“Considering that Debbie was police and her father would do anything to protect her, going to the authorities might have been a bad idea anyway.”
“I suppose so.”
“Who was the one who put you in the hole? Pamela?”
“No, it was Des Murphy,” she said. “I don’t even think Pamela knew about that. You saved my life, Danny. You saved my life.”
“No, I didn’t. Some friends of mine did. They found the hole.”
“Yes, that Australian fellow from Rose’s,” she said. “I didn’t realize you two had become friends.”
“Sort of, yes.” I didn’t explain. She obviously didn’t remember that he didn’t have an accent when he came down into the hole, and it didn’t matter.
“I’m going to go to jail,” she said. “I deserve to.” She took a compact out of her purse and reapplied her lipstick, her hand shaking slightly. I handed her some tissues and she accepted them automatically. “I don’t even mind, not really. With Geoff gone, and seeing what I saw… well, I don’t deserve to be around good people.” She shook her head, trying not to let the tears come. “Our Colin, killed by my mother-in-law, a woman I had living in my home. I might as well have pulled the trigger.”
I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I knew exactly how she felt, and, in a way, she was right. How do you come back from this? How do you make your life normal?
“Will you write me letters?” she said. “In jail. I want to hear all about your nephews and your brothers and your crazy life.”
“I will, Mary,” I said. “I promise I will.” Mary stood to leave, and I stopped her. “The night Colin died, Laurence and I drove past your house. I thought I heard men screaming. There was a police car at your house.”
“Pamela, that would have been,” she said. “Pamela and Des Murphy. He was livid. And Pamela – well, she had a voice like a foghorn. Just as much man in her as woman, I always thought.” She got to the door and turned around. “I’ll tell you one thing, Danny. As sure as I am fucking standing in this room with you, I am glad that woman is dead. I just wish I had gotten to see it. And I wish someone else had killed her, that she didn’t get a chance to die by her own hand. I don’t care how crazy she was, she deserved to go out harder. You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.” I wished I didn’t know, but I did. But it made me feel a bit better about Mary’s chances in prison, hearing her say that. She had a core of steel that I hadn’t really seen until now. Turns out Mary and I had more in common than I’d thought.
She clip-clopped back over to the bed in her heels, leaned over, and hugged me hard, saying nothing, then left my room without looking back.
FORTY-ONE
One week later
Laurence dove elegantly into the lake from the wharf, and swam back to shore. The sun was just past being directly overhead, so it was very early afternoon, but I was the only sober person on the beach. Even my brother had had a few beers before swimming. He was taking me back to Toronto the next day, and, between them, he and Dave had decided that we were all going to spend the day at the public beach across the lake from both Dickie Doyle’s and Des Murphy’s cottages.
“Pretty fly for a white guy,” Jonas called out, as Laurence did his best Daniel Craig/James Bond impersonation, walking through the water toward the beach.
“You missed a spot,” I said. Jonas was putting sunscreen on my back. “I thought you said you weren’t much of a drinker. I feel like I’ve got more sand on my back than sunscreen.”
“We’re celebrating,” he said. “And besides, that’s how you know I’m not much of a drinker. I had two vodka lemonade things and my head is spinning.” He patted my back like he was finished, and flopped back in the sand.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, eat something,” I said. I was feeling both happy and yet discontented, elated that we were all safe, but haunted by what had happened. I couldn’t settle on an emotion, and more than anything I wanted to wear myself out with exercise until my brain stopped. I wanted to swim, but I was forbidden to, as the wound in my leg had opened up again during my fight with Debbie. And as all these people were here because of me, because of my family’s problem, I had volunteered to be the designated driver. Unfortunately, my leg was healed enough that I could drive, and the Tahoe could seat all of us. I rummaged around in the cooler next to me and pulled out a bottle of water and a veggie wrap and passed it to Jonas. “Eat this.”
I knew on the trip back to the safe house I was going to feel like a harried bus driver after a field trip with rowdy ten-year-olds.
And I didn’t know why we had to come to this beach. It was Nova Scotia. The whole place was water. But Dave and Laurence had insisted, and I had caused everyone enough trouble. I was going to be gracious.
I tried.
I settled myself down into the sand. I loved the feel of it, the heat of it. It was a perfect day, 27° Celsius, no wind, no clouds. I was wearing one of Debbie MacLean’s bikinis, the one I had grabbed the first time Laurence and I had stayed there, but it didn’t bother me. She was dead. She didn’t need it. Dr. Singh said that the fact that I was having these mood swings was natural, after everything. But Dr. Singh didn’t know what had happened in that garage across the lake a week ago. I could never tell her; as far as she and the rest of the world knew, Dickie Doyle had killed Debbie.
The only people who knew the truth were right here on this beach with me. Laurence, Dave, Ned, Jonas, Lydia, and Bert. I had agreed with Laurence that we would tell Darren when we got back to Toronto.
And Ginger knew. I knew Ginger knew, and I hadn’t felt her near me since that night.
Dave came from somewhere behind me and settled himself in the sand next to me. I could hear Ned, Lydia, and Bert whooping as they played some form of one-armed volleyball further up the beach, in concession to Ned’s cast. Jonas had set up a little sound system on overturned milk crates, and Dire Straits was blasting loud enough to wake the dead.
Needless to say, we had the place to ourselves.
“God, that is one ugly building,” Dave said, and I looked across the lake at Des Murphy’s striped second floor.
“He meant well,” I said. I didn’t move from my position, and I was glad my eyes were hidden behind oversized aviator sunglasses. I watched a bead of sweat make its way down Dave’s bare back. I felt his eyes on the mandala tattoo on my thigh. I’d never told him that the emergency number he’d given me was there, inked into the intricate design, and I was confident that he wouldn’t be able to tell. Still, I subtly shifted my legs, suddenly self-conscious.
I couldn’t wait to get back to Toronto. And yet I didn’t want to leave this beach.
“Your brother tells me you really like this Dr. Singh,” Dave said, and not for the first time I wondered if he could read my mind. “You’re going to keep up with her when you get back?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Skype.”
“And you’re going to hire someone to stay with you, keep an eye on you? The sober living whatsit?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’m actually not craving it right now. Crack, I mean. Or coke.” I didn’t realize it until I said it, but it was true. After Mary’s visit, after getting one more night of sleep, I seemed to have forgotten about why I had come here in the first place. “This was one hell of a rehab.”
“That’s good,” Dave said. “But still, once things are back to normal…”
“I know,” I said. “But I have no idea what normal is going to look like for me. I feel different now. I’ve got some things to figure out.” I felt like an awkward teenager and a very old person at the same time.
We were both quiet for a minute, and I could hear Jonas snoring on the other side of me. “We’re not just talking about drugs, are we,” Dave said. He lay back and rested his weight on one elbow, his head in his palm, looking at me.
“Don’t be such a smart-ass,” I said. “You know I’m not.” I couldn’t help smiling, but I was trying not to. That w
as the thing with Dave: He could snap me out of my own head, my own stupid mood, just by being there.
“Well, while you’re getting your head back on straight, I want you to think about one more thing,” Dave said, and for one crazy second I thought he was going to make some grand romantic gesture, and I stopped breathing.
Again: Thank God for sunglasses. I must have looked like a deer in headlights.
“I want you to come work with me,” he said. “When you’re ready, I mean. I talked to Laurence about it, and he thinks it’s a good idea too. Well, he almost does. I had to talk him into it.”
“Oh, so you asked my brother for my hand in… employment?” I said. Then I wished that I could swallow my words and rewind two minutes. That, or die of mortification on the spot. Either/or.
Dave just grinned and scratched his ear. “We all want you to be okay, Danny. It’s going to take a while for you to heal.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” I said. “I’ll get my head together eventually.” Work with Dave and his people. Do what they do. I was petrified, excited, and vaguely nauseous.
“Oh, I know,” Dave said. “Frankly, the way I see it, your leg will take longer to heal than your head will. You just need to accept who you are, Danny.”
“Really? Who am I?”
I heard an engine out on the lake, and turned my head toward it.
“You’re a warrior,” Dave whispered in my ear. “You’re better than fearless. You do what the strongest people do; accept that you have fears, and leap in anyway.” He got to his feet and held his hand out for me, to help me stand. A speedboat was slowing toward the dock.
Laurence was jogging up the beach toward us. “Come on, you lazy so-and-so. You may not be permitted in the water, but we arranged for a ride on it.” Dave woke up Jonas, and the others were already running toward the dock. Jonas and Dave kept me steady on the sand, and with more than my usual share of F-bombs as they insisted on hoisting me down into the boat, I managed to secure a place in the bow. Ned was insisting he was going to do a touch of one-handed waterskiing.
The boat’s operator was a guy in his early twenties, whose favorite word seemed to be “groovy” and who was almost a caricature of the laid-back water rat. He insisted we all wear life jackets – if he lost a passenger he would be “so bummed” – but it was no surprise when he passed around a joint two minutes after we left the dock. The water on the lake was calm, almost like glass, and schools were still in session for another week or so. We only passed one other boat, a guy fishing, who raised a lazy wave in the air by way of greeting.
I was glad I was in the bow. I didn’t have to smell the weed – I always hated the smell – and while I was purely happy that these people were with me, I didn’t want to talk. Behind me, I could hear Laurence’s booming laugh as he and Jonas were riffing about something, and Lydia was shrieking at Ned’s antics on the waterskis. We circled the lake, stopping for Ned a couple of times when he fell.
This was perfect. This was what I needed. This lake wasn’t evil. This place, this province wasn’t cursed. I wasn’t cursed. I was with people I trusted, whose company I enjoyed. I was going home the next day to see my nephews and my brother. Count your blessings, Dr. Singh had told me. I was trying.
After an hour or so, we came around the other side of the lake, near the Murphy cottage, and Dickie’s. I wasn’t going to look – I’d seen them; I’d been facing them all day – but something made me turn my head.
Just a flash, ephemeral as smoke. Two women in white, both with long black hair, shimmering in the sun.
“Pamela,” Laurence said quietly.
I turned around. “And Rose,” I said. He’d seen it too. I grabbed my brother’s hand.
“Poor Dickie,” he said quietly, and I nodded.
“You two kids want to let us in on what you’re talking about?” Dave said.
“Not really,” Laurence said. “Dave, my friend, you wouldn’t understand.”
“It’s a Cleary thing, honey,” I said to Dave, and then turned back around to face front. I hadn’t meant to call him honey. I could hear Jonas ostentatiously whistling to himself, pretending he hadn’t heard anything.
And I was happy. I felt Ginger’s breath in the breeze that cooled my face, and I was happy.
* * *
And maybe, just maybe, when I was healed, when my head and heart and body were healed, I would work with Dave. I’d caused a lot of damage. I could never bring Ginger back, or Jack, but maybe I could do something in this world that could stop other lives from being destroyed. Perhaps my soul would never be clean, but I was pretty sure my conscience would be.
Dave had called me a warrior.
I wasn’t, not yet. But maybe I could be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbra Leslie lives and writes in Toronto. Visit her at www.barbraleslie.com, or follow her on Twitter:
@barbrajleslie
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Rehab Run Page 31
