Mother Love

by L. R. Wright

  “I’ll be able to help you with things tomorrow,” said Richard. He spoke softly. There was gentleness in his voice, acknowledgment of Maria’s pain.

  For Maria, truth had blade-sharp edges, silver-glittering, and she was devoted to it. She concentrated for a moment on the greedy crackling and chewing and smacking sounds of fire consuming wood, and noted its pleasant scent. Then she drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around them.

  “She wasn’t my real mother,” she said.

  Richard’s gaze stroked the side of her face. She felt it, warm and curious on her skin.

  “I was adopted.” A flooding occurred inside her. She dropped her head and let tears flow down her face—she had no choice; it was weep or die. Richard reached for her, embraced her.

  Dearest Maria,

  I can see you through the window as I write this. I lean forward, pull the curtain back and look outside, and there you are, sitting on the swing, pushing yourself idly back and forth. You’re still wearing your black pleated skirt and the long-sleeved white blouse Daddy and I gave you for Christmas. Do you remember? I still remember a red silk dress with a cowl collar that I had when I was twenty.

  It feels very strange to write this letter, not knowing the Maria who will read it. And perhaps after all you never will read it. Perhaps I’ll eventually find the courage to tell you directly what I can now only write down. I wouldn’t even be writing it down except for Mama’s dying.

  Today is the day of her funeral, and it struck me suddenly, when we were in there listening to the minister say all those good things about her, that a lightning bolt could strike me, or a speeding car, or maybe some dread disease—anyway, the point is, Maria, I could be dead tomorrow. And Thomas always said that it’s up to me to tell you, not him. If I got killed tomorrow, why, then you might never know, and although I am not personally convinced that would be a bad thing, your daddy insists that you have a right—because there are others who know, and maybe someday you might run into one of those people. He’s right, I guess. And if you must find out, then I want you to find out from me.

  It’s very hard, though, because what I’m about to say feels like a lie, although it isn’t. The thing I have to tell you is that you aren’t our natural-born child. And I look at those words on the page and want to run a line right through them, because you couldn’t be more our daughter if you had been naturally born to us. You will know, when you read this, however many years have gone by since this day, that we have loved you fully, steadily, happily, for all but the first few months of your life.

  It wasn’t an official type of adoption. We gathered you into our lives when you were still at the crawling-around stage, and making it all legal wasn’t hard to do in a small town when there was a war on. Thomas was away when I first found out about you, but I wrote to him right away and he was as excited as me, and as soon as he came home on leave he looked after all the formalities.

  There’s nobody else, Maria. You’re the only one left.

  I found out soon after Thomas and I got married that I couldn’t have children. So you see, it was meant to be, you becoming our daughter. It was one of God’s better plans.

  I love you, Maria.

  I glance out the window again. You’re no longer sitting on the swing, now you’re at the fence, picking sweet peas.

  I am greatly relieved to have written this down. Now I can put it away and forget about it, which is the way things should be.

  Leave the past alone, Maria. The past is past and done with. The present is where we do our living, and our loving.

  Chapter 15

  “WHY DIDN’T SHE TELL me who I am, Richard?” Maria was standing in the front doorway, about to leave for work. She wore a summer dress and a cardigan and carried a straw handbag. It was a morning in mid-July, but unseasonably cool and gloomy.

  “What’s more to the point,” said Richard, “why didn’t she destroy that damn letter?”

  “She must have had a reason. In forty-eight years, she never told me who I really am.”

  Exasperation flickered in his eyes. “Don’t be melodramatic about this, Maria. It’s not yourself you’re unacquainted with. It’s your relatives.” He shrugged. “And who needs relatives?”

  Maria did. She needed relatives. A personal history that went back beyond her birth date. To be bereft of history was to be in some way crippled, she thought.

  She drove downtown, where she was office manager for a small public relations firm, and gave notice, effective immediately. She told her employers that a family emergency required her full attention.

  She didn’t want to go back home yet. Richard would be there for most of the day, and Maria wasn’t ready to tell him what she had done and what she was about to do. She stood there in the parking lot, wondering what to do with the morning. After a while she decided that she felt like driving.

  She took Georgia Street over the viaduct and followed First Avenue to the freeway, which propelled her through the suburbs and sailed her over the Port Mann Bridge into the Fraser Valley. When she saw the sign for Fort Langley, Maria moved into the exit lane.

  Agatha and Thomas had told her that the hospital record of her birth had been destroyed in a fire. It had never occurred to her to question this.

  Driving slowly north through the village of Fort Langley, she considered what it might be like to live in such a place—a tranquil, pleasant town, surrounded by green fields and the river, with low, green mountains to the north and Mount Baker soaring white on the eastern horizon: a town that had started life as a Hudson’s Bay trading post. She allowed herself to wonder about the town in which her real parents lived. Maria drove over the bridge onto McMillan Island and crossed to the other side.

  She had spent hours, over the past weeks, calling people listed in her mother’s address book. It was a large leather book, very old. Some of the names entered there had been changed when Agatha’s female friends got married. Most had moved a lot. Some names had lines drawn through them. Maria observed that her mother’s handwriting had undergone several transformations.

  Four cars were in the ferry lineup. She pulled up behind them and turned off the motor. It was very quiet. To the right stood a makeshift fast-food outlet, and although it was apparently open, Maria could see nobody inside. The driver of the car immediately ahead of hers had leaned his head against the side window, maybe sleeping. Somebody was sitting on the hood of the car at the front of the line—a young man with a dejected slump to his shoulders. Maria knew that she was very lucky to have been able to do what she had done today. She whispered this to herself, reverently, looking away, into the forest, where a pile of tires and a collection of unidentifiable paper rubbish occupied a clearing among the trees. Most of the trees were cedar, but there were some deciduous trees, too, heavy with leaves that rustled now and then, in a breeze from the river.

  First she had called the people whom she knew or at least had heard of. Most of them lived in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, clustered in and around Vancouver. None could tell her anything useful. All expressed mild surprise to learn that Maria had been adopted.

  She saw the top of the ferry approaching, and soon the cars drove off, six of them, and then Maria’s lineup made its way, car by car, along the metal-floored driveway that led off the island and onto the boat. The trip across the Fraser River took about five minutes. These were the good old days, thought Maria, gazing out at the river, at a log-laden barge being towed downstream by a tug—the days before the bridge that would surely be built here or near enough to make of the ferry an anachronism.

  When the ferry had docked and they’d all disembarked, she followed the other cars to the Lougheed Highway and turned right. She would drive through countryside for a while and cross back over the river at Mission, where there was a bridge. The highway was two lanes for a while, then four, then two again. For a while it followed the river, then it veered inland. The countryside Maria had hungered for seemed solemn and melancholy, painted in shades of gr
ay; even the river glinted a dull pewter in the last tentative rays of a sun soon swept from the sky by brooding tumults of cloud. Mist gathered at the bottoms of the hillsides and at the tops.

  Finally, though, she’d spoken to someone who knew something: a woman of about her mother’s age now living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her name was Phyllis Mussell, and she had known Agatha at the time of the adoption. She wasn’t able to tell Maria anything about her real parents, but she did tell her who could.

  Maria had gotten his phone number from directory assistance. When she introduced herself, he was silent for a long time. And then he invited her to come to see him.

  Maria had reached the town of Mission. Here the highway turned south, heading for the river, which couldn’t yet be seen. Heavy mist moved among the trees that stood in regiments, marching up from the river. It partially obscured them, a thick, heavy mist like God’s breath made visible, until it seemed to Maria that it was the trees that were moving, stepping in and out of banks of fog: to Maria they looked like legions of the dead.

  She no longer wanted countryside. She no longer wanted to drive. She quickly crossed the soaring bridge and quickly crossed the river valley, seeking the freeway. An hour later she was home.

  ***

  “There was this old lady,” said Belinda. “Sorry. This elderly woman...” She had caught herself because of her grandma, who had been an old person and had recently died. Belinda had been talking with her mouth full, too, she realized, so she paused to chew and swallow before going on. And while she was at it she draped herself in an imaginary shawl of poise and self-possession, which although riddled with holes did work, occasionally. For a minute or two.

  “She comes up to my till,” Belinda continued, “and I smile at her and she says, ‘Just a cup of hot water, please.’ ” Belinda widened her eyes at her parents and gave a little shrug. “So I didn’t know what to do. I mean, was I supposed to say no? Or give her the water? And did I charge her for it, or what?”

  “What did you decide?” asked her father.

  “First I looked around for Bill, the manager, and he wasn’t there. So I say, ‘Sure,’ and I give her the hot water. And she sits down and takes a teabag out of her purse and plops it in the cup.”

  Belinda cut another bite of chicken, which was cooked in a sauce that had red wine and mushrooms in it. This was her favorite way to have chicken. “It turns out that she comes in every day, and she’s never bought anything. She sits there drinking her tea and talking to people. It’s, like, her recreation, I guess.”

  “I’m glad they let her do it,” said Belinda’s mother.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “I’ve got something to tell you two.” Her mother placed her knife and fork on her plate and pushed it away slightly, as if she were finished with her dinner, even though she’d barely eaten anything.

  “I’ve quit my job,” said her mother. Belinda was astonished.

  “Really,” said her father, sounding interested, but not excited, like her mother seemed to be.

  “Yes.”

  “Did something happen?” said her father.

  “Richard, I’m going to find my real family.” She was clutching her hands together on top of the table, and her face was pink. She had on her face that look of determination that frequently made Belinda’s heart sink. But not this time.

  “Can I help?” said Belinda.

  “Maybe,” said her mother. “We’ll see.”

  Her father was staring at her mother, and Belinda could tell he wasn’t pleased. “I wish you’d talked to me about this first,” he said quietly. “It isn’t a good time for us to be trying to do without your considerable salary.”

  “I did,” said her mother. “Or at least I tried to.” She stood and began clearing the dishes.

  Belinda snatched a glance at her father. He was looking down at his plate, and his face was red. She noticed that his hair had started growing farther back on his head than it used to. He looked calm, except for his red face. His hands were relaxed, one on either side of his plate, resting on the tabletop. But Belinda felt a curious fluttering in her stomach and held her breath, afraid for one awful moment that her father was going to do something completely out of character; waiting, tense and apprehensive, for him to pick up his plate and fling it at the wall. Then her mother returned from the kitchen, and as if she could read Belinda’s mind she swiftly scooped up his plate, and Belinda’s, and took them away. Belinda’s father lifted his head. His pale blue eyes were cool and distant. He smiled at her.

  THE PRESENT

  Chapter 16

  ALBERG DIDN’T LIKE the Jolly Shopper much. It made him uncomfortable, with its wooden signs and its eclectic selection of merchandise. The place made a statement that he found incomprehensible; or maybe he just disapproved of it, whatever it was. He hadn’t spent any time there to speak of, except when he used to drop in for pipe tobacco during a period when he was trying to quit cigarettes without giving up smoking. The store, he thought now, pulling up in front, was kind of like him smoking a pipe: it didn’t ring true.

  When he climbed out of his Oldsmobile he saw that the front door wasn’t standing open as it usually did in good weather, and as he got closer he noticed the Closed sign. This was exasperating, but not surprising: the store’s hours were eclectic, too. He got back into the Olds and headed for Porpoise Bay.

  He got to Buscombe’s house a few minutes later and pulled up on the roadside across the street. He sat in the car for a moment. His eyes felt as though they were full of sand, and every bone in his body hurt. He was chagrined to admit that he could no longer take a night without sleep comfortably in his stride. He wondered if Cassandra was as wiped out as he was.

  He found Richard Buscombe at the back of his house, gazing out down the slope toward the water. His hands were clasped behind his back. He was watching a seaplane that was making a big circle, heading north, turning, coming low and slow, finally landing with a crisp splash at the southern end of Sechelt Inlet.

  Richard Buscombe’s house occupied a piece of land about a hundred feet above the water. There was some lawn in the front and a few bushes, and Alberg had recognized roses lining the driveway. In the back there was a patio with a gas barbecue, a table and several chairs, and a field of tall meadow grass that grew down the hillside to the water’s edge.

  Buscombe was standing beyond the patio, in grass almost up to his knees. He was wearing gray pants and a white shirt and a pair of gray suspenders. He was a man not much older than Alberg, of medium height, somewhat overweight, and he didn’t have much hair.

  The seaplane had cut its engines. Alberg became aware of birds chirping somewhere—there were islands of trees here and there, scattered among the wild grasses—and the tranquil waters of the inlet washing languidly upon the beach below.

  “Mr. Buscombe,” said Alberg, and the man turned, startled. “My name is Alberg. I’m with the RCM Police.” The man looked at him intently. Alberg knew he was mentally shuffling a lot of material, starting with his nearest and dearest—where were they? was he confident they were safe?—eventually working down to possessions—had somebody broken into his store, stolen his car, whatever? “Are you the husband of Maria Buscombe?”

  Richard Buscombe hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally.

  “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Yes,” said Alberg. “I’m sorry.”

  Richard turned around now, slowly, facing out toward the sea again, and he folded his arms in front of him. Alberg stayed where he was, watching the man’s back. There was a fragrance in the air that he couldn’t identify. He stood there for what felt like a long time. He thought he might fall asleep on his feet, lulled by the birds, and the ocean, and the breeze that was stroking the tall grasses, bending them, creating flashes of a different shade of green.

  Richard Buscombe faced him again. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

  Alberg nodded sympath
etically.

  “Was it an accident? What happened?”

  Alberg said, “I think we should go inside.” Even though the man was obviously in full control of himself, Alberg had a vision of Richard Buscombe pelting down the hillside and throwing himself into the water.

  Buscombe looked at Alberg for a long moment, trying unsuccessfully to read his face. Then he crossed the patio and entered the house through a sliding glass door. Alberg followed. Buscombe sat on a red-and-white-checked sofa. Alberg sat on a chair.

  “I’m afraid your wife was murdered, Mr. Buscombe.” The man’s face filled with bewilderment. He said nothing, just stared at Alberg, waiting intently for more information. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Monday, September twenty-eighth, 1987.”

  “Uh-huh.” Alberg gazed at him. But Buscombe said nothing more; he was still waiting.

  “And what were the circumstances?” said Alberg.

  “Circumstances?” He made a harsh, painful sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “She was in bed with a cold when I left for school. And when I got home she was gone.” He leaned forward suddenly, his hands pressing on his thighs. “She’s been murdered? Are you certain?”

  “We’re certain.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Richard, pointing at him. “I’ve seen you around town. Are you with the local detachment? Sechelt?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You mean—” He looked completely confused. “This happened here?”

  “That’s right. Your wife had rented—”

  “Please don’t keep referring to her as my wife,” said Richard sharply. “Maria stopped being my wife the day she left us.”

  “Maria Buscombe had rented an apartment on Trail Avenue,” said Alberg, referring to his notebook. “She moved in last Friday. September thirtieth.” He looked over at Buscombe. “I take it that she hadn’t been in touch with you.”