Would I Lie to You

by Mary Lou Dickinson

  “Thanks to everyone for coming,” he said. “You’re here to have a good time. Jerry would be happy to see us celebrating. It’s a party he asked Sue to arrange. And I’m glad to have been able to help.”

  Then he surprised Sue. “There are a few people you should meet,” he said, inviting Florence, Jerry’s cousin, and Maggie and Angus, to raise their hands. “And Thomas Crossar,” he said. “Jerry’s son. Unfortunately, they never met, but we know him now. And what an amazing young man he is.”

  Sue trembled. Would this cause people to turn to look at her? Would there be gossip? And she wondered how this could help Thomas. But it made sense. She trusted Martin. He was a man a child could have counted on. Thomas had his head down, but then looked up and smiled across at her. As a quartet started to play, Martin moved to the tables with food on them. Sue went over to join him.

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “You don’t mind about Thomas?”

  “Someone had to say so sooner or later,” Sue said. “I could see people looking at him when they thought no one else noticed. Now it will appear there isn’t anything to hide.”

  They listened for a moment to the music.

  “Did I tell you that Joanna left a note for me?” he asked.

  The day he had read that note, he had gone to tell Sue. He recalled now that he had not, feeling it was not the right time for it. “She wanted me to be involved in Thomas’s life.”

  Sue tried to stifle a sudden rush of jealousy. “Yes, you did tell me something like that,” she said, sighing. “It was a good idea. He needs a family. And for starters, he has you and Emily. And me, too, if he wants that.”

  Thomas approached and stood a bit apart until Sue saw him and beckoned to him to come closer. They hugged.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Martin stood quietly beside them and only spoke when Thomas turned to him. “Thank you, too.”

  Florence was next, reaching out to take Sue’s hand. Sue wanted to thank her for coming, but her body began to heave with dry sobs before she could say anything.

  “It’s all right, dear,” the older woman said. “You’re meant to cry when you lose someone you love.”

  It was then that the sky darkened more. Thunder began again and the wind rose in the trees. Lightning was followed by an immediate crack of thunder. The next crack was even louder. Then the clouds seemed to move on, driven by wind and lashing rain. In less than fifteen minutes, it was over.

  “Thank heavens,” Maggie said.

  Her sister might remember the time in the northern bush, looking at land their parents had found for a cabin, when Maggie had been near a tree hit by lightning. The trunk had fallen right behind her. Maggie had claimed that they had all ignored her. But they had only learned what had happened when she caught up to them. Piling hurriedly into the little green Austin, they had huddled in the back seat as their father put it in gear and were still huddling as he drove out in blinding rain to the main road.

  The musicians continued to play, but Martin had discs for when they left. There was a line of people now at the food table, filling the colourful plates. At another table, a bartender, hired for the day, served wine.

  After another number by the quartet, Martin announced that he would play music for dancing as soon as everyone had their food. Or they could dance now and eat later.

  “Imagine how Jerry would enjoy being here,” he said. “We’ll play all his favourites.”

  Sue smiled. Jerry had been a wonderful dancer. She was not nearly as good as he, at least not at the beginning. But he had made it easy to follow and had made her feel that she was adept at it. But now, she had an overwhelming sense that all of that had been superficial, like the icing on a cake that was there simply for decoration, that hid the cake so that you only knew the flavour when you bit into it. She and Jerry had lived their lives on the surface. And although what he had hidden was now revealed, he would never know about the child she had given birth to who would now be in her forties. Someone out there who could be any woman Sue ran into of that age or who could live anywhere in the world.

  “May I ask you to do the foxtrot?” Martin asked.

  Startled, Sue thrust her thoughts aside. “Of course,” she said.

  After that, there was some big band music and she and Angus swung to it. East coast, West coast. Before long, the room was alive with rhythm. Nearly everyone danced with Sue. And she smiled with them, looking at the photos of Jerry, sharing memories. And then Thomas excused himself from Florence and asked if she would dance with him.

  “It’s the only one I know how to do,” he said.

  “Of course.” A waltz.

  “Was my father a good dancer?” he asked.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “The best.”

  “Kate has asked me to learn to dance. She likes the waltz.”

  When the music stopped, they went on talking.

  “You’re so much like him,” she said. In the same breath, she thought of how dishonest it would be to Thomas to act as if he were her son when she had never acknowledged her own daughter.

  “I see that in the photos. Florence says she has lots of when he was even younger than I am.”

  “I don’t mean to disturb you children,” Florence said. “But I don’t think I can hold on much longer.”

  She sat on a chair not far from where they stood, her glass on a table beside her. Her eyes were heavy and her body seemed to have shrunk even further.

  “I’m sorry,” Sue said. “I should have asked you sooner how you were managing.”

  “No,” Florence said. “You shouldn’t have to think about me today. I’ve been fine until now. Thomas has taken good care of me.”

  “I’ll take you home now,” Thomas said. “We can see Sue in the morning.”

  As they helped Florence to her feet, Martin rushed over. He and Thomas walked on either side of her down to the ferry. Sue went too, telling them when she would pick them up. “And Thomas, take a taxi up to the bed and breakfast.”

  “Yes.” Martin pulled out his wallet and handed Thomas twenty dollars.

  “I have enough money,” Thomas said.

  “It’s all right,” Martin said. “Jerry would have given it to you. He’d want me to.”

  Sue and Martin stood watching the ferry move steadily in their direction from across the inner harbour. They could see the tall buildings on the other side clearly etched against blue sky although the sun was getting lower and it was clear that evening was descending. Soon there would be stars and a sliver of moon. Before that, those who remained would gather in a circle and hold hands. It would all last for at least half an hour, perhaps an hour. She was not sure. Then they, too, would take the ferry back to the city. They would go on with their lives.

  Sue supposed that that was what she would do, too. She just did not know what that meant yet. Maybe it was time for something different. Could she face the reality of the woman who had grown up without her, who might not even want to know her? She thought if Jerry were still alive now, she would tell him her whole story and ask him to accompany her on this journey to find her child. But he was not ever going to come back. And gradually, the full impact of her life being forever altered began once more to penetrate.

  Jerry. Jerry.

  She would dream about him, look at photographs, talk about him to friends and family, and see his image in Thomas. But never again would she touch him or hear the sound of his voice. Never again.

  She wanted to stay on the island. Her husband seemed to be there. In the shadows under a tree. Down by the water. If she went to the other side of the island, out on the boardwalk where they had gone on their bicycles, and looked into the vast expanse of Lake Ontario, would he answer her call? Would he tell her what to do now? Could anyone do that?

  “Sue,” Martin said gently. “We’re pretty well clea
ned up now. Let’s walk for a while and then catch the ferry.”

  She looked around to see that only Martin, Emily, Maggie, and Angus remained.

  “Where did they all go?” she asked. “When?”

  “Gradually, “Martin said. “In the last hour.”

  “Did I speak to them?”

  “Uh-huh,” Martin said. “It’s all right.”

  *

  Emily observed Martin as he stood beside Sue at the rail of the ferry, watching the storm clouds gradually dissipate. They had a camaraderie she could not seem to share. They stood shoulder to shoulder, leaning forward as the water formed a wake and she would only have to walk over and say something, but she did not feel like intruding. And besides, whatever apprehension she felt, this was not the time for that. It was Jerry’s day. All the same, there was something strange about Sue today. She seemed distracted. Every so often, she would flush and sigh. That did not seem like sounds of grief to Emily, but she had no idea what they were. Martin would ask why she was suspicious of Sue. But she could not help it.

  “Sort of a lightweight, don’t you think?” she had asked Martin when they first met her.

  “Oh, c’mon, Em,” he had said. “A physics teacher. She seems pretty solid.”

  That had not convinced Emily. She did not measure people by their occupations. It was their capacity to be human, to be compassionate. Sue had always struck her as rather cold, as if she were a physics teacher by default rather than by conviction. That it acted as protection. Even so, Emily had loved Jerry almost as much as Martin had and had wanted him to be happy.

  Daughter of a mother from the Ukraine, Emily had come from the prairies outside of Winnipeg, where endless fields stretched into the western landscape. Emily and Martin had one of those weddings where money was collected and they were given a large chunk that they had used to buy their first home near the railroad tracks in Transcona. That was before Martin had established a law practise in Toronto. She had thought she wanted to be a minister, but to be ordained in those days had been unthinkable and once they had children, she dropped it. Now that their two daughters were grown up and worked elsewhere, she was studying theology as a mature student even if she never used the piece of paper except to frame it. It was important to her to finish what she had started so many years ago. She was interested in preaching and in bereavement and what she could do to help people going through loss. So, she also volunteered with a hospice and visited a man who was dying of cancer. Mostly, he had family on his team, but there were a couple of volunteers he saw and she was one of them. Sometimes, when she went to visit, he was grumpy but he’d had a good day this week. He’d wanted to talk about his funeral, and make phone calls to his relatives. Sue had been diffident with her after Jerry died, a coolness that had surprised Emily. She and Martin had shared many meals with her, had walked together in High Park, and gone sometimes as a threesome to the theatre. But Sue remained distant. Emily did not think Martin noticed, so in need to chat about Jerry to anyone who would listen. Who better than his widow?

  “She was a good wife to Jerry,” he had told Emily. “I feel sorry for her.”

  He had been shattered to find out Thomas existed, something so important from which he had been excluded, like Sue. It gave them a bond. But a rather flimsy one, she thought. She felt like the solid one of the group, but then she was once removed from Jerry. She with the stolid mien and square face, brown eyes peering out above forward slanting cheekbones. Honey hair that hung straight to her shoulders. Prairie stock. The daughter of farmers. All that she and Sue seemed to have in common was their appreciation of Canadian winter. Hers of winds racing across flat fields and temperatures so low that it froze breath in the air, white bits of ice attached to the scarf tied across her face. Sue, from another northern landscape, knew the snow and wind also and talked of icicles forming inside her window as a child. At times they had laughed about being thrust out to play in temperatures so low that only their eyes were visible behind the layers of clothing.

  Martin turned and gestured to her to join them. “Stars are out again,” he said.

  Emily stood on the other side of her husband, the water bubbling up below. No ducks at night, no gulls flying over the wake. Orange life jackets were arranged in rows in the ceiling just behind them. A couple stood with bicycles at the bottom of the stairs where they would all leave the ferry. Into the traffic. The city. The subway.

  “Would you like to come back for a drink?” Emily asked, touching Sue’s arm.

  “That’s kind of you,” Sue said.

  But Emily felt her recoil from her touch.

  “It’s a good idea,” Martin said. “We could walk you home later.”

  So, sitting across from each other, they took the bus up Bay Street past tall towers and both old and new City Halls. Then, they walked to the Annex along one of the back streets above Bloor. The leaves on the trees were heavy with the summer night’s damp heat. Only a week or so earlier, they had been little more than a light lattice above the street.

  “We haven’t talked much about Thomas,” Martin said.

  “I’m glad he came today,” Sue said.

  “Emily and I want to keep in touch with him. He’s a great kid. Well, scarcely a kid. It’s the least we can do for him. And for Jerry.”

  They arrived at Emily and Martin’s walk where a light on the porch cast its beam almost to where they stood.

  “You’ll be good for him,” Sue said.

  “We’ll all be good for him,” Martin said.

  Sue stood to the side as both of them started up the walk. “Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

  “Please come in,” Emily said.

  “I think I’ll go on home,” Sue said. “But thanks. Thanks for everything.”

  Emily moved forward to give Sue a hug with the feeling that the other woman would merely tolerate her embrace. Would Martin’s be more welcome? she wondered, as he stepped forward. She watched as Sue walked further up the street and turned onto an adjoining one that would take her to the house where Martin had spent so much time for all the years Jerry had lived there.

  “Do you think she minds sharing Thomas?” he asked.

  Emily pondered before she answered. She had no idea, but there was still something she could not fathom about Sue.

  “If she does, it’s too bad,” she said. “He needs all of us.”

  Thomas might be the catalyst that would draw them all more closely together, but it was as likely that it might do the opposite.

  *

  Sometimes, Sue did not know what day it was or even what month. Time passed in a haze. When Hans called, they met for coffee. Sitting across from him in the restaurant, Sue felt her hands tremble. She wanted him to say he loved her, but she was afraid of feeling anything. Instead, she became apologetic, as if what they had done was almost criminal. Of course, adultery was not laudable. But surely loving someone was at least something that could be forgiven. Instead, she wanted to distance him.

  “I’m not sorry about what happened,” she said “But it bothers me. I can’t help it.” If she did not stop talking, she would soon start going around in circles. It seemed theatrical to tell him someone else had made love to him. Her lips pressed into a thin line, holding her hands tightly together on her lap, she watched his eyes flicker away momentarily before he replied. Make this better, the child inside her begged. Leave your wife. Sweep me off my feet.

  “I understand,” he said quietly. “Of course I do. It was wonderful, but I do understand.”

  They did not linger over the coffee as they might once have done. There seemed little else to say. As Hans took the bill to the counter, Sue went outside and waited for him on the pavement.

  “Well,” he said, emerging from the restaurant and standing in front of her. “I guess this is farewell then.”

  Unable to say anything, she nodded.


  “All right then,” he said, walking away. Once he turned back and waved before disappearing around a corner on a road that led to his office.

  Sue walked along Bloor Street, looking into the windows of the shops. She had wanted to say, “See you around,” but thought better of it. It was too dismissive, too superficial. Something else was over. She would not see Hans again. She wished it was a moral sense that had fuelled her decision, but knew it was rather the fear that with him she would ultimately have to dive below the surface. She slowed slightly in front of a shop with trendy jewellery where she had once bought earrings for her sister, but her eyes clouded over. It was time to go home and sort through the papers that had accumulated. Old tax and hydro bills, piles of half read Maclean’s magazines. But she did not feel any better now that she had ended whatever it was that she knew she had also started. What else could she have done? she wondered. What else? Sooner or later, whatever had started would have ended in disaster. An irate wife who found out about Sue and came to throw things at her, to swear at her, to call her a home-wrecker. Or the demands she herself would make on Hans would be ones he could not fulfil and that would make her increasingly bitter.

  When she reached the house, she went immediately to her easel and stared at it. A blank canvas. Her life felt that way now, too. With no idea how to deal with either, she picked up a brush and began to work with the acrylics on another version of the curve on the island boardwalk that she had photographed. Vibrant reds and purples in the trunks of trees or slashed across the sky. She wanted to know what was around the corner and would probably go on painting until that happened, and go on living until she knew what direction to follow. Suddenly overwhelmed by tears, her body ached to be held. What had she done? All she wanted was to call Hans. She could not keep changing her mind, but it was as if she were driven, unable to keep from lifting the receiver, unable not to dial his number. She reached for the telephone. Would he be angry?