Sue would love the farm, but he would never be able to show it to her. Likely, he would never see her again.
*
Thomas stood in front of the house in downtown Toronto where his father had lived, pondering his conversation with Martin. Why had his mom lied to him? Snowflakes landed on his forehead, reminding him of the rink in Stratford where he had learned to skate. He had missed having a father when other dads were out on the rink with their kids. It had not been quite the same to have his mom show him how to stand up on skates or to cheer him on when he started to play hockey. Sometimes, she had worried too much, hovering over him in a way none of the dads did.
Joanna Crossar had given him her surname. He had not known why, if he were Martin Drew’s son, he was not Thomas Drew. His mom must have had a tough time not wanting him to know who his father really was. But surely she had known he would have found out eventually even if she had not told him.
The light from the sun glinted on the front window of the brick house and he imagined Jerry coming out the wooden door and looking up at the sky before proceeding down the walk.
“Dad,” Thomas would have called when he saw him on the porch. “I’m over here.”
He thought of jogging with his father down the streets in Stratford. They could have talked about hockey. And books. Jerry would have read to him when he was a young child. Dr. Seuss. Green Eggs and Ham. Maybe Dennis Lee. Now, they would talk about law school. It struck him as ironic that he had decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. But maybe not, after all, his mother had worked in the courts for his entire life. He could do anything, she had often said, which was why law seemed possible. She had told him about the law from his earliest childhood, showing him where she sat under the judge’s seat, taking notes. Sometimes, she said her eyes were crossed from it all. Or that some lawyer spouted hot air.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she might say, quick to add, “You didn’t hear that.”
She had also told him that Martin was a lawyer. And later, that Jerry was also. Still, it was only when he had done his undergraduate work in history and philosophy that he had realized he wanted to make law his profession also.
His glance caught Sue looking out the front window and he waved at her. His mom had not been very old when she was rushed to hospital, maybe Sue’s age. It was her heart. He could see his mom pulling her hair back into a ponytail, swishing a terry-cloth robe around her. Now he knew where his height came from and the reddish hair that was like Jerry Reid’s. But, he had his mother’s smile.
His head was a jumble of impressions. His mother at the stove, stirring something, porridge maybe, which he had hated because it glued itself to the top of his mouth. C’mon, son, you need to have a good breakfast. If he was going to be strong. If he was going to grow tall. “Like my father?” he had asked and she had said, “Well, you know boys want to be tall and strong. You never know. There might be tigers or elephants.” It had taken him a while to figure out she had been teasing him, that it had been her way of encouraging him to eat something he had not been that fond of, although he had liked most things: the rare whiff of steak on a Sunday, applesauce from a bottle in the refrigerator. Sausages. Green beans. Baked potatoes.
Sue opened the front door and called out to him. “C’mon in.”
Her words startled him.
“Hi, Sue,” he said, moving toward her. She waited while he went up the steps. Inside, he studied the paintings and photographs again, feeling his father’s presence.
“Martin probably told you I called on him.”
“I gather.” She had the door of the refrigerator open and pointed at beer on a rack on the door.
He shrugged. “Just some Coke,” he said.
“Sure,” Sue said, reaching further back to get a can.
“Martin said you and my father were married on the island.”
Sue nodded. “It was lovely,” she said. “New leaves coming out on trees. Birds singing. A red cardinal swishing through branches. A jay. Cheerful sounds. Water rippling against the shore. Now life is more often a nightmare. I dream Jerry is alive, then I wake up and call him and he doesn’t answer.”
She brushed her hair back and ran her fingers through the white slash in the front. Like the white strip down the back of a skunk, he thought. He did not know what to expect. She might turn against him. Why wouldn’t she? He was the reason her memories would have gone sour, making his father into some kind of fraud.
“But he wasn’t,” he said.
“What?” Sue asked.
“My dad,” he said. “He wasn’t a fraud.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“Well…”
“Sometimes I get angry that he never told me about you. But, you’re right, he wasn’t a fraud.”
“I’d like to come to the memorial,” Thomas said, upset by the way his feelings kept changing. He had been angry with her and now he felt protective.
4.
MARTIN AND EMILY STOOD on either side of Sue on the deck of the ferry, arms around her shoulders. Sue knew Maggie and Angus were at the back rail, watching the large buildings of downtown loom up to create a postcard view. This was the skyline Sue now called home. Once upon a time, she would never have dreamed she would come to love Toronto. But after she and Jerry had cycled and walked its ravines and parks, it had happened. They would start near the downtown campus of the university and then wend their way through traffic, eventually finding a trail that led to a stream that felt as if they were in the country. The Don River. The Humber River. Wind blowing and rustling through leaves, the sound of water over pebbles and rocks. Both rivers flowed into Lake Ontario through lush greenery in summer, the brilliant oranges and red leaves of fall, the drifting snows of winter.
They had also walked downtown streets, exploring the architecture of buildings they passed by quickly most days. Old City Hall with its gargoyles at intervals, and New City Hall with the dome in the centre and the two tall towers looking down on it. They had visited St. Lawrence Market occasionally on a Saturday, where the earliest business of the city had been carried out in the building that now housed shops and stalls that overflowed with fruits and vegetables as well as fresh fish, meat, cheese, and probably everything she needed if she had lived close enough to walk there. Her route more often took her to Kensington Market with its old-world atmosphere of narrow streets and small shops brimming with goods and people from many cultures.
Angus knew how she felt about Toronto now. At her prompting, he had photographed its historic buildings in neighbourhoods he had visited, like the dome inside St. Anne’s Church with murals by young artists who later became members of the Group of Seven. Old brick houses in the Annex. The CN Tower. Union Station. The natural beauty of the parks and trails outside the concrete core. He had sent her these photos and gradually began to speak about Toronto as one of the cities where he enjoyed spending time. So many visitors became snarled in the traffic and cursed the city, she thought, and because they were frustrated or in a hurry, they did not look further. They often would malign the city to her, something she would never have considered doing about wherever they lived. At least in the early years, when she had not much liked Toronto, she had known enough to keep it to herself. She had not talked about how much better it was to live in a town up north where everyone was friendly. Or how much livelier it was in Montreal. Gradually, she too had come to appreciate the variety of a city that kept on changing as new waves of immigrants settled in, as old buildings were preserved after much outcry from people who cared about history, and as new ones were built within guidelines for development that more often seemed to work in the people’s favour.
Sue closed her eyes, thinking that home was largely a myth you created as you carved out a place for yourself. No one else saw it as you did. Jerry had given her a sense of being rooted in this place. As she watched the CN Tower and t
he Royal York Hotel, the island airport off to the west, the waves the ferry left in its wake, she knew that the sense of place evoked for them was why they’d married on the island. That archipelago was so integral to the whole of the city and was why, several months after Jerry’s death, they were about to celebrate his life there.
“Such a gorgeous day,” Emily said.
Even if at times Sue was not sure of Emily, her presence today was soothing.
“Thomas said he’d bring Florence,” Sue said.
“I never thought to take care of that,” Martin said. “I knew Florence as a child.”
“I thought you must have.”
It still felt foreign to her that she had known nothing about such a large part of Jerry’s past when he was alive. Although she remembered that Florence had come and stayed with them once. A tiny woman with large breasts, twisted fingers, huge brown eyes and arthritic knees, she had struggled up the front steps.
“It’s all right, dears,” she had said. “In about a month I’ll get to the door.” An irrepressible grin had spread across her face. “I’m just so happy to be here.” Sue recalled how her eyes lit up as they drove her through downtown Toronto. “I’m just a country bumpkin,” she had said. “But, you know, I love it here.” She had pointed out the big towers and the flowers in the middle of University Avenue.
“I remember coming into Union Station as a child,” she had said. “When we walked into the large main hall with the high ceiling, I would stop and stare up at it. My poor mother could scarcely get me to go any further until she reminded me about going over to Centre Island.”
“I’m so glad it’s a clear day.” Sue could see a small airplane taking off from the runway at the far end of the island. Jerry had had a pilot’s license and had liked to fly. Once, he had taken her over Niagara Falls in a small, twin-engine plane. As the wings tipped, she was almost sick, but she looked down on the land below with a new sense of the Welland Canal running from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, and of the landscape as they approached the island airport over the lake with the view of Hamilton to the west. It was then she thought of what the earth must look like from outer space. All the astronauts had commented on it. They went all the way to the moon and the most memorable moments seemed to be the view of earth they had then.
When the ferry landed at the dock at Ward’s Island, Sue walked with Martin. Emily, Maggie, and Angus were just behind them as they crossed the grass and went over a wide wooden bridge to Algonquin Island. At the clubhouse, tables were laid out with baskets of bright yellow daisies, irises, and lilies, alongside plates of pita, hummus, baba ghanouj, and tabouleh.
Jerry would have loved this feast, Sue thought. He would have loved the speeches, basking in the limelight when the occasion provided it. A roguish grin would have appeared on his face and Sue would know he was about to say something that would cause everyone to burst out laughing.
Jerry. Jerry. What happened with Hans does not change things. She wondered if she had not learned about Thomas if she would have let it happen. Had she felt a sense of betrayal that had needed something to ease it? She was not sure that Jerry would have understood, but she knew that certainly Martin would not. So it was clear to her that she could never tell him.
“Martin, thanks for arranging all of this. It’s breathtaking,” she said.
Martin leaned over and hugged her. “You know how much I loved Jerry,” he said. “And I hope you know that Emily and I love you.”
“Yes, I know.”
Although sometimes she sensed that Emily would be the first to suspect her of inappropriate behaviour, the kind she would never condone. She also felt sometimes that Emily already had an inkling of the secret that lay under Sue’s entire life. But how could she? Suddenly, Sue saw Thomas coming toward them with Florence beside him. Now these people who had been strangers to her until recently were here on one of the most difficult days of her life. They moved slowly as Florence hung onto Thomas’s arm. She seemed smaller and one foot dragged even as she walked on a flat path.
“The arthritis,” she said when she saw Sue watching her. “But I’m here. I can drive around in the country, but that’s all now. Except perhaps to London because I know it so well. And, of course, it’s so much smaller than Toronto. Thomas came from Stratford to pick me up and drive me to the city. Isn’t that wonderful? It takes over three hours from Blenheim. The bed and breakfast is lovely. Thanks for making the arrangements.”
“I can walk to it from where I live,” Sue said. She felt slightly guilty as she observed them, but also consoled by the thought that aside from her sister and brother-in-law who comforted her when they saw she needed that, no one had more right to be here than Florence and Thomas. She smiled at them then. “And Thomas has said he’ll drive you over to the house,” she said. “My sister and her husband are here from Vancouver or I would have asked you to stay with me.”
“Well, my dear, this is very nice,” Florence said. “And it’s very kind of you to have taken care of it for us.”
“Jerry would have wanted that,” Sue said, knowing no matter how much he had concealed from her, he would have been relieved that she now knew. “And so do I.”
At that moment, she heard someone playing a flute and turned to hear where the music was coming from. It was one of Jerry’s favourite pieces of music, but she could not remember the name. All she knew was that she had heard it with him at some concert. Martin had found this group of musicians especially for the occasion, as he had known there had to be music, as well as particular selections. Mozart. Beethoven. Handel. Martin had known exactly what would be appropriate. More than anyone, even more than she herself had, he had known Jerry’s musical likes and dislikes, that his taste had been eclectic. He had liked Joe Henderson and Dizzy Gillespie. Of the jazz musicians, most of all Duke Ellington. She remembered how he had asked her to put on some of the Duke’s music in the days when he could no longer reach the discs and change them himself.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and she noticed Martin go to the door and watch the sky. They had planned that most of the day would occur outdoors, but if it rained, the food, drinks, and speeches would be under cover. Martin looked at Sue and nodded. She thought he meant it looked as if it would pass over quickly, but he could have meant anything.
For a while, she watched Thomas taking care of Florence. Reddish hair and beard, engaging smile, leaning over to hear what the older woman was saying, attending to her. She felt as if she were in a time warp with Jerry dead and yet this mirror image instead.
As if she were back in Martin’s campaign office where she had met Jerry, seeing him again for the first time. After Martin had been elected, Jerry had suggested they go for a walk on the island, from Hanlan’s Point at one end to Ward’s Island at the other. She had wondered after the third or fourth walk through city parks whether he was looking only for a friend to share nature. It had all evolved slowly, and yet she had been relieved as well. There had been no pressure to jump into bed and wake up the next morning with the taste of some horrible mistake lingering. One day, Jerry had simply asked if they could go out in the evening.
“You know,” he had said. “A date date.”
Even then, it had been casual. But when he had looked at her over wine at a table in a small downtown restaurant where the grill was close enough to watch the steaks and vegetables cooking, she had known they were slowly moving into new territory. When he had reached out his hand to touch hers, there had been no mixed message or missed cue. She had felt her body tingling even though it would be hours before they would return to her place in the Annex. And they had sipped wine there, too, before tacitly agreeing that he would spend the night.
“Sue,” Martin said. “I think we need you over here for a moment.”
“I was remembering,” she said.
“I could tell.”
Thoughts of Hans had been obliterat
ed, but now they surged forth once more. Was it possible to love again? She supposed it must be because she had already started to, even though the circumstances were fraught with complications. Forget about all of that, she told herself. This day is for Jerry.
Sue surveyed the photographs she and Martin had put together. Jerry as an undergrad; Jerry in his gown as a lawyer in court. Martin had found one of the two of them at the quarry. There was another of their wedding as well as one of a canoe trip she and Jerry had taken. A couple hundred photographs that told the story of a man’s life, yet not a single one of Thomas. Someone could come to the memorial and not know this important facet of Jerry’s life. But Thomas was there and anyone who saw him would know.
Sue’s mind often wandered as she continued to greet and hug people. Yet, she was also fully present with their relatives and friends. Perhaps everyone lives a double life, she thought as she caught herself thinking of Hans once again. Anyway, Hans did not know what would happen in his own reality and she had discovered he did not trust any other psychic to tell him.
Suddenly aware that Martin was about to speak, she focused her attention on him. Old stories were retold and different twists were put on some of them. Perhaps some were embellished for the occasion.
“He knew how to laugh at himself,” Martin said. “And how to enjoy life. He cared about people and you all know he took on the toughest legal aid cases. And that he was my campaign manager when I ran for City Council. When he was younger, he took risks that were sometimes foolhardy, but Sue settled him in ways we’d all hoped for. Not because she asked him to change. I think he wanted to spend more time with her and less doing things like back-country skiing. He’d still take on a mountain slope since she enjoys that kind of adventure, too. They were a great pair. No one will miss him more than Sue does. Although for me it’s like losing a brother and I don’t have another friend like Jerry. No one else goes back as far as my childhood.” Sue could see Martin’s eyes were misty. She wondered whether he would continue. He took out a handkerchief, but did not seem to know what to do with it.
Would I Lie to You Page 13
