by Lou Allin
Marilyn saw Holly admiring it. “Lovely, isn’t it? In the nineteenth century, wealthy farmers would commission an artist to commemorate their property. There’s something so simple and gratifying about the rural life. That’s why I like it out here. I’d prefer to have lived in those golden days, but I doubt my massage business would have thrived. Frontier women were not so self-indulgent.”
She poured fragrant mint tea into Holly’s cup. A bright floral service of Royal Winton had two cups and saucers, a creamer and sugar holder, and a small pot made for two. “Debbie has wonderful things if you know how to look. Antiques from an age in which people cared, instead of the Styrofoam generation. This pattern is called Summertime. They’re reproduced now, but these are originals from my Aunt Dee.”
Holly found a surge of hope. “Do you have relatives nearby?” This felt as phony as the “are you sitting down?” routine.
“Aunt Dee’s here. She raised me. My mother died in an… accident, and my father had left her a widow when she was thirty.” Marilyn mentioned the bare facts with no self-pity, as if it had proofed her in a cauldron of challenges.
Holly thought of Joel. No father figure for him. And yet some young men grew up to live productive lives. Why make excuses for a felon? No wonder the aptitude tests placed Holly low on the scale for social work. “How old is your aunt?”
Marilyn answered with pride. “Eighty this year. She was in a small downstairs suite in town. When Eyre Manor opened, she moved right in. Shannon and I offered her the spare bedroom, but she was firm about living where she could socialize. Sharp as hell. I hope I take after her.” The new facility had recently opened with great fanfare in Sooke. Its proximity to the legion was helpful for those residents who liked a social beer, card games and bingo.
“There’s a picture I took of her with my old Polaroid. It’s a shame how the colours fade.” Marilyn pointed to a framed photo of a small woman with a strong face, her hair in curlers. She wore a flowery house dress complete with full apron and was brandishing a rolling pin in a comical candid shot, a mischievous expression common to those who would never grow old. “God, could she bake. She must miss that the most. Sometimes I have her over for a meal and let her go wild in the kitchen.”
With a warm, enveloping smile that made friends of a stranger, Marilyn looked relaxed and revitalized. Perhaps she was finally seeing her life come back to normal, and now… Holly girded herself. Although Joel seemed to be a good-for-nothing, who knew how his sister had felt about him? Without siblings of her own, Holly couldn’t imagine. Her parents had probably stopped at one by choice, or perhaps Bonnie, an idealist, wanted no more “complications” in the disappointing marriage.
She put down her tea and lowered her gaze, searching for words. Her hands she placed in her lap, lacing the fingers and squeezing them so that the knuckles hurt, though the tension was invisible. Delivering this information was far more painful when you knew the person. “I have some bad news for you. Forgive me for the delay. It’s the worst part of my job.”
Marilyn cocked her head. The corners of her mouth drooped. “I thought you said your father was…you don’t mean Aunt Dee. I was just talking to… And how could you have known that she—”
Holly shifted and barely managed the last swallow of tea. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for more than traffic complexities. “I’m afraid it’s about your… brother. I’m sorry that…I—”
“My brother? Joel?” Marilyn’s cup shook in the saucer, and she put it down. Where her body had been a supple thing and her posture natural, now she seemed tense. With a bitter laugh, she hurried on. “He’s in jail again? You’re not surprising me with that news. They say blood is thicker than water, but in this case…”
Holly’s news was pre-empted by Marilyn’s surprisingly harsh attitude. “Did you know he was back here?”
Marilyn passed a hand over her forehead. Small points of red began to appear on her cheeks. “Yes, I…saw him last week. After all that time. I thought he was out of my life, dead even, and frankly, I didn’t mind. I’ve spent so long trying to…” She looked to the photograph of Shannon as if seeking strength.
Holly decided to let the woman talk. She’d already made a mess of the announcement, and it was too late for Joel.
“He showed up at dinner time. Wouldn’t that be the case? I gave him supper. He ate like there was no tomorrow. I did feel bad about that. I’ve never gone hungry in my life.”
“Did he say why he’d come?”
She waved her hand. “Money, what else? I gave him what I had. A few hundred. Not that I keep a lot around, but some clients pay in cash. I told him he could stay the one night, and I was firm about that. He looked terrible, but what would you expect? The man was a con artist, and a poor one at that.”
“From our records, he spent much of his life in jail, off and on. So he didn’t have a more positive reason for coming? Starting over, for example.”
“He was hardly wearing a suit and wingtips. It wasn’t as if he was going to find a job, although I did suggest it. Normal work was always beneath him. He would rather have been the president of nothing than make an honest day’s wage. Don’t think he always looked like a bum. He was a handsome kid at eighteen when I last saw him. I suppose he was into drugs. That’s why he wanted the money. Do you call what I gave him enablement? What could I…” Marilyn’s voice trailed off, and she raised one hand as if to say “enough”.
Now that she knew that Marilyn couldn’t stand the man, the rest should be easier. Holly took a deep breath. “Joel was found—”
Marilyn stood up, a pulse beating in her temple. She felt blindly for the mantel, steadying herself. The room grew very silent, as if the air pressure had changed. Outside a tiny tree frog whirred and cracked its hopeful song. “Was found…are you saying? An accident? He had no car unless he stole one. Don’t tell me he was hit walking the highway?”
“I’ve done this all wrong,” Holly said. “Let me start again.” She reshuffled her mental cards. “He overdosed, the medical examiner said. It seemed to be an accident, not…suicide.”
As Holly continued, Marilyn rubbed at the bridge of her nose, where parallel lines bisected. “But why didn’t you…” She braked to a discreet halt, her voice unsure with confusion. “Sorry, I’m not criticizing you. I’ve been away supervising the work at Alma. Probably you didn’t want to leave a phone message…under the circumstances. I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news, too.”
“With the life he’d been leading, few possessions, fewer friends, he wasn’t easy to identify. We didn’t know his…Joel’s name until yesterday. His wallet contained…” She hesitated against adding the theft charges, but clearly the woman knew her brother. “False identities, stolen credit cards.”
Marilyn gave a knowing laugh. “Same old Joel. Aliases, you mean. I watch occasional crime shows, and I read to relax. Everything seems to come out so right in fiction. Justice always prevails…unlike in the real world.” She squared her shoulders, took a long breath and exhaled slowly as if she were counting to ten. “I wouldn’t wish anyone dead. But I’m not going to pretend that I’m grieving. No one can turn back the clock. I mourn the boy he once was, but even by age ten, he’d made very bad choices.”
“Was there trouble when he was growing up?” Abnormal psychology had been one of Holly’s favourite subjects. Nature, nurture, or both? Here was Marilyn given the same genetic assets and liabilities, yet with a productive life helping others.
Marilyn crossed her legs and folded her long fingers on one knee. “You see, when our mother died, Aunt Dee stepped in without a word of complaint. Never married, she had built a profitable house-cleaning business, but was very serious about education. With Joel, it didn’t take. There was a bit of the sociopath in him; he made his own rules. Despite his charming side, his only consideration was what was in it for him.”
“That must have been hard for you. I’m an only child myself. And I…grew up with both parents.” Now was not the time
to recite her own history.
Marilyn met her glance with a smile. “You know, it feels good to talk about this. Bring it all out from under a rock. In later years, if people asked, I’d say I was an only child. Shannon knew because we’d grown up together.”
Psychologists estimated that perhaps ten per cent of the population had sociopathic tendencies. They weren’t all serial killers. Some found great success in heading up companies and leading in professions but let no one stand in their way. “What happened to your father?” This family had too many strikes against them. Holly wasn’t going to speed things up by hastening the interview, especially since she’d taken her own sweet, pathetically incompetent time getting to the point.
Marilyn sat back and half closed her eyes, but her face was growing peaceful. “Dad’s family had a history of heart disease in the days when, without apparent symptoms, that condition went largely untreated. God love him, but I suspect he had terribly high natural cholesterol, even though he was skinny as a rake. He was an avid jogger and loved to charge the hills. Like that runner who died young. Jim Fox, or Fixx, was it? We never suspected. Dad came in second in his age group in the Victoria 10K once. He was my hero. He didn’t make it past forty, and I never saw him eat an egg, much less bacon or junk food.”
Holly needed to get back to the detachment, but she wasn’t going to interrupt this therapy. Marilyn could take as long as she needed. And now that Aunt Dee was in the picture, she’d have some much-needed support.
Marilyn went to a large secretary desk and pulled a pack of pictures from the bottom drawer. “We weren’t much for albums. This is all I have, isn’t that pitiful? Mother never liked having hers taken. Kind of vain about her Roman nose. Here are the four of us at the PNE.” Holly looked at the snapshot taken in what she presumed was the Seventies. Marilyn and her brother were very similar in build, wiry and lithe. The father had the characteristic long hair of the period and stood by the mother, who wore slacks and a light sweater. Characters in a Diane Arbus picture, static but full of tension. Marilyn was looking proudly at her father, and he was smiling. But the other two? What was that saying? That all happy families are alike and all unhappy families… It sounded dour.
Marilyn gave a bitter laugh. “It’s so odd about Joel. He took no care of himself, lived on the streets, yet he outlived Father by nearly twenty years. Must have taken after Mother. She had the heart of an ox.” Her steady voice showed that grieving would not be an option. Then a thought seemed to occur to her. “Aren’t you supposed to show me a picture?”
Only now did Holly realize that she was holding that large envelope. This was no time to compound her actions by making a mistake about identity, no matter how far-fetched. “Uh, yes. I brought a recent one from his records.”
Marilyn took the picture and grimaced. “He’d grown coarse as he aged. But it’s Joel.”
Holly felt a reminding pulse in her forehead. “There is something else. Maybe there’s no point in mentioning it.”
Marilyn steeled herself for another blow. “He didn’t harm anyone, did he? Essentially I always saw him as a coward.”
“He had a few assault convictions, nothing more than the usual brawls. Hard to escape that in the drug culture.”
“I don’t know much about street drugs, other than marijuana. Shannon had it prescribed for her pain, and it was a godsend. Do you mean heroin or cocaine? Or is it that meth they talk about? My business uses nature’s healing herbs and potions.” She gave an almost imperceptible shiver as she rubbed her shoulders.
Would Marilyn want to assume the responsibilities of a funeral? It seemed unlikely, not to mention unnecessary. Yet she was the closest relative. Why communicate these sordid details if not for the wish to tie loose ends? “It was unusual. In his stash…his bag of narcotics, mixed with the heroin, was a dose of a powerful synthetic opiate.”
“That’s not so strange, is it? Who knows what’s on the street? Call me a crazy liberal, but I’m getting close to wanting all drugs legalized. Let’s level the playing field.”
“He kept his drugs in a 007 pencil case.” Holly shook her head in disbelief and felt a bit silly. “That sticks with me for some reason. Innocence and experience.”
Marilyn gave a little start, and her strength began to melt away. “I gave him that…on his…tenth birthday. And we took the bus downtown. One of those huge movie theatres they’ve closed.” Her voice grew soft and almost nostalgic. “All these years. How many people with a life like that keep things from childhood? He probably crossed the country more than once.”
“Our records show that most of his time was spent in Toronto.”
“Where the action is. When mother was going to move us there, he was so happy.” Marilyn’s eyes opened as if she had awakened from a bad dream. “But the drugs. Was he selling as well as using? Even to children?”
“Who knows? The idea that all drug dealers drive around in shiny black Escalades is a myth.”
“I imagine you’re concerned because it’s so deadly. If even Joel could make that mistake—”
“There wasn’t much left, just enough to do the job. We’re trying to track down the source. That overdose potential could be very dangerous, even for other addicts.” Chipper was supposed to be working on it, as time allowed. He’d been out the last few days with the summer flu. Though he offered to come in and work in “quarantine”, the small post couldn’t risk anyone else contracting it.
Marilyn nodded. “I don’t know what more I can tell you. Obviously we didn’t discuss his drug habits. He said, did say, that he’d just arrived on the island. So maybe Vancouver—”
“Yes, he came over on the noon ferry from Tsawwassan. We found the stub in his wallet.”
“Anything goes across the strait. Look at Hastings Street. One of my clients went into a ladies bathroom to change her son’s diaper, and a man was shooting up. There was a tie looped around the baby-changing table as if it had belonged there. As long as they’re away from schools, I’d rather see safe injection sites.”
Holly understood the public’s frustration, but it wasn’t professional to get into the debate. “It’s hard to draw the line between harm reduction and enabling.” She paused as Marilyn checked her watch. Probably another client. “We should talk about the…process for his remains. As far as we know, you are the next of kin, and—”
“I don’t see Joel as having a wife, though who knows? I’m sure you’ll think I sound cold, but I can’t see how I’d want to plan any services. Funerals depress me, and it seems hypocritical at this point.”
“There is the former girlfriend.” Holly explained about the picture in the wallet and how they had tracked her down.
“Judy?” Marilyn gave a bark of amusement. “She’s hardly likely. She was very wounded about his leaving her pregnant. Then as the years passed, she got smart and wrote him off as a bad debt. If he’d wanted to send child support, he could have contacted her family. They still lived here, and she lived with them. He had absolutely no sense of responsibility. I tried to warn her in high school, even if he was my brother.”
“That fits with what Judy told me. It’s your decision, of course.” She gave Marilyn the contact numbers. “We’d like a formal identification, too. It won’t take long. The…morgue’s in Victoria at Royal Jubilee Hospital. I’ll call, and if you like I can—”
“I can manage that, but if I don’t want any more to do with him…”
Holly thought for a moment, then answered without judgment. “The province would probably step in. That’s the process when we can’t locate any next of kin.”
“Kin,” Marilyn said. “An overrated word. Some people don’t deserve love, sad as it is. But I suppose a simple cremation would be the least I could do. His keeping that pencil case touched me for some stupid reason. And once he smacked a boy who was pulling my hair while we waited for the school bus.”
Holly nodded. “You’ll probably feel better in the long run.”
“Car
rying grudges is like adding to a sack of potatoes. All you get are sore shoulders as it grows heavier. That’s done, then. Thanks for tweaking my conscience. There were a few good memories.” A beat of quiet passed as she clasped her hands in purposefulness. “He had a tree fort at the big old house on Booster Ave before we moved to a duplex Aunt Dee found. Last time I passed the whole block was getting dozed for another development. Maybe they’ll save that Douglas fir with the big arms we used to sit in, and I’ll spread the ashes there. I’d rather remember him that way instead of thinking of his spirit lurking around my home.” She gave a shrug. “Not that I’m superstitious.”
“His possessions weren’t much. A backpack with old clothes.”
Marilyn’s face was softening, perhaps overcome by better motives and a filial bond. “I’d like to have that pencil case as a memento.”
“I’ll make a note about that. All the storage is in Victoria.” As she stood to leave, Holly hoped to turn the conversation to something positive. “How’s your project coming?”
Marilyn went to a desk and picked up a file folder, removing glossy photos and blueprints, clearly pleased at the change of subject. “Renovations at Alma have started on the main buildings. I have a terrific carpenter, Mike. He’s recently retired. He hired a mentally challenged boy who just graduated from high school and was trained in a special program through Rona. Mike says he’s a fast learner. With a bit of luck and a couple of volunteers I’ve rounded up, we’ll have the place open in the fall. Thanksgiving for sure.” She showed the plans and preliminary sketches. Rustic it was, but the design suited the rolling hills. Clearly Marilyn was a woman with vision. The island abounded in spas, but this was close to Victoria and yet quite rural. The 180° view of the strait, capped by a pillowy fogbank, added to the drama.
“Impressive. I love the stained glass window for the main building.”
“Local artist. She’s a genius. Wins every year at the Sooke Art Show.” Marilyn grinned, energized by talking about her project. “Call me in the late summer, and I’ll give you a tour. We can even have lunch. I’m lining up a cook who specializes in food grown on the island. All organic, of course. A couple of farms in the Otter Point area are signing on.”
