by Gail Bowen
The road to Ed and Barry’s was winding and muddy. Twice, we were within a hair’s breadth of sliding off the road, and twice, Eli, who had been entrusted with holding the hot food, manfully swallowed his yelp of pain when he got splashed. By the time we got to the cottage, the rain had stopped, but I was still edgy. Two of my children still had to drive that road, and one of them was with her husband and my only grandchild.
Ed and Barry had waterfront property. The cottage was new, built five years earlier, but they had designed it to be timeless, and it had a rambling, wicker-and-wisteria grace, a closed-in porch overlooking the lake, two full bathrooms, and a Jacuzzi. In short, it was perfect, or it would be once everybody had arrived safely. As soon as we parked, Taylor and the boys flew out of the car. Willie was right behind them.
“Can we just look at the lake?” Angus said.
“After you’ve carried everything in from the car, you can look at the lake all weekend,” I said.
There were only two bags I insisted on handling myself; both were paper, and both bore the logo of the Saskatchewan Liquor Board. By the time I walked through the front door with them, the car was cleaned out, and the boys and Taylor and Willie were racing past me on their way to the beach.
When I touched a match to the already-laid fire in the fieldstone fireplace in the living room, it roared to satisfying life. I carried on to the kitchen, placed my paper bags carefully on the table, found the kind of Dutch oven I dreamed of owning before I died, dumped the chili in, and turned on the burner. Dinner was under way. Some nights, I just had all the moves. As a reward, I poured myself two fingers of Glenfiddich and wandered out to the porch, so I could have a good view of Willie and the kids chasing each other along the shoreline. When Willie loped onto the dock, I knew there was nothing between his ears that would allow him to make the correction necessary to avoid disaster. His cannon-ball into the lake when he came to the end of the dock seemed as inexorable as a law of physics. So was the fact that as he splashed to shore, Taylor, Angus, and Eli waded out to greet him. It was a grey day, but I could see their laughter, and warmed by the whisky, my nerves began to unknot. Fifteen minutes later, Peter’s ancient Jeep rolled in, followed closely by the sensible Volvo station wagon that had replaced Mieka and Greg’s bright yellow Volkswagen Bug the week after Madeleine was born. Suddenly, the odds that I would make it through the weekend had turned in my favour.
The first moments of the reunion of my two oldest children were shot through with the currents of love and competitiveness that had always flowed between them. They were eighteen months apart, and their feelings for each other still had the primal intensity of the nursery. It didn’t surprise me that, after the initial round of hugs and greetings, they ended up together, arms draped loosely around one another’s waists, connected again. Physically, they were very different. Peter was tall, reed thin, pale, and serious, the inheritor of my late husband’s black Irish genes; Mieka was dark blond, hazel-eyed, with skin that tanned easily and pleasing curves that would become roundness after forty, and Rubenesque after fifty. Seeing them side by side again, I felt the familiar rush of pleasure.
My son-in-law looked at them with amusement. “The road company Donny and Marie.” He leaned down and brushed my cheek with a kiss. “Good to see you, Jo.”
“Good to see you, too.” I said. I took my granddaughter from his arms. “And it’s wonderful to see you.” As she gazed at me, Madeleine dimpled with the look her mother described as “crazed with delight.”
“Look at that smile,” I said. “I knew she’d remember me.”
Greg shook his head. “Hate to break it to you, Jo, but the old geezer who pulled us out of the mud at the turnoff showed Maddy his gums and got the same response. That little lady’s smiles go everywhere.”
“You’d better start reading ‘My Last Duchess’ to her,” I said. “Promiscuous smiling can get a woman in a heap of trouble.”
Mieka’s mind wasn’t on Robert Browning. She narrowed her eyes at the beach. “What are the kids doing down there?”
“Resisting temptation,” I said. “I told them it was too cold to swim, and you’ll notice that they are obeying the letter of the law – wading only up to their kneecaps.”
Peter turned to his sister. “Race you down there,” he said. “And since you’re still packing those new mum pounds, I’ll spot you thirty seconds.”
After they took off, Greg shrugged and picked up a suitcase. “Must make you proud of your parenting skills when you look at those two, Jo. Come on inside and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I’m way ahead of you.” I said.
I led him through the living room, pointed out the liquor-board bags, and took Madeleine out to the porch. There was a rocker in the corner by the window and I commandeered it. I rested my chin on top of my granddaughter’s head and pointed.
“Look down there at the lake,” I said. “Your mum’s pushing your uncle Pete into the water.”
Greg came in carrying a bottle of Great West beer. He snapped the cap, leaned forward, and peered out the window. “It’s great to see Mieka happy again,” he said.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not with us,” he said quickly. “But Ariel’s death has hit Mieka hard. The minute we heard about it on the provincial news, I wanted to call you, but Mieka said this was something she had to talk to you about face to face. She and Ariel have been pretty tight the last couple of months.”
On the beach, Eli, soaked to the skin, waved wildly. I waved back, then turned to Greg. “I had no idea they’d even kept in touch.”
“They hadn’t, but when Maddy was born, Mieka found Ariel’s address on the university e-mail and sent her an announcement. Then they picked up where they left off.”
He touched the bottom of his Great West to his daughter’s bare stomach, and she gave him a look that would have curdled milk.
“There goes Father of the Year,” I said.
“I’ll win her back,” he said. “She can’t resist my version of ‘Louie, Louie.’ ”
“Who can?” I tucked Madeleine’s shirt inside her shorts. “Greg, I’m glad Ariel and Mieka connected again.”
“Me too,” he said. “It seemed to mean a lot to both of them, especially after Ariel got pregnant.”
“After Ariel got pregnant?”
Greg flushed. “Maybe that wasn’t supposed to be general knowledge.”
“Everything about Ariel’s life will be general knowledge now,” I said grimly.
“It’s going to be a zoo, isn’t it?” Greg said.
Instinctively, I drew my granddaughter closer. “Yes,” I said, “it’s going to be a zoo.”
Dinner that first night at the lake was close to perfect. Semi-penitent about their forbidden swim, the kids threw themselves into dinner preparations. Taylor laid out the plates and cutlery, the boys cut up fresh vegetables, Peter made garlic bread, Greg poured the milk and opened the wine, and Mieka sugared the berries and whipped the cream for strawberry shortcake.
Finally, we gathered at the round oak table and, enclosed by the circle of light cast by the overhead lamp, we ate and laughed and ate some more. When Angus proposed a vote on the question of whether this chili was the best I had ever made, the ayes triumphed. By the time Willie was licking the last of the whipped cream off the strawberry-shortcake plate, Madeleine’s eyes had grown heavy. At Taylor’s insistence, we took Madeleine down to the bedroom she and I were sharing. Mieka positioned her daughter in the centre of the king-size bed, and Taylor crawled in beside her; then Mieka and I sat on the edge of the bed and took turns making up stories about the patches on the quilt that covered them until they were both asleep.
For a moment, Mieka and I stood looking down at the girls. “Taylor’s dream has come true,” I said. “All week, she’s been talking about having Madeleine bunk in with her.”
Mieka’s expression was impish. “Do you want to make my dream come true?”
“If I can.”
She lowered
her voice. “Let me put up Maddy’s crib in here, so I can spend a night alone with her father.”
“It would be my pleasure,” I said.
We walked outside together to get the crib. Mieka opened the back gate on their Volvo wagon, then peered up at the sky. “Looks like it might clear off.”
I moved closer to her. “I feel very blessed tonight.”
My daughter’s face was uncharacteristically grave. “So do I.”
For a moment we were silent, then I said, “Greg told me that Ariel was pregnant.”
My daughter’s eyes widened. “You didn’t know?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m glad she felt close enough to you to tell you.”
“And it was just a fluke we’d become friends again,” she said sadly. “I was ringing the bells after Maddy was born to make sure that everyone I’d ever known heard the good news.”
“Your dad and I did the same thing when you were born. Unfortunately, that was before e-mail. When I saw our long-distance bill the next month, I cried for an hour.”
Mieka laughed softly. “Poor Mum. Anyway, most people just e-mailed back, but Ariel sent a beautiful box of books: Madeline, of course, but also Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She also sent Maddy a note. It was so poignant. Ariel said that these had been her favourite books when she was a little girl. She said she hoped Maddy would forgive her for reading them before she sent them, but she wanted to get back to a time when she was happy. Of course, as soon as I read the note, I called her. I was all raging hormones – Earth Mother, certain I could fix everything. Mum, Ariel was so different than I thought she would be.”
“How did you think she would be?”
My daughter shrugged. “Dismissive?”
“Why would she be dismissive?”
My daughter rolled her eyes. “Mum, Ariel had a Ph. D. before she was twenty-seven, and as you remember only too well, I dropped out of university halfway through my second year.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Most of the time, no, but Ariel was always so perfect.” Mieka pulled the portable crib out of the car and slammed down the gate. “Do you want to hear a nasty little admission? When I heard Ariel had a job in your department, I was jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“I had this image of you and her chatting away about world affairs and going to lectures together. You know, like the daughter you always wanted.”
I touched her arm. “Mieka, you’re the daughter I always wanted.”
Unexpectedly, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, I know that most of the time, but sometimes I wonder if…”
“If what?”
“If nothing. I must be PMS -ing. Anyway, that first time I phoned her, Ariel didn’t talk much about herself at all, but she had a lot of questions about me. She wanted to know if I’d felt more connected to life since I’d had Maddy. And she wanted to know – and this is truly bizarre – how you reacted when I dropped out of school.”
“Why would she care about that?”
“I don’t know… She never mentioned it again. After that we mostly e-mailed each other. She had a bunch of theoretical questions about pregnancy – just girlfriend stuff – and then she phoned at Easter and made the big announcement. Two weekends ago, she came up to Saskatoon with an ultrasound photo of her baby. She’d brought Madeleine a gift – a German teddy bear. Ariel said the bear’s name was Serendipity, and she hoped it would always remind Maddy to pay attention to lucky interventions in her life.”
My daughter was fighting tears. So was I.
“This just keeps getting worse,” I said. “When Howard and I drove out to tell Charlie yesterday, I didn’t realize that he’d lost Ariel and their baby.”
Mieka didn’t respond, but even in the sepia light of early evening, I could read the truth in her face.
“Charlie wasn’t the father,” I said.
The shake of her head was almost indiscernible. “No,” she said. “The baby wasn’t Charlie’s.”
“Whose then?”
“I don’t know. But Mum, somehow I had the sense that the father was someone who just contributed. Ariel was so determined to have a child.”
“To take her back to the time when she was happy?”
Mieka bit her lip and nodded affirmation.
My daughter and I put up the portable crib beside the big bed and tucked the girls in. When we came back to the living room, there were muted cheers.
“Finally!” Angus groaned. “Listen up, you two, Greg has found something he swears is totally cool.”
I stopped in my tracks. “If it’s a board game, I’m going to go back there and crawl in next to Maddy.”
“Not a board game,” said Greg. “A game of exploration in which we test the limits of the human psyche to endure suspense.” His accent became plummy, with each vowel lovingly elongated. “We invite you to a weekend with the Master of the Macabre, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. It appears our hosts here at Katepwa own the complete Hitchcock oeuvre.”
“I’m up for anything that doesn’t have a Teletubby in it,” said Mieka.
“I thought,” said my son-in-law, “that we would begin with that a paean to the virtues of voyeurism, Rear Window.”
“Never heard of it,” said Angus.
“I’ve never even heard of Alfred Hitchcock,” said Eli.
“Well, hold on to your popcorn,” said Greg, “because you’re in for an experience that will explode your kernels.”
In the first minutes after Greg slid Rear Window into the VCR, I had the sinking feeling that, like many of us who had been glorious in the fifties, the movie had aged badly. The sets were undeniably cheesy, Grace Kelly’s uptown accent grated, and Eli and Angus wondered loudly about Jimmy Stewart’s sanity in ignoring a woman who, despite her pearls and addiction to cocktail dresses, was clearly a hottie. But it wasn’t long before we were all seduced by the possibility of murder in the apartment across the way. By the time Jimmy had snagged the murderer and Grace had snagged Jimmy, everyone in the room was a Hitchcock convert. As the closing credits rolled, Angus said, “That really was cool. When we get home, I’m going to get some serious binoculars.”
“Over my dead body,” I said, and everyone groaned.
I awoke the next morning to my granddaughter’s hungry howls. As I padded into Mieka and Greg’s room with her, I noticed the glow of what looked suspiciously like dawn outside the windows. I crossed my fingers. If we were lucky, climatologist Tara Lavallee was going to have to do another 180 on her holiday-weekend forecast. Fifteen minutes later, when I took a noticeably heavier and happier Madeleine from her mother’s arms and headed for the kitchen, sunshine was pouring through the skylight. The gods were smiling. It was going to be a banner day.
Over breakfast, we floated possibilities. After agonizing between the pull of two highly desirable options, Taylor went with Greg and the boys to fish, and Mieka, Madeleine, and I drove to Lebret to a teashop that was famous for its rhubarb pie and local crafts. When we met back at the cottage for lunch, everyone except Greg had caught their limit, and Mieka had spent a week’s profits from her business on hand-woven willow picnic baskets and placemats the colour of marigolds. That night we had a fish-fry, sucked in our breath with amazement at the fireworks, then came back inside to watch Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant dangle from Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest . Eli and Angus decided they were up for a double feature and watched Psycho till two. Madeleine slept through the night again, and the next morning Madeleine’s mother came to the breakfast table with the Mona Lisa smile of a woman savouring the pleasures of being well and truly loved.
Sunday was a blue and golden beach day, and we soaked up every blue and golden moment. At suppertime, Eli supervised a wiener roast at the outdoor fireplace, and that night we watched Vertigo.
On the other Hitchcock nights, my kids and I had second-guessed everything from hairstyles to characters’ motivations, but from the first frames of Ver
tigo we were rapt, wholly absorbed by this tale of a broken man clinging to the belief that he could be saved by a woman and of the woman who was the tragic object of his obsession. Even Angus was silent as the final credits rolled, stunned by the desolation of Vertigo ’s final image.
When Eli flicked the lights back on, Peter surprised me by asking if I wanted to go outside for some fresh air.
I grabbed a sweater, and we headed for the beach. As we walked out on the dock, I mulled over a dozen possible revelations, but Peter’s words surprised me. “How certain are they that Kyle Morrissey killed Ariel?”
I stopped and turned to face him. “Where did that come from?”
“I’d just like to know if the police are sure they have the right guy.” His tone was falsely casual. “I thought someone at NationTV might have given you some inside info.”
“We pretaped last week’s show, and I haven’t talked to anyone at the station since Ariel was killed. Pete, you’re not a ‘Hard Copy’ kind of guy. What’s all this about?”
For a moment, the only sounds were the slap of water against the pilings under the dock and the bark of a dog somewhere along the shore.
“It’s about Charlie Dowhanuik,” Peter said finally. “Ever since I heard about Ariel, I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind. We were never tight when we were in school. I always liked him, but he was so wild it was scary.”
“That wildness worried his mother, too,” I said. “She told me once that Charlie didn’t have friends, he had fans. Marnie thought other kids hung with Charlie just to see what he was going to do next.”
Peter laughed. “Yeah, he did bring new meaning to the term ‘living on the edge.’ And most of the time it was a lot of fun to be around him. But sometimes he was just too intense.” His eyes met mine. “Mum, he was always too intense about Ariel.”
“And that’s what’s worrying you now?”
“He was crazy about her – crazy in both senses. Any bone-head would understand him loving her. Even in high school, Ariel was absolutely stellar, but Charlie was fanatical about her. I remember one time I ran into him at the mall. We were just shooting the breeze when Ariel walked by holding hands with a guy. It wasn’t a big deal – just the usual girl-boy thing – but Charlie got this look like somebody had kicked him in the stomach. Then he said, ‘Sometimes I think it would be easier if I was dead… or if she was.’ ”
