Tell Anna She's Safe

by Brenda Missen

  To the casual listener, the room would have seemed silent. It wasn’t. Emanating from the chair was a soft humming. Tuneless but tireless.

  This sipping, humming, unmoving person was Lucy’s mother.

  No matter how many hours her mother sat at the table, at five-thirty every evening she put down her pen and rose from the chair. She straightened her dress and put a hand up to her hair to make sure no strands had fallen. She also put a manicured finger delicately to the corners of her mouth, as if to wipe away excess lipstick. Or perhaps the amber liquid.

  She did this all on cue. The cue was the opening and closing of the front door.

  Before the click of the latch on the inner door of the vestibule, Lucy’s mother would be in the kitchen.

  Before the click of the latch on a third door—the coat closet—her mother would have rinsed the crystal glass and put it in a kitchen cupboard her father would never open.

  The only cupboard her father ever opened was the liquor cabinet in the dining room. He never noticed the difference in the level of the bottles. There was a good reason for this. Lucy’s mother had her own bottle, in one of the kitchen cupboards her father would never look in.

  Her father took a long-stemmed glass from the sideboard. He didn’t notice that one of the glasses was missing. There were so many of them, after all. “Company” glasses. He poured into his glass the same amber-coloured liquid, took one sip, then left the glass on the sideboard to go into the kitchen to kiss Lucy’s mother’s cheek. It was not the same quick peck he occasionally sent Lucy’s way when she was saying good night. This lingering kiss on her mother’s cheek made Lucy look away.

  Her father never said anything about the lack of evidence of dinner preparations. Dinner would be on the table by six-thirty. It always was. Lucy never questioned how her mother did this. Mothers did this. That was what they were for. Lucy wasn’t sure they were for sitting at the dining room table in a dark room in the late afternoon sipping from a glass, writing or not writing. At least she had never seen other mothers do this. But her father didn’t object. It had occurred to Lucy he maybe didn’t know.

  It occurred to her that as long as he got his dinner by six-thirty, he maybe didn’t mind.

  Lucy wasn’t anywhere to be seen when her father came home. At the sound of the front door opening, she took the needle off the record, shut off the hi-fi, and ran soundlessly upstairs. Up two flights to her favourite room in the house, the attic. The stairs to the attic were behind a narrow door next to the twin narrow door of the linen closet on the second floor. Tonight, as many evenings, the slope-ceilinged room with the musty smell and the one gabled window was a hospital room. Lucy was the nurse. Over her mouth she tied a white tea towel stolen from the kitchen. The tea towel mask over her face was so she wouldn’t get the chicken pox and high fever of her baby doll patient. Sometimes the doll cried; sometimes she was quiet. Sometimes she was hot, then cold; sometimes shivering, then drenched in sweat (water that Lucy poured over her).

  The doll’s mother never came. Lucy, the nurse, was the only person who came into the hospital room, and she didn’t care about the doll. She let the doll cry out her misery. She didn’t love her. She was angry with the doll’s mother, who never came to visit.

  16.

  “MS. MCGINN, YOU MAINTAIN THAT Lucy Stockman visited you in a number of so-called ‘visions,’ and gave you information about her whereabouts. Would you agree, Ms. McGinn, that feeling as guilty as you did about abandoning her in her hour of need, your hallucinations were your psyche’s way of trying to save the day?”

  “No.”

  “Explain, then, if you will….”

  I could never explain.

  The cross-examinations started playing out in my head almost immediately after the memorial service. They were relentless. The defence lawyer took me to pieces every time.

  I had taken three weeks off to unpack, settle in, and try to resume “normal” life. I was enjoying my new home and a different view of the river. The sciatica was gone. I was back to my regular running routine. The quiet, flat River Road was perfect, and I could also run on the tracks—even this particular stretch—without fear of Tim Brennan. But where Brennan had stopped pursuing me, the defence had started. Every time I set out for a run, the grilling and accusations began.

  The guilt of letting Lucy down pursued me too. I was supposed to have found her. It had become the driving force of those ten weeks—after my initial reluctance. And I had failed her.

  But I also felt betrayed. By Lucy. By myself. Everything had turned out so differently from where my dreams had been leading me. What is the good of a search when there is no result?

  I had no answer. I had only a disturbing image of Lucy’s remains found in a woodlot near Masham. I wanted to go to the site, but I had no idea where it was. I would ask Quinn when he called. Maybe he would take me. Maybe something would become clearer there.

  There was another set of questions in my head that wouldn’t go away. The questions about what Lucy had been doing with Tim. What had happened during the year he had been out. Why she had ended up where she had. I didn’t have those answers either. But I had a means of at least attempting to find out.

  First I gave myself two weeks to relax. To try, anyway. I deserved that much. The questions would wait. Nothing was going to change in two weeks. And no one called me. Except Steve Quinn.

  In fact, he woke me up. It was the Monday after the memorial service. I glanced at the clock, fumbling for the phone. Eight-fifteen. I pushed the on button and was greeted by a brusque “Are you alone?”

  At the sound of the familiar voice, I was instantly awake. “What do you think? I just moved into my own place.”

  “But what’s ’is name was at the memorial service with you.”

  So I hadn’t imagined his reaction at the service.

  “His name is Marc,” I said, pushing my tangled hair off my face. “And he was with me because he insisted on coming. And I was grateful for his support.” He was there for me. The thought was startling.

  I sat up. “We aren’t seeing each other, if that’s what you’re thinking. How did you get my number anyway? I was going to call you today.” Just not so early.

  “It didn’t take a lot of detective work. Where am I calling, anyway? You’ve got a Wakefield exchange.”

  He was incredulous when I told him. “Don’t tell me you bought the Rivests’ house.”

  “No, but I’m not that far away.”

  “Right on River Road? Where exactly? Give me the 911 number.”

  I gave him the house number, and the landmarks: I was on the straight stretch, just after the long hill that wound down to the river; if he got to the place where I’d found Lucy’s car, he’d gone too far. He wanted to know so he could visit, of course, but I had to shake off a vision of him arriving in the dark, secretly watching the house. That paranoia was over.

  “I’ll just have to make a trip up one day to see your new digs.”

  “I’m around. I’m on holiday for a few weeks.”

  He hesitated. “Things are pretty busy right now. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get up there. They’ve got me officially on the case now. We’re working with the Crown, gathering more information. But I will come.”

  “Have you learned anything new about the case? Have you got enough to convict Tim?”

  “Trust me,” he said ambiguously. Then he lowered his voice. “Wait ’til we see each other. I promise that will be soon.” There was a pause and then he added, “Now do me a favour and keep away from your ex.”

  If it had been anyone else I would have come up with a sarcastic reply. For some reason I couldn’t do that with Quinn. “I’m not seeing him!”

  “Good. Keep it that way.” There was humour in his voice, but under it was something I didn’t like.


  I made myself respond with a flippant “Yessir!” and we hung up.

  I didn’t keep my promise about Marc, though it wasn’t to spite Quinn. The dogs naturally brought us together. Marc got another renovation contract locally, and began dropping them off for the day. He always invited me to come in when I brought them back, and after the first few awkward times I stopped refusing him. I did miss him. I knew he missed me. And I liked him—now that I didn’t have to compete with his canoeing obsession. I hoped we could be friends. But we didn’t talk about that. We didn’t define what we were doing. We didn’t talk about “us” at all. We stayed away from all sensitive topics. We sat on the deck in the cool evenings drinking beer, or we watched videos, sitting a discreet distance apart on the couch. Then I went home.

  It was a relief to be enjoying each other’s company without it being fraught. Marc seemed to have come out of his self-absorption, his obsession with canoeing. We talked about things we’d barely ever talked about—events that were happening in town, or in the world, the mundane details of our day. It was possibly a mutual ploy to keep ourselves away from the sensitive topics, but if so it was a good one. We seemed to be getting to know each other all over again. Or for the first time. I wasn’t sure. I certainly wasn’t going to try to explain it to Steve Quinn. I didn’t owe him any explanation, I reminded myself. I wished I had asked him when the trial was going to start. Just how long was I going to be torturing myself with cross-examinations? And—a more secret question inside myself—how long were we going to have to wait?

  Marc didn’t ask me about Lucy or the upcoming trial. But I was plagued with thoughts anyway. All the conversations Quinn and I weren’t supposed to have had. The things her friends had told me. I spent hours in a lawn chair on my little grassy point of land beside the water, making notes in a journal.

  And reading the book Lucy had given me for my birthday. The Tao Te Ching. I had found it squeezed into my bookcase. And felt overwhelming emotion when I opened it to find an inscription in Lucy’s handwriting I had completely forgotten about.

  To Ellen,

  May this be a goad and a comfort on your journey through life.

  Affectionately Lucy.

  I remembered mispronouncing the title when I’d unwrapped the book and Lucy correcting me. I remembered asking what the Tao was, and then laughing: “Or did I just open myself up to an hour-long dissertation.” She’d given me a friendly whack on the arm. “I can tell you in one sentence. It means ‘The Way.’”

  “The way to … salvation?”

  “Something like that. I’ll let you read it—or not.”

  I hadn’t read it. Not until now. Now I absorbed every word.

  Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,

  you can deal with whatever life brings you,

  and when death comes you are ready.

  I wrote and I wept and I wrote some more. The writing seemed to help. It also raised more questions.

  When the third week of my holidays arrived, I dug out the phone numbers I had collected. Remembering Marnie and her possible role made me nervous about calling her partner, Trish. I started with Curtis. I expected to have to leave a message for him, but he picked up.

  “I only work part time. Come on up now if you like. You can bring your bathing suit and go for a swim.”

  “Not necessary.” My tone was dry.

  “Stupid of me—you live on water too. I’m used to offering a haven for city folk.”

  I didn’t correct him on my reason for declining. A thought had struck me. Had he been a haven for Lucy?

  “Funny you should ask,” said Curtis. “We can talk about that when you come up.”

  He gave me directions.

  An hour later he was eyeing me speculatively. “What do you think?”

  I scanned my eyes over the view and then back to Curtis. “It’s amazing up here.”

  “Up here” was on a platform—the second “storey” of two platforms actually—in a giant, unusually wide-branched white pine crowning a hill that overlooked a small lake north of Wakefield. I was sitting in a vintage bamboo sixties or seventies tub swing that hung from a branch near the middle of the platform. The Beaujolais in my glass had been nicely chilled to make it a refreshing summer drink. The tree’s branches shaded us from the hot afternoon sun. “I always wanted a tree-house as a kid.”

  “So did I,” said Curtis from his perch on the wide railing surrounding the platform. “That’s why I built it. That was Lucy’s seat you’re sitting in. In fact, she’s the reason it’s there; she didn’t like being too close to the edge.”

  I smiled sadly. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

  I enjoyed the way understanding registered on his face. He nodded. “She was wilfully blind sometimes. Most times, maybe.”

  “Is that what you believe?”

  Curtis’s laugh was harsh. “You want to know what I believe? Have you got a few hours?”

  I smiled at him over my wine glass. “That was the idea wasn’t it?”

  “She was sitting right where you are now a week before she died. The Easter weekend.”

  I almost choked on the wine. “She was with you?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking, but, yes, she was here.”

  “Were you providing a haven?”

  “You could say that,” came the measured reply.

  “I’m sorry. I hope this doesn’t sound like an interrogation. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  Curtis smiled then. The first real smile I’d seen on his face. Or perhaps just the first smile without the red eyes. It transformed his face. “Are you really worried about that after the way I put you off?”

  “I guess not. But why are you telling me now?”

  Curtis gave a slow shrug. Everything about him was deliberate. The way he chose his words and put his sentences together. The way he moved his body. “You seem to have a need to know,” he said. “And you don’t seem to have come armed with preconceived notions.”

  I laughed. “All my preconceived notions got knocked out of me the day Lucy went missing.” I paused. “Actually, I think my preconceptions started to get knocked out of me the day I met Lucy.”

  Curtis was nodding. He had an air about him of really listening. I found myself telling him how I’d met Lucy. How we’d become friends. How we’d stopped being friends.

  “You weren’t the first,” he said. “She—I don’t know if this is the right word, but I’ll use it anyway. She systematically attracted people to her, and then alienated them.”

  “I did my part,” I said. “I rejected her.”

  “You wouldn’t have rejected her if she hadn’t alienated you.”

  “You make it sound like I had no choice.”

  “And did you have any choice after Tim killed her? You found the car, you have to testify at the trial. You have no choice. You’re a victim, I’m a victim. We’re all victims.”

  His vehemence took me aback. Was I a victim? I didn’t feel like one. “I could have chosen not to go back up to the car. I didn’t want to.”

  “I bet you’re sorry now you did.”

  I gave a wry smile. “I was sorry for awhile. But not anymore.”

  “But what choice did I have?” he said. “What fuckin’ choice did I have that my girlfriend leaves me for a fuckin’ murderer and endangers all our lives?”

  “Maybe you’d already made your choice. By getting involved with Lucy in the first place.” It was something Lucy might have said. I wondered if she, too, had been irritated by his refusal to take any responsibility.

  “I understand what you’re trying to say about choice,” said Curtis, in a calmer voice. “But the truth is, if I tried to overpower you right now, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  His example shocked me. I t
ried not to show it. I responded in a calm voice. Pedantic even. “But the question isn’t if you did, but would you. And, call me naive, but it seems like it would be out of character for you to suddenly come at me. But,” I added, “if you do suddenly decide to act out of character, can you give me some warning so I can choose to go home?”

  He laughed then, and his laugh—a warm, genuine laugh—dissipated my unease. “Touché.”

  I changed the subject. “So did you stay in contact with Lucy after….” I trailed off.

  “After she ditched me for another guy? No, I’m not that much of a masochist. I took a few months to get some emotional distance. But I liked the woman. As it happens I like most of my exes. I always try to stay friends. So after a healthy amount of time, I contacted her.”

  “Before Tim got out.”

  “Before Tim got out,” he confirmed. “We saw each other now and then. She asked me to have dinner with her a night or two before he was released.”

  “Didn’t you find that a bit … odd?”

  Curtis barked out a laugh. “Well, at first I flattered myself that she’d come to her senses. She didn’t announce until we were in the middle of dinner that Tim was about to be released. I realized she wanted to….” He paused, searching for the right word. He seemed to pick his words with care. “Gloat,” he said at last.

  “Gloat? I can’t believe that. It seems heartless.”

  “It depends on what she was gloating about. It wasn’t so much about Tim. I sensed she wanted to show me how well she’d got on without me since I’d left. She’d been living on her own for almost a year.”

  “That’s when I met her. When she was on her own. I admired her. She seemed so self-sufficient.”

  Curtis was nodding. “I can see how she would have come across that way. But that was a first for Lucy. Her pattern was always to have a man waiting in the wings. She chased me and chased me. I’ve always been slow to commit. And then when I finally stopped running and said, ‘okay,’ she dumped me for Tim.”