In Winter's Grip

by Brenda Chapman

  NINETEEN

  In the capricious nature of late winter weather, with morning light, the temperature began to climb. By the time I greeted the day, the mercury had settled some five degrees above freezing, and the sun was beaming down from a cloudless blue sky. Claire and Gunnar were long gone when I finally made my way to the kitchen, drawn by the smell of strong coffee that Claire had made and left warming. I poured a cup and stood in front of the kitchen window. Dagger-like chunks of icicles that hung from the eaves had turned into dripping faucets. Sunlight reflected off the snow in a shimmering carpet.

  I took my time getting ready—three cups of coffee thick with cream while I read the paper, a generous, hot shower followed by a lost hour of morning talk shows on the television. Finally, I was ready to go to my father’s house to begin the task of sorting through the remains of his life. I poured one last cup of coffee as comfort for the road.

  The walk to the car was made treacherous by a mixture of patchy ice and water that pooled in the laneway. The cold from the icy puddles seeped through my boots, but my feet stayed dry. I approached my rented car slowly but still slipped on the slick ice hidden beneath the water. It would have been a certain tumble into the brink except that I managed to grab onto the car’s roof. Afterwards, I stood fishing for my car keys in my purse, lifting my face to feel the full brunt of the sun’s warmth. Today, I didn’t mind that the car heater wasn’t working properly. I even opened the window a crack to let in the fresh winter air that now hinted of spring winds, muddy fields and new growth. The strong sunshine had turned the roads into slush the consistency of cooked oatmeal, but even that wasn’t enough to dampen my spirits. This change in the weather had invigorated me more than anything else in recent days—enough that I could face a day of family memories.

  The warm weather had drawn my neighbours out of their homes. I passed two joggers then three boys huddled together in yellow rain slickers and black rubber boots, building a water dam beside the creek that paralleled the highway. Closer to my father’s, I spotted Mrs. Lingstrom walking from town with a cloth shopping bag of groceries, a loaf of French bread sticking out of the top. I slowed and pulled onto the shoulder. Mrs. Lingstrom glanced my way and smiled when she recognized me. I leaned over and swung the passenger door open. She climbed in slowly, her movements deliberate like someone who’s being careful not to reinjure a sore back. Still, she was moving more easily than the last time I’d had coffee in her kitchen, and the hands that set the shopping bag at her feet were not as deformed as I remembered. Arthritis could be crippling one day and better the next, I knew. Medication helped, but it wasn’t perfect.

  “I thought that was you, Maja. Normally I don’t mind the walk when I’m having a good day, but this is a nice chance to see you again. How are you, my dear?”

  “Good. I’m finally going to my father’s to begin sorting through his things.”

  “Yah, I wondered who would be getting around to that. I thought it would be Claire.”

  “Claire’s teaching today, and Jonas, well, Jonas is resting.”

  Mrs. Lingstrom nodded. She’d tied a triangular-shaped gold scarf with a rose pattern over her hair, knotting it at the nape of her neck. The splash of colour contrasted with the greyness in her face and her black wool coat. She seemed unwell, the whites of her eyes tinged with yellow and an angry rash visible on her hand when she removed a glove.

  “Have you heard from Katherine?” I asked, taking my eyes from the road to glance at her. It would be good if someone were home to help Mrs. Lingstrom.

  “Yah. Yah. Katherine is on a trip. She’ll be back in a few weeks.” Mrs. Lingstrom waved a hand back and forth as if brushing away a cobweb. “I tell her I’m going to be fine. I’ve been living on my own a long time.”

  “I’m glad Katherine is enjoying a holiday, but I’m sorry I’ll miss her. Can I take you anywhere later? Do you have errands or appointments in town?”

  “I have all I need, but thank you for asking, Maja.”

  The driveway was potted with tire ruts and melting snow. The house didn’t hold up well under the scrutiny of the glaring sun.

  It needed work, but the sale of my father’s land would devalue her property even further. The thought of what lay ahead for her and others along our road made me sad.

  “I would ask you for tea, but my kitchen is a mess. I haven’t done the dishes.” She turned her face to me, but her eyes were lowered as if she was too embarrassed to meet my eyes. I didn’t want her to feel that way because of me.

  “I would have to decline anyhow. My father’s house will take the entire afternoon.” I smiled. “I’ll try to see you before I leave.”

  “I would like that.”

  I waited until Mrs. Lingstrom had entered her front door then slowly turned the car back around and started down the drive, the tires jolting up and down like a bronco ride in the uneven grooves of slushy snow. Before turning onto the main road, I let the car idle for a moment and looked back at the house one last time. My eyes were drawn to a movement, a curtain dropping into place at the upstairs bedroom window, a glimpse of a ghostly pale face and tangled hair. I must have been mistaken. Mrs. Lingstrom hadn’t had time to put away her groceries and climb the stairs at the front of the house. She wouldn’t have had any reason to stand in the shadows of Katherine’s old bedroom window watching me, just as there had been no need for her to lie about Katherine being on holiday if she was really still in the house, staring down at me from her bedroom window like Mr. Rochester’s crazed wife in Jane Eyre. I wouldn’t give in to such a flight of fancy, but for the first time that morning, I shivered inside the warmth of Claire’s borrowed parka.

  “Where are you, Katherine Lingstrom?” I said into the rearview mirror as the Lingstrom house disappeared from view. “And if you’re home, why won’t you come out to play?”

  I was about to turn into my father’s driveway when I saw a police car round the corner coming slowly towards me. At first I thought Tobias was popping up with uncomfortable regularity but then saw that it wasn’t him after all. David Keating was behind the wheel. With his aviator sunglasses and black fisherman cap, I almost didn’t recognize him until I saw his droopy moustache. He waved and turned right into the driveway ahead of me. I followed and parked alongside his car. We got out at the same time and walked towards the backyard, trudging together through wet snow that hadn’t been shovelled since the last snowfall. I’d have to clear the laneway or it would freeze as soon as the temperature returned to below freezing. David had his dark green parka open, and I could see a radio and gun holster hanging on his belt.

  “I didn’t get a chance to say congratulations on your fourth child,” I said. “Boy or girl?”

  “Our fourth boy, if you can believe it. Olive was desperate for a girl and cried for a week solid after the birth. The doctor said it was hormonal, but that didn’t make it any easier. Now she wants to try for a fifth.” David grinned wryly.

  “Wow, five kids. Is that Olive Chan, the math whiz from two years behind me in high school?”

  “The very same. We married when I was six years out of high school. Our oldest is turning seventeen next month. I tell Olive I’m too old to change diapers, but she’s determined. Says she’s young enough for one more kick at the can. She has effortless pregnancies and is never happier than when she’s carrying a kid.”

  We stopped at the bottom of the deck. I looked across the yard to where my father had been struck down in the snow. Then I looked back at David. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the reflected light of his green tinted sunglasses.

  “How about I help you clean up for a bit?” he asked softly. “I know it’s a real mess after the break in, and I have a few hours to kill. I’m actually just off shift.”

  “Shouldn’t you be heading home to get some sleep?”

  “My sleep is all screwed up. This is my last night shift, and I try to stay up late so I can get to bed closer to when I should.”

  “Well, okay then
. I could use the help.” I started wading through the wet snow up the stairs to the back door. “I haven’t actually been back since the time I saw you here. It’s taken me awhile to get up my courage to face this again.”

  “I understand. I’m glad I was going by when you made your return trip. It’s not great to tackle these things alone if you don’t need to.”

  I thought I’d prepared myself for a second look at the destruction in the house, but I was mistaken. We stepped into the kitchen, where the stench of rotting food and the violent mess strewn about the room made the bile rise in my throat. My eyes watered and the room blurred. I blinked rapidly.

  “This looks as good a place as any to start,” I said.

  “First job is to clean out the food,” agreed David.

  For the next three hours, we worked nonstop. First, we put the kitchen back in order then washed down the cupboards and floor. The sickening smell of garbage was replaced by that of Windex and pine cleaner. I sat back on my heels, where I’d been kneeling on the floor and surveyed the space. David put down the sponge he’d been using to scrub the sink and leaned against the counter.

  “Well, this room is livable. Are you ready to let me buy you a late lunch?”

  “I believe I owe you lunch for all your help.” I got to my feet. “How about Frida’s?”

  “Let’s take my car,” David said while putting on his parka. “We should be late enough to escape the lunch crowd.”

  David and I took the window table—the one that was becoming my usual place to sit. I ordered a club sandwich with salad and a coffee. David went for the breakfast special: fried eggs, slabs of ham, hash browns and heavily buttered brown toast. We tucked in like two starving waifs, and it wasn’t long before my plate was clean. Not far behind me, David soaked up the last of the egg yolk with a piece of toast and popped it into his mouth. He leaned back and sighed contentedly, rubbing a hand across his shaved head.

  “This is the time I really miss smoking. There was nothing more enjoyable than a hit of nicotine to finish off a meal.”

  “How long since you quit?”

  “Two years, three months and four days.” He laughed. “Not that I’m keeping track. You ever smoked, Maja?”

  Had I ever smoked? I thought back to the summer Katherine and I found half a pack of Players that we’d stashed in the hollow of a tree trunk at the back of her property. We’d managed to smoke three each before rain filled the opening and the cigarettes became too soggy to light. Katherine had taken up smoking in her teens, but I’d somehow refrained, even though I’d liked the taste and the feel of the cigarette between my fingers.

  “Luckily, nothing more than the experimental puff. It’s never good when a doctor smokes. Hard to give people medical advice when you’re doing in your own lungs.”

  David reached for his coffee cup. “So, you hadn’t spoken to your father in a while before he died?”

  I shook my head. “We weren’t close. I don’t know if I regret that now or not.” I was speaking more to myself than David, but his head tilted as he studied me.

  “Your dad was a hard man to know. I had the feeling he wasn’t all on the surface.”

  “You’re the second person this week to say that.” Charlie Mallory had made the same observation the day before. Maybe Dad hadn’t hidden his true nature as well as we’d believed when we were younger. “Do you know why my father was dismissed from the police force?”

  “What have you heard?”

  “That evidence went missing that my father had been in charge of, and he chose the job at the border over an investigation.”

  “That sounds about right. It was all before my time, so I can’t add much more.” David took a drink of coffee, his eyes never leaving my face. He grinned and his voice became playful. “I gather your father never kept a journal...or a safety deposit box full of secret tapes or anything.”

  “Nothing I’m aware of. He wasn’t a man to spend a lot of time reading or writing, as I recall. Introspection was definitely not on his to-do list.” Then I remembered the boxes of books in my old bedroom and shifted in my seat. I’d have to look through them more closely when I was alone. Maybe their subject matter would give a clue to the man he’d been at the end.

  “Do you know what evidence went missing?” I asked.

  “You’ve circled back to that, have you? From what I was told, it was money, which is never a good thing.”

  “A lot of money?”

  “Several thousand. Nothing that would keep anyone wealthy.”

  “Where did the money come from?”

  “A raid of some sort, apparently. Afterwards, some of the cash went missing, and it was never recovered.”

  “I can’t think that my father would chance his career over a small amount of money.”

  “It was never proven that he took it. He accepted the border job instead of putting the force through an outside investigation, which would have been stressful for everyone. Chief Anders said your dad had been looking for a change anyway.”

  “Convenient that the border job opened up just then.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes life works out that way.”

  David’s eyes shifted towards the door. My eyes followed the direction of his gaze in time to see Tobias crossing the short distance to our table. He stopped a few feet from me. He was dressed in uniform under his open jacket and stood looking down at us, his hat in one hand. His green eyes flashed like flecks of jade in the sunlight streaming in through the plate glass window. He stared at me for a moment before focusing on David. His expression was grim.

  “I’m glad you haven’t made it home yet. We have a missing person call.”

  David’s face transformed from relaxed to on-duty. He stood quickly and shrugged into his parka. “Child?”

  “No.” Tobias glanced from me to David. “Kevin Wilders reported Becky missing about an hour ago. I’ve been searching all the places she might be but could use help.”

  A fluttering rose in my chest. “I thought a person had to be missing forty-eight hours before the police got involved.”

  Tobias looked at me again. “She didn’t come home last night. Kevin’s worried.” He shrugged. “It could be nothing, but it’s not like Becky.”

  “This is on me,” I said to David as he reached for his wallet. “Let me know if I can help with the search if you don’t find her right away.”

  “Thanks, Maja. Been good talking to you. I hope to see you again before you go.”

  Tobias nodded and smiled quickly at me before following David toward the entrance.

  I wasn’t ready to think the worst about Becky’s disappearance and chose to believe she’d left town voluntarily, maybe to get her head on straight. Her disappearance and revealing her affair with my father couldn’t be a coincidence. If they didn’t find her by nightfall, I would definitely let Tobias know about her relationship with my father. Their affair would be a secret that I could no longer keep.

  TWENTY

  I decided to return to my father’s house to continue working. It wasn’t quite four o’clock, and the fatigue coursing through my body had been replaced by a nervous energy at the news of Becky’s disappearance. I needed to keep busy. I needed to stop thinking about the bad things that could have happened to her. The hardware store was practically empty of customers, and it didn’t take long to gather up cardboard boxes, garbage bags, newspapers and tape. I intended to pack up my father’s smaller possessions and put them into storage before returning to Ottawa. I’d phone for storage space first thing in the morning.

  This time, I bypassed the kitchen and living room and climbed the stairs to my father’s bedroom. I wanted to sort through what remained of my mother’s possessions first, to make sure they were safely handled and organized in boxes. I ignored the ruined mattress and slit pillows and kneeled beside the maple hope chest, careful not to crush any of the scattered photos and ornaments that had been tossed about like so much garbage. I began with the photos, carefully p
iling them into a smaller box that I found amongst the jumble. I’d have to place them back into the albums when I had more time.

  The pictures were a trip into my past—Jonas and me at different heights and ages, holding hands, smiling into the camera; my father and mother in front of our house; Katherine and me on the swing; me walking down the road with Katherine and my mother. I held up the last photo and placed my fingertips on my mother’s face, tracing its outline as if I were reading a story in Braille. I could find no sign in her eyes or the curve of her mouth of what she would do to herself. In the photo she is smiling patiently into the camera while Katherine and I stand a little apart. We are thirteen years old, and the budding breasts and soft curves of the women we are becoming are visible through our cotton blouses and shorts. Our legs are coltish and brown from long summer days in the sun.

  The details of the day came rushing back to me. My father had a new Nikon camera and had followed us up the road, clicking pictures and fancying himself a photographer for National Geographic. No matter what he did, he always believed himself the best, or at the very least, the expert. We knew better than to question his omnipotence. I looked closer. My mother and I are playing along with his latest obsession, posing prettily with demure smiles. Katherine is staring at the ground, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she is cold. She doesn’t look happy. She’d been quiet that afternoon, and it wasn’t long afterward that we stopped hanging around together. With a flash of insight, I see that by the time this picture was taken, she’d already taken up with the wilder crowd and was on the verge of leaving me behind. The realization of what lay ahead for each of us as I stared into our long-ago faces was difficult to take. I dropped the photo into the pile and scooped up the rest of the photos without looking at them.

  I spent another hour wrapping the ornaments that hadn’t been smashed before placing them gently into a larger box, tossing broken glass and ruined mementos into a garbage bag as I went. Partway through, I turned on the overhead light as the shafts of sunshine shortened and the room darkened into semi- gloom. I drifted towards the window but left the blinds raised as I looked through the dark, plumy branches of a spruce tree. It would soon be night, and I didn’t want to be alone in this house much longer. It was silly, but I’d experienced a feeling of uneasiness in the restaurant that hadn’t left me. I was trying my best to keep fear and grief from overwhelming me. My mother’s and father’s spirits hovered beyond reach in this house, and sadness rose in my throat. I wanted to sit down and cry, but once the tears started flowing, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop.