The Nesting Dolls (28 page)

As the man and woman locked eyes, the person behind
the camera froze the shot. Even twenty-seven years later, the heat between the lovers was palpable.

We watched to the end of the sequence. As Theo delivered his familiar push-glide speech, Delia’s eyes never left his face.

Zack clicked off the
DVD
. “So now we know,” he said.

“It was a long time ago,” I said. “By now, it’s probably ancient history for both of them.”

“I’m not sure it is for Dee,” Zack said. “On that fated day when I had to decide between buying you a toothbrush or getting a new Jaguar, I went to Delia for advice. To be honest, the reason I chose her was because I was certain she’d tell me I should bid you sayonara, but she surprised me. She told me I should go back to you. She said that otherwise, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering.”

“And you think that’s what happened to Delia?”

“I do. She and Noah were married the week after she came back from Ottawa. The marriage came out of the blue. Everyone was shocked, and nobody was more shocked than Noah. I was best man at their wedding. Noah looked like a guy who’d won the big prize in a lottery he didn’t know he’d bought a ticket for.”

“And you think Delia’s been wondering ever since?”

“I guess we’re about to find that out.”

Before Delia arrived, I gave Zack a sponge bath, helped him into fresh pyjamas, changed the sheets, tucked the prescription drugs out of sight, then began removing some of the flowers that had been delivered.

“You don’t have to do that,” Zack said.

“You said the place looked like Walmart.”

“It was just an observation,” he said. “Come sit next to me for a minute.”

I went over, lay on the bed beside him, and slipped my hand under his pyjama top onto his chest.

“This is more than I asked for,” Zack said.

“And it’s only the beginning,” I said.

For an evening designed to elicit a revelation, Delia’s visit was surprisingly without fireworks. When I showed her into our room, she went straight to Zack and embraced him. “I’m so sorry,” she said gently.

He patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, Dee. It’ll work out.”

“I hope so,” she said. She glanced around the room. I’d left the curtains open so we could see the night sky. The snow outside the window was blue-white, and on the low table in front of the window the three copper pots with their deep red poinsettias glowed. The room was very quiet. “It’s so peaceful here,” Delia said.

She was all in black, her face was pale and drawn, and as she pulled a chair close to the bed, she moved with her characteristic taut intensity. “Might as well get this over with,” she said.

“You don’t have to watch the movies, Dee,” Zack said.

Delia picked up the remote. “I’ve ducked this long enough,” she said, and she hit power.

I’d taken the
DVD
back to the beginning. As Theo came on screen looking as he had twenty-seven years ago, Delia’s face grew soft.

Zack had been watching his partner, but he dropped his eyes at her show of emotion. Then his eyes shifted to the screen.

We watched in silence till the sequence on the canal was over.

“That’s it,” I said.

“I thought he was the sun and the moon and the stars,” Delia said. “I was very young.” Her husky voice broke in its strangely adolescent-boy way.

“Dee, the point of showing you the movie wasn’t to
make you miserable,” Zack said. “It was to find out everything we could about the circumstances surrounding Abby Michaels’s birth.”

Delia shrugged her slender shoulders. “It’s the old sad story. I fell in love with Theo. He said he loved me. I thought he’d leave his wife. He said he wanted to be with me, but that Myra had invested everything in him, and I had my life ahead of me. Case closed.”

“Did you tell him about the baby?” I asked.

Delia shook her head. “No. Eventually, of course, he must have realized I was pregnant, but he never mentioned it, and neither did I.”

“He never asked if the baby was his?” I said. “I would have thought … ”

“To be fair, by the time news of my pregnancy made the rounds in the Supreme Court Building, Theo had every reason to believe the baby wasn’t his.”

“What happened?” I said.

“Someone started a rumour that I’d been screwing pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down. A kind soul told me she’d been at a drinking party where they narrowed the list of potential fathers down to five and everybody voted.”

“Jesus,” Zack said.

“Welcome to the world of women,” I said, and Delia shot me a grateful glance.

“Anyway,” she said, “I appeared before the Court many times over the years, but, quite correctly, there was no acknowledgement from Theo that he knew me.”

“He never made any attempt at a personal connection?” Zack asked.

“No, nor did I. Come on, Zack, you know the rules. Anything like that would have been highly unethical and it might have compromised a client, so Theo and I soldiered on, protected by the anonymity of our robes: just another
justice; just another barrister. And it would have continued that way if it hadn’t been for Abby’s letter.”

“But you did tell Theo that Abby was his daughter?” Zack said.

“I took the coward’s way out,” Delia said. “I wrote to him. I knew he’d retired suddenly and moved back here. He was no longer a judge, so that particular barrier to communication had been removed, but to be frank I didn’t want to face him. I didn’t know how he’d react. Anyway, I sent him a letter setting out the facts. I relayed Abby’s request and told him that he could do as he wished, but that I thought it was fair to convey the medical information his biological daughter requested, and I believed her when she said she had no wish to have further contact with either of us.”

“Did you get a response?” Zack said.

“I did. One line typed on monogrammed stationery. ‘The matter has been taken care of,’ and then Theo’s initals, ‘T.N.B.’ ”

“Were the initials typed or handwritten?” Zack asked.

“Handwritten,” Delia said. “I should have just let it go, but the ambiguity was unsettling. I decided to arrange a face-to-face meeting. I wrote a note addressed to Theo and Myra. I said I understood they had moved back to Regina and that Noah and I were having a gathering on December 5. There would be people there whom they would find congenial, and we’d be delighted if they could join us. I gave them my contact information, and I received an e-mail accepting the invitation.”

“Was the e-mail from Theo or Myra?” Zack asked.

“It was signed ‘Theo and Myra,’ which of course means nothing. Noah always signs both our names when he responds to invitations. The Brokaws’ note was cordial but it was just the usual. There was certainly no mention of Theo’s health problems.” Delia stood and walked over to the window. “And
here’s something that puzzles me. Doesn’t Alzheimer’s take time to develop? After our party I had calls from lawyers who’d appeared before the Court last spring, and according to them, Theo was fine. Nobody, including me, had ever heard of a case where the disease moved that quickly.”

“It isn’t Alzheimer’s,” I said. “Theo had a fall. He was shingling their cottage roof last summer, and he fell. He suffered a traumatic brain injury that’s left him in a state similar to advanced Alzheimer’s.”

Delia bit her lip. “Just one false step, and an entire life changes.” Her eyes moved to me. “How do you know all this?”

“Nation
TV
is considering a show about the Supreme Court. It would be part of a series they’re doing explaining the institutions that affect our lives. When I heard Theo was retiring here, I thought he’d be a good fit, and I e-mailed him. Myra responded for him, but I didn’t think anything of it. I just assumed he was busy and she handled his correspondence.”

“I sent my letter towards the end of November,” Delia said. “Myra would have handled it, too.”

“Presumably,” I said.

“And given Theo’s state, she would have been the one to decide whether or not to get in touch with Abby.”

I nodded.

“And we’ll never know whether they did.” Delia’s eyes dropped. “There’s so much we’ll never know.”

She went to Zack. “You look as if you’ve had enough,” she said. “I know I have.” She bent and kissed his forehead. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

I walked her to the door. She put on her boots and jacket and draped around her neck the scarf that she’d knit when she was trying to quit smoking. The scarf trailed to her knee on one side. “I feel so guilty about this, Joanne.”

“Zack’s flu was probably incubating before he went to Port Hope.”

She tried a smile. “But you won’t deny that the trip made a bad situation worse. I seem to have developed a reverse Midas touch. I’m losing confidence in my decisions, and that’s always fatal.”

“And futile to dwell on,” I said. “There’s no going back. Given the circumstances at the time, we do the best we can.”

“I still believe that giving Abby up was best for her. She had a good life. I don’t know why everything fell apart.” Delia’s eyes filled with tears. “The first time I saw my daughter’s face was in that parking lot. The men who found her had left the door open. I got in. It was so cold. The key was in the ignition, so I turned on the heat. After she was born, I told them I didn’t want to see her, and when I got in the car with her, I knew it was my last chance. It was like looking in a mirror. I held her hand and talked to her. I knew she was dead, but I kept on talking. I promised her I would make things right.” Delia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I usually can, you know.”

Pale, tense, her slight body seemingly dragged to one side by the weight of her scarf, Delia was a forlorn figure. “I’ve always known how to cut my losses and move along, but I can’t forget her,” she said. “Suddenly, I can’t forget anything.”

I didn’t relay any of Delia’s conversation to Zack that night, but I slept fitfully, haunted by Delia’s account of sitting with her dead daughter, concerned about my husband’s laboured breathing and the appearance of his pressure wound, and wondering whether I’d made a grave error by offering to pick Nadine up at the airport. In the small hours I went down to my office, turned on my laptop, and checked out the appearance of pressure wounds that were non-threatening and those that were dangerous. I couldn’t tell the difference.

The next morning, for one of the few times in my life, I had to drag myself out of bed. It was an effort to complete my
morning run with the dogs. When I got back to the house, all I wanted to do was sleep, but real life had its demands, and its unsettling surprises.

Nadine called when I was making the porridge. The fact that she was calling on her cell while she waited in line at Pearson International in Toronto might have accounted for her curtness, but the chill in her voice was undeniable.

“I’ve just been speaking to my lawyer in Regina,” she said. “He’s going to pick me up at the airport. Thank you for your offer, but Mr. Colby feels it would be ill-advised for you and me to spend time together.”

I tried to defuse the situation. “I understand,” I said. “Mr. Shreve feels exactly the same way.”

“Well, Mr. Shreve is certainly the master of the game,” Nadine said, and she hung up.

Henry Chan came by just as the porridge was ready. “That looks good,” he said.

“Would you like some?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got appointments starting in half an hour. I just thought I’d check on my poker partner. How’s he doing?”

“No worse, but no better. He still has a fever. That pressure sore we were concerned about still looks angry. And he’s dealing with a case that’s really gnawing at him.”

Henry shrugged off his coat and went to the sink to wash his hands. “I can’t believe that a firm the size of Falconer Shreve doesn’t have somebody who could at least assist Zack with his case.”

“It’s not that. The case involves one of the partners, and they want it kept confidential.”

“I’ll talk to Zack about priorities if you want.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” I said. “If he wasn’t in charge of this case, he’d be fretting about it.”

“If that’s what you’ve both decided … ”

“We didn’t both decide,” I said. “Zack did.”

Henry looked at me closely. “And you’re unhappy.”

“I did a little Internet reading last night.”

Henry’s chuckle was dry. “That would make anybody unhappy,” he said.

“The article I read was about the danger of pressure sores. The writers focused on Christopher Reeve’s case. He had the best possible medical care, but he had a pressure sore that became infected; the infection became systemic; he had a heart attack, went into a coma, and died. There was nothing anyone could do. He was fifty-two years old.”

“I won’t lie to you,” Henry said. “Pressure sores are always a concern.”

“And I’m not competent to judge whether what I’m looking at on my husband’s back is just an abrasion or something serious. I’m out of my depth here, Henry, and I’m scared.”

“We could put Zack in the hospital till this clears up.”

“That has to be the last resort,” I said. “Zack hates hospitals. He spent so much time in them when he was a kid. He loves our home. I know he’ll get well faster here.”

“How would you feel about getting a private nurse to come in to check once a day – keep an eye on the wound and give you a hand getting Zack in and out of the shower?”

“I would feel immensely relieved,” I said.

“I’ll get Gina to call Nightingale Nursing. They’re expensive but they’re good.”

“I don’t care how much it costs,” I said. “I just want to be sure that nothing slips by me.” Willie leaned heavily against my leg. “Henry, can you make sure the nurse is comfortable with dogs? Pantera is very protective of Zack.”

Henry finished drying his hands on a paper towel. “I’ve noticed,” he said.

After Henry left, I brought Zack’s breakfast in and sat down with him while he made a heroic effort to eat what he clearly didn’t feel like eating.

Finally, I took away the tray. “Can I get you something else?” I said.

“Do you know what I’d really like?”

“Name it. Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon? Steak tartare? Crepes Suzette?”