Scare the Light Away (23 page)

“Yeah, I found the cheapest lawyer in the North. It wasn’t easy.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t. But I’ll pay you back.”

I shrugged. “As I said: thirty years’ worth. Talk to you later.”

The promise of a sunny afternoon offered by the sun catcher in the kitchen window had been fulfilled. The lake sparkled blue and gold, smooth and clear and so attractive and seductively inviting that I thought about going for a swim. But, regardless of how it looked, the water would not be warm enough for swimming for another six weeks at the earliest.

A chevron of returning Canada geese passed high overhead, honking their delight at being home again. The dull roar of a motorboat sounded in the distance. Humans also happy to see signs of summer soon to come. Sampson trotted ahead, criss-crossing the path, sniffing out everything that had walked this way since she last passed, separating the safe and the belonging from the hostile and foreign. Would that we could do so as easily.

I no longer had any doubts that my brother had anything to do with Jennifer Taylor’s death. Perhaps I’m naïve, but I’d looked into his face as he thought about the girl he admired, and as he talked about the wife he loved so much, I saw how vulnerable he had allowed himself to become.

Yes, I believed him.

Sampson lifted her head, froze for a moment, and then dashed down the road, the hill echoing with the sound of her barking. I trotted after her. Ghoulish tourists or protective police, they were all the same to her. Interlopers to be driven away.

The first time they met, Sampson had accepted Jimmy without question. Time for me to forget the past and do so as well.

I walked up the lawn to my parents’ house, my home. The house to which I had been proudly carried on the day my newborn self left the hospital. Where my grandfather ruled the roost with an iron fist and a heart to match. Where his first-born son fell face first into the bottle to avoid becoming him. What sort of man had my father been before he met my mother? I had caught brief glimpses of his younger self in the words of her diary. If he’d married a lesser woman than Janet Green, would he have succumbed to self-preservation and abandoned his mother? It was obvious to me, although Mom didn’t come right out and say it in the diary, that my grandfather had beaten my grandmother, badly, the day Dad was in Toronto meeting Mom and Shirley off the train. Probably as a warning to his son of what would happen if he tried to make a life of his own. Was it good that Dad had stayed in Hope River, living in his father’s house? If not for the rest of us, at least for Dad’s sense of self?

What would we have been, Jimmy and Shirley and I, had we not been raised in that atmosphere of fear and constant anxiety, mixed with the tender love of our mother? Shirley might be less bitter. Jimmy, of course, would not have been at all. And what a gap that would have left in dear Aileen’s life.

Thoughts on the scale of “the meaning of life.” Far too complicated for a sunny spring day tinged with the miasma of murder and vengeance.

In the middle of the yard, a handful of crocuses, purple and yellow, smiled into the sun from beneath a big old white pine. The flowers had been planted by my mother. Mother loved her garden. Although when I had been a child, she devoted a good deal more time and attention to the vegetable patch out back than to frivolous flowers. But she always managed to put some bulbs in the ground every fall, so she could delight in the most visible sign of spring. At Laura Secord’s historic house in Queenstown, Ontario, rose bushes still grow that graced the lawns when she lived there close to two hundred years ago. Perhaps Janet Green McKenzie’s crocuses would live as long. It was a nice thought.

Chapter 39

The diary of Janet McKenzie. Sunday, May 8, 1960. Mother’s Day

What a perfectly lovely day it has been. Bob and Rebecca brought me breakfast in bed. The food was perfectly dreadful, the eggs the consistency and taste of rubber, burnt around the edges, the yolks hard and dry. Toast so underdone it hadn’t even started to color and tea the shade of weak milk. But they picked a red tulip from the garden and put it into a water glass on the tray, and Rebecca simply burst with pride and that made it all taste like a meal prepared in heaven.

At lunch time, Bob shooed me out of the kitchen, saying that Rebecca and he had everything in hand. Much laughing and giggling as they worked. They packed the lunch into a laundry basket, covered it with a blanket and carried it down to the rocks by the lake for a picnic. Shirley made the effort to crawl out of her room and join us. She even waded into the lake with Rebecca for a short while, forgetting that she is too grown up and sophisticated to play with her baby sister. Shirley is only 15 and is devoting far too much attention to her clothes and the bit of makeup she can buy with her allowance. And too much, much too much, time with that Smithers boy. Horrid creature. She has given up any pretence of doing her schoolwork. But I hope that she will get over it in time and return to being the good student that she once was. I would love to see her attend business school. With a qualification like that she could find herself a good secretarial job and get out of Hope River.

But I refuse to let such miserable thoughts interfere with my enjoyment of this lovely day. Jim walked up to the big house to escort Mrs. M. down to the picnic, which was so nice of him. Mr. M. is in jail for breaking some man’s arm in a bar fight. Bob said we are lucky that he only got thirty days. Lucky! Better they had thrown away the key! With him not around, Mrs. M. actually manages a smile now and again and my son, Jim, forgets that he is supposed to be hard and mean and sullen. He even joined the girls to play in the water.

It’s too cold for swimming yet, but the children waded across the rocks and splashed at each other. Jim chased Shirley, pretending he had a water snake that he was going to put down her back. We could hear him laughing and Shirley squealing as she fled for the safety of the house. They came back and found Rebecca searching through the rocks looking for a snake of her own. Jim told her that he was only pretending, and she looked so disappointed that he promised to teach her to fish this summer. He then tried to talk his grandmother into joining them. She refused, of course, but she was tickled pink to have been asked.

He’s a good boy, my son Jim, underneath. I see him every day struggling under the crushing weight of his unknown legacy. I can only hope that he’s strong enough to bear it.

Chapter 40

Without warning my legs protested that they simply didn’t have the strength to make it up the steps to the deck and carry me into the house. I collapsed on the bottom step and looked out over the yard. My mother’s crocuses swayed in the light wind. Beyond the road the blue lake sparkled in the sunshine. We should move that road, I thought, it’s an eyesore. It joins nothing but the little house and the big house to the county sideroad. Moving it shouldn’t cause any trouble. Then we’d have a perfect stretch of land, the wide yard running straight down to the rocks and the water.

A chipmunk crept out from under the big white pine, looked at me with huge brown eyes and a twitch of its whiskers, clearly wondering if I was in possession of something worth eating. But at a bark from Sampson, it turned and ran up the tree, the chopped-off tail quivering.

I burst into tears. Sampson crept over as if she’d done something wrong, whined, and licked my face to make everything right again. I hugged her close and cried into her fur. Her ruff and belly were thick with dried mud and shedding hair. My fingers plucked at the knots, and I cried some more.

Nothing could make it right.

Ever again.

I cried for the man I loved, the man who loved me with a passion I had never expected and that I believed I could never earn. One of the best men who ever graced this miserable planet.

Ray, why did you have to leave me so alone?

***

“Becky, you okay?”

My sister, Shirley, stood in front of me. She scratched through her purse and pulled out a tissue. I took it from her and tried to stand up, so disoriented that for a moment I wondered why my legs wouldn’t respond. Sampson lay across my lap.

“Are you okay?” Shirley asked again. She eased herself gently down to the step and sat beside me. Her knees cracked. She tried to keep a bit of distance, but slipped one arm around my shoulders awkwardly. “Are you hurt? Want me to get Dad? Should I call someone?”

“No. I’m not hurt.” I crumpled the sodden tissue into a tight ball and twisted it in my hands. She shifted toward me, ever so slightly. I collapsed against her shoulder and broke into a fresh round of sobs.

She was silent for a long time, letting me cry, patting my back, and trying one-handed to open her purse for a fresh tissue. Sampson didn’t budge.

It felt nice. The substantial weight of the heavy dog across my lap, a motherly arm around my shoulder. I cried some more.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Shirley said when the sobs died down.

“I loved him. I loved my husband very much.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“I loved my mother, too.”

“Yup.”

“They’re both gone, and it’s too late to tell them how much I loved them.”

“It usually is too late, Becky,” Shirley said. “And when people have enough time, that’s a tragedy all its own. Al’s mom died of cancer. It took her months, almost a year, to die. Bit by tiny bit. We had all the time in the world to say good-bye. Too much time.”

“You’re saying that there is no such thing as a good death?”

“For the person most involved, there can be. If they go at peace with themselves and with how they’ve lived their life. For those left behind, the survivors, no, I don’t think that there is ever a good death.”

“How did you get to be so wise?” I smiled up at her. My big sister. Too big, too much older, to ever be a real sister.

“Not wise,” she said, her voice distant, her eyes focused far away. “Just a girl from Hope River. But I’m my mother’s daughter. She was a good woman.”

“That she was.”

“And she never knew it.”

“Never knew what?”

“That she was a good person. It took a lot of strength for her to stay here, in this horrible town. She must’ve wanted to run back to England the moment she stepped foot here. Mom never told me any stories about coming to Hope River and starting a new life. All her stories were about England. The village she was raised in, where I was born, the house they lived in. Her father, Arthur Green, our grandfather, owned a shop. Her mother died when she was very young, did you know that? She was raised by her Aunt Betty. Mom told me about the war, the blackouts and the rationing, the German planes flying overhead. But she didn’t talk much about meeting Dad and nothing at all about coming to Canada. As a child I certainly wouldn’t have been interested in hearing about Hope River anyway, so boring, but I loved stories about the war and how they watched the German bombers on the way to London and the brave RAF fighters chasing after them.”

“You don’t think she was happy?”

“She hated it here, Becky.” Crisis over, Sampson leapt off my lap and bounded across the grass. “Is there any point in going over this? It all happened so long ago.”

“It may have happened long ago,” I said, “but the repercussions continue to this day. In our lives.” The past is always with us, going around and around in ever decreasing circles until it fades into itself like a bit of soap scum finally disappearing down the drain.

I hugged Shirley, perhaps for the first time in our lives with feelings genuinely felt. Her body was so scrawny it might as well have been a museum skeleton, covered in a thin sheet of parchment paper. She hugged me back, awkward, unsure. Her heart was beating hard, very hard. Then, as if she suddenly realized that she was being affectionate toward me, she took back her arm and edged a bit further away.

“Grandpa?” I said. It was time, after all these years, to talk about the shadow that lay over all our lives.

“She never said anything against him, never needed to. He and Grandma lived in the same house as us. You can’t begin to understand how awful it was. Even as a child I knew that things weren’t quite right. They bought the big house when I was about eleven or twelve years old, not long after you were born, and the grandparents moved in there. It was like someone threw open the shutters and let some light come into our lives. That sounds so stupid.”

“No. No it doesn’t. It’s not stupid at all. I’m trying to understand and you’re helping me to do so.”

“Mom was happier, lighter, freer. Dad seemed to grow, as if having fought in a world war, reached thirty-some years of age, father of three, he finally was allowed to grow up. But they were still too close.” She was staring into space, lost in the memories. “I wished that Grandpa was dead, and then I would lie in bed at night afraid that God would strike me down for being such a hateful girl.”

“Oh, Shirley.”

Far out on the lake, a boat passed, moving quickly, crossing between one island and another. The roar of the motor was harsh, unwelcome in the soft peace of the afternoon.

“Spring,” Shirley said, trying, and failing miserably to sound more cheerful. “I can’t wait. You and Jimmy were always great ones for the winter. Do you still love the snow?”

“We… I have a holiday home near Whistler.”

“I could have predicted that years ago. I’m more like Mom in that way. Winter is something to be endured, to be suffered through in order to earn the warmth of spring. Mom never even complained about the weather. But occasionally I’d hear her muttering under her breath on a particularly cold night when she couldn’t get the house warm, or when the snow prevented her from going to do her shopping, or us getting to school. The crocuses are doing wonderfully. She put a lot of new ones in last year.” Her voice fell. “So sad. She’ll never see them. I don’t imagine Dad’ll plant anything this fall.”

I twisted to look directly at my sister. “You need to talk more than I do, Shirl. God knows I’ve always felt so hard done by, growing up in this family. Poor little me. I never spared a thought for how much harder it must have been for you.”

She avoided my eyes. “I’m perfectly fine. I’ve coped with it all and come out fine.”

“Have you? Look, Shirley, there is something you should know. Mom kept…”

She jumped to her feet. For a moment, I thought it was fear of what I was about to say. But no. Aileen’s car was turning into the driveway. Jimmy was at the wheel. Sampson ran over to offer the visitors a slobbery hello.

When I looked back at Shirley, all traces of empathy, compassion, and trust were gone, as if I’d only imagined them in some fading dream of reconciliation and understanding.

She began to stand up. I reached out one hand and gripped her arm. “I understand only a bit of what you went through, but I lived there as well.”

Jimmy climbed out of the car and gave Sampson an enthusiastic greeting, mostly behind the ears. He walked up to the house, watching me, the dog, the house, the yard, everything but his older sister.

“Have you ever thought about him, our brother?” I said. “He’s the one Grandpa tried to mold into his own image. Although twist is probably a better word. What hope did a boy have against that?”

She shook my hand off, got to her feet, pushed the door open, and disappeared into the house.

“What’re you two doing sitting out on the stoop?” Jimmy asked. “Everything okay?”

“Fine.”

“You look like hell, if I may say so.”

“You may not.”

“I won’t, then. Did you have an argument with Shir?”

“No. Shirley’s fine. We’re cool.”

He looked doubtful. “Good.”

“Where are you going?”

He laughed, his deep, intense laugh that always had the girls grinning and acting like perfect fools. Despite myself, I actually cracked a smile in return. “I’m not escaping for parts unknown,” he said. “I’m off to the store for a few things Aileen has decided that we need. Brie, paté, smoked salmon, champagne. Life’s essentials. You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. Aileen doesn’t handle stress too well.” He was no longer laughing.

“Want a bodyguard?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. It’s broad daylight and I’m not going to be venturing down any dark alleys. Our friends in blue are parked at the bottom of the road. I’ll tell them where I’m headed; they’ll keep an eye on the houses. I’ll be home in time to meet with Singh before our interview with Inspector Gadget. Shirley okay?”

“I don’t know, Jimmy. Is she ever?”

“Probably not. Better she’d done like you and left this damned family long ago.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Say what? Damned? You offended?”

“Of course I’m not offended. But we’re not damned. Or cursed or struck by misfortune or any such superstitious nonsense. Don’t say that.”

He smiled again and bent to kiss me on the cheek. “Right as always. I’ll let you know what happens later. If you have a hankering for champagne and paté and French cheese, you know where to find it. Say hi to Shirley.”

Shirley was in the shed, silently watching Dad work, her thin face strained and troubled, the dark circles under her eyes pronounced. Dad bent over the lathe, guiding the wood with strong, steady hands. His pleasure in the wood and the work made him look as if he’d discarded thirty weary years.

When I walked in, he straightened his back, turned off the machine, and tossed us a huge smile, full of false teeth. “Both my girls here at the same time. Isn’t that nice? Is lunch ready?”

“I can’t stay, Dad,” Shirley said. “Have to get back to work. I popped in for a couple of minutes to check that you’re okay.” She headed for the door of the shed. The stiffness was back in her shoulders, the disapproving scowl clamped onto her face, the eyes cold and brittle once again.

“I’ll make you a sandwich, Dad,” I said. “Come inside in about five minutes.”

The lathe roared back to life.

My sister and I walked through the house and out to her car in silence. “It was nice talking to you,” I said.

She didn’t reply, merely opened the car door and plunked heavily into her seat. The door slammed in my face. I knocked lightly on the window, and she grudgingly rolled it halfway down, turning the key in the ignition at the same time.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t I drop by your house after dinner? We can finish talking about Mom.”

“We’re going out.”

“Oh, all right. Have it your way. But we have to talk sometime. With everything else that has been going on, I haven’t called Maggie about the housekeeper position. And Aileen has way too much on her mind.”

“So?”

“So, if we haven’t found someone once I’m gone, it’ll be up to you, Shirley.”

“Isn’t it always?”

This was one for the people at the
Guinness Book of Records
. Caring sister to big-time martyr in five minutes.

“Have it your way,” I sighed, stepping away from the open window. “But think a bit about what I said about Jimmy, eh? Think about what a number Grandpa did on him.”

She rolled the window up with more enthusiasm than the occasion required and pulled away without so much as a wave.

I had been all set to tell Shirley about the diaries. Now I wasn’t so sure. Mom didn’t present her only son in a flattering light. Jimmy was struggling to get over his history, with Aileen’s help. Would Shirley ever be able to pierce though the miasma of past anger to see what was happening today? She’d be a good deal happier if she could.

Not my problem
, I reminded myself. I’d be back in Vancouver by this time next week.

Chicken noodle soup out of a can accompanied by tuna sandwiches served as our lunch. Dad ate without talking and quickly returned to the workshop, eager to get back to work. Reminding Shirley about the great housekeeper hunt had served to remind me as well. Perhaps I should forget the whole thing. Shirley wore her family duties like a weighty cloak of atonement. She wouldn’t let Dad suffer.

If we hadn’t been through that all-too-brief moment of intimacy sitting curled up together on the steps of the front porch, overlooking the waters of the blue lake, out to the islands and the green and brown woods beyond, I might well have left the job to her. But I’d seen the hurt in her eyes, heard how she still suffered for the past, and felt her thin bones trying to be strong beneath my embrace. I poured the majority of my chicken noodle soup down the sink, tossed the remainders of my sandwich to Sampson, and went in search of my keys.

A single police car sat on the shoulder of the main road, facing the branch that cut off to the McKenzie houses. I tossed what I hoped was a cheerful wave. Two blank young faces watched me.