Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About Lois Cloarec Hart
Other Books from Ylva Publishing
Coming from Ylva Publishing in Summer and Fall 2013
Walking the Labyrinth
Copyright © 2013 by Lois Cloarec Hart. All rights reserved.
ISBN paperback: 978-3-95533-052-1
ISBN mobi: 978-3-95533-049-1
ISBN epub: 978-3-95533-050-7
ISBN pdf: 978-3-95533-051-4
Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Am Kirschgarten 2
65830 Kriftel
Germany
http://www.ylva-publishing.com
First Edition: June 2013
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and locations are
fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Sandra Gerth
Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics
Acknowledgments
Thousands of years ago, we told our stories to a few around a cooking fire. Today we tell our stories to millions via social media. The common thread is how we convey so much of ourselves, whether in the form of shared humour, a bit of gossip, or a philosophical observation. This is the human imperative, to leave our mark and to contribute our stories to the cultural tapestry. Walking the Labyrinth, within its fictional construct, is my story, more than anything else I’ve ever written. No story has ever spilled out of me in a torrent the way this one did, but it would not have come fully to life without the help and dedication of some remarkable and talented women.
As every author knows, excellent editing is vital to a polished end product. My wife has edited every word I’ve written since we first met twelve years ago. Day, words are simply inadequate to tell you how much I appreciate your contributions. When I can make you laugh or cry, when you tell me something lacks the Loie-spark and prompt me to rewrite, and when you signal your approval with a smile and a nod, I know all over again how fortunate I am to have you.
Kathleen GramsGibbs, who has been working with me almost as long as Day, is the best of sounding boards, contributors, and as an added bonus, a dear friend. My deepest thanks, Kathy. I hope to benefit from your insight, vision, and patience for years to come.
For this first book with Ylva, I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with Sandra Gerth, who’s done a sterling job of editing. Long before we met, I appreciated her writing ability, having devoured the stories written under her nom de plume, Jae. It was a pleasure to discover that she’s equally talented as an editor.
Astrid Ohletz invited me to become a part of Ylva’s family at the end of 2012, and I’m so very glad I accepted. From skilled editing to fabulous cover art, producing Walking the Labyrinth has been a completely positive experience. Thank you, Astrid. I look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Ylva.
Day
I love you
That’s all
That’s everything
Chapter 1
Lee listlessly eyed the wisp of smoke curling up from the cigarette that dangled between her fingers. The ashtray on her lap had overflowed and left dark streaks on the grimy, white T-shirt hanging on her like a shroud. A silent, flickering television screen was the only illumination in the darkness of the basement den, and nothing diffused the sour air.
Lee reached for the bottle beside her. A wedding ring, too large for her finger, clanked against the glass. It captured her attention, and her hand stilled.
She stared at the ring, remembering the day her late wife had placed it on her finger. It had been a perfect day. Surrounded by friends and family, Lee pledged herself for life to the woman she loved.
“For life...right. Who knew ‘life’ would turn out to be so little time together, eh, Dana?”
Lee started at the sound of her own voice. It was bleak and raw, and echoed hollowly as if the owner had long ago abandoned using it. She tried to clear her throat, but that only engendered a fit of coughing. In sudden self-disgust, she stubbed out the cigarette and set the laden ashtray aside.
A doorbell sounded upstairs, but Lee ignored it. She knew that her son, Eli, or his girlfriend, Liz, would get it. It wouldn’t be anyone to see her. Not after she spent months rebuffing every appeal and invitation her friends had extended until they finally gave up and left her alone in her basement refuge. She didn’t blame them.
Lee leaned forward. Her forearms rested on bony knees as she tried to recall when she had last seen any of her friends. Three months ago? Six? She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d gone in to work. She shook her head wryly. “Good thing I own half the business or I’d have fired me long ago.”
She stared at the faded carpet, now covered with stains and dust bunnies. Dana had been so excited the day they’d found exactly the right colour carpet for the basement of their new home. Lee laughed softly as she remembered how insistent Dana had been on not settling for less than the precise shade of burgundy she had fixed in her mind. It had taken over a year before they stumbled upon a suitable carpet in a country flea market, but once Dana spied it, there was no discouraging her. They had been out for the day on Lee’s beloved Suzuki bike and couldn’t carry the carpet with them. Dana didn’t want to leave it for fear it would be gone by the time they got back, so Lee drove all the way back to the city and returned with a borrowed truck to bring their new-found treasure home.
Lee was ashamed at how dishevelled the carpet was, and she winced as she noticed a cigarette burn by her feet. How had she let Dana’s carpet come to this state?
“Maybe I could rent a carpet cleaner.” Lee ran a hand roughly through her lank, stringy hair. Several strands snagged, and she recoiled at the pain. She held her hand out and was dismayed by the long, dirty fingernails. She could see the ragged edges where she had broken nails on the weight machine, which had been one of her few solaces the past year.
The door at the top of the stairs creaked and opened.
Lee looked up, half-expecting to see Eli with a plate of food. He or Liz usually came down about this time, even though she rarely ate much of what they offered. To her surprise, however, Lee realized she was hungry. It was an unfamiliar sensation, and she rubbed her concave stomach.
It was Eli, but he wasn’t carrying her usual supper plate. He was preceding a small group of people down the stairs.
Lee frowned when she recognized her old friends.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Eli flipped on the light.
Lee flinched and covered her eyes with her forearm. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Because it’s time to face the light, Lee. It’s time you left this basement and started to live again.”
Lee lowered her arm and squinted as the light stabbed at her reddened eyes. She surveyed the small group warily. “Christ, what is this? An intervention?”
Rhiannon stepped forward. “That’s exactly what this is. We’ve given you long enough. We’re not going to let you destroy yourself bit by bit any
longer.”
“Go away.”
Rhiannon ignored Lee’s half-hearted rejection and knelt next to the chair. “No.” She touched Lee’s knee, and Lee shrank back. “No, I won’t go away, and neither will Marika or Eli or any of us. You never in your life let a friend down, and we’re not going to let you down either.”
“You’re wrong. I let her down.” The retort was automatic, but Lee realized the emotion behind the words had faded. The guilt that had haunted her day and night for months had subsided. For a split second, Lee didn’t know whether to feel culpable or rejoice at its loss.
Marika rested her hands on Rhiannon’s shoulders. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Dana fought with everything she had, but there was nothing she, you, or any of her doctors could do to stop the spread of the cancer.”
David added, “You didn’t let her down then, Lee.” When she finally looked up at him, he continued, “But you’re letting her down now. In your soul, you know how horrified she’d be to see you like this, isolated, barely existing.”
Lee dropped her gaze. She did know. The knowledge had been building within her for weeks, but she’d been unable to summon the energy to break the destructive cycle that trapped her. She had spent so long mired in a morass of despair that she’d forgotten how to live any other way.
Willem stepped forward. “My friend, you dishonour not only Dana, but the life you built. I could count on one hand the number of times you’ve been in our offices this past year. I’m tired of carrying DeGroot and Glenn Security by myself. I want my partner back.”
Shame sliced at Lee, and she dropped her gaze. DeGroot and Glenn had once been her pride and joy, second only to Dana and Eli in its importance in her life. How could she have just abandoned the company they had spent a quarter century building up?
“Liz and I got engaged last weekend.”
Her son’s blurted words startled Lee. “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t think you’d care.”
“Not care? Eli, how could you think that?”
Eli dashed tears from his eyes with his shirtsleeve. Lee was sharply reminded of the little boy he’d been when Dana first came into her life with Eli in tow. “Because you haven’t cared about one damn thing since the day we buried Mom. More than anything, I want you to be at our wedding this summer, but I don’t know if you are even going to be alive tomorrow. Hell, I’m scared to bring the laundry downstairs in case I find your body hanging from a rafter. In the middle of the night, when I’m wakened by the sound of that damned weightlifting machine, I’m actually glad. I’m glad because it’s a signal that, for one more night at least, you’re still alive.”
The shame Lee felt at Willem’s words multiplied. “I wouldn’t—”
“Yes, you would,” Eli said. “Every time you took your bike out this winter, I waited for a call from the police telling me you’d been killed in an accident. There was a time you’d have gone up one side of me and down the other for even riding after the end of October. And there you were, out in every fucking blizzard. You were trying to kill yourself, Lee. Don’t tell me you weren’t.”
Lee stared at him, rocked by her son’s insight and her fear that he was right. “I wasn’t—I didn’t—I just needed to get out. That’s all. Sometimes the walls close in on me and I can’t take the way I feel for even one moment longer.”
Eli shook his head, and David put his arms around him. He regarded Lee compassionately over Eli’s shoulder. “Do you remember the day, about a week before Dana died, when she insisted you go home to clean up? It was about the only time you left her that last month.”
Lee grunted. “She told me I stunk worse than Eli’s hockey locker room.” She smiled ruefully, remembering the determined look on Dana’s haggard face as she ordered Lee home for a shower and fresh clothes. “She was right.”
David hugged Eli, then released him and walked toward Lee. “What you didn’t know was that Dana had arranged with Eli to call us to her bedside in the hospice. She wanted to talk to us all without you there.”
Rhiannon took Lee’s hands. “Dana looked like hell that day. She knew—we all knew—that she had very little time left, and she needed something from us.”
Marika regarded Lee sternly. “She had written a letter, and she asked us to make a promise.”
“Promise?” Lee looked around, her brow furrowed. “What did you promise?”
David pulled an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Dana knew you so well. She knew her death would devastate you. She said to give you a year to grieve in your own way, then give you this letter. If you were in a good place, then the letter would be an added comfort for you, but if you weren’t handling things well, we were to intervene.”
“To say you’re not handling things well would be a vast understatement.”
Lee flinched at the asperity in Marika’s voice.
Rhiannon squeezed Lee’s hands. “You’re handling things like shit, my friend. That has to end. Dana made us promise not to let you go on this way, and come hell or high water, we’re going to keep that promise.”
“She told us to give you this.” David held out the letter. “We don’t know what’s in it. It’s Dana’s final message to you, and it’s time you read it.”
Lee fumbled as she tried to open the envelope until Rhiannon took it and deftly unsealed the flap.
Marika turned on the table lamp and handed over her own reading glasses.
With trembling hands, Lee extracted the handwritten pages. Her vision swam as she desperately tried to make the words legible.
Marika knelt next to Rhiannon, and both her friends rested comforting hands on Lee’s knees. She flashed them a look of gratitude and wiped tears away with shaky fingers. Then, with a deep breath, she focused on the script.
Dana wrote this. These are her last words to me...her last words ever...
Lee tenderly smoothed the pages and began to read.
My darling Lee,
As I write this, I know two things. I know my time on earth grows very short, and I know the pain you’re going to have to endure will be almost unbearable. I wish I could spare you what is to come, but I can’t. I have to believe that some good will come of it, for when I look at you, the agony in your eyes rends my soul.
You have always been so steadfast, my Lee. Everyone has always relied on you—your grandparents, me, Eli, Willem, Marika, and Rhiannon—I can’t think of anyone who has come within your orbit who hasn’t been the better for knowing you. I’ve often thought how ironic it was that you, who had so few biological relatives, created the bonds of family with so many others. But for all your strength, I hear you weeping in the night when you think I’m asleep. Sometimes I reach for you and we cry together. Sometimes I let you have the privacy of your tears. This is unknown territory for me too, my love. Please forgive me if I’ve sometimes been uncertain about the best choices. Know that each decision I made was with you and Eli foremost in mind.
I believe with all my heart that you have the strength to get through the pain, no matter how lost you’re feeling right now. Toward that end, I’m going to enlist our son and our friends to rescue you, if need be, because it is my greatest fear that you will have gone far astray. It is ironic that I have no such fears for Eli. He will grieve for me, and then, with Liz’ help, he’ll pick up his life again. But you, who are the most valiant soul I have ever known, you are the vulnerable one. Perhaps it is because you love so deeply. It is one of your finest qualities, but it also leaves you so terribly open to heartbreak. I was privileged to be the recipient of your magnificent love. And as I take it with me, Lee, so too do I leave with all the love I feel for you and Eli. It was the only thing the cancer could never touch.
It’s time for a little tough love, Lee. If you’re reading this, a year has passed since my death. You’ve either weathered the last twelve months well and are in a healthy, wholesome place, in which case I’m thrilled and delighted for you. Or you aban
doned yourself to despair, retreated from life, and pushed away all those who love you and want to help. Truthfully, I suspect the latter will be the case, so as a safeguard I’m going to kick your tail feathers, my dearest one.
Stop it—right now, Lee. I’m not downplaying what you’ll have had to endure the last year. I know how horrendous it will be for you, and I’m going to be watching you with the deepest compassion from the other side. But, my love, you cannot exist in a stasis of sorrow. It’s past time to pull yourself together and get on with your life. Almost every soul who has ever lived has endured the agony of loss. It is a sad reality of the human experience, and few have the luxury of retreating from that pain, because they have people depending on them to keep on putting one foot ahead of the other, day in and day out.
The thing is, love, though you may have temporarily forgotten, you too have people counting on you. You are our son’s only parent now. I need you to be there for Eli. He needs you. He will always need you, even when he is a husband and father himself. And as much as I appreciate Willem’s fine stewardship of DeGroot and Glenn, you are the founder, inspiration, and backbone of that company. I know our friends will feel the huge hole you and I left behind, so I’m relying on you to fill in that piece of their lives again. Our goddaughter will be walking and talking by now. You have so much you can teach Marnie, about life, love, and how to throw a curveball. Let that little girl learn about nobility, honour, and loyalty from a woman who lives all these qualities to the utmost.
So, no more excuses, my love. I don’t expect you to forget me or even to set aside the grief of losing me. I do expect that even as you remember me, you will resume functioning as the fabulous mother, friend, and business partner you’ve always been.
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