The Nesting Dolls

by Gail Bowen

  Delia’s intake of breath was sharp. “I always wondered… ” she said.

  Zack’s voice was low. “Dee, what’s going on?”

  She ignored Zack’s question. “When can I get the child?”

  “The child is related to you, then,” Zack said.

  “The child’s mother is my daughter,” Delia said tightly. “And that’s as much as I can say tonight.”

  Zack didn’t push it. “All right,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll see what can be done about getting the little boy.”

  “The child is a boy.” Delia’s voice was a whisper.

  “Yes,” Zack said. “And he looks just like Izzy did when she was a baby.”

  “Beautiful,” Delia said.

  “Very handsome,” Zack agreed. “Dee, you do realize that you’re going to have to tell the police everything. Inspector Debbie Haczkewicz is the officer I spoke to tonight. She’s reasonable, but I have a feeling this is going to be a long haul. You’ll want Debbie on your side, and if she finds out you’ve held back anything pertinent, she won’t be.”

  “I’ll be cooperative, but before I sit down with the Inspector, I have to talk to Noah and Isobel. And I’m going to need a lawyer. I know you hate family law, but if I’m going to be spending months dealing with this, I don’t want to be stuck with a lawyer I don’t know.”

  Zack shook his head. “Come on, Dee. You know the argument. A lawyer is supposed to give objective and dispassionate advice. That’s impossible when people are as close as we are. You need someone from another firm.”

  “I don’t want someone from another firm. The legal community here is tight, and not all lawyers are as discreet as you are. The last thing I need is every lawyer in town obsessing over my private life. If you won’t take my case, I’ll handle it myself, and you know what they say about lawyers who represent themselves.”

  Delia’s tone made it clear that she was not to be dissuaded. Zack didn’t even try. “Okay,” he said. “I’m in. Give me a call when you’re ready to talk.”

  Delia reached forward and squeezed Zack’s shoulder. “Thanks.” She climbed out of the car, slammed the door shut, and started trudging up the path. The snow swirled around the bears Noah had carved, softening the lines of their heavy bodies. As Delia passed them, Zack said, “She looks so small.”

  “Delia will be all right,” I said. “She’s one of the most capable people I know, and she has Noah. If the situation gets ugly, Papa Bear will step in.”

  As we turned the corner onto our street, the power came back on. The old safe world had returned. Even better, our neighbour Frank van Valzer had cleared our driveway with his snow blower.

  Zack cheered. “Saved by the head lamp on the Toro Power Max 828.”

  “So you and Frank have been talking snow blowers,” I said.

  “It’s a guy thing. Frank talks; I listen.”

  “That’s pretty much the arrangement I have with Frank’s wife. She tells me all I need are geraniums, and I keep planting perennials.”

  Zack drove into our garage and pulled the key out of the ignition. “Good to be home, eh?”

  “Is it ever,” Taylor said. “Does anybody have a clue about what’s going on?”

  “Why don’t we make some tea and tell you what we know,” Zack said.

  Five minutes later, we were sitting at our kitchen table, waiting as the tea steeped. My old bouvier, Willie, was sprawled beside me; Pantera was in his customary place beside Zack’s wheelchair, and Taylor’s cats, Bruce and Benny, were curled up in their bed near the stove.

  Zack poured the first cup and handed it to Taylor. “Okay, time for questions. Fire away.”

  Taylor met his gaze. “Is that woman who gave Isobel the baby her sister?”

  “My guess is she is Isobel’s half-sister,” Zack said.

  Taylor picked up Benny and began stroking him. Benny shot a triumphant look at Bruce and began to purr. “The woman and Isobel have different fathers,” Taylor said. Her dark eyes darted from Zack to me. “Isobel always says her mother never makes mistakes. I guess she was wrong.”

  I slept fitfully. The baby’s scent had clung to the material of the dress I’d been wearing, and when I hung it up, I remembered the weight of him in my arms, and the sharp and unexpected pain I’d felt when he’d been taken from me in the dark. Twice in the night I awoke, stabbed by a sense of loss, and lay in the dark, remembering, and listening to Zack’s breathing. The next morning I awoke to the phantasmagoric landscape of a city after a blizzard. The storm was over, but powerful winds were lifting the snow that had accumulated overnight and whirling it into the air. The effect was vertiginous, like being suspended upside down in a snow globe. I pressed my forehead against the glass doors that looked out on the bank of Wascana Creek. The levee where the dogs and I usually began our morning run was barely visible. Seeing that I was in motion, Willie and Pantera sprang into action and ran up the hall towards the hooks where their leashes hung.

  I listened to the click of their nails on the hardwood, then went to the closet where I kept the heavy sweater, jacket, and snow pants that I used for winter running. When I was dressed, I turned and was met by Zack’s glare.

  “You’re not going out in this.”

  “The dogs are already at the door.”

  “One of the reasons we bought this house is because it has a double lot – plenty of room for them to chase each other.”

  “The dogs and I have an arrangement. I take them for a run, and they leave me alone for the rest of the morning.”

  “So I should stick a sock in it?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. I kissed him. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Carry your phone,” he said.

  My run was miserable. The wind whipping off the creek froze my hair and the icy strands snapped at my face as I ran. Blowing snow made it impossible to distinguish between the path and the creek bank, and when I stumbled over a rock I hadn’t seen, only Willie’s broad back kept me from falling flat. It was time to admit defeat.

  “Okay, boys,” I said. “We’re heading home.” Willie and Pantera didn’t balk. When we got back, Zack was still in bed, thumbing his BlackBerry. I’d left my parka, snow pants, and boots in the mudroom, but my hair was still frozen; my face was scarlet and chapped and my nose was running. Zack winced when he saw me. “You look like you could use a friend.”

  “Thanks for not saying ‘I told you so.’ ”

  “Get out of those wet clothes and come in here with me where it’s warm.”

  “Said the Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.”

  “You have nothing to fear from me, Little Red.”

  I stripped off my clothing and slid in. Zack leaned over and touched the button on the sound system beside the bed. Suddenly the room was filled Kiz Harp’s soulful, smoky voice singing “Winter Warm” – a paean to making love while the winds whip.

  “You planned this,” I said.

  Zack’s smile was wicked. “You’re a clever one, Little Red. I was planning to greet you in my smoking jacket, but you got back early.”

  “You don’t own a smoking jacket.”

  “Then you must take me as I am,” he said. And I did.

  When we were through making love, Zack kissed the top of my head. “Better now?” he asked. “You were so sad last night.”

  “Just tired and worried,” I said. “But I am once again ready to lick my weight in wild cats.”

  Zack gazed out the window. “You may be off the hook. Not a wild cat in sight. That’s one lousy day out there.”

  I burrowed deeper. “Then let’s stay in here.”

  “Fine with me. We can get started on Sir Gawain.”

  Zack was a skilful reader. Whenever our granddaughters, Madeleine and Lena, were with us overnight, he was always the storyteller of choice. He had an actor’s voice, rich and sonorous, and he had an actor’s ability to take his listeners to the heart of the tale.

  The story was over five hundred year
s old, but it hadn’t lost its power, and as I lay with my back against Zack’s side and watched a snowdrift move incrementally up the glass patio door, I was content. The Green Knight had just challenged the gall, the gumption, and the guts of Arthur’s court, when Taylor knocked on the door and, without waiting for an invitation, came in. I was grateful she hadn’t wandered in fifteen minutes earlier. She was still in her pyjamas and, as she took in the scene, her mouth curled in a smile that was both affectionate and pitying. I had seen the smile a thousand times – it was her late mother’s smile, and during the years when Sally and I had been best friends, it had often been directed at me.

  Taylor sat on the corner of the bed. “Were you guys reading to each other?”

  “Zack was reading to me.”

  “I’ll bet you’re the only parents in my entire school who do that,” she said. She hugged her knees to herself. “I came in to see if you’d heard anything about the baby.”

  “Nothing yet,” I said. “Delia’s going to call Zack this morning.”

  “So we don’t know why the baby’s mother gave him to Izzy?”

  “No. For the time being, I guess we’ll just have be satisfied that the baby’s fine.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “I woke up in the night wondering… ” Taylor swung her legs off the bed and went to peer out the patio doors. “So are we going to church in this?”

  “I think we’ll stay put.”

  Taylor yawned and stretched. “Good, then I’m going to grab a bagel and go out to my studio. I’ve started this new piece, and I’ve been having a problem. This morning I figured out that if I… ” She moved her hand in an arabesque of dismissal. “Well, never mind what I figured out.” She gave us her new Sally smile. “You two probably want to get back to your reading.”

  After Taylor closed the door, Zack turned to me. “I sense that she no longer regards us as god-like.”

  “She’s a teenager,” I said. “We’re starting to recede into the background.”

  Zack scowled. “Forever?”

  “Not forever – but Taylor’s trying to figure out who she is and what she wants out of life – those are pretty big questions.”

  “That’s why she has us.”

  I took his hand. “She also has Sally.”

  “Sally’s been dead for ten years.”

  “She still looms large for Taylor. The other day I went into her room and she was staring at a picture on her laptop. It was a self-portrait Sally had done when she was fourteen. Taylor said, ‘I’ll never be as good as she is,’ then burst into tears.”

  “How did you handle it?”

  “Badly. I gave her a hug and asked if she wanted to get two spoons and crack a carton of Häagen-Dazs Rocky Road with me.

  “Sounds okay to me.”

  “It wasn’t. I offered her comfort when she needed the truth.”

  “So what is the truth?”

  “When Sally made that painting of herself, she was in a sexual relationship with a forty-one-year-old man.”

  “I thought you said she was fourteen.”

  “I did. The sex started when she was thirteen.”

  Zack placed Gawain face down on the bed. “That’s statutory rape,” he said.

  “According to Sally it was a fair exchange. The man was an art critic named Izaak Levin. She needed what he could teach her and he needed -”

  “To have sex with a prepubescent. Even if she consented, it’s still statutory rape. But the law aside, what kind of prick would engage in sex with a kid?”

  “An eminently respectable one – a trusted colleague of Sally’s father. When Desmond Love died, Sally was lost. Desmond wasn’t just Sally’s father; he was her protector. He was an artist himself. Sally was, like Taylor, a prodigy. When Des recognized the talent Sally had, he created the conditions that would make it possible for her to do her best work.”

  “So her father was her teacher?”

  I shook my head. “According to Sally, anyone could have taught her technique. She seemed to feel that Des’s real gift was that he let her find out who she was as a painter. Des gave her space and he protected her against the people who Sally believed would cut off her air by talking to her about what she was doing. Sally and her mother had never been close. When Des died, Sally’s mother withdrew into her own grief, and Sally was left alone.

  “So Izaak took Des Love’s place but extended the role.” Zack’s lip curled with disdain.

  “Izaak and Sally went to the States and, to quote Sally, she spent a year seeing the U.S.A. in Izaak’s Chevrolet, fucking and learning about how to make art. By the time she was out of her teens, she was an established artist and Izaak was her agent.”

  “He was having sex with her and taking her money.” Zack ran his hand over his head. “In my line of work we call guys like that pimps.”

  “Sally didn’t view it that way – at least not consciously – but I’ve seen the self-portrait that affected Taylor so much when she saw it on the Internet. Actually, Izaak showed it to me himself. The painting was in his private collection. It’s the only piece of art Sally ever made that I can’t bear to look at. She painted herself stretched over the hood of Izaak’s convertible – the classic vintage pin-up pose. In the background is one of those no-tell motels that used to be along highways in the sixties. Even at fourteen, Sally was incredibly sensual, but there was so much more to her than that – she was smart and funny and thoughtful. None of that is in the self-portrait.”

  “If the painting stinks, why was Taylor so impressed?”

  “Because the painting doesn’t stink. Sally used acrylics in those saturated tones you see in old Technicolor movies, and the motel and Izaak’s yellow convertible are so luridly seductive you can almost hear them panting. Sally herself is another story. She’s absolutely lifeless – just a cut-out of a girl lying on the hood of a convertible waiting to be moved from motel to motel to serve a man.”

  “Jesus,” Zack said. “And Taylor doesn’t know any of this.”

  I shook my head. “No, and I don’t want her to.”

  “You might revisit that decision, Jo. The truth has a way of coming out. Look at Delia’s situation. Besides, if Taylor knew the price her mother paid to make that painting, she might realize that the cost is too high.”

  “She might,” I said. “Or she might decide that being as good an artist as her mother is worth whatever price she has to pay.”

  “Over my dead body,” Zack said.

  “Mine too,” I said. “Come on. Let’s have a shower.”

  The phone rang just as I was handing Zack his towel. He squinted to see his watch through the steam. “Eight o’clock, straight up. It’ll be Delia.”

  I picked up. Delia’s husky adolescent-boy’s voice cracked with urgency. “Jo, I need to talk to Zack.”

  “I’ll get him.”

  “No. I’m outside your house. Can I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  I hung up, wrapped a towel around my hair and picked up my robe. “It’s Delia,” I said. “She’s outside, and she sounds tense.”

  “So much for starting our day sunny side up,” Zack said.

  Zack was right. Delia was not an ideal breakfast companion. She was a person who needed to have every detail under control, and that morning the world was conspiring against her. She’d been forced to drive through snow-clogged streets to deal with a problem whose magnitude and complexity I could only guess at, and for the first time in my memory, she had the wide-eyed gaze of someone whose life has just spun out of control.

  No matter the season, Delia limited the colours in her wardrobe to black and white. That morning she was wearing a black ski jacket, a black wool cloche pulled down over her ears, and a black-and-white-striped wool scarf wound many times around her neck. She yanked off her hat, liberating her wiry salt-and-pepper hair. As always, several of Delia’s curls, obeying their own law of kinetic energy, sprang over her forehead. She ignored them, unwound her scarf, and hand
ed it to me.

  I hung it over a hook inside the closet. “Nice scarf,” I said.

  “Check out the tension in the stitches. I made it while I was trying to quit smoking.” She pulled a pack of Benson and Hedges from her bag. “Not that it worked, of course.”

  “You got a scarf out of it,” I said.

  Delia cocked an eyebrow. “Zack’s been good for you – loosened you up. Where is he anyway?”

  “Getting dressed. Come in and have some coffee while I get breakfast started.”

  Delia had the faint lines around her eyes and mouth most of us have after fifty, but her skin was taut and the cold air had made it glow. In her invariable weekend outfit of oversized turtleneck, chinos, and thick socks, she looked, at first glance, like a teenager who had added silver highlights to her hair on a whim.

  When Zack came in, he wheeled his chair close to her. “Whatever it is, Dee, we can handle it. Have you eaten?”

  Delia shook her head. Zack gestured to the table. “Then sit down and have some breakfast. We can talk afterwards.”

  I set a place for Delia, poured coffee and juice, and, when the porridge was ready, Zack spooned it into our bowls. Obedient as a well-schooled child, Delia ate what had been put in front of her. When she was through, she took her bowl to the sink, rinsed it, and returned to her chair. “The police called. The baby – his name, incidentally, is Jacob David Michaels – is fine. In fact he’s more than fine. They’ve weighed him, measured him, and tested him, and he’s healthy and responsive – perfect. There was an envelope addressed to me tucked under the lining of his baby seat. It contained Jacob’s birth certificate: his mother’s name is listed as Abigail Margaret Michaels; the name of the father is blank. There was a sheet with Jacob’s medical history and a booklet with his vaccination record.”

  “Very thorough,” Zack said.

  Delia gave him a wan smile. “Very,” she said. “There was also a note to me, stating that it was the mother’s wish that I have full custody of Jacob, and that as a lawyer, I would know the procedures necessary to ensure that custody. The note was signed ‘Abby Michaels.’ ”

  “You two might find it easier to talk about this alone,” I said. I picked up my coffee. “I haven’t read the paper yet. I’ll be in the family room if you need me.”