“For a house. For me.”
Mary Frances looked sympathetic. But under it I knew what she was thinking: it’s about time; we knew from the start it would come to this.
“And thank you for not saying anything,” I added.
“You know I have only your best interests at heart.”
“If I could only be as sure as you what they are.”
“One thing I’m certain of,” she said, getting into the Cressida.
“What’s that?”
“The house, you’ll find.” She pulled the door shut and gave me a wave.
I made a face after the retreating car.
There was no message from Quinn when I got home, or indication that a Private Caller had called.
*
TIM HAD BEEN DENIED BOTH day parole and a UTA. The denial was a brick wall. Four brick walls and no door. There was no recourse. He wouldn’t be eligible for another hearing for months, and even then there was no guarantee that the same answer wouldn’t be given. The system was hell-bent on screwing him around. Only Tim’s Classification Officer held out a ray of hope. There was, he said, little chance for Tim through the usual channels. But there was another way: through the legal system. She could hire a lawyer to get time off his sentence, to argue that his sentences should have been served concurrently, not consecutively.
Her father gave her the name of a lawyer.
The lawyer said he’d look into the case and get back to her in a week.
A week. What could she do in that week that would not be waiting? There was the Emily Carr guide to finish up over the next couple of days to meet her deadline. That was doable. And then what? Something for herself. Something social. Something new. Someone new.
Ellen McGinn.
She had been enjoying their steady if infrequent contact these past few months. With the last of the material coming a couple of weeks ago, that contact had stopped. But it didn’t have to. She felt from Ellen some need, or curiosity at the very least, to learn about the more spiritual, contemplative side of life. A wary curiosity, yes, but there was something Ellen was looking for, though she denied it. She would simply invite her over. And if Ellen accepted, and if it felt right, she would tell Ellen about Tim. She felt wonderful detachment about the “ifs”—open to them, not defeated by them. Ellen was free to make an excuse if she needed to, but she was also free to say yes.
When Ellen’s “yes” came, she was euphoric.
She was still into the flow of the moment—almost high on it, though she knew that was as dangerous as trying to control it—when Ellen came over a few days later to sip wine at the kitchen table. She let the conversation come around naturally to the topic of men, boyfriends—and Tim. She had already decided on what version—and quantity—of the truth she thought Ellen could handle: most of it, but not all. Now she watched Ellen closely as she told her story, gratified to see she was not going to freak out and run away. She scrutinized Ellen’s face, her body language, looking for judgement, doubt. Ellen was the kind of person who kept a mask over her feelings. But at least her initial skepticism was no longer there. What she felt now from Ellen was an air of receptivity and acceptance. It made her even more euphoric. It was, she knew, a sign of her own acceptance of herself. At last.
On Monday, the call from the lawyer came: Tim definitely had a year coming to him. And there was a court precedent on his side. He could be out within weeks. But the lawyer couldn’t—or wouldn’t—take it on. He gave her the name of the lawyer who had won the precedent-setting case.
She hung up the phone. She made herself breathe. Hold on to the centre, she told herself.
*
I MADE THE ROUNDS OF the available rentals. There was nothing worth considering. I took a phone number from a notice pinned to the board at the Kirk’s Ferry depanneur. Beside it Lucy’s face mocked me from a torn poster. Do you really think you’re going to find a house? Or me? I pulled the poster off the board. I folded Lucy up and put her in my pocket.
At home, I phoned the number I’d taken off the notice. The house had been rented. I took Lucy’s photo out of my pocket and looked at it again. She wasn’t mocking me at all. She was smiling in encouragement. Keep looking.
The first of July came and went. Marc would be home in a week and a half. I didn’t even bother to buy the new edition of the Low Down. The same houses were listed every week—the ones I’d already looked at and dismissed. I resigned myself to being at the house when he came home.
*
SUDDENLY TIM WAS GOING TO be out. In eight days. The new lawyer was definite on that. He wasn’t giving her any caveats. No maybes. No “cautious optimism.” A court hearing had been set for Friday, May twenty-seventh.
“F-day” she called it. Free or fucked again.
The lawyer might be sure, but she wasn’t making any assumptions. They had been screwed over too many times. She wasn’t going to tell anyone. Just her father and Anna. She held back from formulating any plans in her head, from buying the Champagne. She kept herself busy. She had a deadline to meet. Things to buy for Tim. The upstairs apartment to get ready for the new tenant. Denise had managed to trash it before she disappeared. The new tenant, Lakshmi, was moving in at the end of the month. Lakshmi: the Goddess of Prosperity. It was a good omen.
Saturday afternoon found her kneeling over the apartment bathtub, scrubbing, trying not to gag. She didn’t want to think about the source of the filthy ring, the dirt and grime that had come off Denise’s pallid skin.
She rinsed the tub, stood slowly to stretch the kinks out of her ankles. She surveyed the bathroom with satisfaction. Not a speck of Denise left. The mirror her boyfriend had smashed had been replaced. She made a face in the new mirror. Just what she had needed, more expenses. She had enough expenses already.
She didn’t, she reminded herself, begrudge the expenses. What was three thousand dollars in lawyer’s fees when it virtually guaranteed Tim would be here in a week?
A week. She felt like someone had just shot her up with caffeine. Tim. Here. An actuality in her life. What if he didn’t fit in? What if he embarrassed her with his manners, his grammar, his lack of intellectual conversation?
She switched off the bathroom light, paused in the doorway of the bedroom. The floor still needed doing but the windows were clean. What a difference clean windows made. She would do the ones downstairs too. You never realized how much dirt was building up on windows; you just got used to looking out through filtered layers. You got used to clouded vision.
She filled a bucket with hot soapy water and started on the bedroom floor. Tim wanted her to go down on Friday to wait with him for the results of the hearing. The lawyer had said the legal papers would be delivered by noon. And then he would be free to go.
She scrubbed at the black scuff marks on the floor. Free to go. God! She could hardly believe it. Hardly dared to believe it. She had tried to suggest driving down after he heard the results, but that had led to a massive misunderstanding. He’d tried to tell her to stay home, not come at all; he would get the bus. But she could hear the fear in his voice. And the guilt. Guilt that, as he said, she had already done so much for him, but at the same time fear that she would abandon him at the last minute. That was what had made him assert his control, try to push her away. She knew that tactic well. If I insist you not be there, you won’t disappoint me.
And didn’t she have the same guilt and fear? Guilt for suggesting that she only get in the car when he got the decision. Fear that they were just too different, that it was never going to work.
A sweat broke out on her forehead. She had to sit back on her heels, wait for the dizzy spell to pass. The fear had raised its head from time to time, but she had always been able to work her way through it. She’d always had the ironic luxury of time. Now it came and smacked her in the face. Knocked her off her feet.
Choked off her breathing. She beat it back with her rag, her broom, her bucket of soapy water.
At the end of the day she was exhausted but triumphant. She stood in the middle of the apartment, surveying all her hard work. Savouring the clean, light energy. She was optimistic about the new tenant; she’d looked quiet and kind.
The timing of it all was no coincidence. No coincidence that Denise and her dark energy were gone. She could admit it now: Denise had been a mirror for her former negative self. But the apartment was now clean. Every fear and dark thought had been cleared out of every corner. A new mirror was even hanging in the bathroom. A mirror of her new self. She was thrilled by the metaphor. So thrilled she went into the bathroom and this time smiled at her reflection.
Fear and negativity be gone. She had slain all the dragons. She was ready to be with Tim.
*
ON THURSDAY, JULY SIXTH, I stopped at the depanneur on my way home from work to pick up a few items. A pile of the week’s edition of the Low Down was sitting on the counter. I shrugged and tossed one in with my groceries.
Sitting on the deck with a beer, I skimmed my eye down the For Rent column on the back page. I almost missed the new listing: Small house on Gatineau River. Former church. Hardwood floors, four appliances, $650 per month. Avail. immed.
I knew it was mine. The blind certainty was uncharacteristic of me. But the certainty, at any rate, was refreshing. And so was the joy when I saw it an hour later, the delight I felt in everything about it. From its high ceilings to its polished wood floors. From its view of the Canadian Shield cliffs on the opposite shore to the yard that sloped down to the railway tracks and the point of land that jutted out onto the water on the other side of the tracks.
The price was right. The size was right. The location was right. The location, in fact, was uncanny. It was on River Road, less than a kilometre from where I had found Lucy’s car.
The timing was perfect. A tenant had fallen through at the last minute.
I tried to restrain my jubilance when I left a message for Marc that night. I could hear the disappointment in his voice when he returned my call the next morning. It was a short conversation. There was nothing left to say. I would be gone when he came home.
The red light began flashing on the phone when I hung up. The automated voice announcing there were four messages shocked me. I hadn’t been on the line more than five minutes. It wasn’t even 8:30. Who would be trying to get me so early?
I punched in the codes to listen to the messages. The first was from a CBC reporter. The next was a reporter from the Sun. The one after that was from the Citizen. And the last was from Steve Quinn. None of them gave a reason for phoning. None of them needed to.
I couldn’t get hold of Quinn. Or Lundy or Roach. I turned on the radio.
It was the second story on the local newscast. “A skull and some bones were found yesterday in an isolated woodlot in the Gatineau Hills. The remains have been sent to Montreal for identification. A forty-one-year-old white male has been arrested. Charges are pending.”
A woodlot. Earth. Bones. I was stunned. The images had all been wrong. Dead wrong. But Lucy had been found. At last.
Before the news was over, the phone began to ring. The first caller was Mary Frances. “Oh, Ellen, I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” I repeated her word, stupidly.
“My dear, sorry that it was the worst possible news.”
That shook me. I was supposed to have been hoping she was still alive, not assuming my dreams had been correct. I was supposed to be grieving her death, not feeling this overriding relief that her body had finally been found.
The phone kept ringing. I stayed in my office so I could monitor the call display. I let the media calls ring through to the machine. I took the calls from friends. Angel told me to stay home for as long as I needed. I didn’t know how long I needed. I didn’t know what I needed.
The noon newscast had more details. “An Ottawa man has been arrested for the murder of Lucy Stockman. Ms. Stockman had been missing since April twenty-second. Remains believed to belong to the victim were found in a secluded area of woods in the Masham area by her common-law husband. He was accompanied by a woman believed to be an undercover police officer. Following the discovery, Tim Brennan, forty-one, walked into the police station and was immediately arrested. An hour ago, Mr. Brennan was formally charged with first-degree murder.”
Accompanied by a woman. Why hadn’t I done a useful thing like that?
All those dreams, so-called visions. It had all been bullshit. The cops had been right. Of course. They were trained to come up with plausible theories and solve crimes. Quinn had said they knew Tim needed to produce the body. They had assumed he knew where the body was. They had worked on that assumption. They had arranged for someone to go undercover. To befriend Tim. To keep up the “search” with him. It had paid off. It all made perfect sense.
What a fool I’d been. Searching south of the city. Searching in abandoned buildings. Searching in the water. She hadn’t been in the water at all. She’d been nowhere near water. She’d been in dense woods, buried in a shallow grave.
As dry as her bones were now.
PART II: FINDING
Being one with the Tao when you seek, you find.
—Tao Te Ching
15.
THERE WAS ONE NAME AND number on my call display I was not expecting to see ever again. Lucy’s remains had been positively identified in Montreal two days before. The day before that, Tim Brennan had been charged with her murder and put behind bars without bail. There was no one who should be calling me from Lucy’s house.
I made myself pick up the receiver.
Lucy’s voice asked for me.
“Speaking,” I whispered.
“Ellen. Hello. It’s Anna Stockman.”
I sat down hard on my office chair and let out an audible breath. “Anna—I’m sorry. I never phoned. To say—”
“That’s okay. I’m calling to let you know there’s going to be a memorial service for Lucy on the thirteenth.” There was a briskness in her tone. Briskness would carry her through. “I’m calling you from Lucy’s. Doug and I drove up from Toronto last night. We brought my father. We’ve been trying to plan a service. We want to find someone who will speak. But I don’t know any of Lucy’s friends. You’re the only one I’ve met. I was wondering if we could ask for your help.”
“Of course.” My response was automatic. Then I added, “I didn’t know Lucy very well. I don’t think I could—”
“I know. But we were wondering if you would mind calling some of her other friends for us. Maybe find two or three people who would be able to speak.”
“Of course,” I said again.
The first surprise was the sheer volume of names and numbers Anna dictated to me. The second—when I started my phone calls—was the discovery that none of Lucy’s other friends knew each other either. I was not the only one outside the circle. There was no circle. If we were a circle, we were each spokes. Spokes without a wheel joining them together. Spokes whose centre was Lucy. That was my third surprise—that Lucy had been such a hub. She had reached far and wide: artists, massage therapists, lawyers, government clients who’d become personal friends, teenage children of friends, the range was endless. And they all had stories.
But none was willing to speak. They were nervous. Or shy. Or, like Kevin, afraid they’d cry.
Lucy’s friends could not tell their stories in public, but they needed to share them with someone. Someone who would listen. Someone who would glean. Someone who would pull it all together and deliver it back to them. I could listen and glean. That was “research.” The second part—the pulling it all together, the delivering it back—that part I wasn’t as qualified for. But I couldn’t bear the disappointment in Anna’s voice when I called her back the
next day.
“I’ll speak, if you like.” I had already decided to offer. “I was thinking I could gather stories from her friends and present them as a collective memory. If you think it’s a good idea.”
Anna thought it was a wonderful idea. I wasn’t so sure. But somewhere behind it, I felt Lucy scheming.
I spent two evenings on the phone. I explained what I was doing. I felt gratitude—and need—emanating from the other end of the line. The stories spilled out. They matched Kevin’s stories of the dynamo she had been. They described her passion for fairness, her enthusiasm for learning, for throwing herself into everything she did, for teaching others. The stories were imbued with warmth, gratitude, admiration. They were coloured, now, with confusion, pain, guilt.
Only one person refused to speak to me.
“I do appreciate what you’re doing,” said Curtis. “But it’s not something I can participate in.” The wariness I had been expecting from our previous conversation. The warmth took me by surprise. “The grieving masses,” he added, “do not want to hear what I have to say about Lucy.” No, they probably didn’t. Here was the bitter ex-lover. Who else had I been expecting?
“I’m sorry I bothered you,” I said. “I understand.”
“No. You don’t. You just think you do.” His directness also took me aback. It seemed bold, in a conversation between strangers. “You and everyone else already have a construct of what Lucy did, and why, and where I fit in, and how I feel,” he continued. “Lucy, by the way, was the queen of constructs. That’s why I don’t want to talk to you. Because no one wants to hear the truth, especially my version of it. I’ve already been labelled the jilted lover.”
“No,” I said. Then I corrected myself. “Yes.”
There was a pause. Then: “Thank you.”
“For what?” This conversation was getting more and more bizarre.
“For not denying what you’re thinking.”
His next words were the most unbelievable of the entire conversation. “What time,” he asked, “does the memorial service start?”
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