by Myrna Dey
I asked her if that was the end of it, and she said in her household it was. It was never mentioned, but her dad got stricter than ever, keeping her home after school like a prisoner. She ran away once and got in with the wrong crowd until she took her esthetician’s course. The janitor stopped her later and said she understood about different cultures and would respect her parents’ wishes about keeping it quiet. But the school board heard about it anyway.
“Is it any easier now talking about it?”
“Yeah. I’ve learned there are lots of creeps like that out there. Like, they’re the creeps, not me.” Robin pointed dramatically with her finger away from herself, then to her thin little chest.
“Would you be willing to testify?”
She made a face. “My dad’d freak out.”
I patted her hands, which were now stretched out on the table. “Let’s hope we won’t need you in person. But I can’t tell you enough how helpful you’ve been, Robin. You could be a hero to a few young girls.”
She smiled and combed the back of her hair with her fingers. Then she handed me her card. “Like, if you ever need a pedicure.”
I gave her mine and thanked her again before she left.
I sighed with relief. This should help snag the teacher who didn’t show much originality in his tactics. I hadn’t seen the other girl, but Robin’s vulnerable size made him seem more despicable. Try it on someone as big as I was — except at that age, any girl in similar circumstances might react the same way. I turned off the tape recorder, jotted down a few notes, then talked to the guys in the next room about the interview. They gave me a DVD and VHS to take back to Burnaby. They told me it was a good job, leaving me hopeful for a change.
The midday sun had warmed the atmosphere enough to walk for a while; only my ears felt a sting. After a couple of blocks, I came to the Bay, the same white marble building as in Vancouver. Its familiarity lured me inside where I found a bargain bin full of woollen toques. I bought a black one. I could now continue my exploration of the city. Chinatown had caught my eye on the way over, so I turned back in that direction. It was only a few streets long and interesting enough — no, I wasn’t comparing it to Vancouver’s — but the bigger attraction was the bridge ahead. Lions carved into stone gazebos made me want to cross it. Mona lived on the north hill so I would see how far I could get.
On the middle of the bridge, I stopped. Standing under the stone lions gave me a personal perspective of Calgary. Forget spreading suburbs, skyscrapers filled with the country’s wealth, and even revolving towers — they could be anywhere — but this vision of a powerful city rising out of the ice mist of the frozen river got to me. As if it had started small and was still stretching to reach the haughty little hill that would always be looking down on it. From now on, the word Calgary would conjure up this image for me.
At the top of Centre Street, I turned left and followed the scenic route along the brow of the north hill. Sixth Avenue did not come all the way through, however, and I soon had to leave the river vista and Crescent Road mansions behind to connect with it. Mona lived in a neighbourhood not unlike Dad’s in Vancouver filled with working-class houses from the thirties, now worth half a million dollars. Many homes had been enlarged and gentrified, but Mona’s was not one of them: a small brown stucco bungalow with white trim around the windows. I was five minutes early, so I walked once around the block before ringing the bell.
Mona’s appearance did not match her drab voice, even when the two came together in a fleeting smile and an invitation to enter. She was about Janetta’s age — early seventies — trim, and more agile than I expected. As with Janetta I sensed a casualness that would not have been there during her professional years. She would likely have never received a visitor in the mauve fleece jogging suit she was wearing now. Her hair was short, white — naturally wavy — her eyes pale blue, and her lips glossed in pink. She showed surprise that a newcomer like me would walk from downtown — or at least as much surprise as she could muster. She led me into the small living room, which was joined by an archway to a dining room with a left turn into the kitchen. All the furniture and ornaments had belonged to her mother, she informed me. Was she a younger, more functional version of Laura Owens with her shrine?
She gestured me toward the worn blue velvet sofa and asked if I would like a cup of tea. When I said yes, she brought in two full mugs, then came back with a creamer and sugar bowl. She stood while I added milk and returned them both to the kitchen, next time appearing with two plates, each holding half a buttered scone. The final trip produced a jar of marmalade and spoon: I was to spread my half with the marmalade so she could carry it back promptly to the kitchen. It appeared she had few guests, and even fewer trays.
“You’re here on a visit?”
“Work.”
“Police work?”
“Yes.” I quickly opened my handbag to dodge any explanations.
“Here’s the picture.”
She studied the two little girls for a long time. “Can’t imagine how it got left behind with Cindy.”
“And I can’t imagine the path that’s taken me here, bringing it back to you.”
“I guess you could say that.” Mona’s face was softening now that I had presented my credentials. “Did you know I was named Sara Monica, but my father shortened it?”
I nodded. “And my aunt — Sara’s daughter — is Janetta. The twins never forgot each other.”
Like Wendell, like Dad, Janetta, even Gail and Monty, we spoke of the great injustice done to them by their aunts in keeping them ignorant of the other’s existence. I asked Mona what her mother remembered of Sara and their mother Jane.
“Mother didn’t talk much, and I didn’t ask. She was cozier with Wendell about family matters, because he loves to gab.”
“So neither of you ever went through her things when you brought her to Calgary?”
“She was getting forgetful by then, and I didn’t want to disturb anything. Though I did go down to the trunk this morning after you called.” She got up and took two yellowed envelopes from the dining table and handed them to me. When she continued to stand, I wondered if I was to read them quickly and give them back like the milk and marmalade. But she sat down and sipped her tea.
I opened the one tied with a blue ribbon. It was a bangle and handkerchief identical to the ones Janetta gave me. I told her so. If she thought this was as remarkable as I did, she didn’t let on.
“I opened that envelope but didn’t get around to the letters.”
“Did your mother ever say anything about them — when you were growing up, I mean?”
“Just that they were all she had from her mother, along with the picture.” She sniffed. “And to think Cindy had it.”
The other envelope was bulkier. Inside were six sheets of paper: one was a letter on fine stationery from Catherine Williams in Wales, and the other five were lined sheets torn from a notebook and written in a scrawled hand I didn’t recognize. My throat was dry; I swallowed some tea before I started.
March 22, 1947
Llantrisant, Glamorganshire
Dear Lizzie,
Though I have never had the pleasure of your acquaintanceship, I hope you will be familiar with my name from your departed husband, my dear brother Thomas.
My health is failing and there is something I want to accomplish before it deserts me completely. Yours is the only address I possess for any of my Canadian relatives and I ask your assistance in carrying out this mission for me.
Enclosed is a packet of letters from my beloved sister Jane written from Vancouver Island to me in Wales. We always prayed that one day we would meet again, and after her death and that of her son Llewyllyn and her sweet Janet, I had hopes of meeting with Sara and presenting the letters in person. This was not to be. I did receive three letters from young Sara written from your address but it seems my replies did not reach her and she stopped writing. Thomas advised me of her marriage to Miles Dryvynsydes and
her move to the Canadian prairies but no address was included. I continue to cherish the picture of the two little girls, but I believe it is time to relinquish custody of my sister’s letters to her only daughter.
I will be ever grateful if you would kindly forward this packet to Sara Dryvynsydes. I will die in peace knowing they have ended up where they belong.
I hope you and Laura, and my other nieces, Edna and Myrtle, are keeping well.
My sincere thanks to you, dear sister-in-law, for aiding me in this special task.
Yours truly,
Catherine Williams
The most astonishing part of the letter was that it hadn’t been read. If it had, someone might have noticed that Janet was presumed dead and Sara was still alive. So it was not just Lizzie keeping the twins apart; one twin was herself an unwitting accomplice. What were the odds of the uncurious sister receiving the letter with all the clues and then passing it on to the uncurious daughter? If it had fallen into Wendell’s hands, the Mingus family might have started a search for Sara Dryvynsydes somewhere on the prairies.
If, if, if.
When I looked up, Mona was drinking tea in the same recliner where her mother had sat in Wendell’s picture. I controlled my tone. “Would you like to take a look at this now, Mona? It’s fascinating. Aunt Catherine was also led to believe your mother had died as a child.”
“Is that so?” She checked her watch with Wheel of Fortune in mind. “Maybe later.”
Clearly Mona’s only interest in words was one vowel at a time. Thoughts of little Sara writing to her Aunt Catherine in Wales grieved me. How did she express herself? Did she confide how much she missed her sister? Did she beg her aunt to get her out of Lizzie’s home or did she use the same restraint her mother did in her letters, allowing her unhappiness to escape between words? Did Lizzie tear up Catherine’s replies? My hands were shaking as I unfolded the brittle bundle of lined pages. The writing was almost illegible, and certainly not the careful hand of Jane Hughes that I knew. To make sure, I checked the last of the five pages and saw a faint signature: “Your loving sister Jane xxxx.” Those kisses comforted me as I sank back into my great-aunt’s sofa to decipher each scribbled word in her mother’s letter.
October 27, 1918
My dearest Cassie,
I started life with you at my side and now I send a final farewell to you with my sweet daughters next to me. In my mind I have shared all my trials and blessings with you, always in the hope of speaking them one day in person.That will never happen on this earth.
The Spanish flu is stealing my breath as I record the sadness that has burdened my heart since I left Chase River. To you I direct my story because here in Nanaimo it might cause hurt where none is deserved. The fever now consuming me has opened a passage to another high fever almost 24 years ago on the most terrible night of my life.
Dear Cassie, I was witness to a brutal murder of a friend I held in high esteem. You might recall me speaking of my favourite laundry customer, a Negro gentleman. Louis Strong was killed because he refused to sell his orchard that lay over rich deposits of coal. The murderer was a butcher, skilled in the bludgeoning of animals, and required only one blow to my poor friend’s head, thereby making it difficult to prove blame when his body was found at the foot of a bluff as an accident two days later. The biggest clue was a bundle of clothes he dropped outside the butcher’s house. Can you imagine that he was bringing them to me to launder when he was struck down?
You may wonder what I was doing there on a dark night. Based on hearsay from another customer, I was on my way to his cabin to warn him that the butcher who acted like a friend was not to be trusted. But I was too late. Mama believed I had gone in search of a lemon for Gomer’s croup and never knew better. And I myself lost memory of it because that night in hiding I cut my thumb on a rusty hasp and almost died of blood poisoning. When I recovered, the land had been claimed for the Extension coal mine which would soon provide a livelihood for my husband, our brother and Mama, so you will understand, dear Cassie, my grave dilemma in coming forward. Maybe it was fortunate my fevered brain locked away details of that gruesome night or I could not have forgiven myself when the butcher was charged for the murder, then later set free for lack of evidence. Only now I see things clearly.
There is more. Your little sister is not who you think. My first baby son Owen born just before I turned 17 was not from my husband Roland but from Adam Strong, the son of my murdered friend Louis. A chance meeting after my convalescence landed me in his arms and never have I known such a beautiful man before or since. Our baby has been my secret alone, and now yours. Tragically, he stopped breathing within hours of his birth. Was he meant to be a sacrifice for his mother’s sins? Suspicions of his origins were buried with his ruddy skin, and with him a piece of my heart.
You have read unkind references to Roland Hughes from my own pen, dear sister, but I was the false-hearted one in encouraging marriage for my own motives. He came from a motherless home with a drunken father and there is goodness in the man when not in the clutches of alcohol. How can I now bear the thought of Sara and Janet in the same predicament? Oh Cassie, if only you were closer to raise them as I would. My best friend has just died of the flu and our brothers’ wives would make life more miserable for them than being abandoned. I can only hope Llewyllyn returns whole and mature from the battlefield soon to help care for them.
I am failing fast and must close. I ask God’s mercy in judging me for my sins against Roland and the Strong family and against our decent Owens name. But it is strange my head is only filled with the bliss I have known — of my childhood in Wales with you and the others, of the miracles of Llewyllyn, Sara and Janet, of an afternoon in a log cabin, and of many everyday moments we do not recognize as such at the time. I pray you will meet my children one day and present me well. Go you with God.
I had a vague sensation of a TV being turned on. Was it in this room or in the house next door? Latitude and longitude no longer applied.
Jane Owens Hughes: the finale. Images crowded out one another: the fairytale twin girls, in their bows and dresses from the photo, weeping at their mother’s deathbed; a sunlit porch with two perfect lovers — doomed and therefore more perfect; the broken-hearted young mother; a decrepit but noble Roland Hughes in the background. Without a photo trail, my imagination was free to assign my own features to them all. I even pictured myself bursting into a courtroom waving the letter as last-minute evidence. What would my uniform look like then?
I sat up straighter on Janet’s couch, my shoulders squared in respect to our matriarch casting her pages to currents that would deposit them, four generations later, into my hands. How Sara would have feasted on this letter! How did Janet miss her chance?
Eventually I noticed Mona sitting in the room. But she was now oblivious to me. I waited for the commercial before asking, “Would you mind if I made copies of these letters — for my father and Aunt Janetta and me? If there’s a copy shop around, I could take a cab and be back in no time.”
“There’s one at the Sears mall. I’ll drive you.” Her eyes returned to the screen.
Why didn’t it surprise me that Mona would not let these precious possessions out of her safekeeping, even without knowing how precious they were? I thanked her and excused myself to the bathroom while Wheel of Fortune finished.
“I can take you back to the hotel from there,” she said, as we walked to her old stucco garage at the back, alone in its original state among new double garages.
A clear dismissal. So much for any notions of looking through family albums to put a face to Janet. Wendell would have to supply those someday. And I had already hit the jackpot.
At the mall, I made copies of the two letters — for Dad and me, Janetta, Monty and Gail. Then a final one for Wendell; despite access to the originals, he’d receive a copy sooner from me. On the way to the hotel, Mona talked about Calgary growing too big and how she didn’t drive anywhere beyond the north hill anymore
. I thanked her for making an exception in my case, though it was a small sacrifice to get rid of me. “And thank you for sharing the letters. Maybe we’ll meet again.”
“Maybe,” she said, checking her watch, likely for sitcoms she never missed. She drove off with the family treasures to be returned to the guarded trunk. Until they disintegrated or she did.
The evening air chilled my intentions of searching for a trendy restaurant for supper. Room service would do just fine for me to go over the letters again; maybe I’d call Dad and Gail later with the news. Back in my room, I flopped on the bed to digest the day. Warren had been pushed out by Robin Basa, Mona Mingus, and Jane Hughes. No wonder that’s how he felt. Sara said there were no accidents, so this bad timing might not be entirely my fault.
Two cases wrapped up in one day. Robin Basa had given us a lot in confirming Frank Naylor’s M.O., and Jane Hughes put a lid on the Strong cold case. What were the historical implications? Should I notify the textbooks to add a footnote to their next editions? Or at least inform Professor Barnwell to set the record straight in future classes?
Sleep overruled my appetite, and I awoke two hours later feeling groggy and hungry. I was too tired for any phone calls other than room service. A Greek salad and teriyaki chicken wrap arrived as I was arranging the pages into five sets. Propped against pillows, I set Jane’s letter on my legs and tried to eat as I reread it. Each sentence burst open another cell of my great-grandmother’s locked world. The will required for this final act humbled me to the bone.
Something in the paragraph about her baby grabbed me. I forgot to open my mouth for a forkful of Greek salad my hand was delivering. Olive oil dripped down my chest, barely missing the page. That she and Adam Strong could not be together was a given Jane felt no need to explain to her sister. Raising a child as a single mother in her society, especially a black child, must have seemed more daunting than explaining him eventually to Roland Hughes, which she might well have done had the poor thing lived. Her trust in her husband was deeper than we imagined.
