by Gail Bowen
Pain crossed his face. “I don’t know where to begin.”
I gave him what I hoped was an encouraging smile.
He returned it; then he shrugged and glanced around his handsome office. “Well, for starters, I wouldn’t have any of this if it hadn’t been for her.”
“She opened the right doors for you.”
He shook his head. “She changed the course of my life,” he said softly. “If it hadn’t been for her, I never would have been a lawyer. Which means that, at this point, I would have been an aging jock, trying to get by with a smile, a handshake, and a basement full of game tapes nobody gave a damn about.” He shuddered. “It’s scary to look back and think how close I came. Anyway, thanks to Justine, it didn’t happen.”
“She was your mentor.”
“She was more than that,” he said. “When I was fifteen, all anybody saw when they looked at me was a kid with a great slapshot. My dad died a month after I was born, and I guess my mother was sort of overwhelmed by all the scouts knocking on her door telling her that, as soon as I turned sixteen, I should be in junior A. Of course, that was what I wanted too. My mother was just about to cave in, when – he smiled at the memory – “Justine took me out to dinner.”
“Because she saw you as somebody who had more going for him than a slapshot.”
“Right,” he said. “She took me to the old Assiniboia Club, and she laid out a plan for my life. Get serious about my studies. Go to university. Play hockey for a while. Then go to law school. As we were talking, all these big-shot lawyers kept dropping by our table ‘just to chat.’ ”
“Justine had invited them?”
“She never left anything to chance. Anyway, it was heady stuff for a fifteen-year-old: a glamorous successful older woman taking his life seriously, treating him like an adult.”
“And you followed the plan?”
“To the letter. I finished high school, got a hockey scholarship to the University of Denver, graduated cum laude; went straight to the Maple Leafs, where, for six years, I had more fun than most people have in a lifetime, then came back to Saskatchewan and enrolled in law school.”
“Right on track,” I said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But it was a good track to be on.”
“Justine must have been an amazing woman.”
“She was that,” he agreed.
“All the same, what she did for you surprises me. It was so parental, and I got the impression she wasn’t much of a mother.”
“Given the daughters she had, Justine was as good a mother as she could be,” he said tightly.
“Her children do seem to have had troubled lives,” I agreed. “But, Eric, surely some of their troubles have to be rooted in their relationship with her. You may have every reason to be grateful to Justine, but from what I’ve heard she didn’t find family life very congenial.”
“If you got your information from her children, you should remember that there are two sides to every story.”
“I know that,” I said. “And I know that Justine’s daughters aren’t exactly poster girls for filial devotion, but they weren’t my only source. Hilda got so involved with Justine and her circle that I had a friend do a little checking around. Some of what she came up with puts Justine in a pretty negative light.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the fact that Lucy tried to kill herself after her father died. As soon as she recovered, she ran away and, apparently, Justine just let her go.”
“There were reasons,” he said coldly.
“What possible reason could any mother have for letting a distraught sixteen-year-old just take off?”
Eric Fedoruk’s face was stony. “It was a complex situation, and Justine was the injured party.” He got up, walked to the window and stood with his back to me.
“I take it the subject is closed,” I said.
“It is,” he said wearily. He turned to face me. “I want to co-operate with you, believe me. I want the truth to come out. Justine had nothing to hide, but that particular time in the family’s life was painful for so many people. Can’t we just drop it?”
“All right,” I said. “We’ll drop the subject of Lucy’s running away. But, Eric, if Justine is the woman you say she is, wouldn’t putting some of the other rumours to rest be the best way to honour her memory?”
“I was her lawyer, Joanne. There are matters I’m just not free to discuss.”
“But there must be things you can talk about. Wayne J. Waters, for example. You and Justine must have discussed him.”
“We argued about him. I don’t think Justine and I were together once over the past year when his name didn’t come up. I thought that he was pond-scum and that Culhane House was a scam.” He looked away. “Justine didn’t share my feelings about his character or his project.”
“But Hilda told me Wayne J. and Justine quarrelled about money the night she died.”
“I guess he was afraid she was reconsidering her commitment to Culhane House. She wasn’t, of course. She’d just put her financial support on hold, the way she’d put everything else on hold until she’d found an answer to the question that was consuming her.”
“Whether she was in full possession of her faculties.”
Eric winced. “Exactly. By the night of her party, Justine had been so badly shaken by all the people, including me, who were questioning her behaviour that she did a very lawyerly thing: she decided to hold all her affairs in abeyance until she was certain she was sane.”
“Then she hadn’t rejected Wayne J.”
“No. I wish she had. But on the night she died, Justine was still passionate about Culhane House, and she still trusted Wayne J. It makes me faintly queasy to say this, but in the last year of her life, Justine was closer to him than she was to anyone. She just wanted to make certain that when she signed a cheque, she was making a rational decision about the use of her money.”
“Is that why she didn’t loan Tina the money for the plastic surgery she needed?”
Eric Fedoruk looked genuinely puzzled. “Is that the story you heard? Because whoever told you that doesn’t have the facts. Justine gave Tina the money she asked for. If we had the financial records, I’d be able to show you the cancelled cheque.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, we don’t, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“Eric, if Justine gave her the money, why did Tina get the surgery done on the cheap?”
“That’s a question for Tina to answer, but if you want my opinion, somebody gave her a hard-luck story. Tina tries, but she’s easily led.”
“By men?”
“By everybody. But Tina’s not the issue here; Justine is. And no matter what you hear, Justine was never selfish and she was never vindictive. At the end, she was just very confused.” His voice was close to breaking.
I leaned towards him. “Eric, why didn’t she get help? Her own daughter is a psychiatrist. She could have recommended someone.”
“Signe was hardly a disinterested party.”
“Because Justine was her mother?”
“No, because in the last year, there was a lot of tension there. Justine was doing everything in her power to get Signe to stop practising psychiatry.”
I felt a chill. “Because of what she’d done to that boy in Chicago.”
“Who told you about that?” Eric’s tone was edgy.
“The news clippings were in my friend’s research. But the papers said Signe was exonerated. Was she guilty? Is that why her mother didn’t want her practising any more?”
Eric’s eyes met mine. “I can’t talk about this, Joanne.”
“Were you involved in Signe’s defence? I know you couldn’t act for her in the States, but did you advise her? Is that why you can’t talk about the case?”
Eric looked at his watch. “I have a nine o’clock appointment. I’ve already kept him waiting too long.”
I stood up. “Thanks for seeing me,” I said. “You’ve been a help.”
“Have I? Maybe the more helpful thing would have been to tell you to get out while the getting’s good.”
“Meaning?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. Just be careful, Joanne. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have to see my client.”
Waiting client or no, Eric Fedoruk was a gentleman. He walked me to the elevator and pressed the call button. As we listened to the elevator make its smooth ascent, I knew I was looking at my last chance. “I know you can’t discuss what happened in Chicago,” I said, “but can you answer a hypothetical question?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Depends on the question.”
“Eric, if you had an adolescent child, would you let Signe treat him?”
For a beat, he didn’t answer, and I thought I’d pushed too hard. But as the elevator doors opened, his eyes met mine. “I would move heaven and earth to keep Signe Rayner from getting anywhere near a child of mine.” he said. Then he smiled. “Of course, that’s just hypothetical.”
As soon as I got to the university, I called Alex at the police station. He was in a meeting, but I gave the woman on the other end my name and told her it was an emergency. As I waited for Alex to come to the phone, my heart was pounding.
At first, he sounded like himself, warm and concerned. “Hilda’s not worse, is she?”
“No,” I said. “This isn’t about Hilda. Alex, I have more information about Signe Rayner.”
He made no attempt to conceal his irritation. “I thought we’d agreed Eli’s treatment was no longer your concern.”
“We didn’t agree,” I said. “You decided, but, Alex, you were wrong. You’ve got to hear me out. Even her own mother didn’t think Signe should be practising medicine, and Eric Fedoruk says he wouldn’t let her treat a child of his.”
Alex’s voice was coldly furious. “A woman who hangs out with felons and allows strangers to be buried in her family plot isn’t exactly what I would consider a credible arbiter of someone else’s competence. Damn it, Jo, are you so determined to prove that you’re right that you’ve lost sight of the facts? At the end, Justine Blackwell’s life had become so bizarre that even she wasn’t sure of her sanity.”
“Then what about Eric Fedoruk?”
“I couldn’t care less what some lawyer with a six-figure income would do with his child. My only concern is Eli, and, Joanne, whether you like it or not, Dr. Rayner is giving my nephew something he hasn’t had a lot of in his life: consistency. She’s there, Jo. Every appointment, she’s there waiting. She never decides Eli’s too much trouble. She never abandons him. She never …”
I cut him off. “Sorry I bothered you,” I said, and I slammed down the receiver. I was still shaking with anger when the phone rang. When I picked up the receiver and heard Keith Harris’s voice, it seemed as if providence was taking a hand in the sorry mess of my life.
“Are you okay, Jo?” he asked. “You sound a little down.”
“Nothing a few kind words won’t fix.”
“My pleasure,” he said. “Now, listen. I have news.”
As Keith gave me an account of the latest episode in his fortunate life, I felt my pulse slow and my spirits rise. The tenant who had sublet his father’s Regina apartment was moving out at the end of September, and Keith saw the freeing up of the apartment as significant. “Everything’s working out just the way it’s supposed to,” he said. “Part of a larger cosmic plan.” As I hung up, I decided that maybe it was time to step aside and let the universe unfold as it should.
The rhythms of everyday life pushed us ahead. I talked to Mieka and Greg every night and we e-mailed each other every day. Their news was as miraculous as it was commonplace. Madeleine was eating and growing and discovering. When I told them about the attack on Hilda, I tried to minimize her injuries, but as my daughter continued to press me about coming up to Saskatoon again, I was forced to tell her the truth. Mieka had always loved Hilda, and the anxiety in her voice when she asked for details saddened me. Those first days with Madeleine should have been a time of cloudless joy, but it seemed that days of cloudless joy were in short supply that September.
I taught Taylor how to send messages to Madeleine on e-mail, and she and Jesse got an A for their project on owls. Even these accomplishments weren’t enough to offset my daughter’s awareness that all was not right in her world. My daily reports on Hilda’s progress appeared to reassure her, but Taylor continued to be perplexed about Alex and Eli’s absence from our lives. My explanation that Alex and I had just decided to spend some time apart didn’t satisfy her. It didn’t satisfy me either, but as unsatisfactory as the story was, I didn’t have a better one. Alex didn’t call, and after a few days I stopped expecting him to. As the third week of school started, Anita Greyeyes, the woman who would have been Eli’s teacher, phoned to ask me what arrangements had been made about Eli’s schooling. I gave her Alex’s work and home numbers and told her that she should deal with him directly. Another link had been severed.
My professional life was moving into high gear. My classes were taking shape, the inevitable academic committee meetings had begun, and Jill and I had started to mull over topics that might work on our first political panel of the new season.
I visited Hilda at least once every day, and here the news was good. Even my untutored eye could discern cause for hope. Increasingly, as I read to her or as we listened to the radio together, she became restless, as if she were wearying of her long sleep. Even her stillness seemed closer to healthy consciousness. Nathan Wolfe was encouraged too. Hilda’s numbers on the Glasgow Coma Scale were rising, and Nathan and I fussed over each incremental gain like new parents. Despite our hovering and hoping, when the breakthrough finally came it had the force of a surprise.
It was on a Friday afternoon, thirteen days after Hilda had been assaulted. I’d come to the hospital just after lunch. My morning had been busy, and Hilda’s room was warm. From the moment I started to read, I could feel my eyelids grow heavy. After five minutes, I closed my book, turned up the radio, leaned back in my chair, and gave myself over to the considerable pleasures of Henry Purcell. When I woke up, “Rejoice in the Lord Alway” had been replaced by the news, and, for once, there was news worth noting.
Boys playing along the shoreline of Wascana Lake had discovered the marble-based scales that had been used to bludgeon Justine Blackwell to death. The scales, which had been presented to Justine with such fanfare at the dinner were half-buried in the gumbo of the lake bed. It was a case of sic transit gloria mundi, but it was also a piece of real evidence in an investigation which, if the media could be believed, was woefully short of concrete proof that Terrence Ducharme had murdered Justine. Reflexively, I glanced over at Hilda.
What I saw made my pulse race. She was conscious, but the woman before me was not the Hilda I knew. This woman’s eyes were wild, and her mouth was contorted with rage and effort. She was trying to speak, but the sounds that came out of her mouth were guttural and unintelligible. When her eyes met mine, I almost wept. In that moment, I knew that she understood her circumstances and grasped the fact that we were both powerless to change them.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.”
She shook her head furiously and made a growling sound.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is there something you want me to get?”
For a beat, she stared at me. Then she lifted her head, and, in a voice rusty with disuse and hoarse with effort, she pronounced a single recognizable word. “Maisie,” she said. “Maisie.”
“She has to build new pathways,” Nathan Wolfe said. It was mid-afternoon, and Nathan and I were sitting in the cafeteria of Pasqua Hospital. Twenty-four hours earlier, Hilda had entered a brief period of consciousness, and I had felt the darkness lift, but soon after she had articulated the single word “Maisie,” my friend had lapsed back into her silent private world. Now Nathan and I were splitting a plate of fries, drinking Coke, and talking about what came next.
“She’s almost there,” Nathan said. “The restlessness and the fact that she actually talked are great signs, but it’s going to take time. And learning how to say what she wants to say is going to take a lot of time. The communication pathways she used before are blocked, and until she builds some new ones, Miss McCourt has to use whatever’s handy to get her message across.
“She could find the name ‘Maisie,’ but not ‘Justine,’ ” I said.
Nathan speared a fry and dipped it in gravy. “She was lucky she made a connection you could understand,” he said. “ ‘Maisie’ is at least in the ballpark. A lot of recovering coma patients come out with stuff like ‘potato’ when they mean ‘water.’ ” He chewed his fry reflectively. “Makes it tough to meet their needs when they’re thirsty.”
“So how do I meet Hilda’s needs?” I asked.
“Do anything you can to keep her from getting frustrated,” Nathan said. “Listen hard to what she’s trying to say, and translate. Play it by ear. You’ll get the hang of it.”
My chance came sooner than either Nathan or I anticipated. When we went upstairs to intensive care, Hilda was lying on her back. Her eyes were open, but she didn’t appear to be seeing anything. Nathan was quick to spot my fear, and he did his best to be reassuring. “Lethargy and stupor are part of the package, Mrs. K. Just do what you usually do, and don’t panic if she gets agitated. That’s part of the package too. In fact, a little flailing around is good exercise for the patient’s arms and legs.” He smiled.
I didn’t smile back. “I hate this,” I said. “I hate standing in this room, talking about Hilda as if she were a piece of wood.”
Nathan pulled back Hilda’s sheet, poured some skin-care lotion into his hand and began to rub it into her legs. “I know how you feel,” he said, “but in these cases, there’s a lot of behaviour that seems scary if you’re not prepared for it.”
I watched as Nathan massaged Hilda’s legs and arms. As he rubbed her muscles, he talked to Hilda in a voice that was as soothing as his hands must have been.
