolt, but not race away when she
walked past.

She pulled up along the river drive and
parked in her usual spot. She loaded a toonie into the meter, pulled the wagon
from the rear of the van, and piled the food and drinks onto the wagon. She
pushed her sunglasses onto her head, rubbed sweat from the bridge of her nose,
then tapped them back to her face with one finger. The van honked to announce
it was securely locked. She dropped the keys in her sweater pocket and picked
up the wagon handle. The rubber wheels against the cracks in the sidewalk
announced her approach before she saw any movement.

“Ruby! Where ya been?” Angus stood and
stretched, leaving his favourite summer sleeping spot under the elm at the
river’s edge. He nudged his best friend with the toe of his worn boot. “Get up,
Frankie. Ruby’s here. We got breakfast.”

She hadn’t missed two days of deliveries in
more than a year, and only then when she was ill with the flu.

“Morning, Angus.” The smell of him always
found her before he got anywhere near. She’d grown accustomed to the stench.
Hadn’t flinched at it in more than a year.

Angus called her Ruby since the first day
she showed up in the park two years before. A conversation they had a week after
they met ran through her mind.

“If you call me Jem, maybe I can spot you
two juice boxes.”

“Ruby. Gem. Same thing, no?” His laughter,
like his throat was full of gravel, filled the quiet street.

“Different kind of Jem, mister.”

He never did quit calling her Ruby. And now
it was her favourite nickname.

Frank came up behind Angus and tossed an
arm over his buddy’s shoulder. “We missed you, angel. Why’d you forsake us the
past two days, huh? Find some more handsome guys to hang around with?” He threw
her an exaggerated wink and the two friends slapped each other on the back and
laughed until they coughed.

“No more handsome dudes than you, I’m
afraid.” She handed them each a sandwich, an orange, and a juice box. “It’s
pretty quiet this morning. Where is everybody?”

Angus scratched his head and glanced around
the park. “Shelter had stew last night. Maybe they stayed.”

“And there’s the new guy scaring everybody
away. He’s a damn freak.” Frank poked his thumb across the park. “But like hell
am I giving up my spot for that stinking shelter. Not to some skinny-ass Johnny-come-lately.”

Fifty yards away, a bundle of brown canvas
jacket and torn blue jeans sat at attention. His body was tucked halfway into
the branches of a tall shrub. His khaki cap was pulled down, shading most of
his face. His stare pierced right through her.

“When did he show up?”

“Day before yesterday, hey Frankie? He wandered
around the corner, sat there and hasn’t moved since. I don’t even think he’s
taken a whiz.”

“Well, I’ve got lots of sandwiches. You
boys want a couple more? I’ll see if your new friend wants some, then drop the
rest at the shelter.”

“You’re a sweetheart, Ruby, love of my
life.” Angus took two ham sandwiches and shoved them in the inside pocket of
his trench coat. “Speaking of which, any word on your missing man?”

She turned away and gazed towards the
river. “Yeah. They found him.”

“That’s wonderful news, love.”

“No, Frank. It’s not. He’s dead.”

Angus and Frank stared at her in silence.
Frank reached up and patted her shoulder three robotic times. “I. I’m sorry,
Jem.”

“Yeah, me too Ruby.”

“Thanks. It shouldn’t be such a shock,
really. He’s been gone so long. I’d often thought that he might be dead. But I
always hoped he’d come home.” She took hold of the wagon handle before grief
overtook her. She shined a bright, fake smile on them. “Well, I’ll see you
tomorrow. Let me see if I can break in the new guy for you.”

She made her way around the park and
chatted with the regular residents. Each encounter brought her nearer to the
new guy.  When the last resident was fed, she glanced towards the shrub.

His eyes glinted hate and anger from under
the brim of his cap. Matted ash-blonde hair hung past his shoulders. He stared
at her as she neared, his gaze intense, his posture stiff.

Her heart hammered and a bead of sweat
broke out on her upper lip. She’d never been nervous in the park before. She
considered passing him by. But his sunken cheeks and bony fingers broke her
heart.

“Hello. I’m Jem. Would you like something
to eat?”

He stared, didn’t move a hair, didn’t
blink. She bent over the wagon and chose pastrami — the fat would do him good.
When she straightened up, his eyes darted from the food to her face.

So he wasn’t a statue.

“Here you are. I have ham if you’d prefer.”

Nothing. Not one twitch. Just uncomfortable
scrutiny from blazing grey eyes. His skin was tanned and weathered from
exposure, but he was young. Not much older than Jem. He had a watchful
intelligence about him. He looked sober, not strung out. He didn’t even look
nuts. And she knew from nuts.

“How about I leave it for you? If you don’t
want it, someone else will take it.” She took two hesitant steps forward and
placed the sandwich on the dirt in front of him.

His gaze moved to the food and then back to
her face. No movement of the head, only the shifting of his eyes. Maybe he
couldn’t attack her if he wanted to. But he couldn’t be paralyzed, he got
himself there. He sat straight as an arrow, like a military man. Or a cop.

“What’s your name?”

Nothing.

“I come by every morning. If you like turkey
or tuna better, let me know. I can make anything you want.”

Nothing.

“Okay then. Here’s some juice and an orange.”
She placed them beside the sandwich. His eyes tracked her movements. “I’ll see
you tomorrow.”

She pulled the wagon down the sidewalk, resisting
the urge to look over her shoulder. At the corner she pushed the button to
cross. When the walk light lit, she glanced back. Angus and Frank sat at the
far end of the short park, chewing with their mouths open and patting each
other on the shoulder. She grinned and shook her head. They spent time reliving
their glory day tales, one-upping each other’s stories but never losing their
camaraderie. It passed the time. That, and searching for food, begging for cash
and booze, and bumming cigarettes off anyone that wandered by.

How many times had they told her about high
stakes business deals gone wrong? How they’d met at the peak of their careers,
and tumbled from the top of the mergers-and-acquisitions ladder to land in a heap
of shit at the bottom. They claim to be happier now. No stress. No boss. No
problem. It was hard to believe any of it was true.

She snuck one last peek at the new guy. The
food sat untouched at his feet.

hip hop sex

 
“Hi, Mother Wolfe.” Jem twisted a lock of
hair around her index finger until it throbbed and turned purple. “I’ve got
news.”

Silence in Vancouver. Then the rasping
breath of Gerald’s dying mother. “So? Out with it already. He’s not come home
or you would have said so right off.”

“No, he’s not home. He won’t ever be coming
home.”

“I see.”

Four years of assuming the worst prepares
you for just that. Jem knew that first hand.

A wheezy sigh crackled across the line. “When
is the funeral?”

“I don’t know. They’re holding his body for
evidence.”

“Evidence? Of what? Wasn’t it suicide?”

“Suicide? Of course not. Althea, he was
murdered.”

“B-but why? Who? Oh my God, no.” Althea’s voice
cracked and gave way to soft sobs followed by hacking phlegmy coughs.

Jem winced and pulled the phone from her
ear until the coughing stopped. “That’s why they’re keeping him. They don’t
know the answers yet.” She pushed her palm against a spasm growing in her abdomen.
“Did he know anyone in Montreal?”

“I don’t think so. Is that where he’s been?”

“Yes. For the last several months anyway. I’m
trying to help the detective fill in some blanks, but I’m afraid I don’t know
as much as I thought.”

“Well, clearly I don’t either. You make
sure they don’t give up on him, you hear me?”

“I will.”

“And you tell me what’s going on. Don’t
just ignore me like you’ve been doing.”

Jem grit her teeth. “I wasn’t ignoring you,
Althea.” She was simply avoiding the bitch. “I just had nothing to tell you
until now. I’ll let you know what I find out, if I find anything out.” She took
a deep breath. No fighting with this woman, not today. “When it’s time, do you
want me to send him home to you? We can have the funeral there.”

A quiet pause deadened the air between
them. “Thank you. Yes. I would appreciate that.”

Gerald was convinced his research would
cure his mother. She’d developed small tumors on her ovaries when he was ten.
The treatments of the day robbed her of her hair and her dignity. She was stripped
of estrogen, forced into early menopause, eliminating the possibility of siblings
for Gerald. Not that her age hadn’t already taken that possibility off the
table, but she loved to regale anyone who would listen with her sad tale of
being forced to have only one child.

Althea never fully recovered. Each new
diagnosis, each tiny slow tendril of disease that sucked vitality from her
pushed him toward his career in cancer research. The fact that she continued to
breathe all these years later was a medical miracle. And she gave him full
credit for that, even though it was the tireless attention of the oncologists
and a medical team of experts that kept her alive.

No wonder she didn’t trust Jem with his
heart. Or anyone else for that matter.

Althea’s health was the topic of countless
discussions between Jem and Gerald, dozens of disagreements, and more than one near-brawl.
There wasn’t a hope in hell Mrs. Wolfe would live long enough for his research
to pan out, let alone outlive her son. His research needed to be more focused,
more specialized. Ovarian cancer, where it all began. Or breast or cervical.
Hell, even pancreatic or testicular.  It was too late to save his mother, Jem
had argued, but if he put his brilliance toward something more specific, maybe
he could save a million others. He never agreed, never listened. He kept on the
path of studying all cancer, trying for the global magic cure pill that would
put his mother right. Maybe he would have done it. What the hell did she know
about it anyway? She was a lawyer, not a scientist.

When the others started telling him his
mother would die, he believed them. But it didn’t spur him to focus his
research. He gave up on it altogether. Gave up on his mother. Gave up on
himself. And gave up on Jem too.

“I’m so sorry, Althea. I loved your son.
You do know that?”

“I’m sure you did the best you could. He claimed
to love you. I never understood it. Why he didn’t fall for one of the slender
church-going beauties I set him up with I’ll never understand. They would have
had my grandchildren, stayed home. Taken proper care of my son.”

Here we go again.

Jem grit her teeth. “You know that we
planned on having a family. But he disappeared before we could.”

“And you would have kept your precious
career, let some nanny raise that child.” Althea drew a deep wheezing breath. “No
wonder he left you.”